Real Righteousness

He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who is seeking the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him. (John 7:18)

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

Wow! I never saw the tight connection before between these two verses before. This really helps clarify for me some of the confusion about the word righteousness I have had much of my life. What I am starting to see more clearly here is the issue of where one's focus is. When my focus is on looking out for myself and my reputation more than for God's, then I am in the condition called unrighteousness. When I am choosing to live in relationship with God so that He can vindicate His reputation through me and I allow Him to transform me into a reliable witness to disprove the allegations of Satan against Him, then I am considered in heaven as righteous.

For too long people have viewed this word righteousness as having to do primarily with behavior or external activities. But the way the Bible defines righteousness is along the lines of how we are positioned in reference to the great trial of God. The testimony of our life determines the kind of witness we are in relation to the false charges that have been leveled against God's reputation. Truth at its most fundamental level is the real truth about God, not the provability of some set of facts or doctrines. Jesus did not come to give us a corrected list of doctrines to believe but to expose the lies about His Father that have torn the whole universe apart and vindicate His reputation in the way that Jesus lived.

The most damaging lie about God that Jesus came to refute with His own exposé is the idea that God is in any way selfish, that He is sometimes more concerned with His own reputation and gets His way even at the expense of others if necessary. This is such a natural assumption on the part of those of us born in sin that it is hard for us to imagine that God could be totally devoid of any such characteristics.

But the real truth is that God is totally unselfish, totally loving, totally other-centered and He is this way all of the time consistently, not just when things are going good. No matter how desperate circumstances seem to appear, God never resorts to anything even remotely akin to the attitudes and motives that He has been accused of harboring by His enemies. Righteousness and God are one and the same thing just as love and God are one and the same. We are all infected with the idea at times that God is not always fair, but this secret, or not so secret, feeling on our part is simply reflective of the confusion that sin has produced in our hearts through our fallen nature.

Jesus revealed the truth about God by living as a weak human under the most trying and severe circumstances while maintaining this attitude of totally selfless love and service to others. In fact, this was the most important reason of all that Jesus came to this earth as a human. To believe or claim that Jesus died for some other reason, like in some way placating an offended God on the behalf of sinners, is to actually reinforce the very lies about God that Jesus came to refute. Religion has then actually joined forces with the enemy of God by perpetuating the very lies that Jesus came to unmask, and in doing so is serving the enemy's schemes to keep us in darkness and fear of our heavenly Father.

All of this I am seeing in this very potent statement of Jesus in this verse. The very core of what it means to be righteous is found here, and that core is that what righteousness is really about is to vindicate the goodness and fairness of God while exposing the accuser's lies about Him by doing so. The closer we come to embracing this fundamental truth about God the more we will be living in true righteousness. For righteousness is simply reflecting the real truth about God's character and allowing Him to use us as channels to reveal His character to the world. In so living we become His truthful witnesses to vindicate His reputation and bring glory to Him.

How to Know Truth

If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself. (John 7:17)

People who really want to do what God wants will know that my teaching comes from God. They will know that this teaching is not my own. (ERV)

I have pondered the meaning of this verse for as long as I can remember. The issue of knowing the right version of truth, what is the real will of God, has been at the center of debate in circles I grew up in and around in my culture. People became very worked up about knowing the will of God and unfortunately often tried to impose their ideas of truth on many around them by various means.

Jesus in this passage gives a clear statement about how a person can know the truth. He is telling us the reliable method that we can use to discern between what is true and what is counterfeit. But even though Jesus laid it out this plainly, it still remains a confused issue and a topic of debate. Why is that?

What I have experienced in recent years is a growing awareness of the dramatic difference between relating to God with the mind and allowing a real heart connection to dominate my relationship with Him. Because a heart-based relationship is so out of the realm of control by the left brain logical mindset, many have great fear of giving the heart permission to let go of their resistance and allow the Spirit of God to introduce things that may at first feel very frightening. When the heart gets involved in a meaningful relationship the emotions begin to show up, but many of us have been taught to be suspicious at best of our emotions.

On the other hand, because of the abuse of others who rely more on their emotions than on the objective guide of the Word of God to govern their lives, many in the conservative camp end up throwing out or at least marginalizing the emotional part of their lives instead of allowing God to integrate them and bring them into close fellowship with His heart. Jesus addressed this issue directly with the woman at the well in Samaria.

An hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. (John 4:23)

But what does Jesus mean here when He talks about a willingness to do the will of God? I have observed that everyone tends to have their own spin on this verse to justify their preferences and their comfort zone. But if I know Jesus right, He is not the kind of person that likely will encourage staying in our comfort zone. If a person is unbalanced on the intellectual side and afraid of emotion, they will likely be confronted with their need to surrender their resistance and stubbornness and allow God to access the deep, painful places they have been hiding from Him deep inside. If they are used to defining their religion primarily by excitement and feelings while ignoring disturbing truths from the Word of God, they may find themselves confronted by the Spirit to be more attentive to their conscience and allow their intellect to be more involved and resist their natural impulses.

I looked through a number of versions to see how they rendered this text. I suspected that the typical translations might not make it as plain as it would be in the original, and my suspicions were confirmed. However, I did not find any versions that really gave good expression to what I found in the definition of the words from the Greek. I believe that this verse could be translated much more clearly and strongly than most have chosen to do. The reason I say this is because this is such a vital point and one upon which much hinges in our perception of how to know what is true. If we miss the underlying principle Jesus is conveying in these words we are in danger of prolonging and complicating our religious pursuit of truth to a great degree or worse yet, missing it altogether.

In the Greek, there are much stronger nuances that I find compelling that most of the translations I have looked at on this verse do not convey. The word translated will, as in the will on our part in this verse, is the Greek word thelo. This word conveys a lot more than what we normally attach to the word will in English. In the Greek this word is intentionally stronger than the typical concept of will as we think of it. It includes the ideas of preference, to wish, to be inclined to, to be disposed toward, pleased, love, delight in.

Jesus is clearly saying here that it takes more than the typical kind of intellectual belief we often think about in order to have the necessary confidence that what Jesus says in His teachings is really what is truth. In our minds we too often improperly disconnect what we call intellectual truth from a heart engagement with a Person. We have come to think of truth more along the lines of the validity of certain facts, the ability to win arguments or the scientific proving of a theory. If we can't line up enough hard evidence for some idea, then we view it with great suspicion until it can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.

However, that approach to acceptance of something as truth will become the insurmountable barrier that will prevent us from ever really experiencing the kind of truth that God has for us. For the kind of truth that Jesus is talking about here has far more involved in it than simply the accuracy of facts or the authenticity of theories and claims. While the facts about God may be important for strengthening our grasp of truth, without a choice rooted in our hearts to give preference to knowing Jesus personally, we will remain with debilitating doubts that will prevent us from the kind of assurance that our souls so deeply crave.

What is needed is for us to enter into a solid relationship of dependence and assurance that Jesus is the only valid source of all truth for us personally. We must be willing to come into a delighting kind of relationship with Him. Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalms 37:4) What are the real desires of my heart? What my heart is created to crave more than anything else is that experience of joy, a relationship of being loved, cherished, valued and wanted by another who is genuinely glad to be with me.

According to this verse in parallel with the words of Jesus, my part is to allow my heart to delight myself in God, to respond in my growing awareness of His love for me by letting my heart connect to Him. As I do this I will find myself able to experience the kind of confidence in truth that I yearn to have, confidence that the instructions and insights from Jesus have that ring of truth because they resonate with the spirit inside of me that is synchronized by the Spirit sent by Jesus.

This interconnection with the mind and heart of God provided through the ministry of the Spirit empowers all who enter into this kind of relationship with Him to have the discernment necessary to detect falsehood and deceptive counterfeits that so closely imitate truth that they are very compelling and attractive. Only the Spirit of God can protect us from being deceived by the counterfeits of the enemy, for human wisdom is so far inferior to the minds of supernatural beings that we cannot trust our own mental equipment to protect us from deception. Only as we enter into delightful, interactive intimacy with God can we enjoy protection from error and knowledge of truth He has waiting for us.

Father, fill me with the joy of knowing Your truth which is the same as knowing Jesus. Joy always involves fellowship at the deepest level and that is what my own heart yearns for deeply. You have shown me today that this joy relationship is part of what is necessary for me to have assurance of truth and the deep peace that comes from increasing freedom from deceptions and lies. Cleanse my mind and heart of lies about You, about myself and about reality as You deepen my conviction and understanding of the truth of Your words. Speak Your words to me directly and continue to draw out more and more of my heart's affections to attach to You. Thank-you for Your word here for me today, and make me a cleaner channel of Your truth and love to others, for Your reputation's sake, Amen.

Discovering Righteousness

If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself. He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who is seeking the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him. (John 7:17-18)

There are so many things in this short passage that I hardly know where to start or end. But what I do see is yet more universal principles that govern reality and that need to be understood if one wants to live in harmony with heaven.

One of these principles has to do with the definition of righteousness. I have been slowly learning over the years what this obscured word really means. It has been obscured partly because its original was translated into Latin and kept there instead of directly into common language hundreds of years ago. Latin became a code language used to complicate many concepts that did not need to be complex. Much of the confusion today in religion results from the deliberate obscuring of simple truths by religious leaders during the Dark Ages through this means so that common people could be controlled and kept in ignorance by a select few and the Bible was kept in an unfamiliar language.

Most of the confusing words we have inherited today in religion are a result of current translations being routed through the Latin before getting to us. Righteousness, justification, sanctification, propitiation etc., all of these words are a result of religion using Latin to create all sorts of interpretations instead of allowing the gospel to be clear and simple. As a result we find ourselves today working hard to unpack these big words and attempt to re-simplify them and make them practical for everyday people.

Jesus never used complicated words but always spoke in such simple terms that everyone could easily understand. At the same time He folded into His illustrations and teachings such profound truths and insights that the most educated were astonished at His wisdom. This was because Jesus was intimately familiar with the bigger picture, the truth about reality as heaven lives it instead of the confused and distorted ideas that we have about how life works. Thus, if we want to be shaped into harmony with the principles of heaven and be prepared to live in concert with the perfect beings who live there, we must immerse ourselves in the teachings of Jesus to learn from Him how to be molded for this future.

What I see in these verses is a clear explanation of the word righteousness. As with all true religion, it has to do with our state of mind, not a factual, external concept. Jesus came to demonstrate what righteousness looks like, but it was not through His working hard to keep from doing bad things to other people. In this passage He explains that true righteousness means that a person has the orientation of living totally selflessly, living for the glory of God. That expression too has been so over-used that it has become yet another cliché. What does it really mean to live for the glory of God?

When we begin to grasp the fundamental truth about the great war taking place in the universe between Christ and Satan, the great accuser of God, then everything else suddenly makes more sense. Lucifer, now Satan, long ago began this whole war by fabricating accusations about God's character while serving as the highest, most honored being in the universe in the role as chief covering cherub over the very throne of God. In this privileged position he was entrusted with the job of conveying to all other created beings revelations about what God is like. Because of the incredible trust placed on him by both God and everyone else, he was in a unique position to also deceive the most because of his advantage.

He exploited his position to circulate false ideas about God that created such tension that the time finally came when there was no longer any acceptable place for him to live in heaven. He had over-stayed his welcome there and now is restricted to living here on this earth where he seeks to deceive and confuse as many as possible to take them down with him in his demise. The fundamental lie that he spreads about God is that God is not totally selfless and loving or worthy of total trust. Given the circumstances, God can be forced to act in ways other than loving and selfless, that in extreme circumstances God will defend Himself and will resort to force or intimidation and violate our freedom to get His way.

The primary reason that Jesus came to this sinful planet was to refute these false charges against His Father before all the universe. He was to do this by living out the fundamental principles that make up the character of God and that shape reality as God defines it. These principles of reality are the governing guidelines that create harmony and unity for all who abide by them. To live outside these principles is to create disharmony and to disconnect from the only system that provides for our very existence. The most fundamental principle in God's way of living is totally selfless love and service for others.

God is love, and love is always completely selfless. 1 Corinthians 13 describes to a great degree what love looks and acts like. This is a description of God and is unfailing. God never acts or works outside of that description of His character. Likewise, the “10 Commandments” are simply a description of His character of love (though most of them are stated in the negative). Both Moses and Jesus declared that those commandments could be summarized in two simple statements – to love God supremely and to genuinely love those around us like we love and care for ourselves.

Here in this passage, Jesus is restating this most fundamental principle that describes the truth about God and what He is like. Jesus came to demonstrate that truth by living solely for the sake of God's reputation. When one lives selflessly for the benefit of the reputation of the God they love and want to honor ahead of looking out for themselves, that is the plainest illustration of the true meaning of righteousness that can be found. Therefore, Jesus is saying here that as we are transformed into living for the benefit of salvaging God's reputation before all who are watching us rather than living for our own selfish desires, we are considered righteous, and that process is called in religious terms, 'cleansing us from all unrighteousness' or sanctification.

Again, unrighteousness is not so much doing bad things as it is being contaminated with selfishness. Because we are born in sin we are born naturally selfish. Jesus was not born in sin and did not inherit selfishness. However, He took on the nature of humanity in such a way so as to feel all of our weaknesses and be tempted in every way just as we are tempted. The problem many have with this concept is that they don't understand the truth about what real temptations look like. Most people think that our temptations are when we face opportunities to do 'bad things'. But real temptation is not at that point in our experience but was usually already succumbed to long before.

Real temptation is not about the bad things we want to do but is encountered when we desire to live for ourselves rather than laying aside our own priorities for the good of others. Self-preservation is the fundamental driving force behind all temptations and is part of being human. Jesus, while not selfish, did have the natural desire of every human for self-preservation and this was the level of all His temptations from Satan. If you carefully analyze every place where there are indications of Jesus being tempted, you will see that they always involved trying to induce Him to defend Himself or work miracles for His own benefit, not temptations to sleep with a woman or to steal something for Himself or some other violation of the external commandments.

It is extremely helpful to clarify the true nature of temptation and to understand what living in harmony with heaven involves. As we place everything into the context of the greater picture, all of the religious ideas and the principles revealed in the Bible suddenly come into clear harmony with each other and form a perfect whole. Living for the purpose of vindicating God against the false charges of His enemies and allowing God to transform us into examples of the power of His love is what being a Christian is all about. When we begin to grasp this most important truth, we can then be used by God to be far more effective witnesses for bringing this war to a close and reuniting us with the great family of heaven from which we have been mostly estranged all of our lives.

Father, I ask You to live inside of me by Your Holy Spirit and to place within my heart a burning desire to live for Your glory and Your reputation more than for my own. You are the one that has been put on trial before all of the universe. All of us are deciding if You are really worthy of being trusted, if You always tell the truth and if You are really fair all of the time. Forgive me for so often giving false testimony about You by giving others the impression that You are sometimes selfish. By calling myself a Christian and then acting selfishly I convey the message that You are like me.

Father, I want You to so transform me, to have You live through me Your selfless life of love and passionate service for the good of others, that Your name can be better vindicated. This is what it means to live for Your glory. I understand that this can only happen as I allow You to dwell in me and to capture all the affections and attentions of my own heart. Continue the healing and molding process You have begun in me and use me to bring honor to Your reputation today and for the rest of my life. Make me willing to do Your will so that I will know the truth about what is real, what many people call 'doctrine'. Capture my heart with fresh revelations of Your incredible beauty and loveliness that will turn me into a magnet that can draw others to want to know You better for themselves.

True Education

The Jews then were astonished, saying, "How has this man become learned, having never been educated?" (John 7:15)

When I read this verse this morning, at first it looked like the Jews were doing double-talk. How can this man be educated without being educated? So I decided to look up the original words in Greek and see what they actually say.

The word translated learned seems to mean simply understanding, familiarity with writings, even the Scriptures. In a day when not many people learned to write very much or had access to literature, for a man who came from a very poor family to be well-versed in Scripture would certainly be a surprise. Most of the average Jews likely relied heavily on the scribes, Pharisees and teachers of the law (the Old Testament) to relay to them the Word of God during Sabbath services. What Scriptures they did know was likely reflected from what they had heard from their leaders. Of course this also entailed interpreting these Scriptures the same way as those who taught it believed them, which is why misunderstandings of the truth about what the Messiah was to be like was so widespread.

The word translated here educated also means to learn. But the implication seems to be the kind of learning received from someone else. It was the kind of learning typically gained from what we would call a formal education.

Given that Jesus' mother was very young when she bore Jesus as a baby and that their family probably struggled to make a subsistence living in a very poor and rough town in Galilee, it truly is amazing that Jesus grew up with such a thorough knowledge of the Writings. I suspect that Mary may have been quite insistent that what little they were able to obtain must also include scrolls of the Old Testament even though those were usually reserved for others who were in formal training under Jewish religious instructors. Mary must herself have been unusual to know how to read and write as a woman and to be able to home-school Jesus with such amazing effectiveness. With Joseph busy as a carpenter she must have exerted a lot of effort in both training herself as well as passing along all that she could to Jesus in His early years.

Jesus and His mother had very likely immersed themselves in the Old Testament writings for many years. The result of this intense exposure to the truth about God, authored interestingly enough by Jesus Himself before His incarnation, gave the Holy Spirit full opportunity to reveal truth to Jesus in a learning process that is just as available to any of us as it was to Him. Because there is power in the Word of God unlike any other literature in the world to fill the mind and heart with truth, it has ability to be a transforming, educating, elevating effect in the life like no other training can produce.

Traditionally, both then and now, people assume that one has to go through formal training by others who have earned degrees and have received public recognition as teachers and philosophers before they can reason out things and have legitimate knowledge themselves. There is a stigma associated with those who educate themselves or even those who have been home-schooled, particularly if they did not follow some accredited curriculum. There seems to be an obsession about making people pay lots of money and being carefully brainwashed through the systems accredited by the world before a person can be referred to as educated.

As I have observed the formal educational system over the years, there are a number of things that concern me and that Jesus avoided in His own training. Not only do formal educational institutions often impoverish people financially, especially higher educational programs, but the way of thinking and the focus and style of reasoning are heavily influenced by the deceptive nature of the world's assumptions about reality. There is constant tension between the true Christian and most of the world's institutions of learning that tends to pressure people into being squeezed into the world's modes of viewing life. Even in Christian schools where this pressure is supposed to be eliminated, there are still problems due to the desire to please the world and be recognized by worldly accreditation and have graduates be generally accepted outside Christianity. While Christian schools are usually more conducive for allowing Christian practices to occur, there is still an amount of worldliness accepted and taught and a lot of subtle assumptions that draw away from truth are present.

It is generally assumed that if a school promotes religion then it is a good place to be trained, at least if that religion is the brand that one already subscribes to or associates with. But religion, as we sadly know, is usually a counterfeit of true spirituality and often is a decoy that keeps people from relying on a vital, saving relationship with God. Counterfeit notions that parallel Scriptural principles so thoroughly saturate most religious training that it is nearly impossible to separate them without an intense focus on discerning error from truth. In fact, being indoctrinated with many religious facts and obtaining a lot of knowledge in the head is usually so time-consuming and pride-inducing that the heart's need to rest quietly and learn in the presence of God has little or no time to take place.

Religious formal education too often ends up working counter to the kind of practical training in character development that God wants us to experience. I have observed that even in schools specifically designed to train ministers and teachers for God that the programs are so concentrated and the schedules are packed so full of intensive knowledge acquirement that most people suffering through these processes have little to no time to keep their hearts open and sensitive toward heaven. In addition there is little if any specific training and mentoring that will effectively encourage the kind of education most needed to be a religious leader, such as training in lessons of faith and everyday godliness. These are things that cannot be learned from books; but book training is the method of the world and is the accepted norm for most all education.

Jesus received the kind of education that heaven values the most. True education involves a balanced training involving the heart and the body just as much as the head. It also requires that one live in a community of widely varying maturity levels so that one can be mentored all along the path to full maturity by others who have things to offer. This also provides the chance to in turn mentor and respond to others in interactive ways that form bonds and connections best for thriving toward maturity. Book learning can be a part of this process, but knowledge from books can actually become unhealthy when divorced from practical and parallel applications to the life.

Mary likely was so open to the influences of heaven that she was the best candidate chosen to raise the Son of God as a baby up through manhood. She was not heavily influenced by the prevailing teachings of the doctors of the law even though she was somewhat limited in her understanding of the Scriptures as most people were then. She was open enough in her heart to respond to the impressions from the Spirit of God who could guide her to provide the balanced kind of long-term, practical training using both Scripture and everyday experiences to cooperate with God in the healthy upbringing and true education of the Child who had been entrusted to her tutoring. As a result, Jesus even at the young age of twelve displayed a grasp of truth and a knowledge of the Scriptures that stunned even the most advanced and trained teachers and leaders of His nation.

Jesus was not influenced by the pride, the arrogance, the traditions and the attitudes of those He would have been exposed to if He had attended the synagogue training programs. Mary caught much flak for not sending Him to these schools, but the outcome was just what God intended for His Son. The kind of personal tutoring and mentoring education that Mary provided for Jesus' life was the kind of true education that is so sadly missing in most models of training today. A practical education in learning lessons of faith, in analytical thinking based on close examination of the Word of God without the confusion of worldly thought from other sources, allowed Jesus to also be tutored directly by the Holy Spirit who could unpack the Word accurately for Him and embed the principles of the Kingdom firmly in His thinking and character.

Everyone of us has the same opportunity to be retrained in the school of heaven if we choose to enroll and allow the Holy Spirit to become our teacher. Jesus promised His disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit to provide just such a training opportunity for any who accept His offer, and we can immediately enter into this kind of heavenly classwork. The Bible is to be our main textbook and the style of training must involve quiet times of reflection as well as times of interaction with God and with others who are in similar training. We also must allow ourselves to be taken through practical application periods where we are going to share what we are learning as well as make mistakes but not feel condemned as we learn from them. We do not receive letter grades in this school which tend to create pride or shame like the world's systems do, but we learn to form lasting bonds of love and joy as we experience life in the context of the family we plan to live with for eternity.

Is it wrong to go through formal education accredited by the world? Not necessarily. But we must be very aware that our first loyalty must be to our heavenly teacher rather than seeking to achieve the letters of recognition by the world. Learning in the world's system often involves paying out money to hire teachers to compel us to learn things we could do ourselves if we simply accepted responsibility to do so on our own. Our lack of motivation requires that we pay others to intimidate us into doing what we could do on our own, but if that is the case then it is better than not learning at all possibly.

But while gaining the typical education from the world's systems, even from religious institutions, we must realize that we are going to pick up a lot of confusing mental and emotional baggage and even erroneous ideas that God is going to have to expose and cleanse from our thinking if we are to work for Him using His ways and view things from His perspective. Jesus bypassed this step and never acquired the baggage from the normal educational channels and thus was able to move directly into becoming the most effective and wise teacher this world has ever known.

Those who learn in the school of Jesus will likewise sometimes produce astonishment from those who have leaned so heavily on recognition from the world's system of education. True education is learning the truth as heaven knows it, not acquiring degrees or accreditation from the brainwashing of being conformed to this world's system of thinking. Preparing for heaven requires a whole different standard of learning and only those who humble themselves and let go of their heavy dependence on the world's ways of thinking can enter into the school of Christ. But those who do will receive a quality of education that far surpasses that of any institution created by man. For even the foolishness of God is far greater and more valuable than the highest wisdom of men.