So Many Rules!

I was thinking about the Old Covenant recently. Why were there so MANY laws and limitations?

I was reflecting that God had offered an AMAZING covenant relationship, very nearly the New Covenant way back then.

“‘Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. ‘And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.” [Exodus 19:5-6]
 

The people chickened out, rejected that covenant, and proposed another covenant.

Then they said to Moses, “You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” [Exodus 20:19]

It was described more clearly in Deuteronomy:

“Go yourself [Moses] and listen to what the LORD our God says. Then come and tell us everything he tells you, and we will listen and obey.” [Deuteronomy 5:27]

I read that as the establishment of both the priesthood (“Moses, you go talk to God for us!”) and the Law (“You tell us what God says, and we'll do that!”).

And immediately afterwards, there's a mountain of detailed rules and regulations.

My thought has been, “Why would God do that?”

And then I realized: the Law was never intended to be the vehicle for God to relate to people; it was the vehicle for the people to keep God at a safe distance.

So God spiked the punch.

God never intended for the Mosaic Law (“The Old Covenant”) to succeed at forming the relationship between God and man. God intended it to fail (it wasn’t his idea anyway), but in failing, to point to the New Covenant, which now needed to be delayed for a while, until the people were ready for it.

“The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” [Romans 5:20]

“So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.” [Galatians 3:24-25]

From that first moment on the mountain in Exodus, God was already planning to make his people ready for REAL covenant, for the New Covenant in Christ.

Dang, he’s amazing.

God Reveals His Secrets

“Surely the Lord GOD does nothing, without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets.” [Amos 3:7]

I woke up with this on my mind recently and I’ve been chewing on it for a while.

The phrase, “his servants the prophets” suggests there are some prophets who are not submitted as servants to him. He apparently doesn’t reveal his secret to them. The gift is not enough; I need to be fully on-board with him.

Application: I don’t need to listen to prophets who are not God’s servants, whether they’ve anointed themselves or they’re servants of something else (Money? Sex? Power?), or they’ve just fallen off the wagon. Discernment (personal & corporate) is a big advantage here.

The same phrase also suggests that there are some servants who are not prophets. In the days of Amos, there were just a few who had God’s spirit and spoke for him; in our days, well he’s instructed every believer to earnestly desire to prophesy [1Corinthians 14:1].

Application: being fully his is not sufficient; prophets need to speak what God says and when he says to. They need to be called for the purpose of speaking his word to the community. More than that, I need to not pay attention to the “prophecies” from God’s people who are not actually anointed by God to speak for him at this time. Discernment is a big advantage here, too.

I'm going to over-simplify this and say that there are things that he doesn’t reveal, except to people who are comfortable hearing his voice and who are fully committed to him.

The other thing that’s captured my attention is the Hebrew word “sôḏ,” which is variously translated “secret,” “plans,” “counsel.” A couple of translations render it “secret counsel” in this verse, which I think is pretty interesting.

Hold on, this might get nerdly for a minute.

Strong defines H5475 (our Hebrew word “sôḏ,”) as “a session, that is, company of persons (in close deliberation); by implication intimacy, consultation, a secret,” and

Gesenius points out that outside of the Bible, the word speaks of a couch, cushion, triclinium, on which persons recline, hence, (1) a sitting together, an assembly, either of friends or of judges, (2) deliberation, counsel, (3) familiar conversation, or (4) a secret.

In any case, this strikes me as a complex word; no wonder there are so many ways to translate it.

But the imagery in Amos is getting clearer: he invites individuals who are fully his and who are comfortable hearing his voice into a quiet place with himself, where he discusses what’s on his heart. And the imagery is pretty clear: this is not one “big guy” dictating what’s going to happen; this is peers in conversation, in dialog, in deliberation together.

And according to Amos, he doesn’t do anything apart from this sort of counsel, without discussing it with these people in this setting.

It could be argued that he has required that it be this way. In the Psalms, he declares that "The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth he has given to mankind." [Psalm 115:16] If he takes that seriously, then he has delegated authority for this planet to us, and no good leader delegates authority to someone else and then steps in, usurps the delegate, and does things on his own authority.

So for God to take action in the affairs of Earth, he needs to first discuss his secret counsel with his human friends, who now carry the authority for action on the Earth.

Moses the Hot Mess

I was talking with God about Exodus 33, one of my favorite conversations in the Old Testament. And if I’m honest, sometimes one of the most confusing.

I was observing that God wasn’t particularly answering that Moses was asking, and then I remembered that Jesus was pretty famous for that, too. “You and your Son don’t like answering questions head-on, do you?”

And to my immense surprise, he didn’t answer my question head-on either. Instead, he took me inside Mo’s heart, inside his soul, and we looked at some of the stuff going on there. And maybe for the first time, I realized how much Mo was a wounded soul.

I mean, look at what he’d been through:

• He was essentially kidnapped by the king’s daughter [Exodus 2:10], raised as a grandson of the maniacal king who was slave master of his entire family [1:11], and appeared to be in the midst of trying to commit genocide on his people’s race [1:22].

• It appears that his genocidal grandfather didn’t know he was actually a member of the race he was trying to exterminate: he lived with a (shameful?) secret his entire life. Some people think he was being groomed to be the next genocidal king in the land.

• He figured out that he was really part of the slave race, presumably from his wet nurse, who was his birth mom, and it appears that he wanted to use his position of power to free them.

• He makes his first attempt toward their freedom [2:12], which a) fails, b) reveals he favors the slave race over the existing power structure, c) alienates the people he’s trying to save [2:14], d) turns his maniacal grandfather against him [2:15], and e) scares the piss out of him [ibid]. He flees for his life.

• He meets strangers in the desert who mis-identify him as a member of the genocidal ruling race [2:19], and he doesn’t correct them.

• He gives up on doing anything important with his life, marries into a family of nomads and settles for being a shepherd on the backside of the desert, for 40 years. (Sounds like a real “death of a vision” to me.)

• On day 14,600 (approximately) of his life as a hopeless, helpless shepherd, he stumbles on an encounter with a God he’s not known [3:2ff], who gives him a quest [3:10] to do the very thing that he had tried to do 40 years earlier. He’s too broken and still too scared to go back, too intimidated to attempt anything that important [3:11].

• So he argues with God, putting up obstacle [3:11] after obstacle [3:13] after obstacle [4:1] after obstacle [4:10] as to why he shouldn’t be expected to do that job.

• He experiences a couple of undeniable miracles [3:2, 4:3, 4:6] there on the mountainside. He believes his fears more than he believes the miracles.

• In the end, he flat-out refuses to comply with God’s instructions. “Send someone else!” [4:13] He pisses God off [4:14], who adds his older brother to the deliverance party.

We could go on. But I began to better understand the whiny tone in Moses’ voice [33:12-16]. And it was at that point that God pointed out that Moses was an 80-year-old broken man, with a lot of un-healed wounds in his soul. He was kind of a dysfunctional mess. An old dysfunctional mess.

And THAT is who God chose to deliver millions of people from arguably the mightiest nation on the planet at the time.

And you know that God made it personal. “If I can use a messed-up man like that (and I heard the tender affection in his “voice”), I can use you just fine, too.”

The Bible Contains Lies. It Says So.

The Bible contains lies. It says so. 

Let me back up. I’ve just finished the book of Job. That’s a hard read, for me, anyway. The book has several sections: 

• Chapters 1&2: The Set Up. The conversations in Heaven between God and the devil (that Job never knows about!), and the resulting destruction of Job’s life.

• Chapters 3 – 31: Job arguing with his “friends,” Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. Mostly, Job is proclaiming his innocence and these three are telling him what God is like and why Job is wrong. 

• Chapters 32 – 37: The lecture from “Elihu son of Barakel the Buzite, of the family of Ram.” Mostly, he’s defending God. 

• Chapters 38 – 41: God speaks up. Essentially, “This is above your pay grade, Son,” but how beautifully he says it! 

• Chapter 42: Job repents, God chews out Eliphaz, Bildad & Zophar, God restores Job. 

The verse that stuck out to me most strongly this time was this:

"After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.” [Job 42:7]

And I realized that God just declared that much of Job 3 – Job 31 is “not the truth” about God. That means there are lies there! In the Bible! <Gasp!>

(He also declares that Job was telling the truth when he protested that he was innocent in his suffering.)

So God says at least 29 chapters of my Bible contain lies. That’s worth thinking about. 

Keep in mind that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” [2 Timothy 3:16-17] 

So it’s “God-breathed.” Other translations read “given by inspiration of God or “breathed out by God.” But that doesn’t mean that every word is literally true or actually factual. It means that it’s inspired by God, motivated by God through the men who wrote the stuff down. It’s still profitable for teaching, rebuking & correcting, certainly.

But not every bit of Scripture is actually, factually correct, at least not these 29 chapters in Job. Don’t get me wrong: the Bible is telling the truth when it records the lies these yahoos are telling about God. But they are still lies, and they’re still in the Bible. 

I wonder if there are other places, passages that are also inspired by God, where Scripture (accurately) records people saying stupid things, untrue things? (And I won’t even get into the question of where God is speaking metaphorically or symbolically.) 

The Bible contains lies. It says so. 

So apparently, more skill is required when employing the Bible than merely swallowing everything whole. That’s kind of true for all of life, isn’t it?

God Takes the Blame

I have run into hundreds of Christians who maintain the view that if something happens in their life, it must be God’s will. They completely misquote Romans 8:28 as some sort of karma verse: if something happens, it must be God’s will for them; if an event occurs in their life, it must be God’s plan for them.

The verse says that God will cause the events in my life to work together for the ultimate goal of good, provided I love God and “are called according to His purpose.” It does not say that every single event is good (He seems to never comment on that), and the promise is completely void for those who don’t love God or aren’t walking in His calling. I’m bothered by the fact that the people most often abusing this verse are not God’s people. “Bad things happened in my life; it must be God’s fault, therefore I won’t love God.”

Grrrr.

This is such a blatant abuse of scripture that I find myself fairly angry when I hear people misrepresenting God’s word this way: exchanging what He said for what they think He should have said. And it bothers me when people assume that just because something happened (typically, something icky), it must have been God’s plan for them. Deliberately misrepresenting God’s heart is one of the best ways I know of to make a mess out of life. It’s one of hell’s favorite pastimes, accusing God.

Another thing that makes a mess out of people’s lives is their own poor choices. It seems that God was very serious when He gave us free will, though we often confuse the consequences of our free will – our choices – with God’s will. I know a man who committed several crimes and then blamed God that he was caught and put in jail, and a teenage mother that attributes her toddler to God’s will for her life rather than her night of passion with an eager classmate.

The funny thing is, God seems to take it all in stride. He accepts the blame for crud that happens. I have two primary examples.

1) The example of the life of Job.

The Book of Job is a long story about how Satan hit Job, but Job didn’t know it, and how Job responded. Job’s “friends” kept saying, “You must have sinned; this must be God!”, while Job, who was a righteous man, kept saying two things: a) to his friends: “No, I haven’t sinned; I’d know it!” and be) to God: “So God, why is this happening?”

Eventually (some 30 freaking chapters later!) God answers Job, and instead of saying, “Relax, Job. The devil did this, not me,” which would have been true, according to the first few chapters, God takes responsibility Himself for Job’s disasters, only answering Job with, “Look, son, I’m God and you’re not,” though He does restore Job’s fortunes. He also enters the record in the Bible for you and me to learn from. (Job appeared to learn his lesson: “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You.”)

2) Bible verses where He claims responsibility for troubles.

I’ve recently become amazed at the number of places where God takes responsibility for bad stuff happening. Here are a few:

Ezekiel 20:25: Therefore I also gave them up to statutes that were not good, and judgments by which they could not live;
Psalm 81:12: So I gave them over to their own stubborn heart, To walk in their own counsels.
Romans 1:28: …God gave them over to a debased mind,….

In all of these verse, God is taking responsibility. He’s saying, “I did this,” but if you look at the context, each example was where people were making stupid choices and were experiencing consequences of those actions. I’m not saying God did not intervene; I’m saying that whether He intervened or not, the motivating force was the people’s unwise exercise of their free will.

In Ezekiel, for example, a dozen verses before God gave the people judgments “by which they could not live,” He described those same judgments as “if a man does them, he shall live by them.” So it wasn’t God’s judgments that were out of the reach of man; it was not following His judgments that kept them separated from life.

But God took the blame.

In the Psalms illustration, God gave the people over to their own stubborn heart after He laments, “My people would not heed My voice,” and then He immediately cries that this was not His plan. “Oh, that My people would listen to Me, That Israel would walk in My ways!”

And Romans 1 is famous as a downward spiral because “although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were they thankful.”

In every case, people made lousy choices and then bad things happened. I don’t know if they blamed God for the consequences of their actions, but God was certainly willing to accept the blame.

So while it irritates me that people blame God for foul things in their lives that come from the devil (in Job’s case) or from their (our) own stupid choices, God doesn’t seem to be too offended by it.

The first step to solving a problem, so the psychologists say, is to acknowledge we have a problem; the second step, apparently, is to identify it. If that’s the case, then I’m more likely to resolve trouble in my life accurately by correctly identifying the source of that trouble, particularly if the trouble comes from my choices.

If I’m failing at my job because I’m texting when I should be working, then blaming God may not help solve the problem; putting away the phone and doing the work may be a wiser course. Taking responsibility for our actions will be good for our well-being.

Some problems – like Job’s – aren’t from our poor choices, but from a demonic agenda, and these we may never understand.

I think we need to come to the same conclusion that Job did: He’s God and I’m not. There will be bad things that happen, and many of those I’ll never understand. But if I can know God, if I avoid building a wall of blame between Him and me, then whether I understand or not, I can – like Job – walk in the best available blessing.

Visible Answers to Prayer

This was an interesting line of thinking. Let me know what you think of it.

I was reflecting about prayer. I pray for a lot of things. But I don't see the changes, the effects of my prayers, as much as maybe I would like.

Part of that reason, no doubt, is because I pray for less-concrete things, and for people that are a long ways away. But for whatever reason, I was thinking about it, wishing that I was seeing more results, at least more visible results, from my prayers.

And since Jesus is my standard, I was thinking about him. He sure saw visible answers to his prayers in the stories the Gospels told, didn't he? I’m not trying to get big headed about it or something, but if Jesus gets to see the answers to his prayers so comfortably so quickly so easily, what's wrong with me wanting to see visible answers to my prayers quickly, easily?

So just thinking on that for a while (technically, that’s called “meditating”). I realized that the excuses I was given as a curious child had some truth in them: we don't actually see every single event that Jesus was involved in. It is maybe just a little bit presumptive to assume that every single prayer of his was answered quickly, visibly, dramatically.

So I consider that. And I realized, yep, it’s an excuse all right. It's an excuse for people who don't see miracles, maybe. Maybe it's an excuse for people who are tired of trying, or who never really tried hard in the first place. Or something. It’s a way of justifying not expecting to walk in the things we see Jesus, our example, walk in.

But the reality is that every single time that we see Jesus praying, we see dramatic, visible answers. We don't ever see his prayers unanswered. (Yes, there are some times that he prays that we don't know what he's praying for, so we can't tell whether those were answered or not. That’s not our issue today.)

So I was asking father if this desire to see visible answers quickly is appropriate, if this is a good thing to ask for.

Immediately, Romans 14:23b came to mind. “Anything not of faith is sin.”

When I'm asking a question and something pops in my head like that, I tend to assume that it is related, that it’s something of an answer. And I also try not to jump to conclusions, so I reflected: I thought about it some more.

And I realized something.

If I need visible answers to my prayers in order to pray with faith, in order to have confidence that father is hearing me and doing things, then that's not faith. If I need to see, then I'm basing my prayers, my life, on sight, not on faith.

Oops. There’s my answer.

Jesus got to see immediate answers to his prayers. That does not mean that his prayer life was based on what he saw. We know from the gospel stories that he took a fair bit of time alone with God, often in the wee hours.

I have had times where I knew the answer was coming before I encountered the situation. I’ve had many times when I knew what I was supposed to pray beforehand.

That certainly fits the facts as we know them: Jesus saw the answers in the spirit, by faith, when he was talking to Dad in the morning. When he encountered the situation during the day, his response was based on his encounters with father in the wee hours, not on what he saw in that circumstance.

So even though he saw the answers as he prayed, his prayers were not built on the foundation of what he saw. His prayers were on the foundation of his time with Father in the morning. He was walking by faith, not by sight, even though he could see.

The thought drifted across my mind, “If you always get to see the immediate answers to your prayers, would you be walking by faith? Or would you be walking by what you see?”

And as translated by Romans 14:23, that question is would I be walking by faith? Or would I be walking in sin?

So I am considering the idea that I need to be more intentional about seeing the answers that I am praying for in the spirit, in my private times with Father, before I look for them in public.

And maybe I need to guard my wishes. It appears that I might have been wishing for an easy way to walk in sin. No wonder Father doesn't want to answer that prayer.

So how do you see it? 

Lessons About Prophecy From Ezekiel

I’m really thankful that I don’t live under the Mosaic covenant (the “Old Covenant”).

That messed-up covenant was about a priesthood between people and God and about obeying the rules (and getting punished if you didn’t obey them). It wasn’t the covenant that God wanted, but it was the only covenant that the people would accept, but that’s another story.

But even if we’re not part of that covenant, we can learn a lot from the stories that come from those days. We can learn a lot about the weakness of human intentions, I suppose, but the part that I find interesting is when God’s heart is revealed, even through that inferior covenant.

For example, this prophetic word about prophetic words,

“This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing! ... You have not gone up to the breaches in the wall to repair it for the people of Israel so that it will stand firm in the battle on the day of the LORD. Their visions are false and their divinations a lie. Even though the LORD has not sent them, they say, "The LORD declares," and expect him to fulfill their words.” [Ezekiel 13:3, 5-6]

This rather talks about both the weakness of human intention and the tender goodness of the heart of God. I came across this passage, and I realized that there are lessons from this Old Covenant encounter that apply even to us who live in the New Covenant. Here are some lessons that stood out to me.

• One of the legitimate roles of the prophet is to strengthen the people of God for days of difficulty and opposition. (He uses vocabulary of repairing breaches [holes] in the defensive walls of the city, a pretty common metaphor.)

In New Covenant vocabulary, the prophetic gifts are for “edification and exhortation and comfort;” this is not news to us.

• In those days, there were “foolish prophets” who speak for God, even when God has not given them a message. He says they prophesy from their own spirits, and haven’t actually seen a vision from God.

I have great empathy for itinerant prophets these days. There’s real pressure on them to always have something to say, always have a fresh revelation, always be in the social media headlines, so that they’ll always have an invitation to minister, and therefore receive a paycheck. The desire to feed your family and pay the rent is pretty powerful, and it probably ought to be.

This is one of the reasons I believe that discernment is absolutely critical these days. God calls out this prophesying from their own spirit pretty regularly in the Old Testament; I believe it happens in our days as well. Which means we need to discern the prophetic words that are actually from God from the prophetic words that come from the prophet’s own spirit. (One tool from this passage to help judge a word: does it “repair the breaches in the walls”?)

• It’s probably worth pointing out that even if a prophetic word comes from the prophet’s own spirit instead of the Spirit of God, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s evil or demonic. If they have a good spirit, then words from their spirit won’t be bad. They may even comfort and encourage, but they won’t carry the power of God; they’re just words, empty words, even if they’re good words.

There were in those days – and there are in our days – declarations made that were not from God, but people expect God to fulfill the empty words. Both the prophet and the hearer are deceived into thinking that God is going to accomplish what was essentially wishful thinking or good intentions behind the “thus says the Lord” declarations. But he is not obligated by promises that come from anyone other than himself.

• I confess that I find it a little uncomfortable that prophets can prophesy from their spirit well enough that they can’t recognize when God is speaking and when it’s just their own good intentions. But I see it happen all over the place.

And if the hearer has not done the work of discerning the prophetic word properly, they may attach their heart to words that were merely spoken from wishful thinking or good intentions, and as a result, be disappointed, even devastated when that which was promised in the flesh does not come to pass. I’ve known people who have walked away from God because of this stumbling block.

This is where Jesus’ warning seems to apply so clearly: “Jesus said to his disciples: "Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.” [Luke 17:1-2] That sounds like Jesus is pretty serious about this.

And this is the point in this article where I sometimes feel the need to come up with a snappy conclusion to what I’m writing, something about guarding our hearts, something about hearing Father’s voice for ourselves, something about purity of motives. But I’m cautious about my own good intentions here.

Instead, I’m going suggest a re-reading of the passage that started this whole thing, and taking a moment to open your heart and visit with God about it:

“This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing! ... You have not gone up to the breaches in the wall to repair it for the people of Israel so that it will stand firm in the battle on the day of the LORD. Their visions are false and their divinations a lie. Even though the LORD has not sent them, they say, "The LORD declares," and expect him to fulfill their words.” [Ezekiel 13]

His Word as a Talisman?

I’m convicted this morning that sometimes we – that sometimes I – have used the promises of God as an incantation, his Word as a talisman.

There have been times that I have quoted the promises written in the Book at my problems as if quoting the promises written in the book would change my circumstances. While those recitations have occasionally worked change in my attitude, I cannot recall that those words alone have ever changed my circumstances.

On the other hand, there have been times that I have used those promises in discussion with my King, times that he and I have wielded those same promises on the problems that were facing me, and the problems have bowed their knee.

I am reminded this morning that it is not the words on the paper that carry power. It is not the noises that come from my mouth that are imbued with his authority, no more than noises from any other part of my anatomy.

It is he himself that is the word of God, and while he inhabits me, while he lives in me and with me, if I use his words apart from him, if I unintentionally leave him as a bystander or cheerleader during my fight, well then he can stand by, he can cheer me on, I suppose.

But if I intend to move in the power of God, I need to move with God, in God. And that’s not a challenge, it’s not difficult. I’m not convinced that it’s automatic either.

I’m not above chewing out an oblivious driver who endangers my life and my vehicle. I’m not sure those words are imbued with the power of God; in fact in hindsight, I hope not!

I’m not perfect in my relationships, and I’ve said hurtful or insensitive things, more than I care to remember, actually. If those words carried the power to move mountains, we’d be in real trouble, I can tell you.

There have been times I’ve declared, “I forgive you” with no more power than my mutterings at the oblivious driver. And there have been times when those words carried power and presence enough to change a life. Apparently it takes more than just the noises from my mouth.

But there are times where my words have been in harmony with his words, words like, “Come out,” “Be filled,” “Be healed,” “Be blessed,” and what I spoke changed reality, became reality. When I spoke with him.

The alternative is to be with him. To be with him when we speak.

Israel has Sinned. That’s Why They Cannot Stand

In my reading today, this stood out to me. I suspect that there’s a principle for me here. Maybe for your too.

Joshua 7: 11 “Israel has sinned; they have violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have lied, they have put them with their own possessions. 12 That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies; they turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction.”

I don’t know about you, but I was taught that sin is bad because it scares God off from me. “God cannot look upon sin,” they said, completely ignoring the fact that “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

As my attention was grabbed by Joshua 7, I realized (yet again) that the big deal is the effect that sin has on me, NOT the silly idea that sin has an effect on God.

To summarize: “Israel has sinned; That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies.” In other words, sin let failure into their lives, sin let their enemy beat them up, sin opened them up to what the enemy was doing, sin made them victims, not victors. 

God doesn’t like sin primarily because of the mess that it makes in our lives: it separates us from (in this example) victory, from our destiny as overcomers.

So when God says, “Be holy,” he’s not laying down the law. That’s largely about, “Position yourselves in the cross-hairs of my blessing!”

Jesus Freaks Out the Disciples

I've been reflecting on Hebrews 1, which tells us that Jesus is the best representation of God's nature we're ever going to get.

In that context, I'm thinking about Mark 6:48-50, yet another place where Jesus is representing Father’s nature.

"He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. Shortly before dawn he went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them, but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out, because they all saw him and were terrified. Immediately he spoke to them and said, "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened."

This, too, is Jesus representing Father to us.

I observe some things here:

• Jesus saw his best friends straining at their work, because circumstances were against them, and he did not stop the events raging against them.

• Jesus let his friends struggle all through the night.

• I remember the aphorism, “It’s always darkest before the dawn.” So in the darkest part of the night, Jesus came to his friends. He still didn’t take the storm away, but he brought his presence to them in the midst of the storm. I love how he does this.

• He walks “out to them,” but “He was about to pass by them.” God does that sometimes: he comes to me, but … There are a hundred sermons in this line, but the bottom line is that he came “to them,” and he came close enough to see, but he was not stopping for them. That’s worth thinking about. “He was about to pass by them.”

• But his appearance scares them silly. God’s presence can be terrifying, if I’ve been focusing on the raging storm.

• He didn’t actually get in the boat with them until “They cried out.”

• We know from the other gospels that in here somewhere is the bit where Pete walks on the water, but it’s not in this particular gospel. While that’s a really exciting story (especially for Pete!), apparently that’s not the important lesson here.

• When Jesus gets into the boat, the storm dies down. Isn’t that how it goes?

• They were completely amazed. Duh. This one is not surprising!

• But the reason for their amazement, and maybe for their terror earlier, was because they didn’t understand God’s provision; they “had not understood about the loaves,” the story earlier in the chapter where Jesus “he had compassion” for the crowd of 5000 and taught them and fed them.

Apparently my not knowing God’s compassionate goodness leads to me being freaked out at circumstances, freaked out at his presence showing up unexpectedly, and leads to me being amazed when he changes things.

The last line teaches me that if I misunderstand God’s goodness, my heart gets hardened, and I’ll misunderstand what he’s doing. I might want to guard against this.

And the best way I can think of to guard against this is to be persistently thankful when I see him doing things. If nothing else, it helps me pay attention to what he's doing (so I’ll actually see what he’s doing), and it helps keep my heart in a healthy attitude toward him.

Led by Scripture?

This story has been bugging me:

Then he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here. "For it is written: 'He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you,' "and, 'In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.' " And Jesus answered and said to him, "It has been said, 'You shall not tempt the LORD your God.' " - Luke 4:9-12

I’ve been taught, and I’ll bet you have too, to base my choices and my requests on Scripture. If I can support it from the pages of the Bible, I’m safe.

This passage puts the lie to that. In this story, Luci asks Jesus to do something, AND HE SUPPORTS IT WITH SCRIPTURE! This is the secret code we’ve been taught to trust blindly, and the devil is using it to tempt Jesus! 😲

In this story, it’s pretty clear that obeying this scriptural request was very much not God’s will:

• Luci (the debbil) was the one making the request.
• JC had a better understanding of the whole counsel of Scripture, and recognized that this use (with scripture!) violated the bigger issues.
• Jesus only did what he saw Father doing (John 5:19), and apparently Father wasn’t showing off by skydiving from a clifftop, waiting for God to rescue him from the law of gravity and from the consequences of his own choice.
• We could add that the quote (from Deuteronomy 8) was out of context, but the worst out-of-context quoter of Scripture that I know is Scripture itself. (But that’s another conversation).

I realize that I’ve done this. I’ve done this: I’ve taken verses as approval for my wishes and choices, and expected God to jump through my hoops. And then I’ve gotten angry or disappointed when he didn’t.

Principle: just because I can find somebody doing it in the Bible doesn’t mean it’s God’s will for my life. Or that it’s safe.

Principle: Yes, look for what Scripture says on the topic, but don’t stop there. Engage Holy Spirit, involve mature brothers & sisters.

Most importantly, know your Father’s heart, so when somebody tries to use Scripture to pull you away from his heart, you’ll know better and not follow that slimy trail.

Edification, Exhortation and Comfort: What Are They Really?

“But he who prophesies speaks edification, exhortation and comfort to men.” - 1Corinthians 14:3

I’ve been chewing on this one for several months now. I’d like to invite you to process the verse with me.

At a fundamental level, this is the purpose of prophetic gifts: edification, exhortation and comfort, at least how it works under our New Covenant. (Old Covenant prophets were working from a different foundation, of course.)

When I studied the New Testament Greek in school, I learned that the last item in the series is the important one, the item that the language is emphasizing.

(Four verses earlier is a clear example of this: “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” The most important one in the list is usually the last one listed.)

And that’s how we’ve handled prophetic gifts most of the time, particularly when we’re training folks to prophesy: “Keep your prophetic words in the realm of edification, exhortation and especially comfort.” Then we hastily add, “Avoid judgment and avoid prophesying relationships at all times.”

But let’s look at these three purposes of the prophetic gifts a little more closely.

“Comfort” Paul uses the Greek word “paramythia,” and one of its key meanings is what we expect. It describes talk for the purpose of “calming and consoling.” And this is how we often teach it in the prophetic.

The other use of “paramythia,” particularly as used in other Greek writings, also includes the idea of “persuading, or of arousing and stimulating,” though we have to get that from Plato, Socrates and Josephus, as this verse is the ONLY place that the Bible uses the word, so we don’t get much help from looking up how it’s used in other passages. Comforting, persuading, arousing, stimulating. (Since this is on social media, I suppose it needs to be said: this has no sexual connotations whatsoever.)

“Exhortation” comes from the word “paraklēsis,” which is closely related to “paraklete,” the word the New Testament uses for the Holy Spirit himself. We usually translate that word as “Comforter,” though in the prophetic, it’s usually in the context of “a calling near, summons,” or “supplication, entreaty,” or “admonition.” In other words, this is an action word, not a warm & fuzzy word. “Come on, let’s go” would be an example of a paraklēsis word.

“Edification” isn’t a word we use outside of church these days, but we’ve figured out that “oikodomē ” talks about the desire and act of building others up.

All of this thinking is happening in the context (both in my own mind, and if I understand right, in the Corinthian church Paul was writing to) of getting away from using Jeremiah and Ezekiel as our models for prophetic ministry. Nowadays, we think in terms of ’Miah and Zeke’s example on one end of the prophetic spectrum, and Precious Moments merchandise for our example on the other end.

My take-away from all this is along those lines. I’m not disrespecting the Old Covenant prophets, nor the Precious Moments business model, but I don’t believe either is an acceptable foundation or model for New Covenant prophetic ministry. And yet both contain at least a hint of the right elements for us.

My conclusion (at least this week) is that New Covenant people are not in the business of fire and brimstone, and that sort of judgment does not belong in our prophetic expressions. In fact, I tend to get up and walk out on those sort of proclamations (which is pretty much metaphorical in the context of social media: I won’t submit myself to that spirit).

The other end of that spectrum, for which I use Precious Moments as a metaphor, strikes me as less harmful to its audience, though it presents an image of the prophetic that is no better.

Those who define prophecy by either example are deceived and badly shortchanged.

Rather, legitimate prophecy does include elements of comforting folks going through a hard time, but rather than a “There, there!” and a pat on the hand, it also includes (in the vocabulary of 1Corinthians 10:13) “a way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.” It is not at all without sympathy (or empathy), but it most definitely doesn’t stop with that. And it certainly does not get in the way of personal responsibility.

And while legitimate prophecy completely avoids any vocabulary of God smiting or hating folks for what they’ve done (which was not uncommon under the Old Covenant), the concept of “You can do better,” or “Here’s the truth to replace the lie you’ve believed” is very appropriate, and is a solid example of “edification, exhortation and comfort to men.”

Another way of describing that change of focus when calling people higher is this: “Don’t declare the problem. Anybody can do that. The evening news does a pretty good job. That takes no faith. Declare the solution. Declare the Good News. Declare God’s point of view of “a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

Running With Jesus

“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” [Hebrews 12]

I was reflecting on this recently. I do that regularly, as this is one of the clearer statements in Scripture: Run the race by fixing our eyes on Jesus.

But first, which Jesus do we fix our eyes on?

• The Jesus of the Gospels? “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.” This Jesus?

• The Jesus in Revelation? “There before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.” This Jesus is certainly more attention-grabbing.

• I suspect rather, we need to fix our eyes – not on Jesus who was – but Jesus who is. Not how he was seen before and described by others, but who he is now and what he’s doing now.

The call is to fix our eyes on Jesus, not stories about Jesus (though they’re good!), not even the miracles that he’s doing even today (though they’re awesome!). But on the person of Jesus.

Now here’s the rub: how do we do that? “Fixing our eyes on Jesus”? How do we do that?

We can take day trips to Heaven and visit with him there [John 3:13]. But that’s short-term.

We can stay in conversation with him throughout the day [1Thessalonians 5:17]. But that’s not “fixing our eyes on….”

Suddenly, I understand why people would consider hiding away in remote monasteries. They can pay more attention to Jesus and less attention to the things of this world.

The more I meditate on this, the more I’m convinced that this is about staying in communication with him throughout my day, “doing life” together with him, talking, listening, watching, learning. This is about running with him. 

At least that’s how I’m seeing it today.

Adversity as a Test

 Chewing on these verses from Hebrews 3 today:

“So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness.”

I’m drawn to the phrase “the time of testing in the wilderness.” When was that time of testing he’s referring to, anyway?

The first time the word appears in Exodus is shortly after the people escaped Egypt into the wilderness:

“When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah.) So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, "What are we to drink?" Then Moses cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became fit to drink. There the LORD issued a ruling and instruction for them and put them to the test."”
[Exodus 15:23-25]

The people needed something, and what they found on their own was not suitable to meet their need, so rather than ask God (or his designated leader at the time), they complained.

God calls it a test. It was a pattern they continued all the way from Egypt to the promised land: they had a need, so they whined, but God came through.

It occurs to me that the whiney people, freshly delivered from slavery, didn’t recognize the tests. I understand why they didn’t recognize the first one: they’d never been tested by God before.

But it happened over and over and over. Every time they had a need, they could have looked to God who had already met every single need they had for escaping slavery and surviving in the wilderness, but they focused their attention on their needs instead. And they whined.

Hebrews interprets this whining as them hardening their hearts. They had the choice in the test: do we trust God, or do we harden our hearts and whine?

I admire God’s patience as the whiny people tested his patience. (Yes, Scripture is clear: they tested him, too.)

Then I realized that when I am faced with a need, that’s probably a test, too.

If God is my provider, he’s going to provide for my needs.

(Note that not every want qualifies as a need. God has not promised to provide for everything I want, just for my needs. I may need to discern the difference.)

So every time I encounter a need in my life, I’m faced with the same choice: do I use this as an opportunity to bring my need to my Father, which keeps my heart soft toward him?

Or do I look at my need, focus on my need, whine about my need, and harden my heart toward my Father who loves me, and who is using this as an opportunity for softening my heart?

Test for Apostles & Prophets

Ephesians 2 says, "You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone."

Some among us are called by God to be prophets, and some are called to be apostles. Therefore this verse applies to these men and women.

Here’s a question for these folks: How are you doing at being foundational?

I sometimes wonder if this is one of maybe two key tests of the effectiveness of apostles & prophets: Are you being a foundation for others to build and grow on.

The other test, remembering Ephesians, chapter 4, is this: are saints being equipped, made more effective in their works of ministry after having been around you? Pretty similar work, wouldn't you say?

Observation: this seems to have little or nothing to do with how many conferences you speak at, how many people are in your network, or how many people greet you in the marketplace as Prophet Jered or Apostle Tiffany.

Success as a prophet or apostle doesn’t seem to be related to how many people you lead (not that it's insignificant), but what the nature of your influence is in their life.

Finish the Work of Church Discipline

I was part of a church one time, where one of the leaders developed what was seen as an inappropriate relationship with his female secretary.

He didn’t respond to counsel (he didn’t agree with their evaluation), and so Matthew 18 was brought out, along with 1 Corinthians 5:4&5 to bring him to repentance.
-----

For reference:
“...if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector....” [Matthew 18:17]

“...deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved....” [1Corinthians 5:5]
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This was a difficult gathering, when we obeyed these scriptures. It was, however, done tenderly and lovingly (I have seen these verses wielded in less loving ways at other times).

Over time, the gentleman in question recognized that he had been in error and repented. (Later, he testified that when we talked about “delivering him to Satan,” that it wasn’t a metaphor.)

It’s my observation that this sort of church discipline is exercised from time to time, whether with love or with a cudgel, by churches who value obeying the Scriptures.

I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of a church practicing the rest of that process.
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“The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient. Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him.” [2Corinthians 2:6-8]
-----

It seems that pretty often, the church whose leader has failed morally is more focused on getting the stain off of their reputation than they are in restoring a fallen brother. And so “church discipline” when it goes this far, has come to mean that we’ll never see that brother again.

That’s not the plan.

The Matthew 18 passage instructs us to “treat him as a tax collector.” You might want to recall that the author of this passage, Matthew himself, was once a tax collector, until Jesus met him.

Or consider how Jesus dealt with the only other tax collector named in Scripture (“Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.”). There was no shunning, no sweeping under the rug here.

The 1Corinthians passage goes on to say that the goal of that process is “that his spirit may be saved.” And if that weren’t enough, the apostle chews them out in his next letter for not going out of their way to restore the guy.

That’s how our Jesus does things: he restores folks. More specifically, he restores relationships with folks that the religious community has written off as embarrassing and inappropriate.

I’m thinking that Jesus is a good model to live up to.

Lessons From Samson’s Failure

This morning, I was watching a video that somebody posted online, a Bible teacher I had never heard of. And as I watched and listened, I realized that the things he was saying were not settling well in my spirit.

He was basing his teaching on the Bible, sort of. And he clearly had a gift, though it was negotiable as to whether his gift was teaching or gathering a crowd. 

I decided not to continue under his influence and switched him off. And I kept thinking about it, about the dynamics going on here.

Later, I was working my way through the Book of Judges, and I came across Chapter 13. (Interestingly, the term “Chapter 13” in US law often refers to bankruptcy.) This is where the story of Samson begins. As I listened, it came alive for me. I love it when He does that.

My attention was drawn to the fact that Samson had a real, legitimate gift from God. What he did not have was a discerning heart. Samson’s character was bankrupt.

Samson was a Nazarite. A Nazarite had only three limitations, three vows:

 1. No wine or fermented alcohol.
 2. No haircuts.
 3. No contact with corpses or dead things.

I have no idea how Samson did with the first vow. 

He's famous for obeying the second, at least for a while.

I find it fascinating to observe his complete disregard for the third vow. 

(It is beyond the scope of this meditation to consider why obeying his second vow was so important to maintaining his gift, but obeying the third vow was apparently insignificant.

At one point Samson kills a bunch of enemies with the jawbone of an ass: that is just a chunk of dead animal. Another time, he scoops honey out of a dead lion and casually shares it with his mom and dad.) 

Sammy was unquestionably gifted by God, clearly the most gifted person of his generation. But he was really stupid.

It appears that he let his gift cloud his judgment. 

More than once he put himself into nasty situations with the enemy, excusing it by rationalizing that his gift would get him out of trouble.

More than once, the pretty girls he was hanging around work were clearly working for his enemy and were intent on his demise. They told him so. And yet Sammy did not guard his heart, he did not guard his gifting.

Delilah asked several times how to bind him, how to take him captive. He gave her false answers the first few times, but he should have figured it out when every time, his enemies tried that false answer on him. Clearly she was giving all of his answers to his enemies.

And yet he was so confident in his gifting that he ignored the danger.

That arrogance cost Sam his freedom, cost him his gifting, and even cost him his ability to see. It left him a slave, working for his enemies.

As I was meditating on these chapters, it seemed to me that it's pretty easy for gifted men and women of God in this day and age to fall into the same sort of failure that Samson fell into. It seems that hell is still using these tactics against God’s folks.

I believe that we as gifted believers can and should rely on our giftings. But clearly, there is a limits to that. When we listen more to our gifting, when we listen more to our desires, than we listen to either the Spirit of God, the Word of God or the people of God, that's when it gets really messy.

I don't actually know if the gifted preacher in the video I was watching this morning is falling into Sam’s trap, but as I meditated on this, I found myself praying for that preacher.

I know several people who have gotten seriously sidetracked by their very real, very powerful gifting. Some were famous, some were not. But I have observed these principles in their lives.

Some of them clearly relied on their very real gift to get them out of questionable circumstances. Some of them relied on the very real revelation they were getting more than the revelation of scriptures or the counsel of brothers and sisters in the faith.

Most of them have crashed and burned; some of them are still in that process. It’s not pretty. It is clearly not God's will for their failure, but I observe God's mercy working in it. If nothing else, it stopped them from continuing down that twisted path and compounding their failure.

I suspect that this is a season where God is refining his people. I suspect that He is keeping his gifted sons and daughters on a shorter leash than in previous seasons.

I don't have gifts anything likes Samson or like the men and women that I have watched crash and burn, but I have gifts. Just like you do. I want to be careful with mine. 

So I find myself intentionally sharing more of myself with the men and women around me. I find myself intentionally asking God to search my heart. I know that I am not immune to the temptations that took out Samson or the others.

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

This morning, I was watching a video that somebody posted online, a Bible teacher I had never heard of. And as I watched and listened, I realized that the things he was saying were not settling well in my spirit.

He was basing his teaching on the Bible, sort of. And he clearly had a gift, though it was negotiable as to whether his gift was teaching or gathering a crowd. 

I decided not to continue under his influence and switched him off. And I kept thinking about it, about the dynamics going on here.

Later, I was working my way through the Book of Judges, and I came across Chapter 13. (Interestingly, the term “Chapter 13” in US law often refers to bankruptcy.) This is where the story of Samson begins. As I listened, it came alive for me. I love it when He does that.

My attention was drawn to the fact that Samson had a real, legitimate gift from God. What he did not have was a discerning heart. Samson’s character was bankrupt.

Samson was a Nazarite. A Nazarite had only three limitations, three vows:

 1. No wine or fermented alcohol.
 2. No haircuts.
 3. No contact with corpses or dead things.

I have no idea how Samson did with the first vow. 

He's famous for obeying the second, at least for a while.

I find it fascinating to observe his complete disregard for the third vow. 

(It is beyond the scope of this meditation to wonder why obeying his second vow was so important to maintaining his gift, and why obeying the third vow was apparently insignificant.

At one point Samson kills a bunch of enemies with the jawbone of an ass, which is just a chunk of dead animal. Another time, he scoops honey out of a dead lion and casually shares it with his mom and dad.) 

Sammy was unquestionably gifted by God, clearly the most gifted person of his generation. But he was really stupid.

It appears that he let his gift cloud his judgment. 

More than once he put himself into nasty situations with the enemy, excusing it by rationalizing that his gift would get him out of trouble.

More than once, the pretty girls he was hanging around work were clearly working for his enemy and were intent on his demise. They told him so. And yet Sammy did not guard his heart, he did not guard his gifting.

Delilah asked several times how to bind him, how to take him captive. He gave her false answers the first few times, but he should have figured it out when every time, his enemies tried that false answer on him. Clearly she was giving all of his answers to his enemies.

And yet he was so confident in his gifting that he ignored the danger.

That arrogance cost Sam his freedom, cost him his gifting, and even cost him his ability to see. It left him a slave, working for his enemies.

As I was meditating on these chapters, it seemed to me that it's pretty easy for gifted men and women of God in this day and age to fall into the same sort of failure that Samson fell into. It seems that hell is still using these tactics against God’s folks.

I believe that we as gifted believers can and should rely on our giftings. But clearly, there is a limits to that. When we listen more to our gifting, when we listen more to our desires, than we listen to either the Spirit of God, the Word of God or the people of God, that's when it gets really messy.

I don't actually know if the gifted preacher in the video I was watching this morning is falling into Sam’s trap, but as I meditated on this, I found myself praying for that preacher.

I know several people who have gotten seriously sidetracked by their very real, very powerful gifting. Some were famous, some were not. But I have observed these principles in their lives.

Some of them clearly relied on their very real gift to get them out of questionable circumstances. Some of them relied on the very real revelation they were getting more than the revelation of scriptures or the counsel of brothers and sisters in the faith.

Most of them have crashed and burned; some of them are still in that process. It’s not pretty. It is clearly not God's will for their failure, but I observe God's mercy working in it. If nothing else, it stopped them from continuing down that twisted path and compounding their failure.

I suspect that this is a season where God is refining his people. I suspect that He is keeping his gifted sons and daughters on a shorter leash than in previous seasons.

I don't have gifts anything likes Samson or like the men and women that I have watched crash and burn, but I have gifts. Just like you do. I want to be careful with mine. 

So I find myself intentionally sharing more of myself with the men and women around me. I find myself intentionally asking God to search my heart. I know that I am not immune to the temptations that took out Samson or the others.

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.