Hiding from Eternal Life

This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. (John 3:19-20)

A compelling story is going around in the News right now about a Pakistani girl who dared to protest against the Taliban for their opposition against any female acquiring an education. Because of her stance she was shot in the head by her own people for daring to say anything that drew attention to the fanatical, selfish and abusive system of belief that these men benefit from at the expense of women.

It occurred to me that this is a dramatic illustration of a key principle that Jesus revealed during His discussion with another member of a fanatical group of religious people. The Pharisees likewise had cultured a system of extremist religion that not only viewed women's rights as a threat to their power but like today's extremists Muslims, they also fostered a system designed to prevent exposure of their own sins of darkness being exposed by keeping the focus on other people's supposed faults.

Jesus gave one of the clearest definitions of the concept of judgment as heaven defines it in this passage, He was speaking of exactly what is taking place before our eyes in the massive struggle between the light of truth and the darkness of violence we are seeing all around us. Rather than implying that judgment happens on some great Day way off in the distant future, Jesus speaks of judgment as potentially happening every time anyone finds themselves confronted with truth and attempts to avoid its glare by hiding even deeper by covering up with any method they can find.

A couple days ago I reviewed this passage with a friend. As we looked at it more closely we noticed a number of paired concepts in these verses that helps to reveal its implications more clearly. Some of these terms come from surrounding verses not quoted above.

• Light or darkness.
• Love or hate.
• Eternal life or perish.
• Save or condemn.
• Believe or not believe.
• Practices the truth or does evil.
• [Desire] that his deeds may be manifested or fear that his deeds will be exposed.

The more I study this definition of judgment as given us by Jesus the more clearly it becomes that heaven's version of judgment is dramatically different than how we use this term. But maybe that is not so strange after all, for if we are of those who prefer our distorted definitions of religious terms in order to prop up our false, selfish systems that benefit some at the expense of others, then we too will live in fear of getting too close to the Light for fear that our prejudices and incriminating teachings will expose us too. We can often be found to be as afraid of exposure by the clear words of Jesus as those we condemn among extremists we hear about on the News.

In fact, when we claim to be Christians and say that we believe in Jesus and yet and His teachings while in fact we treat others in ways that conflict with those principles, we may be in even greater threat of exposure than those who follow the teachings of Islam. It might be somewhat understandable that those who have an agenda of using violence in the name of Muhammad act the way that they do given some of their prophet's instructions about how to treat those outside their religion. But it is a far greater travesty when Christians fall into similar patterns of thinking and acting in the name of Jesus who explicitly taught non-violence and who personally gave the greatest demonstration of this in the history of the universe.

On the cross Jesus revealed a God who could not be abused enough to resort to using any tactics of evil or even harbor any such attitudes against His enemies. Yet when people professing to be followers of this same Jesus who explicitly revealed what God is like and then insist on living in ways out of harmony or even just the opposite to this God, they only reinforce the accusations of God's greatest enemy. Then when the light of the real truth about God shines into their lives they become just as quick to resist that light as radical Muslims fear the light of truth that threatens to expose their system of evil.

To claim that Christianity is superior to Islam and yet maintain a willingness to resort to using force to gain supremacy over enemies only bolsters the claims of Satan and does nothing to advance the Kingdom that Jesus came to establish. This becomes clear when the truth of Jesus begins to shine from those today who are presenting these disturbing revelations about God. Whenever Christians in particular react violently to the idea that God never resorts to force, coercion, fear or any other method of Satan to achieve His ways, we see judgment happen over and over again in the present. Even if that violent reaction is only emotional, it betrays the fact that truth cannot cohabit in the heart with lies about God and that there is an internal conflict being ignited by the light of truth.

Judgment will come to its full reality on a specific day in the future – there is no doubt about that. But what we must begin to see is that judgment also happens every day to some degree or another. And if we examine this message by Jesus to Nicodemus beyond just quoting the most familiar verse in the Bible while removing it from its context, we will begin to see how much we ourselves may be fearing exposure of our own deeds and beliefs of darkness. We may be ever so sincere in our insistence that we are followers of Jesus and are not afraid of the light of truth. But at the same time there are many areas in our lives where evidence emerges to the contrary: in our reactions to threats over our traditions and systems of religion, our practices or church policies that we fear being exposed. And especially we do not want our secret motives to be exposed; motives that if seen clearly would reveal that we are more interested in being seen as faithful Christians while in reality living for self.

One key part of this passage that often gets brushed over may be a pivotal point that is most important to grasp in this teaching. I am starting to believe that Jesus is speaking something vitally important that receives very little press in most of our discussions in religion.

But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God. (John 3:21) (see also 1 John 3:3-10)

I have been contemplating this passage for some time now and the more I meditate on it the more forceful this phrase emerges for me. The above verse is in direct contrast to the previous one where those who avoid the light live in fear that their deeds will be exposed. Yet we have a very difficult time receiving personally the core of this warning by Jesus because we find it to hard to accept that we might be among those called evil. That word 'evil' is such a strong term that we simply can's bring ourselves to be connected with it. We assume Jesus must be referring to other people 'out there' somewhere who are obviously more evil that we. This must be talking about people who are living in open antagonism to God – and of course enemies of ours as well. Yet we may be missing the very truth that might threaten to expose us personally, living in fear that our system of belief that keeps us so comfortable and assured of a spot in heaven might in heaven's view be evil.

The stronger reactions we have to such an implication the more likely it is to contain truth. Remember that it was not some outsider or Samaritan or Gentile that Jesus was speaking to here but it was a prominent, highly educated, pious leader of the most respectable and truth-filled religion on earth. Nicodemus was not even hostile toward Jesus like many of his other colleagues. He had come to visit with Jesus privately in order to possibly establish an opening by which Jesus' reputation might be improved and ways might be worked out to improve His acceptance with those in charge. Nicodemus had come with what he thought were generous motives; but the reaction of Jesus to his very first compliment seemed to be anything but willing to negotiate.

From our viewpoint we can easily judge Nicodemus rather harshly because we now know that Jesus had some vital truths to teach that Nicodemus had completely overlooked. And yet in most of our expositions on this passage and given the popularity that John 3:16 has achieved over the centuries, we still may find ourselves in even deeper deception about our condition of darkness than maybe even Nicodemus was in. We may be so vested in our own version of religion and our entrenched interpretations of this passage that if true light begins to shine from this passage threatening to expose our religious facade we have depended on for so long, we might just react worse than did Nicodemus.

When I compare verse 21 with the previous verse, it becomes evident that the opposite of deeds as being wrought in God must be deeds of evil that are not in God. At first that sounds rather simplistic or even confusing, but the implications of this contrast are enormous if I take them seriously.

What did Jesus really mean when He referred to deeds being wrought in God? I think the answer to that question should be freed from the immediate explanations we like to offer without serious study and reflection guided by conviction of the same Spirit Jesus spoke of to Nicodemus. Jesus told Nicodemus that the wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit. When we rely on pat explanations for this passage without allowing God's Spirit access to bring conviction of our own evil deeds to bear in our own hearts, we may be resisting the very nature of this Spirit that challenges status quo religion.

One of the first things that the Spirit convicts us of is the evil that the light of emerging truth about who God really is exposes. If we think about this logically it becomes rather plain. When God's goodness and love and the real truth about His character becomes more evident to us, anything that is unlike Him in ourselves or beliefs becomes exposed by default. Therefore, the actual definition for evil is simply anything that is not just like God, or what the Bible terms ungodliness.

We tend to move the idea of evil away from ourselves to only refer to people whom we feel are openly wicked, that we view as a threat to us or society, who are obviously people we don't want to be around us. Yet because of the amazing power of sin to deceive, only as we become willing to be honest can God reveal that there is far more evil within us that we have ever supposed. If evil is anything that is not like God's character, one very effective way we have developed to mask the evil within us is to insist that God is actually more like us than what Jesus revealed. Thus the difference between God and our life becomes less sharp and there is less that we need to adjust in us to become like our altered concept of Him.

How diabolical this insidious deception is for each one of us. Because we water down the clear, pure holiness of God with assertions about Him and His ways that minimize the contrast between us, we come to worship a God who is partially of our own making while believing we are in the light. Yet the God we often worship is actually a composite god made from our doctrines and denominational traditions and cultural preferences – little different than what the Jews had done by the time of Jesus. And now we have become so vested in our version of God that we resist any threat from any new light of truth about Him that might expose the fraud contaminating many of our teachings. We too often attack the messengers rather than honestly face conviction that maybe our own fundamental beliefs about reality might be part of our veil of darkness.

Are we really that much different from the mentality of the Taliban who views educated women as a threat to their system of institutionalized abuse and suppression of women for their own selfish exploitation? Maybe on this one issue we may not have yet arrived at that extreme. But at the same time it may be exposed by the Light that many of our arguments over the status of women in our own church might be similar to Muslim's prejudices than we are willing to admit. It may seem easy for us to point to the extremist stance and actions of the Taliban and call them wicked and evil. But in doing so might we someday discover than in our rush to judge them we may actually be implicating our own evil without realizing it? (study Romans 1:18 through 2:16)

But beyond even the issue of women's status or labels in our society, there are many other areas of deeply entrenched prejudices that may be hidden in darkness that the Spirit of God desires to expose for our eternal welfare. Do we find ourselves resisting light because of fear we will be found to be living life apart from full submission 'in God'? Do we really know what it means to live 'in Christ', or are we satisfied to just have pat theological explanations for this phrase that does not threaten our status quo or make us feel too exposed?

Judgment comes to everyone sooner or later. That is a fact that is unavoidable and we must embrace it if we want to live in the light of real truth. The next question that emerges here in this teaching of Jesus to Nicodemus is this: When are we going to be willing to be exposed by our own choice? Are we going to voluntarily come to the light to face becoming exposed in areas of our heart and our beliefs that we cherish as fundamental truth and fear challenge? Are we clinging to beliefs about truth that we refuse to have challenged because we believe we have studied them so thoroughly and can prove them conclusively that we are unwilling to allow any more light to upset or threaten our foundations?

The sins of some men are quite evident, going before them to judgment; for others, their sins follow after. Likewise also, deeds that are good are quite evident, and those which are otherwise cannot be concealed. (1 Timothy 5:24-25)

This is another very important text regarding judgment but has been very misunderstood by many. But let me ask some questions here. Are we willing to allow our sins to become exposed by the light of truth through convictions by the Spirit of truth that will make them more evident? Are we willing to enter into this exposure of judgment now voluntarily instead of putting off that exposure until our sins have to follow us all the way to the final day of Judgment, of full exposure?

I believe we must come to grips with the truth that it is our choices now that determines whether we will submit to being exposed now to the Light that always brings judgment, Light that exposes the hidden things lurking inside of our hearts. We can choose to come to the light now while we still have time and capacity to be healed and transformed into the true image of God; or we can continue to hide from the light, resist its exposure and discover too late that it will crush out our lives on the great day of Judgment after we have lost all ability to respond to the healing power inherent in the love of God that could have healed us before while we had a chance.

Wisdom says that it makes more sense to submit to exposure of judgment now, even to embrace it fully in order to avoid eternal loss in the future. But not only does choosing judgment now benefit our future life but the Light that brings judgment also brings into our lives the benefits of eternal life even here and now. That is the message I throughout these passages. God longs to expose what we are trying to hide in darkness in order to set us free, to deliver us from lies about Him and the effects of sin that ruins our lives; for He longs for us to not perish but to enter into eternal life even now.

This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. (John 17:3)

And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. (1 John 5:20)

Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him. (1 John 3:18-19)

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

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 4:7-8, 20)

That the World May Know

My mind has been taken on a number of interesting and seemingly disparate paths this morning with rather interesting results. I even found myself exploring connections throughout the Bible in the word Gog and the implications that search I marked in my Bible. But what began my interesting voyage that took me all over the place was a choice to revisit this verse:

I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me; but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. (John 14:30-31)

I have taken a close look at this verse in the past, but as is often the case I have learned that coming back to a passage over and over again never fails to be rewarded with inspiring new revelations waiting to be discovered and applied. So I let my heart and mind work together to see where the Spirit might lead today and ended up doing a word search on the phrase 'may know'.

What came up on the computer from all over the Bible were fascinating references, mostly having to do with various ways that the world would know that God is who He really is. One of my favorite verses that showed up was this one:

Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight. Consider too, that this nation is Your people. ( Exodus 33:13)

Another one that I just couldn't pass up was this next one:

The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of disciples, that I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word. He awakens me morning by morning, He awakens my ear to listen as a disciple. (Isaiah 50:4)

Both of these were a real encouragement for me as I have found myself sharing life lessons and suggestions with some who have asked me to be their friend. I find this a very hazardous venture for it is so easy to allow pride or earthly wisdom to contaminate the heart and tempt me to think that this wisdom is my own when in reality it is simply a very tenuous gift to be used carefully with full credit always to be given to the original Owner. Even as this verse points out explicitly, it is God who gives the ability to speak, to write, to know the right words, and only as I stay closely connected to Him and listen with a humble, teachable spirit myself can I enjoy a relationship that allows Him to make me a channel of grace for others.

But back to the passage where Jesus said that the world would know He loves the Father. I have long found it curious, almost strange, that the logic that He gives, the answer He says that will convince the world of His love for the Father is that He obeys His Father's commands all the time. Why was it important to Jesus that the world should believe that He loves the Father? What is the key things I need to perceive in this unusual verse?

This reminds me about how His true disciples throughout all history have perceived and related to God's commandments. The very word 'commandments' too often has very dark resonance with many of us. That is why I find this verse so compelling and feel a need to keep coming back to it to discover deeper truths that can set me completely free of these dark associations that have discouraged me for so many years.

Jesus is saying that keeping His Father's commands is how the world will know conclusively that He loves the Father. This of course is closely associated with similar statements about how we will relate to Him and to His commandments as well.

If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. (John 14:15-17)

I like how Jesus knew that this reference to commandment-keeping might trigger some of us with fear. So He immediately added the secret to how our reactions could be changed about this. He promised that He would send a Helper to abide with us and be in us. And what is the main purpose for this? He helps us by working from within our own heart to empower us to keep His commandments naturally.

But how do our negative feelings associated with this word 'commandments' become transformed into positive motivation? It is through coming to see the true nature of His commandments and the true nature of the God that is asking us to do this; we begin to see that Jesus is inviting us into the circuit of life which circulates the currency of life-producing love throughout all of creation. We are to be restored back to our original design where we receive love and life for the purpose of passing it on to others, not to hoard it or take it from others for ourselves.

So many of us have become severely bogged down with the negative feelings that have been connected to the word 'commandments'. This is one of the successful schemes of Satan to keep us away from the very thing that we need in order to thrive. But what we need is not more forced obedience to a list of rules, for that only produces death as Paul so eloquently explains. Rather, we need to come to see God's commandments as expressions of the natural principles of reality which are all designed to circulate the life-giving essence of God's family – agape love.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. (John 13:34)

This verse can sometimes be manipulated in our confusion to disconnect Jesus and love from the commands of God. But our problem is not the commands of God different from Jesus, for God is exactly like Jesus. Indeed, the New Testament reveals that the God of the Old Testament is actually the very same person as Jesus but before He became a human on this planet. Rather than confusing ourselves about supposed differences between various laws or differing Gods, we have to begin to see that everything connected with God is also immersed in love; for God is love.

This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. (1 John 1:5; 3:11)

The one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked. Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard. (1 John 2:6-7)

John is trying to get it past our fear-based thinking that all the commandments of God revolve around love. The reason that Jesus had to state that His commandment sounded new is not because it conflicts with the Old Testament descriptions of how a godly person would live but because we have become so blinded to the nature of God and His commandments that Jesus had to reset our thinking and explicitly tell us that His commands are all about love.

For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. (1 John 5:3)

The reason that His commandments are not burdensome is not because Jesus commandments are different but because of the approach to them that He revealed and demonstrated in His own life. Instead of perceiving God's commandments as demands to be achieved in order to be accepted and loved by God, Jesus showed us that these commands can simply be fruit growing naturally in the lives of all who allow His Spirit to abide in them, bringing the very presence of Jesus and the Father right into their very center.

He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.

If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. (John 14:21, 23)

If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. (John 15:10)

Why am I dwelling on this? Because I need to absorb it into myself maybe more than many others. My own heart has struggled for so many years to believe that I am loved, that God actually cares about me more than looking to condemn or judge me. It is one thing for my head to embrace tons of truth that God has been sharing with me over the years, and I am very grateful for all of that for it has allowed me to see the path for my heart to experience all that I am learning about this objectively. But what I really want is far more than simply head knowledge. I also want to be a credible witness in favor of God whenever His reputation is on trial. I need a deeper experiential relationship with Him where my life, my face, my tone of voice, my gut-level reactions when I am abused or maligned – I need to have this kind of love secured in the center of my own being so that its fruit can spill out all over others just like Jesus experienced.

This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

This I command you, that you love one another. (John 15:12, 17)

The more I look into this the more it becomes apparent that God is trying to reconnect the emotional wiring inside my head to help me to see that these two seemingly incompatible words actually are tightly connected as long as I am willing to approach them with the right perception of how He feels about me.

On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining. (1 John 2:8)

So, what is it? Is this a new commandment or is it an old commandment? It can be very confusing to the logical mind that has been trained by culture to accept only one right answer. But in reality the truthful answer is 'yes'. What is going on is that the only reason it is new is because it is a new discovery for those of us who could never see love in God's commandments before because they had been so obscured by our legal way of thinking that darkened our hearts with fear instead of the light of love. But the more I have come to see God from my heart and mind in a radically new perspective over the past few years, the more I am beginning to see outlines of a beauty and attraction that was impossible to detect before.

By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. (1 John 2:3)

To my own amazement, over the past few years I have begun to sense a new awakening far down somewhere inside of me that is beyond my conscious reach. As my measurement standards of what constitutes a real Christian have been challenged repeatedly and exchanged for new and very different ways of perceiving, I have begun to experience a kind of natural obedience that I could hardly even imagine in my past. Rather than working hard to obey because of fear of what would happen to me if I didn't, I now find myself compulsively wanting to discover more and more exciting things about this God who is increasingly becoming attractive to my heart. And the more I spend time and invest mental energy seeking to know the real truth about Him behind all the facades and confusion from religion and expostulations by many claiming to represent Him, I find that my impulses and desires and feelings about others and about many activities in my life are slowly being transformed. I suppose that might be what John was talking about – we know that we have come to know...

This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us. (1 John 3:23-24)

Without the Spirit of love given as the Helper to bring spontaneous love from within our own heart, it is impossible to live in a relationship with God that produces natural obedience. This is what I needed to know 40 years ago and failed to grasp. And because it has taken me so long to begin to experience what my heart has craved all of these years, I become very excited when I see younger people taking hold of these truths and embracing and experiencing them much sooner than I did.

But I am also thrilled when I see older people, much older than I am even, who likewise are grasping these truths about God that have eluded them for so long. They become willing to humble themselves and be teachable even by younger people so that they too begin to experience this love that makes them come alive and know real joy for the first time in their lives. As both young and old become willing to cast aside all of the tradition and prejudice and preconceived ideas and misapprehensions about God that have locked us in fear for so many years, we are starting to see the fulfillment of that exciting prophecy that reveals part of what will bring about the close of this terrible experiment of sin.

Remember the law of Moses My servant, even the statutes and ordinances which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel. Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse. (Malachi 4:4-6)

As our hearts become one and we begin to experience the natural unity that only come about as each of us focuses on the character of God as revealed in the life of Jesus, we begin to experience that different kind of life that Jesus was so excited to share with us.

And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.

These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. (1 John 5:20, 13)

This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. (John 17:3)

Pruning

I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. (John 15:1-3; 11-12)

I have never been real comfortable with the idea of being pruned. My mind imagines pruning shears painfully cutting some part of me off which doesn't sound very pleasant. It sounds like taking part of me away, maybe even part of my identity which sort of feels like a threat to me. I understand the concept of pruning, that excess limbs can waste life energy of the plant and that old limbs can suck the life away from more productive parts of the tree or vine.

But still, most people just don't feel attracted to having something cut off of them even though logically they may accept that it is necessary. We feel like everything we have belongs to us for a reason and we don't like pain. Some of us become so afraid of pain that we will do nearly anything to avoid pain even if we know that not taking painful steps will result in even greater pain in the future. We are hard-wired to want comfort now even if it means we will have far less comfort down the road. Our addiction to comfort can become very self-destructive as any addict might be able to relate to you.

As I meditated on these verses this morning my mind was drawn to this phrase because of the word which I have spoken to you. That is interesting. How can words prune me? What was Jesus saying here in this metaphor that I need to understand and experience in my own life?

I look at the cross-reference I had at some point put beside this verse. My Bible is full of these. It led me down the page to verse 11 where again Jesus refers to things He has said to them. As usual I begin to compare these two verses to see what God might want to share with my heart. What can I take in today from the life-giving words of Jesus for me personally? How might I embrace what He says so that useless or even damaging parts of me will be pruned and more fruit can be produced in me too?

In the margin note in verse 3 I see the substitute for the word clean can be pruned. You are already pruned because of the word which I have spoken to you. That is interesting. Jesus seemed to believe that what they had already heard from Him had had its intended effect, at least to some extent.

But this is a bit baffling for me when I think about the state of mind that I assume these disciples might have given the descriptions of their infighting and pride and selfishness coming into the upper room. Has their attitude changed that dramatically over the past hour or two that Jesus has spent with them? Did His washing their feet, sharing bread and juice with them and talking about His plans and their future together really make that much difference in their mindset? According to this statement it appears something significant must have taken place adjusting their attitudes and affecting their spirit. Are they now capable of bearing more fruit than they were coming into this evening?

I move down to the next text I have referenced from the first one. Immediately I notice a buzz word that has caught my interest for years ever since I learned its true definition from Dr. Wilder. This is a word that for many years had little meaning to me and almost no connecting point in my heart. Joy. I used to wonder just what this might feel like. I was pretty certain I had never experienced it. Oh, I had been happy at times. But I sensed that this word joy was in another league and that it should not be cheapened to be defined as simply happiness like many have assumed. Because of this I held out for a better explanation of this word which was many years in coming.

I don't want to go into that in depth here, but I have unpacked that elsewhere at great length including a personal and very painful story of a day in my life that was one of the most traumatic days I have ever experienced. Burned deep into the memory of that horrific day and night is a riveting experience of joy that had nothing at all to do with happiness. That experience dramatically helped me to understand much more clearly what joy really is and how it can exist no matter what other intense emotions one may be feeling at the time.

Now I find myself pondering why Jesus is talking about Joy in connection with the things He has spoken. He expands my attention by talking both about His joy and our joy. He is saying that in some way His joy can be in me that will make my joy full. That sounds very tantalizing. No, that is too ineffective to express the intensity that I feel in these words. Full joy seems beyond my ability to even comprehend; yet at the same time it is something which I intuitively sense I was created to live in more than I am currently capable of appreciating.

Here Jesus is again talking about how His words can transform and improve me in some way. How might this be connected to pruning? And fruit? I remember that joy is one of the facets of fruit described in Galatians. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23) Notice that the word fruit is in the singular. That means that these are not fruits as in disconnected from each other but are different facets or descriptions of one thing. And according to this verse it is the Spirit that grows this fruit in me, not something I have to do. According to what Jesus said in the first part, I have to be connected to Him securely if I want to see this fruit appear in my life. It is not something He insists I have to produce but is simply a natural outgrowth of having a vital connection with Him.

This just keeps expanding as I ponder these words in their context. The next verse Jesus brings up that dreaded word commandment which for too many years had a lot of negativism for my heart. But the more I come to know the truth about God the less this word disturbs me now. Jesus and John seemed to have a strikingly different feeling about this word than I have had for much of my life. I want to resonate with this word more like I do with the word love. Here Jesus seems to think they are inextricably linked together. That is interesting – even compelling.

Pruning. Fruit. Abiding. Much fruit. My words abide in you. Abide in my love. Joy. Commandments. Love one another.

As I scan down through the page containing these verses I see the pattern emerging. I sense a new flavor from the gospel, the good news about what God is really like. I sense a further awakening of my heart again as it is slowly healing from the damage of my past.

My heart was designed for this. I was not made to live in fear but in joy, love and peace. I want this. I crave this. I long for this to be a description of my life. I want to be so filled with these things that others will become jealous and hungry and will feel compelled to ask how they can have it too.

Love and Sacrifice

I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me; but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here. (John 14:30-31)

I love it when a plan comes together. That is a saying that I hear sometimes when people's plans work out just the way they want that pleases them. But in this case I love it when I begin to see obvious providences that remind me that the really good plans are those that God has for me that often I know nothing about until they come into my view. For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:11-13 NIV)

When I begin to notice how God prearranges events, conversations, articles or talks to come into my life at just the right time to emphasize some truth or reality that He desires for me to notice, I am sometimes surprised but most of all appreciation is awakened and I feel more motivated to want to know Him even more deeply. Over the past few years, things that He has been sharing with me, both for my head and my heart, have served to bring life-changing truths about the nature of His consistent love in sharp contrast with nearly everything I thought about Him in my past. As each new revelation emerges from the fog of confusion that obscures the truth about His character, I see how beautifully everything fits together and reinforces each other which only serves to intensify the light of His glory.

The verse I am looking at today is just such an example. As is often the case, it contains one of those puzzling phrases that I have generally brushed past in my reading because I simply could not find a good place to fit it into my concepts about truth. Though it has not been as troubling as some passages can be, at the same time it seemed to not be nearly so compelling as much of the other material in the surrounding context until this morning. Some things just seem to be redundant or fill-in material until their real significance suddenly emerges when the right light is present.

Enter the providence of God to prepare me to see much more significance in this verse. In the last couple weeks I have become engaged in some intense but enjoyable discussions with a visitor who has started coming to our church. We have spent several hours exploring various aspects of truth that have been coming alive for me over recent years but that are relatively new and different for him. Our discussions have been positive and sometimes rapidly move from one subject to another in his eagerness to try to make sense of so many new concepts. But at the end of each discussion thus far he has challenged me to help make sense out of the concept of where sacrifice fits in to everything we are learning about the true character of God.

At first I didn't understand his confusion about sacrifice and tried to explain to him as best I could how I saw it. But he kept pressing the point and wanted to know why there is such insistence in the Bible of the need for blood if the core issue of sin is not a legal problem demanding punishment. This belief in the need for punishment is the core issue that is polarizing much of the Christian community these days and that is becoming sharpened in my own thinking. How do you fit together the many references to sacrifice and blood throughout Scripture with our emerging picture of a God who has no interest in appeasement but rather is passionate to reestablish a relationship of trust and love with His children again? This fundamental dispute is at the heart of why many people find it very difficult to embrace new ideas about God that do not satisfy the traditional views of religion and beliefs about the nature of sin and a just God.

Enter another providence of God with perfect timing. I just started reading a book that is already proving to be a tremendous help in clarifying a number of these issues in my thinking. Now I want to be clear that I don't believe in being an unthinking reflector of anyone's opinions. But at the same time when a person has a right spirit and what they are teaching is consistent with the many things God has already been showing us in His Word, I am willing to consider their explanations and see if God may be using them to help me go even deeper in my understanding of His truth. In this case that appears to once again be the case. So far nearly everything I have read is helping to clarify and solidify truths that are already taking root in my thinking and that are consistent with the emerging theme that God is love; God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. (1 John 4:16; 1:5)

Given the pattern I have observed over a number of years now of how God has things waiting to answer my needs before I even realize I have them, it came as little surprise that I began to read in this book clear explanations of the very issue that this visitor has raised. I wouldn't have even given it much thought myself since this was not a burning issue in my own mind. But because someone else has brought up an issue that I do not yet have a satisfying answer for, my interest is now peaked to pay closer attention as God has brought a valuable resource to help me understand something I need to know. The very next chapter that I began to read in this book is titled “Loving Sacrifice” and leads into wonderful explanations of this very issue.

What I am in the process of discovering is vitally important and thrilling as well. And as I am learning more about this topic it gave me the needed context to alert me to the significance of the verse quoted here at the beginning, so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me.

Now, I probably don't have time here to fully unpack what I am in the process of learning about this. But I will try to condense it enough to hopefully make sense and then urge you to look into this issue more carefully yourself in the light of the real truth about God's character of pure agape love. But so far what has really grabbed my attention from what is emerging in this book and that correlates perfectly with what I have been learning from the Word of God is how the Old Testament sacrificial system relates to the sacrifice of Jesus.

This brings in another passage that was even more puzzling for me up to this point. Take a look at this and see how these passages begin to complement and even reinforce each other.

For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says, "SACRIFICE AND OFFERING YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED, BUT A BODY YOU HAVE PREPARED FOR ME; IN WHOLE BURNT OFFERINGS AND sacrifices FOR SIN YOU HAVE TAKEN NO PLEASURE. "THEN I SAID, 'BEHOLD, I HAVE COME (IN THE SCROLL OF THE BOOK IT IS WRITTEN OF ME) TO DO YOUR WILL, O GOD.'" After saying above, "SACRIFICES AND OFFERINGS AND WHOLE BURNT OFFERINGS AND sacrifices FOR SIN YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED, NOR HAVE YOU TAKEN PLEASURE in them" (which are offered according to the Law), then He said, "BEHOLD, I HAVE COME TO DO YOUR WILL." He takes away the first in order to establish the second. By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:1, 4-10)

To merge one more factor in, a couple days ago in prayer meeting someone else brought up a serious question about another verse that I now see ties directly into this issue and is reflected in this passage from Hebrews. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5 NIV) They were asking an excellent question that was not easy to answer: how does this really work? What does it really mean practically that His wounds heal us? There is certainly no shortage of religious clichés to throw at someone about this, but like this man raising the question, I too would like to make more sense out of this text.

But here is where the conflict begins. If one chooses to embrace the commonly accepted belief that God the Father must be appeased, that His justice demands punishment for sin because He is so offended by sin that nothing else will satisfy Him but blood, then this whole question about sacrifice does not create any tension. It is simply assumed that in some way the death of Jesus was a substitute punishment to create a loophole by which sinners can be saved without being punished themselves.

But there are huge problems with this rationale, not the least of which is the fact that such logic is actually 'legal fiction'. Even in our diminished perceptions of justice this practice simply would not be tolerated in a criminal court of law. That in itself should raise a red flag, for God will never participate in deception or dishonesty which is exactly what this penal substitution teaching relies on to hold it together. In addition, it simply makes no sense that if God demands payment for sin that He could pay Himself. As the author of the book I am reading put it, you can no more appease or bribe yourself than you can steal from yourself. (Healing the Gospel p. 32) If God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself on the cross, then it simply makes no logical sense to claim that He was being paid off in order to make Him able to forgive our sins. The more I think about these commonly accepted teachings the more illogical they appear.

But if the penal substitution, justice satisfaction theories don't hold water – and in my growing understanding they cannot – then how are we to understand the purpose of all the sacrifices in the Old Testament system that God Himself put into place? And how does this all fit the way we see the sacrifice of Jesus? This has been a question in my own mind as well as with many others who are wrestling with these concepts and trying to see how they all fit together without twisting logic to force things to fit. I now realize I should thank the visitor who brought this to my attention, for I can see that he was sent by God to make me aware of my own need to look more closely into this issue.

What is now becoming clearer to me is what is found in this passage from Hebrews. I have not seen it previously mostly because I have not looked at this with enough other pieces of information in place to see what it was really saying. But here is the core issue which suddenly came over me in the light from everything else I have been learning about God recently. The most important part about Jesus coming to this world was not the fact that He died but was the in His living and how sinners reacted to His love. Hebrews states clearly here that He takes away the first in order to establish the second.

I had always assumed that what He took away was the animal part of the sacrificial system by replacing it with the sacrifice of His own human body. But now I am starting to see that this is not at all what this passage in Hebrews is saying. What is being revealed here is that the whole idea of sacrifice itself was in essence a sort of shorthand for something far more significant about Jesus and had nothing to do with appeasement of a desire for blood on the part of God. That kind of thinking drives a wedge between the Son and the Father that is promoted by the great accuser but has no place in the heart of a true Christ-follower. Jesus did not come to appease an offended, angry God but rather came to explicitly reveal the heart of a passionate, loving God longing to change our minds about Him so He can once again bring us back into an intimacy of close fellowship with Him that has been missing for 6,000 years.

So what is it that Hebrews says replaced the sacrificial system altogether? Jesus, the one being referred to here, said that it was His purpose to do God's will. It was not God's will that Jesus be offered as a substitute punishment through some sort of legal fiction to satisfy His alleged fury against sinners. That itself is one of the most satanic lies promoted by popular religion that must be exposed and expelled. What it says here in Hebrews is that Jesus came to do the Father's will, and the Father, just like the Son, is pure, agape love. The will of love is to love, to demonstrate what love looks like, to reveal the truth about love that has been obliterated by myriads of lies from the accuser and promulgated by most all religions throughout history. Love is what love does and living a loving life is the ultimate will of the great Lover.

So, what does love look like lived out? That is what Jesus' life was all about. He did not just come to reveal love to the world in person but also came to convince us that the Father is exactly like the Son – total love and nothing else. This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5) This verse has been hammering itself into my thinking for several weeks now as I am starting to see the enormous significance it has on how I view the big picture of sin and salvation.

So, the real reason why Jesus came to this earth, contrary to the emphasis that religion has placed on His death, is really the demonstration of love that He gave us throughout His life. Then why did Jesus die if it was not intended as a sacrifice of appeasement to satisfy wrath of an offended God? Jesus died because sinners were so hateful, resentful and filled with wrath in reaction to that pure love that they had to kill Him to escape the suffering they experienced in His presence. The atmosphere of love that surrounded Jesus was a constant source of extreme irritation to all who were unwilling to submit to its drawing influence. So what resulted was that His death became the inevitable evidence of God allowing sinners to have their way with the Personification of all love. Rather than the lies that have been used to terrify people into embracing religion warning of what might happen when sinners fall into the hands of an angry God, the reality that was demonstrated in Jesus torture and death was what happens when a loving God falls into the hands of angry sinners. That is the essence of what Hebrews is trying to convey.

The more I learn about this and the more my heart perceives these emerging revelations about God's passionate love for me, the more I find myself responding spontaneously with growing affection for Him. This is so opposite of the inner terror that I grew up with ever perceiving God as an angry, offended deity constantly holding me under a heavy blanket of condemnation and guilt in order to force me to obey Him or else. For some time as I began to emerge out from under that heavy, suffocating view of God, I was very angry that I had spent so many years of my life suffering under these lies.

But now I feel myself starting to move to another stage moving from resentment toward compassion for those still stifled and living under constant fear like I suffered from for so long. And though they are usually very defensive about their fear-based beliefs about God, I can recognize those reactions as typical symptoms of starvation for love. The human heart was never designed by God to live close to Him motivated by fear but only in mutual love and joy. 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)

Now I want to be so transformed in this love myself that God can begin to use me more effectively to help others escape the trap of Satan's lies about Him and begin to see and experience for themselves the love found in the real truth about God that can deliver them from the terrible slavery of fear.

Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. (Hebrews 2:14-15 NKJV)