Giving Gifts to the Needy

They told him, "Teacher, we found this woman in adultery, in the very act. Now in our law, Moses commanded us to stone such. What then do you say about her?" They said this testing him, that they might have something to accuse him of.

But Jesus stooped down, and wrote on the ground with his finger. But when they continued asking him, he looked up and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw the first stone at her." Again he stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground.

They, when they heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning from the oldest, even to the last. Jesus was left alone with the woman where she was, in the middle. Jesus, standing up, saw her and said, "Woman, where are your accusers? Did no one condemn you?" She said, "No one, Lord." Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go your way. From now on, sin no more." Again, therefore, Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life." (John 8:4-12)

Accusing is counterfeit judging.

Accusing is condemning.

Accusing is the spirit of looking for faults in order to assign blame.

Whoever ends up with the blame, according to the reward/punishment system, must be punished.

Living according to the reward/punishment way is living under the law.

Living under the law is living according to the flesh, where everyone is valued according to how closely they conform to the ideal of the law – relative value for everyone and everything – commerce.

This commercial spirit dictates that we must figure out the relative value of each one according to the law of reward and punishment so that order and unity can be maintained through hierarchal authority.

Accusing/condemning then is the means by which we think to maintain law and order in society. It relies on fear of punishment as the primary means by which to everyone in line with the law. Because of this invested belief in law and punishment, we find it nearly impossible to accept that there could be any other way to hold society together, and we insist God must do so similarly.

This is our system of fear-based social order. We rely on fear as one of the main incentives to keep people from sinning, and when anyone does sin we believe it is a moral duty to find someone to blame for that debt who should receive punishment. Then we must cooperate with authorities designated by God to carry out due punishment. This is what is happening in this story – blame, shame and threat of severe punishment against the person whose sin has imbalanced the scales of justice.

The problem, of course, with this view of how life is to operate is that it neglects the value of the heart. Even more, it ignores or denies the entire meaning of value according to God's design. Our ideas of relative value for people and performance is entirely an artificial notion of value that disregards God's original design for us to live from our heart in freedom, love and trust. The counterfeit way is reward and punishment which is designed to crush the heart and dismember it so we cannot thrive as designed. Thus Satan effectively distorts God's intended reflection of glory from our heart by obsessing over things of lesser importance while ignoring the truly valuable things.

The Lord said to him, "Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, but your inward part is full of extortion and wickedness. You foolish ones, didn't he who made the outside make the inside also? But give for gifts to the needy those things which are within, and behold, all things will be clean to you. But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, but you bypass justice and the love of God. You ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone. Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seats in the synagogues, and the greetings in the marketplaces. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like hidden graves, and the men who walk over them don't know it." (Luke 11:39-44)

Why didn't God send His Son into the world to condemn the world? Because saving the world will never be accomplished by participating in the very thing destroying our hearts. This idea of attempting to overcome evil with evil is doomed to miserable failure, and God will never participate in trying to do what will never work.

Evil can only be overcome with good; darkness can only be eliminated using light.

There are no other possible ways.

What we need to repent of is not just sins we have committed, but far more importantly THE SIN which is our entire way of thinking we have been immersed in all our lives. This primary sin is the twisted thinking infecting all of us after our first parents ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil inducing in all of us a serious case of double-mindedness ever since.

Jesus came to defeat and conquer this double-minded sickness by reintroducing into the human genome the original design of single-mindedness, the saving principle of agape love. Nothing else can ever come close to resolving the problem of evil because anything other than pure love is evil.

The heart was made for love and is damaged and malfunctions when it fails to receive and pass on love effectively. Did you notice the phrase in that last passage that speaks volumes about this issue? But give for gifts to the needy those things which are within, and behold, all things will be clean to you.

Who are the needy Jesus is talking about here? Is it people who don't have enough money to support themselves? Is that what He is telling the Pharisees? I don't think so. Rather, Jesus is putting His finger on the core issue of sin, ignoring of the heart to prefer keeping up appearances and imagining that this will somehow impress God with how pious and holy we are so He will bless us. So we measure our relative value by comparing ourselves with people we imagine are worse than us so we can feel good about our relative righteousness and convince ourselves that God plays this game along with us.

No, the needy that Jesus was referring to are represented by the woman in this story who these Pharisees considered a terrible sinner deserving to be punished. They believed it was their God-appointed duty as the religious authorities to assign blame and execute justice lest God be displeased with them for not carrying out their duties and would then punish them in turn. In other words, this line of religious reasoning leads us to imagine that if we don't point out other people's faults and do our part to maintain law and order in the church, in society, the family or wherever we have responsibility, then God will punish us for not carrying out our duty.

This way of living with others is primarily based on fear – fear aroused by the belief that God will ultimately punish anyone who doesn't do their part in enforcing justice, albeit our kind of justice that is rooted in the thinking of debts and credits, reward and punishments, earning and deserving. Yet all the while our hearts are shriveling up and starving for lack of love, grace and freedom. Yet from our perspective those are secondary issues that may be enjoyed only after justice has been satisfied.

So what constitutes being needy according to Jesus? Well, to start with He indicates that the need is within, not a need in the external arena. This should alert us that what He has in mind is the condition of our heart rather than some external value assigned to us relative on how well we keep the rules. What I also see here is that if I am starved internally – needy myself – then it will be impossible for me to give to others who are needy internally. That makes sense even if it is intellectual. I can't give what I have not received. Yet the catch is that if I am unwilling to give I also block myself from receiving.

For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you don't forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Matthew 6:14-15)

Is this a threat or is it a principle? I believe it is like expecting a garden hose to deliver water while it is not receiving water from a source at the other end. I can demand all I want that the hose deliver water to me, but the best I will be able to get from it is any residual water left in the hose from the last time it was used. If I expect to get more than that, then hose is going to have to be connected to a good source of water itself before it will be able to give water out the other end.

Yet the converse of this is equally true as well. If the hose has a nozzle on the end, it may be hooked up to a good source of supply all it wants, yet until the nozzle is opened to release water out the other end it will be impossible for that hose to receive any more water than what is inside it already.

So really there are two ways in which we can malfunction according to this illustration. We can try to give and give until we collapse in emotional and spiritual exhaustion and then blame God that it simply does not work. Yet the problem may be that we are trying to give something we are failing to receive because we are not remaining connected to the unlimited supply of grace and love available to us at the heart level. Or we may be living in a glut of blessings from God but are so blinded by unbelief in His goodness that we fail to realize how rich we already are and consequently live in judgment over others because they don't measure up to where we imagine we are on the scale of moral worth. Thus we plug the outlet blocking us from receiving more from God. Over time the water already in the hose then stagnates and can become putrid and toxic.

So, how does Jesus defeat accusers? Does He accuse them, pointing out their faults by writing them on the pavement to humiliate and intimidate them until they slink away in shame? This would be overcoming evil with evil, but that never works in the long run, for Jesus knew that condemnation never achieves the kind of righteousness we need that restores us. Jesus loved these Pharisees just as much as He loved this woman, and He was not infected with the commercial way of viewing people like we are. By keeping Himself in constant communion with heaven, He saw every person He came in contact with as God's well-beloved child. That includes you and me by the way.

No, Jesus did not defeat accusers by counter-accusations. Rather He brought light to where darkness was and the light itself induced God's kind of judgment which is very different from our notions about justice. The light of love caused these men to choose whether to let love soften and change them or leave in fear of exposure by that love. They chose to leave because they loved darkness more than light and they feared their deeds would be exposed if they remained in the light just as Jesus said would happen in judgment. This is always how God defeats accusers – simply by loving without reservation and allowing each one to choose how they will relate to the love ever coming from His heart.

But give for gifts to the needy those things which are within, and behold, all things will be clean to you.

What gift comes from within the heart of God?

For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God didn't send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him. (John 3:16-17)

This by the way, comes just before Jesus explains how true judgment occurs just a couple verses later.

What was sent to us within the Son who came to become one with us?

For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

No one has seen God at any time. The one and only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him. (John 1:17-18)

Do you see it? The gift from within God, the gift sent from the very bosom of the Father, was the embodiment of pure, unconditional love, acceptance, grace and the truth that God loves everyone without exception or reservation. That gift never has the slightest condemnation, for our sin problem is not that God is upset with us as we have so long imagined, but that we are afraid of Him and as a result are starved of love on the inside. The gift provided to each of us who are needy comes from the bosom of the Father in the person of Jesus who is love. This love in Jesus is tightly connected to the Father's heart and pours love relentlessly into the heart of anyone willing to open up their heart to receive it.

Do you feel needy of heart right now? Do you feel any need at all, or has fear so damaged the soul that we find it difficult to admit that you are starving for love?

Just a few chapters later we find another story possibly involving this same woman according to some. Clearly she experienced a dramatic transformation of heart from the love shown her by Jesus, and her passion to find some way of returning some of that love compelled her to do something she knew would make her vulnerable in front of those who could not see what was inside her. When Jesus not only freely accepted her public expression of affection but also defended her against those who tried to shame her, laying a guilt trip on Jesus at the same time, He shared a principle with them that is vitally important to appreciate when it comes to living from our heart.

Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little." He said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." Those who sat at the table with him began to say to themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?" He said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace." (Luke 7:47-50)

It is the law of proportion, a principle counterfeited in our false system through relative rewards or punishments figured on the degree of merit or offense. The law of proportion can also be seen in the analogy of the garden hose, for to the degree I open myself up to receive love, I am able to pass love along, and that is how much love I will experience myself.

For with whatever judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you. (Matthew 7:2)

He said to them, "Take heed what you hear. With whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you, and more will be given to you who hear. For whoever has, to him will more be given, and he who doesn't have, even that which he has will be taken away from him." (Mark 4:24-25)

Don't judge, and you won't be judged. Don't condemn, and you won't be condemned. Set free, and you will be set free. Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be given to you. For with the same measure you measure it will be measured back to you. (Luke 6:37-38)

Who Leads Who?

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman taken in adultery. Having set her in the midst, they told him, "Teacher, we found this woman in adultery, in the very act. Now in our law, Moses commanded us to stone such. What then do you say about her?" (John 8:3-5)

Before we rush to judgment, we must realize that these scribes and Pharisees were men who had committed their entire lives to seek to please God and live a life of perfect harmony with God's commandments. They believed that sinners were offensive and could not be tolerated by a holy God. They also longed to witness the power of God unleashed in their world. Their life passion was to bring as many as possible into conformance to the laws of Yahweh so as to secure His favor for their nation. And really, how much difference is there between their desires and what we see today among those who long to see the kingdom of God established in our world just as they did?

It can be easy for us to make negative assumptions about scribes and Pharisees, partly because of all the bad press they got from Jesus, yet truly they had very similar goals as many religious people have today. They earnestly wanted to see God's kingdom set up on earth and to have God's authority recognized and submitted to by God's chosen people around them so that evil could be curbed and so that the world would be a safer place for good people to thrive and flourish.

What were the underlying motives of these men who arraigned this sinner woman before Christ, demanding that He pass sentence on her? We often fail to look past our disgust at their insensitivity and callous disregard for her feelings or plight, yet in doing so we may well be found to be passing judgment on the scribes and Pharisees just as they were passing judgment on this woman.

Were not these men zealous for the sacredness of God's law? Were not they concerned that the ways in which Jesus appeared to be relating to the laws given them by Moses were a dangerous threat undermining respect and fear due to God? We tend to imagine sinister motives in the minds of these men without noting their real concerns. They were simply carrying out the same mission that many of God's leaders and prophets had done for thousands of years, seeking to defend truth against the inroads of lax morals and compromise that undermined the fear of the Lord they believed necessary in order to be honored by God as His chosen people on earth.

From our perspective two thousand years later, we have difficulty appreciating their side of this story, lost sight of in part by the way these stories are written about them. While it is true they had selfish motives and misunderstood the love of God in their fervor to uphold the laws of Moses, what we read are stories written from a perspective strikingly different than how most everyone perceived things at the time. Even the disciples who wrote these gospels had not yet seen the truth about God's character when these events took place. It was not until much later that the light brought to our world by Jesus gave them a startling new view of what was really going on, and that is when they shared these stories with us through their writings. But at the time these things took place it is very likely the minds of the disciples were just as confused about the mission of Jesus as were many others, because the questions and doubts constantly circulated by the religious teachers of the law raised serious concerns that what Jesus stood for could not possibly be reconciled with the truth as taught by Moses and the prophets.

What we see in the lives of Jesus' disciples as they watched Him interact with God's 'chosen people' on earth was the same tension that many of us feel when we attempt to see how God relates to law. The arguments have not abated since then but have changed in focus. Yet we retain similar confusion as to the methods God chooses to overcome evil just as did people in the days when Jesus walked this earth. There is no shortage of questions, doubts and confusion today over how to explain stories such as this, because it still seems clear to us that in order for God to overcome evil in this world, something more substantial than simply dismissing crimes is needed. Without infliction of serious consequences and punishment there will not be enough fear generated to prevent people from continuing to sin.

A fresh heresy Satan brought in to counter the truth as revealed in Jesus is that God had to punish Jesus for our sins so He could forgive those who come to Him in repentance and claim the blood of Jesus to cover their sins. This subtle lie is deeply embedded in general theology, yet it neutralizes the real power of the cross because it fails to challenge our beliefs about how God relates to sin. Because we cling to similar notions about how sin must be overcome as did these pious religious experts of old, we too become entangled in confusion because the very remedy provided by God to cure us from sin is misrepresented as being something entirely different from the truth. In this view, salvation fails to address the deeper issue of how we perceive the true nature of the problem with sin. Because of this, in diagnosing problem of sin incorrectly we fail to recognize the only effective solution, even if it is right in front of us. In fact, misdiagnosing sin and God's solution can lead us to imagine that the effective cure for sin brought to us by Jesus may appear to be part of the problem to be solved so long as we refuse to appreciate the true nature of sin and the function of law.

The true religion of Jesus can be just as much a threat today as it was to the religious leaders in Jesus' time. We may think we are different from the religious zealots of His day because we think we don't have the same prejudice they had. Yet the deceptiveness of religion seduces us into a sense of false security, for any time we imagine that God must be appeased to have His mind changed in the least relating to His disposition towards us, we have misdiagnosed the core problem of sin. Salvation is not about changing God's mind but all about changing ours.

One of the most subtle falsehoods inherent in every world religion is the belief that some way must be found to influence and alter God's disposition towards us. Many insist that one must repent and ask for forgiveness before God will accept and save us. Yet repentance simply means to change the way we think about something or someone. When we imagine that sin causes God to gets angry at people who break His commands and is compelled to punish them, we will consequently assume we then have to find some way to change His disposition towards us in order to get on His good side so we can have life instead of receiving our due punishment of death by execution (or worse yet punishment in non-death by being tortured endlessly in fiery flames of hell for eternity).

The scribes and Pharisees who brought this woman caught in the very act of sinning before Jesus were pressuring Him to conform to their views of how God keeps order by enforcing His laws. Like most of us today, they believed that unless laws are enforced there is little incentive for sinners to avoid sinning and chaos will ensue. Thus in their minds, the teachings and practices of Jesus in relation to sin and sinners created a very dangerous attitude toward law and order that if allowed to infect the minds of people would have a sure result of destroying social order and effective authority based largely on fear of punishment. Without sufficient fear of punishment, they believed it would be impossible for God or anyone else to prevent the chaos of rampant evil from overrunning society. Thus by insisting that Jesus make a clear choice to enforce law in a simple case from the law of Moses, they could clarify publicly where He stood in relation to God and law-enforcement.

Before we write off the scribes and Pharisees as merely hypocrites, we need to consider how their thinking is very similar to our own perceptions. While they may have been extreme examples of self-righteous bigotry and rigid legalists, in condemning them we may be discovered to be doing the very same thing as they were doing.

Therefore you are without excuse, O man, whoever you are who judge. For in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself. For you who judge practice the same things. We know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. Do you think this, O man who judges those who practice such things, and do the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and patience, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? (Romans 2:1-4)

Notice something very interesting that suddenly shows up if we reword this last sentence just a bit.

The goodness of righteous people can lead God to change His mind (repent) concerning them.

Is this not the subtle presumption of most religions? To put it very bluntly, what many assume is that we are supposed to acquire enough goodness in ourselves that we can lead God to repentance, to get Him to change His mind about us so we can avert His threats of punishment. Simultaneously we resist suggestions that what is really needed is a change in our mind about God and the way He sees us. Yet because of our fear of judgment and punishment, we imagine that while God does have a disposition of kindness towards sinners, at some point He will change and execute 'justice.' Therefore we must find some way to placate His agitation before then to make Him safe for us to live in His presence.

Do you see the problem in all this? The focus is more on changing God's mind than changing our thinking about Him. Every false religion including most of Christianity, focuses on how to effectively change God's disposition towards us so we can become acceptable to Him. Only the religion of Christ clarifies that the problem of sin is entirely a result of false perceptions we have about God that make us afraid of Him and thus filled with resistance to the life-giving love He longs for us to enjoy.

So long as we worship a god who demands perfect obedience before he is willing to accept and love us, we worship a false god – pure and simple. Yet the very fact that such a statement can elicit a strong reaction inside some of us, a protest that somehow obedience must be present in order to be accepted by God, only belies the fact that a key element is missing in our understanding of the gospel. This story confronts this very thinking in a dramatic way, for there is hardly a more explicit example of the contrast between love and law that can be found anywhere.

It is easy to imagine that we need to change God's mind about us by carrying out the demands of His laws, be it the laws through Moses or other moral laws we attribute directly to God. Based on our premise that God's laws must be enforced or they are powerless, we assume that God's disposition towards us is darkened by our transgressions of His laws. Furthermore, we often assume we must help God get other people to stop sinning as well so we can earn His favor to be restored to our country, our church or whatever group we believe God supports. This is readily seen in the popularity of much of what we see going on around us today in politics and religion. Yet it is all predicated on unchallenged assumptions about how God relates to law-enforcement and sin.

We must come to see more clearly the fundamental flaw in this thinking. John writes that God is love and that God is light with no darkness at all in Him (1 John 4:8,16; 1:5). Here we find the key shift that needs to take place in our perspective – that the problem of sin has nothing to do with changing God's attitude towards us in any way. Rather, the entire problem of sin is rooted in the way we perceive how God feels about and relates to us. Believing lies about how God feels about us lies at the very root of all sin, for sin is distrust of God from lies believed resulting in malfunction in the life. This is precisely what Paul is exposing throughout this entire passage spanning several chapters at the beginning of Romans. Paul is saying that whether we malfunction as open rebels and sensational sinners, or whether we choose the route of piety and striving to maintain a holy, upright life to change God and be accepted by Him, we are all caught in the very same trap and both classes are in danger of missing salvation entirely, even while we feel secure we are on the inside with God and have our ticket to heaven.

In this story from the life of Jesus we find these two categories clearly represented. The woman caught in adultery can easily be identified in the list of open, lurid sins in the last half of Romans chapter 1. In contrast, the men who zealously arraigned her before Jesus to be judged according to the law represent the kind of pious people Paul addressed at the beginning of chapter 2. Yet Paul explicitly says that such religious piety is in fact no different in its core cause than the open sinners they feel compelled to expose and condemn, for in actuality we are all malfunctioning for the same reason, and until we come to acknowledge that we remain blind to our true desperate condition of lostness.

do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and patience, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?

Imagining that God is upset with sinners while favorable toward good people is a symptom of mistaken beliefs about how God thinks. This is because we base our logic on false presumptions about what constitutes justice and the very nature of sin itself. So long as we insist that sin is primarily about rule-breaking and that justice demands punishment of sin before God's law can be satisfied, we remain immersed in the mindset inherited from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and cannot see the truth as it is in Jesus who represents the Tree of Life. And so long as we maintain this distorted view of how God relates to sin and sinners we will imagine that His mind must be swayed in some way to be led from anger to favor and will insist that justice involves imposed punishments and rewards.

This is what underlies our faulty thinking that someone else's righteousness can lead God to repentance instead of the other way around. Misapprehensions about sin and about God cause us to live in fear rather than in His love. But fear has to do with punishment and prevents true love from being perfected in our heart because we are clinging to lies that inhibit us from resting in the pure love of the Godhead.

We must come to see the fallacy of imagining we have to lead God to repent of His wrath towards us because of our sins and be converted to repent of our own twisted thinking that makes us continue in this line of dangerous illogic. No amount of perfect law-keeping on anyone's part – including the perfect righteousness of Jesus as our substitute – can have any affect on changing God's mind towards us, for that completely misses the original problem of sin involving distrust of God's heart. God is never the one who needs to repent but rather sinners – bad sinners and good ones alike – need to repent of all the suspicions, slander and lies circulating about Him and most often promoted by religion.

Will we be willing to repent of trying every way possible to get God to repent? It will do no good, but rather is a dangerous distraction, to try to lead God into changing His mind about us by impressing Him with our righteous law-keeping. That is not the truth about salvation for it misses the real point of the original problem, and worse yet it prevents us from seeing our own desperate condition, fooling us into imagining that we are more secure than we really are in heaven's eyes.

What is most needed is a massive shift in our foundational perceptions about the real nature of our problem with sin and how God views us. God is not antagonistic toward sinners because God is nothing other than pure love. This does not mean He never gets angry or hurt, but it does mean He never takes offense, something most people have difficulty accepting. Because God never takes offense there is never anything for which He needs to change His thinking, for God cannot be changed by anything we do, say or feel that could ever in the slightest way lessen His passionate desire for us to be reunited into the deepest intimacy of love with His heart.

This is a vital perspective we need to rediscover in this story, for unless we begin to catch a glimpse of the true methods of God and His heart of passionate love for abusers as well as for victims, we continue to be blind to the true nature of our problem and will rely on vain methods to be reconciled with God.

We must see in this story that Jesus was just as passionate to win the heart and mind of each scribe and Pharisee involved in this episode as He was to save the life and soul of this woman entrapped by these evil men intent on killing her to vent their animosity toward Jesus through law-enforcement. We may find it difficult to feel sympathy for legalistic, hateful bigots, yet God sees the damage that sin has caused in every one of His children. Yet even so, in no way is His heart altered in His desire to heal them just as much as He desires to rescue the victims of their exploitation and dark views of justice.

What we find in this story is a confrontation between the power of the kindness of God in contrast to the false notion of commerce-based religion where God must be paid off in order to get Him to change His thinking. Anything involving earning and deserving anything from God involves commerce morality and originates from the kingdom of darkness. Heaven does not operate on the principles of commerce with debts and credits and keeping score. Heaven is all about life and relationships and restoring everyone possible back into pristine relationships of mutual love and joy. And while not everyone will be willing to embrace that way of life, it is the only way that that can restore true harmony and peace to the universe as it once enjoyed before the beginning of the rebellion.

So what is the core cause of sin that must be addressed for sinners of both types in order to be restored into harmony with the mind and heart of God? The core issues are found both in Romans 1 and 2.

For I am not ashamed of the Good News of Christ, for it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes; for the Jew first, and also for the Greek. For in it is revealed God's righteousness from faith to faith. As it is written, "But the righteous shall live by faith."

(Romans 1:16-17)

Paul is keen to point out that the true good news has inherent power within it to salvage us, and that good news is about God's righteousness that can be fully trusted. That is the short version. Jesus came to explicitly reveal this amazingly good news about God, and when we truly embrace Jesus' version of God it seems almost too good to be true.

What follows this verse is part of the core cause that obscures the good news that God is nothing but good. As we continue to cling to lies we hold about God, we eventually force God to respect our choice to repel His love and we reject His protection over our lives. If we destroy all our capacity to respond to love through repeated rejections of His overtures to draw out our affections, we can lose all capacity to appreciate His affection for us until we finally damage our heart so thoroughly it becomes irrevocably hardened and makes it impossible to change/repent. Throughout this process God is has to sadly withdraw His protection from us resulting in increasingly ill-effects from our wrong choices because we are released to deeper and deeper levels of darkness and dysfunction. Whether this result of sinful living comes out as open rebellion and gross immorality, or whether it expresses itself as pious self-righteousness in vain attempts to impress God, either way the root cause is the same – exchanging the truth about God for lies that harden unbelief and distort our ways of perceiving Him.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known of God is revealed in them, for God revealed it to them. For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse. Because, knowing God, they didn't glorify him as God, neither gave thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and traded the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed animals, and creeping things.

(Romans 1:18-23)

Whether we experience the symptoms of the disease of sin in the forms described later in chapter 1 or as described in chapter 2, the root cause is the same: the real truth about God is suppressed by false notions about His righteousness. In promoting false ideas about what true righteous is, we dishonor God's reputation and rob Him of His glory. Believing dark views of God also results in lack of appreciation and gratitude to Him as we become fools by making God out to be like us or worse.

Do you think this, O man who judges those who practice such things, and do the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and patience, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, revelation, and of the righteous judgment of God; (Romans 2:3-5)

We find here the core of the problem that was addressed previously, the specific things we reject about God in exchange for the lies in religion that mingles good and evil in our ideas of how God feels towards us. So long as we discredit or cast doubt in the slightest on the true riches of God's goodness, self-restraint and patience, we mingle darkness with light and create fear in place of love.

The woman caught in adultery was living a life full of fear and shame, not knowing the truth about God's real disposition of pure love towards her. Because the truth of God had been exchanged for lies that produced fear of punishment along with feelings of shame and worthlessness, she was easily exploited by religious men who themselves had also exchanged the truth of God for lies, whether or not they were the very same lies as were hers. Both sides lived in fear, believing that God needed to have His mind changed in some way before things could get better in their lives.

These pious men who felt compelled to enforce the laws given through Moses designed to keep law and order in society were caught in the very same mindset as the woman they were condemning, for in despising the riches of the goodness, forbearance and patience of Jesus with sinners, He was being ungodly and needed to be exposed as a fraud as they believed Him to be. Because He did not share their stern views of God as one who must condemn sinners and reward good people, they viewed Jesus as a huge threat to the established system of law and order. Jesus' teachings and methods threatened to undermine the very authority of the God they believed had to have firm control. Because they exchanged the truth of God for lies about Him, they failed to appreciate the truth that Jesus was bringing to them and they hated Him for refusing to endorse their teachings and enforce their laws.

Whether we feel disdain towards someone guilty of adultery or towards religious prigs eager to harshly punish a victim of sin, our own penchant to judge anyone in this story exposes the fact that we too to some extent have exchanged truth about God for lies that may seem on the surface to be obviously true. Yet these very lies that cause us to imagine we need to lead God to change His mind about us blind us to realizing that it is our thinking alone that needs a radical change in how we perceive God rather than His mind that needs to be changed about us.

But all things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation; namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses, and having committed to us the word of reconciliation.

(2 Corinthians 5:18-19)

Determined religious defenders of law here demand that God in human flesh take a stern accounting of a woman's trespass against a law they believed God gave originally. Yet they utterly failed to see that they were equally guilty from heaven's perspective of distorting the truth about God's character and disposition towards sinners. By demanding punishment for sin they imagined they were only doing what they believed God expects. Yet in reality they had exchanged the truth of God's love for the lie that justice demands punishment for every sin. Jesus longed to open their minds and win their hearts just as much as He sought to protect the woman caught in sin and also restore her to true love. If these men had accepted the kindness Jesus offered in the way He dealt with their sins, they could have repented and received life directly from the Source just as the woman found deliverance.

Only the truth about the goodness of God has power to change lives and transform a character to prepare one to thrive in the presence of God's intense purity and love. We must renounce every lie we have inherited or embraced that displaces the truth about God in our heart until we are fully restored to the freedom and fulness of joy for which we were created. The more clearly we see the true goodness of God, the more stunning it appears until it can almost be scandalous to our normal way of thinking. Yet the revelation of truth as it is in Jesus is the real gospel that has the power to save in such a way that we may be fully rescued from the slavery of darkness and fear in which we have lived all our lives.

But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love toward mankind appeared, not by works of righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according to his mercy, he saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly, through Jesus Christ our Savior; that, being justified by his grace, we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:4-7)

Of Guns and Swords

Simon Peter then, having a sword.... (John 18:10)

What a statement. What a reality check. What a warning.

What God has been revealing to me over the past thirty years about Himself and His ways alerts me to the importance of this phrase. And in the context of other things emerging in this passage, this is even more significant.

Shortly before these events transpired in the garden, Jesus had engaged in an interchange with His disciples about swords. He spoke some of the most confusing and cryptic words He had ever used which has caused many to misunderstand His intentions to this very day. (see Luke 22:36) But if there was any doubt as to what Jesus had in mind when He told His disciples to buy a sword if they didn't have one, this passage ought to serve to diffuse such mistaken thinking.

The sad stories of God's people all throughout history repeatedly demonstrates the mistakes we can make when we embrace beliefs in a violent, self-defensive God instead of the real truth about the God of pure agape love. The Jews of Jesus' day were immersed in such diabolical opinions about God and all the disciples were infected with this same virus. The reason there already were two physical swords in the possession of the disciples in a day when weapons were illegal under the Roman occupation, was because they so fervently believed in deliverance by a Messiah who would rely on methods of violence. Just as today, people back then cherished hopes of salvation assuming that God will resort to violence and physical abuse when necessary to accomplish His purposes. Peter was no exception.

There is much debate in the united States today about the right to have weapons. There are many valid and compelling arguments on both sides of this debate, and it is hard at times to refrain from becoming sucked into the fray. But the example and teachings of Jesus must serve as our gold standard of truth if we are to find the straight and narrow path that Jesus said leads to heaven. This path is shunned, scorned and discredited by the vast majority of professed Christians and unbelievers alike. But it still remains the only path of truth that will lead us in the process of true salvation. This path is the same one Jesus followed in every detail of His life. If we want to know the only path to life we have to make the life of Jesus our highest priority for study and emulation, not any other example including Peter.

This verse goes on to say that because Peter had a sword that he drew it out of its sheath and began lashing out with it. This reminds me of the terrible choice his ancestors made long before just after their Red Sea deliverance from Egypt. They were suddenly confronted with a choice about how they were going to relate to God's promises to them. Just after their incredible deliverance from the greatest army in the entire world just hours before, they discovered that many of the armaments of that military machine had suddenly become available to them as bodies of thousands of dead soldiers washed up on the beach. And although the Bible does not detail the particulars of that event, it is clear from the context that they were facing one of the most direction-changing temptations they had ever faced.

God had promised to deliver them from the hands of their oppressors and bring them into a land filled with abundance, all at His own initiative. What He asked of His people simply was their implicit trust that He could handle anything that might threaten them. By starting out with the dispensing of the world's greatest military machine focused on taking revenge on them for escaping the power of their slave-masters, God had proven Himself more than capable of protecting them and providing for all of their needs. But what He needed most but could not force from them was their cooperation with His plans and methods to save them. He longed for them to trust Him in every area of their lives, to rejoice in His passionate love over them and to rest in His loving care and protection. But they rejected His ways and refused to enter into His rest (see Hebrews 3 and 4).

We all know the sad history of their repeated choices all throughout their years in the desert. About the only consistency they practiced was to complain over and over again, to doubt the goodness of God, the power of God, the kindness of God and to complain about and rebel against anyone who did believe and trust in Him. They retained a slave mentality and the mindset of Egypt where force, fear, intimidation and all the other principles of Satan's counterfeit system had been honed to professional levels. All they could bring themselves to believe in was reliance on force to take care of themselves, for they felt that in the end no one else could really be trusted to look out for their interests.

With that kind of mentality, when presented with the choice of whether to bury the dead soldiers along with all their weapons or to scavenge all they could get from the rotting corpses on the beach, they chose the latter and armed themselves to the teeth in preparation for defending themselves from any future threats instead of trusting in the God who had just single-handedly saved them from the greatest threat of force the world had to offer in their day. They greedily snapped up the swords and shields and spears of their enemies and then put their confidence in their own abilities to defend themselves instead of believing the words of God promising them supernatural entrance into the promised land.

Along with the disciples who felt they had to defend themselves when push came to shove, Christians today still are addicted to notions that God expects His children to arm themselves with weapons of the enemy to defend themselves and their families if things get too threatening. How many scenarios have I heard where people try to justify their ownership of guns, making up typical stories where they become the hero by shooting an intruder or someone threatening to rape their daughter. All the while in real life these scenarios almost never work out the way imagined. The intended defenders more often than not become the victims, but worse yet the reputation of God is repeatedly damaged as those claiming to believe in His love refuse to live and love the way Jesus lived but instead take up the sword like Peter demonstrated so uselessly.

One may argue in circles trying to get around why Jesus did not resort to force in this story, but such attempts usually only betray a heart that is not yet converted just as Peter was not yet converted. Peter was very confident that he was the most loyal disciple of Jesus, that he would fight side by side all the way to death if necessary to defend his best Friend. But the problem was that Peter had not yet embraced the real truth about the nature of the kingdom that Jesus had brought to this earth. Peter was not interested in loving enemies instead of attacking them, and like the Israelites of his own ancestry, when given the chance he chose to turn to violence and trust in weapons as his option of choice when under duress instead of allowing God to reveal His true character in contrast to the weapons and techniques of His enemies.

What I find very compelling in this passage that is in stark contrast to this record of Peter relying on force and weaponry to protect himself and his allies, the methods and attitude of Jesus under the very same circumstances was so opposite. A careful examination of the context reveals compelling insights.

So Jesus, knowing all the things that were coming upon Him, went forth and said to them, "Whom do you seek?" (John 18:4)

This phrase is directly linked back to just a few hours before when John clearly says in chapter 13 that Jesus was fully aware of everything taking place around Him both in the material world and in the supernatural realms. Yet having full knowledge of all the dangers, intrigue, plots and cluelessness of even His own disciples as well as His own enormous superiority, in this context He chose to serve most humbly each of His disciples by washing their dirty feet. Thus Jesus demonstrated the infinite humility of the most powerful God of the universe who only longed for them to see His true goodness and kindness rather than focusing on all that was going wrong. By serving with greatest humility the very disciple who was becoming his worst enemy, Jesus exposed to the extreme the real truth about what it means to be a follower of the ways of God.

It says here again that Jesus was still fully aware of all that was transpiring around Him, yet knowing all of this as well as knowing all the supernatural resources He had to potentially defend Himself, He consciously chose to submit to all the evil that would come not only on Him but potentially on any who might choose to identify themselves with Him as loyal followers.

Lest we miss the significance of this story, let me point out here that the passage as translated in English tends to smooth over something highly significant. In verse 5, verse 6 and in verse 8, Jesus actually uses a name that all the Jews recognized as the most sacred name of the Almighty God of the universe to identify Himself as the one they had come to arrest – the great I AM! In most translations of the Bible it is difficult to see this because it is linked to some other word like He, as in, I am He. But that last word is not in the original text which strongly implies that He simply said, I AM.

This helps to explain why after the second time He identified Himself as the I AM of all history and creation, the evil mob led by Judas who had come to accomplish their evil plans for Him, fell powerless to the ground. No human had suddenly knocked them over, and Peter had not even started his attempts at violence. The sheer truth of who Jesus really was became the overwhelming force that caused the powers of darkness to fall back involuntarily in the presence of infinite power and truth. But even then, Jesus only allowed this to happen momentarily, not for the purpose of defending Himself but to make it explicitly clear the true identity of the One they were about to violate, abuse, shame and finally crucify. They could never plead ignorance that they did not know what they were doing or who they were up against. It became crystal clear in that event to everyone involved that they were fighting against God Himself and so they were without any excuse for their continued rebellion against His love for them.

In the middle of all this commotion and increasing danger, Jesus insisted on the full freedom of all involved to make their own choices as to who's side they would choose to be on. Judas and the mob along with the Roman soldiers chose to pursue their intentions to carry out the diabolical plans of the demons and enemies of Jesus. But Jesus wanted to make sure His other disciples knew that they had a choice to either stay identified with Him or could choose to turn and run away. He did not command anyone but made it very clear that He would protect their right to choose for themselves what they wanted to do in this time of crisis. As for Himself, He conveyed to His accusers that He was completely vulnerable and harmless and they could do anything they might want to do with Him even though He has just revealed that He had access to infinitely more resources and power than they could even begin to imagine. During this time it is also recorded that Jesus told them that if He chose to, He could commission legions of powerful angels to come to His defense if that was the way the kingdom of heaven operated. But the whole purpose for this hour was to expose the stark contrast between the methods and beliefs of the counterfeit system invented by Satan to the ways of heaven that were so different from the ways of this world.

We are still faced with this same divisive truth today. What are we going to believe about God and the nature of His kingdom? Are we going to continue to parrot lies of the enemy that God will not allow His plans to be defeated but will resort to force when He desires? That issue was settled completely at the cross of Jesus. Yet Christians today have been duped into believing that the cross of Christ proved the very opposite, that God was exacting punishment upon His Son through the violence of His enemies to vent God's wrath against sinners. How diabolical Satan's insinuations are and how massively effective they have become in deceiving nearly the whole world yet again.

Increasingly we are going to be faced with these very same confrontations forcing us to reveal what we really believe about God and how our beliefs will work out in our actions and reactions under pressure. Jesus gave us a brilliantly clear revelation of the actual truth about how God will act under violence and threats; Peter gave us an alternative demonstration of another option and belief about the ways of God. Likewise, everyone else in that story revealed their own versions of how to act when faced with a crisis. How will we react when forced to choose what we actually believe about the use of violence?

If there ever was a time when God would have resorted to violence to protect Himself, it would have been when God Himself in the vulnerable person of His Son Jesus Christ was threatened, abused, tortured and finally murdered in a most inhumane and unjust way. But tragically most people prefer the lies of Satan in assuming that next time God shows up that somehow He is going to suddenly change roles and this time reek vengeance, retribution and violence against all who have rejected His salvation or hurt His chosen people. But contrary to all the vivid descriptions of such thinking defended by Scripture proof texts, a careful examination of of God's Word using Jesus as the sole reliable filter through which we interpret all the rest of Scripture renders a very different picture of God.

Jesus explicitly told Peter that those who resort to relying on force will themselves meet the same methods used back against them. Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword." (Matthew 26:52) This principle is one that Jesus spoke of previously when He put is this way:

Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. (Matthew 7:1-2)

And He was saying to them, "Take care what you listen to. By your standard of measure it will be measured to you; and more will be given you besides." (Mark 4:24)

When we resort to the weapons of the enemy to defend either ourselves or even the cause of God, we have moved away from the kingdom of heaven principles and have infected ourselves with the virus of reliance on power, fear and other counterfeit methods of the enemy. In this war it is highly dangerous to ever take up the methods or weapons of the adversary, for those things are all contaminated with infectious diseases that will lead us into the paths of death and ruin our testimony on God's behalf.

Only the ways of God as revealed explicitly in the life and teachings of Jesus are safe to rely on to further the advancement of God's purposes. Only in taking up our cross, denying ourselves and following in the ways of Jesus can we remain secure in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Although choosing that path may result in personal harm to ourselves and those around us, we must continue to remember that the priorities of heaven are very different than our intuitive priorities and we have to trust our Commander who has all the keys necessary to deliver everyone who implicitly trusts in Him, even from the bondage of death itself.

Contrary to popular assumptions, our battle does not revolve around whether or not we get hurt, whether or not we live or die or whether we can successfully protect our families or friends from getting hurt. The big problem with our thinking is that we have made out the war between good and evil to be a struggle revolving around our own personal performance or comfort. By failing to see that the battle is actually over God's reputation and instead, making it out to be all about ourselves, we have been deceived by all sorts of false assumptions about how the kingdom of heaven operates or is advanced. This battle is not about us or our sins or perfection but is about whether God can be trusted or not. Peter had to learn that lesson along with all the other disciples. But when they finally grasped the real truth about Jesus later on, they became irrepressible in their passion to follow the example of their beloved Friend and Savior who had shown them the stunning truth about what God is really like.

I want that kind of full conversion myself. I want to have these truths soak in more permanently into my own psyche, to embrace them deeper in my own heart so that my reactions under threats will look more like the gentleness and glory of Jesus instead of reflecting the typical reactions of self-defense that are so natural for me now. I want far greater faith in the protection of God whether or not that protection includes my physical well-being or not. I want to be so connected at the heart level to the heart of God as revealed in Jesus Christ that He can begin to demonstrate through me what was seen in the kindness, compassion, forgiveness and love revealed in this story of Jesus.

Stranger in the Night

Then, when they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near to the boat; and they were frightened. But He said to them, "It is I; do not be afraid." (John 6:19-20)

As I noticed last time, the context of this story is the turbulence of emotions that had been stirred up like a giant storm in the minds and hearts of people longing for a Messiah of their own imagination. They were not looking so much for someone to challenge their picture of God as they were in having a superhero come to give them power to dominate over their enemies by use of force and coercion. Seeing the miraculous abilities of Jesus to heal people, raise the dead and feed thousands from nearly nothing, they assumed that they had finally discovered the person that just might fit the bill.

But the people as well as the disciples were missing the main point of why Jesus came as the true Messiah. Their idea was that God was willing and ready to resort to force to get His way when things were not going well for His cause, and they believed that He should use force or whatever means necessary to exalt the people whom He had previously chosen as His special representatives on this earth. But they had lost sight of the surpassing compassion of God and the fact that God does not discriminate but desires all to come into close relationship with Him.

There was a great conflict of interests going on in the minds of everyone involved that day. On the one hand they were starting to see and hear in the words and actions of Jesus principles of a new way of thinking, of relating, of governing that was in sharp contrast with the ways in which they were used to living. This strange new way of thinking had a powerful appeal to their hearts but to their minds it seemed largely impractical for the harsh realities in which their lives were set. Most of them firmly believed that these ideas about loving your enemies and doing good for those who persecute you or abuse you might be fine under some circumstances but would have little effect in overcoming the evil powers that ruled their world with an iron fist.

They underestimated and misunderstood the sort of kingdom that Jesus came to reveal to humanity, just as we still do today. They misunderstood the purpose for the miraculous works of Jesus and instead filtered them through their own beliefs about what they thought they really needed. Their desire to exalt themselves over their enemies and to gain advantage over others reflected typical worldly assumptions about government and kingship. They had adopted the world's standards and woven into their religion the principles of the kingdoms of this world and so were blinded to the real nature of the kingdom that Jesus came to set up.

This enormous conflict between underlying principles created a great tension inside of everyone faced with the events of that day. They started out very excited about the miracle-working abilities of this kind, compassionate teacher who spoke so highly of the ways of love. But at the same time they would not let go of their national patriotism and dreams of greatness in this world and so they sought to figure out how they could exploit the powers of God in this Man for their own national dreams.

In choosing to try to exploit the power of God for their own desires and purposes, they caused Jesus to remove His presence from their midst and frustrated their own purposes in the process. Without the cooperation of Jesus their plans could not be accomplished and they would be left exposed to the harsh reprisals of the Roman government. And because Jesus could not be convinced or even compelled to cooperate with their national aspirations, hopes and dreams, their frustration began to turn to anger and resentment and doubt about His authenticity as the true Messiah. He did not fit their outline of the requirements of a Messiah and so therefore He must be considered as a potential impostor, though a very fascinating one at the least.

This swirling atmosphere of intense but very conflicting feelings created a great storm of emotion and confusion among the crowds and the disciples that day. It did not have to be that way; they could have chosen to believe Jesus as He revealed the true nature of His kingdom. But they would have had to have been willing to lay aside their pride and their cherished dreams of power in this world. Their pride and national patriotism was too deep to let go and as a result they not only became extremely frustrated with Jesus, but by pushing away His presence they allowed Satan opportunity to create parallel storm in the physical realm to threaten their very lives as well.

It is very interesting in verse 17 that Jesus had not yet come to them. Immediately after these words it speaks of the sea being stirred up because a strong wind was blowing. Interestingly in the Bible the sea usually refers prophetically to masses of people. It was already true that this sea of people were already experiencing a storm of emotion because of their frustrated attempts to make Jesus an earthly king by force. Now in the physical realm their spiritual storm was reflected in a storm that threatened their physical existence as well. And this seems directly linked with the fact that Jesus was not with them.

But there is another interesting aspect of the dynamics here. For when Jesus did finally come near them during the storm, their reaction was one of fear, not of joy. We usually look at this story and emphasize the fact that they did not know it was Jesus coming near them, but instead thought He was a ghost and assumed they were about to die. But I believe there are much deeper implications here if we look at the context and see implications that have strong reverberations in our own experience.

How often does God try to come near to us in our own storms but instead of being welcomed as a friend and deliverer we perceive Him as an evil omen of things getting worse? We do not perceive that it is God drawing near to us but can only see pain and disaster ahead. Like Jacob reacting violently to the sudden presence of someone trying to give him the hug of his dreams, we only think that everyone is out to harm us including God. The face of Jesus is shrouded in darkness and we only can see a dim outline of some figure coming closer and closer. The strangeness of the circumstances only add to our initial fears for this figure is doing things that we have never seen happen before. Jesus was walking on top of water (and the water was not frozen in the least). All indications seemed to point to disaster ahead according to their logical reasoning and their emotions took all those facts and wove them into the worst possible scenarios.

It is in these moments though, that God is trying to incubate genuine, saving faith in our hearts if we will allow Him to do so. It may well be that the times of greatest fear in our lives are the times when God is drawing ever closer to us but in ways we have never imagined from our previous experiences with Him. We may be living in great pain or deprivation; we may be living under the threat of a disaster that threatens to reduce our lives to poverty or even extinction. We find ourselves in an atmosphere of great fear and suddenly all of our prayers for deliverance seem to be threatened by the sudden appearance of Someone totally strange to us and acting in ways that seem to only intensify our fears. Our prayers are certainly not being answered in the ways we want to see happen. How then are we going to interpret the movements of God?

But He said to them, "It is I; do not be afraid." So they were willing to receive Him into the boat.... (John 6:20-21)

God has to meet us where we are. But sometimes He also has to allow us to experience things in life that force us to adjust our perspectives enough to be willing to see Him differently than we have in the past. When our own beliefs about God and His ways and His methods of governing are so out of harmony with His true ways and His Spirit, He sometimes has to allow us to experience in another dimension of our life an illustration of what our ideas might look like if He were to allow our plans to preempt His plans.

Jesus could not go along with the plans the Jews had for their Messiah without losing the larger battle with the real enemy, Satan himself. The real problems for God's people in that day as well as in our day, was not the Romans or any other evil government no matter how abusive or corrupt. The real problem all of us face that causes all these other problems to pale in comparison is the battle for control of our hearts, the war that is constantly happening deep inside our souls. It was this battlefield that Jesus came to conquer and with methods and weapons that often seem to us to be ineffective and inappropriate.

Today we have the great advantage of having all of these lessons available to us from the past. We do not have to repeat all the mistakes of those who have gone before us; we do have the option to learn from other's experiences and to make different choices than what they made. These stories in the Bible are given for our admonition and instruction for a reason. As we look at these experiences from heaven's perspective as they are recorded here, we can begin to see a different agenda on the part of God and begin to perceive new ways to relate to similar circumstances in our own lives if we are willing to learn to choose differently than the disciples did.

It will often be true that in our own storms, whether emotional, physical or any other dimension in our lives, we will experience initial fear when Jesus begins to draw near to us. It may be that the reason He seems so distant in the first place is because we have insisted on our ideas of how His kingdom should be run instead of deferring to His plans and His timing. Either way, Jesus still does not leave us alone or abandoned.

When our hearts are crying out in fear and our logical minds can find no reasonable explanation for what our senses are telling us, we have the choice to trust in God's heart no matter what all the evidence seems to be trying to tell us. We cannot trust in our logic to bring us the truth all the time any more than we can trust our emotions to find the truth about God. We must learn to trust His heart and believe in His goodness and compassion and faithful love for us no matter what is going on in our lives. And as we choose to express and confess this belief in the face of all opposing evidence by praising God in the darkness and pain like Paul and Silas did in the dungeon, we can have a very different relationship to God and to our circumstances just as Paul and Silas experienced during their stormy night of events.

To Minister Boldly

But I have written very boldly to you on some points so as to remind you again, because of the grace that was given me from God, to be a minister of Christ Jesus.... (Romans 15:15-16)

For many others this may not raise anything out of the ordinary. But for me putting these words together into the same sentence raises memories that have potential tension. For most of the people that were religiously bold in my background were not usually the same ones who were known for the grace in their lives. There are certainly many people that like to brag about their boldness in standing up for God and for the truth, but the effects on people's hearts that results from their words and actions are not reflective of the grace that I see in the life of Jesus.

It certainly would make sense that if a person were to claim that they were a minister of Jesus Christ then they should reflect much of the same spirit that surrounded Jesus in His relationships with others while living here among us. And to be able to treat people with the kindness, patience and compassion that Jesus had on a daily basis requires that a person be filled with God's grace as Jesus was. It would be impossible to have that kind of endurance and unconditional love without supernatural grace filling the life and soul and spirit of any individual.

But how does boldness fit into this picture? Even having to ask the question makes me suspect that much of the boldness that I have encountered in the past is likely of the counterfeit version rather than what Paul must have been referring to here. So what I would like to know and even have much more of myself is the right kind of boldness that is not a counterfeit and that is full of grace given to me from God. If God wants me to be a minister of His grace (I am not talking about minister in the sense of religion commonly thought of with that word) I rather suspect that I will need a great deal more boldness than I currently have to overcome my timidity. And it will not be a boldness that will be offensive to sensitive hearts and damaged souls but will be a boldness to take the initiative to speak out in protection of others, to approach people with compassion when it is not comfortable, to not be afraid or intimidated by what others may think of me.

I read a blog post from a Christian lady a couple days ago that brought me under severe conviction about this very thing. She wrote about some amazing things that her little daughter has done through recent years in her childlike faith and her desire to introduce other people to Jesus. I was becoming ashamed of my own fear and inhibitions as I read about this but it intensified exponentially when she finished the post by sharing that in the last few months her daughter has quit doing those things because of the influence and example of her own parent's inhibitions. I highly recommend reading this story for yourselves to get the full impact of it.

I think this story is a classic example of the true kind of boldness that is needed by all true Christians who want to be real and live life in the way Jesus wants us to enjoy it. But this can only happen within a fully resting relationship with Jesus and a connection with His heart that requires the trusting spirit of a little child. Jesus stated this quite clearly Himself when He told His disciples that unless they became like little children they could not enter into the kingdom of heaven. (see Matt. 18:2)

I want Jesus to mature me into the kind of faith seen in this little girl's amazing example. I am ashamed of having so many fears and inhibitions that prohibit me from being kind or sharing sympathy with hurting people just because I am afraid of what other people might assume about me. I want to come to the place where the only thing important in my life is God's opinion about me and His value for me. I want to live with my reputation resting totally in His hands without trying to manage it myself. But I am not there yet. I even feel resistant to praying with others. God still has a great deal of work to do in my heart. But He is doing it and I choose to cooperate with His ministry to me. For as I receive His ministry to my own heart I will also learn how to more effectively minister to other people's hearts.

I want enjoy the freedom to boldly remind others of God's grace, His goodness, His passionate love for them and His unconditional forgiveness despite what religion has claimed. I want to do it with much more than just typed words on a screen – I want to have my whole being involved in this ministry. I want my facial expressions, my tone of voice, my body language and even my words to be reflective of the incredible grace that is the real qualification for any true minister of Christ Jesus. This is my prayer.

(next in series)

Three Weeks to Conquer

Whenever I come across things that seem a bit too obvious, pieces of information coming from completely different sources that strongly compliment each other, I am now more likely to suspect that it might be more than just coincidence or chance. I try to be open to the possibility that there may be an intelligent coordination going on to alert me about something for my instruction or benefit that I need to be willing to accept and integrate somehow into my life. While I try not to view such things with a heightened sense of superstition or put more weight on it than other more reliable sources of revelation from God, I do believe that God is ready to reveal important things on a regular basis to those who are learning to listen with an open and non-resistant spirit.

This morning seems to possibly be one of those occasions.

Each morning I have a habit of reading two devotional books designed for daily readings before I get into my exploration of the Word. The two books have nothing to do with each other and come from very different authors and perspectives. One is targeted for youth and has a wide variety of readings that appeal to the younger generation. The other book is more oriented toward thinking adults and is carefully going through each verse of the book of Revelation from a devotional perspective.

The first book I read this morning talked about the scientific discovery of how the brain forms habits. It explained that a surgeon noticed repeatedly that patients who had had limbs amputated often took exactly 21 days to quit feeling phantom pains in their missing limbs. After some research and testing it came to light that the brain takes just that long to form a habit effectively.

Well, that was interesting enough. So I turned to the second devotional book and began to read the passage for today from it. What peaked my interest was that he too chose to write about habits and relayed a story from his own experience about the difficulty people have breaking a bad habit permanently. He observed that people who smoked, when confronted with graphic pictures of diseased smoker's lungs, were easily frightened into quiting the habit almost immediately. But then he also observed that as he visited them over time that nearly every one of them started up the habit again about two weeks later.

As I pondered these two pieces of information that seemed to be meant for each other I wondered intently why they were so well coordinated for me this morning. Yes, they were very valuable insights that definitely complimented each other, but I wondered why I was receiving them just now. Was there something about to occur in my experience that would require this information as an important key to use for myself? Obviously I don't know that yet. But my curiosity was aroused and I asked God why this was given to me just now.

I couldn't imagine how it might fit into my study of Romans. I couldn't remember anything I have looked at in the current passage under consideration that this might apply to but I decided to go ahead and open the Word and see what else God might have to say to me.

Well, the epiphany continues to grow. As soon as I opened my Bible to Romans 15 my eyes fell on the following verses that definitely can be enhanced by this information given to me just minutes earlier.

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

One of the points brought out about attempting to break a bad habit through the motivation of fear is that fear, while a very powerful incentive at first tends to not have very much staying power when it comes to effectively changing the life long-term. This goes along closely with what I have been learning for years about how the brain functions and the two kinds of bonds that are used to hold people together. Fear bonds can be very strong but at the same time they are quite unstable and can be displaced rather easily by an even greater fear, or can simply loose their power from apathy over time. Evidently according to this report there might even be an inherent time limit associated with the use of a fear employed to change a life habit.

What I am seeing in this passage in Romans is a clear message of our need for perseverance. One of the greatest hindrances to changing the habits in our lives – habits in the way we think about God, about others, about ourselves which lie at the root of most of our behaviors and relationships – is our seeming inability to keep on pursuing a new way of thinking, to hang on to the original incentive that caused us to want to change. The word often used for this need to continue on is this word perseverance.

But what I likely would not have noticed in this passage had it not been for being alerted to the problems of trying to change habits that I read in both devotionals this morning, was the importance of having the right motivation for the perseverance that is needed. And this too, goes back to the most important element that needs to be addressed in our relationship with God – our opinion about how He motivates us.

If I believe, as I did for most of my life, that God primarily uses fear to motivate me to change my old habits; if I believe that God is in the business of frightening His children into obedience, then I will find that I might have great initial incentive at times to change my ways and try to abandon my old habits of acting and thinking – for a time. But if I believe that God's methods revolve around using fear to motivate my heart to follow Him and to unify with the body of Christ as addressed here in Romans, then I will be repeatedly frustrated in my inability to have the perseverance needed to effect long-lasting change in my life.

I might then come to believe that what I need is even more fear and I may look for even greater sources of fear and intimidation to get myself and others to change our ways, but if I continue to depend on the element of fear as my primary fuel for getting me to comply with God's requirements then I will find myself in a life of frustration, discouragement and repeated falling back into old habits of thinking and living. And I can certainly vouch for the truth of that last statement from long and personal experience.

What I see here in this passage sheds a lot of light on this aspect of perseverance. Verse four alerts me that I need this most important element in my life along with encouragement which I am told will come from the Scriptures. The result of these two important ingredients in my mind will produce hope in my life. That is wonderful, but if I don't continue on reading I might be tempted to jump to the conclusion that I must immerse myself deeper and deeper into the Word of God to pump myself up with lots of religious information in order to keep myself motivated to obey all the previous warnings and instructions of this passage.

But what I find in the very next verse is a wonderful insight into the way God wants to motivate me. And since God is the one who designed my brain to begin with it only makes sense that He would employ the right methods that are far more effective for lasting change in me than the false, counterfeit methods usually promoted for change. It says here that perseverance and encouragement come from God, not just studying the Bible. And this links closely with what Jesus said to the religious people when He was here.

You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. (John 5:39-40 NIV)

The important thing to point out that brings this full circle is the unavoidable fact that God is love. The Scriptures make it absolutely plain that the very essence of God is love and that Jesus came to this earth to reveal that love to everyone. So given that God is love Himself and that perseverance and encouragement come from God as noted here in Romans 15, then it would only follow that the motivation inherent in the perseverance needed to overcome old habits and establish new ones in my life will be based on love and not on fear.

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. (1 John 4:18)

This now makes much more sense as to why it is so important to have love as the motivation for change rather than fear. While fear may appear to get more immediate or obvious results and is the preferred method used in nearly all religions (and pretty much everything else in the world today), fear is not how God runs His kingdom. Fear does not have the lasting endurance needed for real transformation of the heart (only 2 weeks worth of fear-based change at best?) but actually tends to isolate the heart and make it more brittle and withdrawn from others. Only perfect love has the power and effectiveness to accomplish real change in overcoming habits (more than 3 weeks of motivation) and rewiring the brain in the ways of God.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.... (1 Corinthians 13:7-8)

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