Tag Archives: Journey

Healing by Fire

26 Wednesday Apr 2023

Posted by in All, Death, Healing, Journey

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April 2023

 Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.
—Jesus (Matthew 25:40) 

A few months ago I was walking toward a store in a downtown area.  About a block from my destination was a homeless young man.  He was very much the stereotypical: ragged, dirty, worldly possessions in a shopping cart, and holding a cardboard sign asking for any help.  I stopped and asked him his name.  He gave it and the manner of his reply led me to think that mentally he was not quite “all there.”  I told him I’d be praying for him and gave him $20.  As I did, I told him my name and asked that he pray for me.  He assured me he would.

When Jesus’ mother and step-father presented Him in the Temple shortly after His birth, as was the Jewish custom of the day, a man, Simeon, was there waiting.  God had promised Simeon he would see the One who would be the salvation of all humankind.  Upon seeing Jesus, Simeon said:

Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and…[through Him] the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. (Luke 2:34-35)

The judgment of God is a mysterious thing.  He doesn’t pronounce judgement like a human magistrate based on some Book of Regulations and sentencing guidelines; rather, God’s judgement is as Simeon says it is: God revealing our hearts to ourselves in the light of His reality.  This is what Jesus did during His so-called earthly ministry.  In the words of Fr Stephen Freeman:

As [Jesus] is increasingly revealed, everything around Him is revealed as well. Things are shown to be more clearly what they are. Those who hate Him, begin to be revealed as plotters and murderers. What was once only thoughts and feelings of envy become plots and perjury. The power of Rome is unmasked for its injustice, mere people-pleasing. The High Priest is revealed to believe that the destruction of God is good for his nation. The weakness of the disciples and the empty boasting of Peter and the rest are shown for their true emptiness. The sin of the world is revealed in the death of God…But the righteous are revealed as well. The steadfast love of the Mother of God never wavered before the Cross. Her faithfulness is revealed. The kindness of Joseph of Arimathea is forever marked by an empty tomb. The tears of a harlot reveal the nature of love, even hidden beneath the deeds of her life.  In the judgment of God, all things are simply shown to be what they truly are. Sin is seen to be sin. Love is seen to be love. There is clarity. And in the judgment of God, His own love is shown to be what it truly is—self-sacrificing, forgiving, relentless in its mercy.

In the quote at opening of this post, Jesus tells us that what I do, or fail to do, for my neighbor reveals my heart’s attitude toward Jesus.  By loving and responding to the needs of the poor, the downtrodden, those in prison, the widows, the orphans, and, yes, even my enemies, my love of God is revealed for what it truly is.  As one saint said, “If I do not love my neighbor and my enemy, I do not love God.”  Sometimes, God is even more direct with us by giving us the opportunity to be hospitable, or not, to an angel without our knowing. (Hebrews 13:2).

I have often wondered what it will be like when I stand before God under His judgment.  I am certain God will reveal that my heart contains both sheep—my meager love of God and my neighbor and goat—my self-centered love of me.  How can I be so certain?  Because my encounter with this homeless man was such a moment of God’s judgment in my life.

When I first approached the young man, my mind was filled with rapid-fire throughs like: It’s my money…The kid might use this cash for drugs, alcohol, etc…He should get himself together and make something of himself as I did…Lord, have mercy on Your child…How good a guy am I for helping out this poor fellow…I’ll show him my humility by asking for his prayers, too….He needs to know someone sees him as a person.

These warring thoughts were a mixture of genuine compassion for this human, made in the image of God, along with my love of money, my judgmentalism, and my pride.  I could clearly recognize bleating of sheep and goats coexisting in my heart.

St Paul says:

…each one’s work [love for neighbor and God] will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each one’s work. If anyone’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet only so as through fire. (
1Corinthians 3:13-15)

God’s love is fire.  It is experienced by sheep as a comforting, loving embrace and by goats as a consuming inferno.

A couple of hours later I was headed back toward my car.  The homeless young man was still sitting by the tree.  He saw me coming and his countenance brightened.  In his stilted speech, he said “Hey, Mr. Mike!  How are you doing!  I’ll be sure and pray for you.”

I had forgotten his name.

The embarrassment of the moment was God’s gift to me.  He gave me a brief, albeit painful glimpse into the smallness of my own heart as I was once again blistered by the fire of God’s transforming love for me as it burned away a bit of my broken self.

St John Chrysostom said, “The rich exist for the sake of the poor.  The poor exist for the salvation of the rich.”  I need people like this homeless man in my life; I need everyone in my life.  How I respond to those whose paths I cross affords God the opportunity to reveal to me my inner sheep and goat.  If I am willing for God to show me the state of my true heart, and if I will endure the resulting shame, repent for it, and accept God’s unfathomable forgiveness and love for me…well, this is the path to salvation, isn’t it: to descend with Jesus into the hell of my own heart where, I pray, He will raise me up to eternal life with Him.

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The heart itself is but a small vessel, yet dragons are there, and there are also lions; there are poisonous beasts and all the treasures of evil. But there too is God, the angels, the life and the kingdom, the light and the apostles, the heavenly cities and the treasuries of grace—all things are there.
—St. Macarius

The Way of Christ–Descent into Humility

21 Monday Sep 2015

Posted by in All, Heaven and Hell

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If anyone is still out there following this blog…a friend of mine asked me to say a few words on his blog, which I have gladly done.

You can find my meager contribution here:

The Uncommon Journey

I may periodically post to his blog site, and I will let you know when I have done so.  I encourage you to visit this other site and to subscribe to Keith’s blog.

Christ is in our midst.

Children of God

10 Monday Sep 2012

Posted by in All, Hope

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But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God—John 1:12

So, I have been asking myself that same question I posed earlier in this series of blogs on the theological virtues…what is the Good News of Christ for me? The elementary things I mentioned earlier, repentance, faith toward God, resurrection from the dead, and eternal judgment have all had their day, their time of primacy, in my thinking about the Good News for me. Because they are foundation, they remain very important. But, they are no longer enough. The question:

Isn’t there something more?

has continued to plague me.

Now I find the Good News–my foundational hope–is in the promise of God that has been increasingly revealed over thousands of years. Seems like a no-brainer, but it hasn’t been for me. The promise started with God’s promise of land and becoming a great nation made to Abram (Genesis 12:1-3). It opened up more as a promise of kingdom with God’s man always on the throne in the promise made to King David (2Samuel 7:8-17). With the later prophets there were glimpses of something more, an early marriage metaphor (e.g., Hosea 1:2) and of God delighting in us (Zephaniah 3:17).

Yet, I was confused. With the person of Jesus came the doctrine of the Trinity formulated by the early church fathers: “God is three persons (Father, Son, Holy Spirit); Each person is fully God; There is only one God.” In the context of the Trinity there were many metaphors: friend of Jesus (John 15:14), slave (bond-servant) of Jesus (Galatians 1:10), bride of Jesus (Revelation 21:2), child of God (John 1:12), united with God (John 14:23; 17:21), sibling of Jesus (Romans 8:29), and our being filled with the Holy Spirit (John 14:16-17). As I moved past the elementary things of what God had done for me, I found I had an identity crisis regarding who I was as a Christian. Each of these metaphors gives a different relational image between me and God…which is it?

Over the past five or six years and with the help of many men and women past and present, each much smarter than I am, the promise of God has been slowly dawning on me. Here is how I see it at this point in my journey with Jesus:

I am being united with Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit; Christ brings me into oneness with our Father (not in the pantheistic sense). Though it doesn’t conflate all of the above metaphors, I think it happens like this:

For more than 40 years I was a son of Satan (John 8:44). It was an abusive relationship, a sick distortion of love as with any abusive relationship; this one masquerades as father-son but is truly master-slave in the worst sense. When I turned to Jesus, all I knew was slavery and abuse disguised as love. While I believe that at that moment I actually became God’s son, I didn’t know it nor did I understand what it meant. So, I acted as I knew how, as a slave of Jesus.

It is much like any human who has been abused. It takes a long time for him or her to begin to trust someone who genuinely loves them. As Jesus’ slave, I was always waiting for and expecting the abuse; my image of God was a God who tallies mistakes and punishes capriciously. As I began to believe God could be trusted, we became friends and we interacted as friends. And, over time, as sometimes happens with human friends, our love as friends began to deepen into something more.

Along with some theologians I believe that the Holy Spirit is the personification of the loving relationship between Jesus and His Father. Their relationship is so real is has personhood. That same personified love is helping me to become one spirit with Jesus (1Corinthians 6:16-17; the two become one, the marriage metaphor). As I learn to cooperate with the Spirit in me to become increasingly purified through my obedience and God’s help and discipline, I draw closer in unity with Christ. (St. John of the Cross used a window metaphor: the purer the glass the more light shines through.) So in Christ, to use St. Paul’s phrase, I am actually God’s child even now. God the Father looks at me with the same loving gaze as He looks at Jesus. With Christ in me, another of Paul’s phrases, and the work of the Holy Spirit, I an actually becoming one with Jesus, taking on His characteristics (the so-called fruits of the Spirit of Galatians 5:22-23, and I gaze upon our Father with the gaze of a truly loving son, the gaze of Jesus.

St. John of the Cross says this (Ascent of Mount Carmel):

Love effects a likeness between the lover and the loved.

Love is the transformative agent for humans into the likeness of God as we were first created to be (Genesis 1:27). It should be no surprise; after all, God is love (1 John 4:8) and knows us only through love (1Corinthians 8:3). Therefore, as I love Jesus more deeply I find I increasingly become like Him; the two of us becoming one through the power of Love personified, the Holy Spirit.

So, this is the promise of God for me, it is the basis of my fundamental hope: that I am united with Jesus in love through the power of the Holy Spirit, and that Jesus will lead me into oneness with our Father. It is the greatest not-yet-being kind of hope, the only real hope for me to become who I really am and was created to be.

Some have hopes of a reward of a big mansion in heaven (John 14:2) or to finally become holy (1Peter 1:16) or to sit on a cloud for all eternity playing a harp (that sounds more like an agonizing existence to me). I look forward to being face-to-face with the One I am coming to love so deeply, becoming one with: Jesus. This is the only reward I want: the time to know God intimately as I truly am, and, through Jesus, to be in a genuine Father-child relationship with our Father as a part of the family of God. This is my foundational hope.

I think this is the foundational hope offered by God to the world. I believe the world is desperate for this hope.