Post Category → New Covenant Living

The Twin Barriers to Intmacy with God

You are no doubt familiar with Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son. Maybe too familiar. Sometimes we let familiarity keep us from seeing things we’ve never seen before.

It really should be titled “The Parable of the Merciful, Gracious, Generous Father.” As I pointed out in my devotional, Praying Grace, neither of the two sons in Jesus’ story had a clue about the nature of their relationship and standing with their father. And the same thing is true of most believers.

Religion has robbed us of clarity and understanding of what it really means to be a child of God. The traditions of men have warped our view of who we are, and what we have and, most of all, who the Father truly is.

But for now I just want to pose a thought experiment concerning the brother who took his portion of the inheritance, walked away from his father, rejected every moral value his father held, and proceeded to blow through a big chunk of what his father had worked a lifetime to accumulate–and did so in the most defiling, self-destructive way possible. And he returned home only when on the verge of starvation and living in the most degrading, dehumanizing conditions imaginable.

Here’s what I want you to ask yourself . . .

Why did the young man in Jesus story wait so long to return home?

Why not go home when the money ran out? Or head back when he lost his place to live. Or at any other point in his downward spiral in life? If you put yourself in his place, you know the answer to that question. Two things kept him from the welcoming arms of his gracious father.

Pride and Shame

Pride said, “You can’t go back there with your tail between your legs. You’ll look like the fool you actually are.” Shame said, “You were an arrogant idiot. You were a bad son. You’ve done terrible things. You essentially rejected and spit on everything your father stands for and exemplifies.”

So . . . Only when desperation got bigger than pride and shame, did he head homeward. Only when he was willing to admit that he was utterly powerless to address his own basic needs did he make the choice to seek the face of father again.

Here is why I mention this here: The same two obstacles stand betwen most believers and the arms of their Father on most days. When they get in a pickle, they are reluctant or sheepish about seeking the face of their father. And for the same two reasons: Some combination of Pride and Shame.

Pride tells us we need earn our help. That we need to have exhuasted all personal, natural avenues and resources to fix it ourselves before we throw ourselves into the arms of our heavenly Father. Or until we done some penance or self-punishment. Pride tells us we mustn’t admit that we’re utterly powerless and completely helpless.

And Shame convinces us that we won’t be welcome if we run to God. That we’ve done too many “don’ts” and not done enough “dos” to qualify for help. That if we we run to Him, it’s not a smile of delight and open arms we’ll find there, but rather a frown and a punishment stick.

By the way, Pride and Shame often masquearade as authentic “Fear of the Lord.” But that’s a topic for another post.

The promise of Hebrews 4:16 which plainly states that, because of Jesus, we can “come BOLDLY to the throne of grace to obtain mercy and receive help in time of need,” seems like an unattainable benefit that “better Christians” than we have somehow earned or qualified for.

Of course, Pride led to the fall of humanity. And Shame was the first effect. And the then Pride moved our ancestors to create religion and religious activity (fig leaves) to deal with the shame.

But for the blood-bought Christian, Jesus’ parable exposes both Pride and Shame as liars.

One of the truths that make the Gospel “good news” is that Jesus bore our shame on the cross. (Hebrews 12:2) In fact, a key part of the sounds-too-good-to-be-true miracle of the new birth is that we receive “the gift of righteousness.” (Romans 5:17) In fact, we are wrapped in Jesus Himself and His righteousness. (Galatians 3:27) We actuallly “become” the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Deeply renewing your mind to that truth chokes out shame at the root. (But so few have actually done this.)

So the only remaining obstacle to deep connection and joy and power in the arms of the Father remains pride–the original sin. The sin that got Lucifer cast out of heaven. The sin that knocked over the first domino of The Fall at the wrong tree. The sin that drives, even believers, to try to contribute something to their salvation. Or pay back, or earn, or merit, or qualify.

Here, too, the neglected truth of the New Covenant has an answer. “Apart from me you can do nothing,” Jesus told us. What part of “nothing” do we not understand? Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12:9, passes along a word he heard directly from Jesus when he was struggling with something. Faithfully paraphrasing, “Rest. Relax. Chill. My grace is sufficient for you because my power emerges and takes over whenever and wherever you recognize that you’re weak.”

So, dear Christian, if you’re struggling or hurting and flailing in any in any area of your life, here’s my question for you today:

“What are you waiting for?”

Why not run to His arms now? It’s possible you’re letting Pride or Shame or some combination of both unneccearily keep you from the very place where you’ll find everything you need.

As I said in the devotional Praying Grace, in the entry titled “Our Rejection for His Acceptance”:

Fly to Him, child of God. Run as fast as your feet can carry you. Know that you are accepted, loved, and unspeakably welcome. Then with grateful mindfulness of all He has done for you in the past, pour out to Him your requests.

Note: If shame is your primary obstacle, please allow me to urge to you get this book by my friend Alan Wright–a pastor and brilliant writer: Shame Off You.

On Good Friday

Do you come here often?

Do you come here often?

Somewhere outside my home study window a male cardinal is holding forth mightily—robustly advertising his availability and suitability as a husband and baby-daddy.

I vaguely recall being in my early twenties and doing pretty much the same thing. Like my cardinal friend, I strategically deployed the color red and music. I bought a red Corvette I couldn’t afford, and was in a band.

The insurance alone took a third of my paycheck.

The insurance alone took a third of my paycheck.

I also recall using the color white—in the form of an unconstructed, Don-Johnson-on-Miami-Vice-style jacket (over a pastel Izod polo with a popped collar, of course.)

Fortunately for me, all these efforts failed spectacularly. And five years later God brought me the perfect life companion as I was deploying the counter-intuitive mating strategy of simply not looking like a complete douche all the time.

I’m so grateful for the gift that is my bride. And for so many other things. Which brings me to my thoughts here on Good Friday . . .

The cross changed everything.

I know we all nod and give mental assent to that assertion. But I’m pretty sure we don’t know the half of the vast work of restoration and restitution that was embedded in the “It” of Jesus’ “It is finished.”

The cross is the hinge upon which all of human history turns. Everything before was one way—dating back to the Fall of Man. Everything after it has been different. More different than we know, in fact, because our perspectives are too limited and our vantage point to occluded.

The necessity of the cross testifies that God built this universe on a legal/judicial framework. Just rules, laws, systems and processes were woven in the very fabric of Creation itself. God’s grant to Man of dominion stewardship over planet Earth was a part of this judicial framework. It was a legal grant.

And these principles were so inviolable, that even God Himself could not trespass them and remain His holy Self. When Man’s Fall unleashed evil upon this world and made God’s outlaw enemy the legal “god of this world” God could not simply turn the Etch-a-Sketch of creation up side down, give it a good shake, and start again.

God is not free to cheat. Not and remain Who He is.

So when things went wrong, God set out to make them right again. But to do so legally and justly would require a plan which would be thousands of years in the unfolding.

The culmination of that plan took place roughly 1,985 years ago at this time of year . . . at the cross. Let’s look with fresh eyes at what transpired there.

At the foot of His cross the spirit realm is invisible to our natural eyes. We see a man suffering. What we do not see is what is transpiring in the unseen realm.

If we could, we would see hordes of gleeful, and giddy demons who have finally seen the lowering of the hedge of protection that always surrounded the Son of Man. He was finally vulnerable to torment and attack.

It’s been eerily dark and quiet on Golgotha. It would be easy to assume that nothing of significance has transpired. But in that same span, the great court of Heaven has been the scene of a remarkable flurry of activity.

Legal processes have been executed . . . accounting has been done . . . business has been transacted. . . . a kinsman redeemer has stepped forward to pay the necessary price to redeem an enslaved relative—Adam—and his every willing descendant.

A long-open set of accounting books has been reconciled and closed. A cosmic stamp pounds an ancient page leaving behind a blood-red message across the writing there. “Paid in Full.”

A corner has been turned.

The suffocating blanket of darkness that covered the last half of these proceedings begins to lift. Now that the sun can once again be discerned, we realize it has already begun it’s fiery plunge into the Mediterranean to be extinguished for another night. The Jewish Sabbath rest begins at sundown and it is rapidly approaching.

The few remaining observers on Golgotha heard the man on the center cross shout something about His God having abandoned Him. A little later He’d whispered a request for water—one that was answered, not with a ladle of cooling water but with a vinegar-filled sponge. Now we see the expiring Prince of Heaven summoning His last remnants of physical and mental strength . . . rising to speak once more.

Just one word this time. He cries out:

tetelestai

It is a Greek accounting term. Future English translations of John’s gospel will render that term in a way that tends to strip it of the legal and financial connotations. They translate it, “It is finished” (three words for one). But tetelestai does not mean merely that a thing has ended.

It has a far greater implication than merely a clock has run out and the game has concluded. It is a declaration that all has been accomplished. All that was lacking has now been supplied. The breech has been healed. The debt has been fully satisfied.

Shalom—nothing broken, nothing missing.

Charles Spurgeon called this declaration, “Christ’s dying word to the Church.” But our King’s proclamation carries even more dimensions of meaning than this. He means that all the types, shadows, and symbols of the Old Testament have now been fully manifested in Him.

He decrees that the prophecies that pointed to a future Deliverer King have been fulfilled. John the Baptist had asked, “Are you the One or should we look for another?” Jesus’ answer at that time was suggestive but indirect. Now He speaks plainly. His tetelestai! emphatically shouts, “You can stop looking! The promised One has appeared and accomplished the prophesied task. Dominion of planet earth has been restored to its rightful steward.”

Finally, in that cry of consummation, Jesus declared an end to separated man’s religious striving to build a ladder back to God.

How did this happen?

God Himself became flesh and bone and blood. Walked among fallen men. And willingly laid down on a cross.

We receive and are grateful.