A State of War ...

The War did not begin here.  The War existed before us, but it will end with us.  Victory is assured, but it is not “our” victory, it will only ever be His.  Jesus Christ won this war before it was ever begun, because Love was destined to defeat Evil.  There was only ever one outcome that is possible in this war.  If evil “could” win, there would be no existence at all.  But while evil is defeated, it is not going down without a fight.  When our enemy has realized he will not win, he cannot win, his only recourse is to inflict as much pain, damage, and death as he can before he goes down in flames.  Surrender is not within his ability to choose; for evil enslaves its participants, making Satan as much a slave to himself, as we would be without Christ breaking our chains and freeing us to sin no more.  So while our enemy is desperate for his time grows short, his time is not over yet.  Mercy yet attempts to reclaim every soul that will at last accept the gift of freedom Jesus Christ alone can offer.  While mercy is extended, Satan continues his war of pain, damage, and death against the thing that impacts the heart of God the most … namely you and I.

We live within a state of War.  It is not a national war, but a war that extends beyond all borders, and lives within the hearts of man.  The War has active heroes and villains.  It has soldiers on both sides.  And like all wars, this War causes casualties.  Sadly, death is not the first aim of our enemy.  Pain and damage are.  Satan’s only goal is to cause us to miss out on the freedom from selfishness that Jesus offers.  He wishes us to live lives that are ever degenerating into deeper and deeper realms of selfishness.  When we succumb to the power of pleasing self, we inevitably inflict pain and damage on those we love and those who love us the most.  Because ultimately God loves each of us the most, it is He who suffers in anguish while we choose to yet again forsake His victories, and pursue our degradation to entirely new levels of depravity.  Because the Love of God will inevitably defeat the evil of Satan; Satan uses every tool in his arsenal to inflict pain back on God.  You and I are mere pawns in Satan’s plans, but precious treasure in the plans of the Lord.

Peter knew this.  He saw it in the living love of Jesus Christ and how He treated those He encountered.  Peter also saw how deep evil can go in the lives and actions of the Pharisees who ultimately killed the Author of their religion, in the name of their religion.  The cloak of scriptures, traditions, and religion was not enough to expel evil from the heart.  Men used the very things that should have led them to humility and submission, as tools to grow power and control over others.  Thus evil found a foothold in their hearts until they were willing to kill Love, before embracing Love.  These were the religious leaders who did these crimes, supposedly the best of the Jewish people and faith.  Yet even the best of men are no match for the seduction of self.  Peter had seen the casualties of this War, as its first casualty was Jesus Christ.  The suffering Satan desires to inflict pre-dated our Savior, and would not end, just because He had ascended back to heaven.  Instead Satan would resume his primary targeting against us.

So in chapter four of his first letter to the church, Peter begins in verse 12, by stating what he sees as the obvious in any state of War writing … “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:”  Notice first he begins by reminding his readers that “they” are the “be-loved” of Jesus Christ.  We are the most valued commodity in the kingdom of our Lord.  Jesus could care less about how much gold He has, and cares the most about insuring He gets to spend eternity with YOU.  Next, with the realization of how much we mean to Christ, comes the knowledge that it makes us the primary target for the fiery trials Satan will inevitably inflict upon us.  It is not a strange or unusual occurrence, it is a reality of War, and it will happen.  One might take comfort in witnessing it, because should all be going “well” it might lead us to wonder which side of the War we have landed on.

Peter continues in verse 13 … “But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.”  But here, Peter appears to go completely off the deep end.  Instead of just knowing evil may be coming with trial by fire, Peter actually states we should “rejoice” that this occurs.  No, Peter is not a Sadist, or Masochist.  It is not pain Peter enjoys; no shades of gray here at all.  But Christ suffered because of the love He showed to those in need.  It was for His love that He was constantly punished by the religious leadership.  The knowledge that someone experienced love, perhaps for the first time, is something to rejoice about.  That we should suffer for showing love, indicates our enemy thinks we did a good job at showing it.  It we were clumsy showing love, of selfish showing love, our enemy would encourage us to keep screwing up.  But when we reflect the love of Christ unselfishly to someone in need “THAT” is the event that warrants punishing us to the highest level possible.

Peter continues in verse 14 … “If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified.”  Peter echoes his earlier sentiment, love that reflects Christ well, comes from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  As we submit to Christ, as we allow Him to change HOW we love, and WHO we love (others, not ourselves), we allow a greater and greater measure of the Holy Spirit within us.  The actions and words of love we reflect emulate the source of love.  We become a reflection of Jesus.  It is this condition that causes our enemy to freak out, and hurl insult after insult our way.  He MUST malign our motives and actions in order to reduce the impact of the love we show.  Those who embrace evil will never speak well of Love, of Jesus, they will only ever insult and ridicule Him.  They have no choice.  For if they spoke the truth, they would convert themselves to His cause.  While we will receive no “glory” from those who hate the name of Christ, we will receive the only “glory” that counts from God, in that we have the honor to participate in His redemptive work for mankind.

Peter continues in verse 15 … “But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men's matters.”  This passage has two meanings.  First, Peter wants to insure we are not being criticized for evil deeds we do.  It is only justice to suffer for the deeds of evil we may embrace.  If we “have it coming” so to speak, that is not quite the thing to rejoice about suffering for.  But Second, Peter is also calling attention to the condition of sin.  Deeds of murder, or theft, or generic malice, or even getting invested in the lives of others to suit our own motives … are all actions that cause us to “suffer”.  Peter is reminding us, the Christ breaks our chains to selfishness, and gives us the means not to have to suffer in the sins that may have once ruled our lives.  It is interesting to me, that while we consider sin on a sliding scale, Peter begins at our most heinous crime of murder, but continues the thought down to the level of “busybody”.  Sin causes pain and suffering, whether from large heinous crimes like murder, but also from seemingly innocent crimes of evil motive in the matters of other men.  To win this War, we must be saved to the uttermost by our hero, savior, and conqueror, Jesus Christ.

Peter continues in verse 16 … “Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.”  Continuing on his prior duality, if we suffer for our acts of love we should not be ashamed of what they call us, or what they do to us, but glorify God instead.  Notice Peter does not advocate we take credit for our reflections of Christ’s love, instead He requests we continue to point the glory back to where it belongs (never with us, always with Him).  Peter also points out once again; retribution, condemnation, and judgment are NOT supposed to be our response to persecution whether deserved or not.  Glory to God is to be our response. 

From a second point of view, should we as Christians “suffer” because we have fallen, lost His victory, and embraced our self-centered evil once again.  We should also forsake our shame, and embrace the glory of His forgiveness.  It is no light thing to need the very blood of Christ to wash our sins away.  But having bathed in that blood, we must accept the forgiveness He offers, and not let guilt destroy us and cause us to embrace evil again and again.  The power of the gospel is to free us from sin, not just give us the means to live in sin, continually asking for forgiveness.  The power of the gospel does not end at forgiveness, it begins there.  It ends when perfection through submission is achieved, and we no longer want to sin, or commit them anymore.  It ends, when victory in us is completed by Him.

Peter continues in verse 17 … “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? [verse 18] And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?”  Here Peter points out that this War will not easily be won.  It sounds simple enough to surrender our will to God.  But so few of us are willing to give Him everything to work with.  We hold back our cherished pleasures.  We hold back our loved ones under the presumption we don’t think He would ever ask for those.  But in so doing we forget the example of our first parents.  Eve sinned, perhaps because she was deceived, perhaps because the sensation of vanity was new and little understood, perhaps because she was alone having strayed from Adam’s side.  But Adam knew exactly what had happened and what the cost would be.  Adam “could” have refused to eat the forbidden fruit, and instead “trusted” that God would find a way to save Eve for him.  To do this, he would have had to be willing to lose Eve.  He would have had to be willing to let the thing he loved the most be put into the hands of God.  To trust God with it.  Why do we think our spouse, or our children, or our parents, or our lovers are any different? 

So few of us are willing to have our feelings changed for those we love, should we need them to.  How many are in relationships they should not be in; relationships that harm both parties, based on bad initial decisions, reinforced by a series of bad subsequent decisions.  Or how many are in bad relationships that could be healed, but the only way to heal them, is to submit how we think and how we love to Christ.  For perhaps it is not our partner who needs to change, perhaps it is us who needs to look at things differently and see things from a perspective outside of ourselves.  But to rectify any of these conditions we must be willing to put the person we love the most into the care and trust of God.  We must be willing to lose them if that is what is needed, and trust that God can work a miracle.  In short, we must do, what Adam could not bring himself to do.  And like Adam a great deal of suffering might be avoided if we trust God with those we love the most; or a great deal of more suffering might be experienced because we “could not” bring ourselves to trust.

Peter points out these decisions to give it all to Christ, are not so easy, not so simple.  Our hearts may not want the right things.  “Who” we are may still reflect wanting what is not good for us.  Which makes being willing to let it go, something hard to take.  If we who understand the love of God, and have experienced what He frees us to do, have such a hard time making these decisions, can you imagine how hard it must be for someone with no experience or no reason to trust to make them.  This is the reason Peter stresses in this passage that judgment of those who “get it” is hard enough, imagine how few will embrace this path, if even we cannot provide them a living example of why it is the better choice.

Peter concludes his explanation of living in a state of War in verse 19 … “Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.”  The War may rage on.  We may suffer pain because our enemy inflicts it upon us.  But no matter what we suffer, while we reflect the love of God to others, we must renew our strength in our surrender to Him.  We must continue to commit our souls to Him.  We must continue to allow Him to remake what we “want” into what He wants.  To be in harmony with God will allow us to continue in well-doing. 

It is our Creator, our faithful Creator Peter points our attention to.  The reason he chooses these words is that we NEED a Creator in order to “remake” us into His image.  We will not “evolve” into perfection.  We will be “remade” into perfection.  This is not a biological evolution of getting better over time based on practice, experience, or sheer power of will.  This is a “creative” experience where our Genesis in His kingdom begins with a sudden unexplainable transformation of our hearts from something that loves only self, to something that loves only others.  Only a Creator can do for us, what we need Him to do.  Evolution and modern ideologies, have no solution that works, there is no alternative.  There is only Christ.  There is only one way evil is defeated, it is by unselfish Love, the kind of Love only Christ can create in the human heart.

Peter asks us not to be casualties of War, but to reflect the love of the only One who can and will win it …

 

Messages to the Church Revealed (Smyrna) ...

John continues relaying the messages revealed to him for the church of Jesus in chapter 2 of Revelations and verse 8 … “And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write; These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive;”.  Again the author is identified as Christ.  This time the revelation is centered around our concept of time.  Christ says of Himself, that He is “the first and the last”.  In this Christ reminds us that He pre-dates our existence, and will last beyond it.  In this sense, time is not measured in earthly consecutive days and hours, but in the vastness of eternity.  This perspective on the reality of our God, should inspire us to think and believe that our earthly lives are NOT the end game God has in mind for us.  There is an existence outside of how we measure time here that is of far more importance.  That existence is not bound by the limitations of this one, and is only possible through the mechanism of Jesus Christ.

Next Christ again describes Himself as one who “was dead and is alive”.  Death itself could not hold our creator in its grasp, nor will it have any power over those who the Creator extends the gift of salvation to.  Should we lose our mortal lives, there is hope beyond our sleep.  There will be an awakening like Christ was awakened and through His power, we will live again, in an existence where time has no meaning and decay is a thing of our long distant past.  But our resurrection has more meaning than just from our physical condition of death, it also has relevance in our spiritual existence.  When we embrace sin, we embrace the pain and death that comes with sin.  They are inseparable.   But the power of Christ and His redemptive love, can resurrect us from our current spiritual condition of death, and show us what it means to truly live, now and after.  We need not wait for the final resurrection to be raised unto life today.  We can experience what it truly means to love others, as Christ loves them, and in so doing, know the bliss and perfection of the gift He offers in the here and now.  This resurrection is possible ahead of our physical graves, and carries immediacy and relevance to us today.

John continues in verse 9 … “I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.”  Jesus begins His message to Smyrna to once again remind them that He is engaged and aware of what is happening in that church.  He knows what works His Spirit has inspired among the believers there and what the results of that outpouring has been.  He praises the patience and forbearance in tribulation.  He notes the perceived poverty, but reveals that the lack of earthly wealth has not diminished in any way the treasure of wealth that has been laid up in heaven.  It was common practice in the early church that upon joining, a member would sell everything they owned, and donate the entire amount to the church, to be shared with anyone who had need.  This was way beyond the concept of tithing.  It was literally a 100% commitment to God, with nothing held back for ourselves.  But the end result of course, was a complete lack of personal finances, position, or earthly wealth.  Here Christ endorses this practice and reminds us that our sharing of our means is aligned with heaven and is more important than any hoarding of our means.

Then Christ addresses the topic of blasphemy.  He does not state that the false claim of these blasphemers is that they claim to be God, but rather they claim to be Jews, when in fact they are of the synagogue of Satan.  While Christ Himself setup the original religion and practices the Jewish people followed since the days of Creation (the Sabbath), Adam (sacrifice), Abraham (dedication and circumcision), Moses (the Law on the tables of stone), Solomon (the construction of the Temple), Nehemiah (the restoration of the Temple).  Christ had also come as the Messiah, and was the fulfillment of all the prophecies that pointed forward to His work of our redemption.  Upon rejecting Him, what was once His own religion; rejected now its own God.  To claim that salvation exists outside of Christ, or to claim that control and self-actions can lead to salvation, is to blaspheme the reality of our God.  It is Satan who values control.  It is Satan who tells us we need no one but ourselves to live as we choose and be the authors of our own ideas of salvation.  It is Satan who tempts us to see the forms and practices of our religion supplant the Christ of our religion.  His synagogue is not some dark place where believers wear red robes and do blood rituals.  Instead they masquerade as fine Christian chapels and mega churches with believers dressed in full business attire, but whose hearts have never been submitted to anything outside of themselves.  Those who claim to be Jews but are not, follow every idea and variation that keeps Christ out of the center stage of our salvation and instead “self” located there.  When we trust to our own strength, whether in “partnership” with God, or completely because of our own actions, we deny the reality of the need of our Messiah, and join with those who are labeled of the synagogue of Satan.

John proceeds in verse 10 … “Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.”  The message to Smyrna is not a happy one.  There is no message of peace and prosperity, of earthly wealth and ease, of blessings and happiness in this world to the church of Smyrna or to us.  There is after all, a war raging all around us, one of Good and of Evil.  This war will inflict casualties, and evil is aimed fully at hurting God, by hurting the thing He cares most about … us.  The devil will throw us into prison.  In those days, the prisons were no clean, cable-TV, three meal a day institutions.  They were dark, dank, disease ridden dungeons, where food was a luxury and isolation could be the norm.  The devil intends both then and now, to offer us the contrast of earthly poverty and suffering for the sake of our belief in Christ, as compared to the wealth and ease of trusting to ourselves.  If the members of the Smyrna church would but deny their Lord, they could live long happy lives of self-indulgence and ease.  But if not, they would be made to suffer, and be tested in courts of law and outside of any justice, for the beliefs they clung to.  The message says they would have tribulation for ten days.  Perhaps this was literal and meaningful to them at the time they received this message.  Or perhaps this would be interpreted as prophetic, meaning they would have 10 years of tribulation.  Perhaps both. 

But what was most interesting about this message, was the hope offered with it.  Christ begins by saying “Fear none of those things”.  He begins by telling His faithful followers, that Satan has no real power over any of them.  Prison is not something we should fear or worry about.  In fact, death itself is not something we should fear or worry about.  After all He has just said, He Himself was dead and is now alive.  There was a reason He began His message with that greeting.  For if we continue to submit our will and our lives and our very existence unto Christ, He will grant us a “crown” of life.  Crowns symbolize royalty and kingship.  They are rare.  They are not intended for everyone in general.  But in this, everyone who clings to Christ and values His ideas of our existence over what we can see and experience in the here and now, will in fact be considered His royalty.  A status which we do NOT deserve; we are NOT kings and queens, yet He values us this much.  He has served us, as if we were.  He has done for us what is normally only done for kings and queens, yet He did it for us when we were but slaves to our sin and our selfishness.  He freed us from being slaves.  And now He elevates us to being considered royalty, a royalty that is not based in receiving praise but in serving others.  We are to be made kings and queens of service, as He is the God of service and love to others.  It is barely within our comprehension to be so treated by the God of the universe, who had to die in order that we might truly live.  This promise, and these ideas reflect the level to which God loves us and His church.

John relays the conclusion of this message as he pens in verse 11 … “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.”  Again the message is joined by words from the Holy Spirit of Christ.  It is intended for we who believe, for it is we who have an ear.  Again what must be overcome is self, the desire to rely on control, or the forms of religion instead of the Messiah of our religion, the blasphemy of thinking there is salvation outside of the gift of Christ.  And how will these ideas be overcome?  Only as we submit our will, our desires, and our very lives to the will of Christ.  When we do this, we are promised that the hurt of the second death will not come our way.  We will not know the sleep of eternal non-existence that comes at the final destruction of all that is evil.  Instead we will know the crown of life that He has given to us despite what we had earned.  We will know the gift of life He has given us though we deserve the second sleep that remains upon those who refused His gift and denied His salvation, preferring to trust to themselves and their own ideas about salvation.

The message to the church at Smyrna reminds us that bliss in this world is not on the menu.  Our gospel is not one based in the ideas of happiness, wealth, and fulfillment in this world, but in the next one.  Our treasure is not found in our monetary acquisition, but in its full distribution to those in need.  These ideas are at complete war with most of American society and social values.  Indeed the early Christian church followed an extreme version of communism, not capitalism.  They prized giving away everything they owned, not hoarding it.  They were truly persecuted for their stubborn belief in His gift of our salvation, not merely suffering “perceived” slights or dispersions.  They were cast into prisons and killed for what they believed, not just ridiculed for having faith.  The message for Smyrna reminds us of the reality of the war that continues to rage between Satan who is bent on our destruction, and God who is bent on our redemption.  And it offers us hope, that while we submit ourselves fully to Christ, there is life worth living.  It begins here, and but it is intended for an existence that well beyond anything we will know in this world of pain, sin and self-obsession.

And the messages would continue …

 

 

Failure and Relapse ...

Every ball player on planet earth will tell you that taking your eye off the ball is rarely a good idea.  Imagine swinging blindly at a fast ball pitch coming near you at 90+ miles per hour.  Or imagine trying to catch a pass from the quarterback while running at full speed and gazing into the bleachers.  The alley-oop pass in basketball becomes a thing of the past.  Indeed the only way to win the game is to focus on the immediate needs in front of you.  It is not enough to look at the ball only once as it leaves the pitcher’s hand then to close your eyes and swing.  You must maintain visual contact with the ball along its trajectory until contact with the bat is made.  Doing it once is wonderful, but a single hit does not a career make; rather a consistency at the plate makes for a great player.

So it is with us in our spiritual life, learning to submit our will to Christ is not simply a singular event.  By nature it could not be.  For if the weight of all existence rested on only one decision that we were permanently bound to, we would be in fact slaves to our own decisions.  To truly have freedom of thought, one must be able to create, and to change their minds as they wish.  This freedom is required to truly understand what love is.  It is also a dangerous freedom in that it allowed Satan to break trust with God and pursue self-interest resulting in the evil we know today after eons of life in perfection.  It is also dangerous in that it would allow you to relinquish God and pursue your own self-interests, forsaking the victory that was once His gift to you.

Even God is able to change His own mind.  Take for example our wickedness nearing the time of the great Flood; it made God “repent” that he had made mankind.  Our evil was so great it made God “sorry” that He made us at all.  And scripture foretells it would be similar in our day as it was in Noah’s.  Also we can look at Hezekiah, who pleaded with God not to die, and God granted the wishes of Hezekiah over His own plans.  God told Moses not to plead with Him any longer on entering the Promised Land, not because He did not love Moses, but because He loved Moses so much He did not want Moses to persuade Him to change His own mind.  Even Christ in His moment of agony, was completely free to forsake the weight of our sins that were upon Him.  He could have not risked His own permanent separation from His Father, and left us to the fate we deserved.  He was free to do this, as we did nothing to earn His sacrifice.  But He followed through despite His ability to change His own mind.  That by definition is love – a freewill choice to love - despite the ability choose not to.

So it is in our Salvation, we are not permanently bound to the evil we once pursued, but nor are we the slaves of a loving God.  We remain free to choose throughout our existence here and in the Heaven that is to come.  Daily decisions are required.  Daily choices must be made.  Not the choice of whether to sin or not, in this world that is no choice at all; rather the choice to submit and trust or not.  Our sports analogy echoes the words of Christ when He says … “by beholding we become changed”.  What we focus on affects us.  When we focus on Christ and the submission of our will to Him, we become changed into His image.  Our urge to sin abates, disappears, and is gone forever.  But as we look away from Christ, becoming too busy, or too distracted to remember to submit our will to Him; we become susceptible to failure and relapse.

There is little worse feelings than to blow a winning record.  Imagine the disappointment of a team who is going undefeated in a season, only to lose a game due completely to simple careless errors.  It is not that the opposing side was better, stronger, or more determined.  It is simply that our team got complacent, relaxed, and unfocused.  We begin to rely on the history of our records, than on the mechanism that achieved the results.  And once a game is lost in an undefeated season, the record remains tarnished for the duration of that year.  However, the next year begins the records once again, and another season can be started with the hopes and dreams of seeing it completed undefeated once again.  So it is with us in our spiritual warfare.  We do not fight our enemy, we allow God to fight for us.  But failure does not mean hopelessness.  No need to make excuses for our loss, the reasons are clear, and the blame always falls to us.  Our champion never fails, but sometimes we fail to put Him in the game.

The question falls on us, how will we deal with our own defeat.  Judas saw his own mistakes as insurmountable.  After all, he betrayed the very Son of God to His enemies and His death.  The death of Christ was something Judas saw himself as personally responsible for.  But Judas was not alone.  Peter too, by denying his very association with Christ, betrayed His Master who only hours before he had sworn to die for.  Peter too, left the scenes unfolding in the death of Christ, in shame and defeat.  Judas chose to allow the weight of his crimes to overcome him in hopelessness.  His failure defined his destiny, NOT because of the wishes of his forgiving Lord, but because of his own choices to abandon the hope of forgiveness and reform.  Judas sealed his fate by making permanent his choice to abandon hope, we can only wish he found redemption in the seconds before his death, but God alone can judge. 

You see Judas and I have much in common as he does with you as well.  We are both equally responsible for the betrayal, torture, and death of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Christ had to die for my personal sins, not just those of Judas.  It was then my hands on the hammer and nails, the whip, the crown of thorns.  It was me who did this, whether by action at the time, or by behavior since.  This responsibility is mine personally as every time I fail, I cause the need for this sacrifice in order that I might be forgiven.  To grow callas to this idea, to become indifferent that my failures require this price, is to forget the enormity of what was done in order to redeem me.  To be content with forgiveness alone certain that it must occur again and again simply by neglect is again to ignore the enormity of the cost of my crimes.  I must accept the forgiveness Christ offers as Peter did.  But I must also accept the life changing power of Christ in absolute humility as Peter did, in order to become changed.  Notice the humility in Peter’s response to Christ’s question … “do you love me?”.  Where before Peter would have answered from the certainty of self-pride and arrogance, he now responds in abject humility and defers even the answer to this basic a question to the wisdom of an all knowing God.

Peter had not yet achieved perfection, but his journey towards it had begun based on his humbling himself, and subjecting his decisions, desires, and will to his Savior Jesus Christ.  Judas chose not to allow or begin this process; instead he internalized the enormity of what he had done and chose to seal his fate in death.  Our failures must not be allowed to be the end of our journey.  Our relapse over victories once given need not be a predictor of our ultimate outcome.  Instead we must accept the forgiveness they require and then return to the method that will prevent their reoccurrence.  Our God did not leave us ignorant of the way to keep His laws, bind His precepts in our hearts, and awaken a spiritual discernment in our lives – all of these begin at the foot of the cross, and continue as we like Peter submit ourselves to His designs.

The greatest danger of failure is the willingness to repeat it again and again.  Our preferences become actions, which become behavior, which become habit, until they define us.  This cycle of slavery has the side-effect of warping our minds to enjoy what we do, despite its painful consequences.  Over time if left unchecked and un-submitted, a war begins to wage over whether we even want to return to the victories of our Lord, or remain in the state we find ourselves.  Once the evil of our hearts overtakes the desire to return to God, our minds reject the only hope we have of redemption.  Should we continue in this state, our salvation, our redemption becomes lost.  Not because God removes it from us based on our behaviors.  But because we choose to remove ourselves from His forgiveness and victories He would offer.  In short, we freely reject His gifts, and choose the slavery of self instead.  This is the condition we began life if prior to our encounter with the Savior.  And though regrettable, it is a condition we can return to if we let slip the daily decision to follow our God.

We do not achieve perfection in a moment (until Christ’s return), neither do we choose to leave God forever in a moment.  The decisions trend over the course of our lives in one direction or the other.  God does not compel us to follow Him.  Unlike Adam, God understands that true love must allow the object of its affection the choice to reject it.  God craves our love, and wishes ONLY to love us fully.  But love itself demands we remain free to decide what we do with His great love.  Our victories are certain when grounded in Christ, for they are His gift to us.  The change in our minds and hearts that enable us to become one with His laws and precepts are His great gift of salvation to us.  A failure need not pull us away from God.  But we must not allow a failure to define a change in direction away from our victories.  Let us instead seek forgiveness and ask again for the humility and perseverance to submit ourselves to our Savior, that His work of perfection in us may continue without the painful recurrence of relapse into evil.

Our Goals ...

The goal we seek is to share the joy we have found with everyone we come in contact with, and especially those we love. The gospel message as we have discussed earlier is one of hope, joy, peace, love, and immediacy. We do not need to wait for heaven to experience His victories over sin in our lives. We are free to begin the process of perfection right here and right now. This changes us. Being born again from the inside out, being remade in His image once again is life altering. It is transformational. It remakes our characters. In short it is the purification process God has been longing to give to us. Only waiting for us to accept His gift, and humble our stubborn will to allow it. With the absence of “self” comes the beginning of His victories over our sins.

Because many in Christianity have yet to experience what it means to have His victories over the sins they still fight against, they seek withdrawal from the world. Those that call for us to come apart, to clear away from the lost, so that we do not unite with them in their evil purposes – do not understand the freedom of victory through Christ. Sin and evil are nothing but pain. They are not goals to be sought after, they are a curse we are finally freed from by Christ in us. Having been made free from the chains of sin, we do not seek to return to bondage with others in the world – rather we seek to see them freed as well. This is the burden of those who have tasted freedom, and something that those who have not simply do not understand.

If Bill Gates randomly decided he liked you, and thought that you deserved to receive one billion dollars tax free (he would take care of all of that), just to make your life better – what would you do with the money? Sure, most of us would pay our bills, get out of debt, buy the home, cars, college education for the kids we may have always wanted. But then what, one Billion is a lot to spend. The interest alone could easily be 50 million dollars a year with conservative investments. Would you keep every cent for yourself? Would you share it with no-one you are related to, no-one you love, no-one you know? Would you seek to move into a cave somewhere in the mountains away from the entire world so as to avoid the risk that someone may try to wrong you? The real benefit of a gift of this magnitude is in our ability to change our lives, and the lives of those we love for the better. Outside of that, the money would be a curse. The same is true of the Gospel.

We treat the gospel as if it were some horribly distasteful medicine taken only when on the verge of death. Instead of sharing how Christ has made your life so much better, we put up walls to keep “the needy” away from us, so as not to get us dirty with their uncleanliness. Sometimes, we fear the ridicule of family members, and so do not bring up the subject of the gospel, thus trying to keep our light hidden like in a cave somewhere. This embarrassment over being a Christian, this hesitation over bringing up the subject of Christ, is a sure indication that you have not felt His freedom or His victories yet for yourself. You still have nothing of value to offer. For when you do, it is very much like receiving MORE than one billion dollars; you simply HAVE to share what you have found. You just cannot contain the good news, once you realize just how good it is.

When you begin to see people through His eyes of love, you realize just how precious they are. You begin for the first time to rightly value the uniqueness and worth of the individual. You begin to see how Christ works so personally, so one-on-one with each of us to save each soul to Himself. And as such you begin to share His burden not to lose even one of them.

There is no soul, no person who is not worth saving. There is no-one that heaven’s streets would be better off without, including you. It is not because we deserve His rewards, or His gifts, but it is because He loves us just that much. When you begin to love like this, you simply cannot sit still, with mouth closed, and silently witness the pain your brother goes through. Not while you could speak out, and show them the way to freedom. Not when you could point them to Christ and in so doing, connect them with the source of freedom from sin and pain.

There will come a day, when by His grace, we finally see the home He has prepared for us from the foundations of the world; a day when we walk his golden streets and eat at His fine banquet tables. But perfection is much better shared. I wish to sit next to those who I knew here on earth, not find them missing for my silence. I wish to learn to love my enemies even better in that perfect place, not lament their absence over my foolish pride on earth, over my apathy on earth, over my inaction on earth. If my family is not within the perfect realm, my first question will be directed into the mirrors of heaven, could I have done something more? Was it me who might have made the difference in their lives, to encourage them unto salvation? Was it my silence or inaction, or apathy that has seen them miss the opportunity to find Christ and be saved.

When our Lord wished to use me in His service of redemption, When He wanted me to just share what I knew, will I be found too busy, too embarrassed, too hesitant, too reluctant, too afraid of human ridicule? And if so, will I not have all of eternity to realize my blunders? The text in which God has to wipe away the tears from our eyes, even in heaven, is aptly applied to this dilemma. I wish not to be counted as unwilling, uncaring, and inactive. I wish to be able to say I did everything I could, I left no stone unturned, I tried until I was dead to make a difference. God will still have to wipe away my tears, because despite my desires, I will have made substantial mistakes in His cause. But from now to then, how will I live? How will you? How much is enough in the cause of redemption of His people, and your family?

Those in darkness do not need compromise to be led away from it, they need the light. They need to see us live His victories, not share with them their pain by participating with them in their errors. We do not need to condemn them for their wrongs, nor try to identify all their sins to them. We need simply to live the victories He wishes to bring us in our own lives. By this we show them a light that is not tainted with compromise, but pure in His victory. We show them that we share their weakness, but are made whole through His strength. It is not by our own will that we are made free from sin, it is by the submission of our will to Christ. This is the light the world needs to see in living example. Words alone will have little effect. We are called to witness from firsthand experience.

Adam faced this choice in the garden and chose poorly. After Eve had eaten the forbidden fruit, and before Adam did, he was faced with a choice. Trust God, even in the face of her certain death, or break trust and choose to embrace death with her. He chose poorly. We should not repeat his mistakes. We may have loved ones who do not wish to know Christ. If faced with a choice of uniting with our erring loved ones, or trusting God in the face of their apparent death, we must choose to trust our God. Had Adam done this, God could have enacted a plan of salvation for Eve alone, and perhaps the legacy of our world would have been different.

In our cases, though our love for our family may be strong, we must look to God to save them in spite of themselves, as sometimes He has done with us. We must trust that the strength of God’s love is greater than our family member’s ability to resist it. We must remain true to our submission of our will, our decisions, our desires, and our love to Christ that He may continue the work He has begun in us. This ALONE is the only hope our family members may have. Their last chance at seeing what a connection to Christ and His victories is all about may be through us. We must not abandon our course and doom them as well as ourselves to the fate of evil and pain. Rather we must remain faithful, and constant, and consistent in our pointing them to the source of the joy in our lives. Love is a hard thing to resist.

Christians, who have seen no personal victories, sometimes fall into the trap of searching out sin everywhere around them. They believe to call sin by its right name, and point out the errors of the world is the only way to avoid the dangers of evil. This is misguided thinking and focus. It puts our emphasis and our focus on sin, rather than on the cure for sin, in Jesus Christ. The point of the Bible is not to define sin; it is to define how love conquered sin on our behalf. The Bible is a love story, of how God reclaims his erring children. It is His victory story of how love conquers evil and that ONLY love could. It is the story that love and mercy are greater than justice. And it is why we are able to live in His victories, though we deserve them not. For our value is measured in how great He loves us, not what we have done to earn that love. Salvation is His gift to us. Let us remember to keep our focus on how we heal from the pain of evil and sin, not on the sin itself. Let us behold the cross, and the victory it represents. Let us keep our focus and our eyes upward and towards the work of redemption and encouragement to Christ. Let us remember to see the world through His loving eyes, and His tender mercy, and show the world what unconditional love really means – a way of escape from the pain of evil, not a prolonging or participation in it. The work of redemption and reclamation must remain our goal, until breath leaves our bodies, or we are translated into the skies of glory for an eternity with Him and those we may help along the way.

Friends & Enemies ...

Who do you call friend? How is your friendship defined? Is it based on common values, shared experiences, proximity, or growing pains? How long does it take you to make a friend? I am sometimes humbled by watching small children on a playground. They meet, they speak, and they being playing together immediately assuming there is friendship between them. It takes an abuse of the assumption to change the minds of smaller children. If no such abuse takes place, the friendship is confirmed. The older we become, it seems the longer it takes to move the status of someone we associate with, to the category of friend. We categorize people in many ways such as: acquaintance, fellow employee or co-worker, boss, current client, sales prospect, customer, guest, classmate, church member, family member, friend-of-a-friend, person of interest, date, fiancée ,,, there are many you can name; but few imply friendship. Why?

A true friend puts no demands upon us, so you would think we would aspire to have many of them, not less. You would think we would be working to include almost everyone we encounter in a positive way as part of our friendship lists. Instead, sin or evil has put a crimp in our ability to trust. We tend to be more reserved and cautious when making new friends. We have to assess what the reason for the friendship might be from the other person’s perspective. All of this thinking is practical. It is based on our real world experiences. It is based on the number of times we have been hurt by those we thought to be our friends. And as usual, it is limited thinking that due to Christ and our submission to Him, we are free to move beyond.

How does submitting the will to Christ allow us to make more friends, and take more risks, you ask? First, it teaches us a proper reliance on Christ alone for our emotional needs. It helps to center where we look for reassurance, guidance and even comfort to one who will never let us down. Knowing we can trust Christ 100% of the time, gives us an emotional foundation from which to approach the world and each other. Second, allowing Christ control over our day, our decisions, and our likes and dislikes gives Him the freedom to lead us to who He wants us to encounter. Our interactions with others then become anything but random. If Christ leads us to someone, it may be for us to meet that person’s need, or perhaps for them to meet ours. But we can have confidence that there is a purpose for it. As our faith and trust increases in Christ, our ability to love others deepens and becomes more immediate. We begin leaving the worries with Christ, and start enjoying the freedoms this provides in our day-to-day relationships with those we encounter.

In addition, as our emotional reliance becomes more intimately involved with Christ and as we get to know Him better one-on-one, we begin to have more to offer in a friendship with others. We are less “needy” ourselves, and more suited to “give” in a relationship. This makes us more attractive as a potential friend to those we encounter. As Christ has served us, we are able then to appreciate what He has done for us, and are inspired to share His work for others around us. We are equipped better to offer an encouraging word, take time to notice the achievements or efforts of others, and offer appreciation to those who rarely receive it. In short, our submission to Christ, makes us a better friend to have. It also changes the nature of our enemies.

Know someone who is out to get you? Perhaps a current or former colleague who would spare no expense to see you fail? The friction could have started from jealousy, or perhaps a perceived insult, maybe from real damage inflicted in action – but somewhere, somehow, you developed an enemy. Sometimes those we disagree with politically or religiously we think of as our enemies. But rarely do people who merely disagree with us, take the time and invest the energy required to do us actual harm. A real enemy does not mind investing either in our demise. It is human nature to believe we do not deserve to have an enemy. It is within us to blame the enemy for the source and status of any conflict. We may have made overtures in the past to resolve the conflict peaceably. We may have offered an apology even when we did not believe we were in the wrong. And still our enemy is undeterred. What now?

There is a truism about divorce, in that it takes two to complete one. Even though the fault may seem completely one-sided, and all external appearances may support this view – it is just never that simple. Ignorance, omission, and negligence can play as vital a role in why we develop an enemy as malice, or direct action might. We may have spoken our passionately held opinion in the presence of someone who held equally passionate and opposite views. We may have shared our negative feelings about someone and used improper language, which by the time it returns to the person we were talking about, is made even worse through exaggeration. We are sometimes ignorant of the damage a careless word can cause, and sometimes, in so doing, our enemies feel justified in their feelings towards us. It is nearly impossible to maintain an enemy without active participation on your part.

What does submission to Christ do to change our enemies you ask? It begins by changing us. Through bowing our pride to Christ, we allow Him to lead us to truth. Sometimes the Truth is unpleasant to us as He reveals our part in the creation of our enemies, but it is still His truth. And the revelation may be needed before we understand why our apologies may be needed, and why they should be sincere. When we realize the damage we may have caused our enemy, it melts our own hearts. Sympathy is then possible for someone who as yet may still hate us. Knowing we may have erred, allows us to approach our enemy in humility. We may have to endure insult, anger, and resistance as we approach as this is the conditioned responses one gives to an enemy. But part of our submission to Christ has enabled us to look beyond the pain that drives bad behavior, to the need we all have of love. Through Christ we are able then to obey His council and finally and truly LOVE our enemies.

Love is a hard thing to resist. Trading anger for calm responses, trading wicked lashing out, for considered sympathetic responses – these are hallmarks of a submitted will to our Master. Through His strength our human weakness can go the extra mile, and emulate the behavior of Christ as He used to approach us. For have we not all treated the Savior harshly when engaged in our wickedness? Have we not all barked at Him to get away and leave us in “peace” while we sin? Yet He endures our cruelty and continues to offer us His love. When we yield to Him, we become like Him. We start thinking less about getting even and more about making it right with those we have wronged, including our enemies. We begin to remember that ALL men are our brothers in Christ. We are reminded that our current earthly enemy may well be our closest neighbor on the golden streets without name. And we are humbled and astounded at our ability to entertain negativity. Christ frees us from this. He frees us from the weight of carrying hurt and pain for another. Our burdens are lifted away forever.

Now we are free to work towards the redemption of our enemy. And consistent, constant love is a hard thing to resist. As we reflect His love through us to those who need it, the hearts of our enemies will be touched by His Spirit, and melted by His love reflected through our hands, mouth, and ears. One who may have in the past called himself our greatest foe, can become our closest ally, as Saul was transformed to Paul, by the power of the LOVE of Christ on a country road. Our enemies may resist love for a while, as we did in resisting our Savior, but LOVE remains a hard thing to resist. Over time everyone is instinctively drawn to love. It is in this that our image of God is defined. We are creations of love, and recognize it, and long for it, and deeply need it – every one of us. It is through love, that enemies become friends. It is through love that friends become a precious commodity. For as we alter our thinking, we begin to realize the truth of fulfillment in service. This yields a bright contrasting alternative to the lies we have been told of self-gratification. As a friend who serves, we are fulfilled within us, while becoming something others wish to have around. Love is a hard thing to resist.