Category Archives: Lenten Season

Seeking Jerusalem – Day 48 “The Lost Art of Repentance”

12 Sunday Jul 2020

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The Way of the Cross – Lenten Season 2018

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30 NIV)

“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength…” (Isaiah 30:15b NIV).

“Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.  He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of these things” (Luke 24:45-48a NIV).

The Lost Art of Repentance

I like the title of this post.  It tells me that Repentance is an Art form that has been lost.  People don’t really repent much these days and the little that they do is superficial and difficult.  Like an adult still making stick men with crayons, we have lost the nuances, the discipline but most of all the results of a life of repentance.

I mean, have you ever put the idea of repentance and rest together in the same sentence?  God does.  Jesus says that his yoke is easy and his burden is light.  Especially in comparison with the Pharisees of his day who burdened people with a moral code almost impossible to maintain.  Already in the Old Testament, God makes it clear that repentance and rest go together and that the key is trusting Him with a quiet spirit (Isaiah 30:15b).

Paul tells us that “the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace” (Romans 8:6b NIV).  In our last post we talked about surrender as the gateway to a mind and a life controlled by the Holy Spirit, but the truth is that it scares most of us half to death.  On the one hand, there are always issues that we don’t want to deal with (idols we don’t want to part with and fears we don’t know what to do with) and on the other hand, even if we are able, in a moment of crisis, surrender everything to God we have no idea how to sustain that kind of lifestyle.

After all, the idea of a full surrender seems to be at odds with the idea of a progressive growth in sanctification.  How can I be fully surrendered to God’s will and at the same time be aware of sin in my life that I have not yet learnt to deal with.  Some things can be handled right away and should be but others are longer term, more deeply rooted and need to be dealt with over time.  So how do we reconcile those two things?  And how in the world does that allow me to rest?  It seems like a lot of work to me.

And here is where the lost art of repentance comes in.

We don’t talk about it near enough.  We are so focused on the sin itself that repentance is little more than confessing your sin and then turning away from it for good.  We make the declaration of intent to repent and sometimes it sticks but most of the time we fall back into that same sin again and again because we are not really dealing with the root of the sin but rather the symptoms in and of themselves.

Confession is a moment but repentance is a lifetime.

Repentance is faithwalking.   We’ve talked about it before.  Faith is key to repentance but faith in what?  How does it work?  Where is the rest that is promised?  I don’t believe that we should be passive in our sanctification but how in the world can “making every effort” be restful?

It’s a good question but I think we often forget that the word “rest” in the Bible has a different meaning than we use it in our daily lives.  Yes, there is an aspect of physical rest from our labor especially when God calls us to a Sabbath Rest.  But, in the New Testament, God uses the word to talk about “spiritual rest for our souls.”

Think in terms of the fight of Romans 7 where we are battling against sin and temptation and we often lose that battle.  There is a lot of frustration and even anger and a sense of betrayal and grief at the weakness we often find inside ourselves.  It’s already good news that we even feel that way since that is an initial evidence of the conviction of the Holy Spirit.  But that conviction isn’t enough.  We need to repent.

Repentance is surrender.  It is wrestling with God until dawn and then asking for his blessing and presence in a difficult moment and resting in his answer.  The problem with repentance is not giving up the immorality or changing a behavior or humbling ourselves to ask forgiveness of a brother we have wronged.  The actions themselves are neutral.  They exist in the realm of behavior and atoms and movement.  The problem is in our mind, our attitude, our spirit.

Repentance is surrender of my will to follow the will of God.  Giving up my small ambitions, my small desires, to please God and become a significant part of His plans not only for my life but for the world.  Am I convinced that his ways are better than my ways?  Am I certain that I can trust Him to guide me through the difficult trials ahead?  Will he simply take away my bad desires and replace them with good things?  Can I trust Him to make it easy and not have to follow Him with “fear and trembling?”

If our minds are not transformed by the Truth of the Word of God then it will be difficult to trust Him to guide me in the path ahead.  So let’s get to work and try to identify some basic elements to this lost art of repentance.  Some of the following discussion is based on overall themes in the Bible and cannot be backed up by one single verse.  That’s normal.  In your heart you will know if these things are true or not.  Let’s get to work…

First, we need to agree with God that having peace with Him means to be at war with our sinful desires.  The peace we receive in the act of repentance is a peace that comes from Jesus Christ and what he has done for us on the cross.  It is the peace of “no condemnation.”  But that peace with God means war with the Devil.  We need to choose sides.

Second, a lifetime of repentance is a walk of faith in the providence of God over every element of our lives.  Nothing happens to us, whether good or bad, that isn’t allowed by God and will be used by Him for our good.  It takes faith to walk in repentance, changing our direction, attitudes and actions to learn a new way to live in the power of the Spirit.  You cannot surrender to someone you don’t trust.  I have to trust God in the process.

Third, to surrender to the will of God and to give up our self-will is not a passive effort but an active one.  Resting in the Spirit does not mean spiritual laziness.  From a place of rest we can make every effort to show the fruits of repentance in our lives.  We have difficult work to do.

Fourth, the difference between doing things in our own strength and doing things in the power of the Holy Spirit is the difference between a surrendered heart and an un-surrendered heart.  It’s as simple as that.  And as difficult.  Power comes through surrender.

Fifth, the context of our walk with God is ministry.  We don’t get to wait until we have our act together to be ready for ministry.  It is in the context of our real world battle with sin and our dedication to the things of God that we demonstrate who we are.  Without the context of our life ministry and focus on building the kingdom of God, all of our efforts will become about morality and little more than that.  Ministry is the context of repentance.

Those are the five truths that I try to hold on to when I am dealing with repentance in my life.  And there is some rationale to the order that they come in.  Choice.  Faith.  Work.  Power.  Ministry.

  • I have a choice to make.
  • It takes faith/trust in God.
  • I have difficult work to do.
  • Power comes through surrender.
  • The context is ministry.

If I have doubts about any one of these things, I need to go back to the basics and get things straight once again in my head based on the truths of scripture.

But there are still things to talk about.  The Devil is particularly good at getting us off track and rendering our lives powerless.  We need to be aware of his schemes.  So let’s take a look at one or two of them today (and deal with more of them in other posts as we go along).

But let me start by going back to a key issue.  How do we reconcile a full surrender to God with a progressive sanctification?  Not so easy.  Let me explain.

Let’s say that I make a full surrender to God.  What does that mean?  It means that whenever my will is at odds with His will –  He wins.  Period.  There are lots of things that I can decide for myself that don’t really have anything to do with the revealed will of God.  In general, He doesn’t care if I wear jeans and a t-shirt or a suit today.  I can decide that for myself.  There is a certain amount of wisdom that I can learn from the Scriptures about daily life (and from other Christians) but it is not an issue of committing sin to decide these things for ourselves.  Obviously.

And there are even many decisions that we can make where we decide to do one thing over another because we have “the mind of Christ.”  We have his priorities, his agenda, his perspective on the world.  So, in many cases, we may decide to give up something that is perfectly fine in and of itself but give it up in order to promote the gospel or simply to show love and kindness to someone else.  Again, obviously.

But whenever my will is in conflict with the will of God, I must humble myself and agree with God that His will is good and pleasing and perfect.  That is what it means to surrender yourself to God fully.  No caveats.  No secret rooms.  No conditional clauses to the contract.  Full surrender.

Now, the question is how in the world to maintain that posture over the long term.  How do I maintain a full surrender attitude while at the same time allowing myself to grow in grace and maturity over time?  And here is where we have to deal with a few of the Devil’s schemes and add a touch of wisdom to the situation.

First of all is the issue of perfectionism.  I get it.  I used to write lists of all the things that I needed to do or to change in order to have full surrender to God.  And my lists were long.  They included the things I needed to stop doing, the things that I needed to start doing and everything that lies between.  Sins of omission and sins of commission and the sins of omission were always a lot more than the sins of commission.

Let me show you what I mean…..

  1.  Get up at 5am to pray.  Pray for at least two hours.  Pray for my family and friends, my Pastor and each of the elders and deacons of the church as well as for the leaders of the ministries.  Pray for my family each by name.  Pray for the salvation of my friends who aren’t Christians.  Pray for the missionaries of our church.  Pray for the leaders of our community, our city, our nation.  Pray for my ministry.  Pray for finances and resources.  Pray for God’s will to be clarified throughout the day.
  2. ….

I think you already get the point.  And I haven’t even exhausted the first item on prayer yet.  And who is going to argue with any of the points there.  Prayer is important.  None of us pray enough.  Prayer is essential to everything we do.  Maybe I need to add a few more points….

Do you see the problem?  Perfectionism which is the first cousin to legalism.  Where is our freedom in Christ?  On the other hand, Jesus worked hard in his ministry and often, at key points in his ministry, prayed all night.  Maybe I’m just lazy…..maybe.  But maybe you are a bit legalistic as well.  How do you know the difference?

And that is the key point after all.

On the one hand, Paul tells us that “everything is permissible” but on the other hand he says “not everything is beneficial” (I Corinthians 10:23 NIV).  On the one hand, we have Christian freedom but on the other hand we have Christian responsibility.

The point is that we are not to be perfectionists or legalists.  In the context of ministry, thinking about the spiritual good of others in the church and the salvation of the lost, what is most beneficial?  What is the best way to do things?  We, ourselves, are free from any condemnation but in this world it is important to do things from a place of wisdom, without condemnation.

That is an important concept to keep in mind.

Yes, we need to make a distinction between sins of commission and sins of omission, for sure.  But that distinction should already tell us something.

Sins of commission should be stopped.  We are conscious of the sin and therefore it needs to be stopped.  Today.  Completely.  We may still fall to the sin again in a day or two, but then we return to the cross, to a place of surrender, and we stop that sin in its tracks again.  If it happens a third time, we should be wise enough to seek help.  Talk to the person you are accountable to as a disciple.  If you don’t have one, get one.  Or talk to your Pastor, or a mature Christian friend.  Depending on what you are dealing with, pick someone appropriate and make every effort to deal with it.

The fact that you are in the process of dealing with it is dealing with it.

Some things simply take time.  The commitment must be to deal with it today.  Sin is sin.  And we don’t play games with sin.  But sin is easy to deal with in terms of our guilt before God because we can go to the cross as many times as necessary.  What?  Seven times?  No seventy times seven.  As many times as necessary.

But on a practical level, our intention to deal with sin immediately and completely needs to be maintained even if it is a process.  You may need to get down deeper and root our the fear or desire that is at the heart of the particular sin you are dealing with.  Hard work but there is a lot of help.

The point is that a full surrender on this matter is a source of power to you so long as you do not condemn yourself when Christ does not condemn you.  You are freed from the power and guilt of sin but you still need to deal with it.

Yes, I know that you feel like a traitor sometimes.  But think about it.  Why did you expect things to be easy and effort free?  Why did you think that a lifetime of sinful behavior would simply vanish over night?  Actually, sometimes it does.  But sometimes it does not.  If it does not, it is because God wants you to dig deeper and learn something important about yourself so that He can prepare you for anointed ministry.  You are always a wounded healer.  There is no other kind.  Embrace it.  Deal with it in the strength of God over time.

But there is still the question of sins of omission to talk about.

This is a trap that I fell into right away (and still do).  It’s easy to make a long list of things that I should do but that just makes me a Pharisee.  No, I am not letting myself off the hook.  I am just saying that everything doesn’t need to be done today.  Even Jesus didn’t pray all night every night.  He took a rest.  He went to parties.  He spent time with his disciples.  He ministered to people.  We are not monks in a monastery with nothing to do but pray.  We have work to do.

Now, most of us don’t pray enough.  That is another issue. It is true that we are often spiritually lazy.  But that is not the discussion today.  Perfectionism is.  So let’s try to avoid both extremes. 

How do we know how much is enough? 

Let the Holy Spirit guide you.  He will lead you with gentleness and humility.  You are free in Christ but you have a ministry (and a family) to attend to.  Prayer will be necessary.  When and how much will become clear to you as you go along.  Many books have been written on the subject.  But trust your Master not to be a harsh taskmaster.  He wants you to be free from sin on the one hand and free to do ministry on the other.  No perfectionism allowed.

That doesn’t mean you can’t have a long list of things that you want to accomplish and that you think would please God and be beneficial to your ministry.  No doubt.  But without guilt.  Don’t make every omission into sin.  Unless you are impressed by the Spirit to do a thing and you refuse to do it.  Then we need to have another discussion.  But in general, don’t invent sins out of thin air and place burdens on yourself that the Lord does not put there.

The point is to realize, of course, that Jesus is the author and finisher of your faith.  You are involved and there is work to do but there is no guilt and his method of dealing with you is gentle (and insistent) and certainly progressive.  Your full surrender means that you are open to his leading rather than your own leading (which may be far more difficult than anything he wanted from you).

In conclusion, I just wanted to point out one last thing.  I am always aware of that parable of Jesus about the talents.  He gives ten talents to one person and they make ten talents more.  Well done.  He gives five talents to someone else and they make five more.  Good job.  But then he gives one talent to the third servant who buries it in the ground and, when the Master returns, gives it back to him.  But the Master is angry.

Why do you think the Master got angry?

Sure the worthless servant did not produce any profit or fruit from his talent.  That’s obvious.  But look closer at what that servant says.  “Then the man who had received one talent came.  ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed.  So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground.  See, here is what belongs to you'” (Matthew 25:24,25 NIV).

Well, I would have been angry too.  It’s not about the talent, you see.  It was about the relationship.  The worthless servant had the gall to call him ‘Master’ but he was not a bondservant, serving his Master with joy.  He was a slave, an unwilling servant who served reluctantly, angrily and with resentment.  Of course the Master was upset.

The worthless servant called him a “hard man.”  He figured that he was getting his profits in an unethical manner by having servants do his work for him.  Why should he work for his Master’s benefit?  What an attitude.

If it was just a question of ability, that is easily solved.  If you don’t know what to do with the talent and you are confused but you still want to please your Master, then give it to someone else and let them do something with it.  The Master in the parable said, “You should have put my money on deposit with the bankers” (vs. 27a NIV) at the very least.  The fact that you didn’t even do that indicates that your heart is not in the right place and there is a problem with the relationship.

After all, getting profit or fruit from the investment of talents by the Master is important.  Sure it is a parable, but the context points out clearly that Jesus was talking about the Word of God given to the people of Israel.  It was God’s investment in his people for the salvation of the world.  The fruit he is talking about here are the souls that need to be saved.  This is important work we are doing.  There is a redemptive emergency that God is dealing with.  This isn’t about money but about saving lives for eternity.

But then comes the final bit of truth.  “I was afraid” he said.  That’s why I did what I did.  That’s what the relationship was based on.  Fear.  And fear is a burden that can destroy you and destroy your relationships.  The apostle John tells us that “there is no fear in love.  But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment .  The one who fears is not made perfect in love” (I John 4:18 NIV).

If a woman fears her husband, there is no love.  If a child fears his father, it will destroy the relationship.  Obviously.  So what is wrong with this worthless servant?  He is afraid because he does not love his Master.  He was into religion but not into the relationship.  We have lots of people like that in our churches and it is a dangerous place to be.

So how does this apply to us?

We have also been given talents, gifts and resources to further the Kingdom of God on earth.  Yes, we need to lead lives of repentance that are not hostile to the things of God but rather embrace His will and surrender to it daily.  But all of this in the context of ministry.  We have work to do that goes beyond ourselves.  What is beneficial for the ministry is the question, not just what is easy for me to do for myself and my own comfort.  When you change your perspective, things actually get easier, not harder.

Are you a worthless servant who is doing things out of fear? 

Then you need to go back to the beginning and learn the fundamental lessons of the cross all over again.  There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

How do you know that you are doing things out of fear and not out of love? 

Legalism and perfectionism on the one hand and spiritual laziness on the other.  A pox on both your houses.

So now you have to decide.  Is he a hard taskmaster or is his burden easy and light?  The answer makes all the difference between whether you are an unwilling slave or a willing bondservant.  And the difference between those two is surrender with a full and happy heart.  And that is sure to give you rest.

The Desert Warrior

Lord, I want your peace.  I know that there is lots of work to do but you will guide me through it all.  I trust you.  I surrender all.  Thank you for being a gentle master who cares for my soul.  In your name I pray.  Amen.

 

 

Seeking Jerusalem – Day 47 “Let Go and Let God”

05 Sunday Jul 2020

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The Way of the Cross – Lenten Season 2018

“Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.  The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God.  It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.  Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.  You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you.  And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.  But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness” (Romans 8:5-10 NIV).

“Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery.  Instead, be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18 NIV).

Let go and let God

It’s time to address the elephant in the room.  I know.  I know that some of you didn’t even know there was an elephant in the room so let’s start by describing what it looks like and why it is a problem.

The elephant in the room is found in Romans 8: 9 which tells us “You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you.  And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.”  And just in case you missed it, Paul said earlier in vs. 6 that “the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace…”  It’s that pesky little word “controlled by” that has everyone wondering what Paul is talking about, especially since he equates it with being a Christian in vs. 9.  No middle ground.  If you have the Spirit of God within you, the evidence is that you are “controlled by” the Spirit of God.

What in the world does that mean?

I know that we are supposed to walk in the Spirit (Galatians 5:16) and that we are to be led by the Spirit (Romans 8:14) and, of course, we are to be filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18) but the word “controlled by” the Spirit seems excessive.  Since when does God want to control us?  I thought he was a gentleman and wanted us to keep our minds and individuality and not just become some mindless robot.

And you would be right.  The entire Bible makes it clear that God is not in the business of controlling us in that bad sense of the word, meaning against our will, but rather with our full consent.  That’s the whole point of progressive sanctification and our discussion in an earlier post about spiritual maturity based on Romans 12:1,2 where the goal is to agree with God in every instance that His will is “good, pleasing and perfect.”

But the word “controlled” has so many bad connotations that we need to work extra hard to understand exactly what Paul meant, especially since it is the evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

One of my favorite authors, J. Robertson McQuilkin, gave some interesting insight from the Keswick perspective about this concept in his contributions to “Five Views on Sanctification” (Stanley N. Gundry, series editor, Zondervan, 1987).  He equates this concept of being controlled by the Holy Spirit as the result of being filled with the Holy Spirit.

First of all, he makes it clear that “the beauty and glory of God’s victory in our humanity is that He does not by-pass or replace us.  Rather, he renews the new person after the likeness of God Himself (Colossians 3:10)”  We need to cooperate with God.  That much is clear.  After all, that is spiritual maturity.

But still, what does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit and, more importantly, how do we cooperate with this “control” that the Spirit wants to have over our will, mind and emotions (what the Bible calls our heart).

Professor McQuilkin gives us three ways to address this question “Have you been filled with the Spirit?” And each of them seems to have some merit but one seems to get closest to the idea of being “controlled by” the Spirit.  Let’s take a look.

He starts with the idea of “being filled continually with the Holy Spirit.”  In the book of Acts, it tells us that the disciples “were continuously filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 13:52 NIV) and the passage in Ephesians 5:18 which is often translated as “be filled with the Holy Spirit” (as quoted above), in the Greek, gives the idea of “go on being filled” with the Holy Spirit.  In that sense, it sounds like a “state or condition,” Professor McQuilkin suggests, almost like saying “filled with joy.”

The problem is that it is easy to interpret this idea subjectively in terms of your feelings rather than in terms of the reality of the presence of the Holy Spirit.  At the same time, as Professor McQuilkin points out, “one who is filled with the Spirit may have a continuous sense of the divine presence, a gift that must be at the very pinnacle of God’s good gifts (p. 176).

I would agree that being filled with the Holy Spirit is based on faith, hope and love (as we have said before) and that it results in peace and joy which are the first fruits of our new relationship with God.  Of course this is a peace that passes all understanding and a joy that knows no bounds.  Neither concept can be defined in worldly terms but only in extraordinary terms to describe the life in the Spirit.  There is definitely an “emotional” or subjective aspect to life in the Spirit.  But there is something more to it than that.

Professor McQuilkin goes on to discuss a second perspective that is also based on the biblical use of being filled with the Spirit in the sense of “personal characteristic” or identification with Christ.  It’s like saying that someone is “full of pride,” meaning that the person is characterized by pride in all of his attitudes, actions and motives.  “Used in this sense, the expression “filled with the Spirit” would mean that the person was characterized by Godlikeness, by God’s being the predominant person or the pervasive influence in one’s life…Others could watch them and tell that their lives were characterized above all else by their association with God and by the results of that association” (p. 176).

I would agree that this, too, is what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit.  There is no way that someone’s life could be characterized in this way if it were not for the continual presence of God in his or her life.  In many ways, this is what Paul (and the rest of Scripture) exhorts us to do with our lives.  There is no doubt that this is a significant part of what it means to be filled with the Spirit.  Your attitudes, decisions, direction, priorities, values and perspective are all influenced by the presence of God in your life.

So far, so good.   The mind needs to be involved.  Decisions need to be made.  After all, spiritual maturity is about the “transformation of the mind” (Romans 12:2 NIV).  But is that all there is to it?  Is being influenced by the Holy Spirit where we still are in control and we still make the decisions, the same thing as being “controlled by” the Holy Spirit?  Or is there something more?

Professor McQuilkin suggests a third perspective that may also have some bearing on our discussion.  He starts by pointing out that when someone is demon possessed, it means something more than that they are characterized by demonic thinking or actions.  Being “possessed” meant that you were truly “controlled by” the demonic person and had no will of your own.  You were a slave to that spiritual entity at least for a time.

The same could be said of the Holy Spirit but with some caveats.  After all, the “domination would be gracious, by invitation only, and would not, like demon-possession, displace or override one’s personal choice” (p. 176, 177).  At the same time, it would also mean that “the Holy Spirit dominated, had full control, possessed, exercised imperious claim to the whole being” and therefore would be much closer to the concept of “control” talked about by Paul.

Professor McQuilkin concludes that “this meaning of the term is at least the starting point, for without this relationship of unconditional yielding to the will of God, one does not receive the Holy Spirit to begin with nor benefit by His continuous presence.”  In fact, he goes on to say that “this definition of the expression “Spirit-filled” is the one advocated by Keswick teachers, by Campus Crusade for Christ, and by many others” (p. 177).

This is also the concept that Hannah Smith uses in her book “The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life” which I introduced to you in our last post.   And that is the elephant in the room which we are trying to describe.  What does it mean to be “controlled” by the Holy Spirit and why is that the evidence of our salvation in the first place.

I agree with this position but I think it is not well-enough defined.

First of all, to say that we are characterized by the influence of God in our life (the second perspective) is not quantitatively different from those who claim that Holy Spirit is the “dominant influence” in their lives (the third perspective).  When looked at objectively, there doesn’t seem to be much difference in the spiritual maturity, the obedience, or the love of people in either camp.

But qualitatively there may be a good point to be made by this third perspective.  After all, if the first perspective is about our emotional transformation by the presence of the Holy Spirit and the second perspective is about the transformation of our mind, then the third perspective can be understood as a transformation of our will.  And all three are essential in the biblical concept of the heart – mind, will and emotions.

And in many ways, the will is key.

Professor McQuilkin points out that “one does not receive the Holy Spirit to begin with” if we don’t have a “relationship of unconditional yielding to the will of God.”  Of course, you don’t hear much about this now-a-days since there is so little talk of sin and the issue of self-authority that gives sin it’s power in the lives of people.  The will is key and an unconditional surrender of the will is key to the Christian life.

But let’s go back a step to look at the bigger picture.  Professor McQuilkin is addressing the issue of the subnormal Christian life, one without power to deal with temptation and sin, one that is focused on temporal goals and concerns, one that is not characterized by a consecration to the things of God.  Sadly, our churches are full of people just like that who still think that they are Christians.  Whether we say that they are “living in the flesh” (which is not really biblically accurate) or simply immature in their faith, something is wrong.  Immaturity that is not growing is something more deadly, (or more dead) than what is expected by those who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ.  So let’s agree with Professor McQuilkin in being gracious and calling it a “subnormal Christian life.”

I believe that there are two reasons for this sad condition in the modern church.

The first is that we do not live out our walk with God in the context of the ministry of reconciliation and suffering for the gospel.  The early church took things seriously because they had to.  There was no other choice.  Many times their lives were on the line.  There was no room for laziness or a lack of commitment by Christians who just wanted to be religious.  Too dangerous for that kind of thinking.

The second reason for subnormal Christian lives is that we do not preach about sin anymore.  Every since Dwight L. Moody decided to make the love of God the cornerstone of his preaching, the concept of sin has been relegated to the back pew and is only brought up when necessary.  Without a robust concept of sin, you hardly need to talk about self-authority or the need to make every effort to live out your Christian life with fear and trembling.  Certainly you don’t need to talk about surrendering your will to the will of God.  It simply isn’t necessary.

And that’s the rub, isn’t it?

Right there, at that point, we want to maintain control of our own lives.  Forget about the idea of God forcing you to do something against your will.  The idea is that you want to do God’s will.  You are a slave to righteousness because you want to be.  You have been freed by the blood of Christ but you dedicate yourself to becoming a bondservant of Christ in the life of faith.  A bondservant willing serves his master.  A slave reluctantly does what he is told.  The difference is enormous.

But the truth is that we are not all willing bondservants, at least, not all the time.  What is more common in the Christian walk than the desire to hold back a portion of our will to indulge in some fantasy, some dalliance, some private attitude or action that we know God would not approve of?  We are committed but only up to a point.  We claim that Jesus is our Savior and Lord but we are more interested in the Savior part than the Lord part.  That’s the truth.  I have done it myself many times.

The difficult part is the will.

The emotions are there and they are truly enjoyable.  I have worshipped God with tears of joy one moment and indulged in private sin the next.  Haven’t you?

The mind is transformed and it truly makes a difference.  Much of my life has changed but not everything.  Sure it is a progression and it isn’t going to happen all at once but whatever I am aware of, whatever I am conscious of, I am responsible for today, not tomorrow or some vague time in the future.

My mind is being transformed but my will is still my own.  I’m still in charge.  I will progress in my sanctification at my own speed and deal with my sins as I see fit.

That is why the will is key.  Professor McQuilkin is correct in saying that we cannot even receive the Holy Spirit the first time if we do not surrender our wills and claim Jesus as our Lord.  But in the context of the modern church, that claim needs to be challenged, defined, worked on continuously and the doorway to that victory is going back to our original commitment to his Lordship in our life and renewing that initial consecration as many times as necessary.

That is why the will is the gateway to the mind and results in the emotions.

The will is the ongoing issue.  Think of it like repentance.  There is an initial commitment to a new way of life, 180 degrees opposite to our sinful lifestyle.  There is a declaration of intent (which statements about the future always are) and now you begin to walk down that path.  At first, you are filled with joy and peace (emotions), you study the word of God and are learning new things every day (mind) but there is an erosion of the will as you face the enormity of what you have to do.

You are trying to do things in your own strength.  To do things in the strength of the Spirit is only possible if you surrender your will to His care unconditionally every day.

Listen to the description that Professor McQuilken uses of an unyielded, unsurrendered heart – “unreconciled personal relations, unforgiving spirit, a complaining attitude, unloving criticism, persisting in a wrong even after realizing one is sinning, grieving more over what hurts oneself than what hurts God, making decisions on the basis of personal benefit rather than promotion of God’s purposes, and seeking the praise of other people.  Even if one displays no conscious rebellion, behaviors such as these indicate that the individual must choose to surrender unconditionally to the will of God” (p. 170,171).

You get the idea.  The power of God is at our disposal only when our wills are surrendered to Him unconditionally.  There is lots to talk about in terms of how to do that effectively every day, but the truth still stands.  What that means is that the power to overcome sin in one area of your life may depend on surrendering another area of your life.  It must be complete and unconditional.  It is a relationship after all not just a strategy.  God wants all of us and when we give everything to God without reserve there is power to overcome anything that life can throw at us.  That is the secret to a happy Christian life.

Professor McQuilkin says “for Christians who are experiencing a subnormal life, reentry into normal, supernatural Christian living is through the gate of surrender” (p. 171).

It doesn’t get any clearer than that and that is what I meant by the qualitative difference between the influence of God that characterizes our lives and the influence of God that controls our life.  For some, that may not be very clear but the gateway is surrender.  And that gateway is plenty clear.  Sure, we need to grow in our ability to surrender unconditionally and, by nature, it is a rocky road of crisis and process and crisis again.

Perhaps that is why we need to let go and let God get to work.

We need to let go of our sin, our self-will and let God lead, influence and even control our lives so that there is nothing to hinder our relationship with Him.  Letting go of sin and self-will is key and letting God take control is also key.

That doesn’t mean that we don’t cooperate in the process or that we are somehow passive in our sanctification.  Far from it.  We actively surrender our wills and turn away from our sin and we actively make every effort in the power of the Spirit which is released in us as we are unconditionally surrendered to His will in every known area of our lives.  The point is that now our efforts are empowered and that makes all the difference in the world.  We don’t get arrogant since we know that we are polluted with sin but our intentions are clear and pure and we surrender our wills on a continuous basis so that we can be filled with the Holy Spirit on a continuous basis.

That doesn’t mean that you don’t have the Holy Spirit when you sin or when you fall into sin.  After all, the Bible describes that as “grieving the Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 4:30 NIV).  We don’t get off the hook that easily.  Acting like a single guy when we are really married doesn’t mean that the marriage doesn’t exist.  You are still married but now you are “grieving” your husband or wife and you need to surrender your will to the dictates of that loving relationship once again.

Every relationship has elements of emotion, mind and will so that is no surprise to us but in terms of our relationship with God, the gateway to spiritual power and maturity is to surrender our wills unconditionally to His will.  And do that as many times as it takes.  That is how we struggle in the Spirit or wrestle with God and that is the source of our power and anointing in the life of faith.

One word of warning to remind us of what is at stake is Paul’s comment that those who are not “controlled by” the Spirit, who are not continuously yielding up their wills to the Lordship of Christ and living out of the power of the Holy Spirit, may not be saved.  In that sense, this surrendered life is the normal Christian life and that is the evidence of our faith that we need to look for.  It’s not complicated but it is necessary.

The Desert Warrior

Lord, I surrender all to you.  Every area of my life is yours.  I belong to you.  I tremble a bit at the whole idea of surrendering my will and I have no idea how I will be able to do it but you promise me Holy Spirit power to deal with temptation and sin and so I trust your word on the matter.  Thank you.  In Jesus’ name I pray.  Amen.

Seeking Jerusalem – Day 44 “Wrestling with God”

19 Friday Jun 2020

Posted by in Daily Devotionals, Lenten Season, Seeking Jerusalem, The Road to Jerusalem

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The Way of the Cross – Lenten Season 2018

“So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.  When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.  Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”  But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”  The man asked him, “What is your name?”  “Jacob,” he answered.  Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.”  Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”  But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?”  Then he blessed him there.  So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared” (Genesis 32:24-30 NIV).

“We know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.  I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.  As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.  I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.  For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do, no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing” (Romans 7:14-19 NIV).

Wrestling with God

When I first heard that the name “Israel” meant “he who struggles with God,” I was a bit surprised.  Why would God give that name to his people?  Why would he want to be known as a God with whom His people wrestle?  It seemed strange to me at first.

After all, God set this situation up in the life of Jacob.  He came to wrestle with Jacob not the other way around.  Jacob was trying to prepare for his encounter with his brother Esau the next day.  He had sent his family and goods over the Jabbok river and he stayed behind alone….to pray.

Jacob was worried.  The report that came from his scouts was that Esau was on his way with four hundred men.  Why four hundred men?  It sounded like he was coming to exact his revenge on his brother, Jacob, for treating him so badly years ago.

Do you remember the story?  Esau is hungry and Jacob negotiates a meal in exchange for the traditional blessing that would normally go to the oldest child.  Apparently, Esau didn’t really care about that part.  He just wanted his physical inheritance not the promises of future glory as a nation.  And then Jacob and his mother deceive his father, Israel, when he was old and blind by dressing Jacob up in sheep skins and smelling like a hunter coming in from the hunt.  Jacob was a herder and smooth of skin.  The deception worked and Esau was mad but Jacob was able to escape by the skin of his teeth with nothing but the clothes on his back.  No physical inheritance for him.

Jacob heads out of the country to live with his uncle, Laban, far across the desert north of the Promised Land while Esau continued to live in the desert region of Seir, south of the promised land.  Laban was no pushover either and he deceived Jacob into marrying two of his girls, Leah and Rebekah, by working for him for 14 years in total.  Jacob was getting some of his own back.

I often hear complaints from people who are new to the faith that some of the people in the Old Testament (and New) were not very good people and yet God chose them to be His people.  What gives?  We expect now-a-days that Christians ought to be good, moral, up-standing citizens.  If Jacob were part of our church with his deceitful ways and manipulative character, I’m not sure how long he would last.  Abraham was a tough old man but could also be a coward.  David killed a man so that he wouldn’t find out that he had slept with his wife…..and the list goes on.

Jacob was a guy who struggled to get what he wanted out of life.  He struggled with his brother as well as his uncle and now he had to pay the piper.  He escaped from Laban and struck out on his own, heading back to the land of promise.  He now had a large family and many possessions but he had no safe place to lay his head.  He had no home.  So he decided to head on back to face his brother Esau.

And now the scouts are telling him that Esau was coming to meet him, with four hundred armed men.  That doesn’t sound at all good.  What possible reason would you have to bring four hundred men with you to meet your brother unless you were bent on revenge?  That is what Jacob feared the most.  And so he came up with his strategies, and strategies within strategies.

He sent gifts ahead of him to his brother.  Loads and loads of gifts.  He wasn’t sure, of course, whether Esau would accept those gifts but it was worth a try.  He divided up his family starting with his two maidservants and their children putting them up front and then Leah and her children and, finally, Rebekah and Joseph at the rear.  To protect them of course.  His favorites.

But he was still worried.  When he had left home all those years ago with only the clothes on his back, he encountered God in the desert who promised to protect him.   Do you remember the staircase to heaven?  He called that place Bethel.  He was alone and God came to visit him and start a direct relationship with him, confirming that he was the true inheritor of the spiritual promise of Abraham, his grandfather.

Even though he had deceived and manipulated his brother, Esau, in order to get it, God confirmed that it had, indeed, passed on to Jacob.  Why?  I suppose if you had asked Jacob why he went to so much trouble, he might not be able to answer you either.

The truth is that he desired the blessing and Esau did not.  He wanted the spiritual promise with or without the physical inheritance and Esau wanted the physical inheritance with or without the spiritual promise.  The two went naturally together but Jacob ended up with one and Esau the other.

And God confirmed it.  He also blessed Jacob while he was with his uncle, Laban, turning the tables on his uncle a couple of times but only by divine intervention.  Jacob had to pay double the bride price in order to marry Rebekah but he survived and even thrived during that time.  He was starting to learn his lesson.  God would provide.  He did not need to be a schemer and a manipulator.  But Esau was a different matter.  You did not deceive your brother, attempt to steal his inheritance and think you were going to get away with it.  Not then.  Not now.

So Jacob prayed fervently and set things up so that he could be alone, hoping that God would show up again and promise to protect him.  And it worked.  Although, apparently, at the beginning, Jacob was not sure exactly who, or what, he was wrestling with.  The passage talks about a man, but later it becomes clear that it was God himself.  Wow.

There are so many questions that come to mind.

What is God up to?  Why did he allow Jacob to wrestle with him all through the night?  Did he come in the form of a human or an angel like he did when he visited Abraham that time?  What does it mean that the man (God) “saw that he could not overpower him (Jacob)” (vs. 25)?  When did Jacob realize that it was God (or an angel) that he was wrestling with and why didn’t that scare him half to death?  Totally fascinating to say the least.

But even more fascinating is the realization that this was all part of God’s plan and that he would characterize not only Jacob but the entire nation as a people “who struggle with God.”  And how apt that is given the history of the Jewish nation.  Their commitment to God was strong one generation and weak the next.  One group was on fire for God and another tribe would inter-marry with their heathen neighbors.  Very little consistency on any side.  The nation was given the Law, but they did not have the ability to fulfill it and continually failed to live up to the covenant that God had so graciously enacted with them.

In some ways, it sounds like us, don’t you think?

We, too, are faced with the Law of God, the holiness of God, and we find it difficult to live up to its requirements.  We started out seeking after God but then encountered the twin truths of the holiness of God and the wretchedness of our human condition.  The more we gaze into the Word of God, the more we see ourselves for who we truly are.  We now have eyes to see and ears to hear but we aren’t necessarily happy about it.

Paul concludes that “we know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.”  Strong words for a Christian to say out loud.  But true.  Some people claim that Paul is not talking as a Christian in Romans 7 but I disagree.  Sure it sounds a bit like an OT believer, trapped in the requirements of the law, but it also describes a NT believer who is confronted with that same law as he comes before the cross of Christ.

Some might agree that this is the experience of a non-believer who has not yet been saved, but once he passes on to the other side of the cross, where there is no condemnation, he no longer is a “slave to sin.”  Well, that doesn’t make any sense either.  How can a non-believer say that he “desires to do what is good” (vs. 18b) which is to say “what is in the law.”  That isn’t likely.

On top of it all, we all know, from personal experience as well as from a LOT of different places in the Bible that our sanctification is progressive, not immediate.  Therefore, it is more likely that this struggle of Romans 7 is a normal and natural part of the Christian walk as we are faced more and more with an understanding of God’s holiness and our own sinfulness.

From a Biblical perspective that is a good thing.  But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t something that we can do about it.  Of course there is.  That’s the whole point of Romans 8 and it is when we live out the truths of Romans 8 in the context of the Romans 7 struggle that we become more and more mature in Christ because we are forced to go back to the cross and depend on nothing else than the grace of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We, too, are part of Israel, those “who struggle with God.”  We are the new Israel, Paul says.  But we still struggle with sin.  We still struggle with God.  It is the nature and quality of that struggle that defines our maturity in Christ.

Jacob had to learn the same lesson.  After all of his scheming and manipulation of Esau and his father, Isaac, he is left penniless in the desert with nothing but the promises of God.  After all of the struggling with Laban, his uncle, his only recourse was the divine intervention of God that made him wealthy in spite of Laban and gave him the opportunity to return home.  Even when he had to confront Esau again, Jacob had to learn the lesson.  It was God who would bless him and who would be the source of his providence, his safety, his future as a nation.

That doesn’t mean that Jacob wasn’t involved in the struggle.  One thing is to struggle with sin, another is to struggle with God.  Which one is it?  To desire what you know is evil (or unhealthy, or unloving) isn’t really struggling with sin is it?  You want to sin.  There is no struggle there.  The struggle comes the moment that God enters the picture and tells you what he wants – through the Law.  The Law is a testimony and guide to love.  Love God above all and your neighbor as yourself.  What is so difficult about that?

But it is difficult.  We want to sin.  We don’t want to obey God.  So are we struggling with sin or with God?  On the other hand, there is a new desire in us to please God, to do what is good.  There is now a conflict of desires.  What can we do about it?

When difficulties come, when Esau is out to get his revenge, when life throws a curve ball, we go to God and cry out to Him and call on His mercy and fervently pray for an outcome that is favorable to us.  We wrestle with Him in prayer all night long.  But why?  We desire what is good, as Christians, but we are also compelled to do what is evil at times.  And our evil and weaknesses get us into trouble.  God help us!

Yes, there are differences between the Old Testament and the New Testament.  Of course.  But we are here talking about Jacob, one of the patriarchs of the faith who, like Abraham, lived before Moses and before the Law was given.  He, too, lived by the faith of Abraham.  But still….yes, we are different because we are in Christ, the Holy Spirit lives within us and we have the resurrection power to deal with sin and temptation.  Of course. 

But the struggle is the same even if the solution looks a bit different.  Jacob had to learn how to rely on the blessing of God and His intervention so that Esau would not take his life and destroy his family.  God had chosen him for a higher purpose and Esau could not contend with God.  Period.  But Jacob would need faith.  And faith for a guy like Jacob was not an easy thing.

And there is a parallel there for us as well.

After all of our striving, our scheming, our manipulations, the truth of the matter is that we need to go to God, wrestle with Him and not let go until we receive His blessing.  He has a purpose for our life.  He will intervene and save us from our sins.  He will give us a new name, a new identity in Christ.  There is no more a “me”, only a “me in Christ.”  And that change makes all the difference in the world.

But, mark this well.  Jacob, for some reason, wanted the blessing of God.  He wanted the spiritual promises when Esau did not.  Jacob sought God alone and in the night when he was most vulnerable.  He turned to God in his anguish and wrestled with Him and would not let go.  And there, right there, is where Jacob “overcame” God Himself.  The Bible tells us that God “could not overpower him.”  Jacob would not let go.  He had a holy persistence in seeking God’s blessing.  He fought on until he got what he wanted, though the “wanting” itself was a gift from God.

And that is the beauty of it, isn’t it?

God works in us to will and to want Him but we still need to work it out, (Philippians 2:13) to struggle with it, to make it important, to wrestle with God until we get the blessing.  It is the grace of God that made Jacob who he was, and it was the grace of God that allowed a mere human to wrestle with God and “overcome.”  How do we “overcome” God?  By being persistent in our desire to seek His blessing.  By struggling with God and not just ignoring him and wallowing in self-pity.  By insisting on his promises and persisting in our seeking of His face, His favor.  God graciously allows Himself to be wrestled with.  Obviously.  But he favors those who take the nature and quality of their struggle seriously and won’t let go until they receive the blessing.

Not that wrestling with God is easy or painless.  After all, Jacob leaves the encounter with a limp for the rest of his life – a constant reminder of his weakness before the Almighty God.  We may be able to “overcome” God, by His grace, but He will leave us with a reminder that it was by His grace lest we become proud.

Paul had something to say about that as well.  In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Paul tells us about his own struggles.  He says, “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.  Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.  But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Do you see the connection with the story of Jacob wrestling with God?

Yes, we have that incredible privilege to wrestle with God and to “overcome” with a holy persistence that He, Himself, wants us to have.  Returning over and over again to the cross.  But we have the tendency to become prideful and therefore we are given weaknesses to deal with, difficulties, hardships because we need to learn to go to God and wrestle with Him in prayer in the midst of our weaknesses, difficulties and hardships.  That is our strength.

It is not a strength in ourselves but in God.  It is not about scheming, manipulating, trying harder, or the like.  It is about going to God and wrestling with Him until we come out of that prayer closet in new power because we focus our attention not on ourselves but on Christ’s finished work on our behalf.  And that is the key to our Christian walk, to dealing with sin, to our sanctification.  “Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:24b, 25 NIV)

It is beautiful in its simplicity, isn’t it?

If we focus too much on our sin, we can fall into spiritual depression.  If we think we have our “conscious sins” under control, we fall into spiritual pride.  God gives us weaknesses and difficulties so that we continue to come to Him, to wrestle with Him, to learn to focus on the finished work of Christ first of all, and in that power, go and make every effort to live out that life of faith.

So what am I saying?  Is it really that easy?  Easy?  Have you been listening to anything that I have been saying?  No, not easy.  Simple.  The answer to sin is always simple.  Take it to the cross.  Leave it there.  Go and sin no more.  But when you do sin, “we have someone who speaks to the Father in our defense – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One” (I John 2:1 NIV).  So you go back to the cross as many times as it takes.  How many times?  Seven times?  You know the answer to that one….

So stop struggling with sin and start wrestling with God.

Turn your focus from your sin and weakness to the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus, our Lord.  You will find the power to deal with sin and temptation only at the foot of the cross.

Stop thinking that you are in this alone when there is no more “you.”  There is only “you in Christ.”  And if you are hidden in Christ, in union with Christ, then God’s grace is sufficient for you.  In fact, it is your only source of power.

Forget about being perfect.  Jesus Christ is your perfection.  Now your job is to become mature in Christ.  Mature in your consistency in going to the cross.  Mature in your use of the means of grace – scripture, the sacraments, prayer – which brings you back to the cross.  Progress not perfection is the goal. 

That doesn’t mean you get lazy.  Far from it.  It means that you get powerful.  And, in that power, you now can deal with life from an entirely different perspective.

In order to “make every effort” to wrestle with God like Jacob did, sweating and grunting and struggling like a mad-man to get his blessing, his protection from the vengeance of his brother, Esau, in order to get the blessing of his power, his anointing, his glory in your life, we need to “make every effort” to surrender our wills to God and to consecrate our efforts to doing His will.

That is the secret to the Christian life.  Making every effort to surrender to his will. 

You may think that surrendering is easy but it is not.  As anyone who has ever had to do it (usually over and over again), it is hard work.  It takes blood, sweat and tears.  And if you don’t believe me, just look again at Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane who, even in his perfect love for the Father, had to wrestle with God until he got to that place of full surrender to the will of God.

Jacob finally got it.  He wasn’t just another scoundrel on his own, fighting with the world, trying to get ahead on his own.  He had to learn that he had access to God.  He had the possibility of wrestling, relating, praying to God because God, in His grace, chose him to carry on the line of faith.  He had purpose.  He had a future.  He was the inheritor of the promises of God.  Just like us.  As Paul said over and over again, “don’t you realize who you are?”

And what happened?

“Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him, he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him.  And they wept.”  Excuse me?  What just happened here?  Esau was on his way with four hundred of his men.  And all he does is hug his long-lost brother and they weep together.  If you don’t see the incongruency of that, then I don’t know what to tell you.  Something happened.  God intervened.  God gave Jacob favor in the eyes of Esau and saved him from his vengeance.  I have no doubt in my mind that when Esau left with his four hundred men, he had another agenda in mind.  But God blessed Jacob and intervened in his life to keep his promises to the one who would carry on the line of faith.

God will do the same for us when we bring our weaknesses and difficulties to him and surrender ourselves to his will.  Then, in the resurrection power of the Spirit who is within us, we can go out and accomplish mighty things in His name.

The Desert Warrior

Lord, thank you for making me your son (or daughter) and giving me a future and a promise for this life and the life to come.  I am important to you and to your plans.  Help me to make every effort to surrender fully to your will.  In your name I pray.  Amen.

 

 

Seeking Jerusalem – Day 29 “Enjoy Him Forever”

17 Wednesday Jun 2020

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The Way of the Cross – Lenten Season 2018

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?…No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  (Romans 8: 35, 37-39 NIV)

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 NIV)

“What is the chief end of man?  To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”  The Westminster Shorter Confession

Enjoy Him Forever (7)

What if I told you that God’s greatest desire for us and our most important obligation in the Christian life was the pursuit of joy?  Would you believe me?

Many wouldn’t.  For many good, dedicated Christians, the concept of sacrifice, dying to oneself, discipline and training, mortifying the flesh, all have a rather somber, serious tone about them that leaves little room for joy.

I understand them but I don’t agree.

Whenever I become too self-absorbed in the battle, or too focused on denial and sacrifice so that life becomes grey and dreary and the days long and burdensome, I have to remind myself that the chief end of all this discipline and training is JOY.

After all, an Olympian athlete doesn’t just train himself or herself for the sake of the training.  They have a goal to achieve, glory to experience, joy to lighten their days.  They want to participate in the Olympics, certainly, but they also want to win.  They want to be the best that they can be, certainly, but they also want to compete.  It’s only natural.

Yes, there is also joy in the fruit of the discipline.  A healthy lifestyle is it’s own reward.  Disciplining yourself and training your body gives you a sense of accomplishment and self-control that is very satisfying.  But there is still a desire for joy which comes from accomplishments recognized by others and valued and praised by those who matter most to us.  Nothing wrong with that.

The desire for glory and the joy that comes from a job well-done and recognized as such is as natural as breathing.  The question is not the process but the source of that joy.  For Christians, that joy is focused on God.  It is His words at the end of our journey that we desire.  “Well done, good and faithful servant…  come and share your master’s happiness” (Matthew 25:23 NIV).

This is such a deep and necessary subject for the Christian life that it is hard to know exactly how to explain it.  It’s like falling in love.  That should not be a dreary ordeal but a joyous experience – even if you are more like Gomer, the wife of Hosea, and need to learn how to love again after being a prostitute for so long.  Yes, there is work to do.  Yes, it will require discipline and training.  Yes, you will have to deny your baser instincts and desires.  But the reward is joy.  Wonderous joy.  Joy overflowing.

And there is a direct link between “glorifying God” and “enjoying Him forever.”  On the one hand, we take joy in what we value (or love) the most.  Our children.  Our marriage.  Our work.  Our accomplishments.  On the other hand, we have a natural desire to share our joy with others, calling their attention to the wonder of this thing or person that has given us such great joy.  Think of a father with his new-born son announcing the joy of a new child joining their family.  Both joy rooted in love (or value) and sharing that joy with others is part of what it means to glorify God.

C.S. Lewis puts it this way.

“But the most obvious fact about praise — whether of God or any thing — strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise — lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game — praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars. I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious, minds, praised most, while the cranks, misfits and malcontents praised least . . .” (Reflections on the Psalms).

Praise is everywhere and it is the spontaneous overflow of joy.  So much of our praise in church is forced and fake when there is no joy behind it.  So much of our discipleship is reluctant and half-hearted, when it should be full of joy.

C.S. Lewis continues on,

“I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise what ever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: “Isn’t she lovely? Wasn’t it glorious? Don’t you think that magnificent?” The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about. My whole, more general, difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can’t help doing, about everything else we value” (Reflections on the Psalms).

Do you see it?  Right there is the rub.  If there is no joy in our praise, then do we truly value our relationship with God?  Do we value God, Himself, who is supremely valuable?  Not just because we have to, but because it is true.  Has our heart changed?  Have our desires been transformed like a young man who falls in love and cannot look at another woman ever again (not out of obligation but out of joy for the gift of love he now has)?  And if that joy is truly there, if we truly value (love) God, then we most certainly will share that joy with others.  Now we are beginning to taste and see what relational evangelism is all about.

Finally, C.S. Lewis gives us a final word of wisdom about joy.

“I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.” (Reflections on the Psalms)

Wow.  “The delight is incomplete till it is expressed.”  It comes full circle.  Praise and Joy go together.  One as necessary as the other.  Joy expresses itself in praise and to praise God is to glorify Him.  Perhaps another way of saying this is that “we glorify God by enjoying Him forever.”  We need to replace the word “and” with the word “by” in order to be closer to the truth.

Now you may be thinking that you don’t have that kind of love for God that creates joy which expresses itself in praise shared with others.  I get it.  I feel the same way.  But here are a few things to remember.

First, remember that faith, hope and love are given to us by the Holy Spirit in the moment of our regeneration.  They are a gift from God.

Second, remember also that we are responsible to use those gifts, and exercise them, in our daily walk with God as we live out His purposes for our lives.  No surprise there.

Third, our faith, hope and love grow not as we focus on them but as we focus on God.  That is the way love works.  Love focuses on the other, not on itself.

And that is the point of our passage today.  Paul tells us the final truth in Romans 8 that we need to learn to use in the midst of our sufferings and trials in the battle of Romans 7.  And this final truth is key to all of the others.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” (Romans 8:35 NIV).

Yes, life can be hard at times but joy comes in the morning.  In that sense, joy is rooted in hope.  It looks forward in anticipation of what is to come.  Our glorification.  The redemption of our bodies.  The time when God, Himself, will “wipe every tear from our eyes” (Revelations 21:4 NIV).

But joy is also rooted in faith which affects the here and now.  There is a joy that we receive that comes in spite of our circumstances because it is focused on God and eternity not on ourselves and our situation.  That takes faith.

That is why we say that peace and joy are the first things Christians experience from the gift of faith, hope and love they receive at their regeneration.  A peace that passes all understanding and a joy that knows no bounds.  This is the inheritance of our relationship with God.

But what about joy rooted in love?  Here we need to look at the example of Jesus.

After all, we are supposed to become like Christ and Hebrews 12:2 encourages us to “Fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Just a minute, you might say.  I don’t remember that part of the story.  I seem to recall that Jesus was in great anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane.  It was a difficult moment for him and he was sweating great drops of blood and his prayers were a fervent desire not to go to the cross and endure the wrath of God.  All of that is true.  After all, Jesus loved his Father so completely that his great temptation was to make his fellowship with God more important than his loving obedience of his Father.  That loving obedience was a statement of trust.  “Not my will but yours be done.”

So where is the joy?

Oh, did you expect to see Jesus smiling and laughing with his disciples while he anguished in the Garden or suffered the injustice and mockery of the Jews and Romans?  Did you expect him to be joking with the Roman guards who were nailing him to the cross?  Of course not.  We didn’t say anything here about happiness.  We are talking about joy.  And joy is rooted in love.  Joy often comes with tears and battle and pain.  Just ask any woman, about to give birth, about the joy set before her, enduring childbirth, scorning its shame (legs open, vulnerable to the world, crying out in pain, often with an unresponsive husband more interested in videotaping the event than supporting his wife).  You get the idea.

But here is the secret.

Yes, there was a deep, abiding joy that Jesus had that was not tied to circumstances but, in faith, hope and love, was rooted in his relationship with God.  But even that isn’t the real secret.  The passage doesn’t actually talk about Jesus’ joy but rather the “joy set before him” (vs. 2).  What does that mean?

Is the author of the book of Hebrews talking about the results that Jesus would accomplish by dying on the cross?  Is he referring to you and me and all those who would be saved because he was willing “to endure the cross, scorning its shame.”  Maybe.  But I don’t think so.  I believe that it is deeper than that and directly connected to his experience in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Many people think that Jesus was willing to die on the cross because he loved you and me – and that is true, but only indirectly.  Jesus died on the cross because he loved his Father and chose to obey Him and trust Him even when his soul shrank back from the idea of experiencing His wrath upon sin, becoming sin itself, and bearing the sin of the world upon his own head.  Jesus died on the cross because he loved his Father and wanted nothing more than to please Him.

So what are you saying, exactly? You ask.

What I am saying is that the secret that Jesus knew, that gave him joy, which allowed him to “endure the cross, scorning its shame,” was not his own joy but rather “the joy of the Lord.”

Nehemiah 8:10 says, “the joy of the LORD is our strength.”

There is great spiritual truth and power in that one small truth.  Jesus was strengthened in his most difficult hour NOT by his own joy but “for the joy set before him,” the realization that his choice, his actions, his obedience would bring great joy to his Father.  That is what matters.

Love is focused on the other.  Jesus obeyed his Father’s will and knew, deep in his heart, that his actions would bring great joy to the One he loved above all others.  That expectation of bringing joy to his Father is what strengthened him in his most difficult hour.  And that is the secret for us as well.

But who of us has that kind of love for God?

None but Jesus.  No doubt.  But it isn’t a question of quantity but rather quality.  Love is love.  Love isn’t love only when you have enough of it.  It is love because it is focused on the other.  The smallest act of obedience is an act of love.

If love is sincere, it is enough.  Yes, it can grow.  The circle of love can grow.  But love is either sincere or it isn’t and if it is sincere, it is enough to please God, just as the feeble attempts of a child are immensely pleasing to his father.  After all, it only takes the faith the size of a mustard seed to move mountains.  The same is true for love.

It may be challenged.  It may sometimes be overshadowed and choked out by the cares of this world.  No doubt.  Yes, we need to focus on faith, hope and love and exercise them and help them to grow in power in our lives, just like in marriage.  Love may be real but it may not be exercised in a particular circumstance because of competing desires or fears and concerns.  Yes, our love must grow but if it is sincere, it is enough to please God.

Still, there is a way for us to properly exercise our faith, hope and love.  Especially love.  In order to help it grow.  A simple of act of obedience is often enough to open the floodgates of love so that it grows and flourishes within us.  Of course.  But there is something that comes even before that simple act of obedience, that supports it, that empowers it.  And that is the love of God for us as demonstrated by Christ on the cross.

Paul tells us in Romans 8: 37-39 that “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Twice Paul talks about love in this passage.  But in neither case is he talking about our love for God.  He talks about Christ’s love for us and he talks about “the love of God.”

And this is the secret to growing our love for God.  The more that we focus on the love of God for us in Christ Jesus our Lord, the more our love for God will grow to dominate our lives, our actions, our decisions.

It was because Jesus loved his Father and absolutely knew that the Father loved him, that he was able to focus his attention on the “joy of the Lord” which gave him strength.

Focusing our minds on the seven truths of Romans 8

  • that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, (Romans 8:1)
  • that we have been given resurrection power to deal with sin and temptation, (Romans 8:11)
  • that we have evidence for the life of the Holy Spirit within us, (Romans 8:15,16)
  • that although we may suffer for the gospel, we will be glorified with Christ, revealing the glory of the character of Christ in us, (Romans 8:17,18)
  • that even when we suffer and “groan” under the curse of this life, we have prayer support, (Romans 8:26,27,34)
  • that everything matters to God and He turns it all into our eternal, spiritual good, (Romans 8:28) and, finally,
  • that there is absolutely nothing that can separate us from the love of God – nothing in all of creation, not our own sin and weakness, not any suffering or persecution, nobody and nothing.  Period.  (Romans 8:38,39)

All of these things are the love of God for us in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Focus on them.  Preach these truths into your own heart and mind.  Live by these truths and you will have discovered the power of bringing joy to the heart of the Father.

I wrote a little poem that I use to help me focus my ambitions on this one thing.  Pleasing God.  I’m not very good at it, but I can certainly focus on it and grow in it a little bit every day.  Enjoy.

The joy of the Lord is my strength.
Getting rid of all my small ambitions
to make this one thing the hallmark of my life.
To please God.
Whether I get what I pray for or not,
whether my circumstances change or not,
whether I am healed or not.
To consider every sacrifice a small price to pay
to obtain the pearl of great price.
His pleasure. 

The Desert Warrior

Lord, you know that my heart’s desire is to please you.  I’m not very good at it yet but you are helping me get there.  Help me to tear down every idol of desire and every tower of fear in my life that keeps me from this one ambition.  Pleasing you is the goal of my life and that brings you great joy.  Thank you.  In Jesus’ name I pray.  Amen.

Seeking Jerusalem – Day 28 “Everything Matters”

16 Tuesday Jun 2020

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The Way of the Cross – Lenten Season 2018

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.  And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

What, then, shall we say in response to this?  If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?  Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?  It is God who justifies.  Who is he that condemns?  Christ Jesus, who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.”  (Romans 8: 28-34 NIV)

Everything Matters (6)

I remember the day that I finally understood my Mother.

She was a strong woman that was a teenager during the Second World War in Holland.  Apparently she ran errands for the Resistance on her bike but she wouldn’t talk about it much.  Something happened.  We don’t know much about that time of her life.  At least I don’t.  But she met my Dad who was working in a shop and they got married, had two kids in Holland and then decided to emigrate to Canada in 1953.

Mom had a difficult character anyway, but life was hard and that didn’t make things any easier.  On top of that, she ended up having eight kids in total.  The house was always full.  I remember one Thanksgiving Day dinner when we were all sitting at a long table in our house at 6 Bond St.  The table was full of food and Mom had just placed the heavy turkey in the middle of the spread when the table collapsed and everything came crashing down.  What a surprise!

I was a middle child, three from the bottom actually, and I had Mom’s character in spades.  I could fight with her ’till the cows came home.  It was my sister, Jolanda, who really provided the love in the family.  She was going to become a nurse.  I remember one time when my Mom hit me with a pair of pants in the middle of one of our fights.  Nothing serious, of course.  What can a pair of pants do to you, after all?  But in this case, one of the pants wrapped around my head and a tip struck my open eyeball and I yelled in excruciating pain.

My Mom wasn’t having it and thought I was exaggerating but my sister, Jolanda, looked more closely and realized that I had to go to the hospital right away.  After the surgery, I had both of my eyes covered for over a month.  Blind as a bat.  But I remember getting my first Monopoly game as a present (though I couldn’t play with it) and lots of applesauce (which was my favorite).  Mom was contrite, of course, but we still had our fights throughout my teenage years.

It wasn’t until I was in my thirties, with children of my own, thinking about my Mom and her apparent lack of interest in me (she had eight kids after all), that it finally struck me.  You see, there are a couple of things that I haven’t told you yet.  Yes, she had a tough character and had issues of her own, but there was more going on that I knew about at the time but didn’t really understand the impact of those events on my parents.

When I was around 12 or 13 years old, Jolanda died of leukemia.

She was 17 years old.  She was at a Youth Event in London, Ontario, I believe, and her nose started to bleed and wouldn’t stop.  They rushed her to the hospital of course, but six months later she died.  I remember the Sunday Service when she gave her testimony of faith from a hospital bed rolled into the sanctuary for the occasion.  My family had Bibles printed in her memory and distributed them to all of her friends.

To this day, we have no idea of the impact of her testimony on the church and her school friends and friends of the family as they watched a brave, young girl demonstrate her faith in God in such a practical way.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

A couple of years later, my brother Steve had a terrible car accident and almost died.  From what I remember, he was driving an Austin Mini and slammed into the back of a truck late at night.  Apparently, his girlfriend was with him but he was able to swerve the car in such a way that his side of the car took the worst of the impact and she was saved from anything critical.  But Steve was in the hospital for months.  His frontal lobe was deeply damaged and for a while we weren’t sure that he was going to make it.  Finally, he left the hospital and began his convalescence in our home.  He had to learn everything all over again, how to use his fine motor skills, holding a spoon, drinking hot drinks, learning to walk again, and all of the other things that we take for granted.

Of course, his mind was still that of a teenager four or five years older than I was so learning everything all over again was a frustrating and humiliating process that had its own emotional impact.

After a year of so, Steve was on his feet and able to function more or less like normal.  He got involved with the wrong people, drugs were a problem, and he was more rebellious that I was (if you can believe that).  My parents decided to sell their store to a friend and move to Prince Edward Island on the East Coast of Canada to get away from the situation in Ontario.  But, at the last minute, Steve didn’t come with us and simply struck out on his own.  The rest of us made the move to PEI and started to work on a small hobby farm near Twin Islands.  I remember working with my Dad and my brother, Jim, cutting logs and growing peanuts.

But my Mom went into a deep, black depression.

I was forgotten during these formative years and I resented it.  That fueled my own rebellion and we had our shouting matches to prove it.  Our adventure in PEI lasted about six months and by October of that year we were back in Clinton, Ontario starting a new store and beginning a new life.  We needed to be close to Steve to help him whenever we could.  It all made sense.  But as a teenager, I had no idea of the impact all of this was having, especially on my Mom.

When I finally figured it out, that she was dealing with grief from the death of Jolanda and fighting off fear in the case of Steve, I began my own healing process.  Her kids were dying and she was terrified because she couldn’t do anything about it.  Life was out of control.  Her faith was in the balance.  She couldn’t think straight much less pray and it affected her relationship with the entire family.  Now I get it.  I think we all do.  Suffering and pain has touched a lot of families and each family reacts a bit differently.  But we get it.

So when we talk about suffering for the gospel or “groaning” under the curse of pain and death, and all the tragedies that befall us, we are not taking it lightly or treating it calmly.  These things matter.  Everything matters.

Faith matters.  Of course.  But that is something we discover, not manufacture.  It is either there or it’s not.  Yes, we can nurse that faith, and exercise it in those dark moments.  No doubt.  Faith matters.

Hope matters.  Of course.  That’s what we have been talking about when we dwell on our glorification, when we think about our mission and the anointing of God upon our testimony.  Jolanda understood that instinctively.  But not only hope in the context of suffering for the gospel but also when we suffer under the curse of decay and death and all of what that means.  In that case, our hope comes as we contemplate the prayer support we get from the Holy Spirit and from Jesus Christ, Himself.  He understands our grief, our temptations, our weaknesses so when He prays, we can rest assured that His prayers matter.  To God.  To us.  His prayers are powerful and effective and He is praying for me.  That gives me hope.

But still there is a problem.  If the Holy Spirit is “groaning” on my behalf, expressing the emotional pain that I am going through, and Jesus is “interceding” with God earnestly because He understands what I need, then why does it seem that God remains silent.  I, myself, may not be able to pray but, supposedly, I have divine prayer support.  Why is God not listening?  Why doesn’t He do something?

It’s something that we all struggle with.  Sure, we can say, in faith, that the issues of life are bigger than our problems.  We can also agree with God that our testimony needs His anointing and that the salvation of our friends, our family, our neighbors is of vital importance.  We get it.  But it is still difficult to ignore the suffering and pain that we are going through.  Everything matters.  Everything hurts.  Everything seems to be falling apart.

There is no good answer to the problem of suffering and pain at that visceral level.  When a child is in pain, any parent would give their right arm to take their place and take the pain on their own shoulders.  I have felt that way and I’m sure you have too.  If God loves me, why doesn’t He take the pain away.  Maybe I can’t do it as a parent but God is all powerful and can do anything.  Doesn’t my pain matter to Him?  Why doesn’t He do something about it?

Part of the answer is that often God does do something about it.  He heals people.  He changes situations.  He intervenes and makes things better.  He does that far more than we realize, but not always.  Not always.  And that is the rub.  Why does he save some people and not others?  Why did Jolanda die but Steve did not?  Why was I ignored but my sister was not?  We may never know the answers to all of our questions.

Does God care?  Do I matter to God?  Is God at all emotional about me?  Does He like me?  And if He does, why doesn’t He intervene in my life and save me from my situation?  The Psalms are full of testimonies of David (and the other Psalmists) both asking this question and giving the answer that God does intervene, He does care, everything does matter to Him.  Jesus said that even the sparrows are important and the number of hairs on my head are numbered and cared for.  God is aware of it all.  He cares.  Everything matters.

But as a parent, I also know that sometimes my children have to suffer for their own good.  Sometimes the pain of a needle is a necessary precaution to fight off disease.  Sometimes eye surgery is a necessary evil.  Sometimes discipline hurts but it produces a better character in the end.  Yes, of course.

It is sometimes difficult to see the meaning in our suffering and pain.

That is so true.  We are not God after all.  He tells us a lot of things in the Bible about His priorities in this redemptive emergency.  He tells us about the horrors of the second death that awaits all of those who are NOT in Christ.  He tells us that this life is a drop in the bucket compared to eternity and that the dangers of the judgment far outweigh the suffering and pain of this life.  He tells us that our glory far outstrips anything we might endure in this vale of tears.  That is our hope.

But God goes even further.  He doesn’t just tell us things in general about His plans for mankind but He, Himself, endured the worst suffering and pain possible in order to save us and we are reminded that Jesus understands everything that we are going through.  He took upon His own shoulders the worse of the eternal suffering and pain that awaited us and saved us from that horrible experience of separation from God.

In the end, we have to accept that Faith Matters.  Hope Matters.  But what matters the most is Love.  Love Matters.  And that is what Paul is talking about here.

Remember that the prayers of the Holy Spirit and Jesus, himself, are interpreted by God the Father “according to His will.”  And that’s what we really want, isn’t it?  To please God.  To be in His will.  Just taking away the suffering and pain, if it means that my testimony suffers, or that my wife or children suffer, or are not saved, is simply not worth it, no matter how much I wish that I didn’t have to go through it.

Jesus understands that.  He didn’t want to go to the cross either but he found the courage within himself to say “not my will but your will be done.”  He could do that because he knew that His Father loved him.

Love Matters. 

Paul tells us that “we know that in all things God works for the good for those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (vs. 28).  We often quote those verses, a bit lightly, in those moments when we are NOT in a place of suffering and death.  But these are heady matters.

“We know….” Paul says.  Do we?  This is part of our spiritual maturity in Christ.  To agree with God that His redemptive will is good, pleasing and perfect no matter what it costs us.  We agree.  We know.  But here, Paul says that we know something about God.  Not just about His will.  We know something about His character.

This was the secret that gave Jesus courage.

He knew his Father and he never doubted that His will for him was good, pleasing and perfect.  He knew that his Father loved him dearly.  He could not doubt the love of God for him and that is why he could say “not my will but yours be done.”

Do you see the connection?

Yes, I know that Paul is talking about our love for God in this passage but look deeper.  Only love recognizes love.  I don’t consider myself to love God all that much.  I wish I did.  I long to.  But my love is rather weak.  Whatever love I have for God, I know was given me in the moment of my regeneration (together with faith and hope).  But it is there.  And because I love God, I know who He is.  I know His character.  I know that everything that happens to me matters to Him.  I know that He cares.  I know that He is paying attention.  I know that He weeps with those who weep.  Yes, we know this.  Paul is right.

But what is this “good” that Paul is talking about?

What possible “good” can come out of suffering and pain?  In the context of this world, quite a bit, actually.  But the “good” that God is focused on is described in the next verse where Paul points out the purpose of our lives “to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (vs. 29).

We have been saying this all along.

God is creating a certain type of person, someone like His son, who trusts his Father enough to go to the cross just because his Father asks him to do so.  Someone who loves God enough to obey Him.  Someone who can bear up under the sufferings of the curse and still bless God and follow Him even when there are questions and doubts and difficulties.  Someone who can reverse the original sin of rebellion and mistrust and change it into obedience and love.  That transformation is unusual and convincing and empowers our testimony that God is real and can make a difference in our lives.

Love recognizes love.  Love matters.

Our “smatterings” of love are enough to recognize that God cares deeply even though His agenda is eternal and He is willing to sacrifice our comfort to accomplish the salvation of real people.  Jolanda knew this truth.  She knew God loved her.  She used what little time she had to give her testimony and impact a whole generation of kids her age in our small town and beyond.  You see, that’s the thing.  We actually agree with God that it is worth it.

And that is what makes us More Than Conquerors “in all these things” as Paul points out in vs. 37.  In all what things?  We use this verse for everything from passing an exam to dealing with grief.  He had just quoted a text from the Old Testament talking about how “we face death all day long” and “we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”  Life is unfair.  Persecution will happen.  Suffering and death will happen.  We need to face reality for what it is.  But, in that context, Paul declares, “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (vs. 37).

Everything that happens to us matters to God.

The question is whether we trust Him even in the midst of suffering and pain.  If so, our testimony will have the anointing power to transform lives.  If not, we still have to suffer and endure pain but now it is meaningless and worthless.  Everything matters to God.  The question is whether everything that matters to God, matters to us.  The salvation of our family, friends and neighbors most of all.

And right there is the thing.  That is how we can transform our suffering under the curse into suffering for the gospel.  The bridge is our testimony.  The key is trusting God.  The purpose is to save the people we care about.  Transformation is painful but, in the end, it is more than worth it.  Don’t you agree?

The Desert Warrior

Lord, I know that everything matters to you.  You don’t let any details escape your attention.  Thank you for that.  I know that you will intervene whenever possible and at just the right time.  I also know that if you want me to suffer for the gospel, I am in agreement with you.  Please save my children, my family, my friends and make my suffering and pain worth something to you and to your kingdom.  In your name I pray.  Amen.

Seeking Jerusalem – Day 27 “Prayer Support”

15 Monday Jun 2020

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The Way of the Cross – Lenten Season 2018

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.  and he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.”  (Romans 8: 26, 27 NIV)

“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin.  Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”  (Hebrews 4: 14-16 NIV)

Prayer Support (5)

I have to say that this is my favorite “truth” in the seven truths of Romans 8.

We looked at the truth that there is now NO CONDEMNATION (Romans 8:1) and the truth that there are also NO EXCUSES since we have the power of the Holy Spirit within us (Romans 8:11).  Then the obvious question always comes up, “How do I know that I have the Holy Spirit in me?” and there we talked about the truth of EVIDENCE OF LIFE (Romans 8:15b, 16) which the Holy Spirit himself gives us.  And then we talked about the truth of SUFFERING and GLORY (Romans 8:17,18) which make all of us a bit uncomfortable (but maybe excited at the same time).  But I have to say that I am always blown away by this whole idea of PRAYER SUPPORT (Romans 8:26,27,34).

Now, I know that I have made a big point about the idea that our suffering needs to be a “suffering for the Gospel” to qualify as suffering with Christ.  The Bible makes that abundantly clear but, at the same time, much of the church only focuses on our general suffering “under the curse.”  That is a mistake.  It is a suffering for the gospel that is so often talked about in the New Testament – persecution, rejection, stoning, martyrdom.  This is no country for old men, as they say.

But, still, there is some truth to the fact that we also suffer “under the curse” and in that suffering we also need some comfort and hope.  And our passage today provides just that.

I call them the “groaning” passages because Paul tells us that “creation” is groaning (vs. 22), we are groaning (vs. 23) and the Holy Spirit is groaning (vs. 26) on our behalf.

It really starts way back in vs. 19 where Paul says that, “The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.”  He had just talked about our glory which will be created in the context of our suffering.  It is a progressive thing, as sanctification always is, which will come to its final fruition before the throne of God on the last day.

Now Paul says that that “revealing” is something that the whole of creation is waiting for (and will participate in) as well.  He personifies creation as if it was a woman giving birth and is in the middle of birth pangs (vs. 22) and that is a fitting image to use.

Way back in Genesis 3:16, the Bible tells us that one of the curses that God inflicted on creation after the Fall of man was the pain of childbirth.  God said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing, with pain you will give birth to children…” (Genesis 3:16a NIV).

And yes, the woman is part of creation.  Our bodies are part of creation.  Our bodies are subject to decay and death, just like the rest of creation. It is God’s continuous reminder that we come into this world of evil and sin through pain and suffering and that death is our final end and time will be our master all the days of our lives.

Of course, we have simply gotten used to it so it lacks the same impact that it had on the original couple who had just experienced the wonders of the Garden of Eden in the protective, caring presence of God.  Now that was over.

After the Fall of mankind, God spoke three curses that still continue to affect us today.  “Cursed is the ground because of you, through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.  It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.  By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground since from it you were taken, for dust you are and to dust you will return” (Genesis 4:17b, 18,19 NIV).

Sure, we have mitigated the effects of the curse with our technology and inventions.  Sure, there is much in this world that is beautiful and even breath-taking.  God has not left Himself without a witness.  The sun continues to shine on the righteous and unrighteous alike.  No doubt.  But the curse still stands.

Paul points out that the reason why creation was cursed was because of mankind and their rebellion against the reign of God in this world.  They had sided with the Evil One and now God had to find a way to separate them and save mankind from his own folly.  They were deceived after all but they are still responsible for their actions.  Creation was to be under the stewardship of mankind and therefore creation was cursed as a constant reminder that all is not well on planet earth.

Today we see not only the impact of the curse, the decay and death all around us that we have gotten dangerously used to, but we also see the effects of mankind’s misuse of the planets resources and the deterioration that is a result of the mismanagement, the lack of stewardship, that mankind has exercised over the centuries in their pursuit of power and resources.

So be it.  But the curses still stand as a mute (or not so mute) reminder that all is not well and we would do well to heed it’s call.

But Paul’s purpose is not to rebuke us but to encourage us who are in the faith.  Our glory will be revealed both in this life and in the life to come.  It is a continuous revealing that will find its climax at the end of time.  And since the curse on creation is closely linked to the Fall of mankind from grace, Paul makes the point that when the redemptive emergency is over, when our glory is finally revealed, the creation, too, will celebrate with us (so to speak) because the curses on it will be lifted.  In other words, creation will participate in our redemption and the renewing of the earth at the end of time.  When the rebellion is over, the curses will be lifted.  “No longer will there be any curse,” John tells us in Revelations 22:3 NIV.

So Paul personifies creation and tells us that the creation “waits in eager expectation” for that moment.  And then, to explain further, Paul says, “For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it…(vs. 20).  Of course Paul is talking about the curses in Genesis 4 and God’s decision to use the creation as a constant reminder of the absurdity of an abnormal situation that we experience every day if we have eyes to see and ears to hear.

But here are the interesting words – “in hope,” Paul says.  In hope, God cursed the world.  In hope, the creation waits eagerly.  In hope, creation puts up with their ongoing “frustration” and what Paul calls later “groaning.”  In hope.

Remember that these two truths go together.  Suffering and Glory on the one hand which is rooted in hope.  Our hope is that the glory of the character of Christ will be revealed in us here on earth to empower our testimony and finally in heaven where all will be revealed.  Our glorification gives us hope.

But there is more.  During this time of frustration and “groaning” there is also hope for creation.  All is not lost.  Global warming will not have the last word.  Pollution and destruction of the rain forests will not stand.  This world with all of its beauty and marvel is not destined for destruction but for renewal.

Paul says in vs. 20b and 21 that “in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”  That is a vision of the future to give us hope.  We are not alone in our glorification.  Even creation will be restored to its former glory and that will be something worth seeing.

In the meantime, there is still a lot of frustration, bondage to decay and ‘groaning” going on.  Paul says that “we know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” (vs.22).  The image of childbirth is an interesting one.  Not only does it remind us of the curse on childbearing from Genesis 4 but many theologians have used this imagery to describe the process that world history (and creation) has been going through (and will go through) up to the time of the Second Coming of Christ.

Leaving aside our particular view of the millennium for a moment, the idea is basically that world events (as described in the book of Revelations) will get increasingly worse until Christ comes back.

There is a note of judgment in all of this because, apparently, God is willing to allow mankind to destroy himself (and creation) as a direct consequence of his sinful rebellion and godless lifestyle.  The destruction of creation (and the self-destruction of mankind) is a direct result of the rebelliousness of mankind against God.  That very destruction will stand as a witness against the evil and sin of a world in rebellion against its Creator.

But this will happen in waves.  It will get very painful for a while and then it will ease off.  Then more painful, and then another respite until, finally, the self-destruction is inevitable and God has to finally intervene and bring history to a close and reveal what He has been doing all this time during the redemptive emergency.

Not that mankind will determine the day or the hour of His coming, that is entirely in the hands of the Father, but the imagery of childbirth seems to give us a good way to understand world history.  The Spanish Influenza during the first World War, as well as the atrocities of the Second World War would be seen as a time of great pain and the next fifty years, a time when the pain subsided somewhat.  But it will come again.  And it will be more terrible yet.

But that doesn’t mean that we are without hope.  Yes there will be pain and suffering but, in the end, a child will be born and that child is us, the children of God, and the revealing of our glory (as we revel in the glory of a newborn child).  It is a beautiful picture.

Paul is telling us that this is the nature of the beast.  To expect that there will be no suffering for the gospel is naive.  To expect that there will be no “groaning,” and frustration and bondage to decay in this life is naive.  There will be suffering for the gospel and there will be suffering on a creation level for all people in one form or another, either as an entire society or individually through cancer, decay and death.

In fact, Paul includes us in the very next verse (vs. 23) where he says, “Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”  Yes, there is a sense that everyone is “groaning” in the general, creation suffering and pain that is due to both the curse and the rebellion of mankind.

But there is another sense in which only those “who have the first fruits of the Spirit,” really understand what is going on.  Many people “groan” as those who have no hope.  We “groan” even more because we do have hope.  And that hope is not some “pie-in-the-sky” kind of hope that we will one day be in heaven as spirit-beings, playing harps and sitting on a cloud.  Far from it.

Remember that I told you earlier that the woman was also part of creation and therefore her curse was also a curse on creation?  Paul makes it clear that all of us, especially in terms of our bodies, male and female alike, are part of this great renewal of creation that will happen.  God did not create this beautiful world in vain.  He will complete the work that He started and the whole of creation, including our physical bodies, will be included in the process.  We suffer and “groan” in the body but we have hope that even our bodies will be “redeemed” and made new once again.

There is so much more to say on that topic but, for now, we need to move on.  Now we get to the good part.  Yes, Paul says, this may be a time of suffering and pain.  After all, we still live under the curse.  Our bodies are still subject to decay and death as is all of creation.  We are still in “bondage to decay” and there is no escaping that reality.  Later on, Paul will talk about our “bodies of death” that we still have to live with, our handicaps, our cancer, our disease, our temptations, our weaknesses.  There is victory and we are no longer under the control of that “decay” but it is still there and we need to manage it, fight it, be stewards of it, all in the “hope” of our adoption as sons and the redemption of our bodies.

So don’t be surprised that we will suffer, whether for the gospel or not.  Suffering and pain are a part of the reality of life.  But there is hope and that hope will not disappoint us.  In the meantime, in the middle of our suffering and pain, there is a further truth that will comfort us.  Paul tells us in vs. 26 that “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”  Wow.  The Holy Spirit prays for me with “groans” that words cannot express.  Get your head around that for a moment.

We all know what it is like to have so much grief at the death of a child or the despair of facing an addiction, or the frustration of an entire lifestyle that seems self-destructive at best.  Life is sometimes very hard.  And prayer seems to be impossible.

I have had moments like that.  You just can’t put anything into words and, maybe, you don’t even want to.  All you can do is “groan” and weep and rail against the injustice of it all.  Maybe you are even tempted to blame God.  No worries.  He can handle it.  Talk to Him and weep before Him.  He understands every tear you shed and each one is precious to Him.

Just imagine the Holy Spirit within you feeling every “groan” and weeping every tear with you.  God is a God who weeps with those who weep.  The truth is that we don’t even know what to pray for, says Paul.  Some things just cannot be undone.  We need to learn to live with it whether we like it or not.  The Holy Spirit understands your dilemma.  He understands your grief and He groans with you, and for you, before the throne of God.  He knows what to pray for.

God, the Father, understands as well.  He is an active part of the process.  Paul tells us in vs. 27 that God “who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.”  That last part is interesting.

When the Spirit prays for us with “groans that words cannot express,” it doesn’t mean that there is only emotion involved.  The Spirit is “interceding” for us.  He is talking to the Father on our behalf.  He is “interpreting” our emotions but He is also praying for us “in accordance with God’s will.”

This fits in perfectly with the next truth that we are MORE THAN CONQUERORS and that all things will work out for our good.  That is what the Spirit is praying for, that God’s will be fulfilled in us and that it will work out for our good.

The Spirit doesn’t just feel bad for us, He takes it upon Himself to “interpret” our “groaning” to God and, at the same time, praying a “powerful and effective prayer” (James 5:16) that is in accordance with God’s will.  Remember that Spiritual Maturity means that we agree, even in our pain and suffering, that God’s eternal will and priority to save the people around us is “good, pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12: 2b NIV).  Just like Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, we can groan and suffer but, in the end, say “not my will but yours be done.”

Speaking of Jesus, Paul makes another comment, almost as an aside, about Jesus in vs. 34.  He says, “Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.”  So, not only is the Holy Spirit praying for us, but Jesus is also interceding for us at the right hand of God.  In the Book of Hebrews, we are told that “because he (Jesus) himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews 2:18 NIV).  He gets it.  He’s been there, just like us.  He knows what to pray for.

Now, that is what I call PRAYER SUPPORT and that gives me hope in the midst of my suffering and pain, both for the gospel and just the general suffering that we are all still subject to.  I sometimes try to imagine the Holy Spirit and Jesus praying for me and God listening carefully to what I really want in the Spirit.

And I tell myself that if they are taking the time to pray for me these “powerful and effective” prayers, it’s no wonder that I can be MORE THAN A CONQUEROR in the situation that I am facing.  It gives me comfort and hope and that is what I need the most.

The Desert Warrior

Lord, thank you for praying for me.  Sometimes my prayers are selfish and shallow but I know that you understand what I am going through.  On the one hand, I just want the pain to go away but on the other hand, I want to break through to the purpose you have for the pain and suffering.  I know that how I handle it in faith, hope and love will give power to my testimony which can change the lives of my children, my friends, my neighbors.  And that is worth it.  It is always worth it.  It’s just that in the moment, I am weak when I need to be strong.  Knowing that you pray for me and that you know what to pray for gives me hope.  Thank you Lord.  In your name I pray.  Amen.

Seeking Jerusalem – Day 26 “Suffering and Glory”

07 Sunday Jun 2020

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The Way of the Cross – Lenten Season 2018

“Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.  I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”  (Romans 8: 17,18 NIV)

“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:10,11 NIV).

“And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.  Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given you” (Romans 5:2b-5 NIV).

The Suffering and the Glory (4)

I have an idea for a book (and maybe a movie) called A Glimpse of Glory.  It’s the story of a black worship leader who loses his sister to a mugging gone wrong and she is stabbed and killed.  Of course this creates a crisis of faith and he goes into a tailspin of grief and guilt which leads him into a frantic search for his sister’s killer.  He ends up one night in the very same bar, nursing a drink and wondering what he is doing with his life.  He decides to leave and try to get his life back on track but, first, he has to go to the bathroom.

On the way to relieve himself, he feels a knife pressed into his back and a voice in his ear telling him to step outside through the back door.  Once in the alley behind the bar, his assailant demands all of his money, using his knife as a warning and a motivation to hurry.

But Brandon wants nothing to do with it and starts to argue with him, asking him if he is the same thief who killed his sister weeks ago.  The mugger is confused and obviously high on something, but Brandon won’t let it go and starts to push back – hard.

The thief reacts like a crazy man, shoves Brandon back against the brick wall so fiercely that Brandon’s head cracks against the hard surface sharply.  At the same time, he feels the knife in his gut and he sinks to the ground in a heap.

Here is where things get interesting.

The book is called A Glimpse of Glory because Brandon is transported back into ancient Israel (or is it heaven?) at the time of David in his early years when he first became King.  A lot of other things happen, but one of the key moments is when Brandon insists on going into the Holy of Holies, unafraid for his life and only focused on his grief.  David warns him of the dangers, but Brandon goes ahead with his plan and enters the Temple bent on confronting God with his grief.

Outside, while David is waiting for the inevitable to happen, he sings one of my favorite songs (all of my books are actually musicals).  The song is from Shane and Shane and is called Though You Slay Me.

In the middle of the song, at least on YouTube, Pastor John Piper has a few words to say to those who are suffering grief and hardship.

“Not only is all your affliction momentary…

Not only is all your affliction light….in comparison to eternity and the glory there…

But all of it is totally meaningful.

Every millisecond of your pain from the fallen nature or the fallen man….

Every millisecond of your misery in the path of obedience

is producing a peculiar glory you will get because of that.

I don’t care if it was cancer or criticism…

I don’t care if it was slander or sickness…

It wasn’t meaningless.

It’s doing something.  It’s not meaningless.

Of course you can’t see what it’s doing.

Don’t look to what is seen…

When your Mom dies…when your kid dies…when you’ve got cancer at 40….when a car careens into the sidewalk and takes her out…

Don’t say “It’s meaningless…”    It’s not.

It’s working for you an eternal weight of glory.

Therefore, therefore, do not lose heart but take these truths and day-by-day focus on them.  Preach them to yourself every morning.

Get alone with God and preach His Word into your mind until your heart sings with confidence that you are new and cared for.

And then Shane and Shane come back singing their song one last time.

“Though you slay me, Yet I will praise you.

Though you take from me, I will bless your name.

Though you ruin me, still I will worship.

Sing a song to the One who is all I need.”

Do you see it?  Right there is your glimpse of glory.  Right there is the character of Christ revealed in us.  It makes no sense.  It shouldn’t be there.  But it is.  It’s not something you can create on your own by sheer will power or training.

It is something created by God in the midst of suffering.

You would have every right to complain, to argue, to get mad at God and turn away from him forever.  No one would blame you.  In fact, there may be more than one who, like Job’s wife, suggest that you just “curse God and die.”  After all, it is clear that God has abandoned you, so why not turn your back on Him as well.

Yes, you could.  But you don’t.

Instead, you go to God with your pain and grief and pour it all out before him in the Holy of Holies and, like Jesus in Gethsemane, you finally whisper “Not my will, but your’s be done.”  Not that it is easy.  Far from it.  But you do it anyway because, in the end, God is all you need and all you want.

That is the glory of God revealed in you.  Just as it was for Jesus.

It makes your testimony meaningful and real to the people around you who are also hurting and in pain.  Now you can pray for them.  Now you understand them.  Now you can tell them the good news that Jesus also endured pain and suffering for their sake, to save them from their sins.

That is what Paul is talking about here in our passage.

To the degree that we share in the suffering of Christ for the gospel, to that degree we will share in his character and glory both now in this life and, even more, in the life to come.

It is only in the context of suffering for the gospel that God can create the character of Christ.  There is no other way.  That is why we must rejoice in our sufferings because it produces hope (Romans 5:4).  It forces us to take God’s promises seriously and to risk our lives on them.  God calls that faith.  It forces us to look forward to our final redemption and the resurrection of our bodies and the defeat of death and the end of our struggle with our sinful natures.  God calls that hope.  It forces us to look at our neighbor and deal with them not in pettiness about mundane things, but in terms of issues that have an eternal weight to them.  God calls that love.  

So far in our study, we have talked about the first promise in Romans 8:1 that “there is no condemnation fro those who are in Christ Jesus.”  This promise includes FAITH, HOPE and LOVE.

Then we looked at the second promise of Holy Spirit power in our lives in Romans 8:11 where Paul reminds us that “if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.”

Not only is there NO CONDEMNATION but there are also NO EXCUSES.  We have the power of the Holy Spirit within us to deal with temptation and sin and we therefore need to be trained in the ways of righteousness.  The Bible calls that Discipleship.  We don’t want to fall into the trap of perfectionism but rather understand that this is a struggle and that we need to go on from glory to glory, becoming more and more like Christ each day.  Training in righteousness will be needed.

Then we looked at the third promise of the ASSURANCE of our salvation given to us by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit – that is, if you actually have the Holy Spirit within you.

A lot of people assume that it is so but don’t demonstrate any evidence that it is so.  We talked about having EVIDENCE OF LIFE and what that would look like.  If you have that evidence, you will have the assurance of your salvation.  The evidence does not save you, it only tells you that you are saved.

Both the power of the Holy Spirit and the assurance of salvation that He gives us are appropriated by FAITH.  We talked about David and his Mighty Men and the faith that they needed to have to fight the Philistines on the one hand and hide from Saul, their King, on the other.  It was a balancing act of faith that bore much fruit.

Now we go on to the fourth and fifth promise in Romans 8 which requires us to turn our thoughts to the concept of HOPE.  And HOPE is desperately needed in this crazy life of faith where things do not always go as planned.

In fact, if you are still under the impression that the Christian life is one free of pain and suffering where God will protect you from all harm and danger, then I have some bad news for you.

Our example is Jesus Christ, and, although we do not have to go to the cross and suffer the wrath of God, we still must pick up our cross daily, take on His same attitude toward the cross, die to self and live for God.

Prosperity theology does not do well in this context and if you are still suffering under those lies and deceit, perhaps this is the time to renounce the pleasures and passions of this world and start to live for God.  Exchange your Prosperity Theology for Abundance Theology.

Remember that we are talking about suffering for the gospel, not just suffering the circumstances of life like everyone else.  Yes, that too counts in terms of how you deal with it (see my next post) but the true disciple of Christ follows Him into the world to bring the gospel to those who need it and in that context will suffer as Christ did and therefore, be glorified as Christ is glorified.

It is all meaningful.  No matter what you go through.  You matter to God.  Every tear is precious to Him.

You may not know specifically why God is allowing you to suffer but somehow you need to get to that place where you can say with the apostles that you rejoice in that suffering for the gospel because it produces perseverance and that, in turn, produces hope.

This is not an insipid, weak-kneed hope in a better future but rather a strong conviction that God will fulfill His promises to us and save us from this body (and world) of death.  That is why we persevere.  That is where the patience comes from.  Hope.  Without it we could never endure the suffering and pain of this world much less that persecution inflicted on us in our efforts to spread the gospel.

So, like Pastor John Piper suggests, we need to get alone with God and preach these truths to ourselves, remind ourselves that we are new and cared for, that this is part of the process to become like Christ.

It does NOT mean that God is against us or that He is punishing us for some sin we have committed.  We are still polluted with sin and we still consciously commit sin (even when it makes us sick to do so).  Welcome to the struggle.

God disciplines those He loves and He loves us as His children.  So, no, it isn’t punishment.  It is always discipline and discipline is always for our good.

Yes, God is willing that we suffer to become like Christ.

Yes, God is willing that we endure persecution to bring the gospel to those who do not have it.

He sees the eternal ramifications of sin and is willing to do almost anything to save people from that eternal fate.

Are you?  Are you willing, like Paul, to do whatever it takes?  That is the question after all, isn’t it?

Do we agree with God’s eternal perspective, his loving priorities, His tough but good will?  If you remember our discussion of Romans 12:1-4, we talked about spiritual maturity and the process we go through to become more like Christ.  In the end, will we agree with God that His eternal perspective on this redemptive emergency is good, pleasing and perfect?  Or not?

If we are in agreement with God, then there is a price to pay.

Jesus paid the ultimate price and we don’t have to face the wrath of God.  But we can share in his sufferings for the gospel and, in that context, become more like Him.  That glory, that character, will be revealed in us here and now as well as on the last day.  That glory, that attitude of Christ, that mind-set of Jesus, will empower our testimony and life ministry and we will have the anointing of God to fulfill our purpose on earth.

Frankly, it doesn’t get any better than that.  It is the source of meaning and all joy for each of us.  A joy that is not bound by circumstances but one that is in us always no matter what we go through.

I want that joy for myself.  Don’t you?

The Desert Warrior

Lord, I want to have that joy that passes all understanding.  It is rooted in hope and springs forth in the context of suffering but I want it badly.  Please continue to reveal Christ’s character in me until my final day.  In your name I pray.  Amen.

Seeking Jerusalem – Day 25 “Evidence of Life”

31 Sunday May 2020

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The Way of the Cross – Lenten Season 2018

“…those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.  And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”  The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.  Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory”  (Romans 8:14-17 NIV).

“Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (2 Corinthians 5:5 NIV).

“Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith: test yourselves.  Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you – unless, of course, you fail the test?” (2 Corinthians 13: 5 NIV).

“You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you.  And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ” (Romans 8:9 NIV).

Evidence of Life (3)

“Before I listen to your demands, I want evidence of life,” I said.

They had my little girl and the FBI were calling the shots.  I was just scared to death.  It seemed a bit aggressive on my part to demand anything from these people and the silence on the other end of the phone was deafening.

“Daddy?”  A thin, fearful voice threw the question at me with the force of a hurricane.

She was alive.  My knees quivered and I had to grab the desk for support.

“Yes, mi amor.  I’m here.”  I said shakily.  “I’m coming….”

A rough voice intervened.  “That’s enough.  I just texted you our demands.  You have four hours to comply or you can say goodbye permanently.”  The phone went dead.

But my little girl was alive and that’s all that mattered.  I had evidence of life and it made all the difference in the world.  The rest wasn’t important.

Yes, it’s a little bit of fiction just to get a point across.  Evidence of life is important for Christians, especially if you were once dead and now you are alive in Christ.  We need some proof, some evidence that it is really true.

After all, the world (and our churches) are full of people who think that they are Christians when it is evident that they are not.  Are they blind?  Or perhaps simply ignorant of what it means to be a Christian, a disciple, a follower of Christ?  Maybe.  No doubt there are some Satanic strategies involved here.  No doubt the worldliness of the western church in general keeps people in the dark.  No doubt our own flesh, which rebels against the things of God, keeps us in our sin and misery.  No doubt at all.

But we have a responsibility as well.  In our preaching.  In our spiritual discussions.  In our discipleship.  Willful blindness is self-defeating and true blindness must be overcome.

On the one hand, Paul tells us that we have “received the Spirit of Sonship.  And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”  The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children” (vs. 15b,16).

On the other hand, Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 13:5 that all of us should “examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith: test yourselves.  Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you – unless, of course, you fail the test?”

So, if we are truly Christians, we have the Spirit of God within us.  It is a seal, a guarantee of our eternal hope.  But, at the same time, we need to examine ourselves to check whether or not “Christ Jesus is in you.”   You can’t just assume it.  You need “evidence of life.”

Sadly, Paul doesn’t give us a list of things we can use as a standard test for the spiritual life.  Nor does he explain in any significant detail what he means when he says that the Spirit “testifies with our spirit” that we are God’s children.

Most people just interpret this to mean that the evidence is purely subjective.  It is a “feeling” in my heart (or my gut) that I am a Christian.  After all, it is a question of faith not works and I believe in the promise that if I confess that I am a Christian then I am a Christian and I can trust God to fulfill His promise to me and save me from eternal damnation when the time comes.

It is a question of faith in the promises of God, they say.  Well, that sounds right.  It sounds biblical.  It even sounds spiritual.  But I am still full of doubts.  Forgive me.

The reason for those doubts is that those people, by and large, are worldly “Christians” who are “living in the flesh” quite comfortably and justify it with their general morality.  They aren’t bad people but they aren’t on fire for God either.  I’m scared that God may keep another promise of His to “spit you out of my mouth” (Revelations 3:16b NIV).

That kind of complacency is everywhere condemned in the Scriptures (in the Old Testament and the New Testament alike).  It simply is not what God is looking for.  God is creating a certain type of person and that “type” is not lethargic, complacent and lukewarm about the things of God.  He (or she) is on fire for God and is focused on the things of God.  They are a breed apart, “a chosen people, a royal priesthood” (I Peter 2:9) who have a significant part to play in the redemptive emergency that marks this stage of history.

So a “feeling” in my gut (even if you call it “faith”) is not going to cut it.  We need “evidence of life.”  James points out that “faith without deeds is dead” (James 2:26b NIV).  So evidence is essential.  That much is clear.

But then people fall into the other trap of thinking that the evidence of our faith is our deeds.  Again, that sounds right.  It sounds biblical.  But, again, it misses the mark.

Lots of people in our church are moral, upstanding church-goers who help the poor, put money in the offering plate and are involved in various social concerns.  Isn’t that evidence enough?  Sadly, no.

Lots of other people in the world, both secular and religious, do good deeds.  Many people are charitable.  Many people help the poor, run foundations, join the Peace Corps, spend a gap year in Thailand working with people entangled in sexual slavery or work with Doctors Without Borders in a refugee camp somewhere.  They are good people and there are many Christians among them but, the fact remains, that good deeds, in and by themselves, are not sufficient evidence for the presence of the Holy Spirit within.

Still, we can’t dismiss these “inklings” or “breadcrumbs” entirely.  Paul tells us that we should have a “faith expressing itself through love” (Galatians 5:6b NIV).  No doubt.

But making sure that our “inner assurance” is truly “faith” and that our “outward expression” is truly love and that our love is rooted in our faith, well, that is the thing that matters “and the only thing that counts” (Galatians 5:6a NIV).

And that will take a bit more examination, I think.

Since we know that the “heart is deceitful above all things” (Jeremiah 17:9 NIV) and that Satan is a deceiver and “the father of lies” (John 8:44 NIV), we need to be careful to do this right.  Our eternal salvation depends on it.  After all, when we confessed with our mouth that “Jesus is Lord” and believed with our heart that God raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9), the problem was not our mouth but our heart.

How do we know that our confession was sincere and real?  How do we know that we have received the Holy Spirit?

Forget about speaking in tongues.  Yes, tongues have a place but not as evidence of your salvation.  Many eastern religions, as well as cults, practice “tongue speaking” and the idea that it is evidence of the Holy Spirit’s presence is not theologically sound.  That simply isn’t going to be enough.

Neither can you depend on the rest of the spiritual gifts that Paul talks about in the life of a believer since they can be (and often have been) counterfeited successfully (at least to the human eye).

The fruit of the Spirit gets closer to the truth of the matter, but since things like patience, joy, long-suffering and the like have been almost entirely understood in worldly terms rather than in spiritual terms, that is also not a clear source of security or assurance of salvation.

What then?  How can we take Paul’s advice seriously and “examine ourselves.”  I certainly don’t want to fail the test.  And that’s the rub, isn’t it.

The ones who are most eager to examine themselves, the ones most interested in “passing” the test are hardly the ones who should be worried.  That concern is, in itself, evidence of the Holy Spirit.  Those who are in the flesh are at odds with the things of God.  The very ones that need it the most are probably not even reading this blog.  Go figure.

But still, if we understand what the evidence of the Holy Spirit is in our lives, we can certainly minister that truth in the lives of others and that is reason enough to examine ourselves.

Let me suggest three evidences of the Holy Spirit in the life of a true believer.

These three evidences are not necessarily all of what is available but it will get us started thinking in the right direction. And it isn’t only about one or two of them, but all of them working together in concert in the life of a believer. Part of it is about spiritual maturity, therefore they become progressively more pronounced. All of them have to do with the cross and therefore they are immediately present and available. 

First of all, let’s talk about faith.  I’m not going to give you a whole theological treatise on the nature and role of faith in the believer’s life.  I just want to give you some indicators and cautions to keep you on the right road.

It seems to me that there are two levels of faith that you need to be aware of – faith in the existence of God and believing faith in the death and resurrection of Christ on your behalf.  They are both “faith” but they have a distinctive focus and purpose.  The distinction between them is vital to our Christian faith.

On the one hand, Paul tells us that unbelievers know “instinctively” that God exists.  Paul says that they “suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them…for since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made” (Romans 1:18b,19,20 NIV).  That suppression of the truth is necessary if you want to live a wicked and godless lifestyle.  So long as God is withholding his immediate and permanent justice on our actions and misdeeds and lack of love, we have the freedom to suppress the uncomfortable truth that we live in a just universe and that one day we will be held to account for our actions.  It all makes sense (at least from the believer’s point of view).  So far so good.

But then there is a change.

In the book of Hebrews, the author tells us that “without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6 NIV).

What just happened?  We went from suppressing the truth to seeking God.  Something happened.  What happened was FAITH.  And that faith was a gift from God in the first place but acted on by us in the second place.  It is interactive.  It is a relationship.  Initiated by God and responded to by us.  It is a mystery as well as an ever-present reality.

Paul tells us that “it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8,9 NIV).  It is a gift.  You didn’t have to grit your teeth and make a decision to believe.  You didn’t have to exercise will power or mind control or succumb to outside influences to believe.  You just did – believe, that is.  It was just there.

Like love, I suppose.  When I met my wife, before she was my wife, she struck me as an intelligent and beautiful woman whom I wanted to know.  I began “seeking” a relationship with her and, low and behold, one day I realized that I was in love.  It was there.  I did not create it.  I didn’t invent it.  I just discovered it’s presence and had to respond to it with a commitment to the relationship that already existed.

That may not be a perfect analogy but it is probably the best one we’ve got.  It will do nicely.  Faith is discovered not invented.  It is a gift, not a work.  And that makes all the difference in the world.  After all, it is a relationship not a job and, like all relationships, it is about the person, not just the benefits.

The thing to remember, and this is essential, is that believing that God exists is not enough.  It is part of the equation, no doubt.  It’s hard to have a relationship with a virtual (or pretend) girlfriend.  Yes, you need to believe that God exists (as well as your girlfriend or boyfriend) and I suppose that puts you one step closer to the truth but it isn’t enough.  “Even the demons believe….” says James,  “and shudder” (James 2:19 NIV).

This is the demonic deception that has gripped so much of Western Christianity, that believing in the existence of God, believing that Jesus is the Son of God, believing in the truth that Jesus rose from the dead means that you are a believer.  Far from it.  There is more to it.

There is a “seeking” after God that is the necessary counterpart to believing in the existence of God or in the truth of Scripture.  That proactive desire to seek a relationship with this God that you believe in, sets you apart from the demons.  It is an attitude that springs from faith, not just a faith that something is true but a faith in someone who is there and who will “reward those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6b NIV).

There it is in black and white.  Faith that something is true is not true faith.  Faith in the God who is there is a relational faith that will be rewarded.  The first is demonic and the second angelic.  The first is a plague in our society (and churches), the second is the secret to a true confession of faith.

That is the first and foremost evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life.  The gift of “seeking” faith which is the stirring up of the Spirit out of the spiritual darkness of wickedness and godlessness.  Truth is relational not merely informational.  The informational, historical truth acts as a necessary context for any relationship but it is not the relationship itself.  It doesn’t work with your girlfriend (or wife/husband) and it won’t work with God.  After all, He is the one who judges men’s hearts and He is the one you have to convince that you are sincere in your faith when you make your confession.

True “seeking” faith is the first evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit and entire books are written on the subject, but let’s go on to the second evidence – the conviction of sin.

Now don’t go asking me whether faith is first or the conviction of sin is first.  I believe that they necessarily go hand in hand.  As you discover the initial stirrings of the Spirit in your heart and you believe in the existence of God and start to earnestly seek Him, you have a hope for a reward, or benefit.

If I am only in the relationship with my wife for the benefits of intimacy, respect and care and my focus is on myself, I have not yet discovered true love.  True love is about the other.  It is about what the other desires, needs, or expects from the relationship.  The beauty of love is that it is a mutually sustaining enterprise.  I love her and am concerned about her needs and she loves me and is concerned about my needs.  It seldom works that effectively but that is the idea.  Sometimes we almost get there for a while or, at least, in part but we know that that is what we must strive for.

With God it is the same but much more difficult.  Although the husband-wife relationship is used by God in the Bible as the closest analogy to our relationship with Him, it is more complex yet since God is also our Creator and Lord and our relationship necessarily has a strong and essential aspect of authority involved in it.

Still, without getting too deep into the details, the truth still stands that there are natural and unnatural (or selfish) benefits one can get from any relationship.  Although love in marriage makes some sense to us, with God it is often difficult to get past the benefits stage.  To some extent that is to be expected.  As C.S. Lewis would say, there are natural benefits that come to you if you are a husband or wife or if you are a child of God.  Those are not necessarily things you should focus on all the time but they are a natural consequence of the relationship.  God wants to reward those who “seek Him.”  Seeking Him must be our focus.  The rewards come from the relationship not the other way around.

Point being that if we did not believe that God wants to be gracious to us, that He wants to save us from our sin, that He is turning his face toward us in peace, it would be difficult to bear up under the divine scrutiny.  For that is what the conviction of sin is all about.  The divine scrutiny.  God turning His face toward us and telling us what He sees.  The Bible is God’s anthropology.

The girl that you are interested in, turns towards you and gives you the once over.  She sizes you up.  She makes a judgment about your suitability as a friend, a lover, a partner.  It may not be a divine scrutiny but even that is painful to bear.  How many of us have avoided that moment with every fiber in our beings.  Think of teenagers at a school dance who are faced with walking the floor of shame back to the rest of the boys after a girl has declined his offer to dance.  Ouch.  That hurts.

The conviction of sin can come softly in small doses or with the wallop of a galloping horse.  It depends.  The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit will “convict the world of guilt in regards to sin” (John 16:8 NIV).

Just imagine.  You hear about this God that your friend believes in and you can see the changes in his life.  Hope flares in your own heart that maybe there is something real there that can help you with your problems as well.  You discover that you believe that God exists and you start to earnestly seek Him.  You go to a church service with your friend and, at first, you are taken aback by the sheer strangeness of all the things that are happening around you.  The songs are upbeat and interesting.  That’s good.  The people seem to really get into it and, apparently believe that they are singing to someone located somewhere above the Pastor’s head.  As one friend of mine asked me once, “who are the people waving at?”

But then comes the sermon.  The suppression of the truth has subsided somewhat and your heart is open to hearing the gospel.  Something sparks within your heart a desire to read the Word of God, to understand what this is all about, to learn more about this strange God that seems to be real and can make a difference in people’s lives.  There is hope of a reward or benefit but there is also a seeking after the God who rewards.

Then, as you study the scriptures and listen to the preaching of the Word of God, you are struck with the ferocity of the twin truths of the holiness of God and the utter sinfulness of your life.

For the first time in your life, as you read the Word of God, you begin to experience the divine scrutiny and it is terribly painful.  Not only do you recognize that God is holy (a religious term that you are just becoming acquainted with) but, on a more practical level, that God is completely and entirely a God of love and that you are not. 

Your love for yourself, for others, for God is pale and insipid in comparison with the love of God, who was willing to die for his enemies, for you, in order to save you even though he had to submit himself to abuse and mockery and death at the hands of the very ones He was trying to save.

What wonderous love is this, O my soul, O my soul.  And at the same time, “Woe to me, for I am a man of unclean lips….and I have seen the King, the LORD Almighty” (Isaiah 6:5 NIV).

I’m probably not explaining it very well but let me try again.  Here goes.

When we experience the divine scrutiny, we become aware of how God looks at us, how we measure up to His expectations. We begin to understand the divine anthropology that the Word of God shows us, a mirror in which we can see our true selves.

We realize that we have been suppressing the truth with our wickedness and godless lifestyle, acting as if God doesn’t exist or, at least, won’t do anything about it.   That fantasy has been shattered for good.

We now realize that our weak-kneed attempts at love are nothing in comparison with His love for us.  Yes, we have some “vestiges” of love that keeps the world functioning (more or less) but nowhere near “enough” love for our fellow man or woman to solve the world’s problems, much less our own.

We realize that His anger and, yes, even wrath, are rooted in that very same love in the face of our constant violence upon each other.  The contentment of our “marking on a curve” is being shattered by the absolute standard of God’s love as demonstrated for us on the cross.

And there is no going back.  Once we were blind but now we can see.  And we don’t always want to see.  We don’t always want to know.  It is horrible and ugly and our hearts sink within us and we shrink back to hide in the bushes and try to save what little dignity we have left by sewing fig leaves together to cover our shame.

But it is too late for that.  God has turned his face toward us.  We have received the initial gift of faith, we are now in the throes of the conviction of guilt for our sin and loveless lifestyle.  That, right there, is evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives.  But there is still hope and so we return to the evidence of faith as we continue our journey.

The third evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit is “saving” faith or, perhaps more clearly, “believing” faith.  This is the same faith that we started with.  I don’t want to give it another name.  But it does have a different object, a different focus.

The first steps in “seeking” faith are focused on God and prepare us for his divine scrutiny but now, in the searing and transformation of our consciences, we are like a drowning man who needs immediate help.  We need to be saved.  Now the focus is on the work of Christ on the cross in his death and resurrection as our substitute for sin.

Here “believing” faith is focused on our redemption by the blood of Christ, our justification by faith that takes away our sin and replaces it with the righteousness of Christ, our regeneration by the power of the Holy Spirit so that we become a “new creation,” and our sanctification, guaranteed eschatologically and experienced progressively.  Yes, I know.  Lots of big words with little explanation.  We will deal with them all in other posts.  For now, you get the general idea.

What sweet relief!  What blessed peace is mine!  T’was grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved, as the old hymn goes.  This is a spiritual experience that is only possible because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life.  How distant this is to merely saying “Jesus is Lord” at the front of the church and getting a certificate of membership.

Do you earnestly seek God?  Lots of people believe that God exists.  You will have to do better than that.

Have you experienced the divine scrutiny of God….and trembled?  Most people harden their heart towards any attack on their precious self-esteem.  My preeeccciooousss….

Have you knelt at the foot of the cross in gratefulness for that love that was willing to die on your behalf and accepted it with all your heart.  Most find it difficult to humble themselves and let God be God and we, his children, who obey His will.  That is the trade-off.  We have been bought with a price.  We now belong, body and soul, to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.  Just like we belong to our wives and husbands and children.  It is a relationship after all.

Those are the first three evidences and they are the most important.  Catholic theology talks of the religious virtues of faith, hope and love and tells us that they are given to us at the moment we are regenerated – the moment we are sealed with the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of our eternal hope of resurrection.

Here in the first three evidences we have seen the interplay of faith, hope and love, mostly God’s love but also the beginnings of a love for God (or at least a longing for God) in our own hearts.  But don’t be fooled.  This doesn’t come from you, it is a gift of the Holy Spirit which has been working in you and, when you accept Jesus as your substitute, comes to live within you permanently.

It may happen a bit differently than I describe here.  That’s all right.  God, in His infinite wisdom, has a million ways to make it happen but the basics are always the same.  There is a seeking after God.  There is a humbling under the divine scrutiny of God and there is a solution in Christ that can only be accepted by faith.

Remember that it is a relationship and just like any relationship, it is free but it will cost you everything…..and you are happy to pay it.  Having a child is free, but it will cost you everything.   Getting married is free, but it will cost you everything.  But love knows no pain, no cost, no inconvenience.  It is freely paid and freely given.

The same is true for our relationship with God.  That is the next step in the evidence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  Discipleship.  Loving obedience.  Following God even to the gates of Hell.

Time (and space) does not permit us to talk about the evidence of true, heartfelt following after God, seeking to please Him, hungering and thirsting to do His will, seeking first the Kingdom of Heaven, rightly recognizing the body and blood of Christ, walking the way of the cross in confession, repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation, loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and loving our neighbor as ourselves, radical discipleship, heartfelt engagement in fellowship, worship and prayer and taking on the mind, attitude and priorities of Christ as we suffer together with him for the gospel…..all of these are evidences of the Holy Spirit that the world cannot even process and we rejoice in.

Once you see it, you realize that the evidence of the Holy Spirit is all around you, and in you.  It is not that God has left us without a witness but rather that our ears and eyes need to be opened to see Him in all of creation and recognize His presence in the life of a true believer.

The point is that if you are still blind to the evidence of the Holy Spirit in your life, ask God to open your eyes and unstop your ears so that you can “hear” the testimony of the Spirit in your heart, in the testimony of others and in the Word of God.  Only then will you begin to see the evidence bloom all around you and in you and in your fellow travelers on the road to the celestial city.

The Desert Warrior

Lord, we want to see you.  Open our eyes that we might see and open our ears that we might hear what the Spirit testifies to our spirit.  Turn your divine scrutiny upon us as we seek your face and teach us to cling to the cross as our only comfort in a world in rebellion against you.  Give us eyes to see the evidence of your Spirit working in us and give us the courage to respond in faith, knowing that we are so loved by you that you were willing to die on the cross for us while we were yet sinners.  All I can say is thank you.  In your name I pray.  Amen.

 

Seeking Jerusalem – Day 24 “Resurrection Power”

24 Sunday May 2020

Posted by in Daily Devotionals, Lenten Season, Seeking Jerusalem, Steps To Maturity

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The Way of the Cross – Lenten Season 2018

“If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.  For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin – because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.”  (Romans 6:5-7 NIV)

“You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you.  And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.  But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.  And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.”  (Romans 8:9-11 NIV).

Resurrection Power (2)

One of these days I want to write some stories about David and his mighty men.  Everybody knows the basics about King David, how he slew Goliath, how he patiently waited for God to make him king and would not raise his hand against Saul even though Saul hunted for him and tried to kill him multiple times.  But there is so much more to the story… and it is fascinating!

I especially like the stories about David’s mighty men.  In I Chronicles 11 and 12 we get some glimpses of who they were.  “These were the men who came to David at Ziklag, while he was banished from the presence of Saul son of Kish (they were among the warriors who helped him in battle; they were armed with bows and were able to shoot arrows or to sling stones right-handed or left-handed…” (I Chronicles 12:1,2 NIV).

Now, don’t forget that the Philistines had bronze swords and shields and armor.  The Israelites lived in the hills and had arrows and slingshots and a few swords and spears that they stole from their enemies.  These were brave men.

It goes on…..

“Some Gadites defected (from Saul) to David at his stronghold in the desert.  They were brave warriors, ready for battle and able to handle the shield and spear.  Their faces were the faces of lions, and they were as swift as gazelles in the mountains…These Gadites were army commanders; the least was a match for a hundred, and the greatest for a thousand” (I Chronicles 12: 8 NIV).

Yes, I know that it sounds like a bit of hyperbole and exaggeration but ….not that much, actually.  Look what it says about the Three….yes, that is what they were called…the Three…..Jashobeam (let’s call him Jash), Eleazar and Joab, who became the commander of David’s army after he took Jerusalem from the Jebusites.  So just in case you think the Chronicler is exaggerating, listen to what he says about these guys (the details demonstrate the truth of these stories).

“Jashobeam, a Hacomite, was chief of the officers; he raised his spear against three hundred men, whom he killed in one encounter” (I Chronicles 11: 11b).  In another parallel passage it talks about him killing eight hundred men by himself.  He was a real warrior, no doubt.  I’m thinking Brad Pitt in the movie about the Trojan wars.  You get the idea.

Talking about the Three, the Chronicler tells of one incident where the rest of the Israelite troops “fled from the Philistines.  But they (the Three) took their stand in the middle of the field.  They defended it and struck the Philistines down, and the LORD brought about a great victory” (I Chronicles 11: 13b, 14).  God was on their side.

But that’s not all, I love this next story the most….

“Three of the thirty chiefs came down to David to the rock at the cave of Adullam, while a band of Philistines was encamped in the Valley of Rephaim.  At that time David was in the stronghold, and the Philistine garrison was at Bethlehem.

David longed for water and said, “Oh, that someone would get me a drink of water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem!”

So the Three broke through the Philistine lines, drew water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem and carried it back to David.

But he refused to drink it; instead, he poured it out before the LORD.  “God forbid that I should do this!” he said.  “Should I drink the blood of these men who went at the risk of their lives?”  Because they risked their lives to bring it back, David would not drink it.  Such were the exploits of the three mighty men” (I Chronicles 11: 15-19 NIV).

Don’t you just love these stories.  The mighty men of David were true warriors fighting against overwhelming odds.  What made them train so hard?  What gave them courage?  What motivated them to do these crazy things for David?

And they weren’t the only ones…..let me introduce you to two more who are worthy of mention….

“Abishai the brother of Joab was chief of the Three.  He raised his spear against three hundred men, whom he killed, and so he became as famous as the Three.  He was doubly honored above the Three and became their commander, even though he was not included among them” (I Chronicles 11: 20,21 NIV).

“Benaiah son of Jehoiada was a valiant fighter from Kabzeel, who performed great exploits.  He struck down two of Moab’s best men.  He also went down into a pit on a snowy day and killed a lion.  And he struck down an Egyptian who was seven and a half feet tall.  Although the Egyptian had a spear like a weaver’s rod in his hand, Benaiah went against him with a club.  He snatched the spear from the Egyptian’s hand and killed him with his own spear.  Such were the exploits of Benaiah son of Jehoiada; he too was as famous as the three mighty men.  He was held in greater honor than any of the Thirty, but he was not included among the Three.  And David put him in charge of his bodyguard” (I Chronicles 11: 22-25 NIV).

Wow….these were tough men.  Jash and Eleazer and Joab, the Three who were at David’s side almost from the beginning.  Joab’s brother, Abishai, and Benaiah son of Jehoiada, just as famous.  There you have five of the greatest of David’s mighty men.  And then there is mention of the Thirty, another group of warriors who were renown for their fighting skills….and many more came to David after Saul’s death and became part of his army.

The thing about fighting men, so they tell me, is that they are either arrogant or superstitious.  What do I mean?  Every warrior knows that battle is arbitrary.  You can’t control all the variables.  A spear or bullet can hit you just as much as the guy next to you.  In battle you fight the person in front of you and you take your chances.  Either you are motivated by fear and fight like a demon or you are motivated by ego and focus on your skill in battle.  Not that I know anything about this from personal experience, you understand.

But they say that most people who fight are somewhat superstitious as well.  Whether they believe in luck, in God or just in the rightness of their cause, in the end, they just have to take their chances, go into battle, and fight the best they can.  If they survive, whether because of luck or skill, so be it.  Some higher power wanted it that way.

But David’s mighty men are different.  At least that is what it seems to me.  There is something strange about them.  They trained hard but they had a courage beyond most men.  Yes, of course, they believed in God but it was more than that.  Yes, they believed in the rightness of David’s cause.  They believed in his anointing to become King and were sometimes annoyed at his patience with Saul, but it was more than that as well.

It wasn’t just blind faith in fate, or destiny or even in the God of Israel who they hoped would save them in battle.  It was more than simply “hope.”  There was a certainty about them that fed their courage and stamina in the fight.    Let me try to explain what I mean in a different way….

You can imagine the conversation around the campfire at night between David and his mighty men.

“David, you have to stop taking so many chances,” Jash said, his eyes wide in the firelight as he sat down beside David.  “Scaling that cliff by yourself was foolish.”

They were warriors and were willing to take risks, but David was going to be King.  He needed to be more careful.

“Leave him alone,” the gruff voice of Joab came out of the darkness behind David.  He was always close by, guarding David with his life.  “He knows what he’s doing.”

“All I’m saying is….”

“I agree with Jash,” Eleazar blurted out.  “If he had fallen, all of this would be for nothing.”

David just kept quiet waiting for them to finish.  He was fiddling with a stick he had placed in the fire and smiled to himself.

Abishai and Benaiah were there but they kept silent.  This was a discussion among the Three and David had heard it all before.  They all looked at David expectantly, waiting for him to speak.

“Do you all believe that I will be King one day?” David asked quietly.

They nodded.

“Why?”  That solitary word hung in the air for a moment in the silence.

“Why were you chosen to be king?” Jash asked.  “I don’t know.  Nobody does.  God chose you, I guess.”

“God chose me,” David repeated quietly.  “I don’t know why anymore than you do.”  But the God of Israel chose me to be King.  He sent his prophet, Samuel, to my house and out of all my brothers I was chosen, and anointed…..and now I am here in a cave with you.  Not exactly king-like, is it?”

“You are our King,” Eleazar declared, stubborn to the end.

“Thank you, but no.” David replied.  “There is only one King in Israel and that is Saul son of Kish.  He, too, was anointed by God and until God removes him, I will not be King.”

Heads nodded.  They had heard all of this before.

“But here’s the thing.”  Apparently David wasn’t done this time.  “God made me King.  I have been anointed.  It is already so but not yet fulfilled.  Do you understand?”

Silence.

David tried again to put it into words.

“I trust Him.  Why would I not?  He made me King too early it seems.  But God never makes a mistake.  What is he doing?  He’s up to something, preparing something….maybe preparing me, preparing us….for what’s coming.”

“What’s coming?” Abishai spoke up, then lowered his head immediately in shame.

David smiled.

“Leadership.  Responsibility.  Ruling Israel,” David said, his voice clear and sharp.

“But that’s for you….not us,” Jash said.

“Not true.  It is for all of us.”  David looked around at his mighty men.  “I cannot rule alone.  I don’t even want to.  What do I know about being a King?”

“You follow God and that’s enough,”  Joab’s voice came out of the darkness behind David again.

Silence.

“You are right, my friend,” David said without even turning around.  “God is the only true King in Israel.  Our job is to follow Him.”

“Unlike Saul,” Eleazar stated harshly.

“Do not speak ill of our King,” David warned him.  Then, with a smile, he agreed.  “Unlike Saul, which is why God has taken the Kingdom from him and given it to us.”

“Us?” Jash said.  “You, you mean.”

“Yes, of course but no, not entirely.  You are part of it,” David said.  “You have to be and God is preparing you, just like He is preparing me.”

“What does it have to do with you taking unnecessary risks?” Jash said.

“Everything,” David replied.  He started to smile that lopsided, boyish grin of his.  “If God has anointed me to be King, then nothing is a risk.  I am under His protection.”

“Do you think it is wise to take advantage of God’s favor that way?”  The question came from Joab.  That was a surprise.

This time David turned around, then stood up and moved back a bit to include Joab in the circle.  “Take advantage?  No.  Trust him in battle?  Yes.”

Silence.

“We all do that,” Benaiah said softly.

“Exactly,” said David.  “Every time we go into battle, we trust Him to protect us.”

“Yes, well,” Joab said.  “He promised to protect us in battle if we do what He said and throw the Philistines out.  We all know that.”

“We all know it but not everybody trusts that promise, especially in the heat of battle.”

“You do,” Abishai spoke again.  “You trust Him.”

“Yes, I do,” David said.  “And I have two promises, not just one.  Besides why would God go through all the trouble of anointing me as a child if He wasn’t going to make me King someday?”

“So what are you saying, David?”  Benaiah asked.  “You can’t be killed?”

Everyone looked at David with eyes wide.  They hadn’t thought of that before.  David just smiled.  “It certainly looks that way, doesn’t it.”  He laughed out loud.

Joab just grunted from his circle of darkness in the corner of the cave.  “Don’t be testing out that theory by being reckless is all I say.”

David became more somber.  “I agree but I believe that Jerusalem is important and that God wants me to use it as my base of operations.  It was a calculated risk but God was with me and we prevailed.”

Heads nodded.  Eyes were starting to droop.  It was time to get some sleep.

“I like that name,” Jash said as he snuggled down into a good sleeping position.

“What name?” Eleazar said, stifling a yawn.

“Jerusalem,” he said.  “It sounds like a royal city.  Let’s call it the city of David, the shepherd King from Bethlehem.”

David chuckled out loud.  Yes, it was all a bloody miracle.  From shepherd boy to military leader to King in Jerusalem.  Only God could pull something like this off.  David trusted Him.  It was as simple as that.  Training in faith was essential to the battles that still lay ahead.  He was certain of that as well.

What does all of this have to do with our topic today on Resurrection Power?

Everything of course.  Do you remember that I had suggested that these seven truths in Romans 8 are essential for the battle described in Romans 7?  And I also said that the first one, which I called No Condemnation, included faith, hope and love?  The second truth, Resurrection Power, and the third truth, Evidence of Life, have to do with Faith.  The next two with Hope and the final two with Love.  Or at least that is how I see it.

So the key to understanding and harnessing this Resurrection Power is faith.

Faith in the promises of God.

Faith in His anointing.

Faith in the salvation that He gives you because of the cross of Christ.

Faith that you have been accepted as righteous because of the righteousness of Christ.

Faith that you are a child of God, a KING or QUEEN with leadership responsibilities under the rule of God.

Faith that you will be saved from eternal death in the spiritual battles we must fight (even though we might suffer and be killed in this body).

Faith in your future as determined and promised by God that you will be presented without spot or blemish before His throne on the last day and that He will welcome you with the words, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”

Yes, faith is the key to the power of God. Not faith in faith.  Faith in a person, Jesus Christ, and what He has done for us already and what He promises to do in us and for us now and in the future.   All of life is a training in faith. 

Just like David.  He knew that he would be King.  God anointed him and sealed it with His promise, His oath.  David could not die until that promise was fulfilled.  God promised His people that He would protect them in battle.  It takes faith.  It also takes training and effort and sweat and tears but, most of all, it takes faith.

Just like David, there is an “indicative” and an “imperative.”  What does that mean?  It’s just a grammatical way of saying that there is a “statement” or truth and an “expectation” or act of obedience.  Truth and Consequence.  Cause and Effect.

On the one hand, David’s anointing was God’s “statement” that David would be King.  It was a bit early mind you.  It took another seventeen years or so before it came true.  But God made the promise and therefore it was already true.

On the other hand, David had work to do.  He was a shepherd who became a warrior.  The job that God had given His people was to drive the Philistines out of the promised land.  That job was given to the people already at the time of Moses and Joshua but the people had gotten lazy about it and therefore were living in poverty in the hills afraid of their enemies and becoming more like them in every succeeding generation.

They refused to do battle.  They were not just lazy.  They did not have faith.  God told them that He had given them the Promised Land but they needed to conquer it in His strength.  They would fight and He would give them the victory.

In David’s case, he was not to fight Saul and create a civil war which was what other would-be kings have done the world over.  In faith, David was to leave the Kingship (his glorification) in the hands of God and get to work cleaning out the land of all the false worship (even, later on, child sacrifices) of the surrounding people who were leading the people astray.  This is the work of sanctification.

We have the same job to do.  We have been anointed to be the children of God and therefore co-heirs with Christ.  Our glorification as Kings and Queens under the reign of Christ will be revealed in the right moment but, right now, our job is to sanctify ourselves, train ourselves for battle, make every effort to fulfill God’s purpose in our lives.

The thing that we have to remember is that we are a world at war.  There is a battle to be fought for the hearts and minds of the people (including our own).  We must be prepared.

Yes, we have the resurrection power of God at our disposal.  We have the Holy Spirit within and there is no more excuse about not being able to do God’s will.

In the battle we cannot despair and condemn ourselves for there is no condemnation.

In the battle we cannot become depressed as if we have no power to overcome sin or accomplish the things of God.  That simply is not true.  We have resurrection power at our disposal.

God’s statement, His indicative, His truth, is that we have died to sin and been made alive to God in Christ (Romans 6:8).  We have the same power within us that rose Jesus from the dead and it will give life to our mortal bodies (Romans 8:11), not just in our glorification at the end of time but right now in our battle for sanctification and holiness.  The exhortation is to be who we already are.  To act like the King, the leader, that God has already anointed us to be.

I want to be one of the Mighty Men of God. I call them Desert Warriors. 

But I have to admit that I have not been consistent in my training or faithful in my efforts.  I fail continuously and it bugs me.  For a long time, I didn’t want to admit that there was a battle much less that it was a battle of God’s creating.  He wants us to be trained in the ways of faith in the context of battle. 

As C.S. Lewis so famously put it, God is in the business of creating a certain type of person.  The person of faith.  That kind of person can pull down strongholds, can scale cliffs to take a city on a hill and turn it into a royal city shedding light to all the world.  That person of faith is what I want to become and I need to start with what is true about me.  What God has declared about me.  What He has anointed me to be in Christ.  

Every time their was a problem in the early church, Paul would say something like, “but don’t you know?”  Don’t you understand the truth?  Don’t you understand what God has already done in you?  Don’t you understand who you are, what you have within you, what your future is?

One author calls it the “eschatological vision.”

I like that.  But what does it mean?

Basically if God says it is so, it is so.  Even if it isn’t so yet.  Even if it won’t be so until the end of time.  If God has said it, He guarantees it and there is nothing in the world that can change that truth.

It is an eschatological truth (meaning a truth about the end of time) that is already true today because God guarantees it.  I can’t change it.  No one can make God NOT complete His promise.

If God says that David will be King, then David will be King.  The question is whether or not you believe God.  That is what faith is pure and simple.  God looks into the future and declares that you will be King, you will be whole, you will be without spot and blemish.  It isn’t up to you, it is His work.  He is the author and finisher of our faith.  Sanctification, not just salvation, is guaranteed if you are “in Christ.”

Well, then, why should I fight the battle?  I should just have faith and relax and God will take care of the rest (“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?  By no means.” (Romans 6:1,2a NIV)).  Of course not.  That misses the point entirely.

This new relationship with God means that you now belong to Him, body and soul, which brings peace and joy and faith, hope and love.  These are the results of receiving the Spirit in regeneration.  You are a new creation.  You are now called to live in this in-between place and time (the true purgatory) where you learn to live out these truths in daily life, in the daily battle of the “redemptive emergency.”

Redemptive Emergency?  What in the world is that?

Yes, I know.  My twelve-year-old daughter asked me the same thing (but in a different way).  Why can’t we just go straight to heaven after we are baptized?  Great idea.  But that would be a scary ordeal for anyone who wanted to become a Christian.  Can you imagine?  Come to Christ.  Be baptized.  We will drown you and you can go straight to heaven.  I don’t think so.

Then why doesn’t God just make it easy for us, give us lots of resources, take away the suffering and pain and make the Christian life so pleasant that everyone will want to come to church?  Another great idea.  But that would mean that there would be line-ups of people coming to church for the wrong reasons.  We already have some of that heresy sprinkled around our churches but God is not interested in people who come to Him just for the benefits.

My wife feels the same.  If I am only in the relationship for what I can get out of it and not because I love her whether we are “rich or poor, in sickness or in health,” then it isn’t called love.  It isn’t true marriage.  The same is true for God.  There are benefits of course but part of the training in righteousness and faith is to learn to suffer for the gospel and still live out of the power of faith.

Why bother?  Yes, because of love and gratitude but why is God really doing all of this?  This is one of the secret ingredients to our battle that so many people miss out on.  There is a “redemptive emergency” that God wants help with. Our transformation, our faith expressing itself through love, is the testimony that these truths are real and can make a vital difference to people in their daily lives in the here and now.

We have a purpose to fulfill.  Just like David.

He was being trained for a purpose, to be King, to lead his people in the ways of God, so that God could establish His Kingdom on earth in preparation for the coming of the Christ who would take away the sins of the world.  David was a key element in God’s plans to save the world.

There is a “redemptive emergency” that we are a part of and we need to realize that our training in righteousness and faith is an important part of that plan.

To the degree that we live by faith and follow God and enter into battle against the flesh, the world and the Devil in pursuit of establishing the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, to that degree we are a significant part of God’s army.  We make a difference in the lives of the people around us.  Our testimony becomes powerful and alive because we have demonstrated by faith that God is real and that his power to transform lives is real.

Jesus also had his Three and his Twelve and his Seventy (and even his five hundred witnesses of his resurrection) and they struggled with the same thing.  When Jesus was about to ascend into heaven, they still did not understand that there was going to be an “interim time” before the eschatological Kingdom of God would come and the world would end as they knew it.

“Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6b NIV).  Can you imagine?  If Jesus had agreed with them, millions of people would never have been saved.  This age of the Gospel, this interim time, this in-between purgatory of sorts, needs warriors who would “turn the world on its head” in the power of faith in the resurrection life that is so powerfully at work in us who believe.

That is our “super power” and it can bring down strongholds and take every thought captive to Christ.  We need to learn how to use it, we need training in discipleship, so that we can also become who we truly are – mighty men and women of God.

The Desert Warrior

Lord, thank you for declaring that we are already mighty men and women of faith.  We know that we have resurrection power within us.  Teach us to use it by faith and help us to show the world, our families, our children, our friends and neighbors that the transforming power of God is mightily at work in us by faith.  We cannot do it on our own, we know, and you caution us not to even try but to always do it in your power, by staying closely connected to you through the cross.  Thank you, Lord.  Amen.

Seeking Jerusalem – Day 23 “No Condemnation”

10 Sunday May 2020

Posted by in Daily Devotionals, Lenten Season, Seeking Jerusalem, Steps To Maturity

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The Way of the Cross – Lenten Season 2018

“What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our Lord!”  (Romans 7:24,25a NIV)

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:1,2 NIV)

No Condemnation (1)

“I believe that God is love and that I am a good guy and it will all work out in the end.”

My friend, John, was talking and he was serious.  He had been a member of our church for years.  He was over 80 years old and still of sound body and mind.  But not of spirit.  I had asked him why he did not leave the Catholic church and become an official member of our church.

“No, no, I can’t leave the Catholic Church.  I would be excommunicated,” he insisted.

We were at one of our ALPHA meetings and John was sitting at the English table by himself.  We were doing bilingual meetings and the leader of that small group was not able to be there that night.  John and I have known each other for years and I sat with him and we had our own private talk.

I was a bit surprised at his attitude to tell you the truth.  You tend to think that people who come to church “religiously” were more or less alright.  But our church was a mismatched bunch of people from every denomination; Protestants, Catholics and even a Greek Orthodox once in a while, not to mention every other denomination from Pentacostal to Baptist to Methodist.  John was no exception and I had to learn not to take anything for granted.

Still, it surprised me a bit.  This attitude.  We were talking about there being “no condemnation” for those who were in Christ and John embraced the idea with vigor.  He didn’t like judgmental people and this approach seemed to fit his beliefs perfectly.  God is love.  I am good.  Everything will be fine.  No condemnation.  Period.

Sadly, that is not the gospel and I tried to explain things to him in more detail.  But it was no good.  This fortress was years in the making and it wasn’t coming down any time soon.  The problem is that there are a lot of people like John in our churches and they would be shocked to hear what I am saying.  They are not all right.  Not in any way, shape or form.  Each and every one of them will be condemned to eternal damnation.

Why?

After all, God is love, you might say.

True.  But we are not good.  And so everything will not be fine.

But don’t you think that John meant that he was good “in Christ”?  As a Christian clothed in the “goodness” of Christ?

I wish.  But sadly, no.  That is not what he meant.

We talked it through for quite a while actually.  He considers himself to be a moral person.  Which he is.  He thinks of himself as fair and honest in his dealings with others.  He isn’t corrupt.  He is a good professional and made his living honestly in a country where corruption is rampant at every level.  But most of all, he brings up the specific good deeds he has done in his life.  He talks of his brother who was sick and in trouble in another country and how he spent his own hard earned money to go to his rescue and bring him back to Argentina and took care of him.  Like the Good Samaritan, he would be praised by God and accepted into His kingdom because he, John, was a good man.

No.  It doesn’t work that way.  If that were true, then the cross of Christ is worthless and the gospel is useless.  There is “no condemnation” only for those who are “in Christ Jesus.”

He may consider himself to be a Christian and therefore “in Christ Jesus” in some sense, but we all know that a true Christian would never get these basics wrong.  No matter how good I may seem to the people around me, all of my good deeds are like dirty rags in the eyes of God and it is only the righteousness of Christ and his death on the cross as a substitute for me that can save me from the loving wrath of God.  That is the heart of the gospel.

I remember one time near the end of our ALPHA series when I brought up this issue again but in a different context.  We had two guys off of the streets who had been coming to ALPHA and we had just finished the Holy Spirit Weekend and were starting to talk about the church and getting baptized.  There were people who still had to make a decision to follow Christ and be baptized either in the Spanish church or the English church.

And there were two guys, that we had been working closely with, who were sitting there on the front row.  One of them, Alberto, had a dark past.  He was a manipulator, a political animal, an enforcer and associated with some very dark people.  He had been given the choice to disappear or be disappeared.  He chose the anonymity of the streets and became a nobody until the political winds started to blow his way again.  The other, Rafa, was a good person.  He was divorced but committed to his only daughter and visited her regularly.  He was a personal trainer and deeply involved with Eastern ways of thinking.

Each one of them had a story that would make the hair on your arms stand at attention.  But morally, one of them was basically a good guy and the other was morally corrupt.  And they knew it.

With their permission, I spoke about these two types of people who both needed to come to the Lord and make a decision to follow Him especially by taking the step of getting baptized.

“The problem with both of these situations is that they look to be on two sides of the issue.  One person is good and the other person is bad,” I said.  I looked around at the rest of the group of around fifty people.  Even John was there, listening intently.

“The Devil doesn’t care which game you want to play,” I said.  “If you want to play the good guy.  Perfect.  He can live with that.  And if you want to play the bad guy.  Even better.  He loves that even more.”  I paused, looking around at all of them.  “As long as you are willing to play games, he will play along.  His only goal is to keep you playing games until your time runs out.  In either case, you will be spending eternity with him and that suits him just fine.”

The room was completely silent.

“Frankly, I’m more scared for the good guys than the bad guys.  Chuck Colson, the president of Prison Fellowship, often said that the bad guys in jail, or on the street, or in gangs are often closer to the kingdom of God than the corporate businessman or even the elder in the church.  They know what they are.  They have no illusions.  They aren’t fooled by hypocritical posturing and moral game playing.”

“They still need to accept the gospel of Christ and repent of their immoral lifestyle but at least they have a more realistic grasp of who they are especially in the eyes of God who uses the standard of absolute love as His measuring stick.”

“No, the ones that I fear for the most are the good guys.  The ones who are actually decent human beings.  Who have not really done anything seriously wrong ever in their lives.  They are in the most danger because their self-deception is the deepest.  They are the ones who have a hard time understanding why God would be upset with them.  Why they would be condemned.  They consider themselves to be fine, upstanding members of the community and they would be shocked at any indication that they may not, in fact, be Christians at all.”

“Playing the bad guy, Satan loves, but he knows from experience that it can blow up in his face at any moment.  Playing the good guy, makes Satan sick, but he knows from experience that he can hold on to these people much easier until it is too late.”

I looked around the room.

“The question is, which game are you playing?  Good guy or bad guy.  The solution is stop playing games, leave it all behind, the good, the bad and the ugly, and start following Jesus.  It begins with baptism.”

So what does this all have to do with our passage today?

A lot, actually.  Romans 8: 1 tells us that there is “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” but most people just remember the first couple of words.  They focus on the fact that there is “no condemnation” and ignore the part about being in Christ Jesus or, even worse, assume that they are “in” Christ Jesus because they go to church, or because they are good, moral, upstanding members of the church.  Not true.

So, please don’t make the same mistake.  It takes humility to bend the knee and enter the kingdom of heaven.  Whether your burden is one of immorality or the burden of good deeds, it must all be left behind and a new start must be made, like newborn infants, in the path of discipleship.

This, too, is part of the battle.  In fact, it is often the heart of the “good fight” we spoke of in our last post on Romans 7.  This internal battle on the moral level between what we want to do and what we end up doing.  Remember the question.  Who can save me from this body of death?  I can’t save myself.  Only by being “in Christ Jesus” can I live in the truth of a “no condemnation” lifestyle.

Only a new relationship with God through Christ can save me from the moral corruption of my lifestyle.  Morality cannot create relationship but relationship can create morality.  The moral problem needs a relational solution mostly because the moral problem is a result of a broken relationship with God in the first place.

No judging allowed among followers is the idea.  And, yet, the church is often the most “judging” place on the face of the earth.  The testimony of countless people who have left the church gives evidence of that (not to mention the majority of people still going to church but not getting too involved).  Still, this is the first and foremost truth that we need to hang on to if we want to survive the “good fight” of the faith.

This is the first of seven truths that we will look at together in this eighth chapter of Romans which are meant to help us survive and overcome the good fight of faith that is described by Paul in Romans 7.  Seven truths that can transform your life.  Do you remember our discussion on Romans 12:1 and 2 where we discussed the path to spiritual maturity and the necessity of transforming our minds through the truths found in the Word of God.  Paul gives us a wonderful summary of seven of those truths in this famous and beloved chapter of Romans.

In my mind, two of these truths have to do with faith, two with hope and two with love.  Paul concludes his famous passage on love with these words:  “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love.” (I Corinthians 13:13 NIV).

They are considered the religious virtues, bestowed on us by the Holy Spirit when we are baptized and developed as we gain spiritual maturity.  It makes sense, then, that these truths in Romans 8 are rooted in faith, hope and love.

But the very first truth, the one we all quote so quickly and eagerly, if understood correctly, is rooted in all three: faith, hope and love.  “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…”

Did you see that little word, “now,” right there in the middle?  It means that something has changed.  Before there was condemnation.  Now there is no condemnation.  Before we were not “in Christ Jesus” but now we are “in Christ Jesus.”  That wonderful little word makes all the difference in the world.  It condemns the inclusiveness of liberal Christianity and, at the same time, puts the lie to the exclusiveness of moral religiosity.  A pox on both your houses.

There is no way to accept this life transforming truth without faith, first and foremost.  It comes after seven chapters of discussion on our sin and wretchedness and the loving wrath of God which is poured out on all mankind.  Do not divorce the after from the before.  Context is everything.  Before we were condemned.  After we are not condemned.

It takes faith (and grace) to see our sin and faith (and grace) to look to our salvation.  I always liked the second verse of Amazing Grace, where it says, “Twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved.”  Exactly.  Without faith, coming and going, before and after, we cannot get there, we cannot appropriate this truth.

And faith is a gift of grace.  As Paul points out in Ephesians 2:8 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God…”

It takes faith to get there, but it is love that keeps us there.  Not our love, you understand, but the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.  This is what is meant by being “in Christ Jesus.”

It is a deep and mysterious truth that we are talking about here.  It is the truth of relationships the world over that provide the merest glimpse into the godhead, the relationship we can have with our Creator.  He has not left himself without a witness in the relationships we have among ourselves.  A father with his child.  A mother with her infant.  A husband and wife in marital bliss.  A friend who is closer than a brother.  All of it gives us a glimpse of the glory of the godhead, veiled and hidden though it may be to many.  Love is the key to life.  It has always been so because God is love.  His wrath is based on his love.  His sacrifice on the cross is based on his love.  It is we who are willing to sacrifice the demands of love for the sake of our own convenience and safety.  It is we who struggle with the true nature of love.

All the best things in life are not things, so the saying goes.  And they are free, though they cost you everything.  Love is free, entering into a relationship with someone is free, but it will cost you everything.  Having a child is free, but, as any parent knows, it will cost you everything.  Especially in this world of hurt and suffering, pain and evil, where anything can happen.  Some even choose not to love, not to get involved, not to hurt or be hurt.  Love is a harsh taskmaster but it is what makes this life worthwhile.  God is love.  He hurts.  He gets involved.  He pays the price.

To be “in Christ Jesus” is both a judicial statement as well as a relational one.

If we are Christians, God has declared us to be righteous with the righteousness of Christ and has declared Christ to be a sinner worthy of his loving wrath with the sin that belonged to us.  It has been declared and it is true already now and will continue to be true for all time.  In that sense, judgment has already been passed on the cross and it only remains for us, in a temporal sense, to “confess with our mouth and belive in our hearts” in order for us to have that judgment (and mercy) applied to us.

But in a deeper, more mysterious sense, beyond the judicial but rooted in it, there is a relational, even physical, change that takes place.  When we are “in Christ,” he is also “in us.”  Paul tells us in Ephesians 1:14 “Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance…”

Entire books have been written on this topic and I can only touch on it briefly but the point must be made clearly.  If you are truly a Christian, you have received the Holy Spirit and there will be evidence of “Christ in you.” Evidence not just in terms of morality.  That is true but nowhere near enough.  It is in terms of relational truths, such as godly sorrow, true confession and repentance, forgiveness of others and self based on the cross of Christ and an unwavering commitment and pursuit of true reconciliation with God and others especially among believers that provides the real evidence of a new relationship with God through Christ.

The fundamental virtue that undergirds all of this is humility since the cross takes away every excuse to rely on our own efforts and transforms our addiction to ego into the dignity of self worth in the context of transforming love.

Yes, it takes faith to get there, but it takes the love of God expressed through us and in us that keeps us there.  But finally, it takes hope.  Specifically, the hope of glory.

That is the thing, isn’t it?

Christians are a bit nuts after all.  It is such a basic truth of human existence that this life is to be protected above all, that this life is what matters more than anything, and anyone who thinks differently is suspect.  Think about it.  How many movies have you watched where the hero does amazing things to save people’s lives, especially the lives of his family or friends.

Satan thinks like a man, but God thinks of eternity.

So the saying goes.  And that is the difference, isn’t it.  When we start to think like God, people think we are off our rocker… just a bit.

But Jesus invited us to think like God.  To have our eyes and our hearts set on eternity.  To be willing to sacrifice this life for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of eternity.  Paul said that if we are only hoping for some sort of recompense in this life, then we are truly to be pitied.  It only makes sense to sacrifice this life if we believe in the life to come.  Otherwise, we are just stupid.

All of the suffering and persecution, all of the pain and evil, all of the difficulties that come to us because we follow the gospel of Christ and prioritize (even in the church) the agenda of God, all of it is without value if we are without hope for the future.

The problem is that there is real hope and there is false hope.  It depends on what your hope is based on.

My friend, John, and many others like him, have hope for the future based on their own goodness.  They are blind to the truth.  Their hope is false and has no foundation.  The religious majority in our churches are dedicated to the status quo not to the furtherance of the gospel.  They are more interested in programs than people and more committed to the prosperity gospel than to the gospel of suffering that Paul preaches.  It is a false hope that is divorced from faith and does not express the love of God which now lives in our hearts.

What is true hope, then?

Paul tells us in Colossans 1:27b that it is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”  Christ in you.  Did you see that?  Paul roots our hope in this deep, mysterious judicial and relational experience of the Holy Spirit within us as a seal guaranteeing our “glory.”

Paul tells us later on in Romans 8:17, that “if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”

Like any relationship, it is free but it will cost you everything.  And it’s worth it.

What would life be like without someone to love, without children, without friends.  But it means that you have to get involved and getting involved can get messy and hurt.  Suffering is a good bet.  In this case, to suffer with Christ means to suffer for the gospel.  The point is that we identify with Christ and with his plan to save the world.  We have a purpose and that purpose will cost us dearly and we will pay the price because our hope is in another life, not in this life.

Yes, it takes faith to believe in another life after this one but, more importantly, it takes love.  What binds us to the life to come as our top priority is a relationship.  Anyone who has lost someone dear to them begins to understand this.

But we are not just hoping for salvation.  If we are “in Christ” that is a done deal.  We have been declared righteous with the righteousness of Christ.  There is “no condemnation,” not now and not then.  Not ever.  That is our new status “in Christ.”  If God does not judge us, then who can condemn us?  No one.

No, it isn’t just the hope of salvation that motivates us.  It is the hope of glory.  The same glory that Christ receives from the Father, we will share in, if we share in his sufferings.  That “glory” as we have pointed out before is the character of Christ.

The glory of God is in his character of goodness.  Perfect justice.  Perfect love.  The one rooted in the other.  The other fulfilling the first.  Both parts one integrated whole.  His glory.  His character.  The willingness to die for his enemies to make them friends.  God made human for all eternity.  The glory of true love in the face of real evil.

That glory will become ours as well, fully expressed in the life to come but rooted in the experiences and trials and tribulations of this life as we suffer for the gospel as emissaries of the One who suffered and paid the ultimate price to save us on the cross.  He leads the way and we follow.

Our hope is to become like him.  Our hope, as we fight the good fight, is to overcome, to be more than conquerors, to prevail in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Our hope is that the fight, itself, will come to an end, that there will be no more night, no more struggle, no more addictions, no more pain, no more weakness, and temptation, and trial.

Not because it is all taken away when we enter into our glory.  Which is true.  But, more importantly, because, in this life, we have been made new, we have endured our hardships as discipline and because we have learned the lessons of our sufferings and, through faith, in hope and rooted in love, we are transformed.

In our minds, in our hearts, in our behavior, in our attitudes, in our relationships, in our priorities, in our values, in our perspective.  Addictions will be overcome.  Temptations will be dealt with.  Relationships will be restored.  Not perfectly.  Not completely.  But we will move on from glory to glory, increasingly mature in our use of the Way of the Cross, and increasingly focused and committed to suffer for the gospel of Christ in radical discipleship.

That glory is the hope of those who are fighting the “good fight” of faith in the ongoing rescue operation that God is committed to until the end of days.  If you are not in the fight, no doubt, you aren’t that interested in overcoming anything, much less your own sin and weakness.

It is a key element to your spiritual maturity that you want this glory and you are willing to fight for it.  That is also a gift from God.  But your sinful desires are at war with your new spiritual desires.  That is the battle.  You must set your mind on things which are above and not on things which are below.  You will get better at it as you go along.

You can’t do it on your own, you know.  You’ll figure that out soon enough.  It can only be done as you rely on God and are grafted into the vine, which is Christ.  At first you will struggle with all of what that means but you will get there.  The Holy Spirit is a patient teacher.

But you have to be in the fight.  You have to be on the way.  There is no steering a parked car.  You have to try and move and “make every effort” as Peter would say.  Then you can learn.  The good fight is always in the context of ministry.  The ministry of reconciliation creates the tension, empowers the dichotomy, insists on a new standard, a new way of thinking, a transformation.

Paul talks at length about being “controlled by the Spirit” and not by “the sinful nature.”  Obviously, that is the goal.  But it it s a fight.  It isn’t automatic.  You need to “set your mind” on Christ and “reckon” yourself dead to sin, just to name two exhortations that Paul gives us in this battle.

But the battle is not divorced from ministry and it is rooted in the fundamental truth that we cannot lose.  Already now, there is “no condemnation.” The battle is already won.  We still need to fight because there are people to be saved and our spiritual maturity is a key element in our testimony that Jesus Christ can transform lives today.

We will start with these seven truths found in Romans 8.  It is a good starting point.  But without being “in Christ” none of it matters.  It is all worthless and none of it will be understood.  We start with “no condemnation” but the idea is to end with becoming “more than conquerors.”

The Desert Warrior

Let us pray…..

Lord, I want to become more than a conqueror and I know that that isn’t a free ride.  I don’t take it lightly and I know it will cost me everything.  But that’s all right.  Everything that I have and everything that I am today is nothing compared to the glory I will become when I finally stand before your throne.  Not because I did such a good job but because you did everything in me and through me.  Thank you.  I know that you are both the initiator and the finisher of my faith and that I can do nothing without you.  In your name I pray.  Amen.