Confession or Faithfulness?

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9 KJV) This verse is one of the most used references in my dialog with God. I memorized it as a young boy as part of my religious upbringing, but the significance of this passage has not really impacted me until the past few years as my understanding of how true religion really works has been coalescing in my mind and heart. I think the main reason that its importance has become so much more clear to me lately is because my perception about my relationship to God has so radically shifted in the past few years. It is certainly not because I think I am finally “arriving”, finally accomplishing what I was attempting to do throughout my early years of attempting to become “good” and trying to be obedient enough to appease God and those around me. Nor is it because I have finally amassed enough spiritual knowledge and experience or have gotten rid of enough sin in my life that I now can feel safe to confidently believe I am on my way to heaven. These were all unspoken goals that were assumed in my heart to be the way to live out religion when I was growing up. But these are also the main components of one version of counterfeit religion that has produced a huge crop of bitter, angry people who today reject God openly and are looking elsewhere for satisfaction and fulfillment. They are angry about the lost years that they spent growing up in a system that robbed them of joy and instead only offered impossible demands for perfection. They are resentful that the God they were taught about let them down and only seemed to provide lists of overly-strict rules to follow while their heart languished inside longing for someone to just care for their deepest needs and pains. I can identify with many of their frustrations and reasons for turning away from God altogether or seeking out alternative religious philosophies. But I chose a different path early on that has caused my life to go in a different direction from nearly all of my friends. I realized when I was a teenager that there was something inherently wrong with the religion of my culture and the legalism in which I was raised. One of my great temptations was to throw it all overboard and just go out and plunge into a life of open sin and self-indulgence so that I could return to God later as one of those people that had such glowing conversion stories that entertained us so much during testimony meetings. But something else inside warned me that making such a choice might well result in my never returning at all and only causing me to loose everything in the end. I had no guarantee that I would be able to repent at a later date and find what I was really longing for as a Christian. Something told me that Satan was sinister enough to allure me into indulging in a life of sin and then finishing me off before I would have a chance to return to God and find what I was looking for. After weighing the options many times I finally chose to take what looked to be the longest possible route to finding true religion, to finding out the real truth about God. I would choose to stay within the system reluctantly while trying to figure out what was wrong with it and seek to discover truth for myself in the meantime. During many years of living under the influences of the teachings of the fathers and traditional religion, this verse was not much of an encouragement for me. It was more along the lines of yet another demand or requirement of God that had to be satisfied before He would ever accept me or forgive me. It was this huge obstacle at the very beginning of this verse that tended to always stump me from finding much comfort or solace in the rest of the verse. It was the nearly impossible precondition that I seemed to run into everywhere I turned in religion that prevented me from ever finding assurance and peace with God. IF!!! IF I would confess my sins... IF I could just confess enough of my sins to please a very nit-picky, all-knowing God who could always find sins in me that I could not recall myself... IF I could just make myself feel sorry enough or grovel enough when I admitted my sins to God... IF I could even be capable enough mentally to dredge up every single unconfessed wrong act I might have ever committed at any time in my whole life, and then somehow do whatever it was that God demanded of me in some elusive act of repentance, confession and begging endlessly for Him to forgive me... The main focus of my life for many, many years was an attempt to figure out how to fulfill this enormous precondition to receiving the grace and forgiveness of God that my heart so longed for. But no matter how hard I tried, no matter how many times a day I confessed sins over and over – even the same ones many times – I could never find peace inside of me. It always seemed to come down to a sensation that I could never quite achieve the perfect confession or figure out just what would satisfy God in repentance that would bring me the inner rest that I so desperately needed in my heart. So over time this verse lost much of my attention. Since it seemed impossible for me to meet its nearly impossible demand for my perfect confessions I gave up trying to follow this route to God and simply let this verse sink into the background for a number of years. Sometimes it would come up to haunt me again and I would wonder just what this text really meant, but mostly I just tried to live a good enough life to stay out of much trouble with God, try to get along with others as best I could and look reasonably good in the church. I became busy with raising a family and just trying to survive financially which I didn't do too well at either. Even in those arenas I found myself frustrated, angry and confused much of the time. It seemed that God was so out of touch with the problems of my life. At times He might throw a few crumbs of blessings or rescue me in desperate situations occasionally, but most of the time I felt somewhat on my own trying to figure out what was wrong with the religion that I had and why it didn't seem to work for me like it did for a few others who seemed to be close to God and happy as well. About twelve years ago God began to work in my mind and heart in a more direct way that I had ever encountered Him before. As I reread a book that had previously been nothing much more than a written description of the life of Christ, this time I sensed something very different going on in my heart as I read each day. I sensed an inner voice pointing out many inconsistencies between what I was reading and what I had grown up assuming about God from the teaching and examples of those around me. I began to see a Man who cared about people's hearts instead of making impossible demands and preconditions for coming to God. I began to feel stirrings of a deeply wounded heart beginning to wake up and ask disturbing questions about the religion of my childhood that almost no one seemed able to answer. I began to see myself in the stories of Jesus' interactions with people and was stunned at times to perceive that He usually treated them very differently than how I expected He would or that I had been treated by most religious people. Over time I was forced to make a conscious choice about the direction of my own spiritual life. I found myself confronted by the Holy Spirit to choose between staying in the comfort zone of my beliefs about God that I had assumed all of my life, or embracing the radical new truths about Him that I was beginning to see and feel whenever I read about the life of Jesus. The two belief systems were clearly incompatable with each other. I could either accept the offer of the Holy Spirit to retrain me and challenge everything I thought I knew about God or I could remain in my current belief system and not face my fear of change. The choice was up to me. I am glad that I chose to release my grip on the traditions of my past and gave God permission to reveal Himself to me in brand new ways that I had never allowed myself to consider before. But like the last time I faced a fork in my spiritual journey, I chose not to simply toss everything out immediately but to allow the Spirit to deal with each aspect of my old religion over time and open my mind and heart to the reality of what God was really like, replacing the false notions about Him that have kept me in discouragement and fear for nearly all of my life. This has been a very long and slow process for me, but it has also been very effective in building a stronger foundation for my spiritual experience as I have examined and revised one thing after another in my search for the real truth. What I have noticed maybe more than anything else in my pursuit of what is real and true is that the most important aspect that has to change is my feelings and beliefs about how God looks at me. This has been the core issue that has taken longer than anything else to change inside of me and continues to be challenged. But it has also been the basis by which I am coming to measure every other claim or assertion about what is true and real. As a result of my complete shift of emphasis about what is important in spirituality and in life altogether, I now have a completely different paradigm in place whenever I come back to look at anything I read in the Bible. Instead of starting with the assumption of a God who is looking for reasons to keep me out of heaven, I am now living in relationship with a God who is passionately devoted to doing everything possible to attract me into an intimacy with Him in every part of my life. He is working behind the scenes and through all the circumstances of my life to allure me into trusting Him more fully, urging me to let go of the lies about Him that have frightened me all of my life and to allow Him to have more access to the deep, wounded places of my fearful, timid, wounded heart. Now He is bringing me back to take another fresh look at this verse and show me the incredible power in it that I could never see before in this text. Now, instead of getting stumped at the supposed precondition of perfectly confessing every sin before God will accept or forgive me, I see that the focal point of this verse is really on the faithfulness and fairness of God. This verse is not about what I have to do to change God's mind about me but is a window through which I can glimpse a God who is eager to save and transform me if I will just give Him permission and believe in the truth of how He feels about me. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9 NAS95) If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9 NRSV)

Two Religions - Fear or Love

I am starting to see clear outlines of the contrasting approaches to religion in the following passages and the resultant attitudes that those two approaches foster in the heart and life. The true religion of Jesus is based solely on love and fosters confidence and unity. The counterfeit system of religion is founded upon fear and power.

Those in the counterfeit system view God as a power-broker that utilizes fear to intimidate His subjects into submission and obedience. Because of their insistence of false assumptions about the character of God they come to believe firmly in forceful punishment as the way that God executes vengeance. Believing in a God of force and control leads to believing in a God who uses threats of punishment as intimidation and motivation for His followers.

Yet this is not the true religion of Jesus. In these passages are revealed very different spirits with very different outcomes. However, this cannot even be easily seen in these verses if one has filters in place, beliefs in a vengeful kind of God who depends on force and fear to achieve compliance with His rules. Under these conditions many of the words have been assigned alternative meanings and as such they only tend to reinforce the false ideas about how God relates to His adversaries.

First let's review the passages that give us some of these insights.

Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near. For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and THE FURY OF A FIRE WHICH WILL CONSUME THE ADVERSARIES. (Hebrews 10:19-27)

We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. (1 John 4:16-19)

Men were scorched with fierce heat; and they blasphemed the name of God who has the power over these plagues, and they did not repent so as to give Him glory. Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom became darkened; and they gnawed their tongues because of pain, and they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores; and they did not repent of their deeds. (Revelation 16:9-11)

Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY." And again, "THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE." It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated. For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one. Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. FOR YET IN A VERY LITTLE WHILE, HE WHO IS COMING WILL COME, AND WILL NOT DELAY. BUT MY RIGHTEOUS ONE SHALL LIVE BY FAITH; AND IF HE SHRINKS BACK, MY SOUL HAS NO PLEASURE IN HIM. But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul. (Hebrews 10:28-39)

I think it is very helpful to take the phrases from these verses and place them in a contrasting column structure to be able to see more clearly the opposing nature of the underlying belief systems about what God is really like.

we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh... Is His flesh the veil itself, or is it the new and living way to enter the holy place beyond the veil? Either way, this identifies that our confidence is now to be based on something different and newer than the previous reasons used for confidence.	In previous times under the legal model of thinking, the holy place was off-limits to everyone except the priest. The veil was in place to hide the glory of God from humanity. But this was necessary due to our deeply distorted views of God that put us in danger of being consumed by that glory. But the veil can also refer to the deceptions that have blinded us for so long about the real truths about God's character.
let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. The dramatic shift of emphasis here contrasts counterfeit religion with true religion that is based primarily in the heart. An evil conscience is one that believes the old lies about how God relates to us. The demonstration of God's love at Calvary is the blood that sprinkles our conscience and cleanse us from those lies about Him.	Under the old system it became assumed that the externals were the most important thing to God though that was not His original intent for that system. Those who drew near to the holy place often did so with great fear instead of confidence. Evil was thought to be something that external blood had to expiate. But sin is rooted in the heart and conscience.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful Notice the motivation for holding fast to a new kind of confession based on hope instead of fear – the fact of God's faithfulness, not ours.	Under the law the thinking was oriented more toward outward obedience and conformance to rules and regulations and social titles. Ancestry was very important to Jews and their hope was often based on their lineage more than their trust in God's faithfulness.
let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds Again, notice the contrast in the motivation that we use to invite others into obedience from the heart and fellowship.	In a legal model the motivation is not based on love but on fear. Good deeds are viewed as a way to impress or manipulate God or cause others to value us more.
not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Love-based spirituality from the heart attracts people to draw toward each other and encourage each other. As they see the end of the world approaching they do not depend on fear to keep their loyalty and obedience strong but they press together even tighter to give strength to each other in love and courage.	When a person is law-oriented and living in a performance-based religion they will tend to separate from others and withdraw more and more over time in their attempts to achieve personal perfection. Their critical, fault-finding bent will wear away at their relationships with others and they will become self-focused in their attempts to purify their lives of everything they perceive as sinful. They will depend on fear of end-time events to motivate them to greater efforts to perfection their characters.
This knowledge of the truth is far more than knowledge of true facts or doctrines. It is a revelation to the heart of the beauty and attractiveness of the character of God, a realization of the drawing power of the love that is radically different than anything we have ever known before. When we see the real love of God and all that He has risked in His sacrifice on Calvary to change our minds about Him and then choose to keep on living in resistance to that love by self-indulgence and allowing sin to remain in our hearts, we will find that we have cut off our own ability to respond positively to that love and no longer have the capability to repent. (compare this with Isaiah 33:10-17)	if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and THE FURY OF A FIRE WHICH WILL CONSUME THE ADVERSARIES. I see this sinning willfully as an insistence on believing false concepts about how God feels about His children. If we reject the real truth about God by returning to a fear-based religious way of thinking based on false ideas about judgment and God's fire, then we will only have terror to motivate us in our relationship with God. And as a result we will ultimately experience the very things from God that our terror expects He will execute against His enemies even though in actuality that is not what is really going on.
We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. This is another description of true religion of the heart. This kind of know relates to intimacy that includes affections and emotions and personal shared secrets of the heart. As we experience this kind of intimacy with our loving Savior we learn to really believe with confidence the transforming love which God has for us.	In counterfeit religion we can talk about love from the head but we fail to really experience and embrace it at the heart level. Love that is not appreciated and experienced in the heart cannot really be truly believed. Thus we become hypocritical in our profession of being followers of Jesus while not having the evidence of true love emanating from our lives.
love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment Love is other-centered attention and a spirit of kindness that lives to bless. As our hearts receive and practice this through fellowship in the body of Christ, our confidence (absence of fear) grows. We learn that judgment means being fully exposed, not arbitrarily condemned, shamed or denounced.	When we think our confidence comes from our behavioral achievements and the elimination of all sin from our lives externally, we are setting ourselves up for a terrible shock. Perfectionism will never prepare us for the kind of heart and motive exposure that judgment always involves.
as He is, so also are we in this world We take on the same view of the Father as Jesus demonstrated while here on this earth. As a result we learn to relate to others around us the way Jesus did while here.	When the wrong filters are in place, this verse will be assumed to mean that we must perfectly copy the behavioral perfection that we believe Jesus demonstrated while on this earth. This thinking assumes that Jesus worked very hard to resist all temptations to sin and that we have to do the same with extra help from God. But this belief system is riddled with false definitions about the words involved here.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. This is another explicit contrast between love-based religion and fear-based religion. To be perfected in love one must let go of all counterfeit beliefs about God rooted in fear.	False religion is based on using fear as the primary motivator for driving people to repentance and turning them to God for salvation. God is viewed as having duplicity by coming to us with a carrot and stick approach to induce us to obedience. We believe that God threatens disobedience with severe punishment and offers rewards for good behavior. But real love cannot be perfected in this environment.
When the real truth about God and reality is experienced, we will begin to see that the plagues that come are a result of rejecting God's mercy and protection over the earth; they are only natural consequences of unleashed powers that are out of balance due to the effects from our sins. In truth, God's power has been exercised for centuries to prevent us from suffering these consequences, but when the world totally refuses His protection and forces away His mercy we will become exposed to the natural destructive forces that are inevitable from our own choices.	Men were scorched with fierce heat; and they blasphemed the name of God who has the power over these plagues Notice who it is who reacts with blasphemy – it is those who believe in power and control. Because their whole belief system is based on the exercise of power used to control others they believe that God is the one who is to be blamed for all their problems because they assume that He is controlling and abusing power like they do.
True repentance comes about by perceiving and appreciating the kindness of God (see Romans 2:4) When our repentance is thus motivated our lives will produce praise for God's goodness, mercy and kindness which is how He is glorified. When true repentance leads us into a complete trust relationship with God where He lives out His life from our hearts, our deeds will naturally become righteous because the One living within us is righteous.	they did not repent so as to give Him glory...and they did not repent of their deeds. See here what the purpose of repentance is supposed to accomplish. True repentance motivates one to give God glory, not blasphemy. And those who refuse to repent are those who's religion is very externally oriented. This is why deeds are mentioned here. Deeds – behavior – is the basis for counterfeit religion. This also shows that fear is not effective in producing repentance.
For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. (John 1:17)	Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy When choosing to function under the basis of law as the primary model, mercy is easily set aside. Violations of prescriptive law induce the arbitrary punishments attached.
It is dangerous to turn our heart away from the drawing cords of love back to selfishness once we have begun our romance with God. It does something to us that is much more serious than we can realize. It damages delicate parts of our inward abilities of the heart that can permanently prevent us from being able to return to that intimacy ever again. We must be aware of this danger and respect the sacredness of the intimacy that we are privileged to experience with God.	How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? This is very fascinating. It seems here that the author is still taking the view from the legal position. From that perspective – under the law – he is asking the reader a question, what do you think about how severe the punishment should be for such a serious crime as is itemized here?
For we know Him who said, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY." Now the author is switching back over to God's system of operation – relational. He is saying that we know Him – something that is way beyond law-based logic in relating to others and God. We know HIM – His heart, what He is really like. And He is not like the arbitrary way that law and rules function. This also touches our need to understand the truth about God's view of vengeance. (see the real definition of God's version of vengeance in Romans 12:19-21)	When we perceive the word vengeance from our human assumptions about that word, we will automatically believe that it is talking about God loosing patience and lashing out with severe punishments that are arbitrary and even hateful. But a very careful examination of the Scriptures on this subject will reveal that God's definition of vengeance is almost totally opposite of what we always assume it means. That is why God tells us to leave all vengeance up to Him, because He only can do it in complete love without perversion.
"THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE." It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. This too has a meaning that I believe may be different than first assumed. The word judge really means to be completely and fully exposed – every thought, motive and inward attitude of the heart brought out clearly for everyone's examination and evaluation. That is the kind of situation that every Christian must be prepared for and that is certainly reason to feel somewhat terrified. But this terror is not so much intimidation-based but is more like the thrill type of terror that one might experience when bungy-jumping or riding a high roller-coaster. It is a combination of high risk and trust that produces potential thrills that take us well beyond our normal comfort zone.	Under the deceptions common in counterfeit religion the word judge is usually assumed to mean something along the lines of condemnation, denouncement, accusation, demeaning etc. As a result of these negative assumptions, when this verse is read we assume that the terror referred to here is the fear that we are supposedly to live under that will somehow drive us toward obedience to God. This feeds into all the false ideas about hell and all of the lies about God in connection with hell and suppositions about God's threatenings to torture sinners for failing to love Him. This has been the cause for many to reject the whole concept of God because these teachings are so repulsive to the human heart that was created to operate on love, not fear.
remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle This is the definition of the previous reference to judgment. When God's people are judged they are exposed. But notice what it is that is exposed. His character becomes more fully revealed from their lives in the process. This verse reminds them of previous times when this happened in their life and alerts them that it will happen again.	In a fear-based religion, being made a public spectacle creates a great deal of dread and apprehension and shame. It also feeds into false ideas about how God treats us and leads many to think that God orders bad things to happen to us to teach us a stern lesson or two.
you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one. This is a reminder of how to correctly relate to judgment/exposure – showing what is inside. What is revealed is sympathy and non-resistance to the evil brought against you, joyfully accepting it by keeping your perspective of what is true reality, the bigger picture and your true identity.	For a person who is living in a legal, fear-based religion this verse is potentially very baffling. It goes against normal human nature to react with joy and sympathy under such treatment and so this would often be viewed as yet another command that must be fulfilled in our growing list of requirements that God demands we must meet to be a good Christian.
Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance It is not enough to just pass through being exposed one time. We need endurance – stick-to-it-iveness to cling to our confidence in God's faithfulness.	For a perfection-oriented religion the confidence of the person is based on some nebulous formula that keeps score of good deeds verses evil in our account in heaven. Endurance is yet another requirement that must be met by even more effort determination.
MY RIGHTEOUS ONE SHALL LIVE BY FAITH We have a choice to make when facing this exposure that is called judgment. If we choose to trust the heart and ability of God in our covenant relationship with Him, our soul will be filled with His pleasure in us.	IF HE SHRINKS BACK, MY SOUL HAS NO PLEASURE IN HIM If we are living in a religion based on fear we will will not be able to maintain our confidence when the pressure gets turned up. We will eventually crack and shrink back in terror because we have harbored the seeds of terror – fear in our hearts, and that is the fruit that will show up and produce its tragic results. When we live in a religion of fear we cannot experience the pleasure that comes from being linked with the heart of God.
those who have faith to the preserving of the soul	those who shrink back to destruction

The Poor in Spirit Advantage

As I was showering this morning my thoughts wandered to my feelings of isolation that part of me has felt for pretty much all of my life. I remembered the feelings that sometimes cause me to try to connect with people emotionally so quickly that typically they withdraw in alarm which only adds to the weight of “evidence” used against me by those who want to judge me as an imbalanced and untrustworthy man.

As I was contemplating this pattern that seems to be a mark of my life, the words of Jesus suddenly popped into my head, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3) In the context of what I was feeling and thinking about, these words suddenly took on a whole new dimension that I had never been able to perceive before.

I thought about my own inability to form deep relationships compared to others that I have either observed or heard about who seemed to have satisfying soul-mates, those with whom they could bare their hearts without fear of being judged or misunderstood. It seems that every time I have tried to do something like that that sooner of later the result was some sort of betrayal. It was almost like I was destined to live under the influence of the Miranda warning, “everything you say can and will be used against you...”

But the more I thought about this the more I realized how much this just might be a genuine blessing in disguise, except for the first time I was getting a peek behind the disguise. I sensed that maybe it is actually a handicap for a person to have wonderful friends who care about them deeply, people in one's life who seem to be able to connect in some way to deep needs. Because the deepest cravings of the heart can simply never be satisfied by any mere human and to the degree that I believe they can bring lasting satisfaction is the same degree that I will not be hungry for the companionship and intimacy of my Savior.

In reality all of us are poor spiritually. But what I am starting to see is that Jesus was touching a deep sore spot in the hearts of anyone who was not blinded by the counterfeits offered by the alternative system invented by Satan. When a person is keenly aware and conscious that nothing is really meeting their hunger, that no one is coming close to fulfilling their deepest cravings for intimacy and deep fellowship and trust – that person is actually in a position of great advantage from heaven's perspective. And while they may not yet know that their condition is an advantage or even yet know that God is the one who is ready and eager to fulfill those deepest cravings of the heart, Jesus' words are clarifying reality, and He states unequivocally that these people are really the one's who are more fortunate.

One of the greatest hindrances to living a life of freedom for an addict is the intense feelings of temporary satisfaction they get from indulging in their drug of choice. While they intellectually may acknowledge that their real needs are not being met by the substance or activity that gives them such a rush, the attraction of feeling relief from their inner cravings even for a few seconds can be overwhelming and is their greatest hindrance to staying clean long enough to return to a “normal” life where they can learn to find more legitimate means of addressing their deep longings.

Maybe Jesus is talking to people here who are not living in denial or depending on a counterfeit fix to meet their deepest longings and numb their pain. While their lives may appear to be quite messed up by others who look down on them, these people are keenly aware of their poverty of spirit and they are longing for an intimacy at the spirit level that nothing has come close to satisfying yet. Jesus wants them to know that, far from being a curse or a terrible liability, their poverty of spirit is their greatest asset because it is a powerful motivation to come to Him and find the peace and joy that their heart is craving the most.

Those who know they are hungry and also know that nothing they have yet tasted addresses that hunger are the most likely to recognize the perfect object of their desires when they come to really perceive it. Those are the ones who are keen to be skeptical of every imitation and sometimes have a sharper awareness when a relationship or activity is not addressing or relieving their sense of emptiness. They are actually much closer to being willing to embrace the real riches found in the true kingdom being set up by Jesus than those who are still bottom-feeding in the illusions promoted by typical religion or humanism or any other counterfeit system promoted by this world. It is the poor in spirit who's very awareness of their poverty are the most ready and eager to latch on to real riches and cling to them with a tenacity stronger than the desire for life itself.

Some people who are not yet aware that they are actually poor in spirit are like those described in Revelation 3. You say, "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked... (Revelation 3:17)

As I thought about these things my heart began to warm. I realized that these words that had been brought to my mind were something of a compliment, an assurance by Jesus that, far from viewing my situation as a terrible curse I should see it from heaven's perspective.

Being poor in spirit should cause me to sharpen my focus on finding what really satisfies.

Being poor in spirit means more quickly turning away from cheap imitations that fail to bond me to other hearts with the proper adhesive.

Being poor in spirit, according to Jesus, is to be part of a group of people who are actually the citizens of the kingdom that will supersede all the kingdoms and political powers of this world.

Does that mean that I should relax and embrace my poverty of spirit and deep relationships with others? Somehow I don't think so. But while I still seek to discover points of connection with others who are also poor and starving in spirit under the guidance of my heart by the Spirit of God who is carefully knitting together the various elements of the body of Christ, I do not have to feel that my poverty is something to be ashamed of or despised. Being poor in counterfeit relationships, being poor in addictive substitutes is not a bad position to be in.

I must learn to see my poverty of spirit as the motivational engine that propels me toward living in openness and honesty with others, with myself and most of all with God. I must learn to focus my feelings of emptiness on narrowing my attentions and affections to that which really brings faith, hope and love into my life and exclude everything which only distracts or confuses me. I need to avoid more and more the things which neutralize or numb my awareness of my real poverty of spirit and instead fill my mind more and more with a true awareness of what is really valuable, what has eternal value and what will genuinely satisfy my heart and make me truly wealthy in my soul.

The Secret of Forgiveness

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. (Matthew 6:12 NAS95)

Thank-you, John, for taking a very careful look at this verse. I always find it very rewarding to ask the kind of tough, close questions that you brought up with a mind open and ready to receive deeper insights from the Spirit of truth. And while I do not want to replace the role of that Spirit I believe that when people join their minds and hearts together to seek to see God's face more clearly through this kind of study that they are never disappointed. God is eager to interact with people ready to receive.

I combed through each word of this verse in the Greek and tried to listen to the sense of what it seems to be saying. I am not sure which translation you were referring to when you said you looked at the literal translation. I have Young's Literal Translation but it does not have it written the way you described. And I have to also say that since I know nothing about how Greek is written sequentially I cannot propose myself as an authority of any kind on the subtle aspects that may be in the original language. All I can do is to compare the meanings of each word in relationship to the surrounding words and then try to get a sense of how those meanings may interact in various ways that are consistent with the truth that God has revealed about His character.

I did see the word for our from the Greek and it denotes ownership of something. In fact, it seems to be the word defining ownership. It is the exact same word used in the previous phrase also translated our connected to debts. So both of these instances seem to be noting the owner of whatever is the object of the phrase. In the first phrase the word debts seems to be the object of the our. In the second phrase it is debtors who are the object of the our.

What I find interesting is the difference between the words behind those two words that could give some insight for the our in each phrase. The first one refers to something that is owed, a debt but not just in a financial sense. It refers to a moral debt which in my understanding involves a hurt or injury at the heart level. It is that feeling you get when you know that someone owes you an apology, a debt that has been created by an injury or a violation of your freedom or your spirit. Your feelings and your spirit have been injured and damaged and someone clearly is the cause of that. Because of the way we are created we sense that an imbalance in our connectedness with others (or even ourself) has been created that needs to be restored to balance in some way before we can feel at peace.

The second word translated debtors is very similar but refers directly to the person involved who apparently created the injury. It carries all the same implications of the first word but places the focus on the person involved, not just the nature of the feeling.

Now when I add the our to each of these words involving debt what I see is that in the first case I am the owner of the debt created and in the second case I am the owner of the debtor – not owner in the sense of the one who generated it but owner in the sense that I am the one still holding the bag, the one who has controlling interest in the existence of this debtor and what is done about it.

When I see it from that light I see more clearly how consistent that is with everything I have learned from the various healing ministries and my own experiences in this area of life. The mistake that most of us make in relationship to the concept of emotional debts is that we think that the person who has offended us is the one responsible to remove the debt. After all, they are the one who clearly created it and therefore we assume that they likewise have the power to remove or fix it.

Wow, the more I get into this the more my own heart is being affected by what is emerging. This is really stirring up deep feelings inside of me as I ponder this. Thanks again for inviting me to look at this. Maybe God prompted you to bring this up for some very specific purpose that I am not aware of quite yet.

Believing that the people who have offended me are the ones responsible for repairing the damage they caused me is like going down a dead-end street expecting to emerge into the freedom of a super-highway. For it is becoming more clear from my own study and from all the things I have learned from other people that have explored this area is that the only way any of us will ever become free from the heavy weight of the emotional debts we all experience is to first take full ownership of the debt. Otherwise we can never be in a position to do anything truly effective about it.

The other alternative that produces even worse results is to indulge in the temptation to desire revenge or retribution against the debtor (who happens to also be owned by us in some sense according to the wording here). And this brings me back around to the main point of your original question yesterday. You said that what you saw in a literal translation of this verse was that we would be forgiven our debts by God just as we forgave ourselves of our debts. In a certain sense that is actually very accurate to a degree but can be confusing if not carefully considered in the context of everything else surrounding this.

The sense in which this can bring significant insight to this concept of forgiveness is the fact that we are the owner both of the debt created and have controlling interest in the existence of a debtor. When this is more clearly perceived I believe the difference between whether the debt was created by ourselves against ourselves or was created by someone else against ourselves may become possibly insignificant. What may be the main point that Jesus is making here is that we are the one with all the power to initiate a resolution of the problem and that even the forgiveness of God may be blocked from us by our unwillingness to release a debt or grudge that we carry, either against others or even possibly ourselves.

I hasten to add that blocking God's forgiveness from our heart has nothing whatsoever to do with God's side of this matter. We cannot prevent God from forgiving us. That is a fact that has always existed, even before Jesus died on the cross. Jesus did not come to die in order to procure forgiveness for us but He came to die to reveal the forgiving reality of the heart of God, both the Father and the Son. Forgiveness is a fact of reality that we only struggle to believe because of the massive deceptions that we struggle under, not because God has to be convinced to forgive. Forgiveness is something that describes the very nature of God that has never changed and never will.

The process of salvation is totally dedicated to bringing us back into alignment with the heart of the God in who's image we were created. Because of that Jesus came to both teach us and demonstrate what that original looks like and acts like and feels like and thinks like. And part of that process of re-education is exposing the basic principles by which reality exists. This issue of forgiveness and who has the power to initiate resolution and reconciliation is one of those principles of reality that has been seriously obscured by the great deceiver.

What Jesus is telling me here is that if I want to experience the reality of God's forgiveness and all the commensurate healing that will accompany that experience, I must choose to be willing to act in the same manner as God acts toward me. Of course, if I still have mistaken ideas about how God feels about me or how He forgives, then those mistaken ideas will corrupt my ability to live in the perfect freedom from bitterness and resentment that Jesus demonstrated in His life on earth.

Jesus wants us to realize the tremendous power we have within our own mind and heart to initiate our own freedom from all the debt that is literally killing us slowly in our hearts. God respects and values our freedom so immensely that He will never force us to forgive. Our will is the most important part of our makeup and is the key element that enables us to reflect the real nature of God Himself. Our free will is the only thing we have that empowers us to enter in to the experience of genuine love, for love has to be free or it is not love.

God deeply desires our love, for He created us to interact with His heart in that way along with all those around us. Forgiveness is the door waiting for us to pass through on our way to that freedom of perfect love. But one of the most important parts of this situation that we must be aware of is that we ourselves are the owners and possessors of the key that can unlock our prison cells of fear and pain or resentment. Our will is the hand that can take the key of forgiveness and with the authority of ownership we can both release the weight of the debt that is crushing the life out of us and can change the attitude of our heart toward those who we insist are our debtors, whether that be someone else or even ourselves.

A debtor is a label, a description of our perception of the identity of someone. When we determine that someone deserves the label of debtor, we ourselves are the one who determines that label in our own mind, we are the owner of that mental and social opinion of someone described as debtor. So because the whole concept of indebtedness is really an attitude, a state of mind that we maintain about someone, we as the owner of that concept are the only ones with the power to change that belief. For nothing that anyone else can do can force us to change our belief about the identity of whoever we consider to be a debtor. That is something only we can choose to do.

But likewise, I believe Jesus is revealing a parallel principle in this verse. We will always act like the perceived God we believe exists in our life. So if we refuse to forgive and release a debt and a debtor from our hearts, we also incapacitate our own hearts from embracing that forgiveness that has always existed and has always been available to us from the heart of God. This is not because God withholds it from us but because we lock the door of our hearts from being able to let it in.

This is very clearly implied in the word translated as in this verse. It denotes a direct linkage between the way we choose to act and think with the way we receive from God. It is a law of the mind in this case that the only way we can experience true forgiveness is to be willing to exercise it just as it is offered to us. Apparently the same part in the brain is required for both of these things. It is only when we unlock the door of our heart and release the debt owed to us that we will be able to experience the receiving end of that same experience. It is a very pointed application of the principle seen in what is called the Golden Rule.

More on Living as a Butterfly

Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. (Romans 13:10-11)

Not long ago I wrote a piece about wanting to become a Butterfly. Not literally, you understand, but in many other respects. God has embedded within the many things of nature powerful lessons that can illustrate spiritual truths for us that can be revealed to us by the Spirit who was involved in the original Creation of both nature and our own minds and hearts. Very often things in nature can better unveil deep emotional and spiritual truths and facts much easier than the difficult exercise of translating them into the symbols we call words and language.

This issue of letting go of resistance is very often on my mind since it has been brought to my attention over the past few months in my study of Romans 13. One reason I wrote the piece about the Butterfly was directly related to this very thing. Butterflies are almost the perfect demonstration of living a glorious life and beauty and freedom while exercising an amazingly low amount of resistance to the environment in which they fly. And yet they can travel thousands of miles across land and sea to arrive at very precise destinations which they have never even been to before.

It also occurred to me this morning that a very great percentage of a Butterfly's noticeable makeup is constituted of the beautifully decorated wings designed to utilize the sunlight to dispense loveliness and beauty wherever they go. Their bodies sink into near insignificance to our attention in comparison to the beauty of their wings. This is in contrast to most other insects that have no such large displays of extravagant beauty. It really appears that the main purpose of Butterflies may be to dispense beauty primarily – and maybe in more ways than we thought.

As I reread the above text this morning it came to me that the very process that creates the beautiful Butterfly – metamorphosis – is strikingly parallel to what I read here in this verse as well as in 12:2. And it is also very closely linked with the verses before it which talk about not resisting and being filled with genuine love. What verse eleven seems to be saying is that it is time for me to be born again and emerge from the cocoon of metamorphosis into a totally new creation that doesn't even resemble the body (my internal perception of my identity) and surroundings (the emotional and spiritual atmosphere in which I function) that I have been so familiar with all of my life. And if this parallel is true – and I believe it is – then salvation itself must be something descriptive of beauty and joy and freedom and intimate interaction with the breezes of the Holy Spirit that Jesus talked about in John three.

I suppose that there may be instances where Butterflies may cause damage somewhere, but I am not aware of them. But given the pervasive nature of the effects of sin in this world that is certainly possible. But in most respects I believe that Butterflies live to dispense beauty and inspire gratitude and praise on the part of all who are capable and willing to engage in and be blessed by this exercise.

Along the same line of thinking, verse ten says that Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. This is clearly an indication that the law, far from being done away with or ignored in the life of a true, converted, born-again Christian – the law will be the internal structure now implanted in the heart that has become so much a part of the natural thinking and reactions of a person that that person's life will reflect the light of God's love in unique and startling, even dazzling ways that will enrich the lives of all who are blessed by their influence.

Just as a Butterfly is not generally known for any damage they cause or even being a nuisance, the life of the true, transformed Christian full of real love will never do any wrong to others. And never doing any wrong to others is another way of saying they are perfectly in agreement and alignment with the Law of God. They will not be found dissing the law or complaining about talk of the law or feeling threatened by the law. But like David expressed so many times in the Psalms and particularly Psalm 119, they will love God's laws and guidelines and descriptions of the principles which govern all of His interactions with others.

I was again reminded this morning as I meditated on these thoughts of the passage that I received as something of a prophecy of my future a few years ago. And the spirit of the Lord will come on you with power, and you will be acting like a prophet with them, and will be changed into another man. And when these signs come to you, see that you take the chance which is offered you; for God is with you. (1 Samuel 10:6-7 BBE) You will be changed into another man. That sounds an awful lot like what happens to a caterpillar when it is changed into a beautiful Butterfly.

And the last part of that passage also reminds me of the close interactions that Butterflies have with the wind and the words of Jesus to Nicodemus. "The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8) Doesn't that sound strikingly similar to the flight of a Butterfly?

But as most people know that have ever learned much about the process of metamorphosis necessary to transform caterpillars into butterflies, the creature itself cannot bring about this amazing transformation. It simply cooperates with the impulses that God implanted into it and then rests quietly and safely inside the cocoon while the power of God mysteriously does its work of total transformation until the day it is ready to emerge in glorious and surprising beauty to live a completely different life.

When you are still living in a cocoon it is very hard to see what is going on in your own transformation process. I feel like I have been in the form of a caterpillar or in a cocoon for most of my life, but all I can do is rest and trust in the transformational work of the Spirit in my life until the day it becomes more obvious that I can learn to really fly. And when that happens I am also certain that the beauty of God's light and love will be so much more clear than it ever has been in my life that it may well be breath-taking – especially to me. But that beauty will not occur because of anything I have accomplished but because God has created yet another new creature, a wonderful experiment of grace to be a glorious reflector of part of His own beauty to attract others to Him with the loveliness that originates in His own heart.

Another thought that was brought to my attention this morning was again about this issue of resistance. I have been praying for some time now for God to remove all resistance from my heart, and I still feel that is very much needed. But in my cursory look through the Bible on the subject of resistance I noticed that a few times we are instructed to resist – but only against the devil himself.

I find this a bit curious and have wondered what this really means. I am specifically instructed not to resist an evil person (Matt. 5:39) while at the same time told that I must resist the devil (James 4:7). I have had a number of discussions about this with others and realized today that I need to pray to be full of resistance to Satan and all his suggestions while at the same time totally devoid of resistance to God and even to the evil that comes my way from others. This is all part of the alignment process very necessary to get me prepared to encounter the power and presence of God safely. Most Christians claim to desire to encounter His presence but they very often fail to see the enormous danger inherent in such a request. I will have to meditate and listen for more on this topic as the Spirit unpacks it more thoroughly for me.

Think More Highly

For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. (Romans 12:3) (see context from 11:30 through 12:8)

This temptation to think highly of one's self was something Paul himself had to keep in check all of his life, it was a left over residual from the great pride and arrogance of his pre-conversion life as well as a temptation due to the great privileges he had received from God in his ministry.

The grace given to me links with verse 6 – gifts that differ according to the grace given to us.

Everything in this passage is in the context of proving what the will of God is.

This passage is an extended explanation of how the mind is renewed and transformed in contrast to conformity. It explains how to offer your body as a sacrifice in an act of worship. These are the greater concepts to be kept in view while looking through these various instructions. Otherwise they can easily become yet another list of do's and don'ts of performance religion which is precisely what Paul is trying to steer us away from.

The world's way (and typical religion) to keep order and bring people together is through conformity – squeezing everyone into a similar mold. For obvious illustrations of this just look at a marching army, one of the typical symbols of worldly power. Each soldier is required to dress alike, cut their hair alike, move their body exactly the same in synchronization with every other soldier in lockstep. It presents a very impressive image of harmony and a sense of powerful identity. But it is very different than the analogy that God uses for His people.

God's idea of unity is that of a healthy body made up of all different limbs and organs and parts but working together in perfect sympathy and service to all the other parts. Each part of the body is valued and served and each part values and serves the rest of the body.

In the world's system every soldier looks like every other soldier – if you've seen one you've seen them all. But in God's body each individual is a unique part of the whole while different from every other part. They are not cookie-cutter clones multiplied many times to produce a sense of power but they are individuals gifted with a small portion God's immense grace, entrusted with unique gifts different from all the others but each one empowered with a measure of God's faith.

The primary bond and motivations found in an earthly army is fear and intimidation and pride. The motivation for healthy members of a body is love and selfless service for the rest of the body. This is all in the context of being shown mercy by God. Each member of the body has been classified as part of the group of disobedient ones so that God can equally show His mercy to all of them. Those who accept and embrace this mercy are enabled to become a functional part of the body of Christ. They have a tempered view of themselves in the light of God's mercy and are aware of the measure of faith given to them in His mercy. They are entrusted with unique gifts by His mercy and participate in loving, humble service to the rest of the body which unites them in joy bonds with each other.

Think so as to have sound judgment

The Greek here means to be moderate. This is in contrast to thinking arrogantly about one's self. Feeling that we are better than others is to forget that we all have been shut up in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all. When we keep in constant view our true condition before God then we will not so readily compare ourselves with each other. This is very important to keep in mind when observing the differences in our gifts.

The way the world sometimes deals with the problem of differences is to force everyone into a single mold like soldiers. This imposes external conformity but does nothing to deal with the pride or shame inside the heart. God's way to address the temptation of comparison and criticism is to remind us that we are all equally fallen in sin and in need of undeserved mercy. Our differing gifts are according to His grace, not according to our achievements or independence. This is very easy to say but very difficult to incorporate into our thinking. That is why Paul has to insert the warning to not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think.

So where do we find the definition of what we ought to think about ourselves? In the surrounding context:

we were all disobedient,

we have all been shown mercy,

we each must give ourselves up as a sacrifice of worship to God,

we all need our minds renewed and transformed,

we all have received our measure of faith from God,

we all have received our differing gifts from outside ourselves to be used to serve others in the body.

All of our focus need to be on God instead of on our supposed naturally inherent or cultivated value.

It is God who has the riches of wisdom and knowledge,

it is God who is the past, the present and the future of all life,

it is God's perfect design of creation against which we have been disobedient,

it is God who has shown all of us mercy,

it is God who alone deserves our worship,

it is God who is the source of any faith that we possess,

it is God alone who can hold together the disparate parts of His body in perfect bonds of unity, love and joy,

it is God we should think more highly of than ourselves,

it is God who alone is worthy of all praise and worship.

(next in series)

Conformed vs. Transformed

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

(Romans 12:2)

With eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, my brothers, as an act of intelligent worship, to give him your bodies, as a living sacrifice, consecrated to him and acceptable by him. Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity. (Romans 12:1, 2 J.B. Phillips)

Paul has spent a great deal of time thus far in this book exposing the faulty thinking that counterfeits God's desires for us and plan to restore us. In this verse I find the summary of the counterfeit system in one word – conformed. Satan's alternative plan of government from the very beginning when he introduced it in heaven and deceived one third of the angels was a focus on external conformity instead of living in submissive, loving relationships and keeping internal motivations and qualities as higher priority than external appearances.

Without what some call “an internal locus of control”, it becomes necessary to impose external forces to pressure people into conformity to maintain any semblance of order and organization in society. This emerged in the early development of human civilization as the whole system of thinking legally, of imposing rules and dictates for others to conform to or be arbitrarily punished. What most people don't realize is that the system of law on this earth grew out of the emerging system of economics, not morality, which introduced the idea of ownership and artificial value placed on things and people. To enforce the selfish restrictions and artificial definitions of economics, laws were imposed for the benefit of the wealthy to protect their property from being taken by others.

Subsequently the third counterfeit part of this false trinity soon took shape which is sometimes called kingship. I like to refer to it as hierarchy, where the value system of economics becomes strongly paralleled in social life and everyone is classified into roles and categories based on their social position or accomplishments. As can be seen by the thoughtful observer, all of these are based on artificial economics as the basis of reality and all relationships. The system of law is the artificial means of force to hold the system altogether with the glue of fear. This is the great counterfeit government that Satan has invented and that we have assumed is the way reality always works.

When this understanding becomes more clear it can be seen why conformity is such an accurate description of this counterfeit system that is now so deeply entrenched. Religion has incorporated these false principles of relationship into almost all of the world's thinking and so when we try to understand God's plans and ways we become very confused. Our confusion largely stems from not realizing that there are two very different ways of governance in this universe and that the two cannot be mixed or compromised with each other. But because the false system is a counterfeit of the true, it often has the appearance of being right, correct and even authentic. It is extremely deceptive in looking like it is the right way to live. Of course it is, otherwise how do you think Lucifer was able to convince a third of the highly intelligent angels to side with his conclusions?

Satan has always maintained that obedience has to be forced and must have external rules with artificial punishments for it to succeed. It is the great antithesis of love – the internal bond that makes the true nature of God's system of governance successful. This contrast between conformity and transformation that Paul highlights in this verse lies at the heart of the whole Great Controversy in the universe. Satan says that beings have to be conformed by external pressure, threat and fear. God maintains that love is enough and that anything else involving force and fear is alien to His ways and His people. This is the great choice that each of us have to face. Which form of society will we choose to live in?

But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers... (1 Timothy 1:8-9)

Conformist-based religion, which Paul has described previously in the case of the Jews of his day, purported to be the will of God, to be the epitome of what is right and good, it was the pursuit of perfection by external (conforming) obedience and a life of intense effort to manage appearances. That kind of thinking is certainly not the exclusive domain of Jewish thinking; it is inherent in human nature and reveals itself in every false religion seen on the earth. It is the outgrowth of false ideas about God that permeates the “sinful fleshly heart” of every fallen human on this planet. It is a focus on externals in priority over receiving the heart-level healing that God wants to accomplish in each one of us. Conformance is the counterfeit of transformation (metamorphosis).

On the other hand, Paul invites us to enter into the real experience of embracing God's plan to save us through internal renewal and subsequent transfiguration. When Jesus was transfigured before the disciples on the mountain He was not just trying to show off and impress them with power and glory. That is not the nature of God, that is the counterfeit way of thinking. What Jesus was displaying for them was what God's desire was for them, what He intends to accomplish in the life of every believer who will accept the redemption and restoration plan that God can work from the inside out. Jesus was showing us in a very limited view what every saved person will someday look like when the final judgment (day of revelation) takes place and both systems have fully matured.

Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. (Daniel 12:3 NRSV)

When a person chooses to allow God to renew their mind and they begin to experience the natural process of transformation, it will be seen more clearly in their life what the real will of God is, what is truly good and acceptable. And it will become more clear that the kind of perfection that God desires in us is not external perfectionism, a forced conformity to a list of rules, but is a natural life of maturity, the real meaning of the word “perfect”.

Maturity is what God desires for His children. Maturity happens from the inside and can only be developed in community with others and in an atmosphere of freedom to make mistakes while learning how to live. We generally understand this concept when raising our children, at least in the very early years, but we fail to see its importance in spiritual life. We would call it abuse if someone scolded and punished a baby every time it fell down while trying to learn to walk. But we think nothing of it when we treat each other that way while someone is trying to experiment with life and grow in spiritual maturity.

"But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people." (Jeremiah 31:33)

I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 11:19 NIV)

And I will put clean water on you so that you may be clean: from all your unclean ways and from all your images I will make you clean. And I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you: I will take away the heart of stone from your flesh, and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit in you, causing you to be guided by my rules, and you will keep my orders and do them. (Ezekiel 36:25-27 BBE)

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what He wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (Romans 12:1, 2 The Message)

(next in series)

Be Transfigured

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

(Romans 12:2)

Conformed – molded, fashioned, squeezed by external forces into a predetermined shape.

World – the surrounding culture, thinking, assumptions of the current age in society. The world's way of operation, life and relating to others as the counterfeit of God's ways.

Transformed – metamorphosis, the very same Greek word used to describe what happened to Jesus when He was transfigured before three of His disciples on a mountain and spoke with Moses and Elijah.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:17-18)

Renew – to continually renovate, to bring in freshness.

Mind – the intellect, understanding, perceptions, assumptions, outlook.

Prove – test, try out, discern by personal experience.

Will of God – desire, choice, strong preference, wish, intention, delight.

Good – beautiful, beneficial, valuable, honest.

Acceptable – fully agreeable, well-pleasing, reasonable.

Perfect – complete, matured, fully developed, completeness of character.

(next in series)

A Living Sacrifice

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. (Romans 12:1 NRSV)

What I have been learning recently comes as a surprise to many as well as to myself, but also makes sense given the real nature of God's desire for His relationship with His people. Even though the whole system of sacrifices and related rules and ceremonies surrounding it represented the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, it was not God's first choice for His people. God is not one who delights in seeing the slaughter of the very creatures He created. And God never intended for people to think that it is God who is the author of death and wished to impose pain and death on the disobedient.

Death is the wages of sin, not the imposition or punishment of God. And along the same line God was not looking for lots of death and blood to appease His anger throughout the Old Testament times despite what people believed, both then and now. There were points in time when God's real desires were expressed more plainly as in this quote from Jeremiah.

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat flesh. For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this is what I commanded them, saying, 'Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you will be My people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may be well with you.' Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward.” (Jeremiah 7:21-24)

The notion that God craved killing and sacrifices of blood was deeply embedded in the minds of nearly everyone in the ancient world and very often that involved the sacrifice of their children to the gods. It was a very common practice based on the concepts they held of their gods as ones of anger, selfishness and power. Humans were created, according to their thinking, to be slaves of the gods and so treated their slaves very much like humans abusively treated their own slaves. In turn most people were living in constant fear of what the gods might be about to do to them next and so they came up with all sorts of ideas that they hoped would keep the gods happy enough to not take out their fits of wrath on their human subjects.

This type of thinking was the environment from which the children of Israel emerged when they were brought out of Egypt. Mostly all they knew about the supernatural was these notions of angry and selfish gods who wanted dictatorial control over the lives of their subjects. But God makes it clear here in this passage in Jeremiah that His original desire for His children was very different, in fact the opposite of the ideas that the rest of the world had about God. He did not bring them out of slavery only to become their new slave master. He brought them out to be His loved children and to live in honor as a family of royalty. He wanted them to learn obedience as healthy children so that life would be well for them.

But their response to His invitation was to build a golden calf reminiscent of the enslaving gods of power they were familiar with in Egypt and worship that in the spirit of self-serving revelry. Then when God had to deal with that disaster the following years were filled with animal sacrifices and lots of blood as God was compelled to institute plan B. Because they insisted on believing only in a God who required blood sacrifices, God introduced guidelines for that system that at least would not carry most of the negative messages about God found in the systems of the rest of the surrounding nations. If they had to live under those ideas about worship then at least He could make that system instructive until they matured enough to graduate to living like grown-up, free children instead of groveling slaves.

I see this invitation from Jeremiah repeated in the first verse of Romans 12. Paul is reiterating God's desire that He wants us to be the real sacrifice instead of offering Him substitutes in vain attempts to appease an angry God based on our distorted picture of Him. God's wants our lives fully alive and thriving, not bloody sacrifices of fear, pain and death. God desires us to give our bodies, minds, and hearts to Him in an act of devotion and worship in response to the riches of His grace, His wisdom and knowledge and a revelation of the greatness of His ways. This is what real worship is about, not about inflicting various forms of death on ourselves or on animal substitutes.

There is another word here that is often misunderstood. God wants us to present ourselves as a holy sacrifice. Most people have assumed that holy means religious, pious, externally perfect behavior etc. This has been the fuel for most of the legalistic attempts at worship throughout the ages and is a cause of great confusion about what God really wants from us.

Holy, in its original form, simply means a total dedication for one purpose only. Holy always has to have an object, it cannot stand alone. So to say that someone is holy or some thing is holy has to be connected with identifying the object or person it is devoted to. Most of the references to holy in the Bible refer to God as the object of holiness. When an object was dedicated as holy, it was usually “holy unto the Lord”. That meant that that object was not to be used for anyone else but for God. The priests were likewise dedicated as holy and as such were devoted to exclusive service for God. That is the real meaning of the word holy.

With that understanding, it becomes more clear what Paul is really asking us to do here in Romans 12:1. He is not asking us to achieve some level of religious piety or strive for some sort of religiosity, hardly! That is the very thing he has spent most of his time in this book trying to unmask for its uselessness and futility. What God really wants from His children is what was described there in Jeremiah. He wants people who are willing to be totally and exclusively devoted to God alone as their source of life, people who are more devoted to listening and staying connected with their loving Creator more than any other object of affection. This is what is meant by a living and holy sacrifice. And this is what is truly acceptable to God.

For it is our hearts that God desires far more than any external performances or acts of piety. Real worship only originates in the heart, and we will always be worshiping something or someone. What God desires is for a relationship of devotion to Him in response to His love for us where we can be transformed, healed and restored to our original design as happy, joy-filled children of the great Leader of the universe.

It is in this view of a proper relationship with God that we will be able to demonstrate, to prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. We can never come into the real will of God for us by trying to achieve righteousness by conformance. That is the method of the world. The worlds system is to squeeze people into a mold through the use of force and fear and enslavement. God's method is to appeal to the mind and the heart by attraction and gently mold the character and the life through softening influences and healing transformations.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

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