Utter weakness. Total necessity. In need of all the help there is. Tribulations abounding. Rebukes and chastenings, corrections seemingly unending. And on top of it all (but who knows bottom from top?) one of our stellar (again, who knows bottom from top?) comrades in arms comes toward the end of his pursuits and declares himself (and any who can receive it, likewise?) “chiefest of sinners”. Not used to be, not was, but for those with eye to precision in every other circumstance, those who (not wrongly) oft resort to the Greek for such precision, even of tenses, “of whom I am chief”.
Yikes! Who signs up…for this? Who could, or would set out to know such…even of themselves?
Isn’t there a way…different than this? Another option? “Can I see another menu, please?” Or, “What other courses does your school offer?” could come to mind.
Would you find laughter here…cruel? Perhaps so, but only if one does not recognize their own self. Wasn’t this all to get us to feel better…about ourselves? (How much laughter can one endure?)
Hey! Is laughter also included in these all things:
For all things are yours; Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s. (?)
Oh yes! If there’s laughter (what sort of feast would refuse it?) we can only know it is of the “good” kind. Do you find any prohibition against starting to practice? Do you imagine the same man that declared himself a “chief”, and who also spoke of his experience(s) of being beside himself for the Lord’s sake (as one sort of “out of his mind” for Christ) suffered this in all somber tones?
But, God forbid I deny a need for sobriety, and not eschew cruelty. Or worse, provoke to some laughing contest…remembering that comparisons and competitions over others (and not our own self) are left to the world’s pursuit.
Yet what is such joy described that a self just can’t believe based upon all prior understanding (but dead…means dead!), when seeing the Lord alive…and provoked to disbelief for joy? Such astounding? (Hey!…but we thought…I mean we saw…I mean some of us even saw the spear…!!!)
Yet, didn’t He tell them? What has to make way…for His word? What cannot but…make way for His word? Yes, even death. Specifically death. And darkness.
Too much? May it always and always be so, and not so. May the goodness that is too much, the kindness that is too much, the joy that is too much, the very life that is too much…never submit to our poor plea of “this is just too much”. And there relent. Yes, we need God to even need God. And we need God to have God. And we need God to make way in us, for God.
Is His way made in us?
Too much?
Too simple?
I am not unaware of how often I am given to mention this matter of our signing up vs. God’s conscription of us. Regardless of whether one has come to see God’s choosing always exceeds what a man knows of his own, and his own ability to do so as a created being, and how that knowledge either informs choice or this is not yet understood, I hope to not be dogmatic. Nevertheless we see, as in the first disciples example there was a continuance for a time until told “you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you…”
Till then it matters not what or how they thought of this relationship to the one they followed, nor to us even of how they themselves may have even thought of it, but once that word comes (as it surely came to them) their matter of choice in that becomes moot. Yes, one could (I suppose) say “But what if they chose not to believe that?” But I hope you see the issue there. It is as “too late” for them as it is for you and I, even as those who receive their testimony of Jesus the Christ as always speaking truth, as He Himself is the truth. And being true, in all, to His word. He cannot be separated from what He Says, does, and is. He is of God.
And here would be another question, to, or of whom are these scriptures in owing for their deliverance to us? If all recorded (if one believes, even for us) is owing only to the choice of men to what they would put down in writing for recording and not of inspiration and guidance as to what and only is to be and was to be written, in what have we placed (if we have) any trust? That men are faithful guides? Or God alone through Christ, by whom, through whom, and in whose name the Spirit we confess, is given? Even that Spirit we confess as makes the scripture as real to us, for they have come from Him who is real, and faithful. No, we do not seek after nor follow myths.
These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
Yes, there is reason of God’s choosing that even those words were remembered (or better, brought to memory by that Spirit) and recorded, along with the several others “you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you”. May you find as much comfort in them as in any or all the others that to you, have been made life. For they are, and no less.
Dreams, visions, and revelations. Words and pictures, pictures and words…except that to us they are and become not mere copies of things as a photo might. They are views and informing of the reality of matters. And they are promised us no less than the knowing of the sufferings and life of our Lord, God’s Christ. Even they (such knowing) must come in same manner. The light must go “on” to see, and it is far from unusual such light does indeed go on when we find ourselves in matters or circumstance of extremity.
For some it has been reconciled to them that their “being in the world” while not of it, has informed them of their necessity of all help, all comfort, all light, for there is none to be found in it (the wold). Yes, it is a place of extremity, of extreme darkness. They are to the world strangers, even as the world has become strange to them, a foreign place, and surely not their home. Of such do we read, even their writings, while yet knowing they are of purpose sent into it by their Master as those sent into it, even as He. And such purposing that is of all goodness, all knowing-ness, all mercy and kindness is that even such benefit might abound. The knowledge of God through His Christ. It is to abound in us, even as its abounding in one is of all mutual benefit…to all who are of Him.
And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.
When we begin to see, not merely the futility and vanity of refusing to know the sufferings of our Christ, we are also exempting ourselves from the honor bestowed upon Him, even the glory of which He speaks as being given…to “them”…to us, made a gift through such suffering.
And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
God help me. For I am weak.
Surgeon’s training was mentioned. See one, do one, teach one. With necessity of sight being first that the consequence of doing and teaching be also upon the foundation of seeing first an expert in his doing. A teacher, whom, if he is shoddy, and not expert, will pass on poor practice.
Who then is the Christ of God? Perfect expert? Or other?
Does He bear worthiness of total attention to all He teaches, and does? Does he suffer questioning, or is He strident? Is He mute to pleas for explanation and light of understanding, or does He answer all asking, seeking, knocking?
Does He not “do” as He teaches?
Seeing, first, always; and always, first.
There was some light cast upon all the “How To’s” we may seek, and are seemingly in demand by us to get to some place of finding a “better working” for us. These are not eschewed for their intent, but only if seen as some addition necessary, some further thing needed of men to be given by men to one another that is made just too obscure in Christ. But, is it?
Yet Jesus the Christ as given us such a wonderful and inexhaustibly kind instruction in His “how to” in the giving what He even called a new commandment. And yes, seeing is paramount here, as it always is.
Love one another even as I have loved you.
Can we? Look? Can we see? Is it too hard? Too “much”?
Who is ashamed to see the “how much” of the Lord’s consistent love has been shed abroad to them, or find displeasure in being told to look and see there…so that they, in seeing the just how much (how deep is it?) they have been loved by the Lord who has called them, they can and will and must…love in like manner? Who is disappointed to see that how much?
Paul wasn’t. “Who loved me, and gave Himself for me…”
What better hunt is there? To be directed to, even commanded to…explore for knowing? To know the love of Christ, for you?
See first, and that no shoddy workmanship is there presented. Even stay there and all that might be consequent of doing/teaching…will be shown as also and perfectly being accomplished, by the only one who gives light to the blind.
Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on, blessed indeed says the Spirit, for they have ceased from their labors and their deeds follow with them.
How could one not tell of what He sees of the Lord’s doing(s)? That would be hard work indeed, miserable work in truth…thankless and joyless a job could never be more assigned. Resistance and friction, friction and resistance…yet…even such heat found there works to its end. Yes, even friction is caused to work perfectly in the hand of the Master.
“For we can nothing against the truth, only for it” has been written.
Are you oily? Is any?
Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.
And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.
Is His honor…enough for all our rejoicing?
Is there enough…there?
Too much?
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