“If I only saw a
sign, I would believe.” This is a
familiar chorus I have heard from nearly every non-believer I have
encountered. Sadly, it is also a
familiar refrain I have heard from many Christians. We look for the impossible to validate a
faith that does not make any sense. We
ask to see the impossible for ourselves, unwilling to take the words or
testimony of others on this account. It
needs to be personal. It needs to be
tangible. Or else, how could I
believe? And in this we destroy our
journey-of-faith and wish for certainty in its place. But be honest, how could you ever be certain,
of the impossible? Even if you witness a
single incident of it, will one witness be enough to believe in all the others,
and for the rest of your life? So if you
must witness more than one incident, how many will be enough? All of them?
Would it really take time travel to finally make us believe that what is
recorded in scripture was real? If you
are looking here, you are cheating yourself.
There is another venue, and something a lot more personal for each of
us.
To begin, certainty is not the goal. If I asked you to trust me, how would you go
about it? You might evaluate our
interactions, our history together. You
might conclude that if my behavior was always in line with your expectations,
that you could extend trust to me, and then see what happens. But therein lies the catch. No matter how I have behaved with you in the
past, no matter how consistent our history may be, each time you extend trust
to me, you take a risk. If past is
prologue, then you may believe the risk to be low. But that “belief” is still a “belief” you
hold about my trustworthiness, based on a myriad of factors, but none the less
a “belief” that I will not let you down.
This is how trust works.
You may trust your mom for example, because your mom has
demonstrated that she loves you. Even if
she screws up, she still loves you, though her mistake proves her human. You may even elect to extend trust to her
again after a huge mistake, because there has been only one (or few you know
about), and generally she does not make them.
But even with mom (mistakes or no), every time you extend trust, you
hold a “belief” that it is worth it, to trust her. Certainty is impossible. Because you cannot absolutely predict what
anyone else (including God) may do, or why they do it. In the end, you have ideas about it, guesses
about it, even educated guesses about it.
But behavior is a tricky thing to absolutely predict, and so people
surprise us sometimes (for better or for worse). To trust anyone, is to embrace “belief”, at
the exclusion of absolute certainty.
But where God is concerned, it is more blame that goes
around, than trust. That has directly to
do with our picture of “who or what” God is.
The media, our parents, our church, our friends, our professors, may
have all played a role in forming an image in your mind about who God is. Suffice it to say, it boils down to one of 2
main images. Most folks think God is a
version of Santa Clause. We go to Him to
ask for stuff. We are happy when we get
it. Mad when we don’t. But are generally quick to ruthlessly blame
God for anything bad that happens, under the logic that Santa should have been
watching and been able to prevent the bad stuff before it ever happened. After all, He has done it for others, why not
me? Way too many Christians have this
exact image of God, despite all the scriptures.
Most Atheists just don’t believe in any kind of Santa Clause, or any
god, but if there were a God, He would be to blame for everything.
In the Santa Clause picture of God, no trust is
required. Neither is certainty. If you get the stuff you asked for,
hallelujah. If not, it must not be in
God’s time yet. So Santa has a slot
machine sort of response to what you ask for, the odds are low, but you never
know. How could faith ever grow in you,
if this is the image of God you believe in, or have the most experience
with? And believe me, Satan is WAY too
happy to keep this image of God in your mind.
Perhaps enough to grant you some of those wishes himself, in order for
you to never shed this image of the God you pray to. But our real God, needs us to trust Him. That trust is a critical component of His
ability to save us – from us. Denying
yourself to let some random God you don’t really know remake who you are, is
just not likely. Better to keep the
Santa image, and just hope for the best.
So God’s problem is getting you to stop thinking of Him in
terms of doling out rewards and punishments, and start thinking of Him for the Being
He truly is. The other image of God (a
saving God). God wants to save you, from
you. He loves you (being the primary and
singular motive of His). God sees sin as
the punishment and the addictive disease.
And He has only one way to rid you of it. But for that to work, you have to trust Him
enough to let Him do it, in spite of how it looks. Trust, in spite of common sense. Trust, in spite of what everyone else tells
you. Trust, that He is able to do the
impossible in you, where history demonstrates, you are clearly unable to do
it. So if that is His mission, and trust
is what He needs from you. Offering you
certainty does nothing to accomplish it.
If you witness a 1,000 different acts of the impossible, all you will
have learned is that it is possible for God to do the impossible. You might have already imagined that. But you will still have no reason to let Him
reconstruct who you are. A thousand
elements of certainty do not build trust, they build resentment. Back to the Santa Clause image – now that I
have seen 1,000 impossible things – I intend to open complaints about why I did
not benefit from any of them. A thousand
acts of love and impossibility for others, does me not one bit of good. So now I am mad at Santa, because there was
only coal in my stocking, while my neighbor got Barbie’s playhouse.
The first problem with asking for signs, is that it does not
bring trust. The second, is that it will
only make you mad they were not for you, or selfish if they were (who does not
want more miracles in their own lives).
And lastly they are usually requested as a condition of belief (instead
of a result of it) doing nothing to foster trust, so there will never be enough
of them, to really make a believer out of you.
You will either find a way to let your skepticism reduce the impossible,
to a scientifically explainable trick (or perhaps a random set of circumstances
that worked out just right despite the incredible odds, like say the hypothesis
of evolution) - or you will find you have an insatiable appetite for more
signs, at the cost of what you profess is a belief. In any case, the mission God has to save you,
from you, by remaking you fails because He grants your wishes for signs as a
condition of belief. A change in
thinking, on the other hand, will pull back the veil that has blinded your eyes
to the impossible. What you witness
after a change in how you perceive life, is going to be mind blowing. Sounds crazy right now, but that’s the
point. It is crazy. But it is also real. And it will be a lot more personal to you
than you could possibly imagine now.
Take as a case in point the story of two types of people in
the gospel of Matthew the 27th chapter. Picking up in verse 38 it reads … “Then were
there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand, and another on the
left.” You could argue these men might have
been believers in the Jewish faith (though obviously not perfect observers of
the Law). It is not known exactly what
they believed at least from Matthew’s account.
However we know from other versions of the good news, that one repented
before he died, the other did not.
Dieing in the company of known criminals tends to make one look like a
criminal even if this is not true. This
death will do nothing to uplift the reputation of Christ. But Jesus does not care about His
reputation. In His trial all manner of
lies were told about Him, and His response was perfect silence. No condemnation, no calling people out on
their sins, only silence. But Jesus was
eager to speak to anyone who seeks salvation.
When the dying theif seeks Jesus, Jesus responds, no matter what kind of
physical pain He was in. When that same
theif was hurling insults at Him, Jesus remained silent.
Matthew continues in verse 39 saying … “And they that passed
by reviled him, wagging their heads, [verse 40] And saying, Thou that destroyest
the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of
God, come down from the cross.” Dying in
the company of thieves, and up on a Roman cross, was decidedly NOT the sign the
Jewish people were looking for where it comes to proving Jesus was God. These were believers. These were those who studied scriptures. And yet their ideas about what God was
supposed to do – that is, to throw off Roman oppression and setup a Kingdom
that would last forever – overpowered all the other texts and prophecies that
predicted exactly this part of the mission of God to save us. “Believers” who desired something else of
God, and refused to accept what God was actually doing to truly answer their
prayers. When Santa does not behave how
we want Him to, what good is Santa right?
And so in this case, the very fact Jesus was actually fulfilling
prophecy, was the very fact that disqualified Him as being the Messiah in their
minds. Sound familiar?
How often do we ask God for a thing, and threaten Him that
if He does not do it, we will believe no longer? Save me.
Save my child. Save my
spouse. From the disease and death that
stalk them. If the results are not what
we expect – we become angry and decide there cannot be a God – or else why did
He not answer my prayer. But perhaps He
did, just not in the way you expected.
Perhaps from Gods point of view, saving you, your child, your spouse, for
eternity is most important to all of you.
Should earthly life end today, and infinite life begin tomorrow,
reunited, with infinite love in all of your hearts – is this not the preferred
outcome all of you would want, even if it comes at the price of shortening how
long you live in this world today? Let’s
say instead of focusing on the eternal, that God allowed you the answer to your
prayers, and saved that life in the here and now. As time passes, you, or your child, or your
spouse, begin to change (not for the better).
Perhaps over time, one of you decides there is no God at all, and if
there is, He is not worth following. Sin
is more “fun”, instead of the disease it truly is. If that is how you meet your end in this
world, and the eternal world is sacrificed in the process. Did God really do what was in your best
interest all those years ago when He saved you only to meet this new end? And God knows what you will choose long
before it happens. Santa might let this
play out. But God would rather it
didn’t. God would prefer to cherish you
while your free will choice reciprocates that love, rather than let you exist
long enough to discard it under the weight of sin’s embrace.
So because God does not do what we want or expect, does not
make Him any less trustworthy. Keep in
mind Jesus was doing what ALL of us need for salvation. Not trying to prove Himself to nay-sayers at
the time and place of His death. Matthew
continues in verse 41 saying … “Likewise also the chief priests mocking him,
with the scribes and elders, said, [verse 42] He saved others; himself he
cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross,
and we will believe him.” And there we
have it, the Athiest’s Anthem coming right out of the mouths of the very top
leadership of the church at that time.
What image of God do you suppose they had, the one of a saving God who
would die in our place, and fulfill prophecy – or the one of Santa who doles
out punishment and reward emphasis on punishment. And had Jesus descended off that cross in front
of their eyes, gliding right down in front of them fully healed, what do you
suppose their response would have been?
They would have hated Him all the more, because now Roman oppression
still abounded, and Jesus would be impossible to kill after all. Think about it, they already had ALL the
previous miracles Jesus did to consider in weighing whether or not He was the
Messiah, and NONE of them changed their course of action or belief. They chose to dismiss every previous sign and
still pursue killing Him.
And should Jesus have chosen to assuage His own ego, by
proving to these priests He truly did have this power, what kind of God does
that truly make Him? A God of ego? Who would gladly sacrifice our eternal
considerations for those of the moment? How
could we be saved then? It is often our
expectations of what God should do, that could never be met anyway. Because we come from a place of ego and
selfishness, where God comes from a totally opposite perspective. Jesus believes it is better to die to save
all of us, than to do anything shortsighted, and gain nothing. Jesus never used any of His power to benefit
Himself. Instead He used it unceasingly
on us, the objects of His love, restoring us, removing the pain of sin and
death from us. Our restoration tops the
mind of a saving God. Not just getting
rid our physical diseases, but getting rid of the way more deadly sinful
disease of bad motives driving bad choices we continue to embrace. Curing us of our desire to sin, is way more
important. Saving us from an eternal
perspective way more important than saving us in the moment.
The ridicule continues as Matthew writes picking up in verse
43 saying … “He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him:
for he said, I am the Son of God. [verse 44] The thieves also, which were
crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth.” Matthew hears the mockery of the thieves, but
misses the repentance of the one. Here
we have an example of Jesus suffering the same fate as we do from time to
time. Jesus trusted in His Father. And yet, He was dying, very painfully in this
world. The Father had NO interest in
seeing His Son be tortured and die. But
the Father had a GREAT interest in seeing all of humanity be saved and
reconciled unto Himself. The death of
His Son was that price. In order that
the need for Justice be satisfied. So
Jesus dies, in extreme pain we inflicted.
And the Father must sit there in silence and watch. The eternal salvation outweighing the
salvation of the moment. This is how
great our God desires to save us in the eternal realm, not just the here and
now. It is a different way of thinking.
So the repentant thief represents one kind of person, the
mocking priests another. For those
mocking priests, no sign would ever be enough.
And frankly the next section of texts are going to have some
doozies. For the repentant thief
however, for those of us who seek salvation from Jesus, what will happen in us
is a change. You will note that repentant
theif was NOT saved from the cross. He
died in this world, but with certainty about his own place in the next
one. And change began to occur even in
the worst dying circumstances any of us can imagine. We too will become different than we are
today. Not because we work for it. But because we begin to choose to trust Him,
and allow Him to remake us however He sees fit.
Then change is surely on its way in us.
We read scripture differently. We
begin to see love as the primary motivation, instead of some wild
afterthought. We begin to reason differently. And over time, the blinders of bad choices,
the blinders of doubt, fall away – and what is revealed is a regular diatribe
of the impossible happening all the time.
For example, the changing of hearts.
Not just of others, but of my own.
Learning how to love differently, and more deeply, than you had ever
imagined. No seminar could ever get this
done. But allowing Jesus full access
sure does. Without Jesus, things tend to
degenerate. But with Jesus, things tend
to improve, especially in areas where it matters the most.
That sign, that impossibility, is very personal, very
tangible, and you will live with its benefit every day of your life. Does it cure your cancer? No. It
could. But it does not have to. It fixes something more important. The quality of your days expands
exponentially, whether you are beset by physical pain and disease, or whether
you are healed from them. Keep in mind,
disease does not exist in heaven. So
whether here or there, you are destined to see disease, pain and death no
more. And what happens to the desire to
see a sign now? You lose the selfishness
part of that. Instead of asking for
goodies for yourself, you have no thought of yourself. But you are swamped with thoughts of
others. You want to BE a sign for
someone else, help them, meet their need if you can, no matter how you are
feeling at the time. And where you are
powerless to meet their need, you do ask God for the impossible. Not as a condition of belief, but because you
are SURE He can, and will do what is right for that person’s eternal
interest. Where it comes to the removal
of sin, 100% guarantee He wants that.
Where it comes to all the other worldly stuff, His gifts must fall in
line with our salvation. Knowing He
longs to give them, and knowing He must hold them back, if they would add to
our downfall.
Life, instead of existence, is a very tangible, and personal
thing. No one else can define it for
you. No one else can deny the impossible
you are witness to in your heart and life.
For you know what is true for you.
You see what God does in your life.
What you suffer from in the eyes of others matters not. Whether you are burdened with wealth,
sickness, persecution – those do not represent the favor or curse of God. They represent the danger of evil in this
world, and are used by Satan to try to get people to believe in a Santa Clause
image of God doling out rewards and punishments. But for the one who truly believes, and
chooses to truly trust, the curtain is pulled back – and the impossible is
revealed every day no matter what our circumstances or positions may be. Certainty has never been the goal. Trust in spite of not knowing has always been
it. That kind of trust prevents the next
Satan in the world to come. And creates
a new creature of you in the world we live in today.
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