He doesn’t have too awful many, so it’s worth chasing down the few that can be found.
I’m serving the Shepherd King. That’s a parable of reality, a parable and reality few recognize, never mind what the PR suggests. He never explained why it was so selective, why it’s only a slender minority. He simply asserts it as the sad fact of reality. The closest He comes to explaining anything is through parables, after having bluntly stated that reality is too complex for human understanding.
His divine power to change us from what the world made of us into something holy requires a separation — the basic meaning behind the word “holy.” It means pulling out those few dedicated to His purposes from the defiling influence of those not dedicated. The only way Jesus could sift out the fakes was to use a method of teaching that could be accepted only by those already suffering a deep sense of longing. Somehow they already belonged to Heaven, but to enable God’s glory, these had to know of their inclusion and be fitted to live accordingly. Again, the Father never explained how this could be, only that it was. Some things cannot ever be understood to the satisfaction of the human mind.
Whatever that separation means, it doesn’t mean keeping us from being in a position to glorify Him among those who don’t belong. Your mind would make the obvious conclusion that there is some instrumentality to revealing His glory. We instinctively reduce the process to a human choice. What confuses things further is that the gospel message is portrayed in terms of making a choice to follow Jesus. It’s a peculiar human failing to assume our choices can change eternity. Paul bluntly says otherwise, yet the human intellect refuses to surrender that false perception. It’s our native born arrogance that we can somehow handle the ultimate truth of things with our intellect. It’s as if we demand God honor our intelligence and mold Himself and His actions into forms we can handle, and in the end, that we can control. Usurping the prerogatives of God is the root nature of sin and the Fall.
The reason we follow Jesus is not to buy our way into Heaven. Nothing we do can accomplish that. We follow Jesus to claim the full heritage of a spiritual reality that came before knowing Him. Whatever it is that has to change within us — spiritual birth or being raised from spiritual death — is handled by God alone. It is solely His initiative. Rather, we follow Jesus to discover what that should mean for us once we realize it.
David spilled a ton of words in Psalm 119 to explain something that should have been so simple: Mere awareness of ultimate reality and moral truth is its own reward. Whether we can ever implement any part of that truth is another matter. The real joy is simply being aware of spiritual truth. The greatest freedom possible in this life is enslaving the mind to the Spirit. The implementation is an endeavor fraught with a million ways to fail. God promised to help us with one primary point of need: He promised to light a burning desire for His truth. Once we have embraced that and poured ourselves out as fuel for that fire, He then said we could find all the points of leverage built into the system itself.
I can only assume that it is possible to love and serve His divine truth without spiritual birth. The Law of Moses should make that painfully clear. However, it was understood implicitly in previous covenants. Job lived before Moses, reflecting the religious background of Jethro (Moses’ father-in-law). While it did require some education, the whole point of that elder covenant was that you could be drawn to divine justice for its own sake, and that you could understand it on a human level. It assumed a wealth of intellectual background now denied us by Western Civilization. Do you blame me for trying to give this back to the world?
Sure, the world needs Jesus. But the moment you repackage Him in a form the world will embrace, you have taken away the very essence of who He is. There are times and places when the first efforts to share His truth can fill a pent up demand, so that vast numbers will crowd into the narrow way. Yet the way remains narrow and tough. We should expect a significant presence of spiritual camp followers. Whether they really understand is not the point; it’s the nature of the thing. But when those who are called to do the work of sharing start doing things specifically designed to draw large numbers, it’s already a lie. All the more so if those efforts include restricting the flavor of the message to just one narrow understanding.
To the degree my service as an undershepherd means finding a few lost souls who hunger for the truth I bear, it’s not me to whom I want you clinging. My books aren’t designed to appeal to the market for entertainment. My blog isn’t just a technology blog with religious chatter thrown in for fun. My Facebook page is not simply a way to stay connected to family and friends. There’s no intention to keep you from wandering, only to let you wander where it will do you some good. If I can convince you of what good pasture and water look like, and what the Shepherd’s voice sounds like, I know I can trust your instincts to take care of the rest. Whatever else we might need is handled by goats He chooses (hint: that’s human government).
This is my reality.
