Shut Down the Rambling... Jesus is All in All

8/16/2013

In the Real world I think most of the issues of death to self have a series of components and sequences. Meaning, very seldom do you just come face to face with a gun pointed to your forehead where someone says, “Deny Jesus or die.” I mean that’s just “punctiliour” issue, it’s a moment in time. Almost everything is—Can you keep your mouth shut when you’re feeling a certain thing? Can you graciously accept something that is difficult and painful and feels rewardless? Can you keep your mind from wandering off a certain direction when in pain? Very seldom is it just, “Deny Jesus or die.” It’s about ten other things that are almost more painful, perhaps, require choices that are full of anguish and fear and self-doubt and a thousand other little emotions that just send us into whirlwinds. That’s the Real stuff.

Not the, “Deny Jesus or be burned in oil.” That’s easy, I think, by comparison because it’s “pass/fail.” Whereas everything else we think it’s an essay. Right? We should get full credit for doing half the work. But pass/fail with a gun to the head, you either decide for or against and that’s it, right? But we’ve always got some other way out with everything else. Some reason, some justification, some, “yeah, but,” some way we can escape the pain by comforting ourselves or escape the pain by lashing out or escape the pain by sabotaging somebody else or something else for our own benefit. There’s a thousand ways we can set up a series of events where we do damage and harm to ourselves and to God’s purposes and to other people’s lives because we’re sloppy. Because we don’t deal with the thoughts until after they’ve come out of our mouth or some other sequence of things that are not nearly so pass/fail. We can justify all the reasons for our essay question and why we did it the way we did it and make ourselves feel better about it regardless of the consequences to others, to God.

But the Real thing, from God’s vantage point, that death to self is putting the screws, clamping down on the stray thoughts and the feelings and the emotions and the stuff that’s all about self, and resentment and selfishness and fear. All the junk that goes on in all of our minds. And we have to be willing to lay that stuff at Jesus’ feet. And that’s where the gold is. That’s where the treasure is at. It’s not just this pass/fail, life/death thing. But it’s the willingness to say, “I feel this thing that is so suffocating, so painful, so anguishing, and I’m going to lay that at Jesus’ feet and look at the greater good. Not the stuff that has to do with me. But I’m looking at the greater good and lay that at God’s feet.”

Isaac served no specific purpose to Abraham’s life, to kill him. But looking at the greater good of honoring God, pure and simple. Period. End of story. Regardless of anything else, just honoring God. Shut up. Close down all the loopholes and the excuses and all the ramblings of the mind and the emotions and the fears and all that stuff. Just shut it down because God is God. That’s it. And in that realm where Jesus is All in All, then God can do miracles. His business, not ours. Any other realm that includes all of us or any of us, any portion of any one of us, it’s tainted by flesh, and God is greatly diminished. “He could do no miracles here because of their so little faith.”

He could do no miracles because of their so little faith. Because they had to hold on, they had to have their own rights, they had to have their own needs met, they had to be somehow justified, vindicated or included or appreciated. They needed something for their ego, something for their flesh and comfort, something for their future, little bit of rainy day capital to protect them from the fear of the great unknown. Because we wanted to add some flesh to Jesus being All in All, He could do no miracles there. And we become a people of common life instead of a people of supernatural life that throws mountains into the sea.

But there is no shortcut to this. Not in your life, Levi. Not in yours, Mike. Not in yours, Justin. There’s not shortcut to any of this. It’s the Real thing all the way to the core, to the bone, no take-backs, no plan B. Or it’s just a common man’s life and a little bit of religion. But it ain’t no fun. It’s God, so it’s rewarding. But if death were fun, it would have no value. Right? So, yeah, of course it’s going to hurt.