The Fellowship of the Lamb

 

“Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me” (John 16:32).

 

Jesus looks beyond our doubts and fears, He looks beyond our cowardice, He looks beyond our abandonment of Him, and He affirms that we are His brothers and sisters, He affirms our belief (even the midst of our doubt!), and He affirms our Father’s destiny for us from the foundation of the world. However, not only does Jesus not deny our unbelief, He reveals our unbelief. “Do you now believe? You will leave Me alone.”

 

Earlier in the Upper Room when Peter proclaims his willingness to die for Jesus, Jesus replies, “Will you lay down your life for Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, a rooster will not crow until you deny Me three times” (John 13:36).

 

After all, Jesus is the Light of the world, He is the Truth, we ought to expect Jesus to reveal the truth and not hide it. Jesus reveals our doubts and fears and exposes our grand pronouncements that are without foundation so that He may burn away the dross within us and bring us out of the furnace as pure gold in Him. Jesus is always seeing the end from the beginning, and if Jesus see us this way, ought we not learn to see one another this way in Him?

 

The ”hour” is upon Jesus and the disciples, it is an hour with many facets; an hour of betrayal, an hour of darkness, an hour of sacrifice, an hour of scattering; yet also an hour of glory, of completion, of resurrection, of a new Day dawning, of gathering – an hour that is still unfolding in eternal victory in the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Family of God.

 

The disciples will be scattered, but they will also be gathered, and while Jesus will speak of victory in the next verse, He will not deny the reality of verse 32. Let’s recall what Jesus says at the beginning of our chapter, “But these things I have spoken to you, so that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them.” The hour has come for the disciples to enter into “the cost of witness” that Jesus spoke of in John 15:18 – 16:4.

 

As we read this passage, and the Gospel account of disciples abandoning Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, we may feel sorrow for times when have abandoned Jesus and we may hope that we shall never do so again. But let me ask a question, “Are we willing to be abandoned by other Christians as we are faithful to Jesus? Are we willing to stand alone for Him?”

 

You see, we may read the passages of Peter’s denial and of the collective desertion of Jesus in Gethsemane, and experience both conviction and a desire to faithful to Jesus amid persecution. This is as it ought to be. However, I want to take us a step further, I want to ask whether we will positively commit ourselves on the heavenly Altar of the Cross to a sacrificial witness for Christ in which we ourselves are abandoned.

 

Paul knew what it is to be such a witness.

 

“At my first defense no one supported me, but all deserted me; may it not be counted against them” (2 Tim. 4:16).

 

Perhaps this was, in part, an answer to Paul’s desire that, “I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the koinonia of His sufferings” (Phil. 3:10)? To be alone, to be abandoned, is an exquisite form of suffering; to look for your friends and to see no friends, that pieces the heart and soul, that is agony.

 

Yet, as the Father was with Jesus so that He was not alone, so Jesus was with Paul so that Paul was not alone. “But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me” (2 Tim. 4:17). You and I can be certain that Jesus Christ will always be with us. We can also be certain that if we are faithful to Jesus and to others that we will experience what it is to stand alone for Jesus Christ, that we will know what it is to be abandoned…if only for enough time to be accused, rejected, and crucified!

 

This is the entrance to John 17, the entrance to the Holy of Holies, the passageway into koinonia with the Trinity, the entering into the glory which Christ Jesus has given us (John 17:22; Rom. 8:17; 1 Pt. 4:12 – 14).  

 

This, my friends, is the fellowship of the Lamb.

 

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (11)

 

 

“Through the Holy Spirit, the crucified and risen Christ exists as the church-community, as the “new human being.” For Christ truly is and eternally remains the incarnate one, and the new humanity truly is his body. Just as the fullness of the godhead became incarnate in him and dwelled in him, so are Christian believers filled with Christ (Col. 2:9; Eph. 3:19). Indeed, they themselves are that divine fulness by being his body, and yet it is Christ alone who fills all in all” (page 200).

 

I will add Ephesians 1:23 to Bonhoeffer’s passages, I’ll quote it along with Ephesians 1:22 which Bonhoeffer references in the following paragraph on page 200:

 

“And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as the head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”

 

Then Bonhoeffer writes, “The unity between Christ and his body, the church, demands that we at the same time recognize Christ’s lordship over his body. This is why Paul, in developing further the concept of the body, calls Christ the head of the body (Eph. 1:22; Col. 1:18; 2:19). The distinction is clearly preserved; Christ is the Lord” (page 200).

 

Do we see what Bonhoeffer has been saying? Do we hear what Bonhoeffer is saying being taught in our churches? Are we and our congregations and movements and denominations and institutions living out the Biblical truth expressed by Dietrich Bonhoeffer?

 

Of course the answer is “No.” Hopefully there are exceptions, hopefully there are individuals who are attempting to be faithful to the Biblical picture of the Body of Christ, the Church, the Temple, the Bride; hopefully there are pastors who are trying to bring their flocks into a Biblical understanding and practice of the Body of Christ, organic unity with Jesus Christ and with His People.

 

The barrier to such vision and practice seems insurmountable. Does this mean we don’t try? Does this mean that we do not ask God for grace to be microcosms of the reality of Christ the Body? Does this mean that we do not strive to serve our brethren as best we can, by God’s grace, even if they reject us and think us a bit strange, or worse, even if they denounce us?

 

I think we have no alternative but to be faithful to the heavenly vision, to be faithful to Christ the Head and Christ the Body and Christ the Whole. I do not see how we can participate in discipleship and do any less – nor did Bonhoeffer, nor did Paul.

 

With Paul, even though so many had rejected him by the time he wrote 2 Timothy, he continued to “Endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen” (2 Tim. 2:10). With Bonhoeffer, even though much of the professing church in Germany rejected him, he continued to train others to be pastors, to strengthen pastors, to equip the Church for what she was experiencing (whether the professing church realized it or not), and to do what he could to help the church recover when darkness should lift from the German people by his writing and teaching.

 

When we read Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship, we do him and ourselves a terrible disservice if we only consider and teach the first half, which focuses on the individual. Individual discipleship must lead to Part II, The Church of Jesus Christ and Discipleship. In fact, we really can’t have one without the other. We learn discipleship within the Body of Christ, and the Body of Christ grows as our discipleship grows, for our discipleship consists not only of communion with the Head, but with His Body (1 John 1:3; Eph. 4:15-16).

 

We see this pattern in Paul’s letter to the Romans; chapters 1 – 8 speak to us as individuals, chapters 9 – 16 as the Body of Christ. In Ephesians we see the individual in 1:1 – 2:10, beyond 2:10 we see the unfolding of the Body of Christ, the Living Temple of God.

 

As with so many things, perhaps our recovery of the truth of the Body of Christ and living as the Body of Christ begins with an acknowledgement that there is a wide and deep chasm between what the Bible teaches us and what we believe and practice. Is recovery even possible?

 

Is it possible that institutions and denominations and movements will acknowledge that they have not been faithful to Christ and His Word? Is it possible that pastors and congregational leaders will acknowledge that they have missed seeing the Body of Christ, missed seeing their people as the saints of God in Christ, missed viewing other Christians in their own towns and cities and regions as the Body of Christ?

 

Perhaps it begins with what Bonhoeffer wrote on page 199: “Since the ascension, Jesus Christ’s place on earth has been taken by his body, the church. The church is the present Christ himself. With this statement we are recovering an insight about the church which has been almost totally forgotten. While we are used to thinking of the church as an institution, we ought instead to think of it as a person with a body, although of course in a unique sense” (italics mine).

 

If we do not begin to think and speak differently, it is unlikely that we will live differently. Old habits are difficult to change, old ways of thinking hard to overcome, especially when the new ways go against the popular grain, when they are invisible to most people and make no sense to the masses and can even be perceived as a threat.

 

Are we able to teach our people to be more than who they are?

 

If we are Baptists, can we teach our people to be more than Baptists, can we teach them to be Christ’s Body? If we are Presbyterians or Pentecostals or Methodists, can we teach our people to be more than our denominations and traditions, can we teach them to be the Body of Christ and to serve the Body of Christ? If we identify as Reformed, Pentecostal, Wesleyan, Anglican, or Lutheran, can we learn to be more than what we are, can we learn to see the Body of Christ, to serve the Body of Christ, to live as the Body of Christ?

 

Is Jesus Christ truly our Head? Or is Jesus Christ actually a figurehead?

 

If Jesus is our Head, then what warrant do we have to propagate anything less than what the Bible teaches us is the Temple of the Living God, and to seek anything less than the fulfillment of Christ’s prayer that we be one as the Trinity is One? (see John 17).

 

Perhaps it must begin with, as Bonhoeffer writes, seeing and thinking and speaking of the church not as an institution, but as a person with a body, a very unique body.

 

How have you thought of the church?

 

How might you begin to think of the church in a Biblical way?  

Our Hearts – God’s Divine Instrument

 

 

In the previous reflection I asked, “What cord did Jesus strike in the hearts of the disciples to elicit, ‘Now You are speaking plainly…now we know’”?

 

I want to share with you my sense of the answer to that question. There are likely other perspectives, other facets, other thoughts; I can only pass along to you my own sense; that which I have touched, heard, seen, and that in which I live (1 John 1:1 – 4). I am told that I am now old, and being old in Christ I am looking forward to that City, and in looking forward to that City I will die either as a fool, or I will go Home to that for which I was redeemed. The response of the disciples is the essence of my life in Christ, it is indicative of my hope and trust in Him, it is a foretaste of eternal glory.

 

For when Jesus speaks of coming forth from the Father into the world, and then leaving the world and going to the Father, He strikes a cord in the heart of the disciples; a cord of identity, a cord of calling and purpose, a cord of destiny.

 

In the previous reflection I listed moments in the Gospel of John in which the disciples recognized the numinous in Jesus, the Divine, the Other, they identified with Him in those moments, those moments and glimpses of glory pulled them into Jesus.

 

We see these moments in the Gospels along the sea of Galilee when Jesus calls Peter, Andrew, James, and John to follow Him. We cannot explain or understand their response other than there was something inside them that responded to the heart of Jesus Christ; as is written in the Psalms, “Deep calls unto deep.”

 

We see such a moment when Matthew leaves tax collecting, makes restitution where needed, and follows Jesus. We witness a deepening moment when Peter confesses, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”

 

There is a sense in which our lives in Christ are an unfolding of the dawn and the rising of the morning star (2 Peter 1:19), our “paths shining brighter and brighter until the full day” (Pro. 4:18), in a continual transformation into His image as we become who we truly are in Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 3:17 – 18; 1 John 3:1 – 3).

 

Jesus came to bring us home to the Father. He came to declare the Father’s Name to His brothers and sisters (Hebrews 2:11 – 13).  O dear friends, when we hear the Father’s Name spoken to us, when our ears are opened, when our hearts, which have lain dormant, begin to come alive in response to the Voice of our Elder Brother, then our pilgrimage truly begins, then we head toward Home, Home in Jesus, Home in the Father, Home in the Holy Spirit, Home with one another.

 

Our hearts are God’s Divine instrument. Upon them God plays His song of love and compassion and tender mercies. Upon them God plays His song of sonship, of bringing His sons and daughters to glory (Hebrews 2:10 – 11).

 

As the Holy Spirit births the dawn within us, our hearts respond to the light which unveils, “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified” (Ro. 8:29 – 30).

 

The musical score is placed before us and we begin to hear the music, what was once simply notes on paper, comes to life as we take our place both as instruments and as musicians in our Father’s grand massed orchestra.

 

“Just as He chose us in Him [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him” (Eph. 1:4).

 

“To those who reside as aliens…according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood” (1 Peter 1:1 – 2).

 

There is only one way to encounter these passages, and that is to play the music, to enter into the music, to absorb the music, to allow the Holy Spirit to tune our hearts to the key of Jesus and for our hearts to play and sing to the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world…for whom? Why for you. Why for me. Why for us.

 

When Jesus says, “I came forth from the Father into the world; I am leaving the world again and going to the Father,” the context of the Gospel of John and the immediate context of the Upper Room, informs Jesus’ words thusly:

 

“I came forth from the Father into the world for you; I am leaving the world again and bringing you back to the Father. I will go ahead of you, yet I will not leave you. I will go ahead of you, yet we will walk this road together. This is more than My return, this is our Return.”

 

This is what we see in John chapters 13 – 16, this is what we will see and experience in the Holy of Holies of John 17. This is what Jesus affirms on Easter with, “I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God” (20:17).

 

O dear, dear friends, passages such as Romans 8:28 – 39 are given to us to bring us Home, to transport us into the bosom and heart of the Lamb, into the arms of our Good Shepherd. How foolish we are when we insist on pulling down the glory of God to earth, when the Holy Spirit is saying over and over again, “Come up. Come up. Come up” (Rev. 4:1). Our blessings are in the heavenly places (Eph. 1:3) in Christ, in Christ, always in Christ.

 

My sense is that when the disciples heard Jesus say, “I came forth from the Father and have come into the world; I am leaving the world again and going to the Father,” that their hearts identified with those words, that calling, that destiny. They may not have understood what Jesus was saying, and indeed they still had much to learn, much of which would soon come into focus; just as it is with us – or at least with me.

 

When they heard these words they said in their hearts, “Me too. Us too. Yes, yes – we are going back to our Father with You.” What had been an enigma is now being made clear, what was once perplexing language, is now plain.

 

We are not accidents looking for a place to happen. We are the sons and daughters of the Living God and heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:15 – 17; Gal. 4:1 – 7).

 

This is our identity, this is our destiny. I am told I am old, and for sure closer to Home than I was before. But I’ll tell you a little secret, when that glorious Day of transition comes and I pass through that portal into the Presence of the Lamb and my fellow pilgrims…I will say, “Why, I’m not old at all. Life is just Beginning.”

A Strange Recognition

 

 

In John 16:25 Jesus says, “An hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language.”

 

Then in 16:28 He says, “I came forth from the Father and have come into the world; I am leaving the world again and going to the Father.” As we ponder these words, let’s keep in mind how our journey in the Upper Room began:

 

“Jesus knowing that He would depart out of this world to the Father…knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God” (see John 13:1 – 4).

 

The theme of Jesus coming from the Father and going to the Father will continue into John Chapter 17 and beyond. It is a theme that begins in John Chapter One and continues throughout the Gospel, evoking perplexity and derision from many, and yet drawing His brothers and sisters to Him, into Him, and into that same glorious and loving journey to the Father. As you read the Gospel of John look for the statements and allusions to coming from the Father and returning to the Father. What do you see?

 

This was Jesus’ Way of Life in the Incarnation, it is to be our Way of Life as well as we abide in Him. We are to be ever and always leaving the world and going to the Father; as we follow the Lamb wherever He goes the Father’s Name is written in our hearts and minds (Rev. 14:1 – 5); our union with the Trinity (and with one another) is inexpressible.  

 

But back to our passage, when Jesus makes the statement, “I came forth from the Father and have come into the world; I am leaving the world again and going to the Father,” what reaction might we expect from the disciples? What might our reaction have been? If we place ourselves in the Upper Room, if we imagine ourselves as having been with Jesus for 3 years, if we think about the events of Holy Week that have led to the Upper Room, if we review what Jesus has said in John chapters 13 – 16, if we consider all these things, what might our reaction have been?

 

Would these words of Jesus have been enigmatic to us? That is, would they have been a puzzle, yet another statement of Jesus’ for us to wrestle with in order to understand it?

 

Keep in mind that Thomas had said, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?” (14:5).

 

Judas (not Iscariot) had asked, “Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?” (14:22).

 

Recall that earlier in Chapter 16 the disciples were asking, “What is this thing He is telling us, ‘A little while and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me’; and, ‘because I go to the Father’? What is this that He says, ‘A little while’? We do not know what He is talking about” (16:17 – 18).

 

Throughout the Upper Room there has been perplexity among the disciples over what Jesus is saying about going to the Father, why should we not expect continued puzzlement over, “I came forth from the Father and have come into the world; I am leaving the world again and going to the Father”?

 

However, instead of more questions, the disciples respond with, “Lo, now You are speaking plainly and are not using a figure of speech. Now we know that You know all things, and have no need for anyone to question You; by this we believe that You came from God” (16:29 – 30).  

 

What has happened between 16:17 and 16:29? What was enigmatic a few moments ago has now become clear. What was once a figure of speech is no longer a figure of speech. The “hour” of 16:25 has arrived or at least is dawning. Jesus is saying the same things, but they are hearing Him in a new way.

 

May I gently say, that when we want God and others to dumb down His revelation of Himself, when we want His Word simplified for our microwave attention spans and our congregations that are accustomed to hearing messages centered on their needs and desires and whims, that we forego the invitation and opportunity to be captured by the glory of God in Jesus Christ. How often I have heard people say in small groups, “Why doesn’t God just say what He means?”

 

Our Father wants us to know Him, He wants relationship, He is not interested in us passing some kind of learning standards exam; Jesus loves us enough to work with us, to bring us along, to challenge us, to be patient with us…and we want nothing of it. We want some kind of AI assistant to give us the answers in lieu of relationship. Sometimes we can be fools.

 

For sure the disciples have had glimpses of recognition over the years.

 

Andrew followed Jesus, bringing his brother Peter with him (1:40 – 41).

 

Philip followed Jesus, bringing Nathanael with him (1:45).

 

Nathanael was given a promise of revelation to come (1:50 – 51).

 

The disciples received a glimpse of His glory at Cana (2:11).

 

The disciples were taken aback when they saw Him with the Samaritan woman, this was beyond their understanding, in one sense it was out of their world (4:27).

 

What were they thinking when He spoke of the Father in 5:18 – 47, even as the religious leaders sought to kill Him?

 

What were they thinking when He fed the multitudes, walked on the water, and spoke of Himself as the Bread of Life in John Chapter 6?

 

Even if the disciples did not understand all that was happening in John Chapter 6, they knew enough deep inside them to say, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life” (6:68).

 

What did the disciples think when Jesus says, “I am the light of the world” (8:12)?

 

There is a steady and often enigmatic progression of unveiling in the Gospel of John; on the night of His betrayal, in the Upper Room, Jesus draws His disciples deeper into the mystery of Divine koinonia, the mystery of the Trinity, the mystery of knowing Him, the mystery of becoming one in Him, of knowing a unity as His People in the Trinity.

 

If we will submit to Him, bow to Him, abide in Him, and trust Him…we will begin to hear Him and see Him; He will say the same things but we will actually hear what He is saying, we will see what He is saying, we will become what He is saying. We will say, “Wow, now You are speaking plainly.”

 

How we forget, if we have ever known, that the “natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them” (1 Cor. 2:14).

 

What cord did Jesus strike in the hearts of the disciples to elicit, “Now You are speaking plainly…now we know”?

 

What do you think?

 

Do these words of Jesus strike a cord in your own heart?

 

 

A New Way

 

 

Now we come to John Chapter 17. “But wait!” you say, “we haven’t moved all the way through John 16 yet.”

 

Yes, that is true, and we will indeed enter John 17 through John 16, but as we move into John 16:25 – 33 we will be in the vestibule of John 17, the prelude to the Holy of Holies with its new time, its new language, its new seeing, and its new thinking. This is the thinking and language and seeing and time of the Sons of the Kingdom, it flows from the Trinity, from eternity past to eternity present to eternity future.

 

For sure, new ways take time to learn, they take practice, they require exercise and use in order to grow and experience proficiency.

 

As you read John 16:25 – 33 what questions do you have? What things do not make sense? Our Father uses our questions to reveal Himself, to draw us deeper into His Presence – questions are good; God is God and we are not, as we bow before Him we can learn.

 

When Jesus says that “an hour is coming” in which He will no longer speak to the disciples in figurative language, we might think it will be a while before this happens. Yet, in verse 29 the disciples say, “Lo, now You are speaking plainly and are not using a figure of speech.” It seems as if that coming “hour” happened quickly.

 

In verse 27 Jesus says that the disciples “have believed that I came forth from the Father.” Yet, in verse 30 the disciples say, “Now we know that You know all things, and have no need for anyone to question You; by this we believe that You came from God.” In other words, Jesus says that the disciples believe He came from the Father before the disciples confess this belief.

 

But then we have verses 31 – 32 in which Jesus challenges their confession by telling the disciples that they will all desert Him, leaving Him alone. Yet again, in verse 33 Jesus affirms their ultimate victory and peace in Him, “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace.”

 

Jesus affirms their belief in Him, the disciples confess that belief, then Jesus challenges their belief, then Jesus affirms their belief and confirms their victory in Him. Throughout the Upper Room we have seen the enigmatic dance of the Holy Spirit, we have seen Jesus drawing His friends deeper and deeper into the Temple of God, into the Holy City.

 

O dear friends, it is only as the Wisdom of God reveals Himself and His Father that we will hear the language of God, see the ways of God, think the thoughts of God, and know intimacy with God (Pro. 8; 1 Cor. 2).

 

“I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well – pleasing in Your sight. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Mt. 11:25 – 27; see also 1 Cor. 1:17 – 31).

 

“For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind” (Jn. 9:39).

 

God’s time is not our time, His language is not our language, His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts.

 

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8–9).

 

Let us allow the Holy Spirit to draw us upward into the time and words and ways of God, rather than foolishly attempt to pull His revelation downward into the gravity of earth, and let us not forget Jesus’ words to Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). Jesus also says to His disciples, ““It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” (John 6:63).

 

Throughout the Upper Room Jesus says things about the disciples which, in light of their impending desertion of Him, do not seem to be true. Jesus speaks of both their abandonment of Him and their fidelity to Him. He speaks of their faithlessness and also of their faithfulness. He talks of their momentary fear, and of their unfolding peace, joy, and overcoming. Jesus calls them to His very own life, love, joy, peace, obedience, fruit, and calling. This language, this way of seeing things, this thinking, and this sense of time plunges ever deeper in the Holy of Holies of John 17, and is gloriously affirmed on Easter when Jesus says, “Go to My brethren and say to them, I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God” (John 20:17).

 

We do not see as Jesus sees, but in Him we can learn to see as He sees. This is an element of the invitation of the Upper Room into the koinonia of the Trinity.

 

Paul writes that, “We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18).

 

Then Paul moves us from the way we look at things to the way we see people. “From now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer” (2 Cor. 5:16). This is a lesson the disciples will begin to learn on Easter Sunday; Mary Magdelene will learn it, the two disciples on the Road to Emmaus will learn it, the disciples fishing will learn it.

 

He follows this statement with, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Cor. 5:17). Can we hear the Father declaring this? “Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5).

 

This, my friends, is why we are called to look at Jesus and not ourselves. This is why we are called to hear and believe Jesus and not listen to ourselves nor believe what we think about ourselves. Jesus, our Good Shepherd, has wrapped us up in His arms and carries us deep into Himself and we shall always be His and He shall always be ours.

 

Jesus says, “Don’t trust in what you think about yourself, trust in what I think about you. Don’t seek your identity in yourself, acknowledge your identity within Me. Abide in Me and allow Me to abide in you – rest in My arms, in My love, in My peace, in My joy – you and I have eternity ahead of us!”

 

Perhaps more than anything, the Upper Room is a glorious revelation of the love of God for us. In the Upper Room we hear a voice calling, “Come up here” (Rev. 4:1).

 

Let’s go!

 

 

Joseph’s Tears

Do we know that Jesus weeps for us? Do we know that our Lord Jesus desires to reveal Himself to us, just as Joseph desired to reveal himself to his brothers, the very brothers who sold him into slavery? Can we see our story in the story of Joseph…both as Joseph and as his brothers?

 

What a shame it would have been for Joseph’s brothers to have found food in Egypt without finding Joseph! Suppose Joseph had simply watched his brothers but never revealed himself to them? My dear friends, is it really enough that we give our congregations, and this world, food from our granaries to keep them satiated, but never unveil Jesus Christ to them? 

What is the point of having hungry people coming back and back on Sundays, and yet they have never seen the Glorious One who bids us eat His flesh and drink His blood, the One who calls us to live by His very Life? How many trips will the woman make to the well before she finds someone who calls her to leave her bucket and allow a fountain of Living Water to spout up within her…and then flow out from her to a thirsty church and world?

 

Can we see the progression of Jacob’s sons in our own lives? Are we moving from knowing Reuben, which means “See, a son,” to Benjamin, meaning “Son of the right hand”? Which son are we living as today?

 

When Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt a second time, this time with Benjamin, and Joseph has a meal with them, we read, “Joseph hurried out for he was deeply stirred over his brother, and he sought a place to weep, and he entered his chamber and wept there. Then he washed his face and came out; and he controlled himself and said, ‘Serve the meal.’” (Genesis 43:30 – 31).

 

Jesus intercedes for us, Jesus, weeps for us, that He might reveal Himself and the Father to us. “Therefore He is able also to save completely those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:25).

 

Just as Pharaoh gave Joseph all authority, can we hear Jesus saying, “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Luke 10:22)?

 

“He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him” (John 14:21).

 

“O righteous Father, although the world has not known You; yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me; and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:25 – 26).

 

O dear friends, it is not enough for us to be given food to simply help us along in this life, we need the Living Bread from heaven, from the Father: “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst…I am the bread that came down out of heaven…I am the bread of life…This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh’” (see John Chapter 6).

 

 Joseph shed tears for his brother Benjamin, indeed for all his brothers; he yearned to reveal himself to them – but had they changed? Had they repented of their betrayal? Had a greater hunger than temporal food grown in their souls? A hunger for forgiveness? A hunger for redemption? A hunger to be the men God had created them to be?

 

 What about us with our religious playthings? Is our heart’s desire to know Jesus Christ, to see Him unveiled? To make Him known to others? Or are we still seeking the transient, the temporal, the quick fix? Do we only come on Sunday mornings, do we only participate in small groups – to buy the grain of this earth, so that our problems will be smaller, so that our possessions will be larger, so that others will think better of us, so that our agendas will be fulfilled?

Are we propagating a Christless Christianity? A Christ without the Cross and a Cross that looks more like cotton candy than an instrument of death – not only the death of Jesus Christ but our own death to sin and self?

 

There were thousands of people buying grain in Egypt, but it was not given to the multitudes to actually “see” Joseph. Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt looking for one thing, but they found another. Even with us, we may engage with popular and cultural Christianity, looking for pragmatic fixes for our lives, but by God’s grace perhaps we will find Another, weeping for us, loving us, revealing Himself to us.

 

Can we hear Joseph say, “Serve the meal?”

 

Can we hear Jesus say, “Take, eat; this is My body…Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant…”

 

 Joseph wept for his brothers, Jesus weeps for us.

 

Are we weeping for others?

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (10)

 

“The body of Christ is his church – community. Jesus Christ at the same time is himself and his church community (1 Cor. 12:12)…To be in Christ means to be in the church – community. But if we are in the church – community, then we are also truly and bodily in Jesus Christ. This insight reveals the full richness of meaning contained in the concept of the body of Christ” (pp. 198 – 199).

 

“Since the ascension, Jesus Christ’s place on earth has been taken by his body, the church. The church is the present Christ himself. With this statement we are recovering an insight about the church which has been almost totally forgotten. While we are used to thinking of the church as an institution, we ought instead to think of it as a person with a body, although of course a person in a unique sense” (page 199, italics mine).

 

If what Bonhoeffer says is true, then we have much to unlearn and much ground to recover.

 

The Apostle John writes that he wants his readers to have koinonia with him and his brothers and sisters, because John and his friends have koinonia with the Father and the Son (1 John 1:3). In other words, to have fellowship with John and his associates is to have fellowship with God. Put another way, to be in the same fellowship as John is, is to be in the fellowship of God. To be in the church - community is to be in Christ.

 

As Bonhoeffer points out, this is not about an institution but rather about a Person.

 

We simply don’t think this way, we simply don’t see the church – community this way, we do not see Jesus Christ this way. Yet, the Church, the Body, the Bride, the Temple is portrayed as a living and organic entity throughout Scripture, an entity that far surpasses and dwarfs our parochial concepts of congregations, denominations, and traditions.

 

Let us recall that Jesus asked, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

 

“For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12). This is not a metaphor, this is an organic reality. This is Christ. As Bonhoeffer writes, this is a “person in a unique sense.”

 

Perhaps the following may help us. When you read the name “Israel” what do you think of in a Biblical context? Most people probably think of a nation, a people whom God brought out of Egypt, through the Wilderness, into Canaan, and who had a varied history in the Ancient Near East. However, that is not the only way to relate to the name Israel in the Bible, it is not the only thing the name Israel means in the Bible.

 

In Genesis 32:24 – 32 Jacob wrestles with God and at the conclusion of the encounter God says, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.”  Later, in Genesis 35:9 – 13, God confirms Jacob’s new name, “Your name is Jacob; you shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.”

 

When reading the Bible and coming upon the name Israel, sometimes it will mean the individual also known as Jacob, sometimes it will mean all of Jacob’s descendants, and sometimes it will mean the northern kingdom which came about after the death of Solomon. Beyond that, sometimes it will mean the People of God in Jesus Christ – from ages past to the present and into the future. Many times it will mean a combination! For now, I want to just think about the way “Israel” can refer to Jacob and also how it can refer to Jacob’s physical descendants.

 

When I say or write “Israel” do I mean the individual or the people? Context tells the listener or the reader which I mean. There is even a sense in which I can mean both at the same time because all of the physical descendants of Israel came from the individual named Israel. We might term this as seeing the body of Israel with Jacob Israel as the head of the body.

 

This imagery and way of thinking is found throughout the Bible, so don’t be too quick to give up on it, there is a lot at stake in understanding it. (Remember those passages in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 about “Adam” and “Christ”? You may want to take another look at them.)

 

In a similar fashion when I use the name Christ I may use it in the sense of the entire Body of Christ, such as in 1 Corinthians 12:12, or I can write, “I have been crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20) and thereby refer to the Person of Jesus Christ. Or we can have a passage in which we see both the Head and the body in a living and dynamic relationship:

 

“Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of every part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:15 – 16).

 

St. Augustine, in his wonderful expositions on the Psalms, beholds Christ the Head and Christ the Church in psalm after psalm. At times he writes in effect, “The unity of Christ and His Body is such in this psalm that I cannot distinguish between the two, nor should I.”

 

While we may be taken aback by such language and vision, we ought not to be, at least we ought not to be if we believe Jesus:

 

“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent me…I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and love them, even as You have loved Me” (see John 17:20 – 26).

 

We are called to be one in the Trinity, to know the koinonia of the Trinity, to share the life of the Trinity, to live in intimacy with the Trinity…and therefore with one another.

 

As the Bride of Christ the Church is bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh and one person with the Bridegroom; let us recall that Scripture begins with marriage and culminates with Marriage – let us embrace the glory of the Marriage of the Lamb and His Bride, that unfolding Divine mystery – there has never been a marriage march like that of Revelation chapters 21 and 22!

 

One of my lowest moments as a pastor was being in a Sunday school class that was reading Ephesians 4:11 – 16. The teacher read this passage aloud, paused a moment, and then said, “Let’s move on.” Since this passage has been a key in my life since the 1960s, since it has been an integral element of my vision, I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing…well, yes I could.

 

For this “leader” and this congregation were steeped in ethnic identity, they were imbued with worldly political thinking, the collective leadership was controlling, and it was most certainly “their church” rather than Christ’s church. (I suppose they were not that much different from many congregations in one way or another.)

 

This teacher, a leader in the congregation, could not “see” Ephesians 4:11 – 16, so blind was she to the Body of Christ…and therefore to Christ. But she is not alone, is she? From seminaries to denominational leadership, to pulpits throughout the land (including so-called nondenominational churches), we do not see the Body of Christ – this is the way we have been raised, educated, and the way many of us make our living.

 

Jesus says in John 17 that the key to evangelism, if we can call it such, is our unity in the Trinity; but we think we know better so we ignore what He says.

 

The Church is not an institution but a Person, yes, a unique Person, but a Person we see from Genesis through Revelation. We cannot define this Person, but we can not only live in this Person, when we live in Him we are one with Him and He is one with us and we are one with one another. We are “members one of another” (Rom. 15:5; also Eph. 4:25).

 

There is indeed a chasm between the Body of Christ, the Church, as portrayed in the Bible and as understood and practiced by American Christians (and beyond our shores). As Bonhoeffer writes, we’ve forgotten that the Body of Christ is a Person.

 

The Good News amid the challenge of recovering lost ground is that Jesus will teach us to “see” and live in His Body, He will teach us to see Him throughout the Scriptures. The Lamb will teach us to love His Bride and serve her. Jesus will teach us as individuals, as husbands and wives and families, as congregations…and beyond.

 

However, He does not promise that others will understand us. Some have given up on the Body of Christ, the Church, and no longer want to hear anything about us as a People whom Jesus loves. Others will allow nothing to threaten their parochial view of church, they will not permit anything, include Jesus and the Bible, to open their eyes to the communion of saints – nothing must threaten control. (I want to emphasize that this includes so-called nondenominational churches and affiliated groups, as well as more traditional movements and organizations.)

 

A telling passage of Scripture is 2 Timothy 2:10, “For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also my obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.” Consider that Paul writes this in the context of the following two statements:

 

“You are aware of the fact that all who are in Asia turned away from me” (2 Timothy 1:15).

 

“At my first defense no one supported me, but all deserted me; may it not be counted against them” (2 Timothy 4:16).

 

Paul’s commitment to the Body of Christ, to the Church, to those who are chosen, is not contingent on how he is treated by Christians. The Body of Christ which he once persecuted he now loves and serves whether or not his love and service is accepted. Christians may reject Paul, but Paul will not reject them.

 

The cost of discipleship, as articulated by Bonhoeffer, includes the cost of seeing and living in the Body of Christ, and there is a cost, make no mistake about it. The cost includes serving and laying down our lives for the Body of Christ (1 John 3:16; Colossians 1:24; 2 Cor. 4:12).

 

Bonhoeffer’s images and words and concepts are strange to most of us, but he is rooting and framing them in Scripture and in Jesus Christ. This ought to shake us, it ought to challenge us, it ought to cause us to wonder just what we believe and practice.

 

Does it?

 

“Since the ascension, Jesus Christ’s place on earth has been taken by his body, the church. The church is the present Christ himself.”

 

Is this how your congregation sees itself?

 

Is it how the members of your congregation treat one another?

 

Is it how your congregation relates to other groups of Christians?

 

Is it how your congregation relates to the world?

A Life of Prayer – My Testimony

 

 

Before I share some of my testimony, a couple of comments. I am not very keen on teaching methodologies of prayer because “how to” approaches can become rote, legalistic, and are not, I think, relationally natural. If God is our Father, and if Jesus is our Elder Brother, and if the Holy Spirit lives within us, then conversation and communion with God and prayer in its many forms, is essentially organic. That being said, the Psalms provide 150 invitations to participate in prayer, along with many other prayers in the Bible. Also, as noted previously we have centuries of examples of prayer which are also invitations. The Scriptures ought to be our nexus for prayer, most Scriptures can be prayed in some fashion.

 

There are indeed principles in prayer, and models, Jesus speaks of these, but they are not mechanical but found in the context of filial relationship and servanthood.

 

Andrew Murray has two devotional books on prayer, each consisting of 31 days, With Christ in the School of Prayer and With Christ in the School of Intercession. These books contain daily Scripture readings with Murray’s reflections on how they speak to us of prayer. Because they are rooted in Scripture and point us to Jesus, they are foundational. Practicing the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence presents an organic and relational approach to praying as a way of life.

 

Now I want to share just a little about my life of prayer, and I’m going to use the workplace as my setting. Let me first say that I am a very imperfect person. I can be harsh, I can be angry, I can be abrupt, I can be sarcastic, I can be a real jerk. Thanks to the grace of God and the Holy Spirit I know what it is to apologize and ask forgiveness in the workplace. As I look back over my life in the workplace, I see times when I should have apologized and asked forgiveness but didn’t, I see things clearer now with advancing age. I see so many times I failed to abide in the Vine and missed opportunities to be a blessing to others and be a better testimony for Jesus.

 

Yet, I truly loved my people, both my direct reports and the people who worked for them. I loved my coworkers, and I worked with contractors whom I loved and had great affection for. I often took opportunities at large employee gatherings to not only share Jesus, but to tell my people that I loved them. I prayed with many people I worked with and received prayer requests from many more. It got to the place where folks expected me to pray for them when there was sickness or tragedy in their families. I have now been retired from business for over seven years, and I still receive prayer requests from former coworkers.

 

When a contractor’s father was in the hospital, I visited him and prayed with him. When another contractor was in the hospital for heart surgery, I was there to pray. When I visited apartment communities, it was not unusual for me to pray with my managers and others in their offices, and pray with residents of the communities, or with contractors doing work in the communities. When people had needs, I prayed. Sometimes I took their prayer requests, and other times we prayed on the spot.

 

I believed that my first calling was to be the Presence of Christ and to serve those around me.

 

I would pray for all the people in the office I worked in by visually walking down the hall and going into each office, I’d visualize the person and pray for him or her. I would also pray for their families and any specific needs I knew about. This is a practice (a method I guess!) that I used for decades.

 

If I had special meetings scheduled on a particular day, I’d pray for those meetings ahead of time, asking for wisdom, asking for help in preparation, asking to be a blessing to others in the meetings. During meetings I would also pray, asking my Father and Lord Jesus for wisdom, for peace, for grace and favor.

 

I had some particularly difficult clients, and meetings could be tense and stressful, but Jesus was always with me and I was always communing with Him during my meetings – this was my way of life in Him. I wanted my work to glorify God, to serve my clients, to serve my company, and to bless my employees and residents.

 

I worked in some fairly dangerous areas in housing, places where there was significant drug dealing, where people were shot and killed in broad daylight. I prayed for my people, the residents, and for my own safety when I walked those streets. Once, when I was inspecting a property with staff members and a representative from a state housing agency, we sought refuge in a vacant townhouse because of gunfire, gunfire which killed a drug dealer in a spot I had just walked by not less than 5 minutes before.

 

I was never afraid for myself, I was cautious but not afraid, my life belonged to Jesus. I was, however, often fearful for my people…and I prayed and prayed and prayed for them, and for the residents. Most folks living in difficult places are fine people, people who love their families and who do right by their neighbors, often working 2 or 3 jobs – it is a tragedy that they are marginalized by others in society and in the professing church. Shame on us.

 

Praying during conversations with others was a way of life for me, I was always asking my Father how I could be a blessing to the other person, how I could share the love of Jesus. O for sure there were times I missed opportunities. Sometimes I realized missed opportunities immediately, other times not until I’d arrived home. I can be dense and stupid and self – centered. When I am tired, I am more likely to miss a nice pitch over the plate than when I’m fresh. When I am in a hurry, I am more likely to miss being a blessing because I can be caught up in my own agenda rather than God’s. When I am stressed I can be particularly self-centered and not be attuned to the needs of others. All the more reason to live a life of prayer, for when my communion with God is interrupted by my foolishness, I am more likely to quickly sense it and ask God for help.

 

I believed the Trinity lived in me because this is what Jesus teaches in the Upper Room. The workplace was where God had me, and He had me there to serve others and be His Presence. I was willing to be misunderstood because of my rather simple faith, and I was also willing to take the heat for refusing to lie or place spin on problems and insisting on treating everyone with equity and respect, including paying them decent wages. I have put my job on the line for my employees more than once over the years – after all, I was in the workplace not to be served, but to serve.

 

I had a successful career, and better than that, I had a good testimony within my industry. My peers respected me and trusted me and honored me in a number of ways over the years. Of course, had the quality of my work not been superior, had I not offered my work to God, the story would no doubt have been different. My work was a form of worship, and the workplace was a place of spiritual formation to me, and then it was a place of witness for Jesus. God was always forming me into His image at work, and He was always using me as His Presence in the lives of others.

 

Since we have this treasure in jars of clay (2 Cor. 4:7), I realized that there was no need for me to pretend to be something I wasn’t, I could trust God to make it clear that any success I had was to His glory…and as I wrote above, I know what it is to apologize and ask forgiveness at work. When I made a relational mess of things, I saw it as an opportunity to make amends, to ask forgiveness, and to show the world that in Jesus relationships can be restored – the world does not see that very often. I do not recommend that we deliberately make asses of ourselves in order to share what reconciliation looks like in Jesus, but if we do make asses of ourselves, let us not waste the opportunity to be witnesses for Christ, to show others Jesus as the better Way to live.

 

I spent my days at work speaking to our Father and listening to Him, praying for others and looking for ways to serve them. I loved being with my people and coworkers. I loved being part of a team. I loved watching people grow.

 

I have had many people influence my understanding of our abiding in Christ, many of them lived long before me, and a few I have personally known. I am convinced that Jesus’ relationship with the Father is to be our relationship with the Father, I hope we are seeing this as we travel through the Upper Room, and I sure hope we see this when we move into the Holy of Holies of John Chapter 17.

 

There is no joy quite like the joy of praying with friends, where one minute you can be talking and the next naturally praying together. I have been blessed to have friends like these, even though with advancing age more of them are moving ahead of me into the City – but what shall it be like when we are all there! I trust those who have gone before are continuing to pray for me, I surely need it.

 

If we are going to spend eternity with our Father, doesn’t it make sense to spend our days with Him now? In much the same way, I once sensed our Father saying to me, “Bob, instead of thinking in terms of a prayer life, wouldn’t it be better if you learned to live a life of prayer? Instead of thinking in terms of intercessory prayer, wouldn’t it be better if you learned to live an intercessory life?”

 

Of the many influences I’ve had in my life of prayer, outside of the Bible Francois Fenelon may be the most vital, and since he influenced Andrew Murray this gives Fenelon a place of double honor. Fenelon’s life and writings speak to me many ways and continually bid me come up higher and deeper into Jesus. Fenelon is a great model for people in leadership in business, education, politics, and of course the church, for he served in the court of the Sun King, Louis IX, and influenced many at the pinnacle of power in the French court.

 

Fenelon was banished to his diocese for his refusal to abandon his friend, Jeanne Guyon, and his refusal to deny his understanding of our life in Christ. We must be willing to follow the Lamb wherever He goes, including in rejection (Hebrews 13:13). If we are not willing to be sacrifices for Christ and others we’ll never truly witness and our faithfulness to Jesus will always be contingent on ourselves – an unstable foundation, don’t you think?

 

Fenelon taught me to pray and listen to God while in conversation with others. I don’t recall how it began, but now it is as natural as breathing and I have not thought about it for many years, it is just what I do. I find great joy in listening to others and listening to God at the same time. We all do it, the question is how we do it. We’ve all been in a restaurant and engaged in conversation with a friend, while at the same time listening to a discussion at an adjacent table. Might it be more fruitful to listen to our friend and God?

 

Lives of prayer begin in the morning, when the page of the day is blank. We allow the Holy Spirit and the Word of God to make the first impressions on our hearts, minds, and souls. The only thing we should turn on may be the coffee pot as we began our daily conversation with God. No phone, no email, no radio, no TV, no news…just us and God…once the day begins this way it can continue this Way. There is only one first impression each day…ought it not be that of the holy Trinity?

 

My first mentor was George Will. George talked to God all the time, sometimes his conversations where quiet and within himself, and many times they were vocalized as naturally as if Jesus was right with us – which of course He was. He was like that in 1966 when I first met him, and he was still like that around 2012 when I last spoke with him over the phone. I imagine some folks thought him a bit crazy. Well, Jesus’s family and friends thought He was a bit touched too (Mark 3:20 – 21). Not bad company George, not bad company.

 

Much love,

 

Bob

 

“You will receive”

 

“Ask and you will receive” (John 16:24).

 

In our previous reflection we considered that in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus spoke to us of our Father in heaven, a concept alien to most folks in His time, and I think functionally alien in our time. What I mean by “functionally alien” is that while we may know the words to the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father who is in heaven,” few of us think of God as our Father and fewer still have intimate relationships with Him, relationships which are the essence of our lives.

 

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus speaks to us of asking of our Father and our Father giving to us. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you…If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him” (see Matthew 7:7 – 11).

 

Later in His ministry, Jesus reiterates this in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 11:1 – 13). Note the proximity of “how much more will your heavenly Father” to the Lord’s Prayer in Luke 11. Also note that in Luke 11:13 Jesus introduces another element, “How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” We are to be asking for the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18 – 21).

 

As we see in the Upper Room, the themes of asking, receiving, the Holy Spirit, and joy are all woven together. They are woven together because this is what we experience in the Trinity, in intimacy with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We see this fabric throughout Jesus’ life and teaching, from the beginning to the earthly conclusion…and beyond. Asking and receiving is inextricably woven with abiding in the Vine, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:5).

 

While we have the privilege of asking for specific things, for the glory of our Father and Lord Jesus, and while we should glory in the answers to specific prayers, so that our “joy may be made full” (16:24), an even greater glory and joy is the deep relationship with God that we are called into. In one sense these are one and the same, in another (experiential) sense they are not; they are not in the sense that many of us cannot conceive of the deep love our Father has for us and of the deep communion to which He calls us. The greatest thing that we can receive in prayer is more of God, more of the Trinity.

 

Receiving more of God in prayer leads us to greater wisdom and confidence and trust in continual prayer, and we transition from having prayer lives to having lives of prayer. We transition from engaging in intercessory prayer to living intercessory lives (which encompasses intercessory prayer).

 

In 16:23 Jesus says, “If you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you.” Then 16:26 – 27 He says, “In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I will request of the Father on your behalf; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father.”

 

If we cannot bear fruit without abiding in Jesus, if we can do nothing apart from Him (John 15:4 – 5), then we must live lives of asking (John 15:5). Don’t you think so? However, our asking goes far beyond this, for in asking for fruit to bear (John 15:8) we are also asking for fruit to give to others. That is, we are asking to receive in order that we may give, not that the fruit may rot on the vine.

 

However, this goes even beyond this, for we are asking that we might live lives of loving others as Jesus loves us, and this means laying down our lives for our friends and brothers and sisters and the world (John 15:12 – 13; 1 John 3:16; John 3:16). Prayer becomes as breathing, asking in prayer becomes both conversational and deliberate and at times persistent and imploring (Luke 11:5 – 8), and at other times deeply intercessory. Prayer also includes the joy of praise, singing, thanksgiving (often sacrificial in nature) and confession and repentance. Prayer encompasses our koinonia with God and others. We grow out of prayer lives into living lives of prayer. (Of course, we still have focused times of prayer, often (I trust) intense.)

 

Perhaps when we place Jesus’ emphasis in the Upper Room on asking, asking, asking in the context of His portrayal of our life in the Trinity and with one another, we can better see the necessity for asking, asking, asking – for our lives are dependent on receiving, receiving, receiving…always receiving from the Father, the Son, the Spirit…so that we may give to others, thereby sharing God’s love and mercy with the Church and the world.  

 

Now I’d like to make an observation and then share just a bit about my own life. We are all different and in Jesus Christ we must find our own voice with the Father in prayer. Yes, we ought to learn from one another and be encouraged by one another, but your voice cannot be my voice, nor can my voice be your voice.

 

However, there are times that we can indeed use another’s voice to find our own voice, perhaps as a manned space rocket needs a booster to escape earth’s gravity. Our voices can blend with other voices. After all, the Psalms give us 150 voices (and more!) to join our voices to. I write “and more!” because we not only have the voice of the earthly authors, but also the voice of the Church and also the Voice of Christ. The Psalms have been the Voice of the Church since our birth at Pentecost and it is a tragedy that many of us and our movements are ignoring our membership in this heavenly choir and ongoing prayer meeting. 

This is one reason why I am insistent that we read and meditate on the Psalms every day, every single day. If we do this in Christ, the Psalms will become our own voice – your voice, my voice, the voice of the congregation, the voice of the church in our region and in our world, and of course this means that we have become the Voice of Christ.

 

Other written prayers can be quite helpful and draw us into the koinonia of the saints and into intimacy with God. I have found The Valley of Vision, published by the Banner of Truth Trust and edited by Arthur Bennett, to be a source of joy and comfort and challenge. Prayers by writers such as Francis de Sales, Francis of Assisi, Francis Fenelon, Andrew Murray, and the Church Fathers (and others) have meant much to me over the years.

 

Naturally I do not relate to every prayer in every prayer book, but even the ones that I do not relate to can cause me to ponder why I don’t – and I must remember that every prayer is an expression of a man or woman’s heartfelt relationship with our Father and Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Also, I never know when I might return to a prayer in the future that I could not relate to in the past and very much need that prayer in my own life!

 

I think we must give one another room to develop our voices in prayer, and our insistence on conformity is really pretty stupid and limiting and controlling. What would we think if we had a church dinner and everyone brought the same dish? Why do we give each other more room for expression in earthly food than we do in heavenly food?

 

Let me be clear, this problem exists in highly demonstrative environments just as in highly liturgical and structured environments, we all have this challenge as far as I know – so let us not think that the problem belongs to others and not to us. This problem exists in small groups just as in congregations and denominations and movements.

 

A few years ago, an acquaintance invited me to an annual meeting of a region of his denomination in Virginia Beach. My acquaintance was the bishop of the region. I enjoyed the breakout sessions and I found the plenary speaker interesting. The plenary worship times were also interesting in that just about everyone was expressing themselves in the same highly demonstrative fashion…except me (Ha! What did you expect?).

 

During one worship time a man came over to me and asked me if I was okay. He was concerned that I wasn’t expressing myself like everyone else. Now while I appreciated the concern, and while I assured him that I was fine, in looking back perhaps he should not have been concerned that I was different, but rather that everyone else was the same.

 

Please understand, as far as I know we are all faced with this challenge of allowing one another to find our voice in prayer and worship and communion with the Trinity. For sure when we gather in large groups we want to find one voice, or various expressions of our collective voice, in which to worship and serve and edify. God is not a God of confusion, and reasonable order is important I think for edification (1 Cor. 14:31 – 33). Yet, often our Sunday school groups and small groups and other gatherings are like church suppers in which everyone has brought the exact same dish. Something is amiss with this…don’t you think?

 

Well, this is long enough, the Lord willing I will circle back in the next reflection and share a bit about my own life with respect to communion in prayer with the Trinity.

 

Are you finding your voice in prayer?

 

Has your voice changed over the years?

 

Are you discovering new vocal ranges in your voice with God?

 

Much love…Bob