Stepping into the Beautiful

Published on by dpatrickcollins1 Comment

Forget not all [The Lord’s] benefits—
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

Psalms 103:2-5 (NIV)

One of the themes that has characterized my life with Jesus is freedom. I do not mean I have insisted on it. I mean that the Holy Spirit has insisted on it when I am least likely to grant myself freedom, when I am content to live a life of routine (or not so routine) religious devotion. In those moments and at various times throughout my walk with him (as I shared in my last post) God has interrupted my routine and insisted the freedom he has given me is far greater than my God-fearing mindset has imagined.

Freedom is a tricky word. We fear it at believers because we think it means freedom to do whatever we want, and doing whatever we want is what got us into this mess in the first place. But properly understood, freedom means living in the fullness of the new life Jesus has made possible, and that includes, most importantly, freedom from sin. The message of the Cross is that we are not free without the freedom he makes possible, no matter what choices we make. That is, the thing that prevents us from being truly free is not on the outside but on the inside. This is why doing whatever we want only ends in misery. It is why casting off all so-called “social constructs” to do whatever we want only results in a worse state, for us personally and for society. We think it is others that prevent us from being “who we truly are,” when in fact it is ourselves. For it is only by God showing us who we truly are, based on how he created us and intended for us to be, that we can be truly free.

When God shows us this, we are empowered to step into the beautiful. Think about freedom for a moment. When people fight for it, against whatever tyranny they imagine, it is not for the purpose of simply doing whatever they want. Even criminals could fight for that, and no one would think that a worthy cause. Rather, freedom is considered a worthy cause because it holds the promise of allowing us, as human beings, to step into the fullness of who we truly are. And there is beauty in that. The idea we can live in a way we were created speaks more of just choice: it speaks of being aligned with the created order. And being aligned with the created order speaks of beauty. It is a glimpse into a world where things are as they should be, the ideal in a world under the tyranny of all that is not.

To step into the freedom only Jesus can give is to step into the beautiful. Far more than religious duty, it is finding ourselves becoming all we should be, and also finding ourselves in a life that is increasingly as it should be: forgiven, healed, redeemed from the pit, crowned with love and compassion, and satisfied with the things our hearts truly long for, that our youth may be renewed like the eagle’s.

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The Selfish Revivalist

Published on by dpatrickcollins2 Comments

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

John 10:10 (NIV)

About five years ago, I was on lunch break about to cross the street to pick up some food when I had a life-changing moment with the Holy Spirit. He said to me, “You have spent your whole life trying to show me how much you love me. But what if I spend the rest of your life showing you how much I love you?” Given my unsuccessful efforts to demonstrate to God how much I loved him for most of my life, I said yes. And in that moment, a selfish revivalist was born.

I say “selfish revivalist” because my goal from that moment onward was, well, giving Jesus every opportunity to make good on his offer. I abandoned my efforts to be a good Christian and please him. Instead, my object in life became giving him every opportunity to please me. Or, I should say, bless me. My goal was to pursue a life of abundant blessing. I reoriented my life around one objective: the blessed life.

All of this sounds so selfish, especially coming from my traditionally religious background. I had been taught the purpose of the religious life was to serve God, to live a life of such great sacrifice that he takes notice of us and rewards us, either now or in the life to come. But the well-kept secret of the Christian life is that, first of all, we really cannot please God in this way, at least not by our service. If we set out with the objective to please God by our service, we will fail.1 This is what the apostle Paul is telling us more than anything in the seventh chapter of Romans. Sowing to the flesh is not merely sinning; it is also striving to please God by our actions. Such efforts will end in a life where we are constantly striving and never managing to measure up to an impossible standard.

Secondly, God has chosen to please us.2 It took me a long time to realize the Cross was not an IOU placed upon my life but rather the most extravagant expression of God’s willingness to bless me freely. We can know this for sure because we did not deserve any of it. If God wanted us to demonstrate how much we love him, he could have done nothing and given us the chance to do so. Instead, he chose to go to the Cross and die for us while we were yet sinners.

And having died for us, God has chosen to shower us with blessings.3 It is his way of demonstrating love, and also his way of empowering us to do the very things that please him. Because we cannot do what God requires on our own. It is not a matter of trying harder. It is a matter of being dead in our old nature, and needing to be raised to life with him. It is a matter of God’s Spirit doing in us what the flesh could never do. In other words, for us to live as God has created us and called us to live, he must bless us.

Besides, it is impossible to pursue a life of being blessed by God and remaining selfish for long. Granted, if I think being blessed is asking for things that I might spend them on my sinful desires,4 then that would be selfish. But God does not answer such prayers. Instead, he brings us into a life of true blessing, one where our sinful desires are purified and true life is made manifest. He heals us, restores us, and empowers us. We have peace to overcome every storm. We experience his unfathomable love and encounter his beauty. He satisfies our every desire not with sinful things, but with good things, that our youth may be renewed.5 As he does, all we do for him flows not from a place of religious compulsion and fear of never doing enough, but from a place of genuine gratitude and passion, overflowing with the love and power God gives.

This day, do not shrink back from his willingness to bless you because you think you are being selfish. Such selfishness is likely the very way God has ordained that you step into all he has for you, for your sake and for the sake of the world around you.

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  1. Romans 7:14-20 ↩︎
  2. Ephesians 1:3-7 ↩︎
  3. Romans 8:3-4 ↩︎
  4. James 4:3 ↩︎
  5. Psalm 103:5 ↩︎

The Shock of Answered Prayer

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Then Elisha said, “Hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the LORD: Tomorrow about this time a seah of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.’ ”

2 Kings 7:1 (NKJV)

I have recently experienced an answer to prayer so spectacular in its precision and breadth it has left me a bit shocked. And by shocked I mean not quite able to take it the fullness of what has just happened. It reminds me of a moment about fifteen years ago when, after seven years of intractable financial difficulties and with no financial prospects, my situation suddenly and miraculously changed, and remained changed despite all odds, even through the worst economic recession in recent history.

Or the time my late wife and I somehow managed to purchase a condo in the impossible housing market in San Clemente with horrible credit and at a time investors were crowding out all homeowners with cash offers thousands of dollars above asking price.

Or the time I called out to God to show me his supernatural power based on hunger alone, having no experience with his supernatural power and not even knowing if that were possible, and I suddenly found myself in the midst of one of the more significant revivals in modern history, overcome by the miraculous power of God.

The opening passage of scripture above represents such a moment. Samaria had been under siege and in the midst of a famine, presumably for a long time. Because when the prophet Elisha prophesied its end, one of the king’s officers could not believe it. It was way beyond possible in his mind. Siege and famine were the permanent reality and could not be changed, not even by God.

But God is able to do what no man or woman can do. He is not limited by space or time because he is the author of both. He is capable of sovereignly orchestrating an answer to your prayer well in advance of you asking, for he knows the end from the beginning, even he who is writing it. And his dramatic answers to prayer are a reminder to us all. Whatever hopeless situation you think is permanent and unchangeable in your life is an illusion. It is an opportunity for God to show up in a dramatic way, if we but dare to step into it with childlike faith.

I will be honest with you: such a decision on our part requires great courage, especially if you have ever experienced disappointment in the past. But when we choose hope, we are aligning ourselves with the true nature of things, for God is the God of hope, with whom all things are possible. This is true whether God’s answer to your prayer is sudden or delayed. And our patient expectation of the good in a world otherwise devoid of hope is who we really are.

Besides, we will be filled with hope and faith in God’s ability to do impossible things for all eternity. Why not start now?

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Does God Only Heal Sovereignly?

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News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them.

Matthew 4:24 (NIV)

Is God’s decision to heal based entirely on his sovereignty? And what do we mean when we say this, as some people do?

I believe what we mean is that there is no rhyme or reason to whom God chooses to heal. That God is up in heaven arbitrarily deciding to miraculously intervene in some people’s lives and not others. The reason we feel this way is because it confirms our experience. When we see or hear about someone miraculously healed and know of another not healed, it can appear to us this is exactly what God is doing: just being arbitrary.

And such an idea is comforting. A God who confirms our experience, as opposed to one who challenges our experience, means there is nothing we need to change. But if God is different from our experience – say for example, if God’s desire is always to heal all who are “suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed” – then we must ask the hard questions.

But aren’t we here to ask the hard questions? Do we really think life is about asking easy questions, or that God is so like us that hard questions are not necessary? In my opinion, it is better for us to accept and embrace a God whose will is always to heal us and wrestle with that disparity than to embrace a God before whom our suffering is nothing more than a lottery ticket. Especially if this means building for ourselves an image of God who literally wants us to remain not healed – whose highest virtue and calling for us is to suffer. As if God is glorified when we are miserable.

The theological problem I have with the idea God sovereignly heals is that when we say God sovereignly chooses not to heal a person, we are saying nothing at all. The reason is that God’s sovereign will, as opposed to his perfect or desired will, is what ultimately happens in any given situation, whether it is what God wanted to have happen or not. God’s perfect will was for Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; God’s sovereign will is what happened when they did. God’s perfect will is that none should perish; God sovereign will is what happens when some do. God’s perfect will is that all would be healed; God’s sovereign will is what happens when some are not. God’s sovereign will is what God as the novelist of all human history allows to take place, whether it is what he wants to take place or not.

So when we say God sovereignly chose this or that to happen, we are saying nothing more than it happened and acknowledging this means God allowed it. We are saying nothing about whether it is really what God wanted to have happen. It would be simpler for us to say “I do not know why it happened,” or say nothing at all.

I am trying to save us from a world in which some things are not possible for the sake of our personal comfort. Trust me: you are going to be uncomfortable no matter what. It is much better for us to be uncomfortable for the right reasons, namely, by realizing we live in a world in which all things are possible, and we cannot rest till we align ourselves with that reality. It may cost us our personal comfort, but a world in which all things are possible means a world in which the most beautiful things are possible. And is that not worth asking the hard questions?

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Thinking about Heaven

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In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will — to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

Ephesians 1:4-6 (NIV)

It is amazing to think what Jesus has accomplished for us at the Cross: unhindered access to heaven for all eternity. As the above scripture makes clear, he has done so because of his love for us alone. When the Bible says, “In love . . . in accordance with his pleasure and will,” it means he did it for no other reason than he loves us and it made him happy to do it. Jesus went to the Cross and died in our place that we might be with him for all eternity, because it made him happy.

This is what Scripture means when it says, “For the joy set before him, he endured the Cross.”1 The joy was us. It wasn’t the fact he was going back to be with The Father, for this he already had. It wasn’t that the nightmare he was about to endure would be over, for he willingly chose to endure the nightmare. It was because the thing he and The Father desired to achieve would finally be achieved: our salvation. Unhindered access to his goodness. Being with him for all eternity.

Think for a moment what it will be like when you step into eternity. The Word of God says no eye has seen nor has ear heard all that God has prepared for those who love him.2 The apostle Paul describes being caught up to heaven and hearing inexpressible things.3 Revelation speaks of streets of gold so pure it looks transparent, of city walls adorned with precious jewels, and a river as clear as crystal flowing from the throne of heaven bearing fruit and giving healing and life to the nations.4 There will be no more tears or sorrow or sickness and disease, no more poverty or brokenness and sin. And all of this will be ours to experience based on Jesus alone and what he has accomplished for us, for no other reason that he loves us and it was his pleasure to do so.

So I must ask: if this is so, what keeps us from experiencing all of these things now? If the eternal life that awaits us is not dependent on our own merit but his merit alone, and he has done all that is necessary for us to experience these things based on his love and good pleasure alone, what prevents us from stepping into these things now?

I would suggest nothing. I challenge you this day to dare to believe there is no telling what Jesus might do for you in the next moment. After all, he loves you that much.

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  1. Hebrews 12:2 ↩︎
  2. 1 Corinthians 2:9 ↩︎
  3. 2 Corinthians 12:4 ↩︎
  4. Revelations 21 and 22 ↩︎