Overflow

Romans 15:13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Eli and Luke are five and three respectively, and they are sweet kids even though their sin nature is clearly evident. One of their favorite things to do is to take a bubble bath in their mom’s garden tub in our bathroom. It’s bigger than their tub is so more bubbles, power rangers, and now avengers can fit into their agenda of supposed cleaning. It’s amazing how easy it is to get them to bathe when the tub is the option, as fun looms large. It usually doesn’t end up so well for them though. Despite warnings and discipline, water tends to overflow onto our floor on a consistent basis. A five alarm clean-up of a soaked floor before the hardwoods nearby get drenched and ruined, is not exactly what we as parents are looking for at the end of a long day, but the boys are definitely worth it (every once in a while). I love Paul’s description of the work of Christ in our hearts above in Romans 15:13. He uses the word overflow to describe how Christians will affect the Church and the World. Just as the volume of our bathtub must reach a capacity before it overflows and spills onto the floor, so it is in the Christian life. Paul desires that the Church in Rome experience Christ is such a way that they will be filled with Hope, Joy and Peace to the extent that they simply overflow with these God given gifts that change Christians and non-Christians alike. Now we have got to back up for a moment and realize this statement is at the end of an ultra challenging letter unless we think we can just say “oh yeah, I got this precept” and move on. The hope, joy and love are a product of a deep walk in Christ for the Church, which includes trials and persecution. Paul has made it clear through deep doctrinal clarity that we are saved and sanctified through faith alone through Christ alone and our works of the flesh desire to derail God’s work. He dives deep into the paradox of faith where in back to back verses he describes believers as “sheep to be slaughtered” and then turns around and says “we are more than conquerors”) 8:36-37. Romans 7 is a detailed look at the post salvation fight for sanctification against the lingering remnant of sin in the life of a believer and it is a raging war. Romans 9 can frustrate your mind and flesh like few chapters in the bible until you give into the fact that God is God and he does what he wants. And just about when you are about to be paralyzed with immobility by the deep doctrine of election in chapter 9, Romans 10 paints a picture of beautiful feet that go and preach the Gospel and people are saved by hearing the Gospel from other people. Romans 11 keeps the Church humble and thankful as Paul reminds them that they are grafted into God’s work of the remnant of Israel. Then the faith hurdles seem to get even harder to jump over as Paul tells us to submit to all authorities (as long as they don’t directly violate your faith) and even pay taxes to Governments like Rome who used their authority to execute Christ and later Paul himself. Paul forges on and reminds the Church that though they have freedom they shouldn’t use that freedom to eat, drink and do things if it hurts someone else’s faith. Anyone’s brain hurting yet? The hope, joy and peace are only a mirage in the desert of your mind unless you truly have a deep, abiding life in Christ that has been engrained into your soul as you faithfully endure the trials of this world. Without Christ recreating himself in us, none of the things Paul lays out will make any sense. So while understanding the analogy of an overflow may be easy and clean the actuality of it happening requires war, sacrifice and the blood of Christ. So imagine yourself as the tub. Are you truly saturated in Christ? Are you overflowing with living water and the fruit of the spirit? Do people meet the God of the universe as they bump into you in life? When you overflow into the world, and you will, what actually comes out? Christ or flesh? When someone around you is hurting what do you offer him or her? An invitation to church? A good book on the subject? Or does the fountain of living water simply and supernaturally flow from God’s throne through you and overflow onto others? In this world peace, hope and joy of the divine and lasting variety only descend form on high. Let us pray that God will grow us by whatever means necessary so that the fount of many blessings flows in and through us!

Worms and Hammers

Isaiah 41:14-15 Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel! I am the one who helps you, declares the LORD; your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. Behold, I make of you a threshing sledge, new, sharp, and having teeth; you shall thresh the mountains and crush them,and you shall make the hills like chaff; I laced up my new Asics for an early morning jog and headed outside to the tune of early morning sprinklers and songbirds. Walking along the sidewalk, something glistened and caught my eye. I glanced down and saw two of the biggest Night crawlers I have ever seen in my life. These 6-inch worms were as black as the Alabama soil they lived in and were trying to head back underground before they fell victim to the rising sun or the birds singing above. I stood over them for a minute, watching them kind of wiggle around aimlessly on the concrete sidewalk. They didn’t look like they had a plan and were as exposed as a three legged wilderbeast in a lion’s den. I don’t know why, but I decided to help them back in the ground. Not with my hands of course! Way too much slime and grime involved in that. Using my new kicks, I gently guided them back to the wet ground and they quickly disappeared into the dark, wet dirt. As I started to run, I remembered the verses above from Isaiah 41. God actually calls Jacob, the men of Israel, worms. He is trying to get them to see that they are helpless and exposed without His sovereign hand and strength. Just like the night crawlers on my street, slowly dehydrating and aimlessly squiggling around, the Israelites had wandered from God and were outside of His purpose and love. They thought they had strength and they thought they had wisdom and righteousness, but they didn’t. Through the mouth of Isaiah he is calling them back with love. God makes it clear that He is the power source of Holy Glory that shapes and changes humans so that they can change the world. Can God transform men and women from worm to a threshing sledge that can destroy mountains? That is exactly what He says. Quite a change I’d say. From vulnerable slimy worm to a sharp-tooth threshing sledge that is crushing mountains. That is the power of God’s transforming Spirit working in people. Could God be saying the same thing to us? Would he look at us in our well educated sophistication and think of us as Worms as we wander off from Him? It is not fun to consider ourselves worms is it? Lets stop and do it for just a minute though. Stop and look at your impact on the World. Is God changing it as He works through you, or do you scurry off in safety-seeking flight when times get tough? Ready to climb back in the worm hole yet? Aren’t we supposed to be refined, brilliant and equipped? Simple answer- only in Jesus. The boldness of a threshing hammer, or a world changer, is only given as a gift from God. We can’t foolishly think we can muster up this type of strength on our own. It is a divine gift. This side of the Cross, it is clearer to us than even to Isaiah that gift is wrapped in the blood and flesh of Jesus Christ. Have the fingers of your soul unwrapped the beauty of Christ? Has your soul been so deeply satisfied in Him that you are able to face the World in His bold strength? If so then look out mountains!