students of jesus

For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;
And the government will rest on His shoulders;
And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace . . . (Isaiah 9:6-7)

The good news of Jesus Christ is the announcement of a king and his kingdom of peace. The good news is greater than the someday-promise of heaven; it's that heaven is breaking into the earth even now, that eternal life is here and now. It offers the life of Heaven to whoever comes under the reign of Heaven’s king. The gospel of the Kingdom of God is a strange announcement, because it combines the worst images of humanity with the secret hopes of every human soul.

“The worst images of humanity, you say?”

Yes, I do. Consider the simple word government. To modern Western ears government denotes the great machinery of federal god: a faceless monolith of regulation and control backed by incomprehensible trillions of dollars, enforced by millions of people, each one incapable of working justice or peace individually, working to carry out the incomprehensible will of no one in particular. Nor were past ages any better: government meant the divine right of kings and queens who somewhere in their family history violently rose to a throne only to claim that their every opinion represented the will of a god whop was nowhere to be seen. Yes: government has nearly always represented control imposed upon those under its fictitious thumb.

But I’m not finished: peace is no better. The best we can manage of peace is the absence of war. Peace is the period in which the nations of the world re-arm and re-train while studying the conflicts of the past. To the peoples of the earth peace is a cease-fire at best. Even the great conquerors of history needed to catch their breath every now and again. Isaiah’s beautiful passage feels like nothing more than the poetry of a dreamer. Even in the age of Christianity governments have marched and ruled, promising peace without ever pausing to define the word beyond its most surface meaning. The meaning of peace has little to do with nations and states; it has everything to do with human hearts—with my heart.

Government and peace: perhaps two of the most ill used words of any language or era. Yet I believe the prophet. I believe there is a king; that he brings a kingdom. Even more foolishly, I believe he brings his kingdom here and now to me, my family, and my neighbors. I believe the very words government and peace themselves need redemption every bit as much as my soul. I sit before Isaiah’s words and listen. Will you listen with me?

A child born; a son given: in these words I hear that the benefits of heaven are delivered to us in the helpless state of a child, and we bear the responsibility of nurturing the full-grown son. We receive the Christ child: do we allow him to grow within us?

Shouldered government: in these words I see that the location of government is neither in the consent of the governed nor the power of those who seize control, but upon the shoulders of God. To whatever degree we think government originates from us we are doomed to failed government. Government flows from the head, from the child-become-son. In its truest form government is not about societies at all, but whether I will live under the management of Heaven. Government is not societal; it is personal.

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace: how do I see the Governor? If I receive him as my wonderful counselor I will flourish by his counsel; if I rest in his might I will not lean on my own strength; if a see a father I become part of the family; and if I locate peace in the child-become-son, I receive what only he can give.

Government and peace are meant to increase in me. Their source is beyond me, but their home is in me. Why look at the great wide world for government and peace? He offers it to me, personally. The promise of increase is because in him there is always more: more of his gracious rule in my life, and more peace for me to discover.

Why not receive Students of Jesus in your inbox? Subscribe to our email newsletter and never miss a post.

There are two ways to be thankful, and one of them is deadly.

On the surface all thankfulness sounds good, but the path we take toward thankful words makes all the difference. The deadly path is gratitude based upon the lack of others. We look around and discover our place on the scale of good luck and think, “I’m glad I’m better off than them.” This is thanksgiving relative to someone else’s situation in life. It is Relative Thankfulness.

Relative thankfulness sees the world as a zero-sum game. It’s grateful the score is tilted in its favor. Perhaps you’ve heard the sound: “There are so many people struggling, but thank goodness I’m not among them.” Relative thankfulness has a thousand expressions: “we have bounteous table in a world where so many are hungry; I got the promotion over the other five candidates; I may have only one pair of shoes, but there are people in the world with no feet.”

Tune your ear to its nuance: the sound of relative thankfulness is everywhere, even in the houses of the holy: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” (Luke 18:10-11) After praying prayers of relative thankfulness we discover we’ve only been talking to ourselves. We also find ourselves ranking the other people at the temple.

But there is a path that leads to life, thanksgiving that enters the gates of God’s estate. Healthy thanksgiving is absolute. Without qualification. It has no need to look about. Absolute thanks focuses on the Giver and the gift. Absolute thanks understands that the gift says everything about the Giver—and next to nothing about the one who receives it, other than the receiver is the object of perfect love. Relative thankfulness looks around; absolute thanks looks up. Absolute thanks yearns for everyone to know such joy. Absolute thanks is the little boy who hits a home run, and wishes every other boy on the team will get the same chance to experience the thrill of taking the victory lap.

Here is the danger, the destination, of relative thankfulness: it is tempted confuse the goodness of God with the goodness of the recipient. Relative thankfulness has favorite verses in the Bible: “Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds.” Or, “No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.” And as true as these verses are, relative thankfulness thinks the kindness and mercy of God somehow validates its own lifestyle. From there it’s only a short step to wondering out loud why in heaven’s name God would show kindness to others or why the rain would fall on the unjust as well as the just. It is dangerously close to envying the good fortune of others. It is incapable of rejoicing with others, or mourning with those who weep.

When the scripture reminds us of gratitude that leads to life, let’s turn our gaze where it belongs, and discover again the pure joy of absolute thanks.

Why not receive Students of Jesus in your inbox? Subscribe to our email newsletter and never miss a post.

Among the enemies of grace, human pride hides deepest in our souls. In grace, the Spirit comes with a pickaxe of discovery, unearthing vanity’s vein that runs hidden within. Grace exposes our desire to sit on the throne of our own vainglorious private kingdom. We think grace will expose us as frauds, when all the while grace wants to invite us to a forever feast.

Pride has a thousand faces but always the same dreary aim: to make more of ourselves and less of God. Pride is the leaven of the Pharisees; it masquerades as humility; and like a miser it hoards the grace of God. Let us attend:

Four times the scripture teaches us, “God resists the proud but give grace to the humble.” Pride itself has read the Bible, so pride’s solution is to pretend humility. False humility is our attempt to fool God himself. We think it is unseemly to celebrate our strengths, so we utter things about ourselves we do not believe. The problem with false humility is that it is false. False humility is the self-abasement we want others to reject, thus affirming our talent and skill. Meanwhile true humility celebrates the goodness of God wherever it may be. David said he was fearfully and wonderful made—and his soul knew it very well. The shepherd king did not mistake the thing made for the Great Maker. He celebrated the work of God—even in himself.  C.S. Lewis helps us guard against false humility: “Humility is not thinking less of yourself: it is not thinking of yourself at all.”

Pride is a masquerade ball of vanity. We enter the hall wearing a mask—one of many from our collection. We receive the praise of men, knowing all along that we look nothing like the costume we wear. Pride leads to the kind hypocrisy where we keenly discern the flaws of others because we are haunted by our own. Pride is the leaven of the Pharisees. It makes us seem bigger than we are, and deflates those around us. Because we detest the lies we tell ourselves we try to expose these same lies in others. Pride leads us in prayer, “I thank you that I am not like other men.” Pride tries to sell God damaged goods at an inflated rate, unaware he has already paid the highest price. We hide the very flaws he is willing to love.

Pride cannot see beyond itself. Pride whispers that if we must accept grace, we should have it all. When it is finally cornered pride teaches us inflate our sin and demand all the grace God has to give—as if a single bird on a wire could breathe all the air in the sky. Pride hoards the grace of God—as if our sin were so great we could consume heaven’s full supply of grace, when in fact our sins are common to all mankind. Pride causes us to see grace as a zero-sum game—as if God’s kindness to others means less grace for us. But grace is not of this world. Grace is the stuff of the age to come, a substance that increases all the more when we share it.

Grace comes to expose pride, but only because grace sees the beauty of what we are: objects of his love, and partakers of his goodness. Grace strips us of our rags in order to clothe us forever in his love.

Why not receive Students of Jesus in your inbox? Subscribe to our email newsletter and never miss a post.

Imagine receiving a message so good that it caused you to re-think your entire life. The bank made a mistake years ago calculating your mortgage and now suddenly you discover your house is paid off; or a total stranger has paid off your student loans; your abusive husband has turned a corner and now treats you like a queen; the doctors call to say the diagnosis was wrong and you don’t have cancer after all.

All of these examples represent the best kind of news: no more coupon-clipping; your future is no longer clouded by debt; no more walking on egg-shells, afraid that some trivial event will anger your spouse; your fears of endless treatments and medicines vanish in a moment. The good news has come from afar and has pitched its tent with you. The old reality is gone; and new day is born. But you quickly discover a problem: the morning after the good news arrives you wake up still worried about money, still afraid that your husband will relapse, or you wake up in a sweat thinking about hospitals and death. And we immediately understand why: we have spent months, even years, thinking about life based upon our problems. Financial woes are daily woes. Fear of abuse is factored into every choice you make. Health concerns are like a houseguest who has moved in forever. Old habits die hard, and the habits of the mind must be taken to the cross. This is meaning of repentance.

To receive good news, to really receive it—to take it in and discover a new freedom—requires a new way of thinking. This new way of thinking has a Biblical name: repentance. I know: you thought repentance meant remorse, determination, trying harder, or feeling guilty. Someone has lied to you. At its very core the word “repent” means rethink your life. The trick is: you have to have a valid reason to rethink your life. A positive mental attitude is not enough; simply trying harder won’t change your world. There must be some hard-core reality that changes the equation, wipes away the past, or presents a future filled with joy. Better yet, all three. Jesus presented this hard-core reality when he said, “The Kingdom of God is breaking in. Right here, right now.” He wasn’t describing some new program or advocating a new philosophy. Jesus proclaimed the world would be forever different because God had come down and he would do whatever was necessary to set people free.

God would not be stopped: the old order of things was condemned and a new order was made real. He invited us to move to the side of victory with these words: “The time has come. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news.”

Grace comes with good news and a requirement: rethink your life because everything has changed. Repentance is a rational response to God’s grace.

"Repent" is the first word of the good news. Belief comes as we rethink our way of life based upon what God has already done. Good news requires that we rethink our way of life. Have you recalculated yours in the light of his Kingdom?

Why not receive Students of Jesus in your inbox? Subscribe to our email newsletter and never miss a post.

My friend tells the story of a pastor who had a certain way with difficult people. You know: the kind of people who are whiny, needy, angry, insecure, volatile, vain, messy, picky, overbearing, ugly, no-fun, un-hip, clueless, or otherwise not-with-the-program. This pastor asked his staff to be patient with such people, and referred to these unfortunates as EGR: Extra Grace Required. The difficult people in the church needed extra grace.

Huh.

The phrase Extra Grace Required stuck with me for days. I began to wonder: how much is the regular amount of grace? Is there a Grace Manual somewhere that details the proper amount of grace for each condition? What about people afflicted with multiple shortcomings? (I qualify for several conditions listed above—but I’m not going to tell you which ones!) (OK, it’s all of them.)

So here’s the first problem: the well-meaning pastor implies that grace is a tool in the pastoral tool-kit. Reach into ministerial bag and grab some ointment labeled ERG. Apply generously, as if grace is something dispensed from the Haves and given nobly to the Have-nots. As if grace is drug, and the minister is the pharmacist. But grace isn’t a salve to be applied; it’s a feast to be shared. We welcome others to the very table we enjoy, where together we revel in God’s bounty. God gives grace. We share it.

Second: I imagine this pastor (yes, the one I never met, the one my friend told me about, the one I have turned into the object of my own creation) has read Ephesians 4:7, “But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift”, and decided that grace comes prepackaged from Heaven, small, medium, large, and EGR. Yet I pause at the phrase according to the measure of Christ's gift and wonder how we measure the Lord’s gift—or even what that gift is, precisely. I wonder what size gift comes from an infinite God.

Finally, this pastor had it backwards: difficult people do not require extra grace, I do. The problem is not their requirement: it is my lack. When the depth of human need is beyond the limits of my patience and empathy, when the hurt and fear goes deeper than my ability to pray it away, when I reach the boundaries of my Christlikeness, I am the one who needs the fuel of grace. I am the one who needs grace to listen to others without the urge to move on to the next patient. I am the one who needs to see Jesus in the face of each difficult, hurting person. I am the one who requires not “extra” grace, but the real thing, the true supernatural substance from Heaven: the grace of God. Ministry based upon my own resources will produce disciples that look like me, and that fearsome thought should be reason enough to cry out for grace to sustain me.

Extra Grace Required? Well, yes: for me.

Why not receive Students of Jesus in your inbox? Subscribe to our email newsletter and never miss a post.