Category Archives: 4. The Way of the Cross

Seeking Jerusalem – Day 34 “Spiritual Time Out”

13 Sunday Oct 2019

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THE WAY OF THE CROSSThe Way of the Cross – Lenten Season 2018

“We are fools for Christ……We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored.  To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless.  We work hard with our own hands.  When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly.  Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world…..therefore, I urge you to imitate me.” (I Corinthians 4:10-13, 16 NIV).

Spiritual Time Out

Ok, let’s take a deep breath and stop for a moment.  That’s a lot to take in.  We need a spiritual time out.  Relax.  Let’s think about this for a moment…

There is nothing that can scare us more than the prospect of admitting our deepest sins and taking the risk of being rejected, shamed or (perhaps worse of all) ignored.

But God makes it clear that He wants us to confess our sins to one another (and to Him) no matter what the risk.  That confession is the first step in the Way of the Cross.  Without confession there is no need for repentance.  Forgiveness becomes a mere formality and true reconciliation, an undefined longing in the night for something that eludes our grasp.  Anointing?  Transforming power?  Forget it.

Without confession (and repentance), forgiveness and reconciliation lose their power.  The cross has been side-stepped, good intentions and a positive attitude are good enough to keep the peace.  Sigh.

Sometimes the problem is simply that people don’t know what they are missing, they have a sense that things were different in the primitive church, that signs and wonders and transformative power were common in the church of that age when being a Christian meant that you were putting your life in danger and so you took it more seriously and transformative power was essential.

They needed it, they wanted it, they sought it, they cried out to God for it, they searched the scriptures for it.  Perhaps the anointing is only for those who want it, who need it, as much as they need food and water, as much as they need to breathe.

We don’t know what we’re missing but maybe we are a bit scared of that power as well.  It is dangerous after all.  Confession always is.  But without it, repentance has no power to transform.  Without it, forgiveness is weak and insipid.  Without it, there is no true reconciliation.  Therefore there is no anointing, no power from on high, and the church remains undistinguishable from the world because, after all, they are worldly.  They have the form of religion but deny its power.

But for those who still long for the glory of God to reveal itself in the lives of His people, those who believe with all their hearts that there is something more, something supernatural, something transformative about this new relationship with God based on the cross and empowered by the Holy Spirit, for them, and only for them, God reveals His path, His Way of the Cross.

Paul said that he preaches only about Christ and him crucified.  Is this what he meant?  The Way of the Cross.  Confession.  Repentance. Forgiveness and Reconciliation.  Each step an act of faith.  Each moment filled with danger and expectation of God’s intervention, the work of the Holy Spirit released in power in the lives of those who have the courage to follow Him into the darkness carrying the light of the good news.  Practical.  Real.  Dangerous.  Glorious.

But let’s make each step clear so that we can take them boldly, and begin our training in the Way of the Cross by taking the first step out of the boat with faith and confidence that this is the path that pleases God, that creates men and women of faith who now have the power of their testimony, their transformation, to be used in the rescue of their children, their family, their friends, their fellow church members out of the darkness and into the light.  Healing will follow.  Healing for relationships.  Healing of body and soul.  Healing with signs and wonders following.

When you discover that you are not right with someone, you must act promptly and sincerely to rectify the situation and regain spiritual unity.  You must care enough to do something about it.  That is the first step.

But more needs to be said.  What does it mean to be out of spiritual unity with someone?  Jesus said that if you have something against someone, or they have something against you, take steps to reconcile.  If it doesn’t work one on one, then get the spiritual leaders of the church involved.  Do whatever you have to do to solve the problem and restore the relationship, really and truly and sincerely, not just as a job to get done, but with sincerity of heart.

And here is where the problem is.  We are accustomed to disunity in the body of Christ.  Nobody says that we have to know everybody in the church or that everybody has to be our best friends.  Not practical.  But those we do have a relationship with, we are responsible for the condition of that relationship.

We are far too comfortable with the status quo, with the disunity that is so common in the church.  The puritan pastors would make someone their best friend if they had a problem with them or they with the pastor.  If the relationship was broken in any way, they would go to any lengths to find a solution, no matter how long it took or how often they had to repent, apologize, explain, talk, cry, ask for forgiveness, give grace, ask for grace.

What they did NOT do is ignore it, accept it, or simply justify it by saying that they did their best to reconcile on their part and the rest was up to the other.  Bullshit.  Yes, there is no other word that is more appropriate to that kind of ungodly thinking.  God expects us to fight for our relationships, for healing, for forgiveness.  He was willing to die to make it possible, we should at least be willing to keep trying, keep arguing, keep talking, keep expecting, keep fighting to make it happen.

But if you insist on reconciliation, if you raise your voice, if you fight to keep it front and centre and are unwilling to give up or give in until it is accomplished, aren’t you the one in the wrong?

One pastor even claimed that I was NOT a peacemaker because I continue to bring the same things up over and over again when it was already forgiven (but not reconciled).  I replied that the peace that Jesus brings is not like the peace that the world wants or expects.  It is a peace based on the cross and is accomplished only through the Way of the Cross.  He didn’t like that answer.

There was something wrong with my insistence that confession and repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation are essential and mandatory and important and the lifeblood of our ministry.  Especially among the leaders.  Without it, there is no anointing and without the anointing…..well, let’s just say that God isn’t pleased.

I would rather make mistakes, screw up and do it all wrong, but TRY to please God than just stay in my comfortable safe zone of pretending to be a real Christian.

If you cannot pray with someone with an open and sincere heart and work together for the spreading of the gospel and the establishment of the kingdom of God in the lives of people using your spiritual gifts in the context of the spiritual fruit that God is growing in your life, then you do NOT have spiritual unity.

If you are NOT right with someone, or someone is NOT right with you, will you do everything in your power to restore that relationship?  Or will you ignore it?

The second step is to be willing to take a spiritual time out and spend some time with God before talking to the person one on one.  If the first step is to be aware and open to the possibility that there is a problem, a lack of unity, that must be rectified, the second step is to talk to God about it.  And do that first.

In our last post, we talked about brokenness and the power of God that is released when we are willing to truly and sincerely ask God to reveal to us whatever sin we may have committed in that relationship.  After all, we aren’t surprised, are we, that we may have sinned?  Something happened.  The person has something against us after all.  Maybe they are wrong.  Maybe they are right.

How will you know unless you talk to God about it and search the scriptures (and your heart) and talk to other spiritual leaders to whom you are accountable.

This is a key point.  The Holy Spirit will convict you of your guilt but the Word of God will tell you whether or not something is a sin from God’s point of view.  We have to be willing to search our hearts and search the scriptures.  The heart is deceitful above all things, the Bible says.  Spiritual blindness still affects those who are in Christ.  Humility and grace will be necessary.

The third step is to go and talk with that person.  It is the first talk not the last.  You need to find out what the problem is from their point of view.  Listen carefully.  Take notes if you have to.  Don’t be in a hurry to get to forgiveness before you go through the cleansing step of confession and the committment of repentance as an act of reconciliation.

On the other hand (see below), God may provide you a short cut to forgiveness, so take it and then circle back to confession and repentance later.  But don’t be so foolish as to think you can skip that step.  It is essential for your relationships and also for your ministry of reconciliation and establishing a culture of grace in the church.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  The point here is to take your time.  This isn’t a one time conversation.  This is a relationship.  Get to know this person.  Make them your friend.  Find out what makes them tick.  The more difficult they are, the more work (and prayer) you will need to do.  But there is a reason why they are the way they are.  Find out what it is.  This is a time of ministry.

Three things that I want you to keep in mind. 

First, the church is watching.  How you deal with the most difficult in the church will reflect on how the rest of the church believes you will deal with them.  This is your chance to create a culture of grace rather than a culture of shame.  We will talk about that in the next post.

Second,  it’s about the relationship, stupid.  It isn’t about what happened.  It isn’t about what he said or she said.  It’s about what it means for the relationship.  It’s about that sinking feeling that what someone said means that they don’t actually care for you.  It’s about that terrible surprise that someone doesn’t actually like you, that they are only putting up with you, that they agree with those who are bad-mouthing you, that you are unimportant, or even worse, never were important to them.  It’s about love.  It’s about feeling the shame of realizing that you care what they think and that you just discovered (through whatever action or words that were spoken) that they think less of you then you do of them, or worse, that they don’t think about you at all.  That you are nothing to them.  It’s always about the relationship.

So, even in the first meeting with the person, make it clear that you value them and your relationship with them.  That you want to understand exactly what the problem is and that you will do everything you can to make it right, whatever it takes.  You cannot confess something you did not do, nor can you repent of something that you don’t believe is a sin before God.  They will respect that, but you must also make it clear that we are all blind to our own faults and that good intentions are not enough.  Tell them that you want to spend some serious time in prayer asking God to reveal the truth to you so that you CAN confess and repent of whatever it is that God reveals to you.

But, and this is the most important part, regardless of whether you come to an agreement on what was said or what was done or what was meant or interpreted by any action, you MUST make it clear that you value them and your relationship with them and that you will confess and repent of any and all things that you can even remotely think of.  That will go a long way towards reconciliation and may even solve the problem then and there.  God may provide a shortcut to forgiveness at that point, so take it.

But that doesn’t mean that you are off the hook.  The opportunity to heal the relationship because of your declaration of love for this person does NOT let you off the hook.  The job is only half done.

First, the church is watching.  Second, it’s about the relationship, stupid.  Third, you can’t forget about confession and repentance.  It doesn’t work that way.  That’s the third and most important thing that needs to be said. 

Even if you hug and give forgiveness and grace to each other, still make a committment to pray and seek God in terms of confession and repentance.  And set a time to get together to continue your discussion and sharing your heart.

God went to all this trouble to bring something to your attention and now you just ignore the process.  Not wise.  This is an opportunity to dig deep and discover some things for you to work on.  And you can invite the other person to do the same thing. 

Did you hear that last thing I said?  You can invite the other person to do the same thing.  In the context of grace.  In the context of forgiveness.  You both can go to the cross and seek an understanding of your sins (yours and his/hers) so that you can confess and repent, so that you can protect your relationship in Christ and the relationships you have with the rest of the church (and that the person sitting in front of you has with the rest of the church).

Do you see it?  DO YOU SEE IT? It’s so beautiful, so glorious! This is what matters!

You just turned a problem into an opportunity to do ministry.  You are creating a culture of grace and demonstrating the power of God to heal relationships.  Now the anointing can come.  Now lives are transformed.  Now the cross has the power to heal relationships.  This is what it is all about.

Every broken relationship.  Every relational problem in the church.  Every time there is a person with a beef, a parishioner with a chip on his shoulder, or needing to lash out at the leadership (who is the most visible and vulnerable), you have an opportunity to engage in the ministry of reconciliation.

If you make it important, if you follow the steps, if you understand the dynamics, if you become a disciple of the cross, if you follow that path yourself, God will anoint your ministry with more power than you will know what to do with. 

That is what it is all about.  Confession is the gateway.  Brokeness is the context of confession.  Grace is the divine ingredient.  Love is the purpose and reconciliation is the result.  Repentance is the proof and forgiveness the bridge.

There is nothing more beautiful, nothing more exciting, nothing more transformative than the ministry of reconciliation but for it to happen, humility and grace, confession and repentance must be your constant companions, whether you are the accuser or the accused, the sinner or the saint (and we are always both), or in the right or not.  What does it matter?

It’s about the ministry of reconciliation and what you are willing to do to get there.  How important is it to you?  That is the question.  It is everything to God.  He died to make it happen.  All of the power of heaven is available to make it happen.  It is the one prayer that is always sure to get God’s attention.  But it all begins with an attitude, an awareness, a way of seeing relationships (as God sees them), broken and insipid and weak when, in the power of the Holy Spirit, they should be strong, and beautiful and powerful.

This is the way God is rescuing the world one relationship at a time.  Welcome to the family of God and the ministry of reconciliation.

The Desert Warrior

Let’s talk to God……

Lord, I have to admit that I have gotten lazy and I have not taken my broken and weak relationships seriously enough.  It is easier just to assume that I did my best and the rest is up to them.  I know that isn’t true.  You fight to the death for our spiritual unity.  I must do the same.  Teach me the ways of the ministry of reconciliation.  Teach me the humility and brokeness of confession so that I am always aware of the relationships around me.  Let me learn to be a champion of the cross and not be satisfied with anything less.  In your name I pray.  Amen.

 

Seeking Jerusalem – Day 39 “Spiritual Trust”

14 Wednesday Mar 2018

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THE WAY OF THE CROSSThe Way of the Cross – Lenten Season 2018

“What then shall we say, brothers?  When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation.  All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church” (I Corinthians 14:26 NIV).

“Is any one of you in trouble?  He should pray.  Is anyone happy?  Let him sing songs of praise.  Is any one of you sick?  He should call the elders of the churcch to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord.  And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up.  If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.  Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.  The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” (James 5:13-16 NIV).

Spiritual Trust

I have a bone to pick with Pastor Rick Warren.  I like him a lot and I promote his daily devotionals on my facebook page and read all of his material.  He is a wonderful Pastor.  I’ve read his books and I would normally say that he is “dead on” in his ministry.  But not this time.

A couple of days ago, he published a post about reconciliation that he called, Requirements of Restored Relationships in the “You Make Me Crazy” Series.  Basically he says that Restoring a Relationship Requires Repentance, Restitution and Rebuilding Trust.

Most of the post was very helpful but the last part brought in some very popular but unbiblical material.  Let’s go over what he says together…

Forgiveness is not resuming a relationship without change. In fact, forgiveness and resuming a relationship are two different things. Forgiveness is what you do as the offended person. Resuming the relationship is what the other person does in order to get back into your good graces. Saying “I’m sorry” is not enough. In fact, the Bible teaches three things that are essential to resume a relationship that’s been broken — and the offender has to do all three of these things – Pastor Rick Warren.

So far so good.  And let’s not go too quickly here.  This is deep and penetrating stuff that he is saying and it is “dead on.”  Too many people think that it is only about forgiveness and that’s it.  Just forgive and forget and move on.  There is no talk about confession of sins, repentance or the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation.  They are two different things.  If we are following the way of the cross…..there must be change.  It isn’t just about forgiving someone and going back to the status quo.  No way.  He is exactly right when he says that forgiveness and resuming a relationship are two different things. 

He is absolutely right when he says that saying “I’m sorry” is not enough.  But I am a bit uncomfortable with his statement that resuming the relationship is what the other person does in order to get back into your good graces.  What’s that all about?  That’s a strange thing to say.  We were just talking about the grace of forgiveness and the need for reconciliation which is also a means of receiving grace (a ministry of grace) for the other person who has sinned.

But for some reason, Pastor Warren went in the direction of a performance-based concept of reconciliation. He talks about three things that the Bible says that the offender has to do to resume or restore the relationship.  Only two of them are biblical and the third is entirely worldly.

And since when is it only about the offender.  The Bible is clear that there is sin on both sides and that a broken relationship is the responsibility of both parties even if one is the offender and the other the offended.  It isn’t about the sin but about the relationship.

1. Restoring a relationship requires repentance. In other words, you’re truly saddened about what you did. That’s not just saying, “I’m sorry.” It means saying, “I was wrong. Please forgive me.” You can be sorry that the weather was bad or something like that, but repentance is admitting wrong and being truly sorry.

I know people don’t like to hear the word “sin” anymore but just calling it “wrong” isn’t strong enough and isn’t oriented toward God.  Sin means missing the mark (consciously or unconsciously) as well as rebelling against God’s authority (consciously or unconsciously).  When we talk about missing the mark, the mark is set by God.  The mark is the perfection of love which is a virtue, consistently and always in every situation.  When we talk about rebelling against God’s authority, again the authority is God’s not just what society says or what is considered morally right or wrong.

As the prodigal son said to his father,  “I have sinned against heaven and against you” (Luke 15: 21 NIV).  Until you have first of all dealt with your sin before God, there is no point in going to deal with it before man.  Repentance is not about admitting wrong and being truly sorry.  That is confession.  Repentance is taking concrete steps to correct the sin, to do the opposite of the sin, to turn around and go in the other direction, the direction of love.  I call them acts of reconciliation which are usually the very opposite of the acts of rebellion or sin.

2. Restoring a relationship requires restitution. Sometimes you have to do some kind of physical or material restitution. Even when you’re forgiven, it doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. You still have to pay a debt to society or to someone for what was damaged or destroyed by your actions.

But who cares if Pastor Warren gets some of the terms mixed up.  He makes repentance sound like confession and restitution sound like repentance.  The problem is that the concept of restitution really comes from the Old Testament and can only be applied to situations that can be quantified by money or some sort of physical thing.  Normally this is handled through the courts but Paul tells us that it is a bad witness to go to court against a brother or sister in the Lord (I Corinthians 6:7).  So, in this case, restitution is necessary.  It is an act of repentance, an act of reconciliation.  It is an attempt to reverse the effects and consequences (at least to some degree) of your sin.  But it is a very limited application of the idea of acts of reconciliation/repentance.  Most of the time it just isn’t possible.

If you destroy someone’s reputation, how do you make restitution?  A front page news item may get a back page retraction but the damage is already done.  If you kill someone, how do you make restitution?  If you embezzle funds and someone can’t pay their health care and they end up in a worse health situation, or perhaps even die,  how do you change that?  There are a lot of things that we do in our sin that cannot be undone.  That is why sin is so terrible.  If we believe that a reconciled relationship is a relationship with spiritual unity which brings the anointing of God, we need something more than the Old Testament concept of restitution to make that happen.

But it’s the last one that really got my goat.  It is a very common misunderstanding of the concept of reconciliation.  Pastor Warren calls it Rebuilding Trust.

3. Restoring a relationship requires rebuilding trust. That, friends, takes a long, long time. When somebody hurts you, you have to forgive him or her immediately. But you don’t have to trust that person immediately. Forgiveness is built on grace and is unconditional, while trust has to be rebuilt over a period of time.

Now nobody is going to say that rebuilding trust is not a good and necessary thing to do.  Obviously it is.  But the question is when and how do you rebuild trust.  And what are we rebuilding trust in?  Let’s break this down a bit more….

First of all, yes, we need to forgive him or her immediately (whether or not they have confessed and repented of their sin).  Forgiveness is a given.  Pastor Warren seems to be assuming that the person has confessed and is repenting as well.  That is certainly optimal but not all that common.

You, as the one sinned against, are now in a position to apply a ministry of reconciliation process to the one who sinned against you.  This is not because you have not forgiven them.  You have.  This is because God calls us to more than forgiveness.  He calls us to restored relationships through the way of the cross.  And yes, that is your job to facilitate that as the one who has been sinned against.  It is a ministry.  And the ministry is one of prayer.

I believe that when you are sinned against, God listens very closely to your prayers about the situation.  First of all, you need to be right with God for your prayers to be heard.  You need to truly forgive before anything else.  Part of that is to search your own heart for anything you might have said or done that wasn’t helpful to the situation or that you might have done in reaction to the sin of the other.  Most of all, you need to really go deep in your own heart to evaluate how you feel about the person who sinned against you to find out if their sin was a reaction (perhaps not even consciously) to some distance or dislike or disunity between the two of you.  If any of those things are true, then you will need to deal with that before God first.  Then it’s time to pray.

When you pray for someone who has sinned against you, God listens very closely.  You have power in prayer for that person.  No one can pray for your wife, like you can (her husband).  No one can pray for your husband like you can (his wife).  Who is better equipped to pray for their children than their parents.  God is relational.  He died to heal relationships.  You have power in prayer when you are right with God and you are praying for people with whom you have a relationship.  That is true for your Pastor and other leaders in the church.  For your small group leader and other members.  But it is especially true for those who have sinned against you.  God is waiting to hear what you want to do with this person and this situation. 

You have a ministry of reconciliation.  So first you pray and then you go and talk to the person and confess your sins and your shortcomings and reassure them that you are very interested in a good relationship with them.  You don’t bring up their sin at all.  You have forgiven it and it is forgotten and gone as far as you are concerned.  At the same time, you know that it would be good for them to confess and repent of their sin but that is something that the Holy Spirit needs to do (perhaps through another person like your small group leader or Pastor) in response to your prayers.  So far so good.

But that is a very different picture than what Pastor Warren is sharing with us.  He makes it sound like reconciliation is a one way street and it is finally performance-based rather than a two way street in which you (as the one sinned against) have a ministry of reconciliation toward the other.  And we aren’t done yet.  It starts with prayer and continues with a heart to heart discussion and acts of reconciliation and restoration of the relationship on your part before you ever get to the confession and repentance on his part that is so necessary for him to get right with God (and then with you).

And that’s the goal, isn’t it?  Spiritual Unity.  True and full reconciliation.  Working together and praying together with open and transparent hearts for the kingdom of God by using our spiritual gifts.  That is what brings the anointing.  The favor of God.

How in the world would any of that be possible if the other person has to repent, make restitution and rebuild trust over a long, long period of time before you will let them back into your good graces?  You build trust together.  Building trust is a ministry.  Building trust is building a relationship.  It is grace-based not performance-based.

But, even so, we aren’t done yet.  Pastor Warren actually says that you don’t have to trust that person immediately. Forgiveness is built on grace and is unconditional, while trust has to be rebuilt over a period of time.  That’s true but it isn’t the point.  What he means by building trust has to do with the actions of the person, not the relationship.  But the relationship comes first, the actions are a result.  Everyone knows that.

I have to admit that I am in shock.  I’m not sure that I would ever trust someone never to hurt me again.  I don’t think that is realistic.  I think it is bloody dangerous to make any relationship based on someone’s actions.  If the relationship is good, then the actions will generally follow.  My wife and I love each other.  My actions generally follow that love but sometimes I have a bad day, I get angry, I am upset about something and my flesh gets the better of me.  Sometimes I am insensitive and I screw up.  I say the wrong thing or don’t say the right thing.  Sometimes it is even on purpose.  We generally hurt the people we love the most.  Love is like that.  Love gives the other person the power to hurt you.  Because you care.

But I don’t need any guarantees that she will never hurt me (and the same is true for her).  She just wants to know whether or not I love her.  The rest we will work out together.  Love covers over a multitude of sins (James 5:20).  And that’s the way it should be.

That’s one of the ways we know whether or not somebody loves us.  If they are offended by every little thing, there is a problem with the relationship.  The action (or inaction) is usually only a symptom of something deeper.  A lack of love, care and respect.  That is what needs to be dealt with.

I have to say this as strongly as I can.  I don’t trust anybody not to hurt me.  Period.  That includes my wife and my kids or even God.  Yes, even God.  Sometimes he hurts me.  He disciplines me.  It doesn’t matter in the moment whether or not it is ultimately for my good.  It hurts.  But the relationship with God, with my wife, with my kids is strong so we can deal with it.  My point is that they don’t need to work hard to get back into my good graces after a long, long time.  That’s just crazy.  I don’t trust my wife never to make a mistake.  I trust that if she makes a mistake, she will apologize and make it right.  I trust the relationship.  I trust the love.

Now, even that isn’t really enough in this dark and dangerous world.  The truth is that neither my wife nor I (nor my kids) have enough love to deal with all the hurts and disappointments in life.  Husbands stop loving their wives and have affairs with their secretaries.  Divorce happens.  Wives stop loving their husbands and spend all of their emotional energy on their children.  Kids grow up and can simply ignore their parents for years while they are busy building their kingdoms of affluence and success.  It happens all the time.

So, in general, I trust the relationship with my wife and kids but that isn’t quite enough to really deal with the flesh, the world and the Devil (the three enemies of our soul).  Yes, it is true that to the degree that my wife (and myself) are dedicated to God and his truth and following him in the way of the cross, to that degree it will help solidify and strengthen our relationship as well.  No doubt.  That is my whole point here.

I call it Spiritual Trust.  If someone comes to me and confesses their sins and follows it up with acts of repentance/reconciliation and truly demonstrates their dismay at the brokenness of our bond as brothers and sisters in Christ, I would trust them right away.  They don’t need to earn my trust with their actions.  They have my trust immediately because they have demonstrated a very rare and very precious thing.  The conviction of the Holy Spirit and the evidence that they are in union with Christ and are humbling themselves in the process of the way of the cross.

I value that process so much that I can do nothing else than what the father of the Prodigal Son did, which was to rejoice that his son was home, the relationship was restored (immediately).  It was time to put a ring on his finger (which usually symbolized his authority to act on his father’s behalf in the running of the farm) and a robe on his back (which symbolized the father’s favor) and a killing of a fatted calf in a celebration of the restoration.  The son had not done anything yet.  The older brother was jealous and resentful because such a response from the father was not fair (and it wasn’t).  It was an act of grace.  An act of love.  A grace and love that, apparently, the older brother did not feel toward the younger son (like the Pharisees toward the sinners and tax collectors).

I don’t need a long time of performance to prove that “the younger son” had learnt his lesson, was now once again a mature person able to fulfill his duties in the kingdom of God.  He demonstrated true repentance and confession of sins.  He demonstrated the presence of the Holy Spirit within.  He demonstrated the humility that can only come from the ministry of reconciliation that the Holy Spirit has done in his heart.  We don’t need anything more.  That is Spiritual Trust and it is the only trust that we need.  I don’t trust the flesh of  “the younger son,” I trust the Spirit within him.  That doesn’t mean that he won’t screw up again, but it does mean that sooner or later he will once again confess and repent.  Not once.  Not twice.  But seventy times seven.  And I will forgive him as many times as well.  My job is not to expect maturity but to help create it.  Even in leaders.  Look at what Pastor Rick Warren says about leadership…

No! You must forgive that person immediately, but you don’t have to trust that person. The Bible says trust is built with time. Credibility is what a leader leads with. All leaders must have trust; it’s the currency they live in. If you lose trust, you have lost your right to lead at that moment. You may have the title, but you’re not the leader until you rebuild trust. And that isn’t going to happen instantly.

Credibility is what a leader leads with, he says.  True.  But what credibility?  The credibility of not sinning?  That’s nice but simply not realistic.  We have an epidemic of leaders who sin (and sin greviously) but simply hide it.  This kind of thinking simply sends the sin underground and it is never dealt with until it explodes into public sin.  This is the product of a culture of shame not a culture of grace.

I, for one, would rather have a Pastor who admits his sin and deals with it in a biblical manner than a Pastor who pretends that he is “squeaky clean” when the Bible (and our own experience) confirms that we are nothing but “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6).

Does that mean that we ignore sin or just forget about it or pretend that it never happened?  Of course not.  Jesus died a horrible death to deal with that sin and we must treat it seriously.  But it is a ministry of reconciliation.  It is a ministry of rebuilding trust.  It is a ministry of grace, a channel of grace, a means of grace when we pray for one another, suffer with one another, rejoice with one another and especially encourage one another along the road to Jerusalem, the way of the cross. 

Credibility is what a leader leads with. All leaders must have trust; it’s the currency they live in. If you lose trust, you have lost your right to lead at that moment.

Actually, I agree with those words.  The issue is what we mean by trust.  Pastor Rick Warren is clear that what he means is that we have to trust that they won’t do that particular sin again.  That’s not very realistic.  Sin is an addiction after all and addictions are usually compulsive and the only way to deal with addictions is NOT to isolate yourself but get others involved in the healing process.

What I believe is the greatest disease facing the leadership of our churches is the disease of unrepentant sin.  Pornography, spiritual pride, gossip and backbiting, politics, broken relationships that have never been healed.  These underground sins are never dealt with until the Lord brings them to the light.  Then, in our culture of shame, we take their leadership position away from them and force them into a performance based reconciliation process – not out of gratitude but rather to prove that they are safe, they are cured, they are better and won’t do it again.

A pastor or church leader (or anyone else) who does NOT follow the way of the cross, who never confesses his sin, who is not transparent, who does not get involved in the ministry of reconciliation, that kind of Pastor (of which there are many) is someone I do not trust.  That is someone that has no credibility, that has no business leading.

But give me a sinner who knows that his righteousness is in Christ and shows some maturity in the ministry of reconciliation towards others and towards himself, now that man has my trust, but not really him, rather I trust the Holy Spirit who is obviously at work in him.  That is Spiritual Trust and that is one of the most important sources of power in ministry that you can have within (or without) the church.

The Desert Warrior

P.S.  Let’s talk to God….

Lord, I want to learn how to trust the Spirit within others and also within me.  I sometimes have a hard time trusting myself.  I get confused because I think that there is such a thing as myself without you, and there isn’t.  There is only me in union with you.  I trust you, Lord.  I trust your work in me.  I need to forgive myself because of the cross and then work with you and the Holy Spirit within to get better every day.  Teach me how to minister the power of reconciliation with myself and with others.  In your name I pray.  Amen.

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Seeking Jerusalem – Day 38 “Spiritual Unity”

13 Tuesday Mar 2018

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THE WAY OF THE CROSSThe Way of the Cross – Lenten Season 2018

“The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body.  So it is with Christ.  For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body – whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free – and we were give the one Spirit to drink” (I Corinthians 12:12-13 NIV).

“Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into hi who is the Head, that is, Christ.  From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work” (Ephesians 4:15,16 NIV).

Spiritual Unity

In a couple of weeks on Palm Sunday, we will have a potluck fellowship dinner.  Everybody brings a dish and a desert.  Drinks are provided.  We get together and chat for a while and call it fellowship.  Fellowship is supposed to be another word for Spiritual Unity.  Doesn’t sound very interesting but it is nice, I suppose.

We have been talking about the Way of the Cross – confession, repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation.  Fellowship or Spiritual Unity is supposed to be the result of reconciliation.

I suppose it could happen.  There is no reason why we can’t have a potluck dinner as a spiritual body of reconciled believers.  Except that it isn’t true.  That old lady over there complained that one of the other men stinks and she avoids him like the plague.  She doesn’t even want to shake his hand.  You see that guy in the corner?  He sings in the choir but he is living with the woman sitting next to him and they aren’t married.  I just heard that he is planning to leave her when he gets back from his next trip.  That girl over there, had her baby out of wedlock and hasn’t said a word to anyone.  No one seems to care one way or the other.  The older gentleman in the corner is upset with this guy sitting beside me because he had the gall to suggest that he should give his life to Christ.  He’s been in the church for fifty years.  If he isn’t a Christian, then nobody here is.  And I could go on to talk about divisions, disagreements,  disunity and a general lack of reconciliation.  It may be a fellowship dinner but that doesn’t mean that there is much spiritual unity.

And that is fairly normal in the church.  Since we don’t talk much about sin and we certainly aren’t going to confess our sins one to another (James 5:16), there also isn’t much effort at the faithwalk of repentance.  Therefore forgiveness isn’t talked about and fellowship dinners are the best we can do at spiritual unity.  And we are happy with that status quo.

Well, we may be happy, but God certainly isn’t.  Ephesians 4 makes it quite clear that spirituality cannot be present until we have spiritual unity based on the way of the cross.  We are so committed to our individualistic spirituality that we fail to grasp that we are only a church together – and by together, I mean in spiritual unity.  In fact, as Professor Lovelace says in his book, The Dynamics of Spiritual Life, “grace is conveyed through the body of Christ along horizontal channels as well as through the vertical relationship of each believer to God” (p. 168).  We need each other.

We need each other for spiritual growth.  We need each other for mission.  We need each other for support and encouragement.  As John Wesley is famous for stating over and over again, “there are no individual Christians.”  But it isn’t just about being together.  The church is not a country club or a community center.  It’s not just about unity but about spiritual unity.  There’s a big difference.  That difference is called reconciliation.

We spoke in previous blogs about the unique power of forgiveness when it is rooted in the cross.  Sin (and forgiveness) is no longer cheap but, rather, a price none of us can pay.  We must all receive it in grace as a free gift.  But there is a purpose to forgiveness.  The idea is to bring spiritual unity to the body of Christ.  To heal a relationship is to make the sin of no account in the relationship.  We call that a “forgetting” of the sin so that it no longer affects the way we act one toward the other.

The problem is that forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same things.  Sure reconciliation naturally flows from forgiveness but just because you forgive someone doesn’t mean that you are reconciled with them.  That is a second work of the Spirit that we must pay special attention to.

When we need to forgive someone, it helps to imagine God asking us a question.  Will you accept the death of my Son as sufficient payment for this sin against you?  If you don’t, then the cross cannot be applied to your sins either.  No double standard allowed.

When we need to reconcile with someone, it may help to imagine God asking us another question.  Now that you have forgiven this person, will you treat them as they are in Christ rather than how they are in the flesh?  That’s how God does it.  He treats us as we are in Christ even though we may continue to sin (sometimes the very same sin).  I like to say it this way.  Will you treat them as they are in Christ, even though they may sin against you again and again? 

How many times must we forgive someone who sins against us?  Jesus was asked.  Seven times?  No, seventy times seven.  Over and over and over again.  Is that easy?  Of course not.  Is it what God wants us to do?  Yes, it is.

What does it mean to treat someone as they are in Christ and not as they are in the flesh? It means to treat them as they will be when you see them in glory.  It means to treat them as they are right now in the eyes of God.  It means not to hold their sin against them and treat them as if the sin never happened.  Again, not easy.  But the impossible is made possible through faith and the power of the resurrection which lives in us. 

Up to that point, it is only dependent on me (and the Holy Spirit) but has nothing to do with the other person.  You can forgive them and you can reconcile with them to a point.  So far as it depends on you, live in peace with everyone (Hebrews 12:14).

This is true reconciliation but it is not full reconciliation.  The miracle continues.  So far the person may not even have asked for forgiveness, nor confessed his sins, nor engaged in acts of repentance or reconciliation.  But you can forgive them anyway and treat them like they are in Christ (if you believe that they are Christians) or evangelize them if they are not.

But that is not full reconciliation.  Remember that the way of the cross is for two (or more) believers to walk together.  Let’s assume that there is confession, there is repentance, and you give them forgiveness and you treat them as they are in Christ and they do the same to you.  They may have been the offenders but likely you also reacted negatively and may have to admit to that.  Point being that the relationship is now being restored on both sides.  What does that look like?  How do I know whether or not I am in spiritual unity with someone else?

Here is how I like to describe it.  I know that I am fully reconciled with someone when I can pray and work with that person for the kingdom of God with open and transparent hearts according to our spiritual gifts.

He accepts my life ministry and I accept his life ministry.  We respect and encourage each other in our walk with Christ.  We pray together and minister to one another according to our gifts.  We work togther for the kingdom of God.  Together.  Unity.  Oneness.  That is spiritual unity.  We might also want to have a potluck dinner on occasion, but that’s just an extra.  Do you see the point?

Professor Lovelace puts it this way.  “Therefore “the normal Christian life” is not simply a function of an individual believer’s relationship to God.  If he is isolated from Christians around him who are designed to be part of the system through which he receives grace, or if those Christians are themselves spiritually weak, he cannot be as strong and as filled with the Spirit as he otherwise would be.  Individual spiritual dynamics and corporate spiritual dynamics are interdependent, just as the health of the body and the health of its cells are correlative” (p. 168).

So it matters what kind of church you attend.  If it is a spiritually weak church more interested in potluck dinners than spiritual unity, you may have to go elsewhere.  On the other hand, God may be calling you to start a small group or get involved in ministry or leadership right there in your present church in order to help it become stronger.  But even if that is so, you still need a small group of believers around you who will walk the way of the cross with you and encourage you in your spiritual walk.  Whether that small group is from your present church or from another church, you cannot do ministry much less grow as a disciple without the grace that comes from your fellow believers.

There is a great need to talk about the importance of spiritual unity as the result of reconciliation.  Psalm 133 makes it clear that God’s anointing is poured out on that fellowship of believers who are in spiritual unity.  It is not too much to say that this anointing of God is given to those who do things His way, who walk the way of the cross and who seek spiritual unity as the highest value in the church, above politics, status quo, being nice or avoiding confrontation.

When spiritual unity through reconciliation is our goal, we will be bold to root out any possible barrier, any fortress, any false belief, any misunderstanding that gets between us and our brothers and sisters in Christ.  When spiritual unity is our highest value, we will go out of our way to make sure that we are right with everyone in the church (as well as our family members and friends).

If the board doesn’t trust someone, they don’t punish them by disallowing them to use their gifts (God forbid!) but rather they will reconcile with that person, do whatever it takes to bring true spiritual unity back to the body where that brother can exercise his gifts as a means of grace to build up the entire people of God.  That’s why he is there.  That’s why God brought him to you in the first place.  He needed healing and part of that healing comes as he uses his spiritual gifts once again in the context of a fellowship of believers.  When a Pastor has a problem with someone, he doesn’t tell them that he won’t pray for them anymore (yes, I know a Pastor like that).  He focuses on reconciliation.

It is true that full reconciliation will also happen on the last day before the Judgment Seat of Christ.  There will be tears and confessions and hugs all around.  But it will be too late.  Too late to work and pray together for the kingdom of God.  Too late to build one another up or influence our children in a positive manner.  I believe that what we do or fail to do in this life will have eternal consequences for ourselves and others.  Yes, God is Sovereign but that doesn’t mean that our actions aren’t significant.  They are significant because He chose to work through us, through our testimony.  That’s how He gets His best work done.  When we do things His way, there is power and anointing in our ministry.  Relationships are healed.  People are changed.

That is the ministry of reconciliation and it draws people like flys.  Who doesn’t want to belong to a group of people who are serious about how they love each other?  It’s a beautiful thing to behold when it happens, but it mostly happens by accident.  Can you imagine what might happen if a group of believers understood that this ministry of reconciliation was the true spiritual warfare and started to pray and fight for healing in all of their relationships.  Wow.  That’s how revivals start.  I want to be part of that kind of church.

The Desert Warrior

P.S.  Let’s talk to God….

Lord, I want to be part of that kind of church and I know that it starts with me.  The problem is that if I walk the way of the cross and the others in the group don’t, they could end up crucifying me and hurting me deeply.  I know, I know.  That’s what happened to Jesus too.  Lord, give me the strength to follow you no matter where you lead.  Help me to help others also follow down that road.  In your name I pray.  Amen.

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Seeking Jerusalem – Day 37 “Healing Power”

12 Monday Mar 2018

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THE WAY OF THE CROSSThe Way of the Cross – Lenten Season 2018

“When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.  Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place” (II Chronicles 7: 13-15 NIV).

The Healing Power of Forgiveness

Money may make the world go round, but love is what makes it all worthwhile.  Without love, without relationships it just isn’t worth the trouble.  Everybody knows that.

People don’t wish that they spent more time at work or made more money when they are on their deathbed.  They just want to be with their loved ones.  They wish with all their heart that they could recapture those wonderful moments with their children on Christmas eve when they were young.  They regret the hurts and misunderstandings that still hover over their heads and relationships.  They want nothing more than that their estranged children, their brother, their ex-wife or friend would come back, that somehow, someway, a miracle would happen and love would be in the air, that Christmas would come in the middle of summer, something, anything that would close the distance and heal their hearts and make it better again.

Relationships.  That’s what matters.  Everything else pales in comparison.

The good news is that God created relationships, he loves relationships.  Nothing is more dear to the heart of God than healing your relationships.  It’s what he came to do.  It’s why he died on the cross.  It is what the whole of history is about.  Relationships.  First of all between us and God and then between us and others.

Wait a minute.  What if I don’t want the God part?  I just want healed relationships but without the religious side of things.  Sorry.  Doesn’t work like that.  It only works for believers.  The rest of you will have to go see a psychologist or a marriage counselor.  Some of them do great work and you might actually get somewhere.  Give it a try.

The point being that forgiveness rooted in the cross is a very different thing than forgiveness rooted in self-interest, or desire, or the Christmas spirit.  Everyone wants to make the claim that they can love others without the help of religion, or God, or whatever.  Great.  That would mean that you don’t need forgiveness then.  All of your relationships are intact.  They are working well.  After all, you are able to love people without God’s help.  What’s the problem?  Oh, other people aren’t as good at love as you are?  Maybe they need God.  Send this blog post to them and maybe you can get some healing going from their side.  But it’s not likely.  It really only works when both sides are believers.  Sorry.

The best that the world has to offer is the advice that you need to forgive people in order to move on.  When you have been hurt deeply, just forgive (for your sake) and find someone or something else to love.  With time, your mind will begin to heal or, at least, the pain will begin to subside and become a dull throb rather than a sharp pain.  The problem with that advice is that it really doesn’t heal anything.  People don’t change, they say.  You have to accept things as they are and move on.  That is the healing they offer and it isn’t enough.  We know it.

Is there any hope for the healing of relationships rooted in the cross?  Yes, there are many stories of marriages healed, estranged children reunited with their parents, true forgiveness between brothers and sisters.  But it isn’t all that common and it isn’t at all easy.  But it’s very simple.  The problem is usually human pride.  Most people don’t understand it or don’t really want to take the risk of humbling themselves before God and others.  Part of the problem is that you can’t try to make up with God in order to get him to help you with your other relationships.  That’s a bit manipulative, don’t you think?  Your approach to God must be genuine and without strings attached.  Then, and only then, is healing for your other relationships possible.

So here’s the problem in a nutshell.  For most people when you tell them that they should forgive someone, they are reluctant to do it.  And for good reason.  It seems cheap to them.  It feels like they are letting that person who hurt them off the hook too easily.  Sure it might be healthier to forgive and not hold on to the hurt but it just seems, instinctively, to be a way of saying that what they did just didn’t matter, it didn’t hurt that much, it isn’t important.  Forgiveness like that is cheap.  We might try to brighten it up a bit by saying that our love is more important than what they did wrong, but that was the whole point.  What they did was an attack on your love.  It was a depreciation of your relationship.  Nobody wants to just go back to the status quo and “pretend” that everything is fine.

Sure it depends a bit on what it is that they did.  Lots of small stuff is just small stuff.  Nobody really cares.  You say you’re sorry and you move on.  If you did it on purpose, then the stakes are higher and you will have to address that bad intention.  Your apology will have to more sincere and you will have to convince the other that you were just having a bad day and that the relationship is still valued by you.  From there it just gets worse….

But the small potatoes are not a big deal.  The big potatoes are the issue.  Marriage breakups.  Family issues.  Embezzelment by a family member.  Misunderstandings.  Betrayal.  Absentee Fathers.  Abusive mothers.  Can people change?  Is forgiveness possible?  Obviously the cross can transform the lives of believers and followers but only if you follow the way of the cross.  It starts with true confession.  There must be acts of reconciliation.  But the key is forgiveness.

Instead of thinking of forgiveness as a way of letting someone off the hook, you need to understand how God looks at sin.  From his point of view, the sin was so bad, so insidious, so horrible that it deserves serious punishment.  Throughout the Psalms, David talks about poetic justice where the evildoer becomes the target of his own evil.  May the guy who set the trap fall into his own trap.  May the person who shoots the arrow, die by his own arrow.  That sort of thing.  True justice.  An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.  Nothing more and nothing less.  Of course, even that kind of justice scares us.  Mostly because we are also apt to do things wrong.  It wouldn’t take long for the world to be full of one-eyed, toothless people.  True justice is dangerous.

Still, the point is that God takes sin seriously.  Not just in terms of poetic justice or true justice but also in terms of relationships.  When people hurt people, they deserve to be put out of the presence of God.  Period.  Why should he give his blessings to people who hurt his people?  Why should the sun shine on the just and the unjust alike?  Why doesn’t God just strike the offender down and cart him off to hell?  We would be up for that (so long as we aren’t the offender).  That would be relational justice.  If you beat your wife, you should probably not receive the benefits of her relationship with you.  You would think.  The same goes for God.

But he doesn’t seem to do that either.  In fact, the world is a pretty screwed up place.  David complained that evil men flourish and prosper.  The problem is that this world is not a very just place to live.  People get away with murder.  The corrupt seem to get positions of power while the honest are relegated to the dung heaps of history.

The reason for all of this is that God is up to something bigger and more beautiful than any of us can imagine.  God is trying to save the whole world from it’s own folly, from its own sin, from its own stupidity.  Both the sinner and the sinned against (which is most often the same person at different times).  Both the evil and the good.  Both the criminal and the law abiding citizen.  God is in the business of saving people and so his justice is hidden away in the cross until the last judgment comes and all things will be brought to the light.

What does that mean for our relationships?  The short answer is that when someone sins against you (or you against them) the eternal consequences of those actions are very serious indeed.  There may even be some temporal consequences but, even if they seem to get away with it for a while on earth, one day they will face the Judge of the whole earth and they will not be able to stand.  The issues will be eternal and the punishments will be just for everyone the same.  God does not take sin lightly.

I need to remember that when somebody sins against me.  I need to remember that I am also a sinner and in need of forgiveness and that my forgiveness was bought with a price by Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary.  It was no cheap forgiveness but rather it was a price far beyond my ability to pay.  I was given grace freely because Jesus paid the price.

I always imagine that God comes to me when I am hurting from something someone said or did and asks me a question.  “Will you accept the sacrifice of my Son on the cross as sufficient payment for that sin against you?”  In other words, if noone else had ever sinned and only this person ever sins against anyone.  If only this one sin was the only sin that every existed, Jesus would have gone to the cross to die for that one sin.  It is the only way.  It was not cheap forgiveness but rather priceless love that takes that sin away.

And if you have the gall to say to God, “No, the cross is not enough.  I don’t want this person to be forgiven.  I want them to pay the full price of their punishment for all eternity.”  Then God will also say to you, “Then neither will you be forgiven of your sins.”  If you deny the cross for others, how can it be applied to you?  It’s obvious.  Jesus said, “if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew 6:14,15 NIV).  In other words, if you deny that the cross is good enough for others how can it be good enough for you?

But this is wonderful news.  If you have the humility to understand that you are also a sinner in need of forgiveness, you will recognize that others need it just as well.  Maybe their sins are different than yours, they may even have worse consequences than yours but it comes from the same source of ego and pride and selfishness.

We all need to be forgiven and when the cross is applied to the situation you don’t have to think for a moment that someone is being let off the hook, that it didn’t matter, that somehow this is a cheap solution.  Not at all.  God cares so much about that hurt against you that He sent his son to die on the cross in order to bring healing (not just punishment) to the relationship.  This is the power of forgiveness rooted in the cross and it has the healing power to change people and mend all relationships.

The Desert Warrior

P.S.  Let’s talk to God….

Lord,  I have to admit.  I never looked at it that way before.  Yes, I accept the cross as sufficient payment for the sins of …………………………….against me.  Thank you for forgiving my sin as well.  I know that you take it far more seriously than we do.  I don’t want to punish but to heal.  Help me to heal relationships through the cross.  In Jesus name I pray.  Amen.

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Seeking Jerusalem – Day 36 “FaithWalking”

10 Saturday Mar 2018

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THE WAY OF THE CROSSThe Way of the Cross – Lenten Season 2018

“Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it.  Though I did regret it – I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while – yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance.  For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us.  Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.  See what this godly sorrow has produced in you:  what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done.  At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter.  So even though I wrote to you, it was not on account of the one who did the wrong or of the injured party, but rather that before God you could see for yourselves how devoted to us you are.  By all this we are encouraged” (II Corinthians 7:8-13a NIV).

The FaithWalk of Repentance

So my daughter and I were on our way to the mall the other day to watch a movie.  I’m not sure why but she asked me a question about something I was writing about and I decided to ask her the “Chicken and the Egg” question.  It’s a good question.

“What came first, the chicken or the egg?”

“That’s easy,” she said.  “The chicken, of course.  God had to create a chicken before you can have a chicken lay an egg.”

I laughed but then she asked me what that had to do with her question.  So I asked her another question.  I gave her a hint.  I told her it was really the same question, but with a twist.

“What comes first repentance or forgiveness?”

She was quiet for a moment and then started to talk it through.  “Well, Jesus preached repentance for the forgiveness of sins but, at the same time, repentance has to come out of a grateful heart which only comes once you are forgiven.”

Good so far.

“So what is your answer,” I asked her.

“I’m not done thinking yet.  Give me a sec,” she said.  Then she did some more thinking out loud.  “The chicken or the egg, the chicken or the egg….God always acts first.  Ok, I got it.  Forgiveness comes first because God is always the actor and we are always the ones who respond.”

Exactly.  (She’s fifteen years old.)

We often talk about confession, then repentance, then forgiveness, then reconciliation.  I’m not sure why we put it in that order.  Perhaps it’s because there are two sides to the relationship.  One side confesses and repents and the other side forgives and reconciles.  Perhaps.  But for most people this is a thorny issue and repentance is often seen as a prerequisite for forgiveness.  It becomes performance-based and we know that can’t be right.  We either fall into some form of legalism (a bunch of rules and obligations or expectations) or moralism (just be nice) and cheap grace (faith without true acts of love).  We need to get it right.  It will affect our entire progress of sanctification for good or evil.  The answer is easy on the one hand and very difficult on the other.  Like many theological truths, it is difficult to understand in theory but so simple in reality. 

Next week we will spend considerable time on the topic, starting with the theology and bringing it down into the reality of a simple love relationship between the bridegroom and his bride.  But until then, there are some general thoughts I would like to share with you on the topic of repentance.

Repentance is an act of gratitude not an act of penance.  We do not change our ways in order to be saved but because we are saved.  The call to repentance by John the Baptist was a call given to the people of God who needed to prepare themselves for the coming of the kingdom of God.  In the process of sanctification, there may be many calls to repentance.

Repentance is a necessary response but not a necessary cause.  Is that possible?  Of course.  Love is unconditional but it still requires love to be returned to it.  That is its nature.  Love is the necessary response to love even if it is not the necessary cause of that love.   Love is a virtue.  God loves because He is love, not because we love Him.  At the same time, He wants and expects us to love Him back.  Of course.

Love is always voluntary and often optional.  “Often” optional, you say?  Of course.  Between a man and a woman who are just getting to know each other romantically, love is always voluntary and, in this case, also optional.  It may be returned or it may not.  That is its nature.  But I think most people would agree that loving your mother is not really optional.  That is also its nature.  Loving God, our Father and Creator, became optional (but with natural negative consequences) for mankind, but it is a relationship that, by it’s very nature, is not optional.  Our very existence depends on Him and to make our relationship with Him optional is an affront of eternal significance.

Repentance is usually an individual act in the context of a loving group.  It is impossible to live out a lifestyle of repentance without the ongoing help of a group of brothers and sisters who disciple us, keep us accountable, love us and encourage us and guide us.   In other words, repentance (and our progressive sanctification) is always done in the context of the church and the spiritual unity (and anointing) that we share.

Repentance is also a corporate act for sins of the flesh done either by the leadership or by a group of members in the church.  We are all involved and we are all responsible.  Even beyond our church, in our community, our nations, our world.  Corporate sin is simply the flesh of a group of people whose policies and decisions are contrary to the will of God and have become codified in policies and expectations and behavior that people just take for granted.  It is what the Bible calls the “world” and it is often found lurking within the church.

I remember reading about a congregation in the States called The Pillar of Fire.  I thought it was an interesting name so I did some digging and found out more about their history.  Apparently, they were an all-white congregation that had prominent members involved in the Klu-Klux-Klan.  Rampant racists a generation or two ago, still trying to live down their past.  The congregation was in decline.  No surprise.  I don’t think I would join a church with that kind of history.  Now they were facing a crisis.  They had buildings and a school and a number of churches which were part of this denomination.  What should they do with all of these assets?  What direction could they go that had some spiritual integrity to it?  They had long ago publicly disavowed their heritage but it was only a generation ago that the sin of racism was at the highest levels of their denomination and churches. Some people are still alive who were involved in the race riots of the 1960’s.  What should they do? 

Talking about repentance is not enough.  Saying that you are sorry is not enough.  Even tears are not enough.  There is worldly sorrow and there is godly sorrow.  “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death” (II Corinthians 7:10 NIV), Paul tells us.  The Bible uses the word “repentance” but most of us simply see it in legalistic terms.  Do it or else.  Salvation is dependent on repentance.  Change or die.  Although that is obviously true, it mixes up the act with the motivation.  First there is godly sorrow.  Sorrow unto God.  Sorrow for a relationship broken with our Father.  Not just the worldly sorrow of getting caught, having to face the consequences, of having to face the social shame and relational fallout.  No, godly sorrow is first and foremost about our relationship with God regardless of anything else.  That is the well from which acts of repentance spring forth.  And when we receive forgiveness and are reconciled, there are no regrets, no memories to haunt us, no thoughts or desire to return to the sin.

So, if that is true, what should the Pillar of Fire people do?  If they see acts of repentance as they truly are – acts of reconciliation – then the answer is clear (even if difficult).  The leadership should step down.  The assets of the church, the buildings, the school, the land, the money should be given to a black denomination and the people should be dispersed into black churches, led by black pastors, to serve out their lives in joint ministry (but not in leadership) with their brothers and sisters in Christ.  It would be a wonderful challenge for the black community and a true act of reconciliation for the white community.  The radical (but totally appropriate) act of reconciliation would show the entire community that God is there in their midst and that he transforms the human heart in ways that are uncommon, unheard of, and life changing.  What a wonderful testimony of the grace of God.

Will it happen?  Probably not.  But at least you are starting to get a feel for what repentance is.  It isn’t just stopping something or starting something.  It is relational.  It is reversing, going in the opposite direction, changing course radically, relationally.  Look for the opposite behaviour and do that.  It will be difficult, radical, transformative.

Let me give you another example.  A Pastor is let go by the board of elders.  It was not done very well.  No voice was given to the congregation.  No reasons were offered.  It wasn’t about his calling and the board recognizing it as a calling to their church.  It was a simple worldly contract for one year that wouldn’t be renewed.  Period.  One or two of the key elders didn’t like the direction the Pastor was going so they decided not to renew.  Many people in the congregation were hurt.  Some moved away and went to other churches.  It was not a good nor godly thing to do.  The process was all wrong.  The spirit of it was all wrong.  It was probably nothing more than a power play.

The Pastor got another calling in the same city and when the elders of his first church got together with their former Pastor in the context of a leadership conference, the Pastor made an attempt at reconciliation.  It was beautiful but it wasn’t complete.  There was no confession of sin.  There was no awareness of having offended God.  There was no realization of corporate sin, or worldly views of leadership, or unwise decisions.  Whether the Pastor was dismissed or not, it was not done well.  Still, apologies (and justifications) were given and hugs all around and a nice prayer for unity but true reconciliation?  Doubtful.

What would have been an appropriate act of repentance (or reconciliation) in that situation?  First of all, someone should be discipling those elders and teaching them from the Word of God what it means to call or release a Pastor.  Secondly, there needs to be brokenness and humility before the Lord in godly sorrow (not justifications).  Thirdly, forgiveness needs to be extended (as it was) based only on their brokenness and humility before the cross of Christ.  Fourthly, acts of reconciliation need to be done to bring healing to all those involved.  On a practical basis that would mean inviting the Pastor to come back to the church and preach once in a while and setting up a congregational meeting, or small group meetings, or one on one meetings where people would get an opportunity to talk to the Pastor and also reconcile or express their sorrow at his leaving.  Healing for the entire congregation is necessary.  It is a MINISTRY of reconciliation.  It isn’t just about the Pastor or the elders but about the entire congregation.

But it wouldn’t stop there.  The elders would also need to confess their sin to the congregation in how they handled the situation.  Tears of godly sorrow and brokenness would be present and opportunities for the leadership to be reconciled to their people.  Perhaps the leaders need to step down for a while and new leaders put in place but only for a couple of years while these leaders come to terms with their worldly view of  leadership in the church and ready themselves for a more productive time of using their gifts in the church.

These acts are transformative and will lead to other people seeking reconciliation and offering acts of reconciliation.  It is a chain reaction of grace that can transform a church or break out into revival and affect other churches and even society in general.  Anything can happen.

Do you start to see the power here?  When acts of repentance are rightly understood in relational terms as acts of reconciliation, done in the context of forgiveness and in the power of spiritual unity, transformation happens.  Of course, all of this takes faith.  That’s why we call it the faithwalk of repentance.  All of the power and resources of heaven are available to us when we walk the way of the cross.

There is far more to say about repentance in the coming weeks and the way that God uses our sin to reveal to us our idols, our other lovers, our fortresses still standing strong in our lives.  And each time he reveals it to us, we must give Him permission to tear those idols down, to root them out of our lives, to burn them in the fire of His presence.

Suffice it to say that it is a process of recognizing (and confessing) our self-taught story of lies and unbelief about who we are, what our purpose is, how important we are to God and what our final glory will really be like.  Our view of the world and ourselves in that world has been a STORY of lies and deceit, meant to keep us powerless and ineffective.  When we replace that STORY with the truth from God’s perspective and believe it and train ourselves in it and repeat it, and sing it, and act according to it, our minds are transformed and morality is swallowed up by love and we become who we truly are in Christ with the help of the Holy Spirit.

It is a process of progressive sanctification that will make us every day more like Christ and every day more effective in our work of ministry.  When we understand that repentance is always in the context of grace, we will embrace it and it will transform us and our families, churches and nations.

The Desert Warrior

P.S.  Let’s talk to God…..

Lord, teach me to live a lifestyle of repentance.  Help me not to fear your revelations of my guilt and sin.  It shouldn’t surprise me after all.  But I need your help with my acts of reconciliation between me and you and with other people.  Lord, I want to be effective in my ministry and pleasing to you with my life.  In your name I pray.  Amen.

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Seeking Jerusalem – Day 35 “The Culture of Grace”

09 Friday Mar 2018

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THE WAY OF THE CROSSThe Way of the Cross – Lenten Season 2018

“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.  And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.  For 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.  For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:4-10 NIV).

The Culture of Grace

I heard a Vicar (Pastor) from the Anglican church tell a story recently about his encounters with a young man off the streets that we will call, Paul.  The vicar’s wife, who was a good judge of character, agreed that they should help the young man and so they put him up for a few days until they could find a more permanent place for him.  He ended up staying for a number of months and became a part of the family.  When the Vicar and his wife went on a short vacation, they left Paul in charge.  Paul invited another friend from the streets over who ended up stealing the wife’s jewelry (hierlooms from her mother with more sentimental value than anything else).  Paul claimed he was innocent but he still shouldn’t have invited his friend over when no one else was at home.  A lapse in judgment.

Paul was asked to move out but the Vicar and his wife decided to put him up in a small cottage that they owned and he stayed there for over a year but never paid his rent (although he had gotten a job).  Thousands of pounds were lost but, more importantly, the relationship was suffering great abuse.  Finally, they had to evict him (messy and loud and embarrassing with police involvement) and he disappeared for a while.

Some time later, Paul contacted them again, desperate to find a place to stay.  He was now married and his wife was pregnant but they were living in a car and had no place to go.  The Vicar and his wife were learning the lessons of forgiveness, over and over again.  They decided to help him one last time and allowed him to move back into the cottage.  He finally settled down into a job and was able to sustain his wife and new baby and pay the rent as well.  All is well that ends well.

But I have to say that I am shocked.  I am not sure I would have let this homeless man stay in my spare bedroom in the first place.  And after having stole from me, he would have been escorted off of the premises immediately and told never to come back.  And then to let him NOT pay rent for a year or more, and then give him the house back when he just made some woman pregnant, well, that’s going too far.  I mean…..what does Jesus expect us to do.  The story turned out more or less alright but these people could have been murdered in their sleep.

You see, this isn’t just a story of forgiveness, over and over again.  It is a story of grace.  You and I are like Paul and the Vicar and his wife are like God.  We screw up over and over again, coming back and asking for help but ready to take advantage, steal the family jewels, take what we want, all at a moment’s notice and we do it over and over again.  The wonder of it all is the grace that is shown to us anyway.  Just like in church.

That grace is the context for forgiveness.  That grace is relational.  Why did the Vicar and his wife have that grace for Paul even though he sinned against them over and over again?  First of all, because they were being obedient to God and were willing to share the grace that they themselves had received.  But I believe that it also has to do with the fact that for months Paul lived with them, they got to know him, he became part of the family, they had a relationship, and a relationship is always about grace.  Accepting people for who they are and helping them to become all they can be.  Like children.  Like brothers and sisters.  Like family.

Grace is the context of forgiveness.  And confession.  And repentance.  And reconciliation.

The question is whether or not the church has a culture of grace or a culture of shame, rooted in judgment and accusation and unfulfilled expectations.  Sad to say, most are rooted in shame, and grace only shows up by accident once in a while.

Shame based relationships and families (and even churches and organizations) are far more common than we like to admit.  And it is devastating for the gospel.  It is not healthy and reflects a misunderstanding of what ministry is all about.  When it is prevalent in the church, it brings about spiritual abuse and the abuse of power by the leadership.

There are some common characteristics of shame based systems such as actual words spoken to shame people (Something is wrong with you.  You aren’t a very good Christian.  Why can’t you be more like….).  Exclusion (rather than inclusion) from groups and/or leadership based on whether someone likes you, or trusts you, or agrees with your take on some particular doctrine.  Unspoken rules and special code language to govern proper behavior which only those in the know are aware of (the rest have to guess).  Politics is the name of the game.  Rules are more important than people.  Positions are more important than spiritual gifts.  Everything is good and great (How was your day?  Good.  How have you been?  Great.).

Board members are told to keep everything confidential and not talk about anything from a Board meeting with anybody else in the church.  Not just relational issues, everything.  Don’t talk about the future of the church.  Don’t talk about new ideas or a better way of doing something.  Just don’t talk.  In churches, as in all relationships, communication is key.  The lack of communication is just an attempt to control the relationship, the people, the church.

But the biggest one is a preoccupation with fault and blame (which is very different from confession of sin in the context of grace).  Once you find out who is to blame, that person can be shamed into not doing that behaviour again.

All of this is a serious misunderstanding of the gospel and yet it is so common that we get used to it and hardly blink an eye when we become part of that system of shame.  This is spiritual warfare and it must be resisted and changed into a culture of grace through preaching, testimony, application in real life and a lot of prayer.

This change is the major work of ministry of the Pastor and the leaders of the church and it must start with them.  If there is no culture of grace at the leadership level, the church will never make the transition and will always tend to fall back into the culture of shame as their default position.

Strange, isn’t it?  That we who are the redeemed of the Lord, would fall into the trap of believing that our love and acceptance by God (and others) was somehow earned on the basis of our behaviour and performance?  It is pure legalism and moralism.  It has nothing to do with the gospel.  Tomorrow we will go into more detail about the relationship between justification and sanctification and getting that right, but, for now, we need to recognize our spiritual blindness to the ways of God especially at the leadership level.

Think about it for a moment.  Even when we were first saved, what came first, the confession of sin and repentance or the grace of God that offered forgiveness?  Be careful.  It isn’t a trick question but it also isn’t so obvious as you might think.  Many people will say (and rightly so) that forgiveness comes AFTER we confess and repent.  But that is only half true.  The grace of God has to penetrate into our lives and first of all convict us of our guilt with regards to sin (which is the work of the Holy Spirit) but with that conviction comes the offer of grace at the same time.  If we did not believe that forgiveness was a possibility, why would we confess?  We may still feel guilty but we wouldn’t say anything about it to anybody.

Confession is only possible if there is conviction of sin and an offer of grace.

I have to believe that forgiveness is possible because of the cross of Christ and that a new relationship with God has been offered to me.  In order to appropriate that offer of grace, I must believe in my heart and confess with my mouth but it starts with the context of grace.

This is as true in discipleship as it is in evangelism.  Without a context of grace, why would anyone confess their sins.  Nobody is interested in getting shamed, being humiliated, being blamed.  We do that to ourselves enough already.  But for some reason, many churches have a grace-based concept of evangelism but a performance-based concept of sanctification.  Some have elevated this to the level of a “theology of holiness” that is simply a misunderstanding of the gospel (in my opinion).  In that kind of theological system, you can even lose your salvation if your performance or your conscious sin is of a certain type.  My heart breaks for the people who submit themselves to that kind of church leadership.

Culture trumps strategy every time.  It doesn’t matter what programs, what strategies, what preaching topics you choose if your church culture is not a culture of grace.  And that doesn’t just mean a “No Condemnation” culture where sin is ignored.  It means a “Way of the Cross” culture where sin is confessed, repented of, forgiven and true reconciliation accomplished bringing with it a deep spiritual unity that ushers in the anointing of God on the entire ministry of the church.

A final word on the first step on the Way of the Cross.  Confession.  It isn’t just a confession of sins.  It is also a confession of faith.  They are two sides of the same coin.  If you do not have a confession of faith in the grace shown through Christ to you, personally, so that you believe and trust in what is offered – a new relationship in Christ, then why in the world would you confess your sins?

The confession of faith is rooted in grace and the confession of sin is rooted in grace.  It is all grace.  Grace expects honesty.  Grace (undeserved favor) expects repentance and a change in direction.  Love always does.  Love wants love in return.  And to love God in return means to start with being honest (like all relationships) and continue with real change (like all relationships).  Why are we surprised?  Why do we make this into something esoteric and other-worldly?  It’s just love and we understand the basics of love, don’t we?

But in the context of our relationship with God, we have our flesh (old ways of thinking, acting, believing without God) and the flesh of others (often systematized into rules and policies even in the church) that the Bible calls the “world.”  And don’t forget the Devil and his “schemes” that works very hard indeed to keep us blind to these fundamental truths.

Above all things, he will try to keep the leadership of the church bound up in chains of shame and guilt and fear because if they ever get it figured out and start to risk the dangers of putting it into practice, the Lord will bless them with a culture of grace that will release the power of forgiveness and reconciliation in such a way as to entirely transform the church into a powerhouse of signs and miracles and transformed lives.

And that, the Devil cannot allow to happen even though all the resources of heaven are at our disposal to make it happen.  The difference is that the Devil can prey on our weaknesses whereas leaders must pray in our weaknesses for God’s strength.  The first is easy and automatic.  The second takes effort and training and collaboration and prayer and spiritual battle.  There is no other way than the Way of the Cross.  Jesus showed us the Way in the Garden of Gethsemane.  He chose obedience over fellowship and we must do the same.

The Desert Warrior

P.S.  Let’s talk to God…..

Lord, I have to admit that I have some of these elements of a shame based upbringing still in my system.  I know it affects my walk with you and my involvement in the church.  Cleanse me, O Lord and make me whole.  Help me to create a culture of grace so that we can confess our sins with one another without fear of shame and humiliation.  Lord, I choose to obey you and follow you no matter where you lead.  I want to seek Jerusalem and find that spiritual unity that you promised us and so receive your anointing.  In Jesus name I pray.  Amen.

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Seeking Jerusalem – Day 33 “Brokenness”

08 Thursday Mar 2018

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THE WAY OF THE CROSSThe Way of the Cross – Lenten Season 2018

“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.  Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.  Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.  Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you.  Save me from bloodguilt, O God, the God who saves me, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.  O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.  You do not delight in sacrifice or I would bring it.  You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:10-17 NIV).

Brokenness

Today I want you to help me solve a mystery.  It is a mystery, I suppose, of our own making but it is a deeply shocking revelation of the human heart.  I know, I know, it’s nothing new.  The Bible says that the “heart is deceitful above all things” (Jeremiah 17:9 NIV).  And that especially applies to mine.  The mystery is really about the ways my heart is deceitful, the manner in which my spiritual blindness manifests itself and what I can do about it.  Let me try to describe the problem in some more detail….

Many people have spoken and written about the concept of “brokenness” and having a contrite heart.  Well, and good.  But most of it has been written from the perspective of being accused, perhaps falsely accused.  Like Jesus.  Peter tells us to follow in his steps.  “When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats.  Instead he entrusted himself to him who judges justly” (I Peter 2: 23 NIV).

That’s not so easy to do.  One thing is when you are being falsely accused by someone outside the church, someone who is not committed to the ways of God.  That is persecution.  That is our witness.  Also not easy, but it can be understood straightforwardly enough.  But when it comes from your Pastor, your spouse, your brother or sister in Christ.  What’s that all about?  And I’m not talking about the religious types in the church or even the immature Christians who just don’t know any better.  That, too, can be handled, understood, put up with for the sake of Christ.  But I generally let my guard down a bit with those who are mature brothers and sisters in Christ, leaders of the church, truly people of God.  They often take me by surprise.

Now, the first thing that needs to be said, obviously, is that if they are mature believers in Christ, maybe they are in the right and you are in the wrong and the work that needs to be done is in your own heart.  Good point.  And we should always start there.  Giving them the benefit of the doubt is a smart thing to do because your (and my) heart is also deceitful above all things.  No mystery there.

But if, after searching your own heart and perhaps talking to a godly counselor, the obvious conclusion is that the accusation is still false, and therefore you cannot confess it (or repent of it), what do you do?  And more, when it is as plain as the nose on your face that your accuser just did the very same thing that they accuse you of (which you didn’t even do), and even a worldly psychologist not interested in the gospel can see is a case of transference, what do you do?  Let me give you some examples….

I know of a situation where a woman forgave her repentant husband for a one-night stand affair while traveling (a lot).  She loved him.  She loved the Lord even more and chose to forgive.  Her own sister could not do the same.  To this day she deeply dislikes this man and is unreconciled to him.  She and her husband are godly people involved in ministry and are obviously Christians and, I would say, mature ones.  That is not the mystery.

The mystery is that she and her husband went through a very similar situation years ago and she also made the choice to forgive and today they have a very good marriage.  And yet, when her sister makes the same choice, she becomes the accuser and remains, for years, unreconciled with the husband of her sister.  But wait.  We have not yet arrived at the mystery.  Even worldly psychologists can understand what is going on here up to this point.

The mystery is that there is no conviction of sin.  There is no awareness of spiritual blindness.  There is no sense of guilt or unease or reflection on their own behavior.  There is no awareness of being unreconciled with someone other than as some general background noise in their lives that doesn’t really matter much.  No recognition that it is keeping them from the abundant life, that there is no power, no anointing in their lives or ministry because they refuse, or are unaware of the importance of spiritual unity as a prerequisite for the anointing of God (Psalm 133).

Another example, just so that you know this is not an isolated case.  A Pastor comes to visit because he became aware that one of his flock was upset with him.  He didn’t realize that he had made him look bad in public.  Not once but a couple of times.  It wasn’t the action that hurt so much as the underlying lack of sensitivity or lack of caring that was the problem.  It was a symptom of a relationship problem.  Psychology 101.  Most of the time, the problem is the perception and reality of the relationship not the action itself.  In the conversation that ensued, it becomes obvious that the Pastor interprets everything that his parishioner says in a negative light.  Another symptom.  Until he starts to make accusations against his character and interprets his relationship with the church as problematic and reveals that the Board doesn’t trust him.  Now we are getting down to the truth.  But that isn’t the problem.  The Pastor agrees with the Board, even though explanations are given as to why there is a disagreement and that is based on a spiritual witness to a largely religious leadership.  And the Pastor ought to know that since he, himself, just went through the same experience.

So far, no real mystery.  People often accuse you of things they themselves fear or even of things they themselves went through (in your very same shoes).  Human psychology is infinitely complicated and our inability to see our own shortcomings and failures are part of that defense mechanism that protects our egos at any cost in a dark and dangerous world.  I get it.  What I don’t understand is why normally good, godly people are still so spiritually blind even after going through the same thing themselves.  How is it possible that right after the Holy Spirit ministers to them, they turn around and become the accusers for someone else in the very same situation.  And I can give you dozens of examples more.

How can Peter give a confession of faith through divine revelation one moment and rebuke Jesus the next?  How can an elder preach a wonderful sermon on the mercy of God one moment but right after the service in a quick meeting to solve a problem with a church member, that same elder refuses to show mercy and asks her to leave the church even though she specifically asks for mercy (thinking that it was God’s intervention and mercy that he led this elder to preach about mercy when she so desperately needed some mercy)?  But no mercy is given.

How can a Pastor preach on the priority of the poor from the pulpit but threaten to call the police if a specific poor person comes back to the church because he keeps asking for money and bothering the people?  How can priests talk about the love of God on Sunday morning and yet abuse the choir boys and acolytes on Wednesday night?  How can the Pastor preach vehemently agains pornography and sexual sin on Sunday and be photographed leaving a hotel room on Saturday night with a woman (or man) that is not his wife.  And on and on it goes….

The question is not just one of injustice.  Yes, it is terribly unjust.  It’s a question of spiritual blindness.  Yes, you can argue with me as to whether or not these people are even believers.  Granted.  You can argue that they may not be very mature (even if they are in positions of leadership).  Also granted.  But the truth is that some of them are believers and mature ones at that and still incredibly blind to their own sin.  And worse, accuse others of the very things they themselves were accused of.  And don’t even realize it.  For years.  And therefore there is no true reconciliation.  No spiritual unity.  No anointing.  No power.  No abundant life.  No transformation.

My wife and I just talked about this last night.  Why don’t people change?  Why are there so few transformed lives?  We worked it all back to one basic truth.  If people are not aware of their sin and then confess that sin as sin and start to take steps of repentance (and reconciliation) in faith with the help of their small group of brothers and sisters in humility and brokenness, recognizing their spiritual blindness and dependent on others in a process of individual and group accountability and discipleship, then nothing will happen.  And, as we have said, this simply doesn’t happen very often.  Especially among the leadership of a church.  We skip to forgiveness without dealing with sin.  We have a “light” view of reconciliation that focuses on ourselves instead of our ministry (individually and as a small group) to the other.  But most of all, it seems, there is simply no conviction of sin.  Ever.  Why?

People are not aware of their sin.  Period.  Isn’t that the work of the Holy Spirit?  Jesus said, “when he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8 NIV).  So why are otherwise normal, mature believers not convicted of their sins?  Why can they feel justified over long periods of time that it is acceptable to be unreconciled with a brother or sister in Christ?  How is it possible that they can be both a deceiver and an accuser and rationalize that away due to their position in the church as a leader?  Where is the work of the Holy Spirit in all of this?

Then I read the passage a bit more closely.  It does not say that the Holy Spirit would convict the world (and Christians as well) of sin.  It says that he will convict the world of the “guilt” of their sin, not the sin itself.  Then I realized that I had my theology wrong.  The Holy Spirit always points to Jesus, the Word of God.  He does not take the place of the Word of God but directs us to it and the cross of Christ.  He convicts us of our guilt not of our sin.  The Word of God sets the standard, defines the sin, commands the obedience.  The Holy Spirit makes us aware of when we are not living up to that standard of righteousness.

Now, don’t be too quick to say that the Holy Spirit will only convict the world of guilt but not Christians because, after all, Christians have been made righteous by the blood of the lamb and no longer need to deal with sin.  True but not true.  True in terms of justification.  Not true in terms of sanctification.  Which is to say that it is true that we have been made legally righteous by the blood of Christ but it is not true that sin is now no longer relevant to our progressive sanctification.  Jesus fulfilled the law, he did not set it aside just because he loved us.  Sin must be dealt with, not ignored.  Otherwise there is no transformation, no change, no power.  The power of the cross is in transforming the human heart which starts with confession and repentance and ends with forgiveness and reconciliation not just between us and God but between us and our fellow man (and woman).

Whew!  That took us a while to get there but I needed to go through that exercise.  Now I can ask the right questions.  If the job of the Holy Spirit is to convict us of the guilt of our sin, why is it that we simply don’t recognize sin for what it is?  How is it that we are so unaware of the nature and the manifestations of the sin within us?  And now, the answer is simple.  Because we ignore it.  We think that sin is set aside by the cross so we just skip that part and go straight to forgiveness.  It’s bad theology.  When was the last time you heard a sermon on sin and evil?  And, don’t get me wrong.  I’m not just talking about focusing on the negative.  It’s really about focusing on the positive.  Talking about having the mind of Christ and the character of Christ, it’s about hungering and thirsting for righteousness, not just focusing on unrighteousness.  It’s about wanting to please God by being aware of our sinful mindset, our tendency to protect our ego at all costs, our reluctance to be broken.  When we live in the light, we do not ignore the darkness but we vanquish it by calling it what it is and turning our backs on it.  How can we turn our backs on something we cannot clearly see and define.  Confession of sins is the essential first step on the way of the cross.  That’s why we are spending so much time with it.

What does all of this have to do with brokenness?  Humility?  Getting rid of self?  Not protecting our egos, our positions, our losses?  Well, everything.  It depends on whether you are the accuser or the accused, the sinner or the sinned-against.

If you are the accused, brokenness is a constant dying to self.  Not easy.  As Roy Hession, in his little book, The Calvary Road, says, “It will mean no plans, no time, no money, no pleasure of our own.  It will mean a constant yielding to those around us, for our yieldedness to God is measured by our yieldedness to man.  Every humiliation, everyone who tries and vexes us, in God’s way of breaking us, so that there is yet deeper channel in us for the Life of Christ” (p. 25).  Just like Jesus.

But that is only half the battle.  Listen carefully, it is only half the battle but it is the first half, the most important half, the place where we must start.  Otherwise we will also be blind and deaf to the work of the Holy Spirit.  In every accusation there is some truth.  In every action against us, we react, we respond very often in the flesh.  For every splinter in the eye of the other, there is a log of resentment and bitterness and self-defense in our own.  Don’t be too quick to dismiss this first step.  Search your own heart first.  Even better, ask God to search your heart through the Word of God and reveal any sinful ways in you (and me).  That is the first work that needs to be done in humility.  Brokenness means starting with yourself.

But there is a second step that is equally necessary even if secondary.  That is to accept that searching out when it finds something.  One thing is to ask God through the Word to search out your heart, perhaps talk to another godly person, read a good book on the subject bathed in prayer, to be open to conviction, drive self-justification and rationalization away and truly look at the situation from the other person’s point of view, or, more importantly, from God’s point of view, based on his values, his priorities, his plans.  Having the mind of Christ.  Another thing is to accept that conviction of guilt with regards to sin when it comes.

Roy Hession tells us that “brokenness in daily experience is simply the response of humility to the conviction of God” (p. 23).  It is both God’s work and ours.  He brings the pressure to bear.  He reveals his standard of holiness, his priorities, his values, his point of view, but you must respond, accept, be willing to see yourself as you are in your sin knowing that he has freed you from it’s bonds (precisely through this process of brokenness).  Mr. Hession goes on to say that “the Lord Jesus cannot live in us fully and reveal Himself through us until the proud self within us is broken.  This simply means that the hard unyielding self, which justifies itself, wants its own way, stands up for its rights, and seeks its own glory, at last bows its head to God’s will, admits its wrong, gives up its own way to Jesus, surrenders its rights and discards its own glory – that the Lord Jesus might have all and be all.  In other words it is dying to self and self-attitudes” (p.22).

And don’t think for a moment that this is easy.  It is a process.  It is the heart of spiritual maturity.  It takes training and prayer and effort and failure and more effort and more prayer and more reflection and more training.  There is a lot of self to deal with even in the Christian’s life.  The difference is whether or not we are aware of it and aware of the process that we must go through to deal with that self.  It is especially difficult when we are falsely accused by our brothers and sisters in Christ, especially at the leadership level and we have something real to lose, our reputations, our jobs, our marriages, our livelihoods, our income, our families.  These are not light things.  And it hurts.  And it is dangerous.  Love always is because that is what this is in the end.  It is love.  Love for God directed at the other.  Even though they may never recognize how they hurt us.  Even though they may never reconcile with us (which is what we want the most).  Even though they may never be convicted of their own guilt and sin and spiritual blindness.  Even though the wounds of these relationships may only be fully healed in full reconciliation before the throne of God on the final day (even though you can be truly healed – but not fully healed – in this life by giving it over to God).

In the meantime, we must search our own hearts, and have God search our hearts through his Word for anything that is not pleasing to Him, for anything that has broken our relationship with another, for anything that may be lurking in the shadows of our minds that we do not want to face and confess and deal with at the foot of the cross.  Is there anyone you are not right with?  Is there anyone you cannot pray with and work with with an open and contrite heart according to the gifts that God has given you in the kingdom work of God?  That is the goal of spiritual unity after all, isn’t it?  Like Samuel, the prophet of old, do we have the courage to ask people if they have anything against us, anything we need to repent of, anything that divides us from the other?

We need to be in a right relationship with God, of course, but also everyone else in the church in order to achieve spiritual unity.  That is the highest value of the fellowship.  That is what pleases God.  That is why he died on the cross so that we might have healed relationships with Him and with others.  Roy Hession says, “we shall see His power being demonstrated in our hearts and lives and service, and His victorious life will fill us and overflow through us to others” (p. 21).  That is the anointing.  Our wills must be broken to his will.  Our plans must be turned into his plans.  His vision must become ours.  His priorities must be our priorities.  This is brokenness.  This is the way of the cross.  Without it, we remain blind and powerless and nothing will change.  With it, everything is possible.

The Desert Warrior

P.S. Let’s talk to God….

Lord, I confess that I am spiritually blind.  I have a lot of self still in me and it is hard to get rid of.  I can’t do it on my own.  Just the other day, someone hurt me deeply and I cried and yelled and got angry and gave all kinds of explanations but there was nothing I could do to change the way that this man saw me.  He did not see me that way you see me.  He is a leader in the church and his opinion matters.  But there was no way to make him understand that he saw me as a loser, a disgrace, a person with all kinds of problems and not worthy to be able to use his gifts in the church.  I haven’t been that hurt in a long time, Lord.  But I missed the point entirely.  It wasn’t about me.  I am a loser, a disgrace.  I am not worthy in myself.  If I look at my flesh, it is nothing but filthy rags.  He chose not to see my as I am in Christ and I joined him in that point of view.  Lord, forgive me.

It scares me to think that if I just humble myself, he will take that to mean that he is right and my attitude will justify all of his accusations.  It may continue like that for years with no solution in sight.  I may have to pay a very high price.  It doesn’t seem right.  But yet, that is what you call me to.  I know.  Let it go.  It’s all true.  He has his list of sins that I have committed.  I have a longer one with items he doesn’t even know about.  And you, Lord, have the longest, most complete one there is.  Past, present and future and you have nailed it to the cross and no longer hold it against me.  If he does still hold it against me, then I need to accept that and pray for him (and me).  I would like full and true reconciliation and that is what I pray for.  But it starts with me.  Break me, O God.  Search me and try me and reveal in me anything that displeases you.  The rest is up to you.  Thank you for teaching me the way of the cross.  I chose to walk in it with you.  In Jesus name I pray.  Amen.

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Seeking Jerusalem – Day 32 “The Courage of Transparency”

07 Wednesday Mar 2018

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THE WAY OF THE CROSSThe Way of the Cross – Lenten Season 2018

“If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved” (Romans 10:9,10 NIV).

“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.  The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” (James 5:16 NIV).

The Courage of Confession

We gave it a try.  We really did.

The new Pastor asked everyone to get together for a meeting and we all came.  I brought my wife and daughter (since they were also involved) and the Pastor brought the elder who had offended.  The Pastor was a believer in the power of reconciliation and apparently had convinced the elder to show up. One of the other elders had given the Pastor our names as people the Board needed to reconcile with.  When we had stood up for Scottie, a street evangelist who was thrown out of the church for making people feel uncomfortable and always asking for money, we got thrown out as well.

So we all showed up, all of us believers, all of us excited about the prospect of true reconciliation.  Everyone except for Scottie.  They never did get around to him.  They should have started with him.  The ministry of reconciliation is spiritual warfare and we were terribly unprepared.

It was like pulling teeth.  We apologized for anything we could think of but the truth was that this elder but also the whole Board (who wasn’t there) were in the wrong.  But he couldn’t admit it.  He was spiritually blind to his sin.

In some ways, it wasn’t his fault.  He had no training in church discipline really and he didn’t know that it should always be done in the context of discipleship.  He thought that as a leader he had a right and an obligation to get rid of people who were a problem or a danger to the rest of the church.  Not true.  But very common thinking among leaders in churches.  The goal is reconciliation.  Always and in every situation.

Even the Pastor agreed with him for a while until I explained that the context of discipleship and reconciliation was missing.  Then he reluctantly agreed with me but the elder stayed true to his justification and the rationalization of his actions and never confessed that what he had done was not pleasing to God.

I mostly let my wife and daughter talk since they needed the reconciliation as bad as I did.  We were all kicked out as a family.  At one point, the elder tried to say that he had not threatened to call the police on Scottie and my daughter stood up and rebuked him for his lies.  “We were all there,” she said.  “We saw it with our own eyes and we heard what you said in front of everyone.”  It was beautiful.  A thirteen-year-old rebuking an elder of the church for lying to cover up his sin.  He had to admit the truth, but he did so reluctantly.  He was beginning to realize that coming to this meeting was not what he had expected.  His hard heart was being exposed because he refused to expose it in humility on his own.  That is what confession means.

He finally admitted that with us (he didn’t mention Scottie) he should have tried harder to find a solution that didn’t involve kicking us out of church.  So I stood up and gave him a hug and told him that we forgave him (again).  One of the other elders had also arrived and we gave hugs all around.  Some tears were shed.  It was a beautiful moment.

Or was it? 

Was there true reconciliation?  Did my wife and daughter go home cleansed and renewed by the Holy Spirit?  Was the cross at the center of this encounter?  You might say that we accomplished a lot just by having the meeting (and that might be true) but to pretend that it was reconciliation is just plain naïve.  The relational consequences of that night broke my relationship with the Pastor and, ultimately, the Pastor’s contract with the church was not renewed.  Was it because of this meeting, this insistence on reconciliation (but done badly without previous spiritual work, without an awareness of the spiritual warfare involved)?  Probably.  I’m not sure.  But I am sure that it didn’t help.  Why?  Let’s talk about that….

Yesterday we talked about the True Confessions of a Disciple.  This is not easy work.  It is the work of the Holy Spirit in convicting the world of guilt with regards to sin.  Here is a quote from yesterday…

And don’t think that this is a light issue.  This is where the battle is the fiercest, where Satan spends most of his time distracting the church and giving them other battles to fight, other issues to deal with.  This is where the Holy Spirit focuses all of his power and effort to bring sinners to the foot of the cross in brokenness and repentance.

But the truth is that nobody talks about sin much anymore.  We have been forgiven.  There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  Sin gets relegated to the background.  We think it is spiritual to just love people and “cover over a multitude of sins” (which is a total misunderstanding of that verse in James 5:20).  For some reason we seem to think that God just set aside his justice in the name of love.  If it was that easy, we wouldn’t need the cross.  But we do it all the time.  In the name of love, justice doesn’t matter, sin doesn’t matter.  Just be nice.  If you are nice and don’t take offence then there is no problem.  Not true. 

How many people in the church (Pastors included) think that being nice or being moral or being professional is the same thing as being spiritual.  Spirituality is more than those things (even if it is not less).  Jesus said that we needed more than the righteousness of the Pharisees, but he did NOT set aside the law of God……rather he fulfilled it.  Let’s be clear.  Love does not set aside the law but fulfills it.  That is why sin cannot be ignored it must be dealt with.  And dealt with in a very specific way that God has laid out for us in the Word and is rooted in the cross of Christ.

Here is another quote from yesterday’s blog post….

Confession is about looking reality square in the face and calling things what they truly are, no excuses, no justifications, no rationalization.  Sin is what it is.  Rebellion, self-authority, selfishness, disinterest, ignoring a relationship that cannot be ignored.  If we are not convicted of our guilt with regards to sin and rebellion before God (which is a gift of the Holy Spirit), we cannot be forgiven.

The elder finally admitted that his process wasn’t perfect and that he should have tried to find ways to solve the problem without kicking us out of the church.  But would he give up his right and responsibility as a leader to throw people out of the church if he saw them as a problem that would affect the rest of the church?  No.  That is a fundamental responsibility of leadership, isn’t it?  To make the hard decisions, to do what is best for the majority, to defend the church against problem people?  No, it’s not.  We do not defend the church.  We defend the gospel and in defending the gospel, we defend the church.  Otherwise it is called Spiritual Abuse or just plain abuse of authority.  Nothing more and nothing less.  And there is a lot of it going around.

This elder (or the Pastor) would never see themselves as capable of Spiritual Abuse.  They are nice people.  They mean well.  They are well-intentioned (mostly).  They love the Lord.  Yes.  True.  But that’s not enough.  Your righteousness needs to be more than what the Pharisees offer, Jesus said (Matthew 5:20).  Many of them were nice, too.  Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, Gamaliel (and his father and grandfather) were all pillars of the community, truly interested in the welfare of the people, and totally in the wrong.  Jesus called it Spiritual Blindness and rebuked them for being the blind who lead the blind.  He was the fiercest with the Pharisees because their “leven” was the most poisonous to the people.  It kept them from embracing the Kingdom of God which has an entirely different approach altogether to sin.

You would think our elders and leaders (and Pastors) would know that.  Many do not.  Many can preach it but get confused when they try to implement it in conflict situations.  Even among Pastors but especially among elders and other lay leaders, there simply is no training on these things.  How can that be? 

Isn’t the ministry of reconciliation the heart of the gospel?  Yes, it is but we tend to think of it only in terms of evangelism and not in terms of discipleship.  It’s hard after all.  The trick is to create a spiritual culture that understands the power and priority of the ministry of reconciliation.  But expect opposition because the Devil will not let you go there without a fight.

We will talk more about these dynamics over the next few days, about what true reconciliation looks like and how forgiveness leads to reconciliation (but isn’t the same thing at all), and how powerful a spiritual community rooted in true reconciled unity can be in evangelism and discipleship and transformed lives.  It is glorious (as it should be).

But for now, we will talk about the courage of confession.  It isn’t easy.  For any of us.  In the flesh, without walking in the Spirit daily, without sacrifice, without focus, without understanding the Way of the Cross, we just won’t do it.

Even more so for a leader who still has quite worldly ideas about what leadership means in the church.  But don’t feel bad.  You are in good company.

James, the brother of John, was always playing the power angle.  He wanted to get the best seats beside Jesus (with his brother on the other side) even on the night of the Lord’s Supper.  He wasn’t the only one, mind you, but he was kind of obvious.  Remember that he got to drink from the same cup that Jesus drank from and was one of the first martyrs in the early church (Acts 12:2), never a leader of the church but always the leader, one of the first, in martyrdom.  Strange how things worked out.

James, the brother of Jesus, (often called “camel knees” for his long periods of prayer on his knees), became the leader of the Jerusalem church (Acts 12:17 et al), wrote the epistle of James (James 1:1) and witnessed the resurrection of Jesus even before the others (according to Paul in I Corinthians 15:7 although the timeline is unclear).  The Bible tells us that the brothers of Jesus (children of Joseph and Mary, Matthew 13:55,56) did not believe he was the Messiah or Divine (John 7:5) and yet, Jesus appeared to James in a special way to convince him of the truth and prepare him for leadership.  His humility became legendary (especially after and because of denying his brother throughout most of his life).  There is a wonderful story of grace in there somewhere.

So you have James, the brother of John, interested in power at the right hand of Jesus but instead was given the grace of early martyrdom and you have James, the brother of Jesus, not able to accept that his brother is anything more than what he appears to be, blind to his divinity, blind to his messiahship, even though he spent years at his side, more so than even the disciples.  And he is given the grace of leadership (although tradition says that he was also martyred later on).

If you let him, the Holy Spirit will burn those worldly ideas of leadership out of you in the cauldron of confession and repentance.  But if we have a church culture where we deny the reality of sin and it’s ability still to derail us on the way of the cross, then there is no hope for us.

We avoid it like the plague.  We even think it is spiritual to just skip the hard part and go straight to the love part.  How many times have I heard people say that they don’t want to get into it, they don’t want to dredge things up again, they don’t want to talk about what happened, he said, she said…..and they are right but they are also wrong.

If you’re going to dredge it all up but not deal with it properly, then don’t bother.  But in order to deal with it properly, you must dredge it all up and talk about the behavior (with good intentions or not) that is not pleasing to God.  And do it with grace.  The Bible is rather clear about most of it and if there is a real difference of opinion (not just ignorance of the Word), then Paul tells us what to do about that too.  It’s not a mystery.  The problem is that we are not Bereans (Acts 17:11), we don’t dig into the Word of God and discuss what it says and pray and think and talk together to clarify what is pleasing to God and what is not.  We all just think we have a right to our own opinion and that’s the end of it.  Very post-modern of us, don’t you think?

Do you want to know the real reason why nobody wants to drag up old sins and talk about them?  It isn’t because they are so spiritual (since they are skipping the first and most essential step in the way of the cross) but because they are so lacking in understanding of the ways of God.  They don’t understand sin.  They don’t have a cross focus.  They aren’t committed to the Way of the Cross.  You don’t believe me?  Let’s take a closer look….

Is there any question that people are reluctant to talk about sin?  No.  Is there any question that many leaders believe and teach that we should just go straight to forgiveness.  No, that’s true too. 

Did Jesus not say, if someone sins against you, you should talk to them and if they won’t listen, bring someone with you as a witness?  Do we do that?  No.

Is it not true that James tells us to confess our sins one to another?  Yes, it’s true.  Do we do it?  Not very often.  Why?  Because it’s scary and very often our confession will be used against us rather than for us.  There is no context of grace but rather a culture of shame.

To this day, most leaders believe that if another leader sins publicly, he must be removed from office.  He loses his position of leadership, his career, his income, probably his wife or family.  Why in the world would anybody do something so foolish?

Yes, they should not have sinned publicly (or privately) in the first place and there is obviously a spiritual issue (or weakness or warfare) going on in the background that needs to be looked at.  But we treat it like a disease, thinking it needs to be cut off before it affects the rest of the church.  Again, we miss the entire point of the ministry of reconciliation.  It isn’t just about NOT sinning.  Yes, we need to make every effort not to sin.  Obviously.  But our lack of grace and our commitment to a shame-based culture makes sinning even more likely, not less likely.  It isn’t first and foremost about whether or not we sin but rather what we do about it when we sin.  The mark of a true leader is not in his clean, perfect, professional lifestyle but in his humility before the Cross (Paul, David, Moses, Elijah).

Our church culture is most often based on shame and not grace and that’s the truth of it.  Very few churches get this right and that is why we have the form of religion but lack the power of it.

If we go deeper, we can see that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between justification (Jesus is my Savior) and sanctification (Jesus is my Lord) and this has led to all kinds of problems in the church.  Satan isn’t stupid.  He’s done a good job of obscuring the main issues of the faith.  The question is whether or not we are aware of his schemes (II Corinthians 2:11).

Let me say this as clearly as I can…..no, wait.  I’ll let John say it instead…..

“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin.

But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.  He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (I John 1: 8-2:2 NIV).

Last time I checked, the word “anybody” also applies to leaders and pastors.

Statistics show (from anonymous surveys), that most pastors have committed sins privately that they have never confessed publicly and it is eating them alive.

Statistics show that a majority of pastors and church leaders (mostly among the men) are ensnared in pornography even while preaching the power of the gospel on Sunday morning and they are getting used to it.

Statistics show that a majority of pastors and church leaders have a private life that they are ashamed of but are afraid to talk to anyone about.

This is the truth.  John says, “If we claim to be without sin…” which we do every time we go to a Board meeting or preach on Sunday morning pretending that we are right with God when it is a lie…..”we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”  And if we are confronted with this truth and we deny it, what are we saying.  John makes it clear.  “If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.”  We are calling God a liar.  John seems to think that sin and dealing with sin through the power of the cross is pretty normal stuff.  It is the work of every day ministry.

You say, “But God has blessed my ministry.  People have been born again.  Lives have been transformed.”  I don’t doubt it.  One of the most troubling verses in the Bible for leaders is Matthew 7:21-23.

“Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  Many will say to me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?”  Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you.   Away from me, you evildoers!”

I never want to hear those words from the Lord.  We all assume that we will hear the other words, “Well done good and faithful servant!….Come and share your master’s happiness!” (Matthew 25:21 NIV).  But is it true?  How do we know beforehand which one it will be?

For myself, I am confused.  I have not prophesied in his name (unless you consider preaching a form of prophesy, which I do).  I have not cast out demons or done miracles in his name.  My ministry is rather dull and pedantic.  This kind of ministry is wonderful, exciting, dynamic.  No wonder people are being saved and lives are being changed.  I can only envy those who have that kind of leadership in their ministry.  They are no doubt charismatic, relational, dynamic.  Wonderful speakers and deep thinkers “who correctly handle the Word of Truth” (II Timothy 2: 15b NIV).

In my case, my own passion and enthusiasm got me into a lot of trouble.  I tend to say what I think and I had no classes on politics when I was in seminary.  My marital problems, my intimacy issues, my own weaknesses and pride and arrogance and the church culture I grew up in could not be talked about much less confessed.  I left the church, then my wife left me and then I left God (or tried to).  It was a downward spiral from the heights of my leadership position to the depths of my sin.  It was a long time before I realized that this was God’s severe mercy.  His agenda is always eternal.  His goals are to create in me a clean heart and to make me into the image of His Son, no matter the cost (to me, my reputation, my family).  But I had to be willing to walk the way of the cross and for a long time I wasn’t.

I had a Bachelor’s degree in Religious Education, a Master’s degree in Theology from a top Seminary.  I won one of two scholarships for a second Master’s degree in Old Testament Theology (which I never finished) and was preparing myself to go to Sheffield University in England to study for my PhD in the Old Testament as Literature.  My future was assured.  The other guy that won the other scholarship in New Testament studies ended up as a Professor at that same prestigious Seminary in the States.  Well-thought of by his peers, contributing to the Kingdom of God as a Professor, a leader in his local church.  I decided to forego the ivory tower in search of a more practical, hands-on experience of the transforming work of God.  I was not satisfied with the way things were going and wanted to get my hands dirty.  I didn’t realize that I was about to be thrown face first into the filth of the pigsty of church work and church culture.  I’m sure you don’t see it that way, good for you.  It isn’t an accusation so much as a description.  That’s where the work is done.  Call it “the desert if that sounds better to your ears.

In all of my studies, they never prepared me for the real world of church work among people and leaders who did not have a culture of confession, repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation.  Bible College (and even Seminary) tended to pull the best and the brightest from each church and put them together in one place.  The joy and fellowship we shared was fantastic.  The ministry we did together and did to each other was deep and meaningful.  Yes, there were issues and problems but they were generally dealt with through confession of sins, the faith walk of repentance, the power of forgiveness and the ministry of reconciliation.  It was wonderful.  Then I became the Pastor of a local church in our denomination.

It wasn’t all their fault, of course.  I had my issues to deal with (as do we all).  The point is that the church is entirely unprepared to deal with the reality of sin especially among leaders and I was naïve enough to try to explain it to them and use myself as an example.  You can imagine what happened next….

Yes, I envy those leaders who seem to have no problems, that don’t have sins to confess, that never fall to temptation, that never create a mess of their own making while being leaders of the church…….just like in the Bible…..leaders like Moses and David and Elijah and Paul…..squeaky clean…..never made a mistake……leaders to look up to…..oh, wait….those are the wrong guys to pick. 

Moses was a murderer.  He couldn’t even speak properly.  He wouldn’t get past his background check.  Forget about him…

David looks good.  He would no doubt be a great leader… until the affair with his secretary, Bathsheba, and the death of their son happens……then on top of it all, this guy gets his secretary’s husband killed by playing with the brakes on the family car so to speak and creating an accident.  Nobody’s fault.  Things happen. (I know of a Pastor who had an affair with his secretary and when the husband found out, he hung himself in the garage and they found him there with a note saying he could not face the shame of it all.  Try to live with that for the rest of your life…).

Or Elijah, the powerful prophet of God who could bring down fire from heaven and destroy those who would stand against God.  His preaching was powerful.  He could cast out demons.  He could do miracles.  People’s lives were changed.  The entire direction of the church or denomination could be affected by this one man.  But for some reason, he was also a coward.  He ran, weak-kneed from the fight when it got to it’s fiercest.  And he complained about it bitterly, depressed and alone, cutting himself off from the rest, isolating himself and not sharing the weak side of his ministry.

And Paul, well, what is there to say?  Just a few months ago, he had the police pick up one of the elders and dragged him downtown in front of a judge for some trumped up charge or other…..all very embarrassing.  I’ve heard that some of those guys never showed up again…..they just disappeared into the system…..sometimes with their entire families.  Nobody knows for sure but they say he had them killed….and you say that he’s applying for a job as a missionary pastor with our church?  Are you kidding?

In the case of some of those leaders who preach, cast our demons and do miracles, God will say “I never knew you.”  To others, like Moses, David and Elijah (much less Paul), they are considered the heroes of the faith (Hebrews 11).  What’s the difference?  What is the difference between David and Saul?  Between Peter and Judas?  Between those who do ministry but do not walk with God and those who walk with God as their fundamental life ministry even if it costs them their church ministry, their leadership, their marriages, their families.

They may be unwilling at first, but, like David, when they are rebuked in their sin, they fall to their knees in repentance and faith and walk the way of the cross.

Your church ministry must always be rooted in your life ministry and walk with God.  If it isn’t, then God in his severe mercy may bring situations about that will face you with your sin and the moment of truth will arrive and you will have to make a decision of whether you will save your soul or your career, your relationship with God or your relationship with the people.  You may be crucified for it.  Welcome to the club.

For this elder, it was a thirteen year old girl who rebuked him for his lies and the hardness of his heart.  For Pete’s sake, how do you justify throwing someone out of the church for asking for money and then throw out the family that stands up for him (whether they did it in the right way or not)?  But he couldn’t see it.  He needed his Pastor to help him to see his sin, and call it sin.  But that didn’t happen either.  Otherwise, the sin cannot be dealt with at the foot of the cross and there is no true reconciliation.

That is the courage of confession and the beauty of transparency.

The Desert Warrior

P.S.  Let’s pray to God….

Lord, my own spiritual blindness scares me.  How do I make sure that I don’t fall into that trap?  I don’t ever want to hear those horrible words from you, “I never knew you.”  I want to be like Paul and declare that all my degrees and studies and positions of leadership and ministry goals and successes are all garbage and don’t mean a thing to me if I can’t have you.  Your path is much harder, much more dangerous, but also glorious.  I want to walk your path with you, Lord.  Help me to do it everyday.  In your name I pray.  Amen.

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Seeking Jerusalem – Day 31 “True Confessions”

06 Tuesday Mar 2018

Posted by in 4. The Way of the Cross, Seeking Jerusalem

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THE WAY OF THE CROSSThe Way of the Cross – Lenten Season 2018

“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.  If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.  My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin.  But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.  He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (I John 1:8-2:2 NIV)

True Confessions of a Disciple

Confessions are scary business. For everyone.

True confessions sounds like one of those rag mags you find on a newsstand full of the foibles and follies of the rich and famous.  People love their reality shows and true confessions spice things up nicely.  And celebrities are used to it, aren’t they?  Nobody gets hurt.  Some people like to air their dirty laundry in public, sharing their accusations and stories of betrayal and disappointment with the whole world watching.

Those of us who have a bit more sense, avoid those kinds of situations like the plague.  True confessions are the dirty side of reality and it just mires you in bitterness and resentment as you are reminded of all your own hurts and offenses.

So when it comes to the church, most of us are rather uncomfortable with the idea of confession.  Isn’t that a Catholic idea anyway?  We don’t do that in my church.  The Pastor might talk about it once in a while, but it is always a silent confession just between God and myself.   Nobody else’s business.  It’s a private thing, not public.  Thank God. 

Besides, all that talk about sin and rebellion is so last century.  Nobody wants to focus on the negative side of things.  We are more about positive psychology and becoming the best person we can be, right?  Come to think of it, my Pastor hardly ever preaches on hell and eternal damnation either.  It seems like that whole side of things has been forgotten about or set aside or something.  Now I’m not so sure…..if that’s a good thing or not.  After all, the Bible does talk about it…..quite a bit.  Even Jesus warned the people about it and said that there was a real danger that, even a person who considered themselves to be part of the people of God, could still end up in hell where there was fire and gnashing of teeth.  I remember that part….

Yes, true, honest confessions of sin are definitely a part of the gospel message.  It is key to salvation in fact.  There is no redemption without it.  Apparently God thought our sin and rebellion was so dangerous to our eternal welfare that He sent His son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross to take care of it.  Accepting and confessing to God and others the reality of our sin and rebellion is essential to our salvation.

We keep saying that confession, repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation are the Way of the Cross, that these four things are essential to the Gospel, that they reflect the whole point and power of the Cross, that they are, in fact, the heart and soul of the gospel because these are the steps we need to take to be reconciled first of all with God and then with others and that they are only possible because of the cross.

But saying it doesn’t make it so.  We need to take each one of these concepts and show from Scripture how they are rooted in and reflect the person and work of Christ and why they are essential to salvation.  Perhaps you already agree or know these truths.  In any event, it is a good exercise to show why these four steps are essential to appropriating the good news of the gospel for ourselves.

And don’t think that this is a light issue.  This is where the battle is the fiercest, where Satan spends most of his time distracting the church and giving them other battles to fight, other issues to deal with.  This is where the Holy Spirit focuses all of his power and effort to bring sinners to the foot of the cross in brokenness and repentance.  The Bible tells us that the work of the Holy Spirit is to “convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8 NIV).  Jesus preached repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Matthew 3:2 and 4:17) so that mankind could be reconciled to God.  There it is in a nutshell.  The preaching of repentance for those who are convicted of their sin so that they can be forgiven and brought into a new relationship with God.

All of this is only possible because of the person and work of Christ on the cross.

The Bible is saturated with this message because it is the entire point of the gospel.  No one really doubts it.  But still there is a problem.  Nobody wants to do it, much less talk about it.  We don’t mind talking about forgiveness and reconciliation but we avoid the confession and repentance side of things.  But is that even possible?  Does that not destroy the gospel and, in fact, give us a false gospel?  Are we in eternal danger if we do not embrace both sides of the cross?  Indeed we are.  The Bible is also clear about that.

In theological terms, this is often discussed as the relationship between justification (we are “justified” before God by the righteousness of Christ who is our substitute) and sanctification (often called “progressive” sanctification which is our actual level of righteousness).

The idea is not to get all theological here but a basic understanding of these two concepts will help us find the powerful truth of the cross and apply it to our lives.  A misunderstanding of these two concepts has created problems of “cheap grace, legalism and moralism” which still dominate most churches today.  Remember, Satan works hard to get us to miss the heart of the gospel and therefore lose out on the power of the gospel to heal relationships (especially with God but also with others).  That’s why so many churches have the form of religion but not the power of transformed lives.

So it’s worth getting this right, don’t you think?  We will be talking about these concepts for the next couple of days, bringing to light the key questions and issues so that we get it right and stay focused on the power of the cross to heal our relationships with God and others.

Besides, isn’t that what the cross is all about?  What a crazy “logo” for the church.  Who in his right mind would choose an instrument of torture, a symbol of oppression and cruelty and senseless violence as a way to represent the church of God?  We hang it around our necks, we proudly display it on top of our churches and in the front of our sanctuaries.  Almost as if we were proud of it.  And we are.  Just like Jesus doesn’t hide his wounds and is often depicted as “a lamb that was slain” (Rev. 5:6), we don’t hide from the dark side of the cross.  Reality is a bitch.  It hurts.  The nails through the wrists and hands and heels hurt and hurt deeply.  The suffering is real.  The pain is unbearable.

But we aren’t masochists.  We aren’t “reality junkies” wanting nothing more than to witness the suffering of others as a form of self-catharsis or vicarious pleasure (or pain).  It isn’t reality by itself that is a symbol of our faith but rather reality transformed by the love of God in Christ into the power to heal us where reality hurts the most.  In our relationships.

By his wounds we are healed the Bible promises us.  The healing we need is relational first of all…..everybody knows that.  When we are surrounded by people who love us, we can endure almost anything that reality can throw at us.  Nobody regrets not making more money or spending more time on their careers when they are on their deathbeds.  They only have regrets about relationships that have not been healed, friends and family that are not there, loved ones estranged and distant, unable to bridge that gap of offense or misunderstanding or downright meanness that happened so long ago.  The healing we need first of all is between us and God.  Then we will understand and experience the source of the power to heal other relationships as well.

It starts with confession.

Confession is about looking reality square in the face and calling things what they truly are, no excuses, no justifications, no rationalization.  Sin is what it is.  Rebellion, self-authority, selfishness, disinterest, ignoring a relationship that cannot be ignored.  If we are not convicted of our guilt with regards to sin and rebellion before God (which is a gift of the Holy Spirit), we cannot be forgiven.

We must first of all acknowledge the absolute necessity of the cross because our situation was so grave, so dangerous, so impossible to solve that the only solution was for God, Himself, to come down and take the punishment on His own head, in the body, as a human even though he was also divine.  The necessity of the cross is our confession.  There is no other way than to start with the naked truth, the stark reality, the unforgiving existence of evil in the heart of man.

The cross is not a symbol only of reality but of reality dealt with, forgiven, cleansed, transformed into something even more real, more substantial that will last into eternity.  And it is that truth, reality transformed by love, that the cross represents for us.

If that is true, then why are we so afraid to admit the truth about ourselves.  It isn’t about reality but about “reality transformed.”  What is the big deal about confession, especially  confession followed by repentance and both culminating in forgiveness and reconciliation?  Why is it so hard to do?

How often have I heard the complaint from those outside the church that they just felt guilty and dirty every time they went to church.  They didn’t appreciate the negativity.  They didn’t like the confession.  They didn’t want the light of the Word of God to shine on their lives.  They only heard a “half-gospel.”  They left before they understood how the story ends, how the drama unfolds.  Sometimes it was because the preaching was not properly focused and sometimes just because those who reject the confession can never hear the good news of the gospel because they refuse to deal with reality.

Some who are more philosophically inclined argue that it is a “straw man” argument.  First you convince people that they are guilty and then you tell them that they are forgiven.  It is pure manipulation, they claim.  Well that would be true if the person was NOT guilty but if they are guilty, then it is not manipulation but rather spiritual therapy resulting in a burden of guilt and shame that is taken away and the result is literally transformed lives.

Yes, confession is dangerous especially in this dark and difficult world (and even in our churches).  Not everybody in the church understands the spiritual dynamics involved in true confessions and why they are necessary not only for salvation but for our progressive sanctification.  Many people in the church only have a “half-gospel,” they reject any feeling of manipulation or guilt or shame as consider it to be “unspiritual.”  Their blindness is deep and profound.

In churches that have fallen into the trap of legalism or moralism, the danger of confession is that it will be used against you, your reputation may be damaged, your livelihood affected, your marriage could break up, your position in the church could be dissolved.

Who in their right mind confesses their sins “one to another” as the Bible directs us to do as part of our progressive sanctification (James 5:16)?  Are you crazy?  Very few people (including the leaders) really understand the gospel and so are ill-equipped to handle these revelations of guilt and shame.  Some will even claim that it is a lack of maturity when it is, of all things, a sign of great spiritual relational maturity (even if unwise in the eyes of the leaders).

Of all things, confession is rooted in the cross of Christ since it is willing to look at the reality of sin and shame and rebellion and call it what it is and know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there is forgiveness for those who confess and repent of their sins.  That is the good news and no amount of stupidity on the side of the church or church leaders can change that fundamental fact.  Thank God.

But it still takes courage and faith and an eye on eternity.  This is where persecution within the church usually starts.  And the pain and rejection is deep and hurts like hell.  So be it.  It is the price of our discipleship.  It is the first step in our spiritual healing.  It is the path which we call the Way of the Cross and there is no avoiding it.  Embracing it, on the other hand, will bring joy beyond imagination.

The Desert Warrior

P.S.  Let’s pray…..

Lord, I don’t like this confession stuff.  It scares me.  But I know you have asked me to confess the truth, to call sin what it is and don’t sugar-coat it.  So I will.  This is the way of the cross and it will hurt both within as I crucify my flesh and without as others in the church crucify me as well.  It hurts when they crucify me because there is no redemptive purpose to their comments.  They are probably just reacting, scared that my transparency will require them also to be transparent.  Forgive them, Lord and teach all of us to carry each others burdens and bring them to the cross together in joint confession of sin and rejoicing in the forgiveness that you offer.  Thank you, Lord for always having one of those disciples around to help me.  In your name I pray.  Amen.

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