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.

Competing Definitions

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? (John 6:29-30)

Some time ago I was having a discussion with a man in our church who is unhappy with what I do there. He is rather uncomfortable whenever I am allowed to lead out in Bible discussions and during our conversation remarked that he felt it was totally unnecessary for me to bring up the issue of definitions. He commented that we should just accept the words in the Bible at face value and not ever question our commonly accepted assumptions of the meanings.

His comment rather surprised me at first, but then as I thought about it later I realized that it reveals rather well why he has such agitation about my style of facilitating. He seems to prefer compelling people to believe in a very narrow and rigid line of thinking without allowance for any serious questioning. I suspect that he views questions as something of a form of rebellion and seems to feel that it is his duty to intimidate all such questioning into silent submission. Thus he tends to view me as a serious threat to the unity of the local church and has repeatedly sought to maneuver votes and opinions in the church to sideline any ministry that I might be involved in.

This issue of whether definitions are important or not seems to me to be at the crux of the difference between legalistic, control and fear-based religion and a true spiritual relationship with God. I have observed that the very methods used for how most evangelism and teaching is carried out in churches, if objectively observed reveals that we have very little use for teaching people to exercise their own minds and learn how to think through things clearly for themselves. Instead, we usually line up a list of questions ahead of a study or sermon, line up a list of texts that supposedly answers those prepackaged questions and then fire away with very little feedback of any significance.

To me that seems to be a great insult to a thinking person, which is maybe why it is so difficult to attract thinking people into an intelligent conversation about God much of the time. We seem to feel afraid to open up a discussion to allow honest questioning and examination. We feel that if we don't have superior ability to immediately have an airtight answer for any and every question that may arise that somehow we are a loser, a failure, that we have shamed the reputation of God. Therefore, to avoid any such embarrassment we simply keep a tight control on every planned period of 'Bible study' and make sure that nothing comes in that might threaten our complete control of what is said or taught.

But when we are afraid to challenge our own assumptions, afraid to go back and examine the words and their meanings in the original languages, like this man told me we shouldn't bother doing, then it is a sure sign that we are living primarily in fear and even bigotry to some extent. People who are intimidated by the idea of open discussion and are afraid to challenge their own beliefs are not founded on a sure foundation of truth at all but on prejudices and opinions and usually on someone else's teachings they have adopted rather than on a personal acquaintance with the Word.

In this passage I am seeing a classic case of the problems that arise when people are unwilling to face their own faulty thinking or their inability to grasp the true meanings of words and phrases. And the reason these people were unable to pick up on what Jesus was really trying to convey to them was not because they had inferior brains but because they had handicapped themselves severely by refusing to let go of their preconceived ideas and prejudices. Willing ignorance is one of the greatest curses of this world, both inside and outside of religion. Many bright minds who subscribe to the theory of evolution have to work very hard to maintain mental gymnastics to avoid clear evidence that contradicts their bizarre beliefs. But likewise, many in religion equally maintain convoluted mental games to avoid the penetrating convictions that would be sure to come if they were to allow the deeper meanings of the teachings of Jesus to do the work they were intended to do.

Like us, these people were so intent on maintaining their views of reality and God as defined by their traditional religious beliefs that the words of Jesus had to be constantly skewed and twisted to fit into their very narrow rut of thinking. But as Jesus made His teaching more and more incompatible with their narrow view of religion they became offended at the seeming illogic of His language. Part of the problem of their misunderstanding was that they were unwilling to allow Jesus to define the words and terms that He was using. Instead, they insisted that only their ideas about these words should be allowed and thus many things that He said simply continued to make no sense to their minds.

These people had just asked Jesus what they might do to work the works of God. Jesus responded by explicitly defining exactly what He meant by His use of the word 'works' – He gave them a flat out definition of the term. But they could not reconcile His definition with their entrenched ideas and opinions about what God wanted and so they continued to use their own definition of the word instead of allowing God to define His terms. In doing so they created more confusion and failed to grasp vital truths that would have helped them understand even more things that Jesus was trying to explain.

Jesus says here that the work that God wants in our lives is for us to believe the representative that He sent to this earth to reveal the real truth about Him. I have come to an intensive study of this book to unpack as much as I can exactly what that kind of belief involves and what it looks like and feels like. I am doing this because I don't want to miss out experiencing it for myself, I don't want to remain in unbelief like so many of these Jews did in these stories. I want to learn from their mistakes and avoid making the same mistakes as they did and as so many around me continue to do.

In the very next verse it becomes clear how they were unwilling to allow Jesus the freedom to define His own terms. They took His definition and by the end of their response to Him twisted it back around to fit their own preconceived context. Instead of being willing to ask for clarification or being willing to admit that maybe they didn't understand correctly, they asked for yet another sign as a precondition for belief. They then connected the concept of miracles and signs as being the essence of what 'work' means instead of being something different. Thus they insisted on only applying their own definitions instead of allowing Jesus' clear statements to open their minds and help them see things differently.

Over the past few years I have learned many new things after I learned to challenge my assumptions about definitions. Some of those things have been thrilling and exciting and others have been very disturbing and uncomfortable. But I have found that as long as I am willing to allow the Bible and the Spirit of God to be the authority for defining words and terms instead of forcing my own preconceived ideas onto the text, that these passages continue to grow and amplify and exude more and more life for me. As I apply the new insights of what God is really like that I learn from the life of Jesus back onto passages from other areas of the Bible, I find that the revelation of God through Jesus is the most powerful tool for unraveling many very difficult questions and cuts through much of the confusion that surrounds a lot of what we read in the Bible.

These people also demonstrated yet another potentially fatal assumption about belief. They felt that belief had to be supported or even initiated by supernatural events in order to be valid. Many today are led down that same path of believing that if someone can wow them with supernatural exhibitions then whatever they teach must be the truth. This opens up the door for many deceiving spirits in the world to lead us away from God which is clearly spelled out in the book of Revelation.

God actually is rather reluctant to perform miracles many times just because of this very problem. As humans we have a strong addiction to the presence of miracles in our lives. The entertainment value of miracles is also very compelling. It doesn't take long to see this penchant in us if one only looks at the nature of most of the movies people enjoy watching. They are full of people or creatures that exercise supernatural abilities in some way, and the ways in which they use them in the plot lines says a lot about what we would like to see God do in our own lives if we could just get Him to cooperate.

These people in Jesus' day were no different. Their imaginations were just as active as our movie producers and they were hoping for a real superhero to appear and lead them out of subjugation to Roman oppression to be the superpower rulers of the whole world. They dreamed this, they taught this, they interpreted the Scriptures to back this up and anything that detracted from this nationally cherished dream was carefully suppressed or discounted. They too had media manipulation.

When the Jews saw miracle after miracle from the hands of Jesus their excitement began to mount. Maybe this really was the Messiah they had been waiting for and maybe God really was about to fulfill their widely held aspirations for greatness. They begin to imagine how His miraculous abilities might be put to use to facilitate their beliefs about what the Messiah was supposed to do, and so their excitement grew quickly.

Yet there were many disturbing and disruptive things about Jesus and His ways and teachings that seemed to seriously interfere with the accomplishment of their dreams. They felt uncomfortable with some of His ideas about living in humility and loving your enemies. This did not fit at all with their plans to conquer their enemies and rule the world through the domination of force. Many of Jesus' ideas directly undermined their traditional teachings and thus they found themselves arguing repeatedly with Jesus trying to get Him to align with their plans instead of allowing Him to reveal to them His plans and the ways of heaven.

What they thought they needed was more miracles. But Jesus was actually reluctant to perform miracles sometimes and He never did so for His own benefit. In fact, the Bible says He could hardly perform any miracles in His hometown because of their unbelief.

What was it that they didn't believe? Was it that they didn't believe He had the power to work miracles or was it that they refused to believe that His true identity was different than what they insisted they knew about Him and His family? They were not just resisting the idea that Jesus was much different than those He had grown up around, but they resented the fact that Jesus claimed that God was very different than what they always believed Him to be like. Jesus was challenging the pictures of God that everyone had and was offering such a radically different concept of a loving, compassionate Father that people felt threatened and offended by many of His actions and teachings.

Too often I struggle with the same problem. But I want to be open to having my heart changed from the inside by fresh revelations of the Father from the stories of Jesus. I want to be willing to have my own preconceptions transformed, my assumptions challenged, my prejudices exposed and replaced with real truth. I want Jesus to reveal the real truth about God to my heart and cause me to reflect that to others.