Awaken from Sleep

Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. (Romans 13:11)

I would like to know what Paul was thinking when he placed this phrase into this passage. I decided to look up other references throughout the Bible that have to do with waking up from sleep and found some very interesting connections and implications. The following passage seems a little lengthy but I include much of it because the context is so important to perceiving the meaning of the highlighted verse. In this passage Joshua is representative of the people seeking to follow God – us. It also has interesting allusions to authority which is also the context of Romans thirteen.

And the angel of the LORD admonished Joshua, saying, "Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'If you will walk in My ways and if you will perform My service, then you will also govern My house and also have charge of My courts, and I will grant you free access among these who are standing here. 'Now listen, Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who are sitting in front of you--indeed they are men who are a symbol, for behold, I am going to bring in My servant the Branch. 'For behold, the stone that I have set before Joshua; on one stone are seven eyes. Behold, I will engrave an inscription on it,' declares the LORD of hosts, 'and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. 'In that day,' declares the LORD of hosts, 'every one of you will invite his neighbor to sit under his vine and under his fig tree.'" Then the angel who was speaking with me returned and roused me, as a man who is awakened from his sleep. He said to me, "What do you see?" And I said, "I see, and behold, a lampstand all of gold with its bowl on the top of it, and its seven lamps on it with seven spouts belonging to each of the lamps which are on the top of it; also two olive trees by it, one on the right side of the bowl and the other on its left side." (Zechariah 3:6 – 4:3)

Isn't it interesting that even though Zechariah was seeing profound things in vision about our relationship with God and about salvation that just then he transitioned to another whole level of reality. I believe that when we grasp the real truth about how God feels about us and treats us as demonstrated in this vision about Joshua that we too will suddenly find ourselves transitioning into a far more intense sense of reality that seems like waking up out of a dream. Then it will also be much easier to really see what is true reality.

Some eight days after these sayings, He took along Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while He was praying, the appearance of His face became different, and His clothing became white and gleaming. And behold, two men were talking with Him; and they were Moses and Elijah, who, appearing in glory, were speaking of His departure which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions had been overcome with sleep; but when they were fully awake, they saw His glory and the two men standing with Him. (Luke 9:28-32)

I see repeatedly throughout the stories of the Bible and particularly with these disciples that sleep seems to interfere with their ability to stay synchronized with the reality that Jesus lived within. In my own experience I have noticed many times that often when God is about to reveal something very important to me that I will feel a very strong sense of sleepiness overcoming me. It may be during a sermon or when I am meditating or some other time. But I sometimes realize that this sleepiness is not necessarily from physical tiredness as I am led to suppose but is somehow supernatural in that it is trying to prevent me from receiving a powerful blessing waiting for me. From the examples of the disciples I know that I need to resist this “overcoming” feeling and do whatever it takes to wake up and activate my mind and heart to be able to receive whatever it is God is waiting to impart to me.

This is not to say that every time I feel sleepy that I should fight it. God wants me to take care of my physical body properly and that includes getting healthy amounts of sleep. Too often our sleep is deprived because of poor choices we make in other areas of our life that keep us from resting enough. It may be choosing to be entertained late into the night or to allow worry to prevent us from resting. It may be failure to obey the laws of health in the ways we eat and so depriving our bodies of needed rest and nourishment. But sleep is also sometimes a tool of the enemy to block us from enjoying the privileges and opportunities for growth that God has in store for us at various times.

But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light. For this reason it says, "Awake, sleeper, And arise from the dead, And Christ will shine on you." (Ephesians 5:13-14)

There is so much in these various verses about sleep and being awake that I could not begin to unpack them. But I find it fascinating to put some of them together to see what kind of light begins to shine out of them in reference to the first verse listed from Romans. In this passage the element of light is introduced as contrasted with sleep. In fact, in several of these verses as well as the one from Romans, the idea of sleep is connected with darkness and night and something we need to get beyond in our spiritual experience. Growing effectively as a Christian means to move more and more into light of truth about God and about ourselves. To escape the problems of darkness we must introduce more light.

As the pregnant woman approaches the time to give birth, she writhes and cries out in her labor pains, Thus were we before You, O LORD. We were pregnant, we writhed in labor, we gave birth, as it seems, only to wind. We could not accomplish deliverance for the earth, nor were inhabitants of the world born. Your dead will live; their corpses will rise. You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy, for your dew is as the dew of the dawn, and the earth will give birth to the departed spirits. Come, my people, enter into your rooms and close your doors behind you; hide for a little while until indignation runs its course. For behold, the LORD is about to come out from His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; and the earth will reveal her bloodshed and will no longer cover her slain. (Isaiah 26:17-21)

There is tremendous truths in these verses that is very important for us a God's people to assimilate. Our efforts and programs and determination to evangelize and save the world are exposed here as trying to give birth only to produce a lot of hot air. In essence, we are like the bones in Ezekiel's vision in Ezekiel 37 waiting to be reassembled and restored to life by the breath of God. When we receive that life from God we will then be empowered to be an unstoppable army that awakes and shouts for joy.

Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples; but the LORD will rise upon you and His glory will appear upon you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. Lift up your eyes round about and see; they all gather together, they come to you. Your sons will come from afar, and your daughters will be carried in the arms. Then you will see and be radiant, and your heart will thrill and rejoice; because the abundance of the sea will be turned to you, the wealth of the nations will come to you. A multitude of camels will cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba will come; they will bring gold and frankincense, and will bear good news of the praises of the LORD. (Isaiah 60:1-6)

(next in series)

Awakening by Love

...He who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. (Romans 13:8)

Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. (Romans 13:10)

Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. (1 John 3:4)

Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.... Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good.... (Romans 13:1-3)

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. We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. (1 John 4:18-20)

The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. (1 John 4:8)

We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. (1 John 4:16)

Authorities have a way of flushing out my lack of love and exposing the sin and hatred that still finds residence in my heart. Authorities typically specialize in fear-motivation to control those under their domination. When I react in fear and hatred I betray clearly that I am not perfected in love.

The insistence in these verses that I cannot love God if I cannot love those who abusively exercise authority in my life feels very harsh and condemning. But that very condemnation reveals that I am not living in a right spirit in reference to authority.

Interestingly and ironically, since God is love and all authority is established by God, then indirectly love is behind all authority. That to me sounds like one of the most bizarre statements that could ever be spoken. My logical mind can acknowledge that this can be deduced from these verses but my heart revolts with strong objections. But that is no surprise either, for condemnation or guilt is simply the tension between the left and right brain when they are in disagreement with each other.

Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. (Romans 13:11)

In this context, sleep seems to be a description of one who is not perfected in love enough to be empowered to live in subjection to authority with love for the people they are subject to. When I look at the example of Jesus in the last hours of His life before His crucifixion, I see that the only way He was able to live in subjection to authority as He did was because He was full of perfect love, even for His enemies that were doing everything possible to induce Him to do otherwise.

Salvation is nearer.... Salvation is the process of restoring each of us to the perfection of selfless love and harmony with the heart and spirit of God and heaven. Evidently, waking up out of sleep is needed for this salvation to have more effect in my life, especially at the heart level. Problems relating to authority are only symptoms and not the real underlying issues. A heart still vacant and in desperate need of love is the real problem and the symptoms of sin or conflicts with authorities are simply indicators that I need more transformation of the heart by receiving and reflecting more of God's love.

How does this take place? How can I wake up out of my life-long stupor induced by my lack of experiencing enough love? How can my deepest wounds be healed where the seeds of anger and rebellion still fester and cause these external exhibitions of sin? What must I do to be saved, to experience fully this salvation? What does it mean to wake up and how do I get there from here?

I do not want to settle for platitudes and cheap religious answers to these very real and burning questions. I want real transformation that produces real love under confrontational circumstances. I am tired of working hard on the externals, the symptoms without experiencing the inner healing at the deepest levels of my soul where the real problems still reside. I want a genuine and thorough new birth and conversion at the heart level that deals with the real roots so that the externals will take care of themselves naturally. I want to live the genuine spiritual life of God in the natural way that it is supposed to be lived. I am tired of religion and all of its demands and condemnation. I want to be led by the Spirit of God so that the descriptions of the law will be seen emanating from me spontaneously.

I do not pretend to have the answers for all of this right now. God is the only one who can deal with these questions effectively. And besides, answers typically only address the left brain primarily and most of these questions and desires are right brain issues from where real life is lived. I cry out to God in my distress of soul to hear my prayer and give me the desire of my heart. That desire is to be perfected in love, to be ravished with the passionate and extravagant love that flows from the heart of God through Jesus Christ. God, be merciful to me a sinner in need of real love.

(next in series)

Resistance or Love

I am seeing something of a sandwich here in Romans twelve and thirteen. Throughout chapter twelve are many instructions of what to do and not do as a member of the body of Christ. Then in the first half of chapter thirteen Paul tackles the very difficult and touchy subject of relating to authorities, which are very often not easy to relate to at times. The main issue that I am seeing here is the problem of resistance and the unhappy consequences of resistance. Then in the last half of the chapter he gives the real motivation that we must have if all of this is ever going to become a reality in our lives.

So the last half of chapter twelve and the last half of chapter thirteen describe a lot of what love looks like, and that is contrasted with the opposites of love. Therefore, it must be concluded that resistance is on the opposite side of the spectrum from love. I guess I never thought of it that way.

But upon further reflection it does make sense. For resistance almost always involves some degree of selfishness and concern over our own welfare and often includes fear of pain. Typically resistance is a form of attempted self-protection. But in our relationship with God, to engage in self-protection by building resistance walls around our heart we also preclude God from doing that job for us. For God is ready to fulfill His promises for us if we are willing to step aside and allow Him to do things His way through His wisdom and in His timing if we do not interfere with our plans and our resistance. But this involves coming to know Him enough that we can trust Him implicitly with our lives and hearts instead of taking things into our own hands. This is what faith is all about.

What I am seeing in this passage is that real faith must involve real love for it to empower me to let go of resistance. While I can intellectually believe all these insights that I have been learning from my study of this passage and agree that this is the way I want to be, if I do not have my gut-level beliefs and my heart up to speed with the truths that I am learning with my head then I suspect all of this study will leave me quite vulnerable to collapse and my heart exposed and full of pain whenever I come under attack by the enemy of my soul, especially in confrontations with authority.

I am all too aware of this scenario and it keeps me feeling very apprehensive at times. But apprehension and fear are not real conducive to fostering love and affection for God, so I try to release them and turn them over to Jesus and ask that He somehow will fill my heart and soul with more genuine love and see His face more clearly so that my heart will grow up into more maturity. For much of my problem in this area and most of my fears are because I still have not matured emotionally as I should. Due to the damage caused in my heart over the years I still struggle to rest in love (what an oxymoron) and my heart still has to work to believe in assurance that God really loves me passionately.

I suppose that maybe part of the reason I still have such intense reactions to confrontations with authorities is the residual false concepts of God that have distorted my beliefs about Him all of my life. Because my heart naturally equates the authorities in my life with my beliefs about God it is easy to see why I have such a difficult time believing the real truth about God. After all, how many correct examples of authority can we even find anywhere in the world that even come close to demonstrating the true spirit of love that God has in His form of government? But somehow in this mixed up arrangement God says that He can get me through and save me even while living under counterfeit models of authority here on this earth.

I am starting to see that my perception of authority must be first a submission to the supreme authority of God in my life before trying to address any other situation. When I am living in total submission without any resistance to the authority of God's perfect sovereignty in my heart that is motivated by His perfect love, then I will be empowered to be able to live subject to less than ideal authorities and still be filled with the love that is not dependent on the way I am treated by them.

Real agape love is never dependent on the object of that love for it to function. That is easy to say but really quite impossible to produce in my life. The only hope I have of living in love while being humiliated and shamed by corrupt and unjust authorities in my life is to be free of all resistance in my relationship to God so that His supernatural love can flow through me without any internal obstructions. I am seeing here that resistance itself becomes an obstacle that prevents the love of God from flowing through me to the very ones who do not yet believe in a loving Father and who need it even more than I.

Father, I am beginning to see this with my mind and it all sounds very wonderful. But You know the real condition and the fears and apprehensiveness of my heart and the large vacancies that still exist that need to know true love. I can only look to You and beg You to keep growing me in Your plan for restoration. There is no way on earth I can do this or become the person described in these chapters myself. I am not about to follow the example of the Israelites at Mount Sinai and say, “all the the Lord has said we will do”. Instead, I have to be honest and say this sounds wonderful and at the same time is hopelessly impossible unless You move into my heart and live Your life and instill Your emotions and disposition in me. If this is ever to be a reality in my life it will have to be because You did it through Your amazing power of love and grace.

Have at it Lord. Fill me with Your truth and grace and love and peace today. Make me a full-blown experiment of Your grace. Capture my heart totally with Your fabulous beauty and Your captivating enchantments. Cleanse me of all resistance and transform me into a new creature in Your image. This is Your glory – to reproduce Your beauty in messed up lives like mine. Glorify Your name. I trust in Your faithfulness and goodness and power to perform what You have promised.

(next in series)

Fulfilling the Law

Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. (Romans 13:8)

I want to take some time to unpack this reference to law here. It is clearly situated right after the discussion of authority and rulers so I think the implication is a connection between law and law-enforcers. But quite interestingly the law that is noted in this passage has little to do with man-made law but is a direct reference to the Law of God given on Mount Sinai. God's “legal” system does not operate like man's systems and does not employ “law-enforcement” like we are used to seeing on this earth, for God's laws are simply descriptions of principles that have natural consequences. But this does bring in some interesting issues that have been debated for centuries such as the validity of the Ten Commandments after the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

One of the texts that people have attempted to use to discount the authority of the Law of God in our day is a quote from Jesus.

"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. Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill." (Matthew 5:16-17)

Religious people have tried to twist these words around to imply that since Jesus fulfilled the Law of God that it no longer applies to us. They try to claim that if we are in Christ then the blood of Jesus frees us from any obligation to that “old law” as they often put it. But if this text is compared with the one from Romans thirteen here, then Paul is still talking about the law being fulfilled long after the death of Jesus and applying this fulfillment to being carried out in our lives as believers. This seems to plainly contradict any notion of the law no longer applying to Christians because of Jesus' fulfillment of it.

Again in Galatians Paul addresses Christians and talks about the law being fulfilled in their lives by the kind of life they live.

Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:1-2)

Some have tried to claim that the law of Christ is different than the Law of God given in the Old Testament. But that is still another attempt to separate God and Christ which violates the very teachings of Jesus Himself. And even Paul points out that it was Christ that was with the Israelites in the desert that followed them during the time of the giving of the Ten Commandments. And all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ. (1 Corinthians 10:4) Christ was actually the One who gave the Law on Mount Sinai long before He appeared in human form on earth centuries later.

What in fact is really happening on the part of those who try to discredit the validity of the Law of God for Christians is that they are resisting the authority of God directly. Instead of subjecting themselves to authority as directed in the previous verses they try to twist the Word of God to avoid acknowledging the importance of obeying the Law, which itself is simply a description of the principles of reality. While it is true that it is impossible to keep the Law in our current condition as sinners by nature, that does not excuse us in the slightest from still living in harmony with the principles of reality. We are no more exempt from keeping the Law of God as expressed in the Commandments than we are exempt from being affected by the law of gravity or any other one of the laws of physics that we are so familiar with.

Instead of trying to discount or weasel out of our need to be in harmony with the principles of reality as expressed in the Ten Commandments and other instructions of God, we need to follow the instructions of the gospel and allow our hearts to be transformed so that our external life will begin to reflect the fruit of the Spirit that lives within us. And those fruits will always look like perfect conformity to the Laws of God because those aLws simply describe what God is like and how reality is defined. Instead of resisting the authority of the Law we need to learn how to come into proper relationship and harmony with the Law so that we can thrive and grow and be filled with the joy of relationship and intimacy with the God that the Law describes.

This passage begins to make it very clear that living in subjection to authorities and keeping the Law of God can only be achieved when we are filled with the love that originates with the very God that this law describes. Without the basis of our motivation being genuine, God-inspired love dwelling in us at the heart level, it will be hopelessly impossible to ever align ourselves or even properly subject ourselves to the authority that originates with the God who gave us this Law.

Love itself is the secret, magic ingredient that empowers us to fulfill the Law instead of resisting that Law. Only love in the heart will empower us to have the humility and kindness to be in subjection to authorities without becoming contaminated by bitterness from the abuse of authority commonly encountered in this world. And only the gospel and grace of Jesus Christ can ever bring us into the right mental and heart condition to live this kind of life.

Paul reiterates here the condensation of the Law of God that Jesus had previously expounded. And Jesus Himself was quoting from the Old Testament that had also condensed the principles of the Law into two simple explanations. Fulfilling the Law at its simplest is to love God more than anything or anyone else and then loving others equally with ourselves. This is the condition of everyone who will be able to live together in eternity in harmony with God and with each other.

Only those who choose to begin that life here and now will be safe to save at the Second Coming of Jesus and will then be further matured in heaven to continue that experience together throughout all eternity. And this is the whole purpose of the gospel – to provide the entry point and the transformational experience and power that will re-create the image of God in our souls and reintegrate us into the perfect family of heaven.

Each of us has a choice about how to relate to this offer. We can either resist it in one way or another and deny our need to come into harmony with the Law and with the Love that fulfills that Law, or we can subject ourselves to the supreme authority of God, the Originator of the love that we must have to fulfill the law and that will also empower us to subject ourselves to authorities in a spirit of kindness and humility. When the character of Jesus is perfectly reproduced in His people on earth, He will come back again and claim them as His own and take them to live with Him. But that reproduction of His character has to be accomplished through our subjection to Him, never by our efforts to keep the Law directly.

As I subject myself to the authority of Jesus in my heart and mind and give Him permission to do anything He wants with me, I can then be filled and led by His Spirit and will naturally produce the fruit of that Spirit which is perfect conformity to the description of His character which is seen in the Law of God. But that Law is only a bare-bones outline description of His character. The real beauty and loveliness of God was better demonstrated by the life and teachings of Jesus while here on earth. But even that is a dim, though very good reflection of the reality of God, for the filters of humanity and the distance of time and the limitations of writing prevents us from getting a very clear view of what even Jesus was really like. Even His closest disciples did not see the real God that Jesus came to reveal because of the rigid preconceptions they clung to about God while they were with Him. It was not until some time after the resurrection that it began to really dawn on them what they had missed and the opportunities that they had squandered to really experience the glory of God.

But Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to accomplish what even He was not able to finish while here. The Holy Spirit will reveal to our hearts and minds everything that we need to have in order to be drawn into the saving relationship with God that we must have in order to live the kind of life described here in Romans. I want much more of that Spirit and a much greater revelation of the glory of God in my life. I want to become freed from the damning resistance that still resides in my own heart that endangers my very life if exposed to the real glory of God. I crave to experience the presence of God and I ask Him to cleanse me from all resistance so that I will be safe to come closer into His loving and powerful presence.

(next in series)