Through the Front Door to Dine at the Table

C.S. Lewis says in The Weight of Glory:

“Our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honor beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache”. 

     Even those who are homeless, those struggling with addiction or have absent parents or horrific life-changing experiences, still look to find or create community and acceptance.  What would our homes, churches and ministries look like if we opened the door both physically and spiritually... let Jesus in to sit at our dining table?  I often think about our cities, the hustle and bustle up and down the streets and the little shops below beautiful loft apartments.  The mixture of economic class all crammed into one area.  I imagine many people are looking at doors wishing they were on the inside, sitting with people in love and acceptance.     

     The front door and the dining table remind me of relationships; of relationship with family and friends and my relationship with Jesus.  The front door and the kitchen table, both are bold and have great potential!  Maybe doors and dining tables stand out most to me because I grew up around a window and door company and my parents always made sure we ate together at the table.  The idea of coming through the door to sit and eat with the ones we love settles me.   

     An obvious passage of scripture that comes to mind is the words of Jesus to the Laodicean church.   Revelation 3:20 says, “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.”  The Laodicean church was complacent and rich.  They felt self-satisfied but didn't have Christ's presence among them.  This is a picture of Christ knocking on the door of the hearts of people that needed to accept Jesus for the first time, for some of them had never made that commitment.  Others needed to open the door in order to return to wholehearted faith in Him.  Christ was knocking. He was not banging, not breaking and entering, but knocking, desiring that the Laodicean church remember its need for Him.  If they opened the door, Jesus would come in and eat with them.  Being still with Jesus, listening and learning from the master teacher is what I picture here: the truest form of yearning, finding our home in the safe and secure presence of Jesus.  We sit together in great relationship.

     Whether we need to physically open our doors to those standing on the outside, inviting them in to eat at the table or to spiritually open our lives to Jesus, let's always remember there is great presence and power on the other side of the door.

 

Jayme

Realized Hope in Jesus

There is a proverb in the bible that says, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick." Various news articles and stories have pointed out that depression and discouragement are on the rise, and this ancient proverb rightly links it to hopelessness. I believe an overarching sense of hopelessness pervades our culture because we are constantly told that the material world is all there is and we are nothing more than products of chance. Of course, there are many brilliant scientists, scholars, and theologians who disagree with this and give good arguments to the contrary, but the bullhorn of popular opinion often drowns them out.

We need hope. Hope is simply confident expectation or even joyous anticipation of good. And for the Christian, our hope is in Jesus and specifically his resurrection. To many, the idea of Jesus rising from the dead sounds mythological and maybe even ridiculous. But even atheists such as Dr. Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist, admit that it's possible that God exists and if so, miracles are not out of the question. God does exist and he became a human being - Jesus. To this day, many are still unable to explain away the evidence supporting and surrounding the resurrection of Jesus. So much so that John Crossan and Gert Ludemann, two well known critics of the resurrection, concede that Christ's resurrection is the best explanation for the rise of Christianity and that the disciples most certainly had experiences after Jesus' death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.

I say all this not because it necessarily matters what these gentleman think, but because it shows that one doesn't need to abandon reason to believe such things. Christianity has never been about blind faith, but rather informed faith. The disciple Thomas wouldn't believe that Jesus rose from the dead until he saw and touched him for himself. This is far from gullibility. Historian and theologian N.T. Wright points out that people 2000 years ago knew just as well as we do that dead people don't come back to life. Something happened.

So what? If Jesus truly rose from the dead, then reality is totally different than what we're told it is. There is something more - something beyond. One author puts it this way, "without this hope of life beyond the grave, every question from love to justice becomes a mockery of the mind." At Outflow, we are passionate about matters of love and justice, and often say that we aim to help people "realize hope". We believe this hope is found in Jesus. In him we find healing for our sick hearts. In him we find the solution to the problem of death. In him we find life.

Philip

“Those Who Hope in the Lord Will Renew Their Strength”

     We are in the season of the slow, long months of winter. Of grey skies and cold tight air. This time of year can make one feel weary. Emotionally, physically, and particularly spiritually, you can feel downtrodden.

     It can be disheartening when you feel like you have nothing more to give or offer to those around you, whether its family, friends, or someone in need. Oftentimes, we can pour out of ourselves until there is nothing left. We forget that it should not be coming from us, but from our Father. That we need to spend time with Him, filling up and recharging.

     I read a verse the other day that buoyed my spirits :

Philippians 1:6 “...being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

     This creates a sense of relief within me. That even when we feel empty and exhausted, that we are not condemned or written off by God, but instead He continues to walk with us. It is relieving to know that God is refining us, polishing us, working away at our imperfections. Even in the seasons where all we feel is weariness and fatigue.

     That is freeing.

     We don't have to come to Him, heavily done up and hiding our imperfections beneath a mask. We can't. Instead, we can come to him with our hands and feet dirty, with our minds and our hearts messed up. We can come and fall at His feet. He is our good Father and He loves his children very much.

     It is there that He can continue the “good” work in us. He began a good work and he will continue working on us. It is there that we can be refilled.

     God is not going to give up on us. He is not going to stop the good work He began. That is a comforting thought. That is freedom. We don't have to have it all together. We don't have to pretend that everything is a-ok all the time. We can continue to trust and walk with our Father, who is leading us by the hand, and know that in the end, it will be okay.

     Part of the journey is to continue to choose Him, to proclaim the truth and promises of His word even when we don't feel like it, and most definitely worship and praise Him when we are in the eye of the storm.

Isaiah 40: 28-31

     “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”