John Lane
John Lane, D.Min., is the superintendent of the New South Conference and the Wabash Conference. General Conference 2023 delegates elected him as a new member of the Free Methodist Church USA Board of Administration, and he recently served as a member of the Bishops Search Committee.
By John Lane
If you have ever played any first-person video games, you know the importance of the “recenter” button or command.
For those of you who are lost, the “recenter” button reorients your view so that you are looking straight ahead.
For multiple reasons, your view screen can become disoriented, and you can find yourself looking at the ground or the sky and unable to figure out your direction. But when you hit the “recenter” button, you automatically snap back into facing forward, reorienting your view.
Recentering Truths
There are verses in Scripture that are “recentering” for me — reminders of my place in this world and in relation to God the Father.
These verses snap my wayward attention back to important truths.
There are the encouraging truths such as:
“Can anything separate us from the love of Christ?” (Romans 8:35 CEV)
and
“For you bless the godly, O Lord; you surround them with your shield of love.” (Psalm 5:12 NLT)
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“From time to time, I need reminding of His great love.”
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These encouraging verses remind me that I am deeply loved and valued by the living God.
From time to time, I need reminding of His great love.
But then there are the verses that are more corrective than encouraging. These verses confront the idolatry of my own self-centeredness. These verses lift my eyes from my own circumstances to the circumstances of others. Verses such as:
“Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:39)
and
“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much.” (Job 38:4 NLT)
and
“But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken.” (Matthew 12:36)
and finally:
“You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written: ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’ So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.” (Romans 14:10–12)
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“He is trying to keep us alive in an embattled world.”
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Do you sense it? Do you sense the recentering, the reorienting that occurs in your heart as you read these scriptures?
They are like God is grabbing our chins and making us look up at Him. (Remember your parents doing that?)
They are like the drill sergeant snapping us to attention because he is trying to keep us alive in an embattled world.
I know that this isn’t a popular current view of God. For many, it may bring back memories of when parents, teachers or preachers overemphasized the wrath of God.
But I am afraid that without a true understanding of the sovereignty, omnipotence and holiness of God, we remake Him into something He is not. He ends up kneeling at our altar rather than the other way around.
Consider This
When the 12 disciples were sent out into the world to heal, cast out demons and raise the dead as they preached the good news of the kingdom, Jesus had to give them “authority.”
“Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.” (Matthew 10:1)
The assumption was that “authority” was something Jesus possessed, and they didn’t. Neither did the religious “authorities” who were in positions of power; otherwise the people would not have commented that Jesus spoke with authority, unlike their own teachers.
In fact, if you draw back to a global perspective, as Jesus was doling out authority to His disciples, He was the only person on earth who carried the authority to do so. Caesar didn’t have it. The emperors of the Han Dynasty in China at that time didn’t have it. Surely the Jewish high priest didn’t have it.
Only Jesus.
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“We need reminding of this authority that God possesses by His very nature.”
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But the world assumed that these other “real” leaders had true authority.
Do you see how easy it is to miss the sovereignty, power and omnipotence of God?
We need reminding of this authority that God possesses by His very nature.
From time to time, we need our view reoriented.
He is Lord! Lord of all!
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John Lane
John Lane, D.Min., is the superintendent of the New South Conference and the Wabash Conference. General Conference 2023 delegates elected him as a new member of the Free Methodist Church USA Board of Administration, and he recently served as a member of the Bishops Search Committee.
