The Perception of Reality ...

To admit one is an alcoholic is the first step in finding a solution to the problem.  Though most of us are not afflicted with this uncontrollable addiction, we refuse to see our condition with self-interest is as great or greater than the desire in an alcoholic for just one more drink.  We too are addicts and slaves, but to self, if not the bottle.  And like an alcoholic our perceptions of our condition are colored by the disease we are enslaved to.  We do not truly see our condition.  We do not truly recognize our peril.  We do not rightly foresee the results of the evil we engage in, and the pain that will inevitably come from our actions.  To begin to heal, we must begin by recognizing how our condition colors our reality, and ask to have our perceptions corrected.  We must admit, we are unable to accomplish this in any way.

Perception is reality.  It is so entirely easy to focus on a particular evil in our lives as being “our problem”.  We contend with it.  Loathe it.  We despise ourselves for engaging in it.  And in the process of becoming obsessed with its removal, we ignore the many other problems that go unnoticed.  We fixate on solving a particular evil that grabs our attention and ignore that perhaps it is not the most dangerous evil we are embracing.  For instance, an alcoholic may believe it is his drinking that lays at the root of all the evil in his own life.  But a more objective review, might reveal that it is his refusal to accept help in any form, that prevents him from finding a solution to not only his alcoholism, but relief from every other evil in his life as well.  While he fixates on trying to stop drinking himself, he openly engages in all manner of other evils and hardly recognizes their impact.  In this instance, it is humility that would open the doors to healing, both for this addiction to drinking, and for all the other evils Christ would be able to free him from.

I have sometimes heard the prayer … “show me the evil in my heart,”  This is truly a dangerous prayer.  Yes we need a reality check from time to time to realize our imperfections and keep our dependence upon Christ to heal us.  But a complete picture of our evil might cause us to lose hope that we would ever truly be cured of it all.  Our God is merciful to us, in that He only reveals a little at a time, as we are able to process it.  The true extent of our evil infection is in fact, terminal.  We suffer from a fatal disease that has only one cure – submission to Christ.  While a hurting infected person craves a cure, if they lack the humility to submit, a picture of their condition might only inspire complete despair.  It takes time for the Savior to humble our will, our minds, and our lives to the point where we are able and willing to accept His healing.

It is said a doctor does not make a very good patient, and a lawyer does not make a very good client.  Perhaps it is because having a level of expertise in their respective fields, colors their ideas about how best to treat themselves or represent themselves in court.  A more objective analysis, i.e. one that is provided by someone else looking out for them, may often be better that what they had imagined for themselves.  Christians are similarly stunted when it comes to self-diagnosis.  We see very little in the mirror of our true selves that needs to be adjusted, yet think ourselves expert at diagnosing others.  We sometimes take our diagnosis of ourselves or others a step too far, believing we are capable of writing a prescription that will “heal” the patient.  We have no such skills.  Not for ourselves, or for others.  Our best and only hope is call on our Master Physician to heal us all.

The problem with our disease is that warps our thinking and our perceptions by default.  Self-focused thinking warps the mind to believe it must be done, it cannot be neglected, and if another suffers for our need, better him than me.  These become our core values.  They are exhibited in our actions and worse our motives.  They drive our bad decisions, and create ripples of pain in those we love.  We are blinded by the disease we carry and it is a common disease.  To look to another human for an answer, is to ask another person with a varying level of infection, how to avoid infection at all.  Humans do not have the answer.  Divinity alone is required to recreate what has already been warped within us.  To restore His original intent takes His hands alone.  We can encourage each other.  We can console each other.  We can love each other.  But we cannot heal each other.  We cannot change our own desires, let alone those of another human.  This was not supposed to be our role.  Our job is to give the hurting, the name of our physician and let Christ do the healing.

But as the disease warps the mind to the negative, healing restores the mind to the freedom and joy that is a part of His intentions for us.  Imagine being a freed slave for the first time.  True freedom.  Not being told when to eat, or limited as to what to eat; not being forced to work or play or do anything.  Our addictions force us, or compel us, to do that which we would not.  Healing removes those horrible cravings of slavery.  We no longer have to fight against them, they are removed.  The chains are lifted.  We are set free.  The shear enormity of the time we have, no longer obsessing with the pain of the past, is in itself a gift from Christ.  The liberation of being unbound to the weights that would drag us down, make us feel as if we could run with the wind.  We become free to sing, to dance, to express our joy at the freedom He gives us in our souls.  Our earthly surroundings become meaningless trappings to a heart that has been freed from the evil that once bound it.  It ignites a passion within us, to experience even more freedom, even less pain.  Healing is the only kind of good addiction.

Gratitude from a heart that has begun to experience true healing can motivate us as well.  Freedom resets our colored perceptions and causes us to see truth more clearly.  We begin to want to express our thanks for this gift.  It is not enough to merely utter the words “thank you” over and over and over again.  We cannot be contained just shouting them.  We feel as though we want to do something to show our gratitude.  We begin to want to share in the feelings God has from serving us.  And as we begin to share ourselves with others we discover what it feels like to love like God loves.  When our love affects someone else, when disinterested benevolence finds an object, we begin to rightly perceive what service is all about.

It is all too easy to give to the poor to quell a guilty conscience.  It is too easy to perform some standard amount to giving, in order to “prove” we are a good person.  Too often, work for others is not really done for their benefit alone; it is done to put check marks on a list of perceptions of holiness; or to attempt to feel better than the next guy in the pew.  Motives matter.  When our service comes from an unchanged heart, our disease colors our motives to the point where we miss the true value of serving.  Service is then a chore, a burden, a responsibility.  It drains our human strength, tires us.  Instead of finding the freedom from service, and boost to our morale, we limit its blessings with improper motivation.  But a changed life, and freed heart, can hardly be made to be still.

To discern the spiritual truth in our Word from the Lord, we must allow Him to create within us a spiritual nature.  To be able to properly interpret His Word, our motives for studying it must conform to His leadership and not our own ideas.  Our perceptions cannot be trusted.  Our ideas are affected by our disease.  And thus our results are less than perfect.  But with submission to Christ comes healing.  And with healing comes discernment.  And with discernment comes wisdom.  And it becomes a spiraling cycle leading up to the throne room of God our Father. 

There is NO cap on how good, good can truly be.  There is no limitations to joy.  There is no sky-based-limit to how far we can take this healing process.  Our limitations are only founded in our unwillingness to let go to Him, what we cherish.  Our perceptions, colored by our disease are what limit us today.  But they need not.  Rather we can relinquish them to Him, and allow the healing to commence and grow and grow till we realize we are no longer limited in any way.  This is the process of sanctification.  This is the joy and power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  There are no caps on happiness any more.  There are no chains capable of holding us back , that He is not strong enough to break.  We have truly been freed to love.  So let us love and explore love like God Himself has done on our behalf.

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.

No Instant Solutions ...

Thus far we have seen what God intended for us in the first section of our study, and then we defined the nature of evil in the next section of our study, now we begin to examine just how the healing process begins and works.  Knowing that evil is so closely linked to pain; inspires us to want to be rid of it.  The knowledge of evil turns out to be a knowledge we could have lived without.  But nonetheless we are where we are and therefore must address it.  Realizing the key to the removal of evil inside of us is in the submission of our will to Christ, we can begin to heal.

 

 

 

But how exactly does one submit his own will to Christ?  This becomes the salient question, how do we apply the theoretical knowledge we have been led to?  My own opinion is that the answer lies in daily prayer.  The timing of these prayers of submission becomes important as well, for me personally the timing is critical.  In my own experience, I find that each day, I must begin by praying the prayer to once again ask God to … “please make my decisions today for me Lord, lead me where you want me to be, bring to me the people who you think I need to see, alter what it is I like, remove what must be removed, and do with me as you will.”  The sentiment is important, the turning over of control is critical, the words should be those you would offer.  For me, this prayer must be offered each morning, and if I wish to have God control even my subconscious at night, each evening as well.

When I forget to offer this prayer, or become distracted by the “critical” things that vie for my attention, I tend to have “bad” days.  Often, victories that Christ has worked within me, are forsaken through my neglect to submit.  Satan is smart.  He leaves me alone for days on end, lulling me into the idea that I am past the point of desiring an old sinful habit.  I begin to get lax in asking God to lead.  I begin to think I don’t have such an immediate problem.  The net effect; I turn the gift of victory inward, and self rears its ugly head.  Left to my own strength I quickly find I am NOT past the sins of my past, as forsaking victory, I bring them into my present.

This begs the question, how can you call it victory if you fail again?  The problem is that we think of victory or loss in self-centered terms.  It is NOT our victory when it comes.  It is Christ alone.  Our failures come from separating ourselves from the source of the victory.  Our failures come, because we “forget” to submit our will for any reason.  We get complacent.  We get arrogant.  We get neglectful.  And we fail as a result.  Removing even the desire for sin, does not prevent us from seeking an old sin out again.  We do this because we fail to submit daily.  When we pray our prayer of submission, we find the victory He so desperately wanted to give us.

So let’s assume that unlike me, you are able to maintain a regimen of asking God to control your life each day without forgetting to do so.  Problems solved right.  Actually yes, but the first time you do this it is NOT going to feel that way.  Imagine for a minute that you are behind the wheel of a car you drive each day.  In our analogy, Christ asks to drive your car today, and instead of your normal routine of failure, we decide to let Him.  This is done in the offering of our prayer to let Him have control.  But now comes the hard part.  We have to sit in the passenger seat, doing nothing really.  We’re like kids on holiday, enjoying the ride.  But at first it is hard to get used to the idea that we do NOT get to touch the accelerator or the brake anymore.  We are moving at the speed He decides is appropriate.  For some of us, this feels way TOO slow.  For others, it feels like the Daytona 500.  But in each case, Christ decides how fast we go.

It gets worse.  Not only do we not get to “control” the speed of our spiritual journey, we do not get any say on the roads He chooses to take.  And my roads are different from yours.  We get involved in traffic situations we do not understand.  We seem to be bumping other vehicles along the way with no apparent explanation.  Being our first time as a passenger, we are decidedly nervous about being driven, even if by our Savior God.  But as time progresses, we begin to relax a little.  We start looking at where He is taking us, and begin to see hope re-emerge on the horizon.  Then it happens.  A semi-tractor trailer truck changes lanes and begins to head right for us.  Our natural inclination, when faced with impending trouble, or a sin we are habitually fond of, is to grab the wheel and turn the car into the ditch.  Up to now, this is what we have always done when faced with temptation – we failed.  Even when we hold firm, we want to turn away so badly we can hardly stand it, and our life is filled with misery as a result.

Here is where the rubber meets the road so to speak – in our new approach we decide to let Christ handle the impending head on collision however He sees fit.  We close our eyes, grab our seats, and decide that whatever the fate, we are going to instead trust our driver to handle it.  He does.  Immediately, He tells us, open your eyes, it’s over.  We realize we are still on road.  We did not hit the truck, the truck is gone, vanished from view.  And we are still rolling along at whatever speed Christ thinks is appropriate.  We are amazed, dumbfounded, and incredibly curious on how that just happened.  We cannot figure out how Christ did what He did.  It makes no sense.  It defies logic.  It is outside of our capacity to rationalize it.  But here we are, still rolling along, still safe.

It would be nice if our analogy could end here, but there is a bit more.  Two things can happen to us at this point in our journey.  We can realize the freedom that comes from sitting in the passenger seat.  We can realize that we have something new to say to the world.  We can tell them what Christ has now done just for us.  We have a testimony.  We have experimental knowledge of how Christ has removed from us, what we could never remove.  We have the freedom that comes from this gift of victory.  And going forward we can become content to be a passenger in our world, ever moving along His roads, at His speeds, to His destinations.  If we can learn to trust Him, over time we will see our trust reaffirmed again and again.  For there will surely be more trucks, and if we continue to trust Him to save us, more victories.

But there are also dangers on our journey.  Instead of being content as a passenger, we begin to get bored, longing for a bit more “influence” on how fast we go, and where we are heading.  We start to think that maybe we can sit back in the driver’s seat once again.  You know, just to help out a little.  After all, Christ must need a break sometimes, from having to drive us around all the time right?  We ask Him to pull over and let us drive for a while.  He does, as it is only at our request that He drives, or does not drive.  We take the wheel ourselves again, and it begins to feel good.  We start thinking that the incidents along the road that He avoided must have been attributed to something we did to help out.  Perhaps it was our good advice.  Perhaps it was our internal goodness.  Maybe these victories came from our subconscious minds anyway, and really never had anything to do with Him.  We begin to think we are good enough to handle our own cars on our own journey.  And we send Him away.

There are two kinds of people in this world: those that must be in the driver’s seat, independent, self-aware, mature, self-controlled, self-disciplined, and self-reliant; and those who can learn to find joy in the passenger’s seat, childlike, immature, completely dependent on others, understanding that everything of value can only come as a gift from Him.  This is what Christ referred to as the Sheep and the Goats in his own analogies in His days of ministry here in our world.  His audience understood them the same way we do.  Sheep are stupid.  They are humble.  They follow, and are content to follow.  They realize their only protection comes from their Shepherd.  Left on their own, they perish.  They have no ideas about where to go, they are led by their Shepherd.  They simply sit back, enjoy the journey, and trust the One who leads them.  Goats too know the Shepherd, but goats have their own ideas about where they should go.  Some think they are capable of defending themselves against the wolves in the world.  Goats know the Shepherd, but they are not content to listen to Him.  They want control.  And they fail as a result.  Instead of following Christ away from the dangers, they head straight into it.  This distinction is based entirely on how a person responds to the permanent release of control of their lives.

Are you a sheep, or a goat?  Are you a passenger or a driver?  Are you a child, or believe yourself to be an adult?  Our culture, our social circles, even our American ideals – ALL encourage the wrong answer.  We are taught self-reliance from birth by everything in the world the evil one can throw at us.  We learn to despise the poor, simply because they are poor.  We argue it is because they do not “choose” to work that they find themselves in their pathetic conditions.  In so doing, we reinforce the idea in our own minds that our conditions come from “our” hard work – not as a result of His blessings and gifts to us.  We begin to believe we are the masters of our own destiny.  We buy into the American dream that anyone can work hard enough to earn themselves into bounty.  And we look down on any who have not achieved this dream as being lazy or unmotivated.  But all of our thinking is backwards.

“The poor will always be with you” Christ said.  It is not because our heavenly Father cares less for the poor; it is because we NEED an example of those who “depend” for their survival.  The poor teach us that despite our success, ALL require saving from a Savior; ALL receive their bounty from the Lord.  As the poor depend on the charity of others for their survival; so ALL depend on the charity of Christ for our own survivals – both physical and spiritual.  To pity the poor, to feel sorry for them, to want to help them out of their poverty – are the exact feelings of our Lord for each of us on a spiritual basis.  We are all hurting, and all require a master physician to heal us.  The healing process must begin, but how we respond to it may alter our future with it.  Will we be the passengers on our journey, the sheep who are led by our Shepherd?  Or will we constantly take back the wheels in our cars, and like the goats offer our own ideas on how to save us?  This is the dilemma of each one.

Cleaning the Cesspool ...

There is a program that recently aired entitled “Dirty Jobs”; I can’t think of too many worse than cleaning out a cesspool.  Yet since Adam bit down on forbidden fruit, our lives have continued to degenerate until the point where we just seem mired in evil, a spiritual cesspool if you will, that has the characteristics of quicksand, and the holding power of superglue.   To think to clean this kind of a mess is not something most of would be willing to do were it less of an analogy and more of a reality.  But just because we find ourselves in a pit of despair, is no reason to remain here.  We must begin by realizing it is time to get clean.

But how does one see their own lives move from a veritable cesspool to a clean mountain spring?  Christianity has traditionally offered only one response – will power.  In by gone days the topic of temperance was taught with vigor.  Self-denial is a major tenant of most other world religions, and even in Christianity it has fought hard to remain prominent.  But to accept the idea that it “is” possible for me to clean myself up; is then to admit that apparently I must not have chosen to do so.  Moreover, no one else I know has chosen to get clean either, if this choice is really up to us.  Christians have long quoted scripture to back up their ideas on this topic.  Familiar quotes such as … “Resist the devil and he will flee from you” or “you will never be tempted above what you are able” or “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me” or “if you love Me, keep my commandments”.

 

 

At first brush, all of these texts seem to indicate we are supposed to be doing something with our religion.  In short, we are supposed to be “living right”.  Yet despite the seemingly countless admonitions, everyone seems to be STILL sinning.  This failure on our part, to live as the texts indicate we should be living, has led some to believe that it is simply impossible to do so.  Therefore Christ died to make up for our inability to follow His counsel.  Given this, we are free to do whatever, because we are already forgiven, and God knows we cannot keep his laws anyway.  Whole point of a savior right; to save us from the punishment of our evil?  But this thinking does nothing but cheapen grace to no effect.

So what is the disconnect between what scripture says we are supposed to be doing, and our apparent inability to do it?  The answer is that we have put the focus in the wrong place on HOW to accomplish the admonitions that have been written.  Take the words of Christ first when He says … “deny yourself”.  This is not about self-restraint, this is about putting self in its place – dead last.  He tells us to deny that we are the savior of our souls, as is the basis in every other religion on earth.  You are NOT your own savior, you must realize you are in NEED of a savior, and thus only Christ can fill this role.   You must deny that you can do it.  Christ is saying … you need to be saved from evil, start by realizing it is NOT you who will do the work.  He continues … “take up your cross and follow me”.  He means … realize your carnal nature must be killed, in order for Him to re-create you into the new creature you were meant to be.  Like Paul says … “I die daily”.  This is how we achieve, through submission, not control.

When you grasp this concept properly, it is then easier to understand HOW we resist the devil so that he will flee from us.  Rightly understood, Satan never flees from you and I because we are easy prey when left to our own strength.  But, introduce submission of our will to Christ, and it is no longer we who he is left to fight with, it is Christ.  Christ has already beaten him, and the devil knows he cannot defeat Christ, so he then flees as the text suggests.  Never being tempted above what we are able is better understood when human limitations are removed from the equation.  When submitting to Christ, it is no longer our strength against temptation that is put to the test, but rather the divine strength of our Savior, which is able to overcome even the most severely addicting habits we have formed.  A sign of loving Christ is the keeping of His commandments, but this can again only be done if we remove ourselves and our will from the process, and allow His will to be created in us.  Then the keeping of his laws becomes as natural as our breathing, both in spirit, motive, and in action.  Not because of any great work or effort, or prayer that we have prayed – but only because it is His will to Give us this great Gift – our salvation.

Adam lost dominion of this world to Satan so many years ago in the garden.  In so doing, he predestined us to a carnal nature we would all be born to.  We were held slaves of an evil tyrant, until our redeemer came and freed us from bondage.  Christ did not free us so that we could indulge in the pain of evil to an even greater extent by letting go; rather He freed us to remove the pain of evil from out of our lives as the greatest gift He could offer.  We are now freed from the bondage of sin, and liberated from the evil slave master to a benevolent Father who has redeemed us with the purchase of His own flesh and blood.  You will notice that nowhere in this scenario was man ever to reclaim his own dominion.  Christ did not come to put “us” back in charge of our world.  He came and took charge on our behalf.  Man owning his own dominion is not a choice on the table, only to whom he will serve.  We are faced with the freedom of love that removes the pain in our lives, or the terrible addictive destructive slavery to pain that was born in our nature and can only come from the self-service of evil and its leader.

Those who accept the gift our Savior offers find an escape from the nature of our birth.  It is literally to be born again, dying to self, and being resurrected in His image and likeness.  Our nature and inclination to want and do evil does not die by accident, nor does it go down without a tremendous fight.  Once we know the truth of victory, the devil fights hard to keep us from claiming it.  He insinuates that there is always time later to submit, time now to live for number one.  He distracts us with the need to work for our survival, and the constant barrage of “necessary” things that must be accomplished in the day before we can rest or think about God.  He buries us in “busy-ness”.  All of this designed to impede our daily surrender to Christ.  Without this submission of our will, we are easy prey to fall back into old habits designed for our destruction.  Remember we are born with a desire for evil.  It takes a rebirth to remove this desire.  It takes a willingness to allow God to change what we want, what we think we need, and what we think we like.

It is the equivalent of turning the thing we most love over to Christ at the risk of losing it.  This was the dilemma Adam faced and failed.  Adam so loved Eve he could not conceive of risking her separation or loss.  He forgot that as much as he loved Eve, so much more did her Creator.  Had Adam stayed faithful to God, Christ would have come if only to save Eve and restore her to Himself, and to Adam.  But Adam would not trust God with the Salvation of the thing he loved most.  Instead he willed to die with her.  If we are to change, we must face and pass the same challenge.  How many are willing now to submit their marriages to God, and to His will, even if that will is to see them ended for His purposes.  Most believe that God would not ever put asunder a marriage when vows have been exchanged in His name.  But this is not the point.  God never asks for human sacrifice to show loyalty to Him ,,, unless you happen to be Abraham who was asked this exact test.  It is not whether God breaks us up or not that is important, it is our willingness to follow Him if that is His will despite how we feel right now.

Humans are funny creatures.  We can have a romantic love that we could not imagine life without one minute, and over time come to so disdain this person, that we cannot imagine how we ever felt that way in the first place.  Teenagers go through this rollercoaster regularly.  Adults do too, but fail to admit it.  The simple fact is that feelings can change over time.  Given this, it is only in our own best interest to submit even how feel to the correction God may require.  Giving up our desires is the key to begin to understand what He desires for us.  We must get our untrustworthy notions out of the way of His leadership before we can figure out what He wants.  Our desires are inherently evil, and often in our own worst effect.  Unlike Adam, we must be willing to part with the thing we love the most, in order to know if it truly comes from God or not.  It could be a spouse, or a child, or a parent, or a career, or a possession – but whatever it is that we believe we cannot live without, must be submitted at the foot of the cross, even if it means we lose it.

Holding on to a cherished sin, has already demonstrated what it can do to mankind.  There was nothing wrong with Adam loving Eve, the error came from loving her more than he trusted in God to save her.  We are the way we are, because Adam would not risk letting go of Eve.  He simply did not trust God enough to find a way.  Abraham did.  He took his most precious possession to a hill top and began to slay that which he loved without measure, and God was faithful to stop him from doing so.  It was not God’s intent to take Isaac, rather Isaac would lead a blessed life of communion with his father’s God.  It was God’s intent to see if Abraham would do what Adam would not.  Adam failed.  Abraham did not.  What will we do?

Are we to trust the process of saving us from evil?  Are we to take the Lord at His word, and believe that only through submission can we reach the perfection of Enoch?  Or will we, like Adam, hold on to that which we love the most?  Will we like Judas, reject the gift of saving grace, choosing rather to obtain it through our own efforts and merits, believing ourselves to be in partnership with God?  Our lives are cesspools of pain and evil.  We have no cleaning tools, or desire to perform the work.  We must accept the charity of our God in the cleanup that is to be performed.  We must stay out of His way, allowing Him to clean every single spot up.  There is nothing we can hold back from God in the cleaning process.  But the beauty that is found in a life cleaned up by God, is a pure mountain spring, untouched by the corruption of pollution and evil decay.  It is based in the river of life that flows from the throne of our Father God Himself.  This water can flow through us and make us whole, or we can turn away to the filth and sludge we have created.  This is the great choice we must all face and make every day of our lives.  If there is a work for us to perform, it is to be the work of submission, but even in this, our God is faithful.  We must turn to both the author (or originator) and the finisher of our faith, and trust in His never failing promise to save us from the evil of our lives.

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.

Obsessed with Control

Do you believe in fate?  How about destiny?  Predetermination anyone?  Most folks I know do not like the idea of our future being beyond our control.  We make decisions.  We make choices.  So why is our fate up to debate?  If I choose to go left at the stop sign instead of right, won’t the final outcome be different, surely the short term results should be measurable.  Yet despite our ability to decide to go left at the cross roads, there are many other factors that remain out of our direct control.  Large items like the weather and gravity come to mind; but many other smaller items are equally impossible to mandate such as the behavior of others and unforeseen events.

We are faced with the unpredictable all around us, and so rather than allows ourselves the truth of the uncertainty of our continued existence, we decide to cling to an illusion of control.  The idea that despite what we are unable to control, there are still many things we can control, has greater appeal to us, than the truth of how limited our ability is to even influence an outcome, let alone control it.  Those fortunate few who have developed a strong will in their lifetimes by being able to exert a measure of control over their actions, have an even firmer grasp on the illusion of control, than those less fortunate few who realize their own behavior looks more like addiction than self-control.  But what remains in us all is a shared belief that we have at least “some measure” of control in our lives.

This thinking however, infects our spiritual desires as well.  The ideas that we somehow control our lives, invades the ideas that we should equally be able to influence our spiritual lives.  “Obedience” becomes the spiritual mantra for our conservative brothers and sisters.  Not obedience found in the converted heart, but rather obedience for the sake of obedience; sometimes presented as a prerequisite of God’s approval, or even worse, as a prerequisite of coming to God.  Indeed, scriptures are full of texts outlining why obedience is so important to us and God.  But it is our illusions of control, that lead us to believe we are simply capable of obeying or not.  Similar to the alcoholic who believes they can quit drinking anytime, but just never seem to get around to making that decision – so Christians seem to believe that they can stop sinning anytime just by choosing to do so.  And like the alcoholic, they just never seem to finally get around to making the sin-stopping decision.

Evil is like cancer, in that it spreads when it left unchecked.  Note that the identification of cancer does nothing to cure it, that would require treatment, perhaps surgery.  But just saying to the patient, “Yes, you sure have a nasty case of cancer” does nothing to actually help the patient.  Condemning cancer also does nothing to cure it.  Telling a patient … “if you had made better choices, lived a healthier life, and essentially gotten my approval, you might not have this terrible disease” does nothing to cure cancer, and may even make an enemy of the cancer patient.  Telling the patient about how “bad” the pain is, seems a bit redundant, and again does nothing at all to help the patient get better.  Ever even met a cancer patient whose first thought was not about getting better?

Yet we treat fellow Christians who are found in error, the same way.  We judge them according to our own standards of Biblical morality.  We ridicule their life choices, and blame them for the conditions they find themselves in, taking no personal accountability for their conditions.  Then instead of focusing on a cure for our erring brothers, we instead focus on the disease, all the pain they should be feeling, all the desperation, none of the hope.  The best Christians have been able to offer the world, is forgiveness after the fact, but seldom a cure to eliminate the need for forgiveness, and to live a healthier life in the first place.

But if we know this about the nature of evil, and cancer, and how they both spread – then why are they still spreading?  The answer is painful.  It is because we have chosen our illusions of control, over the truth of total dependence found in the word of our God.  In the Garden of Eden, Adam bit the forbidden fruit, and in so doing, he ceded control to Satan over this world, and over himself, and all of mankind.  It is not just the dirt, Satan gets to rule over.  It is the hearts, minds, and inclination of the people God created in this world.  From that moment on, Adam put all of mankind into slavery.  We are NOT free.  We are BOUND to the will of our own carnal natures.  If left to ourselves, we will choose to act in our own self-interest even when that conflicts with the needs of another.  What are the famous slogans we see around us – “who is looking out for number one”, “do unto others, then split”, “God helps those who help themselves”.  All designed around the idea that man must be self-focused before he can be externally focused, even in the case of spiritual concepts.

The illusion of control is a form a self-worship.  It is a form of exalting our decisions, our choices, and our supposed capabilities above even Satan or God.  We somehow think we free of our own accord to choose to follow God or not.  Even this is untrue.  Adam entered us into slavery.  Our chains prevent us from making a truly free decision.  So even in this, our God must elevate our minds, and balance the scales of our lives in order for us to get even enough to make the decision to choose Him.  Otherwise we would every one of us default to our evil natures and choose what is natural over what is not.  The idea that we control our world is as silly as believing we can cure cancer in ourselves, simply by deciding it will be so, no matter what chemistry says.

In order to treat our disease of evil, we must as Yoda says, “unlearn what you have learned”.  We must begin by embracing the truth of our existence, that we have NO control over it, we have at best the ability to influence it slightly.  Our greatest abilities to influence our existence come only in regards to how much worse we can make it, seldom in how much better.  We can elect to kill ourselves, but we cannot decide to make ourselves 100% cured over every medical ailment we suffer from.  We can elect to cut ourselves, but cannot decide to simply undo the damage to our bodies we inflict while making such a deranged and negative decision.  It is easier for me to destroy your sandcastle on the beach, than to spend the hours it takes creating one with you.

We must continue by rejecting the connections we have formed between God and patriotism.  The American Dream as most define it, is a lie.  Owning your own home, 2 cars, a spouse, 2.1 kids and a white picket fence does not define the ideals of our success, nor does it measure the contributions we are capable of making as citizens of this or any other country.  The idea that through hard work, anyone can succeed is simply false.  It takes more than just hard work.  And the ideas of self-reliance we have been taught must be rejected.  We are rather, and in fact, fully dependent on our God for our lives, our sustenance, and our success.  And by allowing our God to mold our characters into His image, we will be better prepared to sacrifice for the sake of others, including our fellow citizens in this, or any other nation.  The truth would make us better citizens and patriots of our native lands, than the lies we embrace today.  Our nation, and our world, needs those who would by example serve others and enrich the lives of others; than merely another generation out to find only the maximum fun they can derive before dying.

And finally we must reject the god of self we have allowed to creep into our Christian philosophy, and realize we are slaves bound to self, that self is the enemy of our God.  We must begin to see that “I” truly am my own worst enemy in the spiritual realm.  We must embrace the words of Paul when he writes … “I die daily”.  This is not a rerun of an old SouthPark episode where they kill Kenny every week.  This is rather the mantra of Christians who understand that self is the enemy of the entirety of God’s government, and “service to others” is the only real heroic aspiration.  We must submit our will to our God each day.  We must give back to God the life we wake up to each morning, and ask that He alone be in charge over it.  To do with our lives as He alone wishes.  To make any changes He sees fit.  To use us in His own good service as He would envision, but not merely as it is convenient to us.  We must ask to “want” what He “wants”.  We must ask that He teach us how to “love” like He “loves”.  In this our earliest morning prayer, we are able to echo the words of Paul and join him in dying daily.

To witness true obedience in our lives, these are the “choices” we must make.  It begins with the abandonment of lies and illusions of control, it ends with promised work of the Messiah in our hearts and minds.  This is the cure of cancer and evil we have sought and has so long eluded us.  This is the promise we can cling to without reserve.  This is the way that Christianity can once again return to the prominence it experienced in the Apostolic days.  For in those times, as in this age, we must focus completely on Christ as the ONLY solution to our lives.  For it is He alone who can rid us of the evil we embrace, and He alone who can further eliminate the natural inclinations that drive us.  It is Christ who can finally and fully set us free.