“Once you have tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been, and there you will long to return.” -Leonardo daVinci
I am well qualified to write about grace. Not because of what I have experienced or know, but because of what I lack. Not because I am whole, but because I am broken. I have been struggling with writing part 2 because I have been very aware of my brokeness recently and it makes me feel unqualified. But that is exactly what makes me qualified. One of the hardest things for me to grasp is that God is not asking me to be perfect but to know Him perfectly. He gave me a glimpse of His affection for me and now I spend all of my days looking skyward, longing to return to where I have been. But how? I did not know the way. There have been many obstacles that have obscured the path from my view. I am beginning to see the way home to grace more clearly now and would like to share some of the things that I have learned.
In my last entry I told the story about how I had received this word from my friend:
“Jacob, I see that you have been there. You know the place. You know the way. The Lord says that the door is open to you and you are welcome anytime you want.” - John MacGirvin
This word kept me honest in a way. It stuck in my mind as a constant reminder of what God was calling me to and that the way back to that place in His heart was obvious - to Him - and that it should be to me. I knew that I was on a journey of discovering the way back home. But I also knew that whatever that way was, that I had missed it. I had missed the way. I had missed the point. I thought that I had arrived and that all of my hard work had added up to me encountering His heart. So I tried to duplicate my awesomeness again and again. I came to the Lord with confidence because I knew the way; I knew what it took to find Him and to cause Him to respond to me. But the truth was that I was empty; I was full of myself and my abilities but empty of love and real relationship with Jesus. I did not know Jesus apart from my efforts to know Him. I was so caught up in everything that I was doing to be a christian that I missed the reality of actually knowing Jesus.
I knew a lot about Jesus but I struggled with questions like, what does it mean to believe in Jesus? How is it that Jesus is the way? How do I follow Him? It was all very abstract to me. A God who exists in concept and theory alone, but never touches the reality of my life and heart, serves only to inflate my head. It is the spirit of pornography that values appearances and accomplishments instead intimacy and real relationship. I was blinded by the temporal superficial skin of talents, abilities, knowledge, supernatural experiences, etc, and was thereby rendered dull and numb; unable to experience true intimacy and connection with the heart of God.
As my pastor said recently, “we know how to do church well...” We have bible studies and church services and times of worship and prayer but have little to say about Jesus or the Father. That kind of talk is reserved for evangelistic outreach. The majority of preaching is focused on the functions and duties and responsibilities of the institution of the church. We have lost our way. We have lost Jesus.
In order to be saved from our vain thinking and way of doing church we need to learn from Thomas when he says to Jesus, “...we do not know where you are going so how is it that we know the way?” (John 14:5-6) I am so glad that Thomas asks this question because it shows that he was actively listening to Jesus and trying to apply it to reality. I mean honestly, who really knows where Jesus is or the way to get to where He is? You can quote me all the scriptures about where He is or the way to get there - but who of us have actually experienced the reality of this? Thomas was concerned because he wanted to know the truth in the reality of his heart and not just have an abstract concept in his head that led to no where. That is where I was. I had a bunch of concepts about God that led to no where real. I “simply believed” what the scriptures said because I was afraid to question God.
Thomas, however, felt safe enough in the presence of Jesus to be honest about His confusion. I think that we are often forced to accept scripture because it is “God’s Word.” We do not dare to be honest with Jesus about what we are really thinking. We say, “well, this is the truth and therefore I believe!” That may appear spiritual or even noble but in reality it divorces you from reality - that you are where you are. Jesus knows where you are and does not expect you to be in any place different than where you are. If we can not be honest about this, then we will miss what comes next and will be stuck in our confusion - and still worse: be deceived into thinking that we have accepted the truth. Please do not settle for abstract religious concepts. Jesus is real - and He has an answer.
The answer that Jesus gives to Thomas is the answer that He gave to me after five years of trying to understand “the way” back to experiencing the Fathers heart. Jesus answers Thomas and says, “[Dear Thomas,] I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me.” I knew that what I had experienced that day in KC was the Fathers embrace but what I did not understand was the way to be embraced again. The way to the Heart of the Father - to encountering the very Person of love and acceptance - is Jesus.
But how is it that Jesus is the way to the Father? For hundreds of years before Jesus, man was unable to hear or see truth about the Father. They were darkened in their understanding by the shadow of doubt that was cast by satan in the beginning. Man believed the lie that God could not be trusted; that He was self-seeking and unloving. There were those like Moses and David and others who caught glimpses of the truth but their perception of God was mostly marred. There was no way for man to get to the Father; they were unable to hear the truth about, or receive the life of the Father. They were captives of the dark kingdom.
Life apart from the love and acceptance of the Father is no life at all. It is death and darkness. We are so steeped in this dark mindset that when we view Jesus today, we see the merciful and kind Son who is trying to appease a wrathful, vengeful, and judgmental Father. What we miss is that the Father had been misrepresented for hundreds of years and Jesus came to be a revelation of the true nature of the Father and thereby becoming the only way back to the Father. To believe in Jesus is to believe that His representation of the Father is true. That is how Jesus is the way.
When we see Jesus with the woman caught in adultery we are actually seeing the heart of the Father being revealed. Do you remember the story? Jesus challenged the woman’s accusers to go ahead and cast the first stone if they themselves were free of sin. One by one, they dropped their stones and left. Jesus, now alone with the woman, says to her, “woman, where are your accusers? Who is it that condemns you?” She answers Him and says, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you: go and sin no more.”
Did you catch that? “I do not condemn you.” This is the revelation of the Fathers heart towards this woman (towards us). I feel like Jesus is saying, “You have been living under the impression that God is distant from and angry with you. He isn’t. I do not condemn you. Know my heart and do not misunderstand me anymore.”
Sin can only exist in the absence of the Light of His love. In fact, it could be said that sin is the absence of knowing His love. In the greek, sin means to miss the mark. If knowing Him and living in His love is the mark, then sin is to misunderstand His heart towards us. Jesus’ remedy for the adulterous woman was for her to know His love and not misunderstand (miss the mark) His heart towards her anymore.
One of the greatest obstacles to grace is in the thinking that His forgiveness comes after we say all the right words and repent. But the truth is that His forgiveness and acceptance of us is independent of anything that we say or do. The goal of His forgiveness is not that we would repent but that we would know His love and acceptance of us. One of the peripheral result of this is that in response to His love and complete acceptance of us - we are changed. Not that we work to change but that His love changes us. The question on judgment day will not be, “were you changed and did you live rightly?” but instead, “did you receive my love and forgiveness in the person of Jesus my Son?”
We are often blinded by focusing on ours or others behaviors, somehow thinking that this is the point of being a christian. We write “come as you are” on our church welcome signs but the dirty secret is “you better not stay that way - we’ll be watching.” The church is filled with people that feel confident because they abstain from certain things and proud because they do other things like pray a lot and read the bible every day. The person that finds comfort in doing all the right things is no less sinful than the prostitute. Both are trying to numb the ache in their souls for the Fathers embrace. Sin has little to do with behavior and much to do with the extent how much you are missing the mark. So you have to ask yourself, “what is the mark?”
I think that another one of the greatest obstacles to grace is this issue of sin. Most of us who have confessed our sins and asked for forgiveness are still separated the love of the Father. Like it or not. Maybe we are not separated theologically but in the reality of our hearts - we are cut off from His love because we think that unless we had confessed and until we change, we will not truly be forgiven. We find comfort from our dis-ease in our efforts to do things the right way and tell ourselves that we have done everything that is required for us to be forgiven and accepted - to be on good terms with God. But this way of thinking actually separates you from Him because you are not believing in Jesus but in yourself. Jesus invites you to simply receive His love and acceptance - to believe in Him. It is not something that you can, in any way, earn.
The point of me saying all of this is that I found a place in Jesus where I no longer have to do anything. A place where my record of rights and wrongs does not exist. A place where I am nothing but a child in His arms, completely loved and accepted.
I am glad to say that Jesus made a way for me to return to that place in the Father’s heart - and I have. It has almost nothing to do with me and everything to do with Him. My part looks like me standing on the edge of a cliff, closing my eyes, and falling into His love and acceptance. Honestly, it is too much for me. I am quickly overwhelmed when I realize that I am falling into an ocean of love that has no bottom or shore. But the few times that I have returned to this endless ocean of love, I am moved beyond tears because He is so much better than words could ever describe.
This is abundant life. This is eternal life. This is what Jesus died for you to know. This is knowing the Father.
This is home.
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