Resistance and Forgiveness Revisited

I have been pondering the issue of resistance for quite some time and the effect that it has on our relationship with God. Ever since I started becoming aware of the truth about God's wrath it began to become increasingly obvious to me that the real problem is not God's lack of patience or His supposed anger but our resistance to His love and passion.

But this morning I became aware of another dimension to this problem of resistance. I was reading a story about a terrible injustice committed against a black person in South Africa years ago and how he later was able to engage in a life of compassion because of his choice to let go of his bitterness and forgive the one who had tortured him and ruined years of his life.

This is a typical story in many respects of things that go on in this world, at least the first part of the story is very typical. Injustice has become the norm in this world and true justice has almost become extinct. I myself am struggling right now to have a proper attitude about a very corrupt judge that is playing the system to unjustly keep a dear loved one of mine in an extremely abusive prison month after month without any trial or conviction. It is taking a heavy toll on the one receiving this abuse along with all who are close to him. And the greatest temptation for all of us is to give in to anger, bitterness, evil thoughts and desires for vengeance against the corrupt officials who so selfishly are abusing their positions of power and using people's lives like pawns to be played on with impunity.

But this is just the normal attitudes of the heart of flesh. And tragically the temptations that are assaulting each of us who are aware of this terrible situation of injustice is the intense attraction to become just as hateful, selfish and abusive as the corrupt people we are tempted to hate. My natural reactions of the flesh is to wish that I was in a position of power over them so that I could inflict at least as much pain and abuse on those judges, officers and wardens as what they are doing to my friend. But when I face those internal impulses honestly and confess them to God I have to admit that morally I am just as bankrupt as those that I desire to get revenge against.

So I am brought face to face repeatedly each time this situation stirs up my emotions, with my own very real need to receive and embrace the spirit that comes from Jesus, the spirit of complete and comprehensive forgiveness. Now I am not talking about the mistaken notions of forgiveness that most people have in their minds and that I grew up with and had until recently myself. I am talking about the true attitude of forgiveness that I have only learned about recently in the past few years that has challenged me to move far beyond my old habits and attitudes as a typical kind of generic Christian.

But it is precisely at this point that I am now becoming aware of one of the most important factors about this issue of resistance. For what I am now realizing is the true nature of those feelings that surge up in my mind when even the suggestion of forgiveness is presented under such obvious conditions of injustice as I am facing now and that millions face every day. Those feelings inside cause resentment at even the suggestion of relinquishing my rights or my independence and freedoms and are full of this very attitude of resistance.

The core ingredient that motivates most if not all of the sinful desires that surge around within me are driven by my resistance to the ways and will of God. When I face the convictions of the Word of God and the promptings of the Spirit to accept His grace and extend that same kind of grace to others, it is my resistance that causes me to even hesitate and struggle with turning in that direction. It is resistance that attempts to prevent me from accepting the invitation of Jesus to come to Him to receive rest and peace. It is resistance that causes me to rebel when someone tries to point out my faults. It is resistance that fuels my intense and fierce emotions and reactions whenever someone uses fear and intimidation to force me into compliance with their rules or their immediate control over my life. Nearly everywhere I look I am becoming aware that there is an element of resistance present to some degree or another.

Even as I write these things I am feeling that sense of mixed emotions that arouses intense questions and even confusion of identity in my own heart. I feel an urge to defend myself and to justify these desires. Part of me screams out for fairness and justice and to be treated right but at the same time another part of me warns that to demand my rights and crave revenge against those who treat me abusively plays into the deceptions of the flesh and actually moves me into becoming more and more like those whom I despise. And right at the center of that whole struggle is my inner core of intense resistance that appears to be working for my good while actually acting as a traitor to my own soul.

Resistance is possibly the main element within me that the Bible calls my sinful flesh. It is resistance to believing that God's ways are superior to my ways and is the only way that I can continue to enjoy real life. It is resistance that inverts sinful humanities perceptions of reality and causes us to believe the opposite of what God declares is real and for our best good. It is the spirit of resistance that was the original infection that poisoned the mind and heart of Lucifer and that he intentionally spread throughout the universe that started this whole messy situation of sin. And most importantly of all, it is resistance that will tragically produce the very fire that will ultimately bring the final end to sin forever.

So to bring it back to me personally and to get things into proper perspective, my resistance to forgiving those who mistreat me, abuse me, commit any amount of injustices against me or others whom I love is infusing me with lethal explosive ingredients that may detonate at any time whenever intense passion becomes present. It does not even have to be the final day of judgment when sin is forever exposed in the great explosive meltdown when it encounters the passion of God's perfect love. My resistance can produce the same kind of lethal effects internally on a smaller scale whenever it is expose to passion from other sources such as abusive authorities or religious fanatics or from any number of directions.

As I consider this it seems to be emerging that the lethal mixture here is something like nitro and glycerin getting together. It is also analogous to epoxy ingredients that create intense hardness after being combined. When resistance and passion are mingled in the same heart then the results are going to be a hardening of the heart and destructive heat that will destroy the soul.

Wow! I have never looked at it this way before, especially in relation to forgiveness. Of course, just because I now see this a little better does not mean that my flesh will cease to crave revenge or give up its practice of constant resistance. My sinful nature is unfixable and unchangeable. No amount of knowledge or truth will ever change the opinions and desires of my flesh. The only solution for dealing with this internal source of sin in my life is to continue to crucify it, to die daily as Paul talked about, to be crucified with Christ so that His life and Spirit can produce His fruit in my life by His resurrection power.

At this point all I can do is confess my sinful resistance that permeates nearly every part of my mind. I am frightened at how pervasive this dangerous influence is within my psyche, but I am starting to see the connections it has to what has happened to me many times in the past. I wish I could say I will just stop resisting and let God have His way in me from now on. And I can choose that direction consciously but I am all too aware that the fight is going to be much deeper than just a one-time conscious decision. If God does not keep daily working His miracle of transformation and grace in my heart there is no hope for me of becoming free of this fatal element.

God, deliver me from all my fears. And even more importantly, cleanse me of this terrible but most familiar attitude of resistance. Teach me and mentor me in Your ways and wash my inner parts with Your healing grace and Your lubricating oil of the Holy Spirit. Fill me with Your oil today so that all resistance is eliminated and I can grow more quickly into the fullness of Your kind of maturity.

Show Mercy to All

For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, so these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy. For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all. (Romans 11:30-32)

I realize that I jump around sometimes and end up going back to previous passages without any rhyme or reason apparently. But that is partly a result of my desire to keep in mind the context of whatever I am looking at and many times while reviewing the previous context I see more things there that I want to explore and capture. And since I am not bound by any artificial constraints forcing me to keep moving forward on a predetermined schedule I enjoy the freedom to simply allow the Word and the Spirit to say whatever they wish to me at any given moment or on any occasion.

My real purpose in studying and writing what I am seeing and feeling is not to create arguments or convince others of my opinions but to simply document and capture for future reference what I am learning each time. The real purpose is not so much for gathering good information as it is to connect my mind and heart together with the mind and heart of God on an ongoing basis. I am nurturing a vital relationship that brings me life and hope and strength. These studies are mostly about my deepening desire to know God much better, to unmask the lies about Him that I am surrounded by and still find inside of me and have them replaced with the liberating truth of the increasing knowledge about the goodness and true greatness of God. That, I believe, is the definition of His glory.

OK, I got off on a soapbox for a bit. Back to what I want to find in this text. I see something in this repeated phrase about being shown mercy. What I have usually assumed when I read this was that the emphasis was on the people who needed mercy because of their badness. But what I am starting to notice is that the emphasis can just as easily and more importantly be put on the existence of God's unfailing mercy and the revelation of that mercy to anyone willing to acknowledge it.

Paul is bringing both groups he is addressing here closer and closer to each other by showing that the real need of both groups is to perceive and receive (experience the transforming effects of) the mercy of God. While they may have different reasons for needing that mercy they both need to see it much more clearly. Ironically, the religious class of people find themselves inflamed in disobedience because of the mercy that God is revealing to the irreligious class. His mercy and compassion for open sinners and His embracing acceptance of them in spite of their reputation with those who profess to be God's chosen people stirs up jealousy and bitterness in the hearts of religious addicts. But in doing this they end up finding themselves immersed in a state of disobedience just as much as those they look down on.

This is an interesting way that God works according to Paul. What I see here is that a prerequisite for seeing and receiving the mercy of God is to realize and acknowledge our own condition of disobedience and need for that mercy. As was explained in the first few chapters of this book it is much easier to see disobedience in other peoples lives than in our own. Therefore God often has to allow us to experience more of the natural progression of sin in our lives and its painful effects before we are willing to see that we are just as messed up and helpless as everyone else caught in this planet of sinners.

It does not really matter what flavor of disobedience we have or have nurtured throughout our life. We may have a history of open abandonment to living recklessly and playing loose with our life attempting to prop up our hearts with as much pleasure and selfish exploitation as we can pull off. Or we may be the socially proper sinner who looks good to all around us and keeps our pain and problems under wraps in a hardened heart. We may even be “good” and proper church-going folk who have a great profession of morality and work very hard to manage appearances and perform every requirement that we can possible accomplish. We may be very successful image managers to the point that we have even fooled our own minds into thinking that God must be pleased with our accomplishments.

But Paul says that God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all. Is the primary emphasis here on the fact that all need mercy? That is certainly a real fact and without that mercy none of us would have any hope. But I also believe that even more importantly we need to see God as the ultimate Source of all mercy, One who is the embodiment and personification of mercy itself, not just a Being who chooses to show mercy given the right conditions to select individuals or groups.

The irony that I see in this passage is that it seems that the mercy seen by each opposite class of people is due to the disobedience of the other group. Although Paul is here talking to Gentiles he is speaking about both groups and their relationship to God. You – the Gentile believers who have responded to God's revelation of Himself to you – once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience. In this case the opportunity to see mercy is because of the disobedience of the other group, the unbelieving Jews. Because of the rejection of God's plan for the nation of Israel and their successful demand for a divorce from their supernatural Husband, God, the Gentiles now are given a surprising opportunity to enter into the place vacated by the unbelieving Jews.

In the second case referring to the opportunity of the Jews in this new arrangement, Paul shows the cause of their opportunity to see mercy is because of the mercy shown to the Gentiles. It seems to me that in both cases it is the condition and choices of the other party that causes each to finally catch a glimpse of the mercy of God.

It also becomes clear at this point in the book that even though from our viewpoint the two classes look radically different, that one class looks like they are far from God and the other class appears to be very into righteousness and all that kind of religious stuff, that from God's viewpoint all are shut up in disobedience. And what is the only realistic option for hope by either group of disobedient sinners – to see more clearly the mercy that is being shown them by a revelation of the One who is mercy. It becomes very clear here that God shows mercy to all.

But because God is mercy and shows mercy to all, does that mean that all will see mercy and be drawn into a healing relationship because of that revelation? God deeply desires that that would be true, but sadly very many refuse to believe in the mercy of God. The lies of Satan are very strong to distort the truth about God's mercy and most people insist on believing that God is a mixed bag of both good and evil. They insist on believing that mercy and justice are somehow the light and dark side of God, that they are in opposition to each other in the mind of God and that there is a brooding, angry, vengeful side of God that will someday break out in angry fits of wrath to impose forced punishment on all those who reject His mercy. This is one of the worst lies that keeps sin so tenacious in our hearts and poisons almost all religious beliefs throughout history.

In these final days of the history of the world as we know it, the revelation of God as the embodiment of mercy and love will flood the whole earth. Will the whole earth accept and believe it? Absolutely not! But that does not mean that it will not be made plain. What it does mean is that whenever a person is confronted with the real truth about the nature of God in His purity of motive and the unconditional aspect of His love and mercy, that the choices we make about what we believe about Him will determine the direction we will go and the final destiny we will experience.

If we insist on clinging to our Jekyll and Hyde opinion about God we will perceive everything that transpires before us through that filter and will suffer consequences as real as if what we believed were actually true. When faced with a passionate love that is so intense as to be lethal when not in harmony with it, we will suffer the lethal nature of it precisely because we are unwilling to be in harmony with it, not because there is any motive on the part of God to harm us. On the other hand, if we lay aside our false notions about God and allow Him to transform us through the renewing of our mind and our perceptions about Him, He will reshape our thinking, our feeling, our perceptions so radically that when faced with the unveiling of the real glory of the Father we will burst into the glory of praise and adoration and our beings will light up to resemble blazing suns in the presence of pure love.

Even more importantly, as we assimilate the truth about God's nature we even now become more and more transformed into what we are seeing in Him. As we behold and believe and embrace the mercy of God, both for ourselves and for others, we will discover to our amazement that we ourselves will begin to think and act and feel more merciful. By beholding we become changed.

For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all. Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! (Romans 11:32-33)

(next in series)

The Two Great W's

As I was reading about the Second Coming of Jesus this morning, something grabbed my attention and I realized that one of the stark contrasts between the saved and the lost not only revolves around their perception of Jesus and the character of God, but that those opposing perceptions both start with W. This is spelled out clearly in the book of Revelation as well as all throughout the Bible.

The main result of sanctification, the transformational work in the heart that takes place in the people who accept the gift of salvation (restoration to their original function and design) is that they come to realize with all their heart, soul, spirit and mind the immense, immeasurable WORTH of the character and beauty of God as revealed through His Son Jesus our Savior. Repeatedly throughout Revelation we find song after song of praise by the people of God and the inhabitants of heaven praising the worth of the Lamb of God.

In complete contrast to this overwhelming sense of worth and adoration that has taken full possession of the minds and hearts of those who are saved is the reaction of those who have clung to the lies about God perpetrated by His enemies. It is seen most clearly in its absurdity, but with all the terrifying resultant effects on their psyche when they see the very same Lamb of God that is adored by angels and those who love Him appearing in person to embrace all who are willing to accept Him as their Lord and Savior. And they said to the mountains and to the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the WRATH of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?" (Revelation 6:16-17)

This, I believe, is the single most important indicator that can be used to discover which side we will be found on in that day. Albeit all of us are coming from a position of fear with so many lies embedded in our hearts about how God feels about us, but each one of us has a choice as to whether we will continue to harbor these lies or whether we will allow God to replace them with the glorious, genuine truth about Him, the reality that God is not someone to be afraid of but someone who wants very much to be our most intimate friend, companion and protector. He desires everyone to enter into a covenant relationship with Him so that He can transform them by the renewing of their mind as they choose to cooperate with Him.

So how do we know if we have the genuine truth? Do we check our church manual and see if all our doctrines can be proved from the Bible? Do we look to see if our church service is exciting and makes us feel close to God with all kinds of wonderful warm feelings? Do we rely on religious authorities or experts to figure out for us and relay to us what to believe about God? Are we willing to bank on these resources to be our surety and guarantee that we will live with God and the angels for all eternity?

I do believe that God has revealed His truth to humanity by means of His Word, the Holy Bible. And even though it has a lot of cloudiness and potential for confusion, it is a reliable resource for us to discover the real truth about God and how He really feels about us if we are willing to maintain an open mind and heart and are careful to ask God directly to guide our minds as we expose ourself to its pages. Much error is supported by stringing many texts together, but God is faithful to guide us into all truth if we will employ the gift He has promised all of us of the Holy Spirit who is fully committed to drawing us not just into all intellectual truth but more importantly into a heart relationship of experiential truth. It is what we believe at the heart level that ultimately determines our relationship with God much more than our intellectual knowledge, as important as that may be.

And I think the single, most easily identifiable indicator of authentic truth that we have experientially is our feelings about God's passion toward us. When we are confronted with the intensity and purity of God's face and character and His overwhelming passion to love us unconditionally, do we feel fear or do we feel a welling up of appreciation and gratitude? When confronted with the real truth about God's wrath not having the characteristics of our wrath but as a strange and somewhat unfamiliar intense love that is full of fire in its intensity, do we feel a resistance to be swallowed up in its heat? Do we feel a desire to argue with those who believe in God's nature of pure love without any recrimination or intent to destroy? Do we promote a mixture of fear (as in afraid) of God along with a “balancing” amount of love? Do we insist that someday God is going to run out of patience and will lash out against His enemies in anger and personally vent violence upon them in a fit of anger until His wrath is appeased?

If we insist on clinging to these false concepts of God in our hearts and minds, not only will we perceive that kind of God when we see wrath in that face of the real Lamb of God but our lives now will reflect the diabolical results of mixing truth and lies about God. We will exhibit the instability inherent in double-mindedness (James 1:8). The way we treat those who disagree with us, who are different than we are or who refuse to accept our views of God are reflective of how we believe God treats those who resist His will. This has been demonstrated all too often throughout history as can be clearly evidenced by the way religious authorities tortured and burned alive those who disagreed with them for hundreds of years during the Dark Ages.

To the very degree that we believe in the Wrath of God as perceived from a human understanding of wrath, we will fall short of being able to appreciate the Worth of God as demonstrated in the offering of His Son on Calvary. If we believe in a wrathful God, then when we look at Calvary we will be confused and believe that Jesus' death was a prime example of the violence and irrationality of God's wrath, though we will struggle to rationalize it into some form of intellectual sense. We will think that Jesus was somehow killed to appease the anger of an offended Deity and some will further believe that Jesus is still pleading our cases before the Father to placate Him enough to allow us to be saved while we work diligently to eliminate sin from our lives. All of this thinking fills our minds and hearts with the very concepts of God that cause those described in Revelation 6 to see the Lamb as full of wrath. It also precludes our hearts from seeing the real worth of the Lamb, for the real worth of the Lamb is not that of appeasement placating an angry God but is found in the intense passion reverberating from the very heart of God revealed through Jesus to love and redeem every sinner who is willing to believe in His mercy and the truth about His love.

As I look into my own heart I see a mixture of perceptions about God sort of like oil and water swirling around in my heart, a confusing mix of wrath and worth. As every human, I start out with a great deal of fear about God and misconceptions about His wrath that causes those misconceptions to be reflected in the attitudes of my own heart. Growing up with a great deal of anger that is not yet completely resolved, I cannot help but have a gnawing uneasiness about meeting the Son of God face to face in His glory. Fortunately Jesus has delayed His coming so that I can have time to be transformed from a slave of wrath to a son who has learned with my heart to value the real worth of His passion for me. It is a long, slow and frustrating process of transformation, but I am relying on His faithfulness to finish what He has started in me.

I want the power of the Holy Spirit to replace all of the wrath that still resides in me with a sense of the worth that Jesus feels when He looks at me and thinks about me. The more I sense my own worth in the eyes and heart of Jesus the less wrath I feel inside of me. And the more truth about God that I learn, especially the truth about His passion that has been misnamed “wrath”, the more I feel an upwelling of appreciation for His worth. The cesspool water of lies in my heart is slowly being displaced by the healing oil of the Holy Spirit, the oil of joy. The more worth that I see in the beauty of God the more eager I am to embrace the day of His appearing and welcome the Lamb of glory.

So I believe that the real choice that each of us has to make about God is to settle in our hearts and minds whether God is a God of wrath or is he a God of worth. I don't think there is a mixture of the two, despite all the protests of many religionists. There is growing evidence that makes it very clear to me that we have seriously maligned God's reputation for centuries by insisting that His passion is reflective of human wrath with all the implications of vengeance, arbitrary in nature and intimidating by design. God is not interested in service for Him motivated from fear but only from love. God never employs force in His kingdom but only operates in love. When we come to fully understand and appreciate these foundational truths, then we will swell with appreciation and give glory to God for the real worth and the superiority of love over force, of mercy over legalism, of everlasting lovingkindness over evil. As I am filled with appreciation of the real worth of the Lamb, my own life begins to reflect the same characteristics, for by beholding I become changed.

Father, I give you unlimited permission to continue the work you started in me to its full completion. Transform me from a hurting boy full of anger and wrath and fear to a loving son full of value and with a heart brimming over with appreciation of your real worth. Give me the eyes and heart of Jesus to see my own family members and the real worth that you see in them. Fill me with your grace and love and spirit of selfless service. Remove the lies about you that still poison my heart and cause me to be afraid of you and cause others to be afraid of me. Do a thorough heart-transplant in me and fill me with your Spirit so that I will resonate with the feelings of your heart. Open my eyes to see your real worth so that I can sing with full enthusiasm the songs Moses and the Lamb – "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing."

The Lust Counterfeit

Yesterday I was listening to some talks by Craig Hill while I was working and he gave a definition of lust which got me to thinking again about the big picture and how some of the puzzle pieces fit together. It occurred to me that lust is a counterfeit and anywhere there is a counterfeit then there is an exciting original waiting to come into use.

Craig says that lust is not what most people usually think of when they hear the word – a primarily sexual craving for something immoral. To view lust as always associated with sexuality is to restrict its meaning far too much and leave out many things which have a great deal of lust embedded in them. Lust is simply a strong desire, an intensity of emotion.

When he said this I immediately thought of what I have been learning about God's wrath. I have learned that what is termed God's wrath in the Bible is really His intense passionate love that is misconstrued and distorted through our misconceptions of Him so that we believe He is angry and vengeful toward us. The real truth is that it is not God who is angry at us (though He is very angry about what sin is doing to alienate us from Him) but it is the distortions caused by sin that create the illusion of great wrath in our minds when we catch a glimpse of the intensity of His passion for us.

One of the characteristics of God's love is that it is always “other-centered” and completely selfless. It thrives on giving life and love and joy to others and lives to enrich the life of all who will receive it. It has an enormous amount of passion behind it which is so far beyond our ability to imagine that it has to be veiled to protect us from its overwhelming intensity. But even the little that we do see we pervertedly believe is not love but is anger toward us. We have been so thoroughly saturated with the deceptions and lies of Satan about God that we are extremely resistant to believe the real truth about what God is like and how He feels toward us. But that very resistance is our greatest danger.

This is the original quality of God which is counterfeited by the feeling of lust promoted by sin. Lust too, has a great deal of passion and intensity within it just as God's love does. I remembered reading in My Utmost for His Highest a definition of lust that was very helpful to me and when I looked it up this morning I came across a number of different quotes about lust in that book that were very enlightening.

While being the counterfeit of real, passionate love, lust in many ways is opposite of love while being similar on the surface. Where love is passionately focused on selfless giving and blessing others, lust is plotting and scheming how to forcibly get life and pleasure and satisfaction for itself by every means possible. This is where the stark difference between the kingdom of God and the principles of Satan become very clear and obvious.

God designed the universe originally to live in complete trusting dependence on receiving blessings from God directly and through others and then spontaneously, selflessly, passionately giving to enrich others. There is no trace of selfishness in the life of a perfect mind functioning as it was originally designed. All creatures in heaven live to bless others and everything receives to give. It is not a forced relationship but a joyful bond of love and praise and gratitude that makes the heart thrive and swell with increasing love and happiness.

But in the emptiness of our hearts caused by our condition of sin, we mistakenly believe that we have to forcibly get life to fill our emptiness or we will soon suffer even more pain and die. We have been led to think that if we do not look out for ourselves and protect what little we have, then no one is going to look out for us, so we have to do everything possible to fill the aching void within us on our own. This is the basic lie of lust.

Lust means—I must have it at once. Spiritual lust makes me demand an answer from God, instead of seeking God Who gives the answer.

Chambers, Oswald: My Utmost for His Highest February 7.

When I picked up My Utmost and read today's reading I was reminded of what had come to my attention yesterday again. In this reading it was emphasized yet again this problem of the counterfeit of lust. I find it interesting that God brings these things to my attention just before I read them.

The shell of individuality is God’s created natural covering for the protection of the personal life; but individuality must go in order that the personal life may come out and be brought into fellowship with God. Individuality counterfeits personality as lust counterfeits love. God designed human nature for Himself; individuality debases human nature for itself.

The characteristics of individuality are independence and self-assertiveness. It is the continual assertion of individuality that hinders our spiritual life more than anything else. If you say—‘I cannot believe,’ it is because individuality never can believe. Personality cannot help believing.

Chambers, Oswald: My Utmost for His Highest December 11.

Temptation is a suggested short cut to the realization of the highest at which I aim—not towards what I understand as evil, but towards what I understand as good. Temptation is something that completely baffles me for a while, I do not know whether the thing is right or wrong. Temptation yielded to is lust deified, and is a proof that it was timidity that prevented the sin before.

Chambers, Oswald: My Utmost for His Highest September 17.

This reveals the nature of what the Bible refers to as our “flesh”; the part of our mind that offers its help to solve our problems, resolve our pain and bring life into our emptiness. It is always on our side, it claims to be working for our good and has our interest in mind. It seems to be our very identity for it has been with us since before birth. It is the most familiar part of our being and to deny it and choose another Source to meet our needs that is in conflict with our natural desires and ideas seems patently absurd.

It is the most logical thing in the world to look out for ourself, satisfy our own longings and work in any way possible to fill our own heart with anything and everything that looks like it will bring satisfaction and increased life. That is the basic motivation of every person on earth, but ironically it operates at the expense of those around us. It is the essence of lust and it underlies most of the violence and problems that we see in the world around us.

When I stop to analyze the deeper underlying motives behind much of what we do or are tempted to do, I begin to see that the real motives themselves are not nearly as wicked-looking as much of the activity that proceeds from them. We don't like to admit it because we want to believe that somehow people who do horrible, socially unacceptable things are more evil inside than the rest of us. But that is really not true. Every one of us contains the same virus even though most of us do not see its potential. But given the right circumstances and opportunities, if not checked or removed by the power of God the virus will flourish and produce the same fruit in our own lives as what we abhor in the lives of those we despise and condemn. In fact, the more condemnation we feel toward someone else's behavior the more likely we are to do the same, for the resonance that causes us to condemn them so intensely is the hidden lust within us that contains the seed to do the same.

Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. (Romans 2:1 NRSV)

Are we openly doing the very same things? Probably not, at least at this point in time. But remember, reality is much more a condition of the heart than it is the perceptions of the externals going on around us. God sees things as they really are and He does not look on the externals, on how we keep up appearances, but on the state of our heart. And it is the same motive of lust in our heart that causes us to judge the fruit of that lust in someone else's life.

If considered carefully, the real motives behind most, if not all crimes and immorality is a deep craving to get some sort of life or satisfaction for one's self at the expense of someone else. The whole economy of the world revolves around this principle. We adore and “worship” the stars of entertainment because we crave the beauty and “happiness” that they portray to us in a subconscious hope that somehow a little will come into our life as a result. People commit sexual acts largely because they subconsciously are trying to bring into their own being the various aspects of beauty and life that they see in another, but it is at the expense of the other. Even acts of abuse, torture and murder if viewed from the deepest part of the psyche are attempts to forcibly extract life from someone else in a twisted attempt to feel more alive by being in control. The examples are endless.

A very interesting point in this area is the understanding that the main reason that cannibals eat other humans is not from motives of hatred but from a notion that if one partakes of the life-blood and certain organs of a more enlightened person then he could take into himself the desired attributes of that person. This kind of reasoning was much more clear in ancient and more primitive cultures where people would eat the heart of lions to become more brave and other such practices. These are all symptomatic of the same root false belief, that somehow by taking life from others, whether openly and violently or partially and subtly, that we can somehow increase the amount of life we possess ourself. It is the belief of the survival of the fittest, the very definition of Satan's modus operandi.

So it really comes down to a very simple choice that we have to make on a continual basis. We will either live to serve ourself first and follow the emotions and feelings and suggestions for getting life for ourself offered up by our flesh, or we will choose to die to self, to crucify the flesh and the lusts that it thrives on and look to the Spirit to led us as children of God and give us life from God.

We are always looking for life, and there is nothing wrong with that; it is hardwired into our very nature. We need life and blessing and nourishment in every area of our existence. But beyond that the choices we make as to how we are going to receive/get those needs fulfilled makes all the difference in the world.

The plan of salvation is provided to give us a way back to our original design so that we can be rewired to once again function in selfless harmony with the rest of creation. This is the transformation that comes from the renewing of our mind (Romans 12:2). Or we can choose to trust in our own lust to get for us the things we need to survive but which ultimately bring pain and death to others and eventually to ourselves. The two options are mutually exclusive. We either live by the principle of grasping and working to save ourselves or we have to die to self and allow the selfless nature of the Son of God to dwell in our hearts and then live in the power of the resurrection each day.

Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever. (1 John 2:15-17)

Who Prepares Vessels of Wrath?

What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory. (Romans 9:22-23)

I find some more helpful insights in researching the original words for these verses. They enforce what can be seen even in some of the English translations when viewed with correct paradigms.

Look at these words with the backdrop of a God who is intensely passionate in His love, almost impatient to be reunited with all of His children and yet restrains Himself to protect us from that very intensity because of the danger it poses for us until we are in harmony enough with Him to live in His fiery presence.

It starts out by saying that He is willing for His wrath to be demonstrated or revealed. In chapter 1 almost the very same thing has been talked about. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. (Romans 1:18-20)

This wrath referred to must not be confused with human-type wrath that is mingled with evil feelings and desires to harm others. God's wrath when properly translated and understood is His intense passion. And while we generally only experience intense passion when we get hatefully angry or are full of lust, God's passion is perfectly pure and untainted with any evil whatsoever. But God's presence itself is a consuming fire and is very dangerous for anyone who is not in perfect synchronization with His heart of selfless love and service for others. It is not an arbitrary rule but is simply a description of reality.

Even in the laws of physics there are many examples of the need for harmony to avoid destruction. Certain sounds can destroy a crystal glass because the glass cannot be flexible enough to resonate in sympathy with the intensity of the note. This is just a tiny example of what is referred to in Romans 1 as a revelation of God's invisible attributes through what He has made.

But while it is true that God has been protecting us from Himself and His overwhelming intensity of passion, the text in Romans 9:22 quoted at the beginning reveals that God will not always protect us from that passion. Those who choose to suppress the truth about God literally prepare themselves for destruction by choosing to make themselves vessels of wrath by clinging to lies about God instead of embracing the truth He wants to reveal to their hearts. So this verse says that God is willing that the results of those choices bear out the natural consequences of the dissonance, pain and ultimate destruction that is inevitable.

But there is more. While people are choosing to suppress the truth about God and are making themselves vessels of wrath, even during that time God is still sustaining them and protecting them from the full effects of their wrong choices in hopes that they will yet turn to Him and accept His love and grace for them before it is forever too late, before their hearts are beyond repair. The word translated “endure” is usually translated elsewhere in the New Testament as when someone carries something or someone who cannot move on their own power. It is used to describe situations when people were carried to Jesus to be healed or when objects were carried around with someone.

What this tells me is that even while I am making sinful choices that increase my disabilities to live and move, God continues to carry me, sustain me and hold me up while offering me chance after chance to respond to His love and receive the truth about Him into my heart in hopes that I will turn to Him.

What I see this verse saying is that He endures – holds up, sustains – with much patience those who are preparing themselves, by their choices to suppress the truth about God, as vessels of wrath for destruction.

And why is He doing that? Think about it. The very next verse says that He does this so that the riches of His glory can be made known upon the vessels of mercy. But wait – who are these vessels of mercy? Are they people that God arbitrarily picked ahead of time to receive His favor while rejecting all the others? NO! They themselves are former “vessels of wrath” who have responded to God's invitation to return to Him and be healed by Him. They have seen His mercy and have acted on the revelation of the kindness of God by repenting and coming to Him for healing and grace. For we are all vessels of wrath at one time or another, totally unfit to survive in the presence of the Almighty. And until we embrace His mercy and allow His transforming power to ravish our hearts with His love and allow Him to make us fit to come closer to Him, we will all be in mortal danger from the passion of God.

It is now becoming more clear to me in this chapter who is choosing what. While God is not arbitrarily determining who will be safe and joyful in His presence and who will suffer torment and fear, He also is not going to forever hide behind the protective shield He has put around Himself to protect sinners from the lethal effects of His fiery passionate love and the truth about Himself. Love desires intimacy. But intimacy at that intensity can only be survived and enjoyed when everyone involved is in perfect synchronization and sympathy with the principles of reality that God has set up in the whole universe. It is each one of us that makes the determination by our choices whether we will remain vessels of wrath – dangerously out of sync with God's passion – or we will accept the gift of salvation through the gospel as revealed in Jesus our Saviour and Redeemer.

But the heart of God continues to burn with intense desire that every one of us become vessels of mercy by believing in His mercy, compassion and the truth about His character. For He wants nothing other than to lavish us with the riches of His glory.

Wow! I never thought I would find all of this when I first started reading this chapter. But then again, I knew that where I find the most troubling ideas on the surface in the Bible that there is usually some of the most exciting discoveries waiting beneath the surface for those who are willing to dig. I am in awe at all these revelations that He has shared with me in my pursuit of knowing Him better in this chapter. And I look forward to much more as I continue my way through the book of Romans.

Please feel free to share your thoughts and impressions with me, even if you don't agree or even if you have no idea who I am or you just happen to come across this web page at random. I enjoy connecting with others in my study of the Word and I pray that God will use my simple bits of sharing of what I am learning to enlighten others and motivate them to dig a little deeper themselves. Feel free to share with me on my journey.

(next in series)

Who Makes Vessels of Wrath?

I am finding still more interesting clues about God's attitude toward the wicked and the righteous in Romans chapter 9. I find that when I read it and it still disturbs me that the very tension of being disturbed about what I am reading is the incentive to ask questions. And asking questions creates the very environment more conducive to learning and changing my thinking at a deeper level. Feeling disturbed actually engages the emotional side of the brain which is very important to changing deep-seated assumptions and beliefs at a more important level. It creates a more effective opportunity to make changes in my thinking that are more fundamental and longer-lasting if I take advantage of that opportunity by pursuing light and truth to resolve these tensions.

What comes to my attention this morning is verse 18 and verses 22 and 23. These verses seem to be saying very much the same thing in many ways and is part of the tension that underlies centuries of arguments and debates. I believe truth is consistent and I don't buy the idea that problems or issues that have been debated by theologians over the ages cannot be solved by simple lay persons. This is not a statement made in a spirit of arrogance. The Bible teaches that the Spirit of God knows exactly the mind of God and is available to anyone who is humble and willing to be taught the things of God if they will take the time and energy to search and pray for answers and insight. I do not believe in always looking to theologians for the final word on answers about God. That is the world's way of thinking – that only the “experts” have enough credibility to be believed and counted on to come up with definitive solutions to difficult problems. That kind of thinking has produced the fractures and divisions and confusion that we see in religion of all kinds today. Depending on so-called experts or human-appointed “authorities” is not the way to arrive at unifying truth.

The only way that God's people will ever come into unity, both of heart and of thinking, is by listening to and being led by the one Spirit who has been sent to teach us all things and empower every individual to take their proper place in the mysterious body of Christ. We cannot formulate the body of Christ by our own machinations or denominations. The body of Christ will only be connected together when each person who has submitted to be led by the Spirit of God listens to and obeys that Spirit. And the Bible, the word of God, has been given to test the spirits so that we do not need to be deceived by an imitation of the true Spirit. For all imitations of the true Spirit are lying spirits calculated to create division and drive a wedge between our hearts and the passionate heart of God.

So, I got a little off on a tangent there. But sometimes I need to remind myself of what is important and the environment in which I need to stay to unravel some of the difficult things I am looking at.

I decided to again go back and check the original language to look for clues in these verses and I did find some. Even in the current translation there are some good clues if I read it with the right preconceptions about God in place. For instance, I notice that in verse 18 that the common denominator of God's relating to the two classes of people is His desire.

So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. (Romans 9:18)

Some questions come to mind at this point that have to do with assumptions that need to be exposed and challenged. Is God's mercy toward those in the first group in reaction to their predetermined classification or is God's mercy an expression of who He is and what He is consistently like irregardless of who we are or the choices we make? Likewise, is the hardening effect of God on the second class His real desire for them because of their predetermined lot in life or is it simply a description of the effect that is seen in their life – like fire hardening a piece of clay?

And notice that the last part of each of these descriptions says the same thing – He desires. Is it really safe to leap to the assumption that His desire for one group is the opposite of His desire for the second group. To answer yes to that question is to betray deep, fundamental suspicions in our heart about God that resonate very much with the ideas entrenched in us that come from the father of lies and the archenemy of God. That should not surprise us since we are all infected with these lies due to our condition of being part of the fallen human race. But these false assumptions about God should not be allowed to go unchallenged and unexamined when trying to interpret the word of God.

I believe that Scripture teaches that God's desire is that everyone would be saved in heaven and live with Him in His love eternally. And that even includes Pharaoh himself! I believe it is inconsistent with the rest of Scripture to assume from this passage that God intends for some to be lost and others to be saved. That is to charge God with being arbitrary and overriding people's freedom to make a free choice of their own. This needs to become settled in the mind before one can go any further in understanding what Paul is really trying to convey in these verses.

So if God's desire is for everyone to be redeemed, to come to repentance and to be transformed back into His image, and if He fiercely protects the right of every intelligent being to have a free choice in determining their own destiny, then what is with the mercy and the hardness? I believe that it becomes evident that the mercy or hardness is simply a description of what is experienced by each person based on their own decisions of how they are going to respond to God's desire for them and the picture of God that they cling to.

Some might insist that verse 16 is saying the very opposite of this. But again, it all depends on our pre-assumptions about God as to what we will see in these verses. I also think we need to keep in mind that the translators of the Bible also wove in a certain amount of their own preconceptions about God in the words they chose to express what they believed Paul was trying to say. It is impossible to translate anything from one language to another without introducing at least a little bit of the translator's bias and that becomes one of the factors that needs to be remembered in unraveling some of the confusion that we see here. As I mentioned in a previous post about verse 16, it can be seen to really be saying that God's mercy is not dependent on anything we do or choose but is simply a description of what He is like. I think that this concept can be seen to be consistent throughout this whole passage if it is considered carefully.

Now I would like to mention one more thing I uncovered in looking at verses 22 and 23.

What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory. (Romans 9:22-23)

There is a lot that can be said about these verses. As far as the issue of wrath goes (which is where much of the confusion about this passage comes from in the first place) I would say that I have already covered this several times, particularly in my study of Romans 1 where it first shows up. That understanding of what is really meant by God's wrath is crucial to properly understanding the other places where it shows up throughout the Bible.

But what I did look for in these verses was the meaning behind the words “prepared” used in both verses and for both classes of people. When I went back and looked up the Greek that was used to arrive at these words I noticed something very significant. The original Greek words used for the same English word “prepared” in both of these verses is not the same. While they may be very similar they have notable differences. The original word used in verse 22 simply conveys the idea of “maturing” or completion. It does not necessarily carry the notion of being predetermined ahead of time like the word used for the second verse does. The “ahead of time” idea in verse 23 does come through even in the English as the word “beforehand” and I believe is quite significant.

Since God already knows from eternity what our choices and destiny is going to be, He can make His plans ahead of time to take that into account, yet still without imposing any sort of coercion on us to make those choices. I discussed this a bit in some of my recent posts on this passage. Really this whole passage is made more difficult because of our general inability to be able to comprehend how God can know our destiny ahead of time without unfairly using that information either against us or to our unfair advantage. That is due to the fact that it is extremely difficult to imagine a God who is free of our penchant to take advantages for ourselves in any way possible. We have such strong bias's due to our natural selfishness that it is nearly impossible for us to imagine what a totally unselfish God – or person for that matter – would think like.

But God does not think like we do and He does not use His power or advantages to manipulate circumstances in any way that could ever be considered to be unfair to anyone. That truth will ultimately be fully revealed at the final day of judgment, but until then we need to believe it by faith, trusting in a God who has our best interest in His heart all the time.

The reason that I think this difference is significant between the two verses is that it shows that God really does not predetermine anyone to become a “vessel of wrath”. No one is forced to become a vessel of wrath and become a lost sinner. Even the choice of the potter to make vessels for different uses in verse 21 does not state that some are designed to be vessels of wrath, it only states that some are designed for honorable use and others for common use. And in the Kingdom of Heaven everything is upside down to start with from what we are used to thinking. Jesus declared that those who wish to be the greatest in the Kingdom of God must learn to serve the most unselfishly and be most humble. So just because God may have formed a vessel for common use does not mean that He intended it to become a vessel of wrath. That comes about as a direct result of the choice made by the person themselves and becomes evident in the fruit of their responses to God's appeals to them.

What is seen throughout this passage and in other places is that the only real predestination that goes on in God's mind is His desire for everyone to be saved and to be restored into intimate relationship with Him. He knows that will not happen for everyone and He knows who will make what choices, but that knowledge in know way whatsoever changes His intense desire to capture our hearts anyway. God is love and cannot be anything in conflict with that love. God does not have a good and bad side to His personality. God is totally righteous and in Him there is no darkness at all.

The repeated emphasis that Paul keeps making throughout this passage is a focus on the true desire of God in contrast to the results that occur in the lives of those who resist His good desire for them. We are completely free to choose to accept His mercy and compassion and we are also completely free to resist Him and turn ourselves into vessels of wrath. God's foreknowledge in no way affects our freedom to make this choice, but His desire is always that we will choose His love.

However, if we do choose to cling to the lies about Him and believe that He is unfair, manipulative and coercive, we will end up experiencing the “wrath” that we imagine Him to have against us – not because it is true about Him but because the image that we cling to in our mind about what God is like produces the results of that image in our psyche. One of the important concepts found in a true understanding of His wrath is that He will reluctantly release us to the results of our own decisions. That is what explains the stark difference in reactions between those who love God and believe the truth about Him and those who are afraid of God and cling to their lies about Him as demonstrated at the Second Coming of Jesus. Notice which class cry out for the rocks and the mountains to fall on them and to hide them from His glory when He returns. And particularly notice the absurd description of Him that they exclaim in terror. They are terrified of the “wrath of the lamb”. Whoever in all of history was in grave danger from a wrathful lamb? How much worse can their mental illness become?

I do not want to make the choices or continue to harbor the beliefs inside of me that will cause me to have this kind of absurd paranoia. I want to be cleaned out of these lies and be filled with the beauty of God and experience the loveliness of His character and presence. I choose to trust in His continuing work inside of me to fit me as a vessel of mercy though which to make known the riches of His glory. Even so, do it Lord Jesus.

(next in series)

Diabolical Manipulator or Merciful God?

So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who shows mercy. (Romans 9:16 NRSV)

As we get into the troubling story of Pharaoh and the extended arguments as to who hardened his heart during the plagues of Egypt, it needs to be remembered that it was God's attributes of mercy and compassion that are highlighted in this story, not His supposed forcing of Pharaoh to resist God's wrath. Again this story drives home the point that it is not human actions or events that determine God's plans or influence how He acts toward us but it is the character of God Himself coupled with His foreknowledge that determines His actions and attitudes towards us.

I believe that if we looked at this story about Pharaoh through the eyes of heaven instead of our twisted misconceptions about God that we could see a very different picture with very different conclusions about God. God loved Pharaoh just as much as he loved Moses. That has to be the starting point and the reference point from which to read the rest of the story or everything begins to fall apart very quickly. However it is very clear that Pharaoh was one of those people who were determined to have nothing but a hateful relationship with God. God actually offered Pharaoh repeatedly chance after change to be a vessel of mercy and glorify God's name in the earth by responding in repentance and assisting God's chosen people instead of resisting them.

The hardening of Pharaoh was not a description of his choice to resist God but was a result of that choice. We too often confuse the two things. In God's government of absolute freedom of choice for every being, Pharaoh made the choices to stay in his pride and rebellion against all odds, resisting the kindness of God that could have led him to repentance instead of surrendering to overwhelming evidence of God's mercy and compassion. In fact, this story should really be a strong warning to us of the dangers of our own hearts becoming hardened when we refuse to believe in God's mercy and compassion and instead try to paint a picture of Him as a mix of both good and evil. If you may remember, that was part of the original lie that the serpent told to Eve from the tree."For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:5)

So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?" On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? (Romans 9:18-21)

If a fire hardens a distorted lump of clay is it fair to tell the fire that it should not have that effect on clay?

Likewise, is it fair to demand that the One who knows everything should not see problems inside the people who are suffering from their resistance to His love for them?

Is it fair to think that God should not use His foreknowledge of a person's decisions in His planning for the lives of those people and those around them? We would say that a person was negligent and derelict if they ignore their knowledge of important facts in making life and death decisions, and yet we think God should not do the same?

Just because God decides to allow a person's resistant choices to wreak havoc on their life or their nation does not make God to blame for those choices that they make. If He decides to arrange circumstances so that those very choices of resistance end up in highlighting His own mercy, does that give us grounds for accusing Him of inducing the behavior of the impenitent?

If we honestly believe that God is the cause behind someone's bad choices, or forces a person to resist His goodness; if we believe that God preordains some, irregardless of their own will, to be used as instruments and containers through which to demonstrate His hostility, spite and meanness, then it would follow that maybe we should wake up one day and pray, “God, make me an instrument of your wrath today. Harden my heart against your love and cause me to be resistant and stubborn today to glorify your name.”

As absurd as that sounds, would it not be in harmony with the “will of God”? To be consistent in our beliefs we would have to say that if it is God's predetermined intention to use certain people through which to demonstrate His negative, dark side, and that somehow this returns glory back to God's reputation, then it would also seem right to pray for this part of His will to be done as well. And since it would be wrong for us to judge that someone else should be the object of His “wrath”, then maybe when we feel hopeless and all so full of evil inside we should offer up ourselves as objects of His fury so that we can do Him a favor by demonstrating the alleged dark side of His character through our messed up lives.

We do not need God's help to live out a life of sin and rebellion. Of course, all of this nonsense is absolutely absurd and even worse than it sounds and I hope nobody is seriously considering doing it. But it is the kind of thinking that follows from settling for a simplistic surface understanding of this passage according to the way it is often believed to read. I believe it is useful sometimes to follow an idea to its logical next step to see what direction it may be leading us so we can see if we are working with reasonable assumptions or if our beliefs need some serious re-thinking and divine modification. But sometimes this kind of reasoning is useful to enhance the brightness of the real truth about God by contrast when we begin to see it in its true beauty and perfect consistency.

What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, "I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION." So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. (Romans 9:14-16)

We may secretly think that the injustice of God is in forcing certain people to be the fall guy for Him. According to what we might conclude from this passage we may think that God simply overwhelms the resistance of anyone whom He has arbitrarily chosen to be the “bad guy”, to be a vessel of His wrath.

But in fact, God turns it around and shows us that the real injustice we are accusing Him of is being too merciful and compassionate. For ever since sin entered the universe this has been one of the lies of Satan that he plays off against his other lies about God to keep us in confusion. Either we believe that God is harsh and judgmental and arbitrary or we might believe He is too lenient and soft on those that in our opinion deserve to be punished severely. Of course, it is usually ourselves that we think are being treated too harshly and others that are treated too softly.

But look at what these verses are really saying. What is the “it” that is referred to in verse 16? What is not dependent on human will or exertion? The “it” refers to the active mercy and compassion of God toward sinful human beings. What this text is actually saying is that God's mercy and compassion is not dependent on anything we do or choices we make but on the purpose and desires of God toward those He has created. God's mercy is not predicated on human will or exertion but on God who has mercy. I see God here insisting that He will be merciful and compassionate whether we like it or not, because that is a part of who He is.

I find this rather fascinating. Here is Paul defending God for choosing to show compassion and mercy. I don't see God here trying to defend Himself against charges of punishing someone or abusing them but only about things in His true character. Even in the following verses it could be legitimately said that the hardness that takes place is not because God forced it on someone but was a result of resistance to His very presence. It is the same issue that we see in the pervasive misunderstandings about the fire of God and what happens in hell. (For insights on that visit Surprise Ending and Heavenly Sanctuary)

It is also interesting that the analogy of a potter and clay is used in this passage. Adam was made from the clay of the earth, but what happened when God breathed into him (kissed him really)? Did he suddenly become very hard – a porcelain doll? No, he became a living soul with a soft body of flesh and a heart wide open to love and be loved. God's presence and life, the very essence of who He is, was breathed into the clay body of Adam and Adam took on those characteristics so much that he was very similar to God. What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than God, And You crown him with glory and majesty! (Psalms 8:4-5) He was created in the image of God, in His likeness. (By the way, the concept of Adam at that point was both male and female. Eve was, in a way, still inside of him and just needed to be drawn out and given a separate identity. But the Bible says “man” was male and female. See Gen. 1:26,27.

But sin soon entered into this creation made in the image of God and caused an alienation of resistance due to a breakdown of trust between the Creator and His beloved creation. Adam and Eve's choice to believe “The Lie” about God put them out of synchronization with their Source of power and introduced the deadly element of resistance into the relationship. What does a resistor produce when power passes through it? Ask any electronics person and they will tell you – it produces heat. And what happens when heat is applied to clay instead of the life-giving breath of God? You have a hardening of the heart.

So we see then that there are two very different reactions to the same presence of God. When one is in harmony with the way things are created and synchronized with their Creator they are energized and come alive the more they experience His power and presence. But when they choose to believe lies about God and try to live outside of the harmony and principles that they were designed to live within, they experience dysfunction, pain and all sorts of symptoms that eventually lead to death if no intervention is received. Nothing has changed really since Adam and Eve chose to embrace mistrust in their loving Father; we still distrust Him due to the same lies about Him that they embraced and God is still intervening with His grace and mercy to allow us time to be reconciled to Him.

You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?" (Romans 9:19)

There is yet another ironic turning of a question on its head. We may think at first reading that this verse means God is looking for an excuse to punish someone after He Himself caused them to be vessels of His wrath. That seems grossly unfair to us and it rightly should – if it was true! But once again the question can be found to be saying something quite different than at first thought, actually incriminating us instead of God.

If the question is looked at from a different angle it can be seen as a complaint that God is not qualified to be our Judge. “Why does God have the right to see any faults in us? It's not fair for Him to say that we are at fault when we resist His love, mercy and compassion towards us when it actually works out to be for His glory.”

In essence, it can be seen that we are demanding the right to resist God and all the principles of reality and even the very design for which we are created but still not suffer any of the natural consequences. That makes as much sense as filing a lawsuit because gravity causes us to fall to the ground when we step off a cliff and receive serious injuries or death as a result.

For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I RAISED YOU UP, TO DEMONSTRATE MY POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MIGHT BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE EARTH." (Romans 9:17)

Isn't it just as possible that if Pharaoh had surrendered to God's mercy and compassion that he could have demonstrated God's power and name throughout the whole earth through his cooperation with God and Moses? Was it absolutely necessary that Pharaoh be a resistant “vessel of wrath” for God's power to be seen in him? As Paul would say – God forbid! God does not need evil people through which to display some hidden evil part of His own nature. That thinking comes straight from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil inhabited by the enemy of God. God does not have a dark side as most suppose Him to have. God is all light and God is love. Any darkness that we see about Him is due to our misapprehensions about Him and residual lies that still cloud our thinking and darken our own vision. And where we see darkness we need to ask for more light of truth to dispel that darkness, not simply attribute the darkness to the nature of God.

The end of chapter 9 begins to make these points even more clear. I will explore that more when I get into those verses.

(next in series)

Is God Unjust?

What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! (Romans 9:14)

I am finding my study of Romans 9 to be stimulating, enlightening, challenging and productive. It is helping me to face more of my misconceptions about God and some of the assumptions and inconsistencies I have inherited from mainstream religion that needs to be exposed and challenged.

When I looked at this verse this morning I began to remember some of the problematic reasoning that I have been taught over the years. Typically, if we ran across a passage that seemed to conflict with our preconceived ideas about God, that passage or word was simply forced into the preexisting mold of our established belief. This very often lead to quite a strain in distorted reasoning and the necessity to assign different meanings to many of the words used in religion.

I still believe that it is necessary to view things in the light of preconceived ideas about God. In fact, preconceptions are quite unavoidable in our thinking. The problem arises when we are unwilling to continually challenge our preconceptions in the light of expanding truth revealed to us about God by the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. Real truth is never afraid of close examination. But tradition and subtle errors in our thinking about God's character and our own condition often lead to bending and forcing the Word of God to fit what we think we want to believe. This is often propped up by “proof-texting” where we string together a number of somewhat disparate verses that sound plausible in that particular arrangement to support our own ideas or those we have inherited. This also sometimes necessitates clinging to a certain outdated wording found in only one version of the Bible and so we attack any and all alternatives as a threat to our pet theories. To me this is a sure sign of a bitter and poisonous spirit that closes many hearts against the true Spirit of God.

The kind of preconceived ideas of God that need to be the filter through which we view the rest of Scripture needs to be the life, example and teachings of Jesus who is declared to be the perfect revelation of God to the universe. So if an idea or belief is found to be inconsistent with the life and example of Jesus, it must be the belief that comes under suspicion, not the Son of God. This is the only safe way to read the Bible if I want to grow in grace and in a true knowledge of God.

Romans 9 may be a classic example of this kind of problem. I observe several different ways of approaching this passage to resolve the apparent discrepancies that at first cause our minds and hearts discomfort in these verses.

First, upon reading this we could simply refer immediately back to what we already assume about how God treats us and then try to force everything else to fit that belief, particularly the idea that God is arbitrary in choosing who will be used for His glory and who will be used as objects of His wrath (read human-like anger and vengeful spite). Given that presupposition, when we read the above text that God is not unjust, we simply force our concept of what justice is to include an arbitrary God who is Sovereign and cannot be questioned or understood at all. We just have to live with His predetermination and hope that somehow we turn up in the right group so we can get saved.

There is actually a very large number of Christians that subscribe to this line of thinking. And there are many more who use this kind of logic though they may be uncomfortable with the logical conclusions arrived at by this reasoning. The bottom line for these people is usually the emphatic insistence that we should not think very hard about this or try to understand it with our reasoning for that will only put us at odds with a powerful God who might get upset about our resistance and then use us as examples of His “wrath”.

Then there are those who simply cannot force their minds to accept this picture of God because it is so incompatible with their innate sense of justice. They are unwilling to force the idea of justice to that level of distortion and so they choose some other alternative like rejecting the existence of God altogether. I believe this reaction may be much more pervasive than is seen on the surface. Not only those who openly reject the idea of God may feel this way but many who conform to religious dogma on the surface secretly hold to these feelings as well. They just don't advertise that fact so that they will not become targets for those who want to be the thought police for God's people.

Actually, the souls who find a great deal of uneasiness with the notion of an arbitrary God may be much closer to responding to the real Spirit of God than the more virulently religious. I believe that in very many hearts, the rejection of God is a protest against the lies about God that have been broadcast wholesale by most of religion for centuries. I believe that rejecting these lies about God is not so much an act of rebellion against God but a protest against injustice that was legitimately implanted in their hearts by the very God they think they are protesting against. We would all do well to reject a god like that, for any ideas of an arbitrary god who is fickle and selfish and seems to delight in outbursts of vengeful wrath to vent his emotions is really a description of the enemy of God, not the true God of heaven. So in reality, many are actually rejecting Satan's distortions of God as promoted by most religions, not the reality of God.

I strongly believe that Romans 9 cannot be understood properly or benefited from without using the filters of preconceptions gained from a previous and careful look at the heart of Jesus and how He related to people. That filter needs to be firmly in place before one can arrive at safe conclusions when dealing with confusing passages like this. But that is not to say that this passage is somehow false or even necessarily misleading. When viewed through the right lenses I believe there will be found here wonderful revelations about God that may have remained hidden from our view under the confusion that appears on the surface. If we are willing to first examine our glasses and get them clean and focused properly, we can then be delighted and amazed at what clarity and beauty will be able to be seen while reading these verses.

I do not believe that it is incidental that this verse is placed where it is in the text. It is a very emphatic statement that must be kept clear in our mind as the context for everything read in the surrounding and following verses. Whatever Paul is trying to say and no matter how awkward it is said, it has to conform to the indisputable reality that God is just. And in the process of applying this standard to the surrounding passages we must also not compromise what constitutes justice itself. If we want to see the beauty and the truth hidden in this chapter we have to keep the light of justice untainted while we examine other verses that seem to contradict that declaration. And if we want to know what justice looks like, we must understand it from the life and teachings of the only just Person who ever lived on this earth.

This seems to be a tool that Paul uses throughout his writings. When he wants to state something that is going to seem contradictory or confusing he will include very emphatic declarations like this to use as anchors that we must stay connected to while he takes us on a tour through the surrounding swirling waters. It we stay connected to the anchor we can be safe and will enjoy the ride much more. If we get trapped in the intensity of the surrounding turbulence without staying firmly linked to the anchors he secured for us, we will end up with all sorts of troubling and distorted conclusions that will only muddy the waters as we drag along the bottom and stir up the filth and lies about God that pollute the pristine waters of truth.

So whatever this chapter is trying to reveal to me it must be understood in the context of a just God. And justice is incompatible with arbitrariness. God is absolutely adamant in His insistence on real freedom for the will of all His creatures. To do anything otherwise would be to violate His very essence which is love. Love can only truly exist and flourish in the pure atmosphere of freedom. And freedom necessarily involves the option of choosing to reject or to respond to love without coercion. Whatever else I draw as conclusions from this passage must be consistent with this understanding of God or it will undermine the most important truths about God that will eventually lead to a total distortion and rejection of Him.

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Judgment Day

For there is no partiality with God. (Romans 2:11 NAS95)

I am again looking very intently at the context surrounding this verse and seeing more clearly in the light of truth that is intensifying in this passage how much of our teachings and assumptions are in serious conflict with the reality of what God is like. The clear subject of the context here and all the way through chapter 3 is the Judgment Day of God Almighty. Also found in this context are amplifying descriptions of three parties involved in the judgment: the characteristics of those who are lost, descriptions of how the saved think and where their focus is, and most importantly the characteristics of God and, by implication, characteristics that He is not.

Our opinions and beliefs about the day of judgment and the related topics of heaven and hell lie at the very foundation of everything else that we think, do and perceive about reality and affect all of our relationships both with each other and with God. To think that it is not that important what we believe about this doctrine is to put our own souls in great danger of discovering too late that our mistaken beliefs about God, no matter how popular or supposedly supported by Scripture, have created a fatal liability in our souls that have resisted the light of truth that God so passionately is trying to reveal to us about Himself. What we believe about this subject betrays what we really believe about God and is at the center of what Jesus referred to when He repeatedly encouraged people to “believe in Me”. What we see in the life of Jesus and how He treated people is exactly the same as the character of God the Father without any variation whatsoever. (see John 14:9-11)

As I examined verse 3 and 4 it occurred to me that most of us would have written this very differently than Paul did due to our misconceptions of God. That is revealed by the many things we preach and teach about the day of judgment and the final results of sin. It is easy to see that if most of us had been trying to explain what motives should be in place in the hearts of those looking forward to the day of judgment we would, on the heels of verse 3 launch into a description of all the things we need to be afraid of in order to compel us to come into line with God's will and ways and be saved.

“Do you suppose ... that you will escape the judgment of God?” What kind of feelings are immediately stirred up in your mind initially upon the first hearing of these words? Those initial, reactionary feelings betray the real beliefs in your heart about God and what you think He is really like. And because of the nature and pervasiveness of sin throughout all of the human race, I would venture to say that possibly without exception, save in the hearts of those already being transformed by God's grace, every human heart recoils with fear and dread and feelings of expectation of pain and punishments associated with varying feelings of antagonism and resistance and anger. These are all rooted in THE LIE about God that was originally instigated in heaven by Lucifer and has been perpetrated throughout all of the universe and affects every aspect of our thinking and beliefs about life.

The most startling and revealing part about this passage is the seemingly incoherent emphasis by Paul directly after focusing on the fact that judgment is unavoidable. The basis that he declares will be the very thing we will all be judged on, and by implication the motives we should use in facing the judgment, is not the fearful expectation of retribution but the beauty and kindness and mercy of God. What we think will be revealed about God in the day of judgment determines the kind of repentance that we experience now. It also determines what assumed attributes about God we will use not only in our own experience but also what we employ in our efforts to bring others into preparation for the judgment. If we step back and take a very careful examination at the beliefs and assumptions underlying all of our preaching, teaching and conversation about Judgment Day we will start to see if our motivations are really in line with what will bring about true repentance or they are echoes of the lies of the enemy of God masquerading as religious truth and embedded in our theology. This is true whether of not a person claims to believe in God or is an avowed atheist; we all have theology that we believe about God that is colored by our experiences and perceptions about the supernatural and religion in general.

Paul reveals in this chapter that by clinging to false ideas about God's character we are placing ourselves among the stubborn and the unrepentant who are storing up wrath for themselves against the Day of Judgment. Why is it that we are the ones creating the wrath within ourselves and not God who is getting angrier at our unrepentance? The answer is in verse 11 – because there is no partiality with God.

We have mistakenly assumed that to mean that God cannot be bribed or unduly influenced in His determination of who will be saved and who will be lost. Again, that is based on our faulty assumptions about the nature of the Day of Judgment and many unchallenged beliefs behind it. Verse 5 gives us the correct understanding of what the Day of Judgment is really about, “the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.”

One of our biggest hurdles to overcome in arriving at a correct understanding of truth is the problem of words that have taken on incorrect or misleading meanings due to their long use in false assumptions about God. As I began to point out in a recent post, there are parallel meanings for identical words that lead to very different conclusions and create great confusion when intermingled even though they seem to sound the same. Judgment is one of those words heavy with false assumptions and dark with foreboding for most people. This is due in part to its association with very corrupt judicial systems here on earth that reflects much of the misapprehensions we have about God's judgment.

But the closer we get to the true meaning of the words that God uses by allowing the Bible to interpret itself the more beautiful and exciting and liberating truth becomes for us. And I believe there may not be another topic where this is more true than the undoing our misunderstandings about the day of judgment and its surrounding topics.

Judgment really means to reveal the way things really are including everything hidden such as thoughts, motives intents and feelings in the heart and mind that are impossible for anyone else to uncover. It means also a full revelation of the same counterparts that are in the mind and heart of God. When this becomes our understanding and our false, negative definitions of judgment are completely laid aside so as not to reinfect a proper understanding of this word, then it becomes possible to begin to see God in the proper light of truth and begin to appreciate the words Paul is using in verse 4.

Contrary to millenia of religious dogma and preaching, the only correct and truly effective motivation for repentance is an appreciation of the kindness of God, not fear of punishments, retribution or threats of an angry, offended deity. Those negative motivations come directly from the father of lies and the enemy of God who has done everything possible to destroy all knowledge of the real truth about God.

Sadly I have even listened to teachers and pastors of my own church who claim to believe the truth about God repeat similar lies about God that have so effectively turned away millions from responding to His love if they had only seen the truth about Him. These teachers claim that in the end, God's patience will finally run out and He will do His “strange work” and for a little while He will engage in anger and wrath to punish His “enemies” until they are finished being tortured and are finally annihilated. Then, apparently, He will return to His loving ways for the rest of eternity and the righteous saved will never want to repeat the experiment of sin due to the final display of God's “wrath” in the Day of Judgment.

When I hear this kind of teaching, especially coming from those who claim to know God and preach the truth about Him, I literally feel physically ill and sick to my stomach. This is a subtle mingling of error with truth that sounds so plausible in a way that many accept it as Bible truth, particularly because so many verses are lined up as proof texts to support their teachings. But this is NOT what is discovered in a careful and open-minded examination of the Word of God with a view to uncovering and maintaining the principle of consistency of the character of God. Instead, we are actually charging God with partiality. For to say that in the day of judgment God treats the saved differently than He treats the lost is, in fact, to insist that God is partial to the saved and contridicts in full face what Paul declares is the real truth about God.

God is not partial – period. And if any of our beliefs are found to be in contradiction to that truth then it is our beliefs that need reexamination, and we should not need to force the Word of God to fit our assumptions and preconceived beliefs. The system of truth is perfectly consistent as a whole and for us to come into line with it we must allow God's words to take priority over our beliefs and teachings no matter how many years people have believed them or how many texts can be construed to teach them or how many theologians subscribe to them. As Paul would say, “Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar. As it is written: 'That You may be justified in Your words, And may overcome when You are judged.'” (Romans 3:4 NKJV)

This text further reveals the true nature of the day of judgment. In our self-focused obsession in religion we often come with the assumption that the judgment is all about God determining the guilt or innocence of human beings and meting out rewards and punishments accordingly. But this is far from the real truth about judgment and is reflective of the myriads of lies embedded in so much of our assumed beliefs about God and about life.

The reality of the day of judgment is that it is really the revelation of the honest truth about what God is like and His attitude toward all of His created beings without partiality. The day of judgment is, in fact, the day when the largest jury ever assembled – the whole universe including all humanity and all the angels, both good and bad, determines whether or not God was fair, honest and consistent with what He has always said about Himself. At that time the final determination will be made as to whether God could actually do what He said He could do in transforming sinners into saints without coercion, fear, force or manipulation of any kind. All the charges brought against God by the arch-deceiver and re-presented by millions of deceived minds including our own will be tested and weighed by every intelligent mind in the cosmos as all the evidence in every detail and in every circumstance is laid out by all the witnesses called to testify for or against God. The day of judgment is all about coming to a final determination of the consistency and character of no less than God Himself who, amazingly, has submitted Himself to be put on trial by His own created beings. What incredible humility demonstrated by the Omnipotent Ruler of the Universe, and very different than the control-hungry God so popular in religion today.

The day of Judgment really means the day of revealing as Paul points out here. Jesus declared explicitly that He did not come into the world to condemn the world but to save it. He does not change His motives by the time He comes again the second time and He will not change them on the Day of Judgment. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8) Condemnation does not proceed from the heart or mind of God but is something created in the heart of those who resist His drawing love and grace and reject the beauty of His character as being a lie. Condemnation is a natural consequence of clinging to the lies of sin in the heart and resisting the light of the truth about God until there is no longer a capacity to accept truth. Condemnation is the result of resistance to God, it accumulates in the soul and becomes the fuel for the fires of hell that all of the lost will experience. It is the way that wrath is stored up for ourselves internally for the Day of Judgment.

So is there a place in the judgment for the examination of the lives of humans? Yes there is, absolutely! But the grand trial, the mother of all trials, is not about putting us on the defense stand but, as far as our participation is concerned, is all about the examination of the witnesses to discover if they are truthful or they are found to be bearing false witness against God. Our lives, our words, our attitudes, our teachings, our prejudices and bigotry, our secret motives and cravings and deceptions – all will be flushed out into the open to be transparent and naked before every other person and being in the whole universe to be examined for its relationship to all the other evidence and especially to what truth we knew at the time in our conscience. All of the testimonies, which are the records of all of our responses in every situation to what we knew about God, are made public, and our integrity or lack of it in every area of our life becomes a public spectacle and common knowledge for all the universe to take into account in the deliberation of the great jury.

In this trial on the Great Day of Judgment, every jury member will also be called to testify as well. There are no exceptions in this trial; the testimony of every created being will be entered into the record and laid out in the open so that there is absolutely no possibility for any lingering doubts as to who God is and the integrity of His character and His Word. This is the day of “revelation of the righteous judgment of God”, the right way in which He has dealt with everyone of us that is forever consistent with His character of love and absence of force. (The day of judgment and its right understanding is also the main burden of chapter 3 in Romans which I have not begun to cover yet.)

This truth about the Day of Judgment dispels the negative fear that surrounds it in the typical presentations we hear. It unmasks the lies of Satan about the character of God represented as being angry, vengeful, arbitrary or even fickle. It allows the blazing light of glorious truth about God's consistent character of everlasting lovingkindness to accomplish its drawing work of bringing repentance to our hearts and filling us with transforming grace. It challenges us to reexamine all of our beliefs and doctrines and release our prejudices and pride in deference to the real truths about God revealed in a proper understanding of His Word and by His Spirit. It takes away our false fears and fills us with real love that is the basis of all true life.

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 NAS95)

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