'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' Part 4

Both "might" and "power" in the original Hebrew are masculine, however, the "Spirit" - Ruach - is feminine. There is a reason for this.

"Might" refers to resources of all kinds, whether in ourselves or in the world or between collectives of individuals. It assumes either skill, organisation, qualification, ability or an inward worthiness through qualification of some form. 'In ourselves' implies valour or bravery or some such quality highly valued. 'In the world' speaks of a force or unit of military or financial or manual resources, as such recognised and known by a distinct identity. 'Between us' is the 'system' of efficency or production or a network of labour that is ordered or works as a unit. These, together, are all the abilites that would normally be put to good use to complete any job. However, there is a divine embargo upon this 'might'. Not only this, but there is this embargo on any and every work of God that has the hallmark of the Spirit upon it . . . not just for Zerubbabel, not just for Zechariah - but for all of us.

One could not conceive of any mighty engineering project without many if not all of the above 'mights' being included. Indeed, this was how the Tower of Babel was constructed and assembled. Man builds, but God grows. It is man's remit to plant and to water, to tend and to care. For every work of God there is a season, but for man any time will do as long as it is now and quickly. One thing man will not do is wait. How often we work for God but without Him! How often is our divine host and midwife excluded from proceedings?

All these 'mights' existed before the commission came from God. We could quite easily fulfil this commission through these 'mights'; we could fulfil them for Him but without Him - once more asserting our independence and autonomy from God whilst serving Him! Such 'service' is an outrageous sin and usurping of God's authority, a setting aside of God's 'niavete' for our own sophistication and 'knowingness'. After all, we live in the real world, we know how things are done and achieved - otherwise nothing will happen! How can a Spirit build a temple? But we forget how He brooded over the waters and what came of that. Or is it that we want to make a name for ourselves? By using our education, our natural talents and skills, our coordinated effort, we want to serve God out of ourselves out of our convenience to show what we can do.

The question needs to be asked and answered; it is not enough to say I am going to use all these 'mights' for God. They may well be used, but it is not our place to choose them. Silence must come in the aftermath of the commission; reaching for the first tool to hand must stop. The "Not . . . " must sting us and shock us. This is a different project, wholly other, where the Eternal Spirit irrupts into this world; it must bear the distinctive of that same Spirit - not the world it manifests in. Until we are willing to let go of every competency we possess, and place them in limbo indefinitely, He will not use us in the work that will last. Undoubtedly, we could build skyscrapers and corporations and mega-churches but, when the fire comes, will they be stubble? The test is this: do we despise the small thing? Do we look down upon it and wince? The mustard seed? The wheatgerm? The stemcell? Or will we be like Jack and the Beanstalk?

The power of the Cross is the power not to do: we have the power to do something but we refuse to do it. We are silent; we are still in the face of the enemy; we stand and raise our hands; we call upon the name of the Lord; we consult the prophet and we obey. We are weak so that God can be our strength, and in that gap, that dark hopeless abyss of separation the Son of Man will rise. And if He is lifted up many will be drawn to Him.

Covering shame with identity

Shyness is a natural trait of the introverted. Those that look inward at themselves and withdraw from others are self-conscious in ways others are not. This is indeed natural but it is a hindrance and a barrier to all relationships. It is ingrained into us; it is provoked into us by pain and suffering, to make us aware of ourselves, and this is what the world would want us to be: self-aware, nursing our grievance. This is anathema to God's dealings with us. Shyness, withdrawal and self-consciousness bring isolation and separation; despair and depression follow hard on their tails.

The Lord would have us as unconscious as a weaned child with its mother, but how do we get there?

Realise where you are: wounded and bruised by all the pinching and prodding of those around you; you are carrying in your flesh your own suffering - not His, licking at your wounds like a dog. Him who was crucified naked, who scorned the shame thrown at him, off whose back slid insult after insult, Him who made mud with His spittle to rub into eyes, who walked upon water, who drove out the money changers - was not a self-conscious man but an obedient man, constrained by His zeal for the glory of God, . . . but we are touchy over our own 'glory'.

However, we cannot throw on extroversion on a whim like something learned at a seminar. We cannot act or mimic it, and we defnitely cannot draw upon God's power to help us throw off this hurt so that we may walk into freedom.

All the while we conceive of ourselves as separate entities from God we will never be one with God. How could we ever in our own selves unite ourselves with God? We continue to step out of ourselves and look at ourselves, reinforcing that separation, that isolation, that self-consciousness. A mirror has its uses but it is not for self-contemplative gazing. Where did this separation arise from? Where did this isolation come from? The first ever self-conscious act by a human being on the planet was for Adam and Eve to cover their nakedness. The first ever technology was created in pursuit of saving face: they sewed fig leaves together and made covering for themselves rather than waiting for their master to give them a proper covering. We rush ahead and make for ourselves coverings to protect ourselves from shame.

Separation is born of sin. Adam and Eve hid: they withdrew. He only asks that you come. The covering He would provide would come from the slaughtered lamb that he has killed before you and skinned in front of you. It is still warm, and we cannot reject its warmth and shelter because of how it was won. It was willingly done! Clothe yourselves in Christ therefore. This is now your identity. He is our hiding place; we are hid with Christ in God. When the shame comes, where will you hide and where will you be found? But be sure, while there is still a self to be hurt there is still a self. And there is only one way to deal with self: the Cross. How could we ever expect to enjoy the benefits of resurrection without its necessary predecessor: the death of self.

The introverted among us seek refuge within and build defences without. The extroverted are not exempt either. Our individuality, our separation from others is marked by our bodies and our clothes, our affections and affectations. While others retreat into fantasy and sensual confort, others advance aggressively to mark themselves out with tattoos, with achievements, with loudness. But its me! It is you, it is not Christ. It separates you from your beloved. While there is still a You, an individual, you will always be separate and distant from God though you might trumpet otherwise. 

How else do we see our inidviduality? With our clubs and our societies, with our identifties and affiliations, with our possessions and our positions, with our labels and our tastes, our likes and our dislikes. In short, it is the politics of identity, we are a black box to the outisde world with labels upon. God would abolish this to delve into the personality and the soul of a human, the state of his being moment by moment in a live and unbroken relationship with Him.

The dividing wall, the barrier of hostility has been torn down in His flesh and made the two one, not just humanity but God and His image bearers. Come to Him, do not hide, in you individuality, in your assertions of self-dom. Take on His yoke; it is easy and light. Take on Him. Clothe yourself in the light that Adam and Eve lost when their eyes were opened. For the two will become one.

He will be with you until the very end of the eage.

Jesus loves you . . . as you are. (The Rooms of Tobiah)

"Jesus loves you . . . as you are":

a well-worn phrase from many evangelistic campaigns from the twentieth century until now. Even now the phrase causes conflict in my heart and I can scarcely explain why. Who could ever disagree with the love of God? Who could ever disagree with the assertion that we need to be loved? And who in their right mind would disagree with the free unconditional offer of love with no need to change or earn that love?

The love of Jesus commands devotion, it demands a response without any coercion purely because the love is given without reference to self. The love that is given is the demand itself. We must leave and go with Him and drop from our hands the very last thing that we cling onto: the rich young ruler was wise and had a form of righteousness, but he loved money. That very last thing is the thing that defines us as sinners, as rebels, from which we gain our status and identity - the very last bastion of human independence and autocracy. We may even think it has merit. Anyone can surely identify the rank sins of the love of money. Surely! I know I'm not like that! Everyone can see the grosser sins of lust and the kind - surely! But it is the very wood in the trees that we cannot see - the very last rock we do not want to turn over - can't see it - because we stand upon it! It exalts us and defends us. It is the adjectives we stick in front of 'christian' and use as labels to put everyone else, bar ourseles, into little boxes; it is the lens through which our distorted vision holds a plumbline to the world and finds it wanting. It may be the denomination, of whose doctrines and practices we may be proud of, it may be our age group, our sex, our sexual orientation, our job, our political affiliations or our opinons. We were called to be disciples - but we have made converts in our own weak image, tolerant of the labels and the baggage we imported into our new 'life'. We were called to abandonement and nothing less will do.

" . . . as you are," has covered - literally - a multitude of sins. And under that cloak it has been smuggled into Tobiah's rooms within the temple (Nehemiah 13). We await another Nehemiah to give Tobiah the treatment he deserves. As we speak, enclaves are being established within God's temple under the banner of love and tolerance: bridgeheads to de-stabilise God's church and render her powerless. Our own rhetoric, once used to win people for Christ, is being used against us to tolerate many kinds of sin: co-habitation, pre-marital sex, divorce, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, multiple-partner marriage and bigamy. One by one each battle has been lost by the church because we still cling to " . . . as you are". Some battles still remain and we get ample warning of them shining up our engine from our enemies. We see them coming but are powerless, undone by our own rhetoric: " . . . as you are." We ourselves still cling to that last thing, how could we ever expect anyone else to change and let that sin go that is now their identity.

What is it that God loves in us? It is not our sin and neither is it the sin that masquerades as righteousness. The love of God draws a circle around us that separates us from our labels and adjectives and our worldly identity. Once we drop every single one, including our skills and our gifts, we find that He has reduced us to one; he has isolated us; he has drawn us into the desert to be found as a bride. We are separated and denuded before Him, reduced to a being of worship. We are laid bare, we are exposed and we find the cause of the love given is the Lover Himself. He who is Love does not love us for a reason other than Himself. Even the love He gives robs us of our boast and we are enthralled by this love that is Him. We are taken with Him - not with the justification of self.

" . . . as you are" has strengthened the arm of the wicked against the Lord, it has tolerated sin, it has affirmed new converts in their sin and ensured that will never become disciples. The rooms of Tobiah proliferate in God's church under love and tolerance. The true love of God compels us, draws us on into devotion that is obedience to the faith for in this love we discover a God who loves us apart from our sin, when we ourselves defined ourselves by our sin. The love of God tears us from our sin and provokes us into action. Will we be a Nehemiah to kick Tobiah out of the temple in obedience to God? Will we calmly sit there and twine together a whip with the full intention of driving people out of the courts of God? Will His zeal consume us? Will we strap on a sword and go about the camp to deal with our brothers? Will we run through a brother with a spear who fornicates with a Midianite woman in the middle of the camp - while they are in the act? Will we grow up into maturity to speak the truth in love - no matter the cost to our reputation or the legal threats about us?

Tobiah may have many powerful friends, but God's opinion of us will be eternal.