Bonnie and I planted a rock garden last summer. Plants are now growing like weeds. That’s the problem: at this stage, plants and weeds look like they’re part of the same family. Only when flowers bloom will the truth be known.

I’m writing for those of you who sometimes feel like a weed. No wonder. You think, act, and look like one. Perhaps you think that God now has no use for you, maybe he’ll even pull you up and throw you away.  But, God never throws away what’s his.

Here’s how he puts it in a mind-twister kind of way.

“For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him;

If we endure, we will also reign with Him;

If we deny Him, He also will deny us;

If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.”

2 Timothy 2:11-13 (NASV)

Only the third statement speaks of the person who outwardly looks genuine. But, that person never allowed the life of Jesus Christ to enter his life and make him a new person. One day he will deny Jesus Christ. God, then, will deny him.

But, for you in whom Jesus lives: 

• You died with Christ at the cross and you’re living for him now
• You’re persevering in your determination to live for him and someday you’ll rule with him in his new world
• Even when you aren’t completely faithful, he remains faithful to you. The logic runs along this line: How could God deny his own life that’s in you?

All that remains is for you to start looking like who you really are.

The Inner Ring Reality
Using Lewis’ words, “Badly as I may have described it, I hope you will all have recognized the thing I am describing.”[1] I don’t object to the Inner Ring reality. That’s the way life is, as natural as the Cardinals, Blue Birds and Gold Finches that party together every day in my back yard, and yet, instinctively they knowing the boundaries of their kind with those from another brood.

The Inner Ring Problem
It’s the inner dominant desire to be among the rich and famous – as we each define it, it’s the prideful smugness that “we” versus “them” are really in the know – that’s what I object to. Evidently God, in whose Inner Ring I find myself by invitation, objects to that as well.

The Inner Ring Perspective
Control that desire, God warns through the sage of antiquity, “Don’t work yourself into the spotlight; don’t push your way into the place of prominence.”[2]  Self-promotion via name dropping or nuanced bragging not only drains you of precious energy you need for the day, it’s wearisome to those who have to listen.

Get a grip on reality, God continues. No matter the Inner Ring of your quest, every one of them is as a cloud in terms of sustaining importance. “Common people are as worthless as a puff of wind, and the powerful are not what they appear to be.  If you weigh them on the scales, together they are lighter than a breath of air.”[3]

The Inner Ring Cure
What’s the remedy for the Inner Ring quest? I will offer three.

Get a heart exam. Did you know that God weighs your heart?[4] He knows the weight of your thoughts and motives behind every action you take or word you say. So, don’t wear yourself out trying to get rich in importance by association. That’s the wrong thinking and motivation. Sometimes I wonder who it’s really all about as parents’ drive their kids to get good grades and achievements, the kids or the parents?

Recognize and revel in “your own.”  Be wise enough to know that the Inner Ring where you naturally belong is your place of most influence. That’s where God and you do the best work together. For that reason, Jesus first “came unto his own.”[5]

Smile and laugh with amazement at this thought: because you believed in Jesus Christ, you were born into God’s family, the ultimate Inner Ring for all time and eternity. I mean, really, you have the right to run into his presence at any time to talk, complain, ask, cry and laugh as if he were actually your friend?! Rid yourself of your need for any other source of significance that defines who you really are other than God’s Inner Ring.

PALM SUNDAY WAS “SHOWDOWN SUNDAY”

Palm Sunday is underrated because its significance is not understood. It was more than the beginning of the week of Passover, the most sacred week of the Jewish year. It was more than Jesus entering Jerusalem among the noisy masses. Palm Sunday was a strategic showdown between two opposing processions, deities, and kingdoms.

TWO PROCESSIONS

Jesus led the peasant procession. He and his disciples had journeyed from Galilee, a hundred miles from the north, to Jerusalem.  On Palm Sunday, Jesus rode on a donkey down from the Mount of Olives, cheered wildly by his peasant followers waving palm branches and placing their poor man’s clothing in his path.

Jesus, himself from a peasant family, and his peasant followers represented the power of God. To the powers of Rome, Jesus and his rogue throng were but a comical, even pitiful, threat.

Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor, led the imperial procession. He entered Jerusalem from the other side, from the West. He had traveled from “Caesarea on the Sea”, a new and grand city about 70 miles northwest of Jerusalem.  The splendor of his imperial cavalry and soldiers conveyed only one message: the power of the kingdom of Rome. To display that power was necessary for Roman governors of Judea, for crowd control during major Jewish festivals.

Passover was of particular concern to Pilate, as he knew it was the Jewish celebration of liberation from an earlier power.  He wanted to leave no doubt that history would not repeat itself. So he came to reinforce the permanent Roman battalion that was conveniently housed in a fortress that overlooked the Jewish temple and courts.

TWO DEITIES

 Jesus’ claims of deity had been made clear in his ministry. He said that he was the Christ, the Son of the living God, the divine Son of Man, and the “I AM” of Hebrew scripture who was going to bring God’s peace to earth.

“Caesar is divine” was at the core of Roman imperial theology.  Caesar was regarded as Son of God, Lord, and Savior, the one who brought peace to earth.

Palm Sunday was a showdown between God, believed in by a few, and a god, worshipped by many.

TWO KINGDOMS

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the City of God, it was more than a pre-planned “counter-procession”, it was an intentional confrontation with the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of Caesar.

In his Gospel, Matthew is explicit in making the connection between Jesus’ riding in on the foal of a donkey and symbolism in Zechariah.

“Tell the daughter of Zion, look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Matthew 21:5, quoting Zech 9:9).

What kind of a king is coming?

“He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations.” 9:10

This king, riding on a donkey, will be so powerful he will command nations to put away all weaponry of war and to establish peace.  Jesus claimed that he, as the promised Messiah, was the King of Peace who would establish His kingdom.

The time had arrived for the Jewish people to accept or deny his message, namely, that He was the King of the promised Kingdom of God.

The Central Conflict and The Crucifixion

The confrontation of the two processions, deities, and kingdoms embody the central conflict of that week, a conflict that led to Jesus’ crucifixion.

“Showdown Sunday” also represents the central theme of your life’s mission. Be like Jesus, you will win the conflict by being truthful but also loving in the midst of hostility.

Self-loathing qualifies as a pit of life that the psalmist talks about (see Psalm 40:2).  A lonely, horrible place to be, it’s like standing in slimy clay, stuck with nowhere to go. My focus here isn’t to explore the varying degrees and dysfunctions of self-loathing. Rather, it’s to say this: if you loathe yourself because of something you’ve done wrong, you’re free to stop.  Right now. Let’s talk about that for a moment.

Shame is God-focused, self-loathing is self-directed

David had committed a double sin: adultery, then murder to cover it up. That’s off the charts serious. So was his confession, spending long days and nights in agony, experiencing the awfulness of deep regret while in a state of profound repentance. Shame raged through his spirit, soul, and body. (Listen to his graphic description and pleas in Psalm 32:3-4 and 51:1-12) David was disgusted by his actions, but he didn’t despise himself. He saw the appalling situation for what it was: he had made a deliberate choice to grievously sin, he accepted the blame and shame, and went straight to God for forgiveness and cleansing.

God’s forgiveness, not self-forgiveness

“How can I forgive myself?” wasn’t the question foremost in David’s mind, but rather, “Lord, will you forgive me?”  To David, a clear conscience, a cleansed spirit, a restoration of honor had everything to do with God’s pardon. He knew that he had no authority to forgive himself or to restore himself in any way.  Since pardoning himself wasn’t even on the table for consideration, he was completely free to fully receive an incredible mercy- offer from heaven: God’s forgiveness wrapped in exhilarating joy. One who self-loathes can never have that freedom, can never experience that joy.  Being self-absorbed is inimical to being God-absorbed.

Mercy inspired boldness

Not that he was thinking this way, but in a sense, David boldly approached the Lord with a deal: “Lord, I tell you what, if you forgive me, if you give me the spirit to keep on going, if you’ll let me have my joy back, if you let me stay in power as king, I’ll teach transgressors your ways, I’ll instruct them how to really live.” No self-loathing person could ever offer such a prayer; the pitiful esteem they have of themselves holds them in chains of continuous paralyzing despair. Boldness of this kind before Almighty God comes from either a pride-filled person with a delusional sense of greatness  or one like David, clothed in purest humility, securely rooted in the all-consuming unfailing love of God.

David was called, “a man after God’s own heart,” because he showed his helpless dependence in the heart of God at both his highest and lowest points of life.

•  All events and circumstances of my life are in God’s control. “My times are in your hands,” said David. (Psalm 31:15) So, curve balls – whether a flat tire, sickness, or death – happen, never in conflict with four all-important characteristics of God: He is sovereign, He is faithful, He loves me and He is good.
•  The time span in which something happens is according to His purpose. “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven,” said David’s son, Solomon. (Eccl.3:1) God knows what He is doing in a person’s life and when it is the right time to speak, whether through silence or activity.

 Such perspectives offer a sense of order in the ebb and flow of life’s unexpected circumstances that demand spontaneous decisions. They offer a certain measure of calm and confidence in uncertain times of delays and disappointments, even in tough times of pain, suffering and death.

I sent out a tweet that said, “Is Christopher Hitchens in heaven or hell? The brain dies in about 2 minutes after the heart stops. Did he talk with Jesus? I hope so.” An atheist replied, “If he talked to Jesus, his brain had definitely stopped.” I sent back the message, “You’re probably right. Therein lays the tragedy.”

If the brain does in fact die two minutes after the heart stops, is that person still able to talk to the Lord? The Bible says that each person is destined once to die, and after that the judgment (Hebrews 9:27). As the thief on the cross had his “last chance” to talk to Jesus and repent, so, I hope that before the brain dies there is also that opportunity. Only the Lord knows what happens during those brief moments of time before a person slips away with finality from this life to the next.

Why not find an atheist and talk to him or her about Christ? A person who says there is no God is declared a fool (Proverbs 14:1). Why? Only an arrogant person could make such a subjective statement, which is clearly based on the assumption that he or she is all-knowing. They are saying that they have thoroughly investigated and inspected every space in the universe and beyond to conclude that there is, in fact, no God.

The core of atheism is deliberate, intentional unbelief. Many, if not most, atheists don’t want there to be a God because they don’t want God interfering with their personal morality. It is of little wonder then that the rest of the verse says, “They are corrupt, and their actions are evil; not one of them does good!” Of course, there is a continuum between good and evil on which all people fall at some point, whether atheists or not.

While taking a class on logic in college, I soon discovered that the professor (an ex-Southern Baptist preacher who denied the faith) was in cahoots with his protégée, one of the students, to attack Christians in the class. Of course, I was a primary target. While in the parking lot after class, I approached my fellow student and asked him, “Was there ever a time in your life when you believed in Christ, when you claimed to be born again?” He looked surprised and answered, “Yes.” I continued, “Are you doing things in your life now morally that you would have never allowed when you claimed to be a Christian?” I have to admit to being surprised at his honesty when he said, “Well, yes.” My response was, “I thought so. You can’t believe in Christ because you know that by doing so you condemn yourself. You have no choice but to not believe.”

It turns out that atheists do believe in God, after all. Why do I say that? Because they all believe in the kind of life that can only result from people being created by God. Exact atheism would believe in moral relativism, namely, that there is no such thing as right and wrong. Therefore, anything goes by anyone. But, no atheist would admit to murder being a good thing. Their morality is selective, however, in that personal choices such as adultery and lying are off-limits to the judgment of God or others.

In the BBC summary, the prominent atheist Richard Dawkins described Hitchens as, ”a valiant fighter against all tyrants, including God.” I wondered how God could be a tyrant if he didn’t exist. But, evidently Dawkins does believe God exists. Otherwise, his fight against God wouldn’t be so vehemently hateful and life-long.

I wish that Christopher Hitchens had lived a life worthy of his name. Christopher means “one who bears Christ.” It may be coincidence, but it is significant that his death was overshadowed by the season which focuses on the Christ that he rejected, but of whom he is now very much aware.

Actually, it’s hard to imagine, but a day will come when 9/11 will be forgotten by most and remembered by only a living few. Survivors of Pearl Harbor understand. Seventy years later, most survivors are now in their 80s or 90s. Because it’s easy to forget, significant events of history need to be showcased at certain times and places. That’s one guarantee that memories live on throughout generations.

What can you do today, December 7, to remember Pearl Harbor?

Remember “the date which will live in infamy.”
That famous phrase, first spoken by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as he addressed the nation on December 8 referred to the bombing of Pearl Harbor the day before, December 7, 1941. Commemorations will be held throughout the world today. Tune in on the Internet. Watch on the evening news. Take a few minutes to read about it. Ask your family and friends to join you in remembering.

Honor survivors of Pearl Harbor
Say “thank you” to someone who endured the war years after the attack on Pearl Harbor. I’ll be looking for the 80+-year-old gentleman that I see most Sundays in church. He served in the Army for many years, always wears a pin-on American flag, and smiles as we exchange military salutes. Life was hard for him, other military personnel and civilians alike. I’ll tell my senior friend that if it were not for the enormity of his sacrifice, the United States would not have become the strong nation with which we have been blessed. Germany and Japan would not have been rebuilt. Nations now live in freedom because of Pearl Harbor survivors.

Highlight the power of God
Read about the “miracle of Dunkirk,” as Winston Churchill called it. Talk to others about how God showed his powerful strength against earth’s mighty forces of evil in the turbulent days of war following Pearl Harbor. God directly intervened so that good conquered and wickedness was defeated. Then the Lord went a step beyond, sending an army of missionaries throughout Europe and the world. The result? Millions of people now experience ultimate peace with God in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Make today personal
Look in the rearview mirror of your life. Relive God’s deliverances from your own personal battles. Clap and laugh over victories from attacks by spiritual forces of evil. Throw a party! Design a ceremony of your own.

I saw a license plate that said, “We will never forget.” May that be true for our nation; may it be true for you.

Blog-talk aside, Jesus is on my list because there is something that he doesn’t yet have, namely, all of me. That’s just another way of saying that I have things that he doesn’t want me to have. So, I’ve decided to give the Lord Jesus the useless – even harmful – things in my life. He loves those kinds of gifts. Here’s a starter list of some of those things:

1. Get rid of elephants in the mind. Those elephants won’t go away because the Spirit of Jesus keeps bringing to the forefront desires and attitudes that are in my mind that he wants to go away. Earlier this month, I wrote in my journal:

“List every thought, behavior, action, attitude, words…everything that my conscience tells me is wrong. The great majority of those things, if not all, is God the Holy Spirit speaking to me. If that is the case – and it is – then I must obey and right the wrong. I obey because I love the Lord…”

 2. Attack problems, not people. Do you know what I did this morning? As I was reading the Bible, I looked up and saw a small fly resting on one of the petals of a beautiful bunch of flowers sitting in the middle of the table in the sunroom. I slowly got the fly swatter and BAM! I took a swing at the fly. Where the fly went, I have no idea. But, half of the beautiful flowers went flying through the air. That’s easy to do when dealing with people who are – regardless of problems they have or cause – of great beauty to God. Wounding a person – even mentally or attitudinally – with malice or slander, under the guise of fixing their problem, is not allowed and has to go.

3. Let go of good things that atrophy the best. “Brother, it’s a sin for you not to preach!” So said a delightful, senior African-American, former preacher himself, as we fellowshipped in the lobby before the start of a service. He chided with a smile, and I knew he was right. Considering the dearth of Bible knowledge in our society, as a seminary graduate, former church-planting missionary, former Dean of a Graduate School, along with many other Christian work and life experiences, I should be teaching God’s Word on a weekly basis. I’m taking good things out of my life to build up the best.

The supremacy of Christ
On the one hand, talking about giving to Jesus what is already his is ludicrous. After all, “you are not your own, you are bought with a price.” On the other hand, it’s the highest act of worship I can give, as God’s Word says, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” The supremacy of Christ is at the core of all gifts offered to the one who is Lord of all.

I want to give my gifts to Jesus this year. He won’t be surprised, because he’s been telling me what he wants on that list.