Loving Like God

“Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”  Isaiah 53:4, 5.

It is difficult to think about passionate human intimacy without this passage coming to mind. At first glance it can appear that it is physical healing that we need, but on closer examination and experience we quickly discover that it is healing of a much deeper nature that is needed.

Where this matter of healing is concerned we are much more inclined to think in terms of hospitals, doctors and nurses, but Jesus didn’t come that we might have any of those things more abundantly. He came that we might have “life, and life more abundantly.” In the first instance, it is “life” that we need to get, not a doctor or a nurse or a clinic.

That said, and on deeper reflection, we can appreciate that the flesh and blood intimacy attendant to the practice of medicine changes venues in Christ to the practice of life and relationship. The physical intimacy that sickness brings to the fore is a picture of the spiritual intimacy that “iniquity” brings to the fore. We are on Jesus triage team. All the arrangements are made in and by the Spirit, but this only means that the intimacy required for healing is even deeper. Like medics, we practice relational intimacy in the battlefield, Colossians 1:24.

Our passage from Isaiah strongly suggest that there is a lot of room for misunderstanding where the love of God is concerned – “we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted…”

But even in his time, Isaiah understood that “… he was pierced for our transgression… crushed for our iniquities… punished for our peace… and wounded for our healing.”

Love!

• By Jay Ferris, originally posted January 2013.

For more on this subject, see “Is There No Balm in Gilead”

Ephesians 5:1-21

Back in 1999 I wrote:

“During our time away, Carleen and I stopped by a bookstore.  The sign out front read, “Giant Book Sale.”  While browsing inside, I came across a little illustrated book, a sort of commentary on the book of Revelation. It seemed to suggest that “the woman” has been removed from the scene while the dragon, through man, the wrong man, runs roughshod over everything for 1,260 days, whatever that means.  It is clear, however, that this is not the reign of the right man, but the wrong man.  In any case, by the time we get to the end of Chapter 13, there are two males and one female. Ultimately the “man child”  will rule, but for the present, it appears that the crowns are on the beast, an unredeemed, and un-redeeming man.

The church right now is more an auditorium for male ego gratification than it is a sanctuary in time and space for divine relationship. Or, in the words of Liza Doolittle, “Words, words, words, we get words all day through, first from them now from you, is that all you blighters can do?”  Seventeen hundred years of show business ought to be enough.  When Jesus demonstrated what it was to be a servant, it wasn’t by preaching at His disciples.  Male preaching for the most part has preempted the time during which the church is gathered, and might otherwise be getting to know itself, and the Christ who is her source, and life. To be truly cleansing, ‘… the washing of water by the word’ needs to be interactive, it needs to be conversational.  ‘What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has…’

Males want to do things, their own things.  Females want to be related, ‘Your desire will be for your husband…’  To see the church from God’s perspective, we must first see a woman.  When we look at the church as it is in the present, about all we can see is a man, and he doesn’t look much like Jesus, not even Jesus in the flesh. The Book of Revelation not only reveals Jesus, but in some sense, indicates what it’s going to take to get the wrong man off the throne, ‘… the removal of what can be shaken” .  See “Wonder Woman” e-reader.

I hope that sets the context for the redemption that is on my heart where these present “levels” are concerned, levels of relational intimacy.

Time is more precious, the less of it we have.  “Redeeming the time for the days are evil.” From a Biblical perspective, the closer we get to the end of time the more evil the days become, and fortunately the less days there are for the increasing evil.

What I want to address here is the increasing urgency to stop wasting our time on words and relationships that don’t edify.  Jesus Christ has a lot He still wants to say to us, and he wants to use our mouths to say it.

Perhaps enough said for now where the importance of redeeming the time is concerned.

Love!

• By Jay Ferris, originally posted December 2012.

For more reading, see previous intimacy level post, “Ambassadors of Light”