"But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first." -- Matt. 19:30  NIV

Just because you've left all to follow Jesus and have made a huge impact on the world because of your sacrifice does not mean that you will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  When we come into the fulness of the Kingdom, after this life is over, after all the veils are lifted, when we will all know each other "even as we are known," there will be a woman or a man in the highest place of honor that none of us have ever heard of.  She/he will be a person who gave up everything to follow Jesus and ended up in some obscure role, perhaps in some obscure corner of the world, pouring out her/his very life for another in response to the calling of the Father.  We will all stand in utter humility in the presence of this most highly favored believer who followed Jesus into the glory of his suffering, and now into the exaltation of his presence.  That is the reality of the upside down Kingdom.

After reading Matthew 18:6-9, I was trying to think of a modern day analogy to what Jesus talked about in this passage.  It was all about getting rid of things in our lives that cause us to stumble.  Meditating on this passage made me realize just how serious these things are.  Jesus suggests some really radical actions to to get rid of them.  

A good picture of this is found in the world of aircraft.  Keeping runways clear of FOD (Foreign Object Debris) is a very serious activity.  FOD carries a great potential to damage aircraft when taking off or landing.  Damage from FOD is estimated at $4 billion a year!  Air France Flight 4590 crashed in July of 2000 when a tire blew out during takeoff due to FOD, which in turn ruptured a fuel tank and killed 113 people on board.  Military runways are scoured regularly to clear them of FOD.

Lord, empower me to get radical about eliminating FOD from my landscape.  Thank you for reminding me of the devastating results of these things in my life.

This is the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the crash of flight 93.  That day and the events and weeks following were one of America's finest hours.  It was a time when the bravest of the brave ran into the gaping maw of destruction and wrested the living from its grip.  So many literally laid down their lives to save others.

As all of America watched the towers burning, unknown heroes decided to take action on flight 93.  Every passenger on that flight sacrificed their life to thwart a planned attack on the White House or the nation's capitol.  In the days following, the skies over the entire country were silent as if in honor of all those who died in the three airliners and the other thousands who perished in the towers and the Pentagon.  I remember people praying in public forums and calling for others to pray.  The atheists were strangely silent about these supplications to God.  Perhaps some of them decided to join in for once.

I always say that we should never forget.  I'm happy to say that I've forgotten the names of the actual terrorists on the planes.  I don't want to know their names.  I wish I could forget Osama Bin-Laden's name.  What I want to remember are the names of the heroes who gave their lives, gave of their time, money, and effort, to dig through the rubble to find just one more soul about to perish.  I want to remember how unified we were as Americans.  I want to remember that the greatest evils can be quenched by good and honest people.  That's what America is all about.  That's what I want to remember.

In Matthew 11:12, Jesus makes a statement that many have appropriated and interpreted incorrectly.  The NIV translates it as, "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it."  The NIV also provides an alternate translation for the phrase, "subjected to violence": "been forcefully advancing."  I think the latter is a better translation since it correctly describes the unfolding story beginning with John the Baptist.  It is also consistent with what Jesus is saying in the passage.

The second phrase in this verse is eye-opening.  Those who thought they would inherit the Kingdom, all the Pharisees, scribes, and teachers of the Law, want nothing to do with it.  It didn't match their narrative.  Instead, the sinners, publicans, non-elites, even violent people are taking hold of the Kingdom.  The old English aristocracy would call them the "vulgars."  The vulgars are raiding the Kingdom of God!

This is consistent with one of the parables of Jesus in Luke 14:15-24, the story of the man who prepared a banquet for his friends and acquaintances.  When invited, many of them began making excuses for not attending.  So the man sent his servants out to go get anyone wandering the streets, the vulgars, if you will, to take the place of those who were invited.

The Kingdom of God is for the poor -- the poor in spirit.  What did Jesus say in the opening sentence in his Sermon on the Mount?  "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."  Who is poor in spirit?  It often has nothing to do with money, although those with lots of money often fail to recognize their poverty of spirit.  The religious elite are seldom poor in spirit.  Their arrogance often bars them from entering the Kingdom.

Poor in spirit simply means that one recognizes that one doesn't have God figured out.  Legalism is one of the most common things that will bar someone from the Kingdom.  If you find that circumstances are challenging your ideas of God, your rules for Christian living, your religious dogma, then you should be happy.  God is trying to make you poor in spirit so that you can be part of his Kingdom.

In 2 Corinthians 6:14 – 7:1, Paul introduces a metaphor to illustrate a truth he’s trying to get across – two different animals or two different calibers of the same animal in one yoke.  The yoke was used for pulling a wagon, a plow, or other tool of some sort.  Anyone using a yoke understood the importance of having two animals of the same species, usually oxen, with very similar strength.  Everyone understood that yoking two different kinds of animals together was highly problematic.  So, Paul knew that his readers would easily identify with this scenario and be able to comprehend what he was trying to get across. 

“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God.”  2 Cor. 6 14 – 16a

This little snippet of Scripture has been, in modern times at least, seen as prohibition against marrying an unbeliever.  Please note that this is not a new law that Paul is laying down here.  The legal system of the Old Testament was never able to transform anyone.  And Paul is the one who points this out in more detail than any other New Testament writer.  So, let’s don’t go down that road.

But what are the facts?  If you marry a staunch unbeliever your life will be made extremely difficult.  Life is hard enough as it is, so why heap more derision and stress on top of what you already have?

Others have taken this to mean that you should only have business partners who are believers.  Well I’ve seen some of those business partners who claim to be believers and I can tell you that it isn’t always a bed of roses.  Why?  Because they have unwittingly yoked Christ with Belial.  Why would I say that?  All commerce and business are a part of our fallen world system.  Trying to yoke Jesus with the business of this world is yoking Christ with Belial.

Do we need to be ethical in business?  Yes!

Do we need to treat our business comrades as Christ would?  Yes!

Do we treat our customers with respect and honesty?  Yes!

Should we invoke the name of Jesus as the foundation of our business?  No!  In so doing we are yoking Christ and Belial.

Another way we try to yoke Christ and Belial is with the concept of “God and Country.”  Now believe me, I really like to see believers run for political office.  But being a Christian does not make you a good legislator any more than being a Christian makes you a good lawyer . . . or doctor, or engineer, or banker.

Furthermore, all political systems are a part of this fallen world.  The best ones are those that recognize our fallenness and mitigate against that with lots of checks and balances.  I firmly believe that the United States constitution is probably the best in the history of civilization.  But it is still part of our fallen world system.  Trying to infuse Jesus into the system is yoking Christ and Belial.  His Kingdom stands completely apart from all political world systems.  It is fundamentally different and exists in a completely different dimension.  The two can never be joined.

Paul winds up this passage by admonishing the Corinthian believers to cast off any unholy alliances.  This is part of what holiness is – separateness.  To make this more practical let’s set up an Is / Is Not list.  It’s important that we know what it is as well as what it is not so that we don’t go off and do stupid things.

In 2 Corinthians 4:7 Paul talks about us having treasures in jars of clay.  My friend Duane Stewart prefers the rendition from The Message paraphrase: "We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives."  This is so antithetical to the way we want to do things in the systems of this world.  We always seem to want to try to match or outshine the gifts we are given.  Have you ever seen a painting that is set in a frame that almost seems to obscure the painting?  That's what we try to do in our flesh.  We also try to take this world system mentality with us into the Kingdom of God.

That's why you see heads of ministries that are bigger than life.  The truth be known, many of them are, without being cognizant of it, trying to be bigger than God.  So when you hear or encounter (personally) one of these Christian celebrities, do you perceive the glory of Jesus or are you enamored with their persona?  The answer to that question will tell you whether they are part of the Kingdom of God or if they are just building their own empire.

So let's make this personal.  Am I part of the Kingdom of God or am I just building my own empire?  We can easily sit back and judge the motives and results of those who are more prominent either in the Kingdom of God or building their own empires.  But each of us are also doing either one or the other.  So when people encounter us, what do they see?  Do they see the glory of Jesus in what we say and do or do they have difficulty perceiving the treasure we have because we are trying to outshine Jesus?  Let's strip away the gaudy pixie dust and stickers we've plastered on the ordinary clay jars of our lives.  Let them encounter the treasure that we carry with us.

But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere.  2 Cor. 2:14

Here Paul paints a picture with which the Corinthian believers are all too familiar.  Whenever Caesar’s armies went out to conquer an adversary and were successful, they celebrated their victories by parading captives from the conquered countries through the streets of Rome.  This may seem like a rather negative way to portray us as new believers.  But Christ’s warfare is different.  All of us were captured from the enemy, Satan.  And even though our acquiescence was voluntary, it is nevertheless, a significant victory in the spiritual warfare that is raging around us.
And God is parading us around as an in-your-face celebration that Satan witnesses as well.  So, remember that Satan too was defeated at the cross and at the Resurrection.  In a very real sense, he too is part of the captives, albeit in chains as an unwilling prisoner.

We can look around us and see that Satan is still at work.  So, there is an “already, but not yet” aspect to what Paul is talking about.  But, in the timeless domain of eternity, Satan lies defeated, and we are being paraded before him as reminders of the totality of his loss.

In the corporate world we like to generate an “Is / Is Not” list for a project.  It helps us more clearly define exactly what needs to be done.  In 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, Paul likewise generates an Is / Is Not list for defining love.

The tendency for us is to take this list and begin conjuring up love by trying to do the things in the “Is” list and refrain from the things in the “Is Not” list.  And when we have mastered this, we can say that we have love.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The list is not meant to be a checklist that we tick off as we, in our flesh, master it.  (As if that were even possible.)

Rather, these lists are measuring sticks to show us what love looks like.  You can tell how much love a person has by how many of these you can check off when you observe their daily lives.  But it is not meant to be a project list or a “honey-do” list.  Love is what happens to you when the living Jesus imparts it to you as you surrender your life to Him.  We do not work hard to become loving, we simply let the power of the living Jesus instill it in us.  And when he does, we will begin to see the fruit of it as defined in Paul’s “Is / Is Not” list.

Having just observed the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I thought about ways to make sure we never forget.  As I contemplated this, I began to see indications from modern day events that, in some instances, we’ve already forgotten.

Hitler’s logic, as well as many others at the time, was that the masses were being victimized by the Jews.  They felt that the Jews were manipulating and dominating the economy and were oppressing other segments of society.  So, Hitler and the native Germans were the victims and the Jews were the rich, privileged oppressors.  Using his bully pulpit and the state-controlled media, he was able to convince the masses that the Jewish race was evil and that they needed to be controlled and their possessions confiscated.  Having successfully promoted his propaganda, he was able to relegate them to the status of being sub-human.  But this was not a sub-human status on the order of a person’s pet dog or cat, it was more on the level of being a cock roach.  And the progression from there is only natural.  You don’t try to cohabitate with cock roaches, you exterminate them.

Recent current events are all too reminiscent of the beginnings of Hitler’s holocaust.  The media, along with various political groups, are already well on their way to repeating Hitler’s evil slide.  During the past decade, they have relegated a contingent of Americans as oppressors and are now hell-bent on labeling them as privileged.  If you follow Hitler’s narrative, you can predict the next episode.  Those perceived to be privileged oppressors are derided and ridiculed in the public arena.  Groups of people are labeled and demonized, fomenting hate toward them by the rest of the nation.  As in Hitler’s time, laws should be passed to limit their ability to prosper and redistribute their possessions to those who feel victimized.  Left to natural progression one can easily imagine what the unabated natural outcome will be.  So, the question is, are we really remembering the Holocaust, or are we on the slippery slope to repeating it?

What can we do to stop this pell-mell downhill slide to another holocaust? 

1. Stop demonizing those with whom you disagree.  Labeling other groups of people with vitriolic adjectives allows you to see them as less than human and gives you the right to mistreat them.  Every person is special in God’s eyes and should be in our eyes too.
2. Take responsibility for your own life and circumstances.  America and most of Europe is a place where anyone can fulfill their dreams.  The opportunities are equal, but the outcome depends on the individual.  Millions are immigrating to America and Western Europe because they know this to be a fact.
3. Recognize the devastating consequences of envy.  No one that I know espouses the virtues of covetousness.  It will lead you down a road of bitterness with nothing but regrets that will hound you day and night.
4. Look for opportunities to show acceptance, kindness and affirmation to people outside your comfort zone.  Remember that this does not always mean someone of lower socio-economic status.  Inside we are all the same -- looking for affirmation and acceptance.  Remember that Jesus was a man of low esteem, yet he confidently and compassionately reached out with affirmation and unconditional love to Zacchaeus, a privileged oppressor of the people of Jesus time.  And Jesus actions made an immediate transformational change in the life of Zacchaeus.  (Luke 19:1-10)

The book of James can sometimes be a difficult apostolic letter to read and use correctly.  It can fit so easily into our natural bent to live our Christian lives by a set of rules.  James 3:1-12 in particular is no exception.  When I get done reading it I have this compulsion to redouble my efforts to tame my tongue.

There is no doubt that it lends itself to elucidating my shortcomings with respect to the things that come out of my mouth.  And the result of shedding light on this causes me to feel guilty about the things I have said to others or about others.  And my natural reaction is to clean it up -- in my own power and with my own resolve.  If I can somehow, in my own flesh, bring my tongue under control, then I will be acceptable to God and will prove that I am accepted in God's Kingdom and that His life is flowing through me.

But what does James say in verse 8?  "No human being can tame the tongue."  So why am I trying to do it in my own flesh -- with my own effort alone?  Verses 11 and 12 provide further proof.  Blessing and cursing cannot proceed from the same source.  The solution is not to try to clean up the evil source.  The solution is to choose the correct source.

I cannot, of my own volition, clean up my tongue.  I can, however, cry out to Jesus, who is my source, and ask Him to let His life and His words flow out through me.  In reading the book of John we find that Jesus lived his life exactly in this mode.  He only did and said what the Father told Him to do and say.  So now that we have established the proper response to this passage, we can accurately and correctly delve into the nuances of how it affects our behavior.

The first reaction we might have is to stop saying four letter words.  Or as we said in the South where I grew up, "Stop cussin'".  Cursing goes much deeper than this.  James is referring to words of denigration of any kind against those around us, including our family.  There are plenty of us who may have cleaned up our vernacular, yet slander those around us or berate them with nicknames.  Such verbal attacks, either in their presence or not, is a tool of Satan to destroy them.  We must cry out to Jesus to be our source of words.  Ask Him today to speak only His words as we interact with our family, our friends, and our coworkers.