Even if the healing doesn't come.

June 28, 2016

"I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us." Philippians 3.14 ESV

Today, life changed. Our 14 year old grandson, Braden, died. He lost a 16 month battle with the Dragon we call Cancer. I don't want to go to bed tonight because it feels like if I can just stay awake, I'll somehow be able to reverse reality; that he'll be there waiting to have breakfast with me on Saturday morning and "hang-out."

I want to reflect on death, life, life-after-death and Braden. It's what he would want to talk with you about, if he still could.

DEATH levels the playing field of life. No one ever gets out alive. Feels capricious and mean-spirited. Yet, not. You see had not death been allowed to efficiently rampage through humankind, with no exceptions, we would be once and forever separated from experiencing the face-to-face relationship God created us for in the first place. It's through this portal that we bound into eternity; it's the portal Braden bounded through today. Without death we would be chained to a relationship of enmity with God; no reverse, no repair--no hope.

God not only provided us with a portal, He provided us with a redeemer. I love the way the Apostle Paul describes how we access this "pass-through" portal to eternal LIFE in his letter to the Church in Rome:

9 If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved. 11 As the Scriptures tell us, 'Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.' 12 Jew and Gentile are the same in this respect. They have the same Lord, who gives generously to all who call on him. 13 For 'Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'” Romans 10.9-13. NLT

This two-step process here described in Romans 10 provides us with certitude about LIFE-after-DEATH. It gives us freedom--from guilt, fear, dread AND the righteous judgement of God. Now we have access to God's grace--undeserved favor--and He treats us not on the basis of what we deserve, but with transformitive love. Our part? Openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, (and) you will be saved. Jesus, our redeemer. He gave us back our freedom to say "yes" to God--His amazing grace, His unconditional love, His sovereign transformative vision for our lives.

My beloved Grandson BRADEN, tapped into God's amazing grace as a very young lad. That didn't make his faith any less real, transformative and powerful. He always had a tender heart for God.  It's hard not to wonder what might have become of this boy who was on the threshold of becoming a man. Broken hearts.  But this disease that ended his life with us, gave him something too, it is a remarkable gift. 

Instead of getting bitter, feeling like a victim and feeling God had abandoned him--Braden used the deprivations, the humiliations caused by the Dragon to go deep and radically trust God. He turned suffering into an opportunity to think about "what's important" and "what comes next" and about God. He began to think God's thoughts, after Him. He said this, responding to a question about "How could a good God allow him to suffer, to die?"

"God didn't give me cancer; a broken world did. God gave me His presence to get me through each day. He gave me His Word to show me how to live the real life, so that death isn't the end; see it's not just that God is good, it's that all good is God, there is NO good without God."  

Even if the healing doesn't come.

As Braden drew his last deep breath and passed into the presence of Jesus, he was surrounded by people who loved him. Early today, drifting in and out of sleep he roused himself and declared, "Tell my family, tell my friends, I love them." So, know this, YOU were loved.

Braden's legacy is really all about a much bigger love--He wanted you to know that YOU ARE loved by God with an amazing, gracious, transformative and redemptive love. He wanted more than anything else for each person he touched to have a face-to-face relationship with the God who fearfully and wonderfully made each one of us.

So Braden has "run" with dignity, grit and abandon--driven by his passion for God and love for people. His legacy continues to be written in my life and YOUR lives; this is what he would say: "So what will YOU do with Jesus?"

Father in heaven, thank you for selecting us to be Braden's family over these past 14 years. He was Yours before he was ours and now, we release any claim--and lay him lovingly into Your arms. May his passion burn brightly in our hearts and through our lives. Use his faith-filled life to inspire us to faithfulness to a "long obedience in the same direction." We ask that Your peace will carry us through the days ahead, Your grace will restore us, Your mercy knit our broken hearts. Through Messiah Jesus, let it be.

bN tGit

Keep your Eye on the Ball.

The cardinal rule of good hitting--baseball, golf, billiards--is of course, "keep your eye on the ball." 

That said, my mission as a follower of Christ--to proclaim the truth about God, His love for humankind, His provision for our redemption--does not require me to fear a culture filled with souls who "are like sheep without a shepherd."  It does NOT require me to win the so-called "culture war."

Jesus saw the crowds of distressed people and was "moved with compassion" all the way to the Cross where He crushed the power of sin, once-and-for-all.  God's Word makes it clear who the enemy is..."For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places"  Ephesians 6.12

God's Word tells me what it is I must do to engage these evil adversaries and prevail...

"10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. 14 Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, 19 and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak."  Ephesians 6.10-24

Note that this passage does not instruct Christ-followers to revile the sinner, legislate a solution that protects my family, leave the Union, or disengage from "life in the world--not of the world."  This is not a political war, not a culture war--it is a Spiritual battle that calls for weapons fashioned by God for taking down, taking back, strongholds.  Our weapons?  See...truth, righteousness, the Gospel of Peace, faith, salvation, God's Word, intercessory prayer, wisdom from God to speak the truth in love with boldness behaving as an Ambassador/Doulos (bond-servant) for the King.

When we allow ourselves to be drawn into a "culture-war" mentality, we lose; people yet to trust Christ and experience spiritual re-birth lose.  We allow the "the rulers, the powers, the world forces of darkness, the spiritual forces of wickedness" to pick the time and place of the struggle; we lay the Armor of God aside--and we are impotent in the face of such evil. It's high time believers figure out "who and where" the enemy is and the rules-of-engagement; then take the fight to the enemy as per Paul's instruction in Ephesians 6.10-24.  Only then will we see the tide of evil begin to recede. 

We will not prevail in the long-term by building higher walls around the spiritual reservations we have fashioned our churches into,  by asking Focus of the Family to lobby our politicians, by finding conservative-too often shrill--politicians to write laws and pack the courts; cursing-the-darkness won't win the battle. 

Choose God.  Love people.  Know who the enemy is and "10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil."  Ephesians 6.10   

Our battle is NOT against flesh and blood.  The stakes are infinity higher than a culture-war; eternity hangs in the balance for those yet to embrace Christ with effective faith.  

For the sake of the Kingdom,  keep your eye on the ball.

bN tGit