Living Life Through Another World

Is living in the world, but not being “of” the world possible?  I believe it is in the sense that the Scriptures use the word “of”.  In the original languages, the case of nouns normally translated with the preposition “of” is typically a possessive form.  Fortunately, “of” has this meaning in much of the English usage as well.  So, not be “of the world” would mean I’m not possessed by the world.  And in that sense I agree with the statement.  Chambers refers to Jesus living in another world rather than living aloof.  I believe that is an important key to a life in but not of this world.

Paul says that our battle is not against flesh and blood and then provides a list of enemies in the spiritual sphere; enemies we can’t see.  It is the awareness of this sphere that helps me live in another world while in this one, or will once I learn better focus on my Master.  The enemies Paul lists exist in the same sphere inhabited by my Master, and He is Master of that sphere too.  I don’t want awareness of the spiritual sphere to be aware of these enemies as much as to be aware of my Master.  It is His reality I am after. 

I referred to emotional problems, or problems that affect me emotionally, as “handles” for my spiritual enemies.  When I hold a grudge, harbor resentment, brood on a hurt, or revisit the feelings of a hurtful event, I am providing a hand hold for my unseen enemies.  They can use those to introduce ideas that are not from my Master.  Distracted by these, my selfish sense of entitlement rises and I have left focus on my Master.  Once there, I am easy prey for my spiritual enemies.  Focused on my Master, these emotional memories become more fodder for my sacrificial pyre, chaff of my life to be burned so He can continue to transform me.

These emotional hurts and hang ups come, but if my response if not awareness of this spiritual sphere my enemies in this sphere can attack me.  Awareness of this sphere enables me to continue focus on my Master putting these things before Him and receive His healing.  I believe this is a sort of spiritual discipline that will become automatic over time, but I have a lot of practicing to do.  I want to be so much in this sphere that it feels weird not to be.  That way I will more readily return to it when I am distracted from it.

What this awareness does is expand what I see around me.  It is no longer rude and obnoxious people (or shop keepers) that oppose me but their tormentors who sense in me their enemy.  When I am aware of this sphere, I respond to the proper enemy rather than their human victim.  How can I truly have a heart for those dead ones apart from my Master without being aware of their oppression which keeps them captive?  If I see them as merely annoying, I am missing the “rest of the story”, as Paul Harvey might describe it.  There’s more going on and I’m only seeing a portion of it.

I know mental and emotional oppression personally.  This should give me an even greater sensitivity to it.  And yet, my fear is not yet suppressed to the point I can be brave in the face of these enemies.  I still look at the wind and waves, and take my eyes off my Master.  I still wonder what it would look like, what people will think, and I succumb to the waves.  The gates of hell cannot keep out the truth of my faith, so why would I fear these enemies?  They are already defeated!  This is my Master’s will, that I engage this world with the awareness of His constant mastery over it all.  It is my connection to Him that enables me to engage.

The freedom I have enjoyed this past year is the path to this awareness.  It is really awareness more of my Master than of the enemies, but it includes them in the sense that I see them as defeated foes.  Seeing my Master more clearly, more consistently I will not fear to engage in life in this world.  Evil will not be my path, but peace and joy, even when surrounded by evil.   It is a righteous life of knowing my Master more.  I can’t think of a higher aspiration or better goal.  And I can’t think of anything else I can do that will affect my neighborhood more.  It’s time to put on my swim trunks and dive into the deep end of the pool!  Cannon Ball!

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, November 27

From Saturday to Sunday

I believe that the connection between the cross and the empty tomb is sometimes lost.  The power of my Master is not demonstrated on the cross as much as His determination to save His human creatures.  He showed the extent of His love and mercy there, but He showed His power through the empty tomb. 

On the other hand, the empty tomb is not really appreciated until the extent of my Master’s love is explored over and over as demonstrated on the cross.  So, I need both, and I need to appreciate them in order.  I need a focus and meditation on the Cross of Jesus so I can better appreciate the empty tomb.  Yesterday I was crushed by my meditation on the Cross of my Master.  Today I want to pause at the empty tomb.

The shock experienced by creation was then followed by such deep oppressive despair that it seemed there was no recovery.  Hope died with the Master on the cross.  Sure, all the sins of all of humanity were paid in that event, but now there was this gaping wound that is always left by death.  Death is relational, just like life is relational.  The Spirit could have come then and there would have been a revival of sorts, but there would have been this sense of a hollow victory.  Death would still have reigned supreme, even over the Creator.  And there was something about that which would not settle in the hearts of the disciples, and not in creation.

The debate over three days is odd to me.  Any part of a day includes that day.  We do that now.  We don’t measure it down to complete sets of 24 hours until we want to disprove something.  In normal usage, we just go with any part of a day.  So, Friday evening, and through Saturday, a doubly intense Sabbath, there was silence.  I imagine the silence to be dark silence, not bright silence.  I imagine an oppressive air where no one, not even Jesus’ enemies, felt light.  I suspect that there would have been such an air of hopelessness that it would have been as all life had stopped, as if in a moment of silent grief.  A day where silence permeates to the bones, and into the soul, chill and dark; that’s how I imagine that Sabbath day.

Part of this oppressive sense of hopelessness comes from the Creator Himself.  The unthinkable has happened; God has suffered the loss of The Son!  The Creator has lost the Uncreated One.  The Three are somehow Two.  The fundamental truth of the Source of the universe and all that holds it together has fractured and a piece is missing.  It is impossible.  It cannot happen.  It can’t!  How?  The crushing question is why, but now in the aftermath, even that answer seems lost in the echo of the darkness left behind.  Is this love?  Is this mercy?  The hole left in my heart from losing my father is nothing compared to the loss incurred by the Creator and His creation at the loss of the Son.  This Saturday is one of grief from the One and Only God right down to the infinitesimally small sub-atomic particle.  It is grief on a cosmic scale.  It crushes the world and the cosmos.

And then the unthinkable, unimaginable, shattering power of the Creator of the universe and all it contains totally annihilates the enemy that is death itself.  Light overwhelms the darkness, and shatters the grief spreading shards to the uttermost ends of creation.  Each shard carries the sound of the truth: HE IS RISEN!  Life sweeps out from that central point on the spinning blue globe and life stirs once again.  Creation takes a deep breath, not realizing it has been holding its breath, gasping for the life of the Son.  Joy so radiant in the darkness of grief that few dared hope it was true swept through the lives of 200 gathered together, and the ripples of that joy continued into Samaria, Judea, and all the ends of the earth.

Life, real life, returned from the grave of despair.  And this is the eternal life that they might know You the One True God and Whom You sent Jesus Christ.  I can know my Master now, I can speak with Him, listen to Him, seek His face, and worship Him.  But one day I will run with Him in the fields of Heaven!  I will worship before His throne!  I will see Him face to face, serve Him in His presence, and I will be who He truly made me to be.  He will give me a new name, and I will know His.  Then I will run and not be weary, walk and not faint.  I will fly, but only for the joy of my Master.  And all the joy of life will make up the air I breathe and the ground beneath my feet.  And I am not alone in this, but one of an unnumbered crowd all together in worship and joy; the voice of which will shake remaining debris of this life off like dust.  We will stand completely clean and whole before the Conqueror of death, Giver of eternal life.  And we will do so forever.

That is what the empty grave means to me.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, November 26

Even Death on a Cross

Chambers refers to the cross of Jesus as representing the agony of God.  That resonates with me.  In my heart, the cross represents a singular event that had never been seen before, and never will again.  The Gnostics had such a linear view of “holiness” that they could not have Jesus truly on the cross.  But the Scriptures leave no gray area about Jesus on the cross.  He was crucified and He died.  For Him to bear the sin of all humanity He had to do more than simply suffer physical agony.  That a normal human could do.  Even good people had suffered to death.  What He was doing required more than that.

The cross of Jesus is where I go for my final understanding of life and death.  In my meager grasp of the Trinitarian Nature of God, I understand Him to suffer something the likes of which I can’t really grasp.  I understand the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as one in some way, and yet distinct in some way.  I also understand from Scripture that death is defined more by being out of relationship with this Trinitarian God, than a biological event.  So in my view, Jesus suffered on the cross what is unthinkable, what all pay who have no relationship with their Creator.  That would mean that, for a time, the Son was separated from the Father and Holy Spirit. 

When I think of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane praying so intently that drops of blood form, I find it difficult to believe He is that worked up over the physical suffering He will endure.  He prays, relinquishing His will to the Father’s, and willingly goes to the soldiers coming to arrest Him.  He leads them to the trial, He refuses to prove Who He is to Pilate, and endures the physical and shaming trial of crucifixion.  He goes through all this willingly, intentionally.  He has chosen to endure the fracture of the eternal Trinity, and be broken from what He has known for all eternity:  The Father. 

The Creator of this universe full of infinite variety and imagination willingly suffered this break in Himself on behalf of rebellious examples of His masterful work.  He didn’t scrap us and start over.  He endured the unimaginable and impossible instead.  I don’t doubt this world shook and stormed at such an event.  It was in shock.  What had just happened?  What did the angels think?  How much of what was happening did Satan understand?  Did anyone, angelic or other creature, know these depths of the Character of God?  Could this have been imagined by anyone other than the One responsible for this entire universe?  Impossible?

What sort of love includes the willing self-fracture of the One powerful enough to create stars?  What level of mercy is required to willingly and intentionally endure a cataclysmic break in the very nature of the Inventor of inter-cellular structures and sub-atomic particles?  We can’t even see or measure all of what has been created, nor truly imagine limits to this Creator.  He is powerful in ways that defy reason and imagination.  Why would such a One willingly endure that for the squabbling rabble that is the human race? 

It is not enough for me that He died a physical death.  I would be in hell, eternally cut off from the Master of the universe, and I should be.  I have earned such a place a thousand times more than I can even remember.  My punishment would not be a suffering physical death.  That may be my end in any case.  Many people suffer such ends.  It was the eternal punishment apart from my Master that had to be met in the sufferings of my Master.  And that is met in Jesus on the cross; not in the physical suffering, but in the spiritual death He suffered for us.  I still can’t grasp it.  It’s too much, I’m crushed.

My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers, November 25