The Clash of Confidences

Though I am reluctant to remember, I have been known to watch Saturday morning professional wrestling matches. In my pre-teen era, the "actors" in the canvas ring included such names as Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, and Randy "Macho-Man" Savage. The clashes were legendary ... staged, yes ... hyped up, certainly ... but legendary. Look out, your adversary might grab that metal folding chair when you're not looking or disoriented from the pile-driver or the suplex from the top rope. "One, two, three, that's a match, folks."

But the clash of confidences lives on, interestingly enough, in the ring of spirituality. And this challenge dwarfs any of the professional wrestling matches in any era. In the blue corner, religion. In the red corner, relationship with Jesus Christ. There could be no more diametrically opposed adversaries than these--religion and relationship. Allow me to run down a list of synonyms that sheds light on what I mean.

Religion is man-made; attempting to please God with the things we can do and generate. Relationship is God-given; standing upon the fact that Jesus pleased God for us, doing everything perfectly on our behalf.

In the blue corner is trying. In the red corner is trusting. In the blue corner is striving. In the red corner is resting. So the contrast continues: flesh vs. Spirit, law vs. grace, works vs. faith, duty vs. love, have-to vs. want-to, complying vs. obeying, never-ending vs. once-and-for-all, death vs. life, the curse of Adam vs. the blessing of Christ, slavery vs. freedom, external vs. internal, image conscious vs. heart conscious, renovation vs. regeneration, Pharisees and the Sadducees vs. Christ and the apostles, oral tradition of men vs. the written Word of God, Old Covenant vs. New Covenant, the blood of bulls and goats vs. the blood of the perfect Lamb of God.

Christ has exposed the hollowness of man-made religion, challenged its confidence, and extended His hand of grace to rebuild a relationship severed since the Garden. "One, two, three, that's a match folks!" Hallelujah, what a Savior!

Up to Easter 2009

Join us this season at Fellowship Bible Church as we march toward the center of our worship calendar—Resurrection Sunday, April 12. Even without the chocolate bunnies and the bright spring colors that Easter invariably and delightfully brings, this is a joyful and deliberate season of pilgrimage. We are marching to the cadence of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ—with so many other born-again worshipers all over the world. It is a spiritual journey we all must personally take in faith—trekking up to the city of God to glimpse (for the first time or for the next time) upon the great love of Christ against the dark backdrop of our sin. But even with the personal nature of faith, our faith is never meant to be isolated from or insulated against those who walk these same, well-trodden paths up to Easter. We really are meant to sojourn together. Join us as we march, together fixing our eyes on Him.

Cheating Death

There was frantic barking in the backyard. What was it this time? Did the dogs corral another mole? Is the meter-reader attempting a brave shortcut through our backyard? Is that frisky Border-collie taunting from the fence-less beyond? I gave it no second thought. But apparently Shellie did not so easily disregard chaos. She brought the report a few minutes later; her voice slightly frantic—“It’s a stray kitten. The dogs have a kitten and are tossing it around like a chew toy.”

It turned out that the kitten was not supper; not even bloody, just terribly slobbered upon. Shellie was somehow able to get the dogs into the garage, coaxing the kitten out from a corner, setting it free on the dog-less side of the fence. It sprinted off, but did not sprint away. Into the night the kitten meowed, taking residence in our van’s warm, dry, and safe engine compartment. Safe, that is, until we cranked the engine … which we mercifully didn’t do the next morning.

After extending to this rather foolish kitten water, food, and solitude over half the next day, we decided to double our efforts of scatting this cat. We turned on the van’s radio, misted the engine area with water from a spray bottle, rolled the van backward (without the engine), doused the cat with the garden hose, called Animal Control, and (with the officer’s help) finally started the engine. Surely that would scare it off. No.

This traumatized, wet, disoriented, sticky from dog slobber, stray kitten was decidedly not going to come out without a physical removal. With much effort the officer finally snagged the little … (ahem!) feline … but it wriggled free. And where did it run? IT RAN BACK TO OUR BACKYARD WHERE THE DOGS WERE WAITING. We darted to get the dogs in. The officer darted to pluck the kitten from the jaws of “round two.” How many lives this kitten has left is only a guess.

But the analogy of the story is its punch. Here we were attempting with great effort to show mercy and grace to this kitten; being even more cognizant of the danger than it was. Yet for all of our trying, the kitten was convinced that we were the enemy—sadistically heating up the environment, causing all kinds of racket, slinging water around on a cold and windy afternoon. And after a forceful deliverance, at first opportunity, the kitten attempted to dart straight back into the “lion’s den” where this whole escapade started. We are that kitten! In the jaws of our own sin and death—there was literally no escape. Mercy and grace stepped in, in the person of Jesus Christ, to rescue us. Yet in our frenzy, largely oblivious to the depths that rescue effort cost Him and meant to us, we run straight back to the danger from which we were plucked because we misinterpret His forceful rescue as malicious toying. Nevertheless, He will not let us wriggle away—even when that is all we want to do at times.

“I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one” (John 10:28-30).

Kevin Rees, March 4, 2009