Resistance and Forgiveness

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:21)

Evil is more powerful than us and if we resist it we will be overcome. But though evil is more powerful than us, it is not more powerful than real goodness. Therefore, we must not attempt to overcome evil ourselves through resistance but need to seek a clearer perception and connection with the Source of all goodness so that His goodness will flow through us as its channels and overcome evil.

But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. (Matthew 5:39)

Jesus tells us very plainly not to resist an evil person. If we do not want to be overcome by evil, it will not be accomplished by resisting evil people but by showing them the goodness of God who is living in us.

Unforgiveness is the poison of bitterness that contaminates many with cynicism and resentment and the desire for vengeance. On the other hand, true forgiving is releasing our resistance with those who have hurt us or may even be presently hurting us. Resisting authority then, can indicate a failure to forgive them.

Resistance always produces heat and pain and ultimately death. Romans 13 says that authority is a minister of God to teach us that resistance is painful and leads to death. The authorities may not act like God or be very righteous, but when we learn to not resist evil and live in proper relationship to authority, we also learn not to resist love which is an even more fatal problem.

This suddenly makes more sense. The shell that I build around my heart to protect me from pain is a wall of resistance in an attempt to not be hurt again. But that same wall blocks love from flowing in and out of my heart. This involves resistance, and resistance is one of the biggest problems we have as well as being our greatest liability in hell.

While not resisting, it does not follow that we need to surrender our spirit to be controlled by abusers. That would be to surrender to evil inwardly as well as externally. That is breaking the spirit. In fact, that is being overcome by evil, the very thing we are told here not to do. We can be overcome by evil by giving up our following after God because of hopelessness, and allowing evil to destroy us that way, or we can be overcome by evil by believing and indulging in its enticements and deceptions. We can also be overcome by evil when we choose to cling to our desire for vengeance and by not releasing our pain to Jesus who offers to exchange it for peace and a spirit of forgiveness.

Our spirit belongs to God and God alone. He is the one it was made for and for whom it really yearns for. But in our daily life we must be careful to not become entangled or trapped by resistance and thereby poison our spirit with bitterness.

One of the greatest faults or dangerous choices of resistance is to resist forgiving someone. When we resist forgiving someone we actually give them authority over our spirit and heart and allow them to hold us hostage in our mind. We often secretly, or not so secretly, want to see them suffer at least as much as we have and we deeply desire some arbitrary punishment for them. We somehow believe that we are justified in our unforgiveness until we think they have suffered or repented sufficiently.

But that is a lying illusion that will never bring us peace or satisfaction no matter how we feel. To make them suffer or enjoy watching their pain if that is possible, only amplifies the fleshly desires of our own heart and increases our thirst for vengeance and our sense of emptiness, but it never brings peaceful satisfaction like we hope it will. To refuse to forgive is to deface the true image of God from our souls and take on the character of Satan, the accuser.

Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. (Romans 13:5 NIV)

We must move beyond fear of punishment as our motivation for submitting to authority and see things through heaven's perspective. And from that perspective we begin to see the danger of resistance itself. Conscience is the voice of the Spirit reminding us of our need to own and then pass along to God the pain others have inflicted on us instead of reflecting it back to them or onto someone else. That is what is entailed in genuine forgiveness.

As I ponder these verses in Romans 13, willing subjection looks like a close cousin to forgiveness. We do not resist the pain or the evil but neither do we reflect it in a desire for vengeance; we pass it on to Jesus who takes it into the tomb where it can die with Him. As we choose to do this we receive resurrection power and life back from Him to pass on to those who are abusing or hurting us instead of the bitterness and pain and resentment that we would normally reflects back on them.

When we let down our resistant defensiveness as our shield of choice to protect our heart, and instead we take up the shield of faith – faith in Jesus' ability to handle any and all death-tipped missiles coming into our heart, we then will not suffer the ill effects of resistance but will instead began growing and maturing and thriving and become life-giving as we function more consistently as a channel for God's resurrection life. This is the abundant life Jesus offers.

Some have taught that it is very important that we spend at least an hour every day meditating on the life of Jesus and especially on the closing scenes of His early ministry. As I think about these things today I begin to realize that the reason this is such valid advice is because the closing scenes of Jesus life on earth are probably the best example known to humankind of what it looks like to forgive without conditions and in real time. Jesus portrayed the ultimate example of how God wants His children to respond to abuse, free of all resistance. To forgive while abuse is being carried out without any resentment or bitterness is truly a miracle of God.

But this is a miracle that must begin take place in every one of our hearts if we are ever to be prepared to respond positively when we all arrive in hell on the day of Judgment. And if we want to be found among those who glow with glory instead of sizzling from insanity, we must begin to practice today the skill of the heart we so much need to learn, that of complete release of all resistance to evil people. It is becoming more and more clear that our greatest danger is resistance itself.

Fear is a symptom as well as a form of resistance. That is why Churchhill during World War II proclaimed that the greatest thing we had to fear was fear itself. Fear is debilitating and that is one reason Satan is so intent on making us more and more afraid. Fear often also leads us to engage in more resistance as well as resentment. But these things will not bring us to freedom but will only tend to mire us even deeper into slavery of our spirit.

In God's kingdom we overcome by abandoning resistance itself and instead, trusting in the One who showed us how to do that by His own example and has promised to be our Justifier. By refusing to defend ourselves through resistance we open the way for our Covenant Partner and our Heavenly Father to justify us in His way and also bring great glory to His reputation. By overcoming evil with the goodness of God we also become the overcomers referenced in the book of Revelation.

He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. (Revelation 3:21)

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Resistance or Respect

Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. (Romans 13:2)

The more I consider this the more I question that Paul was even talking about an idealistic version of authority as I previously mentioned. Certainly many of the authorities in his day were very corrupt and abusive and that was the context in which he was writing. The underlying principle that he is revealing here is the same one that Jesus referred to in the Sermon on the Mount.

"You have heard that it was said, 'AN EYE FOR AN EYE, AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.' "But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. "If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. "Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. "Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you. (Matthew 5:38-42)

If these two passages are paralleled then it would appear that very possibly the authorities portrayed here are indeed evil in some ways themselves. Do not resist an evil person (in authority). If this is in doubt look on a phrase or two further. If someone is suing you they are appealing to authority to take something away from you while manipulating the law against you. Even more clearly, for someone to be able to force you to go with them a mile brought clearly to mind the actions of Roman soldiers who were given the right to force anyone under Rome's domination to carry their packs for one mile, but one mile only.

Both Paul and Jesus are here saying that even though others, even those in authority, may be evil and unfair does not give us excuse to be disrespectful, bitter or hateful. Those reactions internally are actually the deeper intent of those who misuse their positions of dominance against us, for indulging in those feelings is a way of disempowering us. Satan has set up the world's systems to induce fear, anger and hatred in the heart of everyone so that he can destroy their capacity to receive and give real love as God designed they should. It is Satan's highest goal to erase the image of God in our hearts that is our original design and steal all the characteristics of God from our souls. But it is God's purpose to undo the works of the enemy and restore in us, particularly at the heart level, the likeness of Jesus who never resisted evil while never compromising with it.

One of the greatest fears of “religious resistors” is that if we do not resist evil people in our lives that somehow we will become accomplices with them and will be condoning what they are doing. I can clearly remember that line of reasoning being used frequently by my own father and now am beginning to realize that it may have been a major contributor to much of my spirit of rebellion and my strong reactions that often put me in conflict with authorities. What is at issue here is really the problem of respect, not endorsement. But another problem with respect that now emerges is that most people believe that respect must be earned before we are required to give it.

But according to what we have been learning from the series, Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson and Sarah Eggerichs, the Bible teaches that respect is something that is unconditional just as love is to be unconditional. This is a shocking and almost untenable idea to many people, but it is what the Bible teaches. Because of this misunderstanding and my own lack of internal training in the area of respect, my own life has been very rocky at times and I still need a lot of remedial repair work done inside that definitely affects many of my relationships. God still has a great deal of reeducation to finish in my mind and heart.

I am still also pondering this contrast that I noticed yesterday between fear and no fear found in verses three and four. Tied in with what I am seeing today it is starting to look like that maybe evil is at least partially defined as a lack of respect in the face of injustice.

The kind of resistance described here is not the resistance referred to in James.

Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. (James 4:7-8)

According to what I see in comparing these passages, it is wrong to resist an evil person but it is important to resist the devil. Evidently the devil is not an evil person but is linked more to the internal spirit war going on inside of our minds and hearts. So the conclusion that might be drawn here is that our resistance needs to be against the internal temptation to absorb and reflect the spirit of evil, while at the same time not resisting the external forces of evil imposed on us.

We are to treat with respect, and even on-going, instant forgiveness those who may be abusing us while at the same time resisting the internal force of evil that is tempting our hearts to be angry, bitter, resentful, hateful and desiring revenge against them. We are to treat with respect those who have not earned our respect. This ties very closely back into the previous chapter that talks about respecting what is right and never paying back evil for evil (12:17). What is right is respect and love, and even then not because people have earned them from us. Evidently, if we fail to respond with respect (and love) due to internal spirit contamination by our flesh, we are still double-minded.

These descriptions of how to live in our relationships to others and to authority appears to me to be quite impossible to accomplish without a great deal of healing, transformation and much grace. That is why the verse just previous to those quoted from James says, But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." (James 4:6 NRSV) I certainly fit into the category of someone who needs all the more grace.

But if I do not choose to follow through with this challenge to treat others with respect no matter what they deserve, they I will unavoidably find myself in the other position of being afraid because I am doing what is evil (v. 4). According to this passage in Romans, doing what is good must mean doing the very thing that does not come natural to me – respecting an abusive authority figure. That certainly does not mean that I value or agree with the spirit that they are displaying or endorse their actions, but it does require that I seek to observe them through the eyes of heaven and see a human being with a heart that has been hijacked by the enemy and is acting out Satan's character in their life and not their redeemed image of God.

But if I do not respond from my flesh or display that my heart is also hijacked by retaliating or being disrespectful; if instead, I have a heart that is transformed by all the more grace; if I am willing to die to the clamorings of my flesh and allow the sweetness of Jesus' Spirit to emanate from my life through my words, my demeanor, my actions and my complete inner freedom and peace, then God can use me as a truthful witness to appeal to the hearts of the very ones who themselves are deluded and confused inside and long for a similar peace and freedom for themselves.

This is the secret strategy of God to subvert the works of Satan and steal away from his vicious clutch those who have been held captive and hostage by him all of their lives. By apparently losing, we allow God to win. By dying we become more fully alive. By not resisting we end up having the most power. The ways of God often seem so backwards to the typical way we are used to thinking.

This is just beginning to dawn on my understanding but it will take a transformational miracle of even more grace to make it a settled reality for me at the heart level. With men – and me – this is impossible but with God all things are possible.

God, please cause these insights and principles to become more than just something I am beginning to perceive with my brain. I want to see them appearing in my gut-level reactions – from my deepest heart – whenever I am facing abusive people in my life that have authority over me. While I do not have to endorse or participate in their evils and injustice, I need to see them through Your eyes and have Your heart to love and respect them unconditionally.

You know me better than I know myself and You know my history of problems in this arena. But I need to perceive and believe in the true identity that You have placed in my heart that is radically different than the exhibitions of resentment and resistance that I have acted out so many times in the past. Those demonstrations are not my true identity no matter how I may feel or what anyone else says about me. My true identity that is already inside of my heart is still largely hidden but You are bringing it more into the open to display Your glory and character in me before an astonished world. It is all by Your grace, Your love, Your power and Your faithfulness that this is all taking place.

God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, I am Yours – save me! Finish the work You are doing in me. Continue to transform me, my spirit, my triggers, my bitterness and fears. Heal me at the deepest levels of my heart so that my true reflection of You can glow unsullied by the damage that Satan has worked in my heart. Continue Your experiment of grace in my life as a means of attracting others into a similar relationship with You. I ask this for Your reputation's sake and in the name and authority of Jesus Christ entrusted to me after His resurrection.

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Authority and Bitterness

For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. (Romans 13:3-4)

I am still seeing even more clearly the pattern of shifting the focus from evaluation of the morality or condition of outside authorities toward in internal analysis of what is going on in my own heart and spirit. In the way Paul is couching his instructions here there is no mention of the potential corruptness of authorities, except for the fact that they are engaging in the activity of acting as avengers who bring wrath which I am warned against doing just a few verses previously.

But what is focused on here is the direct link between doing good and the ability to become free of fear and visa versa. If freedom of fear is dependent on the integrity of the authorities that would make this passage somewhat absurd or even out of touch with reality. That is highlighted in the example of the depravity of most of the authorities involved in the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. But Jesus' peace and complete freedom from the debilitation of fear during all that abuse was completely connected to the goodness that He not only performed externally but the goodness that filled His heart and that came from a complete dependence on His Father.

When these two verses are placed side by side it is more clearly seen the very close linkage between peace and goodness in contrast to evil and fear. In addition, these links are the primary issue in these verses with little to no reference as to whether the authorities involved are praising or persecuting. It is almost like Paul is using the background context of an idealism for earthly authorities to get the point across that it is my own choices about my own spirit and actions that are the deciding factor, not the spirit or actions of the authorities.

This is a very important truth that I want my heart to take hold of and deeply internalize. I am all too aware of my great weakness in this area of my life and my great need for healing and wholeness. The diversion has always been to become obsessed with focusing on the injustice, unfairness, abusive actions and illegitimacy of those claiming authority in my life. Those things may all possibly be very true, but if my own peace is made contingent on waiting for those evils to be corrected before I can enjoy peace myself, then I will never find the peace that I so desperately need in my heart. I cannot allow myself to be held hostage to the spirit or actions of others even if they are in positions of legitimate authority in my life.

When I choose to have my peace linked to the treatment received from someone else, then the inevitable result will be bitterness springing up inside of me. Bitterness is very clearly a poison that slowly eats away at the goodness and peace inside of me like an acid. It blinds me to the good in others, it infects my spirit in ways that are unseen to myself and it poisons many around me in more ways than I care to know about. Bitterness causes cynicism and sarcasm and highlights hypocrisy in the lives of others but also creates hypocrisy in my own life. Bitterness quickly grows roots deep into my psyche like a fast-growing tumor intertwining itself into the vital organs of my soul.

God has been alerting me to the diabolical effects and presence of the bitterness that has plagued my own heart for most of my life. I recently spent a month or more immersing myself in Hebrews 12 where this infection is explained rather clearly, because I realized my great need to face this sickness head-on. That was a very helpful time of education, not only for my mind but for my heart as well. It has helped me be more aware of my condition and has allowed me to listen more clearly and respond more quickly whenever the Spirit points out in real time to me whenever I am experiencing symptoms of this internal bitterness.

I have chosen to cooperate with the restoration and healing protocol that my Doctor, Jesus desires to administer to me to cleanse me of not only the tumor but to completely flush out of my system this deadly poison. I have been sensing a great deal more freedom as He is removing some of the more obvious and painful areas of this cancer, but I also realize I am still infected with this dangerous and malignant poison that can still cause more tumors if not completely eradicated from my spirit. I need daily injections of antidotes and strong drugs from the pharmacy of heaven to keep me in my healing process. I need to learn new ways of thinking and have old paradigms challenged and rejected while I learn to see others through the eyes of heaven instead of the suspicion of bitterness. This all has to be under the close supervision of the Holy Spirit.

I have been more aware of this process of healing and shifting of paradigms recently. I am grateful that Jesus is responsible for arranging the treatment protocol and for accomplishing His purposes in me. Whenever I begin to think that I must somehow figure out how to be good enough to become free of this cancer I very quickly get discouraged. But then I realize that this is actually part of the delusional effects of this internal poison and I need to throw myself on the mercy and grace of my Savior and ingest even stronger doses of divine, healing “drugs” in order to counteract these lies of self-dependence. And I need to submit myself to the only Surgeon who has complete expertise in removing cancer and in accomplishing total and permanent remission.

I listened last night as a friend of mine related how that much of his past had been lived with deep bitterness and negativity. But at the same time he had been very proud of the fact that he was a person that could get things accomplished and done well. Whenever he started a job he made sure that he finished it; and whenever he set his mind to do something he knew it would be done right. He was outwardly very performance oriented and was quite proud of it. But inwardly he was very bitter and was so much so that he earned the nick-name from his friends, “the bitter boy”. He told us that he was even proud of that name until God changed his life and his spirit.

Now he is seeking to know his true identity in his relationship with God and following God's will for his life. He is presently a teacher in a public school and is a worship leader at his church. He also helps lead out in the small group that is ministering to a good number of young adults and is passionate to share the goodness of God with others. I was very surprised to hear this testimony from him last night but was also very encouraged because I could identity so much with what he was talking about.

What I am impressed with in these verses is that the goodness that I need in order to be free of fear of authorities must be the kind of goodness that comes from an intimate relationship with the Source of any and all goodness. It is not a performance-based goodness that I must generate so that I can stay out of the cross-hairs of authorities looking for targets to unload vengeance on. I must have a transformation of heart and have the Spirit of Jesus dwelling in my soul in such an intense and real way that no matter how I am treated, whether with praise or with abuse, I will be able to demonstrate the inner peace and a spirit of forgiveness that passes all understanding and that is free of all fear.

Father, thank-you so much for beginning to open up my awareness to these truths and principles from this passage. I know You desire to accomplish a healing in me that has long been needed and I give you full permission to continue to be my doctor. Do whatever it takes to cleanse me from all of this poison that causes me to link my identity to my performance. Thank-you for revealing the real truth about You and Your feelings and desires for my heart through Your Son Jesus. Dwell in my own heart today and cleanse me of all resistance to You. Make me a safe and empty light bulb so that Your passion and power can make me a source of illumination that will not burn out quickly. Glorify Your name in my life today.

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Authorities and Judgment

For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; (Romans 13:3)

Here is a very interesting new thought to me. It also highlights the hunch that has been growing on me that the emphasis in this passage is on the choices and condition of my spirit in relationship to authorities much more than determining the legitimacy or judging the actions or decisions of authorities.

What I am starting to see described here is a situation involving judgment. Now, it is very important to understand the true meaning of judgment or I will be immediately misunderstood here, and to explain what I am referring to by true judgment would take far more clarification than I have time for right now. I have been writing a series on judgment that I intend to share whenever I get them organized enough, but for now I will simply have to trust the Spirit to help make sense to others what He has been revealing to me.

The link that came to me just now is that if I apply the scenario described here to the trial of Jesus it would not fit very well at all on the face of it. Few would argue that Jesus ever did anything less than good. In fact, one of the things that made Him so unique in history was His continuance in maintaining an attitude and stance of perfect goodness and forgiveness all through the intense abuse and injustice he received from earthly authorities of the world. But it could hardly be said that in response those authorities gave Him praise as Paul seems to suggest in these verses should happen.

Were the rulers who set up Jesus, framed Him, lied about Him, tortured Him and participated in killing Him – could those rulers fit the description given in this verse, rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil? I just cannot twist my mind around to believing that the corrupt system of authority that heaped all the abuse possible physically and emotionally on the most perfect example of goodness ever to walk the face of this earth could be likened to that described in this passage. And yet the authorities that I face on a regular basis are often closer to that which vented their wrath on the perfect Son of God rather than the noble kind of God-ordained, evil suppressing authorities envisioned by Paul in this passage. I am not saying all authorities are as morally bankrupt as those in Jesus' day, but many of the ones I am seeing in operation today are getting closer to that condition every day.

So how do I relate to this seeming discrepancy? Something tells me there is still much more here than what I am yet perceiving. I am definitely not satisfied with stock explanations of this passage, for the most common applications in the past have been, more often than not, endorsements of blind submission to the corruptness and maneuverings of authorities trying to solicit the allegiance of their Christian subjects.

But one thing that did become clear to me this morning in this verse is that the issue of judgment is being described here. Judgment is when the spirit and true intentions of hearts are revealed by exposure to real goodness. The reason that so much evil was displayed in the final hours of Jesus' life on earth was precisely because corrupt authorities were being exposed up close to the intense goodness of Jesus and the result was not praise from them but outraged condemnation. But this very experience is the most accurate demonstration of the real meaning of judgment.

The biggest issue that has been haunting me in this passage is in a way being addressed from a different angle here. And maybe that is the real lesson that God is trying to get through to me, at least one of them. I suspect that my internal sense of justice that causes bitterness in my heart whenever there is abuse of power going on is out of alignment with the concept of justice from heaven's point of view. And the right way to expose corruption in authorities is radically different than the typical way I usually feel it should be done.

I, like most people I know, have this innate sense that injustice should be exposed by direct confrontation or direct exposure to the public. My flesh wants to explore and uncover the conspiracy's, the graft and corruption, the selfishness and crookedness of people misusing their positions of responsibility and expose them for all to see. In reality I want to shame them by such exposure in vain attempts to somehow get them to repent and either be thrown out of their positions or change their ways. This way of reasoning is constantly being reinforced and practiced by most of the news media organizations around us today.

Given the failure of shame to cause reformation, the next step is to look for ways to employ force of any means to make authorities accountable for their actions and corrupt motives. This may involve not only public humiliation but tactical activation of legal means or policies or seeking to involve higher authorities (that hopefully are less corrupt) in an attempt to force change or removal of corrupt people in power. If I look at what is going on all around me, both in the church and the world, this is the typical approach to resolving all problems of corruption in positions of authority. But it is also in direct conflict with the instructions that I find in these verses.

What is thought by many is that these verses are instructing us to blindly submit to authorities with no regard to their integrity or level of corruption. The unspoken implication also involves embracing or at least tacit endorsement of their corrupt ways so that there is no accountability required. Like in the early heydays of Hitler when this passage was widely used to pressure all Christians in Germany to go along with the very popular political movement of the day, it is often the case that this passage is thought to be teaching us to simply turn a blind eye to corruption in government or in leadership within whatever authority structure we find ourselves. It has too often been the case that this passage has been used as an excuse for suppression of all questioning of authority by good Christians.

What I am now starting to see emerging from these verses is a revelation of a completely different method of exposing the truth about authorities. Instead of employing intense investigations, shame, condemnation or political force to expose and humiliate those in power, the example of Jesus shows me that there is a far more effective and even potentially redemptive way to bring about judgment. But it feels like something not at all appealing to my nature of flesh, and of course it never will appeal to my flesh because my flesh is hopelessly antagonistic to the ways of the Spirit and the methods of heaven. What really needs to be confronted and annihilated is not earthly corrupt authorities as much as the corruptness of my own deceptive, conniving, unrepairable heart of flesh that will sell my soul into hell if given a chance to mature.

That brings me to another disturbing insight. The more angry I become when confronted with corruption in the lives of those in authority the more I am really being triggered by the reflection in a mirror of a very similar kind of corruption in my own evil heart of flesh. When corruption causes a strong reaction in me, it is always indicative of a trigger in my own mind that is not yet healed. So when I react to some revelation by focusing on the corruption of those in authority without first facing, confronting and seeking healing and resolution for the trigger within my own heart, I am really trying to shift the focus away from my own internal issues by becoming obsessed with correcting other's faults. I am trying to remove the speck from my brother's eye before removing the log from my own.

In the teachings and demonstrations of what constitutes true judgment given by Jesus, particularly in Luke during the Last Supper and the following events, I am beginning to see that these two subjects are very much intertwined and shed a great deal of light onto my own problems in this area. I am sensing that God is showing me some important principles that I need to have incorporated into my own life in relationship to authorities. I need to begin living and focusing far more on being filled with the real goodness of God, to receive healing for the triggers that obscure that goodness in times of stress and antagonism, and live more consistently in total submission to the influence of the Spirit of God.

It will never work to live in submission to human authorities as instructed in these verses if I am not even more so living in complete submission to the sweet Spirit of One who is never corrupt, One who is completely just and the One who is the example of perfect goodness and kindness. Only as I focus more attention on living in proper relationship with the real Source of goodness will I ever be able to do what is good while living in right relationship to God's delegated authorities in my life on earth.

What will happen if I do this right is that if I allow the real goodness of God to be revealed in me while living under authority, judgment (exposure) will inevitably take place just as it took place in the final hours of Jesus life with those corrupt authorities. I am not responsible for the character, good or bad, of the authorities in my life. But I am totally responsible for cooperating and submitting to the authority of my Creator and Redeemer and Lord. I am responsible to live in such submission to the Spirit of Jesus, the essence of goodness, that whenever any corruption of earthly authorities comes in contact with the goodness of God being revealed in my life in that setting, that the true nature of the hearts involved in that situation will be exposed by default.

True exposure is not accomplished by attacks, force or humiliation. True exposure is accomplished by the presence in a person's life of true goodness in the face of evil, forgiveness in the face of senseless abuse, respectful behavior in the face of obscenity, allegiance to God in the face of intimidation, peace in the face of human wrath and senseless violence. For it is never shame or force but it is the kindness of God that leads us – and others – to repentance.

This does not require me to be blindly ignorant of the evil nature or workings of corrupt authorities. But it certainly redefines my choice of how I am to relate to them. If I feel compelled to directly expose authorities using the normal methods of the world and my flesh, then I am myself being judged, and in a way being complicit in the very same problems. For in real judgment everyone is judged including the judges.

For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? (1 Peter 4:17 NKJV)

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