Force and Passion

I have been thinking and writing about the subject of passion for several days now and this morning an additional insight came to me along these lines. Possibly one of the most dangerous ingredients to mingle with passion, one of the most corrupting elements that destroys the purity of holy passion as it proceeds from the heart of God and desires to flow through our lives, is the subtle, pernicious desire for force.

Force is one of the most addictive ideas that exists and it is impossible for us to become free from this addiction in our own efforts. Force infiltrates nearly everything we do or think about but at the same time contaminates everything it infects. The desire for force and control over others transposes the meaning of the words that God uses to convey the truths of reality to our hearts and minds. Belief in force creates false images in our hearts about how God feels about us and blinds us to the real truth about God's character.

Force is one of the worst elements that has distorted every religion on earth as well as those who think they are not religious. Force is so pervasive that it is taken for granted and we assume that it is simply part of God's order for life. But it is important to become aware that from heaven's perspective, force in relationships is anathema to freedom and true freedom is the only atmosphere in which love can exist. God is love and as such, God and force are polar opposites when it comes to heart relationships.

The reason that many view the idea of God's passion with suspicion at best or even worse believe that it is wrath is because of the deceptive influence that force has had on our lives and experience. Because nearly all of the encounters we have had with passion have involved some level of force that has distorted and perverted it, we have believed that passion itself is possibly inherently evil and so we come up with all sorts of opinions about passion that are not true because of our false assumptions.

But when one begins to perceive the pure and holy passion that pervades and motivates all of heaven and that God desires His children on earth to experience, when one begins to taste of the beauty and transformational power that true passion can have on the soul, when we begin to experience the spontaneous love that pure passion can awaken in the heart, the rapid increase of faith and the atmosphere of hope that is produced in the mind whenever holy passion is present – then it becomes more clear how corrupting this element of force really is and how badly it has distorted our concepts and ideas of reality.

As I thought about this I wondered how this principle might apply to the passages I am currently studying as I listen for God's thoughts in the book of Romans. When I opened to chapter 15 and glanced around it became immediately clear that it has a lot to add to my understanding of this passage. In fact, it seems to explain a lot of things and give clarity that I had not noticed before.

Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves. (Romans 15:1) In this world it is always the strong who exploit the weak through the abuse of force. This is linked back to 14:1 where collectively Paul is telling us that in God's kingdom the strong have strength for the purpose of embracing, empowering and lifting the burdens from those who have less strength instead of attempting to force them to conform to our ideas.

The example of Jesus is used in this passage and Jesus is the most startling example of the absence of force. While many like to suppose that Jesus employed force to get His way in the cleansing of the temple and other situations, those notions come more from our preconceived assumptions far more than from a careful examination of the record. Jesus exercised a great deal of power in the arena of the spirit realm, but natural power from true God-likeness and force against the will are not synonymous. Remember one of the most important texts in the Old Testament, 'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' says the LORD of hosts. (Zechariah 4:6)

In Romans 15 Paul makes it very clear that the power that Jesus had was in His willingness to relate to others from the attitude of a servant. If He had indulged in the use of force it would have been impossible for the events that led up to His death to have ever transpired.

Force never accomplishes the kind of unity of heart and mind that God intends for His people who make up the body of Christ on this earth. What I see described here in this chapter are clear indications of attitudes and relationships that are free of the corrupting influence of force. And the results of choosing to love instead of force is the unity that produces praise and gratitude to God with one voice together. This is the glory of God in reality and is the glory that Jesus came to reveal to us from the Father.

This passage goes on to explain how Jesus related to different groups of people from different cultures and backgrounds. It shows how Jesus related to legalistic, pious religious Jews in such as way as to attract them through every means possible relevant to their beliefs about their religion and their ancestery. On the other hand He also related to Gentiles who had a completely different perspective on reality but likewise He treated them with a servant attitude to reveal to them the great mercy that fills the heart of God.

The purpose of everything that Jesus did with both Jews and Gentiles was to reveal the real truth about God in order to attract both “insiders” and “outsiders” of organized religion to unite their hearts in free expressions of adoration and love for the God who created them all. The unity created by the presence of the Spirit of Jesus is free of all coercion and force but is still largely foreign to our way of thinking. God does not compel obedience, for to do so would be to destroy the very love which is essential for the heart to thrive. God's ways are always based on attraction, not on compulsion.

I am keenly aware that there are many instances in the Bible that can be easily construed to contradict this truth. But it then goes back to examining the motive of the one evaluating these events. What is it that I want to find in the passage or story? Am I trying to justify a preconceived opinion or am I willing to question my assumptions about how God operates? The spirit with which I come to look for truth has a great deal to do with the conclusions that I arrive at. And I believe that God is far more concerned about the attitude of my heart in my pursuit of truth than He gets uptight about whether my facts are all in perfect order or not.

Again, even in our search to find truth we can become conscious of the pernicious influence and contaminating effect of force in our reasoning. Whenever I sense in my own spirit a craving to impose my ideas on another person and somehow force them to believe as I do, I realize that I am being compromised by this evil virus. I find very often that I have to guard my words and pray earnestly inside for God to change my attitude and spirit whenever I become aware of this internal sensation of force infecting my words and spirit. I realize that if I indulge in the temptation of force that I cannot reflect the servant spirit that was the hallmark of the life of Jesus.

It may seem like the kingdom of heaven will hopelessly flounder if we do not at least occasionally use a little force to overcome the darkness of sin. But force is never God's method and will only obscure the true character and plans of God. Force confuses the heart about the true nature of God. The true characteristic of which force is the counterfeit is the effective power that comes from the presence of selfless, passionate love. This is the true power of God according to Jesus Christ. This is the real power of the Holy Spirit that will bring final resolution to the controversy between Christ and Satan.

From a human standpoint this makes little or no sense. But it is a fact that the wisdom of God usually looks like foolishness to men and the wisdom of men is definitely foolishness from heaven's viewpoint. But if we take the teachings of Jesus seriously we will begin to see that God's ways are definitely not man's ways and all of our thinking and assumptions have to be transformed and rewired if we are ever going to be safe to live in the presence of the fiery passion of God's love. Force creates an element of resistance that causes deadly, consuming inner fire whenever it encounters the selfless passion of heaven. I want to become free from this terrible influence and to be filled with the true passion of selfless love that marked the life of my Savior.

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Old but not Obsolete

For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. (Romans 15:4)

I realized as I read this verse this morning that it is obviously referring to the quotation immediately preceding in the last verse talking about the attitude of Jesus. The New Testament writers often quoted the Old Testament Scriptures to show how truth and prophecy are not disconnected between the two periods of time.

It has become very popular today among many Christians to teach that the Old Testament is obsolete in many ways and therefore we do not have to take it very seriously. They mistakenly teach that since the details of the symbolic services that pointed forward to Jesus are no longer required for believers today that somehow all the rest of the Old Testament lacks credibility. This is a fatal and most dangerous teaching that is giving false comfort to millions in believing that the Law of God and the principles taught in the Old Testament times have somehow been changed or suspended in a supposed new age of grace. These people typically teach a concocted theory of dispensationalism in which God supposedly changes the way He goes about restoring His image in His fallen children in His plan of salvation for different “dispensation” periods of time. But none of this can be realistically supported from the Word of God when properly studied as a whole. Instead, it is a scheme devised to keep people believing that they can never be completely free of the control of sin in their lives and instead that somehow God's grace will just wink at the residual rebellion that they are unwilling to release in their hearts.

But far from being obsolete or irrelevant to our lives today, the Old Testament is a living, powerful testimony to the consistency of God throughout all time. The perfect golden thread of truth about reality and how God created all things to exist in perfect harmony never needs changing or tweaking. To believe that is to insist that God Himself was not perfect enough to create a universe that could effectively be brought through the crisis of sin and rebellion as originally designed. It implies that somehow sin caught God by surprise and He had to come up with one proposal after another in attempts to deal with the sin problem that is causing so much havoc in His universe.

But these are all the musings and theories that only expose the ignorance and the infected nature of the minds of sinful people, not accurate explanations of the way God relates to us over the history of this world. Far from teaching that the Old Testament is no longer applicable to Christians today, the New Testament writers repeatedly refer back to the Old Testament as their source and authority upon which all truth should be based. Jesus Himself declared that He did not come to do away with the Old Testament Scriptures but came specifically to fulfill them. That means that He came to this world to clarify and demonstrate all the principles of life and the heart of God that was so confusing to humanity through all the previous ages.

Peter even declares that the Old Testament Scriptures are even more valid than the personal experiences that Peter himself had experienced while living personally with Jesus on this earth. He declared that personal experience must be confirmation of the truth already seen in Scriptures, not a replacement for it. So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts. (2 Peter 1:19)

Far from being now obsolete, Paul declares here that the Scriptures – and he can only be referring to the Old Testament because the new was mostly not even written yet at that point in time – were written for our instruction. The word our here is referring to people living after the days of Jesus on this earth. And not only were they written for our instruction but they are also to be a source of encouragement and to induce in our lives this thing called endurance. The resulting effect of properly utilizing the Old Testament Scriptures applied to our hearts and minds according to Paul is the appearance of hope in our hearts and souls.

The stories and instructions and prophecies and accounts collected in the Old Testament Scriptures are a most important and integral part of the foundation upon which our personal Christian experience must be built or it cannot stand the storms of life and the deceptions that will come against us. Hope, faith and love are the three most important elements in the life of a true Christian, and without the Scriptures it will be impossible for us to have the stability that these three things build into our lives to withstand the deceptions and onslaughts of the enemy of our souls and the archenemy of our Father in heaven.

While it is true that many have mistakenly believed that the symbolic rituals and traditions of the Jewish experience in the Old Testament are incumbent on Christians yet today, that does not mean that we should ignore the teachings and revelations about reality that are expose in the Old Testament accounts. When we properly understand both the purpose and the fulfillment of the Old Testament symbols such as the sacrificial system and the feast days and holidays celebrated by the Jews, far from rejecting the Old Testament as authoritative in our lives today we will come to more deeply appreciate and understand the consistency of God throughout all ages. All of those symbolic traditions and requirements are now to be experienced at a whole new level of reality that far supersedes what those original Hebrews were able to experience back in ancient times.

Yes, it is true that we no longer need to offer a lamb as a sacrifice for our sins. The same applies to many other requirements that filled the life of the average Hebrew in the Old Testament period. But every one of those requirements were full of rich hidden meanings that suddenly explodes with significance and insights when studied with the light glowing from the fuller revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Those things are not obsolete but are superseded by realities we should be experiencing that are still fully consistent with the underlying principles that those former external practices were founded upon.

The following passage goes on to insist that it is God Himself that intends for the Scriptures to be the source for our unity in Christ. Whenever we try to bring about unity among Christians without basing that unity on all of the Scriptures available to us, then we are really trying to make a new religion that is not in harmony with God's original plan of salvation. And no matter how many centuries this new religion may have been around or how many millions have embraced it, it still is a counterfeit that must be avoided if we are to be faithful to the Word of God in both the New and the Old Testament Scriptures. Any unity achieved based on methods or theories that distort or abuse the Word of God in support of them are bound to be deceptions that can ruin our souls. And no matter how convincing a deception is or how provable it may appear by stringing proof texts together in its support, the true Spirit of God cannot validate it.

False theories and rejection of the Old Testament are evidences of the desires of selfish hearts looking for excuses to avoid dealing with all of the sin in the heart and life. Whenever we find ourselves excusing or ignoring anything that is exposed by the Word of God we can be sure that we are still living to some extent under the illusions of God's enemy. We can never free ourselves from the deceptions of Satan with our own mental efforts. Only by choosing to embrace a humble and teachable spirit and turning our attention to the true Spirit of Truth and the Scriptures that reveal that truth can we be safe from the contaminating atmosphere of lies about God that permeates everything in this world

When we accept the authority of Scriptures in our lives, both Old and New Testament, and are led by the Spirit of Truth to understand them in their beauty and perfect harmony and how they apply to our lives today, then we will experience the kind of unity that produces true and authentic praise and gratitude that glorifies God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Only when Jesus is truly our Lord can we experience and offer up the pure worship that is acceptable to God and that brings His life into our souls.

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Rehydration

For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus. (Romans 15:4-5)

When I look at many of the original words behind this text and ponder the implications and inferences of it I am a little bit overwhelmed and excited about how much there is in such a small space. It is clear that there is no way I can unpack and consider all of them in just one session. These verses are rich with meaning and application and are ripe just waiting to be picked and savored.

I find so many surprises when I look at the original Greek. It is sad that I cannot read the Bible in its original languages with training and experience. Like one professor tried to explain, “reading the Bible in any other language besides the original is like trying to enjoy ice cream with a sock on your tongue.” But while I'm quite sure he is very correct about that and I am likely missing a great deal due to my limited abilities, I still deeply appreciate the opportunity that modern technology provides today for anyone to be able to quickly use a computer to examine, at least in a cursory way, what might be lurking beneath the surface by looking at the definitions of each word and then allowing the Holy Spirit to rehydrate the Word of God in the heart of any true seeker.

Now that I think of it, that is part of what this text is really talking about. These two verses back to back make it absolutely clear that it is God who is using the Scriptures to fill our hearts and minds with the truths that create the attitudes or emotions or building materials of the life described here as perseverance and encouragement. It is not enough to just expose ourselves to an intense study of the Scriptures if the heart is not in tune and open to listen to the original Author and Inspirer of the Word. While that does happen far too frequently, if we want to be transformed into the image and likeness of the true God who is goodness, compassion and truth personified, then we will only experience that transformational experience by inviting the Spirit who is part of that Godhead to speak to our hearts as well as our minds while we do our digging in the rich soil of the Word of God.

According to this text it looks to me like that is the very purpose why God provided the Scriptures for us. And based on this revelation it could be assumed that to build my spiritual assumptions and experience on anything other than a diligent exploration of the Scriptures is similar to building a house on the beach with no foundation – and in Galveston no less, if you have heard anything current in the news lately.

When I took a look at the word for instruction I sensed that this was one of those times I wish I had been trained in the original language so I could perceive even more of what might be implied here. But since I don't enjoy that privilege I will share what I do see from the definition of this word.

The Strong's definition for this Greek word is: instruction (the function or the information):–doctrine, learning, teaching. At first glance this appears to be rather left-brain heavy on its emphasis. But then as I looked at it closer I noticed that phrase the function or the information. Now, I have to admit that I am bringing my own bias somewhat to what I am seeing here. But I don't think it is out of line to believe that God fully intends to restore and rewire both the left brain and the right brain in His work of restoration and transformation. So what I am seeing here is a reference to both the right brain – the function of the information – and the left brain – the information for the function. Maybe that is stretching it some, but given the context of how God has been training me over the past few years I can't help but see this interesting point here. However, I will concede that this word seems to be heavier on the information side which also may fit the context.

As I have written about sometime back, I believe that the Scriptures are analogous to freeze-dried, powdered high energy foods that are designed for preservation and safety for very long periods of time. What I pointed out was that when a person desires to reconstitute those foods for proper consumption to enjoy the nutrition and flavors that were in the original foods, it is critical that one uses the proper liquids to rehydrate them. Otherwise a person would come to all sorts of false opinions about the nature or flavors of the original foods and might even consider them toxic or dangerous depending on the content of the liquids used.

Let me use another simplistic analogy. Years ago I took a construction class in college and learned that one of the ways schools teach block-laying it to mix oil with dry cement to make mortar for laying blocks instead of using water. The reason for doing this is so that the mortar will not set up very hard and the blocks can easily be taken apart after the students have had a chance to practice their growing skills on how to use the various tools of the trade.

However, if a person were to observe such a practice and not realize that oil was never intended to be the proper liquid designed for re-hydrating the dry cement for its intended purposes, that person might easily assume that mortar was not a valid substance for building block walls and would likely turn away from the use of cement mortar to look for more reliable adhesives to hold blocks together. But the problem was not that cement is invalid as a building material but that the liquid used to reconstitute the cement was not the water that was the very ingredient removed from the cement to begin with and is needed to re-hydrate the dry mix.

Likewise, the Scriptures are like condensed, powdered milk. Even the Bible uses the analogy likening the Word of God to milk in 1 Corinthians and in Hebrews. But in order to benefit from the original intent of that milk it is vitally important to reconstitute it with the water of life which is the same Holy Spirit that inspired that Word originally. Otherwise the word may appear on the surface to be the right food but it may easily contain toxic, deceptive elements slipped in by the father of lies who is always eager and ready to supply counterfeit liquids or spirits that cause us to get spiritually sick or even delirious from improper use of the Scriptures.

This, I believe, is why the very next verse emphasizes that it is God, the Author of the Scriptures, that is the one who is to teach and supply us with what we need through the use of the Scriptures in our lives. And how do we know if we are listening to the right God as we study the Scriptures? When the outcome of our exposure or ingestion of those passages results in the experience described throughout the very next words.

We will have hope.

We will begin to have more and more the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus.

We will be in one accord.

With one voice we will glorify God the Father.

We will be accepting of one another as described in the previous chapters.

We will reflect the servant spirit that Jesus revealed while here on earth.

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