Tear Down The Walls

I've been reading Ephesians lately. Chapter 2:11-18 talks about two groups: the uncircumcised and those who call themselves "the circumcision." While the uncircumcised were formerly excluded, in Christ they have been brought near to God.

Verses 15b-18 says: "[Jesus'] purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit."

What struck me is that I always thought Jesus died for our sins. And he did. But not exclusively. According to this passage, his death also put to death hostility between the "us" and the "them" groups. He tore down the "dividing wall of hostility" (v. 14). He died to bring peace.

Which got me to thinking: how often have we Christians just built that wall of hostility right back up? This passage makes it clear that everyone has access to God through the Spirit through Christ's death. But how often do we say (or imply by the way we speak out against things), "Jesus died for everyone—but not you."

"Not you—you're gay."

"Not you—you're a Democrat."

"Not you—you smoke cigarettes."

"Not you—you have tattoos and piercings."

"Not you—you don't like the King James Version."

Through our actions and our stances, sometimes we preach hatred, not peace.

Now, I want to be clear: being uncircumcised isn't a sin, where as some things we stand up against are. Some. But if sin blocks us from access to God through Jesus' death on the cross, well shoot. What did he even die for?

So, if even sinners like me have access to God through Christ, why would we imply that certain kinds of sinners don't?

I'll freely admit that I implied this all over the place in high school. I preached to others about faith a lot, but it was in the context of pointing judgmental fingers at them when they swore. I never would've said that I believe people who swear don't have access to God through Christ, because I didn't believe that. But my actions communicated that to the very people I was trying to reach.

There's a balance between standing up for what's right and acting as if Jesus doesn't love people who aren't doing those things. But the bottom line is: Jesus never asked anyone to clean up their lives until after they developed a relationship with him. We don't need to fix ourselves first. We can't. We bring ourselves to Jesus and he fixes us. Throughout our whole life. He doesn't stop working on us until we reach the pearly gates.

Peace

I wrote my last blog, patience, during the commercial breaks of The Bachelorette. I've always known on some level it's a ridiculous show, but it's my guilty pleasure.

So on Monday I wrote my blog on patience, posted it, and returned my attention to the show. And suddenly I was struck with a fresh realization: This show is so stupid. 


Now let me be clear upfront: I'm still going to watch it. But in that moment I decided that I'd like Emily to pick my least favorite of the remaining guys. Because no matter who she picks, they'll probably break up in a few months, and I'll be far less disappointed then if she picks a guy I don't like now. I realized just how frivolous the whole thing is.

And despite my dad's opinion that the whole thing is done with paid actors and it's all fake, I don't think he's right. There are real human emotions at play, in my opinion. So I'm watching Emily bawl her eyes out over having to send someone home, and realizing that she's probably just picking someone to spend the next few months with, not the rest of her life, and I just had this big picture perspective of how silly it all was.

And then I thought, if I could take a step back from my life and see the big picture, maybe I'd see how silly I'm being sometimes. Not that it's bad to feel things or that we should shove down our emotions. But I let the dumbest things eat me up sometimes.

Like yesterday I was waiting to turn right out of the McDonald's parking lot, and someone else was turning right into the parking lot, only they weren't signaling so I didn't know I could turn, so I was waiting for them until I realized they were turning, only by then there was another car coming so I had to wait more. Anyway...this car that failed to signal honked at me as it turned in. SHE honked at ME? What did I do to deserve that? I was really ticked off until I remembered what the pastor said about not letting the little frustrations get to you, and about patience. Oopsies.

So it's dumb stuff like that. But even bigger picture...it's OK to feel, healthy to know your emotions, but when you let those feelings and worries consume you, that's not OK. And I do that, too. But if I could take a step back and see my life like I finally saw The Bachelorette on Monday, I'd probably roll with the punches a lot easier.

So I think it was a combination of those realizations and the discoveries I made as I wrote my blog on patience that gave me this overwhelming sense of peace. I've never experienced something quite like this before. I just turned off the TV when the show was over, went upstairs to get ready for bed, and felt this wave of peace sweep over me in regards to something I'd been letting consume me. And I wasn't even thinking about the thing then, just kinda brushing my teeth and such and this peace hit me. And it hasn't left! This peace is such a wonderful thing, and guess what it's helping bring with it: patience!

Peace

The first day I started reflecting on Psalm 93, this line from verse 1 jumped out to me and filled me with peace: "The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved."

So often the world feels like it's just a stormy chaos. I mean not the physical earth, but my world. It sometimes feels like it's just bouncing around aimlessly. Like nothing is certain.

So when I read this verse I thought, "I just need to have the faith that God has my world in his hands. That even when it seems out of control, it cannot be moved from God's control."

And I started to think about when Jesus calmed the storm. It certainly seemed like the disciples' world was out of control. They said with confidence, "we're going to drown!" But the world wasn't out of control for Jesus. With a simple rebuke, there was peace again.

This is the kind of peace we can have. Even when we don't have a lot of faith - that was something Jesus pointed out about the disciples. Though he'd rather have had them believe, he brought peace to their world anyway.

When it seems like your world is spiraling out of control, remember: it is firmly established. It cannot be moved.