Challenging Perceptions

Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent." So they said to Him, "What then do You do for a sign, so that we may see, and believe You? What work do You perform? "Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'HE GAVE THEM BREAD OUT OF HEAVEN TO EAT.'" (John 6:29-31)

I have been learning wonderful things from listening to a series of talks by a speaker that were recorded over 25 years ago. One of the things that he keeps emphasizing is that God has chosen over and over to take huge risks of being misunderstood in the ways that He has chosen to relate to humanity. Very many times He has had to resort to communicating to us in ways that can easily be misconstrued in order to get our attention so that we will begin to listen and come to know Him better. He would much prefer to speak to us in much more gentle ways, but because of our deep prejudices, our hardness of heart and the many lies that we believe about Him, He has to use language and methods that will get our attention at the time rather than the methods and means that He would like to use with friends.

Jesus came to this world to demonstrate the way God would prefer to relate to us. But because of our intense resistance, our religious bigotry, our dark views of God deeply entrenched from centuries of false pictures of God ingrained in our assumptions, Jesus met with the same problems that He had encountered previously before His incarnation. Because people refused to believe that God loved them and was not the arbitrary, vengeful tyrant that He had been made out to be, Jesus constantly ran into the resistance of hearts bent on self-gratification and views of a God of force and arbitrary punishments.

Yet Jesus continued His mission of bringing to the world a fresh picture of God that had been heavily veiled throughout Old Testament revelations. Jesus came to reveal God as one who was not intent on demanding obedience to a long list of rules but was seeking to relate to His children as a caring, compassionate Father. Jesus had just the day before shown pity and compassion on thousands of people who had come to be blessed by His gracious revelations about God. He had multiplied a small lunch to satisfy their hunger and express His compassion for them.

But what had been the outcome of this gracious provision? Almost immediately the people began to imagine how this supernatural power might be exploited to benefit their deep desires to implement prejudices against their enemies. They wanted to force Jesus to be their earthly king to lead them in campaigns of force that could catapult their nation to worldly greatness at the expense of all those outside their race and religion. They wanted to exploit the divine connection that Jesus had for their exclusive benefit with little interest in learning the real desires that Jesus had in mind for them.

It becomes evident in these verses that the Jews suddenly wanted Jesus to set up a massive welfare system for them based on the wonderful miracle He had performed just the previous day. In fact, they decided that to leverage that desire they would insist that they would not believe in Him (whatever that might mean) unless He cooperated with their plans. After getting an unsatisfactory answer to their request to get miracle-working power for themselves, they challenged Jesus to bless them the way they wanted it by harking back to the good old days when Moses was their leader.

In their minds, just as many of us do today, the good old days had taken on a whole new perspective than the realities that actually had taken place. The Jews conveniently forgot how uncooperative their ancestors had been with Moses the whole time he had led them toward the Promised Land. In the intervening centuries they had come to idolize Moses and what he had written while at the same time distorting most of it to support their own traditions and prejudices. They had failed to perceive the real messages about God or believe the truth about His desires for them just as had their ancestors, while still insisting that they were God's only true followers on earth. They had instead formed a man-made religion based on Scriptures taken out of context wrapped around their own bigotry and pride.

So when Jesus came to reveal the real truth about all that had been written in Scriptures, He was just as misunderstood and misinterpreted as were the Old Testament writings. The Jews could not see how Jesus and His teachings fit at all into their view of the Scriptures because they had so convinced themselves that their opinions about the Scriptures were the only valid ones and so any other views had to be wrong. This is why Jesus had such little apparent success in finding true believers among those who had been chosen by God to be His representatives in the world.

These people, much like us, assumed that belief needed to be induced through miracles and signs. We love the sensational and the exciting. We are naturally drawn to things that are titillating and unusual and we tend to favor these desires in attempts to leverage our relationship with God. We want Him to give us supernatural signs, indicators, interventions or miracles at each step of the way. We want God to prove Himself to us, but on our terms. We want to dictate to God how to relate to us and to be able to access His power but with little interest in being transformed into His character.

This is precisely the path that Lucifer followed. He was the highest angelic being in the universe and was closer to God than any other created being. But through a mysterious process of dissension and self-indulgent rebellion he transformed himself into the great accuser of God and launched the most devastating and tragic experiment ever imaginable in this universe. He craved the power of God while at the same time wanting to avoid submitting to His authority or to reflect the character of God. He claimed that God was not as gracious and compassionate and loving as He claimed to be and that it was necessary to use different methods to govern intelligent beings successfully.

Lucifer insisted that fear and force and arbitrary punishments were needed in order to keep subjects under control. As the effects of rebellion began producing its damage in relationships throughout God's universe, Lucifer cast the blame fully back on God claiming that it was all due to inherent flaws in God's character and methods of government. Satan used deception and misrepresentations about God to create doubts about Him and to win converts by his lying deceptions. Thus he managed to win over one third of the angels of heaven along with capturing the control of all of humanity through his lying insinuations about God to Eve and Adam.

Jesus came to this earth to expose these lies about God and to set the record straight. He came to plainly testify about the real truth of how God feels about us and about how He really relates to His children. He refused at any point to use even one method that Satan had insisted must be used to keep control over others and He challenged Satan's false accusations about the faultiness of God's government and character. Jesus came to give the clearest demonstration of how God's methods really are true and are sufficient to not only govern all of His created beings but can even meet and reverse the terrible disaster created by Satan's rebellion. He came to prove that God was not arbitrary, that God did not have to resort to force or deception or any other method invented by His accuser.

These Jews had embraced many of Satan's lies about God and were expressing their desires from that perspective. They wanted to employ force to implement their prejudices and exalt themselves to greatness just as Lucifer had wanted to do in heaven. They wanted to get access to the immense power of God while avoiding living under the authority of God and follow His principles. They wanted to exalt themselves in pride and avoid the humility being demonstrated by Jesus while still desiring all the benefits that they saw in Jesus' life. They were simply reflecting the character of Satan that has infected all of humanity that Jesus came to expose and refute.

How often do I desire God to provide for me a welfare system of free handouts while seeking to avoid having my own lies about Him challenged by His desires to save me? How many times do I try to leverage His power for my benefit while remaining reluctant to submit to His ways and live under His government and authority? How many times do I beg for a sign from heaven to make it easier for me to know what God wants while I avoid convictions from the Spirit trying to get me to deal with my own selfishness or prejudices?

Father, thank-you for Your incredible patience with me. Thank-you for the many provisions You have faithfully given me all of my life. Help me to focus on the real truth about Your love for me and the value that You have for me as Your child. Help me to not just learn, but to feel deep in my heart the truths that Jesus came to reveal to me as I dwell and meditate on these stories. Open my heart and fill me with the truth about You that will expose every lie I have cherished about You much of my life. Lead me into the freedom and joy of intimate fellowship with You as I am transformed into Your pattern of living and thinking and loving and relating – for Your reputation's sake.