gateway to hope

We are all aware of greatness. We are all aware of what seems to be greatness. We make very little distinction between the two. We see what we see, we see the things that are presented to us and we associate or disassociate with these things. It could be a president, it could be a homeless man, it could be an actor, it could be someone's photo on a website, it could be a familial relationship, it could be anything and in fact is all things. I know that I am prone to the danger of idealizing other times, but I realize that I have never lived in other times...i do not want to idealize. Having said this we are now in a culture, a globalist world culture, that is inundated with seeing. In our national culture we are bombarded with images that encourage us to buy. Most of these images are aimed at causing people to associate with. We are like the couple that just bought the new Subaru going on a trip in our Burberry gear laughing and capturing our lives on instagram. We push the myth of what life is by filtering it through a lens of presentation. We present our lives in the way that life has been presented to us.  Through the manipulation of reality we put forth an image of ourselves that we deem presentable. We are trapped in this cycle. Unfortunately Television, Magazines, and all the new avenues for marketing the idea of fulfillment through being seen is what directs the minds, and consequently hearts, of the people in our nation.

 I quit watching television in 1995. I was at home sick from school and I was watching Cheech Marin on Sesame Street. As funny as it may have been I just quit. I realized that this box was the main thing that put people on the same page. A man may have a hard time understanding what he hears. This same man may have a better chance at understanding what he reads. A man is convinced by what he sees. We know that what we see is real. Put a man in a situation and then ask him what he saw and he will be convinced that he knows what was happening in that situation. Ask the other men in the situation and they will be equally convinced. We are convinced by what we "see".

 The scripture says, "He who has ears to hear let him hear!" All of human life is an expression of what is seen. Even our language is a construction that helps us describe what we see. The things that can not be seen are described in ways that are associated with vision. 2 Corinthians 5 says, "we walk by faith, not by sight." This takes us right back to the biblical account of this issue of vision in the first pages concerning Adam and Eve.

"The serpent said to the woman, “It is not true that you will surely die; 5 because God knows that on the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it had a pleasing appearance and that the tree was desirable for making one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her; and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together to make themselves loincloths." -- Genesis 3

 This issue of vision and personal judgement, not informed by hearing the word of God, is the source of all pain in the world. We are aware of greatness. We see the pleasing appearance of the photos we let speak to our hearts on social networks and we seek to be wise and choose to identify with what we see. We strive to be seen and validated by our images that we present, we make our decisions based on whatever we think will secure these lives and images. We put on fig leaves to cover the parts that we are ashamed of so that others only see a part of who we are. We all know that those things that we cover, in the right context are some of the more honorable things to share with the one you love.

 In order to walk in love we have to walk by faith. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (rom 10:17) We can not love by what we see. We have to love by what we hear from God. God calls those things that are not as though they are (rom 4:17) This calling is a calling by name. He speaks specifically to individuals by name and encourages us to step up to His offer of life. We have to be attuned to what God is saying. If we are not listening to what God is saying to us about ourselves or about others we will come under a curse. This curse is the condemnation of sin. "It is for lack of knowledge that My people perish." (hosea 4:6)

 It has come to my attention over the last year that mixing systems is surefire way to lose the gifts of God.  A curse can be the thing in itself. For a man who is cheating on his wife, all other things aside, the curse is that he is sleeping with another woman! This is the curse! You are not sleeping with the one that is yours! Of course it gets worse from there. When we mix the system of the law of sin with the law of grace we get mixed results. No one can serve two masters. When we chose sin we get the curse of sin. Sin is the curse! In the new testament Jesus talks about not putting new wine in old wine skins. The co2 created by the yeast in the fermentation process will expand the wine skin. Old wineskins have been stretched and cannot survive new fermentation or they will break. This is concerning the law of grace vs the law of sin.  We cannot mix bags and expect to have good results. We think that we can obey part of God's ways and chose others for ourself in our pursuit of a pleasing appearance and desire for self-righteous wisdom.

God desires to bless us. It is His one aim, that He would have our hearts and He could give us all the gifts of being His. We can subvert this process by introducing an allegiance to chose sin when we want to and chose God when we want to. I am not wanting to beat up on any of us. Romans makes it very clear that we are caught in the middle of a transient experience and that God will redeem us from this transience. We need to have grace for each other and call out the honor and integrity in each other. I am not saying if we sin it is over, but rather that we need to seek God and let Him  speak to this subversive part of ourselves, where we have the ability to chose based on our own knowledge. If God tells me to love someone and I say, "I don't want to. They are not worthy of my love. They are not to be trusted. I must be wise and walk to the other side of the road, I know You have love for them and will send a Samaritan in due time." then we might as well be like Abel saying, "Am I my brother's keeper?" God is not impressed with us. There is nothing new under the sun. The situation that you or I am in is very well navigated. Our opinions of each other are not new. It has all been done before. God judges justly. He looks at the heart. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. (james 4:6) There is honor in being disarmed by love. There is honor in coming to God in our filthy rags and letting Him put His arms around us. We are to do this for each other. We can be like the wife of Hosea if we allow ourselves to accept the love that God desires to extend towards us in spite of our sin:

Rebuke your mother, rebuke her; 

for she isn’t my wife, and I’m not her husband. 

She must remove her whoring from her face, 

and her adulteries from between her breasts. 

⁵⁽³⁾  Otherwise, I will strip her naked 

and place her as she was the day she was born, 

make her like a desert, place her like a dry land 

and kill her with thirst. 

⁶⁽⁴⁾  I will have no pity on her children, 

for they are children of whoring— 

⁷⁽⁵⁾  their mother prostituted herself, 

she who conceived them behaved shamelessly; 

she said, ‘I will pursue my lovers, 

who give me my food and water, 

wool, flax, olive oil and wine.’ 

⁸⁽⁶⁾  Therefore, I will block her way with thorns 

and put up a hedge so she can’t find her paths. 

⁹⁽⁷⁾  She will pursue her lovers but not catch them. 

She will seek them but won’t find them. 

Then she will say, ‘I will go 

and return to my first husband; 

because things were better for me then 

than they are now.’ 

¹⁰⁽⁸⁾  For she doesn’t know it was I who gave her 

the grain, the wine and the oil; 

I who increased her silver and gold, 

which they used for Ba‘al. 

¹¹⁽⁹⁾  So I will take back my grain at harvest-time 

and my wine in its season; 

I will snatch away my wool and flax, 

given to cover her naked body. 

¹²⁽¹⁰⁾  Now I will uncover her shame, 

while her lovers watch; 

and no one will save her from me. 

¹³⁽¹¹⁾  I will end her happiness, 

her festivals, Rosh-Hodesh, and shabbats, 

and all her designated times. 

¹⁴⁽¹²⁾  I will ravage her vines and fig trees, 

of which she says, ‘These are my wages 

that my lovers have given me.’ 

But I will turn them into a forest, 

and wild animals will eat them. 

¹⁵⁽¹³⁾  I will punish her for offering incense 

on the feast days of the ba‘alim, 

when she decked herself with her earrings and jewels, 

pursuing her lovers and forgetting me,” says Adonai. 

¹⁶⁽¹⁴⁾  “But now I am going to woo her— 

I will bring her out to the desert 

and I will speak to her heart. 

¹⁷⁽¹⁵⁾  I will give her her vineyards from there 

and the Akhor Valley as a gateway to hope. 

She will respond there as she did when young, 

as she did when she came up from Egypt. 

¹⁸⁽¹⁶⁾  “On that day,” says Adonai 

“you will call me Ishi [My Husband]; 

you will no longer call me Ba‘ali [My Master]. 

¹⁹⁽¹⁷⁾  For I will remove the names 

of the ba‘alim from her mouth; 

they will never again be mentioned by name. 

²⁰⁽¹⁸⁾  When that day comes, I will make 

a covenant for them 

with the wild animals, the birds in the air 

and the creeping things of the earth. 

I will break bow and sword, 

sweep battle from the land, 

and make them lie down securely. 

²¹⁽¹⁹⁾  I will betroth you to me forever; 

yes, I will betroth you to me 

in righteousness, in justice, 

in grace and in compassion; 

²²⁽²⁰⁾  I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, 

and you will know Adonai. 

²³⁽²¹⁾  When that day comes, 

I will answer,” says Adonai 

“I will answer the sky, 

and it will answer the earth; 

²⁴⁽²²⁾  the earth will answer the corn, wine and oil, 

and they will answer Yizre‘el [God will sow]. 

²⁵⁽²³⁾  I will sow her for me in the land. 

I will have pity on Lo-Ruchamah [Unpitied]; 

I will say to Lo-‘Ammi [Not-My-People], ‘You are my people’; 

and they will say, ‘You are my God.’ ” 

My favorite part:

But now I am going to woo her.  I will bring her out to the desert and I will speak to her heart.  I will give her vineyards from there and the Achor Valley as a gateway to hope.