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“HEY! DON’T THROW FISH HEADS ON THE RUG!”

Once in a while, a book comes along that just blows us away — and we’ve got one such Friday recommendation for you. It’s entitled Searching For a God to Love, by Chris Blake. Chris is a professor of communications at a Christian college, Union, in Lincoln, Nebraska. Before that, the editor of Insight magazine, a journal for teenagers in my Adventist denomination. And before THAT, he was a school teacher who worked alongside our own writer/producer, David Smith, so we feel a special connection with Chris for that. And friend, this is one exceptional book: Searching For a God to Love.

We’ve been studying all this week the very real dilemma of human desire being diametrically opposed to what God wants us to do. MILKSHAKES AND OBEDIENCE — that’s been our title. But the Ten Commandments seem to all be along the lines of: “DON’T drink milkshakes. DON’T spend your money on fun. Don’t do this; don’t do that. And if you do, I’ll squash you flat.” And it’s hard to obey when our INSTINCTS relentlessly go in the other direction.

Well, along around page 244 of Chris Blake’s book he begins to tell us about this incredible house. And it is a dream.

“Picture a magnificent $15 million mansion,” he writes, “with gleaming pillars and three fountains. A driveway bends for a quarter mile to six garages harboring a fleet of extraordinary cars.”

Now, this isn’t Bill Gates’ house; it’s yours. It’s the place God is getting ready for you in heaven right now. But Chris is just getting started with his Century 21 pitch, trying to sell you on this particular address.

“Inside the house stand seven fireplaces (including three in bedrooms), rosewood floors, and Architectural Digest quality throughout. The kitchen is nearly the size of YOUR entire house.” Except that THIS is now your house. And he concludes: “You stagger around gaping in awe.”

It sounds good. And as we’ve been saying all week, if we get with Jesus, and STAY with Jesus, this is what we are in for. Time spent with Jesus will transform us into men and women with heavenly desires. Now, we’re not going to get the above-mentioned mansion because we became good, but we’re going to become good in gratitude for the wonderful relationship . . . which happens to come with the mansion. Agreed?

But now Chris’ description of the mansion takes a weird little detour.

“There IS one thing that disturbs you,” he writes. “In every stunning room you note a different sign posted with the words ‘To Our Guests:’ above explicit directions. ‘Don’t spit on the floor’ is mounted in an immaculate drawing room. ‘Don’t toss scaly fish heads on the Persian rug’ adorns a bedroom. The glittering dining room carries a notice: ‘Keep your dirty shoes off the table.’ ‘Change the car’s oil outside the house’ reads a kitchen message. You think, Why would anyone post these commands? Given the exquisite beauty of this place, no one would consider doing these acts. The commands seem so . . . unnecessary.”

Chris then goes on to point out that following the thousand-year millennium described in Revelation, God and His people will live in a place so perfect, so exquisite, so incredible inventive and excellent and ABUNDANT . . . that posted rules like “Please don’t toss scaly fish heads on the Persian rug” would seem a humorous absurdity.

“On a pristine new earth,” he writes, “no commandments will be posted to remind citizens, “Don’t kill.” “Don’t lie.” “Don’t covet.” “Celebrate Sabbath.” “Worship only God.” In this life they’re needed, there they won’t be. The laws don’t need to be posted because, as God discloses, we are under an eternal new covenant with Christ.”

He then quotes from that great passage in the book of Hebrews, chapter eight, which goes:
“I will put My laws in their MINDS and write them on their HEARTS. I will be their God, and they will be My people.”

“This time I’m writing out the plan IN them,” it says in The Message paraphrase, “carving it on the lining of their hearts.”

And friend, I guess this is where we want to end up our discussion of MILKSHAKES AND OBEDIENCE. God has a place for us, a kingdom of grace. And it’s so perfect, so incredibly generous. Rules about fish heads and where to change the oil of your car would seem so stupid there; in fact, even the Ten Commandments, in that grand and glorious place, almost sound a bit trite. “Do not kill”? “Do not steal”? Why in the world would anybody STEAL anything here, when we’ve been flat-out GIVEN . . . EVERYTHING?!

But the point is this, really. You and I, as we accept the mansion-yet-to-come by accepting the Calvary-that-already-is . . . can begin to glimpse the glory of this kingdom NOW. Today. As we walk with Jesus NOW, and taste more and more of His goodness, His grace, His love, we will start NOW to not want to throw scaly fish heads on the rug of His love. “The kingdom of heaven is within you,” Jesus said to His disciples, and that was two thousand years before NOW, when the pearly gates were still more than 20 centuries away.

And of course, Jesus Himself lived according to the excellence of this faraway kingdom even while tramping around here in the dust of Judea. He was a human being, just as we are. I don’t know if He craved a double-fudge mocha milkshake like we do, but the Bible tells us He was tempted. Satan hit Him hard, and he hit Him when He was most hungry and tired and HUMAN. How did Jesus know how to obey . . . and LOVE it?

There’s a classic paragraph some of us have carried around in our pockets for a long time. Maybe we should take it out of the pocket and read it more often. But it goes like this, and it’s from a marvelous Christian bestseller entitled The Desire of Ages. I guess Friday is “Great Books 101” day here on The Voice of Prophecy. But listen to this:

“All TRUE obedience comes from the HEART.” Precisely our theme all week. “It was heart work with CHRIST.” Now notice: “And if we consent, He will so identify Himself with our thoughts and aims, so blend our hearts and minds into conformity to His will, that when obeying HIM we shall be but carrying out our OWN impulses.”

I think it was St. Augustine who once wrote, “Love God . . . and do as you please.” Because when you really love Him, what pleases Him will please you too — and vice versa. Here’s the rest of Ellen White’s quote:

“The will, refined and sanctified, will find its HIGHEST DELIGHT in doing His service. When we know God as it is our privilege to know Him, our life will be a life of CONTINUAL obedience. Through an appreciation of the character of Christ, through communion with God, sin will become hateful to us.”

Isn’t that an incredible challenge? Sin becoming hateful to us? But really, I’d rather stay on the positive side. What an amazing thought . . . that as we realize the REALITY of God’s kingdom within us NOW, that we really are “marching to Zion,” and that there is that perfect mansion waiting, we will want to live already AS a resident of that great house.

But you know, let’s lift it even above that level. I can picture the mansion already, but I don’t want to be motivated to obedience by a mansion. By six Rolls-Royces parked in a row, and million-dollar carpeting. Just JESUS . . . should be enough. He redeemed me. I live in a world NOW that is bathed by His grace. Shouldn’t THAT stir me to a noble obedience that doesn’t need rules posted on every tree?

Here’s Chris’ concluding thought:

“When God’s laws of love are ALREADY in our feelings and thoughts, love happens as naturally as breathing. We don’t have to ‘work it up.’ It’s not a burdensome requirement. It simply IS. Each morning when we get up we don’t think, Okay, I gotta remember to breathe today. Breathe in, breathe out. . . . God’s impulses have become OUR impulses. Consequently we are treated as mature, responsible adults. Hans Steinmuss described to me a sign he saw posted above the door of an especially creative art department. The sign read, ‘You Are Allowed.’” And Chris adds: “With selfless love as our only motive, perhaps that sign will be the only one tacked up in the New Jerusalem.”

Do you remember when you were three, and a childish jealousy over some toy seemed SO huge? Now you smile about it. Or when you were thirteen, and a crush over some cute guy almost broke your heart? And now you smile. Those frail moments, those hurts and stumbles, seemed so real at the time, and they happened because you were a human being inhabiting this world of pain. That’s how it is. But isn’t it wonderful to be grownup now, and look back with a smile, and be glad you dwell in a different land today? Friend, that’s how it will be for us in God’s eternal kingdom . . . but why not begin living as a proud and grateful citizen now?

Right at the end of Searching For a God to Love, Chris Blake quotes from another good author, Brennan Manning. We’ll close our week with this:

“‘Christianity is not primarily a moral code but a GRACELADEN MYSTERY; it is not essentially a philosophy of love but a love affair; it is not keeping rules with clenched fists but receiving the GIFT with open hands.’ Our love affair with God isn’t an arranged marriage to a demanding partner, a fate worse than death. It’s more a spirited adventure, like otters in a pond swimming in the assurance of deep, safe love.”