Am I pleasing to God?

I had a discussion during a worship practice over some song lyrics which is always a good thing to do. The question of our state of being pleasing before the Lord came up. Now the preface was where does the Bible say "I am pleased with you" You know, chapter and verse? Well it doesn't that specifically because that would require God speaking to us specifically which he doesn't often do. He is usually speaking to the disciples. 

I immediately responded that the concept of being pleasing to God was all over scripture. That is a benefit of being a child of God. We all know that Jesus was the beloved Son in whom God was well pleased not us! But, I would posit that because we are in Christ, because of his precious blood and wondrous work of the cross, I can be brought near as an adopted son.  I can come boldly to the throne to receive mercy and grace because I am now a family member. 

I do not shrink away from his presence because of feelings of guilt, or unworthiness, or wonder if I am pleasing to God...not anymore. I suppose that this is part of every Christian's growing experience, to believe the promises of God. To believe that I am accepted in the beloved and will make it into his presence on that final day. This I believe is why the author of Hebrews writes without faith it is impossible to please him. (Heb 11:6) If we do not believe and live in such a way that his truths are true for us then our relationship with God will be very different than what he desire for us. 

Colossians 1 teaches that God was pleased to not only fully dwell in Christ but to do this for the purpose of reconciling the world to him. 

19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven,by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

God was pleased to make peace with us. So I have to ask did God do these things, pleasing himself, to remain not pleased with his people? This really brings to mind the idea of an angry God in heaven who scowls as his people that he was so please to reconcile himself to. It doesn't really follow does it? But I know that our sin has a tendency to trap our minds in this cage. This is basic theology that perhaps we forget when we are looking at ourselves instead of God. If God has taken the time to reconcile himself to us it follows that he wanted a relationship with us. He desires us. 

Now I understand the reasoning for this. When I first heard the song that caused such tumult I though it was perhaps a bit light to say the least but I did not think that author was intending to communicate that we were pleasing to God in a vacuum.  If the author was intending to communicate that we are so pleasing and therefore God cannot but simply recognize our merit, then yes we would have a problem. But this gets back to the filter issue I wrote about before. If I am weighed down by my past or I am thinking about someone else's lack of righteousness then my lens might cause me come to the phrase in this song and think "We are not pleasing! Haven't you read Romans?" 

This is putting the Bible at odds with itself. Yes there is no one who does good, no not even one. But this is the reality of fallen humanity not the regenerated son of Christ. Yes we as sons and daughters of Christ are people who still sin, but the glorious gift is that we can turn to him who is faithful and just to forgive us of all unrighteousness. "Jesus paid it all", to quote another song. We do not believe that we are perfect by any means but we understand that our filthy garments have been replaced by robes of righteousness. This is what makes relationship with him possible. 

See if we forget this truth then we fall into a performance based relationship. We seek relationship through obedience, however the the real way it works is because of my relationship with him that he established I desire obedience because of love for him.  

I wanted to exhort us to not walk around with our hands covering our face just in case God is pitching burning embers our way. God is pleased with us as we walk with him. This is not to say that perhaps some of us do not have some repentance and Christian discipline to do, but God is not shocked at our failures to be perfect. We should always strive to keep short accounts with God for sure. It isn't different than going to seek forgiveness on account of any transgression that we seek to repair for the sake of relationship. 

I walk with my head held high not because I know I am some awesome human specimen, but because "I know that my redeemer lives." To quote another song. I know that I have a relationship with the most powerful, most beautiful, most loving, most forgiving, most welcoming, most just, most good, most best-est God ever! My words fail to even give majesty to him, but I know that he loves me and thus I try to be pleasing to him as Paul writes many times over and thus I love him in return. 

Now I didn't have the benefit of this one in my back pocket during the discussion but I am thankful because it lead to this entry, but I am glad but the Bible does teach this:

For the LORD takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation.

(Psalm 149:4)

This psalm teaches that God does delight in his people, he takes pleasure in them and that he beautifies them with salvation. God did this very thing, he came and beautified his bride with his righteousness. Jesus made his bride beautiful because of his gift of redemption. Now we cannot say we are pleasing in a vacuum just as I would not say I made my wife Kimberly beautiful because of her distance to me. Only God has the power to cleanse and make beauty from ashes and this is the very thing he did.

This is not simply Israel because remember John teaches that each of us have been grafted into the promise though Christ. We are part of the people of God. We can know we are pleasing to God as much as Flanders knows he is pleasing to God.

So are we pleasing to God? Yes, but for you to believe that perhaps you might need to pray and talk with God about it and do some heart examination. Be encouraged.

thanks

On God and gods

A new year but still an old theological debate. By the time I wrote this many had already taken the task of answering this question and thank God, more people need to speak up about this. But it is going around so I will still add my two cents. Of recent the question "Don't we all just worship the same God? The Jews, Christians and all their denominations and what about the Muslims? Isn't it all the same God of Abraham? Aren't we just looking from different vantage points reading slightly different descriptions? Haven't you seen that tolerance and co-exist bumper sticker with all the world religions represented on it? Geez! Are we all approaching the same God who just seems to give different and conflicting marching orders to different peoples? Well with the rise of Radical Islam this is a good question to ask. This is not simply the case of Christians trying to be different for differences sake, these truths have gravitas, they carry meaning. As a famous person once said, ideas have consequences. 

Well let's look at it. Let's get Biblical a moment. The word of God gives testimony about what we are supposed to believe, this is why we place such weight to what is written. This is why even the Qur'an calls Christians people of the book. So what does that book say? The Bible records for us the character and nature of God. It says:

35. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. 36. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. John 3:35,36

"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me." John 13:20

He who has the Son (Jesus) has the father, he who does not have the son does not have the father. 1 John 5:12 

No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. 
1 John 2:23

This is even foretold in the Old Testament.

13. I saw in the night visions,and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man,and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. 14. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion,which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.  Daniel 7 

This is why Jesus frequently refers to himself as the Son of Man. The Father (God) is inextricably linked to the Son (Jesus). 

It other words there is a sense in which the Jews are approaching the right God but attempting to worship him wrongly. But can this be said the Islam? Does simply the idea that Isaac and Ishmael shared a Father in Abraham mean that a religion that rose literally hundreds of years later that pays lip service to that God mean anything? Well I think we have to seriously look at what the teachings say? How is God described what does he ask of his people? And finally, this is the linchpin, what do they say about Jesus?

This is the issue. If they acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ, the messiah come into the world, God's own son that shares nature with the Father then they are true, if not they are Antichrist. This is an explicit teaching of the Bible. No blogger can change this even if it wins friends and influences people. As creatures we have to come to God on his terms. 

If God condescended and humbled himself to take on the form of a human being in order to testify that he himself had the keys to death and eternal life and that nobody could approach his father, who he is himself one with, then apart from his known message and offer of redemption, are we really being intellectually and theologically honest in arguing that another religion that is hostile to that  truth is the same thing? 

If we have one math book that teaches that 1+1=2 and we have another math book that teaches that 1+1=3 then they cannot both be reliably teaching the same thing. Even if we were attending a conference on math solidarity and peace among mathematicians. I would hope that there would be enough integrity in the room for someone to stand up and say we have crossed over from math into silliness. 

The Bible is explicit. Paul specifically makes the case that even if it was an angel was to appear to you and were to preach to you another gospel that they should be accursed. Why? Because it would be messing with the very revelation from God himself, the very revelation that teaches how to have peace with God. In other words God is not going to contradict himself and confuse his people, but perhaps his enemies will...

Go and read Islamic history. This is exactly the story of how it happened. An angel from "god" appeared and gave new and conflicting testimony. A good follower of the God of Abraham would have recognized the revelation as new and quite different and thus not from the true God. They already had other books not included in the cannon. A good follower of Christ would have further asked and what do you say about Jesus? Is he Lord and God? Well the answer is clear from the Qur'an, No! He was just another prophet from (same god?) of which now Muhammad is greater.

The Bible records Jesus saying of himself from the Gospel of John:

"I am the way the truth and life no one comes to the Father but by me."

"I am the resurrection and the life."

"I am the gate, whoever enters through me will have eternal life."

and to prevent the idea of two Gods Jesus says of himself "I and the Father are one." 

This is how we get the idea of trinity along with the Holy Spirit, 3 in 1. These are exclusive Christian truths that no Jew or Muslim will claim or stand for. We have to consider theology here. If Jesus was just another one in line of people who at one time or another was privileged enough to speak on behalf of god for a bit, he really is no better than Moses, Isaiah , Jonah or perhaps even Mohammad. Jesus really should not be saying the kinds of things he said. We shouldn't be revering him the way we do and we should surely stop writing songs about the guy.

But God is a jealous God who will not share his glory with another. The writer of Hebrews writes:

The Son is the radiance of his glory and the representation of his essence, and he sustains all things by his powerful word, and so when he had accomplished cleansing for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. 4 Thus he became so far better than the angels as he has inherited a name superior to theirs. For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my son, today I have begotten you”? Or again, “I will be to him a father,   and he shall be to me a son”? 6 And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God's angels worship him.”7 Of the angels he says, “He makes his angels winds and his ministers a flame of fire.”8 But of the Son he says,“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.

So Jesus is quite different from other men. Jesus is quite different even to the angels who owe him worship. This is not another prophet in line of the prophets. This man is God's own Son who claims worship for himself. Jews recognized this which is why they put him on the cross. The Qu'ran cannot and will not claim this, in fact neither will the Jews. Listen to what the Apostle Paul says of him in Colossians 1:

15He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

If we want peace with our fellow man we need more than a bumper sticker understanding, we have to follow it to the source which is a man Jesus, we do not however pretend all our gods are the same. This is why Jesus came, anybody can use the word god and fill in the meaning. Hinduism literally has millions of them, our planets are Roman Gods fashioned after the Greek gods and Zeus, who was that thunder guy? We have lots of gods in our history, we are not short on gods. Just because someone in your ancestry has a common relative does not mean your gods are the same, especially with conflicting revelation.

This is why all the many denominations of Christianity share confessions and creeds. We hold that Jesus is the only begotten Son and that he and the Father are both one.  The spirit proceeds from them, their is one God with three persons we have a holy trinity. We have certain confessions that demarcate faith in God or something else. If we have these confessions in common so we can disagree on baptism and liturgy and music. This is why the counter argument that certain theologians also had different gods because they worship differently does not work. We have church history and heretic councils when their gods were actually different and wouldn't you know it, it was about the theology. 

If we agree, we can have many flavors on a Sunday morning as long as we honor Jesus Christ as Lord. When not? Well this is why Mormonism is considered a cult to Christians, they do not share the belief that Jesus is the unique and only begotten Son of God in the flesh worthy of all our worship. Interestingly enough their revelation was also given by an angel of which we were already warned about. This is why people who say they want Jesus or God but don't like theology unfortunately do not understand how it works. Jesus gave us specific testimony that we either accept or reject. The Father (God) sent Jesus because he does care and specifically want us to believe and act in a certain way, it does matter. People will always create other ways to god and even gods themselves but the Father only recognizes the way of his Son. Certain things can never be denied or else we have 1+1=3 and only silly people will agree to live in such nonsense. 

Jesus says I am the way the truth and the life no one can come to the father but by me. There is no other prophet who gives aid. This is why even Jews need the Gospel. This is why Christians who know their Bibles will never agree to a statement that we all worship the same god, it is not to be petty, it is not to be belligerent, it is because it is not a simply a question of method but of who is actually on the other end of those prayers. 

Let's stop arguing for solidarity when there is none, but gain a little understanding. Instead read the Bible and see who it is we actually are seeking or not. Find out who it is you are reaching for as Michelangelo painted. Because there are many gods out there, but there is only one true God. Maybe we should find out who he is. 

thanks

My Dahli Lament

War, war never changes. To quote a modern proverb. With the recent attacks on Paris the world once again is reminded we have an enemy that will not relent, will not stop until we all convert or are killed. Shame on us for forgetting. These wolves will not go away.

The Dahli Lama is a great man who has suffered more than the most of us, but I will critique his theology on prayer. He spoke about the recent tragedies with terrorism. He challenged more people to love and spread the love, and quite frankly it is not a bad message. However in this instance thinking that more love will do anything in the face of this enemy is utterly misinformed. He continues on about the need for love and said that if we emphasize harmony and non-violence then we usher in a new era. Now I appreciate the sentiment but it really doesn't solve much in this instance. Failing to understand that we are dealing with demonically fueled hate from a false god will never help the situation. It would have been similar to John Connor trying to convince the Terminator not to murder him. Kyle Reece explained to Sara Connor what the Terminators do.

Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead. Terminator (1984).

This is not something we can win out with love and good intentions. This is not the case of religious differences but the kingdom of man wrestling with the kingdom of darkness. Powers, Principalities, Rulers, Authorities have raised themselves an army of darkness and now march on the earth to wipe out mankind. This is literally what Paul was warning about with the armor of God in Ephesians 6. But these demons do have foot soldiers. If we don't understand the enemy or their mission then any attempts at solutions will only fail or worse yet enable the spiral to continue, insert American foreign policy. Trying to reason against a growing army with an evil conviction committed to death and destruction is a failure to respond.

But this is not a political blog, the bigger issue I had with his statement apart from a misunderstanding of extreme Islam, was the obvious one that the media have latched onto, him urging the people to stop praying for Paris. Part of his thought was fine because I think that he was trying to say that more than simply prayers were needed. Now this is true, our governments should step up. But his other reasoning was that God's answer would be "No, solve the problem yourself, because you caused it." Well perhaps Buddha may respond saying something like that because he is quite incapable of doing anything, but God is.

The problem with this is that this is not God's nature. He is loving and compassionate. He encourages us to humble ourselves and pray and to repent. God encourages interaction with himself. If God cannot and will not help then get a new god. This is why Paul speaks about the armor of God. This absolutely has a spiritual element to it and we need God's help.

2 Chronicles 4:14 teaches this principle.
14if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

I think the problem is we have gone on long enough without the help of God. 

The other issue is God is not a pacifist. He raises up kingdoms and brings others to the ground. God gives the power of the sword to the governments for the very purpose of curbing evil. The governments of the world are supposed to rise up and topple this evil, that is their very purpose. They in a sense hold the peace until true justice returns. 

"But Gabe, Jesus was a pacifist!" You are right, he was for his purpose in his first coming and he requires it of his followers as well. That is why he has governments in place to handle the wet work. They are not expected to handle this task with protest and peace vigils. God raises up governments and kings for this purpose. They maintain order and they and bring the sword when it is necessary. As Ecclesiastes teaches there is a time for hate and a time for war, also read Revelation.

When these neo Nephilim reek havoc on the world then God's avengers must stand up. I already wrote about God's avengers though. If God expects his avengers to do something then do we expect him to turn a deaf ear at our prayers? In fact sending in governments from around the world to combat this evil may very well be one of his ways of intervening and answering prayer. God raised up armies to do that very thing in the Bible all the time. God judged his own people with Assyria and Babylon. God used his own people to judge the Philistines, Canaanites, the Ammorites etc.  

So go read a Psalm about calling on God to intervene on the world stage. He does it all the time.

Psalm 94 is a psalm calling on God to act on the enemies.
Psalm 10 is calling God stop the wicked.
and this from Psalm 58   

O God, break the teeth in their mouths;
    tear out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord!
7 Let them vanish like water that runs away;
    when he aims his arrows, let them be blunted.
8 Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime,
    like the stillborn child who never sees the sun.
9 Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns,
    whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away!

10The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance;
    he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked.
11 Mankind will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous;
    surely there is a God who judges on earth.”

God cares about justice. This is not to say do not pray for your enemies though. Jesus does tell us to do this. So while I pray for them to turn from their wicked ways and come to the Lord I hope in the meantime their violence will be stopped whether by a solider doing his job or a missionary doing his. 

So while he meant well, the Dahli Lama only caused me to lament at having missed this one. So I want to end by offering a prayer. Thank you God for being a God who hears, a God who acts, and a God who cares. We have indeed made a mess here of your beautiful creation. We are in need of help from the enemy of creation. Delivery us oh God from evil and if this be a judgement, keep us oh Lord during it and let all people return to you. God help us, oh Lord and continue to bestow your grace on France and anyone else suffering at the hands of this regime of evil.

thanks

On arguing with your Doctor

The man walks through the revolving doors and looks around. The smell of rubbing alcohol immediately reaches his nose and he is reminded that he did not want to come here. He looks around at the half empty room and decides on a good seat as he walks to the counter.

"Do you have an appointment, sir?"

The man looks at the young woman and again is reminded of the hassle of the ensuing paper work. "Yes I should have been scheduled for 2pm."

He half smiles, so does she. The woman checks her computer "Mm-hmph" and reaches down and hands out the large stack of papers that he was dreading to have to fill out. "Please fill these out and we will call you shortly."

The man looks around and grabs a pen off the counter and looks back to see his seat has now been encroached upon by a lady and her son. The seat he wanted was not yet taken but the buffer zone he was counting on was now gone. He lets out a short sign and eyes another seat off in another corner by some fake plants and quickly approaches. He turns gives another glance over the room and sits down. He was looking around to make sure no one was also racing for the place. No one was. But he checked all the same.

He glaces at his phone 1:50pm. "Well, now for mindless paper filling out, it's like I am still at work."

He beings writing his name and birth date and social security number. "They should know all this". He let's the tedious work annoy him. He continues down through the document where it starts to ask pertinent and seemingly non-pertinent medical history. "Hufff, I don't know why they need all this, what does my sexual history have to do with this?!" He continues on annoyed in the paperwork and at about 2:09 he concludes he has done enough.

He slams the pen down on the clipboard louder than he meant to, he quickly looks up to check if, but nobody notices. He gets up to look around as if someone was lusting after his seat, but nobody was doing that either and so he quickly dropped off the paperwork and returned to sit down.

"John?" The woman calls out.

He looks over his shoulder to the left and watches as a man looking equally as annoyed as him walks through the silver double doors to the back.  The man glances around and sees the typical magazines that people don't actually want to read. He lowers his head and pulls out his phone to continue reading an article he had found interesting earlier at work. Of course CNN was on but he would rather read about it. After a few minutes into it.

"Martha?" A woman not to far from him on his left stands up and heads to the doors but her face is more one of fear than annoyance.

He continues with his article. The government has made a decision, saved the day by simply pushing their laws through without the voice of the people. Of course the man doesn't read it that way. "It is time to move forward with culture." He said quietly. "It was the voice of the people, there didn't need to be a vote." He continues reading and thinking 'You can't legislate morality, everyone knows that.'  He gets lost in the article again. A few more minutes pass...

"Samantha?" The man looks up and to his surprise the lady that had moved in on his last seat position was moving up with her son. The man wanted to speak up. 'I was definitely here before her" he thought. Instead of causing a scene he sat back in his chair and decided that as usual the nurses just messed up the order. "Alight Peter, no big deal." Peter continued to read another few minutes, and then like music to his ears.

"Peter?" He gleefully stood and up and walked through those silver double doors. "Follow me." The nurse said. They walked down a white hallway and rounded a corner and she led him into room 307. "The doctor will be with you in a few minutes." She half smiled and closed the door.

Peter sat back down and was slightly annoyed that he had to wait more but such is life he said. Many more minuter passed and he decided to start reading once again. Eventually the door opened and the Doctor came in. "Hello Peter, how are you today?" The doctor was an older man with the looks of about 50 with his grey hair parted to the side and small but thick glasses. He looked like the kind of doctor you would imagine and would want to be your physician.

"Just fine today Doctor, I really feel great." Peter smiled truly this time.

"That's good Peter, good to hear, well...I know they sent you over here for the results, so if I may?" He asked.

"Please Doctor, I am all ears." He smiled genuine again. The Doctor open his folder and took out three X-rays. The Doctor scanned over his notes one last time and looked up.

"As you know we were very concerned with some of these spots." He said holding up the the x-rays so that Peter could see. Peter was truly not worried.

"Well Peter, I think we have been preparing for this." Peter's smile did not change.  "I still hate to have to tell you this but it looks terminal." The doctor said in the most gentile voice he could muster. With a bit of his own surprize from the lack of a reaction from Peter he continued.  "But not to worry it is still fairly early on, so we can probably make good progress with chemo."

Peter just blinked again, "But I feel fine doctor, In fact I went for a run this morning and I still feel as good as I always have. In fact since the fall, I haven't had an episode at all. I feel even better than before because I have been doing everything that was suggested. I can't have caner, I can't!"

"I am sorry to have to give you this news Peter, but again don't worry there is so much we can do for you, especially sine it is early on." The Doctor put his hand on Peter and tried to console him.

"No Doctor, I don't believe you, I won't!" Peter was physically shaking throwing off the Doctor's hand.

The Doctor backed away and put his clip board up in front up him as if to make a bit of a barrier. "Now Peter, this is not the end by any means, we can work through this together, I have had quite a bit of success in this operation."

"Noo! Doctor!! I won't accept that, I won't!" Peter stood up fuming. He looked at the Doctor and wanted to say something but instead he pushed right passed him and headed for the entrance. Peter stormed out of the reception and got into his car. "That Doctor doesn't know what he is talking about, I feel fine. I am fine. I will show them."

Peter continued his routine for months and convinced himself that he was fine and would not listen to anyone especially the Doctor. In two years, he passed away.

Now we understand the five stages of acceptance. We know that anger and denial are the first two steps, but we also understand that it is a tragedy if people stay there. 

So sad. But is this really that unbelievable?

The church is a hospital. God is calling all to the house. We are all sick and in need of him. In fact it is so bad that we might as well be delivered straight to the morgue when we arrive. But all is not lost. Jesus Christ is the great the physician. He says that he calls not the healthy but the sick. He came not for the righteousness but for the unholy, in fact he came for our this very problem.

This is where Jesus says that we are, also that he is who we need, what we need, and he is available.

Furthermore the truth is that Jesus's staff are also sick. This is a sick person run hospital, some may have earned their positions as nurses but they still need the great physician's care as well, and he allows them to help. The job of the sick are supposed to bring their friends and loved ones because they themselves have experienced healing at the hands of the great physician.

See the great physician has already given the diagnosis. The call has gone out, it has been told on the mountains and in the streets. Some recognize their need and come to his hospital but some scoff at the notion that they are even sick. Both are sick but only one comes and gets treatment. When someone is convinced they do not have cancer no amount of discussion will change their mind. And certainly no amount of screaming will either.

If a man wants to walk the earth as a sick man rejecting the healing services of God there is not much I can do. This is why Jesus spent more time with those who heard his message rather than those who rejected it. He told them all of their need of the Great Physician but only the humble responded and received care.  This is the sad truth. It is not about types of sin or types of religiosity, it is always about humility at the diagnosis.

However compounding the issue sometimes the help tends to focus so much on the other people's x-rays that they start to sound like they themselves are not also going through their own treatment as well. If I sound like I am not also in treatment for my own prognosis than others will start to resent that they need treatment and I don't. I fear that sometimes we get into the business of instead of applying the healing balm of the Gospel we have instead tried to be evangelist's for people's sickness.

The church can never convince someone they are sick when don't believe that they are. We can only point people to the great physician. Only the sick that realize they are sick will go, only they can recognize their pain and identify with it or reject.

I fear where we are culturally is that the church is trying to convince the world of something they will not see and they hate us for it. Maybe instead of trying to convince people they are sick we can only remind them that Hospital is open 24/7 and the Great Physician is always on duty.

thanks

Jude 1-4 a Commentary

During seminary I had the task of translating Jude among other books in the New Testament and I was toying with the idea of writing a commentary and I decided, why not? Jude it one of the shorter books in the Bible.  So here it goes Jude in five blogs: 

Jude 1 English Standard Version (ESV)

¹ Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ:
² May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
³ Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. ⁴ For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

1Now Jude is obviously not Judas who betrayed Jesus and traditionally neither is it the other disciple named Jude. This is accepted to be Jesus' actual brother Jude. This is the brother to James the guy who wrote the other book in the New Testament, also not one of the twelve. The cool thing here is that obviously the message got through to Jesus' own family. James and Jude become leaders in the first church and even the disciples seem to value their opinions as we see at the Jerusalem council in Acts 15. This is quite a different attitude from the brothers who almost are chiding Jesus on when they try to get him to go to the festival from John 7. Jesus responds that the world doesn't accept him but that world accepts them, clearly making a distinction between himself and them.  So when this book is written clearly they have witnessed the power of God and come around to the idea that their own brother was sent from God.  So much so that Jude now considers himself a servant of Jesus his brother and he identifies as the brother of James rather than just saying the brother of Jesus. In part b of this verse he communicates the audience as other people called loved in God and kept in Jesus Christ.  The term kept in Jesus Christ is interesting, It may be alluding to the verses that are coming where he makes the distinction of those who will not be kept or held, but who are being kept in judgment.

2 Not much needs to be said here, he is praying for mercy, peace, and love to be multiplied to the readers of the letters obviously this could just be a greeting, but it may also be what is needed as the book goes on to talk about false teachers. A need for peace and mercy in the midst of their situation may be just what they need as an aid in their trial. 

3 Now this is interesting, Jude admits that he wanted to just write a letter about the common salvation that he and the readers possessed but that given the situation he felt much more urgency to write to them about the need to fight and defend the faith. There was something going on of such import that Jude changed his mind about what to write.  He wants them to understand that their faith is under attack and that they need to defend it, in other words, that apologetics are important. Part b of this verse is also important in that it backs up the notion that the cannon and revelation are completed for the faith. This is not to say that God doesn't speak anymore but that the Bible contains all things for life and practice already. This is also a reminder that the new revelation coming from the false teachers is not in accordance with the already delivered revelation to the saints. This is reinforcing the need for credible teachers and prophets as we will see in the following verses. 

4 Here are the people that he was warning about. Some people have crept into the church and are not easily identified other than their theology. It is their theology that causes them to stand out. The other interesting thing is that Jude identifies this as people who were designed for a certain kind of judgement that he will get to in the following verses. A key aspect of their theology? They pervert the grace that God has given and turn it into sensuality. In other words they confuse the idea of God's grace, for license for their own sinful desires. In doing this they pervert the message and end up denying the master Jesus Christ. Why? Because their message flies in the face of everything that Jesus taught and ends up undermining him as the authority. Therefore he can say that they are ungodly. They have a special condemnation as we will see in the following passage. 

What commentary is complete without a little application?  I believe the obvious one here is about false teachers, who pervert the truth of the gospel into sensuality. Does this sound at all familiar? We are currently living in a culture where some churches are deciding whether certain sins that the bible spells out to be out of bounds, are as they say, "in bounds".  These sins are of course of the sensual nature. In other words people have found teachers that have answered their itching ears and longing hearts that want to have their Jesus and sexual sins too.  Jude even nails it on the head here when he says they pervert the grace of God into sensuality. This is exactly the message: Since God is about love and grace then people should be allowed to "love" each other no matter how perverted it may be. Either Jude is a prophet or this book was just written yesterday.

thanks

 

Beat the System

I recently was inspired to listen to my Christian 80's rock again. I always come back to Petra and Stryper as bands that not only had great music, but they had theology that not a lot of today's music seem to be able find.  This is not another blog about Christian music though it is about some of the theology that that music has brought back to mind.

The song Beat the System from the Album Beat the System by Petra 1985. I know that for today this phrase has more along the lines to mean "question authority, and fight the man, resist authority, find a way to circumvent the establishment." But at the time it was more along the lines of fighting the world system of sin.

Not that battling sin is the purpose but doing things as Christ commanded as opposed to simply following after the world. It was that idea of being counter cultural. It was about actively subverting the flow. It acknowledges that to follow Christ is most likely not going to look like what the world is doing. This is the very definition that fills in what Jesus told his disciples they would have to do.

Jesus said that the disciples that follow him will have to bear their own crosses. Disciples who follow understand that he is more than savior, he is Lord.

I don't know about you but the picture I get of carrying a cross is scary and it is not just the death part. See the death part makes sense, Jesus was put to death. Of his disciples James the brother of the beloved John was put to death before the close of the New Testament, he was beheaded. Another disciple that was brought up under the apostles teaching Stephen was put to death, stoned to death. John the baptist was also put beheaded for obeying the commands of God. Herod stretched out his hand and tried to Put Peter to death as well, he escaped. The apostle Paul was stones and persecuted and even appears to have died and rose again in the midst of his mission. Fox's book of Martyrs tells the story of pretty much every other disciple being martyred as well.

In other words taking the call to follow Jesus seriously has consequences. 

When Joe Banks was faced with his own mortality and asked what his interests were he said:  "Courage, courage interests me." Joe versus the Volcano (1990). 

But does courage interest us as Christians, for the sake of the gospel?

It interests me truly, but I find also a lot of fear in my heart. I wonder if for many of us the bigger problem is not the death, that has almost a victorious sound to it. To be able to be counted worthy to die in such a way would be an honor for any Christian, not that I want to minimize the sacrifice at all. But I feel that it is the taking up and carrying the cross part that is difficult for most of us. Are we able to walk through the streets of our own neighborhoods and communities with a sign of death on our backs? Not just that but being ridiculed and mocked and accosted while we do?

If walking down the death march was easy I suppose many of us would do it. The problem is we don't know the time frame from when we start walking to when our death sentence is carried out. Can I live in a world that hates me for standing on truth for a lifetime? Can I live as a pariah in my own community? Now I don't relish at the thought of persecution nor should anybody, but do I live in such a way as to ever invite it?

Do we dare to beat the system or would we rather work as a shadow operatives? Please understand this in not an indictment but a real question that even I have to wrestle with. As the storms are gathering I ask myself am I willing to share my faith, and what that means for a dying and decaying country that wants to throw off all restraint? Am I willing to do this without sitting behind a computer screen? In case you aren't one to read the headlines much, persecution for Christians in this country has begun. It is still only in its infancy, it has to figure out how legally it can do it, but if you are paying attention the wheels are already moving to shut up the voices of dissent that we the Christians have become.

It is ironic because the world system of sin that we are to counter is becoming one with our own system of government. One that wasn't always that way. We are becoming a new Rome. Will we cry out that Christ is Lord and not Caesar? Or will we stay happy behind our closed church doors until the government comes to remove them?

I am not talking about revolution. I already wrote about that, I am talking about what Paul calls not being ashamed of the Gospel from Romans 1.

14. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 15So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.16For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith."

So ask yourself, ask and pray. Does courage interest you?

thanks

In suspect of Institutions

I have said many times that I don't really care what politics and the world are doing. They are never going to agree with Christianity or live up to its worldview, nor should we expect them to. That is what the gospel is for. I do care when people speak as if Christians and grossly undermine its teachings. I do care when people misrepresent Christ and his church.

I was watching video of a prominent "christian" professor saying that he is in suspect of christian institutions. Now this is fine for a person to believe on his own, but what he was doing was embracing all sorts of social views in opposition to the Bible. This is also fine for a person to believe on their own but not as someone one supposedly believes in Christ. The other problem is the applause of the audience which furthers this notion that as long as Christianity is about paying lip service to Jesus it is cool, but the minute it is institutionalized it is a problem. Institutionalized means it becomes an organization it adopts methods, it has structure, rules, ways of operating, and people buy into them. Oh No!!

People like to include Jesus until he says something that excludes. So what they mean is they like Jesus but they do not like theology. This is why about 70% of Americans claim to be Christians but less than half than that do not know what being born again means. So if it has theology it is now opposed to Jesus? This silly notion that somehow Paul and Jesus are opposed theologically or worse yet Paul was all about theology and creating an institution whereas Jesus wasn't interested in theology.  Hmmm....

So is this true?   Let's take a look.

It is a popular phrase to say "I am spiritual but I don't like organized religion." I get it, the whole Catholic thing definitely did some damage back in the day. Some have seen the modern church do some as well. But what does spiritual even mean? As a Christian I know what it means. It means having to do the with the Holy Spirit who indwells us. It means allowing him to guide and thrive in your life, He is present and active. But if he doesn't and isn't why use the term?

What are you trying to communicate? Might it be that you are interested in the idea of God, but perhaps you want him on your terms?

True some people backed slavery, some backed Nazi Germany at first, some backed the Inquisition, and the Crusades and the Witch burnings. Sure some did this and sometimes it was an organization that did it. But many did not, certainly not all did. Should we really distance ourselves from theology because some have misused it? Should we really ignore large sections of the new testament because some of it has been used poorly in the past?

Jesus said it was to our benefit that he goes away so that his Spirit would come and lead us into all truth (John 16:7-14). This is what we get in the New testament. So is Jesus and the Spirit at odds as well? Jesus' instruction in the great commission was to teach all things that he taught but much still had to be delivered with the advent of the Holy Spirit.  

If we put societal whims above the pages of scripture then who really is God in this scenario?  If we say we just want Jesus but don't want any of those rules then we do not really understand Jesus at all. If you think something is not important because Jesus didn't say it directly himself then get out your scissors and trim down the new testament quite a bit.  Furthermore why buy into the Gospels? They were also written down, but not by Jesus, but by his disciples. So is it only direct quotes that count, is that what we really believe? Then cut out all the black letters from the Gospels as well.

This line of thinking is hardly Christian nor does it by any means honor Christ.

Jesus tells his disciples that his Spirit will come and lead them all into truth. This is the backdrop to the writing of the rest of the cannon. In other words Jesus is comfortable leaving the building of his church in the hands of his disciples. They are after all instructed by his Spirit; saying that this was the better set up. So to have people come along later who are undermining this organization set in place by Jesus is to not understand the Gospel or the Kingdom. It sounds more like the term institutionalized is used because we don't want to deal with all those hard verses, we just want to have only love talk and Jesus. 

But, If we care about Jesus' words, we will put stock in his church.  They may have some mess-ups in history, but that is precisely why we need all his teachings, for bringing balance. That is exactly why we need, may I say it? Fundamentals. The teachings that he left to come later after his departing, he let it be delivered from the Spirit to his apostles.

Jesus has this discussion with Nicodemus in John 3. John tells us that some people believed in Jesus but Jesus himself did not put his trust in them. He knew that people were about lip service to him but when it actually came to following him people often would walk away. Jesus starts to get at this with Nicodemus. If you think I am a good teacher and possibly the messiah and are interested in the Kingdom (an institution)  then understand you need to be born again (a rule). To follow Christ means to come to him on his terms. He gets to decide if his kingdom is a free-form, rules free, love fest or if it actually has doctrines and practices that are important. If you read the new testament you will see that he does in fact favor one over the other.

Coming to Jesus is always on his terms not on whether or not his followers have crafted a following that you find appealing or not. If we decide to distance ourselves from institutions then it should be because they have strayed from his words, not because his words form doctrines and those doctrines contain some fundamentals, because they do. If you want to extract Jesus from the Bible then fine but you are left with one of those other Jesus' that even the Bible mentions as not worth following. Think I am making this up?

1 Corinthians 2:11

1I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! 2For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. 3But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.

Even Paul admits that this line of thinking is silly. But we have people wanting the name of Jesus but not the historical man from the pages of scripture given to us from the testimony of the mouth's of his followers. So here we are. The question becomes how do you know if the Jesus you follow is the actual one? Well, you better become familiar with the one proclaimed from the Scriptures by his followers.

So If you are suspect of the institution of the church perhaps you should double check who your headmaster actually is, hmm? Because even Dumbledore was friendly, powerful and worth following, but he didn't die for anyone's sins making peace with God. He was also fiction.

thanks

Do we really need to fight the Avenger?

With another law passed from the supreme bench in our country some have started to speak out more about rebellion. But what is all this rebellion business about?

The obvious example is the civil war but is that what we really want? 

Well the question is of course at what point should the church stand up to a corrupt government? You know because of Nazi Germany? Well how about instead of going to that extreme which may be a legitimate barometer for a culture to at least reference, let's instead ask how should a Christian think about this?

I am not so interested in how a republic should respond to this type of losing of its rights; I will leave that aspect to the political scientists. Since the government is not a Christian institution how should it act fair in this instance? How do you legislate for a people of differing values? differing worldviews? How should both anti-discrimination laws and free speech work? It can become so nuanced that someone is going to feel violated at some point; probably making an executive judicial ruling in favor of one over the other without the input of the people is not such a great idea, but here we are. I am no lawyer so I can only speak to the faith of those who feel like they are living in an increasingly sinful world with no help from a system they thought would help them.

So if using the system doesn't work as many feel in this case what does a Christian do? Do we grab our guns and religion and start a revolution? I sure hope not, and here's why.

We should always look at how those who resisted in the Bible did it. We are called to live at peace with everyone after-all. Christians do not go to war for their rights. They do not even go to war over the Gospel, they peacefully present it and they accept the consequences.

But even Biblically speaking there is precedent to run for our lives but never, never to kill for them. We have too many times in history taken principles in the Bible and have turned them into reasons to kill for and quite frankly we have been wrong every time. Vengeance is God's.

We have to of course deal with what Jesus said to Peter about the sword. In preparedness Jesus told the disciples that a time was coming where they may need to buy swords, but was this for going on the offensive? When the time came for Jesus to be taken away one of the disciples decided that that was the purpose of the sword and rose to the occasion. But what was the outcome?

When this account happens in John:

Jesus said to Peter, "Put the sword into the sheath; the cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?"

It was more important that God's will be done even when they were threatened with physical violence.
Luke records the same event. Luke 22:47-53
This time Jesus rebukes his disciples when this happened and even goes so far as to heal the man's ear.  He did not want his disciples engaging in acts of violence and even restored the person.  

Mathew records it this way.
52Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. 53Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?

Jesus teaches that if one wants to live in such a way that he takes justice into his own hands then he will be opening himself to that kind of death. He also reminds Peter of God's own sovereignty and plan.

So yes he did tell them to obtain a sword, but was it to go on the offense? It seems that this was not what he was getting at. It seems he was simply acknowledging it may be dangerous out there and be prepared, an object lesson perhaps?

So let's understand the context they are in the process of putting Christ to death and he was not at all interested in the self-righteousness of even his own protection from this with acts of violence from his followers. Ah but that was for a pivitol time in redemptive history, what about when something not as essential as Jesus dying on the cross is happening? Well if the answer is not already in the question then let's look at the New Testament. 

Paul writes to the church is Rome. Now when we hear Rome we think of cool ruins and exotics locals over in Italy and that awesome movie Hudson Hawk. Nice.  But think about what that culture was really like. I was just in Italy last year I walked the halls of the Vatican, strolled over the canals of Venice, and the stood in the middle of the Roman Colosseum. The Roman Colosseum was a system in place for the sport and entertainment of the people. But the sport was brutal fights to the death, often with Christians and simple slaves trying to stay alive. Not only this but the system supported cults, temple prostitution, and yes homosexual lovers was common. You could also be jailed with no supply or care for your lively-hood for speaking against the Caesar. He used Christians as human torches for his garden parties and blamed the fire of Rome on Christians to incorporate open and free persecution of them. There were so many religions and gods that if you violated one of them you could bring the ire of the whole community down on you. You could say sin abounded. In fact Paul points out the state, not of just humanity, but of Rome in the beginning of his letter to the Romans.

So let's understand the context that Paul writes when he pens Romans 13. 

1Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.

Remember this is the government that eventually puts Paul to death. To further the example the new Jewish converts had to live through John the baptist being beheaded, James the brother of John being beheaded. Phillip the evangelist being stoned to death and let's not forget Jesus was put to death as well, he rose again thankfully. If you read Fox's book of martyrs the traditions are that almost all of the disciples had their end in this way. But the persecution was never a reason to get organize and raise the capitol. In fact the disciples had a reputation of rejoicing when they were persecuted for the Gospel's sake. The only other response that came about from persecution was a scattering and a spreading of the Gospel. 

The resurrection took the power out of violence. What is the point of physical striving with arms when there is a resurrection of the dead to look forward to?

In other words the response of Christians to a corrupt government is a doubling down on the preaching of the Gospel. The message is reinforced by Paul telling the people to "Owe no one anything except love." Now love did have stipulations for living for sure, but for Christians. We see in the rest of chapter 13 that the responsibility was to display love nonetheless. I mean Paul reminds them to keep paying taxes. It would be nice that if I can't go to war at least I can stop supporting them financially. But Paul seems to think that the Christian should continue to love and support God's avenger. 

If part of our system of government is to allow dissent then we are still in fullfillment of Romans 13 by using the system as given to us. This is what Paul did in appelaing to Rome, he did not simply let the system silence him he used it for the gospel's sake. But when a system changes for the worse all we can do is thank God for time that he gave us to establish his kingdom in the way we were able to do and then continue to do so under a stricter hand. 

Part of the rub for us I know is that we live in a society that grants us a voice of dissent. In fact our free society was based on a voice of dissent. We are blessed to live in a country that started out honoring God and thus adopted some tenets of freedom. But unrestrained and undefined freedom will always consume itself. It will leave behind all those good intentions of the people who believed that man was somehow better than he actually is. 

See if our anthropology is that people are basically good then we will think that ultimate freedom will lead to utopia.  But an anthropology that reflects true human nature reveals that when we are given more freedom we use it selfishly, sinful humans with ultimate freedom leads to more moral decline and the collapse of society or at least one that wants to live in opposition to God. That is why our founding Father's though wanting to establish a free society still recognized the need for laws and even laws to protect the people from the newly instituted government. The separation of church and state as Thomas Jefferson penned it, not in the constitution I might add, was to prevent government interference with religion not prohibit it. Now somehow it is interpreted backwards. But if God's deems our plight worthy of an exodus then he will provide his own Angel of Death, he doesn't need us for that role, but if not and probably not, we must continue to be faithful and humble ourselves. All we can do is pray for our leaders to change or for the Maker to return.

If our prayer leads us to anger and temptation to rise up then our focus is wrongheaded and we are not resting in the one who has both the power to raise up kingdoms and bring them down.   

Daniel 2 reminds

“Blessed be the name of God forever and ever,
to whom belong wisdom and might.
21He changes times and seasons;
he removes kings and sets up kings;
he gives wisdom to the wise
and knowledge to those who have understanding;

When commanding Jeremiah the prophet God tells him of his power over the nations

1:10See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to break down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.”

Psalm 75 is also about this. 

The last point is simply this. We are not Israel, so we are not a true theocracy and we do not get to act as his sword. He did that under a different covenant for judgement, but at this point in history he has reserved all judgment to the Son, who when he returns will administer it all. As I said before all we can do is know that they will give account, even the very avengers that we had a hard time living under that God allowed for a time.

This is a hard truth no doubt. It takes humility to let God handle his own affairs in the realms of men but they are his affairs. His affairs are justice, mine are obedience. The only warfare Christians wage are on their knees humbly before God.  So maybe we should we should enact some warfare: take it to the Lord in prayer. 

thanks