You Shall Not ......

The old covenant law contained many "shall nots" which had a purpose that is now fulfilled. We are not under that old legislation anymore. Now we are under the new covenant where God provides all for us as a gift and we are free in Him. This covenant also contains some "shall nots" - yet they are so different from the old "shall nots" - rather than making me feel depressed and guilty, they make me feel safe and warm and joyful in Him! They are focused on our secure relationship with God rather than our erratic behavior, for the New Covenant has a relationship focus and not a works focus. These are the "shall nots" I have found in the new covenant. I only used Jesus' words in John. I'm sure if I looked through the rest of the New Testament, I could find many more! Anyway, here are those "shall nots" that I found:

His promises to us in the New Covenant of grace:

1 - You SHALL NOT hunger, but shall be fully satisfied with Him (John 6:35).

2 - You SHALL NOT thirst, but shall have within His very Spirit as an ever-flowing fountain of eternal life (John 4:14).

3 - You SHALL NOT walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life (John 8:12).

4 - You SHALL NOT be a slave to sin or the devil's lies, but shall be free indeed (John 8:32-36).

5 - You SHALL NOT perish, but shall have everlasting life (John 3:16).

6 - You SHALL NOT be snatched from His hand, but shall be safe (John 10:27-8).

7 - You SHALL NOT come into judgment, but have already passed from death to life (John 5:24).

8 - You SHALL NOT follow a stranger, but shall know and follow your Shepherd (John 10:4-5).

9 - You SHALL NOT have your joy stolen, but shall rejoice with great joy (John 16:22).

10 - SHALL NOT be left desolate, but shall have the His Spirit with you always to comfort you (John 14:16-18)!

With His very Spirit inside us as our best friend and LIFE, holding us, loving us, keeping us, living through us AS us, how can we go wrong? If God is for us, who can be against us? We shall not be put to shame but will always be led in triumph, love and grace! All as a gift through Jesus' work for us and His wonderful grace, not ever through our efforts! What a wonderful covenant the New Covenant is!

- Under the Waterfall

He Offers His Gifts Free of Charge, Why Not Take Them

“The heart of man finds it difficult to believe that so great a treasure as the Holy Spirit is gotten by the mere hearing of faith. The hearer likes to reason like this: Forgiveness of sins, deliverance from death, the gift of the Holy Spirit, everlasting life are grand things. If you want to obtain these priceless benefits, you must engage in correspondingly great efforts. And the devil says, ‘Amen.’

We must learn that forgiveness of sins, Christ, and the Holy Spirit, are freely granted to us at the preaching of faith, in spite of our sinfulness. We are not to waste time thinking how unworthy we are of the blessings of God. We are to know that it pleased God to freely give us His unspeakable gifts. If He offers His gifts free of charge, why not take them? Why worry about our lack of worthiness? Why not accept gifts with joy and thanksgiving?”

— Martin Luther

Living Moment by Moment - Part One

LIVING MOMENT BY MOMENT – Part 1

This is the beginning  of ch. 8

In the previous chapter we learned that even though your old self was crucified with Christ and is dead and buried, you still have a mind cluttered with his baggage; and whenever the door just above your heart is closed to Christ’s life, the enemy tempts you to dabble again in the garbage resident in your mind, causing you to live a replica of the life you did before becoming a Christian.  We thought, does this sound like abundant life?  What could be God’s purpose in all of this be?  His purpose is actually quite ingenious.  It is to make your life moment by moment full of joy, excitement, and authenticity!  How?

…Relationships ever flow; what makes them wonderful is not so much what happened in the past, but what is happening in the present moment…

…God has the aspiration to be in fellowship with us moment by moment; He has a plan to bring about His wishes.  First of all, He must destroy the old self that dwells within and replace it with the life of His Son.  If this is not done, then no fellowship with Him is even possible.  The next thing that He does is to leave all the baggage and residue from the old man in the mind.  When through unbelief a person closes the door to His life within and consequently cuts off fellowship, of necessity all the baggage, garbage, residue, lying emotions, false feeling, old idols, inaccurate identity, and every manifestation of the flesh arise.  In fact, this one is now more miserable than dwelling in the world.  God will strive to build the believer’s awareness of a desire to be free from those miseries 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, 60 minutes an hour, 60 seconds a minute, yes, moment by moment.  It is then that God can do business!  You see, God structures our lives in such a way as to keep us ever near His side.

…It must be firmly planted in our minds that victory is for one moment at a time, and that in any given moment we are participating in eternal victory or eternal defeat.

We need to keep in mind that one of the biggest problems in helping Christians “get out of the wilderness” is far too many preachers, teachers, writers, professors, etc. IGNORE the biblical truth that the “old, Adam life” has been crucified and is dead & buried.  Gone.  No more.  To keep that “Adam life” around is to excuse behaviors in Christians that Jesus has given us His Life to overcome.  So, it is exciting to enjoy Michael addressing life as a Christian from this important biblical truth.

Now that we can focus on the “old mind” (and will & emotions…the rest of the soul we were born with) that is cluttered with the baggage of the “old self,” we can begin to move toward victory!  It is disheartening to hear Christians say, “the devil made me do it,” “the devil has been working me over today,” etc.  That’s not truth!

Michael gives us a step-by-step picture of God’s “ingenious” plan of the life Jesus spoke of in John 10:10…”life (His Life) more abundantly.”

1. God destroys the old self that dwells within an unbeliever and replaces it with the life of His Son when one becomes a Believer.

2. God leaves all the baggage and residue of the old man in the old mind.

3. God now works in the Believer to build an awareness of a desire to be free from the miseries that arise when the “old baggage” of the flesh arise.

4. It is then God can bring us to the realization that victory is for one moment at a time.

(the rest of the book moves us forward into that victory…)

Now, how much easier for a Christian can it be?  God is in charge.  God is orchestrating all to “keep us ever near His side.”  Trust, rest, release control.   We just need to trust Him to give us truth that will set us free completely.  He has.  We need the revelation.

-  Mike Wells

Cheap Grace and Consumer Christianity

The “cheap grace” Gospel sells well in America. We live in a culture of consumerism that conditions us to habitually look for “the best deal.” We’re more or less trained from birth to live in the question; “How can we get the most for the least?” We think this way about our houses, cars, clothes, food, entertainment, and (tragically) even sometimes our relationships. So it’s not surprising that many
Americans are tempted to think this way about religion. We shop.

When the consumer mindset infects the Church, salvation begins to be viewed as a product that Christians are supposed to pedal – a “Salvation Amway” sort of thing. Christianity is reduced to a salvation-product franchise, and individual churches compete for a larger share in the religious consumer market. The salvation-product is offered for the price of a prayer, while fringe benefits are sometimes piled onto the offer to make it more attractive. (In the competitive world of religious consumerism, one must be clever!)

Though Jesus always warned about the heavy cost of following him, many salvation-product peddlers now promise that the salvation-product not only gives you guaranteed fire insurance, but also that it will make you wealthier and healthier and happier right now. All for the small price of a prayer. What a deal!

The trouble is, there is nothing about the consumerized Gospel that remotely resembles anything like the Good News proclaimed in the New Testament. It’s a tragic, grotesque, distortion of the Kingdom revolution Jesus came to establish. And at the base of it all, I suspect, is this legal transaction view of the atonement that I discussed in my last post.
You can see why I said earlier that thinking about the atonement is anything but a merely academic affair. It has huge practical consequences.

I ask you to start considering the possibility that when you accepted Jesus, you weren’t just cashing in on a legal-transaction two thousand years ago that gives you eternal fire insurance. You rather were trading in your civilian clothes for a military uniform. You weren’t signing up in the “wait-to-go-to-heaven-for-free club.” You were rather enlisting as a guerilla warrior in a subversive revolution. Yes, you’ll go to heaven. But that is a mere by-product of the transforming revolutionary life you surrendered to in the present.

If the main thing Jesus did centered on a legal transaction in heaven that took place when he died, then the main thing the Church is about is getting people to give mental ascent to this. The Church thus becomes mainly a religious society consisting of people who believe they are saved by believing Jesus gets them “off the hook.”

By contrast, if the main thing Jesus was about centered on overturning condemnation and overcoming evil by unleashing the unsurpassable power of self-sacrificial love—which I argue for in so much of what I write and preach—then the Church must be seen primarily as a community of people who do the same thing. In this view, we can’t even talk about what Jesus did for us without in the same breath talking about what Jesus is doing in us and through us.
Because of what Jesus did, we are being caught up into the reality of God’s conquest of evil through the power of self-sacrificial love. This reality is what Jesus identified as the Kingdom of God. The evidence that we’re being caught up into the Kingdom is not merely that we prayed “the sinners prayer,” but that we are beginning to individually and collectively manifest Jesus’ self-sacrificial love.

The Kingdom is not a legal-transaction kind of thing. It’s a caught-up-into-a-new-reality kind of thing.

This is why the New Testament stresses so strongly that we are united with Christ. Jesus identifies with us so that we may be identified with him (e.g. Rom. 6:1-8; Gal 2:17-21). His life, death and resurrection becomes our life, death and resurrection. Everything Jesus was about is what we are to be about, for we are, fact, united with him. This is also why Jesus not only takes up the cross for us, but also calls us to take up the cross in imitation of him (Mt 10:37-40, 16:21-28).

Imitating Jesus’ love, participating in Jesus’ love, identifying with Jesus’ love, and being transformed by Jesus’ love, is the essence of the Kingdom Jesus came to establish.

Theosis and the New Self

How would you summarize the basic message of Christian salvation? If you look at the early theologians of the church from the second, third, fourth, and fifth centuries, you'll find a lot of statements of this sort: "For He was made man that we might be made God" (Athanasius, On the Incarnation 54). This is the doctrine of theosis or deification: God assumes human nature in order that humanity can become like God.

Of course, the ancient theologians did not imagine that we somehow merge with God to become a single being. There will always be a distinction between ourselves and God; but we will be raised from the lowly limitations and conditions in which we currently exist, and we will take on a mode of being that is more similar to God's. One of the ways in which we do this is by the resurrection: we no longer die after being resurrected, and in this way we participate in God's immortality.

Now I think the doctrine of theosis was so ubiquitous throughout the early centuries of the church because it is ubiquitous in the scriptures. One of the finest discussions of theosis comes in Paul's letter to the Ephesians:

For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus. You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Eph 4.21-24).

Here we find that becoming a Christian, as I've said before on other occasions, is a matter of becoming a new person. Now what exactly does this new person look like? Paul says that this new person is created in the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. This is clearly to say that our new identity is one that is like God's, with a mode of being and a way of life that is similar to God's.  We become like small Gods in the world!

Of course, this is nothing new in the Bible; it wasn't invented by Paul, but it was taught in Genesis. There we read that mankind was created in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1.26-7). Mankind was created to be like God. The Greek word used in the Septuagint translation of Genesis is εἰκών, from which we get the word "icon." Human persons are meant to be living icons of God in the world, representations and presences of God in the creation.

This is what happens as we become Christians. It is a lifelong process, obviously, because we do not reach the pinnacle of righteousness immediately after baptism. But just as we should forget what lies behind us and what we were, we also must look forward to what we are becoming; and when we look to our goal, what else do we see except Christ, the image and likeness of the invisible God (Col 1.15)?  

Christianity is Finding Your True Identity

Who are we? What are we here for? Are we of any value, do we have any significance, or are we meaningless, purposeless, valueless, randomly assembled conglomerations of atoms which will someday come apart never to be reconstructed?

Recently I've been talking about the process of becoming a Christian, which is the process of assuming a new identity. I've said that it involves forgetting your previous identity, and assuming a new one which is like God. There's another important thing to remember, however, and one which makes the process of becoming a Christian that much more exciting: it is also a matter of discovering your true identity.

I wrote earlier that Christian salvation can be understood by the doctrine of theosis: we become like God. I want to emphasize that this theosis is not a matter of our becoming something unlike or unnatural to us, but rather that it is merely becoming what God had intended for us from the beginning.

As I cited earlier, Genesis teaches that humanity was created in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1.26-7). We were made to be living icons of God on the earth, to represent him and to embody his presence to one another and to all creatures. This is the purpose of humanity, this is the calling and direction that God gave it. We lost this image and likeness, however, through sin and through downfall of the human race. Rather than being loving and forgiving, we became hateful and angry; rather than having knowledge, our minds were futile and darkened (cf. Eph 4.17).

There is another thing to notice here, too. Those who live their life in sin and who think that this is the way for them to live, according to Paul, are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart (Eph 4.18). They don't understand things properly, and that means that they don't understand who they are, either. They don't know what they are, what they are here for, what is the right way for them to live, and so on.

Becoming a Christian is having your mind enlightened to your true identity, to your true calling, to your true place in the world. It is a matter of discovering who you really are, and finding that you are the image and likeness of God! That's the gift that God gave humanity: to be like him. Christianity is the lifelong process of discovering and enjoying this gift.  

Powerful Connecting

Powerful connecting rarely happens in the Church, or anywhere, for that matter.  Why do we often feel impotent when faced with the deep pain of another?  Should we advise, refer them to counseling, try to listen more attentively? 

What would you say to the following man who is courageous enough to share his anguish with you?
"This was a time of extreme anguish, during which I wondered whether I would be able to hold on to my own life.  Everything came crashing down -- my self-esteem, my energy to love and work, my sense of being loved, my hope for healing, my trust in God...All had become darkness.  Within me there was one long scream coming from a place I didn't know existed, a place full of demons." [1]
Would you simply try to listen to the man?  Assure him of God's loving presence?  Refer him to counseling? Suggest that God is trying to teach him perseverence?  Expose his insecurities and hang-ups, his false beliefs?
The suffering man in our story, by the way, was Henri Nouwen; a spiritual giant to many who had authored 39 books by the time of his death in 1996.

Failure to connect
Larry Crabb, author of the groundbreaking book, Connecting, says that one reason we fail to connect powerfully with others in a way that could actually heal them is because we often operate with a "Therapeutic Model."  Crabb calls this the "Treatment/Repair" Model, where we attempt to fix what's wrong in the other. In this model,

"The first step, of course, is to figure out what is wrong [diagnosis] and face it, then courageously work through the often long and painful process of coming to grips with the internal damage and learning to approach life in healthier ways [therapy]."

In order to fix what's wrong, we uncover the underlying psychological forces influencing their behavior.  We analyze the hurting person's past, look into underlying patterns and suggest coping mechanisms and re-framing approaches to insure a healthier outcome for them.  The people that offer the most insight become the person's heroes.   Counseling often buys into this model; and though it can often provide insight and suggest more healthy, adaptive behaviors, it may not actually heal the person. Insight may not translate into healing.

Under this find what's damaged--fix what's wrong model, we might recommend that Henri Nouwen see a counselor in order to get at underlying damage, expose faulty belief systems, and recommend treatment for depression. We might even send him Scripture verses to encourage him so that he can believe there's a light at the end of his dark tunnel.  But this model may yield little healing fruit. Crabb points out that, "Our power to influence lives does not come...from revealing to people the details of their internal mess."

What does powerful connecting look like?
Crabb rightly suggests that God does not often use a Therapeutic Model [Find and Fix What's Wrong] in order to heal us.  Rather, God does three things:
1.  "First, he provides a taste of Christ delighting in us -- the essence of connection; accepting who we are and envisioning who we could be."

2.  "Second, he diligently searches within us for the good he has put there -- an affirming exposure; remaining calm when badness is visible, keeping confidence that goodness lies beneath."

3.  "Third, he engagingly exposes what is bad and painful -- a disruptive exposure;" in order to uncover the goodness beneath the mess - "a goodness that is more defining of who we are than our badness...When we look at the bad, we must always be looking harder for the hidden good."    [#3 should happen less as we use the approaches of #1 and #2.]  Crabb adds, "A careful exploration of the redeemed heart does not sink us in a cesspool; it's more like mining for gold in a dirty cave." 

We are not primarily damaged people:  We are foremost saints, gifted with new-hearted vitality and power; a vitality that may be buried beneath a mess, but not subverted by it.

Did help come for Henri Nouwen?
So did Henri Nouwen find any who could help him?  Yes, from an elderly priest who understood how to powerfully connect with him:
"During the most difficult period of my life, when I experienced great anguish and despair, he was there.  Many times, he pulled my head to his chest and prayed for me without words but with a Spirit-filled silence that dispelled my demons of despair and made me rise up from his embrace with new vitality." [2]
Something powerful was poured out from the elderly priest into the broken-hearted younger man; arousing something buried, but alive and strong in Henri.  That power was the quickening life of Christ Himself.

We connect well with others when we...

• give them a taste of God's delighting in them,
  
• relentlessly search for the God-given good urges beneath their pain and mess,
  
• refuse our impulses to fix what's wrong; and instead, take our cues from Jesus, asking, "How can I join You as You release what is most alive in me, pouring that Life into them, in order to release what is most alive in them?"

Working to Reveal vs Working to Become

…behavior cannot change what we are.  We are what we are by birth, and to change we must be born again.  Again, Christian growth is simply accepting what we have always been from the first day we accepted Christ.  The word grow teaches this very thing, as it means to expand what already exists…either we are growing in bondage to Adam’s life or growing in the freedom of Christ’s life.

…If you are born again, your old Adam-life has been put to death and replaced with Christ’s very life…if we know who we are, then the doing is natural.

…this is true salvation – to be free from the old identity and unholy trinity…the carnal believer walks after the flesh and then makes attempts to walk after the Spirit, never knowing which fits best…

Throw away those old garments of sin, failure, and defeat, and put on Christ.

- Mike Wells

Comment:

It is one of the most dynamic truths of the New Testament: a Christian’s old Adam-life has been put to death and replaced with Christ’s very life.  Unbelievably, far too many cannot accept that.  Accepting what we have always been from the first day we accepted Christ is really impossible IF we cannot accept our old Adam-life has been put to death and replaced with Christ’s very life.  Simple.  Short.  Succinct.  The focus never leaves the old Adam-life.  The efforts continue to be those of trying to change and “clean up” the old life, instead of walking in the REST of knowing our life is Christ’s life.

How nice it is to live wanting to reveal the new me, instead of working to become something I could never attain.  No wonder that was a sickening life!

How nice it is to know that growing in Christ is simply accepting what we have always been from the first day I accepted Christ.  Boy, that takes a load off.  And wow…it is so relaxing to grow by “accepting” instead of “working”!!!

A Closer Look at the Unique Self

When I disciple those critical of others, I immediately ask the question, “What is it about yourself that you do not like?”  It will often be that they are not as intelligent as their friends, or as attractive, or as talented.  Therefore, since they do not love what they are, they must tear everyone else down, finding flaws to ease their own inferiority.

We are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.  If that is true then most neighbors are in for a lot of disappointment when it comes to being loved…

There is a great variety of unique selves in the body of Christ, from those who love following a plan to those who never make a schedule, from those who love working with people to those who’d rather deal with things.  All who are expressing the nature of their unique selves under the control of Christ’s life are a great blessing.

It will be important to discern between the three selves, the one that is crucified, the one to deny, and the one that is to be loved.  The reason that I have spent considerable time explaining the baggage, residue, and old identity is so Self #2 can readily be recognized and denied.  Otherwise, one could try to deny the unique self, the one God made, which is quite uncomfortable and unproductive to do.

Do you love yourself?  You should!  It may take some time to become pleased in what God has made you to be, but once you do, you will stop comparing yourself with others and begin to appreciate the rest of the body of Christ…

…God creates those with great talent, ability, and intellect – no one creates himself – therefore, boasting must not be in the unique self, but rather in God.

You see, talent, ability, and intellect are relative.  Each unique self has its own purpose and usefulness.  We have different gifts, workings, manifestations, bodies, and nationalities, but the same Spirit.  Each of us is a different individual, and yet we are all one; together we experience wholeness.  Paul encouraged those who are not content with the unique self (and, therefore, judge God, their Creator) to love what they are, and at the same time warned those who take pride in what God has made them to be.

You may ask, what is my unique self; how can I discern it?  Knowing your unique self is simple and does not take prolonged inward vision.  Your unique self is determined by those things you do naturally and are most comfortable doing (this is different from the behaviors, such as withdrawal, avoidance, and erroneous fears that may develop through false identity messages).

Just remember, however God has made you, enjoy yourself, love yourself, and refuse to listen to those who would intimidate by boasting of their natural abilities.  Whatever measure He has given you, enjoy it.  If you are not as intellectual as another, that was God’s decision, and if you complain, you make yourself out to be the Creator…

- Mike Wells

The Three Selves

…The unique self is that part of a person that was made in the womb by God (Psalm 139)…although we all have the same purpose in life, which is to fellowship with Him, we will all, as unique creations, express that fellowship in different ways.  I will, therefore, define the unique self as the creation of God that is distinctive to each person…

…you can think of the unique self as a tool that can do nothing on its own, but derives its value from how it is used and by whom…

Self #1 is the unique self under the control of Adam-life; this self belongs to the unbeliever, or unregenerate man, producing a condition called flesh…God’s command concerning this Self #1 is that it be crucified (Galatians 2:20).  The source of the unique self, what is driving it, must die, but not the actual unique self.  Self #1 has a course set in one direction, and it follows every signpost which leads it that way.  Its destination is hell.

The second of the three selves (Self #2) is the unique self under the control of the baggage and residue of the dead and removed Adam-life and the unholy trinity.  This person is a born-again believer in a carnal condition…This person is assured of going to heaven, but will continue to experience hell on earth!  The command regarding this self is to deny it daily (Luke 9:23) by the power of the cross.

Self #3 is very important, being the unique self under the control of Christ’s life within.  The man in this state enters into the fullness of his being.  All of his God-given talents, abilities, intellect, personality, and temperament function properly as they should, and he manifests a condition called walking in the Spirit.  Whatever work the man does, Christ does through him, and he is a blessing to all…The commandment concerning Self #3 is that we are to love it.  “…You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 19:19).

You can see that it is somewhat confusing when we read that we are to have self crucified, to deny self, and at the same time we are to love ourselves.  The above distinction should help clear up the confusion.  We have spoken much of the death of Self #1, and particularly in the next chapter we will examine the denial of Self #2.  I would like to briefly mention the need for love of the unique self as it submits to the Spirit’s rule, Self #3.

- Mike Wells

The Way Out of a Closed Door

Let’s assume you are living in defeat.  What happens next?...God alone can break through the darkness in which Satan has the carnal Christian living….with the light of the Holy Spirit, the deceptions of the enemy can be seen clearly.  This no man can do; it must be the work of the Holy Spirit…

When any of us realize the error of our own way, the enemy steps up the attack for fear that all of his long efforts and deep deceptions might be for naught.  He begins to whisper in a voice that is calculated to be confused with conscience…It is all said in hopes that we will not return and learn the true character of God.

This book is for the defeated…If there is one thing I pray you would receive out of the book, it is this, so please take it to heart: the true depth of a person’s faith is revealed in his ability to accept forgiveness in the midst of his deepest defeat. It is easy to believe that your righteousness is based in Christ when you have not done anything wrong; but you many have a confidence that is not based on Christ’s work but your own…However, failure reveals where you have really put your trust…Many in the midst of failure refuse forgiveness, continuing a self-inflicted punishment until they believe they have paid the price.  Some are so unbelieving that they even begin to make up excuses for why God should not forgive them.

The New Testament writers are not surprised by the fact that saints do sin, and their solution is simple: repentance and pressing on…James 4:7-10.

…If you have ever once experienced freedom from your failure, you can experience it once again, for it is moment by moment.  If as a believer you have shut the door, repent, accept His forgiveness in spite of how you feel, and press on…

- Mike Wells

There Is No God In the Past

He again fixes a certain day, “Today,” saying through David after so long a time just as has been said before, “TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS.” --Hebrews 4:7

Man for sure possesses the present and, in a certain measure, the future. Man does not possess the past, ever! If we choose to live in the past, we choose darkness and we exclude God, for He will not move to the past with us. Therefore, every time we venture into the past with our mind and emotions, we venture there alone. In fact, God calls us, always, to move from the past, for to dwell there is to find ourselves in a place where there is no hope. The Jews were in the world without a hope. That is, they were trusting in the things of the past--the law and the security of ritual and formula—and neglecting what God was bestowing on them in the present, which is Jesus.

Does it not make sense that God wants to be the God of the NOW? We speak of a personal relationship with Him. How can a relationship be personal if it is not a current relationship? To move into the past is to move away from God, and it is sin. Many today are counseled to relive the past in order to mourn over it and work through it; they are even warned that if they do not, their life will remain in constant turmoil. If the past created my problems, why would I want to return and spend time there? In my office I spend up to one hour looking at the past of an individual. The only reason is to bring understanding of its impact so that the person need never go back to it. Living in the past will always thwart growth, not something enjoyable to anyone.

In the past we all had wonderful successes and terrible failures, times of great joy and unbelievable depression. Fine, but now what? Today hear His voice! God says do something today and do not live out of the past, where it is true we provoked Him, but I refuse to discuss that. I want to discuss today. Yesterday is no excuse for today! Many use it as such. “I cannot love today because of emotional hurt yesterday.” “I cannot give today because of all my rejection yesterday. I need to take.” Experience what it means to be a person walking with God daily, a present activity. Not only do we walk with Him, but He walks among us, all in the present. Leviticus 26:12, “I will also walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people.” We need never allow the enemy to steal the present by moving us to the past, and the past is anything that happened before you read this article.

- Mike Wells

What task did Jesus accomplish as God’s Elect One?

According to Jesus Himself, He came:

• to fulfill the law and prophets (Matt 5:17),
• to reveal the Father (Matt 11:27),
• to serve as a ransom for many (Matt 20:28),
• to preach (Mark 1:38),
• to call sinners to repentance (Mark 2:17),
• to proclaim freedom for captives, give sight to the blind, and proclaim the year of God’s favor (Luke 4:18-19),
• to preach the good news of the kingdom of God (Luke 4:43),
• to save the world (John 3:17; Luke 19:10),
• to give life (John 10:10, 28),
• to do the will of the Father (John 6:38),
• to bring judgment (John 9:39),
• to share the words of the Father (John 17:8),
• to testify to the truth (John 18:37).

Various New Testament authors confirm all of these, and additionally say that Jesus came

• to destroy Satan’s power and works (Heb 2:14; 1 John 3:8),
• to take away sin (1 John 3:5),
• to taste death for everyone (Heb 2:9),
• and to become a high priest (Heb 2:17). 

The Reality of Satan and the Spiritual World

A theme that underlies Jesus’ entire ministry is the apocalyptic assumption that creation has been seized by a cosmic force and that God is now battling this force to rescue it. Jesus understood himself to be the one in whom this battle was to be played out in a decisive way. The assumption is evident in almost everything Jesus says and does.

Jesus refers to Satan as “the prince” (archon) of this present age three times (Jn 12:31; 14:30; 16:11). The term archon was used in secular contexts to denote the highest official in a city or region. In short, Jesus acknowledges that Satan is the highest power of this present fallen world, at least in terms of his present influence. When Satan offers Jesus all “authority” over “all the kingdoms of the world,” Jesus does not dispute his claim that it was his to offer (Lk 4:5-6). Other writings explicitly teach that the whole world is “under the power of the evil one” (1 Jn 5:19), for Satan is “the god of the world” (2 Cor 4:4) and the ruler of the power of the air” (Eph 2:2).

Jesus addresses this evil “prince” as the leader of a relatively unified and pervasive army of spiritual powers and demons. Satan is thus called the “ruler of the demons” (Mt 9:34), and fallen angels are called “his angels” (Mt 25:41). On the basis of this assumed military unity, Jesus refutes the Pharisees’ contention that he exorcises demons by the power of Satan rather than the power of God. If this were so, Jesus argues, Satan’s kingdom would be working against itself (Mk 3:24) and could not exhibit the power it exhibits in this world.

Correlatively, Jesus taught that those who wish to make headway in tearing down this evil kingdom and in taking back the “property” of this kingdom must first tie up “the strong man” who oversees the whole operation (Mk 3:27). This could only be done when “one stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him” and thus “takes away his armor in which he trusted” (Lk 11:22). This, in a nutshell, is what Jesus understood himself to be doing by his teachings, healings, exorcisms and especially by his death and resurrection. His whole ministry was about overpowering the “fully armed” strong man who guarded “his property” (Lk 11:21)—the earth and its inhabitants who rightfully belong to God.

Jesus tied up the strong man so that he (and later, his church) could pillage the strong man’s kingdom. In fact, this is what Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom of God is all about. In the context of Jesus’ ministry, it is a warfare concept. “If it is by the power of God that I cast out demons,” Jesus teaches, “then the kingdom of God has come to you” (Lk 11:20). Where God reigns, Satan and his demons cannot. But otherwise, if the earth is to become the domain in which God is king (the kingdom of God), then it must cease being the domain in which Satan is king. This is what Jesus came to accomplish. He came to “destroy the works of the devil” (1 Jn 3:8: Heb 2:14) and to establish God’s domain on earth.

Every exorcism and every healing—the two activities that most characterize Jesus’ ministry—marked an advance toward establishing the kingdom of God over and against the kingdom of Satan. Consequently, in contrast with any view that would suggest that disease and demonization somehow serve a divine purpose, Jesus never treated such phenomenon as anything other than the work of the enemy. He consistently treated diseased and demonized people as casualties of war.

It is curious that the evil one to whom the Bible directly or indirectly attributes all evil has played a rather insignificant role in the theodicy of the church after Augustine. This, I contend, is directly connected to the fact that the church generally accepted the blueprint worldview that Augustine espoused. If we assume that there is a specific divine reason for every particular event that transpires, including the activity of Satan, then the ultimate explanation for evil cannot be found in Satan. It must rather be found in the reason that God had for ordaining or allowing him to carry out his specific activity. The New Testament, I submit, does not share this assumption.

—Adapted from Satan and the Problem of Evil, pages 35-37  Gregory Boyd

The Cross, Where Love Silenced the Lying Voice of Shame

The voice of shame is such a terrible voice because it doesn't just accuse us of doing wrong and therefore guilty, it actually accuses of of BEING wrong and therefore worthless..not worthy to be loved, without any dignity, deserving no care or consideration..shameful and embarrassing, rejected and unwanted, not fit for God's presence, 'good for nothing.'  What a lie!  I believed this lie for so many years. I am seeing more and more how the cross dispels such a lie of unworth and shame.  The cross stands as a testimony of our amazing worth to God and of how much we deserve to be loved, cared for and rescued!

The cross says God loves and accepts us even in the midst of any sin...thus, the cross not only assures us of God's love but puts to death any lies or accusations that we are unworthy, shameful, or rejected..for the cross proves we're worth dying for, the cross proves we're not rejected even at our worst, the cross proves Jesus is not ashamed to be counted with us transgressors! And thus the cross forever silences those voices of accusation! 

The cross shows that His love is a loyal love, a love that does not take into account a wrong suffered, a love that keeps no record of wrongs, a love that says of His murderers, "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing!" He sees past our wrongs to the hurting person beneath, to His little lost child beneath, so in need of his Papa's tender loving care!  
 
The cross shouts for all eternity, "I came to my own and you, my very own children, are worth it! You are worth My very own life! You are so special and beloved and accepted in My sight that I'd rather die than miss out on fellowship with You! I can't get you out of My heart, our of My thoughts, out of My existence! I am forever on your side, forever for you! You're my very own children, and I'd do anything for you! I will never leave you or forsake you. I will never turn you out in the cold, never forget you. You're everything to Me, and I will never let anything keep us from enjoying sweet communion together for ever and always!"

The cross forever stands as our proof of God's love and our value to Him in the face of any accusation or lying voice of condemnation or shame...for He says we're worth dying for, we're loved no matter what we do, we can't drive Him away no matter how we act, He's for us, on our side, to do us good, no matter what, forever and always! Committed, faithful, unconditional, nonjudgmental, generous, self-sacrificing, other-centered, 100% pure LOVE! That's what He is, and the cross is our proof that it is so! Hallelujah!

The Surprises of the Centurian

In Luke 7.1-10, we find the story of Jesus healing the son of a centurion in Capernaum. This is a fantastic healing story, but there are also a number of other important lessons to be drawn from the passage. More than anything, we will find that we can be surprised at the goodness in the hearts of others, even in the hearts of persons we might have expected to be hateful.

A centurion in Capernaum had a slave whom he valued highly, and went he learned that Jesus was in Capernaum, he sent some Jewish elders to Jesus to convince him to come and heal the servant. The elders themselves tell Jesus: He is worthy of having you do this for him (v. 4). It is amazing that the Jews should hold a centurion of the oppressive Roman army in such high esteem, considering that other Jews were ready to commit murder against members of the Roman army at any moment! They hold him in high esteem because he had done so much good for the Jewish people: he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us (v. 5).

This in itself had to have been a surprise! The Romans, being the oppressors and imperialists, did not hold human persons of other ethnic groups in very high regard. It is obvious that they thought them sub-human or at least seriously inferior, since they violated their autonomy and personal freedom in order to draw taxes from them. If you are a first-century Palestinian, on the other hand, you could very quickly grow to hate the Romans for treating you as an animal and taking away your freedom. Every human person wants to be free to lead the life he finds good, and oppression and imperialism steps in the way of that through violence. It quickly and effectively breeds hate and xenophobia of the extremest sort.

Yet here was one of the enemy, a filthy Roman centurion who not only did not oppress the Palestinians, but instead built a synagogue for them and won the respect of the people. The elders of the Jews in Capernaum, the leaders of the group, highly respected him and considered him worthy of the attention of a great prophet and man of God such as Jesus of Nazareth. This is the first surprise: that there can exist good, genuine good, even among the dreaded strangers of groups we've grown to hate.

But notice the language of the centurion, when he sends friends to meet Jesus on the way to his house: Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof (v. 6). Whereas the Jewish elders considered him worthy -- perhaps in contradistinction to other recipients of Christ's grace, e.g. the sinful woman in vv. 36ff. of the same chapter -- the centurion himself claims to be unworthy.

This is one of those recognizable traits of true goodness in a person: the truly good person doesn't acknowledge his own goodness so much as his own unworthiness. A person who doesn't call attention to himself, who is aware of his faults even as others praise him and esteem him highly -- that is a recognizably good person. It sounds strange and paradoxical, but it would seem that the better a person is, the better they can recognize and acknowledge their own faults.

Notice now, too, the explanation the centurion gives as to why he does not insist that Christ come all the way to his house: But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed. For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes, and to another, 'Come,' and he comes, and to my slave, "Do this,' and the slave does it (v. 7-8). Jesus is so amazed at the faith in this response that he exclaims to the crowd following him: I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith (v. 9).

Now what is this centurions faith, except a recognition of the utter authority of Christ? He doesn't work by magic, he doesn't work by psychosomatic suggestion and trickery -- he has authority over the very earth and course of nature itself. This is a very fine recognition of the close connection between God and Christ, even if it comes short of the specific details of say a Chalcedonian definition of the Incarnation. The centurion recognizes that a mere word from Christ -- recall to mind, at this juncture, that God created the world by his speech in Gen 1 -- and the servant can be healed.

This is a sort of faith that Christ had not even found among the Israelites. When he declared the forgiveness of sins of the paralytic man, the scribes and Pharisees began to question, Who is this who is speaking blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone? (Luke 5.21). They question him later, Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? (5.30). From many of the Jews, he received only questions and opposition and unbelief in spite of all the signs he had performed. But in this pagan oppressor of the evil empire, he found a faith that recognized Christ's true nature and authority. This was a greater faith than anyone in Israel had expressed until then!

What can we learn from this, then? That we may be heartily surprised by the goodness we find in other persons; it may be the person we previously thought to be so terrible is actually quite good, better even than we are. It may just be that God works outside the borders of our own circle of friends or coreligionists or kinsmen. We ought to learn that we cannot judge another person before knowing him; each of us has a life of our own, a walk with God of our own, and we may be surprised in what we find in the other person.  

Jesus Did Not .......

Religion in a desperate attempt to stay alive, worships the cross of Christ while living as if Christ did not finish His work on the cross, all the while ignoring to bare their own cross. They want to believe that the cross of Christ was substitutionary, meaning He died so people don't have to. Therefore they do not believe they have to die to their own wants and desires and they believe they do not have to die to religion.  By their actions they obey religion above obeying the words of Christ.

But;

Jesus did not serve people so religion could be served by people.
Jesus did not become poor so religion could become rich.
Jesus did not humble Himself so religion could exalt itself.
Jesus did not give us grace so religion could mix grace with the Law and nullify grace's effect.
Jesus did not forgive people of sin so religion could judge people because of their sin.
Jesus did not die on the cross so religion could assign people to hell.
Jesus did not love sinners so that religionists could hate sinners.
Jesus did not build His Church so religion could establish denominated buildings and call them churches.
Jesus did no pray for the unity of His Church so religion could divide His body by segregated name-tagged denominations.
Jesus did not gives us pastors, teachers, apostles, prophets so that religion could form a hierarchical structure to manipulate and control people.
Jesus did not set us free so religion could put us in religious bondage.
Jesus did not bare the stripes upon His back so religion could start a money making healing ministry.
Jesus did not die so religion could live.

Jesus Died So That Religion Would Die By Our Abandonment Of It, So People  Could Have An Intimate Relationship With God Through Him...Something That Religion Can't Accomplish For Us. 

The Stripes bit deep into His back, the spikes were driven deep in His wrists, the thorns were pressed deep into His brow, the sword was driven deep into His side and He was spit upon, all the while He was forsaking the one thing that separates people from Him...your "religious" self and religion itself, that stems from eating of the tree of the "knowledge of good and evil", who play the shame, blame and fear-mongering game to get you to cover your nakedness with religious fig leaves of religious performance so as to appear spiritually pious.

People are free in Christ to be free from religion!

Glenn Regular

What We Long For

Augustine once prayed, “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.” We all have an unquenchable yearning in our hearts, a yearning for nothing less than to share in God’s own eternally full life. This is why our deepest desires cannot be permanently satisfied by anything in this world. More specifically, the life of God is nothing other than the perfect love that eternally unites the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and this Triune God spoke creation into being with the ultimate goal of inviting humans to share in this life. This is what God created us to long for!

The great Puritan theologian and pastor Jonathan Edwards expressed this concept in a powerful way in his famous work A Dissertation Concerning The End for Which God Created the World. Edwards painted a portrait of the Trinity in which the love and joy of the three divine persons was so full and intense, it simply could not be contained. God’s fullness thus yearned to be expressed and replicated by sharing it with others. So this fullness overflowed, as it were, as God brought forth creation and that mirrored his triune beauty. And the pinnacle of this creation is created beings whose yearnings for God mirrors, in a small way, his yearning for them. But whereas God’s yearning comes out of his fullness, our yearning comes out of emptiness.

It’s a beautiful arrangement. The God of overflowing love longs to pour his love into others, so he created beings that long for his love to be poured into them.

It wasn’t God’s original intention for us to ever go a moment with this longing unsatisfied. Living without the fullness of God’s love is a reality we have brought on ourselves through our rebellion, and it’s completely unnatural to us. And try as we may to run from it or numb it, the pain of our unnatural emptiness is acute and incurable. The profundity of our emptiness is the negative reflection of the profundity of the fullness of the One we long for.

God’s ultimate goal in creation is nothing less than for the very same perfect love that the Father has for his own Son to be given to us and to be placed within us. Not only this, but his goal is for Jesus himself to dwell in us and for us to dwell in him (see John 15:4-5). We become the recipients of the Father’s eternal love for the Son because we are in the Son and he is perfectly loved, and the Son is in us, as he is perfectly loved.

God’s plan is to completely envelop everyone who is willing into the threefold loving eternal dance of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And as a result, the love of the Triune God will be replicated toward us, in us, and through us as we love God and one another. I can’t imagine a loftier and more beautiful goal for humanity than this!

—Adapted from Benefit of the Doubt  -  Greg Boyd

Sons of the Creator

In preparation for Sunday's sermon, I read from the discussion of baptism in Galatians 3. One of the most important verses in that discussion is v. 26: in Christ Jesus you are all children of God. This is surely very profound stuff; I want to focus on the reality that we are children of God from the perspective of the doctrine of creation.

Christians believe that God created the world and intended that it be inhabited by human persons such as ourselves. He made the world good, he made us to live in the world, and though things are a bit messed up at the moment, we know that God is going to fix things and make them like new. When we think to ourselves, then, that we are sons and daughters of the Creator God, what could this mean except that we feel at home in the world? By this I don't mean that the world as we know it now is more or less fine to us, familiar and hospitable. I mean that we love life and are happy to know that we are alive, that we exist.

God is behind the universe and sustains it in every passing moment. We too are sustained in existence by God's great power, and we wouldn't exist even for a second if he did not continue in this activity of existential maintenance. When we think, therefore, that the one behind the scenes (so to speak) is Our Father, to whom we can pray and bring all of our complaints and requests and petitions freely, and he happily hears us and only ever does good to us, we cannot help but be happy to be alive. Perhaps this is one of the many reasons why Christianity has from the beginning been characterized as a religion of joy and happiness: because it makes one glad to be alive!

Think about it: the one who controls your very destiny is your Father who loves you and wants only what is good for you in everything. Who can despair of life when this is the way things stand? Who wouldn't be an optimist if they were impressed with conviction that the God of the whole universe is his Father who cares for him?

Christianity teaches people to feel at home in the world, by which I mean to feel at home in existence. Some philosophies and religions despair of existence. The Buddhists, for instance, consider life to be an apparently endless cycle of suffering and dissatisfaction; the only way out is to cut out all desire whatsoever, and the key to doing that is to realize that the self does not exist. Peace and quiet means extinction and self-annihilation through philosophical discovery. Not a very bright and happy view of things! But Christianity has a different diagnosis and a different treatment to the same problem: human beings are victims of this oppressing force called Sin, and the treatment for Sin is found in union with the Son of God who assumed a human nature fallen such as ours, redeemed it and sanctified and deified and transformed it, and now offers himself to all who wish to be healed. The answer is not to be annihilated; the answer is to be united with the Son of God and truly to begin to live thereafter.

Life is good, the world is good, and our situation is a good one insofar as God the good and loving creator is Our Father. When we have God as a Father, we can know that our end will be a good one, and though the road there may be a difficult one, we are glad for the opportunity to be on the journey. 

Brennan Manning on Grace

My life is a witness to vulgar grace -- a grace that amazes as it offends.

A grace that pays the eager beaver who works all day long the same wage as the grinning drunk who shows up at ten till five.

A grace that hikes up the robe and runs breakneck toward the prodigal reeking of sin and wraps him up and decides to throw a party, no ifs, ands, or buts.

A grace that raises bloodshot eyes to a dying thief's request -- "Please, remember me" -- and assures him, "You bet!"...

This vulgar grace is indiscriminate compassion. It works without asking anything of us. It's not cheap. It's free, and as such will always be a banana peel for the orthodox foot and a fairy tale for the grown-up sensibility. Grace is sufficient even though we huff and puff with all our might to try and find something or someone that it cannot cover. Grace is enough...

Sin and forgiveness and falling and getting back up and losing the pearl of great price in the couch cushions but then finding it again, and again, and again? Those are the stumbling steps to becoming Real, the only script that's really worth following in this world or the one that's coming. Some may be offended by this ragamuffin memoir, a tale told by quite possibly the repeat of all repeat prodigals. Some might even go so far as to call it ugly. But you see that doesn't matter, because once you are Real you can't be ugly except to people who don't understand...that yes, all is grace. It is enough. And it's beautiful.

God loves us as we are, not as we should be.

Brennan Manning

Have a Nice Day

“God bless you” is a common phrase, but what are we actually conferring on the recipient? Perhaps our empty words presume we have powers to remove any form of negativity from that persons day? “Have a nice day” is another one used everywhere every day and although its nice when the checkout operator in the supermarket says it to you, honestly what value does it have?


Just as Gandhi said “be the change that you seek” the mere words “have a good day” bestow no power upon another person unless we actually live our words and do something about making their day good. “Actions speak louder than words” is a phrase we have all heard but unless we take our desire for someone else’s day to be a good one by our actions and not empty words we are doing nothing more than living a fantasy.

Speaking nicely to someone is a good thing but actually believing that action-less words of blessing will in fact help them have a nice day has the potential to break down our community. God’s love for us and our love for each other is not measured by a difficulty free day or month or life. Tangible expressions of care have real power and one action is so much more valuable than many empty words.

I am working on removing “Have a nice day” and that awful question that has crept in to our society “How are you” from my interactions with people. Oh I will still use “how are you” but only when I care about the answer and have the time and motivation to act on what I hear in reply.

Does God Intervene

The Open View of the future recognizes the vast influence of all the angelic and human wills God created, which, in turn, influences the various outcomes and circumstances in life. Therefore life is arbitrary because of the way the decisions made by an unfathomably vast multitude of free agents intersect with each other. Life is not function of God’s will or character. (Click here for a post on this topic.)

This leads, though, to an extremely important and practical question: What role does God play in all of this? What influence does God have in determining what comes to pass? Yes, he has an important role to play in anticipating and creatively responding to decisions agents make. But is God only a responder? If the blueprint model errs in ascribing the ultimate reason for everything to God, it might seem that the open view or warfare model errs in not ascribing the ultimate reason for anything to God.

The question is extremely important on a number of accounts, not least of which is that Christianity is founded on the assumption that God can and does unilaterally intervene in the affairs of humans. The biblical portrait of God is of one who responds to events. He is a God who at times supernaturally intervenes to alter the course of history and of individual lives.
Take Jesus Christ as our starting point, we can’t avoid concluding that God intervenes in the world. Indeed, Jesus is the supreme instance of God intervening in human affairs. In Christ God became a human! If that doesn’t constitute supernatural intervention, nothing does! As God in human form, Christ himself is the decisive refutation of any theology that brackets off the influence of God from the cosmos.

Christ’s ministry was centered on demonstrating God’s supernatural power in counteracting the tragic effects of the kingdom of darkness. He announced the kingdom of God was at hand and proved it by supernaturally healing and delivering people from demonic oppression. And he taught us to pray that his Father’s will be done “on earth as it is in heaven.” The rest of the biblical narrative concurs with this perspective, for it is woven around miracles that God performed on behalf of his people, often in response to prayer. From the parting of the Red Sea to the miracles of the early church, the Bible witnesses to a miracle-working God.


From a Christ-centered, biblical perspective, God’s ability to break into history is the foundation of our confidence in him. If God can part the Red Sea, become a human being, die on a cross and rise from the dead, then we can trust him to intervene and redeem today’s tragic circumstances. Even more fundamentally, we can trust that he will someday vanquish all his foes once and for all, bring this present age to a close, and set up a kingdom of love that will never end. We are confident that things will not always go on as they are precisely because God is not bound to the natural processes.

God Makes Us Patient

It is no secret that the authors of the New Testament had the impression that Christ's second coming was going to take place soon, perhaps even within their lifetimes. Paul says the time is short (1 Cor 7.29). And yet Christ has not returned, so far as any of us can tell, and two thousand years have past, Christians being taught all the while that the time is short. What is going on here?

The deepest, darkest doubt which may appear in the heart of a person is that Christ is never returning, and that this whole Christianity thing is poorly mistaken. But that view has a very difficult time maintaining plausibility when we think of the origins of Christianity. We have the eyewitness reports and testimonies of the disciples and apostles and the first generation of Christians who saw Jesus during his ministry, who saw him after he had resurrected from the dead, and who saw him ascend into heaven. There is no doubt about all this. I think the lesson to learn is a different one.

I have been thinking recently about God's timing and God's patience. The Bible shows again and again, as does personal experience, that God's timing is nothing like our own, and God does not get things accomplished on our schedule. He tells us that the time is short and yet we have been waiting for two thousand years now. What could this mean?

Now I understand the essence of the Christian doctrine of salvation to be theosis: as so many of the Church Fathers would say, God became a human so that humanity can become like God. Our telos as a race is to embody the image and likeness of God, which Christ has (Col 1.15) and which we gain when we are united to him (see Athanasius, De Incarnatione). God does everything for our sake and for our benefit, St. Anthony affirmed (see On the Character of Men and on the Virtuous Life). This means that even the delays and tarrying must be for the sake of making us like God. But how?

The answer must lie in the transformation of our minds and understanding (cf. Rom 12.2). If God sees two thousand years to be a short amount of time, then we should begin to see it as a short amount of time as well. If God is patient almost ad infinitum with sinners, just as he was patient beyond what is believable to us with the Israelites (2 Kings 17.5ff.), then he must want us to embody the same patience and become like him. The lesson to learn is that we must be patient like God is patient. This is a patience that is willing to forgive a sinner seventy times seven in a single day (Mt 18.21-2)

When Jesus Questioned the Father

Though the sinless Son of God had perfect faith, we find him asking God the Father to alter the plan to redeem the world through his sacrifice—if it is “possible” (Matt. 26:42). As the nightmare of experiencing the sin and God-forsakenness of the world was encroaching upon him, Jesus was obviously, and understandably struggling. So, even though this plan had been predestined for ages by the Trinity, Jesus desperately asked for an alternative.

Of course, there was no other alternative in this instance. Jesus had to suffer. And though it caused him to sweat drops of blood, Jesus willingly submitted to the Father’s will. Yet the very fact that Jesus tried to influence the Father to change the plan (and sweat blood in the process) demonstrates that his perfect faith and obedience didn’t mean he never struggled and never tried to push back on God’s plan, just as Moses and so many other heroes of the faith had done before.

So, whether your struggle is with doubt, confusion, the challenge of accepting God’s will, or any other matter, the fact that you have the struggle does not indicate that you lack faith. To the contrary, your faith is strong to the degree that you are willing to honestly embrace your struggle.

Yet the example of Jesus struggling in Gethsemane pales in significance compared to the way he struggled on the cross. In the moment when the Son of God, for the first time in eternity, experienced separation from the Father as he bore the sin of the world, Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46). Though the plan that involved this sacrifice had been settled within the Trinity for ages, it seems that in this singularly hellish moment Jesus had become foggy about it. And so the Son of God questioned the Father: “Why?”

If one believes that a person’s faith is as strong as they are certain and free of doubt, they have no choice but to accept that Jesus’s faith faltered at this crucial moment, which would imply that Jesus sinned at this crucial moment. This is impossible, however, for it conflicts with both Scripture and the uniform conviction of the historic orthodox church. Faith and doubt are not antithetical. A perfect faith need not be one that is free of doubt. What a perfect faith needs to be is first and foremost authentic, which is precisely what Jesus demonstrated when he cried out.

Had Jesus instead managed to suppress his sincere bewilderment to preserve a more pious appearance, then he would have demonstrated a defective faith. For while an unquestioning crucified Messiah would certainly have appeared more pious and would have more closely conformed to what we might have expected a sinless Messiah to look like, it would have demonstrated a less-honest relationship with the Father for Jesus to refrain from expressing the full horror of what he was experiencing.

—Adapted from Benefit of the Doubt, pages 93-94, 97  Greg Boyd

The Rapture

The Blood Moon's, the events in the middle east are prime reasons dispensationalist are "again" saying that the rapture is just around the corner, the stage is set for the soon return of Christ. This expectation is further heighten  by the newly released movie based of the book series, Left Behind", staring Nicolas Cage entitled, what else but, "Left Behind".

Whether you are a believer in Christ or not, you should know that Jesus' description of the rapture and its timing is NOT what what is portrayed in the movie Left Behind.

Jesus’ says: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days…all the peoples of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man (Jesus) coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.” (Matthew 24:29-31)

Left Behind says: Before any really bad things happens...or to use Christianized language, before the tribulation...Christians will suddenly and mysteriously disappear in a secret rapture, and initially no one will know why, because no one will see Jesus in the sky.

What did Jesus say:
Jesus said it will happen after the tribulation.
Left Behind says it will happen before the tribulation.
Jesus said when it happens the whole world will see Him.
Left Behind says no one will see Him, it is secret snatching away of people.

Obviously, these two versions of the rapture event are about as different as can be! It’s up to you to decide which version you’re going to believe. I choose to believe Jesus!

The Left Behind books and movies bear no resemblance whatsoever to Jesus' teaching on the matter.

You may say: “But the Left Behind books and movies are believed by so many people from all denominations! They can’t possibly be all wrong!” Since when does winning a popularity contest make a spiritual event right. To focus on what is popular opens you up to deception. The truth is in following Jesus! If you think popularity always equals truth....you’ve got another think coming. The fact that the Left Behind movies and books are so popular while being so wrong, is a searing indictment of the deception religious denominations are in today. When Christians can write books and make movies about the rapture, and devour those books and movies and people treat them as truth by the millions without even thinking to consult Jesus’ specific description of the event in the Bible is indicative of the depth of deception the religious world is deceived by!

Why do the majority of Christians say they believe in a “pre-tribulation” rapture, while ignoring Jesus’ words in Matthew 24:29-31? Because they take for granted, and fail to “test everything” their denominated seminarian pastors tell them (see 1 Thess. 5:21).

"Man" you may say, that sounds like a nasty business!" Being persecuted? Being killed? Being hated? That’s for people in far off places like China and the Muslim world! Not us fluffy, comfy Christians in the western world! Are Christians so naive to believe that believers in the western world have a special avoid trouble badge that says, “Immune From Persecution”, if so they are in for a rude awakening?

Follow the teachings of Jesus...not religious fables.