Monthly Archives: April 2017

"So that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold which though perishable is tested by fire, may redound to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." 1 Peter 1:7

Are you where you thought you'd be at this point in life? I'm not talking about geographically, professionally, or financially, but more deeply. Are you handling life better? Do you feel stronger? More settled? More confident? Are you reaping the benefits today of a life-long pursuit of a deeper relationship with God?

I don't recall, frankly, whether it was Leslie or I who said one time "I thought I'd be further along by this time." I have that feeling every time I'm a bit out of sorts. I may have doubts about my future. Or I may find myself at the mercy of my latest self-centered passion. I react far too strongly to some aspect of my daily existence. I've let some soul-disturbing thief break through the peace that God set to guard my heart. Then I wonder if I've really made much progress.

For some people this kind of experience becomes the occasion to doubt if the whole thing is true. Convinced that they're no better off than they were years ago, they decide to fling away from it all for a while.

Peter would understand. The verse above rings with power and confidence. It inspires with its call to a genuine faith that is the result of various trials by fire. This is Peter at his supreme best. He knows what he believes. He's passionately and unswervingly committed to the Lord Jesus Christ.

And it wasn't always like that.

We're a couple of weeks after Easter as I tap out this little devotional. If we go back to a couple of weeks after the first Easter we're likely to find Peter fishing. He and the other disciples had been commissioned to go and change the world, but at the opening of the last chapter of John, Peter said "I'm going fishing."

Now the reason for that diversion probably has a lot to do with some residual shame Peter felt about his denials. The point here, however, is that fear and doubt had combined to bring him to a screeching halt. He felt like a failure. No progress. No growth. No use in pretending. So he went fishing.

The great advantage we have with this character in the New Testament is that we have a letter from him about 30 years later. That's where the quote comes from. Thirty years after casting aside his mission and perhaps his faith, he wrote with a passion we expect from one of the founders of the church. The fact is, he had grown tremendously over those decades, though early on, and perhaps at many intervening points, he wondered if he was worthy and if it was all worth it.

Of course it was worth it for Peter, and it's worth it for us. We're growing whether we realize it or not. The chief problem I think is that we tend to judge our entire lives on the basis of our latest spiritual selfie. That one split-second portrait is likely to be very unflattering, especially if I take it during a fit of minor road rage, or in the express check-out line behind the person who has 13 items. There are many times throughout each day that I don't feel like a very settled and mature Christian.

God, of course, doesn't take split-second snapshots. Thank God. He watches the whole life with the advantage of knowing how it will end. He doesn't panic, or throw up His hands in frustration when I'm less than my best or even when I'm at my worst.

God knows what I'm still learning: that spiritual growth is slow. It's a sometimes frustrating combination of insight and incremental implementation. I know a whole lot more than I'm able to put into practice, but failure should never mean that I stop practicing. It takes time for insight to make a lasting difference.

Have you ever watched a 3-D printer? The jets sweep back and forth over the object being created. Watch it for a few minutes and you can't tell any difference. Give the printer a few hours, however, and you have a human ear or a complex part for NASA. Genuine spiritual growth is like that. Spiritual growth is so slow that you often can't tell a difference in the short run.

And because of that it's often subtle. Just like God usually is. I'm always kind of amused by people who say that Jesus didn't claim to be God, especially in the Synoptic gospels. But based on what we do know of God, would we expect Jesus to tromp around Israel hollering "Look at ME! I'm God! I'm God!"?

For the most part, throughout the Bible, God prefers subtlety to splashy power displays. The plagues on Egypt were, by and large, an exception. Even Jesus when He performed miracles often told the beneficiaries to be quiet about it. Why? Because subtlety builds faith.

It takes no real faith to believe in a God who scrawls His will across the skies. However, if we understand faith as a kind of spiritual faculty, like sight or hearing, then subtlety is the only way to make it stronger. God's goal for us is always to strengthen our faith, one aspect of which is trust.

My experience with spiritual growth is that God gives me an insight, and then tells me to hang on to it even when the evidence seems rather thin. I may want Him to be repetitive and obvious. He says "have faith."

Thirty years after doubt, Peter knew that genuine faith came through testing. It only comes through testing. The combination of pressure, heat, and time produces a diamond or a mountain range. Those same qualities produce a soul fit for eternity. It's the only way.

Don't be discouraged for long by the frustrations that are part of every life. None of them have either silenced God or stilled His hand. He is working. Frankly, we're just plain awful at self-appraisal. So keep the faith and try to glorify God through whatever you face. You're growing.

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis

April 30, 2017

Want more GraceWaves? The book is now available! Order your copy of GraceWaves: Reflections of God's Ever-Present Grace at http://www.gracewavestoday.com/product/gracewaves/

"But go and tell His disciples, and Peter, that He is going before you to Galilee. There you will see Him just as He told you." Mark 16:7

Once we accept grace as the key to understanding God then we begin to see it everywhere. It's the light that begins starts at Creation, glows at Eden, comes bursting into full glory on the first Easter, and shines every day. It is the light that sets us free.

We need that freedom every day, because that's about how often we find a way to let fear and doubt imprison us. So let's take a look at the simple announcement of the angel in Mark, find the message of grace, and be a little more free.

The message from the angel was a simple: "Tell the disciples that Jesus is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you." Let's ask a couple of basic questions about this text. The first question is this, "where was Jesus going to meet the disciples?" The answer is simple. Galilee.

Why Galilee? Is this simply a minor detail? I don't think so for several reasons.

First, if Jesus had simply wanted to prove that He was alive He could have appeared to the disciples right there in Jerusalem. That's where His followers were. That's where He was crucified. That's where the tomb was located, and that's where He had just been raised. In other words, all the major players are in or near Jerusalem. Galilee was a region, like a state, some 60-70 miles to the north. So why travel? Maybe Galilee is significant.

A second reason we need to take a closer look at this detail is that all three of the other Gospels record that Jesus did indeed first appear to the disciples in Jerusalem. Apparently, however, He first mentioned Galilee through the angel. Mark is the only Gospel writer that notes that detail. Why? Maybe we have something here.

So let's look at Galilee in the context of the Gospel of Mark. What occurred in Galilee? Well, that's where the place Jesus began His ministry. He was raised and spent most of His life there, and the times were good. He taught, healed, exorcised demons and called disciples to follow Him while He was in Galilee. It's a place of joyful life, successful ministry, and would have been remembered fondly by both Jesus and His disciples.

Then something happens in the Gospel of Mark. The tone changes in chapter 8, as Jesus began to make His final journey to Jerusalem. Along the way He taught the disciples that He would die there. And so it happened.

Now if you are a sensitive reader, you might begin to sense an important contrast in the text between Galilee and Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a dreaded place, a city of rejection, suffering and death. But Galilee is place of life and hope and joy. Galilee is significant.

Now the second question: to whom was this message to be delivered? The answer is easy, but highly significant. The angel told the women to tell the disciples. The message was intended for the disciples.

I believe God guided the writing of the Gospels and allowed the interests and styles of the individual writers to come through. In the Gospel of Mark, when it comes to the disciples, Mark never missed an opportunity to show how clueless they were. I don't have room to go into this here, but as my former professor Dr. Winbery used to say "In Mark, the disciples are dunderheads." Love that word. And Peter comes off as the chief dunderhead.

It culminates in Mark with all of the disciples fleeing Jesus at His arrest. No one is at the cross in Mark or at the tomb the first Easter Sunday even though Jesus had told them plainly that He would rise again. They fail completely.

So in the Gospel of Mark we find a clear distinction between Jerusalem, the place of failure and death; and Galilee, the place of life.

Now if I were Jesus, I might have wanted to start over with some new disciples. The old ones embraced the hopelessness of Jerusalem. I'd want some that believed more strongly in the promise of Galilee. But that's not grace. That's performance oriented. If you do good enough then I'll accept you.

Grace says I'll accept you any way, and that is what Jesus did. So His message to the disciples was "Come back to Galilee. Let's start over again." Notice also that He singled out Peter. He needed to hear that invitation more than any of them.

Life beats up and breaks every one of us. Just about everyone I know goes through a time when they feel doubt, and fear, and maybe a little anger at God. Then it all morphs into a kind of self-loathing and we feel beyond God's regard or care. We make our home in the darkness of Jerusalem.

I want you to hear this Easter Jesus' invitation to start over: "Come back to Galilee." It may have been a while, but the invitation stands, "Come back to Galilee." You need light, life, and joy, and Jesus did everything to give it to you again and again. "Come back to Galilee." God really does want that for you.

Dot Robertson, a dear departed friend from many years ago, had a cross-stitch from her daughter hanging on the wall that read, "I wonder if you realize how many times your faith in me has made the difference between giving up and trying again; How many times your love for me has helped me find a strength I didn't know I had." Isn't that a beautiful sentiment from a daughter to her mother?

It can be our prayer to God who always says "Come back to Galilee. Come back to faith, and trust, and love. You're not beyond my reach." It may sound odd, but God has faith in you. And, of course, He has a deep, deep love for you. That's why he can always plead with you, "Come back to Galilee." He wants nothing more than to help you begin again.

So leave behind your self-loathing. It's time to begin again. Start the journey back this Easter. You won't travel alone.

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis

April 16, 2017

"And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again." Mark 8:31

I didn't grow up with Good Friday. Literally. Part of the backwash in some segments of the Reformation was avoiding the Christian Year, and in my church we didn't observe Holy Week or even Good Friday. Or Ash Wednesday or Advent or Epiphany, etc. And I didn't know what a Maundy was. The cross was preached well and sometimes graphically, but we didn't observe Good Friday.

During seminary, in my worship studies, I learned about the rhythm of Holy Week and came to deeply appreciate the need for observing certain days. Interestingly, in my first churches I instituted some observations of Holy week. In later churches those practices were already in place by the time I arrived. The lesson? Give Baptists enough time, in this case about 400 years, and we can change. We had a committee do the study and draft a report.

What I lost in those early years was vitally important. In regard to Holy Week, without pausing to consider Jesus' suffering, all we really did was celebrate His resurrection. Again, we knew the facts of the cross, and Jesus' sacrificial death was certainly proclaimed. But such an event deserves more attention than we gave it.

The focus in the gospels is precisely the opposite. The verse for this week's Gracewaves is the first prediction Jesus made of His death and resurrection, and it comes about midway in the Gospel of Mark. Mark records three such predictions, each one increasingly graphic (see Mark 9:31 and 10:33-34). Jesus intensely taught the disciples about His death knowing they would be reluctant to hear it. They were. This scene is where Peter rebuked Jesus for even suggesting such a thing. So, it seems, all disciples tend to rush past the uncomfortable details of Jesus' death.

Again, not so in the gospels. All four pause for the last week of His life. Narrative time slows down. Details emerge. They focused on His death, and frankly recorded relatively few of His post-resurrection appearances. In the very arrangement of the Gospels we see God's intention for us to pause, watch, and reflect. Yet we are reluctant to think about His suffering.

Take a moment to google Caravaggio's Entombment (or as I've also seen it called The Deposition). The scene depicts several disciples taking Jesus' body and laying it on the shelf in his tomb. Typical of his style, Caravaggio uses light and shadow to highlight the anguish of the disciples and the lifeless body of Jesus.

Now look carefully at Jesus' body. What do you notice? No blood. No wounds on the feet or head. Perhaps a slight mark on His right hand. The wound on His side is visible, but it looks as if it has been cleaned. Again, there is no blood around it. The body is well-muscled, rather athletic. He looks as if He fell gently asleep.

I've wondered for many years, since I first saw the painting hanging in a colleague's office, if Caravaggio was trying to make a point. Was he trying to sanitize the scene? Perhaps unconsciously he was reflecting the kind of reluctance I've noted.

I even contacted James Clifton, a friend of nearly half a century (good heavens, the sound of that). He's the Curator of Renaissance and Baroque Painting, Museum of Fine Arts, in Houston. My rudimentary observations and questions were, I'm sure, the equivalent of asking a Swiss watch maker why he doesn't always put numbers on the dial, but he was gracious and generous with his time and thoughts.

Though Dr. Clifton warned against gross generalizations he did allow that Italian works, of which Caravaggio is a prime example, tended to idealize Christ and other religious figures, while northern European works focused more on His human fragility. Was Caravaggio consciously projecting a personal theology? Hard to say. What he does do, however, with the portrait he produced is open the door for the questions I posed.

And that is where I think we can relate to Caravaggio. I doubt any of my dear readers do not know the facts of Holy Week, but what kind of portrait of devotion are we painting with our lives? Did my Jesus suffer and die? Is there blood from cuts, gashes, and punctures? Are there bruises? Or do I prefer a more antiseptic portrait that obscures the suffering? An easier Jesus.

I recall an incident from my years in New Orleans. For reasons I can no longer recall I was on a sidewalk next to a cabbie and noticed a small figurine attached to his dashboard. Now remember I was raised in thoroughly Protestant Lexington, Kentucky and at that time was still very unfamiliar with south Louisiana traditions. I asked him about the object and he replied, "It's just a little plastic Jesus to make me feel better."

I'm not trying to impugn his theology. I get the idea of having religious symbols as reminders. But it gave me pause to think about how I regard Jesus. Do I keep him around just to make me feel better? Much of the time…probably. I don't spend much time thinking about my complicity in the cross.

But I must. We really must. We have to pause and think about the fact that He died a horribly cruel and brutal death. In the words of the prophet, we would not want to look upon Him. We have to slow down, like the gospels, and move carefully through the days of Holy Week. We need to think about the weighty meaning of the little three-letter Greek word dei, that is usually translated as "it was necessary." It was necessary for Jesus to die for my sins. Somehow, in ways no atonement theory can fully describe, Jesus had to die so that I might have eternal life.

When I pause during this week, one of my prayers should be: "I'm so sorry You had to die, but I am so thankful You did." I believe Jesus' response would be that He was glad to give His life for me. But what must I do now? How should I live? What will the portrait of my life look like?

One of my favorite Holy Week hymns is When I Survey the Wondrous Cross. To survey means to ponder. Slowly. Carefully. We're not to glance at the cross, and we're certainly not to rush by it. We survey it and see that "love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all." My soul, my life, my all. Jesus cannot be an addendum to my well-ordered life. He must be central. Good Friday reminds us of that.

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis

April 9, 2017

Order Your Copy of GraceWaves today!

You already have all the grace you need. The challenge is to be aware. GraceWaves: Reflections of God's Ever-Present Grace can help.

You can indicate on the order form if you would like your copy signed. Just click the link below. And thank you!

BUY NOW!

 

"My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness." 2 Corinthians 12:9

One of the most puzzling themes in the New Testament is the idea of embracing personal weakness as an opportunity to experience God's power.

Jesus taught that being last of all and servant of all leads to exaltation, denial leads to salvation, losing life leads to finding life. Paul wrote of being a broken vessel that demonstrates God's transcendent power. Peter wrote of rejoicing in a fiery ordeal. The Bible itself is a lengthy illustration of this great paradox.

Perhaps the most memorable story of this paradox is Paul's experience with the thorn. We don't know what the thorn was, but it was something he didn't like and wanted it out of his life. With all of his apostolic power this man prayed three times and expected God to remove it. It stayed. Then God gave him the lesson, "My grace is sufficient, for My power is made perfect in weakness."

History is full of stories of Christians who have found a deeper faith through unimaginable suffering. Either as the sufferer or as a witness to suffering, they emerge with a testimony of gentle and humble trust in God. They have discovered by personal experience, not second-hand, that God is trustworthy and completely dependable. He heals and restores all the lacerations life can inflict upon us.

And what of those former wounds? Our tendency is to attempt to cover them up as if we never had the weakness in the first place. We don't usually want to remember the thorn, much less talk about it. We try to project and protect a myth of total success. We desperately need God's healing touch, but want to live as if it was an addendum to a well-ordered life and hardly a daily necessity. God has a different idea of what to do with our former wounds.

I recently learned about a Japanese technique of repairing broken pottery called kintsugi. Instead of trying to repair the vessel so that it appears to have never been broken, kintsugi practitioners piece it back together with lacquer then dust the cracks with gold. Instead of disguising the breaks, the beautifully repaired golden lines testify to the shattered history of the object and its renewed usefulness.

Each of us carries a number of flaws and breaks from life. However, God's tender touch brings all of our broken pieces back together. Grace highlights His healing, and thus we become living testimonies of how God has worked in our lives. The scabs from former wounds become scars, fully healed, but glowing with the glory of heaven. And they need not be hidden! Hurting people need to know that God heals all wounds.

So we have a two-fold purpose with our golden scars. First, we don't need to be ashamed of them or hide them. Ernest Hemmingway wrote in a Farewell to Arms, "The world breaks everyone, and many are stronger in the broken places." Making us stronger in the broken places takes us to the very heart of God's purpose.

When you survive the world's blows you become stronger. You may not realize it, but you are. The life experience you gain is incalculable. Why not embrace that painful part of your history? If you've yet to do that, then let God have it all. Better yet, find a trusted friend to share that hidden pain with. God almost always uses other people to bring His message of healing. Discover the strength that comes through your scars.

Second, be willing to tell other hurting people about your scars. Not only will this be a surprising blessing to you, it will also be a tremendous encouragement to them.

In my early recovery from alcoholism, a friend gave me a book and inscribed in it these words: "Be thankful to God for the gift of alcoholism." Only about three months into recovery, I found those words jarring and unsettling. I suspected they were true, but honestly I wasn't there yet. The memories of darkness were too fresh. The lessons of light too new.

In the succeeding years, however, I found this idea to be beautifully true. We're taught in recovery to neither regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. In our very imperfection we found grace. I don't recommend this particular avenue to anyone! But I assure you, life will find a way to break you. The miracle is that later, after the healing grace, you'll be thankful. In fact, the New testament goes so far as to say that we should be grateful in the very midst of suffering.

Again, in recovery we're encouraged to share "our experience, strength, and hope." The experience begins with the painful chapters of what we were like in active addiction. Pride has us believe that covering up those dark days is the only way to appear successful and healthy again. The spirituality of imperfection teaches us that transparency and openness create an atmosphere where we breathe grace and share healing. Those people who still live in the shadows find hope in our stories. Showing our scars has an internal as well as external benefit. We help ourselves by helping others.

One other illustration from the world of recovery. In my travels I often attend those "anonymous meetings." I'm a stranger to them. I don't know a soul. But when I speak I say my name and add that I'm an alcoholic. No one responds with shock or attempts to quiet me. Everyone in that room, no matter the age, history, race, creed, or any other of a dozen different metrics understands me. Why? Because we know we're bound by a shared brokenness from which we've been healed. It's the most joyous, serene, and affirming experience you can imagine. It's why I'm now genuinely grateful for my gift of alcoholism.

I have a new, good friend, who recently related something his mother said, "I've never known a really good person who hasn't gone through a really rough patch." Your rough patch is an opportunity for grace. God only repairs what we allow Him to have. Try placing the broken pieces of your life, your pain, bitterness, fear, and doubt in His hands. And trust the people He places in your life. They likely are a part of your healing.

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis
April 2, 2017