I arrived at the campus of West Africa Theological Seminary on August 17th after a 12 hour flight from Atlanta and a two hour ride in Lagos traffic. This was the beginning of my 18th trip to the campus since our first visit there in November of 2009. It never gets old or boring. I have to believe it's because I never cease to see God at work in this place. 

People are so friendly and always glad to welcome 'this old man'. Eager to learn, patient with my slowness to understand 'plain english', always expressing gratitude to God, with a song in their hearts and a dance in their steps - these are ones I have come to love.

I went with four major projects on which to continue the work. (1) Improving Internet Access; (2) Entering books via bar-coding into the Evergreen Library Management software at WATS; (3) Uploading digital volumes into the WATS eLibrary; and (4) Cleaning up the WATS Database Management System of student records/grades etc. 

As is ALWAYS the case - we didn't finish the work. As I told the folks there - If I am here two weeks, we don't finish; If I am here 3 weeks, we don't finish; If I was here a month, we wouldn't finish. Or if I was here permanently we wouldn't finish. But we did make great progress, and each area is probably in the best condition it has ever been in. So, to God be the Glory for that.

I was once again able to spend a bit of time with two of the families Marybeth and I have "adopted". Pastor Jide/Timothy and Antonia Moye and their five children, and Pastor Chude and Faith Menkiti and their son Daniel. What awesome ministries these two families are having. Sacrificing so much, but seeing their obedience rewarded through lives touched for eternity.

I was also blessed to be with my two good friends Joseph Karoma and Joseph Allen. These two passionate and dedicated followers of Jesus have been students at WATS in the Masters of Intercultural Studies - but were 'caught' in the Ebola crisis for 8 months while visiting their families back home - and returned to WATS this past January. They have been church planters and Disciple Makers both in Sierra Leone and Nigeria - primarily among Muslims. 

An unexpected joy was to be a part of the WATS Missions Conference. This is a three day event with two services on Wednesday and Thursday and a concluding service on Friday. We sat under the anointed preaching of Rev Shodankeh Johnson of Sierra Leone - and his emphasis on Making Disciples who make Disciple Makers. We heard of story after story of God's movement in Africa - and of the literally thousands who are becoming followers of Jesus. (Not just believers but followers) And we heard from the WATS students of their summer missions trips to several areas of West Africa. 

I do not have the time to relate all that occurred on this trip. But below are a few pictures.

Thanks to all who prayed for me on this trip. It was perhaps the most impactful since that first trip nearly 6 years ago. I will share some of this in future posts. I am more keenly aware than ever before that we must be redeeming the time. We must continue to be OBEDIENT - RIVERS. The time is NOW.

RIVERS NOT RESERVOIRS
7982 Hillcrest Trail
Jonesboro, Georgia 30236

BLOG:     www.hisrivers.org
EMAIL:   his.rivers@gmail.com

As you read this post I have landed back home in Atlanta from 3 weeks in Nigeria at West Africa Theological Seminary. I will bring you an update in next weeks post, but for now - here is Part 3 of the article by Jay Link of Stewardship Ministries, entitled God Provides.... Part 3 "God Provides Enough for us to be Satisfied"    This is personally convicting !! - Mark

One of the most profound statements that John Piper has ever made, and it is imminently on point right here, is this, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” There will never be a time in our lives when we are more in perfect harmony with the heart and the mind of God than when we are totally satisfied with just Him and with what He chooses to provide to us – however much or however little that might be.

Let me drill down a bit deeper. How do you currently understand what Paul says in I Timothy 6:8, “If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.” Let me ask you, would you be satisfied if all you had was enough food for your next meal and the clothes on your back? Is this where your “contentment bar” is set? Probably not. Should we be concerned that our “contentment bar” is set at a substantially higher level than where Paul tells us it should be set?

Just two verses earlier in 6:6, Paul says, “godliness with contentment is great gain.” And remember, Jesus told His followers to “…be content with your wages” (Luke 3:14). This contentment message is everywhere! Let’s even go back to the Israelites, “Those who had gathered more didn’t have too much. Those who had gathered less didn’t have too little.” Everyone had enough. It seems that everything within us resists the idea of being satisfied with just enough, doesn’t it?

So, using Paul’s standard for contentment, how much is enough for you to be satisfied? And if that “enough” was all God wanted you to consume of all He has entrusted to you, would you both willing and glad to share all the surplus with others who don’t have enough – allowing you to become just another one of God’s conduits of provision to those who have a shortfall? Augustine articulates this idea so well, “Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need (enough); the remainder is needed by others.”

I think we are all faced with an inescapable choice here. We are either going to have to make some substantial changes in how we are currently living or we are going to have to ignore a preponderance of biblical teaching on how God wants to be in relationship with us.

Intellectually, I have decided to start making the needed changes in how I live and how much I consume to better align myself with what I am sharing with you. Emotionally and spiritually, I will openly confess, I am still trying to figure out how to do it in the midst of so much personal and national surplus. ( I echo this with a convicted heart - Mark)

What I do know is that God provides.  He will always provide me enough. And I need to learn to be satisfied with what He decides is enough for me to consume and then gladly and freely make the rest available for deployment at His discretion."   

To download a pdf version of the full article: Manna in the Wilderness - CLICK HERE

RIVERS NOT RESERVOIRS
7982 Hillcrest Trail
Jonesboro, Georgia 30236

BLOG:    www.hisrivers.org
EMAIL:  his.rivers@gmail.com

As you read this post I am in Nigeria at West Africa Theological Seminary. I hope to bring you updates of my work there, but in the meantime am posting Part 2 of the article by Jay Link of Stewardship Ministries, entitled "God Provides Enough."  Get ready, this is NOT just another simple read. - Mark

"All of us are quite familiar with the epic story of Israel’s 40 year wandering in the wilderness. Recently I reread this story – particularly noticing the part where God announces how He will feed His people. I find it quite fascinating that of all the unlimited ways that God could have chosen to feed His people, He opted for such an unusual way of doing it – manna.Here is the actual account:

This is what the Lord has commanded: Each of you should gather as much as you can eat. Take two quarts for each person in your tent. So that is what the Israelites did. Some gathered more, some less.  They measured it into two-quart containers. Those who had gathered more didn’t have too much. Those who had gathered less didn’t have too little. They gathered as much as they could eat. Then Moses said to them, ‘No one may keep any of it until morning.’  Exodus 16:16–19

As I pondered God’s miraculous and admittedly quite bizarre mealtime plan for His people, everything about it – and I mean everything – seems to fly squarely in the face of our well-accepted American version of Christianity. My conclusions were quite sobering. But even more sobering was contemplating how this might apply to how I steward the life and resources God has entrusted to me. Author: Jay Link, Stewardship Ministries

Not much has changed in human nature since the dawn of man. We are all prone to not know the answer to the question, “How much is enough?” Our stock American answer is routinely, “Just a little bit more.” And Israel was certainly no exception.  The more industrious and resourceful among them apparently saw God’s daily provision as a way of securing their future – a way to stock up.

After all, they must have reasoned, “What could be wrong with building up an emergency reserve of three to six months of food in the event God forgets or fails to continue to take care of us in the future?  I mean, wouldn’t that just be good stewardship?  Would it? Is this commonly promoted line of reasoning God’s way or is it just the American way we have erroneously inserted into God’s way? Interesting question, isn’t it?

Let me suggest that building emergency reserves or retirement stockpiles from God’s daily provisions to secure our future does not seem to be God’s way.  In fact, knowing the deceitfully wicked mind and heart of man (Jeremiah 17:9), God made it impossible for Israel to never depend on accumulated emergency reserves – knowing that doing so would only enable them to put their trust in their accumulated provisions instead of Him, their Provider. Moses reports in Exodus 16:20, “But some of them didn’t listen to Moses. They kept part of it until morning, and it was full of worms and smelled bad.” They simply could not save up any extra (except on Fridays when they could gather up enough for both Friday and Saturday – the Sabbath Day).  Beyond that two day supply, it was day to day provisions for 40 years.

I imagine that by now you have already begun doing the same thing I tried to do – attempting to rationalize this idea that “God might want me to live my life with no reserves, no surplus and no extras.” All I can say is, good luck!

In Proverbs 30:8-9 Agur affirms the spiritual danger of having a surplus. He says, “Give me neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is my portion, that I not be full and deny You and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ Or that I not be in want and steal, and profane the name of my God.” Agur’s point is quite obvious – give me just enough, because riches will tempt me to forget God and poverty will tempt me to break His laws and dishonor Him. Do you think this tidbit of wisdom might apply to us today?

The New Testament also reinforces this “no surplus” message. Remember when Jesus taught His disciples (at least some of whom were very well off financially) to pray. He told them to pray this way, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). This sounds an awful lot like a prayer that Israel might have been praying each morning, doesn’t it? Apparently, even after 1,500 years had passed, God was still wanting his people to be depending daily on Him as their Provider.

Think about it. This part of His model prayer makes no sense whatsoever, if we have months, years or even a lifetime of surplus resources stashed away for our personal use. Many of us have stored up enough surplus that we could say with a great sense of security, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry” (Luke 12:19). Before you take too much comfort in this verse, know that God later calls the man who said this, a “fool.”

Let me ask you a quite profound question, “What would be wrong with living a hand to mouth existence, if it was God’s hand to your mouth? It seems like this is exactly the situation God wants all of us to be in – depending on Him on a daily basis to give us enough – for that day. I think our greatest challenge is to determine, exactly how do we live this way in the midst of so much excess? And if we do have a surplus, how do we prevent it from hindering our desire and ability to depend on God to take care of us on a daily basis? These are questions that we all need to honestly wrestle with.

llow me to share with you the second simple, yet profound insight this story reveals in how God wants to be in relationship with His people.

So, let me ask you, do you really believe that 
God will always provide you enough?


To read the Full Article, CLICK HERE

Next week, Part 3

RIVERS NOT RESERVOIRS
7982 Hillcrest Trail
Jonesboro, Georgia 30236

BLOG:    www.hisrivers.org
EMAIL:  his.rivers@gmail.com

Over the next three weeks I will once again be in Nigeria at West Africa Theological Seminary. As I am able I will bring you updates from the work there. However, the regular postings will again come from Jay Link at Stewardship Ministries. This recent article (in three parts) is really powerful. My prayer is that it will impact you in the same way it has me.  Mark

"All of us are quite familiar with the epic story of Israel’s 40 year wandering in the wilderness. Recently I reread this story – particularly noticing the part where God announces how He will feed His people. I find it quite fascinating that of all the unlimited ways that God could have chosen to feed His people, He opted for such an unusual way of doing it – manna.  Here is the actual account:

As I pondered God’s miraculous and admittedly quite bizarre mealtime plan for His people, everything about it – and I mean everything – seems to fly squarely in the face of our well-accepted American version of Christianity. My conclusions were quite sobering. But even more sobering was contemplating how this might apply to how I steward the life and resources God has entrusted to me.

Allow me to share with you the three simple, yet profound insights this story reveals in how God wants to be in relationship with His people. The first is:

Intellectually, we will openly acknowledge that God provides. However, far too often I fear we find ourselves casually acknowledging that God provides while we sit around with everything we think we need right at our fingertips. 

However, if and when a time comes when we find ourselves running low or even worse running out of our provisions or we find our income “well” has suddenly stopped flowing, we can almost immediately find ourselves feeling anxious, stressed, worried and fearful about what is going to happen to us if we actually do run out?

I fear many of us may have unconsciously bought into the same lie my father repeatedly voiced to me growing up – that being, “God takes care of those who take care of themselves.” (Imagine my shock when I finally realized God never said this, Aesop did.) This oft repeated axiom couldn’t be further from the truth. But, tragically, for many of us, it has become our practical theology on life and provisions.

We functionally believe it is first and foremost up to us to make our way in the world. And if and when we can’t make it happen on our own, then (and often only then) will we look to God for a backup plan. This certainly was not God’s model for Israel in the wilderness. Nor does it fit the teaching of the New Testament. For the Israelites, God faithfully provided their food each day. All they had to do was just go out and pick it up.

Both Luke 12:22 and Matthew 6:25, the two great “do not worry” passages, reinforce this very same message. God will provide for you. You just seek Him and His Kingdom and He will take care of you. Peter further reinforces this security thinking in I Peter 5:7 when he reminds us, “Turn all your anxiety over to God because He cares for you.”

I think all of us would love to personally experience a miracle from God in our lives. The problem is none of us wants to be in a position to ever need one!  God chose to put the children of Israel into a continual position to need and see one on a daily basis. Might this story give us insight into the position God wants to be in with all His people for all time – daily looking to Him to sustain their lives? Why do we so quickly and easily fail to trust God to lovingly and consistently provide for our needs?"  

To Download the Full Article: Click Here

RIVERS NOT RESERVOIRS
7982 Hillcrest Trail
Jonesboro, Georgia 30236

BLOG:    www.hisrivers.org
EMAIL:  his.rivers@gmail.com

I recently have been terribly burdened for one of my family members. In anguish I have cried out to the Lord, "Not even knowing what or how to pray". I have taken comfort from His promise that - 'even when we don't know what to pray, the Holy Spirit makes intercession on our behalf to the father'. Then my wife forwarded an article/devotional that 'turned on some lights'.  It is entitled: Prayer: Love the one who is with you, by Judah Smith.  I pass it on to you in hopes that it will encourage you as it has me. - Mark

'The One You Love'
by Judah Smith

"In John 11, we find a moving story about three siblings: Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. Most scholars believe Martha was the oldest sibling, Mary was the middle, and Lazarus was the little brother. Interestingly, Lazarus was never recorded as saying one word in Scripture. Apparently his big sisters said it all. Poor guy.

In this passage, Mary and Martha are in the heat of the moment. Their little brother’s life is on the line. The Bible puts it this way:

Now, a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. It was that Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore, the sisters sent to Him saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.” When Jesus heard that, He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Now, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. — John 11:1-5

Besides His disciples, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were perhaps Jesus’s best friends. Jesus loved them deeply.

The fact that Jesus had friends at all might surprise a few people who think He floated around two feet off the ground and only had time for healing people and preaching. He was a normal-looking and normal-acting guy. Except He healed the sick, raised the dead, and never sinned. And He was God. Minor details.

In this story, Lazarus is hours from death. He is on the doorstep of death. And Mary and Martha, true to form, are speaking on Lazarus’s behalf. They need to get God’s attention. They have one shot at convincing Jesus to come. They need to come up with their best argument, their most airtight appeal. So they write Jesus a note. It has to be a good one — their brother’s life depends on it.

It’s the heat of the moment, and they aren’t thinking about being polite and courteous and wordy. What they really believe is about to be revealed. How are they going to appeal to Jesus? What will their plea be?

Now, if we were Lazarus’s siblings, a lot of us would have started out by listing all the good things Lazarus had done. We would have talked about how much he loved and admired Jesus and how he was a model citizen who didn’t deserve to die.

Not Mary and Martha. They knew what moved Jesus.

'Lord, the one that You love is sick.'

The message Mary and Martha sent was a plea, a prayer. And notice the basis of their prayer: “the one You love.”

You can find out a lot about what you really believe when you listen to yourself pray, when you listen to what you say in the heat of the moment. How many times have I prayed prayers like this:

Oh, God, I need help. I’m faithful. I help people. I’m generous. I’m holy. I read my Bible. And I’m praying really, really loudly, with big words and Bible verses and lots of praise. So come, Lord, and help me with my need.

In other words, “Lord, based on what I’ve done, now please do...” We think that moves God. No, what moves God is His Son.

What moves God is His love.

One of the most famous love poems of all time, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 43, starts out: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”

Don’t count the ways you love God; count the ways He loves you. Your love pales in comparison to His.

So when you pray, pray like Mary and Martha: “Jesus, the one You love needs You.”

I was tired the other afternoon, for instance. Maybe not a big deal, but I had some things I had to accomplish that evening, and I really needed strength. So, I got alone for a few minutes, and I said, “Lord, the one You love is tired. Give me energy.”

It was such a refreshing, healthy way to pray. It was incredible. I started thinking, Whoa. That was crazy. That felt good.

He’s moved by His love. Remind Him of His love for you"

Lord, all I know to pray is this...    '_________'   the one you love NEEDS you right now!

RIVERS NOT RESERVOIRS
7982 Hillcrest Trail
Jonesboro, Georgia 30236

BLOG:     www.hisrivers.org
EMAIL:   his.rivers@gmail.com

"We live in a performance based culture and the American church all too often operates the same way. The success of the church is measured by counting - counting the attendance, counting the offering, counting the conversions, etc. But may I suggest that not only is this not a true measure of performance for God's Kingdom, it may actually make God angry." - Jay Link

(Over the past three postings I have shared Jay Link’s article: “When our counting is wrong”. Jay concludes his article with the following key question.)

"Do you want to avoid wrong counting? Remember these three powerful truths. 

1. Our God owns it all. So, there is nothing for us to count.
   
2. Our security is in our Provider and not in our provisions.
3. Our success is measured by who we become and not what we achieve. 

If we fully embrace these three immutable truths, we will never find ourselves even tempted to count. We will instead find ourselves feeling content, secure and very much at peace. Sounds like the way God intended for us to live, doesn’t it? 

Recently I became painfully aware of just how guilty I, myself, have been of this kind of “success counting”. I am continually counting how many people visit my website each day. I count how many people are following me on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. I watch to see how many people actually read my newsletters. I keep count of how many of our studies we sell. And when the numbers were going up, my sense of success and well-being go up with them. And when for whatever the reason the numbers were going down, I would find myself emotionally going down with them. 

I had inadvertently fallen prey to one of Satan’s greatest lies in our culture – that being “success in life is best measured by counting.” 

I was recently visiting with a young man who was telling me about a couple of his friends whom he thought had become really successful. When I quizzed him on how he determined their success, he gushed, “You should see the cars they drive!” Listen, if we try to measure our success in life by how big, how much, how new, how expensive, or how plush, our counting is always going to be wrong.

True life-success cannot be counted using numbers. As the old saying goes, “You don’t want to spend your life climbing the ladder of success only to realize that once you finally reach the top that it is leaning against the wrong wall.” When David tried to count his success, many people besides himself suffered great loss because of it. The same can be true for us if we try to count our success in the same way. How many countless marriages have failed, children have been lost, friendships ended, health sacrificed, and moral failures have resulted because people were obsessed with counting what was not a legitimate measure of success. " - Jay Link

RIVERS NOT RESERVOIRS
7982 Hillcrest Trail
Jonesboro, Georgia 30236

BLOG:    www.hisrivers.org
EMAIL:  his.rivers@gmail.com

"We live in a performance based culture and the American church all too often operates the same way. The success of the church is measured by counting - counting the attendance, counting the offering, counting the conversions, etc. But may I suggest that not only is this not a true measure of performance for God's Kingdom, it may actually make God angry." - Jay Link

Joab, as the commander of all of David’s military forces, also recognized in David’s order to count the men that he was looking for increased security as Israel’s king – seeking to put his trust more in the size of his army than in the size of his God. Joab exposed this very motive when he asked David, “May the Lord your God multiply the troops a hundred times over, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king want to do such a thing?” As one commentator said, “The spirit of vainglory in numbers had taken possession of the king…to trust in numbers and forget God.” 

So, what can we learn from this great counting tragedy? I think the lesson for us is quite profound.

I have two friends, both happen to have had retirement plans that were about the same size. My one friend constantly watched his account, running projections to determine if he had set aside enough to maintain a comparable lifestyle when he gets to 65 and retires. He always knows very closely the current balance. 

It was fascinating to watch how he handled his plummeting account when the market most recently crashed and how troubled he was watching his funds evaporating before his very eyes. Now that the account balance has come back, he is again much more relaxed, feeling secure he is again going to be able to “make it” with what he has accumulated. 

My other friend saw his retirement account as a stumbling block to him fully trusting in Christ for his and his family’s future. He found himself placing his security in the “things of earth” and not in the Provider of those good things. So, in response to this spiritual self-realization, this friend chose to liquidate his retirement account and give all the money away, so he could be better positioned to learn to trust God for his and his family’s future – looking first to Him for their “daily bread.

”In an earthly economy, my latter friend was just plain foolish. But in God’s economy, I would suggest he might have actually been the wiser of the two. He had learned that the less he had to count, the less he had to worry about losing and the more he needed to trust in God and not in mammon (riches). 

Many seek financial independence so they won’t be forced to depend on God. Those seeking financial freedom, on the other hand, are seeking freedom from finding security in their material things. Think about it. Is your planning motivation financial independence or financial freedom? 

David counted his men to gain a greater sense of self-security. We can easily find ourselves counting our “stuff” for the very same reason. And when we are motivated to count in order to gain a greater sense of self-security, our counting will be wrong."

RIVERS NOT RESERVOIRS
7982 Hillcrest Trail
Jonesboro, Georgia 30236
404.784.4618

BLOG:    www.hisrivers.org
EMAIL:  his.rivers@gmail.com

"We live in a performance based culture and the American church all too often operates the same way. The success of the church is measured by counting - counting the attendance, counting the offering, counting the conversions, etc. But may I suggest that not only is this not a true measure of performance for God's Kingdom, it may actually make God angry." - Jay Link

Over the next three postings I will be sharing a great article from Jay Link entitled: 
"When Counting is Wrong." 
If you want to download the full article you can do so at: Download pdf article.

TODAY - PART 1

"Even though King David was a man after God’s own heart, his life was riddled with periods of lack of self-control and deeply flawed judgments. One of the lesser known examples of his poor judgment is found in II Samuel 24 and I Chronicles 21. Recently, the Lord brought this story to my mind and how I and so many other believers still make the very same mistakes that David did. Let me tell you the story. 

David was undoubtedly the greatest king who ever reigned in Israel. His exploits before and during his reign are legendary. Towards the end of his reign, Satan appeals to David’s pride enticing him to take a census to find out how many able-bodied men he has available for his army. In demanding this count, David demonstrates three prideful mistakes that cause both David and Israel to endure a terrible tragedy.

Numbering Israel was a precarious business. Exodus 30:12 emphasizes that God is the owner of Israel, not any king or prophet. In ancient times a man had every right to count what belonged to him. But Israel belonged to God and if God wanted His army counted, it would have been His prerogative to order it, not David’s – who only served as steward-king of God’s people. As soon as David commanded Joab to count what did not belong to him, Joab and all the top military commanders immediately recognized this order for what it was - a dangerous mistake. In fact, Joab strongly objects and boldly confronts David by asking, “Why should (you) be a cause of guilt to Israel?” 

So, what can we learn from this great counting tragedy? I think the lesson for us is quite profound. 

Even though David wrote Psalm 24:1, “The earth is the Lord’s and all it contains. The world and all those who dwell in it,” he must have forgotten his own declaration and at some point began seeing himself as the owner of Israel and the one who had the right to count what he owned. You might question, “Wait, isn’t a careful accounting of our possessions just good stewardship?” Yes, on the one hand, it is. Solomon even tells us to, “know well the condition of your flocks and pay attention to your herds” (Proverbs 27:23). But on the other hand, if our counting is motivated by the “pride of ownership” and not by a humble accounting of God’s property, our counting, like David’s, will be wrong. 

I think we would all agree that there is a huge emotional and psychological difference between how an owner looks at his own, personal balance sheet and how his accountant looks at the very same balance sheet. And it was this ownership attitude that did David in and will do us in as well. 

This single issue of ownership is the central demand of the gospel. Are we willing to surrender everything – give it all up – return back to the rightful Owner everything we have wrongfully confiscated and claimed to be our own? When we do find ourselves tempted to count what we own, we must remember, it doesn’t take very long to count nothing! 

Do you count your stuff as the owner or as His steward? 

RIVERS NOT RESERVOIRS
7982 Hillcrest Trail
Jonesboro, Georgia 30236
404.784.4618

BLOG:    www.hisrivers.org
EMAIL:  his.rivers@gmail.com

This is the last of three postings of an article by Phillip Yancey entitled The New Mathematics of Grace, as excerpted from his book, What's so Amazing about Grace?

The first two parts looked at four parables - one each from the four Gospels and how Grace cannot be viewed from a literal or mathematics mindset. 

Today - The 3rd and final article from Phillip Yancey.

By my reckoning Judas and Peter stand out as the most mathematical of the disciples. Judas must have shown some facility with numbers or the others would not have elected him treasurer. Peter was a stickler for detail, always trying to pin down Jesus’ precise meaning. Also, the Gospels record that when Jesus engineered a miraculous catch of fish, Peter hauled in 153 big ones. Who but a mathematician would have bothered to count the squirming pile?

It was altogether in character, then, for the scrupulous apostle Peter to pursue some mathematical formula of grace. “How many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me?” he asked Jesus. “Up to seven times?” Peter was erring on the side of magnanimity, for the rabbis in his day had suggested three as the maximum number of times one might be expected to forgive.

“Not seven times, but seventy-seven times,” replied Jesus in a flash.

Some manuscripts have “seventy times seven,” but it hardly matters whether Jesus said 77 or 490: forgiveness, he implied, is not the kind of thing you count on an abacus.

Peter’s question prompted another of Jesus’ trenchant stories, about a servant who has somehow piled up a debt of several million dollars. The fact that realistically no servant could accumulate a debt so huge underscores Jesus’ point: confiscating the man’s family, children, and all his property would not make a dent in repaying the debt. It is unforgivable. Nevertheless the king, touched with pity, abruptly cancels the debt and lets the servant off scot-free.

Suddenly, the plot twists. The servant who has just been forgiven seizes a colleague who owes him a few dollars and begins to choke him. “Pay back what you owe me!” he demands, and throws the man into jail.  In a word, the greedy servant is an ingrate.

Why Jesus draws the parable with such exaggerated strokes comes clear when he reveals that the king represents God. This above all should determine our attitude toward others: a humble awareness that God has already forgiven us a debt so mountainous that beside it any person’s wrongs against us shrink to the size of anthills. How can we not forgive each other in light of all God has forgiven us?

As C. S. Lewis put it, “To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”

The more I reflect on Jesus’ parables, the more tempted I am to reclaim the word “atrocious” to describe the mathematics of the gospel.

I believe Jesus gave us these stories about grace in order to call us to step completely outside our tit-for-tat world of ungrace and enter into God’s realm of infinite grace. As Miroslav Volf puts it, “the economy of undeserved grace has primacy over the economy of moral deserts.”

From nursery school onward we are taught how to succeed in the world of ungrace. The early bird gets the worm. No pain, no gain. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Demand your rights. Get what you pay for.

I know these rules well because I live by them. I work for what I earn; I like to win; I insist on my rights. I want people to get what they deserve — nothing more, nothing less.

Yet if I care to listen, I hear a loud whisper from the gospel that I did not get what I deserved. I deserved punishment and got forgiveness. I deserved wrath and got love. I deserved debtor’s prison and got instead a clean credit history. I deserved stern lectures and crawl-on-your-knees repentance; I got a banquet — Babette’s feast — spread for me.

RIVERS NOT RESERVOIRS
7982 Hillcrest Trail
Jonesboro, Georgia 30236

BLOG:    www.hisrivers.org
EMAIL:  his.rivers@gmail.com

Last weeks posting was the first of three on the subject of The New Mathematics of Grace - an article by Phillip Yancey, excerpted from his book What's So Amazing about Grace?

Last week he looked at 4 stories or parables - one from each of the four gospels. 1. The good Shepherd; 2. Mary pouring perfume on Jesus' feet; 3. The poor widow; and 4. The employer and his hired help.

This week in part 2, Yancey continues to examine the economic sense or nonsense of Grace.

“I recently attended Amadeus (Latin for “beloved of God”), a play that shows a composer in the eighteenth century seeking to understand the mind of God. The devout Antonio Salieri has the earnest desire, but not the aptitude, to create immortal music of praise. It infuriates him that God has instead lavished the greatest gift of musical genius ever known on an impish preadolescent named Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

While watching the performance, I realized I was seeing the flip side of a problem that had long troubled me. The play was posing the same question as the biblical book of Job, only inverted. The author of Job ponders why God would “punish” the most righteous man on the face of the earth; the author of Amadeus ponders why God would “reward” an undeserving brat. The problem of pain meets its match in the scandal of grace. A line from the play expresses the scandal:

“What use, after all, is man if not to teach God his lessons?”

Why would God choose Jacob the conniver over dutiful Esau? Why confer supernatural powers of strength on a delinquent named Samson? Why groom a runty shepherd boy, David, to be Israel’s king? And why bestow a sublime gift of wisdom on Solomon, the fruit of that king’s adulterous liaison? Indeed, in each of these Old Testament stories the scandal of grace rumbles under the surface until finally, in Jesus’ parables, it bursts forth in a dramatic upheaval to reshape the moral landscape.

Jesus’ parable of the workers and their grossly unfair paychecks confronts this scandal head-on. In a contemporary Jewish version of this story, the workers hired late in the afternoon work so hard that the employer, impressed, decides to award them a full day’s wages. Not so in Jesus’ version, which notes that the last crop of workers have been idly standing around in the marketplace, something only lazy, shiftless workers would do during harvest season. Moreover, these laggards do nothing to distinguish themselves, and the other workers are shocked by the pay they receive. What employer in his right mind would pay the same amount for one hour’s work as for twelve!

Grace is not about finishing last or first; it is about not counting.

We receive grace as a gift from God, not as something we toil to earn, a point that Jesus made clearly through the employer’s response:

Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?

Are you, Salieri, envious because I am so generous to Mozart? Are you, Saul, envious because I am so generous to David? Are you Pharisees envious because I open the gate to Gentiles so late in the game? That I honor the prayer of a tax collector above a Pharisee’s, that I accept a thief’s last-minute confession and welcome him to Paradise — does this arouse your envy? Do you begrudge my leaving the obedient flock to seek the stray or my serving a fatted calf to the no-good prodigal?

The employer in Jesus’ story did not cheat the full-day workers by paying everyone for one hour’s work instead of twelve. No, the full-day workers got what they were promised. Their discontent arose from the scandalous mathematics of grace. They could not accept that their employer had the right to do what he wanted with his money when it meant paying scoundrels twelve times what they deserved.

Significantly, many Christians who study this parable identify with the employees who put in a full day’s work, rather than the add-ons at the end of the day. We like to think of ourselves as responsible workers, and the employer’s strange behavior baffles us as it did the original hearers. We risk missing the story’s point: that God dispenses gifts, not wages. None of us gets paid according to merit, for none of us comes close to satisfying God’s requirements for a perfect life. If paid on the basis of fairness, we would all end up in hell.

In the words of Robert Farrar Capon, “If the world could have been saved by good bookkeeping, it would have been saved by Moses, not Jesus.”

Grace cannot be reduced to generally accepted accounting principles.

In the bottom-line realm of ungrace, some workers deserve more than others; 
in the realm of grace the word deserve does not even apply."

RIVERS NOT RESERVOIRS
7982 Hillcrest Trail
Jonesboro, Georgia 30236

BLOG:    www.hisrivers.org
EMAIL:  his.rivers@gmail.com