The Hourglass of Life

JESUS never closes a mind; he opens it.  Jesus is never threatened by a question; he welcomes it,  He knows all questions will ultimately end up with him, so fire away!

Jesus is the answer, and when he walks through a question, he always leaves the door open so anyone can get to it from either side.  Modern Christians keep wanting to shut the door (once they’ve passed through, of course).

For many Christians, the experience of truth has been a narrowing experience, and in one sense this is right.  All those questions – religions, sins, frustrations, explorations – finally ended up with Jesus.  Like following the inside of a cone, all experiences funneled to a point, and at that point was Jesus on the cross for my sin.

The error, however, is when we stop here and move no further.  For our experience of truth to grow, we must move through the cross back out into the same reality – the same questions, the same world – with a different perspective.

It’s like an hourglass with the cross at the center.  All my preconversion experiences narrowed me toward a personal encounter with Christ; but once through, he leads me back out into the world I came from where the lines now, instead of converging, open up into an ever-widening reality.  The sands of truth always move this way – in toward the center and out again.

Yes, Jesus is the answer, and it’s precisely because he is the answer that we can venture out.  Because he is Lord of all, we can walk into all and find him Lord.  This is not only a privilege, it’s a mandate.  It’s what Christians are called to do in the world.

AUTHOR: John Fischer from TRUE BELIEVERS DON’T ASK WHY.  Copyright 1989 by John Fischer. Bethany House Publishers. Taken from Men’s Devotional Bible New International Version Page 1288. Copyright 1993 by Zondervan Publishing House.

Loyalty to the Head

The Bible directs harsh words to those who show favoritism.  James spelled out a situation we can all identify with: “Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in.  If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, ‘Here’s a good seat for you,’ but say to the poor man, ‘You stand there,’ or, Sit on the floor by my feet,’ have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?” He concludes, “If you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.  For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all if it” (James 2:2-4, 9-10 NIV)…

In our rating-conscious society that ranks everything from baseball teams to “the best chili in New York,” an attitude of relative worth can easily seep into the church of Christ.  But the design of the group of people who follow Jesus should not resemble a military machine or a corporate structure.  The church Jesus founded is more like a family in which the son retarded from birth has as much worth as his brother the Rhodes scholar.  It is like the body composed of cells most striking in their diversity but most effective in their mutuality.

God requires only one thing of his “cells” : that each person be loyal to the Head.  If each cell accepts the needs of the whole Body as the purpose of its life, then the Body will live in health.  It is a brilliant stroke, the only pure egalitarianism I observe in all of society.  He has endowed every person in the Body with the same capacity to respond to him.  In Christ’s Body, a teacher of three-year-olds has the same value as a bishop, and that teacher’s work may be just as significant.  A widow’s dollar can equal a millionaire’s annuity.  Shyness, beauty, eloquence, race, sophistication — none of these matter, only loyalty to the Head, and through the Head to each other.

AUTHOR: Paul Brand. Paul Brand, who died July 8, 2003 at the age of 89, served as Chief of the Rehabilitative branch of the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital in Carville, Louisiana. He was known for his brilliant work as a hand surgeon.  With Phillip Yancy he has written Fearfully and Wonderfully Made and  In His Image.