Relating to Religious Authority

The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. For this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath. (John 5:15-16)

Why did this man go and get Jesus in trouble when Jesus had just done the most wonderful thing for him that had ever happened in his whole life?

That is a question that will likely be met with immediate challenges of its own. Most would say that, of course this man didn't know that this would be the result of him going to the religious leaders and telling them who it was that had healed him. And that is very likely quite true. But nevertheless it still happened that because the man dutifully complied with the demands of the religious leadership of his day that the ministry of Jesus encountered persecution as a result.

How interesting.

Again, I find myself wondering just how this story may work itself out in similar ways in my day and in my life.

Do I feel compelled to comply and conform to the demands of religious tradition in order to satisfy the expectations of people who are focused on wanting to control others and forcing them to align with their own narrow views of religion?

Am I possibly a bit naïve about the consequences of my attempts to keep peace and not upset those in established religion but which may have unintended consequences for Jesus?

How am I to know how to evaluate my responsibility to religious authorities in contrast to being loyal to what I am learning about God in my own life that seems irreconcilable with some of the beliefs and practices of people around me?

I am aware that religious authorities can be very sensitive and easily upset whenever they meet with what they view as dissension whenever someone begins to gravitate toward an intimate encounter with Jesus, for such a shift of allegiance will always be viewed as a serious threat to the ability of religious people to keep everyone else in alignment with their expectations in religion. I see a growing rift between the demands of 'religion' and the new reality I am finding in true spirituality even though religious people insist that their version must be accepted as the ways of God and must be given greater priority.

On the other hand I also sense the Spirit of God pressing me to not enter into open conflict with religious authorities unnecessarily. I am being shown that there is extreme danger in allowing a spirit of offense to take any root in my heart and to stay in harmony with those around me as much as possible while still maintaining my allegiance to God at the heart level above any other obligation. These competing loyalties are not easily resolved especially when religious people demand that they have been given authority by God to impose their ideas onto my life and God Himself is telling me to avoid resisting authorities unnecessarily.

This is a very real dilemma for me even as I write. I have had recent discussions with various people in authority revolving around these very issues and the discussion this week for Bible study in our church is about what is to be viewed as the real definition of 'truth'. One's opinion about what is 'the truth' is going to be radically affected by their other entrenched beliefs about God and about what is really involved in religion or spirituality.

For instance, if I believe that religion is primarily conformity to a set of ideas, subscribing to a set of doctrines or a creed, being able to give right answers to certain questions and sufficiently behaving in in conformity to other religious people around me, then what I believe is 'truth' will inevitably be oriented toward knowing God on an intellectual basis with little or no value for a heart knowledge of Him. This is the kind of religion that I see predominant in many people that I know and that is expected of me to 'keep the peace'.

But God has long been leading me down a somewhat different path that what was just described. That kind of religion seems to me to be suspiciously similar to the religion and attitudes of the Pharisees and religious leaders of Jesus' day and in the end led them to even feel compelled to do away with Jesus as a dangerous non-conformist who threatened their established system of traditions and control over the common people. Jesus found Himself in constant tension with religious authorities, not because He was rebellious and looking for conflict but because His fundamental view of reality was so different than theirs and He was unwilling to come into alignment with their demands while still not going about to deliberately stir up trouble for Himself.

Every story that I have looked at thus far in the book of John here has revealed growing tension between Jesus and the religion promoted by the people who were chosen by God to represent Him in this world. The problem for Jesus was not that He was at odds with religions invented by humans or promoted by pagans. Jesus' problems almost always revolved around conflicts between His perceptions of God and how God feels about sinners in contrast with the entrenched, established practices and rules and demands of the religious authorities that were in place among the very people that God had placed on earth to be His chosen authorities. This makes it far more confusing for me to know the fine line between submission to authority that God expects of me in my relationship with His church and knowing when to be firm in my resistance to conforming to undue pressure from those same authorities the way Jesus had to do so often.

It is far easier to delineate how one should relate to secular authorities or even openly false religious authorities when it comes to maintaining allegiance to God than it is to know how to relate to legitimate authorities within God's appointed church that put more emphasis on conformity to their rules and policies than on the priority of each believer being led by the Spirit of God. Human desire for control in the hearts of those in authority nearly always drives people to insist on external compliance by others over encouraging them to give precedence to an intimate devotion and allegiance to a personal God who can and will lead each individual in perfect synchronization with the rest of His body.

Human religious authorities very often have a deep fear of the words of Jesus to Nicodemus when He said, "The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8) We sometimes tend to want to 'spiritualize' away these words to keep them from threatening our ability to keep people in alignment with church policies or prevent this from causing people to think differently than the mainstream ideas from leadership. I am afraid that churches and religion today is not really much different than the religion and church of Jesus day when it comes to differing views about what is right and true and necessary for serving God.

But I notice that Jesus did not feel that this man did anything wrong when he ran to the authorities and 'tattled' on Him for healing him. Instead, Jesus took the resulting flap head-on Himself and did not allow the prejudices and bigotry and false ideas about God by religious leaders sway Him in the slightest from His higher allegiance to His Father in heaven. While Jesus never deliberately tried to pick an argument with religious authorities, He also never allowed their narrow views and counterfeit demands to influence His own perfect alignment with His Father and His own careful practice of always obeying the leading of the Spirit in His life. This is the example that I must understand better so that I can avoid undue resistance to authority while at the same time preserving the more important need for me to always give my highest priority to my own relationship with my heavenly Father.

And in doing that I can expect to find myself repeatedly at odds with religious authorities even though I need to avoid it if possible. Jesus found it far more difficult to relate to religious people than He did connecting with common people and others considered degraded 'sinners' or low-life. These latter people were often more in tune with their own spirit and their true condition than were those immersed in formal religion and they seemed to respond in some cases more readily to the transparent authenticity that they saw in the life and attitudes of Jesus.

I want to have Jesus living His life within me so thoroughly that I too can be an attraction to those who are repulsed by religion but are very hungry to encounter a compassionate God who actually cares about their heart and has a real way of saving them from the sins that are destroying their lives.

Father, give me discernment and tact while at the same time a fierce loyalty to You that cannot be swayed by the demands of those You have placed in my life as religious authorities. They may not understand very well what You are doing in me and may even insist that I do things that conflict with what Your Spirit is leading me to believe or do. But help me to have the spirit that Jesus demonstrated in all of His relationships and encounters with religious authorities so that others can see Jesus once again living in human flesh and be attracted to want to know You more intimately for themselves.

Staying Well

Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, "Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you." (John 5:14)

These words are again speaking a message to me personally this morning.

Behold, you have become well.

As I ponder what significance these words may well have for my own life, I realize how very easy it is to slip back into old habits of thinking – negative thinking that is. When a person has lived with sickness for most of their life, whether it be physical, emotional or spiritual sicknesses, it is not as easy as one might think to adjust to continuously living in a completely different mode of thinking.

My assumptions about what is 'normal' have to be constantly challenged.

My reactions to given situations and things that have triggered me all of my life have to be healed.

My opinions about how to relate to those around me and what makes up reality need serious revision.

My dependence on 'common sense', the kind of normal logic that nearly everyone around me assumes is what people are supposed to do, even those who appear to be good Christians, all of that has to come up for exposure to the light of heaven and be given up in exchange for a different and radical new way of thinking.

This man had been sick for a very long time and the text specifically states that Jesus toke note of that. Those words were not written to fill space in the story but for a very specific reason. Jesus knew that the effects of living in hopelessness and despair and in the context of sin and negative thinking would have a deep impact on the psyche of a person and just because their body experienced dramatic healing did not insure that their mind and heart would fully engage and stay with that new reality.

Jesus had offered to this man the incredible gift of a new body, full of strength and life and capabilities that this man had not enjoyed for 38 years. The man took Jesus up on His offer and indeed had received the wonderful healing that was extended to him. But after quickly running into stiff resistance in the social and spiritual realm of his life and having seeds of doubt and unbelief pressed into his soul by the dark attitudes of those who claimed to believe in and teach others about God, this man was in serious danger of being sucked into the dark views of God that nearly everyone around him were trapped in and that he himself was just beginning to escape.

But these many lies about God and how He feels about sinners was the very sin that had been part of this man's trap for all of his life. Although the effects of this sin may not have been seen in the lives of the Jews who accosted him in the same way that it had affected his own life, nevertheless it is the lies about God that are at the foundation of all sin; to live in the shadow of those lies is to live more or less in the darkness where we are cut off from the life-giving light of real truth that is so essential for life of every kind.

When Jesus looked up this man in the temple who was likely by that time feeling very confused after having encountered God up close and personal in his life, and after having his own experience challenged as being 'wrong' by those who asserted that they were God's authorities on earth, he was in desperate need of reassurance and guidance and direction to keep the healing that he had just received.

In Jesus' words to this man He made it quite clear that one's healing and its continued enjoyment in the life is not to be taken for granted. Just because I have experienced a dramatic breakthrough in my life in any arena does not guarantee me that I am immune to once again slipping back into the shadows of the lies about God or reality that have been so familiar to me all of my life. There really is a very present danger that my life-long habits of thinking about what is real, what is sensible, what God is really like and the pervasive assumptions that God is two-faced and uses the methods of men to discipline and punish and manipulate His children like sinful parents do – all of that messed up thinking that is so acceptable to everyone around me is actually my greatest danger to suck me back into the very sicknesses that God has been delivering me from so recently.

I hear Jesus saying to me today that I am also in danger of potentially losing the wonderful benefits of His mighty work of healing in my life if I allow myself or others to drag me back into the familiar kinds of thinking that conflict with the realities of heaven that so recently have flooded my soul with hope and joy. My greatest danger is not to suddenly plunge into some heinous open sin like we may assume Jesus was talking about here, but to slip back into the dark views about God and about ourselves that have controlled our own thought patterns and that reflect what is accepted by everyone around us.

Do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.

When a person allows their heart and mind to slip back into old patterns of thinking, no matter how religiously correct they may even appear to be, they are in grave danger of slipping back not only into their previous state of despair and pain and dysfunction but into a state that is even worse than before.

For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. (2 Peter 2:20)

Father, remind me continuously to not allow old habits of thinking to suck me back into the darkness and twisted ideas about You that have gripped me for so long in my past. I constantly feel the pull to conform to those ways of feeling and believing both internally and from many around me. Please keep my attention focused on You and my heart in the presence of Your true face. Show me the real truth about myself and about You over and over so that Your reality becomes firmly rooted in my heart instead of the all too familiar assumptions I have lived with most of my life.

I praise You and thank You for the wonderful healing that You have already done in my life. I want to live in a constant attitude of gratitude instead of succumbing to the stern faces that threaten to obscure Your wonderful love from my heart. Make me a source, a channel of grace and hope and life and joy to others instead of being overwhelmed by the familiar lies that they try to impose back into my life. Fill my heart so full of Your presence that I will not be influenced by what anyone else says about You unless it reinforces the healing work of Your presence that I have already experienced.

Has Jesus Slipped Away?

But the man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away while there was a crowd in that place. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple.... (John 5:13-14)

How many times in my life I have encountered Jesus only to realize later that I really didn't know who it was or where He had gone now that I couldn't see Him clearly anymore.

How many times I have had an assurance, a peace in His presence only to suddenly wake up realizing that it had disappeared without my noticing it and I found myself facing accusers and frightening situations where I desperately needed Him and realized I didn't really know Him the way I needed to know Him.

Jesus slipped away while there was a crowd. How significant might that be in my life?

Is it too crowded in my heart for Jesus to feel comfortable relaxing with me and enjoying intimate conversation?

Am I too caught up with so many other interesting things and people in my new-found health and my ability to do things I could never do before that I let Jesus quietly disappear without keeping track of Him?

Have I failed to really fix my attention on Him from the beginning so as to find out more about His true identity and then suddenly realize that I don't really know Him very well after all?

It was the man who was healed that it says here is the one who did not know Jesus. Ironically the Jewish leaders interrogating him knew quite well who Jesus was and likely had no doubt as to who is was that had caused such a disruption of their Sabbath regulations. But they did not want to admit so openly their own prejudices but wanted to incriminate this man as an accomplice to the crime they wanted to pin on Jesus.

When this newly healed sick man was just starting to enjoy the benefits of freedom and health and new life surging through his body and was likely eager to share his joy with anyone willing to join him, instead he found himself the target of stern-faced religious people who insisted that joy and healing and hope and celebration on the Sabbath was a crime to be punished, not an opportunity to glorify God with excitement.

I find myself at times torn between my inner urges to break out in expressions of joy from what God is doing internally in me, setting me free from my own lifelong soul sicknesses, and bowing to the pressure from religious people around me who often want to suppress such unwelcome expressions as inappropriate, especially in the 'house of God'. I am very familiar with all of these cultural prohibitions but find them a bit suffocating to the natural reactions of my heart in response to the healing that God is doing inside of me.

Unfortunately I see myself very much like this man must have felt when instead of the religious people eager to share in his joy and to join him in praising God, he feels enormous pressure to conform to the traditions and cold formalism that has encased the worship of God over the centuries and that seems impenetrable and impervious to the 'new light' of the gracious works of God in someone's life. But the problem is that it is not just external forces that are having their affect on subduing my joy but internal inhibitions that are everywhere I look inside of me.

When I perceive this happening to me I sense that maybe I don't really know who Jesus is after all as much as I thought I did. I vaguely remember seeing Him looking at me with pity and compassion in the past and giving me an amazing gift of life and freedom from my bondage, but right now I feel enormous pressure to slip back into the conformity of the status quo and begin to not only forget the true identity of Jesus but I am in danger of even forgetting my own true identity that Jesus may have revealed to me back in that marvelous moment of encountering grace.

But this text tells me something else very important. This man did not reconnect with Jesus by rushing around the city frantically trying to find Jesus somewhere and latching onto Him. It says very clearly that it was Jesus that found him and spoke both words of encouragement and warning so that he would retain the wonderful gift of wholeness and new life that he had so recently embraced.

I may be able to become aware that I have lost track of Jesus temporarily and that I am in serious trouble now with those who are upset that I am disturbing the public 'peace'. But unless Jesus takes the initiative and searches me out yet again, I will never be able to find Him on my own.

Everything in salvation is initiated with God. Yes, each one of us has choices to make in response to His initiative in our lives, but we are never the first to move toward healing and wholeness. Everything that we think and do and all the options that we can exercise always come after God has initiated some opportunity to enable us to respond with faith in His gracious heart towards us.

Jesus saw this man lying near the pool in the first place and came to offer His compassion to Him in a very tangible and life-changing way. But the healed man very quickly lost track of Jesus before he really had time to know His identity very well and then quickly found himself at odds with religious society around him.

But Jesus had not forgotten him at all and was keenly and sympathetically aware of what this man was going through with the Jewish leaders. But He allowed him to again feel his need of grace before He again revealed Himself to the man and gave him yet another opportunity to know God at an even deeper level now that he felt a deeper need.

This has been my repeated experience through the years as my intimacy and knowledge of Jesus has increased. It seems to be a familiar cycle of growth where I experience some level of healing and then have a short period of joy before I am then confronted with circumstances that expose even deeper needs or faults or fears that need a whole new level of healing. Sometimes I find that Jesus has slipped away in the crowd again and I find myself in great need of Him to find me again and calm my heart and reassure me of His love and even give me warnings when necessary. But all of this is His way of getting me to know His heart even better and to strengthen my bonds of affection with Him.

Thank-you Jesus for not forgetting me when I feel attacked by people who are supposed to be the ones to nurture me instead of seeking to make me conform to deeply entrenched external religious traditions. Help me to listen carefully and obediently to the warnings you give me and to pay closer attention each moment to where You are and what You are doing. I want to learn to stay closer to You so I can be a better disciple and listen and feel You close to me all the time instead of just when I am in desperate circumstances.

Thank-you so much for the present healing that You have done and are doing in my own life. Give me proper perspective to see through heaven's eyes those who seem to be upset about what You are doing in my life and have their priorities different than Yours sometimes. Give me the same compassion and patience with them as You have with me. Fill me with Your unconditional love so that others will be drawn to want Your healing power active in their lives as well.