…since I’ve written a post.  I haven’t known how to put on paper what’s been going on in our hearts and home.  A couple months ago, OJ and I began a season of fasting and prayer in desperation…just desperation to get the message inside of us out.  Sometimes it seems lodged there, somewhere between the gut and the tongue, sometimes causing indigestion.  We’ve had lots of conversations, and some just FLY.  And others just seem so awkward, like we’re trying to talk around our feet as they are permanently lodged in our mouths.  Feel free to picture that for your own amusement.

Here’s what we’ve been talking about.  THE GOSPEL.  Is it, or is it not, the answer to every single one of your problems, my problems, and your neighbors problems?  OJ and I are contending that it is.  Contend with whom?  Well, here’s the catch.  Contention always comes with those who most agree with us.  Stick with me for a minute.  Recently I was beginning to introduce a woman to the Lord, and i told her in the middle of other sentences, “God loves you.”  Before I could go on, she murmured, “I know…”  as if that was already covered.  I looked at her with her sad face, tired eyes, and hopeless demeanor, and shot back immediately, “No, you don’t.”  There was nothing argumentative in it, whatsoever.  It was a simple statement of the most obvious fact at that moment.  If there’s anything that this precious lost one did not KNOW, it was that God LOVES her.  Because if God really LOVES her, then…well, a child could figure it out…her problems are solved.  Imagine a woman being pursued by suitors.  If an illiterate foreigner in a far away land loves her, that’s nice, but there are some obvious problems.  Or if a mentally unstable janitor with iffy residence history loves her, there may be some kinks to work out in her life plan.  Or if a  workaholic businessman with a summer bungalow and hallitosis loves her, there could still be significant worries.  You get the picture.  But if GOD loves her, what exactly does she have to worry about?  And so it was very easy to say, “No, you don’t know that God loves you.”

Everybody has problems and the world is full of destruction.  And so, as we know from the Christmas story, God had thousands of angels show up to fill the sky and make it ring out with the news…the NEWS…THE NEWS THAT GOD WAS, RIGHT THEN, BRINGING PEACE TO MEN.  The news that as much as humanity has proved itself the guiltiest possible race, having reveled in every crime imaginable in every corner of creation over and over and over again…just when it seemed creation could no longer put up with the unutterable wickedness that is our human history, God announces GOODWILL, the unthinkable.  Jesus, our peace.  Our PEACE.  Either He is or He isn’t.  I’m telling the lost that He is.  But most of us are still praying for peace, as if someday they will find it.  JOY TO THE WORLD!!!  Either that’s what came or it didn’t.  But why are we still hoping to someday find joy?  Where is the joy?  DId Jesus come, or are we still praying for that?  Life abundant, rivers of living water, everlasting life…these are the things that Jesus said we would have if we come to Him.  He also healed the diseases of all who came.  These are Jesus’ words, not mine!  Jesus didn’t make an invitation to come to Him, so we could join the club that prays for peace, and tries to have joy, and wishes they were more loving.  He spoke simply to simple people (these quotes are from Jn 3,4,5):

He who believes in the Son has everlasting life…

He who believes in Him is not condemned…

You must be born again (born of the Spirit).

…whoever believes in Him should not perish…

…Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.

…he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.

OJ and I began to confront the questions raised by Mark 16 and Jn 14:12-14, where the Lord talks about the works that will follow those who believe.  But here’s what really came up for us when we got honest, was that while the works Jesus mentions expose our unbelief because they are tangible evidence, the unbelief is really rooted much, much deeper than that.  When it comes to the basics of the GOSPEL, (take for instance the quotes above), we have so much unbelief.  The unbelief is so deep, so pervasive.  Because if we have been born again, given everlasting life, are not condemned, don’t miss how simple this is…we should not be perishing.  We should not be thirsty.  We should not be dying, because we’ve passed into life.  But most of the time, we find ourselves getting together seeking some water for our thirst, praying over all that’s perishing in our lives, and feeling condemned.  For goodness’ sake, the only people I’ve ever heard talk about feeling condemned are Christians!  These are the issues we can claim to believe without ever realizing that we don’t, at least not fully.  Unless someone confronts the distance between the EVERLASTING WORDS OF LIFE that we say we believe, but come drivelling out of our mouths powerlessly as religious platitudes.  Unless someone does like I did for my unsaved friend with the sad face who claimed to know that God loves her.  “No, you don’t.”

So for OJ and me, we’ve decided to jump in fully.  To say to ourselves, “What exactly is the problem?”  Is it not simply that in some way, we do not believe Jesus?  Because how sad?  How angry?  How to feel like a failure?  How to be hopeless?  How?  If even one of those statements Jesus said is even only mostly true, how do we live in sorrow, depression, and anxiety?  What exactly is the problem?

Jesus is so clear.  so simple.  “Why are you afraid?” He asks the men on boat as the storm throws water into the boat.  He is LORD.  He is LORD.  He is LORD.  What problem?  What disappointment?  What failure?  What sorrow?  What anxiety?  He is LORD.  There is only one problem:  it is unbelief.

Final note:  trying to believe is not the same as believing.  A simple way to know if we believe is to survey our life to find out how much of it depends on God being real.  Like if God’s not real, it will go bust.  The heroes of faith Jesus thought worth mentioning in the NT (thinking of Bartimaeus, the woman with the issue of blood, the lepers…note the common thread of desperation) held NOTHING together.  These were folks who were so unable to cope with the extent of their perishing that if Jesus was not real, they were done for.  One of the greatest obstacles to true faith is a lack of desperation.  When we can cope with the level to which we are experiencing perishing (be it marriages, our children, our finances, our health, our heart-brokenness) ourselves, then we can throw prayers of unbelief out all day long.  But when we can’t go on any further unless He breaks through, when we actually need Him to be real…this is where we find faith.  God bless you!