It's me, mike hillebrecht

Agendas. We’ve all got one, maybe even two. They are what give our life meaning, purpose, the drive to get out of bed every morning. Mine: To live grace thoroughly.
Now to some people that may seem like an easy thing to do. Looks are deceiving.
Consider: When was the last time that you were able to let people just be who they are?

Allow me to illustrate this from a couple of recent examples in my life. The other day I was completing my weekly task of grocery shopping. As I entered the store there was a rumbling running throughout the place centered upon a haggard looking mother and her four children. She was pushing a cart filled with more children then groceries, each whose mission it seemed to torment the other in more incessant ways. One of the children, a young girl, would scream every few minutes for no apparent reason other than to hear her shrill voice reverberate from the rafters. The other customers, myself included, obviously agitated by the ruckus, gave this family a wide berth through their meandering. Eventually, I became the sole person left in the presence of this unruly crowd in the back corner of the store. It was here that the peals of screams, were joined by the guttural shouts of a young boy crammed into the cart.

Shift now to the day prior. My wife, daughter and I were out to eat lunch at a new restaurant in town. After waiting almost an hour to be seated (yes, the line was that long), our server came and took our order. First appearances, particularly in the food service industry are critical. He was adorned with the standard company uniform, yet no one had apparently explained to him the importance of the “first twelve” rule – the first twelve inches your customer sees (your head), and the first twelve words you say. This young man who sported a trim hair-cut also donned a trim man-bun only it wasn’t a bun more than a spurt of hair waiting for the day it would graduate into a bun. Additionally, his lazy eye expression and speech made you wonder if someone really was at home in the shell before you. We took our time in conveying our order so not to confound him, if you catch my drift. During the meal, he dutifully returned to make assurance that our meal was satisfactory, which I expected. However, there were two instances when he did this right at the beginning of the meal. The second time was about three minutes after the prior event and from all appearances, it was as if he completely forgot that he had just been there.

Okay, these might seem like trivial matters, and honestly, they are, unless you’re trying to live grace. To bring a sense of context to these stories consider that at one time in my life I would not have put up with any of these things. I would have complained about the woman’s inability to control her children in a public place. I would have stressed my displeasure to the manager about how, after spending so long waiting for a seat, I’m bothered by a waiter who didn’t understand the craft of waiting.

Living grace breeds quiet trust. It lets people be who they are, warts and all. We’re all a hot mess at one time or another throughout the day. Some people catch us at our best, more often when we’re not. People, you and I, do the best with what we have and who we are in any given moment. When we expect results that our moments aren’t able to attain, stress is the internal achievement to an outward process gone haywire.

Yet, living in grace, there is a peace within that doesn’t need to be expressive. It brings an assurance that all truly is well regardless of the conditions swirling about you. When you operate from this platform, it causes others to experience it also. This is the reciprocity of grace I’ve spoken about previously.

Life is full of strange habits. We like to keep people from invading our preconceived expectations of them through rules and values we have created. Rules that say this is how you should act, what you should be in any given situation or even become to experience life with us. Rules are an agenda. You have one, just as I do. Mine might seem simple. Living grace breeds quiet trust. The acronym says it all. LGBQT. How do you live grace?

God is immoral. That is what a lot of people think but they don’t have the guts to admit it. It’s true. He is.

Morality, the notion that there is right and wrong in the social structure of humanity, is the fundamental building block of all human interaction. Laws, and the governing apparatus required to enforce those laws, stand as a testimony to the morality of our world. God doesn’t care.

We humans have a long history of seeking equality among people groups through layers of laws. Granted, it hasn’t been a very successful journey, but, day by day we attempt to move forward so that there is a better lifestyle for people today then yesterday. Whether it be on the front lines of race, gender, or sexual equality, we humans have been seriously striving to make everyone’s life equivalent to each other. Yet, God doesn’t care.

The Judeo-Christian principle of governance in this nation has been our guiding value to life and liberty. It has enabled us to keep offenders of our justice system separated from the society of law-abiding citizens. It has produced social labels that provide immediate identification to individuals who knowingly disregard the value of our legal system. From thief to pedophile, rapist to murderer, drug pusher to tax cheater, we have set a very high standard using these labels of what it takes to live and properly interact within our social construct. And yet, God still doesn’t care.

God is immoral simply because He doesn’t abide by our laws. He is amoral, outside of our laws. His grace is outside of our laws too. At no time did He ever consider our laws when He accomplished his act of saving all of humanity by His grace. He never asked for your opinion or support. He never once thought about how it would be greater for someone versus another. He applied it equally to all humanity throughout all the ages regardless of the labels we assigned to people. It is truly the only governing decree that makes everyone equal. Male, female, young, old, white, black, red, yellow, brown, heterosexual, LGBQT, murder, rapist, pedophile, drug dealer, banker, lawyer, waitress, janitor, president, congressman, senator, judge, military, civilian, rich or poor we’re all equal.

Many of you will have a difficult time believing that you’re equal to someone who has done something horrible, like a pedophile or murderer. Welcome to the immorality of grace. Your moral indignation to this statement is a witness to the importance you and the faith you place in the law to determine your worth rather than a single act of God to determine your worth. Hard to admit, I know, but admit it we all must. Failure to do so will mean a lifetime trying to live up to a standard that can, will, and has been altered by mankind only to find at the end how you’re no better off than you were before.

This is the very matter that tries the heart of the religious elite. “Greasy grace” has become their siren song for this truth. People can just do anything and get away with it and grace will cover it all. Yes, Virginia, that is true…with God, not with man. Cause and effect are not suspended in grace. Your still as stupid with grace as you are without it. The issue has never been what can you get away with but what has God done to bring us all back. It’s not greasy, it’s not easy, and it clearly is not cheap. It is immoral to the notions that we hold to what is right and wrong. But it applies to all, equally. Yes, Virginia, even you.

“We’re only having hamburgers.” Only. It was that one word which arrested the attention of William as he formed the ground beef into patties. Sure, he heard it uttered from his youngest son, Westley, as he directed his friend, Brian, through the house to the backyard to play catch until dinner was ready, but “only” was not a proper word to use in William’s thinking. There is heritage in these patties which this boy knows nothing about.

William’s grandfather and father had both been butchers. While William, or Billy boy, as they used to call him when he cleaned up the shop after school, never aspired to the honor of the trade, instead opting to head towards college and the professional life, he never forgot the family recipe for the best ground beef the neighborhood flocked to every week. Westley never witnessed the care that William took in selecting the choices cuts of chuck, brisket and short rib, embellished with just the right amount of marbling which cast a perfume of living on the open range when you smelled the searing meat on the grill. The care to grind the meat in their individual portions first before combining them together for a second course grind and the need to chill another day before passing through the final medium grind never entertained a thought in the mind of his boy child.

Heritage of this caliber had kept William’s household from the onslaught of fast food burger joints around the community much to the consternation it offered his offspring who pleaded to partake of the fare their peers enjoyed weekly, even sometimes daily. He stuck to his principles, having himself indulged for a brief period of time when he was working as a crew member in a concrete company during his college years. His daily intake of single and double cheese burgers, fries and ice cold cola while working on a particular project which lasted for over a month, across from a national burger chain, pushed his appetite clearly away from anything that would ever again resemble the notion of a manufactured meal.

Wrestling back the memory blitz of cardboard tasting burgers and stale business lectures of economies of scale, William offered the first patty to the flickering coals of the grill. The sound of searing meat sent a hush across the yard of juvenile delights. Transfixed by its sound, the boys sauntered over to the grill to pay homage to the male ritual of offering meat to the gods of appetite. Closing their eyes, tilting their heads back, deeply they inhaled the intoxicating aroma of the smoke which swirled about them as rendered fat dripped onto the white-hot embers, flashed into a small flame and sent smoke heavenward. “Oh man!” came the guttural cry of Westley and Brian frozen in a primordial trance of appreciation to their good fortune. “When can we eat?” Brian excitedly asked.

“In few minutes. You guys need to go get washed up,” William proudly responded as once again the heritage of family pierced the hollow shell of modern industry. Within moments the efforts of his destiny would rest between the comforts of a split bun, caressed by a slice of cheddar cut from a block, not one wrapped in plastic, slathered with ketchup, mustard and mayo, and adorned with pickles, tomatoes and lettuce. Eager hands would reverently lift the creation to mouths wide to the anticipation and at once feel the liquid explosion of juices trapped within the seared patty seeking to vacate its natural domain before the inevitable bite.
“This is the best burger I have ever had!” Brian mumbled around the chewing. “I’ve never tasted anything like it. How did you do it? My mom needs to know how to do this,” he excitedly exclaimed preparing to delve into another bite.

“It’s a family secret. Stick around enough and maybe you’ll pick it up,” William beamed with pride as he looked at Westley. “After all, it’s only a burger, right?”

In these days of pre-packaged sermons by slick franchised gospel purveyors, the taste of authentic grace, not chemically fortified to fit your anemic spiritual appetite, is what is most needed to lift you out of the malaise and drought of religiosity. You need a grace that bites you when you nibble at its corners, one that slaps you with sloppy kisses when you least expect it, and ultimately shakes you to your very core when it’s immoral nature bursts through your frustration. You need a grace that leaves you (yes leaves you, as in good-bye, adios) just so you know that what you’ve thought to be grace truly was just a mythical aberration of your creation. Then and only then will you experience the fullness of grace, not of your creation, your hopeful meanderings, your wishful thinking’s but His grace with a past rich in gratitude and reverential awe. Hopeful you’ll be able to distinguish the difference between the two. Then, and only then, will you be able to pass it along to another.

Low self-esteem is a direct result of a loss of identity, who you are, who you’ve always been. This claim sounds in many instances trite when viewed on a surface level. Regrettably, most of humanity functions on this level. There is however a higher plane, a deeper level which a select few chose to operate from. Yet notice the word “chose” for it truly is a choice consciously made to rise above.

Identity is not about what you do. You are not a worker-class person first. Your role in the commerce of a region is not who you are. IF it were, you would have been that from your birth. Your present wage-earner model is a result of decisions made to satisfy an economic demand you have encumbered yourself with. Your job pays the bills, period. Your bills are not who you are. People who don’t comprehend this live in the constant threat of losing their identity to marketplace fluctuations. Low demand for workers, reduced pay, layoffs, out sourcing are all seen as attacks on identity rather than changes in economics.

Every single person on this planet has as set of basic core needs that define who they are. Two of the main needs are love/connection, and significance. We are not independent individuals moving through life. We are dependent inter-dividuals trying to learn the dance of living. Each of us seeks to be loved, to give love and connect with others as a result. This interaction with others establishes our significance, or our self-worth. There is no worth or value being alone, isolated from people. People establish our worth/value, not us. An inflated ego is no different than low self-esteem simply because they are a result of our perceived over-comparison to other people influenced by our deficiency of love/connection.

So who are we; what is our true identity? The paradox is we are the same, yet different. As a child we thrived in the love and connection we were nurtured in. Much of this may have been a mystical experience which we never even realized we were taking part of. Many I have talked to speak of “God moments” as a child where they were closer to God than at any other time in their lives. They often speak of some type of veil which came between them and God which moved Him further away from them. You must consider that these people, as children, had made no profession of faith, adopted a doctrine of atonement or prayed for absolution of sins. These formalities came much later in life. However, prior to this moment where the veil appeared, they say that they felt at one with the Father.

Jesus made that his last prayer request for all of us. Being one with the Father, a child of God is our identity. Consider the passage which declares that God is love. The Creator, the supreme being of all that surrounds us is the one thing we all need and seek to possess. Love, not as an act or as a characteristic, but as a being, is the anchor of our identity as a child. This connects us to Him in ways we haven’t even begun to tap into. All of our significance rests in His love for us inter-dividually. We are all one with Him.

If your desire is to be more at one with God, my questions is just how do you expect that to happen? Do you think that praying more, reading your bible more, worshiping Him more is going to bring you closer? Are you trying to pull yourself up to Him of draw Him down to you? As weird as this might sound, do you think that your favorite pet experiences these same things with you? Do they feel compelled to become more dog-like or cat-like in order to experience your love? Do they read their pet manual to the Human Deity as a way of being closer to you? Do they wail and moan in adoration to receive attention and acceptance? Of course not. Why then do we? We’re obviously not God’s pets but we sometimes act really mule-headed out of traditions designed to “ushering the presence.”

If you’re experiencing a sense of detachment from God, you’re not as close as you were as a child, then maybe you need to go back to that place where the veil was placed between you two. Sit in the presence of the One who never left and pull back the veil of who you thought you have become to see who you’ve always been. Re-experience Love and connect with the divine nature of your significance within humanity’s dance. You are greatly loved and there is not a thing you can do to change it – ever.

What if I was to write or say something that was contrary to your beliefs and values. Would you feel compelled to respond? This is a social platform, right? Response is a requirement of its use, right? Is thought a social medium or a personal one? If I pose a challenging thought, is it social to respond that you’re thinking about it? What if the thought isn’t challenging enough, is a response required to affirm the static level of a competence? Is it possible to challenge a belief with rhetoric and see it change? Does a personal value change simply by attacking an assumed weakness? What if our greatest strength, silence, meant the end of a social forum designed to express opinion, would people prefer weakness instead? What if all forums of public opinion required the user to openly admit that the opinion being expressed had been approved and verified by three of their closest friends before it could be posted, would people care more about what they say? What if no one liked or responded to these questions, should I care less about you? If I care greatly about you, am I required to socially respond to those thoughts since silence appears to be disliked? Just some thoughts…

I have just finished reading a passage from the book Reading the Bible Again for the First Time by Marcus Borg, which dealt with the issue of the justice as represented in the books of the prophets. It seemed rather timely considering the events swirling around our nation these day. What follows is a paraphrased rendition of this passage followed by my thoughts.

When I mention the word “justice” to you, what do you imagine? Mr. Borg categorizes the term into three distinct forms: criminal; procedural; and social. One word, three separate, yet distinct, meanings offers us a great opportunity to create confusion and unrest.

Criminal justice is the manner that most of us are most familiar with. Our entire system of laws and the enforcement of those laws is what this form of justice represents. How a person is determined to be guilty of an offense, how that offense is to be compensated back to society, even how the laws are to be created and implemented are a form of this type of justice.

Procedural justice is an extension of criminal justice. It ensures that all laws work equally for all people regardless of race, creed, color, religion, or position of influence.

Social justice is insuring that the systems of any society, the manner in which people are able to function, move, work, play and worship within a community are balanced and fair.

Our nation was established under the mantel that all men (and that is a term I recognize will cause some people groups to protest claiming a gender-neutral term is required) are created equal. This means that justice, in its three forms, is afforded to all, everyone, everybody, not one exception. (If you proceed down the path of the “created” aspect, you will again offend another group, so I’m going to forego that for brevity sake.)

To a great extent, the mood of this nation by certain people groups is sharply focused on what I would call the social justice paradigm. They talk about it socially on every network they belong to or watch. There is a great unrest on the social consciousness of our people because they feel that the system is out of whack. It would appear that everyone has an opinion as to how the system should be made just and fair for all. That is the issue. All, as in liberty and justice for all.

Fear is not liberating. Inciting fear through rhetoric, spoken or written, is a right under the free speech amendment this country was founded under, and there are laws which insure this liberty, just as there are laws to define when this becomes a crime of hatred.

It would seem to me that the vast number of people who have an issue with the actions taken by our government in recent days are looking at the social justice of the matter while missing the other two forms of justice that was in operation. The matter of procedural justice had to be followed because a criminal justice statute was on the books. This matter wasn’t a last-ditch circumventing of procedures to create a new form of crime. The entire matter was already in place, decades ago, before some of the people complaining the loudest were even born.

What I find interesting in this whole matter is that people within the elected body of our nation, representative of our choosing, are either blatantly trying to persuade us they are intelligent regarding this matters or just plain ignorant. I opt for the latter. Their actions telegraph the fact that they haven’t a clue about the very laws they enact and are responsible for overseeing. They seem intent on making sure that the social justice of their actions remains true in turbulent times even if the criminal and procedural justice they created isn’t followed according to their own rules.

As I see it, the great legal mind that I am, the administration acted according to the law as it is written. Could it have been handled differently? It would seem that there are as many ways to handle it as there are protests. Did it cause social injustice? Seriously, there is not a time that it wouldn’t for those trying to enter the country. This is temporary though, and restrictions are a fact of life for immigrants. That is a part of the procedures they are required to follow. If they refuse to, they, according to the law, have committed a crime, and if found guilty, will be criminals. Justice for all, in this country, citizen or not. That is equality.

In case you didn’t notice, I took this entire subject and didn’t once mention a religious position. The reason is simple. This whole matter has never once been about what form of God you believe in. It has always been about where you’re coming from, not Who you come from. Nationality, not identity.

One word, three meanings. Which one do you feel got violated and are upset about?

I am of the age where I can recall the awe and wonder of listening to the radio for hours on end, music and local news, and of course, Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story program. I never bought into the television being a fad simply because I could hear more readily than the need to see. That makes me an auditory person, a fact that causes great dissension with my wife, a visual person, simply because I don’t need to see you, or even be in the same room, when you’re talking to me, like she does.
While a
picture may be worth a thousand words, a spoken word is worth a thousand pictures. We live in an age where a thousand pictures are bombarding us regularly all in an attempt to win a battle of the mind, our mind, to fulfill an agenda, deliver a late breaking report, soothe erectile dysfunction despite serious side effects, control or accelerate our appetite for food, wealth, clothing, cars or exotic vacations to far-away lands, or insure us that we are in good hands when chaos strikes. Turn the sound off and it becomes very evident that these pictures are smoke and mirrors which, in and of themselves, mean absolutely nothing. A word must accompany them to convey meaning, a word must give them descriptive value to promote a cause.

How many of you remember this little childhood ditty? Sticks and stone may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. We’re grown-ups now so let’s put this piece of BS where it belongs. Those damn words hurt us greatly, and for a lot longer than the battering we encountered with the sticks and stones. Our identity, in many instances, is attached to those words, words which have images attached to them, images which ravage our mind and cause doubt when belief is demanded.

Grandma use to tell me, “…if you can’t say anything nice about someone you shouldn’t say anything at all.” She never liked to watch the news for that very reason. Accusation, fault finding, bickering, resistance and slander are the stock and trade of news. Nice doesn’t sell.

An entire generation has grown up under the domain of publicized accusation. It has spawned an entirely new industry, a home-grown news empire known as social media. All of us are now given the air space to act like investigative reporters and provide late-breaking news to our community of sycophantic friends. My words matter, damn it; I don’t give a tweet what you think, or even if you do think for that matter. I have the right of free speech to say, or act, in any fashion that I want. This right also means I don’t have to tolerate anything you feel needs your response. I can piss into the wind and you cannot stop me – it is my right.

In a land and a time far, far away, an accusation, a slanderous intention had a name which anyone could employ. We don’t employ it as effectively today as they did then since we somehow have relegated it to the realm of mythology. But I’m all for bringing the name back into its rightful use. Back then, people could justify that they were inspired, stimulated or stirred to hurl accusations and resist the actions of another. Today, I see this festering, quivering mass of putrid, vile, dehumanizing form of public discourse overflowing the air waves and net waves. So, I think it’s time to resurrect the proper term for these antics.

Henceforth, if you want to verbally accost, criticize, disparage or revile someone for something you disagree with, your words, your dialogue, your actions shall be known as: the satan, or for a more modern interpretation: the devil.
That folks, is the rest of my story.

I had a discussion with a good friend the other day about a posting that I made on Facebook regarding faith. I was granted the opportunity to share what I wrote to my friend as my further response. But I think it might be best to include both postings that warranted this. Posting one is as follows:

Faith is for those who have doubts or are uncertain, not for those who believe or are assured. Abraham was a father of uncertainty a lot more than certainty. Hebrews 11 is a hallowed testimony to the unknown interactions of God rather than the certainty of how God will move. God never considers our certainty, our possibility as the norm for His actions. Impossibility, doubt, uncertainty are what please God. How? We have to be certain God exists in the things we can’t explain, except (or accept!) by seeing Him in them. We must rely on Him to give us the new words to understand and convey the indescribable. It is the unknown of God that is faith. That is certainty.

My follow up to this posting was this:

Consider this in light of my previous description of faith. Which would you call a faith-based church:

Scenario A: people assemble, sing pre-selected songs; listen to a message delivered by a person who has the exact message needed for everyone in attendance; prayer lines using crafted prayers to deliver congregants from health or poverty issues; people leave sated.

Scenario B: people assemble not certain what will transpire; sing songs spontaneously as the direction warrants; enter into a dialogue with each other about a topic pressing the group on that occasion, moderated by a different person every time; prayer extended as requested by members permitting the wording to be designed for the unique situation being confronted; people leave hungry.
Which is the description of your church? Where is your faith more welcomed?

My friend asked me to provide some additional thoughts on this faith issue and this is how I responded:

Faith is not for the believer, it is for those who have doubts.

In Paul’s letters, he often is trying to convey how it was the trust Jesus had in his relationship with the Father that enabled him to complete the mission which was before him. Often those who transcribed the narrative used the word “faith” to indicate these acts and motives. This however would mean that there were things that Jesus had doubts about, which is contrary to his claim that he only does those things he sees his Father do.

Consider the two concepts promoted the most from Paul’s writings are faith and righteousness – our faith in the righteousness of God which we have been given. My claim is that faith is an action conducted in the arena of uncertainty. We therefore are uncertain of our righteousness! Clearly not something we’ve been told, but experienced nevertheless.

Again, I’ll draw from Ester. Haman was in right-standing [righteous] with the king, yet Ester was in a relationship with the king. Paul’s efforts have been greatly diminished I believe because we have adopted a 15th century interpretation of a “trusting relationship” to be “faith in righteousness.”

Ask yourself, can a believer have doubts or uncertainty? We know that they can, however, the path to certainty is a bridge of faith founded on the trust of our relationship with the Father. Whatever failings occur on our journey across this bridge can never undo the trust we place in his oath that he will never leave us or forsake us.

Abram was called out his homeland to place he knew not. This is what faith looks like. He believed that God could raise the dead and it was accounted to him as righteousness. This is trusting in the relationship where what was promised would be fulfilled.

We must recognize there is a place for faith and trust. Our relationship is secure in Christ, no faith required, trust me. The path we believers take to fulfill our destined purpose is entirely a journey of faith. We have faith for abundance, healing, deliverance, and restoration simply because we aren’t certain how it will occur.

I think that the description, “the faithful few” is inaccurate. Far too many are uncertain and doubting more than ever. “The trusting few” may be more realistic. I’m finding more comfort in being faithful, experiencing uncertainty and doubts in their fullness. It challenges me to discover truth, which makes me believe and trust. Religion places too high a demand on certainty; denying people the opportunity to seek through questioning, to experience faith fully.

A question will always challenge a belief not anchored in trust. Consider the difficulty of trying to live by faith in your identity and purpose as a child of God. If any question confronts this faith, what happens? Trust is vital in this area, not faith. But if you’ve only been taught this comes by faith, then you never know, you never believe. You think, you try to feel but you’re not certain. You’re in faith. A sanctified form of mental hell.

I think that today most teachings are relaying the message of faith far more than how to trust God. Yes, it sells well to the sheep who don’t know any better. Regrettably, it also scatters the sheep just as fast when any question arises. The largest question all of face is how does 2,000-plus year old text relate to me today. If you’re going to sell this solely on the basis of faith, there will be no way to see people mature. Like the writer to Hebrews points out, people are still drinking the milk when they should be eating the meat.

Leader need to step away from the pulpit of easy sermonizing and plunge themselves into serious study which questions all your presuppositions and doctrinal structures. I’m not saying that you need to abandon everything. You need to accept the challenge a question brings. You’ll soon find out whether you have faith in the scriptures or trust them. Then you’ll know how to help your people mature.

But you must take care not to make them into faithless believers by removing the mystery with pat answers, something doctrine in notorious in accomplishing. Admit it when you don’t have an answer or better yet, when the answer you have always used just doesn’t seem to fit anymore. There is no law that says you must be certain at all times. Personally, I tend to stay away from people like that simply because they seem to want me to be just like them and I know that has never been the Father’s intention for me.

So to bring this to a close today, embrace uncertainty just like you embrace trust. Learn to know the difference. If your bible says “faith” determine to understand whether the writer means “trust due to relationship” or the unknown, the foggy, the shadowy path heading to trust. Because everybody has faith for something, but few can trust someone, even God.

There is no denying that everyone seeks power in some degree somewhere. Whether it is the capacity to determine if you stay up until 7:30 pm or the reins to the nations, children of all ages want the right to exert their power. If you say you don’t want it then you’re living in deception, sugar. Power means freedom. Power means prestige. Power means affluence. Power means you never need to take crap from anyone anymore. Right?

Much of the religious community has adopted some form of the philosophy of dominionism, relying on a particular reading of the Genesis narrative where God give dominion to Adam over all the animals and plants of the world, coupled with messianic fulfillment of Jesus’ launch of the kingdom of God upon the earth. These people believe that they are commissioned to go and take authority of their territory, which includes their town, their schools, workplace, marketplace and any place that their blessed little feet touch. As long as it’s God and them, they hold the majority. Real power.

Everyone knows that money is true power. In a capitalistic economy like ours, money speaks. Everything has a price and if you want something, a price has to be paid. This is what an economy of exchange expects. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. This is how power is secured. The trouble with this thinking today is that it is outdated. Our currency, our money is fiat money. Slips of paper that our government has declared to be legal tender for one thing: debt. Don’t believe me? Go look at any bill you have and read what it says. If money is true power, debt is true power in our economy – he who holds the debt has the power.

Warning: I’m about to intentionally step on all toes.

What if the miracle, wonder-working power that every believer thinks they’re operating under in their grab for dominion wasn’t what we thought it was? What if the power of the kingdom of God wasn’t ruling over territories and its people? What if the miracle power we’re seeking already resides in us but we’re unwilling to use it because the personal cost is too much?

Consider the following: In the book of Acts, Jesus, before ascending, tells the disciples to go to Jerusalem and wait until they receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon them. In the fourth gospel, the writer tells us that Jesus appears to the disciples who are hiding after the crucifixion. Jesus breaths on them and says, “receive the Holy Spirit.” Did they receive it or not? The book of Acts would kinda make you think they didn’t…unless they aren’t the same disciples, which is for another time. What I want you to look at is what Jesus says to the disciples after he breaths on them.

Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said unto them, Receive you the Holy Ghost: Whose so ever sins you remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose so ever sins you retain, they are retained. (Joh 20:21-23)

So, they receive the Holy Ghost and then Jesus tells them that THEY now have the right to remit or retain sins. Now this term remit is foreign to a lot of people, so let me put it in a context that everyone will identify with. Remember how the disciples asked Jesus to show them how to pray? One of the lines he said was, “…Forgive us our debts and we forgive our debtors.” The word “forgive” here is the same word as “remit” in the other passage. Jesus tells them whatever sins you forgive are forgiven. I submit to you that this is the power, the miracle working, dynamic power we are endued with by the Holy Ghost. Furthermore, I submit that this power to forgive, is a power no one wants. Stew on that for a moment.

Look around your life for just a moment. Why would anyone want to forgive anyone? This isn’t a matter of declaring someone right or wrong, it’s about forgiving them for any, or all the pain, physical, emotional, and mental suffering you’ve endured, yes, endured for weeks, months, and years. Why should anyone be released of this debt they have exacted from you? Where is your restitution, your pound of flesh, your rights, your privileges, your honor, your self-worth?

No one knows the shame you’ve suffered, the guilt you’ve buried deep down, so far down it only comes out in eating binges or weekend drunks that last five days. Don’t tell me I need to forgive that S.O.B. who stole my innocence; who shattered my hopes, my desires, my dreams; who made me hate myself and those who remind me of who I use to be before…

I have no authority to tell you to forgive someone who is egotistical, homophobic, racist; misogynist, opinionated, arrogant, divisive, belligerent, maniacal, the sort of scum that shouldn’t have any influence in this world.

But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.
(Mar 11:26)

Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. (Luk 23:34)

There is a power we are all seeking. None want this power I’m talking about simply because we can’t see giving up the debt we’ve amassed thinking it was wealth. We have become so encumbered by the things we think are owed to us we don’t see what true wealth looks like. We fear losing something more than what could be gained. Everything we’re holding onto is simply a mental accounting trick we’ve employed to balance the books of our pain. Its power is defined by how much it taxes us and how much it depreciates our self-worth over time. We have become bankrupt without declaring it. It is a zero-sum game we play by ourselves.

If you want to have power, see things change in your life, make a difference that is truly real, then do the one thing you’ve never intended to do, the one thing that you’ve already received. You have everything to gain.

“…for his mercy endures forever.”

Quick, what is the first thing about mercy that comes to your mind when you read that line?

Recently a young man was sentenced to death for the crime of killing of eight people who were attending a bible study. The mother of one of the victims is reported to have said that she has forgiven the young man for his actions. Does your view of mercy have any correlation to these type of events? If it does, do you think it has a biblical foundation rooted in loyalty or justice?

PSA, penal substitution atonement, is a theory advanced by John Calvin during the times of the Reformation. Calvin, who was a lawyer, presented his case for the death of Jesus using his familiarity of the judicial system, the courtroom, the prosecutor, the witness, the defendant, and evidence leading to innocence or guilt, and restitution from guilt to craft a narrative of explanation for how humanity did the unthinkable: killed God. While it is still a theory, it continues to dominate not only the doctrines of thousands of churches, but more importantly, its influence has spread even to how we think and act daily in our world of believers and non-believers alike.

Mercy is a topic wrapped up in this PSA vortex. The dominate image that all draw upon whenever they are confronted with trying to define mercy is the accused person, pleading with body wrenching sobs of desperation, throwing themselves upon the “mercies” of the court. This is not mercy. This is the image of a peon entreating their overlord not to send them to the dungeon; a slave beseeching clemency before the master’s whip; the bereaved mother holding her dead child in her arms while a gang member presses a pistol to her temple. These images and references to mercy no one wants to endure forever. Regrettably, this is the only solution churches seem to be able to present under PSA.

There are two particular stories of Jesus interacting with women in the gospel narratives. The first is the woman caught in adultery who is cast before Jesus’s feet to be stoned for her actions. It is an attempt by the religious class to trick him into denying the validity of their laws about such conduct. Jesus turns the tables on them by saying whoever hasn’t broken any of the law should be the first to throw the stone. Suffice to say, there was a trail of stones leaving the scene.

The second is the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus has a conversation with her when, by all social standards of the day, he should not have even been in the region of Samaria, let alone speaking to a woman. In this dialogue, he reveals to her that he knows she has been married to several men and the current man she is with, she is not married to. According to the law, she is an adulterous too.

I want you to think about of these examples for a moment. They are guilty; they both deserve the punishment described by the law. Neither one cries out to Jesus for mercy, yet that is exactly what he delivers – pre-PSA.

Let’s step back for a moment and discover how you would deal with the issue presented by both of these women. Let’s say that your partner is caught, or confesses to, being in an adulterous affair. (I understand that this may be a tender subject for some, my intention is not to pick at a wound, but to try to offer some relief.) After the initial feelings of betrayal, hurt, disgust and abandonment, do you know mercy as Jesus did, one that endures forever? This is where the rubber meets the road as a believer. I’ve skirted the issue long enough so here is the point.

The Hebrew word often translated as mercy in the word “chesed.” Whenever this word was encountered by the Greek translators they could only use the one word that they had in their vocabulary, “eleeo” which to them meant, mercy or compassion. Now consider that for all the times this word is used in the New Testament, only three times is it ever rendered as compassion, and only two of these times was it used by Jesus in this compacity.

Chesed, or hesed, is a multi-faceted word that is foundational to Israel relationship with God. It is a covenantal word. In the Hebrew scriptures, it is transcribed at times as mercy, but more often as love, kindness, compassion, lovingkindness, goodness, or favor. It describes the relationship between parties and how they interact, one with another, and with others apart from the relationship. It demonstrates kind deeds one for another. However, it is most prominently displayed where the weakness of one member is supplanted by the strength of the other. The word, and its corresponding actions, demonstrate a fidelity to the relationship independent of the character of the parties.

Before anyone jumps on that last statement about character, understand that this description is within the confines of human covenantal relationships. When the Divine enters the picture, it takes on a whole different perspective. The character of God is love from the start. He is not going to change that with His covenants with humanity. He is not trying to get love from someone, He is it. A covenant simply gives Him another means to give who He is even when the weaker can’t give it themselves.

I want to draw your attention to a lack of judgment about the actions of the partners with chesed. This does not mean that what each does isn’t important to the other, but that the integrity and security of the relationship supersedes the predilections of those previous commitments made to one another. It is expected within the nature of chesed that the relationship will last indefinitely, the stronger, as required, always covering the weaker until they recover from the effects of their transgression.

Some of you probably have a hard time dealing with these claims about chesed. This is some of the same reasons why people can’t accept the grace of God. It looks too much like chesed. They are very close in action. When relationships get torn apart from infidelity, fidelity to the relationship is the last thing we are able to commit to. We want justice, recompense from the embarrassment we incurred. However, many forget that God covenanted with us first. He is our strength in this weakness. He is insuring our relationship when we’re too weak to give a care.

Disclaimer time: Some of you have had issues here or continue to. I want to make it very clear here, if you are in a situation in a relationship where you are in harm’s way, do everything in your power to protect yourself and those being affected by the circumstances. I am not endorsing staying in any relationship that promotes and/or keeps you in danger.

Jesus demonstrated to both of these women that fidelity to the relationship they shared as people of the covenant was just as vital to him as it had original been intended. He stood beside them independently of the results of their actions and offered his aid to bridge the chasm of self-inflicted shame and doubt. He offered a new view on life with a future void of disgrace from the one helping.

“Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy.” Beautiful thoughts, difficult reality. Chesed for those who act in lovingkindness or grace. Grace for those who are strength to the weakness of those they love. Love to those whom love seems so distant from the acts committed against them. Love, not judgment; grace, not weakness; chesed, not mercy. It endures…