Walking The Roman Road – Lenten Season 2019

“We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.  I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.  As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.  I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.  For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.  So I find this law at work:  When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.  What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:14-25a NIV).

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…” (Romans 8:1 NIV).

The Quality of our Struggle

I think I need to apologize for my last blog on the nature of our struggle as Christians.  A few of you might have been blown away.  It was a picture of Christian maturity that accepts our suffering for the sake of others, especially for their salvation as the main purpose of our lives as disciples.  But this is a blog for new believers and for those wanting to use the Roman Road for the purposes of evangelism.

The problem is that we are now on the other side of the equation.  We are no longer talking about evangelism but rather discipleship (or sanctification) and the expectations are high even while the support and help are literally divine.  This is God’s purpose for us in this life and we cannot even imagine the kind of significance and meaning that it will give us as we walk in that path with him and our fellow believers.  But maybe it’s too much too soon.

Let’s start at the beginning and take a closer look at this famous passage where Paul talks about our struggle as Christians.  Romans 7 and 8 go together of course.  The question is how to understand the relationship between the two parts.  On the one hand, we struggle with sin as Christians but on the other hand, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

But the truth is that this passage has been hotly debated for centuries and there are a number of ways to look at it.  Is Romans 7 really talking about Christians or non-Christians?  Or perhaps it’s talking about unbelieving Jews who were all tied up in knots by the law.  Part of it has to do with Romans 8 as well.  That is obviously talking about Christians.  No one denies that.  So the question is really what the relationship is between Romans 7 and 8.  Is Paul stating the problem in Romans 7 and then giving the solution in Romans 8?  That seems to be the way most people take it.  I think that is true but only when both sides are understood as a necessary part of the Christian walk.

Those that claim Paul is talking about a non-Christian experience in Romans 7 point to phrases such as “sold as a slave to sin” (vs. 14), “I know that nothing good lives in me” (vs.18), and “what a wretched man that I am!” (vs. 24).  It doesn’t seem to describe the Christian experience.  These people see a big contrast between Romans 7 and Romans 8 and do not believe that this “spiritual misery” is a very good description of what it means to be a Christian.

I have to say from personal experience that a lot of my friends in Bible College lived in “spiritual misery” and learnt to be thankful for it.  My cousin is not a Christian and he never felt miserable about his sin a day in his life.  The conviction of the Holy Spirit when it points out our sin is a miserable experience but a necessary one.

I have made the claim that without that “spiritual misery and shame” one cannot truly become a Christian.  Perhaps I am wrong but I don’t think so.  It is only half of the picture, certainly, but an important half. One that we are uncomfortable with, that we often deny, that we always seem to avoid.  But that is a big mistake.

When I first became a Christian, I tended to be a perfectionist.  I made lists of all of the things I believed God wanted me to do – prayer, Bible reading, evangelism, good works and on and on and on.  I could never live up to it of course.  Then, in addition, I would make lists of all of the things I was doing wrong and that I could identify as sin in my life.  That was an even longer list.  Sometimes I would give up in disgust and other times wallow in self-pity.  The more I studied the Bible, the more I saw my sin.  The more I saw my sin and how weak I was to deal with it or make any significant changes, the more miserable I was.  Sounds a bit like Paul, don’t you think.

But I believe that it is a necessary process, especially in our early years as a new believer.  If there is no shame, if there is no misery about our sin, why in the world do we think we are Christians.  That is a sure sign of the evidence of the Holy Spirit.  Once I realized that, I felt better and I was on the road to recovery.  But I would never deny that this awareness of sin is an essential part of our Christian experience.  Far from it.  But is it enough?  Not at all.  We cannot stay in Romans 7.  We must live in the truth of Romans 8 that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

There are generally two groups of Christians in the evangelical world.  The Armenians and the Calvinists.  Lots of people are in the middle, of course, but these two groups are useful to describe two very common problems in the church today.

On the Armenian side of the debate, the argument is largely that we are only responsible for our conscious sins.  What we know about, we have to deal with.  The problem with that approach is that it tends to deteriorate into something more like only the sins that “people” know about (not just ourselves).  Conscious sin becomes mixed up with public sin and therefore allows a lot of people to pretend that they have their spiritual life together, that they are walking in the Spirit (more on that tomorrow) and that they are living the abundant life.  Most of the time that is far from the truth.  This common error leads to “spiritual arrogance” and “judgmentalism” against those who aren’t “mature” in the Lord.  You know the kind of people I mean.

On the other hand, the Calvinists tend to have a more comprehensive view of sin as not only conscious sin, but also corporate sin (worldliness, in Biblical terms or what I call systematized corporate flesh), and the pollution or corruption of sin that affects even our best efforts to do good in the world.  No matter which way we turn, we are confronted by our sin, our selfish motivations, our ego, our need to be recognized as spiritual or good.  We are sinful through and through.  This was my background.  This tends to lead to spiritual misery and self-condemnation.

So, whether we fall into the trap of spiritual arrogance or spiritual misery, in fact both miss the point and both leave you in spiritual bankruptcy.  At the same time, they are both essential parts of our process into spiritual maturity.

Still, the path is not linear but circular.  It doesn’t just happen once, we don’t just get our heads on straight and then we never have to struggle with it again.  No.  Not even close.  This process of sanctification (ongoing) is very similar to the process of salvation (one time) but begins in a different context and has a different solution.  I will explain what I mean as I go along over the next couple of blog posts.

For now, it is important to realize that one thing is to enter into the grace of God through the blood of Christ who is our substitute, our Savior and our Lord.  Another thing is to live in that grace, in that “no condemnation” relationship, even though we are polluted with sin beyond what we can even imagine.

Here’s how I look at it.  Non-Christians simply don’t struggle with sin, especially in terms of how it affects our relationship with God.  My cousin could care less.  That’s the truth.  Secondly, to say that Christians don’t struggle with sin simply isn’t true.  We all do.  Even Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10-13, that he “burns” with sin at times.  Why hide it?  Why pretend that if someone is struggling with sin, he or she is somehow less spiritual than others?  No one, and I mean no one, has their act together spiritually just because they have no public sin to confess (or they think they have no conscious sin to deal with).  That very arrogance is sin.

Sure Paul uses some tough language in Romans 7, after all, we need to remember that he takes sin and the wrath of God far more seriously than most of us do.  But what does he actually say?  People have a problem with the words, “sold as a slave to sin” (vs.14).  That doesn’t describe a Christian, they claim.  After all, Paul himself describes us later as “slaves to righteousness.”  You can’t have it both ways. Or can you?

Well, sure you can.  That’s the whole point of being declared righteous but not yet being righteous.  What some people call “righteous sinners.”  But what does Paul mean by “sold as a slave to sin?”  For one thing, we still die.  “The wages of sin is death,” Paul tells us.  We die in the Lord, of course.  and having the Holy Spirit within takes the sting of death out but we still, in this body, are a slave to the consequences of our sin.  We still have bad habits, sinful habits, sin addictions, a desire to run our own lives our own way without thinking too much about God.  A lot of Christians live that hybrid life of peaceful religiosity, not realizing how deadly it is.  To deny the reality of sin in the believer’s life is pure folly.

Let’s look at the second objection which is the statement by Paul “I know that nothing good lives in me” (vs. 18).  But that is just plain sloppy reading.  The context is clear.  Even Paul recognizes that what he is saying isn’t true if he has the Holy Spirit within him.  That’s not what he says.  Look at the whole verse.  “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature” (vs. 18).  Pretty important words don’t you think?  Paul recognizes that we are in a struggle with our sinful nature as Christians and that struggle is essential to our growth to maturity in Christ.

In fact, I believe that you can apply those words to this entire passage.    I base this on Paul’s summary of this whole section which we find in vs. 25b.  Paul says, “So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.”

We are “sold as a slave to sin” in our sinful nature.

“What a wretched man that I am” in my sinful nature.

“There is no good thing in me” in my sinful nature.

And yes, even as a Christian, I still have to live with and put to death my sinful nature.  And that is (and should be) a struggle.  In fact, without the struggle, we cannot become mature in Christ.

In verse 14 he says “We know that the law is spiritual,” (which is to say that we can only fulfill the law of God from the heart with the power of the Holy Spirit because otherwise the power of sin would enslave us).  In fact the very next words are “but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.”

So being sold as a slave to sin is equal to being unspiritual.

But I thought we had the Holy Spirit within us?

We do, as Christians, but that doesn’t mean that we are yet “controlled by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 8:6 NIV).  So we could say that “in my sinful nature” (so long as I am not controlled by the Holy Spirit even though I am saved and have the Holy Spirit), I am unspiritual and I am sold as a slave to sin (if I live according to my sinful nature).

So what are you saying?  You can have the Holy Spirit in terms of salvation but not be controlled by the Holy Spirit in terms of sanctification?

Yes, exactly.

It is not the normal Christian life, of course, but it is much more common than any of us would like to admit.  In Galatians 5:25, Paul tells us, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”  The first part is a statement of fact (salvation) but the second is an exhortation (sanctification) for us to do something.  Is sanctification (walking by the Spirit) an expected outcome of our salvation (living by the Spirit).  Yes, of course.  The point is that you can’t get from one to the other without struggle, without putting to death the sinful nature, without denying yourself first.  And that is a holy struggle filled with the ministry and grace of the Holy Spirit.

We would do well to think more in terms of ministry than of judgment when faced with righteous sinners who struggle with their sinful nature.

Some people call that “living in the flesh”.  That is not quite accurate.  The “flesh” for Paul is a life apart from God.  It begins with NOT having a relationship with God through Christ and expresses itself in the arrogance of sin (but without misery).

Our situation is actually much worse than that.  If I am married but I act like a single man, flirting with the barmaid in the tavern down the street, it is much worse than if I actually was single.  Just because I act single doesn’t mean that I am.  It is one thing for a single guy to flirt with the barmaid, but an entirely different thing when a married man does it.  The same is true with God.  If we are “married” to God, but we act like we aren’t, it is far worse than if we were just not believers in the first place.  It is treason, betrayal, and as God so often described Israel in the Old Testament, it is adulterous.  We aren’t in the “flesh” (acting single because we are single), we are grieving the Holy Spirit (acting single when we are actually married) just like we would be grieving our wives.   Welcome to the struggle to become like Christ.  It isn’t automatic.  It takes work.  It takes discipline.  It takes faith – above all, it takes faith.

Not everyone would agree of course.  They would say that the evidence of the Holy Spirit is that we are controlled by the Holy Spirit expressing a more moral life full of love for one another.

I can’t tell you how deeply I disagree with the idea that the victorious Christian life has to do with morality, or the evidence that we are Christians has to do with specific acts or good deeds or not doing certain things.

The evidence of the Holy Spirit is not merely moral but relational.  And therefore it must be real and honest above all.  We live with no condemnation.  Therefore we can embrace the process and break through to abundant living and anointed ministry.

No, the struggle is real.  The struggle is a gift from the Holy Spirit.  Being controlled by the Holy Spirit on a relatively consistent basis is maturity in Christ but it is NOT the main (or only) indicator of the presence and work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer.  We cannot achieve the goal without embracing the process.  The Holy Spirit brings about that maturity through the struggle precisely because the struggle uncovers our idols and fortresses in the areas of intimacy, stress, relationships and purpose.  To deny the process, the struggle, is to create a generation of believers who grieve the Spirit and are not particularly bothered by it.  How sad and powerless the church has become by denying the very real ministry of the Holy Spirit through our struggle (and triumph) over sin.

The fake Christianity of the Western church is overwhelming in its religiosity for precisely this reason.  Too many people think that being a Christian means that you have your spiritual life together.  It is a done deal.  You’ve arrived.  And since that is what everybody believes and expects, it makes it very difficult to admit that you are struggling, that you are still sinning, that you need help to overcome not judgment and condemnation.

To validate the struggle is to focus on the process.  To expect a Spirit controlled lifestyle all the time (even though that consistency is the goal of our maturity in Christ) is to promote hypocrisy, pure and simple.

But I need to say one more thing about spiritual maturity in Christ.  It isn’t about morality but about relationship.  Real maturity, resurrection maturity, is the ability to be transparent about your struggle and to be courageous enough to bring it to the cross for forgiveness as many times as it takes.  True spiritual maturity embraces the struggle while it “makes every effort” to live in the no-condemnation reality of our new relationship with God.

That is the relationship between Romans 7 and 8.  It isn’t about the fact that we have the Holy Spirit (salvation) but whether or not we are walking in the Holy Spirit (sanctification) and that is a process that, by definition, we need to be a part of.  Otherwise, why in the world would Paul have to spend so much time talking about what we should do, exhorting us, rebuking us, encouraging us.  Why bother if it is all automatic?  We know it isn’t.  We live this strange half-life of a “righteous sinner” learning to become like Christ (or not) and growing in our maturity in Christ (or not) by learning to apply the transforming power of Romans 8 to the daily struggle of Romans 7.

Let me say that again.

We need to learn to apply the transforming power of Romans 8 to the daily struggle of Romans 7.  That is the plan.  That is God’s strategy for overcoming sin in our lives.  For teaching us maturity in Christ.  For showing us the power of the cross.  It comes from Romans 12:1,2 (which we will talk about in more depth later on). Paul tells us, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.  Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able tot est and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

We need to have the attitude, intention and focus of becoming living sacrifices (denying ourselves, taking up our cross and following Christ).  We do this through the transforming of our mind by the truth of the Word of God accepted in faith and applied to our daily life.  And the transforming of our mind has the purpose of helping us to test and approve what the will of God is for our lives.  If we know the will of God, we can identify sin.  If we know the will of God, we know where the struggle is, we know where our idols are, where our fortresses are.

But what do we do with those idols and fortresses?

We bring the seven truths of Romans 8 to bear on our Romans 7 struggle.  Remember that the struggle is specific to a particular temptation, a particular idol, a particular fortress.  That is why the struggle is circular and often repetitive because habits are not changed overnight and we have a lot of areas to deal with.  We will go back and forth between Romans 7 and Romans 8 all our lives, hopefully getting better and better at taking the seven truths of Romans 8 and applying them to the specific issue at stake in our Romans 7 struggle.

What are those seven truths in Romans 8 that are so powerful?

The first one (and main one) we have already talked about.  There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).  So relax.  You don’t have to run.  Nobody is chasing you.

Secondly, we have the power of the Holy Spirit available to us in our struggle.  In fact, it is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead (Romans 8:11) which is living in you.  So you can’t use the excuse that you are powerless.  It simply isn’t true.

Thirdly, the Holy Spirit within gives us assurance of our faith (Romans 8:15b, 16) since he testifies to our spirit that we are children of God.  The Holy Spirit is our guarantee of salvation (Ephesians 1:14, 2 Corinthians 1:22).

Fourth, Paul tells us that we must learn to suffer as Christ did (Romans 8: 17) and that only through suffering will we share in his glory.  Suffering as Christ did is not normally talked about as a hallmark of a spiritual life.  But so it is.  We suffer our temptations as Christ suffered his temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane.  We suffer for the sake of the gospel as Christ suffered for the sake of the gospel (1 Peter 3:17-18).  Finally we suffer the sins of others (and the context of the world) as Christ suffered and put up with and forgave the sins of others who mocked him, spit on him, crucified him, betrayed him.  When you learn to suffer with Christ, you will share in his glory.  His glory is his character, his love, his desire to do the will of his Father.

Fifth, Paul tells us to hope in the future glory that awaits us.  In our struggle, our suffering, our putting to death of our sinful natures, we need to keep our eye on the prize, the glory that awaits us.  Yes, our struggle is with our own sinful nature which Christ did not.  But Christ suffered temptation as well (Hebrews 4:15), not because of his own sin but rather because he didn’t want to “become sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21) and bear the wrath of God (Matthew 26:39).  Of course not.  He was perfect in his love for his Father.  He did it anyway because he knew that obedience was the highest form of love for God because obedience demonstrates our trust (faith) in God and in his intentions for our lives.  This is Christ’s glory, this is his character.  And we will get there as well.

Sixth, Paul talks about another aspect of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives as we struggle with our sinful natures.  He tells us that the Holy Spirit prays for us and does so with groans too deep for words (Romans 8:26).  That prayer ministry is mysterious and powerful and we need to remember that it is happening and that it is highly effective.  God is paying attention to what we are going through.  In addition, as our High Priest, is also praying for us (Hebrews 4:14-15).  We are not forgotten.  We are not alone.  We matter deeply to Him.

Seventh,  Paul talks about the fact that nothing, not our temptation, not our sin, not our failure, not our mistakes, or our suffering, can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus (Romans 8: 37,39).  This truth goes together with the statement by Paul in Romans 8:28 that all things work together for the good of those who are in Christ Jesus.  God is in charge.  He has a plan.  Your suffering and temptation has purpose.

With these seven truths ingrained in our minds, thought about, meditated on, accepted by faith, focused on, the lies and deceptions of the Devil will find no foothold and we will have everything we need to be more than conquerors (Romans 8:37) through him who loved us.

What all of that means from a practical point of view is that when Christians struggle against their sinful nature, it is a sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit.  Yes, there is still something very important that we need to learn about walking with God in the process but the struggle is a holy one and should never be depreciated or despised.  Learning to deal with sin is one of the most fruitful struggles we can have.  It reveals the idols and fortresses that we still cling to and gives us the courage to give the Lord permission to tear them down as many times as is necessary to rid our lives of their influence.  Most people never do the work of sanctification.  It is work.  Hard work.  Consistent work.

The sign of our maturity is not the absence of struggle but the quality of our struggle.

That is why Peter tells us over and over again to “make every effort,” and why Paul exhorts us to “run the race.”  If it were automatic or easy, why bother telling us what we should be striving for, working for, sacrificing for.  In the struggle we become, we transform, we change.  Our maturity in Christ is not merely expressed in our morality but in the quality and honesty of our struggle, in the consistency of applying these seven truths of Romans 8 to our Romans 7 struggle.  Our maturity is found in our dedication to the process of confession, repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation.  Our maturity is found in the humility of using the means of grace made possible by the cross of Christ instead of pretending that we don’t need it or that we have already arrived (spiritual arrogance) or that we are hopelessly entangled in sin and there is no way out (spiritual misery).

Without the struggle, or if we deny the struggle, we are simply “arrogant” fools.

Without learning to become more than conquerors in the struggle (over and over again if necessary), we are simply “miserable” fools.

A pox on both those houses.  The abundant life is an invitation to live within the reality of daily sin from the power of a life that is no longer under condemnation.  It is the power to prioritize the relationship over the morality so that the morality can be changed by the relationship.  Which is what love always does.  Who can save us from this body of sin?  Only Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Desert Warrior

P.S.  Let’s talk to God….

Lord, thank you for the struggle with sin.  I want to be honest about my sin.  But I know that you have already forgiven me.  I have so much to learn and I want to learn from you.  Don’t let me fall into the trap of condemning people who are struggling but rather help them to become more than conquerors.  I know now atht it isn’t a one time thing but over and over again until it becomes a habit to live in that power of the cross, that relationship that takes the sting of sin out of my life.  Thank you for your ministry to me, Lord.  Help me minister that to others as well.   In your name I pray.  Amen.

 

 

Walking The Roman Road – Lenten Season 2019

“We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.  I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.  As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.  I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.  For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.  So I find this law at work:  When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.  What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:14-25a NIV).

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…” (Romans 8:1 NIV).

The Nature of our Struggle

Today is Palm Sunday and in our church, at least, we will be walking up and down the streets waving palm branches and inviting people to our services.  The children love it of course.  The adults are often embarassed and just smile.  Not very many people come but we try.  That’s what makes Palm Sunday special – at least in our church.

We’ve got it wrong of course.  That’s not what Palm Sunday is about at all.  But we shouldn’t be surprised.  The Jews got Palm Sunday wrong right at the very beginning.  Everybody heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem.  The streets were alive with speculation.  Many had heard that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead and now it looked like he was on his way for a final showdown with the Romans to establish his kingdom on earth once and for all.  It was a time for celebration, a time to show their support for this rabbi king who would set their people free from the slavery and humiliation of the Romans.  The Messiah had come.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

We seem to think that they were actually celebrating Jesus and his ministry.  That they got it.  That they understood what the true battle was and what the true Kingdom of God was all about.  But we would be wrong.  The palm branches are a dead give-a-way.  Two hundred years earlier more or less, the Macabees led a revolt against their overlords and were able to free the Jewish people for a time (although it didn’t last long since the Romans were on their way).  The official coin from the time of the Macabean revolt had a picture of a palm branch on it.  The palm branch was a symbol of political freedom using military might.  That’s what the people were so excited about.

They believed that Jesus would confront the enemy and bring peace and freedom to their people.  That’s exactly what Jesus did of course but not in the way the people expected.

Yes, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees and Chief Priests when they objected to the celebration but even that was for a different reason than most people think.  The Pharisees and the Chief Priests were scared that the Roman authorities would see the celebration and recognize it for what it was – a political rally to stir up the people to revolt against the Romans.  That’s what the people thought it was.  That’s what the Pharisees and the Chief Priests thought it was.  The only difference was that the people believed Jesus could pull it off but the leaders of the people did not.  Jesus rebuked them for their unbelief.

But not only did Jesus rebuke them for their unbelief.  There was more going on.  Even the stones would cry out in praise to the Messiah who had come if the people did not celebrate.  Perhaps the people were blind to his real battle, his real struggle in Gethsemane to come, the real significance of his death and resurrection.  It didn’t matter.  He had come to fight for them, just in a different way than they expected.  They needed to celebrate his arrival for the final battle, even if it was a spiritual battle and not a military one.  The celebration was perfect and appropriate even if it was misguided and based on ignorance.

That’s why Jesus wept over the city.  They had no idea what was going on.  They rejected the very Messiah that they had hoped for because he wouldn’t do things the way they expected.  He would save them from their sins, not from the Romans.  He would save them from the wrath of God, not the wrath of the Emperor.  That would come within thirty years when Jerusalem and the Temple would be destroyed.  Of course, he wept.

So, yes, most of us get Palm Sunday wrong.  We call it the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem but within a few days everyone would turn on him and he would be sacrificed as an atonement for our sins, a substitute, and then, after three days, he would be raised from the dead.

In-between he would struggle, and sweat great drops of blood, and suffer physical and spiritual pain, be tortured and mocked and spit upon, that man of tears, that face of God, that body abused for you and me.

That is the nature of our struggle as well.  We are no different than he.  We must share in his suffering so that we can share in his glory (Romans 8:17b).

Just like Jesus we will suffer on behalf of others, for their salvation, as mid-wives of reconciliation through the blood of Jesus.

Just like Jesus, we will not suffer for our own sins.  We do not live under condemnation and punishment but we will suffer for others out of love for God, just like Jesus did.  And that pleases God immensely and our reward is to share in his glory, his character, his integrity and love.

We become like him.  We will also be mocked, persecuted, hurt, be in pain, rejected, perhaps even crucified (upside down like Peter if the legends are true).

But not for our own sins.  Never for our own sins.  We live under the “no condemnation” of Romans 8:1.  God may discipline us for our own good, like he did Jonah who tried to run away from his mission.  He may allow unpleasant things to happen to us but always for our good (Romans 8:28), for our development in spiritual maturity, for our preparation for ministry.  But never punishment.  That has been taken care of by Jesus on our behalf.

But, you say, it looks the same.  The suffering of Jesus and our suffering.

Yes, but looks are deceiving.  It is the same but it is not the same.  It is not the same in the sense that we do not suffer because of our sins, even though we continue to sin.  But it is the same in the sense that we suffer as Jesus did, as an innocent who volunteers to suffer for the sake of others to bring them to salvation.  That is our purpose.  That is our glory.  To be like Christ in his suffering.

Paul tells us that he “considers that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18 NIV).  He also tells us that “we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28 NIV).  We have a purpose and that purpose is to suffer with Christ in our efforts to bring salvation to the lost people of this world.  There is no greater calling or glory than that.

But in order to understand the nature of our calling and glory, we need to understand the nature of our struggle.

Even Jesus struggled with his destiny in the Garden of Gethsemane.  His temptation was without sin.  It was a temptation not to do evil but, in fact, the exact opposite.  His temptation of the cross was to maintain his love relationship with God, his Father, and avoid the cross altogether.  The cross meant that he would become what his pure soul abhorred, sin itself.  He became sin who knew no sin, Paul tells us (2 Corinthians 5:21).  Of course he wouldn’t like that.

Even more, as the embodiement of sin, he would also receive the wrath of God on the sin of the whole world.  How could he bear the wrath of the one person in all the universe that he loved with all of his heart, soul, mind and strength?  Why would he want to bear it?  It was his perfection, his righteousness, his holiness that made the temptation so difficult for him.  It was the depth of his love for God that made his holy temptation create great drops of blood-like sweat pour down his face in that garden.  Don’t tell me that he didn’t understand what temptation was like.  That is what makes him such a great High Priest, says the author to the Hebrews (Hebrews 4:14-16).  And yes, we will struggle with the same thing.

Jesus was tempted to do what pleased him rather than what was pleasing to his Father.  It was a natural and holy desire that he had and no one else in all of history will ever be asked to become a substitute for sin like Jesus was.  But Jesus chose the way of obedience as the best way to show how much he trusted his Father even in this dark night of the soul.  Hebrews 5:7-9 tells us that Jesus “learnt obedience” through what he suffered.  That doesn’t mean that he wasn’t obedient before but rather that he learnt the value of obedience as the highest form of love for God as a human living in a sinful and rebellious world.

To obey God out of love (loving obedience) is the one thing that God desires from us.  Let God be God.  Trust him with our lives.  Do his will out of a heartfelt desire to please him and you will have discovered the secret to our struggle, to Jesus’ struggle and, even more, to his victory in the midst of temptation and suffering.

Paul tells us that there are two struggles that we have as believers.  Within and without.  In Ephesians 6:1 he tells us that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers. That is true.  We are not fighting other people even though Satan may use other people against us.  We understand that the battle goes deeper and is more important and that it has eternal consequences.  The Westminster Confession tells us that our struggle is against the flesh, the world and the devil.  That is pretty accurate.  The world is just the aggregate “flesh” (sinful rebellion of people against God’s rule) of a lot of people often systematized into rules and laws and cultural mores (like abortion, homosexuality, the sexual revolution etc) that are against the loving will and law of God.  But behind it all is the Devil manipulating the “flesh” of the world and of individuals like ourselves, even as Christians.

That is what Paul is talking about here in Romans 7.  “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (vs. 15b).  It’s enough to make your head spin.  But there is an internal battle for the Christian and it is meant to teach us how to get rid of the old habits and ways of the “flesh” and learn to walk in the spirit.  It is a necessary battle that we must all go through.

Without learning to fight that battle, we cannot learn the power of the cross (which is the only way to win) and therefore we cannot become spiritually mature.  Without spiritual maturity, learning to be controlled by the Spirit, we will never enter into our purpose, our glory, our suffering for the sake of the kingdom, for the sake of the salvation of others.

Paul tells us in Romans 12:1,2 “I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.”  But there is no way to get to Romans 12 without going through Romans 7 and 8 first.  That is the foundation of everything else that comes after it.  It is a glorious journey.  No fear.  No regrets.  Just glory.  But easy?  No, of course not.  All the best things in life cost us everything, remember?  Marriage.  Babies and, most certainly, our walk with God.

The Desert Warrior

P.S.  Let’s talk to God….

Lord, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.  It scares me to think that there may be suffering and pain in my future.  I know that it is for others, for my family, my children, my friends, my fellow church members, perhaps, even for a stranger or two.  So I accept this mission, in Jesus’ name.  I know that you will be by my side and that you will help me through every step of the way.  Thank you for that.  In your name I pray.  Amen.

 

 

Walking The Roman Road – Lenten Season 2019

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8 NIV).

The Sacred Moment

“I think I just found my favorite verse in the Bible.”

“Which one?” I asked.  John was sitting on the couch with his new NIV Study Bible open on his lap.  He was reading the Book of Romans while he followed my blog.

“Romans 5:6-8 says, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  He looked up at me.

“Yeah, that’s a good one.  Romans is full of great verses like that.”  I looked at him thoughtfully.  “Why do you like that verse so much?”

John looked down at the Bible again but not before I saw a glistening in the corner of his eyes.  This meant something to him.

“Well, I don’t know really.”  He paused.  “It just kinda reminds me of the whole mess we are in as humans because we don’t love each other enough.  I know it’s true.  And then, here comes this guy claiming to be God and, yes, maybe his resurrection sort of proves it but I think this proves it too.”

“What do you mean?

“Well, just look at what Paul is saying here,” John said.  “Look at how different Jesus is from the rest of us.  He doesn’t just love us, he loves us to death.  He died for us.  Most people wouldn’t do that for their best friend, much less for a good guy, or a righteous guy, as Paul says here.  No, it’s even worse.  Jesus is so crazy that he was even willing to die for his enemies, people who were still not interested in what he had to say, people who still didn’t want to follow him.  His enemies for Pete’s sake.  If that doesn’t prove that he is either crazy or divine, I don’t know what does.”

I laughed out loud.  “I couldn’t agree more,” I said.  But I knew that I had to dig deeper so I asked him again.  “But why do YOU like this verse so much?  What does it have to do with you?”

John looked at me briefly then back again to the Bible.  “I know that I could never do that, not for anybody much less for my enemy.”

“Not even for Sofi?”

He looked at me startled.  “Well, yes, for Sofi I would do anything but I love her to pieces.”

“What about your mother-in-law?  What was her name?  Margarita?”

The sour look on John’s face was precious.

“Definitely not for Margarita, nor her husband,” he said a bit too strongly.  “Not that they are bad people, but still…..”  He looked a little guilty.

“Hey, I get it,” I said.  “And I agree.  We aren’t really up to the task of loving people that much.  That’s the difference between Jesus and us I suppose.”

“Last night, Sofi and I watched the Passion of the Christ.  You know,  the one that was done by Mel Gibson.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen it.”

“It’s pretty graphic.”

“Apparently it’s pretty true to reality.  The Romans were a bloody lot and they always wanted to make a show of how they punished criminals to prevent anybody else from rebelling against the might of Rome.”

John was silent, just thinking about it.

“Just saying that you would die for someone and actually going through with it are two different things,” I said.

“Yeah, and it was no picnic for Jesus either,” John said.  “Crucifixtion is pretty gruesome.”

“That wasn’t even the worst of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you remember in Gethsemane when Jesus was very upset about facing the cross?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it wasn’t just the pain and torture which was bad enough.  It was even more about his relationship with God.”

“You mean that he was cursed by God on the cross as our substitute?”

“Exactly.  But what that means is that he experienced the full wrath of God for all the sins of the world while on that cross and then spent three days in hell.”

John made a look that showed that he got the picture.

“Definitely no picnic,” I said.  “He became sin and so he received all of the wrath of God against sin and paid the price of being rejected by God.”

“But I thought that God raised him from the dead,” John said.

“Yes, after three days.”  I paused.  “I guess it was because of how valuable Jesus was, being God Himself, that made only three days enough time to experience the wrath and rejection of God on all of the sins of the world.”

“I would think that was more than enough.”

“But the fact that God raised Jesus from the dead is significant,” I said.  “Jesus didn’t raise himself from the dead.”

“Good point.”

“God was saying that He accepted Jesus as the sacrifice for sins and that three days was enough to get the job done and now, by raising him from the dead He was saying that Jesus is now restored to his rightful place at God’s side, as His Son and as the new King over all the earth.”

“That’s interesting.  What does it mean?”

“Well, the Bible tells us that God gave the earth and all of it’s inhabitants to Jesus as a reward for his sacrifice and put him in charge of the earth and the great rescue plan to bring people into a new relationship with God.”

“But what I don’t understand is what the resurrection has to do with us?”  John looked perplexed.  “We are supposed to get resurrected as well, right?”

“Right.  When we die, we will also be raised to life again and get new bodies just like Jesus did.”

“Just like Jesus did?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty cool stuff,” I said.  “Apparently he could walk through walls, disappear and appear somewhere else at will and yet interact with other people, like his disciples, just like an ordinary person.  Not a ghost.”

“Cool.  Do you think we will be able to fly?”

I laughed.  “I have no idea.  When Jesus went up to heaven, he was carried upwards in a cloud but I don’t think that had anything to do with his new resurrected body.”

John was smiling.  “It would be super cool, though.”

“Yes, it would,” I agreed.  “But there is something else about the resurrection that we get to experience now, before we die.”

“Really?  Like what?”

“The Bible tells us that the reason Jesus was raised from the dead is because he had the power of the Holy Spirit within him.  It was that power that raised him up and we can experience that power to a degree as well.”

“Sort of like your story about Charlie Benton, your neighbor.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You said that if you become a Christian than you get the Holy Spirit and if you have the Holy Spirit, you can’t go to Hell.”

“And if you did go to Hell,” I added.  “It wouldn’t be hell.”

“It would turn into heaven,” John finished, smiling.  “I liked that story.  Got me to thinking.”

“Thinking about what?”

“Whether or not I’m a Christian.”

My heart skipped a beat.  Everything around me seemed to slow down and I knew that I was entering into a sacred moment.  It was time.

“Would you like to become a Christian?”

Silence.

“It’s your decision, John.  But you need to know that God has worked hard to get you to this point so that you understand what it’s all about and you can make a serious decison.”

“That’s the problem.  It’s serious.  I’m not sure that I’m ready for it.”

I stopped.  Waiting.  I knew the Holy Spirit would give me the words to say.

“Have you asked Sofi to marry you yet?”  I asked him.

He looked up at me surprised.  “Yes, I have.”

“And she accepted?”

“Of course.”

“How did you know it was time?  Shouldn’t you wait until your both older or you have more money, or something.  It’s pretty serious business getting married, you know.”

John smiled.  “I see your point.  It’s the same thing with God you’re saying.  When it feels right, go for it.”  John was silent again.  “I guess I’m not sure that I’m ready for the responsibility of it all.”

“Is it the responsibility,” I asked.  “Or is it that you know God will ask you to do things differently in your life?”

“What do you mean?”

I looked at him for a long moment, wondering if my boldness was really just foolishness.  I threw up a quick prayer and then plunged into the deep waters.

“Look, John.  I know you and Sofi are living together.  Probably sleeping together and the wedding isn’t for another three or four months, right?”

John just hung his head.

“What do you think God would say about that?” I asked.

“He would tell me to stop.”  John didn’t hesitate.

“Do you want to stop?”

John took a deep breath.  “No, I don’t.”  He let his breath out slowly.

“I appreciate your honesty.”  Then I shut up.

After a long moment, John finally spoke.  “Saying it out loud makes me realize how lame it is.  After everything he did for me, I should be able to handle this for a couple of months.  It would probably even be good for our relationship to practice some restraint until after the wedding.”

I didn’t say anything.

“But it won’t be just that.  There will be more.”  John started getting bothered.  “He will ask me to do things or not do things that I want to do.  And I’m not sure I want to listen to him.”

“Even if you know it’s for your own good?”

John was silent.

“Are you planning to have a baby at some point?” I asked quietly.

John looked up with a smile.  “Definitely.  As soon as possible.”

“I would advise against it.”

“Why?”

“Babies can change everything,” I said.  “They are demanding little creatures, always crying and wanting their diapers changed or eating you out of house and home.  And then, just when you get them potty trained, they start to run around the house and into the street and you will spend your life chasing after them and trying to keep them from killing themselves and then they go to school…”

“Ok, ok,” John said, laughing.  “I get your point.  All the best stuff in life is free but costs us everything.  I know that’s one of your sayings.”

“It’s true,” I said.  “But it is a bit more complicated than that.  The point is that this is the nature of love.  When we are single, we make our own decisions and do our own things.  But when we get married or have children, when we have relationships, those relationships limit our freedom to do whatever we want.”

“Yeah, one of my friends calls his wife the “old ball and chain.”

“Do you feel that way about Sofi?”

“Not at all.”

“What about having a baby?” I said.  “Would that be a problem?  You won’t sleep much at night, especially in the early years.  You will have to help out around the house because Sofi will be busy with the baby.  You won’t get a lot of nights out with your beer buddies.”

“I don’t mind.  Really.  I’m fine with that.  I’m ready for it.”

“Then why aren’t you fine with it when it comes to God?”

John was quiet for a long while.  “I don’t know,” he finally said.

“Can I suggest an answer?” I ventured.

John just nodded.

“You love Sofi and you love the idea of having a child,” I said.  “But you don’t love God much yet.”

“Well, I don’t know about that.  I am grateful.  I believe that it is all true and I would like to become a Christian.  But I just don’t want to give up my freedom.”

“I get it,” I said.  “I felt the same way at first.”

“You did?”

“I think everybody does.  We aren’t very good at loving God.  Remember, that is the basic problem.  We don’t love Him and we don’t trust Him to run our lives.  We generally want to keep Him at arm’s length.  We want the benefits but we don’t really want to let Him be the God of our lives.”

“I don’t think that’s the kind of relationship God wants.”

“You’re right about that,” I said.  “But here’s the thing.  Sometimes you have to do things in your life that scare you but you know is the right thing.  You have to trust that it will all work out in the end.”

“Is that what you did?”

“Yup.  I just went for it because it felt right.  No, it was right.  I couldn’t ignore it.  God was calling my name and I had to respond.  I had to trust that he would help me through the rough spots and that it would all work out in the end.”

“And did it?”

“You bet it did,” I said with conviction.  “I can honestly tell you that it was a struggle at times but that is true of my relationship with my wife and kids too.  In fact, life is a struggle.  But I would never go back.  I wouldn’t know what to do without God in my life.”

“Do you love Him now?”

“I am learning to love Him more,” I said.  “But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.  Life is a struggle but He is there to help me through it.  Sometimes I don’t want to do things His way, but I try to do it anyway.  And I find that He is always faithful to teach me and help me through the rough spots.”

John was silent.

“The question isn’t whether or not you love God,” I said.  “It’s too early for that.”

“Then what is the question?”

“The question is whether or not you will obey Him.”

John sighed.  “Whether I want to or not?”

“Whether you want to or not,” I confirmed.  “That is often more an indication of love than feelings are.”

“It’s like marrying someone you aren’t in love with,” John said.

I thought about it for a moment.  “Yeah,” I said.  “Sort of.  But there are a lot of arranged marriages that worked out well and the people actually fell in love afterwards.”

“Still seems strange.”

“It is.  But sometimes in life you need to do the right thing and let the feelings come afterward.”

Silence.

I tried again.

“Actually, I wouldn’t compare it to an arranged marriage so much as to having a baby.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, you might like the idea of having a baby with Sofi but you don’t really love the baby yet.  It isn’t even here yet.  That comes later.  You have a baby because it is the natural result of your love for Sofi.”

“That makes sense.”

“Well, the natural result, or the natural thing about being human is to have a relationship with God, your Creator and Father.  Jesus said to think of it like a lost child coming home, a safe place where he belongs.”

“Ok.  I can see that.”

“It may seem strange at first but you have to believe that it is a necessary relationship, a natural consequence of being human.  Without it, life doesn’t make sense.  The love comes later.”

“Is that what happened to you?”

“Definitely,” I said.  “I wouldn’t give up my relationship with God for anything.  Besides, I know that when I get to heaven, all of those feelings will be put right and my love for God will blossom and grow.  Until then, I walk by faith.”

“By faith?”

“Trust.”

“It’s a question of trust?”

“Exactly,” I said.  “Remember that the basic problem with us is that we don’t trust God with our lives.  That has to change.  The feelings will come but God is asking you today whether or not you will trust Him with your life.”

Silence.  I prayed silently.  Then the moment came.

“I’m ready,” John said.  He looked up at me.  “What do I do next?”

The Desert Warrior

P.S.  Let’s talk to God….

Lord, I’m ready too.  I want a new relationship with you.  I want to become like you and learn to love you and others the way you do.  I can’t wait to walk with you and learn from you and make changes in my life.  It scares me to death but I know it is the right thing to do.  Help me to put you first and always be honest in my relationship with you.  In your name I pray.  Amen.

 

 

Walking The Roman Road – Lenten Season 2019

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

“And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.  Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession – to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:13,14 NIV).

The Holy Guarantee

Beware and fair warning!  We are entering into great mystery and delight that can literally change your life.  People don’t change, we hear from all sides.  But Christians do.  True Christians who begin at the foot of the cross in confession and shame and embrace the forgiveness and new relationship with God that is offered.  They change.  Otherwise repentance is a joke.  That is the whole point of the cross – to change people’s hearts and lives.  It may be subtle.  It may be hidden for a while.  It may take some digging to uncover but it is there and it is wonderous.

There is something that happens to us the moment we are sincerely repentant of our sins and truly desireous of a new relationship with God.  Remember that it has always been about the heart.  God is not stupid.  He isn’t about rules and regulations.  He is about love.  And if we are also about the heart and not just about religion, and God can tell, of course, then something happens to us.  Something physical.  Something mysterious.  Something transformational.

We are given the Holy Spirit.

Before we became saints, and while we were still sinners, we could not receive the Holy Spirit.  Not just because the Spirit isn’t interested in co-habitating with people whose hearts are in rebellion against him but because we would not survive it.  We would be burnt up in that Holy Fire which cleanses everything it touches.  The only reason we can survive his presence now is because we have been declared righteous because of the cross.  We have become saints and Jesus has become the sinner.  Therefore we can receive the Holy Spirit which enters into us and gives us a new nature.

A new nature?  What are you saying?  Are we no longer human?  Are we in-humans or more than humans?  What?

No, now we are truly human.  If man was meant to exist in a relationship with God and was meant to physically live with the Holy Spirit within as a normal part of our creation and, if all of the problems we face are because we have rebelled and rejected that relationship, then it makes sense that God is restoring us to the original idea of what creation was all about.  It’s the same but not the same.

It’s the same in the sense that our relationship with God has been restored and that makes all the difference in the world.  There is great power and even greater mystery in that truth.  But it is also not the same because we still continue to sin.  We have been legally declared innocent but we were the ones who committed the crime and we continue to struggle to live a life that is different and more congruent with who we are.

Saint Augustine used to say that Adam, before the fall, was able to sin.  After the fall, he was not able not to sin.  Then when we become Christians and receive the Holy Spirit, we are able not to sin.  Finally, when we meet God face to face in heaven and we are forever cleansed from all vestiges of our old life, we are no longer able to sin.  I, for one, look forward to that day.

I remember once in Bible College that a teacher was saying that Jesus lived in our hearts.  I put my hand up, not wanting to take anything at face value, and I said something to the effect that my heart is a pump and that I doubt very much a little man was living in there.  The class laughed but the teacher just smiled and asked me a question.  “In terms of your body, where are you?  Is your consciousness in your stomach, your liver, your heart?  Where are you?”

I thought about it for a moment and then said, “I would have to say somewhere in my mind, maybe my frontal lobe.”

And the teacher replied, “Well, wherever your consciousness resides, that’s where the Holy Spirit is as well.  In Bible days, they didn’t have our knowledge of anatomy and they talked about the heart, which we still do today.  But physically, we probably should be talking about the mind.”  I thought it was a pretty good answer actually and from that moment on, I realized that there were many good answers out there.  I just had to do the work to find them.

Point is that the Holy Spirit is real and he is stuck with you and you with him for all eternity.  Thank God.  After all, the Holy Spirit isn’t going to hell, so niether are you.  If you did go to hell, it would turn into heaven because the Holy Spirit would be there with you.  Go figure.  That’s a pretty good guarantee.

So how do you know that you have the Holy Spirit within you?  Was your confession sincere?  Were you filled with shame at the foot of the cross?  Did you accept his forgiveness and allow him to take your shame away?  Do you want a new relationship with God?  Did you say “I do” to his proposal to spend the rest of your life (and eternity) together?  Then you are off to a good start.  That is what comes before you get the Holy Spirit (although it comes from the Holy Spirit’s influence on you already present before you accepted his proposal).

But what about afterwards?  What evidence of the Holy Spirit should I expect in my life?  In the early church, people who received the Holy Spirit often spoke in tongues.  That normally meant other languages that actually existed at that time.  It was a way for the Holy Spirit to prepare people for their work of spreading the gospel.  But Paul also talks in his letters about speaking “in the tongues of men and of angels” (I Corinthians 13) so that is also possible.  Many people could heal the sick and others could do miraculous signs.

But there are also more subtle signs of the Holy Spirit that, for me, are even more powerful.

“Are you serious?” you might be asking.  “Something more powerful than signs and wonders?  No way.”

Yes, way.  The Israelites saw the mighty signs and wonders that God performed in Egypt during the ten plagues and the crossing of the Dead Sea.  They saw the Cloud by day and the Pillar of Fire by night.  They saw God miraculously take care of their needs day in and day out for forty years in the desert, more than a million people strong where bedouin tribes of less than fifty people could hardly survive.  And yet, after all those signs and wonders, they still created the golden calf, they still rebelled against the leadership of Moses, they still chickened out of going in to conquer the Promised Land.

One of the things you have got to get straight in this new life with God is that signs and wonders are great encouragement when they come, but they cannot transform the human heart.  Only the Holy Spirit can and his approach is much more subtle and far more powerful.

The Holy Spirit changes the heart.  When you start to care for things that before you could care less about, things like your fellow believers, sharing the gospel, helping the poor, that is evidence of the Holy Spirit.

Wait a minute!  People who are not believers also care for the poor.

True.  But they don’t care about their relationship with God at the same time.  When you start to “hunger and thirst” to know God and you want to study the Bible and ask questions and spend time with other Christians getting answers, that is evidence of the Holy Spirit.

When you start to struggle with your sin (more on that in a later post) and you don’t just do whatever you want but you truly want to please God, that is evidence of the Holy Spirit.

But let me tell you a secret.  The Devil is very good a counterfeiting the things of God.  He has a vested interest in keeping people religious and not discovering the power and beauty of true humility before God.  That true humility is key.

One of my favorite sayings goes like this:  “There is nothing more embarassing in heaven and on earth than the arrogance of people who should be ashamed of themselves.  Sadly that applies to all of us.”

Even as Christians, we have no business being arrogant as if somehow we deserve God’s grace.  We can enjoy it and be thankful for it but not arrogant about it.  And what keeps us humble is truly only one thing.

It is what I call the Way of the Cross.  Confession.  Repentance.  Forgiveness and Reconciliation.  This process is what allowed you to become a Christian in the first place and it is also the process of our becoming more like Christ (sanctification).  If healing relationships are the issue, then we need to make sure that we are always walking this Way of the Cross in all of our relationships.  And it is hard.  We may be willing to confess our sins to someone we have hurt but there is no guarantee that they won’t use that information against us.  It has happened to me many times.  You may be willing to repent and change your ways, trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit to give you the power to do things differently, but there isn’t usually much help from other Christians.  It is a lonely road that you often have to travel alone and there are a lot of people who will tell you what you’re doing wrong at every step of the way.  Forgiving others?  Are you kidding?  Dangerous work.  You can forgive someone and they can turn around and do it again, and again, and again.  We’ve all been there.  And reconciliation is elusive and difficult to maintain.

The whole thing takes faith, hope and love but most of all, it takes humility.  To always maintain that position in front of the cross where you let go of your reputation, your feelings, your sense of fairness and justice, and make Christ your only concern.  That takes humility.  To allow people to abuse you because you walk the way of the cross takes humility.  To give people grace and forgive them and treat them as they are in Christ and not as they are in the flesh, takes humility.

That humility, expressed in faith, hope and love towards God and others, is a sure work of the Holy Spirit.  That doesn’t come from you.  You aren’t capable of it.  That work is the truest evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life.  Sure there are lots of other good deeds you can do but they can all be done by non-believers as well.  This is the only thing, the key thing, the thing that heals relationships, that comes from the Holy Spirit.  It is focused on the cross and it humbles the pilgrim who walks that road just like it did to Jesus who humbled himself in faith, hope and love to God’s will, knowing that what he was doing was pleasing to God.  That’s all that matters.

Well, that isn’t normal and it is a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit within you.  All the signs and wonders in the world cannot create it.  Speaking in tongues cannot create it.  It is a creation of the Holy Spirit within you.  You are a new creation.  You have a new nature.  You are now truly human and, so long as you continue to walk in the Spirit, you will start to see strange and wonderful things happen in your life, especially the presence of true humility as you walk the way of the cross.

The Desert Warrior

P.S.  Let’s talk to God….

Lord, I’m excited about this Holy Spirit in my life.  I know that it is you.  I hardly know even how to talk about him.  He is the Spirit of Jesus but yet, something more.  He is God.  He is my counselor.  He is you.  Thank you.  Hello Holy Spirit.  Teach me how to walk everyday with you and learn from you.  Thank you for changing me.  I want to learn from you, O Lord.  In your name I pray.  Amen.

 

 

Walking The Roman Road – Lenten Season 2019

“But what does it say?  The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming:  That 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 10:8-10 NIV).

The Path

We are now at a crossroads of sorts on the Roman Road to Salvation.  We have addressed the issue of godlessness and wickedness and came to realize that God has a different standard than we do.  And we have to admit that his standard is much better than ours.  His standard is love for all without discrimination.  His standard is based on how we would be and act if we had NOT rebelled against him and his authority over our lives.  We might be used to this uneasy truce, this in-between place that we call living, that ends in death.  We may be good with that scenario but God isn’t.

Not only is his standard higher but he also has greater aspirations for us as well.  He wants us to live forever with him in a life free from sin and the tyranny of death.  Personally, I agree.  If you believe that every human being is valuable beyond measure and not merely “dust in the wind,” you begin to understand life from God’s point of view.  And don’t come with claims that humans are also incredibly cruel and uncaring, because I will agree with that as well.  That is the dilemma of our existence.  We can see both sides of this one truth.  Humans are valuable but squander that value in a lifestyle of survival, rebellion and sin.

Welcome to God’s point of view.  You can imagine how concerned he is.  The question is how to save us from ourselves.

We talked about the fact that God took it upon himself to save us by becoming our substitute on the cross so that we could be saved by trading places with Jesus.  This is the good news of salvation.  But you can’t understand or accept the good news without also understanding and accepting the bad news.  We simply cannot save ourselves.  We aren’t good enough.  We don’t have the power nor the inclination to make it work.

The Humpty Dumpty Principle puts an end to all of our moral striving.  “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.  Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.  All of the King’s horses, and all of the King’s men, couldn’t put Humpty together again.”  Once we hurt someone, we can’t un-hurt them.  We can’t fix it.  We can’t make it like it never happened in the first place.

We all live with a myriad number of hurts and pains from the people around us through the years of our living together.  We have gotten hurt and given hurt in equal measure.  We may get used to it.  We may be willing to put up with it.  We may even survive it (more or less) but most of the problems in life are a result, one way or the other, of people’s lack of love, care and respect for one another.

That’s the truth and there is nothing you can do about it.

But God can.  And He did.

That’s the story of the cross.  He became the sinner and we became the saints.  It isn’t fair.  It isn’t right.  But it is necessary.  It reminds me of the story of Peter getting his feet washed by Jesus the night before Jesus was crucified on the cross.

---

“Yochanan, sit over here.”  James kept his voice low.  He pointed at the place where he wanted his brother to sit.

Expectations were high among the Twelve.  It had been a spectacular week and they were filled with the heady emotions of great events.  Although they had hoped that Jesus would make his move sooner, Passover had come upon them and it could not be ignored.

In fact, it was anticipated eagerly.  After all, the Passover was a celebration of freedom.  Freedom from slavery, freedom from Egypt, and now Rome.  Freedom to be the people and the nation that they had dreamt of for so long.  In their hearts the disciples were still singing “Hosanna to the Son of David!”

“What do you think you’re doing?”  The question came from Peter.

Yochanan looked up at Peter and then quickly away.  He looked like a hen trapped in the hen house between two roosters.  He moved as if to rise but his brother James grabbed his shoulder and pushed him down on the couch.

“It’s no affair of yours’ Peter.  Jesus told us to sit here.”

“What are you talking about?  Since when have you two been given a place on each side of the Master?  What about me?  Where do I sit?”  Peter’s intense whisper intruded on the quiet conversations of the disciples as they waited for their host to make his final preparations before leaving.  A few looked over at Peter.

“Sit where you want, its no concern of mine,” James said. “We are sitting here.”

Yochanan tried to stand up and move away but his brother pushed him down again and Yochanan’s face flushed.   The eyes of all the disciples were on them now and sides were being taken.

“Peter’s right,” Andrew said in defense of his brother, “he should sit beside Jesus.”    It was out in the open now and Peter was already starting to feel foolish.  What if Jesus heard them arguing like this again?

At that moment Jesus walked in, looked around at them but did not say a word.  He went to the sideboard as the host left the room and removed his outer garment.  What was he up to? He picked up a towel laying there and wrapped it around his waist.  He then poured water into a basin, knelt down and, before anyone could protest, he began to wash Philip’s feet.

It was customary to ritually wash themselves from the eldest to the youngest in preparation for the Passover meal.  One of them, in the absence of the women, should have offered to do so.

“Master, don’t do this.  Let me.”  Philip voiced his protest, together with the others but Jesus paid no heed.

Andrew was standing closest to Jesus and made to take the pitcher of water from his hands but Jesus ignored him, placed the pitcher on the other side of Phillip’s feet, away from Andrew and began to rigorously dry Philip’s feet with the cloth around his waist.  Andrew looked around the room, searching for advice but nobody knew what to say or do.

Finally, they sat down on their couches in silence, each one taking the nearest one.

Jesus started on the side of the room closest to the water basin, not at all concerned about who would be first or last, eldest or youngest.  And the room was absolutely quiet.

As the long minutes ticked by, Jesus continued his service until, finally, he came to Simon Peter.

“Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

In the quietness, they could all hear the question though it was not more than a whisper.  It was a question they all wanted to ask.

Jesus began to pour water on Peter´s feet, and said “At the moment you do not know what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

“Never.”

Peter’s reaction seemed violent in that quiet atmosphere.  He moved his feet away and allowed the water to spill on the cold stone floor.  “You shall never wash my feet!”

Jesus sat back on his haunches, put the pitcher down and rested his arm on his knee.  He looked up at Peter briefly and then back down at his feet.  With his free hand, he took hold of one of Peter´s feet and brought it closer and then the other and said, “If I do not wash you, you can have nothing to do with me.”

Harsh words.  What did they say or do to deserve such words?  Softly spoken perhaps, but harsh words nonetheless, firm and final.

It was not until much later that they understood what Jesus meant, that this was the shame of the cross, that the one who is worthy must die for the unworthy, that the one they would call Master must serve his own servants.  It is shameful for the servant to bear; knowing that he has caused it to be so, but without this service there is no salvation.  And so shame must give way to love.  Not that they understood it all at the time, but the spirit can still do what the mind does not understand, and Peter´s shame gave way to love for no other reason than that it was there.  Love accepts the shame for the sake of something better.  It was a lesson that Peter would soon learn in much more detail and with much more pain.

“Then, Lord,” Peter said with quiet fervor, “not only my feet, but my hands and my head as well!”

Jesus smiled, but said, “No one who has taken a bath needs washing, he is clean all over.  You too are clean, though not all of you are.”

---

Do you see the point?  Shame can bring you to the foot of the cross but still leave you wanting if you do not accept that shame and release it to receive the work that Christ MUST do for you.  That shame is precious to God.  It is the right response to what Christ did for you on the cross.  But there is no shame in love.  Peter only understood that he wanted to be with Jesus.  The rest didn’t matter.  His pride didn’t matter.  And this is the same guy that only hours later would deny his Lord three times.

The heart is decietful above all things (Jeremiah 17:9) the Bible says and it is good to keep in mind.  When people ask me how they can be saved, it is easy to just point to these verses in Romans 10 and show them the Path that they must take.  You say with your mouth that “Jesus is Lord” and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead and you will be saved (vs. 9).  Almost too easy.  Say a few words.  Believe a particular thing like the resurrection and, bingo.  You are saved.  Wrong.

After all the work that Paul did to establish that the whole point of the good news is that it is about relationship, specifically a relationship with God, you would think that people would get the point.  It is not an external act but an internal relationship that matters.

You aren’t married because you stood up in front of some people with a Justice of the Peace present and said a few vows.  Well, yes.  You may be legally married but are you really married?  No.  It is about the relationship not the wedding vows.  That’s why so many people end up in divorce.  The wedding was nice.  Vows were made but, somehow, it was no longer true (or ever was) in their hearts.  The same is true with God.  If it isn’t a heartfelt thing, saying the words won’t mean a thing.

Many evangelists have made it so simple to become saved that you can even do it online but filling out a questionaire but that doesn’t make it so.  Pastors often have to counsel people who are unsure of their salvation (perhaps because they have just committed a sin that they know God won’t like).  Often the answer the Pastor gives is to trust the day of their salvation.  Trust that the Bible is true.  If you verbally and publicly professed your faith and you believe in your heart then you are saved.  Wrong.

II Corinthians 5:3 tells us to examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith, not to just assume it.  There will be evidence of our belief in the way we live, in the kinds of priorities that we have, how we spend our time and money, how we treat other people.  That is not works righteousness.  That is completing our faith with expressions of love (Galatians 2:20).

The Path is before us but we must examine our hearts to see if it is real.  And the test for me is the presence of shame.  Don’t be in a hurry.  Take your time.  Think about it.

Do you believe that God exists?  Great.  Do you believe that Jesus is Lord (meaning that he is also God?).  Great.  Do you believe that God raised Jesus from the dead which proves who Jesus is?  Great.  At least you got the facts straight but Paul goes deeper yet.  Yes, you need to believe in your heart (inward) and confess with your mouth (outward) but in order for it to be real, to be valid, to be sincere, there needs to be shame.

Think about your godlessness and the wickedness of your life to this point.  Make some notes.  Write it out if you have to.  Make a list of all of the things that you have screwed up.  How many people, with names and dates, that you have hurt.  How many bodies you have left in your wake.  How many hurts you have dished out.  How many people you have ignored.  Go deep and think hard.  The more you dig up the dirt, the more shame you will feel and shame is your best friend right now.  We all want to skip over the dirty work, the shame of our lives, the mess we have made (some more than others) but unless you do the work, the good news is unremarkable and lacking in power.

But once you get there, at the foot of the cross, and accept that you have no claim on God, no excuse to get you out of the punishment and wrath of God, no justification for getting you off the hook, then you are ready for salvation and not before.  Then you are ready to accept that Jesus HAD to do this work for you.  He HAD to take your place.  There was no other way.  Otherwise you would have been lost.

It is the humility of shame that brings you to the foot of the cross but it is the wonder of unconditional love that will save you when you accept him and his work for you.  Your loyalty to him will never waver because it is rooted in the love that takes away our shame.

That is the only Path on this Roman Road to Salvation that will bring you into a saving relationship with God through Jesus Christ.  Walk in it.

The Desert Warrior

P.S.  Let’s talk to God….

Lord, it is true that I have done a lot of shameful things in my life.  I am not afraid to admit that I desperately need you.  I want to have a saving relationship with you as my Lord and Saviour.  I know how Peter felt.  They were arguing about who was important and you come in and act like a servant washing their feet.  It was embarrassing and then you tell us that we can’t have any part of you unless we accept that humble service that only you can do for us.  We know that you are talking about the cross.  It fills us with shame but we give that shame to you and accept your love.  Thank you.  In your name I pray.  Amen.

 

 

Walking The Roman Road – Lenten Season 2019

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.”

“And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

“Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!  For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (Romans 5:1-11 NIV).

Religious Virtues

This is one of those passages that is just too good to pass up.  I want to take a few moments to really savor these words and explore what they mean.  Would you like to join me?

Our pastor was having a Bible study on Romans a few weeks back.  He was the one who inspired me to write this devotional.  We had been talking about the wrath of God and the final judgment and things were getting heavy.  At the end of one particular session, he said, “Now it’s time for some good news.”

I immediately piped up and said, “God isn’t angry with me anymore because Jesus took my place on the cross?”

Without missing a beat, he said, “That’s right.  You were at war with God but now, the good news is that you can have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

That’s it in a nutshell.  And that’s exactly what Paul is saying in these verses.  If you accept God’s solution, become a follower of Christ with a sincere heart and accept him as your substitute so that you can begin a new relationship with God, then you are no longer at war with God, no longer subject to his wrath, free from final judgment and you are declared by God, Himself, to be at peace with him.  Paul calls this reconciliation.

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand” (Romans 5:1,2a NIV).

What does it mean to be justified?  To be declared innocent, without guilt before God.  Why? Through faith.  Through our Lord Jesus Christ.  He is our substitute.  He became a sinner so that we could become saints.  We aren’t actually saints yet in terms of our morality but God declares that we are innocent and without guilt already now.  Not because of our own efforts but because of the righteousness of Jesus.  God is telling us now what His judgment will be in the last day at the final judgment.  It has already been decided.

How is that all possible?  God loves us and is trying to save us from the consequences of our own rebellion against Him.  We don’t deserve it but that is just the kind of God He is.  That’s why it is called “grace.”  Grace means undeserved favor.  We don’t deserve it but He gives it to us anyway.  Why did He choose you or me and not others?  I don’t know.  He wanted us and gave us grace.  Paul says “we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.”

Where did we get that faith?  Like falling in love, it just showed up.  Paul says in Ephesians 2:8 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.”

You can imagine that God isn’t interested in any of us boasting that somehow we deserved His grace, or did something that forced His hand in allowing us to be saved.  Don’t forget our first lesson about godlessness and wickedness.  No one is exempt.  Everyone is in rebellion against God.  Without God’s grace, which gives us the gift of faith, we would never wake up to our situation on time and respond to God’s call to follow Him.

I have a saying that goes like this:  There is nothing more embarassing in heaven and on earth than the arrogance of men who ought to be ashamed of themselves.  Sadly, that applies to all of us.

There is no room for boasting.  Any works we do AFTER we are saved are done in gratitude for our new relationship with God and are only possible because God motivates us to follow Him and to do things the way He does.  Loving enemies.  Giving generously.  Helping the poor.  Teaching people about God.

“And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God” (vs. 2b)

Actually Paul talks about us being joyful about three things.  First, we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.  Second, we rejoice in our sufferings (we’ll get back to that one) and third, we rejoice in God and in the peace/reconciliation we have with Him (vs.11).  Let’s talk about each one specifically.

First, we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.  There’s a lot that can be said about the glory of God and you can check out some of my other posts on the subject but right now I want to focus our attention on the key idea.  The glory of God (or what makes God valuable) is His character.  God is good.  His goodness is made up of His Justice and His Love.  Both are necessary for God to be good.  But the Bible repeatedly tells us that, although God did reveal Himself (and His character) in the OT in a lot of ways, the most complete way that God reveals Himself and who He really is, was done through Jesus Christ.  It was the character of Christ, the work he did, how he related to the poor and hungry and also how he treated the Pharisees and Sadducees, how he got angry when it was appropriate to get angry and gentle when he needed to be gentle.  But the true glory of God was shown in the cross.

In fact, Paul talks about that glory a bit later on when he talks about God’s love.  That is His character.  We will just run ahead a little bit to make a quick point that the character of God is His glory and His glory is most fully revealed in Jesus and his work on the cross.  Paul says in vs. 6-8, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  That is what God is all about.

Yes, I know that there are many who believe that God is evil (since He seems to allow evil to flourish) and we humans are basically good.  The Bible tells us, and Jesus showed us, that we are evil and God is good.  That is the truth about God (and us).  That is the glory of God.  You can’t have it both ways.  You can’t deny God’s justice (which is rooted in His love for us) because we want to get away with our godlessness and wickedness.  And then only accept the love of God as if that is all we need.  God’s love and his justice go together.  The only way for God to fulfill the demands of His justice was for Jesus to become our substitute and take our place.  He did not set aside his justice as if it didn’t matter or as if love was more important.  No, He fulfilled His justice with His love by taking our place on the cross and becoming our substitute.  That is what shows the true glory of God.

So what does it mean that we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God?  Well, the whole point of the exercise is that we will become like Jesus Christ, learning the ways of sacrificial love and participating in his glory.  The process will go on for the rest of our lives and it will be a struggle (more on that later).  But we have hope and look forward to the time when we will also be fully transformed from glory into glory and become more like Christ every day and then fully like him on the last day when we enter into eternity with him.

So we are filled with joy just thinking about that process that begins now and continues into eternity.  We want to become that kind of person and participate in that glory.

But one last thing about the word “hope.”  This is not used in the Bible the same way that we use it normally.  We don’t have much control over the future so when we hope, we are expressing nothing more than a desire. But in the Bible, the future is under the control of God, He has made certain promises to us and one of them is that we will become like Him in His glory and so our “hope” is a sure thing.  It is certain because it is based on the promises and power of God and He will do it.  Which makes us happy and we rejoice.

The second source of joy is more difficult.  This is a joy that we can have in our sufferings (vs. 3,4).  Now I don’t know about you but I find this one hard to swallow.  Why would anyone rejoice in their sufferings?  Paul says that we know our sufferings will produce perseverance and then character and then hope.  Perseverance.  Character.  Hope.

I suppose that’s true.  Hardship that is endured stoically can produce character.  We all kind of know that but where does hope fit in?  First of all, let me say that Paul isn’t just talking about any kind of suffering here.  He is talking about suffering for the gospel, because we are Christians, under persecution in one form or another.  All suffering is included in the sense that if we handle it as Christians who follow Christ, we can, with God’s help, transform all forms of suffering into Christ-like character.  But here specifically he is talking about persecution.  Suffering for Christ.  And when we persevere in our walk with Christ even though we are suffering for being a Christian, it produces hope in us.

Let me put it another way.  Sometimes following Christ gets you into trouble.  It feels like it would be easier just to quit.  Often you are tempted to quit and just call it a day and let the whole thing drop.  But you can’t.  After a few days, you are back at it.  Trying to follow Christ.  Getting back into the game.  Fighting temptation.  Walking with God.  Learning how to be a disciple.  I’ve tried to quit a number of times.  I’m still here.  I can’t take much credit for it.  God keeps me going.  He keeps bringing me back.  I still persevere.  I suppose I would develop more character if I gave it more effort but the truth is that whether I like it or not, I’ve got the bug.  I’ve got the Holy Spirit within me.  I can’t walk away from this relationship.  I will keep on keeping on.  And that gives me hope.  That tells me that it is real.  That something beyond myself is happening to me.  And it is only in the context of suffering when anybody else who was merely religious would have no problem quitting, when others who were not truly disciples would throw in the towel, yet I keep going.  Not to my credit but, it still gives me hope.  Hope that God has a hold of my life and won’t let go, which is what He promised.  That is something you can only discover in the midst of suffering, pain and discouragement.  Hope springs eternal in the heart of the true believer.

And what is that final thing that we rejoice about?  In vs. 11, Paul says “we also rejoice in God through our Lord jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”  So, yes, it makes us happy, often mysteriously so, that we have this new relationship of peace with God.  It is a relief.

Like the old hymn, Amazing Grace, puts it in the second verse – “Twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved.” 

Knowing God becomes a joy.  Knowing that we are at peace with God is a source of happiness in this life that no circumstance can take from us.  It may take a while, since we are all slow to grasp the true grace of God, but when you finally realize that there is nothing you can do to change God’s attitude toward you, it will change your life.  When you realize that your sin doesn’t put you outside in the dog house but simply makes God sad, your life will change.  When you realize that there is nothing you can do to get God to reject you any more than you can force your wife or husband to stop loving you (but even more), you will start to get that confidence, that certainty in your relationship with Him that will produce a deep, abiding joy.  That will become the new foundation of your life that nothing will be able to shake you from.  No circumstance.  No situation.  Nothing.

Paul says in Romans 8:38,39, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Paul understood.  He got it.  When we get it, we will have that same certainty in our relationship with God and it will transform our lives.  That is cause for joy.

So what is all of this talk about religious virtues?  Traditionally they are called the  theological virtues (what a terrible name!).  The theological virtues are faith, hope and love.  They are called that because they just show up when you become a Christian.  You didn’t really do anything to create them.  They are a package deal.  You have faith.  It was a gift.  You have hope which is the certainty that God will keep his promises to you and save you from the consequences of your godlessness and wickedness.  You have love.  Not just for yourself but for others, even strangers, maybe even enemies.  You feel different about people.  You look at them with new eyes.  You want to save them and tell them about Jesus.

Obviously, the more you exercise these virtues, the stronger they will become but they were not created by you.  They actually come from the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life (which we will talk about in a later post).

There are other virtues of course but I want to point out that the three theological virtues of faith, hope and love (see I Corinthians 12,13) produce in you other fruit of the Spirit such as peace, gentleness and kindness.  But they also produce joy, which is what we have been talking about here.

So don’t be surprised that your non-Christian friends think you’re nuts.  The things that make you happy are not even possible for them.  Without faith, hope and love you will never experience peace with God, nor the joy that comes from knowing you will be changed by the glory of God into the character of Christ and that your own experience of suffering and perseverance will give you a certain hope that it is all real and that your future is assured.  And to know God and enjoy Him forever (Westminster Confession Question 1), well, your friends will think you are crazy.  But you won’t be able to deny it.  It will change your life.

The Desert Warrior

P.S.  Let’s talk to God….

Lord, I know it is true.  I can already see it in my life.  I don’t know where the faith came from.  I now have hope for the future and expect great things both in this life and especially into eternity.  And yes, I seem to relate to people differently.  There is more love in my heart.  I have a long way to go and I know that you expect me to exercise these virtues to make them grow but I still want to thank you for giving them to me in the first place.  And it is true that it produces peace and gentleness and kindness and also joy.  It’s strange but true.  My life has been transformed.  Help me to go from glory to glory.  In your name I pray.  Amen.

 

 

Walking The Roman Road – Lenten Season 2019

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.”

“And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

“Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!  For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (Romans 5:1-11 NIV).

Breaking the Alliance

The serpent was disgusting, his slithering form a transparent mask, his voice a whining caricature of human sound.  But he was no fool.  His attack would be subtle beyond words and Gabriel feared for the man and the woman.

Eve was walking near the center of the garden where the Tree of Life grew.  Its leaves were a beautiful dark green, its fruit delicious beyond the imagining of it.  But it was not the Tree of Life that had caught her attention.  She was staring at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, her curiosity a passing thing, with no evil desire to mar her interest.  It was simply not important other than the recognition that her Father had asked her not to eat from that Tree on pain of death.  Not that death meant anything to her, but to displease her Father was punishment enough.

She would have walked on, her entourage of forest creatures keeping pace and providing company for this impromptu tour of her kingdom, but then she noticed the serpent coiled around the trunk of the tree.

She should not be alone. Gabriel thought.  Where is her head, her man?  He should protect her, together they might overcome the tempter.  Divide and conquer, the oldest strategy, the surest results.  No, the serpent was no fool.  But God had allowed this encounter and the choice would be hers to make and later, also the man.

The serpent spoke and Eve stopped, her eyes growing wide.

“You have spoken,” she said.

“It is so,” came back the reply, the unblinking eyes betraying nothing.

“Has Adam given you a name?”  Eve asked with kind concern, already accepting the strangeness of this conversation as part of the wonderful creation of her Father.

“No, I need no name for I will decide my own identity.”

“This is most strange.”

A questioning look came into Eve’s eyes for a moment and the serpent decided to press his attack at once before too many questions were asked.

“Did God really say you were not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?”

The question was an accusation, the accusation sweeping and deceptive, making God look unrealistic to forbid them to eat from all of the trees in the garden.  The serpent was already planting doubt in the wisdom and love of the Creator, though this first attack was designed to be easily overcome.

Eve noticed the black pulp of the forbidden fruit staining the serpent’s mouth and she was immediately concerned.  The serpent had entwined himself upon the lower branches of the tree and was reaching for another fruit. 

He should not be there, Eve thought to herself.  He should not be eating from the forbidden tree.  Did he not know the will of the Father?

Concerned, she responded, “we may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden.  But of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden God said, ‘You must not eat it, nor touch it, under pain of death.’”

The serpent noticed the additional words Eve had spoken out of concern for what he was doing.  God had not mentioned anything about touching the tree.  Already one person’s disobedience was threatening the safety and peace of others.  Already worry was taking root and additions to the law were being added as a further safeguard from disobedience.  Lucifer was learning key strategies that he would use time and again in the temptation of this race of men. He decided to press on in the confusion of the moment with a direct approach.

“No! You will not die!”  It was a direct contradiction of God’s clear command but the serpent rushed on, hoping to cover his brashness with further argument.  “God knows in fact that on the day you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.”

It was the art of deception in its purest form.  He had told her the truth but not the whole truth.  It was true that if she ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil she would learn of things she had never dreamt of before.  But that was not the issue.  The question was one of surviving the knowledge, surviving the disobedience.

He had caught her interest and the seeds of doubt grew quickly in the virgin soil.  He had cast doubt not only on the clear word of God but also on God’s character.

Was God trying to keep some good thing from them?  Was this fruit something that her man as King of the earth was entitled to have?  Should she try it first to make sure it was all right and then give some to Adam?

The woman saw that the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eye and that it was desirable for the knowledge that it could give.  So she took some of its fruit and ate it.

She gave some also to her husband who had come up behind her.  He held the fruit in his hand, looked into her eyes and realized what she had done.

“We will be like God,” she said in response to the question in his eyes.

He hesitated only long enough for the desire to take root in his own heart and then he ate it.  Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized that they were naked.

---

“This world is a dangerous place,” I said.  “But not for the reasons you might think.”

John was there with Sofi this time and my wife had joined us for our weekly get together after the Alpha Course session.  We were all sitting on the sofa and chairs in the living room with hot coffee in our hands.  We were starting to get to know each other quite well.  Sofi was no fool either.  She could think.  Her background was Catholic but she knew her Bible.

“What kind of danger are you talking about?” John asked.  “Wars and famine and stuff like that?”

“Well, yes, but there is an even greater danger that is mostly God’s fault.”

“God’s fault?” Sofi said.  “You want to blame God for all the evil in the world?”

“No, not for the evil,” I said, giving a dramatic pause.  “Just for the danger.”

“Ok, spill it already,” my wife said, giving me a look.

I laughed.

“Ok, ok,” I said.  “What I am saying is that God had to create a truce of sorts, putting off his final judgment of death for Adam and Eve in order to provide a context for the battle with the Evil One for the souls of man.”

“A context?” John said.

“Yes.  A time and place for God to fight back.  Ultimately, every man and woman must make an accounting for their lives but, in the meantime, certain things must be accomplished.  God’s Master Plan must go forward and the Evil One must be defeated.  God would not give up his creation or his people to the Evil One without a fight.”

“Maybe they didn’t die right away,” Sofi said, “but we still all got cursed.“

“Even the serpent was cursed by God,” my wife said.

“Let me read that to you from the Book of Genesis,” I said.  “Because you have done this,  ‘Cursed are you above all livestock and all the wild animals!  You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.  And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers;  he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:14,15 NIV).

“Our first parents created an unholy alliance with the Evil One,” I said.  “They traded faith and trust in God for doubt and unbelief.  It was safer to decide things for themselves than to trust in the love of a Father who, according to the serpent, was holding back good things from them.  Although they had not intended to choose the serpent over their Father, they chose the same path as the Evil One and so created the unholy alliance with him that would be their downfall.”

“Not good,” John said.

“That unholy alliance was not broken with the setting up of this truce but it was made difficult to maintain.  It would be constantly challenged.  The Devil knows that he has no authority on the earth that he cannot deceive man into giving to him.  Therefore, the curse upon the serpent was to create enmity or friction between the two allies and predict his final doom at the hands of one of the offspring of the very woman he had deceived.”

“You mean Jesus?” John said.

“Exactly.”

“But why is this truce so dangerous?” John asked.  “I think I missed something.”

I looked at John carefully.

“Do you remember the first question you asked me about God?”  I said.

John just shook his head.

“You asked me how could a good God allow so much evil in the world.”

“Yeah, I remember,” John said.  “And you gave me this crazy answer.  You said because God loves us.”

I just looked at him and he stared back his mind working.  I could almost see the moment when he worked it out.

“The truce,” John said.  “God had to institute a truce in order to save us but he couldn’t get rid of evil at the same time.”

“Exactly.  God has to put up with evil in order to save us.  That’s why the truce is so dangerous.”

“But I still don’t get it,” Sofi said.  “You said that God created the danger which I suppose is the truce, but not the evil.  I see why evil is dangerous but not why the truce is dangerous.”

“Because everybody thinks that the truce is normal,”  I said.

Sofi and John just sat there thinking.

“What’s the greatest barrier to people coming to know God and learning about Jesus?”  I didn’t wait for an answer.  “This conviction that everything is normal and that everything is as it should be.  Godlessness is normal, in fact, most people consider religion to be old-fashioned.  Evil is put up with and death is considered natural.  Nothing is further from the truth.”

“So the truce allows wickedness and evil on the one hand and on the other it kinda lulls people to sleep thinking that everything is fine,” John said.

“Right.  When, in fact, this world is abnormal and even downright absurd.  Humans are not dust in the wind, but rather the most valuable possession of a God who is determined to save them.”

“Once you see it from that point of view, it starts to make sense,” Sofi said.

“Jesus basically broke that alliance and relationship we have with the Devil and gave us the chance for a new relationship with God,” I said.  “Sort of like an opportunity to go back to the way things were, with some differences of course.”

John was amazed.  His eyes were opened and he saw things in a way he never thought about before.  I could see it on his face.

“And our job is to tell more people about it,” he said.  “Like you guys are doing with us.”

“Right,” I said.  “And make new friends along the way.”

We all laughed at that.  That was one thing that was certainly coming true.

The Desert Warrior

P.S.  Let’s talk to God….

Lord, thank you so much for breaking my alliance with the Devil.  I can say that it wasn’t my intention to side with him against you but my actions speak louder than my words.  Yes, he decieves us but we are willing partners in his rebellion.  Forgive me, Lord, for making it necessary for you to die on the cross.  Thank you for that service.  You have redeemed my life and I am a new person.  Thank you for a new alliance with you that cannot be broken.  In your name I pray.  Amen.

 

 

Walking The Roman Road – Lenten Season 2019

“But now, a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.  This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.  There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.  God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.  He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished – he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:21-26 NIV).

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.  But God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5: 6-8 NIV).

Friendship with God

It was the killing stroke.

The knife was in the air and plunging down to snuff out the life of his son, whom he loved, when Avraham heard his name called out.

Even then, he could not have stopped if the Angel of the Lord had not helped him.  It had been left to the last minute, the last seconds before it would have been too late.  God wanted to know Avraham’s heart. He wanted to test his faith, that most powerful of weapons in the deadly battle for the redemption of mankind.

Avraham blinked hard a couple of times in an attempt to get his bearings.  He heard the voice again.

“Avraham, Avraham.”

He replied, “I am here.”

“Do not raise your hand against the boy,” the angel said.  “Do not harm him, for now I know you fear God.  You have not refused me your son, your only son.”

No, Avraham thought,  I could not refuse but at times I wanted to.  I am an old man and this is my son, whom I love.  He was born in laughter and laughter is his name.  But he was a gift in my old age and I cannot refuse the giver.

El Shaddai is a mighty God, full of compassion and love, and I could not refuse or doubt him.  He would simply have raised Yitz´chak up again from the dead, if need be, to keep his promise that He swore to me on pain of death.  No, I could not refuse but it had not been easy. 

Looking up, Avraham saw a ram caught by its horns in a bush.  Avraham took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son.  Avraham called this place, “Yahweh provides.”

It was the waiting that was most difficult, he remembered, for he had known that God required his son from him for a number of days already.  They had chopped the wood for the burnt offering and started on the journey to the mountain.  God would indicate the place.  On the third day they had arrived.

Then Abraham said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey.  The boy and I will go over there; we will worship and come back to you.”  That was a statement of faith that had spontaneously sprung from his lips.    

Avraham took the wood for the burnt offering, loaded it on Yitz´chak, and carried in his own hands the fire and the knife.  Then the two of them set out together.

Yitz´chak spoke to his father Avraham.  “Father,” he said.

“Yes, my son,” he replied.

“Look,” he said, “here are the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

Avraham answered, “My son, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering.”  Then the two of them went on together.

When they arrived at the place God had pointed out to him, Avraham built an altar there, and arranged the wood.  Suddenly he wondered how he would force his son to lie on the altar.  The thought of struggling with Yitz´chak filled him with dread; the task was difficult enough as it was.  But then he knew what he would do.

He approached Yitz´chak and, with strips of camel hide, he began to bind Yitz´chak’s hands.  Yitz´chak seemed to be as much amused as he was confused.  Although he inquired repeatedly, Avraham remained silent and did not answer his questions.

With a stubbornness born of the desert, Avraham completed the task, half dragging, half carrying Yitz´chak to the altar and pushing him upon it.  Yitz´chak cried out in pain as the sticks of wood struck him in the back.  But Avraham ignored his pleas and went about his task with single-minded determination, his bony face and hollow eyes a mirror of the death he was bringing upon his son, whom he loved.

He would put fire to the wood later, first he had to kill the sacrifice.  Already he was thinking of Yitz´chak as the sacrifice!  What strange thing is this, to what purpose this offering of his firstborn son?

But Avraham stretched out his hand and seized the knife to kill his son.  He had decided to do it swiftly and cleanly, so that Yitz´chak would not suffer.  His arm was coming down strongly in the killing strokewhen he heard the voice call out his name.

---

It is time to talk about the good news, about faith and about a new relationship with God – a friendship with God.

Abraham was called the “friend of God” (Genesis 18:1-18; 2 Chronicles 20:7, Isaiah 41:8; James 2:23) and Jesus tells us that he wants to become friends with us as well (John 14:21,23).

This is the great change that God is making in the world, transforming hearts, one at a time, from enemies into friends.  Nothing less.

He started with the cross by showing us how much he loved us.  “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8b).

And this is the second step in the gospel of Paul.  The first step was to recognize that we are enemies of God, that we lead godless lives that leads to all kinds of wickedness and evil and that the wrath of God (a product of his love and justice) rests upon us.  Even though there is an uneasy truce hanging over the human race where we can get away with evil for a short time, God’s judgment will come, sometimes in this life and certainly in the life to come.  That’s the bad news.

But now, in chapter three of the Letter to the Romans, Paul starts to talk about the good news.  “But now, a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.  This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe” (Romans 3:21,22a NIV).

Let us be clear that the good news is that God simply forgets about sin or that his love is stronger than sin or that sin no longer matters.  No, we learnt from Paul that sin matters so much to God (and should to us) that the only way to deal with it (and satisfy his justice) is to send his only begotten son to die a horrible death on the cross.

That is why Paul continues to talk about “a righteousness from God.”  Whether through the law or through faith in Jesus Christ, a “righteousness” is still necessary for us to have a friendship with God.  And “righteousness” here is no mamby-pamby, weak-kneed effort at good deeds.  Enough of cheap solutions and easy answers.

The OT makes it clear that God has always expected us to love him with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength.  We don’t even love each other (or ourselves) that much.  Jesus made it clear that the outward acts of keeping the law were useless without your heart in it.  Thoughts were as important as deeds.  And Paul makes it clear that under that standard of true loving obedience from the heart, none of us can stand.  Righteousness under the law will not work (and was never the idea in the first place).  The Jews had perverted the relationship of God with his people (even in the OT) into something religious and offensive, like a man (or woman) going through the motions and duties of marriage, without their heart in it.  Whatever happened to love?

“But now,” Paul says, “a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known…” Doesn’t that remind you of the statement he made earlier about the wrath of God which “is being revealed” from heaven?  On the cross, God “reveals” or “makes known” both his wrath and this new righteousness at the same time.  Jesus became sin (on the cross) and we became righteous in God’s eyes.  Jesus is our substitute and the righteousness given to us from him doesn’t belong to us.  Jesus received the wrath of God that was meant for us and we recieve friendship with God that belonged to Jesus.

The point is that “righteousness” is still necessary for us to have a new relationship with God.  Now, when God looks at us, he sees us only through the lens of the righteousness of Christ.  That is the good news.

But most people need more than deep theological words to understand what is going on here and Paul knows it.  That is why he uses Abraham as his example.  The story is quite fascinating of course, but the way Paul presents it is downright interesting.  Listen….

“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him,  “So shall your offspring be.”

“Without weakening inhis faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead – since he was about a hundred years old – and that Sarah’s womb was also dead.”

“Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.”

“This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.”

“The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us to whom God will credit righteousness – for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.”

“He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification” (Romans 4:18-25 NIV).

Can you imagine the drama?  Every time I meet a Jewish person I tell them that they are a living miracle.  Often they ask me why and I tell them about Abraham and Sarah (if they didn’t know already).  God waited until it was clear that there was no way humanly possible for them to have a baby.

Can you imagine being over 100 years old and your wife 10 years younger and telling her that it’s time to try again?  What a joke.  There was no way.  Even trying to have a baby, much less Sarah being pregnant for nine months and giving birth at her age, was problematic and downright impossible.  But Abraham believed in God’s promise and so took steps of faith to make it happen.  It’s that simple.

And the same is true for us today.  To have faith (trust) in Jesus Christ means to believe that we are under judgment and subject to wrath first of all.  We need to accept God’s condemnation of our godlessness and wickedness and have a moment of honesty and truth in which we confess that God is right about us.

Then we also need to accept God’s provision of a substitute that will give us the righteousness of Christ in exchange for our godlessness and wickedness (together called sin) so that we can be declared by God himself as being justified (or innocent of all crimes) before God.

This is not merely a legal formality that allows us to then go back to the way we were living before, any more than a marriage ceremony means we are married and can now go back to acting like we are single or a birth certificate means we are technically a parent and can now go back to being childless.  It is a covenant.  It is a relationship.  We are now “married” to Jesus.  We now have a new “friendship” with God.  Therefore we need to live our lives differently, in relationship with God, like Adam and Eve before they sinned – which is the whole point after all.  Faith has a purpose.

But before we get into that process of learning how to be “married” to God or how to manage the challenges of a new “baby” type relationship with Jesus, we need to talk about the ultimate reality of judgment and hell.  What happens then?  It may seem obvious to some but not so obvious to others.  This new relationship with God may have some great benefits in this life but the real problem comes in eternity.  Can I really trust that Jesus is my substitute?  Can I really believe that I am righteous before God when I so clearly continue to sin?  I can’t trust myself to be very good at this new relationship (just like new parents don’t trust themselves with the little baby or newlyweds with their new partner).  It isn’t about doing everything right.  It’s about doing everything together.  But the question is still a good one.

God is making a promise to us in Jesus Christ.  On the one hand, he is promising wrath and judgment on all the godlessness and wickedness of man (and rightly so).  On the other hand, he is promising justification (innocence) if we accept the righteousness of Christ in exchange for our sin (godlessness and wickedness).  That is the deal.  Marry Christ and you will have the benefits of his innocent relationship with God as your own.

Is that what faith in Jesus Christ means?  Not quite.  The first part is belief.  You need to believe that it is true, certainly, both the bad news and the good news.  The second part is action.  The marriage proposal has been made but you still need to accept and enter into the marriage relationship.  It is not just a head knowledge but a life relationship that is needed.

Paul gives the example of Abraham.  A promise was made.  He believed the promise and trusted in the One who made the promise.  He was convinced but God still wanted him to take action on that faith.  He still needed to go into his bedroom with his wife and make love to her one more time, creaky bones and all, even though there was no hope, humanly speaking, of any baby being conceived or born.  But he believed in God’s promise and acted upon it and that is why his faith was “credited to him as righteousness.”

James makes this same point.  “Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?  You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.  And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend” (James 2:21-23 NIV).

Abraham was the friend of God because he believed him (trusted him) when he gave him a promise even though it looked impossible.  And then he acted on it.  The (almost) sacrifice of Isaac (the promise child) on the altar happened after he believed just like the act of going in to his wife to concieve a child happened after he believed.  It was the result not the cause.  James said “his faith was made complete by what he did.”  He didn’t try and have a baby first and then, when Sarah got pregnant, he started to believe.  He believed first and then expressed his faith through his actions.  In Galatians 5:6, Paul explains it as “faith expressing itself through love.”

What does that mean for us?  Simply this, do not be fooled.  God is not mocked.  Don’t play games with him.  Just saying the words “I believe in Jesus Christ and I accept him as my Lord and Savior,” doesn’t mean much if it doesn’t first of all come from the heart (a TrueHeart Believer) and result in acts of faith, in a lifestyle of faith, in a lifelong relationship of ongoing trust and acts of faith in the same direction, learning to love your new family, your new “husband,” your new “baby” relationship with God.

That is what it means to have faith in Jesus Christ.  Faith is a relationship.  And every relationship has evidence that it is there.  Communication.  Agreement.  Results.  Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves.  Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you – unless, of course, you fail the test?”

And like all things that matter in life, it will cost you everything.  Marriage is free but it will cost you everything.  Having a baby is free but it will cost you everything (including many sleepless nights).  A new relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ is free but it will cost you everything.  Yes, God will ask you to make changes, to think differently, to spend money on the kingdom of God, to give up favorite pasttimes, to love people you would rather ignore, to be honest, generous, to ask for forgiveness, to reconcile, to get real with Him and your brothers and sisters in the church, to open up, to talk about your faith with strangers, to pray, to learn, to study, to be helpful, to do ministry.  And the list goes on.  Such a list can be made for marriage and parenthood as well.

But that’s the nature of love.  It is free but costs us everything and we are glad to pay the price because there is nothing more precious to us than to love God, our spouses, our children, our church, our world.  Love is the answer but only God’s love can provide the solution to sin and the power to live a lifestyle of radical love (more than normal) everyday.  That is the price of friendship with God.  Are you willing to pay that price?  If so, welcome to the family of God.

The Desert Warrior

P.S.  Let’s talk to God….

Lord, I am ready to pay the price for friendship with you.  I know that the price is faith in your promise and actions to back it up.  But I am surprised that this faith is even there.  I didn’t expect that it would.  I thought I would somehow have to convince myself that I had faith or conjure it up somehow by gritting my teeth and believing even though I didn’t really.  Not the case.  Your word says that faith is a gift.  A lot like falling in love I suppose.  It’s just there.  But then we need to act on it and that is what you ask us to do.  Thank you for the gift of faith and thank you for “strengthening” me like you did to Abraham so that I can act on that belief.  I’m looking forward to our life together.  In your name I pray.  Amen.

 

 

Walking The Roman Road – Lenten Season 2019

“There is no one righteous, not even one;  there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.  All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

“Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.  The poison of vipers is on their lips.  Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”

“Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.  There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Romans 3:10-18 NIV).

Sin Addiction

“That was a good one,” John said.  “Ask me another one.”

It was a game my sixteen year old daughter taught me.  It was called something like “Would you rather…”  Each kid would ask a “would you rather” question to the other.  “Would you rather be a snake or a scorpion?”  Those are the only two choices.  You had to give an answer and usually a reason for your answer.  The idea is to ask the most crazy questions you could thik of.

“Well, let me ask you something with a little bit more of a spiritual idea behind it.”

“Ok,” John said.  “Fire away.”

“Would you rather be Dracula or a werewolf?”

“Are you kidding?”  John exploded with laughter.  “How in the world is that a religious question?”

“I said “spiritual” not “religious,”” I said.  “Just answer the question.”  I was smiling too.  I wondered what he would say.

“Well…..” he dragged out his answer, thinking about it.  “I guess I would have to choose being a vampire, like Dracula.  He gets to live forever.”

“And why not the werewolf?” I asked.

“The werewolf is like an animal,” John said seriously.  “He starts out as a human but then turns into an animal and destroys everyone in his way.  Kinda creepy.”

“Actually, I agree,” I said with a smile.  “But Dracula has problems too.  He gets to live forever but he has to drink human blood to do it.”

“But those are the only two options you gave me,” John said.  “What makes it a spiritual question, anyway?”

“Well, you know that both of these are really literary figures that represent certain extreme problems that humans have.”

“What do you mean?”

“Take the werewolf, for example.  You are exactly right that he starts as a human and then is reduced to a ferocious animal and attacks anything that is in his way.  He becomes an unthinking beast that is controlled entirely by his animal instincts.”

“Dangerous.”

“Exactly.  Humans are like that sometimes.  When we get really angry or if we are fighting for survival, we can become very dangerous.  We don’t literally turn into werewolves, of course, but we all act like a bunch of animals sometimes.”

“And people get hurt,” John agreed.  “What about Dracula?”

“Well, Dracula is more interesting yet.  He represents the human desire for immortality and he is willing to do anything to get it.  He sucks the blood from his human victims to get what he wants much like we humans do to each other in order to get ahead in life.  Some people don’t pay much attention to who gets hurt in their mad rush for success and power.”

“Again, dangerous.”

“Yes.  Both of these types of people are dangerous but they aren’t the most dangerous of all.”

“Ok, now this is getting interesting.  Who is the most dangerous of all?”  John was sitting on the edge of the sofa, engrossed in the conversation.  It was an unusual way to introduce a vital spiritual truth but I thought he was ready for it.

“I will tell you in a minute,” I said.  “But before I do, I want to ask you a different sort of question.”

“Shoot.”

“Do you think that humans can sell their soul to the Devil?”

“Hmmm, that’s an interesting question.  Sort of depends on whether you believe in the Devil or not.  But granting that, can someone do something so horrible that he is in danger of losing his soul?”  John was rephrasing the question a bit but I let it go.  John looked up at me.  “I would have to say yes.  You can sell your soul to the Devil if you do something so horrible you can’t live with yourself anymore.”

“You do realize that you changed the question a bit to make it more psychological rather than real,” I said smiling.

“I’m not sure I believe in the Devil yet,” John said sincerely.

“Ok, granted.  But here is the point I wanted to make.  Nobody can sell their soul to the Devil because the Devil already owns your soul.”

Silence.

More silence.

“Hmmm.  Ok, you got me there.  That took me by surprise.  I suppose you’re saying this comes from the Bible and is God’s point of view?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Kinda harsh, don’t you think?”

“Well, it wasn’t God’s idea.  It was ours.”

“Human beings?  Well, what if I don’t agree with what Adam and Eve did in the garden?”

“You do the same thing they did every day?”

“No I don’t.”  John paused.  “Do I?”

“Well, do you do what pleases God every day or do you make your own decisions about your life as if God doesn’t exist?”

“Ok, I see your point.  This is like living as a godless person, like what you were talking about in your blog, right?”

“Right.  And being godless is exactly what Adam and Eve did as well.  They made a decision to disobey God as if God didn’t exist or didn’t matter to them.  And from that decision came all of the wickedness and evil in the world, including the evil and wickedness in our own hearts and lives, big or small, it comes from that same source.”

“I didn’t make the connection.”  John was pensive for a moment.  “So, it’s like we already are vampires and werewolves, hungry for power or filled with uncontrollable desires not concerned about who we hurt or how we get what we want?”

That was a surprise.  He had made the leap himself, coming to the right conclusion on his own.  I prayed a quick prayer of thanks and pressed forward.

“Exactly, now you’re getting it.  It may sound a bit extreme, although some people do fit that profile.  But we are all like that to one extent or another.  The question is why?”

“I suppose because we are godless and therefore no longer really human,” John said.  He was sitting there with his head hung down, thinking.

“Right again,” I said.  “If the picture that the Bible paints is accurate and God’s point of view is true, then who do you think is the most dangerous kind of literary figure that there is?”

John thought for a while, then shrugged his shoulders.  “I don’t know,” he said.  “I would only be guessing.”

“The walking dead,” I hinted.

“Zombies.”

“Zombies,” I repeated, nodding my head.  “They are another literary figure that takes a human being and burns out their soul and leaves a dead body still animated, animal like, unthinking, going about their business as if everything is fine until they get the scent of fresh blood and then they go in for the kill.”

“Gross,” John said.  “I never liked the zombie movies much.”

“Me neither, but the idea serves a purpose to illustrate how God sees us but not how we see ourselves.”

“What do you mean?”

“We think we are relatively normal.  We are human.  We care for one another and love one another, at least a normal amount, usually.  But our standard of what is normal has fallen to an all time low and God would not agree.  His standard is still what he intended from the beginning and from that point of view we are the living dead, whose souls have already been sold to the Devil with our godlessness.”

“And you think that is the most dangerous?”

“Dangerous to yourself,” I said.  “So long as you don’t believe that there is anything really wrong with you, you can’t get help.  In fact, I call it a Sin Addiction.”

John perked up a bit at that.

“A sin addiction,” he said.  “So you’re saying that we are all kinda addicted to our godlessness even though we don’t much like the wickedness and evil that comes with it?”

“Now you’re getting it,” I said.  “Look, we read those verses that say that everybody sins.  Everybody is godless, even religious people, all over the world.”

“Yeah, so.”

“We also read the verses that say that the reason we all die is because we are all godless and full of sin, which means that we rebel against God’s authority in our lives.”

“Ok, we all are godless and therefore we all die, is that what you’re saying?”

“Exactly.  Not everybody would connect those two things but that is God’s message to the world in the Bible.  He’s trying to tell us that death is not natural and that we should be living forever.  That’s what we want, isn’t it?  But we won’t get it through wickedness and evil.  Only by returning to God.”

“So, it’s like living in a city where everybody is an alcoholic and nobody thinks it’s strange and then some guy comes along with a cure but nobody wants it because they don’t think they’re sick and need it?”

“Now you’re cooking with fire,” I said, laughing out loud.  “That is the scary thing about being godless.  We really like being godless.  We really want to be in charge of our own lives and ignore God and his moral demands on our lives.  We would rather be in charge ourselves even if that means that the world is going to hell in a handbasket and we all die in the process.”

“Depressing.”

“If you believe it,” I said.  “You have to believe that we were meant for better things, that we were never meant to die, that being truly human is only possible in a relationship with God.”

“And if you don’t believe it, you live like a zombie, or a vampire….”

“….or a werewolf.”

“and then you die,”  John finished.  “And the worst of it is that you think it is perfectly normal when it really is an addiction with a cure.”

“Right on,” I said.  “But there’s still one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“Reality.”

John just sat there looking at me.

“Yes, reality,” I said.  “If God actually exists and the Bible is true, then we still have one more problem that is going to be really dangerous.”

“Judgment and hell,” John said.

“Judgment and hell,” I repeated.  “The most dangerous thing you can do is ignore the God who is there.  We all live forever.  That’s the nature of the human soul that God created.  The problem is not only death but what happens after death.”

“Nobody can deny that we are all basically godless and nobody can deny that we all die at some point but you are saying that the two things are connected and that if we don’t figure it out on this side of the grave, we are in danger of spending eternity with the Devil in hell?”

“That’s one way to put it,” I said.  “And to make matters worse, we are addicted to our godlessness and we prefer it, even if it means that we have to die.  In the meantime, we just ignore the idea of hell and just choose not to believe in it.”

“Until we die and find out that God exists, that we will be judged and that we will get exactly what we deserve,” John said, finishing the idea.

“Unless we choose to believe in God, accept his point of view and take advantage of his solution to the problem.”

“Jesus.”

Silence settled on both of us for a long moment.

“Yeah, I still don’t get how Jesus solves the problem yet,”  John said looking up at me.

“Don’t worry,” I said.  “That’s what’s coming next and it’s really good news.”

The Desert Warrior

P.S.  Let’s talk to God….

Lord, I can’t wait to get to the good news.  The bad news is so depressing although I know it’s true.  In my heart, I know that sin is real and that I tend to want to run things my own way even if it hurts others or myself.  I just don’t seem to trust you much or I would do things your way.  Help me to look at myself from your point of view and learn what it means to be truly human.  In your name I pray.  Amen.