The Badge of a Believer

(Note: Except where noted, all Scripture references are from the New American Standard Bible, 1995 updated edition.)

He had washed out.  Sure, he was just a rookie; and he had started out with the usual dreams and high hopes.  Everything had gone well for the first week or so, and the future looked bright.  After all, he had joined up with two veterans who were conducting a missionary tour of the Middle East and Eastern Europe.  He couldn't have asked for better mentors.  They had started out from Jerusalem, moved up the coast to a town in western Syria, then crossed the Mediterranean to Cyprus.  They toured the island from east to west until they came to a town called Paphos on the west coast.  There they faced some serious opposition.  And when the heat was applied, the rookie buckled and ran.

            Two years later, the same two veterans planned a return trip covering the same itinerary.  And there was the rookie raring to go with them again.  Only this time the veterans argued over whether to take him.  Barney said yes.  Paul said no.  The disagreement became so sharp they split.  Paul took Silas and set out for Cicilia.  Barney took John Mark and sailed back to Cyprus.

            In Barnabas, we see fleshed out the command of Jesus to "love one another, even as I have loved you." (John 13.34)  When, for instance, Paul came to Jerusalem claiming to have become a Christian, the disciples refused to believe him.  No one trusted him.  Only Barnabas reached out to him as a brother and stood by him while the rest of the disciples stood their distance.  Through the persistent support of Barnabas, Paul came to be accepted by the other disciples.  Now the love of Jesus in Barnabas did the same for John Mark  as well.  We don't know what happened on the return trip to Cyprus or where they went from there.  We know nothing of the manner in which Barnabas mentored John Mark.  But we do know that he restored Paul's faith in the lad, because when Paul wrote to Timothy from prison in Rome toward the end of his ministry, he asked him to "Take Mark, and bring him with thee:  for he is profitable to me for the ministry." (2 Timothy 4.11, KJV)

            Early in his ministry, Paul seemed intolerant of those who failed or those who stumbled and fell along the way.  He had to learn that  Christians, too, are fallen people.  He had to learn to show compassion for a brother who failed and acceptance for those not so strong as he.  He had to learn to love them as Christ loved them.  It was a hard lesson for this stubborn old Pharisee turned Christian.  When he began to write letters to the churches, however, Paul not only taught love for the brethren, he explained how to show it.  For example, to the Romans, he wrote, "Be devoted to one another in brotherly love." (Romans 12.10)  To the Galatians, he wrote, "through love serve one another." (Galatians 5.13)  And he prayed for the Thessalonians that the Lord would "cause [them] to increase and abound in love for one another." (1 Thessalonians 3.12)  And Paul increased in that love himself, demonstrating it in his relationships with Timothy, Luke, Trophimus, Acquila, Priscilla, many others, and, of course, John Mark.

            Why was all this so important?  Because Jesus told us that our love for one another is the badge of the believer.  He said, "By this all men will know you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13.35)  The operative word here is "My."  There were many disciples in Jesus's world, for there were many teachers.  Who knows what distinguished them from one another?  But Jesus said His disciples would be distinguished by their love for one another.  Not by their love for the lost as important as that is, but their love for one another.  "Christ's unique plan," says Dr. Gene Getz, "was that non-Christians come to know of His love through Christians in proper relationship with one another.... ...by loving one another in the presence of non-Christians we can communicate God's love to them."  If we claim to be Christians and are not concerned about other Christians --- their needs, their hurts, their joys, their sorrows, then what do we communicate to the lost?

            Real love, God's love, the kind of love Jesus Himself had is just like that.  It is a love that always gives.  And gives sacrificially.  After all, isn't that what Jesus meant when He said to "love one another, even  as I have loved you"?

Death on the Mountain

Abraham trudged across the grassy plain approaching the mountain, his heart carrying a burden heavier than the pack on Isaac's back.  For three days, the words of the Lord had lingered in his mind to fuel his grief.  "Take your son...." he heard with every measured step.  "Your only son...."  His heart twinged.  "...and offer him there...."  He slowed his pace as the path began to slope upward.  He looked at Isaac walking beside him.  So young.  So healthy.  So much potential to fulfill the promises of God.  Why must he die?  Jewish tradition calls this account in Genesis 22 the Akidah, the Binding of Isaac.  Not the Offering of Isaac.  Nor the Sacrifice of Isaac.  But the Binding of Isaac, to stress the fact that his father bound himself to the covenant with God as he bound his son to the altar of sacrifice.  What a picture of God binding Himself to His covenant with us as He bound His Son to the altar at Calvary.

            Several years ago, a rabbi in Jerusalem reviewing the Akidah, discovered more than thirty points of comparison between the life of Isaac and that of Jesus.  At this Easter season, I would like to share only a few of these comparisons with you.  For instance, both of them were children of promise.  Although Abraham and Sarah were both advanced in age, God promised them not only a child, but a son!  Centuries later, God gave to Joseph of Nazareth the promise of a son as well (Matthew 1.20-21).  In both cases, God even named the sons for them.

            Furthermore, in both cases, the "son" was the only begotten son of his father.  Of course, we know Abraham had a son by Hagar, the handmaiden of Sarah; but in the context of His promise, the Lord refused to recognize Ishmael as a son of Abraham.  So, in the Akidah, He told Abraham to "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah." (Genesis 22.2)  The Hebrew word He uses for "only" means unique, the only one, one of a kind.  If we should still miss the significance of this, the Lord interprets it for us in the Book of Hebrews, where He says, "By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac; and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son." (Hebrews 11.17, italics mine)  The Greek word translated "only begotten" is the same one used of Jesus in John 3.16, where Jesus Himself said, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son...." (Italics mine).

            In the life of these special sons, a time came for them to be offered as a sacrifice, Isaac symbolically, Jesus for real, although for Isaac, it was just as real at the time.  Here, too, the similarities abound.  Both were offered by their fathers.  God had commanded Abraham to take his son, go to the land of Moriah, and "offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains." (Genesis 22.2)  For centuries, many have blamed the Jews for crucifying Jesus.  Some have even blamed the Romans.  They drove the spikes into His flesh.  But the truth is, He was offered on the altar of sacrifice for our sins by His Father.  Remember Jesus's words: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son...."?  The Father offered the Son.

            Without hesitation, Isaac set out for the mount of sacrifice in obedience to his father, though he may not have known why he was going.  Jesus, on the other hand, set His face steadfastly toward Jerusalem (Luke 9.51) fully knowing why He was going there.  In the entire story of Isaac, there is no indication the lad even once resisted the leading of his father.  In fact, when the time came, he carried the wood for the sacrifice up the mountain himself (Genesis 22.6).  It was as if he carried his own sacrificial altar.  How many times have we seen dramatic portrayals of the crucifixion of Jesus and not seen Him carrying the cross, His sacrificial altar, up the mountain of His sacrifice?  John tells us, "They took Jesus therefore, and He went out, bearing His own cross, to the place called the Place of the Skull." (John 19.17)

When they reached the place of sacrifice, Abraham built the altar.  Isaac asked "Where is the lamb?"  Abraham told him God will provide Himself a lamb (cp. Genesis 22.8).  And He did!  Until the Lord directed Abraham's attention to the ram caught in the thicket, Isaac himself was the lamb.  After building the altar, Abraham arranged the wood upon it.  Then he bound his son, Isaac (the Akidah) and laid him on top of the altar.  But when he raised his hand, brandishing the knife with which to slay the sacrifice, the angel of the Lord stepped in to stay his hand.  When they came to Calvary, it was God who "arranged the wood" on the altar not man.  The Son did not ask where is the lamb?  But the Father answers.  God will provide Himself a lamb in this case, too.  It was God who bound His Son and laid Him upon the altar of sacrifice called the cross.  God who lifted up the cross.  And God who raised His hand to slay the sacrifice upon the altar.  But.....but.....there was no one to stay His hand....

                                                                        03-28-1997

Left-Handed Christians

The following is an article written by my friend, my mentor,  & my theology professor from the Bible Baptist Seminary (Now Arlington Baptist College), the late Dr. George L. Norris. It is taken from the Gideon Baptist News, Gideon Baptist Church, Fort Worth, Texas, 27.8 (November 23, 1970): 1-2.

HIS, student magazine of the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship printed a little tract with a most intriguing thought. The point was made: there are some "left-handed" people, those whose strength is in their left arm instead of the right, "where it ought to be." Those individuals who are by nature left-handed can give innumerable examples of discrimination against them. From the day when they first went to school and found the desks designed for "normal" right-handed drivers.

            We also observe there are left-handed Christians. These are those who are "different." Maybe their method of witnessing for Christ is right for them, though different from most others. Maybe THEY ARE AMONG THOSE WHO BELIEVE THE God of Creation and the God of Revelation are one and the same and they see no conflict between faith and scientific knowledge. Maybe they are among those who love the Lord and love good music, the classics, beautiful paintings and believe subjects and predicates should agree in number! In today's habit of oversimplification they are generally thought by "true believers" to be odd. They are "left-handed" Christians.

            They believe the most single imperative of Christian work is to seek the regeneration of sinners, but believe also that as Christians they have an obligation to "love thy neighbor as thyself." They feel an obligation to relieve misery and ignorance and sickness here on earth and their heavenly pilgrimage. They are not content to postpone all the obligations of being a Christian until they get to Heaven.

            To those of us who somehow do not seem to fit the classical patterns into which men would place us -- this includes both our friends and foes -- we are indeed "left-handed."

            We believe in the Gospel with all our hearts, but believe the worship service should honor God with music that moves something more than the feet! We believe the Gospel should be given to all the world, but do not believe that necessarily means that we are to preach loudly enough for it to be heard universally as some sanctified sonic boom from one pulpit! We believe we are to be heavenly minded, but that does not mean that we are to totally ignore the fact that we now live in this world and that we have an obligation to fulfill to humanity while we are here.

            Let us not be discouraged. In the Old Testament God used "left-handers" in remarkable ways. Seven hundred men of the tribe of Benjamin were specialists. They were left-handed sling-shot experts! (You might figure out why left-handed men were in the van instead of right-handed ones. A clue: the path that led up to the city spiraled upward clockwise around the hill.)

            Let us not berate ourselves if we are different. Let us rather believe that God has a special task for us to fill. We may not fit the normal pattern of today's fundamental form. Instead of feeling a it embarrassed about it, let us seek how we may be used of God to do a work where the right-handed ones would fail.

            Strangely enough, a right-handed man seldom works to build up his left arm, whereas a left-handed man, perhaps due to either necessity or psychological pressure does seek to build up his right arm's strength. Let us develop both. Let us not be weak in the strongest of fundamental testimonies, but neither let us be weak in the present realities and necessities of life around us.

Walking Through Shadows

How can one small ant teach you anything? Ants are supposed to be wise, resourceful, and, socially, highly organized creatures. But one ant?

            One evening before our scouts returned to camp from an afternoon hike, I decided to test this idea out with one ant. Squatting against a juniper stump, I spied the little fella dashing around by my foot. For my first test, I made a little hill in the dirt in front of him. To the ant, it must have seemed like a mountain. And he scampered right over that mountain. So, I then created a valley by scooping out a hole in his path. He plunged straight down into that valley and up the other side without breaking stride. relatively easy tests so far. So, next I placed a rock in his path. He tried to climb it, fell back, tried again, appeared to reconsider, then scurried around it. Picking up a twig, I tried once more to hinder his progress. With a little more struggling, the ant found his way around the twig as well.

            It was my turn to reconsider. God said, "Go to the ant, O sluggard, Observe her ways and be wise." (Proverbs 6:6, nasb) The ways of this ant brought another Scripture to mine: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me...." (Psalm 23:4a, NASB) Normally we interpret the verse as a source of comfort in the face of death. And it certainly provides such comfort. On two occasions at the time I first penned this meditation, two of my dearest friends each saw his father "walk through the valley of the shadow of death" into the presence of the Lord. And each knew and felt the comfort and the joy that only the Lord can give in the midst of such difficult experiences. Both encouraged me by the strength of their faith in our Great Shepherd and in His promise of a future reunion. No wonder the death of a Christian brother is a celebration among the saints. and difficulties.

            But this Psalm means even more. The Hebrew word tsalmaveth means literally "death-shade," a strong poetical expression for the profoundest darkness. You see, it doesn't have to describe only the experience of facing death, but can apply as well to all kinds of problems--the valley, the mountain, the rock, the twig--or our human equivalents. The Psalmist suggests how to handle them.

            For instance, the first verb in the verse is walk through. In the Judean wilderness where David led his flocks, there were narrow gorges and deep ravines filled with real darkness. Any of them might possibly hide a wild beast lurking in the darkness, waiting to pounce upon a sheep. No matter what perils or problems or obstacles he faced in these ravines (or in his life), David, like my ant, walked through them all. Nothing in the passage implies stopping or getting stuck with a problem and needing to stay there. instead, David pressed on through all the experiences, confident of the care of his Shepherd.

            And we can walk through our shadows without fear because "Thou art with me." If my ant knew any fear, he failed to show it. But David could say he knew no fear because of the presence of God. A rabbi once told of a devout man who was found sleeping alone in a desolate, forbidding wilderness. Someone asked him, "Are you not afraid of the many wild beasts?" to which he replied, "I am too ashamed before God to be afraid of anything in the world except for Him." Similarly, David's heart was so filled with the fear of God, the awe of God, that there was no room left for the fear of anything else.

            Whether we face death or difficulties, the presence of God gives us comfort and courage to walk through the shadows we encounter in our lives--walk with a song of celebration to our Great Shepherd who walks with us.

This blog is intended to supplement the book: Candle Drippings: Musings from My Mind and Other Itinerant Places. You may find many of those meditations helpful. If you are interested, you can check out the book at Amazon.com. Just type in the title to search for this inspiring book and read one or two of the reviews.

Thanks bunches for your interest!

.....KRC

Holy Ground

To many of the members of the Order of the Arrow, a fraternity of campers within the Boy Scouts, the Ordeal Ring at Worth Ranch was a sacred place.  It holds many significant memories.  There some members passed their own "ordeals," their induction into the Order of the Arrow, and their induction ceremony was in itself almost a religious experience, a sacred thing.  Not just anyone could actually enter the Ring.  It lay hidden in the woods somewhere down in the "bottoms"; and unless you were a member of the Order, you didn't even know where to find it.  Rock walls guarded it on three sides, while a gentle slope dropped off the back side.  A narrow passage between two boulders served as an entrance.  When not used for "Ordeal" ceremonies, the ring offered a quiet haven for solitude, meditation, and reflection.

            That Sunday morning in December, as our troop began cleaning up after breakfast, I set out alone for the ring.  I needed a moment of solitude and personal reflection before the boys gathered for camp worship.  The Ordeal Ring contained no seats except for an occasional rock here and there low to the ground.  There was a mosaic of grass and patches of dirt for a floor.  As I sat down on a rock near the center, I felt captivated by the sounds, a winter bird chirping somewhere in the woods, the breeze rustling high in the branches around me.  I sat there thinking -- I'm not sure what, now -- until a sense of God's presence seemed to drift around me, gently, quietly.  No burning bush.  No earthquake.  Not even a still, small voice.  Just a sense as real as the wind in my face that He had joined me.  I almost expected to hear a the voice saying, "Take off your shoes.  This is holy ground."  For the brief space of half an hour, it was holy ground to me.  Not because I passed my ordeal there.  I didn't.  But because the presence of God met me there.

            What made that spot holy ground?  Remember Moses?  While he shepherded the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, he had a more dramatic encounter with the Lord.  At the time, he was just an ordinary person who had found himself on a spot covered with patches of grass, rocks, a scattering of bushes meager in size as well as number.  But there God chose to reveal Himself to Moses.  First, "the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed." (Exodus 3.2)  This was unusual in that wilderness.  Not unusual that the bush caught fire, but that it never burned up.  When finally Moses could contain himself no longer, he turned to see why the bush had not burned up.  Then, the Lord Himself spoke to Moses from the midst of the bush.  And He said, "Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." (Exodus 3.5)

            A patch of grass, dirt, and rocks -- holy ground?  You bet.  Why?  What makes such a scrubby spot holy?  A holy God stepped out of His holy place and stepped down to an unholy earth to meet a sinful man right where he was and to transform his life.  And the very presence of that holy God transformed that otherwise scraggly spot into holy ground.  Isn't it amazing?  Any place -- a church sanctuary, a football stadium, a clearing in the woods, or a spot on a mountainside -- can become holy if God is there.  When God reveals Himself at such a spot, that revelation nearly always includes a vivid awareness of His holiness.  God is holy.  How desperately we need to grasp that fact.  Of all the attributes theologians have categorized, this one dominates.  Jack Hayford said the holiness of God is that which preserves who He is as God.  In fact, biblical writers themselves use this term holy more frequently than all others to describe the nature and being of God.  He is the Holy One, or the Holy One of Israel.  His is a holy name.  He dwells in a holy temple.  He is addressed in prayer as Holy Father.  God is holy.

            When God shows up, the ground all around Him becomes holy ground.  When He reveals Himself to unholy man, it usually results in a response from him.  And it's usually more than just taking off his shoes.

The Whole of Man

I love a good mystery!  When I was growing up, I cut my teeth on Sherlock Holmes and Perry Mason.  In fact, I still love an occasional Perry Mason rerun.  But there is a mystery in the universe that makes a Sherlock Holmes adventure look like a child's puzzle.  That mystery is the Lord Himself.  He is inscrutable (Isaiah 40.28).  He is incomprehensible (Job 37.5).  He is unknowable (Job 36.23).  He is awesome, majestic, full of wonder (Exodus 15.11).  He is limitless (Job 11.7).  His ways are beyond us (Isaiah 55.9).  Great minds, past and present, have tried to penetrate the mystery of God, to fathom its depths, to comprehend His ways.  Scientists have tried to explain His ways while philosophers have treated Him as a quaint idea.  But after centuries of inquiry, God is still a mystery.

            God is far too complex for the scientist and far too deep to satisfy the philosopher.  By now, you have probably sensed some of my own struggle with this mystery.  Larry Crabb said men inevitably have difficulty handling mystery; and he's right.  So please bear with me as I consider once more the question how then should we respond to Him?  The wisest man in history suggests the only appropriate response a finite person can give to the infinite God:  "Here is the  conclusion, when all has been heard: fear God and observe His commandments, because this is the whole of man" (Ecclesiastes 12.13, my translation).  We have already seen a little of what the fear of the Lord means, but what does it actually involve?  How does it become a reality in our experience?

            In his conclusion, Solomon focuses not on fear and obedience, important as they may be, but rather on God and His commandments.  The Hebrew is more emphatic, reading like this: "God fear and His commandments keep!"  When we focus our attention on the Lord Himself, our response follows spontaneously.  And that response is essentially one of fear and trembling.  Albert Martin suggests several ingredients that comprise the fear of the Lord.  Let's look at two of them.  One is a pervasive sense of the presence of God.  If you are conscious of the presence of God manifest around you and in your life, you will naturally respond with fear.  Let me suggest (if we are not too proud to receive it) a modern example from Kenneth Grahame's delightful tale, The Wind in the Willows.  Rat and Mole are approaching the mythical creature Pan on some island in their world, speaking to each other about him as if he were God.  "'Rat,' he found the breath to whisper, shaking, 'Are you afraid?'  'Afraid?' murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love.  'Afraid?  Of Him?  O never, never, never.  And yet---and yet---O Mole, I am afraid.'"

            When we enter the presence of God, our response is much the same.  We are not afraid and yet we are.  A.W. Tozer calls this one of the paradoxes of the Christian faith, to fear and not to be afraid.  We enter His presence in fear and we walk with Him until our fear matures into fellowship.  But ultimately the fear lingers when we're in His presence.  Remember Jacob?  When he awoke from his dream, he said essentially, "The Lord is here and I did not know it.  I'm scared." (cp. Genesis 28.16-17).  The presence of God alone generates godly fear of the Lord.

            Martin offers a second ingredient, a correct concept of the character of God.  Even a brief glimpse of Who God is should send us trembling to our knees.  When King Uzziah died, Isaiah experienced the presence of God and a glimpse of His character at the same time.  His response to both was to fear the Lord.  He saw the Lord sitting on a throne, surrounded by angelic beings.  The temple was filled with smoke, the doors trembled on their hinges, the seraphim covered their faces with their wings and cried to one another, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory" (Isaiah 6.3).  The entire scene radiates the holiness of God.  As a result, Isaiah feared for his life.  He fell on his face and cried out, "Woe is me, for I am ruined!  Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts" (Isaiah 6.5).

You see, God is a God of holiness, a God of majesty.  A God of transcendent glory.  Our God is an awesome God.  Perhaps the greatest title of honor we can place upon the Lord, however, is that of holiness.  God is a God of love, no doubt.  The Bible says so.  He is a God of light and of wrath.  But holiness reflects the majesty of His very name.  Holiness reflects the venerableness of His name.  The beauty of the Lord glows through His holiness.  Over three hundred years ago, Stephen Charnock said of all the attributes applied to the name of God, holy is the most frequently used.  The holiness of God, he adds,  is "the glory of every perfection in the Godhead; as His power is the strength of them, so His holiness is the beauty of them; as all would be weak without almightiness to back them, so all would be uncomely without holiness to adorn them...."  According to Charnock, God's purity is the splendor of every attribute in the Godhead.  The majesty of God stands for His purity, His truth, His holiness, His justice, and every expression that indicates the moral supremacy of the Lord.  And it is the moral purity, the holiness of God that moves us to fear Him.  And Solomon said this is the very essence of our being ---to fear the Lord; it is "the whole of man."