It’s the Money or Your Life ...But You Can’t Have Both.

Consumerism and materialism are leaving us restless and resentful.  Yeah, you too.  Author Philip Yancey said, “Many people in societies advanced in technology go about their daily lives assuming God does not exist.  They stop short at the world that can be reduced and analyzed, their ears sealed against rumors of another world.  As Tolstoy said, ‘materialists mistake what limits life for life itself.’”

I think it’s enlightening in an Age seemingly unable to look beyond itself— either to learn from the past or live in light of Eternity— to read the final thoughts in Mark’s account of Jesus’ ‘come to Me meeting’ with the rich young ruler.  Peter say’s to Jesus in 10:28, “We have left everything to follow you!”  To which Jesus replies, “I tell you the Truth, no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for Me and the Gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present Age ...and in the Age to Come, Eternal Life.  But many who are first [and believe they deserve to be] will be last, and the last [who believe they deserve to be also, will be] first,” vv. 29-31.

The cancer of consumerism is eating us alive.  So if consumerism has made you crazy and materialism left its angry mark, maybe it’s time to lift some of this burden and unload the unnecessary.  If you’ve got a car you don’t drive, a TV you don’t watch, a computer you don’t touch, or toys that take time, energy, and effort which could be put to better use elsewhere, somebody in the Body probably needs what you have.  If you don’t want to sell it, then give it away in grace.  Don’t let what you own in the end own you.  Because it will, if you don’t watch it.  If you don’t live with your eyes wide open, awake to the fact the world can take you out by your toys, they will do just that.  You may end up eliminating some things which are nice because you realize they’re unnecessary.  The truth is they may be standing like a silent wall between you and a deepening of your relationships, a strengthening of your marriage, an enhancement of your intimacy with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  And if so, they need to go.

What do we do?  We simplify, then simplify some more.  We clear away the clutter of all that is distracting us from desiring our King over all of Creation.  Soviet dissident and combatant of communism Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once wrote,

Do not pursue what is illusory.  All that is gained at the expense of your nerves decade after decade and is confiscated in the fell of night.  Live with the steady superiority over life.  Don’t be afraid of misfortune.  Do not yearn after happiness.  It is, after all, all the same.  The bitter doesn’t last forever.  And the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing.  It is enough if you don’t freeze in the cold.  And if thirst and hunger don’t claw at your insides, if your back isn’t broken, if your feet can walk and your arms can bend, if both eyes can see, if both ears hear, then whom… whom should you envy?

Whom indeed?  The haunting words of Henry Thoreau echo my belief in the Three Ds of the Cosmic System {distractions, deceptions, and destructions}: “Our life is frittered away by detail,” he wrote, “simplify, simplify.”  Amen.  May we begin this very moment, in the strength of the Spirit of God, to do this very thing.

HJC	Ric Webb  |  Shepherd Heart’s Journey Community 9621 Tall Timber Blvd. |  Little Rock, AR 72204 t +1.501.455.0296
hjcommunity.org
Heart’s Journey – Live Generously and Love Graciously

A Soul Surrendered.

When the Word of God says in the Gospels of Mark and Luke, Bartimaeus “came near” to our Lord, it’s in a rather remarkable way.  Mark 10:50 records in vivid detail, that “casting aside his cloak [His outer garment, which illustrates both the haste in which he did this... and his willingness to cast all his temporal security aside.], he jumped up [or, ‘leaping up’],” he “came [running] to Jesus.”  The blind were considered cursed and literally kicked out in the street in 1^st century Palestine.  So, in dropping his cloak Bartimaeus is dropping all his security to follow Jesus.  Ohhhh the lessons we could learn from the blind and the damned.

In Luke 18:41 Jesus lays before this blind beggar the one simple question he’s been waiting so long to hear, “What do you want Me to do for you?”  He responds in faith with two magnificent phrases: “Lord [recognizing the Deity of Jesus], Rabboni [From Mk. 10:51, this is an Aramaic term of immense respect meaning- ‘my great Master.’], I want to see, to regain my sight [NAS]!”

This phrase shows us the final purpose of all that has come before, literally, “that I may recover my sight, that I might see once again.”  What this tells us is Bartimaeus had been able to see at one time; he’d not always been blind.  Imagine what it must be like to have sight one day— clear, unhindered vision, unimpeded eyesight— and then not have it the next.

In v. 42 Jesus say’s to him, “receive your sight, your faith [in Me, as the Anointed One of God] has healed you.”  “Healed” is actually from the Greek verb sozo: the word used of both physical healing and spiritual salvation {so, we have both Time and Eternity in view here}.  Both these things, healing and deliverance from sin, darkness, and death, came to Bartimaeus in the day he trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ.  The perfect tense of sozo indicates both a permanent cure for his body and eternal security for his soul.

Notice what Bartimaeus did immediately upon regaining his sight.  He “began following Jesus, praising and glorifying God.  And when all the people saw it,” Luke say’s, “they also praised God,” v. 43.

The faith of this blind beggar, whom the crowd simply wanted to silence, caused everyone who witnessed the miracle of his salvation and recovery of his sight to rejoice in praise and glory to the God of Creation.  Jesus was Abba’s Man for the moment— in the right place at the right time— demonstrating the mercy of the Messiah to a lost and dying world.  As a result, Abba’s plan and purpose came to full execution because one Man, the God-Man, was yielded to the will of His Heavenly Father.  His was a soul surrendered.  The question we have to answer is, ‘Is ours the same?’

HJC	Ric Webb  |  Shepherd Heart’s Journey Community 9621 Tall Timber Blvd. |  Little Rock, AR 72204 t +1.501.455.0296
hjcommunity.org
Heart’s Journey – Live Generously and Love Graciously

A Crowd Wandering In the Dark.

In the Narrative of Jesus and blind Bartimaeus, Luke tells us it was the crowd in front, those leading the way, who reproved Bartimaeus for calling out to the Son of God.  They were ‘rebuking him, censuring him,’ telling him, in effect, to “become silent.”  This man’s insistence was an unwelcome intrusion, just like the children earlier in the ch. {18:15-17}.  The lesson?  When you disturb the religious crowd, they’ll do everything they can to shout you down and shut you up.  Unfortunately, I can tell you this one from experience.  As you can see from our context, this did little to dissuade him from his objective.  In truth, it only increased his sense of desperation to be seen and heard by the King of Israel.

Notice how in v. 40 when Jesus heard Bartimaeus’ desperate cries, He came to a “standstill.”  Luke say’s He “commanded”— a very strong word meaning- ‘incite, order’— those who rebuked Bartimaeus to in Mark’s words, “call him at once,” to “bring him to Me.”  At once their words turn from hostility to kindness, from severe to sympathetic— “courage, rise, He calls you.”  There are no wasted words in the Greek; it’s just as a crowd would speak.

This is a side note, but one worth mentioning, especially in light of our nation’s present fondness for marching, protesting, and mobs.  A crowd, what might more accurately be termed a ‘mob,’ has no ability to think, to reason, to process what is happening within and around it.  A mob has only the ability to emote, to react, to ‘run with rest of the herd.’  You tracking?  That’s why a decidedly ‘non-violent protest’ can turn violent with the flick of a switch.  True democracies, like 5th century Athens, were mob rules, swayed this way and that by skilled orators and mass manipulators, i.e., tyrants and petty kings who hold power over the people.  They are some of the worst forms of government man has ever devised.  Everything, every last detail of life, winds up subject to the whims of, ‘How does the mob feel today?’

Now imagine yourself in the place of Bartimaeus.  Since the day you lost your sight you’ve struggled and strained to remember the gorgeous colors of Palestine: the wheat fields in harvest, shimmering in the golden Sun; the ripe red grapes just before the wine is pressed; the colors of a desert Sunset as it sinks slowly behind the eastern mountains of Moab and Ammon.  You know, all too well, the stories of how the crystal-white marble covering the dome of Herod’s Temple makes it appear from a distance as a snow covered mountain, about the midnight blue waters of the Mediterranean, dark and deep.  But you haven’t actually seen them, haven’t experienced the grand sight of them for yourself in soooooo many years.

Then one day as you’re begging for alms by the side of the road you hear a great commotion and a crowd begins to stir.  “What is it?,” you ask, “what is it?”  It is Him.  It is the Messiah— the One the prophets predicted, the One the Scriptures speak of— the Son of David is here!  You’ve listened to the Scriptures read of the Redeemer who was promised from the beginning of Time.  You know this is the One who came as Isaiah said, to “strengthen the feeble hands” and “steady the knees that give way,” to “say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come …He will come to save you.”  In the time of His appearance to the nation of Israel it was said, “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped.  Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue will shout for joy...,” Isaiah 35:3, 5-6b.  “The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is upon Me [Jesus the Messiah], because the LORD has anointed Me to proclaim Good News to the poor and oppressed.  He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor...,” Isaiah 61:1-2a.

Amen and amen.

HJC	Ric Webb  |  Shepherd Heart’s Journey Community 9621 Tall Timber Blvd. |  Little Rock, AR 72204 t +1.501.455.0296
hjcommunity.org
Heart’s Journey – Live Generously and Love Graciously

When the Soul Recognizes a True Solution.

Let’s start with a fundamental fact of reality.  Passion for God, a desire for Truth, the search for holiness, will always reach out in spiritual hunger.  I.e., it will manifest itself in some form or fashion.  It does not remain dormant; it can’t just sit back, wait, and see what might happen.  No... it hungers, it desires, it pursues.  And it finds what it seeks, because ultimately it discovers God has never stopped pursuing us!

You can see this in Luke’s Gospel, in the narrative of Jesus and His healing of blind “Bartimaeus” {Mk. 10:46} in 18:35-43.  In v. 36 the tense of the phrase “he asked what was happening” literally says, he “kept on repeatedly inquiring, ‘What is it? What is it?,’” as he heard the commotion of the crowd going by.  You see my point?  His inquiry is answered in v. 37 as the crowd tells him Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.  The parallel of Luke 18:38 is Mark 10:47, which say’s as soon as Bartimaeus heard this he began to “cry out”— to shout over and over— “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  “Son of David” is a Messianic title, and it reveals how Bartimaeus recognized Jesus as the Messiah.  And he did it through the eyes of faith.

Now, consider the faith of this hungry, worn out, bedraggled beggar contrasted with the words of John the Baptizer, Jesus’ very own cousin, in Matthew 11:2-6.  In this section Matthew say’s, “When John heard in prison what Messiah was doing, he sent his disciples to ask Him, ‘Are You the One who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”  This is from the mouth of the same man who said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” {Jn 1:29}; and in John 1:34, “I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God.”

What happened between the time of John’s powerful ministry in the wildlands of Judea and his present moment of doubt and despair?  The man who used to roam free in the desert and mountains is confined to four small, ever-shrinking walls.  In the midst of these walls, he has relinquished his focus, taken his eyes off the only One who could bring him peace, stability, and strength.  Jesus, His Messiah and His King, had done nothing to free him from these chains— He’d organized no jailbreak, torn down no walls, burned no prison doors, nothing!  What kind of deliverance was this, anyway?  You see, John had been placed by God in a position where he was utterly helpless, a point at which Abba say’s to us, “My Child, there is a greater plan at work here, a higher purpose which you will never comprehend and never understand until you orient to it in faith and humility with these words— ‘Father, Your will be done!’”

“Jesus replied, ‘Go back and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the Good News [‘the Glorious News of Grace’] is preached to the poor.”  What Jesus says essentially is, “Everything which has been prophesied concerning Me and the purpose for which I was sent is working out exactly according to plan.”  He goes on to say in v. 6, “Blessed is the man or woman who does not fall away on account of Me.”  The problem here is Jesus wasn’t working quite as fast as John would’ve liked, nor in the method and manner John had expected.  Sound familiar?  “Blessed are those who keep from stumbling and staggering their way out of the will of God over Me” {RRExp}.

When the soul of Man recognizes a true solution, it turns its faith in that direction.  And there it is: the difference in spiritual hunger and spiritual apathy, in deep desire and comfortable complacency, in passion for Truth, for righteousness, for reality, and the sort of listless dissatisfaction which pervades post-modern Christianity— listlessness with the fact that God’s not doing what I want.  Well, maybe, just maybe it’s because what you want is not what you need.  And Abba loves you too much to give you what would destroy you.  Ever considered this?  May I suggest, as kindly as I know how, “You might want to give it a try.”

HJC	Ric Webb  |  Shepherd Heart’s Journey Community 9621 Tall Timber Blvd. |  Little Rock, AR 72204 t +1.501.455.0296
hjcommunity.org
Heart’s Journey – Live Generously and Love Graciously

A Community of Christ’s Followers.

Charles Spurgeon once said, “I believe a very large majority of churchgoers are merely unthinking, slumbering worshipers of an unknown God.”  This was in the middle of the 19^th century.  Can you imagine what he might say to us today?  I often wonder about believers who have to have a ‘label’ just to live.  “We’re a doctrinal church, we’re a Baptist church, we’re Anglican or Methodist, charismatic or Pentecostal,” even the ever-elusive ‘independent.’  What is that?  What happened to simply being the Church in all of this: a Body of Believers gathered out of love for the Lord and a deep desire to walk as One in Him?  Seems to have gotten shuffled somewhere off to the side; maybe it’s no longer even a part of our motivation.  We seem to have gotten more and more focused on how we worship verses what the Word says, how we ‘do church,’ on our version of spirituality or our brand of Christianity, rather than loyalty to Jesus Christ alone.  There’s a major problem with this mentality, don’t you think?

Whether you realize it or not, whether you agreed with it at the time or not, we shed our label{s} at HJC years ago.  And we’re not interested in picking up any more.  We’re not looking to be a _____ church of any kind, but rather to exist in the time we have left to us as a Community of Christ’s Followers deeply committed to living by faith in the power of the Risen Jesus, being known by the Love that flows from Him to us, offering hope through Him to the hurting among us and healing by His Spirit to the broken of this world.

On a personal level, I refuse to be bound by religious labels of any kind, and I choose to live my life in the full glory of G.R.A.C.E {God’s Riches, God’s Resources, God’s Righteousness At Christ’s Expense}.  My challenge is for each of you to do the same, and to follow not in my footsteps but in the footsteps of the Master— the one Man among us who could not be manipulated by the masses.  Do you want the Jesus who leads us to Freedom and Life, or the Capitalist Christ of comfort and complacency: the god who’s only interested in giving you what you want and not what you truly need?  He’s a false god, this Jesus of our own making, but you can certainly worship him if you choose.  They’re both out there, you know, just waiting to be wanted: the Living Christ ablaze with the glory of God and the 21^st century ‘savior’ of free-market spirituality.  The one who tells us, “Just pick and choose what you want from the Path of Life, feel free to throw out anything which displeases or disinterests you.”  So, who’s it going to be: the Jesus of Reality and of His-Story or the Jesus of our own vain imaginations?  The beauty of it is: only you can decide.

HJC	Ric Webb  |  Shepherd Heart’s Journey Community 9621 Tall Timber Blvd. |  Little Rock, AR 72204 t +1.501.455.0296
hjcommunity.org
Heart’s Journey – Live Generously and Love Graciously