Jesus – Page 5 – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

November 10, 2022November 10, 2022

Nature Study

My engineer friend from South Asia, R.S., knows something about shapes. Long after he had, in faith, opened the door to his own god-shaped space within, R.S. was seeing his professional life thrive amidst shapes and designs. Science-research and revelation took him there.

Once a person comes to faith – trusts his life to Jesus – he starts becoming a new kind of person. In Bible language, the old has gone, the new is here!*. He begins the long journey of “growing into” a new kind of living and thinking, a new kind of “being”.

A scientist growing in Christlikeness? An engineer training in righteousness? Imagine. Scripture comfortably speaks of growing in Jesus as “training in righteousness”.*

Like an infant child who is born to thrive and grow and mature, the new Christian is to change. In most instances over time his belief in Jesus gets to be “seen”. This is the calling of every believer. So that our lives show on the outside what we confess to be true on the inside.

We know that taking thoughtful close-up looks at nature has at times led to mind-boggling scientific insights. So, my engineer/professor friend, pondering one day over the created (especially oceanic) world, caught a revelation. And promptly took his theory to the classroom.

“Whenever you think of trying out a new idea”, Dr. R.S. urged his university students, “you will want to explore what the natural world can offer you.

“Suppose, for instance, I visit the seashore. At the water’s edge, I spot a snail, one of those cone-shaped kind. The creature reminds me of a project I am on at the lab – a petroleum industry drill bit. This little creature from the world of nature may carry within its design important keys to manufacturing a more effective drill bit”.

Because R.S. had confidence in (believed in) his theory about nature’s role in research, he acted on it. He wrote of it. He lectured and demonstrated to his students that his thoughts were likely based on what is true and what is helpful and real.

If you are a Jesus-follower, you are made for formation. If simply given permission Jesus will change you and you will come to show forth his ways, his nature.

He invites, “Come. Be with me, be my apprentice”.

October 13, 2022October 13, 2022

Bring it

Our old self is the self of rebellion. The prophet levels the charge without apology, “We have turned – every one of us – to our own way.”

Change must come. God through Jesus would bring it.

The Spirit of God has a way of very often beckoning us nearer in toward himself. The closing pages of scripture supply us a touching image depicting this, “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone would hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and have fellowship with him and he with me.”*

Jesus is a bonifide historical one-of-a-kind person. This brown-skinned itinerate messenger, his voice carrying a middle-eastern accent, brought the reality of God to earth in tangible form. He is relevant as ever.

Living out his righteous, unique, generous life among us, Jesus gave himself to all humanity as God’s offering, paying in his sacrificial dying the penalty for all our wrongs, our sins. His crucifixion death secured complete freedom from guilt as well as from judgment in the afterlife for those who trust their lives to him.

For the Jesus-follower this all marks the beginning point, because to know Jesus is to grow in Jesus. In bringing us to himself he has ushered us into a brand new kind of living. It is companionship-centered. Jesus has laid claim to our present and future. He “companions” us, as children of the heavenly father into growth toward and into his own likeness. Once again, the thing Jesus brings to us is change. Beautiful, essential, transformational change.

We don’t easily drift when remaining near enough Jesus to feel his breath. The word plateau is a foreign term to those entering God’s kingdom with the aim of keeping company with the kingdom’s king, to train or apprentice under him in the way of love. The journey ahead is not static but dynamic.

Jesus came to change us. Are we In?

While it’s true the change begins the minute we first turn and yield to him, Jesus sets out to transform us day by day, little by little. If transformation is to happen at all it will mostly come by centimeters not yards. The Serenity Prayer suggests an appealing pace,

“Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time”.

* Revelation 3:20 ESV

October 6, 2022

A New Look

Marathoner or sprinter, the athlete runs with focus, keeping the goal ever in view.

The best kinds of changes tend to often happen over time. Changes of character, changes of growing into the kind of person one is trusting or hoping to become. As we shift our attention from our own selves redirecting our spiritual gaze to the person of Jesus (the power source of a transformed life) a lot of old, unprofitable things begin simply dropping away.

Once the sprinter hears the crack of the starting gun her focus is laser-like. One thing alone matters. The finish line. Even when circling the track at points where the finish tape is momentarily out of view, the athlete keeps in some way holding that image constantly before her mind’s eye.

In my broken state as a teen I had been fixated on me. . . my wants, my self-centered ego. One Old Testament prophet casts a flood light about the soul, “We have turned – every one – to his own way”.*

Finally, in all the mess of my self-inflicted pain, I looked away to God (memo: prayers of mothers are underrated). And right away, then and there, my head turned his way, a curious thing called wisdom started taking form. Redirecting my line of vision. A radical shift in focus had happened, spurred from the aching heart of a wayward teen. turned me Jesus’ direction. I didn’t know it but he would soon be positioning before a new starting block. What a run lay ahead!

Anyone who has ever competed in a race – even a childhood dash to be first to the ice cream truck – feels a heart-stir in a brief reading from an old Hebrew parchment. Note, in the appeal, the object of the athlete’s focus, the disciple’s gaze.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2 ESV)

September 22, 2022September 22, 2022

Near Resemblance

Whether changing flat tires in far off lands or fostering character qualities on the long journey of becoming Jesus-like, his followers make use of means.

What does means mean?

Means are things (practices/instruments) necessary to move toward a worthwhile goal.

The goal of getting changed into a kind of person resembling Christ is an aim unlike any other. What pursuit in all of life could bring greater challenges and deeper satisfactions when entered into with the whole heart?

Transformation to Christlikeness comes about (let’s be honest) through many days given to lackluster, routine plodding.

Doing the next good or right thing. If Jesus’ life is anything it is good and it is right (righteous). And it is routine plodding which often marks the pathway of the sincere person applying means to take on Jesus’ temperament, his humility and power. Routine – not lifeless.

The whole apprentice-in-formation journey can be equally characterized by surprise and adventure. Boring Jesus is not!

We never graduate from experimenting in the use of tools (means). This is the part where we discover a happy truth. The tools or the practices (stillness, worship, community, service etc) never are the point. Never. No more the point than if after undergoing a medical procedure the patient insists the surgeon hand over stethoscope, scalpel and sponge, “Just place them in my overnight bag at discharge time”. The point of everything was the patient’s wellness, not the collection of devices employed in the process, good and helpful as they surely were.

Though I was clueless at the time, the moment I decided as a high-school junior to opt for the Typing I course over the Spanish language track, a life-altering shift was set in motion. All this while any notion of tackling spiritual disciplines in hopes of becoming like Jesus could not have been further from my mind. Indeed “What are spiritual disciplines?”, I would have wondered. So, this small snapshot from my story serves only as an illustration.

As a high schooler, my means of afterward landing a job with a newspaper included the useful practice of learning to type. Those hours and hours of attentive practice yielded some rewarding fruit. Firstly, gaining a set of marketable skills (typesetting). Secondly, landing a job in the glorious Wyoming Rockies. And finally, stumbling into a setting there where I would get introduced to a pretty young lady – my future bride. Surprise. Adventure.

We may then be wise on our spiritual journey to ponder and apply in humble faith some ancient, proven practices (means).

Practices which could bring each of us over time to (wonder-of-wonders) mirror a close resemblance to Jesus – Son of God.

2022 Jerry Lout

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September 1, 2022September 1, 2022

Ticket Home

As Albert Einstein was anxiously searching underneath and around his passenger seat during a train journey, a conductor took in the scene. Stopping then, he assured the physicist, “Dr. Einsten, don’t worry, I know who you are. We all know who you are. There’s no problem. You don’t need a ticket. I am sure you bought one.” The famed but flustered scientist replied, “Young man, I too know who I am. What I don’t know, is where I am going!”

The amusing account strikes a chord in many who hope for deeper clarity about life and where it is meant to lead. Indeed, some feel uncertain whether they have yet boarded the train.

Followers of Jesus – people who have made an on-purpose decision to know him and be transformed by him – are often found appealing to God for help.

“Please grant to me the courage to change things about myself which you know need changing”. This is a raw, gutsy prayer. The appeal suggests that the disciple is taking seriously his call to apprentice under Jesus.

The honest Christ-follower who sees something within himself needing serious renovation moves to action. Praying has proven a good and much-traveled entryway into God, his word, his presence and help.

When, as a high school senior I defied my parent’s wise but firm counsel, my stubborn behavior resulted in a radical change of address. Moving to another town in another state more than 700 miles from home. No small matter.

In prayer we pause. We shift our attention, sometimes quite awkwardly, away from our own dysfunctional selves. The Holy Spirit is given space to work. He brings us (as we listen) toward a change of mind. And often signals to our hearts an avenue by which some troubling thing may get resolved. My “road back home” began when life started unraveling. Desperate, I called to God in prayer. A blubbering phone visit to my parents followed and soon I (and they) tasted the good fruit of my repentance and our reconciliation.

Wrongdoings that arise from our foolish or sinful choices do not make for pleasant travel companions. Then an old adage percolates in our mind, “Prayer changes things”.

Life Transformation Onramps offered us through Holy Scripture and by way of the Spirit’s guidance take us to a place that is bigger and fuller and grander than we might have dreamed. Here we find ourselves merging straight onto the thoroughfare of wholeness. It is a place where our entire being gets put right over time. The missing ticket is found. We are coming to know who we are and where we are going.

August 25, 2022August 25, 2022

Changing Times

Changing Inside-Out.

We see it at every turn, especially where knick-knacks and touristy things are found. Its eye-catching phrase shows up carved on a plaque here, a chunk of driftwood there. The Serenity Prayer invites us to pause and ponder.

“Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. . .

“the courage to change the things I can. . .

“and the wisdom to know the difference. . .”

These much-read phrases only mark the prayer’s first words.

When I saw that the earlier (Accounting) track was not for me I revisited Oklahoma State Tech – moving a different direction this time (call it ‘course correction’).

I soon found myself perched on a chair in front of a teletype machine. That move (direct result of a changed mind) influenced my future in ways I could have never guessed. Special details of one’s future (God knows why) seem often left hidden a while.

Teletypesetter Perforator Operator. Yes, that was once the actual job title for some of us laboring in the world of print media.

Unforeseen changes were soon underway.

How often has the course of history itself been altered by the changing of some plan – a military strategy, a legislative vote? One person’s words penned long ago speak to the reality of mystery as we aim our squinting eyes toward future horizons, “we see through a glass dimly”*.

What is true of grand historical events is equally true on the personal front. A pretty Montana girl I met during my stint in Cody, Wyoming would later become my wife and the mother of our three children. By God’s grace, she’s sticking with me these many decades later.

Change happens and we are, all of us, creatures made for change. Another way of saying it, we are people in formation. All of us are getting formed. Yet, it goes deeper than this. Ask a follower of Jesus. As image-bearers of God, all people are designed by him and are therein meant to grow to be like him. That is, meant to not be merely formed, but transformed. This is what our designer is after. It really is what we were made for.

Here is another prayer, my prayer. Yours too, maybe?

And so Lord, would you grant to me the serenity (calm readiness) to accept the things I cannot change, and please grant to me the courage to change things about me which you know need changing. You are present to help me. Let it be, Lord. Thank you

February 10, 2016August 28, 2017

Train

Warm the bench.

The high, red-brick gymnasium overshadowed our school’s single-story classrooms.

Parked on the cold bench with fellow player-wannabees, my gaze dropped to the tennis-shoed polio foot at the end of my left leg.

My rear end’s the best thing this bench ever saw come its way. I’ll keep this wood plank warm all season.

I looked up to the scrimmage happening on court. My melancholy eased. Look at those Petit brothers. Perspiration glistened on their lithe ebony forms. Wow, amazing their fitness. . . and their moves. Effortless.

So it seemed.

* * * * * * * *

A common link binds me presently to four athletes.

Colton, the youngest and his sister, Tara (high school junior) practice lobbing free throws. Every day. They scramble after rebounds for their teams. Moments later their coach barks, Work it inside, move the ball inside!

After practice the siblings breeze along four miles of dirt road to their Oklahoma farm home – to chores, and homework. To laughs with family at the wood-burning stove.

The third athlete in the quartet – Luke, the ninth-grader – schools in Kenya. Luke keeps fit for what’s up next. . . Rugby, volleyball? Calls made in the game of rugby land strangely on American ears. . . scrum awarded – collapsing ruck. . . Given the sport’s intensity, ‘Rugby-moms’ are known to gasp at certain calls – bleeding wound. . .

Grace rounds out athlete number four. On the Congo playing field rigorous training tunes her ears to soccer calls. Corner kick – yellow card. On it goes.

I thrill taking in games, studying pics of these my grand-athletes. Some nearby, some far.

My mind revisits the Petit brothers of Preston High. And the term so readily voiced before. Effortless.

No. The thing that is going on out there – over the squeaking shoes – the pivots, the fakes, the twirling leaps. Nothing accidental’s going on out there. Not a thing.

My thoughts shift to another dimension. To life. All of life.

Whatever goes on with a person that actually counts. Language acquisition, architecture, athletics – or that makes for exceptional living – those actions demand something. On-purpose, precise, repetitive action. While dreaming, hoping.

My fabulous four athlete-grandkids practice. They’re keeping fit. They train..

I’ll never suit up for the NBA. Or charge down a soccer field defying blockers and goalies. I won’t (God forbid) kick shins – or have shins kicked – in a rugby scrum.

Every athlete has an aim.

In the contest of life every follower of Jesus has an aim. Really, an aim beyond the highest aspirations of any physical athlete. The aim is dual in nature, fashioned amazingly God himself.

Being transformed by renewing the mind, the way we think.

Let Christ be formed in you – our becoming like him. In word and action.

Great, we say. So. How’s this done? How?

Good news it is possible. He will help us.

To train, to practice, to be made fit. Till new ways become, not ill-fitting, but natural. Something we call – as Jesus did – the light burden – the easy yoke.

I lean down. Cold bench, warm bench. . . no matter. Lacing my shoes I cock my ear to the coach’s call,

Time to train.

June 15, 2017August 28, 2017

Defining moments

Non-sectarian.

I liked my childhood church, whose wooden benches supplied on their underside, a landing place for my thoroughly-spent chewing gum.

Before entering I studied the odd word on the church’s sign-board. I practiced sounded it out well before I knew its meaning – Non-sec-tar-i-an.

It was a bold word – a statement declaring our religious identity – holding a prominent spot on the sign. The word was printed large, straight beneath our other self-defining label – Non-denominational.

It seemed important to the leadership that visitors and passersby knew we were somehow different from most churches. Quite different. The sign provided me an early sampling of complicated words. Later, I was introduced to others, like ‘oxymoron’.

If I had been old enough to be perplexed I would have maybe wondered, Why would such a warm, loving community as ours feel a need to persuade folks that we were not divisive, that we were safe?

Over time I grappled with the fact that religion, like politics, finds dividing up an easy thing. We separate, form new and more distinctive camps. It happens perhaps in spite of ourselves – despite the fact common beliefs can be more common among us than we might think. Erecting walls demands less energy than building bridges. So it seems.

I feel personally a sting of shame. At my own offense. Of labeling inferior or less righteous that gathering of the faithful the other side of town, or that community down the street. My own private ‘non-sectarian’ sign, adorning a shadowy wall in a corridor of my inner self.

Ann and I found our on-ramp into the world of Christian service marked, on the other hand, by complementing, not competing camps. Baptists and Pentecostals – polar opposites in expression and style – rejoicing, celebrating, even generously giving. To a thing bigger, a lot bigger than any of us might experience if left to ourselves. Amazed. We were amazed.

A.W. Tozer* suggests we’re best off tuning our hearts to Jesus. “Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. . .”

We began encountering a curious cross-breed along the way. The hand of a new acquaintance would extend, a twinkle of mischievous warmth lighting their eyes. Their name. The handshake. .

“I call myself a Bapticostal”.

June 27, 2017August 28, 2017

A Stilled Mind

The prophet’s words broke over him like a great wave deluging a child at play on a calm beach – sudden and unforeseen. Overwhelming. One moment all is serene. . . all is chaos the next.

Tears surfaced from a bottled place deep within Leonard, like a long-capped reservoir straining for release. The emotion driving the tears was anguish – an all-encompassing sorrow like he had never known. Soul anguish.

The fourteen words he just read had wrecked him. The first line looped repeatedly in his mind.

“The heart is deceitful above all things” The statement – bold as it came – stripped him entirely. Between sobs he wondered, How could the mere reading of words impact me so? The puzzlement came jumbled, not tidily delivered – more a crying than a question. He felt the worst kind of pain, the pain of detecting his own dreadfulness, the deception of his own heart. Shame.

Leonard realized that for too long he had been self-deceived. He took in the remaining words. . .

“. . and desperately wicked: who can know it?” The anguish remained, coming even stronger now and in waves.

“Deceitful and wicked.” His sense of guilt brought him to the floor. Sobbing, he lay face down, prostrate. A crushing sense of unworthiness drove him further. Moving the throw rug aside he stretched himself directly to the floor. The next day came and went. When not at work or trying to sleep nights he lay at his place on the floor. He knew his misery had a name. Sin.

Years later he recounted the scene in his memoir Impossibilities Become Challenges.

“I saw myself as I had never seen myself before. Lost, undone, wicked. .It seemed as if my very clothes smelt of the awfulness of sin.” In his drive to critically dismantle the book, the book was dismantling him. In a single verse the Bible exposed him, shining its light on his own pride.

Entering his third day of misery, Leonard thought to exit his room, find a place in the back yard and go prostrate there on the bare earth. It was then something happened.

“Something arrested and stilled my mind.”

Leonard found himself looking at a cross. “It possibly was a vision”.

Affixed to the cross by sharp iron nails was a heavily bleeding man.

“I seemed to understand this blood was for my sins.” He knew the man to be Jesus. “He was saying to me, ‘I died in this way for you. I shed my blood for your sins. Just accept my work of redemption.’”

October 25, 2017

Removing Stones

“See this stone in the path? Now this one too, here in the picture on the same trail. . .”

I sat with half a dozen men, some a decade or more older than me. The hut we gathered in each week was roofed with long grass. The floor consisted of smooth, hardened dirt. A semicircle of dark benches carried our weight and were worn smooth, long sense having yielded up their last dangling splinter. It was Thursday and one of this week’s T.E.E. lessons focused on a visit Jesus had with a woman at a water well.

Mature, practical, sincere, the upcountry pastors and elders took in the illustration on the workbook’s open page. The image struck a chord. Two stumbling-stones, one representing male pride, the other, tribalism. The students had read the lesson’s introduction:

Here a woman of a different tribe met Jesus. Sometimes we let the division of tribes hinder God’s work. Male pride also hinders. These things are like big rocks in the pathway that make people stumble. In order to give the good news to the woman, Jesus overcame these two problems.

I reviewed the scene with the men.

“See the person Jesus found at the well. She not only was a woman. She also spoke with an accent. We know this because she was of a different tribe, another people.”

I look in the face of each man in our semi-circle.

“Can one of you describe this picture for us. Can you help the rest of us see what good thing Jesus wanted bring to the woman and what Jesus did to overcome two big problems so she could be helped.”

A pastor nodded. He launched in, reviewing the narrative, raising the matter of how women are often looked down upon, mistreated. The room was quiet. The pastor then spoke of hard issues related to tribalism, the challenges to go beyond it, as Jesus did.

“Can we trust the Lord is among us today? To help us to change?”

Heads nod. Confession is voiced by two or three. We pray.

Then go our ways, trusting him, friend of sinners, to lead.