... as yourself...

The Jesus Blog: Part Two


I'm going to tell you what Christianity is. Ready? Here goes.

"This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another... This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers."

The two biggest, most important commandments and the essence of Christianity are these, straight from Jesus himself.

"One of the teachers of the law came and heard them [Jesus and some people] debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"

"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'There is no commandment greater than these."

So that's pretty much it. That's Christianity:
1) Love God more than anything.
2) Love other people just as much as you love yourself.

Let me tell you something right now, all you intellectual fascist people who say "Religion is the opiate of the people"-- there is nothing particularly soothing about either of those two things. Loving God more than the world, which at present is sort of gross and demoralized anyway, is difficult. God, not so much. It's ridiculous how hard it is to love God sometimes. Especially because I really like loving myself more, most of the time. Which brings us to the second point:
Loving other people as much as, or more than, you love yourself. "Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit," says the apostle Paul in Philippians 2:3, "but in humility count others more significant than yourselves". That's not exactly easy either.

I'm so laid low by the glory of God. I've been learning that it's really not effective to pray for my own comfort. I've noticed that my own comfort just sort of leads me into laziness and discontent anyway, which is God being merciful. My praying is effective when the result of what I'm praying for is God's glory.

There's this story in the OT, in 1 Kings 18 (west of Psalms), about Elijah. There's a aout 200 or so of these priests to the demon Baal. Elijah goes up to where this altar to Baal is, on Mt. Carmel, and builds an altar to God. He then looks at them, who don't believe his God is powerful and says, "Alright, let's see. Pray and let your god light the altar on fire and cook these bulls we're getting ready to sacrifice." So they pray. Nothing happens. They go nuts and start cutting themselves and feverishly praying and jack all is happening. Elijah even gets a bit peaky and sort of says "Maybe you're too far away from him, or you're not loud enough, or maybe he's traveling" (I kid you not, that's totally in there). Nothing happens. So then it's Elijah's turn. He gets a bunch of guys standing around watching this happen to fill up jars of water from a well nearby and douse the altar to the Lord with them. They do it three more times. Then he stands before the altar and prays. The prayer he prays isn't so he'll look good, and isn't so the already failed priests of Baal will look stupider, he prays so that God could reveal his glory to those who did not know Him. "O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. 37 Answer me, O LORD, answer me, so these people will know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again." In about.. a second.. the whole business bursts into flames, all of it. Brick, wood, meat of the calf, everything. The fire is so hot it starts to boil the water around the altar. Everyone watching sort of oos and ahhs and then realizes what this all means and they fall on the ground exclaiming "The Lord-- He is God!"

I had that kind of experience about a month ago. I did some stupid looking things after that, but they made me so sick to my stomach, so grossed out with myself, that it's pretty doubtful I'll go that route again. Every day, recently, I'm newly seeing the burning glory of a really really big God who really really actually cares in a way that is true and meaningful and forever, and every day that means I'm hurling myself on the ground and exclaiming "The Lord-- He is God!"
I'm also saying thank you a lot.

Thank you, Lord, for my mother, who is my best friend, a source of love and laughter and at times unbelievable stress. Thank you for my best friend, Tess, who has changed so drastically because of God's love for her and her return of that love, that she is nearly unrecognizable from the person she was last year. Thank you for the redemption which I received and yet could never possibly deserve.

There's a song I really love by the David Crowder Band called "Wholly Yours". Brian was busting on it the other day b/c David Crowder tends to use a growing and blooming flower metaphor in every song he writes, but in any case. There's this lyric that is actually in my info on my face book. "The surest sign of grace was this/ from wounded hands redemption filled and liberated man". And that's why I am doing what I'm doing.

To my friends who don't believe this, don't have this love, don't share this faith: that's not... like, "okay". Don't get me wrong, I'm still nuts about all of you. But I pray for you, b/c I know what this is that I have, and so many of my friends have is real, and something desirable. I been on the ground before, in my mind and in my heart, with so many questions that don't have answers, and so much rage and indignation about entitlement and the meaning of life. But then I have seen the feet of my Jesus, felt his hand on my head and heard his voice in the very shaking and fuming depths of me say "Aren't I enough?" And because I know what it is that He has done for me, "and not just for [me] but for the whole world, past, present and future", I have answered that question "Yes".

Please understand, I realized how loopy this sounds, and how sentimental. But oh well. It's how it is. Read about it. Talk about it. The Bible has some zany stuff going on, and it will (so says Jesus) sound like foolishness to many. But to be quite honest-- I couldn't care less, if it turns out to be true. I'm not really concerned about what the world of men has to say about it. They're not who I'm accountable to. My deeds in this world, my heart and actions towards all of you wonderful kidds, yes, that I'm accountable for. But mostly-- just loving the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength (HARD!!!!) and loving you all as I love myself.

So this is all pretty disjointed, and frightfully long, but there it is.
I love you and pray that "the peace of God that transcends all understanding will be on your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus" some day.

Mwah.
H.