Cleaning God's House

Jesus had to be about His Father's business and in His Father's house. What is the business of God anyway? Cleansing the house so His Father can live in it. How does He clean house? By removing the pain and condemnation and then filling it with peace and joy. How can we follow Jesus' example of cleaning? Jesus was willing, through unconditional forgiveness and love, to accept all the pain, attacks and abuse and not rejecting it in self-defense or protection. People lash out because they have been lashed themselves and they are attempting to unload their pain. If we don't accept it we force them to keep it and it intensifies. But if we share in the sufferings of Christ we work with Him in cleaning His house so His Father can live in it. We become channels transferring other peoples pain and suffering through us and give it instantly to Jesus thereby demonstrating to them how to give their pain directly to Jesus and become channels of grace themselves.

When I cling to my rights and resist suffering from others, I block the healing grace of God flowing through me in exchange for their pain, shame or abuse. Being a channel has to work both directions.

Every human will in the end be found clinging tenaciously. It is in our nature even though we may be too proud to recognize it. We either will believe in the goodness of God and cling relentlessly to forgiveness and God's acceptance of us as an unshakable fact of redemption, or we will cling to the lies and our doubts about God and try to figure out a formula to save ourself. Or, we may give up trying to save ourself because we are too intimidated by a god whom we can never please or appease enough and we decide to cling to our sins and milk all the pleasure we can out of them.

Bike Handlebars

Releasing my “rights” to myself to God feels like taking my hands off the handlebars of my bike and allowing Him to steer from behind me. I can only reach the handlebars close to the yoke which makes it impossible for me to steer. If I grab the bar by the handles God will respect my choice and allow me to mess things up. But when I let go of my rights and trust Him, He will guide me and hold the handlebars far back where there is much more leverage. I feel very out of control – which I am. Therefore I have to know Him well enough to be able to trust Him to keep me balanced and keep me from falling off as well as guide me in the right directions through all the harrowing turns and threatening obstacles.

The Law god

We have been trained to worship LAW and rules as our God. In fact, we teach law, rules and tradition and then create God out of that base by stating that God is the character expressed by law. Technically this has truth in it but misses the existence of the heart of God. By worshiping law and rules instead of the true God, we embrace a life of externalism and artificiality, a system of arbitrary, unfeeling cold-hearted punishments and rewards based solely on fear and pleasure. True satisfaction is unfamiliar to most of us for it is found in loving, caring trusting relationships.

It does not matter so much whether the law we promote is good or less than good, what is emphasized is the importance of submission and obedience. We view God's law and rules from the perspective of our laws. Human laws are created primarily to impose the selfish desires of some people on others and control them externally. We weave morality and religious sentiments into nice-sounding justifications for our laws, but if our eyes would be opened to what is becoming obvious, our legal system is largely a system of oppression and manipulation for the benefit of those in power. Lawyers are the priests of this “religion” and worship is demanded from all in submission to this image of God that cannot hear, speak or feel.

These laws can be changed at whim to suit the ever-changing purposes of sinful, selfish men and women. This idol is cloaked with robes of nobility and given titles of justice, fairness and right, but it is a false god no matter how eloquently or intensely it is defended by its promoters. It is based on perpetuation of the faulty system of relationships in the “Babylonian” thinking called Kingship – a hierarchy of unequal relationships exploiting the weak to give pleasure and advantage to the strong. As a result of this thinking even God's laws are viewed as forcing humans into subjugation for God's pleasure. His law becomes the focus of worship instead of His heart. Religion has almost completely lost sight of God's feelings and passions and desires in our steeled obsession and devotion to rules and tradition.

Those who give up trying to achieve value through rule-keeping give themselves over to seeking for anything that brings pleasure and gratification in an attempt to fill the aching void inside created by the law-god. We were created for intimate relations with similar beings and our hearts cry out for a living, loving God. If we have to, we will create a “living” god of our own in other people that we use to give us temporary pleasure. Our whole economic system is crafted to facilitate this idea. We desire peace and satisfaction but are forced to create our own gods to supply these needs because religion has eclipsed the real face of the true God.

But the passion of His truth and glory are beginning to break through the lies and the idol of law is beginning to be exposed for the fraud and impostor that it is. Babylon's system based on artificial values, corrupt economics and heartless, ruthless judicial systems will fall mightily when the real glory of the truth about God fills the whole earth (Rev. 18) and everyone is given access to a love-bonded intimate relationship with a passionately loving, caring Father. His model is family and He rejects any intrusion or imposition of the false system into His home.

Choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served,” the heartless counterfeit entrenched in a self-righteous law-worshiping false value-based religion, or God, our loving Father who only can satisfy your hunger for passion and value and more abundant life.