Special features

What do you think of when you think of the Majesty of God? If you’re like me you come up with numerous different ideas. And most of them reflect years of flannel graph stories from Sunday School lessons taught by little old ladies in sagging nylons and pilgrim shoes. Or as was my case, maybe you learned at the knee of your older sister as she led you and the three other children in the little country church that met in the tiny school house on the corner. The simplest process for determining the Majesty of God would be to look up in your reference Bible all the scriptures that refer to each character of God. However, I’m going to attempt to challenge you to look beyond the normal references to the Majesty and Power of God.

Webster’s Dictionary offers this definition of majesty (n): sovereign power; greatness or splendor of quality or character; awesome wonderment. Awesome wonderment, I like that. Think on that for just a moment. What do you think of when you ponder awesome wonderment? It’s the essence of the mysteriousness of what God can do for each of us through His incredible majestic grace.

I’ve spent the better part of the last 40 years at the very least influenced by Mount Shasta in one way or another. As a kid, I used to think the snow-covered mountain was Alaska as we drove north on California Interstate 5. Years later, as an ornery dad, I used to tell my own kids that on a clear winter day they could see Alaska while driving north bound Interstate 5. When I moved my family to Yreka, and my daughters reached junior high school, I served as a Ski Club Advisor for several years. It was in that capacity that I really came to appreciate the awesome wonderment of Mount Shasta. Riding a ski-lift at night under a full moon really brought out the amazing qualities of the mountain God created as Mount Shasta. There’s a peaceful quietness one experiences while floating through the frozen air aboard the ski-lift as it ascends the snow covered slopes illuminated by the smile of the moon. It was during those quiet moments of reflection that I really began to understand the majesty of the One who created the mountain for our enjoyment instead of the majesty of the mountain itself.

Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry” into the city of Jerusalem is often considered a good example of the majesty of God. In Luke 19:28-38, Jesus fulfills His plan to serve as the ruler of His people, but His revelation is far from what the people want of Him. They want a ruler who is powerfully forceful and shows His vengeance on their enemies. What they got was just the opposite. Compassionate, caring, calculatingly gracious.

The fact that Jesus was constantly followed by throngs of physically and spiritually thirsty people attests to his majestic qualities. They knew His strength, they knew His goodness, and they lived along side His majesty (Luke 4:38-42).

For me, God’s true majesty is displayed in the simple yet complex experience of the birth of a child. No experience in my life affected me more than the birth of my children. Four times I watched as Dena courageously brought life to our children. Four times, while helping by staying as far out of her way or close to her side as she wished, I watched the majesty of God played out in one of God’s most innocent expressions of His love for us. The suffering Dena endured to bring glory and honor to God by completing His plan for the love she and I shared was truly awesome wonderment each time. Four times I watched and wondered, why me Lord? Why bless me with Rachel and Abby and Kyson and Kaden? In such a simple experience, awesome wonderment.

When God opened the window to His majesty, he did it by inviting you and me to His birth. That’s right, His unconditional majesty first appears in His humble beginnings in a lowly stable (Luke 2:6,7). Too often we ye all used the phrase, “we want Jesus in the White House”, but He knew the only place we could ever truly trust and appreciate His majesty was in that humble home of hay. What an incredible story, the King of the universe makes His entry into our failing world in a cow barn on the wrong side of the tracks.

Thirty years later, there He was again, focusing His majesty on the lower end of the social ladder. In Luke 18: 15-17, Jesus reached out majestically to the children drawn to Him magnetically by the never-ending pull of His unconditional love. And, when the world, through the voices of His disciples, tried to push the littlest beneficiaries of His love away, Jesus remained steadfast in His desire to allow each little one rest in His incredible glory. We are called to be His littlest ones in our faith; to comfort in His unconditional love and to rest in His glory.

Jesus understood His majesty. It was a gift of servitude, and He lived it every day. Look at Jesus healing the lame, their joy overshadows the Pharisees’ anger and fear. There He is comforting the down trodden, the destitute, the despised. All the while not allowing the whispers and the gossip mongering to influence his purpose for coming. A purpose more important than the next Sunday service or the next business meeting or the next association retreat. Yes, His good and perfect purpose was to be majestic, so each of us could know Him, as He truly was, a man, a God of awesome wonderment.

"Better do it again." I didn't want to hear those words. I had already labored to put three coats of mud on the joints of my house. My neck hurt. My arms were tired. I was sick of the dust. It looked acceptable to me. But when my mentor came through to examine my work, his comment was, "Better do it again."

I knew he was right. It wasn't smooth enough. Too many places where I had skimped with mud, or over-did the mud. I could have said "No", but I did, down deep inside, want the house to look nice.

Now, 15 years later, I'm so thankful for my mentor. I can look at the house with pride in my labor, rather than wishing I had done another coat.

Discipline is painful. The author of Hebrews says, "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." (Hebrews 12:11) I don't enjoy being disciplined, and really don't enjoy the pain of disciplining myself.

That is, until I look at the results. That's what makes the pain worthwhile. When I focus on the pain, it hurts. (Duh!) But when I focus on the final results, I can find joy even in the pain. There is a purpose for the pain - to make me better at whatever.

There are times we need mentors to push us beyond ourselves. Coaches will challenge their teams to work beyond their natural inclination, to run until it hurts, and then run some more. The goal is to be in such good shape that running during the game will produce a victory.

There are many times as a Christian when I need the Lord to discipline me. And He does that, not because He's angry with me, but because He wants me to be like Jesus. He pushes me, prods me, sometimes brings seemingly unreasonable pain, but the goal is Christ-likeness. When I focus on the pain, it hurts. But when I focus on what God is producing in me, there's joy - a 'harvest of righteousness and peace'.

It is good to be disciplined by the Lord. But it is also good - even better - if I learn to discipline myself. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11, "But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment. When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world." We have the opportunity to discipline ourselves, to examine ourselves, in order to find and fix those areas where we are not Christ-like.

John tells us "Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure." (1 John 3:2-3) Fix your eyes on 'this hope'. That will motivate you to purify yourself like Christ.

When we fail to discipline ourselves, or when we miss some area where we need discipline, that's when God steps in to bring that discipline into our lives, because He doesn't want us to be "condemned with the world". He loves us too much to just let us go!

We've reached the dog-days of summer. Maybe that should be spelled 'daze'. The heat is oppressive, it's tough to sleep, and I feel just like kicking back and doing nothing. Motivation is tough in the hot weather. I wonder how I'll be in India, where it is 98 degrees and raining, and cools off to a brisk 85 at night.

Actually, though, it reminds me of my Christian walk. There are times when it just gets tough to stay motivated. Maybe it's a lack of pressure or problems, but sometimes I just want to kick back and let the world go on without my involvement. I get tired of doing the same thing day after day, week after week, month after month... you know how that is, don't you.

But then something happens to remind me that what I'm called to do is critically important. A word of appreciation from an unexpected source; a cry for help from someone that I didn't realize needed help; a special time with the Lord. And suddenly I find my energy again. Suddenly I'm motivated to be all that I can be for the Lord.

Thank God for those special times. We need them in our lives. Times that challenge us, times that reawaken us, times that motivate us.

But what do you do between those times? William Carey, early missionary to India, said, "I can

plod and persevere in any given endeavor." Sometimes we just have to keep on keeping on. The Christian life isn't a whole bunch of 'highs', of challenges and exciting events. It's mostly just doing what we've been given to do, and keeping on doing it.

Last week we took 38 kids to Indian Scotty for camp. On the way home, I saw a farm worker raking hay. The field was huge, and he was just starting to turn the hay. I wonder how many hours he had left. And that was just one field. But he kept working, kept driving, because if he didn't, he'd never get the hay up, and never be able to sell it, and never be able to feed his family.

Plodding. Not too exciting, is it? Not romantic, not eventful, but that's what the Bible calls "faithfulness". That's one of the fruits of the Spirit. It's also referred to as "perseverance" or "endurance", traits that Peter, Paul and James (not Peter, Paul and Mary) challenge us to add to our faith.

I wish it was always exciting, always eventful, always stimulating. But as you read the Bible, most of the lives of the heroes of faith was spent plodding.

So let's plod on. Let's be faithful. If God has given you a task, fulfill it to the best of your ability. Seek the presence of the Lord in it. Seek to serve Him through it.

It's a long way to the end of the field. But only when we finish the course will there be a crown of righteousness awaiting us in glory. (2 Timothy 4:7-8)

Debbie and I just returned from a great trip visiting our church-planting pastors in India again. We had a wonderful time seeing our friends, seeking to encourage them with our words and prayers and love. And they encouraged us so much, to keep focused on the big picture.

Can you imagine a football team that practices only the basics of punting, blocking and correct footwork, but forgets that the ultimate purpose of the game is to move the ball down the field and score points? That's hardly imaginable, is it? But sometimes that's how we approach the Christian life.

As we grow in knowledge as Christians, we have a tendency to focus more and more on the details of Christian living (not wrong in itself), and forget that our main purpose here is to fellowship with the Living God and invite others to fellowship with Him through Jesus Christ as well. We lose sight of the forest because we are just looking at the trees. We get hung up on 'churchianity', and forget that this is supposed to be living in relationship with God.

Debbie and I observed the negative side of this while studying our family history in Europe. Very shortly after

rediscovering salvation by faith through grace alone, our spiritual ancestors began to focus on 'details' and lost sight of the big picture. Disputes arose over the meaning of Communion, the relationship of church and state, and especially over baptism. Believers began to separate from other believers over these disagreements. Soon major divisions arose in the church, and in those difficult days people even killed one another for having a different understanding of peripheral doctrines. Non-conformists were hounded out, driven from their homes and sometimes put to death for not agreeing with the established dogma. Christians killed other Christians, simply because they wanted to be baptized after coming to faith.

Visiting our brothers and sisters overseas reminded me of the cause for this. Because of the pressures they face in a largely non-Christian country, our church-planting pastors don't worry about the intricate details of Christianity. They are forced, by persecution and pressure, to work together for the cause of Christ. Minor details that so easily divide us are not as critical for them. They are focusing on the big picture.

We need to pray for them, because there are some important details that can not be forgotten. Pray that they do not meander away from the Truth. But we also need to pray for ourselves, that we do not get so focused on the details that we forget the big picture.

John and I were walking down a country road in northeast India with some of our Indian friends. It was late afternoon and the colors of the blue sky against the green of the rice paddies and brown mud of the dykes surrounding them created a pleasant backdrop to great conversations. The farmers were herding their goats and prodding their cattle back home with sticks. Their wives and children were also hurrying home to their simple suppers cooked over an outside fire!. For them, it was a daily reality.

I wanted to capture this scene forever. For us, it was one of those special moments that won't be repeated and I didn't want to lose its savor. By the end of the walk it was only a memory.

The value of remembering came sharply into focus with recent happenings in our lives. Losing three of our parents, who were very much mentors, created a desire to know more about the legacy that they left. We are discovering a wonderful heritage of their godly lives as we sort through their files and belongings. Our visit to Washington DC in June reminded us of the Christian roots of our nation. We left knowing that freedom, especially freedom of religion,

has a price tag attached to it. Our time in Switzerland (my ancestral home) on the way home from India opened our eyes to the history of my family and their determination to live their lives by God's Word.

Our God calls us to remember. He says, "Remember the former things long past, for lam God and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me." Isaiah 46:9 He is eternal and all of history is His Story.

In contrast, the idols that are fashioned by man have no history, no legacy. They are often made in multiples to make a profit. There is nothing about them to remember or learn by. And they don't hear, see or understand. They are lifeless.

The writer of Ecclesiastes implores us to "Remember also your Ceator in the days of your youth youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, "I have no delight in them." Ecclesiastes 12:1 Our eyes will grow dim, our bodies will suffer pain and other trials will come into our life. Our God is the One to remember! He is not just a "memory" but He is the true living God that is with us in the present and will be there for all of eternity!