Loss

It would seem that church goers, evangelical Christians, whatever-you-call-them-in-your-neck-of-the-woods, look down on depression and loss. They seem above it all. There is little or no room for despair. But as I read the Bible, it's there. It there among people who should "know better," among the good guys, so perhaps our platitudes and judgment should be applied to those who struggle with the idea of depression and despair being unbiblical.

Here's the thing. We say and think and rest on the fact that we are not to grieve as those who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). And I honestly believe that if Christ is our hope, we will not give in to despair for as long as others. That those who belong to Christ will receive comfort, peace, and a settledness even in affliction. But in reading the book of Luke, in contemplating Christ's death and resurrection, we must agree and see the true despair and loss. The disciples lost Christ. They lost the source of hope. They experienced true despair. We could counsel and encourage them till the cows came home, remind them of all Jesus had said, but the reality of the situation is that Jesus. Was. Gone. They had nothing. They were hopeless. And the fact is, what they experienced and the way they interpreted the situation was real. It was, in fact, the most hopeless, despairing time of all eternity--and they felt it. They knew it. They were immune to hope because they felt the weight of reality, loss, emptiness. It had a grip on the pit of their stomach--and it was justified.

What do you do when your foundation, your security, your reason for living is gone? We may use the term jokingly, but loss of hope is the worst. It's below bottom. There's no way out. The disciples had lost everything that mattered. Jesus really died. Gone. A lifeless body in a tomb. And in His last moments, they had deserted and betrayed Him. He would never know how much they missed Him. They blew it--and He died alone. What guilt! What shame! What fear, desperation and despair.

Is it any wonder that His resurrection was received with skepticism and trepidation? There were some who had lost loved ones and received them back. They may have understood a measure of the disciple's joy, but oh, what an energy-sapping turn of events to receive, not just Jesus, but the hope of all He'd promised. Their weeping, gloom, wracking grief had been for naught. Not only was Jesus here, "in the flesh," there was now multiplied hope, joy, and peace that everything else He said would come to pass. "For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us" (1 Corinthians 1:20 NKJV).

To their amazement, forty days later, He left. Again. But as always, He left with a promise. This time they believed Him. They had proof and confidence that in Jesus Christ, a promise made is a promise fulfilled. This goodbye was not accompanied by guilt, shame, embarrassment, fear, and betrayal but hope. Here is a description of Jesus leaving them a second time:

While He was blessing them, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they, after worshiping Him, returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising God. (Luke 24:51-53)

To those who've lost the best, who have lost your foundation, your joy, your reason for living: you are not alone. You feel very alone. You are in a dark, desperate place. Here is a biblical example of those who know and understand what it is to grieve without hope. To grieve ugly. To grieve until your gut hurts and your tears run dry. God gave us a record of men who traveled beyond the rim of despair.

Beautifully, that is not the end of the story. God intervened. He brought the only hope that matters. When Jesus breaks into your gloom and despair, you will live again. You will have peace and confidence. This world is a broken, sinful, wicked, dark place. You are not wrong. But God has entered. He promised to be with us, to give us the "light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God" (2 Corinthians 4:4). Cry out to Him. Don't stop. Turn to Him. Let loose the bindings that keep grief close, tight, and protected. Let Jesus see the pain. Invite Him to sit with you in the darkness. Pour out your heart. He is okay with your guilt. He isn't surprised by who you are or how you've responded. But He is waiting for your call.

For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you.

But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed, therefore I spoke,” we also believe, therefore we also speak, knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you. For all things are for your sakes, so that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God.

Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:6-18)

The Mind of Christ

My daily Bible reading has been a bit sketchy of late between travel, caring for parents, short nights, one thing and another. This morning, as I considered diving in to "to-do's" before taking time (because I'm already behind-!), I was reminded that I will not have the mind of Christ apart from time with Christ (1 Corinthians 2:11-16).

I cannot begin to fathom what He would do, how He would do it, and why He would do it until I immerse myself in His Word and character. Until I come alongside Him and put my mind where His mind is, my heart where His heart is, I cannot put my hands where His hands are.

That is abiding.... Not picking up the Word of God to check one more thing off the list, but to enter into the mind and heart of God. To realign this sinful, lazy, self-exalting, twisted self with the perfect, all-loving, all-knowing, all-kind, all-powerful Creator of the universe. In and of myself, there is no good thing. I will not seek Him. I will not understand. I am not righteous. Or good. Peaceful. Or profitable. (Romans 3)

In all this, in each word, each moment, each decision, each interaction, I must bring myself in line with the person and character of God--and that does not happen until I come to Him, ready to learn, hungry for His righteousness, disgusted with my pride, longing to be filled, changed and used. I need to get into Him, to think like He thinks, to climb into His ways, to empathize with God just as much as I need Him to come into me, to enter my heart and mind. I must open myself, question myself, be vulnerable, honest, and frank about our differences before I see the need to change.

Today--each day--I must interact with and recognize that the Bible is not me. It is not who I am, but who God is making me. Agreeing in the moment is not the same as adopting God's truth as my truth; living it out in the moments of life. It must enter and become part of me--like the bread and the cup... Taken with reverence and eagerness, becoming part of my physical composition; entering my bloodstream, making its way into my molecular biology. Essential to life. In that way, I live on as Christ's body... Christ in me, the hope of glory.... The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. He remains in and through His people as they do His will and walk in His ways.

As His beloved child, why would I forfeit precious time with God in His Word? It's the best part of the day.

Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.  But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.

If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless. Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (James 1:21-27)

 Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” So they said to Him, “What then do You do for a sign, so that we may see, and believe You? What work do You perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.’” Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.” Then they said to Him, “Lord, always give us this bread.”

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”

Therefore the Jews were grumbling about Him, because He said, “I am the bread that came down out of heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, ‘I have come down out of heaven’?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me. Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.”

Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.”

These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum.

Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this said, “This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble? What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.”


As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore. So Jesus said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:28-71)

Confession of a Recovering People Pleaser

Only be as kind as you are.

After reading Lou Priolo's book, Pleasing People, I realized how much of my life functioned around others: their preferences, schedules, unspoken expectations. Almost everything I did was for, or because of, someone else. When I realized it was okay, godly even, to have preferences, I didn't know what they were. My default answer to "What would you like?" was, "I don't know" or "It doesn't matter. I'm good either way." Suddenly chocolate wasn't my favorite. Blue wasn't my color. It took time and prayer to work through who I was and who I wasn't.

Not falling in line for the sake of wanting to be liked or "nice," affected my relationships with others. I became brutally honest, refusing to flatter or bow to other's opinions. As I worked through what was true and what was not, I was no longer socially pleasing. Or nice. I wasn't kind, loving, or tasteful. I was an honest hot mess, fighting to do what was right and see the world the way it is, not the way people (or I) wanted it to be.

God graciously intervened. Honesty results in being marginalized, set aside, and discounted by others. Yes, God is Truth. He is also Love. I needed to learn the balance between the two. Thus today's proverb: "What is desirable in a man is his kindness, and it is better to be a poor man than a liar." (Proverbs 19:22). If Jewish literature proves true and each phrase defines the other, then we are known by our kindness. But if we cannot be kind, it's better to be friendless and poor. Don't lie as a means of pretending kindness and gaining friends; be who you are.

In my case, that meant I needed to change. Kindness is not a reflection of others; it is a reflection of my own heart, who I am. Kindness means letting go of my agenda and expectations. In kindness, I look for the image of God in others and respond based on who He is, instead of who I am or what I want.

Jesus was not nice. He was kind. And poor. But He was rich in relation to His Father. He was rich in deed. He, Himself, is the source of wealth: "And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:19).

The answer is not to "be nice" or act kind and lie to myself (and others). The thoughts in my head that are unkind, untrue, ungracious need to be captivated and taken to the cross. There, they must be sorted and my sinful desires crucified, mortified, put to death. Only then can I be lovingly, genuinely kind.

Today, seek to be as kind as you are. Don't lie. If you must, be unkind. It is only as the darkness is exposed--as the filth comes out from within the cup--that true righteousness and holiness reveals the forgiveness and goodness of God.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." (Matthew 23:23-28)

For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!

I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. (Galatians 5:13-26)