4 Bridges Continued

[HKHaugan]

4 Bridges Continued

You've probably heard the term “cut flower Christianity.” In our visit to the 4 bridges leading to nowhere this term is a good description when you take perfectly good blessings from the Lord God, separate them from Him and, like flowers cut from their roots, they end up withering and dying. It's subtle as it travels from God's idea to us making it an ideal that we can use without Him which then immediately becomes an idol. From idea, to ideal, to idol. From God to idolatry where the emphasis is on the first letter, 'I'. We've seen how the Gospels show that life without God perishes in the land of nowhere. Again, here's how the Lord Jesus put it:

Bridge 1. Identity. Mt.10:39 “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” In Matthew an identity is found that then is lost.

Without God identity is A vacant closet in a house of imagination.

Bridge 2. Moment. Mk.8:35-36 “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” In Mark each moment of life seems saved then lost.

Without God a moment is A fleeting piece of time lost in the corridors of anonymity.

Bridge 3. Lifestyle. Lk.17:33 “Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.” In Luke a lifestyle is hung onto but then lost.

Without God a lifestyle is An idol conceived in the whims of desire.

Bridge 4. Love. Jn.12:25 “Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” In John love misplaced then lost.

Without God love is a A yearning affection searching for a mirror.

These are startling statements and the thing to be aware of as you read them is they were being taught to His followers. Ponder that for a moment. Believers can drift and non-believers can already be driftwood. He is anticipating they are going to have problems because of sin, the devil continuing to exploit it and the inclination in all of us to bend and compromise because of it. Sin is a severe enough condition to warrant His going to suffer and die on the Cross because that is what sin promises, death.

The Cross is His time stopper.

When you see the Cross you stop, you think about what it means and you look around you. The Cross stands across the centuries as a stop sign. It's a stop sign to get the attention of every person born into the world every day regardless of their culture, their nation or their religion. It's to get everyone's attention that He is the source of life in this world. That He is the means by which we reflect His presence into eternity. In Him we comprehend something new. We grasp in our mind and heart that every next moment is His moment, a moment He has given us as a gift.

How Jesus got to the Cross and the sinful dynamics that He allowed to put Him there are what His recorded life is all about in Scripture from Genesis through Revelation. He exposed to the world the human death spiral, the futility of man's best intentions; his religion and what he considers mindful, that which fills the mind, the self-justifying whirlpool of rationalization. The struggle of intentions; intentions to protect, preserve and maintain an identity, control every next moment, preserve a lifestyle and be loving in the process. But these intentions apart from God, apart from the Father of us all, apart from the Son and apart from the Holy Spirit are life lived in the temporary but lost in the eternal.

Paul's insight about this temporary world's life was uncompromisingly expressed in Rom.14:23 “That which does not proceed from faith is sin.” He repeats this concept to the Corinthian disciples, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal (2Cor.4:18).”

Jesus bore the brunt of what every person goes through in their temporary world life because of sin. He bore the results of what it means to live apart from God and die because of it. The collective fear of not having this world's identity, power, control and self-definition led to the conspiracy that unjustly put Him on the Cross. It is Jesus alone who lived without those core worldly pursuits. It was His Resurrection that proved world power was temporary, empty and perishable. And it was His mind, heart and Spirit reflected eternal life, a life He died to give us each personally when we trust Him to be the One who is real life itself.

Now you may say, “But I'm already a believer,” or “I'm trying to be a better person,” or “I am a religious person, I believe in spiritual things, I'm a good person, at one with the universe, I meditate, belong to a church, synagogue, temple, civil rights and green movements, nature lover” and so on. Regardless of where you are on the spiritual spectrum, the moral compass and the ethical values that make up your field of play, there is a deeper question. Where are you in relationship to what it really means to be human, to the meaning of good and evil, to who defines them, to your future and who you look to as an example of how to live? Who is really in control of your every next moment? Who are you allowing to define and guide those moments? These are real questions that we may try to avoid but are the substance of who we are. We answer them with every next thought and action we take. This is not about being a Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Muslim or whatever. The question is “Who are we, you and me, trusting with our daily life, our sure death and what happens after we die, our eternity?”

In each of the four bridges, Jesus is the only one who can offer life in them. He is saying that He alone can do a makeover in each of them in each of us. This is not a makeover having some kind of a cosmetic moral checklist you control so you can feel good about yourself. You know, the kind that you use when you get ready to meet someone or arrive at a meeting or a social grouping so that you look good, say the right things and impress others. No way. This is a makeover of the heart, a spiritual makeover from within where the Lord Jesus does the work through His Holy Spirit. All the stuff that is real, necessary and eternal is for right now and comes through Him. He is what makes reality real in every next moment which is the moment we are always waiting for.

It is giving the reins of your every next moment to the risen present Jesus who knows your real needs and the real needs of the life you live with others. It's a spiritual makeover of the heart and mind and spirit. It's an attitude changer, an intellect changer and a motivation changer. He who planted an image of Himself in every person restores that image. He is the root from which we have been cut. This is real life, eternal life, we are talking about. No matter where we've been and no matter where we are and in fact, no matter where we think we want to be, He can, right this moment, give us that heart makeover by believing what He says about who He is and accepting His invitation to receive Him. And if you already believe in Him open up to the Spirit and let Him elevate your consciousness of Him, let Him wrap His Word around your mind and let Him make you more intensely aware of the need of Him in those around you.

When Jesus said He was the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6) it means that any relational strategy, lifestyle goal, identity seeking technique or wandering affection not rooted in Him are 'cut flowers.' The secular world is a 'cut flower' world. It's constantly seeding and sprouting in the shallow rocky path of momentary allure and false promises. Jesus speaks very pointedly to this in His parable of the sower who scatters seeds on paths that have no hope and no eternal value. Those that fall on good soil last because their roots grow deep. Jesus is the fertile personal experience, the exact nature of God in which we, His images, are the seeds that sprout, grow and last forever.

Now we have the meaning of the Cross and the Resurrection. Pray that we may sprout where the moments ahead give Him the glory.