The God Who Over-Knows the Future

God perfectly knows from all time what will be, what would be, and what may be. He sovereignly sets parameters for all three categories. His knowledge of what might occur leaves him no less prepared for the future than his knowledge of determined aspects of creation. Because he is infinitely intelligent, he does not need to focus his attention on a limited set of possibilities as we do.
In other words, he is able to attend to each one of a trillion billion possibilities, as though it was the only possibility he had to consider. He is infinitely attentive to each and every one. Hence, whatever possibility ends up coming to pass, we may say that from all eternity God was preparing for just this possibility, as though it were the only possibility that could ever possibly occur.

Even when possibilities occur that are objectively improbable—and to this extent surprise or disappoint God—it is not at all the case the he is caught of guard. He is as perfectly prepared for the improbable as he is for the probable.

We humans with our limited intelligence could not as confidently attend to a trillion billion possibilities as easily, and as perfectly, as we could attend to one certainty. Indeed, our focus is divided in half the second we have to attend to two possibilities instead of one certainty. And we humans with our limited wisdom and power could not assure anyone of a certain outcome unless we exhaustively controlled all of the variables.

Hence it is tempting to project our experience upon God and assume that God must face similar difficulties. Those who criticize Open Theism often assume that God (like a finite human) can be assured of ultimate victory only if he controls all the variables. Hence, they criticize a concept of God who is not all-controlling as being out of control.

The open view of the future does not undermine God’s wisdom and sovereign control: it rather infinitely exalts it. In this view God does not know less than the classical view: he knows more. He does not under-know the future, as it were: he over-knows it.


Adapted from Satan and the Problem of Evil, pages 128-130

No Despair of Ours can Alter the Reality of Things.....

I love this quote from Thomas Merton about all of us being part of God's dance!  I can let go of trying to understand it all and just get carried along by the Dancer and enjoy the Dance!  Life is so precious, so beautiful..something to treasure and savor, not analyze and categorize.  Life is meant to be lived, a Gift is meant to be enjoyed, a Dance is meant to be danced!  I love the carefree abandon of the Grace Dance we are all caught up in, whether we are aware of it fully or not..yet when the light of Grace breaks like dawn upon our hearts, how wonderful to let go of our works and thoughts and struggles and just watch ourselves flow with the Dancer in HIs beautiful Dance!  It's always so playful and light with Him, all earthbound heaviness somehow rising in the lilting buoyant arms of the Dancer as He holds us, swings us high, laughs with great laughter like bells ringing, and twirls us around in LOVE!

Here is Merton's wonderful quote to savor:

"What is serious to men is often very trivial in the sight of God. What in God might appear to us as "play" is perhaps what he Himself takes most seriously. At any rate, the Lord plays and diverts Himself in the garden of His creation, and if we could let go of our own obsession with what we think is the meaning of it all, we might be able to hear His call and follow Him in His mysterious, cosmic dance. We do not have to go very far to catch echoes of that game, and of that dancing. When we are alone on a starlit night; when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children; when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet Bashō we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash--at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the "newness," the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.

"For the world and time are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity and despair. But it does not matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things; or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed, we are in the midst of it, and it is in the midst of us, for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it to or not.

"Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance."

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

Justification

In today’s writing, Michael Wells takes us back to “self-justification” and gives us some startling truths that very few have taken the time to see the hole they are digging for themselves!  Or, perhaps have never known these truths.  WOW!  This is some priceless information to know and use for everyday life. 

Because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight---

Being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus 

For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. --Romans 3:20, 24, and 28

I have heard some wonderful arguments concerning justification of self. Any number of times I have sat listening to eloquent reasoning, and after the person has made his case, he or she asks something like, “Would you put up with that? Can you see how it makes me feel? No one deserves to be treated this way, and what about the children? Should they have to put up with it?” 

Everyone has some form of self-justification, and often people make some very good and strong arguments that would, in fact, justify their actions if they were living under the law. Therein lies the downside. Judging and justifying indicates a willingness to have God judge and justify. Who is that heady? I do not want to be justified; I want to live under grace. I want Christ’s life in me to take the initiative to love and to bless in my daily interactions. I want His grace toward me. I want life. Observe the one justifying himself; is there a lift in his spirit? Do you want to be like that person? Does he exude life? We are not suited for self-justification; it depletes us, empties us, and leaves us under the law.No, thanks!

The truth sets us free, God tells us.  There is some dynamic truth in today’s writing.  Doesn’t the first paragraph just make us stop and think about how easy it is to go into a diatribe that sounds so familiar to his example…all the while not realizing how much we are moving to “self-justification” and opening ourselves to God judging and justifying us…and bringing on a “drop in our spirit.”  Goodness.  I want to be like Michael: “I do not want to be justified; I want to live under grace.”

And it is very important how Michael takes us to know and desire “Christ’s life in me to take the initiative to love and bless in my daily interactions.  I want His grace toward me.  I want life.”  Once we experience a great moment of His Life living through us…we will not want anything else!

Good-by Law!  Hello Grace!  

Was Jesus Fully Human and Fully God

The New Testament is very clear that Jesus was a full human being. He had to grow in wisdom (Lk 2:52) and learn obedience by going through trials, just like every other human being (Heb. 5:8). He grew hungry and tired, like the rest of us. He experienced the same range of emotions as the rest of us and was tempted in all the ways we are (Heb 4:15). He was, in other words, made like us “in every way” (Heb 2:17). Jesus was a full human being. In fact, all indications are that Jesus still is a full human being, albeit in a resurrected and transformed state.


At the same time, the New Testament also clearly teaches us that Jesus is God. John tells us that, while no one has ever seen God as he is in himself, the Word (Jesus), who is himself God, has made him known (Jn. 1:18). Similarly, in his epistle he refers to the Son of God as “the true God” (I Jn 5:20). Along the same lines, Paul refers to Jesus as “God over all” (Rom. 9:5) and “our great God and Savior” (Titus 2:13) while Thomas calls Jesus “Lord” and “God,” and Jesus commends him for his faith (Jn. 20:28).

The New Testament repeatedly ascribes to Jesus titles and activities that are elsewhere reserved for God alone. For example, the single most common title given to Jesus in the New Testament is “Lord” (kurios) (e.g. Rom 10:9; 1 Cor 1:7). This is the Greek equivalent of Yahweh, the most sacred name for God in the Old Testament. So too, the Bible teaches that God alone is judge and creator, yet Jesus is depicted in these roles in the New Testament (Col 1:16). Similarly, Yahweh alone is said to be “the alpha and the omega” and “the beginning and the end” (Isa. 44:6), yet Jesus says this of himself in the New Testament (Rev. 22:13).

One of the most interesting evidences of Jesus’ divinity occurs when Jesus says to his audience, “Before Abraham was, I am” (Jn. 8:58, emphasis added). The reason Jesus mixes the past and present tense is because by referring to himself as the “I am,” he’s identifying himself with Yahweh who spoke to Moses out of the burning bush saying, “ I am that I am” (Ex. 3:14). His Jewish audience understood exactly what he was claiming for himself, for they immediately picked up stones to stone him for blasphemy.

Finally, and perhaps most impressively, the Bible consistently stresses that humans are to pray to and worship God alone. Whenever humans or even angels find others bowing before them in the Bible, they immediately put a stop to it. Yet we find people – monotheistic Jews no less – worshipping Jesus, and he not only allows it, but encourages it (e.g. Jn 20:28-29). The practice of worshipping and praying to Jesus as Lord is found throughout the New Testament.

The only conclusion we can draw from the New Testament evidence is the one the early church drew at the council of Chalcedon (451 AD); namely, Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human. He’s not (as some teach today) simply a great teacher, an enlightened guru, an inspired prophet or an angel: He’s rather “the Word made flesh” (Jn. 1:14), the very embodiment of God. (The embodiment of God in Christ is known as “the Incarnation”). The Incarnation reveals that God was so in love with humanity, despite our sin and rebellion, that he decided to enter into our sin infested world and become one of us!


Of course, it’s very hard, if not impossible, to understand how a person can be at one and the same time fully God and fully human. But it shouldn’t surprise us that we confront mysteries when trying to comprehend God. After all, we confront paradoxes when studying our own physical world. For example, physicists tell us that light has the property of waves in some circumstances and of particles in other circumstances – yet we have no way of understanding how this is possible. If we confront paradoxes trying to understand the nature of our physical world, it should hardly surprise us if we confront paradoxes trying to understand God!

- Greg Boyd

Do You Believe the Bible is:

There are many people out there who believe...The Bible is:

B...Basic
I...Instructions
B...Before
L...Leaving
E...Earth

If that is our philosophy regarding the Bible and the Gospel...no wonder...people believe that believers are too heavenly minded to be any earthly good! First and foremost the Bible is not a book to get us fitted for heaven...rather the Bible is a book to fit us for living gracefully and godly in the earth.

The Bible and the Gospel is far more about getting the atmosphere of heaven to earth by God working in and through His people to fill the earth with His glory...than it is getting the atmosphere of earth to heaven by taking religious mind-setted people to heaven!

People are already fitted for heaven, Jesus saw to that through His finished work on the cross...the problem is getting religious-mind-setted people fit to live on the earth so they can fulfill the plan of God for the Community of Humanity by Him doing His work through religionless-believers so that unbelievers will know that God has already forgiven them and loves them so they will turn to Him (repent). But the problem will always be a problem if we refuse to break free of our religious-mind-settedness from the idea that unbelievers are only worthy of hell.

If we go to heaven retaining our religious denominational mindsets, heaven will be one messed up hell of a place...that even God would vacate.

I believe that the philosophy of the Bible, when rightly understood is:

B...BASIC
I...INSTRUCTIONS
B...for BELIEVING
L...and LIVING
E...the gospel in the EARTH daily

Then, if heaven is to be our final home...people who are already fitted for it, will also be fitted for earth ENTER the kingdom of God and the mission of God in the earth!

At least...that is the way Glenn sees it!

- Glenn Regular

Wonderful Quotes on Our True Self

I love these uplifting quotes on our True Self that I recently read in a devotional by Richard Rohr, and so I wanted to share them here.  It is such a comfort and joy to know that our True Self at our deepest core is Spirit of His Spirit!  Christ in us, making us who we are, Christ in us, the hope of glory - glory already in us, one day to be fully revealed!

"I have the immense joy of being [hu]man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now [that] I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun. . . [This realization] was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God's eyes. If only they could see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time....We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time."

- Thomas Merton

"At the center of our being is a point ... which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, ... which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point ... is the pure glory of God in us. . . . It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely."  

- Richard Rohr 

The God of Wisdom. Romans 9 Part 5

This week we have been looking at Romans 9. In this post, we will look at the sixth and final argument against the deterministic interpretation of this famous chapter.

Argument #6: It’s About Wisdom, Not Power

When Paul responds to the charge of injustice by asking, “who… are you, a human being, to argue with God?” (vs. 20), he is not thereby appealing to the sheer power of the potter over the clay. He is rather appealing to the sovereign wisdom of the potter in refashioning clay in a manner that fits the kind of clay he has to work with. When “clay” yields to his influence and has faith, he fashions a vessel of honor. When “clay” becomes “spoiled” (Jer 18:4) and resists his will, he fashions a “vessel of ordinary use” that is being prepared for destruction.

Again, this fashioning looks arbitrary to Jews who believed that they were the “vessel of honor” by virtue of their national identity or good works – Jews who did not “strive for [God’s righteousness] on the basis of faith, but as if it were based on works” (Rom 9:32). It is to these people, expressing this sentiment, that Paul sarcastically asks, “Who are you…?” In truth, God’s fashioning is not arbitrary at all. It is based on whether or not one is willing “to seek” after the righteousness of God that comes by faith, not works (9:30–32; 10:3–5, 12–13; 11:22–23).

Conclusion

On the basis of these six considerations I conclude that the deterministic interpretation of Romans 9 is as misguided as it is unfortunate. It is misguided not only because it misinterprets Paul, but because it fundamentally clashes with the supremacy of God’s self-revelation in Christ. And it is unfortunate because it tragically replaces the unsurpassably glorious picture of God as Jesus Christ dying on the cross for undeserving sinners with a picture of a deity who defies all moral sensibilities by arbitrarily fashioning certain people to be vessels fit for eternal destruction — and then punishing them for being that way. It exchanges the picture of a beautiful God who reigns supreme with self-sacrificial love and flexible wisdom for a picture of a God who reigns by the arbitrary exercise of sheer power.


I unequivocally affirm that the sovereign God “has mercy on whomever he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whomever he wants to harden.” I would simply add that the “whomever” he has mercy on refers to “all who choose to believe” while the “whomever” he hardens refers to “all who refuse to believe.” The passage demonstrates the wisdom of God’s loving flexibility, not the sheer determinism of God’s power.

- Greg Boyd

Spiritual-Drain-Syndrome-Disease.

Are you suffering from the...spiritual-drain-syndrome-disease...if you are, consider changing what you believe the bible says.

The religious-gospel is a performance trap that has befuddled the minds of believers into the confused thinking that their "spiritual-worth" is based on "religious-performance-worthiness." This leads to all kinds of ungodliness including...a religious-superiority-complex...judgementalism...condemnation...expectation keeping...religious conformation...and hypocrisy...this kind of action is Gospel stifling and a God turnoff!

The agenda-expectation-keeping of performance-trap-religion drains us of spiritual vitality that is needed for grace-life-living because of spiritual dis-ease!

The religious-performance-trap gospel is exactly what Jesus was talking about freeing us from when he said;

"Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light." (Matthew 11:29-30).

Sadly, for to many believers, following Jesus is determined by following man-inspired-interpretations of a book that is reduced to a rule-book of do's and don'ts to-do or not-to-do. 

The bible was never meant to be...a to-do or not-to-do religious-rule-book...a denomination-making-book...a denomination-naming-book...a denomination-doctrine-making-book...a-money-extorting-book...the believer's-supreme-authority-book...the Living-Word-book...a Sunday-go-meeting-book...a preacher-sermon-gathering-book...a religious-elitist-quoting-book...a fear-mongering-book...a judging-of-people-book...a sinner-condemning book...a hell-fire-torture-chamber-people-burning-book.

The bible is meant to be God's love-letter-to-man-book...a to-Jesus-pointing-book...and the good-news-book of Jesus the Living-Word-of-God...our good-news Savior, saving mankind because the GOSPEL is the GOOD-NEWS of our Loving Father God reconciling humanity unto Himself!

The religious performance doing book-trap is a do and don't gospel that is no Gospel at all.

- Glenn Regular

Stop Trying to Become More Godly

It is commonly thought that the purpose of the Holy Spirit is to make us more spiritual. That through indwelling and empowering us, He connects us to our “spiritual” side so that we become more Godly and spiritually-minded.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Holy Spirit is given to us, not so that we can be more Godly, but so that we can be more human. So that you can be you, and I can be me.

One of the great lies of the Christian religion is that God wants you to be like Him.

This is not true. God does not want you to become like Him. God wants you to become like you.
God wants you to become fully you.
God wants you to become like the person He created you to be.
God does not want you to become fully divine, but to become fully human.

We Must Come out of Hiding

C. S. Lewis once said that the goal of life is to learn to come outside of ourselves. He did not mean that you become less “yourself” but that you become fully “yourself.” Most of us hide our “true self” in the dark recesses of our hearts and minds, afraid that if we come out, people will not like us, love us, or accept us.
We feel that the true person crouching in a dark corner of our heart is not worthwhile, not valuable, not able to contribute, not worth revealing, not worth loving.
This is the great lie, and it seems to me that Christianity often contributes to it.

The Great Lie about Humanity

Many Christians, churches, pastors, and books tell people that who they are is “wrong” and “of this world” and they need to die to themselves and become like Jesus Christ. And while there are attributes and character traits to each of us that need to be sloughed off so that other aspects can be raised up to their potential, I think that we sometimes get the two reversed so that we drawn and discredit that which should be strengthened and honored, and we raise up and glorify those things we should let die.

Christianity is great at making clones.

We all wear church-sanctioned clothes, use church-sanctioned language, and engage in church-sanctioned activities.
We do this for the sake of “community” but such community is dead because all the people in it are dead. Sure, they may be breathing and talking, but they are not really living. They are not living within the astonishing uniqueness which God gave them.

You are not fully alive until you become fully you.

The will of God for your life is not a “to do” list so that you can change who you are and become more like God. No, the will of God for your life is that you discover who you are, and then become most fully “you.”
God does not desire a performance, but a person, and He loves you for who you ARE, not for who you might one day become.

As Robert Farrar Capon wrote, “The will of God is … his longing that we will take the risk of being nothing but ourselves” (Hunting the Divine Fox, 275).
God doesn’t want you to be Him; He wants you to be you.

The Holy Spirit Makes You “You”

And this is one reason God gave us the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is given to us to lead us out of the prison of our mind and lead us into being the person that God wants us to be.

The Holy Spirit does not make us like God; the Holy Spirit makes us like ourselves.

The Holy Spirit does not make us more spiritual, but more physical, that is, more human.

The Holy Spirit does not prepare us to live in another world, but prepares us to fully live in this world.

This work of the Holy Spirit happens in two stages.

The Two Stages of Spirit-Inspired Human Development

First, the Spirit helps us to see that the person we are inside is the person God wants us to be.
The “me” inside is not someone to be ignored, locked away, or hidden from sight, but is someone to be embraced, loved, and strengthened.

The Spirit helps us “see” ourselves for who we really are, and learn to love ourselves for who we are.
Second, the Spirit gives us the courage to reveal ourselves, our true self, to others.

Each of us is made with amazing gifts, talents, abilities, insights, ideas, and personalities. The Spirit helps us learn what these are, and learn how to share these with others.
When we do this, it is then that we begin to become truly human, and in this way, begin to truly reveal Jesus Christ to others.

How to Become Godly

The surprising thing is that when we learn to become more like the person God made us to be, when we live up to our divinely-sanctioned human potential, it is only then that we begin to develop into godliness and Christlikeness.

Jesus was the perfect man, not because He didn’t sin, but because He lived up to His full potential.
Similarly, when we also start to live up to our full potential, when we start to become who God made us to be, when we live the way God created us each to live, it is then that we become more Godly.
It is a classic case of putting the cart before the horse. In chasing after godliness, we end up denying ourselves and who God made us to be, and the result is a life that is less human and less divine. But when we, with the indwelling Holy Spirit as our guide, chase after the person God created us to be, it is then that we become more human. And since becoming the person God made us to be fulfills His plan for us, we become more like God in the process.

So stop trying to become like God. Instead, ask God to use the Holy Spirit to mold and make you more like you. 

God is Flexible: Romans 9, Part 4

As we continue this series on Romans 9, [Here’s the link to the first post in the series.] today we will look at the famous potter/clay analogy. Most tend to interpret the potter and clay image as supporting the deterministic view of God. But in fact, it teaches just the opposite. This is the fifth argument of six against the deterministic view of Romans 9.

Argument #5: The Flexible Potter and the Willing Clay

If we read Romans 9 in the light of its Old Testament background, Paul’s analogy of a potter working with clay doesn’t imply that the potter unilaterally decides everything, as the deterministic interpretation suggests. Indeed, in the Old Testament passage that makes the most use of the potter/clay analogy, it has the exact opposite meaning.

As in Jeremiah 18 the Lord showed Jeremiah a potter who was working on a vessel that didn’t turn out right. So the potter revised his plan and formed a different kind of pot out of it (Jer 18:1-4). In the same way, the Lord said, since he is the potter and Israel is the clay, he has the right and is willing to “change his mind” about his plans for Israel if they will simply repent (Jer 18:4-11). Indeed, the Lord announced that whenever he’s going to judge a nation, he is willing to change his mind if the nation repents. Conversely, whenever God announces that he’s going to bless a nation, he will change his mind if that nation turns away from him. In other words, the point of the potter/clay analogy is not God’s unilateral control, but God’s willingness and right to change his plans in response to changing hearts.

The passage fits perfectly with the point Paul is making in Romans 9. While some individual Jews had accepted Jesus as the Messiah, the nation as a whole had rejected Jesus, and thus rejected God’s purpose for themselves (cf. Lk 7:30). Hence, though God had previously blessed Israel, he was now changing his mind about them and was hardening them. Ironically, and shockingly, the Jews were finding themselves in the same position as their old nemesis Pharaoh. He had hardened his heart toward God, so God responded by hardening him further in order to raise him up to further his own sovereign purposes (Rom 9: 17). So too, Paul was arguing, God was now hardening the Jews in their self-chosen unbelief to further his sovereign purposes. He was going to use their rebellion to do what he had always hoped their obedience would do: namely, bring the non-Jewish world into a relationship with him (Rom 11:11-12).

Even here, however, the sovereign potter remains flexible. If the Jews will abandon their unbelief – clearly God’s hardening is not determinative or irrevocable – the potter will once again refashion his plan and graft them in. Conversely, if the Gentiles ever abandon their belief and become prideful – clearly God’s mercy is not determinative or irrevocable – the potter will once again refashion his plan for them and cut them off (Rom 11:12-25).

In any case, we see that the point of the potter/clay analogy is the opposite of what the deterministic interpretation would have us believe. Paul’s point is that the sovereign potter has the right to revise his plans in response to the clay, which is exactly what God was doing to the nation of Israel. And, however arbitrary his revisions may appear to Jews who trust in their nationality or good works, they are in fact perfectly wise and just revisions.

This sheds light on why Paul responds to the charge that God is unfair by quoting God as saying, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy” (9:14, cf. 18). He is not suggesting that God gives mercy or hardens people without any consideration of the choices people make. To the contrary, as has always been the case, the people God chooses to have mercy on are those who have faith, whether they are Jews or Gentiles. And the people God chooses to harden are those who don’t “strive for [righteousness] on the basis of faith, but as if it were based on works” (vs. 30–32). But to Jews who insisted that God must choose people based on their nationality or works, God’s right to have mercy on whomever he wishes – even if they have nothing other than faith going for them – needed to be emphasized.

It is also significant to note the original context of the Old Testament quote Paul is giving. The Jews had just turned away from God to worship idols while Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai – the terms of the covenant God was initiating with them (Ex 32:1-6). God responded by telling Moses he was planning on destroying the Israelites and starting over with Moses alone (Ex 32:9-10). Because of Moses’ intercession, however, the Lord changed his mind and gave those who were willing a chance to repent (Ex 32:14-35). The flexible potter refashioned his plan.
In a tender dialogue between God and Moses that followed this episode, the Lord allowed Moses to behold some of his glory, telling him “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy” (Ex 33:19). The Lord was saying that, to people of faith like Moses, he gives mercy, while to people like the Jews who rebelled – and like Pharaoh – he gives judgment. By choosing to have faith or to rebel against God, individuals decide which they will receive. They determine whether God will fashion them into a vessel of mercy or a vessel prepared for destruction (Rom 9:21-23).

This also explains why Paul says that God “endured with much patience” the vessels he was preparing for destruction (Rom. 9:22). Why would God have to “endure with much patience” rebellious people if he was the one making them rebellious in the first place? Why would he go on to say, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people” (10:21, quoting Isa. 65:2) if he was the one molding them to be disobedient? And why would a God of love intentionally fashion people to rebel against him and bring destruction on themselves in the first place?

In point of fact, the potter endures with much patience the vessels that are being prepared for destruction because it was not his original will to fashion these people in this direction. He would love for all “disobedient and contrary people” to come to him, and so he is patient with them. But so long as they persist in their unbelief, they are clay that can only be fashioned into a vessel fit for destruction.

Paul Teaches Free Will, Not Determinism: Romans 9, Part 3

In this series of posts, I am challenging the deterministic reading of Romans 9, which interprets Paul’s teaching as saying that God chooses some to be saved and others to be damned. There are six arguments that I offer to challenge this popular view. Today, I will look at the fourth.

Argument #4: Paul’s Summary and Free Will

A fourth argument that demonstrates the error of the deterministic interpretation of Romans 9 concerns Paul’s summary at the end of this chapter. Whenever we are struggling to understand a complex line of reasoning such as we find in Romans 9, it is crucial to pay close attention to the author’s own summary of his argument, if and when he provides one. By all accounts, Romans 9 is a difficult, complex and highly disputed passage. Fortunately, Paul provides us with a very clear summary of his argument in this chapter (vss. 30-32). Unfortunately for the deterministic interpretation, it appeals to free will as the decisive factor in determining who “receives mercy” and who gets “hardened.”

Paul begins his summary by asking, “What then shall we say?” (vs. 30). If the deterministic interpretation was correct, we would expect Paul to answer by saying something like, “The sovereign God has determined who will be elect and who will not, and no one has the right to question him.” As a matter of fact, however, Paul doesn’t say anything like this. He rather summarizes his argument by saying:

Gentiles, who did not strive for righteousness, have attained it, that is, righteousness through faith; but Israel, who did strive for the righteousness that is based on the law, did not succeed in fulfilling that law. Why not? Because they did not strive for it on the basis of faith, but as if it were based on works” (vss. 30–32).

This is extremely significant. Paul explains everything he’s been talking about throughout Romans 9 by appealing to the morally responsible choices of the Israelites and Gentiles. The one thing God has always looked for in people is faith. The Jews did not “strive” by faith, though they should have (cf. 10:3). They rather chose to trust in their own works. The Gentiles, however, simply believed that God would justify them by faith. This theme recurs throughout chapters 9 through 11. As a nation, Paul says, the Jews “were broken off because of their unbelief…” (11:20, emphasis added). This is why they have been hardened (Rom. 11:7, 25) while the Gentiles, who sought God by faith, have been “grafted in” (11:23).

We see that God’s process of hardening some and having mercy on others is not arbitrary: God expresses “severity toward those who have fallen [the nation of Israel] but kindness toward you [believers] provided you continue in his kindness” (11:22). God has mercy on people and hardens people in response to their belief or unbelief. And he is willing to change his mind about both the hardening and the mercy, if people change. If Gentiles become arrogant and cease walking by faith alone, they will once again be “cut off.” And if the Jews who are now hardened will not “persist in their unbelief,” God will “graft them in again” (Rom. 11:22-23).

To the Jews who trusted in their national identity and/or external obedience to the law, this hardening seemed arbitrary. Hence Paul chides them by asking, “[W]ho indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God? Will what is molded say to the one who molds it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’” (Rom. 9:20). But, as Paul makes abundantly clear throughout Romans 9-11, the hardening was in fact not arbitrary. It was perfectly consistent with the criteria of faith God has always worked with. He gives mercy in response to faith and he hardens in response to unbelief. It’s not the other way around. People don’t have faith as a result of God having mercy on them, and people don’t have unbelief as a result of God hardening them.

Yet, to Jews who remained convinced that their national identity and/or good works were the basis of God giving mercy, it now seemed like God was arbitrarily hardening them and arbitrarily extending mercy to the Gentiles.

Leverage

The very idea of a “leverage point” is not something many are familiar with.  Life is relatively easy for most of us, no matter where in the world we live.  However, when we read Michael’s writing today, it makes us aware of just how the enemy can easily get us “moved out of Christ.”  Read about “Leverage” and see if you don’t recognize something that has caused you to protect your “self.”

 I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me. --John 14:30

Satan is coming, and he has nothing in the Son of God.Satan is constantly looking for a leverage point, something in our flesh--the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life--with which he can move us closer to his goal. Often in the mountains I find myself wanting to move one of the large rocks off the driveway. I have a pole and a rock, but without a leverage point, usually a large piece of timber positioned under the pole, that rock is going to stay put.

Where we hold our image the enemy will always find a place of leverage. In Jesus there was no such leverage point. We have nothing in which to boast except the Lord. If we have considered ourselves crucified and buried with Christ, there will be no leverage point from which the enemy or his disciples can move us.

After a conference a fellow came up to me to say, “I do not think you are very holy!”

I did not waste time, but replied, “Oh, in my flesh dwells no good thing. Just the other day I was cussing a fellow that pulled in front of me. Can you imagine? I can tell you more if you would like. I promise you, I am worse than you perceive me to be. I have no holiness, and that is why I need His so desperately.” What did the fellow say? What could he say? There was no leverage point. If in pride I had defended myself, the man would have succeeded in moving me out of Christ. What do I have to defend, anyway? God gave me, along with every person, the death sentence.

When your mate accuses you of being stupid, what harm is there in admitting to it? Once you do, the leverage is gone. When the boss accuses you of causing all of the problems, admit that you are a problem. There will be no more leverage. The enemy has a thousand ways of getting you to protect yourself, the same self that was crucified. Tomorrow, at work, at home, on vacation, the ruler of this world is coming for you. He has nothing in you, for it is no longer you. It is Christ in you.

Wow!  How many times have I “defended myself,” and unknowingly allowed someone to move me out of Christ…  But what a marvelous truth: He (the enemy, or someone he uses) has nothing in me, for it is no longer me.  It is Christ in me.  Christ in me can keep anyone or anything from moving me out of Himself.  Hallelujah! 

Isn’t it beautiful to know how easy it is to take away the leverage from the enemy!

Paul Was Not Writing about Personal Salvation: Romans 9, Part 2

In yesterday’s post, I summarized the deterministic interpretation of Romans 9 and offered the first argument against it. In this post I offer the second and third of six arguments that reveal that there is something else going on in Romans 9.

Argument #2: Has God Broken Covenant?

The deterministic interpretation of Romans 9 assumes that Paul is concerned with individual salvation. But this is not the issue Paul is addressing. The expressed issue Paul is addressing is whether or not “the word of God had failed” (Rom 9:6). That is, had God’s promise to be the God of the Jews and to have them as his covenant people been rescinded?

The question was a burning one for Paul, for to many Jews this shocking conclusion seemed to follow from what Paul was preaching. Most Jews of the day understood God’s covenantal faithfulness toward them to depend on two things: their nationality and their obedience to the law. If what Paul was preaching was true, however – that is, if salvation was available to anyone, including Gentiles, simply on the basis of their faith — then neither a person’s Jewish nationality nor their obedience to the law counted for anything (cf. Gal 5:12). It seemed that the uniqueness of the Jewish identity and calling had been undermined.

Even worse, it now seemed to be working against them. Because they strove for righteousness based on the external observation of the law (works) instead of faith, they were now being hardened – as evidenced by the fact that so few believed in Jesus (Rom 9:31-32). This meant that, if Paul’s Gospel was true, the very ones whom God made covenant promises to were now being hardened! Hence it looked like “the word of God had failed.”

This is the question Paul is addressing in Romans 9 (as well as in chapters 10 and 11). It’s a question of God’s fidelity to Israel as a nation and the basis by which God makes anyone a covenant partner. It has nothing whatsoever to do with how God elects individuals to salvation. We are misguided if we try to use this passage to answer this question.

Argument #3: Election to Vocation, Not Salvation

The way Paul answered this objection also shows that his concern was with God’s relationship to a nation, not with individual salvation. Paul refuted the idea that God’s covenant promises had failed by showing that God’s covenant promises were never based on a nationality or external obedience to the law. Rather, Paul argued, God had always exercised his sovereign right to choose whomever he wanted to choose.

Paul illustrated his point by referring to God’s choice of Isaac over Ishmael and Jacob over Esau, made without any consideration for their attributes or merits (9:8-13). Both examples underscore God’s right to choose whomever he wishes, for both choices were made ahead of time and both were wholly unexpected. Moreover, both choices reversed the role of primogenitor, both concerned individuals who were not exemplar in their character, and most surprisingly – and telling — Isaac was supernaturally conceived.

In offering these examples, Paul was defending God’s right to choose whomever he wants and to do so by any means he chooses. Hence, Paul is arguing, it shouldn’t be shocking to Jews if God now chooses to enter into a covenant with Gentiles simply on the basis of their faith. He’s always been a God who could do whatever he wanted. At the same time, it is important to remember that in using Isaac and Jacob to illustrate God’s prerogative to choose whomever he pleases, Paul was not concerning himself with the eternal destinies of people. His concern was solely to show God’s sovereignty in electing people to a historical vocation.

To underscore God’s sovereign prerogative, Paul emphasized the arbitrary way God brought about a chosen people, through Isaac and Jacob, whose mission was to serve God and the world by being a nation of priests (Isa 61:6) and a “light to all the nations” (Isa 42:6; 49:6; 60:3). They were to be the means by which all the nations of the world would be blessed by hearing about the one true God (e.g. Gen 12:2-3; 18:18; 22:18; Ps 67:1-2; Isa 2:2-4; 55:5; 61:9-11; 66:19-20; Jer 3:17; Rom 4:12-18). Their election as a nation was always primarily about service, not individual salvation.

Paul emphasized the arbitrariness of God’s choice of the Jews to unsettle those who thought God’s word had failed because he had rendered their nationality and external observation to the law obsolete in Christ. Throughout Romans 9 through 11 Paul was at pains to show that God’s goal all along had been to reach out beyond the borders of Israel and win the whole world (Rom 9:25-26, 33; 10:10-21; 11:11-12). Indeed, Paul insisted God was yet going to attain his goal. But since Israel as a nation had rejected the Messiah, Paul argued, God was now going to use their blindness rather than their obedience to achieve it (Rom. 11:11-32).

In any event, we are reading far too much into Romans 9 if we think that Paul was suggesting that Ishmael or Esau—or anyone else not chosen in the selection process by which God formed the Jewish nation (e.g. all of Joseph’s brothers?) — were individually damned. Paul is simply not concerned in this chapter with individual destinies. Indeed, he uses the examples he does precisely because they represent more than individuals: they represent nations. In choosing Isaac over Ishmael and Jacob over Esau, in other words, God was illustrating his choice of Israel (the descendants of Isaac and Jacob) over the Moabites (the descendants of Ishmael) and the Edomites (the descendants of Esau). Again, this didn’t mean that all Moabites or Edomites were eternally lost. It just means that these nations were not chosen for the priestly role in history for which God chose the Israelites.

This national focus is emphasized in the fact that the Old Testament passage Paul cites to make his point about Esau (Malachi 1:2-3, “I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau” [Rom 9:13]) is explicitly about the country of Edom. Some might suppose that God’s pronouncement that he “loved” Jacob and “hated” Esau shows that he is speaking about their individual eternal destinies, but this is mistaken. In Hebraic thought, when “love” and “hate” are contrasted they usually are meant hyperbolically. The expression simply means to strongly prefer one person or thing over another. The meaning of Malachi’s phrase, then, is simply that God preferred Israel over Edom to be the people he wanted to work with to reach out to the world.

Hence, there is no justification for interpreting Romans 9 as though it were trying to teach us anything about how God saves or damns individuals.

Rethinking Election: Romans 9, Part 1

Many people believe that Romans 9 demonstrates that God has the right and power to save whichever individuals he wants to save and damn whichever individuals he wants to damn. I’ll call this the “deterministic” reading of Romans 9, for it holds that God determines who will be saved and who will be lost.

On first glance, it may seem that the deterministic interpretation of Romans 9 has a strong case. For in this passage Paul explicitly says that God “has mercy on whomever he chooses and he hardens whomever he chooses” (vs. 18). He then illustrates God’s sovereign election by referring to God’s choice of Isaac over Ishmael (9:7-8) and of Jacob over Esau (9:10-13). Regarding this latter choice Paul writes:

Even before [Jacob and Esau] had been born or had done anything good or bad (so that God’s purpose of election might continue, not by works but by his call) [Rebecca] was told, “The elder shall serve the younger.”

“As it is written,

‘I have loved Jacob,

but I have hated Esau” (Rom. 9:11-13).

Without regard to anything Jacob or Esau did, God chose to “love” Jacob and “hate” Esau. Hence, Paul concludes, God’s choice of people “depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who shows mercy” (Rom. 9:16).

The support for the deterministic interpretation seems to grow even stronger as Paul goes on to depict God’s relationship to humans as a relationship between a potter and his clay. God has the right to fashions us, his clay, however he sees fit. And this is precisely what he does, according to Paul.

“Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath that are made for destruction; and what if he has done so in order to make known the riches of his glory for the objects of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory” (Rom 9:21-23).

According to the deterministic interpretation, Paul is teaching that God simply fashions some vessels for destruction in order to display his wrath and power and other vessels for mercy in order to display his mercy. He hardens the former and has mercy on the latter. And this hardening and granting mercy is not based on anything God finds in the vessel. It is simply based on God’s free decision. If this seems unfair, as it undoubtedly does, Paul’s response is simply to invalidate the sentiment: “[W]ho indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God? Will what is molded say to the one who molds it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’” (Rom 9:20).

So, the case for the deterministic interpretation initially looks strong. Nevertheless, I think it is mistaken. In this series of posts, I propose that a central point of Romans 9 is to argue the exact opposite of the conclusions drawn from the deterministic interpretation. For, in contrast to the deterministic interpretation, God is not an arbitrary, deterministic deity. He rather is wisely flexible in his dealings with humans.

I will offer six arguments in response to the deterministic interpretation. Let’s look at the first today:

Argument #1: The Absoluteness of Christ

First, as with all theological issues, we must begin and end all our reflections on the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the one and only Word of God (Jn 1:1), the image of God (Col 1:15) and the perfect expression of God’s essence (Heb 1:3). He supersedes all previous revelations and can be superseded by none. He is the definitive revelation of God.

The deterministic interpretation of Romans 9, I believe, is in tension with the God we find revealed in Jesus Christ. Jesus dying on the cross for his enemies reveals the essence of what God is like — God is love. In contrast to this, the deterministic reading of Romans 9 forces us to conclude that this is only partly true of God, for it only applies to some people (viz. God’s “elect”). Behind the beautiful portrait of God in Christ, we find a deity who is unilaterally determining some to be saved and some to be damned, all for “his glory.” This means the revelation of God in Christ is penultimate. It doesn’t really reveal the heart of God. Calvary conceals God as much as it reveals God.

If we rather resolve that Jesus is our definitive picture of God, and that this picture cannot be placed alongside of or qualified by any other, then we must conclude that there is something amiss with the deterministic interpretation of Romans 9. For Christ reveals, and the biblical witness confirms, that God’s love is universal, his love is impartial, his love is kind, and his love desires all to be saved (e.g. I Jn 4:8; Duet 10:17-19; 2 Chron 19:7; Ezek 18:25; Mk 12:14; Jn 3:16; Acts 10:34; Rom. 2:10-11; Eph 6:9; I Tim 2:4; I Pet 1:17; 2 Pet. 3:9).

Tomorrow we will look at the next two arguments for reading Romans 9 in a different way than that offered by the deterministic interpretation.

 - Greg Boyd

Dry Periods of Our Soul

We all have what I call our lambs: some person, relationship, or event that God was willing to sacrifice for our growth. We don't know most spiritual truth without our lambs. Some wayward child, some ruined marriage, some bad child-parent relationship — these are your lambs. I don't excuse the sin involved in some of those things. But I'll tell you, if God's the only One in your life, and if He's the author of all your events, then you finally have to say, "Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Through that circumstance I came to know You, and knowing You is life. It hurt, but I know You."

God replies, "It hurt Me to know you, too. It hurt Me to be able to get inside your skin and live there. You might have been abused, neglected, mocked, or treated unjustly, but I died to get inside your skin and be joined to you." What a God.

Sometimes our lamb can be the loss of a loved one. I took my wife Barbara's death right to the feet of the Father. I said the same thing I heard a precious woman say after I had preached the funeral for her 17-year-old son, who had died in an automobile wreck. As I preached my last word, she came to her feet and declared, "My boy lived every day he was supposed to live." Did knowing that immediately erase a mother's sorrow? Of course not. But she spoke the truth.

After Barbara died, I could say, "My Barbara lived every day she was supposed to live. She lived it gloriously. She lived it beautifully. She lived it simply. She lived it in faith. She was one of the purest souls I ever knew."

I don't care what your hurt is; you take it to the Father and you lay it right there. He will give you rest for your soul. I live in my spirit, and when I decide I want to grieve a little while, I'll drop down to my soul. I'll miss Barbara. I'll thank God for her. I'll wish she were here. I'll wish we could lie in bed and hug each other. I'll wish we could go out and eat together. When I have enjoyed that a while, I return to my spirit. And I say, "God, all things are of you. I enjoyed that little party. My soul appreciated that. But I'm a spiritual being. And everything is all right."

Dry periods of our soul become oases for other people. God takes us through those dry periods, then He uses them in other people's lives. We work on our testimony during our dry times. Later on, when we tell others about our dry times and how God brought us through them, people receive the life within us. That's where they plug in to us. They don't plug into our self-righteousness. Nobody can relate to that. That puts people under, especially suffering people. Self-righteousness, "holiness" attained through self-effort, isn't the life. But when you can tell people about your time in the back side of the desert and God's faithfulness, the true life flows out through you.

All of us will probably have more desert times. I don't like them. But when we experience such times, we can see that they are going to serve the same purpose in our life that they have in the past.

People often tell me that they can look back and see how God was in a past circumstance, but they're having trouble seeing Him in their current one. I respond, "Wait a minute. Isn't the same God that you just confessed brought you through all that garbage to get you here, isn't He the same One that's going to be around tomorrow and the next day? Yes! Well then, if He was in charge of the past, isn't He in charge of the present?"

They have to agree. Then they can say, "God, You were in that desert place, that hurt, that heartache, and You used all of it to bring me here. Surely I've got to expect that You are going to take me through this desert and future deserts. Because You are never going to cease preparing me to identify with others." Jesus endured suffering so that He could identify with us (Hebrews2). God will do the same with us. We are for others. We need to know that God is in us for others.

When you begin to walk in oneness with God, you are no longer separating good and evil as it comes to you. Periodically you may be caught up in that, but the general tone of your life is that you no longer see that way. The experiences of your life are God experiences. The situations of your life are God situations. You see with a single eye. You see our sovereign Lover in all of your life circumstances, no matter how they appear on the outside. And in the depths of your being you respond to His love, because you are one with Him.

- Dan Stone (The Rest of the Gospel)

Christ's Superior Gospel

I am perplexed by a perplexing issue, at least the issue is perplexing to me as a follower of Jesus, Who has ALL power in heaven and earth.

Why is it that the vast majority of Jesus' followers have more faith in Adam's disobedience and its effect on humanity, in that they have no problem believing that ALL includes everybody that was ever born or will be born are born in sin?

Yet, refuse to believe in the superiority of Christ's obedience and its effect on humanity, in that ALL people born in the...past...present...or future, died in Christ.

Why do they believe that the power of Satan to keep sinners in sin...is greater than the power of Christ to save sinners from sin?

How many people were in Adam? ALL...All followers of Christ believe ALL means EVERYBODY!

How many people were in Christ? ALL...why is it that the majority of the followers of Christ do not believe ALL means everybody here?

2 Cor. 5:14 says, “If Christ died for ALL", then ALL that Christ died for don't have to die because they already died as far as God is concerned! Jesus in His incarnation  took ALL the human race in Himself. That means ALL humanity had to be “in Christ.”

When was God's grace given to us? "Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and GRACE which was GIVEN TO US IN CHRIST JESUS BEFORE time began..." (2 Tim. 1:9).

WOW...did you get that...Grace was given to us BEFORE TIME BEGAN!

Jesus is called by Paul, the Last Adam. Now...why are there no dinosaurs around...because when the last one died they were extinct and it was the end of dinosaurs! Now, if Jesus took ALL of humanity unto the cross representative-ly when He went to the cross as the Last Adam, how much of Adam is alive now in the eyes of God...NIL, NOTHING, ZILCH!

In Mark 15:37 it says, “and Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed out His life.” As God breathed the breath of life INTO Adam and he became a living soul...Jesus, the LAST Adam breathed the last breath for the Adamic Race and the Adamic Race ended! Therefore, after the resurrection of Jesus, God sees all of humanity THROUGH Christ’s work on the cross. 1 Corinthians 15:45, “Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam [then] became [after resurrection] a life-giving spirit.”

Are you dancing in God's AMAZING GRACE yet!

How many people did Adam’s sin affect? "Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for ALL people,"

How many people did Jesus’ obedience affect? "so also one righteous act RESULTED in justification and life for ALL PEOPLE."

Have we been preaching Man's  Religious Gospel to keep the religious wheels turning rather than the Gospel of Christ's AMAZING GRACE and the GOOD NEWS of the FREEDOM of HUMANITY from the tyranny of sin? Are the followers of Christ guilty of keeping humanity in the bondage of sin's control?

It is no wonder that the "Good tidings of of great joy" was "Good news" to ALL men...God was about to bring death to conundrum of the Adamic Race and the effect Adam brought upon ALL people.

Does that mean that there is no sin now or there are no consequences to sin...of course not! That is why the Gospel needs to be brought to ALL men...Christ has set them free from the bondage of sin and death and the hell that sin has them enslaved in. People are free but the Gospel that was and is being preached tells them they are not free and keeps them the slaves of sin, instead of preaching the truth that the Gospel of God's Grace has set them free from sin and all they have to do is walk in that freedom by turning from sin (repenting) to Christ.

That is the Gospel of God's AMAZING GRACE!

I wwwwooonnndddeeeerrrr...have we been preached the wrong gospel for ALL these years?

This of course will not be accepted by the religious gospel, because if accepted it will kill ALL Religion!

- Glenn Regular

Let the Dominoes Fall

What then shall we say to these things? If God {is} for us, who {is} against us? --Romans 8:31

I have met several people who believe me to be quite mad, in denial, unrealistic, and constantly seeing things through rose-colored glasses. While my glasses may rather be blood-colored, it is true that I see things differently. Remember as a child setting up all those dominoes in rows? What great fun it was to finally push them over, knowing exactly where they would end. Imagine today standing in the middle of a gigantic row of dominoes on the left and right, stretching out of sight. The choice is to push with left hand or right, having no idea where the last domino will fall. Many stand paralyzed, restrained, resigned, pessimistic, and hopeless; they close their eyes and push if they must, certain that the last domino will fall at a place not desired. I do not see it that way. I can push either side and know where the dominoes will fall. The last one will fall at the feet of the Lord. There is nothing to worry about; God is for us. 

In my day-to-day life I often describe an event by saying, “CATS! I came up cats!” It means that I was turned upside down and dropped from a high place. The expected outcome was that I would break my neck. However, the Lord mysteriously turned me over so that I landed on my feet. Cats! Everything is “cats” for me. He uses my enemies, He permits what He could prevent, and He uses the evil and flesh of men to reveal that He dwells in me. Poverty reveals His provision, sickness breaks pride, and want releases faith. Loss of control reveals that He is in control. I could go on, but why? Everything is “cats”! I do not see situations; I see Him. I may allow a situation to steal my awareness of His presence, but in His presence there are no losing situations, and His presence is ours for eternity.

I met an old Welsh preacher, well into his 90’s, full of life and wisdom. He was such a delight to be with. He was blind; it seems that as he was preparing for ministry, he discovered that he was going blind. I asked his daughter, “What was it like growing up with a blind father?”

“Well, it was not difficult! I never did, and never have, heard him complain!” 

He then said to me, “I am grateful that I am blind. If I could see I might have ended up like David. God knew what I needed. This has been the best.” He was not in denial. The dominoes had simply fallen, with the last one landing at the feet of Jesus.

Anyone who knows anything of Michael’s teachings remembers his great illustration of the “2 hands.”  On the one hand is a “situation.”  On the other hand is “Jesus.”  I choose which hand to look at.  And the closer He is to my eye, the more the situation disappears.  Hence, God’s “remedy” for all the negatives we face: “don’t see situations; see Him.”  This leads to pushing any ole row of dominoes and knowing that the last one will fall at the feet of our Lord!

Oh, we can choose to allow a situation to steal the Lord’s presence, and power, and provision…but a quick turn to Him and I have no “losing situation.”  Ever since I learned from Michael this truth about “seeing,” many situations have gone from defeat to victory in a matter of a swift glance toward Jesus!

Come on, Saints…If God be for us, WHO can be against us?!?

Grace Personified

True GRACE is nothing less than Jesus personified in the earth by a Community of the Redeemed people who have abandoned themselves to Him by abandoning the old way...man's way of pleasing God...to the new way...His way of pleasing God.

It is sad but true...in much of religion Grace is paid homage to...only as a word...instead of the Living Word...Jesus.

Thus, the reason for religious: hatred, rage, unloving-ness, blaming and shaming, judging and condemning, striving and competing, man-made believing and creed-ing, leading to much discussion and arguments about doctrine correctness. Seeing Grace through religious spectacles sees Grace only as a word and blinds people from seeing that it Grace is JESUS personified in His people.

Within grace-plus religion the emphasis is on what God's people can do to make themselves more pleasing and thus favorable to God. Within authentic Grace, people surrender the idea that they can take care of reaching spiritual greatness or solving their own spiritual problems. Grace, which comes from God in the PERSON of Jesus Christ, involves the acceptance of the supremacy of the Jesus, our Lord and Savior. It is JESUS ONLY!

It is quoted that Augustine, one of the early Church fathers, said that "God wants to give us good things but our hands are too full to receive them. God always reaches out to us with his grace, but in order to receive his grace we must be willing to empty our  hands and hearts of the religion that we hold near and dear."

I wonder, if we as God's people abandoned the religious performance-based way of relating to God and open our hands and hearts to Him, would we manifest Grace to the point where people would see Jesus personified in the earth in all His power and glory because the veil of religious performance is torn down? God’s Grace...Jesus...is the medium of exchange for religious performance, for the Community of the Redeemed in the earth. God freely gives us all the spiritual resources we will ever need, if we will only agree to accept His Grace, minus everything else.

All that we ever need in order to know and experience God, has been accomplished for us in and through the work of GRACE...Jesus Christ.

- Glenn Regular

Was Jesus Abandoned by His Father on the Cross

As Jesus hung on the cross, he cried, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (Mt 27:46). This is the cry of our God who stooped to the farthest possible depths to experience his own antithesis, as the all-holy God becomes the sin of the world (2 Cor 5:21) and the perfectly united God becomes the curse of our separation from God (Gal 3:13).


Not surprisingly, this cry has always troubled theologians who were invested in preserving the classical understanding of God’s impassibility and immutability. How could God the Son truly experience abandonment from the Father if the Trinity is “above” suffering and “above” experiencing any kind of change? Hence, to insolate the divinity of Jesus from any suffering and change, the general way classical theologians have interpreted Jesus’ desperate cry was to argue that it arose out of his experience as a full human being, not his divinity. Among other problems, this interpretation calls into question the unity of the person of Jesus Christ and thus borders on Nestorianism. Not only this, but if God himself did not experience change and suffering on the cross, one is hard pressed to see how Jesus’ experience of change and suffering actually reveals God—let alone constitutes the quintessential revelation of God!

In more recent times a number of scholars have argued that Jesus was quoting the first line of Psalm 22. Since Psalm 22 ends on a note of hope in God’s redemption (vss. 22-31), some have suggested that Jesus’ apparent cry of despair might actually have been an expression of confidence that his abandonment was going to be temporary and that his Father would ultimately vindicate him.

But even if Jesus was alluding to the entire Psalm and was confident he would eventually be restored, this does not negate the truth that he was genuinely experiencing God-forsakenness and was, in his supremely tormented state, even experiencing confusion as to why it was happening.

It is not merely that Jesus experienced genuine God-forsakenness, he was in fact genuinely forsaken, as a number of theologians and NT scholars have emphasized in recent years. James Edwards, for example, says that on the cross, “Jesus is wholly forsaken and exposed to the horror of humanity’s sin.” This horror, he adds, is “so total that in his dying breath he senses his separation from God.”

At the same time, the unity of the Trinity could not be temporarily severed. If God’s eternal essence is the perfect loving unity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, then any suggestion that this perfect unity could be “severed,” even for a moment, would, by definition, entail that the Trinity could conceivably cease to exist. At the very least, if the “innermost life of the Trinity” could conceivably be threatened, the union of the three Persons must be understood to be a contingent, rather than a necessary, reality. And in this case, we cannot claim that God’s very essence is the loving union of the three Persons.

We can simultaneously affirm the ongoing, unbroken unity of the Trinity while also affirming the authenticity of Christ’s cry, on the other, if we simply remember that that this separation was entered into by all three divine Person’s out of love for human kind and for one another. As paradoxical as it sounds, the anguished separation of the Father and the Son on the cross constitutes the quintessential expression of the loving unity of the Father and the Son. Indeed, the unsurpassable cost of this divine separation expresses the unsurpassable perfection of the love of this divine union.


Perhaps the best way of thinking about this is to distinguish between the love and unity that the three divine persons experience, on the one hand, and the love and unity that defines God’s eternal essence, on the other. We could say that on the cross, the former was momentarily sacrificed as an expression of the latter. That is, the three divine Person’s sacrificed their previously uninterrupted experience of perfect love and union in order to express the perfect love and union that defines them as God.

- Greg Boyd

Does the Old Testament Justify “Just War”?

Since the time of Augustine, Christians have consistently appealed to the violent strand of the Old Testament to justify waging wars when they believed their cause was “just.” (This is Augustine’s famous “just war” theory.)

Two things may be said about this.

First, the appeal to the OT to justify Christians fighting in “just” wars (if there are such things) is illegitimate for the simple reason that the OT knows nothing of a “just war” policy. The wars that Yahweh had the Israelites engage in were not fought on the basis of justice. They were fought simply because the Israelites perceived that Yahweh told the Israelites to fight them. They were holy wars, not just wars.

Moreover, a major motif of the Old Testament’s holy war tradition is that the Israelites were to completely trust Yahweh to fight their battles. They were forbidden to take any practical and pragmatic issues into consideration when they went into battle. They were commanded to place no trust in their own military might or wisdom. (This is why David got into so much trouble for counting his soldiers before going into battle). Indeed, the Israelites often didn’t have to raise a sword to win their battles. The walls of Jericho came tumbling down, for example, simply because the Israelites obeyed Yahweh and marched around the city seven times.\

On top of this, because the Israelites’ battles were holy wars – not wars fought out of a national interest or for a “just” cause — the Israelites were forbidden to benefit from them (except in cases where Yahweh specifically gave them permission to do so). From all the towns of Canaan, for example, the Israelites were forbidden to keep any spoils. To the contrary, everything and everyone had to be “utterly destroyed” (herem).

If any Christian leader is going to appeal to the OT to legitimize their nation’s warfare, they must commit to fighting the way the Israelites were commanded to fight. They must be certain that Yahweh himself has told them to enter into this war and must do so without any consideration of whether or not it meets someone’s criteria of a “just war.” They must refuse to take any practical or pragmatic issues into consideration and must place no trust in their military might or wisdom. And they must refuse to benefit in any way from their victory.

I submit that, since the time of Joshua, no nation has ever entered into war on this basis. (One could perhaps argue that contemporary Islamic extremists fight on this basis, but they aren’t a “nation”). This fact clearly reveals the disingenuousness of appealing to the OT to justify national or personal violence.

Second, appealing to the Old Testament’s motif of divine violence to justify Christians engaging in violence for any reason is illegitimate because disciples of Jesus are commanded to base their lifestyle on the example and teachings of Jesus, not the Old Testament. In the first epistle of John we read: “Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did” (I Jn 2:6).

Jesus chose to love, serve and die for his enemies rather than engage in “justified” violence against them. He chose to be killed rather than to kill. Followers of Jesus are called to mimic this attitude and behavior towards their enemies (1 Pet 2:18-23; 3:15-16; Heb. 12:2-3). Nowhere in the New Testament is this example or these teachings about non-violence ever qualified.

Jesus himself seems quite aware that the attitude towards enemies he commands his followers to embrace is very different from some aspects of the OT. For example, in the OT God twice rained down fire from heaven in judgment on various individuals and groups. Yet, when John and James wanted to do this same thing in the New Testament, Jesus rebuked them (Lk 9:52-55).

Along similar lines, Jesus sometimes contrasted his teachings with various teachings of the OT and various traditions that arose out of those teachings. For example, the OT permitted one to retaliate against an offender, taking “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” (Mt. 5:38). But Jesus expressly forbids his disciples to act on this principle. His disciples were rather to express self-sacrificial love towards their enemies (Mt. 5:39-44). Clearly, the way of the Kingdom Jesus was establishing was very different from the way of Yahweh in the violent strands of the OT.

My point is that, regardless of whether or not we can adequately explain the apparent contradiction between the violent strand of the OT with Jesus’ radical example and teachings about loving our enemies, this shouldn’t qualify our commitment to follow Jesus’ example and obey his teachings in the least. Our call is to mimic the crucified savior, not the “warrior” portrait of Yahweh we sometimes find in the OT (Ex. 15:3).

- Grey Boyd

Prayed in 2013

Let's pray together,  Heavenly Father, indeed how great Thou art.  How great You are in so many ways.  Creation declares Your variety, Your creativity, Your beauty.  Creation speaks to us.  Just as the heavens declare the glory of God, everything about Your creation, about the universe, speaks to us so much about Yourself and all about Your power.

And then of course the Lord Jesus Christ speaks to us about Your person, that You are a God of grace, that You are a God of mercy, that You are a God of love.  That You are a God who heals, who wants to restore. Your a God that is so patient and understanding. Your one who wants to enter into our lives and be part of our lives, and wants to be the source of our lives.  How great Thou art.

That's the God that we worship.  Not a God whose word is in stone, but a God who is person.  A God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  A God who understands community, understands love poured forth. Love that gives to another, love that wants the best for the other.  How great Thou art.

And when You saw that we had gone astray, when You saw us falling short, when You saw that we had been separated from You relationally, You didn't leave it there, You came Yourself, in the person of Jesus, and You removed every obstacle that stood between us and Yourself.  What a wonderful God, how great Thou art.

And then You never left as is orphans, You came by the power of Your spirit,  to dwell within us. And You enable us and empower us, to do that which we can't do, to live a life that is pleasing, to have victory in every area of our lives, not be defeated by depression, not defeated by bad temper, criticism, groaning, moaning, and complaint.  No You came to enable us to have a life that is full of the fruit of the spirit, of love joy and peace.  What a wonderful God, how great Thou art.

Mighty God this morning we love You, this morning because of of all that You've done, and all Your doing in each of us.  So thank You heavenly Father.  We praise You this morning and may You enjoy and rejoice, and may Your heart be blessed as You see Your people here this morning.   In Jesus name we pray.  Amen.

Roger

Prayed at Christmas 2007

If we just lift ourselves Lord out of, out of the busyness, and out of the hustle and bustle of the world, we would find Lord that our eyes would fix upon You, and we would see Your grandeur.

Lord there is a lot of things that pull us back and tie us down, a lot of emotions, a lot of thoughts, lots of things and experiences that we have in the world.

And as we lift our eyes up to the hills, as we lift our eyes up above and look into the heavens, as we lift our eyes and look around at the intricacy of the earth that we live in, we can't help but stop and say, “My goodness what a wonderful creation what a wonderful universe, how wonderful everything is knit together and put together, it's just amazing, You are a wonderful creative God, a powerful God.  You must be so powerful to make all this up, just incredible”.  

And yet our God, if we think along those lines, we would think of You as some distant powerful being, but we know that ‘Christmas’ reminds us, that not only are You creative and powerful, but that You are a loving God, a caring God, a merciful God, a forgiving God, a God full of love.  

And You’ve shown us that love, by coming into our world, and living in our world, and dying in our world.  You came on a mission, to save a people for Yourself.

And we beheld Your glory, the glory of the only begotten.  As Thomas said of You, when He (Jesus) rose from the dead, he said, “My Lord and my God,”

He (Thomas) had come to understand that You weren’t just an ordinary man, but that You were God in our midst, Immanuel, God with us.  

And so this morning we say our God to You, “My Lord and my God”.

We don't understand everything, some things are a mystery but one thing we believe is that You became a man in the person of Jesus.  You lived and You died, that we might have new life.  That we might have new beginnings, that we might have You dwelling in us, in a wonderful intimate relationship, that will go on forever.  So thank You Lord for this tremendous event that we remember and celebrate this morning.  The coming of our Lord Jesus Christ the living God, into our midst. We pray these prayers this morning in Jesus name. Amen.

- Roger

Tribulation-Proof-Escape-Suits

Corrie Ten Boom said: "In America, the churches sing, “Let the congregation escape tribulation”, but in China and Africa the tribulation has already arrived. This last year alone more than two hundred thousand Christians were martyred in Africa. Now things like that never get into the newspapers because they cause bad political relations. But I know. I have been there. We need to think about that when we sit down in our nice houses with our nice clothes to eat our steak dinners. Many, many members of the Body of Christ are being tortured to death at this very moment, yet we continue right on as though we are all going to escape the tribulation."

"Several years ago I was in Africa in a nation where a new government had come into power. The first night I was there some of the Christians were commanded to come to the police station to register. When they arrived they were arrested and that same night they were executed. The next day the same thing happened with other Christians. The third day it was the same. All the Christians in the district were being systematically murdered." End Quote

Well..in our day Christian's are still bleating that the tribulation is about to break upon the world, in all its fury the wrath of an angry God will soon be upon us. Obama is being accused as the being Antichrist, or at least the fore-runner of the Antichrist. ISIS is out to rid the world of Christians. What makes the western world think that God will take them out of tribulation while millions in the past had to endure tribulation, some even to the death...are westernized Christians so naive as to think they are loved more by God more than the millions from other nations who have suffered tribulation?

Westernized fear-mongering of people by threatening...the wrath of God...the power of Antichrist...hell-fire and brimstone...and missing a pre-trib-rapture by western world escape-artists is the order of the day, while they themselves feel smirk in their delusional pre-trib-rapture escape-tribulation-suits.

There was no paved flowery-bed-of-ease pre-trib escape route filled with shouting hallelujah, laughing and hand-clapping Christians escaping tribulation during Corrie Ten Boom's day. Much will be the despair of westernized Christian's, there will be no paved flowery-bed-of-ease pre-trib escape route filled with shouting hallelujah, laughing and hand-clapping Christians escaping tribulation in our day, while the non-Christians are left to battle the wrath of the Christian's angry God in some pre-warmup suffering to prepare them for the hell-fire punishment that awaits them...no matter what they have been taught in their churches.