A Tale Of Three Planets (or Plunging Into The Sun)

Our solar system is an amazing place. It is made up of 8 planets (and the demoted Pluto…poor little guy!) of different sizes and material consistencies moving ceaselessly and with precision around a central star which blazes at a temperature of 9,940 degrees Fahrenheit.

Consider the sheer distance of Pluto from the sun, a distance of 3.67 billion miles. Pluto is a very cold place. Its surface temperature is -380 degrees Fahrenheit. Imagine if you could stand on the surface of Pluto and gaze at the sun. Unlike the brightness and warmth that we enjoy from the Sun here on Earth, the Sun’s appearance would be only like a very bright star, and its effect on the sky would be similar to a full moon on earth.  

Earth itself is 93 million miles away from the Sun. For human beings, the temperature range and brightness of the sun, although not always pleasant to our individual tastes in every locale, is generally tolerable.

Mercury, the closest planet to the sun,  with its elliptical orbit, ranges from a “mere” 28.5 million miles to 43 million miles away from the Sun, depending on where it is in its orbit. The surface temperature of Mercury is widely variable, depending on which side is facing the Sun. The “hot” side peaks at around 800 degrees Fahrenheit, while the “cold” side drops to a frigid -300 degrees Fahrenheit. The sun appears 2 ½ times larger in the sky than on Earth during the day, which is the equivalent of 88 earth days. The night, which is also the length of 88 earth days, is dark and unimaginably cold.

With this “science lesson courtesy of Google” in mind, I would like to point out how these three planets represent three types of people and then perhaps recommend a very different kind of person that we could all strive to be. In these analogies, I am talking more specifically about Christians, and the Sun represents God.

Many people are like Pluto. They said a prayer for salvation many years ago, they may attend church frequently or infrequently, they are good neighbors, they try not to cuss, etc. When it comes to intimately knowing Christ (Philippians 3:7-11) and living in obedience to the scriptures (Luke 6:46-49), however, the “light” of truth that they have in their lives is dim and too distant to produce any heat to melt the hardness and coldness, and allow life to flourish. When they look into the sky, the Sun is lost in the clutter of other “stars”, with very little to cause it to stand out as significant.

Others are like Earth. The Sun exists to make them comfortable. The Sun represents no real danger to them personally outside of the occasional sunburn, for which we have a wide array of aloes and ointments to take away the sting. These folks enjoy the sun for pleasure’s sake as long as it stays a safe, warm distance away. These are the people who want Jesus to keep them fat and happy, to prosper them and to meet all their needs. Answer my prayers, but keep a safe distance. Don’t make me give up my stuff, my status, or my life. Life is a perpetual vacation in the Sun! They follow Jesus for the bread he provides, but have never feasted on the Bread of Life that he is (see John 6). 

Still others are like Mercury. They bask in the intense heat of the Sun for extended periods, during which they are all but blinded by its heat and nearness. They enjoy Bible and worship conferences, short-term mission trips, and the occasional trek across the tracks to the bad side of town to give a bum a second-hand shirt and a sandwich. The “secular” side of their lives (as they call it), however, is a long, dark night. At work, home, or play they are cold and silent. They wait for the next spiritual high or ministry opportunity that will thaw them out and give them intensity and purpose. Sometimes they are fiery hot and sometimes they are icy cold, but their “average temperature” is lukewarm (Revelation 3:15-22).

Now imagine that the distance from the surface of Pluto to the center of the Sun represents a spectrum of Spiritual life. Where are you right now? Are you standing on Pluto? Cold? Distant from the life of God? Has your distance from him made him seem smaller than he really is?  Do you find it difficult to spot Him among the rest of the concerns (the stars) of your life? The solution is to move towards the Sun!

Perhaps you are like Earth. The sacrifice of Jesus, the perfect Lamb of God, means nothing more to you than a ticket to material blessing and comfortable living. The demands of His Gospel only serve to burn you, but you soothe the burns by the ointment of reasoning, saying Jesus was only speaking metaphorically; he wouldn’t really require you to give up your life in order to find it (Matt 10:39, 16:25). If this is you, I urge you, move toward the Sun!

Those of you finding yourself on Mercury, addicted to one spiritual high after the next, never able to live beyond thrill so that you could find yourself in abiding relationship, there is only one answer to your plight! Move toward the Sun!  Let the light and heat illuminate and ignite every part your life, even the parts you have wrongly categorized as “secular”.

As you approach the Sun you will notice something. Its light and heat are far too intense for you to have any possible hope of survival. You cannot live apathetically on the surface of the Sun. You cannot take a vacation on the surface of the sun. The Sun’s intensity will never allow you to retreat from it for a season of coldness. The only thing you can plan on doing as you rush headlong toward the sun is DYING. The Sun will consume us along with all of our meaningless and petty agendas and desires. The light and heat of the Sun will envelope us. It will leave no trace of us in which to glory. A commitment to the Sun is a final, all-in proposition. For those who would truly follow Jesus, it’s the only way to go; losing our life in Him so that we can really live…” for our God is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29 ESV)”.

Misplaced Desire?

 ”The same people who want sixty-minute worship services rent two-hour videos and watch NBA and NFL games that run even longer. The issue is not length, but appetite. Why the misplaced desire?” Jim Cymbala from Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire

After reading that quote you may be concerned that I am about to transform into “the grumpy old man” and jump up on the nearest soap-box and proclaim, “When I was your age, church services went for eight hours AND WE LOVED IT!” On the contrary, I have been in many lengthy services that left me feeling that the time would have been better spent ANYWHERE else. I have also been in services that lasted an hour or less that left me longing for more, and disappointed that it was time to go. I don’t want to address how long your worship service should be, but rather to address the question posed here by Pastor Cymbala. ”Why the misplaced desire?”

“The issue is not length, but appetite.”  Let’s be real careful to understand exactly the issue we’re discussing. The issue is not denominational creed, but appetite.  The issue is not musical preference, but appetite. The issue is not the time constraints of my personal schedule, but appetite. The issue is not the pastor’s lack (or abundance) of education, but appetite. The issue is not the building program, but appetite. The issue is not Brother or Sister So-and-So, but appetite, etc., etc., etc.

With the list I have constructed in the paragraph above, you could easily and mistakenly assume that I am speaking of corporate worship alone, as if I am proposing that we become people who hide ourselves in the church, away from the world; or that we never take the time to enjoy the life God has given us. Am I saying we should never enjoy hobbies, engage in business, or spend time with our friends?  To be clear, let me say on the flip-side, the issue is not the NFL, the NBA, movies, TV, reading, social networking, music, quilting, board games, fishing, cooking, Sunday School, auto repair, your kids or grandkids, political activism, etc., …the issue is appetite. What do I desire?     

 In our naturally sinful state (without Jesus) we have only one way to relate to the bigger moral questions of life, and that is through religion, with all of its rules and regulations. We do this because we mistakenly believe it puts us in control of both ourselves and others. We feel that if we can live within the “thou shalts” and the “thou shalt nots” that we will be pleasing to God and free from sin’s grip on our lives. We replace the need for healthy appetites with a strict and oppressive diet of pre-packaged morality.

Jesus, however, was far less concerned about our rule-keeping and boiled everything down to getting our desire (appetites) pointed in the right direction.

 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, "Which commandment is the most important of all?" Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all  your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." Mark 12:28-31 ESV

“Love” is the greatest expression of desire. Jesus left no room for competing loyalties: “all your heart” (my emotions), “all your soul” (my will), “all your mind” (my thoughts), “all your strength” (the activities of my physical body). Because God loves others, they become part of the deal for us as well, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Instead of making the issue about whether it’s O.K. to do this or that, or whether we should have longer church services or bigger offerings or more mission trips, we should spend our time and energy on one question, “What do I desire?”, or rather, “Whom do I desire?” If I would do this habitually, all other issues concerning the vibrancy of my worship, my entertainment choices, and my service to my fellow man would be resolved; swept away in a new wave of passionate love for the One who first loved me.

Who and what we desire is a major thing with God. God describes Himself in the Old Testament as a “jealous God” (Exodus 20:5, Deuteronomy 4:24; 5:9; 6:15, Joshua 24:19). Many of His judgments against the nation of Israel were for their “adultery” (see Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea for starters). Has this changed in the New Covenant? Consider James 4:4-5 (ESV) “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?  Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, ‘He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us’.”

In the 1970’s, the late Keith Green caused quite a stir among the religious with his song, To Obey is Better than Sacrifice. In the lyrics he states, speaking in the first person as the Father:

To obey is better than sacrifice. I want more than Sundays and Wednesday nights. ‘Cause if you can’t come to me every day, then don’t bother coming at all.

Ouch! It may sound harsh, but I believe that God’s standard throughout scripture is crystal clear. He has no interest in being an accessory…a mere piece of jewelry that we wear to make us feel important or impress our snobby, religious friends. No. He is worthy of my longing, my desire, my hunger.

The good news is that God wants to help us in our weakness. Ask the Holy Spirit to examine your heart. Boldly ask him to show you where you have desired other things, perhaps even set up idols (these can be anything that demands more of your attention than you devote to the Father. We all have them at one time or another) and He will do it. Most of all, stop rationalizing your idolatry and adultery! It’s time to kick the lovers named “Stuff” and “Status” out of our beds! If we will determine to do this, God will help us.  In fact, the Holy Spirit is our only hope. If we have any chance of seeing our lives transformed, swept clean and idol-free, it is only through His illumination and assistance…

 …but be ready to get honest, because if you ask, he WILL show you what stands in the way and expect you to remove it.

Rediscovering Hunger

As someone who has fought the weight loss battle (sometimes winning, and often losing) I had what can only be defined as a revelation one day.

I had had a particularly grueling day of manual labor that involved the bane of my existence –my lawn. As me and my 4 sons (They say ‘misery loves company’!) mowed and weed-whacked and hedge-trimmed and whatever else we did for several hours, I began to notice a sensation growing in my belly. It was, of course, the proper response to such a day of sweat and toil. I was hungry.

I suppose that many people would scratch their heads and wonder why this was an even remotely noticeable event in my life. We expend energy, we get hungry…basic science, right?  However, as someone who had developed a lifelong habit of responding to every craving by rushing to the refrigerator or burger place, the feeling was somehow foreign to me. Eating had been my comforter when I was sad, my method for celebrating when I was happy, and sometimes just the way I alleviated boredom. To my amazement, I realized that I couldn’t remember the last time I was truly hungry. I had crowded that extremely normal experience out of my daily life with unrestrained indulgence.

The hunger that I was experiencing was by no means a pleasant experience, hunger never is, in and of itself; but interestingly enough I actually enjoyed it. I found pleasure in eating as a response to a real need, and eating food with real nutritional value as opposed to ingesting empty calories simply because, quite frankly, I was addicted.

“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. (Matthew 4:1-2 ESV)”

There is a lot to be said for the often-neglected Biblical discipline of fasting. Clearly Jesus expected that his followers would fast since He told them in the Sermon on the Mount “…when you fast…” (Matthew 6:16) Not “if”, but “when”.  This, however, is not a posting about fasting as an event but rather about a fasted life.

Jesus, as he prepared to enter the ministry, made fasting the top priority. He seemed to know that the magnitude of His mission as well as His desire for oneness with the Father required a life free from distracting indulgence.

I would define what I’m calling a fasted life as:

The voluntary abstinence from non-productive or distracting indulgences for the purpose of greater intimacy with another (Father God, our spouse, etc).

At the risk of stating the obvious, when we fast, like Jesus, we become hungry. Conversely, when we indulge, we can never achieve or maintain a state of true hunger.  Just like in our natural bodies, our spiritual or inner man is never hungry after a steady stream of materialism and consumerism, worldly entertainment, religious self-righteousness, as well as thought patterns and attitudes of lust, fear, worry, jealousy, unforgiveness, etc.

We will often make the words “hunger” and “craving” interchangeable, but I think a legitimate distinction can be made. I will occasionally say to my wife, “I’m hungry for pizza”, but as I explained above, the chances are pretty good that (a) I am not truly hungry at all, and (b) the desire for pizza is more an attempt to satisfy a passing craving instead of provide sustenance to my physical body.

“Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you.  For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.” 1 John 2:15-17 NLT

Most other versions render the word “craving” in the above passage as “lust”. This is not necessarily a reference to sexual lust, but to strong, unrestricted and destructive desire.  The questions we must ask ourselves are these: When was I last TRULY hungry for the Father? Have I filled my soul with the little treats that this life and my eternal enemy so willing throw at me, that I can’t even imagine being desperately hungry for only manna from heaven, Jesus, the bread of life, or will just any old dinner of fish and onions do (see Numbers 11:5-6, and John 6:22-70)?

Hunger is a very good thing. It keeps us focused on that which is truly beneficial; and we can only be truly hungry when we abandon all the silly things that are not beneficial at all (see 1 Corinthians 6:12).

What are you feasting on? Do you indulge every craving that comes your way, or are you holding out, enduring Hunger, for what will REALLY satisfy?

"Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,  and delight yourselves in rich food.” (Isaiah 55:1-2)