Unholy Trio

In our discussion at the Tuesday nights men's group a new insight emerged. Some were struggling with internal issues which is normal for that time. My mind went back to the original subversive elements introduced in the Garden of Eden; fear, shame and blame. Suddenly it dawned on me what lies behind each of these false principles. There are three basic lies or application of lies.

Fear – at its deepest root all of our fear is based on lies about God, on our twisted view of God that causes us to doubt that He will take care of us or wants the best for us and will protect us. When we really know God and believe in His goodness and rest in His love, all fear will be extinguished. Perfect love casts out fear.

Shame – in all its aspects is simply based on lies about myself, whether received from others or created in my own mind. Shame is a sense of worthlessness, of not being valuable, feeling that I am a mistake and am not worth caring about. Our natural response to counteract shame is pride – our personal attempt to add value to ourself to fill the void inside. So any form of pride is also based on shame which is based on lies about ourselves.

Blame – is our attempt to shift responsibility from myself to someone else to resolve the first two problems. This is based on lies we choose to believe and even create about others. Blame becomes the lock that keeps us from facing our issues honestly because we are waiting for someone else to change or for circumstances to get better etc. This rounds out the unholy trio that prevents us from growing in grace and in healthy relationships with others and with God.

Why Intercession?

Why is Jesus interceding before God on our behalf when God is not angry toward us? I have learned clearly that God feels the same toward us as Jesus does, with complete and unchangeable compassion, mercy and love. The problem is all on the human side rooted in the lies we believe about God. So, if Jesus and God are identical in thought and perspective and motives, why is there anything to plead? It seems you only approach someone to intercede when there is at least some difference between your thinking and the person you are talking to. It seems more logical that all of the pleading would be directed toward the parties that contain the ideas that need changing. If God does not need His mind or heart changed toward us then what is the pleading for?

Maybe the desires of God that need intercession of a mediator are actually opposite of what we usually have assumed. Maybe Jesus is an intercessor because of His unique position as the only human being who fully understands and has experienced th “wrath” of God. Once we understand clearly that God's wrath is actually God's overwhelming passionate love that is lethal when exposed to sin, it becomes a little clearer why we need an intercessor.

Jesus may be pleading with God to restrain Himself from revealing more of His passion than we are capable of surviving. The very thing that we need to draw us to God and toward repentance – a revelation of His heart of infinite love – is also the very same thing that creates hell for us when encountered under the lying filters of sin. “Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.” (Lam. 3:22)

Sanctuary

What is the meaning of “sanctuary”? By definition a wildlife sanctuary is a place that is protected from undue disturbance or threat so that certain wildlife can live there in peace and thrive and flourish.

Our hearts and bodies were designed by God to be His sanctuary. My heart should be a place where He can relax and live in safety from attacks or slander from false gods inside me.

Natural Obedience

(see My Utmost for His Highest for today's reading) Natural obedience as contrasted with legalistic formula-based obedience, is like being able to drive a car or ride a bicycle without having to concentrate on it. When something unusual happens our attention becomes much more focused, but we still have the subconscious skills largely in control.

When we are learning to drive, the skills mostly begin as external rule-based exercises that often feel very complicated and even awkward. But as our subconscious mind assimilates and coordinates more and more of the necessary movements, data, facts and limitations, then the skill is largely internalized and the conscious mind is freed up to think and dwell on more interesting things.

If some of those skills are learned incorrectly or maybe ignored in favor of some other stronger desires, like the craving for speed or the body-pressing sensation of acceleration and power, external forces may be employed to remind us of the parameters imposed on drivers. Or, if our subconscious mind is impaired by drugs or sleep-deprivation, we may find our natural ability to drive largely missing, endangering ourselves and those around us.

When I tried to drive home one time while under the strong influence of pain medications I found out the stark difference between driving naturally and driving with only the conscious part of the brain. It was terrifying as well as very exhausting.

So too is external obedience. It may look right and be technically correct according to code, but if it does not flow naturally from a heart fed and nourished by love it consumes most of our attention and energy and leaves us more and more exhausted and frustrated. In God's economy it is not really obedience, but just performance of self-promotion.

“Beware of making a fetish of consistency to your convictions instead of being devoted to God. 'I shall never do that' – in all probability you will have to, if you are a saint. There never was a more inconsistent Being on this earth than Our Lord, but He was never inconsistent to His Father. The one consistency of the saint is not to a principle, but to the Divine life. It is the Divine life which continually makes more and more discoveries about the Divine mind. It is easier to be a fanatic than a faithful soul, because there is something amazingly humbling, particularly to our religious conceit, in being loyal to God.” (My Utmost for His Highest 11-14)

The Results of Prophecying

God's clear word to me this morning was in both devotionals and climaxed with Eze. 37:9 reminding me of the promise of God twice given to me in the past in 1 Sam. 10:6,7.

What is my testimony? How are others influenced to believe about God when they read my blog or hear my words? It cannot be a matter of faking a good front – that is dishonesty. But what am I dwelling on?What is my underlying perception of reality that I paint? Am I only going part way by being hones about my feelings and struggles with my attempts at more self-disclosure?

Maybe that's it. I am trying to be honest in self-disclosure but I am not giving Jesus enough air time. When my testimony takes on the attributes of being clear and strong for God, others will be refreshed. I will speak of His love without hesitation. I have to admit, I am not doing that now.

When darkness and unbelief is in my heart it is manifested in my testimony. The answer is NOT in changing my testimony to sound more appropriate and in line with the rule; the answer is to have more light and faith and joy in my heart.

“Do not gratify the enemy by dwelling upon the dark side of your experience, but trust Jesus for help to resist temptation. If we thought and talked more of Jesus and less of ourselves, we should have much more of His presence.”

“When we make our Christian experience appear to unbelievers, or to one another, as one that is joyless, filled with trial, doubt, and perplexity, we dishonor God; we do not correctly represent Jesus or the Christian faith. We have a friend in Jesus, who has given us the most marked evidence of His love, and who is able and willing to give life and salvation to all who come unto Him....

“It is not necessary for us to be ever stumbling and repenting and mourning and writing bitter things against ourselves. It is our privilege to believe the promises of the Word of God, and accept the blessings that Jesus lives to bestow, that our joy may be full.” (RH 7-20-1886)

“We have to battle through our moods into absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus, to get out of” our narrow, self-focused, depressed view “of our own experience into abandoned devotion to Him.... Think of the meanness of the miserable faith we have” in contrast to what Jesus can do for us. “He can present us faultless before the throne of God, unutterably pure, absolutely rectified and profoundly justified. Stand in implicit adoring faith in Him.

“Jesus Christ wants our absolute abandon of devotion to Himself.... Our Faith must be built in strong emphatic confidence in Him.

“It is along this line that we see the rugged impatience of the Holy Ghost against unbelief. All our fears are wicked, and we fear because we will not nourish ourselves in our faith.” (My Utmost for His Highest 11-13)

The Spirit impressed me with these important messages of conviction and then led me to Eze. 37. This chapter is closely linked with 36 and is wonderful good news for all of us struggling these issues, with darkness in our hearts and a shell of external faith that is internally infected with subtle unbelief.

I, and most of the people around me, are very much like dry bones. We are devoid of very much spiritual vitality, we are in many ways disconnected with those around us and often confused inside. We are the whole house of Israel in verse 11 that feel like “our bones are dried up and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off.”

The wonderful message is, since we fit the description and we are also the ones who have profaned God's reputation with our sorry, weak testimony (chap. 36), then we qualify perfectly to have God do to us everything promised and described in both these chapters.

But one thing sharply caught my attention in 37:9. It is what I see as the “rugged impatience of the Holy Ghost” I had just read about in My Utmost. God is urgent when He says, “Prophecy to the breath, prophecy, son of man...” The Lord was speaking directly to me, urging me and reminding me that the words of my testfying become self-fulfilling prophecies to a great extent. This is why it is important to dwell largely on the goodness and beauty and power of God, not just my struggles and confusion.

I must be willing to be honest and open about myself, yes. But I must go beyond that and prophecy to the breath as well as to the bones. As shown in the first prophecy in this story, prophesying to the bones may result in wonderful reconnections, reconstruction and getting things back to their original functions. But their was still no life there in all these reassembled bodies. The prophecier must turn his attention beyond the reconstruction of our messed up lives to the Source of life itself.

And then I remembered the prophecy about me received twice over the last year or two and impressed deeply upon my heart each time. God's plan for me is along these very lines and described in 1 Sam. 10:6,7. “The Spirit of the Lord will come on you with power, and you will be acting like a prophet with them and will be changed into another man. And when these signs come to you, see that you take the chance which is offered you: for God is with you.”

For God is with me. That is the ultimate definition of joy, and the joy of the Lord is strength.