Thoughts on God's Wrath

As I was waking up this morning some profound thoughts deeply stirred and frightened me. I don't know if I can recapture all of them, but here are a few.

The truth about the character of God – the last great revelation

Wrath of God poured out without mercy into the cup of His indignation

Perception becomes reality to the one perceiving

The judgment with which you judge, therewith you shall be judged

If you believe that God runs out of patience and then gets angry and punishes and tortures His enemies, then everything that happens at the end of time will seem to perfectly fulfill this belief system. The frightening aspect about that is this:

Is it possible that clinging to this very belief in itself may actually place me on the receiving end of God's perceived “wrath”? The wicked declare at the Second Coming that what they are perceiving as currently happening is a Lamb coming to this earth that is full of wrath.

The definition of “wicked” is – to not only sin (believing lies about God) but also to lead others to sin (spread lies about God). A very frightening thought – in believing and encouraging others to believe that God's patience will run out someday and He will get exasperated and lose His cool and maybe even temporarily lose His sanity and compassion for awhile until the wicked are finished burning, thus appeasing His "vengeance" – in believing and teaching this doctrine, is it possible that we may be committing wickedness ourselves and may be setting ourselves up to be at the receiving end of the very wrath we are guilty of teaching will be unleashed on our enemies?

This truth, if it is the truth and I believe it is, would undoubtedly unleash an intense storm of attack from theologians and SP quoters venting their own version of wrath on anyone who so challenges this foundational doctrine of church tradition.

( I just read the following for December 15 in My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers) “If you cannot express yourself on any subject, struggle until you can. If you do not, someone will be the poorer all the days of his life. Struggle to re-express some truth of God to yourself, and God will use that expression to someone else.” So this is my struggle to express myself.

(Acts 26:9) “So then, I thought to myself that I had to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.” Because Saul had such a misconception of the character of God shaped by the traditions of his church and his culture, he ended up believing:

that he had to...

that he had to do...

that he had to do many things...

that he had to do many things hostile...

hostile to those who believed differently about the name, the character, of Jesus

Thoughts About a Small Group

(I believe I wrote this during the time we were starting up a men's small group and I wondered if it would continue or die)

I sense that God is impressing more and more people with a holy frustration and a deepening desire for a spiritual encounter that can bring meaning, purpose for living and a real change to their lives. I have watched with interest over the past few years and months God's providence and impressions in my own life. I too have a growing frustration with the disconnect between formal religion and the spiritual life I want to experience. The different areas of emphasis that God has led me through over the past few years seem to be coalescing into something much bigger than my own life. God seems to be strategically training and shaping all who are willing to be discipled for something I can't perceive yet and most likely don't want to know ahead of time.

But again, there is a growing intensity in friends I speak with lately for God to reveal Himself to us in a more tangible way. “Religion” just doesn't cut it anymore, though they are not ready to abandon the church. As for myself, I strongly urged Gil to help facilitate this group because of a deep personal need for a spiritual connection point, a time and place to assemble with other hungry and hurting people experiencing a growing desperation for God. I believe there are advantages to collective hunger. I have learned from recent reading that God is waiting for us to be hungry enough before He can reveal Himself. After all, He can't feed the full very easily.

Another reason I have hopes for this group is a very personal, vulnerable and somewhat terrifying one. I have been challenged by God to an impossible assignment, at least on my own. He has made it quite clear to me starting several months ago that I have to learn to understand my wife, be completely vulnerable to her and learn to be totally Christ-like starting in my home which seems to be the hardest place. The rewards are going to include unthinkable growth and a new intensity of worship and joy that I have never imagined before. But I don't seem to make any headway alone accept to become more familiar with some of the concepts and principles by reading and tapes.

Accountability Friends

I realize that I need a group of friends that are willing to stay close to God and help me be accountable for my personal growth. This is very frightening for me. I know many of you may knowingly smile because you have been there and done that and wonder whats taking me so long. Well, the issues as I see it involve several things – trust, opportunity and time investment.

There might be people around me that would be capable of being a support group but they have to be willing to make the investment of time to allow that to happen. If these people carve that time out of their hectic schedules all at the same time to meet together that could potentially create an opportunity. But even if all that happens, the most important element is trust, which is most expensive. It involves mutual vulnerability as well as confidentiality which I have never seen happen.

Over the last few hours the Lord again coordinated my study to impress me with something relevant and important Ps. 50:16,17 “To the wicked God says, 'What right have you to tell of my statutes and to take my covenant in your mouth? For you hate discipline and you cast my words behind you.'” I also read in My utmost for His Highest for October 22 “...we want the witness before we have done what God tells us to do. 'Why does not God reveal Himself to me?' He cannot, it is not that He will not, but He cannot, because you are in the road as long as you won't abandon absolutely to Him. Immediately you do, God witnesses to Himself. He cannot witness to you, but He witnesses instantly to His own nature in you. If you had the witness before the reality, it would end in sentimental emotion.... Stop the impertinence of debate.... As soon as you abandon reasoning and argument, God witnesses to what He has done, and we are amazed at our impertinence in having kept Him waiting.”

Rebellion Like Witchcraft

1 Samuel 15:23.

Rebellion is similar to witchcraft/divination.

Insubordination is similar to iniquity and idolatry.

I am trying to grasp the truth in this verse and flush out the lie that was deeply embedded in my mind associated with this text. My Dad would hurl this verse at me when he was upset with my behavior or when talking about others he didn't approve of. I sensed that he was trying to force me to change my attitude by condemning me with this text. But it always and only produced an immediate reaction of resentment and anger toward him and toward God who was behind it.

The use of force and condemnation produces discouragement and/or hostility. Using this text always produced the opposite result from what he was looking for. I believe my Dad was operating in a spirit of rebellion himself when he did this. He believed if he could make me afraid of being associated with the idea of witchcraft and idolatry I could be shamed into being righteous and submissive.

It seems like he was trying to break my spirit with threats and insinuations. Every time I hear or think of this text I have a similar negative reaction. There is an emotion attached to this that indicates there is a lie embedded in these memories that is distorting and twisting and miring the truth that must be in this text. I believe the process of Spirit-led inductive study could be a most invaluable tool for bringing the light of truth to shine on the lies that drive me and exposing them for what they are. Then God can embed His truth in place of the lies. And since truth is light in itself it will stay light and transform all the memories and feelings and behaviors associated and affected by that former lie.

But it is very important to explore and expose the full extent and existence of the lie before removing it. The larger and more complete the lie is exposed the more will be removed when the Word cuts it out. If we move to excise error too quickly we only cut out the small portion that was exposed and leave much of it untouched to continue to fester and trouble us.

Romans 8 - Fossils in the Heart

Romans 8. When the law tries to work out in the flesh the outcome is always condemnation of people. The law only works for untainted perfect beings. Because of the lies and distortions we are born with, becoming perfect by trying to keep the law is a fatal strategy. And asking God to help us keep the law is even worse. God will not help us do the impossible. He wants us to die to this idea entirely and let His power bring to us the life of His Son inside us.

When our focus is set on the Spirit of Jesus (v.6) it is sin (separation from God) that we will condemn, not people. God yearns intensely for the people He created and condemns the separation and lies that keep them away from Him.

To walk according to the flesh is to set our minds on believing the lies Satan has implanted in us. The inevitable result is hostility toward God at our gut level, even if we pile on mountains of piety, religion, good works and Biblical knowledge. It only buries the lies deeper. And like fossils in the ground, the more weight you pile on top of them the more they turn into fuel for fire. Sooner or later they will ignite in rebellion and hostility toward God and all who are like Him. We are storing up wrath for the day of wrath.

The only solution is to acknowledge our root lies through the ministration of the Spirit and let Him replace our foundations with truth. Truth, most of all, is truth about who God is, what He is like, how He feels about us. Every lie at its root attacks God's reputation and only God Himself can address and change those fossils in our heart.

Romans 7 - Salvation Math

Romans 7

10 Righteousness is appealing, drawing, attractive. But when I try to grasp it directly it turns to fire in my hands, condemnation, torture, death.

Why does something so good, so right – righteousness itself – produce in me the opposite? The law of mathematics. When multiplying numbers with opposite signs the result is always negative. The law is positive but I am negative. No matter what number I achieve I am still negative. So every time I have intercourse with the law to produce offspring (multiply) the outcome is negative.

24 Who will set me free from this formula that always results in death?

25 Jesus was a human who was not a negative number. When He has intercourse with the law (multiplication) He could produce righteousness. He entered a new factor into the equation whereby the result (I have just now been overcome with overpowering emotion and weeping at this revelation) could result in a positive. He became sin for me – a negative – so I could receive righteousness – a positive.

Although by nature and birth He is positive, sin was imputed/assigned to Him. He can somehow represent both depending on the function. As a positive He can multiply with the Father and produce positive. And as a negative, when we choose to have intimacy with Him (fellowship) the result is amazingly – POSITIVE. The mathematical law of multiplication says that two negatives result in a positive.

8:2 The law (of multiplication) of life in Jesus (with Him) sets me free, not from the laws of mathematics but from the wrong results always encountered by trying to produce righteousness directly. It is now produced indirectly through a third factor Who is both positive and negative.

Focus

Romans 3 shows a contrast between a focus on sin, or keeping the law, resulting in a knowledge of sin vs. a focus on God's revealed righteousness through Jesus resulting in knowing God and the truth about Him. What we focus on will result in intimacy with either sin or with God. This chapter is in the context of God on trial and His need to be justified. Repeatedly it is mentioned that evidence is being put forward of the truth about His character.

If we focus on keeping the law as righteousness we become intimate with sin and witness against God in His trial, bearing witness that He is a liar. In so doing however, it is exposed that I am the liar and God is not, ultimately exposing the truth about Him.

Verse 26 is the verdict of the trial – God is just and He justifies all those who choose to witness truthfully about both Him and themselves in His trial.

Faith is both produced and put to use by focusing on Jesus and the truth about God. By doing so we end up verifying the truth of the law (v. 31). But it is not by focusing on the law that we establish it. We have to focus on the truth about God's character as revealed in Jesus to establish the law.

Romans 7 and James 1. If I believe the lie that I can keep the law, then I am ripe for sin to use the law, the condemnation of my failure or the pride of my supposed success, to produce sin in me. James is more detailed. I am enticed, lured by the beauty of righteousness through perfectionism and the craving to have it now (lust) and have people think highly of me. If the lie in me responds to sin hiding in the clothing of LAW righteousness, sexual intercourse/intimacy/adultery will take place and sin will be conceived in me (produced in me). When sin matures – grows up – it bears the fruit of death/separation from life and the source of life.

Rom. 7:8 Apart from the law sin is dead. If I am disabused of the lie that I can be perfect by keeping the law, if I let Jesus take my focus off the law, then sin can't hide under those deceptive clothes and becomes powerless/dead in my life.

Does the Sun Still Shine When it's Cloudy?

Thankful for blessing or thankful for the Blesser?

Does the sun quit shining when a cloud covers its view?

Does the sun not produce warmth when all I feel is cold?

Does the sun extinguish at night?

The sun is constant, unchanging, always producing and dispensing light and heat. The difference in affect on my life is the atmosphere that comes between me and the sun. To a large extent I choose the mental atmosphere that surrounds me.

If I can't feel God's warmth, joy, assurance, peace and light it is not because He changed.

Am I only grateful for the sun on a clear, warm day?

If so, I am only grateful at all when life feels good and I feel blessed.

Gratitude and praise become as fickle as the weather and the atmosphere over me.

When I am ungrateful and can't praise God I profess that the sun has gone out.

I am bearing false witness against the goodness of God.

Blessing flows from God undiminished and more constant than light and heat flow from the sun.

Proselytize or Evangelize

Proselytism –

1. Unworthy motives – concern for our own glory rather than God's

2. Unworthy methods – resorting to physical coercion, moral constraint, or psychological pressure.

3. Unworthy message – deliberately misrepresent other people's beliefs.

Evangelize – to make an open and hones statement of the gospel, which leaves the hearers entirely free to make up their own minds about it.

Legalism and Sanctification

Saul was one of the most ambitious legalists in history who had a commanding knowledge of Scripture and an unsurpassed zeal for righteousness. But it was not until he scales fell from his eyes that he began to understand the truth about God in all those Scriptures. And it was when a man who could see and who was open to and easily moved by the Spirit, a heretic, came and prayed for hem and laid hands on Saul that the scales came off not only his eyes but his heart.

Will it be that Adventists with all the true doctrines and false prejudice against other born-again children of God, will have to be prayed over and receive laying on of hands from non-Adventists or maybe newly enlightened “converts” who are far more open and advanced in things of the Spirit, before the scales of legalism can be dropped from our eyes? It is easier for truly Spirit-filled people to accept the true Sabbath and other doctrines of truth than for rigid law-keepers and EGW abusers to accept the humility and joy of the Holy Spirit. True doctrines only enhance the experience of those who are already on the track of being led by the Spirit and craving more of God's presence and knowledge of Him. But legalism blinds its adherents with pride in supposedly having all the truth, believing that having the right facts, formulas and arguments constitutes the sume of the law. Everything in the Bible is forced through this filter and squeezed/contorted into this mold.

Legalism is the counterfeit of true sanctification. The one is motivated by pride of truth and selfish ambition to escape this earth and settle in the comforts of heaven. The second is driven by a deepening disgust with one's self from a growing knowledge of our own desperate sinfulness in the light of God's overwhelming beauty and a growing, passionate craving for deeper intimacy with the God of mercy and compassion who has been lied about, maligned, and falsely represented. Heaven is only a place where intimacy with the ultimate lover can be more fully realized, not a fire escape.

Harvest Contents

2 Cor. 9 - A description of the harvest and its contents. Generosity unaffected by covetousness, without grudging or compulsion, in cheerfulness. Impossible for me to produce. This is the seed that God provides and multiplies. If I sow it, it multiplies my (unmerited) righteousness. The fruit is thanksgiving by me, then by many, and glory given to God by many because of my consistency between my actions and my confession of words. This causes the “many” to pray for me and yearn for me because of the surpassing (selfishness? no) grace of God they see in me.

Two Realities

2 Cor. 5. Two realities emerging – appearances/flesh/pride vs. heart/reconciled.

v. 16 We knew Christ according to the flesh – the common first reality – impressed with His works and ideals but not recognizing what He was really doing, His perspective, the truth about God and the great controversy that He came to expose.

Father, please convert me – let me live in true reality where all things are new, all things are from God, where I am reconciled to you and your view of life, where there is no condemnation or accusation, where the love of Christ controls me.

Disagreeing With God

1 Cor. 15:15. When I express beliefs or opinions about myself or others that disagrees with God's testimony then I am a false witness of God contradicting His testimony about how He feels about and sees me or others. God, please remove all the lies I still believe about you that oppose the reality of how you feel about us. Thank-you so much for beginning to open my mind and heart to your real feelings – the truth about who you really are and what you are like. You are extremely fond of me.

Thoughts on James 5

James 5 – finding many more connections to the rest of the book. The “sick” among you may well be those he described in other parts of the book – the double-minded, the critical, the boasting, the arrogant rich, the abusive. Instead of criticizing others and condemning their sins (4:11), I should confess my own sins and pray for them (5:16). The righteous man who has effective prayer in 5:16 is the one who is attacked and does not resist in 5:6.

5:13 – when suffering, pray – when cheerful, sing – Paul and Silas proved that out in jail.

Jesus, show me my heart and give me a spirit of confession today.

Show me your heart and give me a spirit of praise today.

Take Up Your Cross

Yesterday the Spirit impressed me with the concept, or definition, of taking up my cross and following Jesus. The cross is naturally associated with pain and that was likely the first impression on everyone who heard Him say those words. They would have been very baffled as to why Jesus would use an illustration of something so denigrating, humiliating, so excruciatingly painful to explain His desire for their lives.

Later when Jesus Himself took up His cross and followed love up the hill to His own death, He infused a whole new dimension into its meaning – forgiveness. The choice to forgive is the only remedy for the pain we carry inside from all the sin and abuse heaped on us by others or incurred by ourselves. To take up our cross means to consciously choose to embrace our pain and release all others, not holding anything against them. To take up our cross and follow is choosing to live in a constant disposition of continuous forgiveness for past, present and future sins committed against us.

Today's reading in My Utmost adds to this. “The cross stands for one things only for us – a complete and entire and absolute identification with the Lord Jesus Christ.” This is found primarily in prayer. Hence, “pray without ceasing” makes more sense.

God, work your amazing thing in Ethelyn's life. Surprise everyone by displaying your glory and power in transforming her far beyond all that we can imagine or think.

Paul and Demoniac Girl

Acts 16:6-25.

Paul and Silas were devotedly following the leading of the Spirit. They were seeing hearts opening to the good news about God and enjoying hospitality. Satan threw a curve ball that took them many days to figure out. He had a person who was clearly identified as under his possession praise them and speak only the truth about them giving them no good excuse to confront her.

But just like Jesus sending the demons out of the 2 men in Gadara, who then entered everyone in the region to stir them up with violent hatred, when the demon was ordered out of this girl, apparently unprovoked, the demons stirred up the whole city with mob violence.

This girl seemed to be doing no harm to anyone. She was not selling her body in prostitution. She was not foaming and wild-eyed and naked, she was highly respected and valued by the city and was helpful for “telling the future”. She was apparently a great asset to the community. She was not attacking or denigrating Paul and Silas or even disagreeing with them. She appeared to be supporting them fully and she was complimenting them. She seemed to be obviously an asset the their ministry and was supposedly adding to their success.

So why was Paul “greatly annoyed”? People were confused about the difference between Paul's source and the girl's source. They were basically saying the same. Paul was preaching freedom in Christ – she was affirming salvation while herself living in slavery not only to Satan but producing monetary increase for her masters. She was speaking the truth but she was not experiencing the freedom she talked about. She knew how to do and say the right things but her heart was locked up.

When Jesus set her free at Paul's word, the light exposed the true motives that had been behind the scenes – greed and influence. How many religious leaders today are operating in the same condition – loudly speaking the “truth” to keep the donations flowing to them. And when they are exposed the true messengers of grace will be attacked with unbridled ferocity and vicious malice. Then they must cling to God tenaciously in prayer and praise and singing just as Paul and Silas did.

Thoughts on James 4

I just read yesterday in Ty Gibson's book about developing intimacy with God by writing down what He speaks to me in His Word. So here I am, Daddy!

I'm meditating on James 4 and it, of course, reinforces what God has been saying through all the video series by John Regier, Wilkenson and in Ty's books.

1-4

Conflict and quarrels come from roots – strongholds.

Worldly pleasure is God-designed pleasures that have been hi-jacked by Satan.

The root/source of conflicts is desire to be like and accepted by the world.

The world is a fake reality that when grasped turns out to be empty but full of pain.

In chasing after acceptance/conformity with society around me I make myself an enemy of God.

The fake reality is inherently designed to make me hostile to God and believe lies about Him.

5-6

God burns with passionate longing/desire/craving/obsession for intimacy with me/my heart and spirit.

The world leads me to believe the opposite about God making the Bible ineffective, discounting it.

Instead of reacting vengefully in His jealousy like we would, God pours on the grace to attract us more.

It I stay in PRIDE I find God and myself in opposition – blocked, emotionally locked away from grace.

If I choose to humble myself, reject the lies from Satan and the world about God, choose to believe the truth about God in His word and from His Spirit, I will experience His greater grace. I will see His jealousy not as anger but as white-hot passion to hod, embrace and love me to Himself forever.

7-10

The formula for connecting with God, the Source of real life and intense pleasure:

Submit/humble/believe/agree with God – instead of the devil and the world.

Resist/stop believing the lies/reject the devil – instead of resisting God's passion and attractions.

The problem, the block between God and I is all in me – not Him.

If I draw close to Him, spend time opening my heart and listening to His heart (like right now), He will always do the same with me plus much more.

As He shows me the lies and the obstructions in my life and my surroundings, I need to choose to remove/dispose of them to eliminate what perpetuates and reinforces the lies about Him and cause me to be double-minded and unstable because I believe opposite things about God at the same time.