Rules Can’t Rule, but Love Does

It has been quite a while since I posted on this blog. Not because there has been nothing to say, but because all I wanted to say was angry and hurtful and about how people ought to keep the rules of the Kingdom. In other words I was merely wanting to be heard without being accountable for what I would say. Somehow during that season I managed to completely avoid being on here, God has been using this season of silence to remind me the He rules the Kingdom not the rules of men.

I have always tried to walk some imaginary line between the legalities of the faith and the grace of God which seems to have no end. What is funny is that more and more I have been wanting others to follow the rules while I was hoping for grace. The selfishness of such a position escaped me for such a long time. It is becoming clearer how deceptive self can be when self is being served  and self sure wants everyone to keep the rules that self values most. So the clarity that has been coming into my life is that God is God and He can do whatever He wants. And since that is far better than anything I can devise or implement, self and its love of rules is of no use.

“For I know that God is great and that our God is above all gods. Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, in the heaven and in the earth, in the seas and in all the deeps.” (Psalm 135:5 – 6)

Everything God does is pleasing to Him. But His love is so perfect and limitless that what pleases Him benefits us. Yes, He instructs and commands us in how to live and what our lives represent; but when we walk in obedience it is our response to His love and our expression of love back to Him. This does not guarantee easy circumstance or that He will explain Himself to us. That is the perk of being God. However, this one thing we can be confident in – He loves us and that love will rule us and guide us far better than rules of conduct created by men to control men. I never kept the rules in school because of some deep love for the principal, I just didn’t what my rear end to have a meeting with the paddle. As I see the love of God towards me, even in my selfish and arrogant posturing I simply want to please Him and walk in the flow of love that he has promised. Being ruled by love is the lifestyle of those who live in the Kingdom and know that they are known by their King.

“If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and my father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with Him.” (John 14:23)

When that flow of love is our reality, we will not declare to others a set of rules that they must live by. Instead we will make known His goodness and kindness through the lives we live. I want to live in love not rules. And I am not there yet, but He will take me. I know for a fact he will take any who have wearied themselves in the service of self and it rules, give them rest and show them the rule of love.

The Next Christians – a Helpful Book

Gabe Lyons is doing what he calls others to do and that is refreshing. He is living his life as a redemptive reality in a culutral season that is desperate for redemption. This is not a “how to” manual as much as it provokes the reader to think “I can too.” What a breath of fresh air in a room filled with the stale wind of so many saying the same things.

Seldom would anyone say a single chapter of a book is worth buying the whole book but in the case of The Next Christians, it may well be true. Chapter Ten, “Countercultural,**Not ‘Relevant’* may state some of the sagest wisdom any contemporary author has had the courage to state. *”The next Christians are living in the tension of being prophetic with their lives while serving others and inviting then to a better way.”* In much of the present literature that is designed to “help” christians do a better job being christian, there is some kind of copy and paste pattern to follow. Lyons is giving something different to his readers. Live in a real relationship with God, live in real relationships with people and trust the Holy Spirit to flow with life into all things we are part of.

This is a timely and important work and could prove to one of the most prophetic works for the believers that are coming into their purpose and time.

Abide Friends…. Abide.

“Staying connected to the Lord is hard to do.” – The shared thought of so many.

I want to begin by asking you to ponder a question; Does the branch depend on the vine for life or does the vine depend on the branch for life?

Now before you tell me what a stupid question this is, consider the words of Christ from John 15:4, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.”(ESV) Maybe we have switched the roles of branches in vines. Maybe in our self-serving, self-interested, self glorifying approach to everything including faith we have begun to believe that the vine is the product of the branch. Now you don’t have to take my word for it, ask your friendly neighborhood horticulturist to confirm the next sentence. The existence of the vine always precedes the existence of its branches.

The existence, growth, flow of life, and fruit bearing of any branch is absolutely dependent upon the vine. And for a branch to receive anything the vine must provide it. So when Jesus invites/instructs us to abide it is an invitation to absolute dependence. It is an act of humility and submission to abide. it is the declaration, “I am insufficient apart from Christ to live and bear fruit.”, not in words but in action. And that is where the difficulty is most often centered. to declare this complete dependency on Christ is to bring a death-blow to both our pride and the value of other people’s opinions. But there is no life flowing into us from pride or other people’s opinions, only more and more dryness.

So my friends, I say abide in the Vine and he will abide in you. And in the abiding you will receive from Him all that you need. You will know the flow of life into you that simply gives you the necessary nourishment for growth and in due season, bearing fruit. The fruit you bear will be that which brings glory and honor to the Vine, so that the Vines goodness will be seen in the fruit of its branches. And all the branches do… abide. 

“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in Him, he is it that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5(ESV)

Abide my friends… Abide.