The Preamble ...

Most of our New Testament is made up of letters to fellow believers, and in general to encourage them to hang on to what they have been taught.  Even the Gospel of Luke itself begins in letter form to a believer called Theophilus.  It reminds me of some of our reality TV programs, where contestants may be separated from their families in order to participate.  Often the TV show allows letters from home to be handed out, as a form of reward, and generally only on rare occasions.  But each recipient that gets that letter from home, treasures it.  I can imagine that in these early days of the Christian church it is much the same.  The postal service was not as developed back then.  To transport a letter was dicey thing.  They could have been intercepted and destroyed by enemies of the faith, if they had been able.  Satan was no fan of the church or of believers, so you can bet his full attention was on doing just that.  To see that any of these letters survived his onslaught, and remain part of our gospel in the Bible, is already a testament to the miraculous power of our God.  For our God wants us to know His love, and every written volume that remains for us, is intended to reveal just that.  These letters then, are for us to treasure, for they were bought at great price and great consequence.

Luke himself, was known as a physician, a doctor.  Those healing skills in the early church would have been a tremendous help, but the power of healing was not confined to the limits of science, then or now.  Even though he was a doctor, Luke was not limited to being just that.  Luke emplored the Holy Spirit to do a healing work that was well beyond the limits of any science, except a re-creative one.  So Luke does not just examine Jesus from a scientific point of view, He examines Jesus from the power of the Holy Spirit point of view as well.  It seems sad, that so many of the excellent doctors we have in our world today, who also claim to be Christians, have allowed their scientific training to put limits on the power of God in their own lives.  Miracles (if they will even allow for the possibility of such a thing), are brought about by the power of prayer of others, who when confronted with the impossible, choose to look to Jesus rather than accept their scientifically proscribed fate.  Doing our best to heal, was never a prerequisite to seeing a miracle take place.  Instead trusting fully to God was, and remains the way to open that door.  This is not a contest between how to medically treat, it is an expansion of how to do it.  If you wish to employ the best of our knowledge to date, have at it.  And so you should.  But do not think the end of that road, is the end of all roads, it is not – as Luke can provide first-hand testimony to.

Luke was an educated Gentile.  Writing this letter, this gospel, was not denied to him by right of his birth.  It was opened to him by his choice to embrace the faith, and the power behind it.  Luke was converted and wanted to serve, and so his chance to serve was put in front of him.  Further proof, that God did not want an exclusively “Jewish” church, but a church of any who would choose to believe in it.  Luke’s upbringing was not in synagogue per se (such as would have been a Pharisee).  The Sanhedrin would not have accepted Luke in their upper ranks because of Luke’s gentile birth.  The Old church had become a social-status factory where the service of Luke would have been politely denied.  Have our churches become just like this as well?  Would we deny the service of one we believe to be caught up in too much sin (as we define it)?  Or because the doctrinal understanding is just not deep enough yet (when is it ever)?  Those facts did not deter Jesus.  Jesus accepted Luke and the Holy Spirit inspired him to write, and then preserved his writings for now nearly 2000 years.  There is a lesson here for us.

Luke opens his gospel in chapter one, in verse 1 saying … “Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, [verse 2] Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;”  You will note the motivation of Luke as he sets down to write out this good news letter.  This is a declaration of the things which are surely believed among us.  This is an affirmation letter.  This is a letter of encouragement.  It is not meant to dispute other versions of the gospel but to add a different perspective and result in achieving the goal of encouraging the faith.  Luke also here testifies that this account will be aided by first-hand eye-witnesses, as well as ministers of the word.  He likely is pointing out the original 11 disciples (without calling any by name).  He may also be referring to folks like Nicodemus, or the woman of Samaria at the well, who also encountered Jesus.  Is it any wonder this will be a letter to treasure?

Luke continues in verse 3 saying … “It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, [verse 4] That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.”  And there it is, the first reference to the effects of what salvation is able to do to you.  To be saved from oneself by the power of Jesus Christ (that is through submission to Him in full, our desires, our thoughts, our motives, etc.) – has the power to “perfect” our understanding of our beliefs.  We let Jesus lead, we find a whole new trail of love through the letters written and preserved for our benefit.  Scripture is no longer a means to condemn sin, it is a means to find redemption from our all-so-evident condemnation of self.  We already know we are lost.  We do not need the Bible to make that any clearer.  Just look at the pain we cause ourselves and others as evidence.  Look at the death we bring to ourselves.  It is in our real world; we are living it.  We desperately need the Bible to throw us a life-line.  We need scripture to point us to the way away from our pain and death.  To the source of love meant to redeem even the worst of us.  A perfect understanding is not a tolerance for sin and pain, but instead a direct path away from both.  Luke wishes for his friend Theophilus to see this, to not let go of it, and to cling to it forever. 

Those with a perfect understanding of how to condemn do the work of another player in the battle for our salvation, namely that of Satan.  Satan is forever condemning the world, and the believers who reside in it.  Satan condemns both those who sin and do not care, as much as he condemns those who sin and know better.  His entire role is one of prosecutor.  He condemns without ceasing.  No, a perfect understanding of our beliefs, points one to Jesus Christ, to find relief.  Not just relief from accusation, but relief by a change in our motives, in our behavior, in how we love each other.  That is true relief.  We do not need an excuse to keep sinning and causing ourselves and each other more pain.  We need a way of escape from who we are, and from our desires to sin in the first place.  That kind of relief brings a perfect understanding of what we have been taught.  Perfection is not a pipe-dream.  It is a miraculous gift we can begin to experience in the here and now.  Let us give doctor Luke’s gospel letter a second look and begin to see how this perfection can begin to be established in each of us, and in our real lives now …

 

Preparing the Patient ...

Time for a doctor / patient consultation.  If the nature of our problem is a disease of the mind, then the first step towards healing must be to select a doctor and get our first consultation.  In this instance, as we are dealing with a spiritual matter, it turns out a particular doctor has been attempting to reach us on this matter for a very very long time.  The process of salvation, or being remade from who we are now to a version of us that is without the disease of evil, has been the same one since Adam fell until now.  Our disease is cured the same way, through the same mechanism, and by the same doctor who first created us.  But of course getting medical attention from outside-of-the-only-known-cure not only presents a risk to the patient, it is a virtual guarantee of a worsening terminal condition.  And as always, the chief competition to our only qualified Doctor, looks back at us from the mirror.  Too many patients, be they non-believers or Christians, prefer a self-diagnosis, and a self-proscribed means of treatment for the disease of evil we are all afflicted with.  The competition between self-made-medicine and the only known cure is fierce, and causes countless patients to suffer simply because they refused to seek any medical counsel outside of their own.  Lucifer was the first to follow this path.  Too many of us have been too eager to join him in these vain pursuits.

One of the most dangerous social trends of the day is self-help.  The prevailing idea is that if you want to become a better person, you need only put your mind to it and it will surely happen.  Christianity too often falls into this same kind of trap by accentuating what “we do” to make our spiritual lives strong.  In order to have a better spiritual life we need only … pray more, read more, attend church more, and attempt to witness more.  By following this recipe, or one of similar design, “we” will transform our spiritual life into a much more healthy, righteous, and God-like existence.  The Pharisees of old had very similar ideas.  They too studied scripture, maintained strict adherence to every known (or imagined) spiritual guideline and doctrine.  They lived lives of rigid codes and general dedication to the study of doctrine.  But when the Messiah did finally come to earth, they missed Him entirely.  When Nicodemus sought out Christ, the first words of Christ were the requirement that “a man be born again” in order to see the kingdom of God.  Nicodemus believed that his studied life of devotion to the word would enable him to become righteous, as did all his contemporaries.  But Christ reveals on He could “make” Nicodemus over again.  Only through Christ could Nicodemus be recreated, and this was actually not something new.  Instead it was something Nicodemus might have understood from the Old Testament if he had taken perhaps a little closer look.

The “work” of preparation has long been a topic within the Christian community.  Somehow, the popular teachings have centered the responsibility on those who seek righteousness to find it in what they do, or in which doctrines they agree with.  Neither is true.  So then how does one “prepare” to be healed?  We recognize the healing itself will be done for us, or on our behalf, so what then is the work of preparation?  As we discussed in the beginning post of this section, the initial gift of faith itself comes from God, and it is God who sees the finalizing of His work within us.  So how do we prep?  If it were a medical surgery we were discussing, then the first step would be a consultation with the doctor.  Perhaps there is no difference when it comes to spiritual matters.  In fact the prophet Isaiah describes this part of our process very well in his book in chapter one and for our purposes beginning in verse 18 where the prophet quotes the words of Christ Himself saying … “Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord: …”  Here is our spiritual doctor inviting us to think and talk with Him about our condition.  He continues … “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”  Well now that seems like a fairly good prognosis by the Doctor, our current condition is dire, it is terminal as represented by the red.  Blood is red.  Our condition if left untreated will cost us in our blood.  Coincidentally the cure for our condition will also require blood, but not our own.

But regardless of our current state, which as God puts it as “ins that are red like crimson”, they shall be “as white as snow”.  White in this instance represents a state of purity.  The image of pure undisturbed snow is perhaps one of the “whitest” colors found in nature.  Apparently, our sins or our actions, our characters, and our motives today – the composite of who we are – is to be made “as white as snow” – a state of purity that is without blemish.  This is the goal of our God (our Doctor in this instance), it is to make us pure, to remove our disease, to transform us from the state we are in, into a state of His design.  This singular text represents the entirety of the process of salvation laid out before us.  Nowhere within these words are edicts about what we are to do to see this promise fulfilled.  Nowhere does it state that we must FIRST pay our tithes, worship on the proper day, and abstain from theft, lies, and murder.  In fact, our doctor recognizes that our current condition is likely steeped in all these evils.  But despite our terminal embrace of evil and adoption of it into the fabric of who we are, our Lord promises that what we are to become is something entirely different from today, and entirely devoid of all the redness we once were stained with.  Notice He does not say he will turn us pink, or less red, or perhaps mostly white with a few pink poka-dots.   He says as white as snow, or as white as sheep’s wool if you please.  A complete renovation is what is promised, not a partial one, not an incomplete one, but one that is in harmony with Himself and with the principles, values, and government of heaven – one that is immersed and obsessed with loving others – like Christ is.

What we do, ONCE we are made white, is follow the edicts of love that has been instilled in our hearts.  ONCE this cure has been rendered we would not think to lie, as lying only brings pain to ourselves and those we love.  ONCE this cure has been given we would gladly worship God at any time of His choosing as to have the chance to worship Him and thank Him for what He has done for us is always on our minds.  ONCE this cure is a part of who we are, our tithe is hardly enough to offer Him, in response to the many blessings He has poured out upon us.  Money means nothing, next to cure for evil that has so long enslaved us and warped our thinking.  ONCE He transforms us from red stained blood on our hands to the pure white love for others, we cannot pass by the homeless person and not think to share what we have with them.  We cannot then see our brother in distress and not yearn to ease their suffering.  We cannot ignore those guilty souls who overflow our prisons without hope, but we must reach out to them and let them know, their guilt can be overcome, their lives can be made victorious, not by the power of self-control, but by the surrender of self to Christ.  The cure makes a person think differently than they do today.  The cure makes a person value different things.  It makes them love more and to the extreme.  It makes them freed of evil, not free to indulge in it.  It breaks the chains of slavery to self and frees the heart to love another.  This is what our doctor is promising us.  This is the kind of complete transformation He is offering – WITHOUT preconditions.

Christ (our doctor) continues in Isaiah 1, and now verse 19 … “If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land.”  Here it is in a nutshell – until we are WILLING to be healed – we cannot be Obedient to the law.  There is no obedience without the cure, without the transformation He has just laid out.  Our preparation is not one of actions we take, but of being willing to be healed.  There is nothing else.  Obedience FOLLOWS willingness, not the other way around.  The promise of “eating the good of the land” is actually Christ stating the natural consequences of becoming in harmony with Himself and with heaven.  What we value after we have been transformed is measured entirely differently than before we are made pure.  In our present state, we value money, power, fame, and ease – but after our transformation – we value people, relationships, love, and making someone else happy.  The work we do on another’s behalf becomes a reward in itself.  The love we show to our spouse, our children, our family, our church, our communities, and even to our enemies – becomes precious to us, something of infinite value we cannot imagine ever living without again.  The “good” of the land is not the gold, precious minerals, fame, or money that evil finds of value – it is instead the charity, the hope, and the faith, and the testimony we are able to share with those who today have no hope or no love.  The promise itself is a reminder to us, that our God offers us more than merely what we need to survive.  He offers us the gift of participation in the work of redemption, the work of loving others to see them come to the throne of grace, because of the love they simply cannot ignore, reflected by Him through us.  The cure changes us.  Our part though, is to be willing to be changed.  Obedience then follows as the natural results of cause and effect.

Christ continues now in verse 20 of Isaiah chapter 1 … “But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”  Herein is the warning of the consequences of refusing the cure – death.  Notice here too, actions follow choice.  If we refuse … and THEN rebel, we will be devoured.  The natural consequences for continuing to embrace the disease of evil leads to murder, and to our own death.  Every sin, no matter how small, no matter how seemingly innocuous leads us deeper and deeper into slavery to self that will only end in killing God Himself, if we were allowed to do it.  The disease of evil is both addictive and degenerative.  Lucifer became Satan over time, it was not an instantaneous transition, but it was an inevitable one.  Satan the first to participate in evil, the first to abandon love, demonstrated where the path of self-love leads at Calvary.  And he will attempt a repeat at the very end of time.  The apostle John writes in his book of Revelations in chapter 20, and verse 9 about how at the very end of time, Satan and his followers will encamp around the holy city of heaven and think to take it.  Satan is not alone in this effort, all those who have refused, and consequently rebelled, will be with him.  It does not say only those who committed murder will be there, or only those who were homosexuals, or only those who were serial adulterers – scripture does not make that distinction regarding the sinners outside the city, any more than it does for those who were forgiven those same crimes that are inside the city.  The distinction between the saved and the lost comes down to the choice to be willing to obey, or to refuse and therefore rebel.  The type and degree of rebellion is not specified, because it does not matter.  Every type of rebellion ends in the same exact place – attempting to take heaven by force, and being willing to kill the Creator of Love in the process.  Satan did it once on Cavalry, and he would do it again if he could.  Fortunately he does not.

Those Christians who are reluctant to discuss the words of the Old Testament, or who somehow believe God was different with the Children of Israel than He is with us, need to take a closer look at the words of God spoken here to Isaiah.  There are countless examples in the Old Testament about how the process of salvation works.  But it is very clear here – the process is one of decision.  Are we willing to be remade, willing to be reborn, willing to be re-created in the image of God? Or Not?  This is the entirety of the preparation on our part, the entirety of the effort on our part, the entirety of the “work” on our part – the rest of it is done by God.  God does all the heavy lifting, we get all the rewards.  Notice that the restoration God promises us in verse 18 is not set in the timeframe of heaven alone, it begins immediately.  As we are willing, we become obedient, and His promise is fulfilled in THIS lifetime.  Notice the tense of the verb “BE” though our sins “be” red … they shall “be” white.  Regardless of what we are, we will be made into something pure.  This is not only about our past, and our failures to date – it is about our present, and our future to come, both here on earth and as it reaches fulfillment in heaven.  These words are not a promise about eternal life, or life on golden streets, they are a promise about living in the here and now, and with the absence of sin in our day to day.  To be made free from sin is the very essence of salvation.  It is the very essence of righteousness.  And the only way to achieve it, is to allow it to happen to us.  We must be “willing” so that our doctor can deliver on the promise he has made to finally and fully cure us forever.

Circles of Pain ...

 “This won’t hurt a bit” is a common expression that instinctively brings up in my mind the thought, “then why do you need to tell me that”?  Perhaps “hurt” is in the eye of the beholder.  A pin prick for example, does not hurt nearly as much as breaking a bone.  And the pain from a pin prick does not linger and have nearly as many adverse effects as breaking a bone.  So when compared against that pain, a pin prick may very well “not hurt a bit”.  But compare the sensation of a pin prick with eating an ice cream cone, and suddenly the pin prick hurts.  In fact, next to that, the pin prick is devastating.  Of course part of the pain of shot at the doctor’s office, comes in the form of the anticipation that it is going to happen.  Sometimes, worse yet, you are allowed to see the needle and syringe get prepared.  A several inch long needle makes one squirm even more.  Knowing it is coming, can multiply the actual pain, by the anticipated pain in my imagination (which is highly developed and over achieves even in this instance).

Lucifer has done a masterful job at separating the consequences of evil from the actions of evil.  He delays consequences as long as he can, in order to propagate the evil activities until they reach habit stage.  But the effect of delaying consequences seems only to multiply their pain when they finally do ensue; and they ALWAYS follow our behavior.  We may evade them for a while, but eventually everything we do catches up with us.  It is not so much Karma as if we spread evil in the ether and it somehow materializes in our lives later; it is more like the laws of gravity – cause and effect.  Evil tries to hide its nature from us, mask the pain from the actions that will surely come, and blame everyone and everything else for its existence; but in the end it fails.  Evil is the opposite of God, therefore by nature, nothing we would ever desire.

Sometimes in our quest to measure evil, and separate some actions into “less harmful” than others, we develop a belief that certain “sins” or evil actions, are personal, just between you and God.  Personal sins, or private sins then, need only be discussed between you and God, and so are thought to be “less harmful” to others than say assault and battery might be.  But this belief is incorrect.  It is yet another deception created by the master deceiver of souls.  It is the equivalent of dropping a 3 pound rock in a bathtub full of water, and expecting only the original splash will be the result.  In addition to the splash, are generated waves of displaced water that traverse the tub from end to end – only constricted by the boundaries of the size of the tub.  If the tub were 12 feet across, the waves would travel 12 feet.  But because most tubs are only a couple feet across, and 4 or 5 feet in length, the waves simply double back on themselves making quite a havoc.  This is similar to how “private” sins disturb your own life, and the lives of those you encounter.

Take for example, the personal sin of pride.  Pride is something held only in the heart.  It does not appear at first glance to affect anyone else directly and therefore would seem to be only between you and God.  But examine it closer for a minute.  I can allow my pride to overtake my humility, as such, I become unwilling to learn from another believing no-one knows more than I.  I can become unwilling to help those less fortunate believing that “helping” is a job for those who are not as smart or as capable, or as rich as I am.  I can begin to treat others by cast, category, and classification – all of which are governed strictly by my pride.  In so doing, I tear down the image of Christ who loved all without condition, and instead erect an idol of me to worship instead.  My ill treatment of others may lead to direct evil against them, but even if that is restrained, by attitudes will definitively be affected.

Another common misperception about personal sin is that of sexual self-gratification.  This one is worse, because it is looked at as the “lesser” of a great many evils that we are capable of performing related to our sexual expression.  It sounds good at first glance.  But examine it a bit closer; the very words “self-gratification” define the basic problem at its core – pleasing one’s self.  Our entire legal system is built to keep my propensity to serve self, from interfering with yours.  Limitations and punishments are outlined to try to keep us from causing serious harm to each other while pursuing the happiness of pleasing number one.  In a sexual sense, we replace intimacy, and the concept of pleasing our partner/spouse FIRST, with searching for the bio-chemical “high” of orgasm.  Self-gratification begins by focusing solely on what pleases me, with complete and total disregard for what makes my spouse happy, as there is no spouse to even consider in the scenario.  Over time, habits form, and when my spouse does enter the scenario, I could be disappointed that it does not coincide with my mental picture of what “should” happen.

There are those who believe self-gratification hurts no-one; that it is a victimless crime.  But this is untrue.  Those who engage in this behavior are almost always unable to stop.  They extinguish the value of intimacy and vulnerability with someone else, and turn people into objects, objects without meaning or consequence.  The kind of mental imagery associated with self-gratification is usually degenerative.  Comedians joke about being children and looking at the underwear sections of the Sears catalog, or at the National Geographic magazines with naked natives.  But this soon turns to the “art” of Playboy, then to the eroticism of Penthouse, and finally to the pure hardcore smut found in an infinite number of specific Internet sites, or former print publications.  The imagery degenerates further into sub cultures like S&M, Bondage, Baby-Play, Anal fetishes, etc..  But it is not limited to these, further degeneration leads to the infliction of severe or permanent pain, child molestation, animal molestation, and finally the association of death and sex together.  A downward spiral, no-one believes themselves capable of, until they find themselves in it.  Yet still the belief, that we remain unharmed by our actions.

For those who believe they only hurt themselves, yet another revelation.  The industry that provides the materials for your mental imagery could care less who it hurts in the manufacture of these materials.  Countless daughters, sisters, mothers, even elderly – both women and men – put into positions where self-esteem is destroyed, where the danger of disease is rampant, where intimacy loses all value.  And for the person unable to control their baser passions, often this behavior does not end when marriage begins.  It continues into the marriage, depriving the spouse of true intimacy.  It is bringing baggage and expectations into our sexual expression that should have never been in the first place.  Men must unlearn almost everything they think they know, before they will ever be capable of sharing true beauty and intimacy in giving to their wives.

Lucifer, under the guise of social norms, propagates these ideas that a women or wife should be a gentle lady out of the house, and a “freak” in the bedroom.  Countless women’s magazines offer advice on how to please and keep a man through sexual proficiency when the reality is far from these ideals.  Honesty, vulnerability, clear communication, intimacy, even spiritual dependency on Christ will do more to keep a man, than will tricks dreamed up in a magazine.  There is nothing wrong with creativity or invention in the bedroom, it is only a problem when biology replaces intimacy as the primary objective.  Orgasm is not the ultimate goal, a union of mind, body, and soul, - is.

So our thought to be personal sin, hurts us, hurts those we claim to love most, hurts our families as it affects our attitudes in what we teach our children, our community in how we treat others, and finally God as He must bear witness to the pain we cause in our “personal” acts of evil.  In the end, sin, or evil actions always cause ripples of pain, that grow as they reach others.  Our 3 pound rock in the pond may be a veritable Tsunami by the time its full effects are cataloged by unseen hands.  This is the nature of evil.  This is the nature of poo.  Poo smells.  You can hardly conceal it when it is physically nearby.  Even its after effects will be known for a while after it has left the area.  So it is with evil.  Evil is nothing more than poo, wrapped in a shiny wrapper.  The shiny wrapper is at best a momentary distraction until the clear evil of poo is revealed.  But by then sometimes it is already too late.  Behaviors are formed, habits ensue, slavery is initiated, and thus the need for Savior.  Thus the need for a “creator” God who can re-create IN me what must be completely redone.

It is not enough to want only some of the poo, out of my life.  It can only be enough when ALL of the poo is out of my life.  No more habits, no more chains, no more bad choices, no more regrets – just the freedom that comes from giving the problem to the only God who wants to take it over and remove it FROM us.  It does no good to clean half of the cesspool of our lives.  We must let Him clean it all.  I know the work is hard, and atrocious, and was made so by us in our persistence at spreading our feces from wall to wall.  But this is the work Christ is willing to do in our lives.  He sees evil as this level of abhorrent, and wishes only to see it completely removed from your day to day.  Let go the shiny wrappers, and embrace the freedom of Christ.  Let us stop making ripples of pain in the oceans of our lives, and replace it with wave after wave of His love for ALL who we encounter.