Take Up Your Cross

The world tells us “Be who you are! Do what makes you happy!” But Jesus taught something much different:

“If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matt. 16:24-25).

Each one of us has a cross to bear. Your cross is that area of life where you want to just throw in the towel. It could be difficult relationships with parents or children, or unwanted singleness; it may be the physical suffering of a chronic or terminal illness, or multiple miscarriages; perhaps it is gender dysphoria, same-sex attraction, or other enduring temptation. Each person’s cross is a little different, but each is a heavy load. To follow Jesus requires us to carry that load while living in obedience to His Word. If we choose comfort and pleasure over taking up our crosses, we are in danger of condemnation. “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36). Some have chosen to reinterpret or ignore portions of Scripture in order to avoid the burden of their crosses. We are meant to be people who—

• forgive those who hurt us 
• trust Him in the midst of loss and sorrow 
• believe that He has made us who we are and is with us in our struggles 
• turn to Him instead of self-medicating with whatever pleasures we can find

We can tend to forget that Jesus knows what suffering is. Easter is sometimes the only week we focus on all that Jesus went through in His death. He didn’t go to the cross eagerly. He wanted to avoid it if He could, but ultimately, He trusted the Father’s plan to bring perfect good out of the greatest evil.

“Then He said to them, ‘My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with Me.’ And going a little farther He fell on His face and prayed, saying, ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will’” (Matt. 26:38-39).

Even when the decision was made, Jesus didn’t breeze through the torture and crucifixion with a smile on His face.

“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46).

Let’s not forget that Jesus also endured suffering during His life up to that point. Though we don’t know much about His childhood, He faced the same temptations and struggles that every child does (Luke 2:41-52). As He began His ministry, He endured specific temptation by the devil (Luke 4:1-13). During His years of ministry He put up with constant questioning and schemes from the Pharisees and Sadducees, doubts from those who heard His teaching, and eventually betrayal and abandonment by His own disciples. He went through all this so He could fully identify with us.

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:15-16).

So when Jesus calls us to take up our own crosses and follow Him, it is not an abstract concept or a command from one who has never been there. And because He bore His cross, we are enabled to do the same.

“Therefore… let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:1-2).

© 2022 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Don't Make Yourself at Home

When the Israelites entered the Promised Land, they were commanded,

“In the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded, that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the Lord your God” (Deut. 20:16-18).

God had promised to drive out the nations as long as Israel obeyed His commands, but they gave up too quickly. Right after Joshua died we read,

“But the People of Israel made themselves at home among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. They married their daughters and gave their own daughters to their sons in marriage. And they worshiped their gods” (Jud. 3:5-6 MSG).

They didn’t just tolerate these other nations and their beliefs, they actually welcomed them and joined them. This led to repeated cycles of idolatry, judgment, captivity, and restoration.

In our world today, toleration of every belief (except Christianity) is the new “gospel.” But simple tolerance is never seen as enough. We are expected to conform to the beliefs of those around us. In far too many cases, Christians have capitulated, to our own detriment. Often times Christians are indistinguishable from the culture around us. Our priorities look the same—work, entertainment, social media, family, etc. Even our fears and anxieties often look the same. Not many are asking for “a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet. 3:15), because they don’t see anything different in us.

We’ve made ourselves at home in this world, but as the old gospel song says, “This world is not my home.” We weren’t meant to blend in, but to be set apart as representatives of the heavenly kingdom. We are God’s ambassadors on earth (2 Cor. 5:20) with the job of bringing people into His kingdom, not living like the natives here.

May we each examine our lives and our priorities and make sure we haven’t made our homes in the wrong place, “but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven… For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:20-21). Our Father’s house is so much better than anything we can ever hope to build here!

“For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens… So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him” (2 Cor. 5:1, 9).

© 2022 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Running Thoughts

This weekend I went to a middle school track meet to see a young friend run. It’s the first track meet that I’ve been to in more than twenty years. During the first couple races I found myself getting emotional, not from nostalgia, but because of the group experience of cheering on those on our team. There’s something strengthening for runners and spectators alike to know that you’re not out there alone and others want to encourage you to do your best. (Perhaps that’s one reason I always did better at track than cross country, where spectators are few and far between.)

That idea was mentioned more than once in our church gatherings Sunday morning—we need each other. I think sometimes we take our church family for granted. We assume that people know we love them. We assume they will call us if they need something. Or we assume that others are busy with their own concerns and we should keep our problems to ourselves. But we need each other far more than we know. Hebrews 12:1 reminds us,

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and since which clings to closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”

I think nearly every sermon I’ve heard on this verse has referred solely to the “Hall of Faith” in chapter 11 as that cloud of witnesses. But I’m increasingly convinced that it includes every Christian—and perhaps especially the ones sitting in the next pew on Sunday morning. We need cheerleaders in all the races of life, not just the stories of those who have already finished the race. Biographies may bring a bit of encouragement, but they can only go so far in spurring us to keep running when there are more hurdles than we’re prepared for.

During the track meet, the Piedmont coach was frequently heard yelling, “Don’t quit! Don’t give up! Keep going!” And he didn’t limit his cheers to his own team, but shared his energy with all the kids. Sometimes church members can get tunnel vision and think that our church’s “team” is the only one that matters, forgetting that every Christian is on the same team. We are all running for the same finish line, and we can all cheer one another on regardless of our differences of opinion on secondary issues.

For various reasons (some of which I don’t understand) I’ve needed some cheerleaders lately. It helps to be reminded that others see me, care for me, and pray for me. They may not take away any of the hurdles, but they can put a little more spring in the next step and a little more oxygen in the next breath. And I know I’m not the only one who’s feeling the strain of life in a busy and fallen world. We could all use a regular pep talk to help us keep running and “holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain” (Phil. 2:16).

May we all be those who are heard yelling to one another, “Don’t quit! Don’t give up! Keep going! You can make it!”

“For it is You who light my lamp; the Lord my God lightens my darkness. For by You I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall” (Psalm 18:28-29).

© 2022 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

The Ministry of Presence

The industrial age began around 1760 and brought with it increasingly faster modes of transportation. The steam engine was patented in 1769. The Wright brothers took flight in 1903. Cars became increasingly common through the twentieth century. Now you can be anywhere in the world in a matter of hours. As speed has increased and the population has become more mobile, the connectedness of communities has waned. Front porches have been replaced by fenced back yards. Now with the information age, physical presence has been replaced by screens. Community dances and picnics have been replaced by home entertainment systems and Netflix. Sharing a meal with friends has been replaced by Facebook pictures of your meal (a trend that I will never understand!).

Through COVID shutdowns many workers found they can do their work remotely, but even tech businesses have discovered that being in the same building matters. “Management by walking around” is a necessary part of working together as a team for a common purpose.

Although church livestreaming was helpful during the pandemic, many Christians (but not all) have discovered that physical presence matters to the Body of Christ. We need real eye contact, handshakes, and hugs. We need to hear others singing in worship with us and to hear the pages of Bibles turning. We need to join together in communion and bow together in prayer at the altar.

But even with all the regularly scheduled gatherings of the church, I’m not sure that is enough for deep discipleship and spiritual intimacy between members of the Body. Jesus spent three years with His disciples doing nearly everything together 24-7. Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke went on a variety of long trips in pairs or trios. Acts 2:46 says the early believers were “day by day attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes.” Does that kind of time investment only apply to people who have nowhere else to go and no way to get there? Can a phone call or Zoom meeting take the place of walking with one another and observing one another in action day by day? Can a couple hours per week at church suffice? We need extended, unstructured times to converse and find out what is happening behind the scenes of our carefully cultivated appearances.

In the midst of writing this, I paused and read a few pages of the closest book on my desk, which happened to be Erik Reynold’s book Discover: Ancient Truths for Today. He wrote:

“How great and gracious is our God? He gives us one another to spur us on in the faith. He knows that the life to which He has called us is difficult… What’s God’s plan when we start acting sideways? He’s given us brothers in Christ to tenderly reveal our sin and lovingly point us to the Gospel. What’s God’s plan when we are discouraged because of a tragic life circumstance? He’s given us sisters in Christ to pray with and point us to the hope we have in Christ Jesus. What’s God’s plan when we realize how weak we are? He’s given us brothers in Christ to remind us that our weakness is a gift so that we will be more apt to rely upon the Holy Spirit who indwells us” (39).

God has given us one another for a purpose, and yet our relationships within the church are often one of the most neglected blessings He’s given. I can’t count how many times my spirits have been lifted by a brief conversation with a brother in Christ when we cross paths at the end of my daily run, or when a coworker pauses at my office door to talk. I’ve been pondering—if I worked in a secular job and didn’t live across the road from my church, where would I find those regular tastes of the ministry of presence? I would be on a starvation diet of Christian relationships from Monday through Saturday every week. Would professional Christian counselors have any clients if the church were living up to all the “one anothers” of Scripture? We were made to live in community, but it seems like we’ve gotten about as far from that as we can and still call ourselves one Body.

May God reunite us so that we might better “encourage one another and build one another up” (1 Thess. 5:11).

“Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind” (1 Pet. 3:8).

***

© 2022 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Unfailing Love

I have been savoring Michael Card’s book, Inexpressible: Hesed and the Mystery of God’s Lovingkindness. Thankfully he made the chapters fairly short so you can chew on an idea for a while before moving on to the next one.

Hesed is a Hebrew word used over 200 times in the Old Testament to describe God’s character, His works, and His people. It is notoriously difficult to translate, not because it is obscure but because it is so rich in meaning. No single English word can do the job. Some of the most common translations include: mercy, kindness, love, lovingkindness, steadfast love, faithfulness, and loyalty. Here are just a few examples:

“‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love [hesed], forgiving iniquity and transgression, but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ Please pardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of Your steadfast love [hesed], just as You have forgiven this people, from Egypt until now” (Num. 14:18-19 ESV).

“Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps His gracious covenant loyalty [hesed] for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commands” (Deut. 7:9 CSB).

“Lord God of Israel, there is no God in heaven above or on earth below like You, who keep Your covenant and mercy [hesed] with Your servants who walk before You with all their hearts” (1 Kings 8:23 NKJV).

“Surely Your goodness and unfailing love [hesed] will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23:6 NLT).

“Your lovingkindness and graciousness [hesed], O Lord, extend to the skies, Your faithfulness [reaches] to the clouds” (Psalm 36:5 Amp).

In the New Testament the concept of hesed appears in Jesus’ life and teaching (e.g Matt. 9:13, Matt. 20:14-15, Luke 10:36-37). God’s love and mercy are meant to overflow in our lives so that we show the same love and mercy to the world around us.

Late one night as I was pondering what I’d been reading, I pictured myself examining a cup of water and thinking I understood water while being oblivious to the ocean beside me. I think that’s a bit like our understanding of God’s love in the church. We talk about it, sing about it, and proclaim it to others, but we only know one teacup of the vastness of His steadfast love toward us. And because of our anemic understanding of God’s love, our own love is often shallow and feeble. To use the Apostle Paul’s words in Ephesians 3:18-19, we need to “have the strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

The book concludes with this thought,

“God commands his people to do justly and to love hesed [Micah 6:8]. We struggle with both. If it were simply a matter of doing justly or loving hesed, we might be able to come up with a formula, a set of rules to follow. But the two must function together. We can do justly only by loving hesed. The doing must flow from the loving. And the loving is a response, as love is always a response, to the God of Exodus 34, who is full of hesed and at the same time does not leave the guilty unpunished… In Jesus of Nazareth, the embodiment of hesed, God was perfectly just and perfectly merciful. Through Jesus he fulfilled the promise to not leave the guilty unpunished by placing that punishment on Jesus in an act of pure and perfect hesed. Jesus did justice by loving hesed. He gave himself so that we might be conquered by the kindness of God, a kindness that leads us to repentance, that draws us to the cross… The final challenge to you and me is to take whatever understanding we have in our heads of hesed and allow the Spirit to move it into our hearts. We must enter into the world of the word hesed and then take that world into our world, back to our families, to our churches and towns—to our enemies. The Scriptures are offering us an unimaginable opportunity to make Jesus believable and beautiful by offering everything (even our very lives) to those who have a right to expect nothing from us.” (133-135).

Some time back I memorized the first three verses of Psalm 136 in Hebrew. (You can find anything on YouTube!) At the time I did not realize that they contain a version of the word hesed, since I’m not a Hebrew scholar. Those verses have often brought comfort in the middle of the night, and now that I have a somewhat fuller understanding of God’s hesed love and faithfulness I will cherish them even more.

“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of gods, for His steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for His steadfast love endures forever” (Psalm 136:1-3).

© 2022 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV. Cover art courtesy of Amazon.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Who's Your Father?

In recent months I’ve had to deal with paperwork for a foreign bank account. The most recent documentation asked for parents’ names and qualifications, as if my own qualifications are dependent on what my parents did. As you might guess, this is not a Western country we’re dealing with, and the documentation probably has a lot to do with the caste system. We in the West are so individualistic that such requests for information seem almost insulting. Can you imagine filling out a bank or job application and having to provide your father’s resume in addition to your own?

But we have some weird traditions and assumptions of our own. After I moved to the Southern U.S. I encountered the question, “Whose is he?” The person wanted to know who this person was related to and where they fit in the family tree. From my experience, it is far more common in the South for six or seven generations to live within 20 miles of the “home place.” None of the places I lived in the North were like that, aside from Amish neighbors in Pennsylvania.

I bring this up because there has historically been a trend in U.S. churches for people to identify as Christian simply because their parents called themselves Christian. People were members of churches because that was the center of social activity in small towns. Now church membership and attendance are declining, and some have speculated that this has come largely from nominal “Christians” deciding there is no longer any reason or necessity for church membership. The faith of their fathers is not something they wish to claim. In one sense, I would say that’s actually a good thing for church statistics. We need to know who actually is not Christian and how large the mission field really is, and we need to know those who truly belong to Christ so we can feed them as disciples.

We also need to know who truly belongs to our family. If God is our Father, then we are brothers and sisters in Christ, and we need to be willing to claim one another and care for one another as our own. I think most churches struggle in this area. We are often not inclined to go out of our way to connect with others and support others outside of regularly scheduled church gatherings. Our Western culture has negatively influenced us in this regard. Each one’s home is his castle and we don’t dare invade another’s space or ask them to come into ours.

But those things are tangential to what I started out to say. As Christians, our identity does come from our Father and from Jesus Christ the Son of God. He has made us new creations, adopted us as children, and put us into the Body of Christ with a role to play.

• When we’re tempted to sin, we can point to Jesus and say “I’m with Him.” 
• When we feel ashamed or guilty, we can remember that our Father does not condemn us. 
• When are lonely, our Father is always present with us. 
• When we want to serve in the church, our Father has given us gifts and abilities to do so. 
• When we think we’re lacking something, our Father owns everything.

Take some time today to think about every good and perfect gift our Father has given us (James 1:17), since “He Himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25).

“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ… And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Gal. 1:3, 4:6).

© 2022 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

If I Only Had a Heart

One of my Christmas gifts was The Wizard of Oz video. It’s been years since I last saw the movie, and one quote jumped out at me. The Wizard says to the Tin Man:

“A heart is not judged by how much you love but by how much you are loved by others” (1:32).

As much as I like the movie, that’s certainly an unbiblical idea. Jesus told His disciples:

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).

The Apostle John added this explanation:

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:7-11).

So, in opposition to what the Wizard believed, what matters most is that God first loved us and thus we are both enabled and commanded to love others regardless of what they may think about us. Jesus went on to say,

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:43-44).

“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you… If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them” (Luke 6:27, 32).

Our culture excels at loving those who love us and agree with us, but don’t let any hint of conflict arise or all bets are off. It doesn’t seem to matter whether there are marriage vows or church membership covenants—love, as we understand it, goes out the window. But that is to ignore God’s command to love even our enemies. Love is not mere tolerance of others, nor approving of sin. It is showing grace and compassion that yearns for others to find reconciliation with God and man through Jesus Christ. In C.S. Lewis’s words, “Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained” (The Problem of Pain).

But if we’re honest, none of us love others as we should. There are people who irritate us, people we hope never to meet in the grocery store, and perhaps even people who would consider us their enemies. We can’t love people by our own strength or willpower, but the solution is not to go looking for a heart or looking for people who already love us. We need to continually turn to God and ask Him to keep growing the fruit of the Spirit in us, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23).

I realize this has been a recurring theme in many of my blogs, but it’s also a recurring theme in Scripture. Love appears over 200 times in the New Testament alone, so it must be pretty important to God, who is Himself Love. This year “let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works” (Heb. 10:24).

“May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints” (1 Thess. 3:12-13).

© 2022 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.