As we are entering into the blessed Advent Season and the annual celebration of the birth of our Messiah-Savior, it seems appropriate to stop and think about the nature of His mission.

Far too often, I think, we hear the mission explained this way:  that Jesus came to die.  Far too little do we stop and think about the implications of such language.  Where is it written that the objective of Jesus' visitation was His death? 

On the contrary, by His own testimony, Jesus tells us that He came to show us how to live, that He came to show us the heart and the will of the Father/God of Abraham, that He came to preach...! 

Granted, He knew ahead of time that cruel and faithless humans would brutalize and destroy His physical being, but He entered our human condition anyway -- NOT from any divine but deadly dementia, NOT motivated by a willingness to die or a future retribution, but in order to show that even the very worst effects of evil could not prevent the GOOD that God intends for His beloved...

Such courage and commitment, such selflessness, such blamelessness is unheard of until then!!! 

His depiction of this glorious truth is manifestly declared in the "temple cleansing" incident/s.  A careful reading of the Gospel texts raises some important questions.  This is a story that appears in all four of the gospels.  When all of the texts report the same incident, the subject event is considered to be especially significant. 

There is some disparity in the time sequence of John's record, since it seems that he describes a temple cleansing at the beginning of Jesus' preaching ministry, whereas Matthew, Mark and Luke all place the incident at the end of that period and just prior to the arrest, trials and execution of the Teacher.  All accounts place the cleansing at the beginning of the Passover season, when faithful Jews from all the surrounding countryside would be trekking into Jerusalem to make sacrifices and merchants of all kinds were plotting how to maximize their profits during the pilgrimage.

Either scenario is possible:  perhaps Jesus did His ritual cleansing statement twice OR perhaps the time sequencing of John's account is imperfect, either misplaced in the narrative timeline by later copyists or inserted out of sequence by the author for reasons we can not now ascertain.  This sort of ambiguity is not a real problem.

More at issue is the important question of why Jesus chose such absurd methods to make His statement against profiteering and exploiting the poor/lowly in the name of the Holy God. 

Was He mad?
Was He starved for more public attention?
Was He here to fulfill the ultimate suicide pact?
Was He so ineffective that He couldn't have engineered a more potent resistance?
Was He so emotionally immature that He actually lost His temper with these pirates?

A thousand times -- NO!

Especially taken in the larger context of the accounts in Matthew and Mark, where you can see that He spoke a sentence against a simple fig tree and we are told that the fig tree withered and died over night! 

If we recognize that we are seeing a scene that was carefully planned and orchestrated by the LIVING OMNIPOTENT GOD, then it becomes important to take what we know about His character/purpose and seek a more divine understanding of this absurd scene in the temple complex. 

If He could truly speak the words that brought the universe into being,
if He could order the times and seasons and populate the planet with such diversity of life,
if He really commanded all of the Hosts of Heaven,
then what is He doing alone with a simple whip of ropes,
shouting and turning over tables,
wreaking havoc in the public spaces?

He is showing us how to Live! 

He is taking a stand against the wrong that is done in this place, but He is making His stand by harmless means!  How super-human!  How peacable!

He could have called down fire from heaven,
He could have ordered the angelic hosts to reap this scene,
He could have organized an army of rebels from among Abraham's descendants
to attack the temple mount and destroy the corrupted system.

Instead, He is strong enough to be gentle.  He has no problem mastering human emotions and harnessing their energy in order to do something creative and powerful -- to communicate truth by harmless and unforgettable means!

As we proceed through the Christmas season this year, let's commit to look closer for the Mark of the Divine on things that have become too familiar.

How do YOU practice harmlessness in imitation of this mighty Savior?

They started arguing over which of them would be most famous.  When Jesus realized how much this mattered to them, he brought a child to his side.  "Whoever accepts this child as if the child were me, accepts me," He said.  "And whoever accepts me, accepts the One who sent me.  You become great by accepting, not by asserting.  Your spirit, not your size (status), makes the difference." 

(THE MESSAGE paraphrase of Luke 9:46-48 by Eugene Peterson)

(Original painting by Danish master Carl Bloch)

When Jesus realized?  Let's think about this concept together for a few minutes.  I do believe that Jesus is God Incarnate, fully God AND fully human at once.  Thus, I don't believe that there was any lack of knowledge, insight or understanding on His part during His earthly ministry. 

So what is meant by this expression, "When Jesus realized...?"  Didn't He know what was in their hearts?  I believe He did.  The significance of such a comment has to do with timing. 

As a gardener, I know that planting roses in my outdoor gardens means that I will eventually have to deal with aphids.  In my region of the country, these tiny parasites show up every year to suck the life out of choice specimens.  Still, it does no good to treat for aphids in advance.  You must keep an eye out for their appearance and treat them aggressively when they manifest themselves, or they will destroy your prize.

Likewise, if we own a vehicle, we know that we will need to add oil in due time to keep the engine running.  However, if you add oil when it isn't needed, you can actually do permanent damage to your engine!  You must watch the instrument gauges and listen to the vehicle engine to know when it is time to add fresh oil.

Same deal with people.  Jesus has elsewhere shown His understanding of the human condition by stating that "out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks".  In this moment, His followers have been attacked by the parasite of a competitive spirit and have begun to suffer from the effects.  This is evident by the fact that they were debating the subject amongst themselves; they were taking a little ego trip along the way to their destination, measuring their correctness and effectiveness as a gauge of personal standing!  Jesus realized from their conversation that THIS was the time to apply the remedy, and He was swift to take unforgettable action.

When we recognize that children were vulnerable and defenseless in those days, considered part of one's personal property, and could be bought, sold, and ordered about at will, then you begin to perceive the impact of what Jesus was doing and saying amongst His little band.  Did they understand it at that moment?  Unlikely -- but they had this unforgettable image of a helpless, hapless child burned into their memories and they would understand it better for all the rest of their days.

So it is with Christian coaching.  We watch and pray and listen for the cues that will reveal to us the appropriate next step for each client.  We depend upon Omniscient God to show us what the client needs, just when the client needs it.  As the moment arises, we seek to apply unforgettable remedies that will have lasting positive effects and produce growth for the client and glory for our Sovereign, Teaching God...

What "next steps" await your realization in the work of the Kingdom today?

I am working through Beth Moore's "Breaking Free" workbook these days, along with the One Year Bible, as part of my personal exploration with God and I was tremendously blessed to think through a question that she posed in her study for Week 3, Day 1:

Read Matthew 9:27-29.  What do you believe to be the theme of this encounter?

This is a short account of two blind men who followed Jesus down the road and into the house where he was staying one day.  Although shouting after Him seemed to have no effect (and its altogether fair to assume there would have been a crowd of people following Jesus down the road and calling out to Him, especially since He had just resurrected a girlchild from the dead!), when they made their way into the house, the Master confronted them with their challenge.  Asking them if they believed He could heal their blindness and receiving their affirmative response, He administered their cure "according to their faith".

I personally believe that it is crucial to take a comprehensive view of Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, before attempting to draw any sweeping conclusions or general principles and this case is NO EXCEPTION to that guideline.  Throughout Scripture, Jesus heals people of all kinds of ailments and in all kinds of faith conditions, including apparent, outright faithlessness (see John 5:2-9).  Yet, thinking through the answer to Beth's question in light of the variety of actions found in the Scriptural records is a very challenging exercise.

I completely agree, wouldn't you?, with Beth's statement that "Christ is fully God.  He can heal anyone or perform any wonder, whether the belief of the person is great or small.  Christ isn't asking us to believe in our ability to exercise unwavering faith.  He is asking us to believe that He is able."

Still, let's think about the THEME of this passage in Mark.

Can it be that faith operates like a gate valve in our lives from God's perspective?  You are familiar with a gate valve in your everyday industrialized life.  Most commonly, we use these in developed and developing countries to control the flow of water into our environments.  Gate valves are placed into the plumbing of a fluid system at various meaningful and strategic points along the line.  When the valve is open, fluid flows through the conduit.  When the valve is closed, fluid flow is prevented.  When the valve is partially open, the flow is restricted in volume. 

If we imagine the operation of faith in our lives like the gate valves in a fluid flow system, I think we can begin to understand it in a practical and valid way.

The valve can generally be opened by any operator who passes by. 
In a life of faith, this could be you, a fellow believer, an innocuous
person who asks a provocative question, or the hand of God personally!

The valve can also be set up in a locked down position, so that it requires the appropriate tools to open or close the valve and change the flow in the system.  We all have some of these in our life-lines, too.

The valve controls can be automated, so that they work in response to a signal from the system, rather than a manual intervention and this is true in many areas of our lives as well.

The system can be connected to a variety of fluid sources and exposed to different rates of flow.  Some of these will optimize the system operations and some will be detrimental -- even terminal -- for the system.  Not everything that flows through our life-system is a healthy faith in God.  We often place our faith in other things or fixate our faith in unhealthy ways.  We may need to close off some sources or add a few filtering steps to the system to optimize the flow of faith.

Finally, the system can be connected to a variety of other systems so that conditions in your system can affect every other system that connects to it, especially on the downstream or output side, in one way or another.  Take a look at the system schematic below and analyze your own flow system by evaluating the elements at work in your life:

• What's your source?  We're not looking for the correct theological answer.  We're asking what really brings "operative faith" into your life from day to day?  (The system in the drawing below is sourced from a local pond.)
  
• How is your source being filtered?  Whether your faith is flowing through a grid of obedience, confusion, laziness, illness, or disobedience (et al) makes all the difference in the quality of your faith experience.
  
• Uncoupling joints (bright red below) represent design elements that allow the crew to take parts of the system offline for maintenance.  Is your system fully online?  Are you aware of an area of scheduled maintenance?  Is there any blockage or system failure in your life-lines at present?  The model that evoked the most compassionate response from the Master was the heart-cry, "Help thou my unbelief".
  
• Be aware that a quality system will include numerous filtering steps in its process and that the system may require the assistance of various pumps along the way to keep the flow in process.
  
• God has a schedule for opening your gate valves (hot pink below).  Our job is to be attentive and responsive to the opportunities to add more faith or shut down alternative sources that may pollute the system.  At times, it may be necessary to drain off expended or polluted resources and add fresh stock to the system.
  
• The system includes process controls like the spray bar and lava bed below.  For purposes of our illustration, we can imagine the lava bed like that refiner's furnace that is referenced in God's Word and the spray bar functioning to maintain a survivable temperature level, as well as washing away the dross left from the refinement process.
  
• Imagine the lower gate valve as leading to a drain where the dross is purged out of the system -- and remember that we are meant to release our dross after refinement, not to carry it forward with us as we flow along in God's plan.
  
• Note that the refined product is then released into the spillway and recognize that the process that we undergo is NOT FOR US ONLY.  It is meant to have an impact on the world in which we live!

Where is your life system in need of attention at present?
How would coaching make a difference?

I Samuel 2:30 -- (God speaking to the High Priest Eli after Eli refused to address the sin of his sons as they grafted off the people in their priestly duties) --

³⁰Therefore--this is GOD's word, the God of Israel speaking--I once said that you and your ancestral family would be my priests indefinitely, but now--GOD's word, remember!--there is no way this can continue.

   I honor those who honor me;

    those who scorn me I demean.

This is significant on two major levels: 

• FIRST, it describes for us the way that God chooses to interact with humans (and presumably by inference with other intelligent and volitional created beings, i.e., angels, demons, alien life forms, etc.);
  
• SECOND, it sets a precedent for the necessity of changing a vow or a commitment in the very "act of God". 

Eli and his offspring had failed to honor the conditions of the priestly covenant bestowed upon them by inheritance, so God voided the covenant, leaving one small token of mercy in the promise of a single survivor.

This is in sharp contrast to the vow of Jephthah, who apparently sacrificed his own daughter because he was afraid to break the vow that he himself had uttered, although he did not know when he made his vow that it's fulfillment would fall tragically on his beloved only child.  Read this story online. (NOTE -- Scripture is vague about her final fate and ancient rabbinical sources report that he had her sent into temple service, something like a monastery or a nunnery in the understanding of post-modern, non-Jewish experience.  The cultural arguments of these scholars are reasonably convincing, since child sacrifice was abhorrent to God and to His people.  There are no surviving proofs either way at present.)

The point to keep in mind is this:  when a vow is no longer yielding the benefit for which it was designed, something honorable must be done to get back to the path of blessing which God has ordained for all humankind.  Jephthah made HIS WORD the main focus, while God is making HIS UNCHANGING CHARACTER and the GOOD OF THE PEOPLE the point of all of His vows.

What promise or vow do you need to vacate or revise today in order to move back onto the path of God's blessing? 

The story of Jonah is one of the best known, and perhaps least understood, tales of the Jewish and Christian Bibles.  It seems an odd place to begin deliberations in this New Year, but there is an overwhelmingly contemporary message here of special significance in the world of Christian Coaching.  Most of us in this (Christian Coaching) world are familiar with the structural details of the story.

God calls Jonah to go to the Assyrian capital of Nineveh, headquarters of the repressive ruling nation of the era, to pronounce a judgment of destruction on all the inhabitants.  In a vain attempt to escape the mission, Jonah books passage on a trade vessel and sails off into the sunset, figuratively speaking.  That could have been the end of it, except that the weather turns stormy and threatens to terminate the voyage mid-ocean and forfeit the lives of all aboard.  The sailors are a superstitious lot and begin to seek rescue and direction from the divinities of their compatriots; thus, they finally learn that Jonah is aboard in rebellion against His own God's orders and eventually they cast him overboard to appease the angry sea.  After three days of waking death and misery, Jonah repents of his rebellion and God causes the great fish to cough him up on shore so that he can complete his mission.

You can read the entire story, including it's anticlimactic conclusion, in less than 15 minutes (see Jonah).  You can endlessly debate whether the story is meant to be taken as a literal or figurative example of human-divine interaction.  You can, and many do, emphasize the faithlessness of Jonah in deserting God's call or his humanity in reacting with anger against God's final compassion toward Nineveh.  These are important topics for us to research, explore and think through, as they help to shape our individual theology and the form of our faith-in-action lifestyles. 

There is, however, an underlying dilemma that I believe we must take a closer look at as we begin this new coaching year:  that is, the basis of Jonah's personal conflict and how that conflict can inform us as we coach ourselves and others.  Jonah was, after all, a prophet of Israel.  He had the heritage of the (Old Testament) Word of God to guide him in his decisions and expectations.  He knew enough about God's nature to understand that the L-rd would forgive if the Assyrians repented of their cruelties.  But why would this fact make Jonah furious?  Or why would he run away from the assignment on the expectation of mercy shown to his enemies? 

Most teachers that I have heard on this topic have characterized Jonah as a sort of a racist or elitist who resented the idea that the oppressors of his people could find salvation with God.  Could be true and certainly it's an idea that deserves our attention if it helps us to purge our own lives of prejudice, but the Scriptural record does not ever point to this sort of flaw in Jonah's mindset.  What we have forgotten, or perhaps never learned, is the cursed nature of the mission that Jonah's call typified.  To understand Jonah's reactions to his mission, we must learn and recall that Moses had recorded a law defining the fate of the prophets and this law included the command to execute any prophet whose sayings did not come true (Deut 18:20-22)!  Once we have the perspective of God's Word on Jonah's mission and we remember that Jonah somehow knew God would redeem the Ninevites, we can begin to understand that perhaps it wasn't prejudice against the Assyrians that fueled Jonah's anger as much as it was the seeming unfairness at being chosen to deliver a message that would subject him to execution under then current Israeli law! 

Do you know someone today who feels the weight of God's Word like a curse upon their life?

Let's keep in mind that all the men and women of Scripture stand or fall in direct contrast to the character of Christ Jesus, who told His contemporary audience that the sign they asked for would be as the sign of Jonah.  Christ was also under the curse of God's recorded Word when cruel people hung him on the cross at Calvary (Deut 21:22, 23).  Whereas Jonah became angry and rebellious about his mission and the curse, Christ Jesus continued His mission in voluntary humility and showed that even the worst curse of our human condition could not prevent the God of Holiness from introducing redemption into our history.  That IS the good news of the gospel!  This discovery is cause for great celebration of heart and liberation of our spirits!

Do you see the shadow of a curse on some life in your world today?  Do not be afraid or discouraged.  Rather, ask:  How can you partner with God to make way for redemption and shine the light of holy kindness on the need that gives rise to that shadow?

"Let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father..."  Jesus of Nazareth (Matt 5:16)

Each recent year at Christmas time, I very deliberately and consciously ask the Lord to show me some new insight into the events that comprise our Christmas story and He has consistently shown me something special and uniquely liberating each year ever since I began to ask Him for this favor -- not necessarily something that has never been taught or noticed before, but definitely something that *I* have not noticed or thought about in all the decades that I've known Him.

One year, I remember it was the sudden, shocking realization that -- apart from Elizabeth -- Mary's family of origin do not ever appear in the Christmas story or the gospels and if she was riding a donkey to Bethlehem on or about her pregnancy due date, there was certainly broken fellowship and disbelief in that family, unless they were all dead.  God did His greatest work through her life and obedience anyway!

One year, I remember being struck with the way that God deliberately and creatively captured the attention and cooperation of Joseph, who also disbelieved Mary's report of the Divine visitation, and won him over to become her lifelong partner and supporter, in spite of his original disbelief.

One year, I remember learning about those shepherds in the field outside of Bethlehem.  Did you know that the sheep that bedded down in those fields were sacrificial animals en route to the Temple at Jerusalem to be offered up to God for the sins of the people?  Did you know that those shepherds had to get special dispensation from the priests/rabbis to remain in the fields 24/7 keeping watch over the flocks because their job required them to work right through each and every Sabbath?  Did you ever think about how uniquely prepared these men were to understand the concept, "The Lamb of God"?  (See the scholarly treatment of this topic in The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah by Alfred Edersheim.)

This year, I had to stand still and marvel again at the Sovereignty of God's work in the circumstances of our lives as I listened to Beth Moore teach about Mary and her kinswoman, Elizabeth.  Beth was emphasizing the compassion of God in providing for Mary's relational needs by sending her to visit with Elizabeth and thus, I was drawn to think about the convergence of these diverse timelines. 

Elizabeth and Zacharias had long sought the blessing of a child from God and it only happened in this late time of life when no one believed any longer that they could physically produce an heir.  Who would have chosen to live their whole life first and then undertake child-rearing in their old age, as these two did?

Mary, on the other hand, by accepting the grace of God's foretold virgin birth sign, made herself an object of suspicion and prejudice for untold weeks and years afterward.  Who could believe her report, except Elizabeth?  An innocent youth and an old woman drawn together by the arduous mercies of a loving God and the imperatives of His divine timetable...

And who but God could have foreseen and orchestrated how the lives of their sons would intertwine in maturity to establish the greatest cultural shift in the history of humanity?

We worship a God Who fully understands our needs and is entirely capable and willing to accommodate us in our weakness -- in fact, His strength and compassion are set in clear, sharp relief against the backdrop of our needs.  It's a contrast that He loves to draw for us and He invites us to ask Him to attend us in this way.

How has God worked in the timeline of your own history to show Himself ever present and all ways faithful?  What do you need to yield in your schedule or expectations in order to give way to God's divine timeline or His development schedule?

Much has been made in recent months about the professed faith of the American president.  Indeed, following the results of the recent election, I think it is not false to say that a great deal has been made of his professed faith.  That's a fact of our contemporary landscape, but it's not actually the subject of this writing.

There is a general consensus in the world right now that America is populated by a majority (albeit a slim one) of Bible-believing, life loving, conservative and committed Christians.  Each of us who voted on the basis of that theme will have to answer for it before God and humanity, so we need to take it seriously.  The time has come for us to put away childish things and think about the actions and commitments of our nation from a perspective that honors the wholeness of God's Word.

Our president has repeatedly issued a challenge to the voting public and to the world concerning the validity of an "International Test" of American foreign policy.  That's a topic we need to examine further, especially since so many voting Americans reacted viscerally to that challenge and since so many of us spend so little time in the Old Testament Scriptures that we might not actually understand the mind of God on such a topic.

As believers, we accept that Jesus came into the world with a mission from the Father and that he has passed His mission on to His followers.  And what was the mission that Jesus accepted from His Father and passed along to His followers?  According to Jesus Himself, it was in order that He might "testify to the truth" that He was born and lived among us.  Pontius Pilate questioned what is truth, but Jesus didn't.  He said, in His great High Priestly prayer to His Father, "Thy Word is Truth"...

Did you know that God cares what the nations think of His name, His reputation?  Read it for yourself in His Word.  In the scroll of the prophet Ezekiel, the Sovereign L-rd challenges His people to remember the history that has preceded them and even goes so far as to explain his reasons for the decisions that He made when He saved His people from oppression.  Not once, but three times He articulates His driving concern:

EZE 20:9 -- "I acted out of Who I AM, not by how I felt.  And I acted in a way that would evoke honor, not blasphemy, from the nations around them..."

EZE 20:14 -- "But I withdrew my hand and acted out of Who I was, not by what I felt, so that I might be honored and not blasphemed by the nations who had seen me bring them out." 

EZE 20:22 -- "But I thought better of it and acted out of Who I was, not by what I felt, so that I might be honored and not blasphemed by the nations..."

And lest we think we can walk away from this imperative because we are not Israelis, let's remember that Israel was born and called as a nation to display the glory of G-d and to become a blessing even to the Gentiles (outsiders).  If the grace and goodness of God have been stretched out to include the adopted sons and daughters of faith who populate the Church and we call ourselves the children of that same G-d of Abraham, then how can we exempt ourselves from the original mission?

God says it matters to HIM what the nations think of Him and that their perspective and the limitations of their understanding have a bearing on HIS decision process.  Shouldn't it be factored into our decisions as well, especially as the Christian faith has been set forth as the standard for this president?  While s/he may not be legally obligated or bound by resources and sheer brute force (military capability) to consider their views, an informed believer cannot declare in good conscience that the views of the nations do not matter.  I will not go so far as to declare that the views of other nations should determine our course or actions, but surely we should show as much deference and consideration as the Head of our Eternal State and count them as significant in our process.

How does a consideration of God's reputation impact your coaching style and process, your work in this world?