CHANGING GOD'S MIND

What do you do when you desire the best for others, but there is sin in the camp?  This is an age-old problem that keeps raising its ugly head.  What do we do?  And what do we mean by “the camp”?  Camp can be a metaphor for home, church, summer camp, business place or organization, city or nation.  Camp can mean any collective reality of gathered people with a shared mission and purpose.

A powerful example we find in Moses’ account written in Exodus, chapters 32 and 33.  When Moses finally came down the first time from Mt. Sinai with two stone tablets of the “Testimony” he confronted sin in the camp.  Put yourself in Moses’ sandals.  He’s just had a long, personal meeting alone with God on the mountain.  God gave him explicit directions for the life and wellbeing of the people beyond the Ten Commandments.  His directives included matters of the protection of property, laws of justice and mercy, social responsibility, the building and furnishing of a tabernacle for worship, and so on.  We can imagine Moses’ was excited to share with the people God’s remarkable interest and confirmed covenant with them. 

 Arriving back down the mountain, Moses was slammed by two realities:  Sin in the camp and God’s wrath in response.  In spite of God’s salvation and all his blessings, the people had lost faith in God.  They had replaced him with a lifeless, impotent idol in the form of a golden calf.  They bowed down to it, sacrificed to it, and attributed to it their salvation from Egypt.  God was furious.  He said, “They are a stiff necked people. . .  Whoever sinned against me I will blot out of my book. . . I will punish them for their sin.”  Then God said to Moses, “I will not go with you to the land I promised.”  God withdrew his presence

By this time it looked like God’s patience had run out.  God decided to fulfill his covenant, but also a devostating one, to abandon his relationship with Israel.  After all, his reaction was in response to their sin of abandonment of him.  His relationship to his chosen people would end.  

What would you do if you were Moses?  Moses loved being in the presence of God.  Prior to his encounter, Moses was in the habit of seeking God's presence by taking his tent and pitching it some distance outside of the camp calling it “the tent of meeting.” At these times a pillar of cloud, God’s presence, would form and stay at the door of his tent.  The Lord would speak to Moses face to face.  So, in light of the people’s sin, this is what Moses did once again.  There in the tent he argued with God in prayer and interceded for the people.  He asked for God’s favor and pleaded for God’s continuing presence in the journey ahead, not just for himself, but for all the people.  He said to God, “If your not going with us, we are not going anywhere.” And “If you withdraw your presence from us, what else will distinguish us from all the other people on the face of the earth?”  Moses moved God’s heart and God changed his mind.  God finally responded, “I will do the very thing your have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”

Moses’ relationship with God was deeply intimate.  He pleased God deeply.  He had high favor with God.  In intimacy, he  sought more favor from God on others’ behalf. It was Moses’ faithful, intimacy with God that made him a successful intercessor.  What a lesson for us.  God knows our hearts, but wants to hear from us what is on our hearts.  He gives us time and attention.  He calls us to love him and to love others. And he permits us to intercede on their behalf no matter how crazy, hopeless, and undeserving of forgiveness and mercy their situation may be.

Did Moses change God’s mind?  He seems to have influenced it.  When there was sin in the camp, Moses called it what it was and responded accordingly.  Then he shifted into prayer interceding on behalf of those who occasioned the sin in the camp in the first place.  He was a bold activist with a two-fold response seeking restoration of the people’s relationship with God.   The greatest need today is for deep people of character based on their intimacy with God!

When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai . . .

his face was radiant because he had 

spoken with the Lord.

Exodus 34:29

GOD'S HOLY LOVE: INTIMATE

Recently I’ve written two blogs on God’s holy love guided by two Hebrew words for love found in the Old Testament: hesed meaning steadfast, loving kindness and covenant loyalty you can depend on, and aheb meaning practical love reflecting personal commitment and responsibility.  God’s holy love is both steadfast and dependable yet also practical and responsible.

God’s holy love is of a third kind found in the New Testament we may know best, agape.  God’s agape love is unconditional and self-giving, sacrificial and other-centered.  It is more than friendship, compansionship, family love (phileo). It is love seeking ever increasing intimacy with God.  Agape love is deeper, purer, and transforming.  It is the kind of love that is pure and purifies when implanted in the hearts of those whose obedient faith seeks the infilling of the Holy Spirit.  It is obedient love  given over to God and others living life in the likeness of Christ to the glory of God.

Hesed, aheb, and agape are three words used in the Bible to capture the essence of God’s love and may be used as descriptors of God’s nature, the essence of his holy love.  His love for us is steadfast, dependable, and never changing.  It fails not.  His love is personal and intimate.  He cares for you and me.  In response to His love, he desires our love in return to him, for him, and to others.  His love is unconditional, other-centered, self-giving, and sacrificial. 

Amazing love how can it be

That Thou, my God, should die for me?

- Charles Wesley

O Love that will not let me go,

I rest my weary soul in thee

That in thine ocen depths its flow

May richer, fuller be.

- George Matheson

WHAT COULD BE BETTER THAN LIFE?

EN GEDI - DAVID'S DESERT SANCTUARY

What could be better than life?  David in the wilderness of Judah provides an answer:  “Because your loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise you (Psalm 63:3).  David was anointed as King of Israel and Judah by the prophet, Samuel, but he was on the run hiding from Saul, the fallen King who fell out or favor with God.  Living on the run in many ways was no life at all.  Nevertheless, David experienced the loving kindness of God in the midst of dire circumstances and travail.

THE CAVE AT EN GEDI

Psalm 63 is a remarkable expression of God’s reciprocal, synergistic intimacy with David.   David acknowledges God as his God:  “O God, You are my God.”  David responds to God’s goodness and grace by stating his priority for God in his life even in the hardship of life in the desert as he is pursued by Saul who seeks to end his life: “Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for you; My flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.”  David’s seeks to worship the Lord in the desert sanctuary that nature provides:  “So I have looked for You in the sanctuary, to see Your power and your glory.”  All of this is a response to his growing understanding of God’s loving kindness in his life.

David’s worship is bold and unconstrained in response to God’s kindness and love.  He recognizes and readily acknowledges with praise God’s grace: “Because Your loving kindness is better than life, My lips shall praise You.  Thus will I bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.  My soul shall be satisfies as with marrow and fatness (read: choice delicacies), and my mouth shall praise you with joyful lips.”  You might ask, “What does he have to be joyful about?”  The answer is that in this life threatening, high-risk time of his life filled with danger and harassment and on the cusp of death, David’s relationship with God is increasingly intimate as he recognizes and acknowledges God’s grace. 

In short, David’s intimacy with God and faith in Him is growing each day in the context of his hardships.  We see it even through the night.  David states, “When I remember you on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches.”  What does he conclude?  He says, “Because You have been my help, therefore in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice.”  In response to knowing who God is in his life and experiencing directly God’s loving kindness, goodness, and grace, David proclaims, “My soul follows close behind You; Your right hand upholds me."

Psalm 63 is a compelling example of synergistic holiness.  There is synergism in the intimacy of God and David.  Notice the reciprocity. God blesses.  David recognizes God’s grace and responds.  God blesses again and again.  David’s faith grows.  His love for God and appreciation of God’s loving kindness are  expressed in thanks, praise, and worship.  In the ongoing exchanges, God is shaping David into his holy likeness preparing him further to be a leader after the likeness of God’s own heart.  What could be better in our lives than that?  Thanks be to God!

INTIMACY WITH GOD

The Temple in Jesus’ day was designed around the idea of intimacy.  As you moved through each gate and court you progressed toward the holy of holies where only the High Priest once a year could enter on behalf of the nation into God’s presence.  Gentiles then women could only go so far, then men, and even priest.  Proximity to God was limited.  With the sacrifice of Christ on the cross and His resurrection, that all changed.  No longer is intimacy with God so bounded and constrained, but rather open and accessible to all.  Thanks be to God we can know God, not just know about Him.  We can come to an ever-deepening relationship with him.  It is up to us, though, to maintain and cultivate the intimacy we have with God by our daily obedient response to the grace he gives us each day.

Samuel Logan Brengle, in a chapter entitled “Knowing Jesus” (in Heart Talks on Holiness) raises the question of how we might maintain and cultivate communion and intimacy with Him.  He uses the metaphor of marriage to say,

“It is possible for a husband and wife to live together for many years, and instead of increasing, except in the most superficial way, in the knowledge of each other, to grow apart, until after many years they are heart strangers to each other, with separate interests, conflicting desires, tempers, and alien affinities.  To really know each other they must be bound together by stronger ties than mere legal forms; they must commune with each other, live in each other’s hearts, enter into each other’s joys, and share each other’s sorrows, counsel each other in perplexity, seek the same ends and cultivate the same spirit.

And so to know Jesus, there must be sympathy, fellowship, friendship constantly cultivated.  The heart must turn to Him, pour itself out before Him, share its hopes, its joys, its fears with Him, draw its consolations, its strength, its courage, its sufficiency, its life from Him, trust and obey Him and delight itself in Him as its everlasting portion.

Secret prayer must often bring the soul face to face with Him, and the Bible, God’s record of Him, must be daily, diligently and lovingly searched, and faithfully applied to daily life.  Thus shall we know Him, and be ‘changed into the same image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord,’ and people shall see and feel ‘Christ in us, the hope of glory.’”

One of the great blessings of experiencing each day an increasing intimacy with God is His continuing work shaping us into His likeness.  With His hands on the clay of our lives, He is shaping and perfecting us so that He can fill our hearts and lives with his very self in His desire to be intimate and make Himself known.  Glory to such a God!

HOLINESS: ULTIMATELY, INTIMACY WITH GOD

Irene and Jonathan, Dec. 1969

We build relationships with others through two “variables”:  proximity and frequency of contact.  In social psychology it's called the acquaintance process. Proximity and frequency of contact are the powerful ingredients in the process of becoming acquainted with someone, building rapport, trust, friendship, and eventually intimacy.

  When I was courting my wife in college, I worked at getting to know her and her to know me by getting close and connecting with her throughout the day.  I would meet her after class, walk her to the next class, arrange my schedule around hers, and make little dates like eating lunch and dinner together in the college dining commons.  Each day I could hardly wait to see her again.  Back then it was about theory and practice. I read about the acquaintance process in my first social psychology class and decided to live the theory by practicing the acquaintance process. I engaged proximity and frequency of contact.  I became increasingly in touch with the girl of my dreams and married her toward the end of our college days together.  That was 44 years ago.

Did not our hearts burn within us as he talked with us on the road . . . Luke 24:32

When’s the last time you woke up and said to yourself, “I need to be with God today”?   While we may anticipate an important meeting or date with someone,  as Jesus's followers, we struggle with anticipating opportunities to meet with God.   We don’t think  about our proximity and frequent contact with Him throughout the day.  Before the legs swing over the bed and the feet hit the floor, very few people say,  “I can’t wait to spend time with you, Lord”.  I could be wrong, but it is rarely at the top of our list of things we look forward to when we awake.  Isn’t the Christian life potentially a daily walk with Christ and an increasing acquaintance with him?  Our close relationship and frequent opportunities for interaction with Him are paramount to everything we do going forward into the day.   At the heart of our relationship with God is the opportunity to draw near and encounter Him as he waits to encounter us.

The challenge is beyond having occasional hits of contact with God.  It is more than a spontaneous call for help when a crisis arises, more than the flash of memory to pray for someone we promised.  It is more than dependence on someone else’s walk with Christ to provide an awareness of His love and presence.  The challenge is a matter of continual awareness.  We sense that He is present.  We know that He wants a growing relationship. He longs for us to continually walk with him (Micah 6:8 – “walk humbly with your God.”)  He wants us to not only grow in the grace he provides.   He longs for residence, infilling our hearts and lives.  He wants us to be productive and fruitful in the life we live.  Jesus makes it very clear -

If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit.  Apart from me you can do nothing.”  -John 15:5

"I give . . . water welling up to eternal life." John 4:14

You can’t get a closer encounter with Christ than to remain in Him.  We remain by  “habits of the heart” (Bellah, et. al.) in the “spirit of the disciplines” (Dallas Willard). John Wesley would say we remain in him through means of grace including immersion in the Word of God, an active prayer life (personal and communal), public and private worship, and the sharing testimonies with others.  Other means of grace are wholesome reading, music, and fellowship with other Christians, giving thanks and praise to God and to others, and being intentionally engaged in acts of mercy, charity, and doing good to others, especially the marginalized, oppressed and poor. These means help remind us that Christ is present.  They help us understand his essence.

The journey of proximity to Christ and daily, frequent contact with him leads to greater things.  As we seek to remain in Him, He makes us His dwelling.  The acquaintance process occasions intimacy with God.  He transforms us into persons of holiness and means of grace for others.  In a growing acquaintance with Christ, we find the power of proximity and daily contact.  Ultimately we find intimacy with God.  May it be ever so!