Was Jesus a Space Cadet?...part 10 The Conclusion
Writer Author Jerry Lee Kay Sr.
Christian Article
:
Jesus Christ
- Fiction No
The eyes of a mule are set so that it can see where each of its four feet land. That's why it is the animal of choice for the long trek down Bright Angel Trail to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. In 100 years there has never been a fatal mule accident. The mules always pass hikers on the outside of the trail. Their feet land very close to the edge. On the way down the left side is close to danger; on the way up it is the right. But their remarkable vision enables them to walk safely no matter the danger all around them.
I have a preacher friend that's getting up in age, he and I traveled many times to the holyland together in our younger days. And he decided before he was unable to go on long trips again, he was going to travel around the world one more time. He purchased a high dollar sophisticated camera to capture images of his last trip. The thing was equipped to take pictures at any distance from five feet to infinity. But throughout the entire journey he allowed the focus to remain set on five feet; and when he got home, the only clear pictures he had were those of objects just five feet away....What a waste! He might have photographed the mountains surrounding Jerusalem with the sun rising over Galilee or the moon setting on Nebo's summit, but he didn't. He might have gotten a spectacular picture of clouds over the pyramids of Egypt, but he didn't. He might have returned with a beautiful view of the moon over the Mediterranean, but he didn't...You and I, my friend, are made to look into infinity, to view the unseen and it is such a tragic waste when our focus is set on five feet and we never change it from that setting.
God has equipped the believer with both types of vision...vision to know exactly where our spiritual feet are at all times. Vision to see beyond the clamor associated with everyday living, vision to see the dangers associated with getting caught up in fads and false doctrine that plague the church in this hour. Some of those things seem so harmless, but trust me dear friends, the deceiver will come as an angel of light and cause great distraction for the child of God and before one knows what happened, they will be rendered useless to the Kingdom of God. And it is a sad thing to see a born again Christian side-lined because he or she has gotten themselves caught up in things, ministries, laws, other than the law of love. That by the way is the only law given to the New Testament church, the 'Bride of Christ'. When we get away from that 'Law' we are no better than the church of Moses. Remember when he went up the mount to get the commandments, only to return to find the church dancing around a golden calf.
Some of our people are still doing that while we await the return of Christ. We just cannot stand it, we can't seem to get it, we have got to be busy about doing something, so we have created our "spiritual" golden calves. Some are even returning to Judaism so that they may feel more spiritual. But you listen to me dear friend!..A little leaven really does leaven the whole lump. They got their eye off of Jesus the Christ. That is why Father dispatched His Holy Spirit to guide and teach His Church.
The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to the Colossians, he started his letter by saying...."To the saints..in Christ which are at Colosse" What a staggering statement that is!
Every believer has two addresses and lives in two places at the same time! He is "at Colosse" (or Dallas, or New York City, or Miami, as the case may be) and he is "in Christ." The two locations, one earthly and the other heavenly, must always be kept in proper balance.
These particular believers were "at Colosse," a run-down, Greco-Asiatic town of little or no real importance. They were at home in its streets and bazaars. They were familiar with its surroundings and scenery. They knew all about its river and the nearby farms. They knew about the limestone caverns and the nearby tourist attraction where the Wolf River plunged underground into a natural tunnel to emerge farther downstream just before joining the Maeander. They were "at Colosse," with its local politics, its pagan vices, its pervading parochialism, its age-old idolatries, and its drabness and decay. They were "at Colosse," where the local church was of recent growth, a little community of believers dominated by a few familiar persons—people such as Epaphras; Philemon, his wife, Apphia, and his son, Archippus; along with the recent addition of the runaway slave Onesimus. They were "at Colosse," a place which would become famous throughout the world and for the rest of time because the little church there was torn by schism.
And they were also "in Christ," to use one of Paul's favorite expressions. They were ensphered in Christ, wrapped up in Him to enjoy all of the riches and resources of the Godhead which are His. Nobody could rob them of that. They would go about their business and they would visit relatives, friends, neighbors. They would suffer the snubs and sneers of some people. Their children went to school in Colosse. They kept house at Colosse, visited the doctor and did their shopping at Colosse. And all of the time they were "in Christ." Some of them, in particular, carried the fragrance of Christ with them everywhere they went. What a challenge it was for Colosse that these people, being "at Colosse," were also "in Christ"!
But we must keep this truth, as all truth, in proper balance. Some people are so taken up with being "in Christ" that they forget that they are also "at Colosse." Such people become preoccupied with being "in Christ" and become mystics, impractical, remote, some in-order to feel more spiritual fall back into Judaism and become legalistic, "so heavenly minded as to be of no earthly use."
Others are so preoccupied with being "at Colosse" that they forget that they are "in Christ." They become materialists, worldly, and carnal, so taken up with work and prosperity or sports, or family as to have little time left for the things of God.
A blind woman stood at a busy street corner, waiting in the hope that some kind person would assist her to cross. Sensing a presence beside her, she said, "Please, may I go across with you?" A man's voice replied, "I'll be glad if you will." Arm in arm the two walked across the street together. When safely on the other side, the man said, "Thank you; when one has been blind as long as I have, he appreciates a favor like this!"....Both were blind, and neither knew the other was....Can you say Amen?
As I told you earlier in this series, moving into the future as we all are, whether we want to or not, we are all blind to a degree. We are blind not because we have no vision, but because as yet there is nothing there to see, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't materialized or taken shape. But inevitably we form some image of what it's going to be like, and we "see" it this way or we "see" it that way. And we really are talking about a most important subject when we speak of our vision of tomorrow.
They can be quite unlike what tomorrow eventually turns out to be. Often we are very unfair to the future. We mistrust it, and we mangle it brutally even before it issues from the womb of time. We borrow troubles that haven't come yet, we wear ourselves away worrying about problems that will never be. How often we have crossed perilous old bridges long before we ever got to them, and in the after-years, having passed them, we have looked back and said, "Really, they weren't actually all that bad."
Have you seen ancient maps of unexplored portions of the world? Maps that portrayed the prevailing ideas of what lay beyond, the untraveled lands and the uncrossed seas? Maps from before the adventures of Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan? How grotesquely inaccurate those maps were! How vastly they differed from what the explorer eventually found! How fantastic were the notions the ancients had about what was out there..a dropping-off-place, mammoth sea serpents to swallow up ships. But as things turned out, it wasn't that way at all. You know, if Columbus had believed half the maps and legends of his time he would never have lifted an anchor!
Well, we are all traveling into the unexplored land, and we ought to be careful how we map it until we've traveled there. Certainly we shouldn't let the future do things to us it never meant to do. It is my faith that the future means to be friendly.. and I don't thnk we ought to treat it as an enemy. If we do, and start in to do battle with it, I can tell you this.. it's a battle we can never win. Let's not suspect it of standing over us with a club waiting for a chance to clobber us into the ground, or of lurking in the shadows to pounce upon us around the next dark corner....One morning, as God looked down on the earth, he said to Gabriel, "What's that fellow doing down there?" And Gabriel said, "He's relaxing in his front yard smelling a flower." And God said, "So he is, is he? Well, send down a bee to sting him."...That little fantasy is intended to be humorous as I am using it here, and of course it is an overdrawing of the picture, because God just doesn't work that way. But some of God's folks really do think that way.
And surely we shouldn't be afraid of the future if we are Christians. I am hearing Jesus say, "I am the way." And he is talking about himself, and about you, and about your future, and about your journey into it. He is saying that he is the way all the way through, beyond whatever it is, even beyond death and especially beyond it. Yes, some days will be darker than others which means, of course, that the others will be brighter. Were this not so we couldn't make the comparison in the first place, could we? In the conflict between our future related hopes and fears, we must keep our hopes in control, and we can if we are walking into tomorrow hand in hand with one who is going on. He isn't going to drop our hand out there somewhere and say, "So long, see ya, it was nice to have you walk with me.. but this is as far as we go."...I know somebody will give me a witness here!
As we think of our future-related fears and hopes, let us not overlook the immense importance of another and even greater future-related reality.. our Faith. No, I am fully aware that even by faith we cannot yet see what will happen tomorrow.. but if we live by faith, we do not have to see.. because if we live by faith, we have an advantage better than seeing what is in the future.. we know who is there, and we can trust him. Every day is a good day when you are going in the right direction."
In some ways all of us are like blind men moving into the future, and we have the choice between being gropers and walkers. You can wear yourself away worrying whether, with your next step, your foot will land on a banana peel, when as a matter of fact there may not be a banana peel anywhere within a thousand miles....Did you hear about the mother bear that was teaching her cubs to walk? One said, "Momma, which foot shall we put forward first?" and she growled, "Shut up and walk!" That's pretty good advice, really. The centipede would soon go crazy with frustration if he should start worrying about which of his one hundred feet to pick up next and exactly where to put it down. Beloved, walking should be a natural for the people of the Way...Can you say Amen?
We all live by some image of tomorrow. What's yours? I am saying to you..No matter what the circumstances, how old you are, the condition of your fortune or health, if you are walking with the Lord of life, you can walk into tomorrow with confidence and hope, and nothing is there to be afraid of. Yes, I know that we should walk with due caution, be alert for dangers.. there are stumbling blocks we must try to avoid, perilous precipices we might fall over. A normal part of walking is to use whatever vision we have. We ought to walk in the best light we can get, use discernment in choosing the roads and pursuing the goals which arise before us.
My Father said many times about me when I was growing up.."That boy sure is Mule headed, I pray he gets the same type vision."
Come on and say Amen!
There is no doubt that one should be wary of the waiting wind, and I know that winds are waiting. But I would make this point: If you are too apprehensive about the wind, you will never light your candle in the first place...and that, I think, would be more calamitous than to risk it to the wind. Yes, we are all going on into tomorrow.. we have no choice. So light your candle and venture into the wind. It might be a gentle zephyr, or it might be a stormy gale..trust the Poppa, life has some of both. But your Christ is the Master of the raging winds, and He is Lord...and they are not!......Help me Jesus to sit still, at least til I finish this!
Jesus once said to his disciples long ago after He had walked with them for many months, and teaching them. He had exposed them to dimensions of life they hadn't known before, he had opened up for them ranges and reaches of life they hadn't known were there, he had disclosed vistas of the heights and depths of meaning which were new to them. And his disciples were impressed. They were seeing things they had never seen before, and, from the Gospel record, it is apparent that Jesus was pleased with them..He drew his disciples aside and said to them privately, "Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see: For I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them."
My message to you, dear friend, is a call to the far vision, my prayer is that your eyes may be blessed in seeing beyond. And I do not mean geographically only. I mean that in terms of our human life there is more beyond, vast areas which may lie beyond the horizon of our natural sight, clothed in mists and shadowed in mystery. And we do not have a Columbus to venture forth and explore for us and return and report to us. We just have to see. But there is much we cannot see with the unaided eye alone. Neither is there a powerful telescope which will help us here.. but there is the lens of faith. And he who sees with the aid of this lens may clearly perceive what others miss.
Ann Sullivan Macy, the wonderful lady who, as the teacher of Helen Keller, liberated this deaf and blind child from the prison of her darkness, once spelled out this message in her pupil's hand, "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, but just felt in the heart."...
We really haven't gotten perspective upon what life is all about until we have begun to see with the heart as well as the eye. The Apostle Paul is thinking of this fact in Ephesians 1:18 when he expresses the prayerful wish that we will have knowledge of God, as he says, "having the eyes of your hearts enlightened." The heart needs an enlightened eye. We need the heart as an instrument of vision, and it should be in good trim for seeing. The Authorized Version of our Bible translates this, "The eyes of your understanding." We need to see with the understanding.
In this passage Paul is pointing to realities beyond which he fervently hopes we will comprehend, and by which we will be inspired and guided. Listen to what he is saying, "I remember you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of the power in us who believe" ...
One of the afflictions which sometimes impairs the physical sense of sight is myopia, more commonly called near-sightedness. The myopiac cannot see very well very far. I have known a great many people who have suffered from a kind of psychological and spiritual myopia.
Once I saw a dozen vultures circling against a crimson sunset. Nature's evening pageantry was glorious, and my heart leaped within me as my whole being was infused with the beauty of that gorgeous sunset of western sky...But I'm sure the vultures never saw it. Their poor pea-brains were set on the carcass of some dead thing on the ground. Of course, this is the nature of vultures. But it should never be the character of human beings to miss the glory for the carcass of some ugly thing. The prophet Jeremiah was sickened and saddened by the insensitivity of the people of his time. He cried out to them, "Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes, but do not see, who have ears, but hear not." I wonder what Jeremiah would say to us in our time.
Blessed are the eyes that see beyond...eyes of understanding, expectation, faith. O' dear friend we must learn to outsoar the shadows of our night. It is, I think, the privilege of each of us to do that. In the ongoing process of our human living, shadows occur in many forms, and there are many kinds of night. Most of us who have lived very long can testify to the truth of this. But we will not be terrified by either the night or the shadows if we can have an image of tomorrow with enough brightness in it to drive the dark away.
Now let me say a rather important thing.. It isn't always easy to have this kind of image. At any moment we must view the future from wherever we are, and we who are living in our day are looking into the future out of a terribly pessimistic time. Remember Jesus' parable of the prince, going to claim his kingdom, who turned over his affairs to his associates to care for them until he should return? Remember that one who failed so miserably? And do you remember why he failed? He said it himself, "I was afraid." He had been afraid the venture of the prince might not turn out well, and he wished not to be identified with a loser. He was afraid also, apparently, that if the prince did succeed and did indeed become a king, he might be a hard man to work for. So whether the prince's play for the throne proved successful or unsuccessful, this man could see only the problems. Either way, he looked on the dark side, believed the worst. In other words, he was a pessimist, he just couldn't believe things could possibly turn out right. Sadly, in the history of this, our race, this fellow hasn't been the only one of his kind. The world has seen a few others. There has always been a contingent who have cried calamity and doom.
Recently a scientist was asked what he saw on the human horizon to be optimistic about. He replied, "I am very optimistic about the future of pessimism."..Well, of course, we've always had some of it, but it seems we have more of it now than we've ever had before. It has actually become popular to be pessimistic. I'm sure you remember the story of the shepherd boy who persistently alarmed everyone by crying "Wolf!" when no wolf was there. The "wolf cry" is heard often in our time. Again and again we are told that this or that wolf is scratching at the door, fangs bared to tear us apart. Many interpreters of the times, many of them "experts" more or less, have set up a noisy wail of doom.. our human race is just about to be destroyed!
This theme is one of the most profitable areas of publication and journalism. We have a whole spate of articles and books, many of them big money makers, very convincingly telling us that anything and everything is about to happen.. there'll be a chain reaction in the earth's atmosphere, or a depletion of the ozone layer, or a new ice age, or the insects will overcome us, or we'll run out of energy, or suffocate in our garbage, or poison ourselves with insecticides...It would seem we like to be scared.. and it would seem there are many who like to scare us...and especially since scaring us is money in the bank for them. Pessimism is, big business. And every new crier of doom is listened to like the voice of the Lord.
We have become victims of a horrible hypochondria... if I may coin a phrase...we are becoming psychological hypochondriacs.
There is much pessimism concerning man. By many, man is seen as a nogoodnik (and that may be a new word, but if so, I think it's better than any other I can think of for use at this point). Too much we see ourselves as sick, and we don't see much hope. The tragic consequence is that it's terribly difficult to form a clear and affirmative image of tomorrow when we must look at it from within the psychological matrix of this popular pessimism.
Pessimism is defined as "an inclination to put the least favorable construction upon actions and happenings; to maximize adverse aspects, conditions, and possibilities; or to anticipate the worst possible outcome." That dictionary definition is an accurate description of an attitude which prevails in many segments of our modern life and churches by "so called people of the Way."
What kind of effect does all of this have?..This distorted mentality..what are its consequences in our human life? First, it seems to me, it produces a form of creeping paralysis. A human who is afraid tends to be immobilized by his fear. One doesn't try very much if he doesn't belive in the outcome. He doesn't invest much in the future unless he can believe there is one.
This, it seems to me, is a tragic disservice we older people have perpetrated upon the younger people of our time..We have been so gloomy concerning humanity and the human future that we have almost taken the future away from them, and they are inclined to say, "What the heck - if the world is like this and the future is going to be like that, then what difference does it make what I think or how I act?"...It is my conviction that whatever deviate and distressing patterns of attitude and conduct may exist among our younger people, they exist because of what we older people have done to their vision of tomorrow. After all, for the young almost everything is in the future, somewhere.. and if you take that away from them, there isn't much left. If the picture of the future is calamitous or uninviting, then it is almost inevitable that terrible inward devastation will occur. I have the uneasy feeling that many of the gloom-mongers of our time will have a lot to answer for...Jesus said.."Occupy until I Come"..Can you say Amen?
Let's come to the point of all of this.. Is there no alternative to all this gloom? I proclaim to you..There is. We need a friendly wind to drive the gloom away, a sunray to penetrate the pall, a light by which to exorcise this demon, a power to dispel all this despair. We need to find an antidote for the poison of all this pessimism.
I repeat the question..Is there no alternative to all this gloom? And I repeat the answer.. There is...I speak with you out of the context of the Christian Faith, and I speak with you of hope. There isn't a pessimistic syllable in the entire New Testament record of the gospel of Christ, not one. Seen in right context, even the declarations of judgment are proclamations of hope. Those writers lived in about the worst of times, but there isn't a gloomy word in all they said.
Yes, they realistically recognized the evils, dangers, and darkness around them, but all this they saw in context. They were able to view the bad news in the light of the good, the good news of Christ and change and hope. One of our problems in our time is that so many of us are unable to see our present in the light of anything bigger and brighter than it is. Unlike the doomsday exponents of our day, those New Testament writers were able to read the signs of their time under the rays of a brilliant light which beamed in from beyond it. For them the future was a primary reality, and the present was just a dressing room.
You cannot thoughtfully read the New Testament writings of Paul and Peter and John without being struck by their firm conviction that tomorrow was a solution, not a problem.. it was an answer, not a question..They were certain of it, eventually things would come right. Living by that vision of tomorrow, they marched with triumph through the sufferings and problems and perils of their day. And as Christians, my dear friend, you and I must not permit the clouded issues of our time to eclipse that vision of tomorrow, for the vision is still valid, and whether or not we have comprehended this truth, for us of this Faith the future remains primary, and the present is prelude. Do you doubt this? I hope not. But if you do, I invite you to go again thoughtfully and prayerfully to your New Testament and read it for the answer to this one question... What was the meaning of the future for those people?
Whatever they saw in their time, they saw also that God was in it, touching it with redemption and hope. It has been often said that "pessimism is another name for atheism." True. You just cannot, with understanding, be a true atheist and a pessimist at the same time while claiming to be a believer walking in the Way. Because, when in every real and significant sense, God is pushed out of the picture, not much but gloom is left. A lot of people have made the mistake of leaving him out. O yes, they still name his name, and generally they would assert that they believe he is somewhere, somehow, but not doing much of anything. But God isn't out.. and he is not going to be...and he is not going to abandon his world or his people.
I proclaim to you the power to purge this popular pessimism which is the scourge of our time..and it is the power of the gospel of Christ. The gospel was planned, designed, and arranged for this very world. I think the Planner knew what kind of world he was planning for, and I am quite sure the power he devoted to it is power sufficient. In our world have we reason for hope? Yes, I am confident we have many reasons, but had we no other, the Christian Faith is reason enough.
Take these insights, my friend... I offer them to you as a gift for your future. Take them, and of these materials build your image of tomorrow... and in the light of that image always see everything that stands this side of its fulfillment, and under the power and inspiration of it, move victoriously through all the days between now and then.
In Hebrews 10:35 we Christians are told.. "Do not throw away your confidence." I would like to emblazon those six words on the mind and spirit of every person who names the name of Christ. Do not throw away your confidence. It's your most priceless possession... keep it. Don't throw it away as though it didn't matter.. it does.....Somebody give me a witness!
How much I wish each of us could have the eye-opening experience of Elisha's servant. Remember that story from 2 Kings, chapter 6? The servant believed the armies of his people to be hopelessly surrounded by the overpowering hosts of the enemy. As he was wailing about the impending calamity, Elisha prayed, "Lord, open my servant's eyes." And the story is that his eyes were "opened," and round about them he saw that the mountains and valleys were filled with the horses and chariots of God!...I know that this is picture language, but it is the picture of a profound truth, one we ought to recapture and never let go again. Also there was Elijah, intimidated by Jezebel, who ran into the woods and sat down in self-pity under a Juniper tree. But God said to him, "Get up and go," things are not all that bad. And he did...and they weren't.
And so I must end this series although I am certainly not finished. The Question is, "Was Jesus a Space Cadet? ...And the answer is....No He wasn't!...He was in Colosse, but at the same time He was in His Father. He was in two locations, one earthly, the other heavenly. A given space couldn't hold Him. He had a Vision and the price of that Vision was Life. For you see beloved, that Life is equipped to see the unseen, at any distance from five feet to infinity. And throughout His entire journey he allowed the focus to remain set on the will of His Father....A Space Cadet ?...No!
He was not limited to a given space, He saw beyond those limitations. And you and I, my friend, are made to look into infinity also, to view the unseen. If we walk in His same Holy Spirit. We will Develop His vision, His ear to the voice of Father, and most of all His Love. You see, we can never be a 'Space Cadet' if we are in Christ. We can never be limited to mere space. I must be careful here or I will start telling you the things man will put on you that will make a Space Cadet out of you. The rules and regulations that will choke and destroy the very life out of you. The way of the flesh, will limit your space and take away the vision He wants you to have....
Almighty God, Creator of the universe and our Creator, expand our vision and grant us vision of our inner galaxies and ever expanding unlimited freedom and power to do your will, as it is being formed within us. Take us from infinite smallness, let us see your creative power, revive us again, dazzle us with Your power and excite your people with curiosity and awe, I praise You Abba Father. And from these inadequate lips and tongue I utter my thanks and adoration.
Open our mind's eye and heart's imagination as we present ourselves before you. Help us to become aware of the frequent smallness of the worlds we invent for ourselves.
Comfortable with familiar ideas, we never venture far from our intellectual neighborhood. Too often satisfied with the palliatives of platitudes and cliches, we avoid the unfamiliar and unknown. Fixed in the routine of set social habits and acceptable patterns of thought.
Father forgive us our smallness of mind and timidity of thought. Help us to remember that your thoughts are higher than our thoughts, your ways nobler than our ways, and that we should always be learning from you. Cause us to remember the pioneers of the faith, the adventurers in the exploration of Your divine Grace and plan for us.
Bless the thinkers and seers and creative people of all ages who have challenged the old, introduced the new, and have brought us into new vision. Father, be pleased to attend us with your Spirit and grace that we might continue to develop the potential that is within us all.
Abba Father, we bring our earnest requests into your presence. Be pleased to hear and answer. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
God Bless You
Poppa
jk@poppak.org
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