Archive for » February, 2007 «

Rebellious At Heart

Wednesday, February 28th, 2007 | Author:

Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.  1 John 3:4

Lawlessness – Sometimes the writers of the New Testament tell us something that is so hard to hear we would rather slide past the subject.  That’s what is happening with this statement from John.  We think we know what sin is.  It’s breaking the list of rules that God set up for us.  It’s being a “bad” person by not doing what we know is right.  But then John tells us that if we go on sinning, we practice lawlessness.  Suddenly we’re confused.  Lots of my sins don’t violate any laws.  In fact, the laws of the land make perfectly legal many things I cringe to consider doing.  So how can sin be lawlessness?  How can I be breaking the law every time I sin?

The Greek word doesn’t seem to help.  The word is anomia.  It is often translated by another English word – iniquity.  Jesus’ statement in Matthew 7:23 uses this word to describe wicked people.  Paul uses it (Romans 6:19) to describe what happens to us when we pursue our own desires.  Now I’m even more confused.  I don’t think I’m a wicked person.  I actually want to serve God.  Does this verse mean that when I sin, I am filled with iniquity and terribly wicked?

Years ago Watchman Nee wrote something that clears the air.  It also hits us like a sledgehammer.  “Sin is a matter of conduct; it is easy to be forgiven of sin.  But rebellion is a matter of principle; it is not so easy to be forgiven of rebellion.”  Suddenly I see.  John is not talking about my individual sins.  He is speaking about my rebellion – that deep-seated principle within me that fights against the holiness of God, that wants to assert my independence and self-sufficiency.  It is not the particular laws that I either keep or break that matter here.  It is my basic core attitude.  The opposite of lawlessness is not rule-keeping.  It is submission.  That’s what is so difficult.  I would much rather be the rich young ruler who in all sincerity said that he kept the specific rules.  I don’t want Jesus to expose my basic core rebellion – my desire to keep the control.  I don’t want to submit.  Why?  Because I don’t want to, that’s why!  And that is what is at stake here.  When I operate from a principle of rebellion, I hate God.  Even if I conform to all the rules, even if I practice all the religious requirements, I can still be in rebellion.  I can still wish that life were going according to my plan.

Submission is the most difficult human choice anyone can ever make.  Our very nature cries out against it.  We will do anything but submit.  And that is why submission is at the very center of God’s grace.  Without submission, there is only iniquity – no matter what you call it.  Until you settle the rebellion issue, you live under the principle of lawlessness.


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Acting Out

Tuesday, February 27th, 2007 | Author:

For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.   Romans 6:19

Present – There is no way to get around it.  The bodily actions I take, the way that I use my hands, feet, eyes, ears and all the rest of me, have direct, spiritual consequences.  My issues with submission do not stop with my heart and my head.  They extend right through to my fingers.  No one can be a slave to God in heart only.  Slaves were meant to offer up their bodies as well as their minds and hearts.

Paul forever destroys the idea of a Christian dualism with this verse.  It just isn’t possible to separate myself into spirit, body and mind – as though I could serve God with part of me while the other part resisted (what we have so conveniently called the “carnal” Christian).  If I am a slave, God owns all of me.  That’s what it means to be a slave.  I don’t rent part of my life to God’s service.  Either I am living in submission or I am not.  There is no such thing as partial slavery.

In the past, you and I stood before the throne of Self and offered our faculties in its service.  In other words, we did what pleased us.  We might not have broken the law, but we broke the heart of God.  We rebelled against His authority.  We shouted, “It’s my life.  I’ll do what I want.”  Then the day came when we were crushed in our rebellion, humiliated in our arrogance and exposed for our wanton disregard of God’s goodness.  Iniquity piled upon iniquity putrefied our lives.  All we could do was say, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner by intentional design.”  He had mercy.

Now, says Paul, make a different offering.  Present (literally – stand before – paristemi) His throne and offer your body, mind and spirit (the one YOU) in total submission as His slave.  And, by the way, if there is any part of you that wants to resist that thought, any faculty or body member that still is crying out for its own way, then you know the pangs of obedience in a world of self-will.  You have discovered that you are not able to submit out of sheer willpower.  Why?  Because your will is powered by its own desire to rebel.  The only way you can submit is to ask God to do this miraculous work within you.  He must give you the heart and the desire.  They don’t reside in you naturally. 

Slavery is a fight, but it is never a battle.  The fight is to release God’s power to bring you into submission.  There is no battle because He has already overcome all the forces that conspire against you.  All that is left is for you to say, “Lord, have mercy on me” – and then present yourself.

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Death Threats

Monday, February 26th, 2007 | Author:

And put a knife to your throat if you are a man of great appetite.  Proverbs 23:2

Great Appetite – What kind of suggestion is this?  It seems outrageous.  Here is a man who has been invited to dine with the king.  He is in a privileged position.  And Solomon tells him to put a knife to his own throat!  Why would he do such a thing?  The answer is all about uncontrollable desires.  In other words, this is a verse for the addicted.

If you think you are exempt, take a closer look.  What Solomon observes is that each of us has a place where we are vulnerable to overwhelming desires.  In this example, it is the desire for the power by association with someone important.  But the proverb applies to every area where we are likely to be carried off by our own lusts.  There is something deep inside of us that longs to have the world the way we want it.  Solomon knew what that was like.  Therefore, he offers advice from experience with a metaphor about a death threat.  If you want to avoid the trap of those things that have the greatest appeal to your specific lust, then you must take radical measures.  You must hold a knife to your own throat in order to prevent any allowance in that area.

Every addict knows this to be true.  A recovering alcoholic can’t have a single drink.  A recovering drug addict can’t allow a single puff.  A recovering compulsive spender can’t have a single credit card.  For some addicts, it’s more difficult because the addiction is associated with life functions.  An addict who is a compulsive eater still has to eat to live, but the knife must stay at the throat.  Jesus was no less severe about this when he spoke about plucking out an eye that kept you from entering the kingdom (Matthew 5:29-30).  There is no room for a little leaven in heaven!

The Hebrew phrase is ba’al nephesh.   Even the construction sounds a warning.  Ba’al is a word we recognize.  It is the name of a false god often worshiped in the civilizations surrounding Israel.  More importantly, it is a word that means, “owner, possessor or lord.”  If you are the kind of person who is the possessor of an appetite that is difficult to control – an appetite for pleasure, power, prestige or any other self-glorifying addiction – then hold the knife against your throat whenever such an appetite rears its head.  You are in mortal danger.  This is nothing to fool with.  Your soul (nephesh) is at risk!

Carry a spiritual pocketknife all the times.  You never know when you will need it.

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Divine Due Diligence

Sunday, February 25th, 2007 | Author:

So the men of Israel took some of their provisions, and did not ask for the counsel of the LORD.  Joshua 9:14

Not Ask – It seemed like an open and shut case.  Here comes a group of men ready to make a deal.  They look like the right people.  They talk like the right people.  There is every advantage to making the deal.  So, the men of Israel go ahead.  They act on what they see.  But they forgot the only thing that matters, for what you see is not always what you get.  They forgot to ask God what He wanted in this deal.  And the results were disastrous, not just for those men who made the deal, but for generations to come.  You see, the deal that they made bound them to a promise not to get rid of the presence of unbelief in the middle of their land.  They were tricked, but it was too late.  It wasn’t the trick that caused the problem.  The problem came when they didn’t think God had anything to say about such an obviously good thing.

The word is sha’al.  It is used over and over to describe people who beseech or ask from God.  Obviously, it is also used to describe situations when men do not ask.  The lesson here is that there is not a single thing that God is not interested in.  But just like the men of Israel, we often think that God gives us license to just go ahead with the obvious without checking for divine due diligence.  We let our common sense and personal inclinations dictate our actions – and usually we regret it.  God’s way is the only right way.  His wisdom is the only real wisdom. 

That brings up a very interesting question.  If we know that God is interested in all that we do, and we know that His opinion is the only one that matters, then why don’t we ask Him about everything?  The answer reveals something deep about the human heart.  Ultimately, we all want to make our own choices.  We want God’s advice, not His command.  We believe that most of the time we are just fine doing it our way.  We even sanctify this idea, claiming that as long as it is in alignment with God’s word, it is God’s will.  But underneath it all, we want it our way.  So, we don’t ask, pretending that if we don’t know what God wants, then we are somehow excused.  What this really reveals is the essential rebellious nature of our existence.  We want forgiveness from sins – behaviors – but we don’t really want to relinquish rebellion – strategy and attitude.  Just like the men of Israel, we have forgotten that a single, tiny mistake made without consultation with the Most High has long-term disastrous consequences.

Today the question is really very simple:  Are you asking?

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Temple Duties

Saturday, February 24th, 2007 | Author:

present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship  Romans 12:1

Spiritual Service – Most of us have never witnessed an animal sacrifice, but we can imagine one.  The blade slices across the throat of the animal, producing a geyser of blood.  The animal attempts to escape, but it’s already too late.  Life pours on the ground.  The animal falters, then falls.  Its eyes glaze.  It gulps for oxygen. The ground is sticky red.  So are the hands of the priest.  If you thought that the sacrificial system was a nice, clean, sanctified event, read Leviticus again.  Sacrifice was blood and gore as a visible reminder that sin is hideous and its payment excruciating. 

When Paul uses this metaphor to speak about our duty, he says something that would have shocked his world.  They were all too familiar with the butchery of a sacrifice.  They could well imagine putting their own bodies on the altar.  They could feel the knife at the throat.  But Paul says we are to be a living sacrifice.  We are Isaac, stretched out on the altar, ready to die, but miraculously spared, remembering every day for the rest of our lives that we came just that close to sacrifice. 

Do you have the picture firmly in mind?  Now you will discover something very Hebrew about this imagery.  Paul says that offering ourselves as living and holy sacrifices is our “spiritual duty”.  The Greek is logiken latreian.  But the Hebrew equivalent is not “work” or “service”.  Instead, it is a technical term in Temple language.  In other words, Paul is calling on believers to perform a specific religious ritual, equivalent to what every first century Hebrew would know immediately as the proper act of submission before the living God.  He is beseeching us to make a death vow of total fidelity to Jesus.  Nothing in the religious practice of the Hebrew was more sacred than a vow taken in the Temple.  Nothing bound me closer to the God of the Patriarchs.  This, says Paul, is what being a follower of Jesus is all about. 

Baptism is a similar rite.  It is a sacred religious event fraught with deep significance in the life of a believer.  But baptism is just the beginning of the Christian’s life with God.  That life is supposed to go on under the banner of a sacred vow, a Temple vow, never to be broken.  From this moment on, I am alive only at the will of the Father.  I am sacrificed with the Son, dead in the tomb, raised by the Father’s compassion for the Father’s purposes.  My only reason for breathing is because it pleased God to allow it.  Now I have a vow to fulfill. 

Every moment that we “live” outside our vow, we disgrace the God who rescued us from the sacrifice by spilling His own blood in our place.

 


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Volunteer Joy

Friday, February 23rd, 2007 | Author:

“Not everyone saying to me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father”   Matthew 7:21

Will – Do you want to enter into God’s kingdom?  Then there is one question you must ask before all others.  What is the will of the Father?  If you don’t know the answer to this question, you have very little chance of hearing Jesus says, “Well done.”  But before you try to answer, you must really understand the question.  And for that, you will need to know the difference between thelema and boulema. 

We have one word for “will”.  Greek has two.  The difference between thelema (the word in this verse) and boulema (see, for example, Romans 9:19) is this:  thelema is the expression of desire that pleases and brings joy.  When used of God, it always results in the completion of that desire.  What God wills, happens.  Boulema also means, “to deliberately will or desire.”  In fact, boulema is even a stronger desire than thelema, but it is a desire that does not always result in a completed act.  So, thelema is never used of the desires of men because those desires often do not occur.  Thelema is a God word.  Boulema is a word that can be used of both God and men.  When it is used of God, it often means desire resulting in action while it has unknown consequences when it comes to human desires.

To do the thelema of the Father is not simply to wish it were the case or to have a fervent desire for God’s purposes.  Thelema means to bring these desires into being, to cause what pleases and delights God to become a reality.  Thelema erases all good intentions.  It even erases doing what is good without the motivation and inspiration of the Spirit.  After all, preaching, healing and doing mighty works are all good things.  But Jesus tells us that unless they are acts of obedience directly in line with the will of the Father, they are useless for Kingdom purposes.  Can you imagine that?  Giving a cup of water as an act of obedience is more valuable than building the largest church in the world if the project is not saturated with the Spirit every step of the way.

Watchman Nee once said that human beings have the propensity to create sustainable good works without the anointing and on-going involvement of the Spirit.  We know this to be all too true.  Time and again we work with our own strength, accomplishing wonderful things – even God-inspired things – but without the necessary daily sufficiency of His grace.  Good things do not please God.  Obedient things do.  Be obedient to the smallest request.  Bathe your life in Spirit-saturated works.  Then God’s joyful celebration in His completed desire will be yours too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Shell Shocked

Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 | Author:

Many will say to me in that day, “Lord, Lord, didn’t we . . “  Matthew 7:22

Many – How does the saying go?  “The highway to hell is paved with good intentions.”  Well, set that one aside.  Jesus is not talking about intentions.  He’s talking about real actions.  These people stand before Him and point to precisely the things that we would count as worthy of the kingdom. 

First, they point to proclaiming.  “Didn’t we prophesy?”  Don’t get confused.  This is not about fortune-tellers or those conference speakers who claim to know the signs of the end-times.  The word here means “proclaim”.  It is the equivalent of preaching.  “Lord, didn’t we preach Your word?  Didn’t we tell people the plan of salvation, teach them about prayer and the Spirit?”  “Yes, you did.  It’s too bad, isn’t it?” 

“But, Lord, didn’t we cast of demons?”  This is the first century equivalent of healing.  “Yes, you did heal those who were in need.  Too bad.”

“But, Lord!  Didn’t we do all these other great works of power?”  Ah, the one that trips us up the most – the big program, the big impact, the big influence, the big campaign.  All that stuff Jesus could only have dreamed of – now accomplished in a flash with worldwide technology.  “Yes, you did all that.  Too bad.”

Many, say Jesus.  The word is polloi.  You can see our English equivalent in “populace.”  A great multitude will come to Jesus, thinking that they have done God’s works, only to be turned aside.  Not just a few.  A great multitude.  And they will be shocked!  How can this be?  They were absolutely convinced that they were OK.  Preaching, healing and doing great and wonderful things – who wouldn’t have thought this was a sure sign of God’s favor?

But Jesus is looking for something else.  Do you know what it is?

Since it has nothing to do with all those outside indicators of spiritual dynamics, perhaps it would be wise to look someplace else.  Perhaps we need to start where Jesus did – as a helpless newborn, completely dependent, vulnerable, humble.  A nobody sent from God.

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Terrifying Truth

Wednesday, February 21st, 2007 | Author:

“Not everyone saying to me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father”   Matthew 7:21

Does – In case you thought you knew Jesus’ words, I would like to challenge you to read His statements again – exactly for what they say.  Set aside the preacher’s application, the theologian’s argument and the Sunday school teacher’s feelings.  Read it as it is.  Jesus was one very scary prophet.

First, notice that He addresses those who claim that He is their Lord.  This passage is not for the rebellious pagans or the defiant backsliders.  This is for you and me, the ones who do the right religious things and hold our heads up in church.  This is for the morally correct, the ones with causes and the altruistic.  They come to Jesus with His name on their lips.  “Didn’t we do all those good things for You?” they query.  “Sure, we did.  We saw all the things that needed to be done and we did them.  We are good people, God.”

With chilling regard, Jesus says, “No, I never knew you.”  How is that possible?  How can it be that we could heal and preach and do all kinds of humanitarian works and not get into the kingdom?  The answer is startlingly clear.  “You did great things, but they were not what God asked you to do.”  You see, Jesus suggests that it is not what you do, but rather why you do it that matters.  Give your body to be burned.  Send all your money to the poor.  Sacrifice yourself for the church.  It’s all for nothing – unless what you do is precisely what God asks of you.

This slaps all our programs and posturing in the face.  Good counts for nothing!  The most important question in the whole universe is this:  What does God want me to do?  The verb is continuous present.  Do what God is asking moment-by-moment.  Jesus can say this because He lived it.  Every moment in the Father’s will:  that is the goal of life. 

Contrary to human opinion, your life is not about results.  What you accomplish doesn’t make one bit of difference in the eternal scheme of things, if your accomplishments are not in alignment with God’s desires for your life.  We’re not talking about the general plan.  We’re talking about God’s specifics, just for you.  And, by the way, your failures, encountered in the process of doing God’s will, are more important to the eternal plan than any great, good thing you or anyone else ever did without God’s commission.

What is God telling you?  If you don’t know, you better find out.  “Lord, Lord!” is not going to make it.

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Last Place

Tuesday, February 20th, 2007 | Author:

And looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him, and said to him, “One thing you lack; go and sell”  Mark 10:21

Lack – If you get a blue ribbon for being first in the race, what do you get for being last?  You get Jesus’ love!  That’s the situation we find in this often-repeated story.  Here comes a young man whose life seems all together.  He proclaims, without a hint of deceit, that he has kept all those official religious rules.  What more does he need? 

The very fact that he asks Jesus tells us something crucial.  Keeping the rules did not make him joyful.  Something was missing.  He didn’t know what, but he certainly knew it wasn’t there.  Have you been in his shoes?  You’re doing all the “right” things, but somehow life just isn’t what it was supposed to be.  You’re not winning the race.  Something is wrong.

So, he comes to Jesus.  Jesus sees this sincere but naïve young man, and He loves him. He loves him because this man is lost, but he’s trying. Jesus recognizes the agony within, the discouragement over rule-keeping and the deep desire for freedom.  So, Jesus rewards him with the last-place prize.  In Greek it’s hustereo, the word for “lack”.  It really is a word that means, “last in line, behind all the others.”  Only one thing is in last place in this life, but that one thing steals all this man’s joy. 

When Jesus tells this man what it is that is in last place, we suddenly see why he has no joy in his religious practice.  His order of priorities is not the same as God’s order.  What God says is in last place, he counts as first on the list.  We should not be surprised.  Didn’t Jesus also tell us that the last shall be first?  Didn’t Jesus preach an upside-down world order?

In this man’s case, what’s backwards is wealth.  That’s all.  Just that one thing kept him from the kingdom.  Every one of us is just another version of this man.  We have something in last place in God’s eyes that we think should be first.  It might be career, image, family,  power, sex, possessions or even our religion.  It’s the thing that gnaws at us, stealing away our joy in God’s list of priorities.  Until we see it from God’s point of view, we are doomed to a life of unsatisfying rule-keeping.  There is no liberty there.

What does your list look like?  Are God’s items in first place or are you holding on to the last place prize? 

Oh, yes.  By the way, God’s priorities are very few and much simpler – if you have the list in the right order.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The First of Ninety-Five

Monday, February 19th, 2007 | Author:

From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”    Matthew 4:17

Repent – When Martin Luther nailed his document to the door of the cathedral, he started a movement that led to the Reformation – a protest against the religious thinking and practice of that time, more than 500 years ago.  That protest began with this statement, the first of ninety-five:  “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’, he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”  We need to give this some serious thought, especially in an age when forgiveness is portrayed as a single, easy step.  Luther would turn over in his grave to see what we have done with repentance.  He was incensed with the idea that forgiveness could be purchased ahead-of-time through an offering to the church.  We no longer buy our forgiveness with cash.  Now we buy it with theological pronouncements.

“Repent” comes from the Greek word, metanoia, a word that means, “to change one’s mind.”  But Jesus is not interested in just a new way of thinking.  The word literally means, “to reverse your direction, to do an about-face.”  It carries the idea of stopping, turning around, and going another way.  There is a lot more than thought involved here.  This is about change in attitude and action.  You have not repented until you stop doing what you were doing and start doing what God wants you to do.  Luther understood something we need to take to heart.  Repentance never ends!  Every day of your life you will discover something that needs a change in direction.  You will need to stop and go another way.  Every day that you live in God’s will, you will find that there is more to change.  Repentance is a way of life, not a one-time event.

Today we don’t sell indulgences.  You can’t buy forgiveness with the purchase of a document from the church.  But we practice cashless indulgences every time we preach the forgiveness of future sins, as though my one-time conversion makes it unnecessary for me to seek repentance any longer.  I will never outgrow my need for repentance until the day I am just like Jesus.  God may remove the stain of guilt from my life, but that does not mean I no longer concern myself with confession and repentance.  My goal is not to get to heaven.  It is to be like Jesus.  And anything that comes between me and Him needs to be a matter of repentance.

In a world where sin has no teeth, repentance is kept in the closet.  No more!  Sin is a hideous strength determined to destroy you.  Repentance is the only antidote.  Use it liberally.  You’ll need it.

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