New Covenant Mirror

Today was one of the most stressful days I have had in awhile.  Recently I asked God for more… an ability to do more for Him, going beyond giving material goods and money, to letting Him give of Himself through me, which really means I have to get out of the way and let Him do His work.  For years now I’ve been involved in charitable pursuits, but seem to have gotten stuck at the level of handing people a toothbrush or a bar of soap and not touching soul to soul.  It has been a wonderful privilege to be involved in these things, but I know there is so much more.  I long to see what God can do, and to see people really reached by His love.

Without delay He has brought me to a place of great stress, having to choose between what I want and what He has placed before me, for the sake of someone else.  Just one small change in the turn of events today changed the entire script, and on the outside it may have looked noble, but on the inside I was so frustrated, and complaining loudly.  This breaking doesn’t come easily.

I recently read an article stating the problem with our culture is no one knows what sin is anymore, and that we must really bring this back into focus if anyone is going to realize their need for God.  To most people this means we must preach the Ten Commandments.  Ask people if they have ever told a lie.  Go through each one and make sure we convince people they have broken them all, and therefore need Jesus, the “Get out of hell free” card.  I won’t say that never works, but I believe the Old Covenant mirror of the Law is far inferior to the New Covenant version.  

Last night I watched a program about a Benedictine monastery  and five men from various walks of life who had decided to go spend some time there for various reasons.  One was an atheist, one a former convict, another a spiritual seeker who had also spent time at a Buddhist monastery.  Being a spiritual seeker myself, most of my life, this show fascinated me, seeing men from vastly different walks of life coming together in answer to a spiritual call in their hearts.  Maybe there would be better places to find the answers than with monks.  But then again, I heard a great deal of wisdom coming from them.  Spending hours a day listening to God in silence must result in learning a few things.

One caveat of wisdom I heard, which I had also come to realize some time ago, is that in order to grow spiritually, we absolutely must live in community with other people.  One man in this episode had a particular distaste for another member of the group.  The monk mentoring him suggested that he had the most to learn from this individual who he detested so badly.

For most of us, the “community” of refining begins in our own families.  Marriage is the one of the most challenging relationships, then parenting.. after the ordeal of growing up with imperfect parents of course.  Outside of family, my culture has precious little that qualifies as genuine community.  The Church has the opportunity to demonstrate to the world how this is done, and what it looks like. People are starving for this!  We need it because God wired us to be connected to each other, living stones in His temple.    

In all these relationships we find both joy and pain.  In all these, the opportunity to seek that which Jesus commanded, “Love one another as I have loved you.” When we pull down our defenses and are willing to see ourselves through the eyes of those closest to us, then we live in honesty, confession, forgiveness, restoration.  The true nature of New Covenant sin is to transgress love.  I Corinthians 13 should be the list of commands, if we thought we needed one to hang on the wall.  

But even community is not the perfect mirror. Once again – Jesus is.  Looking into Him, deeply into Him, we find the most humbling of pictures, the brightest revealing light into our own souls.  We see the cross he invites us to take up and crucify our own desires, ego, agenda, resentments and fear.  Let them die.  The Ten Commandments, or even 613, will never come close to bringing the conviction in our hearts that one look at Jesus will do.  Zacchaeus  knew the law from birth.  He had learned to live with the guilt it bound upon his life.  But as soon as He saw Jesus, and realized Jesus loved Him, he not only truly knew His sin, but was free from it.  He let it go, with great joy in response to the Creator of the world coming to eat at his table.  Beautifully, the root words in the name Zacchaeus mean pure, transparent, and clean.  And the town could not believe Jesus would eat with such a sinner!

Today, even as I prayed for God to deliver me from a task, he herded me right into it.  I had no way of escape.  As the day wore on – the demands increased, and so did my frustration. But He showed me repeatedly that love was a much higher priority than my plans.  Love revealed my own selfishness and impatience.  But love also made a way out to a place of peace.  This is a mirror that not only reflects, but transforms.  By beholding, we become changed, into His likeness. 

 

 

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