The Unmasking

In “The Final Unmasking” Macdonald asks the question, “Will all my weaknesses, evil habits, pettiness’s, and wrong thoughts I cannot help be revealed to all?” Jesus says, “The time is coming when everything that is covered up will be revealed, and all that is secret will be made known to all.” (Luke 12:2 NLT). “If we can face, with humility, the revelation of the hidden, then we are of the truth and need not be afraid. Because, whatever happens, it will make us faithful, humble, and pure.”

Love

Real righteousness is characterized by a lack of fear. Those without fear are the ones who have come to know that our Heavenly Father is good, always and forever good, and this goodness convicts and convinces us that all judgment is redemptive. That is, that we no longer need to hide and protect that part of us that we know and realize is dark, from God’s liberating light. If we accept all judgment as redemptive and not punitive, then full exposure means liberation. To be judged by Jesus, the Cosmos’ greatest lover, is to experience love at the hands of that great Lover!

Freedom

This growing freedom expresses itself in being quick to repent and more unrestrained in forgiveness to ourselves and others. Many years ago, a visiting missionary made a profound statement that sums up this reality, “Mental and spiritual health is when the outside person and the inside person are in fact the same person!” Then, this divine judgment acts as the catalyst, the spark, that lights the refiner’s and consuming fires of love.

No religious system or salvation plan can address and provide our overwhelming desire and need to be good as our Heavenly Father is good. None can provide the confidence and assurance our hearts require. This common-sense conviction of righteousness comes from our very consciousness. Nothing short of giving ourselves to the process of wholeness, becoming what we truly are, not just a hypocrite clothed in white, but an earthen vessel filled with light and goodness. The cry of the righteous is “more Lord,” give me more judgment, more light, more of your liberating love!

This is the introductory blog for the following sermon:

The Final Unmasking

The post Unmasking appeared first on .

Righteousness

It is to be so in love with what is fair and right to make it impossible for a man to do anything less than be absolutely fair. It is not the love of righteousness in the abstract that makes anyone righteous. It is instead the love of fair play towards everyone we encounter. Anything less than the fulfilling of fair play, in the joy of our divine relationship with others, is not righteousness. Righteousness is simply common sense. It is being in right relationship with everything and everyone in the Divine life of the Trinity and all creation. It is not about being right and everyone being in agreement with us. If we don’t love our neighbors and enemies as the Father, Son, and Spirit do and give to all fair play, we are not and will not be righteous.

Man’s Righteousness

Through our tortured words and concepts, we have invented religious systems that contain no true righteousness, that deny the common sense of the Divine heart and mind. They are systems that misrepresent the very character and nature of God. Claiming we can be made good without being good! Claiming we can be given a place in a heaven of man’s design without real righteousness. God’s heaven is only heaven because of its participants’ union and self-giving love. It is heaven because each one shares their very lives with and for the interest of the others. Heaven is found in this selflessness.

To remain as we are, focused on ourselves, would be to live in disharmony and be incapable of living in or enjoying God’s selfless heaven. It would be as if you told a fish to enjoy life in the sky.

God’s Righteousness

A righteous life is not becoming what we are not, fish becoming birds, but becoming what we are as children of our Father, through the Son, in the power of the Spirit in us! God in His love would never pretend we were right with the cosmos when we were not. For instance, gluing feathers on a fish to make it a bird does not change it from being a fish. Imputed righteousness is an attempt to cover or clothe the fish (us) through the imputation of feathers (righteousness) that does not make us (righteous) birds or capable of living in the sky (heaven)! To enjoy life in the air of heaven, you must be able to fly.

Imputed and legal inventions of righteousness cannot make the selfishness in this life or the next, heaven. To continue to live in unrighteousness would be hell in a heaven whose lifeblood is centered in self-sacrificing love.

Real Righteousness

To be relationally right is righteousness. This righteousness is who and what God is by nature. There is no righteous relationship with our God without thinking what He thinks, loving what He loves, and caring for nothing but His will as Jesus did! Heaven, eternal joy, is to be in harmony, union, and communion with all of Their creation, children, and Life!

The post Real Righteousness appeared first on .

God of the Living

Why do we believe in the power of death more than the power of Life? What does this say about our concept of God? MacDonald uses the story of Martha and Mary and the resurrection of Lazarus in the sermon “The Displeasure of Jesus” to express the truth that, “God is the God of the Living.” He also uses it to discuss Jesus’ anger with our unbelief in Their Life. Every expression of Their anger is a gift from Their other-centered and self-giving love.

All are Alive

MacDonald exposes this lie found in the dramatic example of death as the visible tip of the iceberg of our unbelief. We see all of what we call life through this lens of death. We are so focused on the temporary that the eternal remains unseen! Our Father is the God of the living, and we live from a stream where there is no such reality as death. This Truth of Life extends into all the everyday parts and moments of our existence. God’s Life is abundant Life! We lack nothing in its’ flow, only our unfulfilled wants hinder us. Martha and Mary wanted their brother now, present to their senses, while he, had just for a moment in time, moved from one room to another. Jesus saw the lie of lack and death in their feelings and actions that they really believed Lazarus was no more!

Death is Defeated!

Death is not defeat. It is defeated! It is victory over sin and darkness for those who know what Jesus knows about death and Life. For in God, there is nothing but Life! There is nothing but redemption and restoration of all that is lost in our moment of time.

Divine anger is God’s love fighting fire with fire. The “Refining Fire” of Divine love destroying sin and darkness for our liberation before the “Consuming Fire” is required for the same!

All are Alive is the introductory blog for the sermon listed below:

The Displeasure of Jesus

The post All are Alive appeared first on .

The Incarnation

“Think of a group of people trapped in a collapsed mine. And suppose that the rescue team only set up shop on the surface and never actually goes down into the mine. What would the point be? There would be no rescue. The help would not reach the people trapped in the mine. But turn the thought around. Suppose that the rescue team does go down into the mine, but loses contact with the surface crew. In that case they, too, would be lost.

It is necessary that we hold on to both sides of the truth. If Jesus ceases to be himself, the Father’s beloved Son who lives in fellowship with the Father in the Spirit, then all is lost, for he has nothing to give us when he comes to us. If, on the other hand, he lives out his sonship with his Father but does not do so inside Adam’s skin, then his sonship does not reach us; the dance of life of the Trinity flies over our heads.

Once we see with John and Paul and the early Church that the incarnation was a real incarnation, that the Son of God became flesh without giving up is fellowship with his Father, then we are face to face with a paradox that will allow us to see the truth about the work of Christ. In Jesus Christ, a union is forged between two things that do not belong together. On the one side, you have the Triune life of God with all of its face-to-face fellowship and purity and fullness and joy and rightness and integrity. On the other side, you have human existence in all of its hiding, brokenness, corruption, disease, and perversion. The incarnation means that these two worlds are now united.” (C. Baxter Kruger, The Great Dance, pp. 34-35.)

The Restoration of Light!

What a beautiful image of our Divine deliverance! It is noteworthy to say that Jesus not only brought light into the cave of our fallen darkness but that the ultimate purpose was to bring us up and out into the Light of Life! We often see light as just an improvement of life in the mine. A candle, so to speak, in the darkness and confusion of life underground. But this misses the point of the rescue entirely. Jesus does not come to improve our cave-dwelling but deliver us from it both now and forever. We were not made for life in the mine. We were created to be beloved children of our Heavenly Father, brothers and sisters with Jesus and free in the Life and power of the Spirit! We were made for life in a universe full of fellowship in infinite space and time.

Relational Heaven!

The post Incarnation of Light appeared first on .

Father and Son

John understood the gospel message. He had lived to a ripe old age and was writing at the end of his life. His reflections in his gospel and letters reveal the state of the Church as already in decline. Religion was settling in, and the lawyers were winning. The ground of the struggle between relationship and law was shaping up more clearly. The good news of the Father’s heart of goodness and love was losing ground to systems of sin and judgment. The image and vision of Jesus’ Father as “Abba” was fading to that of a judge and was taking root. John was crying out to restore the glory of the gospel, the message, the declaration of what was beautiful and true!

Father and Son as Light

Two Faces of God?

The challenge of the gospel message is not the overcoming of sin and darkness, but the victory of the  light seen in the relationship of the Father and Son shared with us. Light is found in the divine relationship, defined by John as one of joy. There is only union in this light, no division or darkness at all. There are not even shadows in our Father of Light.

They did not create separation. We did. They created no sin, no evil, no hell, and no darkness. All these things were created by us! “And this is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the Light; for their deeds were evil.” John 3:19 NAS

Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Edwards, and other church fathers created this two-faced god of light and darkness. It is incredible how beautifully they wrote of God’s love while penning the worst images of God’s anger, wrath, hatred, and judgment. No wonder we are conflicted and confused!

One Face! face-to-face!

“God is light . . . and our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ!”

The Two Faces of God? is the introductory blog for the sermon below:

Light

The post Two Faces of God? appeared first on .

Resurrection

Have you ever wondered why, after the resurrection of Jesus, He did not pop into Pilate’s throne room or the monthly meeting of the Sanhedrin? What difference do you think this display would have meant for His claims of righteousness? In the last sermon on “Kingship,” we saw that He could have called on a legion of angels to conquer and rule had He wished. Why does He refuse to prove He is right? All He needed to do was think it, and it would have been so. If it had been me, I would have, if I am honest!

His Kingdom

“Justice” is MacDonald’s first reflection on series three’s theme of “Kingship.” If Jesus is King, then what will His Kingdom look like? Will He use righthanded power to rule, or will He use humility to serve? Will it be a Kingdom of warriors or a Kingdom of children? A Kingdom where the force of law and rules control, or where the power of love yields? Is it about a great king on a magnificent throne thinking how great he is or a servant with a towel and a bowl of water washing feet?

Human government could not fulfill the desire of His heart or accomplish His ends. So, He did not think to use His power to persuade. Or, perhaps more accurately, His Father did not think it, say it, or do it, so neither did He! He in Himself and for Himself did not need to be right!

Stop here for a moment and ponder. As I have said before, being right is over rated and we only imagine we are right despite our emphatic assertions. Of course, Jesus was right, but being right meant nothing to Him. He had no need in Himself to make the point, for to do so would have meant missing the point altogether. The rulers would have known how wrong they were; think of the justification He would have had and the fear and respect it would have created? And here we come to the flaw in the right and wrong righteousness theories of justice. It is we in our self-righteous anger who need to be right, and we tar God’s face with our wrath against wrong and say to ourselves, “that is just like God!” But it is not!

His Justice

Justice for us is about being right. Justice for God is about mercy and love for the wrong-doer. To free the ones from their wrongs is to deliver them from themselves. We must see it, hate it, and desire Their help to destroy it in us. It does not matter where we are on the scale or what yardstick we use. Justice is only achieved when the sinner rejects his yardstick, repents for measuring in the first place, and becomes like his Master. That is to love, both their neighbor and enemy with the same other-centered love that has no party, no clan, and no separation within our common Fatherhood in God!

Justice as Right?

If my idea of justice, or yours, does not create a relationship of love between God and man, and man and man, then it is NOT Divine Justice!

Justice as Right? is the introductory blog for the sermon below:

Justice

The post Justice as Right? appeared first on .

To the human mind and reason, a kingdom is the sovereign reach of its king, his strong right hand of power. To the Divine mind, it is the space within and its corresponding intimate relationship to its king. Divine kingship is not government rule but relational union. Not outside but inside, not external but internal, not doing only but why it is done!

It is the body of Christ in which Jesus is its head, heart, and soul, a peaceful and harmonious community.

New Creation

The counterintuitive nature of the Lord is expressed clearly in the servant versus the sovereign character of the kingdom. Here, the kingdom life as expressed in sermon one of the first series, “The Child in the Mist,” is finally summarized. The childlikeness that we share with the Father and the Son reaching full expression in Goodness! The Goodness of God’s other-centered and self-giving truth and freedom are found here. And they are fully expressed in the Life of Jesus! They are contrasted with the selfishness of fallen and broken humanity in its self-centered and self-seeking darkness and slavery found in this world.

Kingdom of Children

Kingdom? is the introductory blog for the sermon below:

Kingship

The post Kingdom? appeared first on .

The Truth will set You Free

Freedom, like Truth, is found solely in Jesus. To some of us, freedom would be the loss of all that is familiar. All that we have become comfortable within. We have learned to survive in our slavery and are afraid of the unknown world beyond. Freedom would seem like being thrust into that unknown world and asked to trust in someone we do not know.

“Better the devil we know than the one we don’t!”

Free Indeed

It is the freedom of flight to the bird that has only known the life of the nest. But we were never intended for anything else! It is love that pushes us out into the vastness of space. Love that calls us up to the heavens of flight’s freedom and Life. There is a time for the nest, but we must become what we are, become what we were created to be, let go of the security of the familiar, and rest in the breath of God!

Did you know if you tried to help a chick break out of its shell by putting a small crack in it, it would die on the other side? It is through the effort and struggle of the chick banging away with its beak that its muscles and lungs develop to where it is strong enough to survive on the other side. The same kind of thing is true when it is time to fly. No bird ever learned to fly while staying in its nest.

God’s purpose for us is freedom, and we are designed to fly!

Free Indeed is the introductory blog for the sermon below:

Freedom

The post Free Indeed appeared first on .

Facts vs. Truth

This sermon, “The Truth,” is for those who are ready to leave “These Things We Believe” for “The One in Whom I Trust!”. This sermon has been a timely and insightful sermon for me. As I am writing these words, I turned sixty-nine, and MacDonald’s thoughts have taken decades for me to be ready to hear and consider. In this sermon, he distinguishes between “facts” and “truth”. To me, in this time of my life, being right is overrated. Facts fall within the context of being right or not and in the facts we think we find understanding and control. I can truthfully say I have at least turned the corner on this one and care little for this major source of strife and division!

Facts are more about outcomes. Truths are more about presence even when we are disappointed in the outcomes. Our Heavenly Father is not faithful because He did this or that. He is faithful because HE IS!!! Christianity was never, to my chagrin, about me getting what I want or fixing what I need fixing, but about being in relationship with Them!

I Am Truth

Truth is a person and Jesus claims this revelation for Himself! Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6 NAS). Therefore, truth is reserved for the highest knowing possible.

Liar, Lunatic, or Lord – C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity

This truth has become essential in my everyday life. We are not called upon, for example, to believe the facts about the incarnation, but the truth of it! In contrast to facts, MacDonald asserts that truth is about the meaning, purpose, and intent of something or someone. To be “right” about Jesus is to have read a book about Him. But, to know Him as the “Truth” is to know Him intimately, face-to-face. Reading about Him and learning facts about Him does not lead us to relationship and trust, but knowing His thoughts, mind, heart, intents, and purposes does! To know the Truth of Jesus is to trust in His faithfulness, and faithfulness is one-hundred percent relational.

Truth, as found in the imagination of man, is the power to recognize and think God’s thought about something or someone after Him! To look into the face of a flower, a butterfly, or experience thirst and quenching is to see God’s face and ours!

I Am Truth is the introductory blog for the Sermon below:

The Truth

The post I Am Truth appeared first on .

The Apostle Paul used beautiful metaphors of glass twice in his letters to the Corinthians in referring to what and how we see. The first is in First Corinthians where he says “through a glass darkly” and the second in Second Corinthians where he says “with open face beholding as in a glass.”

Through a Glass Darkly

Have you ever lifted a glass Coca-Cola bottle up to your eyes like binoculars? If not, grab any kind of jar or bottle and give it a try. Try different colored glass as well and see how it gives a different perspective to what you see. What you see is distorted from a little to a lot according to the thickness and other factors of the glass. You see the objects, but they are blurred and unclear, rather than the clarity you have when face to face with the same object. While the Corinthian text is speaking present verses future seeing the principal is the same in our present perspectives of God seen through our own glass.

If we were fish on the water side of the lake’s surface looking up, we would see only the blurred and fuzzy shapes of the world passing by in the expanse of the other side above us and outside the water. We could only guess at its meaning and imperfectly describe with words its Life from the distorted and fragmented pieces we perceive.

Open Faced Beholding

If you could speak fluent fish and your job today was to explain water to them, how would you do it? Which side of the water’s surface understands the big picture of their life the best? Would it be the fish looking out or you looking in? Would the fish even know what water is? It has always been there. All of its life it has lived within it. Every part of its life from birth to death – eating, playing, loving, creating – all have been from inside this environment. Water would probably be totally taken for granted as just the way things are! Their knowledge of the other side of the water’s surface would be totally beyond their reach and the shadowy images beyond their understanding. They would have nothing to contrast and compare, since their life has been confined to their watery world. The only way to put their world in context is to have someone come into to it from the other side who has the ability to see and know without the darkened glass. “Who knows the end from the beginning” and the context and meaning of our lives.

Our world is not that much different from the fish’s. When God created Adam, he breathed into him the breath of life and he became a living soul. When Jesus came, Paul says, “…the second Adam was a life giving spirit.” This Spirit is defined as the breath or wind of God. We, like the fish who are surrounded and sustained by water, are surrounded and sustained by air, the breath of God! God has always been as close as our next breath! Each time we breathe we can be awakened and aware of His presence! God is not separate, distant, uninterested or uninvolved! He is our very life! Jesus has come from the other side, from the Father of all creation, to make this all clear!

Seeing Jesus

Do you think my story is a little fishy?

This is the God who came into His world on our side of the water’s surface. The one who becomes a fish! The one John spoke about in John 1:1-4, 1 John 1:1-4, and who was present in Genesis 1:1-5 and before – the Logos, The Word, who was face to face with the Father from all eternity. The one who created all things and sustains them, “…by the word of his power.” It is He who brings breath and life to our world. He who shines light into our darkness, who we saw, heard and handled when He was in our flesh and living among us. He is the one we are destined to become by seeing Him clearly in the glass!

Through a Glass is the introductory blog for the sermon below:

The Mirrors of the Lord

The post Through a Glass appeared first on .