students of jesus

What happens when a Bible verse becomes a cliché--when it takes on a life apart from the setting the Spirit intended? If a passage becomes widely known and quoted it’s easy to miss the revelation the Spirit intended. Because it’s familiar we think we know what it means: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth -or- no rest for the wicked --or this week’s meditation, the streets of heaven are paved gold. Actually, this last example reads a bit differently: The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass. (Revelation 21:21)

Revelation 21 shows us what life is like when God lives among men. Some people call it “heaven.” I think Jesus called it “The Kingdom of God.” Some people think heaven is reserved for another day. I think Jesus told us “the kingdom of God is breaking in.” What if he wants to live among us now? I’d like to suggest three possibilities of what the Holy Spirit is trying to communicate when we hear that the streets of heaven are paved with gold.

Heaven has abundance. The present value of gold comes from scarcity. The economies of this age are, in part, built on what we do not have--and because we do not have something society sets the price high. But in God’s presence there is always enough. There's no scarcity in his presence. Imagine--how would we live today if there was always enough?

Heaven has its values in order. When God lives among men we would value gold no more than we care for asphalt. In our age the source of wealth is possessing what others value. In his kingdom the source of wealth is him! Imagine--how would we live today if the values of this world were beneath our feet?

Heaven values beauty. In God’s presence Main Street shines with the radiance of transparent gold. God is not only holy, God loves beauty. And he makes all things new: try to imagine your Main Street shining like gold.

This week, I invite you to turn your thoughts toward how your world would change today if “the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”

I keep a dreadful secret from my friends at church. You see, where I worship, if you think the music’s too loud, you are definitely too old. The drugged-out neighbors near our building call the police to complain about the volume. The Kentucky Academy of Pediatrics has labeled the Vineyard the number one threat to children’s hearing in the state. Baby Boomers bring ear plugs to church. All the guitar amps go to 11.

But deep in the recesses of my iPhone, where no one can see my music collection, I have a playlist of gentle music. At my desk, I put in the ear buds and secretly dial it down. The fools--they think I'm still rocking it out! But God lives in the still small sounds, too.

So if you promise not to let this get back to the hometown gang, I’d like to recommend quiet music for quiet times:

• Chant, The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos.  These guys have been rockin’ it old-school for 1500 hundred years. Careful--people might mistake you for a closet Catholic.
• Chants of the Russian Orthodox Church. Still quiet music, until the chimes and bells go nuts. These guys get a little rowdy--the Benedictines to the south think of this music as punk.
• Love Came Down, Brian Johnson. A thousand years and a ten thousand miles from the monks comes an album from the Jesus Culture rockers. Don’t even call it unplugged. It’s sweet and gentle, and a pathway to His presence

Perhaps my opinion today is not for everyone. On Saturdays I recommend books, movies, even porches. In my opinion everyone oughta dial it dial down from time to time.

• First, never come to the Bible alone. Always invite the same Spirit who inspired the Book to inspire your encounter. The Holy Spirit is the one who "will teach all things." He will use the Bible as part of His tutorial.
• Second, never settle for head-knowledge apart from personal experience. True, our first ideas about following Jesus may come from reading the Bible, but I believe we should ask the Holy Spirit to move us from the book to real-life experience. What starts as head-knowledge must find its way into our experience.
• Finally, never come to the Bible without a commitment to obey his voice. James, the brother of Jesus, tells us that if we build a lifestyle of merely hearing God's word without doing it, we will become deceived. God doesn't speak "FYI," he speaks "FYO," For Your Obedience. 

The Bible is a gift--a gift we should treasure and respect. Let's use that gift to grow closer to the Giver.

“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” ~ 1 John 4:8

Three simple words: “God is love.” What could be easier? John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, has given us the key to understanding God. A second-grader could create this sentence. All we need to know about the Creator is captured in nine letters, but these nine letters require supernatural insight, or we are forever trapped in an earth-bound idea of God.

Try describing the sound of a symphony orchestra to someone who has only heard a piano and you’ll begin to see the challenge of understanding the revelation in this verse. We are sure we know all about love: the love between husband and wife, between parent and child, the love between lifelong friends. These are wonderful experiences, but only shadows before the dawn.

When we read "God is love," it’s easy to apply our notions of love to Him. Because we have experienced some taste of love we are tempted to think God conforms to our definition of love--but he does not conform to some definition, he is love. He is the definition.

This is part of the challenge of knowing God, and our meditation for the week: what if the things we think we know keep us truly knowing? What if because we have heard the sound from a piano we convince ourselves that’s all there is to know about music? Without choosing to do so we think God conforms to our image. I know all about love, therefore I know all about God. We would never speak these words outright, but our mind has done the math all the same. We impose our categories on God rather than allowing him to provide the eternal meaning.

When the scriptures say “God is love” it's an invitation to discover love in him. This week I’m going to put my understanding in the tomb and wait to see what love looks like when it’s resurrected.

Front porch-sitting is making a come-back; in my town it never went away.

In a simpler place and time folks sat on the front porch and did, well, nothing. The evening’s pastime was to sit together and watch the world go by. In the last 60 years the trend on porching has been down. Lately the curve is looking up. (Of course, if you’re the kind of person who uses the words like “trend” and “curve” then porching may not be for you.)

After splitting the first 40 years of my life between Chicago, Dallas and Washington, D.C. I was unacquainted with the fine art of hanging out. The rhythms of city and suburban life are reggae-rock: schedules, rush hours, play-dates and alarm clocks loomed large and imposed themselves on my life. I remember one stressful day which was scheduled to end with a small group discipleship meeting. I had to cover 20 miles in 25 minutes through cross-town traffic. When I pulled up to the meeting (ten minutes late), the brakes on my car were smoking--the brakes, mind you. That night we were probably discussing something deeply spiritual, perhaps “finding peace with Jesus.”

When a five-year effort toward church-planting crashed and burned, our family ended up in rural Kentucky. Imagine: a smart-ass Yankee Chicago know-it-all sitting on a front porch. I keep looking at my watch, waiting for someone to get the meeting started. It took me two years to discover if someone has to call the meeting to order, you’re not porching.

My Kentucky sojourn has taught me although we talk about the value of community as an expression of God’s Kingdom, we frequently settle for the shadow instead of the reality. We drive 30 minutes each way to attend a 90-minute meeting; we don’t have time to stay and listen to one another; we have to pick up the kids from the sitter.

What if community means your neighbors? Actually the porch is optional. The key is to exchange the reggae-rock rhythm for the sound of crickets, the ice melting in your glass, the pace of the setting sun. What if sunrise and sunset are enough to tell time? What if we gathered around something other than a curriculum? In my opinion everyone needs a place to porch.