I am currently delving into a deeper understanding of the true meaning of the cross of Christ, how it relates to salvation and how it reveals God's heart.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Work In You

Jesus answered, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work." (John 9:3-4)

Jesus was not going to use this man to work on his life; Jesus was saying here that the works of God would be seen in this man. What a difference!

How often do we mistakenly think that God is wanting to work on us, maybe to help us change our bad habits, to make us look good and become a nice Christian. So we set about seeking to access God's strength to quit doing the things we think are sinful and may even join up with a group of people who are very skilled in keeping up appearances. We learn all the techniques of how to keep up the appearance of being a good Christian man or woman; we learn the rules, the traditions, the formulas and even how to perform routines that we call worship. But all the while our hearts are shrinking under a heavy load of fear or guilt or may be crusting over with pride. Our spiritual eyes are oblivious to the life-charged scenes of a reality that is all around us but inaccessible to our awareness.

The religion of Jesus is a heart-oriented religion. We have largely obscured that truth by emphasizing the external aspects that result from a genuine heart change and go about trying to produce those external symptoms by trying to achieve them directly without the real cause in place. But as we do this our hearts wither and we hide while the pain we feel deep inside is ignored and we desperately seek ever more earnestly to force our lives to comply with the requirements of God's kingdom.

This blind man may have learned some amazing techniques for navigating his way around town and may have developed unusual keenness in some of his others senses to compensate for his blindness. He may have even become so adept at getting around efficiently that at times he might have even fooled some who were unaware of his condition into not realizing that he was blind. Just so, no amount of skills learned or knowledge amassed about religious subjects can produce the kind of sight that is needed to fully function as we were designed.

Blindness will always prevent one from ever even coming close to what a person can do effortlessly if they could just receive the gift of sight. A person who can see clearly does not have to think about all sorts of alternatives and live in constant fear of unseen dangers around them. With healthy sight they can move with confidence and not worry at all about stumbling over obstacles in their path. And far more than that, they have the incredible privilege of enjoying all the rich benefits of color and movement and dimension that one is aware of only if they have at some point enjoyed the gift of sight.

Jesus was not intending on offering this man a very advanced method of compensation for his blindness that would give him advantages over every other blind person on earth. Jesus wanted to do a work on the inside, to literally repair or provide what was missing in his head that had prevented him from enjoying all the emotions and the freedom that comes from having normal eyes. Rather than providing this man with insight as to what was meant by the names of colors or more effective descriptions of the world around him, Jesus wanted to give him the ability that God had intended for all humans to have but that had been deprived of him when he was born.

Of course the real issue that Jesus was trying to bring to people's attention was the reality that all of us are just as blind spiritually as this man was physically. This man had been blind all of his life so he had absolutely no clue as to what people meant when they talked about colors or any number of other subjects that most of us take for granted. Unless a person has experienced such a dramatic transition as this man did, they cannot begin to imagine the intensity and shock of passing from total darkness into the full tapestry of sensory joy available from so many things that most people take for granted.

The only way this could happen for this man was for Jesus to provide miraculous healing in providing sight from the inside for him. Additionally, there was nothing this man could do to earn this gift from Jesus. All he could do was to accept what Jesus did for him and then to cooperate with the very simple but strange instructions that Jesus gave him to fulfill his healing. But the most important thing that Jesus emphasized here was that the real work that had to take place was inside. And that work could not originate from human effort but had to be God's work.

...so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

But interestingly, the work Jesus may have had in mind was even more dramatic than his physical healing from blindness. As the rest of this story unfolds I see a compelling demonstration of this man's witness for God that is rarely seen in anywhere. This man's spiritual boldness is a powerful and dramatic testimony for Jesus and it disrupts the religious establishment so thoroughly that nothing is ever the same again. It gets both Jesus and this man's family in big trouble with the authorities and ends up getting himself kicked out of church in the process. But the privilege this man has of entering into fellowship with the Son of God personally is worth every minute of it and far more.

So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13)

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

The Works of God

We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world. (John 9:4-5)

A lot of questions come to my mind that I really want to know more about. I want to know God's reasons for these statements, to have the mind of Christ, not just nice-sounding explanations. I am seeking to listen as openly as possible for whatever He might reveal to me through this passage.

What does Jesus mean when He talks about works of God?
What is He referring to when He speaks of a day? A night?
What period of time did He have in mind when He referred to when He would be in the world?
What does He mean when He says there will be a time when no man can work? Of course that is inextricably linked with the answers to the first question.

So far I see some clues on the surface. Jesus and His disciples had just encountered a man in very sad condition, one looked down on by many around him and viewed with suspicion by the religious people of his day. With all of his disadvantages (that Jesus said were not brought on him because of anything either he or his parents had done) Jesus was clearly moved with compassion as He always was whenever He was near people in need.

So it would only be reasonable to assume that the works of God must be closely connected with motives of compassion. And having said that, I am reminded that compassion without works is a charade, an empty profession, a symptom of hypocrisy. (James 2:14-20)

I feel quite exposed along that line even now. As I watch the horrific scenes coming out of Japan over the past week after the triple tragedy of earthquake, tsunami and atomic meltdowns, I wonder why my own heart is so desperately lacking in compassion. That really concerns me.

I wonder why I am not mightily stirred with an overwhelming desire to do something tangible to contribute in some way to lessen the great pain and suffering the whole world is witnessing there. I wonder why, after so many years of seeking to be a better reflector of God's love and grace and compassion that I still don't spontaneously react to such opportunities like I know Jesus would do if He were in my place. Is He in my place? It makes me question how shallow my real convictions must be, how spineless my profession is, how short the roots are of the plants Jesus is trying to nurture in my heart given the ineffectiveness of my spiritual insights to influence my heart reactions to real-life chances for unselfish service.

We must work the works of God as long as it is day; there is a time coming when that will no longer be possible. That sounds very frightening, alarming and ominous.

When Jesus mentioned being the Light of the world as long as He was in the world, what time frame did He have in mind? Was He speaking only of the time He physically would be here on earth, or some other point in time when He would no longer be with us? If He was speaking specifically of His physical presence, then much of what Christianity teaches today would be invalidated, for we believe imperatively that Jesus is yet today the Light of the world. So it would seem that whatever this day is that He refers to in His statement must extend beyond the time when He physically returned to heaven at the time of His resurrection.

But clearly Jesus was making a strong statement here about a time that was coming when in some very significant way He would no longer be in this world. In what way would He not be in the world any longer? And how important is that for my life?

Does that mean that there is a tipping point in history when life will never ever be the same again as far as possibility for character development is concerned? Was Jesus speaking of a point in time when our ability to be transformed through means of allowing God to channel His grace and love through us will no longer be available, when our characters are so fully matured and set, either for good or hardened in selfishness that there is no more hope of changing direction?

I read about just such a time in the book of Revelation when everyone will from that point forever remain in the state of character that they have cultivated by their choices. And he said to me, "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near. Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy. See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone's work." (Revelation 22:10-12 NRSV) Is this what Jesus had in mind when He said the night is coming when no one can work?

Jesus said we must work the works of God while it is day, before it is no longer possible. What is the sobering reality behind these words? Why are we to work the works of God in the first place? To impress people with how good we are? To attract others influenced by our works to have a desire to want to know God better because of us? Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:16)

I wonder if maybe a far more significant reason for God to have us demonstrate His works is that as we participate in demonstrating what God is really like by allowing Him to work His works through us, that very experience shapes our identity, our motives, our thinking and creates within us a new mold at the deepest core of our being that causes us to take on the family resemblance as children of God.

It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. (Revelation 19:8)

In verse three Jesus stated that this blind man, from His perspective, presented an opportunity for God's works to be displayed. What about me? I still feel very much like I am spiritually blind in many ways. I still sense that the more I learn about the truth of the gospel and gain insights from the Bible that my own heart and life are far from displaying the works of God, that I am a very dim reflection of the character of God at best. I feel very ashamed at times (when my awareness level seems to be functioning more effectively) of how selfish my life is, of how insensitive I am to the needs of those around me, of how much my own heart is out of sync with all the things my mind has been absorbing from the Holy Spirit and the Word of God for years now. It would seem I may be a prime candidate for Jesus to display the works of God through just as was this physically blind man long ago.

I talk and write about things that are thrilling, fascinating, enlightening and profound. Yet it seems that my own heart still feels numb, intimidated, fearful of what others think about me and far too unresponsive to the things that seem to be so clear to me in other areas of my brain. I have an increasing sense of a deep need and longing for my own conversion, for a radical new birth experience, for a whole new dimension of life where my heart and my head will be congruent with each other instead of the dissonance that I so often experience. I want Jesus and to be filled with His Spirit.

Father, You know all of this. In fact Your Spirit is the one I know is bringing all of this to my attention. You desire my full conversion far more than I do, but that is something I cannot arrange for myself. All I can do is to keep trusting You and Your timing and Your methods for bringing me into fuller harmony with Your character and connecting me with Your heart.

Again I ask You to do whatever is necessary to move me closer to You, to reveal Your heart to my heart much more openly and to transform me into a more credible reflection of the compassion that so far seems mostly obscured to me but that I know with my head is what You are all about. I cannot convert myself or change my character significantly except to make it worse. I ask You to implant Your Spirit in me, to sit in the control seat of my heart and to take charge of my priorities. Capture all of my affections and loyalty and set about living Your life from inside of me so that Your works will be what others see when they look at my life, my influence and even my face.

Do all of this for Your reputation's sake, not for mine, for that is the only thing that is really important.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Who Is to Blame?

And His disciples asked Him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?" Jesus answered, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him." (John 9:2-3)

These disciples asked a loaded question in that it was based on false assumptions about God. However, they were not doing so in a spirit of trying to reinforce or impose their preconceptions on others but simply from a lifetime of ignorance of the real truth about God. Because of this Jesus responded differently to their question than He did to many of the questions of the leaders who intentionally desired to ensnare Him in His answers. For the honest questioner who is willing to have their opinions altered with new insights Jesus is always eager to reveal more about the Father to them.

However, we are in no less danger of misinterpreting the words of Jesus than the people were back in His day. Many are tempted to read this passage and jump to the popular conclusion that God is in some way responsible and to blame for many of the tragic things that happen to us in this world. They believe that He simply creates such opportunities so as to throw His weight around and get our attention. However, the influence of such false notions about how God relates to us are devastating in their effects on our hearts. Yet this thinking is so pervasive in our culture and religion that it is impossible to escape the effect of them on our assumptions about why things happen in life, especially tragic things. This is the very reason that Jesus came to this earth – to set the record straight and to challenge all of these allegations against God's reputation.

The disciples based their assumptions on the commonly accepted teachings that if a person had such a handicap as this man suffered with that it was a clear sign that it was caused by a curse from some specific sin and that someone was clearly to blame for that sin. They believed that God gets easily offended by certain sins (generally sins that rank high on our list of offenses) and that because God is all powerful that He inflicts specific punishments arbitrarily either on that person or on someone close to them to vent His anger about their infraction.

Jesus bluntly refuted those assumptions in His answer to His disciples, yet ironically we are still prone to missing this point altogether by turning Jesus' answer around to justify the very thing He was exposing as a lie. And how do we do that? Let me explain a little.

How many times have we observed the reaction of some Christian to a tragedy by rushing in to say that God must have some higher good in mind or He would not have caused/allowed that to take place? Say a car runs over a child and the mother is standing there distraght with anguish trying to make sense out of the insensible. A well-meaning Christian rushes up to her and tries to comfort her with the words, “Don't worry, God must have loved your child more than you do. Because He needed them in heaven He took them home to be with Him. You can be happy that your child is in the arms of Jesus now so there is no reason to be so sad.” What a slap in the face, not only of the grieving mother but even more so to God as well!

While conceding that the Christian with such a 'testimony' might think they are doing God service, in fact their twisted ignorance of the truth about God, about death and a number of other vitally important things about reality are actually perpetuating the lies and insinuations of the enemy rather than improving God's reputation. They are actually creating more doubt than faith in God as being a loving, caring, compassionate heavenly Father. Our own hearts have little doubt that human love, especially that of a caring mother, would never stoop to such insane, illogical and sick behavior as we so often ascribe to the motives of our heavenly Father. In portraying God as inflicting or even allowing tragedies specifically to manipulate our affections or our obedience to Him is to reinforce ancient accusations of Satan but does nothing to cause our hearts to really trust God's justice, fairness and love.

I have been watching reports of the terrible tsunami in Japan over the past few days and my mind and heart struggle to know how to relate to all the vast suffering and anguish that I glimpse taking place in the midst of all that tragedy. Sadly I am sure that there may be many Christians who might use this event to claim that this must have happened because maybe the Japanese are not willing enough to become Christians, or maybe that these affected cities were somehow more wicked and so they deserved to be punished by an angered deity who finally got so offended He could not contain it any longer. And while I have not yet heard any of these sentiments expressed publicly yet, I am painfully aware of the potential for such blasphemy because of the sick, distorted ideas about God that are so prevalent and that run deep in the hearts of many who live more in fear of offending God rather than embracing the light of truth about Him as revealed in Jesus.

Yet verses like this one are used to justify such inane assertions on the part of many Christians. They point to these words of Jesus and interpret them through the miserable filters of counterfeit religion to reinforce a notion that God intended this man to be born blind so that he would be there years later so Jesus would be able to display His power in front of others. The problem here is not that God used this circumstance to reveal truth about Himself publicly, rather the problem lies in the notion that God desired or intended that this man be blind and even may have caused it in order to give Him opportunity to then reverse the curse and make Himself look good in the process.

This sick thinking about God that pervades much of Christianity, indeed much of humanity, is no different than the logic used by individuals who sometimes are discovered setting fires so that they can look like heroes when they 'discover' the fire and join other firefighters in putting out the blaze. There are times when firefighters themselves have been found to be doing this very thing and the only explanation offered was that they wanted more opportunities to fight fires in order to prop up their self-image and sense of worth. They were addicted to the thrill of using their skill and enjoying the drama of fighting a fire to save someone's property or even their lives.

When we learn about such stories we recoil with horror and disgust, and rightly so. Yet some of the same people who want to put such a person away in prison as a criminal and punish them harshly for such insane logic and behavior, these same people can turn around and try to claim that God does essentially the very same thing all the time and that somehow it is supposed to be O.K. when He uses this tactic. But it is no more righteous for God to employ such twisted logic than it is for humans to do so, and to claim that He does so only tends to turn many away from ever wanting to come any closer to knowing Him if these claims about Him are actually true.

The real truth is that God is not behind all the tragedies of this world despite such claims written into millions of insurance policies ascribing natural disasters to be 'acts of God'. This screwed up logic may be very widespread and unchallenged but it is still just as insane and false nevertheless. Those who knowingly spread such malicious gossip about God will be found to be very guilty in the day of revelation and judgment and will not escape the consequences of such evil slander. But even then it will not be God who will condemn them or harshly punish them for such slander for He will be found to be better than everyone has made Him out to be. He will simply allow the consequences of sin to fully mature as people themselves see the real truth about all of God's actions. That is another topic and although related I don't want to take time to further explore that issue here.

So, if Jesus is NOT saying that God is the instigator of evil in order to create opportunities to display His power or impress people with His superiority, then what was Jesus trying to convey here? What was Jesus saying about God that are so obscured by the polluted ideas from false religion? Why did He say that this man's circumstances presented an opportunity for God to display His works?

This is not a simple issue to explore and easily uncover the truth that satisfies our deep suspicions and questions about the fairness of God. It will take much more examination than I have time or space for right now. However, it is not because I want to skirt the issue or gloss it over that I narrow down or summarize what I have been learning over many years. I believe these kinds of questions need to be exposed publicly and discussed openly and honestly if we really want to come to know God and have a heart-level trust in Him that will not bring shame to His reputation.

One thing I am convinced of is that far too many of our religious explanations about situations and doctrines rely far too much on human illogic and unchallenged dogma than on honest grappling with the core issues at stake firmly founded on the Word of God. We are too quick to defend traditional interpretations of Scripture and are loath to question what we assume are established doctrines that block us from thinking clearly about many ethical dilemmas. Nearly everyone has this resistance to keeping their beliefs open for revision and updating, yet if we are not willing to challenge our paradigms then we quickly become trapped in bigotry and prejudice and cannot move forward with increasing light of God's revelations about Himself.

For example, in the above illustration of a child suddenly being killed in a tragic accident, the popular but unbiblical teaching of a soul immediately going to heaven or hell upon the death of a person's body induces the illogic used by that well-meaning but misguided Christian trying to comfort the mother. Because they feel compelled to align their answer with preconceived beliefs about life immediately after death (or in essence that we don't really die when we die, the first lie of the serpent to Eve), then such disturbing platitudes are invented to try to rationalize why God might cause or allow such a mind-bending, gut-wrenching event of senseless tragedy to take place.

Combine one false doctrine with even more, like the popular belief that God is directly in CONTROL of every situation and that everything has to be viewed as God's will for our lives, then we find ourselves assembling various popular beliefs that are often in contradiction with each other and creating theological explanations that attempt to justify evil which in fact has no justification. Most of our explanations for tragedy in our lives rely on false assumptions about what God is like and how He feels about and relates to sinners or to saints.

Do we seriously believe that God deliberately caused this man to be born blind so that Jesus could come along many years later and show off His miracle-working power to draw attention to Himself? Do we think that God is so sadistic that He cares nothing about all the years of anguish and pain and deprivation that this man suffered not to mention the shame, suspicion and guilt heaped upon him and his parents from the preconceived notions of his society and his church caused by their false beliefs? Are we willing to embrace such a sick picture of God who is not even as compassionate as we are in caring for our own children? Would we treat those we love the way we sometimes accuse God of treating us? Or are all these insinuations part of a scheme of the enemy to totally discredit and obscure the truth about God and keep as many as possible from discovering the real truth about Him?

The fact is that the truth about God is often discovered deep in our own hearts far more readily than it can be found in the teachings and traditions of churches, sad as that may be. And while it is true that there are many lies about God embedded in our damaged hearts caused by tragic events that have happened in our lives, it is still in our heart and our spirit where we are most likely to encounter the subtle but insistent presence of God's Holy Spirit seeking to dissuade us from believing such monstrous evils about Him and to draw us out to question and challenge these assumptions. We need to give God a chance to show us the real truth about love, about justice and about the true nature and character of our heavenly Father.

When we allow the Spirit of God to outfit us with new spiritual glasses, then the Word of God will suddenly take on totally new meaning and life hidden within these pages suddenly springs out and allows us to see reality and heaven in the attractiveness that is actually true. The real problem of sin is not that we are doing bad things that offend God but that we believe wrong-headed notions about God that justifiably make us afraid of Him. And it is the mission of Jesus to unmask all the lies about God that have kept us away from Him by revealing to us the real truth about God's passionate love for sinners and His passionate hatred of everything that keeps us afraid of and separated from Him. God's greatest desire is that we will come to see His trustworthiness so clearly, that we will finally begin to believe real truth about His fairness rather than the false allegations of the enemy that constantly misinterprets every situation. He seeks to draw us to embrace His love, believe the real truth about Him and throw ourself upon His grace and mercy and forgiveness.

The bad things we do are not the underlying problem that most needs fixing and forgiving no matter how obnoxious they may be. The way we treat others and even ourselves in sinful ways is merely a symptom of a much deeper problem. Our actions and words are only the outward expressions of a picture of God that is imprinted deep in our hearts. Until our inner distorted picture of God is healed it is generally fruitless to attempt to manage and control or suppress the outward symptoms of our malfunctioning behaviors. When the heart is healed then the outward life spontaneously begins to express a new dimension of life and all of our relationships are also dramatically affected.

The Bible uses language about this with terms like righteousness, sanctification etc. Jesus once said that if we would seek first His kingdom and His righteousness that everything else would be taken care of for us. To seek His kingdom and righteousness means to pursue the real truth about the way God relates to His creatures and to begin to appreciate the real truth about God's character in contrast to what we have always thought about Him.

When we begin to better appreciate the real righteousness of God then we will see clearly that it is not God who causes tragedies to occur in order to give Him chances to show off His power. It is the scheming, lying, hate-filled enemy of God who is behind all of the pain and suffering and sin that takes place on this planet. God is not the one to blame for all of these tragedies, but the amazing thing is that He has the ability to transform any of them to result in even greater good in the lives of all who respond to His drawing and choose to trust in His goodness even when everything around is screaming the opposite. (Rom. 8:28) As we learn more and trust more in the goodness and fairness of God, our trust releases Him – gives Him permission in the spirit realm – to take charge of our circumstances and in time weave them into an amazing tapestry of beauty that will come back to bless us and others as we allow Him fuller access to our lives.

We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world. (John 9:4-5)

Monday, March 14, 2011

The Power of Questions

And His disciples asked Him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?" (John 9:2)

Questions are very powerful things, much more so than what many of us give them credit. Questions often have an advantage over statements in that they can subtly imply many things without appearing obvious. It is far easier to hide assumptions and presumptions within questions than it is to openly state those same things and have them accepted.

Questions are much more efficient for creating insinuations and infecting minds than plain statements. Questions lead a listener to mistakenly accept suspicions that they otherwise might never have considered previously. The most tragic example of this in all history using this technique brought sin into our world. The serpent masked all sorts of negative insinuations about God in his questions to Eve and then reinforced them with false assertions to induce her into relinquishing her confidence in God's love for her. The result of that successful deception is the whole sordid history of sin on this planet.

While questions are a way of spreading suspicion, doubt and unbelief, at the same time the power of questions can also be used to flush out the truth if they are used correctly and skillfully. But it is vitally important that we not allow ourselves to be sucked into assumptions upon which questions may be based without thinking about them. As Jesus often did, we may need to meet questions with counter questions of our own to uncover the potential traps within a question.

Some questioning can have the effect of spreading the poison of suspicion and insinuation about someone's character while pretending to be concerned and innocent in the process. Many of us have been the victim of such vicious but innocuous attacks as our reputation is cast in a bad light by someone pretending to warn others about supposed faults in our character. In reality, just as the serpent did in Eve's mind about God's character, the greater faults reside in the character of the questioner rather than the one they are implicating. That is one reason it is so dangerous to accept and respond to questions just on the surface as Eve mistakenly did.

But even beyond this, it is far more important to practice discernment about the spirit behind a question. False assumptions are sometimes inevitable on our part in our questions because of ignorance and the influence of sin on our psyche that blinds us to reality. We may honestly desire to know the truth but often don't even know how to ask the right questions to find it because our hearts and minds are so filled with falsehoods that have not yet been exposed. Responding to questions filled with false assumptions but free of an antagonistic spirit may be very different than meeting insinuating questions from people who have a hidden agenda and ulterior motives behind their questions.

Questions can many times be the first line of attack whenever someone is wanting to discredit someone else. It is like spies sent in to infiltrate and undermine the defenses of the opposition before launching an all-out assault. Once an insinuation has been planted in the mind of a person about someone else through the use of subtle insinuation, it is impossible for the listener to ever recover the innocence of their former level of trust in the one thus implicated. After that, each time they see the person thus implicated they cannot help but remember the suspicions planted in their minds and these seeds of doubt can very quickly spring up and reinforce themselves by twisting facts and forming judgments to reinforce these suspicions. This is the nature of suspicion and doubt and comes from the subtle power of sin to tear apart meaningful relationships.

The Pharisees and Jewish leaders had become experts in this subtle use of questions and they practiced it regularly on Jesus. They tried in every way possible to implicate Jesus and to discredit Him by sowing seeds of doubt in people's hearts every chance they could in order to block His influence on people's hearts. They tried repeatedly to entrap Him through leading questions into answering incriminating questions in order to have Him discredit Himself. For in most questions with such hidden agendas, there is no way a person can answer the question as expected without serious damage. Some questions must be challenged rather than answered or else the hidden trap will spill out its poison no matter what answer is given. This is where it is vital to pay attention to the spirit behind a question rather than trying to be polite to answer the question outright.

In these verses we see the disciples of Jesus asking a question that is full of false assumptions and paradigms reflective of typical false ideas about God. Jesus had come to this earth and gathered these disciples around Him to reveal the truth about God to all who would pay attention. This question was so full of false assumptions that it would be difficult to respond without allowing at least some of them to remain, for the very way the question was shaped left no room for the truth. This question was framed with only two alternatives, like a multiple choice question that requires you to only select from the answers supplied leaving the responder no other option if none of the proffered answers are acceptable.

But unlike some of His responses to the religious leaders who had ulterior and hostile motives behind many of their questions, Jesus knew that His disciples were simply reflecting their preconceived beliefs in these false assumptions in their question. Knowing that their spirit was not like the hostility of the Pharisees, Jesus could respond by discarding all the built-in answers and move His disciples beyond their narrow perspective to use this as an effective teaching moment to introduce them to a clearer view of reality. He knew that this was not a trick question but was an honest inquiry but based on a lifetime of false assumptions and culture.

When I pondered how to begin this piece, I first considered starting out by asking, “What's wrong with this question?” But the more I thought about it the more I realized that my own question would be replicating the very thing I was trying to expose. By asking a question in this way I would also be laying a foundation of assumption; I would be implicating that there indeed is something wrong with the way the disciples formed their question and then I would be in the same boat as they were. To begin by implying that something is wrong without first examining it is an effective way to implant that idea without stating it outright. But I decided to be more open in my approach (and also to avoid discrediting myself with those who might quickly notice my own inconsistency) and take a different approach.

Challenging assumptions within a question does not always imply that we are hostile to the question. I believe that encouraging people to regularly challenge the assumptions in their own thinking and their own questions is one of the most effective ways to have them learn to think more clearly. If a question or assumption is actually based on truth, there is no need at all to react defensively to either challenges from others or by our own examination.

So often people become offended whenever an assumption is challenged and feel that it is inappropriate or even wrong to question our assumed beliefs. But God has no problem with our challenging assumptions and in fact strongly encourages us to do so. God is not looking for blindly loyal subjects who never think or reason or use the intelligence He gave them. He wants us to grow in maturity and to begin to function like adults and have a sensible and defensible reason for what we believe. But most important is not whether our exposed assumptions turn out to be right or wrong but is whether our spirit is open to correction and we are willing to lay aside preconceived opinions without undue resistance when it becomes clear that they are faulty.

Some of us feel a great deal of shame associated with having our presuppositions uncovered. Many times we go to great lengths to avoid having any of our beliefs examined feeling that it is an affront to our faith. Instead of being willing to challenge our own assumptions regularly and allowing God to replace falsehoods with truth, we think it is our job to entrench ourselves more firmly in what we already believe and treat everyone who challenges our opinions as enemies to be attacked and pushed away. I suspect that this intense reaction driven by fear of exposure may be caused when we think that our worth and value are dependent on our always being right. When this is the case we isolate ourselves from any around us who see things differently and cut ourselves off from the very sources that God may want to use to help us mature and advance. The Bible speaks of this mindset as hardening our heart and it can be fatal if not faced honestly.

Pride is most often the obstacle to having our assumptions and beliefs examined openly without becoming defensive. Pride is the artificial means for propping up our self-worth in place of trusting in what God says about our value. Pride is actually a symptom of a deep emptiness in the soul that can never be satisfactorily filled with the things we assume will bring us relief. Pride and selfishness is the very core of sin and blinds us to accept the love and value we need that we think we can achieve through other means. Interestingly, pride is not something tangible that must be removed; rather pride is a vacuum that attracts all sorts of temporary gimmicks in attempts to dull the pain of our empty hearts at the deepest level.

On the other hand, humility is not a vacuum of self-esteem as many have assumed. Moses was the most humble man who ever lived according to the Bible, yet because of his dependence and intimate connection with God from which he received a confident sense of his worth, he could stand peacefully in the face of overwhelming attacks, ridicule and threats with a humble boldness because his reference point was not dependent on what people thought about him but was rooted in how God felt about him.

Yes, I did get a long way off from addressing the question of these disciples. But I feel that it is important to follow a thread sometimes to flush out important issues and then come back to the beginning and possibly follow another thread later. The truth I see in this story is that Jesus' disciples were much more open to having their presuppositions challenged, at least to some extent, than were the Jewish leaders who had hardened their hearts each time Jesus exposed their false premises. But with His disciples Jesus could counter their ignorance by offering better explanations without so much danger of being ignored. His disciples had enough humility (though it was still in short supply many times) to be willing to listen and have their assumptions challenged without getting so offended.

I see much more in these verses that I am eager to explore, but as usual I need to close this piece because it is getting lengthy and I need to let the Spirit apply what I have seen to my own heart and life. I want my own spirit to be willing to receive convictions and be corrected just as these disciples needed to have their assumptions exposed. Jesus drew them close to Himself for over three years so that their perceptions of reality could be transformed to begin to see things as heaven sees them rather than from the narrow mindset of earthly religion. I too need to have much of my thinking and my assumptions transformed as the Spirit continues to reveal things I have mistakenly assumed from my own religious upbringing. And I want to ever be willing to cooperate with His mentoring.