Tuesday, October 13

New strength…

"But those who trust the LORD will find new strength. They will be strong like eagles soaring upward on wings; they will walk and run without getting tired." (Isaiah 40: 31 CEV)

George of Worthy News Ministries writes of a story he's heard in the devotional today……I've heard it before, but it is George who brought it back to mind today:

"While walking through the forest one day, a farmer found a young eagle that had apparently fallen out of his nest. He took it home and put it in his barnyard with his chickens and there it stayed for years. It wasn't long before the little eagle learned to eat and behave like the chickens. One day a naturalist passed by the farm and saw the eagle confined in the barnyard with the chickens. When he inquired about this strange sight, the farmer told the man his story. "Unfortunately," said the farmer, "the poor little guy just never learned to fly." "Still," the naturalist sighed, "he has the heart of an eagle and can surely be taught. Will you allow me to work with him?" The farmer agreed, but with much disbelief. The naturalist picked up the eagle and lifted him toward the sky and said, "You belong to the sky and not to the earth. Stretch forth your wings and fly." The eagle, however, was confused. He did not know who he was, and seeing the chickens eating their food, he jumped down to be with them again. The naturalist took the bird to the roof of the house and urged him again, saying, "You are an eagle. Stretch forth your wings and fly." But the eagle was afraid and jumped down once again to be with his chicken friends. Finally the naturalist took the eagle out of the barnyard to a high mountain. There he held the king of the birds high above him and encouraged him again, saying, "You are an eagle. You belong to the sky. Stretch forth your wings and fly!" The eagle looked around, back towards the barnyard and then up to the sky. Slowly, he stretched his wings, and with a triumphant cry, he soared away into the heavens."

This part of Isaiah (27-31) shows Israel as God's people in a place of distress—"a source of dismay to herself and of mockery to others who ask where the God is in whom she trusted." (Interpreter's Commentary) God promises divine action for those who continue, even in spite of the consequences, to trust in God to deliver upon the promises He has made to His people. As a nation and individually, despite the contrary information…there are things God is doing throughout the world that will bring about His plan.

I have realized in the past week just how much it was not the vision or the call that has hampered me in the pursuit of what God would have me do for the Kingdom, but myself. Rather, the sinful image of myself that I've used as a crutch to hobble along in this journey…that eagle living in the dust of the chickens....comfortable in my suffering to the point where I dare not dream, for someone might call me out on that dream and expect me to 'go for it,' like that naturalist tried several times with the eagle. The proverbial image of a 'screw-up', a son that is flawed and will never achieve the perfection that is required from his father….and subsequently, the Heavenly Father, to pursue bold and mighty things. As I settled myself down for bed, I reflected on the many people who have suddenly come into my life, those who have been in my life who have spoken boldly to my sin and the matter-of-fact way some have challenged me to step out into fearful places that a screw-up son would not go for the surety of failure…..and an old wound came up…one that's added to the weight a father gave to a screw-up son who bore the image of his face and the sound of his voice…….

My brother Larry.

Granted, it wasn't Larry who created the wound or even acerbated it through participation, though for many long years of my life…culminating in the burial arrangements of my father ironically…I did unfairly and incorrectly place the blame at his feet. Larry, if you viewed him in my father's eyes, was the ideal child…smart (IQ very high), handsome to look at, and well behaved. Truly a firstborn that any parent would find themselves puffing in justified pride with the heredity that they could claim through him. My father, though, was sorely disappointed when he failed to repeat this coup with his second born son…and he never failed to acknowledge his disappointment. I was not good in school, had epilepsy (petite mal) and was 'damaged goods'. Larry would grace through school with ease, bringing home honors for Dean's list, honor roll and the like while I struggled to bring my grades from D's and E's to B's and C's. I will never forget one day, having fought all semester long with extended homework, repeating assignments and extra study time, when I brought home my report card (in those days, we brought them home…they weren't mailed). I was walking on air, surely the B- that I had pulled up in History would bring some delight and affirmation from my father…..my mom was ecstatic, showering me with praise and affirmation at my hard work…..and my Dad looked at my report card, a look of disgust clouding his face as he said the words that have stopped me in my tracks whenever something greater than I've ever tried has come across my path….."Your brother got an A+." Even my mother's defense, quickly uttered, fell hollow upon my heart…..I would never be good enough for my father's love.

I can see now; in this place where God has fallen into silence and the tentacles of service, of choice and of bold adventures creep back into my disrupted and challenged life, that wound still bleeds and hinders the full operation of my God-given gifts in use for the Kingdom. From that moment on, it was one after another failure because I focused not on developing myself for what was uniquely mine to do: write, speak and feel compassion in a world that has a low view of such people…who live in service to others, who desire not to 'fix' people but journey with them as God develops them into His people…No, it was trying to succeed where my brother often times would already be…and the specter of his influence would already be set against me by those who remembered his brilliance, his logic and his friendly personality. I could not succeed there, I would here my father speak, and I would fail, through my own hand or because it wasn't my place to find success.

That led to the event that my brother told me a few years ago that would cause a separation for ten or more years, and still seems to have its hold upon our relationship despite the forgiveness asked and given ironically five and a half years ago….when I dedicated my life, my person and my will in a surrender to the true Father. The wound wasn't healed and the Call has been superseded by its bleeding. I have never taken God there and asked for healing. My ignoring the 'pink elephant' in the room that He was pointing to…..the 'screw-up son' that would never be fit for service to God. And I have gradually lost the voice of God speaking in my ear because He's been waiting for me to remember what He has told me and to begin to act like a beloved son. God has fallen silent, because He's waiting for me to absorb and adopt what He's already said.

I remember when I was first called to return home, the utter brokenness that came with the uttering of the words, "Don't you think it's time to stop running and come home?" The relationship that was instanteous formed, the bond that no man or man-made construct could break…that was limited only by my wounded self. I can remember the 'dare' of God, pointing to Gene Appel on stage at Willow Creek Community Church's A2 Conference and my eventual acceptance of it….and then the fears, failures and limitations that I accepted as a matter of fact. The decision of my Pastor at the time that I was too "unfocused" for discipleship, the continued rejection of the "leadership" staff even with the Associate Pastor's endorsement and edification of my calling….the rejection by church after church after church….doctrinal differences I was unwilling to compromise with, the mega-impersonal corporate mentality of another…..battles that did not have to be fought because the triumph of it wouldn't have honored God in the slightest but would have brought honor only to my own self, wounded as it was, and would have eventually hurt the very people I desired to serve. The real and perceived slights, the failure of the church to answer God's call…..born out of a woundedness that I realized I could trace to that dining room of the Hazelton house….when my father's rejection found its voice in that bulldog shaped man whom I bore an eerie resemblance to.

You see, my brother has been serving for over the last five years as a missionary with the Navigators in Germany….mentoring and developing Airmen for the grace of God's Kingdom. He's already been where I wanted to go…..and I set myself up for failure because I still very much give voice to the 'rejected' son, that boy who was defective and a screw-up; living in the shadow of a boy a year and six days older than me for no other reason than I was unworthy of the sunlight.

Not exactly what God tells me in the Bible, is it? Where we all are part of the same body, gifted according to the Holy Spirit to individual work within the context of the Kingdom….chosen, beloved and blessed by our Heavenly Father to be equipped, impassioned and capable within His strength, His work and His desire to do 'more than this' for the Kingdom. Jesus Christ has shown us the way to live as beloved sons..daughters….as children of the Most High God…..and we spend our time like I have; wounded and bleeding, scared of healing the very image of who we think we are because we don't want to let go of it in favor of the impossible image that God says we have; as image bearers of the Most High. Not exactly a reason why Jesus Christ, the ONLY begotten Son of God, to come down to earth as a baby, suspending His rights of godliness to become a man, all to die at the hands of the very people He loves so much to die for….and to ask for forgiveness even as the fragility of His human body was racked with the cruelest of pain we could inflict upon another….even as His triumph was declared by His voice, "It is FINISHED!"

All things were made new……

All that did happen, was happening or would happen was brought under the sacrifice of Christ; and the ability to do great things once again for our Father was there for the asking…even some 1,900 and some odd years later, when a father would kill a beloved son because of his own wounds….and set brother against brother both knowingly and unknowingly through the years of their lives. Can we say that we haven't continued to sin if we perpetuate the broken and sinful image that our fathers bestow upon us? I think we continue to grieve the Spirit when we do, and sin is its root.

A ministry wants to follow in God's direction…..and calls upon its men whom are being discipled to renew their commitment to God's work that's being done….A church, a plant from another church, still very much in its infancy attracts me to its desire to be a mosaic of God's love, power, mercy, grace and mission…..A brother, who has journeyed some heavy rockslides with me in this race towards home, speaks the very fears my heart hides….that the image of a 'worthless, rejected son' is my safety blanket (I can do the 'pageantry' of the faith verbally but not relationally), for no one would ever expect anything worthwhile from a screw-up……A young sister in Christ emulating the passion I once had for God's work…..commonalities of honor, service and American pride that bridge the generational years and bind us together in the family……and my Barnabas, speaking to me for over an hour on the phone because I asked him to call; speaking of the gifts and calling that he has seen in me: all of these things combining for that final push….towards God and the gaping wound of a rejected son.

As my sister-in-arms/Christ said….."I would rather die for something I believe in that to live for something I do not."

Do I want to live as a 'rejected' son, a screw-up that forever will be found lacking in capability and intelligence to do even the mendacity of life? The rejected boy that knows of God would say, "NO!" and then go right back into its comfortable robes….custom-fitted for my humanity and comfortable in the pageantry of my faith. But if truly I have been saved, if I have been restored to my place as an image-bearer of God's masculinity, then there is no other answer than to say, "I am no longer that boy….He has been raised from the dead by the power of the Spirit and beloved by his Creator God to do more than this." Just like the father of the possessed son……

"And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them. And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him. And he asked them, "What are you arguing about with them?" And someone from the crowd answered him, "Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able." And he answered them, "O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me." And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, "How long has this been happening to him?" And he said, "From childhood. And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us." And Jesus said to him, "'If you can'! All things are possible for one who believes." Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, "I believe; help my unbelief!"" (Mark 9:14-24 ESV)

We have all been equipped and purposed for that portion of the work that God wants us to join Him in…..all of us, from the youngest Christian to the eldest…from the newest to the oldest. And God has grown hoarse telling us time and time again of the work that He has given us to do, the greater things than Christ did that we, as co-heirs, have yet to do…..God's silence is like Christ's exasperation "O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?.........If you can! All things are possible for one who believes." Can I be something other than a screw-up? God says that I am, the beloved son of the Heavenly Father, in which all things are possible. But only as a beloved son, an image-bearer who believes in the image of the Father he bears.

For all of us, whether we do the same work at different levels or different work at equal levels. The work has always been there…..some have been working their whole lives in the purpose of God's enticement and others have come later into the realization of the full harvest yet to be gathered. But we all work towards the same goal; to be approved and unashamed as we stand before our Creator God and are held to account for the work we've done, not the length of service. Be it as the Christian co-worker working under the leadership of God in a secular job or a pastor charged and purposed to speak the Gospel, teach the things that God has taught them to disciple others to do the same……we are all under the mandate of God to "go out into all the world and every nation to speak the Good News and teach them what I have taught you." We should only have one desire, as Paul told his protégé Timothy…..

"Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth." (2 Timothy 2:15 ESV)

Our hearts have been changed when we have accepted the gift of our Savior's salvation……but we still live as an eagle in the chicken coop because we don't believe we can fly. God keeps on trying to get us to believe in what He has done.

I shouldn't, as a beloved son, live under the perceived shadow of a gifted brother but under the shadow of the same cross that he does. Conscious of a God that I am growing to know, bound in the relationship of His love, grace and mercy and wrapped in the image of who He has designed me to be: a beloved son. To do otherwise is to grieve the Spirit in the sinfulness of self-protection and the dirty image of a humanistic view of who we are. A beloved child of God works hard at those grades; extra credit homework, study, repeating the homework lessons and with the grip on their report card approach home…..not with the intimidating feeling of failure but with the assured step of a child who has done their best and find the Father standing outside the house…looking towards them with a smile on His face and His arms wide open in celebration….for He knows we are ready for the next step because we have heard the voice of His instruction.

God has brought me to the mountaintop and told me what He has made me to be: an eagle soaring in the highest parts of the sky…

It is time that I let go of that failure….that sinful image of a child purposed and equipped by his Heavenly Father to do great things in His name, for His glory and His purpose. And stride confident with my report card in my hand, the work that I have applied myself to fully and completely in the school of this world marked upon its lined surface….confident of my Father's love and approval for the things I have done right and His forgiveness for the things I have failed in.

Randy Travis' song seems to speak to me of how a beloved son would live…….with a heart unhindered, fear a word and not a feeling and the assurance of a Father's embrace:

"I remember how it used to feel….riding down old two mile hill……Tennis shoes up on the handle bars, paying no mind to the passing cars. No doubts, no fears, just like when you are here. No chains, no strings, no fences, no wall, no net, just you…..to catch me when I fall. Look heart, no hands. It took a little time to get up to speed, to find the confidence and strength I need to just let go and reach for the sky….You know sometimes it felt I could fly. No doubts, no fears, just like when you are here. No chains, no strings, no fences, no wall, no net, just you…..to catch me when I fall. Look heart, no hands. It doesn't take much, just a smile or a touch and I'm a kid again……I can almost feel that wind. No chains, no strings, no fences, no wall, no net, just you…..to catch me when I fall. Look heart, no hands. Look heart, no hands."    (Look Heart, No Hands).

No limitations…willing to believe in that which I cannot see…feeling the wind of His love as I live in the assurance of being made in His image….

As a beloved son with no mind to the dangers of living for Him in this broken, sinful world. Why did it take me so long to realize that I was living with the wrong image of who I was because of WHO's I am……


 

"Look, Poppa…..Look at me, NO HANDS!!!!!!!!"

Silence….God’s already spoken

"But I will tell you what will happen to cowards and to everyone who is unfaithful or dirty-minded or who murders or is sexually immoral or uses witchcraft or worships idols or tells lies. They will be thrown into that lake of fire and burning sulfur. This is the second death." (Revelation 21:8 CEV)


 

Joe Snyder, East Community Pastor of Oak Pointe Church in Novi, spoke at Mosaic A2 Sunday. Part of the planned mosaic, where Pastor Shannon Nielson isn't the only pastor of the church, was test-fitted as Pastor Joe continued the series "Encounters" on the stage of Mosaic's Washtenaw Community College location. Oak Pointe is the church from which the transplant of Mosaic comes from, many of the leaders and elders of the Oak Pointe community have signed on to bring their knowledge and gifts to this audacious vision. Pastor Joe is only one of the many lines that have been cast into the Ann Arbor area sea…

Pastor Snyder talked about the encounter between Jesus and the sinful woman (Luke 7:36-50). There were many things to learn in this teaching, but above all else I walked away with a greater understanding and a sense of conviction in regards to my own Call to ministry and the universal call to every one of us who name ourselves among the faithful. Quoting from George Barna's book "UnChristian" which examines why people are leaving the church in droves, Snyder said the church has lost the hands and feet of Christ. 1,000 churches are planted each year and 3,000 close their doors. Because the outside world grows increasingly hostile towards the secluded communities of the body of Christ, because we have strayed far from the intentional purpose of our fellowships.

Understanding the reasons why and seeing the proper character that we should be emulating lie in the examination of Luke's gospel and the story of the sinful woman.

Pastor Snyder points to three viewpoints that occur in this story that the physician writes about: Simon, the Pharisee, the town prostitute and Jesus Christ. We each have experienced each one of them, if we have experienced the bottomless ocean of God's grace……and it is the contention of Snyder and many others within the Christian community that we have fallen back into the pharisaical mindset. We have forgotten the reasoning behind our own salvation and the danger of not being a living testimony to the world.

"Don't you know that evil people won't have a share in the blessings of God's kingdom? Don't fool yourselves! No one who is immoral or worships idols or is unfaithful in marriage or is a pervert or behaves like a homosexual will share in God's kingdom. Neither will any thief or greedy person or drunkard or anyone who curses and cheats others. Some of you used to be like that. But now the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and the power of God's Spirit have washed you and made you holy and acceptable to God." (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 CEV).

We see this realized in the story of this woman…..and in Jesus' response to her. Anyone who is on a path other than the path to Jesus Christ is destined for a second death, from which there will never be any recovery….and eternal suffering. And, like Simon the Pharisee and many of his guests, we as the church are driving the secular, new age, post-modern and 'lukewarm' into that lake of fire as surely as if our hands and feet were doing it…….

We aren't told why Simon invited Jesus to his home, knowing only that in those times it was customary for the prophet or rabbi to stay in the home of prominent people when they visited a community. Because of the open-format of homes in those times, people in the community could gather outside the home and hear the prophet/rabbi speak. As we look at the cultural context of the time, Snyder says, we can discern that Simon's purpose wasn't honorable…..

It was customary when one honored guests in their home to do three specific things:

  1. Greet guest with a kiss…..
  2. Having the lowest of your servants wash the dirty feet of your guest……
  3. Pour some scented oil on the head of the guest to 'refresh' their body……

Simon did none of that. Here is a spiritual leader, who had a prosperous house and career, who knew about the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but didn't know Him….and held the spiritual health of his people in his hands….and judged, convicted and sentenced them in accordance to his own understanding, not God's. A warning and conviction of the modern church today, who is pharisaical too many times as the congregations grow, the gospel is less and less important than the show of 'worship' or the biblical lands 'videos' and catchy phrases of the sermons are designed to draw many to the church through mass mailings. We are less convicted of reaching those mentioned in the revelation verse above and become more and more like those people, worse because we know the truth and yet speak, live or emulate it not.

But it isn't those 'assured' people that Christ came to save. He is willing to leave those people who walk in the sinfulness of their own convictions; the new agers, the spiritualist, emerging watery gospels and post-modern self-awareness wallowing in the filthy of their own making…..if they, like Simon, feel that they do not need saving, He stands at the door and waits….making no conviction of the error in their thinking but continues to wait…..until they notice His shadow falling there on the door……

Just like Simon…….sometimes God's silence speaks volumes itself.

Luke paints a picture for us; here is Christ reclining for dinner. In the context of the time, as Snyder tells us, people joined the pleasure of laying down with the pleasure of eating…..and it how the woman was able to stand behind Jesus and wash His feet with her tears……..

Here is a woman, well known in the town for the lifestyle she lives, that hears that Jesus is at the home of Simon the Pharisee and she goes out to purchase a container of oil. In the 'harmony of the gospels,' we find that it is most likely that this woman, among others, hear the story written by Matthew and is captured by Jesus' enticement to "Come to me….."(Matthew 11). She was driven by the very heart of God, not by knowledge of Him, and felt within her soul the agony of not having what He had to offer. She comes behind Him and begins to cry, not a soft gentle sorrow, but a mournful, sorrowful weeping that flows like a river upon the dirty feet of Christ……washing the dirt from His journey onto the floor of Simon's home. Tears of the broken, connected to the heart and grace of God, wash the feet of its champion.

What we may miss in the simple reading of this story is the next thing that takes place…..the wiping of Jesus' wet feet with her own hair. Snyder points out that in those days, a woman's glory was her hair. With the realization of what her tears have done, she undoes her hair and uses it to wipe dry Jesus' feet……she surrenders her self-glory to honor and glorify Christ. The essence of God's redemption of His people lies in this simple seeming action: our self-protection of our glory, our reputations and our very lives must be surrendered to God…..it is our brokenness that arrests the heart of God. It brings His silence, in which we can bask in the warmth of His love.

"People's desires make them give in to immoral ways, filthy thoughts, and shameful deeds. They worship idols, practice witchcraft, hate others, and are hard to get along with. People become jealous, angry, and selfish. They not only argue and cause trouble, but they are envious. They get drunk, carry on at wild parties, and do other evil things as well. I told you before, and I am telling you again: No one who does these things will share in the blessings of God's kingdom. God's Spirit makes us loving, happy, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled. There is no law against behaving in any of these ways." (Galatians 5:19-23 CEV)

Snyder warns us with a quote of the danger of being Simon and not being the sinful woman, "The greatest sin is to be conscious of no sin in your life." Simon wasn't, the woman was……one unbroken by the superiority of his life, the other broken under the weight of her sin before the purity of God's glory.

God's grace is amazing in its availability and encompassing in its focus…..all can come to the feet of Jesus Christ and break upon the sight of the dirt of sin that coats them…..the encounter of pure relationship with Christ bringing the soul-deep tears of our separation from Him to our eyes and pouring out upon them…..we all have come to this point if we call ourselves Christian. Unfortunately, many of us stop there…..

The brokenness we feel as we kneel behind Christ we seek to heal….we claim the promises and the declarations that the prosperity doctrines tell us is the sole focus of God….to give us a rich, abundant wealth in this life…..and it falls upon the harden path when the next struggle comes, the next trial faces us head on or the mundane of living in this world drags on….we are a people who don't want to live broken and yet God continues to break us on the cross….for our own good.

Simon and those other guests gathered question Jesus' authority because of His allowance of this sinful woman to touch Him, to wash His feet and anoint His head with oil…."If this man was a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is….." Christ doesn't give Simon an reproachful word, a stern rebuke or any other judgment of his own hypocrisy of this woman…..

He allows Simon to convict himself.

"Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii and the other fifty.……"

Because the woman, who's sins were numerous and heavy, came face to face with the grace of God, enticed by the call of "Come to Me.."…..and her tears fell broken from a soul humbled by the glory of Christ stained by the dirt of the world….to wash the feet of God's Son…..as He washed her sins from her soul with the powerful of His love…..

"Your faith has saved you……"

He doesn't tell her to stop crying, doesn't claim healing from the brokenness of her heart…..simply tells her she is saved………..

Because of the humility shown by surrendering her glory to glorify God…..something that most of us fail to do.

There is something more in that story that struck me as I pondered the wonderful teaching of Pastor Joe Snyder…..Jesus' silence during the ministrations of the woman upon His feet….her tears wetting the surface, making the dirt run in rivets onto the floor, her lips kissing them continuously and her hair wiping them clean and dry…..He said nothing. Though we know that Simon's thoughts were apparent to Him, as clear as if they had been spoken aloud.

He was silent until she was done and ready to hear the next part of the journey she started in tears.

The world is convicting the church in the light of its own judgment of what they know about God…...but they don't know God because the church has given into the cultural concept of a God that is not involved, engaged and enticing a people He created. Tolerant of anything because He does not want anyone to be condemned to the lake of fire…..too loving to be firm in the path that must be taken to be eternally saved. The church has given into the concept of a love shaped by its own understanding, given voice to the watery pool of stagnant faith that can only be lived in an isolated community of judgmental authority and a hypocrisy of conviction that only lasts within the walls of graceful worship……..They are hostile to the isolated and defensive community of Christians because they believe they have knowledge of God but don't know Him because we haven't been faithful in our obedience to Him.

God remains silent and we, His people, interpret His silence as approval of the way we are doing things. After all, the numbers show that we are doing 'something right' otherwise we wouldn't attract the people to the pews that come to the multitude of services, or locations, that we proudly proclaim on Sundays.......we must have the approval of God if He's not speaking to us. It's all good if God isn't bringing us back to the foot of the Cross with the authority of His holiness.

Could it be something totally different? That God is silent because He's already told us what we need to do? Like Simon and the woman? One got it, the other didn't….

"We do not grow into a spiritual relationship step by step," Oswald Chambers wrote in My Utmost for His Highest. "We either have a relationship or we do not."

The woman had a spiritual relationship with God, by the very outpouring of her brokenness upon His feet the love of her faith was shown and brought her to the point of redemption…..no other words were needed, no commandment to be issued from the mouth of our Savior to be heard and obeyed. She wanted what Jesus promised and knew the next step she needed to take. She knew, by the very relational nature of their meeting, what was required now. And when she stepped out in obedience, humbling herself and all she had to grasp on to in favor of bringing glory to God…..She was forgiven…her faith had saved her. It was then that Jesus spoke, imparting to her the next part of her journey and she heard, because she was ready to hear.

In my own life, I have been lately very much like Simon and unlike the sinful woman…..the silence of God, as taught by the postmodern church, means that I have been found wanting in some way, some sin or pattern of life has not been attacked by the mantra of scriptural words and therefore God hasn't finished with the final touches of His shaping and cleansing so that I can go forward into the purpose that He has set for me even before I was born, to teach His word to those who would hear.

I have been like Simon…..and my inaction is a sin before God.

God has been largely silent in the last few months in my life….prayers of supplication for discernment; in finances, in personal things, in the Call and the search for a new home church have gone largely unanswered…at least in the manner I have come accustomed to by the major movement that God has had in the last year and a half. I have settled into the waiting game, daring God to speak while I sit crouched in tense anticipation of the first words….and nothing. The darkness grows, as if God's very light has been slowly fading into the distance and my attempts to keep the fire going have come to naught….the flame flickers and spurts as the fuel that once was for its consumption is hoarded against the growing darkness. I have reverted to my own abilities rather than relying on God's.

"Let God's truth work into you by immersing yourself in it, not by worrying into it. The only way you can get to know the truth of God is stop trying to find out and by being born again." Oswald Chambers writes, " If you obey God in the first thing He shows you, then He instantly opens up the next truth to you."

The reason God is silent in the postmodern church is because the people that inhabit the pews already know what He has spoken, where He wants them to go and what He wants them to do. Like Christ was silent during the ministrations of this sinful woman who washed His dirty feet with her tears and wiped them dry with the glory that was her hair, the only thing she had to use, so He has told His church what we are supposed to do, and how we are supposed to do it. There is no need for further explanations because we aren't in the position where the next step is ready to be heard. Yet we say He's silent because we've got the business of being a Christian down to a "T" already defined, all we need to do is love….all we need to do is demand 'our' due….all we need is to chant the mantra of healing, prosperity and favor.

We don't have to give our glory up because we acknowledge God's glory every Sunday service…….with our hair coffered and perfumed, confident in our knowledge of who God is….

We play church instead of being the church. God's silence is merely a reflection of His patience, waiting for us to obey before the next portion of work can be understood and obeyed.

We know of God, but we do not know God. And He doesn't need to speak what He has already spoken, why would He if we aren't willing to come closer and listen?

The church needs to do the same, rather than sit back upon the formula of silent acceptance of sinful ways and speak the truth in love….not 'hating the sin, loving the sinner"…but speaking what separates us from God with the compassionate understanding that the personal sins of the corporate church will always be greater than the sinner lost in the darkness. Yet it has been redeemed…broken and humbled before the relationship with the Bridegroom to weep its sorrow as water to wash the dirt of the journey upon this world from His feet with the glory of its hair….relinquished to bring His glory to the world.

God will continue to allow the postmodern, humanistic and culturally saturated church continue on, as pastors of the mega churches dream visions of multi-locations in which to boom their religious sounding messages of prosperity, health and wealth instead of the black and white of the Gospel, the twisting of the Gospel into a hollow shell of Truth by the new aged spirituality of man and the sensational tolerance of all false things in the body of Christ…because everyone already knows that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so whomever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life…..

There is only one alternative, a second death to which there is no recovery……

Obedience is the only way to unlock the voice of God, just as faith unlocks our sinful hearts and brings us into the conviction of sin and Jesus' redemptive love. Just as the sinful woman's obedience in coming to Jesus for what He had to offer her, breaking herself upon the tears of her sins to humbly wash the feet of her Savior so that she can hear what He has to say next.

Simon continued to live in his superior knowledge, comfortable in his own glory that surrounded him of the judgment of both this woman and Christ. He was wrong……and Christ was gentle in His rebuke of his thoughts though Simon failed to see it and be broken……

We, as Christians in the church, must remember why we celebrate our God, why we speak our faith and yearn for the lost to be saved….there is nothing else worth fighting for.