Peaceful Righteousness

All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

(Hebrews 12:11-13)

Some thoughts that come to my mind when I ponder what might be the cause of the weakness described here. One thing that comes to mind is the need for a new identity. One reason for weakness is from still believing in my old identity learned from fathers of flesh.

Weak hands, feeble knees, lameness in danger of being put out of joint from crooked and uneven paths.

Be healed. That is the purpose of sanctification isn't it? And the result is the removal of the roots of bitterness.

Weakness and feebleness results from not focusing on Jesus and the truth about God as instructed in verses 2 and 3.

The prophecies about John the Baptist foretold that he would make the paths for Jesus straight. That involved removing the high spots and filling in the ruts and potholes to make a smooth highway for Jesus. With some of the rough work out of the way Jesus' work could be more efficient in His mission to reveal to us the truth about what God is really like.

I looked up some of the instances that seem to relate to the straightening of paths and related ideas and found some very inspiring passages that connect very well with this passage.

The voice of one crying in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth; the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken." (Isaiah 40:3-5 NKJV)

I will bring the blind by a way they did not know; I will lead them in paths they have not known. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked places straight. These things I will do for them, and not forsake them. (Isaiah 42:16 NKJV)

What is interesting in these verses is the difference in the translations in various versions. Many other translations instead of saying crooked places made straight say rough places made smooth. It seems that the only difference between the two ideas is the direction of the crookedness. One seems to imply crookedness that we would think of as side to side crookedness that needs to be straighten out on the horizontal plain and the other is a problem up and down with the path that needs to be leveled and smoothed out. Really both are needed if a superhighway is to be built for the expediting of high-speed traffic. And Jesus wants to have all the speed He can get in bringing humanity back into intimate fellowship with the Godhead.

Something that comes to me this morning is the feeling that sometimes there seems to be the need for a period of time where we have to expose our lies about God and begin to release them before we can embrace the truths about God and enjoy them (thrive). If we are clinging to the lies we cannot, at least with our heart, effectively believe the truth about God that conflicts with those lies. If we try to we only end up being double-minded and highly unstable (James 1:6-8) but maybe very religious and pious-looking. We are double-minded because our head and our heart believe two different things about God at the same time.

Instability is weakness. Lameness is weakness. But in this verse it looks like it might not yet be out of joint. What does being out of joint mean? More firmly rejecting the truth about God and entrenched in bitterness? Interpreting discipline as vengeful punishments by God and growing to hate Him in our hearts? It most likely involves the opposite of the peace spoken of in verse 11.

Righteousness is defined in Romans as believing that God can do what He says He can do.

And being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform. Therefore IT WAS also CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS. (Romans 4:21-22)

That assurance that Abraham demonstrated lives and thrives in the atmosphere of peace.

God's discipline produces the fruit of peaceful righteousness. Righteousness that is not peaceful is quite frightening and is the counterfeit of real righteousness. Counterfeit righteousness is exhausting, is self-focused and does not produce peace. It causes us to worry about whether we are perfect enough to be saved; if God is impressed enough with our strained efforts to please and appease Him. There is no peace in that kind of life. I can speak from first-hand experience.

I remember the powerful impact the following words had on me the first time I read them many years ago in agony of spirit, struggling to find God and holiness and worn out from the years of my effort to be good enough to be accepted by God. First I resonated unusually strong with the first paragraph that described my inner feelings perfectly.

As your conscience has been quickened by the Holy Spirit, you have seen something of the evil of sin, of its power, its guilt, its woe; and you look upon it with abhorrence. You feel that sin has separated you from God, that you are in bondage to the power of evil. The more you struggle to escape, the more you realize your helplessness. Your motives are impure; your heart is unclean. You see that your life has been filled with selfishness and sin. You long to be forgiven, to be cleansed, to be set free. Harmony with God, likeness to Him--what can you do to obtain it?

Those last words aroused an intensity within me that was like a crystal glass vibrating almost to the point of shattering with sympathetic resonance to a loud note of music. Yes! This described perfectly the desperate cry of my inner-most being – what do I have to do to obtain it? I could not wait to see what the next words were going to tell me. At last I had finally come across the secret answer I had been looking for for so many years. At last I would find the “holy grail” that would unlock the door that I had been banging my head against for so long and allow me into the acceptance of God so that I could be free of the crushing weight of condemnation that was suffocating my spiritual soul and was even affecting my physical body. With eager anticipation I read the next words and then sat stunned and in shock at the unexpectedness and yet perfect insight with which they described even more perfectly what I had not even known about myself. But is was the last thing that I expected to find here.

It is peace that you need – Heaven's forgiveness and peace and love in the soul. Money cannot buy it, intellect cannot procure it, wisdom cannot attain to it; you can never hope, by your own efforts, to secure it. But God offers it to you as a gift, "without money and without price." Isaiah 55:1. It is yours if you will but reach out your hand and grasp it. The Lord says, "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Isaiah 1:18. "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you." Ezekiel 36:26.

You have confessed your sins, and in heart put them away. You have resolved to give yourself to God. Now go to Him, and ask that He will wash away your sins and give you a new heart. Then believe that He does this because He has promised. This is the lesson which Jesus taught while He was on earth, that the gift which God promises us, we must believe we do receive, and it is ours. Jesus healed the people of their diseases when they had faith in His power; He helped them in the things which they could see, thus inspiring them with confidence in Him concerning things which they could not see –leading them to believe in His power to forgive sins. {SC 49}

It is yours if you will but reach out your hand and grasp it. Those words sounded that the catch that the lying spirits inside of me were looking for. “See”, they taunted, “you knew there was a hidden catch clause in here somewhere. And since you can't figure out what it means to reach out your hand and grasp it, or you likely could not perform well enough to do it anyway, you still will not be able to have that peace. You are stuck with us and we will continue to torment you the rest of your life.”

Now that I think back on this time in my life it is more clear to me that my heart was very much like the hardened path in the parable of the sower that Jesus told. My heart had been trampled on by many people and had become so defensive and hard that it took little effort for the birds inside of me to be off with the seed of truth. But praise God He is not discouraged by birds or even hard ground but has ways and means to transform over time even hardened hearts into more receptive soil that can allow truth to take root.

I have to confess that these lying spirits have tormented me for most all of my life. But the truth about God is stronger than the lies from the false gods within and the light of the beauty of God as demonstrated in the life and teachings of Jesus is slowly dispelling the false gods – these lying spirits, these roots of bitterness that have so poisoned my life and calcified my heart for so many long years.

I am learning that it is not my faith that is so important as the fact that God is faithful. And as I focus on the One who is faithful I find His faith infiltrating my own heart and beginning to spring to life.

I am learning that instead of intense self-focus on the sin within me that looking more intently at the beauty of the truth about God softens my heart, renews my mind and produces natural fruit from within that is reflective of what I am seeing in His character.

I am learning that instead of working very hard to eliminate all “sin” from my life as I was so desperately trying to do for so many years in my attempt to arrive at some state assumed as righteousness, that the Bible teaches that if I will just choose to believe that God can and will do what He says He can and wants to do, then that choice itself is considered to be righteousness by Heaven. (Rom. 4:21, 22) That truth was in the words that I had read, but it has taken many more years for them to become more obvious to me.

Then believe that He does this because He has promised. This is the lesson which Jesus taught while He was on earth, that the gift which God promises us, we must believe we do receive, and it is ours.

What I now realize was the biggest block in my heart preventing me from seeing or believing this for most of my life was the pervasive lies about God's feelings toward me. I grew up with a settled picture of a severe God who was constantly looking for an excuse to keep me out of heaven and be lost. Much of my early life was like an ongoing competition between me and God to see whether my confessions and petitions could outstrip His ability to find some secret sin still lurking in my life by which to exclude me from heaven. I shudder with horror as I remember those torturous days of my life, and yet some of the residual feelings and beliefs still lurk in some of the hidden places of my mind still today.

What I needed for me to enjoy that peace, that was so clearly the longing of my soul when I first read the above statement many years ago, was a clear revelation of the true heart of God and the truth about His unconditional love toward me. But I was brought up in the culture that firmly believed that unconditional love was actually a heresy to be avoided as a deception of Satan. I wish so much that I could have really believed the words in a paragraph I had read just previous to the one quoted above. But the profusion of the lies about God always short-circuited the truth that now I can see was in plain sight. Because of my dark view of God I could not really accept the following truths.

It is a mistake to entertain the thought that God is pleased to see His children suffer. All heaven is interested in the happiness of man. Our heavenly Father does not close the avenues of joy to any of His creatures. The divine requirements call upon us to shun those indulgences that would bring suffering and disappointment, that would close to us the door of happiness and heaven. The world's Redeemer accepts men as they are, with all their wants, imperfections, and weaknesses; and He will not only cleanse from sin and grant redemption through His blood, but will satisfy the heart-longing of all who consent to wear His yoke, to bear His burden. It is His purpose to impart peace and rest to all who come to Him for the bread of life. He requires us to perform only those duties that will lead our steps to heights of bliss to which the disobedient can never attain. The true, joyous life of the soul is to have Christ formed within, the hope of glory. {SC 45, 46}

Since most of these words directly contradicted what I had been taught and made up the essence of my perception of what religion was all about, I was unable to accept the truth that was right under my nose. As badly as I wanted to feel accepted and as much as my heart longed for real satisfaction, I could not reconcile the words on these pages with the inner beliefs that made up the substance of my spiritual life. So I plodded on for years in search of the peace that I could not really live without but was always just out of reach. As a result I lived and cultured the inner soil that fostered the growth of many roots of bitterness which I am now trying to expose and dispose of. I am presently on the journey of healing spoken about in verse 13. Make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. (Hebrews 12:13)

But again, now that I think of it, even weeds can be means of softening up hard soil in preparation for better seed when they are pulled up. I can see back over my life the transitions from the hard soil progressively through the other types toward the productive field that can produce useful food for the nourishment of others. I may still have some rocks and weeds in my heart, but God is faithful to continue what He started and He will finish it with style.

I love the mission statement that was crafted for Jesus and that He lived out to the full. The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners; to proclaim the favorable year of the LORD and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, to grant those who mourn in Zion, giving them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified. Then they will rebuild the ancient ruins, they will raise up the former devastations; and they will repair the ruined cities, the desolations of many generations. (Isaiah 61:1-4)

God, I am impatient for all of these lies to be expelled from my heart. They have tormented me and distorted my perception of Your face and my concept of reality for far too long. Sometimes I feel upset at You for taking so long to do Your work in me, but then I remember that one reason for this is Your intense respect for my freedom and Your intention of doing a thorough job in me that will be permanent and not just imposed on the surface. So I trust in Your timing and once again give You permission to do whatever is necessary to cleanse me of all the roots of bitterness that still infect my heart. I choose to cooperate with whatever You want to do with me. Empower me with Your blessings today. And hey, thanks for telling me this morning that all heaven is interested in my happiness. That means a lot.

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