2 Corinthians 1:9-10: “But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead - who HAS DELIVERED us from so great a death - and DOES DELIVER - in whom we trust that He WILL YET DELIVER us.” The Spring flowers will soon be in beautiful bloom in my yard. In order to bring some of this beauty into the house, I often cut some of the prettiest and place them in water vases. As I cut them, a thought always comes to me. We humans are all born in the same condition as this cut flower. The life is cut off but the blossom appears alive, but only for a time. The cut flower looks alive, it feels alive, it smells alive, but it has a DEATH-LIFE! It has been cut off from the source of true life and only has a temporary “water-life”. In about a week, or no matter how long the beauty lingers, we see death working in the flower.
Humans are born in a similar condition as the cut flowers. As humans age to their allotted “three score and ten”, we see death working in us physically. This sentence of death in our bodies is evident since nobody gets out of this world physically alive.
Even deeper, the death in man’s spirit and soul is evidenced by the fruit of the death-life in expressions of deceitfulness, grasping, selfishness, hate, and fightings. These are fruits and expression of a life and nature contrary to the genuine God-Life. Death has permeated man’s entire being: spirit, soul (mind/emotion/will), and body.
The above quoted scripture speaks of a sentence of death working in and upon the apostle Paul and his fellow believers by the situations and circumstances which they encountered.
The entire book of Second Corinthians stresses a description of the way of genuine life as coming out of death. The three deliverances or salvations described in 2 Corinthians 1:10 above is from death as being something of the past (already completed), present (being in process), and yet to be realized in the future. The true condition of all mankind before one’s rebirthing by the Spirit of Christ is that all are living a life of death. Jesus said, “Let the dead (in spirit) bury their dead (physically)” (Matt. 8:22). Ephesians 2:1-2 declares that all were dead in sins, walking (living and having life) according to the prince (Satan) of the power of the air that works “IN” the children of disobedience, but we who are reborn are now “made alive”.
Death came just as God had told Adam. The deceit of Satan persuaded Adam to sin in a search of knowledge. This fall made man apparently “god” of his own life but his life was incapable of living according to such knowledge. Actually, Adam had taken into himself the “death-life” which is the nature of the evil one himself by believing and trusting Satan’s word. Humans have life or death by what we believe and trust.
The separation and alienation from God, which came about by the fall of Adam and his birthing to independence, resulted in Adam and all his offspring living a death-life. He was cut off by his choice from the only true and capable life in the universe, God Himself. Adam and we, until our rebirth as His children having the divine nature of Christ, had only a pseudo life. Our natural life before conversion is a death-life, a counterfeit or shadow of the true spiritual Christ-life — GOD-LIFE.
But God’s overall purpose of grace is being achieved nonetheless. God has a remedy for man’s death-life: GOD-LIFE for the whole man!
God deals with each person having the death-life and, in whatever ways are best, shows them the futility of their so-called independence and draws them to Himself.
And the salvation of God-Life is for the whole man. We who have been reborn in spirit: (1) have already been made totally alive in our spirit by the eternal Christ-Life of God as our innermost Life and nature. We possess all of Him by His seed of Life in us (I Peter 1:23, Galatians 3:16).
Life is not given by measure, though the expression of that life may be yet immature as an acorn is an immature oak tree. That Christ seed in our spirit will grow ultimately to possess our entire being. (2) Our soul, which was formerly used to express the death-life of Satan, our old father (John 8:44, Eph. 2:2), still bears the scars or imprint of that old crucified nature in its thinking, feeling and willing memory cells. The soul is the organ of expression and is being renewed and delivered daily from the remnant garbage of the death-life by the indwelling Life of Christ - one with our reborn spirit. (3) Our bodies, with the sentence of death yet in them, are yet to be delivered. In the twinkling of an eye, one day, these mortal bodies will be glorified and put on immortality (I Corinthians 15:53-54).
As reborn Christians, we are forever children in God’s Family. The seed of the eternal God-Life which began in our spirit is SPREADING OUT IN OUR WHOLE BEING. God is seeing to it, in ways that we cannot know, that His God-Life does spread and grow into function in our soul and body as it IS functioning totally in our spirit.
“What is mortal [death-life] may be swallowed up by life [God-Life]” II Corinthians 5:4 NIV)
The whole being of Christ, now dwelling in our reborn spirit as our genuine Life, is being worked outward from that core of our being to the renewing of our soul and ultimate redemption of our bodies. By faith and trust, we now have the wisdom of Christ revealed in us knowing that: (1) our spirit has already been justified and made righteous by the Righteous One who gave us His righteous God-Life, (2) our soul is being sanctified by the outworking of His Life from our spirit, and (3) our body will soon be glorified as an incorruptible spirit body. Spirit, soul and body: justified, sanctified and glorified.
“When the perishable [the death-life] has been clothed with the imperishable [the God-Life], “and the mortal [the death-life] with immortality [the God-Life], then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54).
Roses are red, Violets are blue. But cutting them off, Death begins to ensue.
Flowers are given to us by God for their beauty. Whenever we view cut flowers, may this cause a remembrance of the death-life we had, and of the God-Life which has been given to us freely, unmerited, only by faith in the unconditional LOVE OF GOD.
The so-called “Great Commission” is stated at the end of the book of Matthew as follows: “Therefore go and make disciples in all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, --- and THEN teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you; and be sure of this: that I am with you always, even to the end of the world.” Matt. 28:19-20
We hear so much in churches about making converts and baptizing them – but the part about teaching or maturing these new converts often gets pushed aside in order that more and more converts can be reached. Christ, in His way, has divided the preaching of the gospel into two aspects: go and make converts AND second, show those converts what it MEANS TO BE CONVERTED! Show them how their new birth makes everyday life work. Show them that I am not only with you corporately as the church, but that I am with each reborn Christian individually, dwelling within, and THAT I WILL ALWAYS BE THERE!
God’s purpose with the unconverted is to draw them into the realization that life does not work properly without Christ. But, in addition, God’s purpose with converted Christians is to draw them into the realization that life does not work properly, EVEN WITH CHRIST INDWELLING, unless we know that He is there, stay aware that He is there, do not become distracted from the fact that He is there, and trust totally that He is there IN ORDER TO MAKE LIFE WORK!
It is a sad fact that many who feel that they are Christian because they have accepted the death of Christ for their sins continue to fight the world, the flesh and the devil unsuccessfully.
As much as we need to build the church by salvation of the unconverted, it is just as important, or even more so, to build the church with knowledge to the converted Christian. Each Christian, where the opportunity presents itself, is guided by God to bring his fellow Christian into the awareness of his living union with Christ.
In the Great Commission quoted above, I like to mentally add one word to the section: “. . .and teach these new disciples HOW to obey all the commands I have given you. . . “.The “how” is very important and is not something that a Christian can easily discover on his own.
But you can be the difference between whether your Christian friend is a “successful” Christian or a “frustrated” Christian. Present the concept of union with an indwelling Christ for consideration. Then let the Holy Spirit reveal to their mind that:
The whole Person of Christ dwells within the individual Christian to BUILD him personally to maturity and… the whole Person of Christ is embodied by the church corporately to BUILD the church to maturity. SO THAT CHRIST CAN BE ALL IN ALL!
Christ and the church are one single reality. The body is not an attachment to Christ, it embodies Him. It gives expression to Christ - the whole Christ — and it carries Him within it. In other words, the New Testament church is nothing else but the corporate Christ - Christ living in the saints, in each individually and in all corporately. This indwelling Christ is the church’s nature and structure, her unity, truth and certainty. He is everything to her (whether she realizes it or not). And Christ is in each member personally!
Humans have brain limitations on understanding this spiritual fact. How can a being be wholly in a single Christian, and wholly in the Christian church? I guess it works the same way that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can be wholly three Persons and wholly one God. I don’t know!
How Do We Build?
Now that we have a reasonable understanding of what is meant by the church, how do we go about the building process? I see two aspects to the Christian work of God in building the church.
1.) We are to proclaim the saving Gospel to those without Christ in our own little world around us - to those who need to call out to God for a Savior and to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. By the power of the Holy Spirit, this builds the church numerically or quantitatively.
2.) We are to proclaim the mystery of the Gospel, which is Christ in you, to those who have been born again, those “saints” and members of the church. This builds the church spiritually or qualitatively.
This second aspect of the Gospel has been virtually ignored by vast segments of the Christian world. There must be a Gospel outreach to converted Christians who desire to move on from the “elementary teaching ABOUT Christ” to full maturity IN Him.
I am personally confident that you can’t build the church successfully without large doses of the “Christ in you” message.
All of the power of the Godhead is placed in us in union with Christ at our new birth. It is all there ready to be used in our daily living. But you cannot use it until you know it is there, trust that it can be used, and then make a willful soul decision to step out and use it. Without this knowledge, the saving Gospel very often just creates a frustrated Christian!
And that was ME for about the first fifty years of my life. I knew that I was a Christian. I had accepted Christ as my Savior and Lord. I wanted to do the right things and I tried hard in my own strength to do them.
But I lived out personally the same frustration that the apostle Paul did in Romans Seven. After his conversion, he became the poster-child for the “frustrated Christian”. “What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself,…then I need something more! For if I know the law by still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t DO it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question? Romans 7:15-24 Message Bible.
The frustration of Paul here is so severe that many who have read these verses come to the conclusion that this must have been before Paul’s conversion that he was so frustrated.
But, no, this was Paul AFTER he became a Christian (and it was ME for fifty years!).
But in the immediately following verses, the light dawned on Paul – the Holy Spirit got through to him what is the second part of the Great Commission: “The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ…” Rom. 7:25; 8:1-2 Message Bible.
So what message of growth should we be teaching new converts to Christianity? How do we achieve the second part of the Great Commission?
Paul laid it out in very specific terms: “I am crucified with Christ – nevertheless I live – yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me” Galatians 2:20.
“God would make known the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: Christ in you…the hope of glory” Colossians 1:27.
“For He has said, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you’” Hebrews 13:5.
This revelation knowledge turned MY life around, because I understood that I didn’t have to constantly call out to God to come to me and change me. I had Jesus living in me and to handle what I couldn’t handle in my own strength – AND HE AIN’T GONNA LEAVE!
The world has seen many forms of religion with belief in a god or gods whose followers want to please or at least placate or smooth over the perceived wishes of the deity.
Religion has purported that if you do what you perceive that God wants, if you do what is “right” in His eyes, you’ll be pleasing to God and be accepted and rewarded in His afterlife.
And many forms of religion throughout history have assumed that God wants His followers to wipe out His enemies on the earth. Anyone whom they see as opposing God’s ideals should be eliminated.
“The time comes when whoever kills you will think that he does God a service. And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father, nor Me” (John 16:2-3).
The Babylonians wanted to wipe out all non-Babylonians. The Assyrians wanted to wipe out all non-Assyrians. Alexander and the Greeks wanted to wipe out all non-Greeks. The Romans wanted to conquer the world but also to eliminate all people who did not conform to their perception of their gods.
The Crusades by the Roman Catholic Church against the “infidels” in the Holy Land was a desire to please God by physically destroying His supposed enemies.
In more modern times, Hitler wanted to wipe out all whom he perceived as opposing his godly “super-race”. We have seen so-called “ethnic cleansing” throughout Russia and the Balkan states. Many Irish believe God wants them to wipe out the enemy British, and vice-versa. Saddam Hussein wanted to wipe out the “infidel” Kurds as enemies of God.
This concept of doing God’s will by physically destroying His enemies has long been a common doctrine of religion.
And, let’s face it, the Old Testament of our Bible shows many examples of God’s instruction to Israel to wipe out their sinful enemies! Is this not a message to all of God’s followers throughout history to kill, kill, kill God’s enemies?
We must remember that God dealt with people in the Old Testament very differently than after Jesus came in the New Testament. There was such a prevalence of evil in all of the cultures surrounding God’s chosen people that the only way that His nation of Israel could be established in such surrounding evil was to wipe out the evil people. The world was so evil at the time of Noah that destroying people by the great flood was God’s only answer. Before Jesus Christ brought grace and forgiveness to the world by His death, evil people could not be tamed.
God does not require His followers today to physically destroy the evil of the world. The great Commission of the gospel is to go among the world and show them the message of grace and forgiveness.
Suicidal terrorism
Now in our day we see arising and expanding the worst form of this religion to “please God” by killing His supposed enemies – suicidal terrorism.
Killing only yourself to please God would be bad enough. We have one of the most incredible tragedies of our lifetime in the followers of Jim Jones. Once identified with evangelical Christianity, Jones departed to form his own false religion at the People’s Temple in San Francisco. So persuasive was Jones that he drew nearly one thousand people with him to Guyana, South America. And his followers, believing that they were receiving the truth of God, drank poison under the assumption that they were going to heaven. The greatest tragedy of Jonestown is not that nearly one thousand people died. Everyone will one day die. The tragedy is that they died all the while believing they were serving God and on their way to heaven.
We will never know how many of the deaths at David Koresh’s religious compound at Waco, Texas were suicides in order to please God and get to heaven.
Yes, the tragedy of suicide is bad enough. But when you mix suicide with the desire to please God by killing God’s “enemies” as the terrorists did who flew the jetliners into the World Trade towers and into the Pentagon, and as they continue to do with suicide bombings in public places, you achieve the WORST form of religion.
Fortunately for us, God doesn’t really deal with us on the basis of our ability to please Him, but on the basis of His love. It’s a common misunderstanding of worldly religion and even much of Christianity that pleasing God by humans is His purpose. Religion says, “It’s up to you!” The Christian message says, “It’s up to God and God’s grace.” Religion says, “People get exactly what they deserve!” The Christian message says, “Christ got what we deserve!” Religion says, “Follow our laws and traditions! That’s it!” Christian faith says, “Follow Christ! He’s it!”
Ultimately, what Calvary means is that religion cannot save; salvation requires the life of Another. Religion has purported that if you keep the Law, if you do what is desired by God (as you see it), you’ll be pleasing to God. But God’s New Testament concept is that He desires to place another life - the Life of Christ - in you and which is, in fact, the seed of His very nature. It is at Calvary that religion is ultimately put down, but there is more to it than this.
Religion was instigated, originated, and first operated by Satan in the Garden of Eden, for it was Satan who very religiously declared to Adam and Eve that if they would eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree, they would be as gods. Note that this was not an anti-God message. It was, in fact, a message that sounded so good to Adam and Eve that they obviously felt it was a God-truth. This was the birth of religion. Religion, operated by Satan, will attempt to get as near to God-truth as possible, deceiving those who hear into thinking it is the total truth.
The Moslem fanatics who have terrorized many countries see their suicidal destruction as a godly enterprise - as a God-truth. They are sincere - but sincerely wrong.
Many have said that we are in “the time of the end” - near to the return of Jesus Christ. The “Left Behind” series of books about the return of Christ have sold millions of copies.
I myself have been very leery about calling this THE time of the end and even skeptical about prophecy. I have seen predictions come and go without fulfillment. Matthew 24 predicts wars and rumors of wars as being a sign of the end; but there have always been wars. Earthquakes are predicted; but there have always been earthquakes. Famines and pestilences also; but there have always been these.
I have been a history buff throughout my life and have studied many previous cultures. I have seen many examples of religion attempting to kill the “enemies” of God. But one factor is coming to the fore in my thinking. And you should consider this factor very seriously also.
This is the fact that there were many battles to kill “infidels” throughout history, but THE ATTACKERS WERE NOT SUICIDAL! They expected to survive and win! They were not entering conflict IN ORDER TO DIE AND GO TO BE WITH GOD.
When you stop and think about it, suicidal religion - that is, trying to die killing God’s “enemies” - is, for the most part, unique to our present time.
The Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Nazis, Saddam Hussein, didn’t go into war suicidal. They went in to win and live! These people did not blow themselves up with bombs in order to die with the “enemies of God” and thus please God and attain heaven.
Is this the most frightening and dangerous situation the world has ever seen? I don’t know. But our present war against suicidal terrorism is certainly going to present us with uniqueness in how to proceed. Mistakes in garnering protection are going to be made around the world. How do you fight people who have short-circuited the genetic will to survive? If this is not the most dangerous era of the world, it is certainly the beginning of a new era of SUICIDE FOR GOD - suicide thinking that “they do God a service!” (John 16:2)
Because human beings can visualize phenomena only in dimensions that they can experience, in their attempts to describe God, they reach a stumbling block in their thinking.
One reason Christians know that the Bible comes from a supernatural source is that it claims that God is not confined to our human dimensions of length, width, height, and time. It has become widely recognized that, mathematically, there are ten space-time dimensions of the universe. And the Bible not only insists on extra-dimensional capacities for God, but it also specifically describes how He functions in these extra dimensions.
Of all the holy books of the religions of the world, only the Bible unambiguously states that time is finite, that time has a beginning, and that God created time, that God is capable of cause and effect operations before the time dimension of the universe existed, and that God did cause many effects before the time component of our universe existed.
Other holy books besides the Bible allude to extra dimensions, trans-dimensional phenomena, and transcendence, but these allusions are inconsistent. The god and the doctrines these books proclaim always are shaped and limited in some way by the dimensions of length, width, height, and time.
The Bible alone describes God as a personal Creator who can act entirely independent of the cosmos and is not limited to length, width, height, and time. He is the One who brought them into existence.
The Bible is unique, too, in describing certain attributes of God, such as the Trinity — in which God is depicted simultaneously as singular and plural, three Persons but one essence. Many who oppose Christianity state categorically that Christianity is false since the Trinity is mathematically absurd. And this is true in the context of a god limited in his operations to just the four dimensions of length, width, height, and time. But since God created and controls at least six more dimensions besides the four we humans experience, He must be able to operate in them.
Another attribute which the Bible declares forthrightly about God is that He is very close to each and every one of us. The Bible also states that Jesus Christ, a spirit being, actually comes to live right within a human being when that person accepts Him as Savior and Lord. But it just as definitely states that God is invisible. Evidently, it is impossible for us humans to make physical contact with God. How, then, can God be so close and yet be beyond physical contact? How can Christ live within a human being?
An analogy that might help was developed partly by Edwin Abbott, a nineteenth-century schoolmaster and preacher who published the book - “Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions” — in 1884.
Imagine a universe where only two dimensions of space exist rather than three. In such a universe, flatlanders would be confined to a plane of length and width with no possibility of operating in the dimension of height. A three-dimensional being then could approach the plane of the flatlanders and place his hand just a tenth of a millimeter above the two-dimensional bodies of two flatlanders separated from one another by just one centimeter. Since the three-dimensional being is slightly above the plane of the flatlanders, there is no possibility that the flatlanders can see him. And yet, the three-dimensional being is a hundred times closer to each of the flatlanders than they are to one another.
As with the flatlanders, so it is with human beings. God is closer to each of us than we ever can be to one another. But because God’s proximity to us takes place in dimensions or realms we cannot tangibly experience, we cannot possibly see Him.
The Bible goes even further. The New Testament states that God, in the Persons of Christ and the Holy Spirit, comes to actually dwell within Christians in a living union. Yes, the three-dimensional being actually enters the believing flatlander in an unseen eternal union.
Abbott goes on in his book that the only way we could see God is if He were to place a portion of His being into our space-time fabric. This would be analogous to the three-dimensional being poking his finger through the plane of the flatlanders. If one of the flatlanders were to investigate, he would draw the conclusion that this visitor to their realm is a small circle.
But what if the three-dimensional being were to reveal separately to the friend of that flatlander three of his fingers? The friend then would draw the conclusion that the visitor to their realm was not one small circle but rather three small circles. We could then imagine a theological debate between the two flatlanders that would end up with the first flatlander founding the Church of the One Circle while the second flatlander would establish the church of the Three Circles.
This analogy may appear amusing, but it fairly represents what non-Christians have done with the Trinity of God. Some have accepted God’s singularity but rejected His plurality while others accept His plurality and reject His singularity. Only Christians accept that God is simultaneously singular and plural.
Religions that view the Bible through the limited dimensional concept of humanity inevitably deny portions of God’s transcendence. Judaism accepts almost all the teaching of the Old Testament but rejects the New Testament. Islam and Mormonism “accept” both the Old Testament and New Testament but add other holy books to supersede them. The Jehovah’s Witnesses accept the Old and New Testaments but choose to change several hundred words in both. Other cults such as Christian Science simply ignore “unpleasant” passages in the Old and New Testament.
The common denominator in all the alternatives to Christianity is a denial, at least in part, of God’s transcendence and extra-dimensional attributes.
I have another way of looking at the Spirit World. Leaving out the concept of “time”, I have my own geometric analysis of the fourth dimension:
Dimension #1: An infinite number of separate points become one LINE. Or we might say that many separate small lines make up one BIG LINE. (If a plane entered this dimension, it would only be conceived as a point or a small line.)
Dimension #2: An infinite number of separate BIG LINES become one PLANE. Or we might say that many separate planes make up one BIG PLANE. (If a cube entered this dimension, it would only be conceived as a line or a small plane.)
Dimension #3: An infinite number of separate BIG PLANES become one CUBE. Or we might say that many separate cubes [human beings] make up one BIG CUBE [the universe]. (If a spirit being entered this dimension, it would only be conceived as a plane or a small cube – that is, either virtually invisible or as a human being.)
Dimension #4: An infinite number of separate BIG CUBES [universes] become one SPIRIT WORLD. Or we might say that many separate spirit worlds [spirit beings] make up one BIG SPIRIT WORLD [God!]
What can we see in this orderly setup?
1) There are probably many universes. 2) Human beings lose their separateness and become unified in the spirit world. The Church, the Body of Christ, becomes one organism in the spirit world. Everything loses its separateness and becomes unified ultimately in GOD - "God will be all in all" (1 Corinthians 15:28)
Christians must learn to expand their minds by whatever human analogies they can come up with. More than a century ago, Abbott did this with his “flatlander” example. We today have the benefit of computer graphics and computer mathematics to expand our thinking.
Ask the Holy Spirit to make your understanding as complete as humanly possible in this life. Certainly the flatlander will never completely comprehend the workings of dimensions greater than his. But this is where faith and trust in the Creator God comes in.
DO All That You Can DO - or BE All That You Can BE?
Think about this. I am a golfer. I have loved playing golf all of my life. When I used to play regularly, I must boast that I used to be pretty good at the game. I have heard the old golf criticisms such as:
Golf is: the ineffectual endeavor ... to put an insignificant ball ... into an obscure hole ... with completely inadequate instruments!
Or golf is: a game of placing a small ball an inch and a half in diameter on top of a large ball 8,000 miles in diameter and the object is to hit the small ball and NOT the large ball!
But I still enjoy it. And it does make a good illustration. Let us suppose that I had to play golf in order to get to heaven - more than that, I had to shoot below par every time I played. I am sure that I could become much more adept than I ever was, but shooting below par every time would put me in that class mentioned in Romans 3:23: “All have come short.” I will promise you one thing, however. I would be found trying, and trying hard. But I am sure that it would be the same old story of hooking, slicing, topping, and marking up the balls that I didn’t lose.
But suppose one day someone walked up to me while I was in a torrid session on the practice tee and told me that there was a serum that could be injected into the veins and, “ZAP”, everything would be different. Suppose I was told that the serum was the result of years of research; that it contained the best of conditioning, love for the game, driving, chipping, and putting from all of the great golfers of this century - Hogan, Nicklaus, Player, Snead, Palmer, Tiger Woods, and all the rest. I am told further that if I will give up on myself ever being a below par golfer and submit to this injection, by some miracle of metabolism, my golfing becomes the consummate result of all these great golfers as if they lived in me. They, dwelling in me, would be my hope of shooting below par. I ‘LL TELL YOU, I WOULD JUMP AT THE OPPORTUNITY!
Well, we have been given a divine arrangement whereby the Living Lord Jesus comes to live on the inside of us and the perfect Player will play the game of Life for us - all we have to do is hand Him the clubs. How beautiful is this arrangement! There is still in me that “can’t break par” self, but there lives in me another, Jesus Christ Himself, who “breaks par” constantly.
The key to the Christian “golf game” is staying aware of our invisible union with the Master Golfer. When the time comes for each swing, we invisibly hand Him the club and He does the work.
Once a person becomes a Christian he is faced with one monstrous dilemma. He is supposed to live, love, walk, and talk like Christ. He is commanded to love his enemies, abstain from the very appearance of evil, and grow in grace. We are to worry about nothing and be thankful for everything. We are ordered to rejoice always, deny ourselves, accept the fact of our death, and follow Christ every day of our lives. We are to set our affections on things above and not on things of the earth. Added to these and dozens of other demands made upon us, we are supposed to be of good comfort, cheerful, and kind in the midst of an unkind world. This is our dilemma. Paul reflected it when he said, “I have a desire but how to perform I do not find” (Rom. 7:18).
Finally Paul said, “It‘s hopeless!” What a discovery when we find that we cannot live the Christian life – that we can never be good enough to shoot below par..
Humans are geared against giving up. “Get in there and DO all that you can DO!” is often our motto. DOING our best was not enough to get us salvation, and DOING our best will not be enough to get us to victory. In fact, DOING our best, as much as we seem to revere it, IS OUR ENEMY, in that: (1) It will never work and thus is a waste of time. (2) If it did work we could and would take a part of the credit for our victory. (3) As long as we DO our best, we disallow God from doing His NORMAL in us!
This makes “DOING our best” a terrible enemy. We are not encouraged anywhere in the Bible to resort to DOING our best. There is not evidence in the Scripture to be found that God expects anything of us but total and abject failure. This is the reason for the cross in our salvation - and the cross in our inner daily life. The Self of the soul would do its best and take the credit. Self can live a life of DOING that has some appearances of Christlikeness, but self cannot BE Christlike. Our dilemma is clear. . .we cannot DO what God desires and what the Bible requires. The great question is, as Paul said, “How to perform?”
Go ahead and admit it! Your egotistical soul is your greatest problem. Your soul is your chiefest enemy. Of all the four-letter words, SELF is the worst. If you can just face it and acknowledge it, you will be one step closer to victory. Before we can properly observe the glories of salvation and a life in Christ, we must come face to face with this enemy who lives within our soul who would occupy the throne of our lives by self DOING and keep us from triumph.
Self is not subject to the law of God, nor can it ever be (Romans 8:7). Self cannot be domesticated. This is a vital point which can keep a Christian from a victorious daily life for years. We tend to think that something must have happened to our “self” part when we received salvation. But Christ didn’t come in to improve self but to replace it. Self DOING has no place in the plan of God. Neither can you discipline it. How busy we are trying to discipline self. But it is hopelessly incorrigible. You can educate it, change its living conditions, and expose it to the highest kind of morality, but self is still unable to perform. The self-life represents everything foreign to the nature of God. Self must not be dedicated. How prone we are to try to do that! The accumulated result of the effort to dedicate self is a system that operates on selfish motivation and selfish rewards. We have in our churches acres and acres of dedicated self. Self will do anything before it gives up. It will pray, work and tithe. It will teach a Sunday school class or become a deacon. It will even preach! It will steep itself in religious tradition to cushion itself from God. But self DOING remains an enemy of God. As long as self DOING and Christ remain in the same person, there will be frustration.
Well, if you can’t domesticate it or discipline it or dedicate it, what can you do with it? Are you ready to give up on all your methods of self DOING? If you are, we are ready to go to God’s method.
The cure of self is death to self DOING. Jesus Christ alone offers this cure. He said, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23). Such a proposition deserves closer investigation. Let us draw some facts from that statement. it is possible to follow Jesus. He invites it. But there are rigid qualifications. One must choose against himself. Further, one must take up his cross daily. What could this mean? It simply means that if I am to follow Christ, I must accept the fact of my death and keep on accepting it.
The cross is God’s answer to the problem of self. On that cross Christ died. But something else happened there. We died with Him! As we reckoned His death for us, our sin problem was cared for. As we reckon constantly our death with Him, our self problem will be cared for.
So there was a two-fold cross. An OUTER cross, the payment of sin’s penalty, the death of the Substitute, to reconcile us to God was only one part of God’s plan. When that cross becomes the INNER cross applied to self, then there is new and complete liberty.
There is a simple secret to the Christian life. It is, in fact, so simple that millions miss it. There is a truth so mighty that no life can remain the same after discovering it. I bless the day I began to see it! True Christianity is simply: “CHRIST-IN-YOU-ITY” and “CHRIST-IN-ME-ITY”.
BECOMING a Christian comes about by inviting Jesus Christ to come to live inside of us. BEING a Christian simply means that the Christ who came to dwell in us is going about acting like Himself in us. If I am a Christian, I can say, “Jesus Christ is alive in my life right now!” I may not feel worthy of it. I may not understand it. I may not feel it all the time. But the beautiful truth is that all the time, every night and day, at work and at play, when I feel down and when I feel up.... JESUS CHRIST IS ALIVE IN ME. “The mystery. . . which is Christ in you, THE hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). THE hope, the ONLY hope, of my ever BEING what I was made to become (able to shoot below par consistently) is that Christ lives in me to assure it and achieve it! This is a truth beyond all our capacities to understand. It is the prime fact of our faith.
Christianity then is simply Jesus Christ living in our bodies and us allowing Him to go about His own business. When that concept dawns upon the Christian, it changes his whole life. It alters his outlook and disposition. It changes the nature of his work and worship.
If Christianity were nothing more than a man deciding to worship Jesus and DOING his best to imitate Him, there indeed would be little hope. But if Christianity is Jesus coming into an available human body and acting like Himself, then there is abundant hope. In the one, all is based on human strength. In the other, all is based on the dynamic strength of the indwelling Christ. If my salvation depended on my ability to be like Christ, I could be lost again and again. But if my salvation depends on Jesus, then I cannot be lost.
Thus my salvation is secured not by my imitation of Christ but by my participation in union with Christ – by my BEING all that I can BE. He, Himself, living in me, is the security of my salvation. I need no other.
Not only is our salvation secured, but our conquest of daily life is complete. I often feel that when the final accounting is done, much of the work that we have sought to DO for God will not stand. It has been done in the flesh, with self motives and toward self goals. Man working for God is one thing. God working in man is quite another. What we have in our world is a system of religion that, in most part, encourages people to work for God. This kind of work is bothersome, fruitless and frustrating. You can get burned out by church work.
No work of self DOING bears the mark of divine certification. But if Jesus in us does the work, that work will stand when the stars have fallen.
Living the daily Christian life had eluded me until the hour I recognized this fact. My desire was such that if victory in the Christian life is a mountain peak toward which I struggle with all my human effort, then struggle I must. But if victory is a gift I receive in the Person of Jesus Christ, then my struggle is useless. Victory is not something I win, but Someone I receive into my very BEING.
All that I have been but did not want to be is gone before Him who walked into my life, who has all power in Him. ALL THAT I HAVE EVER WANTED TO BE AND COULD NOT BE, HE COMES TO BE IN ME - the Bread of Life, Rivers of living Water, the Light of the World, THE LOVE OF GOD.
Instead of being busy straining and complaining, I find now that I can BE ALL THAT I CAN BE in just containing Him, and staying aware of Him living in me.
In this way, BEING ALL THAT WE CAN BE IN CHRIST gives us the ability to DO ALL THAT WE CAN DO! Simple, isn’t it?
Humans are created by God to be dependent creatures. Adam and Eve were created to live their lives in trust and dependence on God. But they didn’t see it that way. They wanted to exert their independence and they did. It was not that they did not love and respect their Creator. They just thought that they could run their own lives and get along with God at the same time.
The descendants of these first parents have followed along in their footsteps having an independent nature. As stated so vividly by Paul in the first chapter of Romans, human beings down through the ages have recognized God, if not consciously then subconsciously. “For the truth about God is known to them instinctively; God has put this knowledge in their hearts. Since earliest times men have seen the earth and sky and all God made, and have known of His existence and great eternal power. So they have no excuse. Yes, they knew about Him all right, but they wouldn‘t admit it or worship Him or even thank Him for all his daily care (accept dependence on Him). And after a while they began to think up silly ideas of what God was like and what He wanted them to do (accept dependence on Him). The result was that their foolish minds became dark and confused. Claiming themselves to be wise (able to be independent), they became utter fools instead” (Romans 1:19-22 Living Bible).
Yes, people have been born with the same independent nature as Adam and Eve acquired by choice. People down through the centuries have also thought that they could run their own lives and get along with God at the same time.
Nothing less than a desperate calling on Jesus Christ as Savior and being born again into the Family of God can provide sufficient motivation to bring self-relying men and women to an honest acknowledgment of their deficiencies. Nothing less than the awareness that we have forever become children of our “Daddy”, God the Father, can lift us totally above ourselves to a plane where we will be anxious to see wherein we lack so that we can take the necessary steps to correct it.
When trying to exert independence, people have a way of rationalizing their thoughts and actions. We can so easily “color” our faults to others, and even to ourselves, so that they appear as virtues!!! - or at the worst, very minor faults.
How do we do this? Let’s look at some examples.
We identify our STUBBORNNESS as determination. We are determined to show that we are right. Being stubborn with others becomes the virtue of determination.
We see our JEALOUSY as watchfulness for another’s welfare. A husband’s smothering interest in other men’s association with his wife is looked on as the virtue of watchfulness.
COVETOUSNESS is seen as “just wanting good things for my family”. Coveting is a product of independent thinking but becomes the virtue of “receiving good things”.
SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS is looked on as just a sincere desire to do right. But only the righteous nature of Christ within the Christian can DO right. Trying to live a life pleasing to God by our own human strength is impossible, but the attempt to do so can be mistakenly seen as a virtue.
DISHONESTY can be seen as “good business”. And, after all, the businessman must provide for his family. And providing for your family is certainly a virtue, isn’t it???
GLUTTONY is seen as not wanting to waste food. You bought the food, and it needs to be eaten. Refusing to waste resources is certainly a virtue, right???
LAZINESS is viewed as taking time to “find yourself”. After all, you don’t want to get into work that is not right for you! God has given you talents and you need the time to find and use those talents, don’t you? Is this not a virtuous thing to do?
You have PRIDE only because that which you accomplished is really good. The world needs really good things so you have the virtue of accomplishment.
You exert RETALIATION only because you “need to teach them a lesson”. What they do to you, you do back at them. The Bible says that person shall reap what he sows and you have the virtuous intention of teaching a Bible truth.
Those who are OVERLY TALKATIVE are virtuously just “trying to be real friendly”.
Those who are OVERLY QUIET are virtuously just “trying to listen to a person in depth”.
The SHOPAHOLIC is just “trying to find the best values”. After all, Proverbs 31 describes a “virtuous woman” who takes care of her household and her husband by understanding values.
The GOSSIPER is only doing so because others need to know to avoid trouble. Knowing how to avoid trouble is certainly a virtue, right?
Yes, a distinguishing feature of a Christian as a child of God is to learn to achieve a quality of self-honesty unparalleled anywhere in the world. Let us beware of the influence of the world, the flesh and the devil toward the illusion of independence. So easily can we deceive ourselves. Only a self-honesty directed by the leading of the Holy Spirit toward dependence on Christ within can bring us face to face with our faults so that we can acknowledge them and correct them by the power of the Life of Christ through us.
God works within us on a daily basis to cause a sincere desire to see ourselves exactly as we are, as God sees us. When we error, we receive correction. God, as the perfect Parent, corrects us when we need it but never rejects us.
And how does God see us as Christians?
1. As children in His Family having received His own spiritual nature. 2. As having Christ living in union within us to guide and control us. 3. As having the Holy Spirit joined to our soul as a Teacher and Corrector of our human weaknesses.
FAULTS ARE NOTHING MORE THAN THE GARBAGE OF INDEPENDENT ILLUSION! YOU CANNOT HONESTLY TURN GARBAGE INTO VIRTUES!
The Enron Corporation's collapse, the Archbishops of the Catholic Church’s coverup of priestly abuse, and other scandals have demonstrated again that humans have a way of trying to cover-up their immoral dealings. The men in charge often lied to cover-up their organizational power struggle or greed.
If we believe the Word of God, we must know that there is a literal person in the spirit realm called "Satan" who is at work on human beings in a "cover-up job" – he wants to cover-up our relationship to God. Satan works on people by deception. The Bible calls him the "father of lies".
By a consideration of all the factors involved with an unbeliever and a believing Christian, we can come up with a pretty good idea of how Satan must think, about the direction of his control and influence.
Satan and Unbelievers
Since Satan's nature is in control of unbelievers, most of the time they will unknowingly follow his leadings. I say unknowingly because not one in a million has a clue that Satan's nature is working from right within them. They believe that they are just "doing their own thing" – that they are independent beings living life by their own steam.
God has an external influence on them in an attempt to draw them away from the illusion of independence and into the understanding of their need for dependence on God. In other words, they are externally tempted "upward" by God and, at times, they succumb and follow God's will. But most often, they quickly return to their illusion of independence and this stay under the control of Satan's nature as the ultimate independent spirit – he is the god of independence.
Satan has been called the "Evil One" or "Mr. Sin". Sin and Satan have been intertwined into a tight association – and so they should be. But we have to consider what sin really is. There are definitions such as: sin is the transgression of the law; and sin is unrighteousness. But on a more practical and less transcendent level, it is well to consider sin as ANY THOUGHT, WORD, OR DEED CARRIED OUT WHILE UNDER THE ILLUSION OF INDEPENDENCE. Sin IS the transgression of the law – when the law is seen to be the way things have been created to work correctly, that is by a dependence and trust in God. Sin IS unrighteousness – when righteousness is seen to come from Christ within and not from anything we can achieve on our own.
Satan's Game Plan For Unbelievers
Considering the above factors, what do you see as the most likely thinking of Satan as to how to keep unbelievers in his camp? HE WILL TRY TO COUNTERACT THE INFLUENCE OF GOD! And what understanding is God trying to draw unbelievers to?
1. They are sinners – they have no ability to live a "good" life by their own independent power.
2. They are "guilty" – they have the need for a "Savior" not only to avoid the punishment for their sin, but to keep them away from future sin.
3. That "Savior" is Jesus Christ.
4. God is a caring, loving forgiving Father.
What is Satan's logical counteraction to God? The deceptions:
1. They are NOT sinners - they can live a reasonably "good" life by trusting themselves.
2. They are NOT guilty - therefore they have no need of a Savior.
3. Jesus Christ was a better than average man but had no power as a savior.
4. If there is a God, he is very harsh and judgmental.
And how is this going to work out in day to day living for an unbeliever?
1. There will be sin (independent wrong) initiated by Satan. But there will be just enough of another sin (right things done independently) that Satan can say, "There! See! You're not so bad! Look at the good things you do. A lot of other people are worse than you are!" But right things done independently are no more pleasing to God than wrong things done independently. The key is the lack of dependence on God. The key is the sin of "illusory independence".
2. Then comes this thing of guilt after sin. The last thing that Satan wants in the mind of an unbeliever is guilt. If guilt gets a foothold, then God is achieving a drawing toward salvation. So Satan is constantly whispering, "What is there to feel guilty about? The things that you do are just satisfying your needs! You have human needs that must be fulfilled and, if there is a God, God understands."
3. Another way that Satan works on the unbeliever is to say, "Who needs Jesus Christ? You know, all religion is basically the same. It is just a crutch for the weak. But YOU don't need it! You are strong enough to live without it." Or he says, "How can you trust the Bible? It was written by a bunch of men. It was translated by a bunch of other men. And it doesn't agree with the findings of scientists concerning evolutionary development and the age of the universe." Satan puts down the veracity of the Bible and Jesus Christ in every way that he can.
4. Satan plants the idea: "If there is just possibly a God, He is out to nail you! He's more concerned about punishing you than loving you!"
So, in general, we see that Satan's thinking is not so much to get the unbeliever to do wrong actions, but rather to keep him in the illusion of independence. And Satan will actually lead most unbelievers into many "good deeds", but done with the wrong motives of independence and pride. By any means, don't let them feel guilty and be attracted to the love and mercy of God.
Satan and Born Again Christians
It must be understood that Satan, by using or not using religion, will do everything he can to get men to a place of satisfied human living without being born again and changed from a child of Satan to a child of God. The thing that Satan doesn't want above all is conversion and new birth. This is why there are multitudes who don't understand what it means to be "born again", even though many of them are genuinely born again into God's Family.
For a Christian, Satan's nature has now been put out and he can now only exert an external influence in the Christian life. Christians are externally tempted "downward" by Satan and, at times, they succumb and follow Satan's influence – and sin. But most often, they return to their understanding of dependence and trust in God.
Satan's Game Plan For Christians
Any plan of influence by Satan against born again children of God is out of desperation. He knows that he is no longer in control because a Christian no longer contains the nature of Satan but rather the nature of God. Satan can only attempt to distract the child of God away from the awareness of who he is in Christ. This is done by the only way that Satan knows, the illusion of independence. Just as with an unbeliever, Satan uses feelings of independence.
HE WILL TRY TO COUNTERACT THE TRUST AND DEPENDENCE A CHRISTIAN HAS IN GOD THROUGH CHRIST. And what understanding is God giving His children through spiritual growth?
1. They are forever "saints" – children in His Family, children needing correction, but children never to be forsaken or disowned. Although weak vessels on their own, they can draw on the power of God within to live the Christian life.
2. They are not to have "guilt" when they slip into sin – whatever correction there is resulting from the sin is from a loving Father who wants to see a continual growth in awareness of the child's divine Family status.
3. Since Jesus Christ has come to dwell in and lead a Christian, a personal one-on-one (or better stated, ONE-IN-ONE) relationship is to be established on a daily basis. A Christian must learn to recognize the still, small voice from within.
4. And, as with an unbeliever, God continues to point out that He is a caring, loving, forgiving Father – but, in addition, as His child in Christ, He is now MY DAD, MY PROTECTOR, MY PROVIDER, THE SOURCE OF UNLIMITED, UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.
What is Satan's logical counteraction to God's union with His child? The deceptions:
1. They are not "saints", children of God, but still sinners unable to get their act together even by trust and dependence on God.
2. They are guilty of sin and, no matter what God says, they have no salvation and will probably die in their sin.
3. The reality of the spirit realm is brought into question by subtle influences of Satan. He tries to make the visible world seem to be more real and attractive than the spiritual.
4. Satan tries to make you question the power of God's love to ever transform your soul into total awareness and trust in Christ to live out through you.
And how is this going to work out in day to day living by a Christian? There will be sin (a slip into independent wrong) externally influenced by Satan. And when this occurs, Satan will say, "There! See! You're not so good after all! Look at the bad things you do. Why even a lot of unconverted people are better than you are! A saint? Hah! This union and trust in God of yours is foolishness!" Satan will try to tear down our Family security, our secure salvation.
There are several tricks that Satan plays on Christians to keep them from the understanding of their rebirth in Christ. One of these is that Satan, by religion, will offer to the Christian a plan for "reformation". In fact, different religious groups offer innumerable ways by which man can live a better life, be happier, and prosper without giving up self-management. But reformation is not even in the picture when it comes to the description of union with Christ. While children in God's Family will, in time, show great change, this is the outworking of the Spirit and not the bringing of some great change in the self.
Another trick Satan plays on Christians by religion is encouraging them to become "religious". Now that God has been so good to them, it is only right, he says, that they try to please Him by working hard in their own strength to do good works. This can lead to Christian "burn-out" – a spiritual fatigue caused by neglecting quiet time relationship with Christ.
Then comes this thing of guilt after a Christian sins. The last thing that Satan wants in the mind of an unbeliever is guilt. But Satan reverses his technique and tries to establish as much guilt as possible in the Christian mind. He says, "Look at what you did there with that sin! After all God has done for you, you go and do a thing like that! You're never going to please God. God is hard to satisfy. What makes you think you could ever act like Christ?"
One of the biggest ways that Satan works on the mind of a Christian is to make him question the secure salvation that God has given him. The Bible says that Christ will never leave us or forsake us. The Holy Spirit stays with us even after sin to draw us back into the awareness of who we are in Christ. But after a sin, Satan attempts to make us feel alone, guilty, and separated from God.
God Uses Satan
After all this has been said concerning the probable thoughts of Satan, it would seem as if there is a continual battle between God and Satan. But the truth is that God is ever in control of Satan. God could at any time wipe out Satan's existence.
The book of Job shows that Satan is used by God as God's convenient agent. In the first two chapters of Job, we find God dealing with Satan. And in the rest of the book, we find Satan dealing with Job. I believe that the real purpose God had in mind for putting the book of Job in the Bible was to show us how God allows Satan to deal with converted, born again people who have the new nature of God. Why allow him to try to influence humans? GOD DESIRES TO BRING ABOUT GROWTH IN HIS CONVERTED CHILDREN.
To have true sons, they must find themselves in their freedom. They must discover that to be a person is to be conscious that there are alternatives and free choice; and ultimately they make their right choice through having first made the wrong one, AND TASTED THE CONSEQUENCES.
1 Corinthians 10:13 says that God knows exactly where we are in this maturity of soul. And that He will not allow Satan to influence you in any way beyond what your level of maturity can handle. God says that He will always "make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it".
So we, as a child of God, have nothing at all to fear from Satan. God will only allow him to drive us closer in our soul to total understanding of our union relationship with Christ. When we slip up and sin, it hurts us! We see the negative effects of it on our life and it hurts! No one likes to hurt. We see that the cause of our hurting is that we tried to exert control with our own human power and we failed. Every sin that hurts brings us closer to total maturity of mind and understanding of "the way, the truth, and the life".
Yes, know your enemy! Don't be deceived when Satan messes with your head!
Something or someone is expendable if it or they can be given up or spent or consumed because it or they are less important than something or someone else.
The conduct of war itself is a great example of expendability. As we conduct a war against Islamic terrorism in Iraq, our president has to make decisive choices about who and what is expendable. Are the lives of thousands of our young troops expendable for the common good to stop terrorism abroad and at home? Is the risk of destroying our economy an expendable choice for building a democratic Iraq? Are the people of Iraq caught up in the war expendable?
During World War II, President Truman had to make a horrific choice. Were the 100,000 people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed by atomic bombs expendable to prevent a possible million casualties on our side anticipated in an invasion of Japan?
I recently watched on old World War II movie on TV titled, "They Were Expendable". It is the story of how, in the military, there always comes a time when a commander must make a hard decision to sacrifice a certain number of his men is order to win a battle or a war. Some of his soldiers must be considered less important than the good of the whole unit. The movie showed how it is a heart-wrenching decision for anyone to have to make. Who are the really expendable soldiers? What makes one fighting unit more expendable than another?
On an individual basis, the Moslem suicide bomber sees himself or herself as expendable in a terroristic way to further the overall cause in the Islamic conflict.
In the judgment for Christ's crucifixion, Caiaphas had explained over and over again that it was expedient that Jesus should die. It is expedient, he said, that one man should die for the sake of the people. Jesus is expendable, Caiaphas decided. One reason God raised Jesus from the dead is that we should be clear – once and for all – that there is nothing more important than being human.
Something like ages ago, some human beings got all caught up in the illusion that being human is a relatively unimportant sort of proposition in the overall existence of the universe. We are born, live and die – just like all life around us, they say. "Live for today for tomorrow we die!"
What's more tragic, of course, is that in the wake of this basic error, there quickly followed the idea that human beings are expendable, which easily degenerated into the proposition that some people are expendable. Certain human beings are expendable. Really bad guys are expendable. Guys with low I.Q.'s are expendable. Anyone who disagrees with me is expendable. These ideas of who is expendable and who is not have to do with the human illusion of independence. People are seen to have degrees of importance.
Well, that's NOT true. It's wrong. All wrong. And it has always been wrong. From the creation of the heavens and the earth, it has been – WRONG! There is nothing more important than being human. Our lives have eternal significance. And no one – ABSOLUTELY NO ONE – IS EXPENDABLE TO GOD.
The beauties of our material world – the animals, plants, mountains, stars, planets, moons, galaxies -–all pale into insignificance next to humans. These material things are all expendable. But NOT ONE human being is expendable to God. "God our Savior will have all men to be saved, and to come into the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:4). "...not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).
This is not just some giant ego trip that Christians are on. Unbelievers, who say that today we live and tomorrow we die, would accuse us of such egotism. They might say that humans are expendable for the evolution of the race. Well, that's not true. It's wrong. All wrong.
What makes humans so important to God? God shows us in His Word that He has a purpose and a plan for all human beings. GOD DESIRES TO INCREASE HIS DIVINE FAMILY. The Bible talks about two things that God did "before the foundation of the world". Before anything material was created and before time as we know it existed, God did two things that we know of. One - He portioned off pieces of Himself, of His divine nature, His spiritual "DNA", to be joined to His human creations in a spiritual birth (or, rather, rebirth). Two - He offered up the sacrificial Lamb, His Son, Jesus Christ to pay the penalty for the sins He knew His human creations would commit out of weakness.
God wanted children in His Family containing His own uncreated nature. But He did not want little automatons or spiritual "robots" for children. He wanted children who would choose to receive His fatherly love and to return it willingly to Him.
Thus, we have the whole reason for the creation of the material universe. This world is a schoolhouse to bring humans to the understanding of God's plan. We must be taught by trial and error: * our own human weakness; * God's all powerful strength; * God's willingness to impart this strength to us by a new birth; * Jesus Christ Himself comes to live within this newly birthed Christian; * the Holy Spirit of God comes also to live within and guide us to understanding of day to day living.
Look at the example of human parenting. Those who have children know that not one of their children is expendable. Every one of them is precious to us in their own way. A parent desires the absolute best for a child. I have four children myself and see each one as uniquely gifted and valuable and certainly NOT expendable. Okay, so I did use to say in exasperating times, "I wouldn't take a million dollars for any of my children, but I wouldn't give you a nickel for another one!" But each one has precious qualities – none is less important or expendable.
Mother Teresa and Adolph Hitler were each created just as important to God. John D. Rockefeller and that homeless person in that tent down by the river both have the same glorious potential to be children in God's Family.
Yes, our leaders and even right down to suicide bombers must make human choices of expediency. BUT GOD MAKES NO SUCH CHOICES REGARDING HUMANS.
Those who are as old as I can remember during World War II the recruitment posters showing Uncle Sam pointing a finger at us saying, "I want you!"
Well, the whole Bible of 66 Books containing 1,189 chapters is a giant recruitment poster with a HEAVENLY FATHER pointing a finger at us and saying, "I WANT YOU FOR MY CHILD! YOU ARE NEVER EXPENDABLE!"
It seems like it is probably happening less and less, but I can remember back when you could overhear a dispute among little children over whose dad was the greatest. Perhaps it is a scene which is fading from American life. Because of divorce or separated parents, many fathers are almost out of the picture. And many of those who head our educational systems seem bent upon undermining the family and the power of parents over their children. It seems that braggin’ on our dads has become “politically incorrect”. How sad.
In times past, when adults overheard this kind of dispute, we looked upon them with a smile on our faces. If a father overheard one of his children giving his reasons why his dad was the greatest, it would bring a light of joy to his eyes.
As the dispute would rise in emotion, each trying to outdo the other in building up his father, they would probably enter into great exaggerations of their father’s abilities or qualities. But I never heard anyone break into such disputes correcting a child, making him stick to reality. No, we left this kind of exaggeration alone. Provided this confrontation was not leading to bloody noses, parents in general felt this was a healthy activity.
The apostle Paul could put a string of praises together that would reach heaven itself. Paul knew how to “brag on his Father”. We never find Paul bad-mouthing his Father. Paul applied great words to his appraisal of his Father and ours.
Listen to some real braggin’: “For this cause I kneel in prayer to the Father, that Father who is the origin and ideal of all fatherhood in heaven and on earth, praying to Him that in the wealth of His glory, He may grant to you to be strengthened in power through His Spirit in your inner being, praying that your faith may be such that Christ may make your hearts His home, praying that love may be that in which your life is rooted in which it is founded. I pray that in fellowship with all God‘s consecrated people you may have strength to grasp how broad and long and high and deep Christ’s love is, to know that love of His which is greater than we can ever understand, for then your life will be filled with all God’s fullness. Now to Him who can do for us far more than our lips can ask or our minds conceive through that power of His which is at work in us, to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus from age to age, for ever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:14-21)
There are far too many of these lavish praises in Paul‘s writings to bring into this short article. But I encourage you to spend a few weeks just reading the epistles of Paul, especially chapters one, two and three of Colossians, Ephesians and Philippians. You will discover that Paul is not only lavish with his praise of our Father, but he magnifies his praises even more greatly by not saying anything bad about his Father. Let me explain.
Most Christians when called upon to glorify their Father can readily muster up remarks about His being all-powerful and all-loving. But Christians at other times can be quick to spout out some short-coming in the supposed bad side of God. God will give you at least one chance to love Him, but if you don’t - into the oven you go. As a matter of fact, most of the modern gospel centers around making sure you don’t get on the bad side of “Father” because if you do, that’s it! You can forget the mercy, love, forgiveness bit. You are thrown out of the house forever. Don’t waste your breath trying to change His mind. Once His mind is made up, that’s it. We lump all of the bad side of God into a nasty little four letter word that many Christians love to use … HELL!
Now as lavish as Paul was with his praises, and as absent-minded as he was in speaking about the bad side of our Father, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that Paul never used the word “hell”. Not once! He never warned anyone about it. Isn’t that rather strange, considering the fact that he was commissioned to deliver the “full” gospel to all the nations of the world?
Was Paul either very absent-minded, or too big on his God to think about HELL?
Paul wasn’t exaggerating about his Father. Paul intimately KNEW his Father and just declared the truth. He didn’t talk about a God quick to throw people into something called “hell” because Paul apparently didn’t worry about that as a part of God’s plan. He didn’t speak of “eternal punishment in eternal flames of fire” because he wasn’t concerned about it. Paul knew the gospel he was commissioned to preach and it did not contain a fire pit for those that many feel should be roasted.
Is “hell” a fire pit? Is “hell” just(??) a separation from God? Paul didn’t seem to care one way or the other – and neither do I!
Someone may say, “Lou, don’t forget about “hell” like Paul seems to do. People need to know the consequences of sin!”
My Father (and yours) is in the creation business and He is darn good at it. He is in the loving business and you ain’t seen nothin’ yet! He is in the forgiveness business and I suggest you spend some time under the tree of crucifixion and find out personally how far back His forgiveness goes.
Yes, I agree that unbelievers should hear about the importance God gives to the consequences of sin – whether it be eternal fire torture as many believe, or an eternal separation from God as many others believe, or even an eternal death and destruction as some believe.
Remember the beginning of this article. Remember how boasting on our dad - even if it was exaggerated - was tolerated by mature adults? As a matter of fact, if it was our child who boasted on us, we would gleam. I know something about fatherhood. I am one. I also know my heavenly Father. And I believe He is beaming right now. I believe in this truth about my Father - that He doesn’t have a “bad-side”. I am boasting from what I see in His written record. I am pouring out what I understand from the new heart He gave me. I am only being a witness to the love He has deposited in me and it seeks to declare to anyone who will listen that becoming a true child of God is where our thinking should be.
Paul declared that it was impossible to understand how broad and long and high and deep God’s love is. Well with the mind that He has given me, I am just doing my best to see His love as revealed to me.
What if I am wrong when I ignore the concept of “hell”? I don’t believe I am, but I could be. But, fortunately, I don’t have to stake my life on it. You see, He has already redeemed me! I stand on solid ground. By grace, I was saved through faith and it was a gift gladly received.
I STAKE MY CLAIM ON GOD’S LIFE WHICH IS IN ME THROUGI MY UNION WITH THE INDWELLING JESUS CHRIST.
“Hell” did not seem to concern Paul. And “hell” does not concern me. I know my Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. As surely as I know them, I know they are true to their Word and nature. It is possible to exaggerate about our natural father’s love and ability.
But as a child of God, I am closer to my heavenly Father than I was to my natural father. Christ lives inside me in a union with my human spirit. We are one. My natural father, although loving in every human way, could never be this close to me.
It appears to me to be impossible to exaggerate about our heavenly Father’s Love and Power. But if, perchance, I have exaggerated, I am sure God has a smile on His face FOR HIS BRAGGIN’ CHILD!
