Raiders Of The Lost Ark

(reaching back into the archives from December 2004)
While I was reading this morning in Psalm 20 a random thought passed through the confines of my brain. The verse reads “Some trust in chariots and some in horses but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.” 20:7
And reading the text note I saw that this was a confession of an army not to trust in there finest weapon of the day with the realization that the power for victory is in the name of the LORD our God.
Which took me back to the movie, The Raiders Of The Lost Ark because of the desire of the Nazi’s to possess the relic, the actual Ark of the Covenant that contained the set of stone tablets that God had written for Moses on Mount Sinai. They wanted the Ark to be taken into battle with their army to empower it to be unstoppable, undefeatable. They were dead set to use the things of God to justify their conquests. Where they erred in judgement was they wanted the power of without the presence of God. They wanted the things of God with out wanting God himself!
We do the same stupid things! We want the results of knowing God with out knowing him. We want peace, prosperity, hope, health and so we put an icthus on our cars so we can have great parking opportunities. Let us run away from the apperarance of Godliness with out Savior at the center of it all and let us run the desperate race to the cross yearning for Him above everything.

posted by C.M. Coon at Monday, December 06, 2004

The Limit Switch.

I really love to ski. Being outside in the snow with the wind rushing over your face and the challenge of keeping your balance through ever changing circumstances is invigorating. Today, the reality of 24hours of skiing over two days has caught up with my body and I am finding myself a little more sluggish than normal. The older I become the more I am recognizing some limits in my life and that is a good thing. We are all so very partial, in and of ourselves, we need food every few hours, we need companionship, we need air, warmth, shelter, sleep, clothes and on and on the list goes. This is the “gift of limits” as one author puts it. When we are young we don’t like limits, in this country we even tell ourselves; “We can do anything that we want!” No we cannot. No matter how hard I try I will never sing in an opera. Not gonna do it! I will never sprout wings and fly. I don’t have enough money to build a rocket ship and fly to Mars, that one bums me out. So limits are all around us and for many years I banged my head against that truth. I rebelled against the idea that life had limits, now after a few decades to mature a little I am beginning to see them as a gift from God, designed to show us that we need Him. Among human beings there has only been one without limits, his name was Jesus.

“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”
Colossians 1:19-20

Cellophane.

There are only a few different kinds of foods that I am crazy about eating the leftovers. Taco roast leftovers and almost anything Italian make the grade for sure. I will consume those precious goodies like I was a raving madman. That, and almost any dessert, my sweet tooth is legendary among my family. My maternal grandma used to tell me to "eat my dessert first just in case the dinner killed you" and I, not wanting to disappoint Nea, took that advice to heart.

Even worse than eating our own leftovers is taking home other peoples leftovers and eating them. Most of the time they wait a couple of weeks in the chilly death row dungeon of our refrigerator and then are mercilessly ground into smithereens and ran roughshod down the drain, the only remnant remains on the cellophane that is crumpled up in the trash.

I wonder how many of us, when approaching God, are “feasting” on the leftovers, merely licking the residue off of the cellophane rather than pulling up a place at the table and dining with the King? Yes, you certainly can get nourishment from the tiny vestige on the cellophane, but you could have a full blown six-course meal at the table of the King of Kings!

Why do we settle for such as this? Why do we rely on others to tell us of there intimacies with Jesus, when we long for that kind of love? That love, like any, must be engaged on purpose. Must be sought out by you and me. It needs to be our relationship with God, our experience with the King and not simply licked off of someone else's old cellophane.

“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” Revelation 3:20

Conviction.

Personal experiences with the reality of conviction has blown through my life during different seasons. This gift has sometimes left me racked with guilt as I lay on the floor pouring out regret to my God whom I have insulted. Other moments I am just dumbfounded and silent with a new realization of the depth of my ability to put myself on the throne of the universe. Occasionally the insight from a Bible verse or other book unwraps some tightly held lie that I had believed for years, which generally leads to a new view of life and forgiveness in Christ.

I am in the middle of a book (which for now will remain anonymous) that is battering me with wave after wave of truth. Here is one quote from the book, this one by Richard Rohr:
“The five essential truths to which men must awaken if they are to grow up in their God given masculinity and spirituality:

Life is hard.
You are not that important.
Your life is not about you.
You are not in control.

You are going to die.”

What is there left to say?

Everything.

I have been meditating on this reality for the last few weeks:

“His divine power has given us everything that we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who has called us by his own glory and goodness.” 2 Peter 1:3

Peter makes the proclimation that living in us there is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. Not our power, or a power we initiate, for that would be of little use. We desperately need a bigger power, a more glorious power than we can conjure up on our own. Our Father knows this and places a deposit in us that gives us everything we need for life. Everything. This part of the promise we can almost wrap our brains around. It’s the other statement that is so blasted hard to grasp for me: We also have everything we need for godliness. Everything.

Now this is the unbelievable part because we experience the vast array of godlessness in the context of our lives, all around us in our society and even in the people that we are close to. We fight our fallen sinful nature tooth and nail one day and then capitulate with no resistance on the very next. We battle the Devil and his minions with prayer and fasting for a season and wallow in sin the next. People through out the Bible are in the same mess, men like Moses, David, Noah all considered great men of God, all with brutal flaws. Even the writer of this little Epistle, self identified as Simon Peter, was a great man of God that had issues. Yet Peter proclaims that the power of God in us gives us everything we need for godliness. Everything that we need to be more like Christ. The question remains: will we lean on that power to help us to die to self and live for God?

Its all available to us everyday inside through faith.