Don't Look if you Don't Want to See

There was a knock on the door...instead of answering it, I peered through the door “peephole”. (Although current safety watch dogs claim that “peepholes” are not safe because of various reasons; one of which is the limited field of view. If a perpetrator wants in, he simply stays out of view and patiently waits until you open the door.) The peephole revealed what appeared to be a large empty warehouse room situated just on the other side of my door. I was extremely taken back because the normal view would have been our white columned porch, front yard, walnut tree row, rural oil-chip base street, and then, pasture across the street with meandering horses.

This vision through the peephole caused me reel back, rub my eyes and go for another look. Upon the second gaze, I was shocked to see the large warehouse room still situated right outside my front door. “Maybe I am not awake and this is just a dream, or maybe a mirage”, I thought to my self, “ Yes, a mirage is what I have encountered.” (You know how a mirage works, if you keep looking it will fade away.) I kept looking, and I kept looking ...and not only did it not fade away but the picture became clearer. At the far end of this large room was a single door, and leading to the door was long line of extremely questionable people slowly indexing through the door. From my vantage point I saw thugs, thieves, murderers, whores, transvestites, homosexuals, pedophiles, pimps, pushers, liars, loafers, and scoundrels of all shapes and sizes. There were unfaithful lovers, people haters, God haters, loose lipped perverts, religious hypocrites, punks, pranksters, and rebellious men and women of all ages and ethnic backgrounds (and the list went on). Each one seemed to carry an image of their lives with them so that even through the peephole I could get a brief juicy review of their sordid lives.  The amazing thing was I was not shocked by the people I was seeing. They seemed comfortably familiar (though so surreal)due to the fact that I was  able to recognize them and identify with them by their gross transgressions.

As I watched three things happened ... First, the parade ended by all the characters filing through the single door at the other end of this large warehouse room. Second, just as the last individual passed through the door it slammed shut. Third, the knock came again to my door but this time as an urgent pounding that caused me to reel back from the vibration. Something happened inside my soul at that moment. I felt like there has a desperate cry for help coming from the door at the other end of the large room outside my door peephole. So I boldly threw open my door and ran the distance between the two doors which suddenly seemed like the expanse of a football stadium. Never had I run with such urgency or purpose … I was somehow feeling that I was connected to the hope for a situation that was increasingly looking so much bigger than my “peephole” perspective.

After a run that seemed to last an eternity, I was now facing the door that so much dereliction had passed through. Winded and leaning forward against the door, I could hear sounds of happy childhood memories and of songs of a more innocent time. All my senses were challenged by a radiating comfort that seemed to ooze from the small openings between the door and its framing … the smells, the sympathetic vibrations were causing anticipations of hope that only come at fleeting moments on this side of Heaven. All my senses were screaming “Home”. “Home?”

At this point I fell to my face and rejoiced for there before the threshold of The Door were words emanating for my heart to hear … Words that I have heard and understood throughout my days with Jesus … “Come unto me, all ye that labor”... “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes”... “Behold, I make all things new” … “Call the maimed, the lame, the halt and the blind and thou shalt be blessed”... “Father to the fatherless” … “Behold, I stand at the door and knock ….” . “If any man be in Christ he is a new creation” … “Come now let us reason together, though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow” … “I am the Good Shepherd, my sheep hear my voice” … “I am the Resurrection and the Life” … “ I am the Way, the Truth, the Life” …
“I am the Door, by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved”.

I awoke to find my pillow soaked with tears but I was so refreshed in knowing that the dream actually carried my heart to His heart. Oh if only we could see beyond the “peephole”. If only we could go through the open door. If only we could come face to face with the soiled, sordid life of so many pillaged and plundered by sin,  and realize there go I … and I could go to them and  with them … to Him.  Oh the Joy of living for others!!!!

Run to the broken ones, O beautiful feet,
To carry His Heart's Gospel ...
the Song to the broken
that  makes them complete.

HLFA,
Jeff

PS … I may not have a peephole, but the ornate window in my front door can still separate me from the movement after the knock.

MORE...is He Your More?

OK – OK!!! Seeing the most amazing miracles that the eye could possibly behold is never quite enough. Even though the miracle can be checked out very carefully (to find that there is no slight of hand and that the miracles go way beyond illusions that have to be carefully set up and practiced for perfect timing) it still doesn't seem to satisfy. AND though the verbal revelation has gone way beyond “foggy at best”to “this is truth”, there still is that nagging in the frail mortal soul that aches with unspoken expression ... “There has to be a catch”.

We want to offer back to God the assurance that we truly believe Him; but due to the limitation of our flesh, the best that we can be offer Him is an educated “faith”guess. This “faith” guess offering is weakly propped up against a sagging wall of hope that has been batter rammed by past and current reality. Though we will walk through a buffet of food for our bodies to pick out things that we think our taste buds will enjoy, we don't offer that same luxury to our hearts as we walk through the memory buffet. For some reason we walk through the “Past” section and purposely choose to hold onto the fading pain and bitterness and apply it to a present disqualification plan for our lives. Our heart, “that is deceitful above all things”, always prefers to agree with our buffet choices to convince us that God deals with our lives with a judgmental reluctance that is directly related to our choices. “The ache of life begins to cry out” and we need something more.


Matthew 16:28
Verily I say  unto you, There be some standing  here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.

I took the liberty to rewind a little to just before the Jesus' Transfiguration. I had to back up one more time to grab a powerful “Word Picture” … (Please take the time to reread this verse in context) – Wow, so much to absorb...life with Jesus was intense, but even with the revelation of the Cross, the Resurrection and the Second coming … He has to stabilize the situation with a statement that causes the “MORE” to begin. “Amen, I speak, right now,with eternally lasting consequences - There “is, then and now” some certain ones who have established a reason “to stand” here and now, who will  not taste the flavor of death's separation, until they get strong glimpses of the SON OF MAN, JESUS... coming Himself and establishing His authority and reign, now.” This starts the “MORE” ...seeing His Authority in all the events of Life, longing for Him in the Joys and Disappointments. HE transfigures Himself in all of the events as we long to see MORE of Him.

History's Mysteries, the Present's plans and Future's Fascinations are always jockeying for position to entice our focus on things to do, events to endeavor and dreams to reach. Many times we are so overwhelmed even with Spiritual escapades that we are losing out on Glimpses of His authoritative love entries into our daily lives.

On the mount, Peter saw Moses and Elijah and tried to capture that “more” for that moment ...but the Voice from the Cloud was meant to focus Peter (and us) on the only “More” we would ever truly need.

“This is my beloved Son, Hear Ye Him” … then they saw no one but Jesus. Do you truly want Him as your “More” ...oh the blessing to not to be looking for something more than Jesus. In Christ we will know more, hear more, see more, feel more, hope more, love more, laugh more, cry more and we will live more abundantly. His “more” is unending. His “more” is a fountain of living water that can continually come out and through our inner most lives.

OK – OK ...don't just stand amazed at the miracles, they will fade… don't just hope in the stories, they will lose gusto … Go for More .. follow after Jesus. There are some of you standing here … He is appearing in authority right now … Don't miss Him, any more.

There has to be more … He is More.

HLFA,

Jeff

Mountain of Misunderstanding

The day was fairly typical, the duties fairly in line and the success factor was there. Accomplishments were actually piling up and I was beginning to feel that the day would be one of accumulative achievement. I was pushing forward to complete that “one” burdensome task, that if performed my day would be totally satisfying, BUT then it happened. A hesitant knock at my office door and a request to be spoken to in a semiprivate fashion. My messenger looked nearly gray with shock when he began to unfold one more personal tragedy that friends, families and acquaintances would have to face this day.

Grief can rush in like a venomous dart and penetrate the superfluous happiness of a moment with its numbing neurotoxin, leaving a chaotic trail of tears festering around its mark. Everything that I was at that moment was reduced to a pile of worthless skepticism and unutterable, unremarkable dribble. Not a single word that I would say could satisfy the mountain of misunderstanding that was blocking my view to grace and  peace.

 Another close friend had decided there wasn't anyone worth calling to get advise on whether or not to close the last chapter in his life. He left his peers with images of smiles and “everything is OK”, only to splash his own demise all over their pleasant visions of who they hoped he was. We all carried bits and pieces of the pain filled puzzle that now lay before us all. We all knew a few sordid secrets to the potentiality of this horrendous event; but couldn't even imagine that these secrets even remotely added up to the final investment. All we could do was share the typical verbs of sorrow and shame one with another, only to part company and face our wounds of “why couldn't we see it coming?”. (Please,Pray this is real).

HERE COMES THE CROSS-OVER: When the Crucifixion went down, there is no doubt that the helplessness in those dark days following the Cross would remind the Apostles of the failures, the denials, the correction, the hesitation, and the sleepiness. Even the Mount of Transfiguration experience would bring no comfort(and Jesus even said, don't talk about this until after my resurrection). All of our experience and memories will not remove the mountain of misunderstanding and disappointment because these momentary intangible things are always overshadowed by the looming reality that causes unbelief.

Take a walk back to the scene after the mount experience …The boys could not cure a man's son afflicted by a “mute” demon and they couldn't figure out “Why?”...listen to the words of scripture: Matthew 17:17-21 “Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting”.

Faith will stay kneeing beside Jesus and starving the misunderstanding until the mountain is removed.

I do not have to have a miracle, I do not have to have an answer ...I have to have Jesus. I will not settle for less when these mountains of sorrow and shame arise … I must have Him, I need Him in all His comforting and healing power.

Psalm 121 is found so many times in the memory cards at funeral homes … but it is not for the dead. For the “dead in Christ” have Him and the “dead without Christ” will never be comforted. We, who are alive in Him, with mountains left to us in times of grief, need this Psalm. “ I will lift up my eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD which made the Heavens and the earth.”    I need You. You desire me. Here I am. You have me. I am yours. Amen.

HLFA,

Jeff

Three Days and Three Nights

I don't know if we could even begin to understand the despair that filled that room of wounded believers in that dark  time between the cross and the empty tomb.

All of His followers, just days before were enjoying the ride of a lifetime. Basking in His light and liberty with no fear of treading where even angels had not trod. What an amazingly nonthreatening life with Him. He could walk unscathed through angry crowds, calm tempestuous seas, and meet all of their fashion and dietary needs. To top it off there wasn't any disease or malignity that He couldn't cure. It seemed for that moment He had eliminated all threats to life and living. Nothing in this world could threaten their forward movement with Him, even death had to deliver up its victims at His command.

Then it began to happen. He started uttering words, simple words that would trouble their hearts even though He tried to soften the blow with phrases like “Let not your Heart be troubled”. Words like “If I go” and “I must needs go” scarey dark phrases like “I will be delivered into the hands of angry men and be killed”. These words seemed to throw them into a blank stare, into a numbness that they had tried their best to ignore until now.

Now He was gone ...taken, beaten and abused, scourged and mocked, paraded and berated, and then nailed to a cruel Roman Cross where He was horribly tortured for a few relentless hours. Well maybe, just maybe, He had one more “transfiguration” stunt up His sleeve that would make this horrendous nightmare all go away. As they waited from a distance for fear of losing what remained of their shifting-sand-like existence … no transfiguration … and the unthinkable did happen: He raised His voice committing Himself into His Father hands and gave up his life. He gave up, seeming …... He just gave up.

Even the sky darkened and all the universe heaved with a sympathetic movement to coincide with their growing anxiety. “How could He allow this to happen?” “How could He do this to us?”  “He got our hopes up and then allowed them to be dashed to pieces”. Do we really know how long three days and three nights would be like without Him?  Can we really go there with our hearts and sense the growing anticipation that death for them may be also closing in? He had said “Without me you can do nothing”, and He was so prophetically right as they were hopelessly paralyzed in that moment's grief and anguish.

Matthew 12:40 – For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Right Now there are individuals and groups of believers all over the planet, huddling together with the unbelief of grief. Sons and daughters taken by the winds of war, Moms and Dads stripped of dignity by cancer's menacing rampage, friends and lovers taken in a cruel thoughtless moment . Distant sounds of grinding twisted steel, the flesh giving way to the stronger force, and the spirit fleeing the scene without a last good-bye. Sleep is broken by sobs and oceans of tears that don't seem to even begin to usher in a still small voice of comfort. And the roar of the world and Satan, Oh my! It raises its voice above the wailing and shouts, and threatens us with the words ….“Where is your God?” … Where is your God?

If we could zoom into each broken, shivering, huddle (with an insightful lens that would allow us the ability to see through the veil of tears and focus the ocular on who was bearing the greatest portion of this grief) our hearts might momentarily be overwhelmed by the flaming eyes of the One looking right back into us. How can this be? Though all my earthly senses scream that I am crushed by the abandonment of this breech, if I but take just one deep cleansing breath committing the scene to Him … I find Him... with his arms wrapped about me so tight that I can feel Love's refusal to let me go as He says “ Be filled with good and lasting comfort … it will not be long ...I have overcome the world for you.”

Rest,  He is here.  He is Alive!

HLFA,

Jeff

No trespassing – KEEP OUT!

On the southern corner of Routes 30 and 997 (turning back to roll through beautiful Pond Bank, PA) there stands a very strange but mostly ignored site. The shell of a turn of the century red brick gas station or fruit stand. Nothing but the roofless walls remain. Where once there was occupational busyness within the walls now sprouts the tall branches of poison sumach in its place. There are signs posted – No Trespassing – KEEP OUT! Someone every once in a while comes by and cuts back the protruding branches, but this hollow of poison is so deeply rooted it  just climbs back out to wave its berried branches. Once a vibrant stop for fuel to keep life moving, now a curiosity to the beholder.
Lack of maintenance? Lack of attention? Lack of occupational interest? Abandoned to uselessness, time and weather wear, it was now an empty potted vessel for poison.

How does the heart hollow out and bring forth poison … and why does the current pride protect and cultivate the poisoned growth?

Hosanna! -Yasha! – Hosanna! - Be propitious! – Bring salvation! – Bring it now! – Save Now!!
“Hosanna: Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord.” The crowd leading and the crowd following were crying out, “Hosanna; Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the Name of the Lord”. “Blessed is the Kingdom of our father David”. “Hosanna to the Son of David”.

The Chief Priests and Scribes saw the wonderful things that He did, and the crying of the children in the temple … and They were sore displeased (indignantly moved with displeasure). WHAT IN THE WORLD? Seeing – Hearing – sights and sounds of spiritual pleasure and comfort AND THEY WERE POISONED? The temple was fine when their hollow liturgical utterances were the only sounds that reverberated off the the dedicated walls. The temple was blessed when the blessings were filling their purses. The temple was magnificent when the praise and worship was under their control. Oh too soon the poison arises and the “No trespassing!” and “KEEP OUT!” signs are posted on the heart of fearful leadership.

You Scribes (experts of the Word) and Pharisees (practitioners of squinted righteousness) that guard your moment of God's visitation and claim it as if no one else has the right to any claim in Kingdom blessings. You Scribes and Pharisees are the beautification of the grave and the glorification of death.
Your faith is so founded on diminished tangible acquisitions that you have total intolerance for any new “wonderful” movement of God. And your poisoned blood boils when you hear the creative  joyful cries
of the New Babes in the Kingdom. “Be real” and “transparent” are words that terrify you because someone would be able to see the poorly trimmed poison sumach within your fortified but failing walls. You would have to admit to your desperate need for revival. Your strength and your courage is a facade because it collapses before the faith songs of the children of the Kingdom.

Oh to miss the full picture of this King of Glory during His first visitation is to begin the downfall.
Zechariah 9:9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon a donkey, and upon a colt, the foal of a donkey.  Your King comes unto you. He is all that is needed for justification and salvation. Look carefully … He is lowly - poor, afflicted, humble, and wretched … able to reach and to save the lowest. He was on a colt ...His war was not with flesh and blood. And when He says “come unto Me”, He is easy to approach because He comes unto you with total loving deliverance. Lay down your pride, take up your palms, lift up your songs … Join the Children – Hosanna!! My heart is filled with my King!!

HLFA,

Jeff

P.S. The heart is hollowed for bitterness when it has not hallowed His heart for the hurting.

Hear Him? Hear Him! Hear Him.

Has the stench of wickedness ever stretched out its dripping death like breath upon a situation you were facing? Has a silent evil ever wrapped its fowl slimy specter-like fumes around your fragile and fearful existence? Overwhelmed by the intensity of the interrogation, I was keenly aware of the scandalous nature of the cruel words these so-called scribes were hurling my way. Paralyzed by the moment, I stood helpless; powerless over the darkness that was writhing before me. A small child was twisting and churning in his own pain right before my eyes. And I, though near to help, was without the strength to even begin to stop the assault that was reaching, grabbing and tearing at this little one from some heinous realm beyond my mere mortal existence.

Then the Voice tore through the darkness and wrestled the disconnection away from the interrogators and toward His presence. Jesus questioned, “For what reason are you interrogating them?” Oh how that Voice could create focus in the midst of chaos and bring a hush to a storm. Then a father stepped forward and cautiously replied, “I was looking for YOU to deliver my son.” (With a spoken Word) what we had been powerless to suppress, He in a moment brought to an end. The suffering ceased; though there was one last surge from the darkness. The truth was simple and complete. The real need of the moment was to HEAR HIS VOICE …not mine.

Have you ever found yourself sitting in the midst of believers who were looking at the Word of God (I mean the Bible was right in their hands AND they were looking right at the actual words), and they were doing their best to explain away things they did not understand by trying to come up with “feasible” explanations? Everybody wants to say they knew how the illusion was performed … we all want the secret to the magician’s trick ... BUT EVERYONE AVOIDS TALKING TO THE ONE CONNECTED TO THE UNKNOWN. (Oh, by the way with God it is not a trick!)
Have you ever found yourself so broken and so in need of a miracle that it was easier to fellowship the complaint rather really praying and waiting for God’s answer? Have the critical explanations of God’s Word caused you to push “mute” on your soul when you were so in need to hear His answer? (Woe unto those who have filled your heart with doubt!)
For a moment climb with me into the story of the mount of transfiguration in Mark 9 which actually set the stage for the event that began this diatribe:

Oh to be one of the three, to see what they would see, to be where they would be, on the mount with Jesus, where there would be total clarity … so bright and so alive, but don’t miss the direction, don’t tabernacle too long, or analyze too deeply, all the implications can keep you questioning and not move you toward what they really needed and we really need: Feel the cloud … Hear the voice … focus on the thunderous finale: “This is my beloved Son: hear him.” And they saw no man, save Jesus only.

Mark 9: 9-16 And as they came down from the mountain, he charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from the dead. 10 And they kept that saying with themselves, questioning one with another, what the rising from the dead should mean. 11 And they asked him, saying, why say the scribes that Elias must first come? 12 And he answered and told them, Elias verily cometh first, and restoreth all things; and how it is written of the Son of man, that he must suffer many things, and be set at nought. 13 But I say unto you, That Elias is indeed come, and they have done unto him whatsoever they listed, as it is written of him. 14 And when he came to his disciples, he saw a great multitude about them, and the scribes questioning with them. 15 And straightway all the people, when they beheld him, were greatly amazed, and running to him saluted him. 16 And he asked the scribes, “What question ye with them?”

Has the cloud so soon faded and voice so quickly been forgotten … “This is my beloved Son: hear Him!” So what question ye with them? … when the burden is so heavy? So what question ye with them? … when the impossible belongs to Jesus? So what question ye with them? … when you are looking for Jesus? Yes, your story still needs to be told, but why are you so afraid to truly go to Him to hear His answer? HE IS THE BELOVED SON, HEAR HIM … Why the hesitation? Why the fear? He is the Perfect Love that casts out all fear. Why is it so hard to hear His words of love? Hear and Heal!

HLFA,

Jeff Redding