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.”

Do, Love, Walk

"What can we bring to the Lord?  What kind of offerings should we give him?  Should we bow before God with offerings of yearling calves?  Should we offer him thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of olive oil?  Should we sacrifice our firstborn children to pay for our sins?  No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."  Micah 6:6-8

     When I was a little girl, I went every Tuesday night to a group for girls called Busy Bees when we were very young, and Calvinettes when we were older.  Every Tuesday evening we began our time together with Micah 6:8 and I have thought about it lots since then in many circumstances.  Often, I think of it when my heart does not want to conform to one of the directives contained therein.  Three things, we are told, are required of us, and all of them are active and engaging requirements.  We cannot passively conform to any of them.  We must do, love and walk.

     

     What is it to do justice?  Other translations say "do what is right."  How often it is easier to ignore what is right!  It is sometimes painful to tell the truth, or admit a mistake, or perform an unlimited number of other "rights."  Acting justly for others is usually hard.  It is a requirement nonetheless, and sometimes we miss the mark.

     

     Loving mercy is the bit I think about most.  We are required to love being merciful.  Mercy is "compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or other person in one's power."  It is forgiveness, unconditional.  To be grudgingly merciful is not enough.  (Oh, dear.) 

     

     The final requirement is to "walk humbly."  Not only are we to walk with God, but we are to do it humbly!  How difficult this becomes as we consider how amazing it is that we are the "prized possession of God" (James 1:18).  It is also hard when things are going well, and we have received many blessings.  Pride tends to creep in, doesn't it?

     

     All in all, the three requirements are impossibilities on our own.  The good news is that Jesus performed them perfectly so that we could do them better with His help and example.  He loved us enough to be merciful, taking our punishment, judgment and curse on himself so that we can escape death.  He "drank the cup" so that we don't have to.  He performed justice, taking what we deserved and paying the price.  He walked humbly with God, accepting the will of the Father throughout His life.  He excelled at all three requirements so that we are forgiven when we can't live up to them.  Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of all, and His death and resurrection have set us free.   

-Chanelle

God Cares Enough to Let You Lament

“Listen to my words, Lord,

consider my lament.

Hear my cry for help,

my King and my God,

for to you I pray.”

Psalm 5:1-2 (NIV)

We live in a very good creation and you and I, along with our neighbours and everyone that comes before and after us, are the bit of creation that bumped it up from good to very good. Knowing this makes me feel, well, very good. But…

We live in a very good creation that has been damaged. We are the bit of creation that did that. Our disobedience took something that is very good and turned it into something that is, frankly, very bad at times. Knowing this makes me feel very bad. But…

The damage is not irrevocable. God gave people a lot of power and authority, which is why our disobedience had such a profound effect on creation. However, God did not give us so much power and authority that he can’t do something about our disobedience and its impact on creation. A “new creation” is in play here. We saw day one of this on the first Easter. Jesus’ resurrected body was the first glimpse of new creation. Creation was saved. Even though we were the reason creation needed saving in the first place, God includes even people in salvation. But…

Creation does not appear particularly saved right now. This is why lament is crucial in ministry.

A complete discussion of the “problem of evil” is too big both for this short blog post and my mind, so we are going to have to simply accept that in spite of appearance, creation is indeed saved and that God indeed saved it. It seems we are caught in a process. In The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis considers the idea that God did in fact do something about the damaged creation and that something is the death and resurrection of His son. The full result of the resurrection – salvation – is not yet complete. To me, this looks to be in line with 2 Peter 3:9, which talks about God’s patience with His return so people will come to him rather than perish.

Along with God we must be patient too. Patience, though, does not mean we do not grieve at the sight of evil and we do not grieve at the sight of pain. We are in a saved creation that is still rebelling against its salvation. It would be very odd for the people of God to look at this rebellion, particularly where it comes to a life that does not flourish (even if a particular sin is not able to be pinpointed to cause the lack of flourishment), and not have an emotional reaction. The Bible is full of people having these reactions. We can have them too.

Lamentation is oftentimes what gets me through a day. Look at who felt grief in the face of brokenness and evil. There were prophets, there were kings, there were psalmists, there were apostles, there was Jesus. If these giants see evil and there is nothing they can do beyond calling out to God, surely this is allowed of us too. Surely if Jesus has nothing to do but cry, we have nothing to do but cry.

Watch what is happening in lament, however. It is not simply despair. It is grief in the face of brokenness that is expressed to a good God who we proclaim shares our grief and is doing something about the situation that grieves us. When I lament, I am not questioning God’s ability to fix things. Instead, I declare that God is doing something right now and that I simply don’t see it. Lament demonstrates our faith in God, otherwise we would see the broken creation and turn our back on our creator.

Sometimes life is bad. Go ahead and tell God. He wants you to. You will be in good company.

-Tony