On Relationships

"Consequently many more believed on account of what [Jesus] said, and they began to say to the woman: “We do not believe any longer on account of your talk; for we have heard for ourselves and we know that this man is for a certainty the savior of the world.” - John 4:41, 42

I realized last night that I'm kind of getting to that point in my relationship with Jesus.

When I originally put faith in Jesus it was faith by proxy. I believed in the things I heard about Jesus through what the Bible said about him. My faith was first in the Bible and through it I had faith in Jesus. While this vicariously introduced me to the persona of Christ and it didn't allow me to know him directly.

It has only been by experiencing him personally that I have been able to grow my faith in him and start to get to really get to know him.

I believe the difference can be illustrated by two translation approaches to John 17:3

"This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ." - NWT

"And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" - NRSV

These two approaches to the text may seem interchangable on a surface level but look closer and the difference is evident. You can take in knowledge about a person all your life and still never really know them. "Taking in knowledge" is done indirectly; whereas, knowing a person comes from a direct relationship.

At this point in my life I hate to continue to harp on my past experience within the Watchtower organization. I only do so now because it provides a convenient reference point - maybe in the same way Paul discusses his pre-Christian past in his letter to the Phillipians. (3:5,6)

I used to pride myself that my religion and "faith" was based on knowlege and grounded in systematic study. I considered other religious experiences hollow ecstatic, emotional affairs. I remember a time when as a teen I brought a school-mate to my congregation for our annual observance of the memorial of Christ's sacrifice. For a Christian, commemorating the passion of our Lord should be a hugely compelling and moving event. At the Kingdom Hall it traditionally had all the affectivity of a lecture on home economics. After the meeting ended I asked my guest how he enjoyed the memorial. He said it wasn't like other churches and commented that the service reminded him of school. What shames me now brought me great satisfaction back then. I thought, "Wow! We are not like other churches - we are like school! Awesome!"

But a faith that is all head and no heart is anemic and powerless; because, in the hierarchy that Paul sets out in 1 Corinthians "heart" trumps all. As he writes, "If I have the gift of prophesying and am acquainted with all the sacred secrets and all knowledge, and if I have all the faith so as to transplant mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ... there remain faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love." - 1 Cor 13:2,13

Love. For me that's what started this process of moving from head knowledge to heart experience. All my life I never knew how to love, really love, and yet I felt like I knew a lot about God. Yet little did I realize that I while I could endlessly recite scriptural factoids regarding God and his ways and his dealings I couldn't even claim to say I knew him. Because as John writes, "He that does not love has not come to know God, because God is love." (1 John 4:8) Furthermore it is through love that we can even begin to know the invisible God, "At no time has anyone beheld God. If we continue loving one another, God remains in us and his love is made perfect in us. ... God is love, and he that remains in love remains in union with God and God remains in union with him." - 1 John 4:12,16

Being in union with Jesus and in turn his Father is such a powerful thing and it works like a marraige in that you continue to grow into it. Along these lines Paul writes about the relationship between Christ and his Church saying, "For this reason a man will leave [his] father and [his] mother and he will stick to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This sacred secret is great. Now I am speaking with respect to Christ and the congregation." - Ephesians 5:31,32

In thinking about this marraige relationship we return to the earlier contrast between "taking in knowledge" and "knowing" someone. We can illustrate it like this. You may have a favorite actor. You may take in a lot of knowledge about them by reading magazine articles and biographies written on them. You may have seen all their movies. You may have even met them once in person. But can you really say you know them as well as their wife? Certainly not.

Again we look at it like a marraige. When you first get married it is something that is foreign to your core personality - something that is external to you. You wake up and say, "Wow. I'm married" and there is great joy and excitement that comes from that. Yet as the days, weeks, months, and years pass by, "married" moves internal and it becomes who you are. You less indentify with yourself - as you merge into this new unit - the "one flesh" with your spouse. The excitement transitions to a lovely comfort and you find that you know your husband so well that you can finish his sentences. You know what pleases him and you know what pains him.

Oh, to have that kind of relationship with the Lord! To know him so well that we could we could have his thoughts! Indeed this is entirely possible for Paul assures us, "we do have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:16) And imagine not having to constantly search the scriptures for direction in our daily affairs! We can know what is pleasing and displeasing to our Lord and follow. Hebrews 8:10 calls attention to this where it quotes Jeremiah, ‘I will put my laws in their mind, and in their hearts I shall write them.'

Lately I've been reading some information by scholars who attempt to get to know the "historical" Jesus - which seems to mean any Jesus other than the Jesus that is presented by the Scriptures. In this quest each historian seems to find the Jesus that supports their personal feelings or thesis, be it, Jesus the peasant, Jesus the rabbi, Jesus the magician, Jesus the Essene, Jesus the homosexual philospher, or Jesus the Egyptian mystic. It seems there are no shortages of different Jesus' you can conjure out of pulling select passages of Scripture, ignoring others, mixing in worldly wisdom and inserting a dubious dose of fraudulent texts.

To the contrary Peter writes, "No, it was not by following artfully contrived false stories that we acquainted you with the power and presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, but it was by having become eyewitnesses of his magnificence" (2 Peter 1:16) By their approach, these so-called "Jesus Questors" will never know Jesus. Rather those of us who are "eyewitnesses of his magnificence", who have seen and experienced him will be blessed to know the man. But, even those of us who shun "empty speeches" and stick to the recorded Gospels are at risk of missing out on Jesus.

The Gospels are a blessed gift from Heaven and have served us well for these hundreds of years. They are a wonderful way to introduce us to Jesus and cause us to put faith in him. As John writes regarding the purpose of his gospel account, "To be sure, Jesus performed many other signs also before the disciples, which are not written down in this scroll. But these have been written down that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, and that, because of believing, you may have life by means of his name." (John 20:30,31) With personal relationships we are first introduced to someone and then the relationship grows from there. Like with a marraige the day you met your husband will always be special and hold a dear place in your heart but that is just the start of lifetime relationship. It the same way with Jesus. We are introduced to Jesus through the Gospels and put faith in him. From there we can begin to develop a first-hand relationship with Christ. However just reading the Gospels is like being introduced to someone but not progressing any further in personally knowing them.

What is interesting is that if you look at Paul's letters to the Christian Congregation, unlike the Gospels you find that he speaks very little about Jesus' teachings and even less about his miracles. The gospel he preached was mainly focused on Jesus' dying for our sins and being raised from the dead.

"For I decied to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified" - 1 Cor 2:2

"For I handed on to you, among the first things, that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, yes, that he has been raised up the third day according to the Scriptures;" - 1 Corinthians 15:3,4

What strikes me about Paul's letters is you don't really see him looking back at Jesus' life as some dead historical figure fading from glory into antiquity. Rather Paul is seized with the present-day reality of Jesus raised from the dead and exalted at the right hand above all majesty! He writes to those in Ephesus, "God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church,which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all." - Ephesians 1:20-23

Paul's letters existed in the present in the first century and likewise they still speak to us in the present in the twenty-first just as, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." (Hebrews 13:8) Through his epistles, Paul is telling us, the Christian Congregation, what it means to be living in the reality of Jesus Christ. They speak about knowing and experiencing Jesus through first-hand unity with him rather than just learning about him from secondary sources.

"I am impaled along with Christ. It is no longer I that live, but it is Christ that is living in union with me. Indeed, the life that I now live in flesh I live by the faith that is toward the Son of God, who loved me and handed himself over for me." - Galatians 2:20

Consequently if anyone is in union with Christ, he is a new creation; the old things passed away, look! new things have come into existence. - 2 Cor 5:17

Yet the question remains, how can we develop a personal relationship with someone who left this earth nearly two-thousand years ago? Jesus assured us before he went back to the Father, "I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper, to be with you forever." (John 14:15) In saying that the Father would give another helper Jesus is indicating that the Father had already sent one previous. This first helper was none-other then Jesus himself. What about the second helper?

Jesus indentifies the second helper as the Holy Spirit saying, "But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you." The Holy Spirit then comes in the absence of being with Jesus "face-to-face".

At John 6:40 Jesus says, This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day." But how is that we today can "see the Son" who went back to the Father so long ago? It is through revelatory Spirit of Jesus that opens the eyes of our heart toward him toward him. (Ephesians 1:17,18) The Spirit is still with us today, even as it will be with us forever. (John 14:15) It is through this Spirit that we know that we are in unity with Jesus as John writes, "By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his spirit." (1 John 4:15) And it is through seeing and experiencing Jesus by the indwelling of spirit that we are assured of our ressurrection to eventually be with him face-to-face, forever. Accordingly Paul writes,

"However, you are in harmony, not with the flesh, but with the spirit, if God’s spirit truly dwells in you. But if anyone does not have Christ’s spirit, this one does not belong to him. But if Christ is in union with you, the body indeed is dead on account of sin, but the spirit is life on account of righteousness. If, now, the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also make your mortal bodies alive through his spirit that resides in you." - Romans 8:9-11

The gift given to those who develop a relationship with Jesus through his spirit in this world is to be able to see him as he is and be with him in the world that is to come. The apostle John writes, "When [Jesus] is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is." (1 John 3:2) Jesus gives his word of truth promising, "I will come again and will take you to myself so that where I am, there you may be also." - John 14:3

Like with every marraige our relationship only will get deeper as the years pass by. We can be assured that our relationship will continue to grow with he who loved us on through eternity. This then is our hope, sure and steadfast like an anchor for the soul. (Hebrews 6:19) Today we press upward and onward to the goal of knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection as Paul says, "I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own ... I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:10,12,14) We press on putting faith in Jesus not on the account of the saints before us who believed and wrote about him, but because we are ourselves have come to know him through his spirit that dwells in all fullness within us as he is being formed in us. (Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 4:13; Galatians 4:19)

You Can Leave Your Past Life Quicker Than It Will Leave You

I awoke this morning and looked at my e-mail. Amazon had sent me a little sales note proclaiming

"Save 34% on "Clerks II (Two-Disc Widescreen Edition)"

Amazon informs me because I purchased the original Clerks on DVD than surely I might like to indulge in the sequel. I guess there's some truth to that. There was a time I would've leapt at their discount offer.

I used to love Kevin Smith movies - but that was the old me. The old me used to revel in vulgarity. The old me used to be quite the sharp wit and when it came to tossing out a well-timed, off-coloured quip I was deadly. But in the beginning of my walk with God I really put forth an effort to leave that behind and so I had say adieu to Mr. Smith and his penchant for blue humour and four letter words.

In truth I still have the tendency toward this - though reduced considerably. Sometimes profane words still come into my mind (but thankfully not as often). Sometimes profane words come out of my mouth (but just when I bash my head into something). Sometimes I think of a really funny joke that I know would just kill but I have to bite my tongue. And sometimes a part of me looks at the advert for Borat and thinks briefly about going to see it. But I'm getting better day by day, year by year with a little help from above.

You can leave your past life quicker than it will leave you.

I look at my Amazon "Clerks II" e-mail and wonder if it is a temptation by the Devil.

You laugh and call my a religious nut-case.

I tell you this story:

I'm not going to go to the sordid details but I used to have a major addiction to pornography. It was a serious addiction that lasted for over ten years and I couldn't stop. But a couple of years back when I started having a relationship with my heavenly Father things changed. One day I just committed myself to leaving it behind and my Father blessed me with his spirit and there was no turning back. The addiction melted away - I mean vanished - overnight. I still had the occasional desire come into my mind but it wasn't overpowering. I just prayed for the holy spirit and I was able to push it way. I've learned many important lessons while growing in the Christ but one of the first was the truth to what is written at Galatians 5:16 -"Keep walking by spirit and you will carry out no fleshly desire at all."

When I was a couple months into my new porn-free, spirit-filled life UPS delivered a big, unmarked box to my front door. Do you know how exciting it is to get a package you didn't order! You think, "Wow! A Present! From who?" I quickly opened to box to find that it was full of pornographic magazines, books, and videos. I checked the address label and it was supposed to have been delivered to the next street over. I turned my head, closed the box and then took it over to the house it was supposed to have gone to.

You think that the Devil does not try to tempt us? I'm sorry but I'm a believer.

Now I'm really wondering why I just shared that little embarrasing story. I guess by being candid and sharing my struggles and victories I might be able to encourage others? Or is it to appease Rebekah who has been lamenting that I don't ever update my blog anymore?

I still do quite a bit of writing for my blog but I seldom publish my entries to the Web. It seems like I can never complete a Blog entry and I have so many entries in draft form that are like five pages long and still not complete. I think I'm unintentionally writing a book or something.

Rebekah asked me what the book was about.

"Sonship ... I think"

"Sun Chips?", she asked.

Sonship - it seems like all these half-written Blog entries are leading toward this idea of what it means to be God's children. This idea about being children of God seems rather ho-hum. Most people just take it as a given that we are all God's children without understanding exactly what this implies. But as I read and research and learn more about it I'm just awestruck. I'm floored by it. So I continue to plug away on the writing - trying to somehow take all these glorious, heavenly concepts it put them in writing. My Father is spoon feeding me though so it is going slow. There are some ideas that I feel he is leading me to but he hasn't quite revealed to me yet. Like I know there is something there that I can't quite get my mind around. I think sometimes he just drips little bits so that our head doesn't explode or something. "I have many things yet to say to you, but you are not able to bear them at present." - John 16:12

I guess I will conclude this with some sad news. It does seem like the elders of my old congregation have turned their attention toward my wife for some reason. They had already abused my family quite a bit when they persecuted and expelled me and now they are attacking Rebekah. Perhaps they feel like their job is unfinished?

You can leave your past life quicker than it will leave you.

I'm sad not so much for my family because I know this persecution is only to fulfill Jesus' words, "A slave is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you also" (John 15:20) Rather, I'm sad for our persecutors because their actions reveal that they do not know or love the Father. "But they will do all these things against you on account of my name, because they do not know him that sent me." (John 15:21) That is a sad thing.

Additionally, after they were done excoummunicating me I kind of wanted to hold onto the hope that perhaps they felt some regret over what they had done and would leave Rebekah alone. I honestly prayed for their forgiveness and will continue to do so but it is difficult when they want to compound their judgment by repeating their sin. I wish they knew just how strongly God feels about what they are doing. Jeremiah speaks God's Word against the shepherds,

“Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasturage!” is the utterance of Jehovah.
Therefore this is what Jehovah the God of Israel has said against the shepherds who are shepherding my people: “You yourselves have scattered my sheep; and you kept dispersing them, and you have not turned your attention to them.”
“Here I am turning my attention upon you for the badness of your dealings,” is the utterance of Jehovah." - Jeremiah 23:1,2

Wood River Body of Elders I'm going to use this opportunity then to speak directly to you since I know you continue to keep tabs on me by reading this blog. I ask you to stop and think about what you did to me and what you are doing now to Rebekah. Do not intesify your error and your guilt. You are being judged by Heaven. My family is not a threat to you or your congregation. We just want to be left alone. You have abused, hurt, betrayed, and lied to us enough. Now let us heal in peace. Nevertheless, I ask in Jesus' name that your sin against us and Heaven not be charged against you.