Weakness of External Law

There are two fundamental realms in which we live and operate – the external and the internal. The realm that we choose to give our priority to determines our view of what constitutes reality. God is a spirit, and though He created all of the external, physical things that exist everywhere, He was and existed before everything else as the Self-existent One who has always been first of all a spirit. To really understand true reality we must remember that the spirit realm is always to have priority over the external, physical realm, never the other way around. Sin developed when Lucifer began to focus on his externals, his position, his beauty, his wisdom and place more value on them than his internal, spirit condition. (see Isaiah 14) He went on to build his whole empire on the premise that the externals matter more than the condition of one's spirit. Salvation, God's response to sin, is the process of reversing that assumption and restoring us to life grounded in true reality with priority on the spirit realm more than the physical realm.

The external, physical aspects of our life are often reflective of the condition of our spirit and strongly influence the condition of our spirit. But that does not make it right for us to give them higher priority than our spirit, for in doing so we fall into the deceptive trap of sin which is reversing the natural order of creation. This is not to say that the external has no importance and can be ignored; that is foolish thinking. It simply means that external matters must always be kept in proper perspective, proper relationship to our spirit.

Jesus demonstrated in His life on earth the proper way to live in balance giving priority to the condition of His spirit above the externals. This caused a great deal of conflict with many around Him who insisted that He was doing it all wrong. But He never wavered from His life of giving higher priority to the things of the spirit, not only His own spirit but the spirits of everyone around Him. In doing so, and in total dependence on the Holy Spirit's power continuously received from outside of Himself, He demonstrated how we are to live the abundant life that He offers to implant into our spirits.

In studying Romans 7 I am beginning to realize that the Law is designed for the external manifestation or description of the internal, spirit attributes of God. Since we are created in the image of God and in His likeness, the Law is a description in the external realm of what we will look like when we are functioning perfectly as designed. But while the Law of God is an external description of the internal realities of God, it is still external. Because of that the law is powerless to change us except to trigger our sinful natures to rebel against it. Externals and a life prioritized around them is the description of what living in the flesh looks like. This is the main point of the whole book of Romans – a contrast between living in the flesh, the external realm, and living in the spirit, the internal priorities.

When this paradigm is used to look at Romans, even at life in general, there are a lot of things that begin to make much more sense and come into proper perspective. To me is seems apparent that the spirit part of our being utilizes our heart and our right brain much more than our left brain. Of course there is much more unknown about this part of us than there is known, but I wonder if other parts of our physical body are also more prominent in the spirit part of us than we may suspect. Many people believe that our spirit is not even a part of our body at all, but I think that to take such a position is to go too far in separating what God has joined together and gets us into trouble.

What Paul is striving to do in Romans is to address two groups of people who have both been living with emphasis on their externals in higher priority than living in proper relationship to their spirit. It is what he calls living in the flesh. That is not to say that they have been ignoring their spirit altogether. The first group apparently lives in abandoned indulgence to the desires of their perverted spirit. Their spirit has been hijacked by sin and is obsessed in its appetite for satisfying legitimate needs of the spirit and body through external, physical and emotional perversions that further distort and damage the heart that God implanted in them originally.

The second group have chosen the path of strict, external-oriented religious activities and voluminous head-knowledge about religious things in their attempt to satisfy the same deep longings of the soul. The needs and longings of the spirit can never be truly satisfied through any of these means but they try even harder to bring themselves into what they believe to be a right condition before God and men so they can experience the peace that their heart was designed to have. But because satisfaction in the spirit can never be achieved through external activities given priority over an internal relationship with God, they find themselves trapped in an endless loop of ever-increasing obsessive religion which poisons their spirit and hardens their heart against the very thing they need the most.

Because the Law is a left-brain explanation of the spirit-characteristics of God, it is incapable of possessing the power to change us like the Spirit of God can do. It was never designed to be the means of our transformation; that is the job of the Holy Spirit. But because of our penchant for prioritizing the externals above the internals, we look at the Law – the description of God and by extension our true blueprint – and feel compelled to obey it by any means we can devise. Because we are not designed to be led by our left-brain which primarily services the external part of our existence, we find ourselves constantly frustrated in our attempts to align ourselves with this description of what we know we are supposed to look like. The affect of focusing on the externals and the ideal of what our symptoms would look like if we were living as we are designed to live is that we live in constant failure to thrive and cannot truly enjoy life from our heart. As long as we give priority to the externals arena over the condition of our spirit and our relationship with God and others, we will continue to live in the flesh, for that is what living in the flesh is all about.

We were never designed to live in the flesh in the way that we find ourselves under the spell of sin. We were created to be led by our spirit in perfect synchronization with God's Spirit. Sin has caused us to attempt to live life completely backwards to how we are designed, and because we are living backwards we encounter endless complications and problems and symptoms that tend to drain us of life rather than energize us with more life. Salvation is the means whereby God desires to restore us to living in proper relationships, not only to Him but to our own design and proper function. Sin has overwhelming power that causes us to resist God's efforts to save us and restore us to life as we were created to live it. But it is only overwhelming in the sense that we cannot correct our condition by our own efforts. Sin and Satan's kingdom are far too strong and too wily to outmaneuver or escape without the surrender of our lives and hearts to the Spirit of God. Only the Godhead through the means of Redemption has the ability to lift us out of our hopeless condition of deception and backwards living.

This is the message that Paul launches into with great excitement in chapter 8. But for now I am focusing on the place of the Law and why it has the effect that it does in our attempts to get right with God. Because the Law is external-oriented it can never do the job of the Holy Spirit. But because sin causes us to give priority to externals over internals, we “naturally” tend to focus on the Law and all sorts of other externals over paying attention to the condition of our own spirit and turning to the Spirit of God to receive life and strength and satisfaction. As a result we have found ourselves “married” to the wrong husband and trapped in a very harsh marriage of rule-keeping when our hearts were designed and craving to be ravished by the love that can only come from being led by the Spirit.

God, I want this to not just be so much theory but for You to work in me to demonstrate this as reality in my life. I have lived all my life, like so many others, thinking that the externals are more important than the condition of my spirit. Forgive me and put a new spirit in me. Replace my heart of stone with a heart of tender flesh and breath Your Spirit into me as You promise in Ezekiel 36. Fill me with Your presence and joy and peace today for Your name's sake.

(next in series)

Why Can't I Thrive?

Romans 7 is starting to make more sense in the light of living from the heart vs. living from the intellect. I am seeking to understand what part of me “died” in verse 9. There seems to be a principle of mutual exclusivity about which can be alive within me – sin or “me”. The catalyst that creates this situation is the presence of the Law.

For many, the logical conclusion to assume is that we should remove the catalyst so we will not experience the problem. But that is never considered as an option by Paul or any other Biblical writers. Because of that I think it is safe to assume that it is not a viable option but a deception promoted by the enemy of God. Since the Law is simply a description of God's character, to get rid of the presence of the Law is to try to get rid of God from our lives which is exactly what Satan set out to do from the very beginning and what the whole War is all about. Satan wants to replace God on the throne of the universe and control everyone according to his own destructive, selfish ways. We can already see the results of that arrangement all through the world, so it makes no sense to purport that the solution to our problem with sin is to avoid the Law. To avoid the Law of God is to avoid God who is the only one who can save us.

I am still pondering and praying about the identity of the “I” that died when the commandment came in referred to in verse 9. He says that he was once alive until the Law showed up. I must remember that this is written in the context of addressing the group of people who “know the Law” in 7:1. The word translated “know” is used in many ways in the original and one of those ways is the “know” that a man and woman share in the deepest level of intimacy together. Paul, in the first part of this chapter talks about intimacy and even arousal with the results of producing offspring, both because of intimacy with our “flesh” or “intimacy” with the risen Christ.

What is it within me, what part of me is “alive” when intimacy is involved? I am starting to believe that Paul is referring to that part of me in my spirit at the heart level where I experience the liberating sense of freedom, joy and aliveness. If that is true, how does that apply when Paul says he “was once alive apart from the Law”? (v. 9) It seems that Paul may be thinking back to when he was younger and before he got heavily involved in the religious training that ended in him becoming a zealous Pharisee and vicious persecutor of the people who loved Jesus. He remembers when his spirit was more free and his heart felt more alive, maybe as a child. At that time his ignorance of “the Law”, due to simply being a younger and not yet trained in the Law, left him free to enjoy life and feel free and happy as a child should. But “when the commandment came, sin became alive” and he died – that is, his free spirit and relish for life were lost when he began to focus on keeping the Law in order to be right with God.

He goes on to emphasize very strongly that the problem in this situation (in which all of us legalistic types find ourselves) is not the Law itself.

I can easily imagine the natural reaction of a person who “knows the Law” would have upon reading this letter to them from Paul for the first time. They would have a natural defensiveness of their position on how to properly live the Christian life through emphasis on obedience and they would feel very suspicious of what Paul is trying to convey here. They would feel that Paul is trying to attack the idea of obedience and diminish its importance and thereby imply that the problem is coming from the Law. They would even go so far as to accuse him of implying that the Law is the cause of the struggle in their life. This is typical thinking for a person trained in legalism (typical religion) which a great many of us have been, even many who want nothing to do with the church anymore. The underlying problem is that we still have the false ideas about salvation embedded in our brains causing us to feel, like Paul, that the most important part of us has died.

Unfortunately, in pulling away from the church, from religion and from God, what we are really saying is that the problem is “the Law”. We assume that if we can get far enough away from the condemning presence of the Law that we will be able to feel alive again. But there is a very fundamental flaw in that thinking. Because the Law, though it makes us feel very condemned, is not our real problem even though it very much feels like it. And when we pull away from proximity to the Law by trying to disattach ourselves from everything that reminds us of it, we end up also pulling away from the only real Source of life itself. If one stops to think about it, pulling away from the Source of life is not a way to begin feeling more alive again.

But a real problem begins to emerge when I think about it in this way. If the Law makes me feel condemned but the Law is simply a description of God's character, then I will logically assume that God is the one condemning me. But that is not actually true at all. Jesus stated unequivocally that He did not come into the world to condemn but to save. (see John 3) And Jesus and the Father God are not different in any way as far as their attitude toward us. So it seems at first to be an irreconcilable dichotomy that I feel condemned by the Law which is a description of God but it is not true that God is the source of my condemnation.

This is exactly the deception that Paul refers to in verse 11. He is exposing the real source of our problem and unmasking the deception under which we have been held in legalism. Sin – whatever that is – is the culprit that caused me to feel like my spirit died, my sense of freedom and aliveness that God designed all of us to enjoy and that we sometimes had glimpses of when we were young. It is sin that hijacked my heart and replaced it with a hard heart and a contaminated, perverted spirit. It is sin, not the Law of God, that is doing all the damage in my soul. But because it deceptively did it through my intimacy with the Law (and through abusive people claiming to know the Law) I am led to believe that it was the Law doing all this to me.

This condition is called living in the flesh. (v. 14) When in this condition we find ourselves in slavery, in bondage to sin that is inescapable. We mistakenly believe that we can figure out a way to escape this slavery and try all sorts of schemes to revive our heart and feel alive again. But every attempt is doomed to failure because we simply do not have the wherewithal to save ourself. We are under a supernatural slave-master who never allows his slaves to escape and viciously punishes those who attempt to do so.

The rest of chapter 7 is a detailed description of what is looks like to try to save myself while my heart and spirit are hijacked by sin. I want to be alive, I want to feel good again, and those very desires demonstrate that I believe the Law is right and true. After all, the Law is simply a description of the underlying principles that must be in place to thrive and feel fully alive. But we cannot get there from here by trying to keep the Law directly because our heart is still hijacked. The only way to feel alive and free is to live from our heart as we are designed to live. But when our heart is under the control of selfishness (the core essence of sin) it is “dead”, and it is impossible to capture that sense of freedom and joy that are the only things that will satisfy the deepest cravings of our soul. We find ourselves hopelessly caught in this awful trap and, like Paul, if we are honest about our real feelings we are ready to exclaim with him, “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” (v. 24)

(next in series)

Fixing the Train

(Capturing my thoughts before I forget them so I can organize them more)

• Being led by living from the heart instead of leading with the head.

• Living with synchronized passion fed by the passion of God.

• Sequence of train – Spirit of God leading man's spirit by filling it with God's passion. Man's spirit leading the imagination to express its unique creativity and personality using both the natural gifts and abilities and the supernatural gifts received by the baptism (immersion) of the Holy Ghost. Then all of this passion and fire is protected and reinforced (virus checker) by the logic and information filling the left brain from reliable resources like the Bible.

Analogies:

• Trying to push a chain instead of pulling it is like living from the head first.

• Trying to take an aircraft into outer space by depending only on propellers while suppressing all use of rocket fuel and engines.

• The familiar train analogy frequently used on us growing up may be one of our strongholds preventing us from thriving. The engine is our intellect and will based on logic and formulas derived from the Bible and other “chosen” sources. Our emotions were the caboose that had to be put at the end of the train. By

  implication (and now even in the real world of trains) the caboose is often apparently missing altogether. I wonder how much this instruction from our early years has caused us to suppress our heart and even resist the promptings of the Holy Spirit in our lives?

I met someone this weekend that I had known many years ago that, as I listened to their story I realized how persistent their heart is in its desperate struggles to stay alive in spite of unspeakable atrocities committed against them by countless people in their life from the day they were born. The abuse was diabolically designed to destroy their heart and permeate their mind with lies about their loving Creator. Yet in spite of all this damage,

both physically and emotionally, I can still recognize the unique characteristics of the beautiful heart that I had seen many years ago when I knew them somewhere else. At that time I was intrigued by the unique, captivating nature of their smile and the sense of “aliveness” that emanated from them, not knowing then how much damage and violation had already been perpetrated against them at that point. After many more years of damage the results have become much more obvious and debilitating, yet the special heart that Jesus created within this person still struggles to stay alive and grasps for hope. Their spirit is yearning for connection to the Spirit that created it and for which it was designed to connect to so it could thrives and feel satisfied.

My own heart has had stirrings lately that are impossible to formulate into words. At times I have unfamiliar moments of – well, how can words explain them adequately? It takes a lot of words to explain what seems so simple in the arena of the spirit. In those moments I have a combined sense of anticipation, peace, synchronization, assurance, hope, and even potential for living freely in genuine, selfless love while I stay connected to the obvious Source of this peace. These moments feel so refreshing and alive and I want to stay there to grow and thrive. These feeling are new and somewhat unfamiliar but make me feel really alive. I suspect that if I stayed very long in this state of being my face might begin to glow unnaturally (for me anyway) and people would wonder what happened to me. I have a strong sense that this is what life is supposed to be like all the time, but it doesn't fit well with the rigid paradigms and rules of the religion that has been superimposed on me for most of my life.

As I thought about this while waking up this morning I realized that maybe I need to reverse the power arrangement in my life in order to become efficient (or even truly functional) and be in alignment with how I was originally designed to live and thrive. Trying to lead my life with logic-based truth and keep my heart suppressed (as implied by typical religious instruction) has only resulted in great frustration, pain and too much dysfunction. Yes, I can spew out correct answers apparently, but I (the real me – my heart) cannot really thrive and experience the abundant life that Jesus promised I could have. Now I am beginning to sense that it may largely be due to my attempt to operate my “train” backwards according to the misleading instructions ingrained into me since childhood.

As many others might likely remember, I was taught that we must not let our emotions lead us. Emotions are like the caboose of the train that must always be kept behind everything else. In reality, they were often by implication to be disconnected from the train and left somewhere else. The engine was to be our intellect firmly rooted in the Word of God and the training of our leaders. We were never to allow our emotions to influence us in any way as far as the movement of the train (our life).

I know I can easily make myself an easy target by talking about such “settled truths” as this, but I am now beginning to seriously question the validity of the assumptions in this analogy. While I will agree that there is a lot of truth in this, I also see a great deal of potential for error and even abuse contained in this analogy. While I am not advocating

we follow every whim of our emotions wherever they may direct us, my growing understanding of the importance of living from the heart conflicts sharply with the way this instruction has been used to suffocate so many hearts over the years.

Our emotions, while not the engine that should drive our train, are symptoms of the condition of our spirit. As I have said before, emotions are like indicators on the dashboard that reveal what is going on inside in the spirit area of our lives. Emotions are not good or bad, they simply are. They can be allowed to incite us to do other things that may be good or bad, but emotions are just emotions and cannot be blamed as the cause for our condition. Choices, either ours or other people's, are the real cause of the condition we find ourselves in, and emotions are the “graphics” that show up on the screen telling us what is going on with our spirit.

What I am starting to realize much more is that our spirit is the part that we have ignored far too long and is the missing element in learning how to really live in right relationship to life and to God. Due to the obsession of “religion” to suppress or ignore emotions, we have at the same time disconnected from awareness of our spirit and thereby cut off from ourselves

the very connector that our train needs to be led by the real power – the Spirit of God.

Because we are so disconnected from our spirit, which is almost the same thing as our heart, we really cannot relate properly to God and experience the real power that He wants us to experience that will be the real engine that can successfully move our life.

The only real power source in the whole universe from which all other power is derived is the passionate love flowing from the heart of the Creator-God of heaven. To be truly alive, all other created beings in the universe need to be properly connected to that unfailing Source of life and love. For us humans that link to the unlimited Source of power is our spirit that is shaped to uniquely connect with the Spirit of God like the couplings that connect the train cars to the engine. If our spirit is so damaged or ignored or distorted by lies that we refuse to be connected to the Spirit of God, we cannot be led by the Spirit of God and experience the power we need to move the train of our life. Salvation is the plan by which God is repairing the damage to our spirit so we can once again become connected to His unlimited power and experience the thrill of passion that flows from His heart to all of His created beings. We are brought into synchronization with the passion of God and come to life as we begin to experience the life-giving flow of love, joy and peace surging through our nervous system and charging our emotions with real satisfaction.

To use another analogy, I usually find myself trying to push a chain and chains simple don't work effectively by pushing them. In fact, by doing so they only end up in a jumbled mess instead of becoming straight and tall and strong. That might be an accurate picture of how I feel at times – a jumbled pile of correct ideas, links of truth that are not being activated from the right end. Even though one might carefully lay out the links of the chain in the “right” order and arrange them in such a way as to appear correct, as long as I am trying to push them instead of pulling on them correctly it will not function as it was designed to. What is lacking seems to be the element of synchronization.

As I thought how this might relate to what I am unearthing from my immersion in the book of Romans I realized that this may be just what Paul was contrasting in chapters 7 and 8. Chapter 7 is a description of people who know lots of good information (the Law) and are trying to lead with their knowledge – their left brain logic – to achieve a “righteous” life. What they missed is that real righteousness displayed in a person's life cannot be self-generated but can only happen as a result of a dynamic, vital umbilical-cord type connection with the only Source of real righteousness. They have been trying to “push the chain” of righteousness in their lives while focusing on having all the correct links. But no matter how accurate or truthful their links are, if they are not being pulled by the power of the living Spirit of God connected to their own spirit then all they can achieve is a jumble of confusing truth and a great deal of frustration.

Romans 8 is an exciting description of what it looks like to get the train in the right order, to allow God to pull our chain (instead of the enemy yanking on the other end of our chain all the time). When I come into right relationship to God, led by His Spirit pulling on my spirit, then my spirit will pull on my life from my heart in harmony with my mind. My life will begin to reveal the results described in this chapter naturally and my heart will come alive and thrive. While chapter 7 describes the results of living from the head while chapter 8 describes the results of living from the heart connected to God's heart.

What does this all mean? Why do I feel compelled to ask that question anyway? It feels like pushing on the chain again so that I can bring this writing to a tidy ending to satisfy the rules of writing and public expression. I enjoy the fact that I can dialog with myself (and even with God) through this means without feeling the pressure to bring every post to a resolved ending like a successful one-hour television show. This is simply a window into the process of growing and exploring and query that is going on inside me that I allow others to peer into once in awhile. So I don't have to be confined to the “rules” of writing because I am not looking for a grade to measure how much or little I am worth. This is simply where I'm at right now.

God, grow my heart more today and teach me – both my heart and my head – how to really experience the abundant life that Jesus talked about and promised me. I also want to intercede for the people I connected with this weekend that You are pulling toward Your heart. I give you permission to do anything You want in their lives to heal and restore and re-create Your likeness in them. I do this based on the assurance of the authority that Jesus invested in all His followers when He left earth 2000 years ago. So in the name and authority of the One who now has taken away all the authority of Satan in this earth, I present before Your throne of grace these loved ones who are so damaged and hurting and grasping for hope and life. They have been terribly abused by the enemy of our souls and You have felt every pain with them. Allow them to see the truth about Your untainted beauty and loveliness and help them believe You never were the cause of the abuse heaped on them even though it was done using Your name. Allow them to taste a little of the intense passion in Your heart to connect with and heal their heart and restore them to better than their original design. Rescue their hearts from the cruel hands of the enemy and amaze the world with the success of Your experiments of grace in their lives.

Father, make me an instrument of Your grace and healing also. Help me to know Your ways, to wait for Your promptings and to respond more readily to Your Spirit. Melt away my fears and resistance to You and replace the many lies still within me with Your love and compassion and truth. This is a whole new way of thinking and living for me that is very unfamiliar. Revive my heart and fire me with Your own passion for Your reputation's sake.

(next in series)

The "Un" Problem

I think I will be awhile in Romans 7 and 8 because the answers to most of my life struggles is buried in these passages and I have only begun to scratch the surface. I do not want to again surf through them and miss the life-changing power that lies underneath the surface that I so much need to experience. It is not theory that I want to unmask and assimilate, it is entering into a genuine, unshakable abandonment to a thriving, real life in Christ Jesus.

The reason I need to do a lot of unpacking in these two chapters is because I come from the background similar to the people Paul addresses in these chapters. I find it noteworthy that he addresses the first group (from chapter 1) in the 23 verses of chapter 6 but to deal with the complexity and confusion that legalism creates in our hearts he has to take all the time and space of chapters 7 all the way through 11 of Romans. However, that does not surprise me much since I am of similar stock as those he is laboring most to reach and from which he himself had emerged. I can feel in my own heart the ongoing resistance to embracing these truths about God that challenge the multitude of lies about God ingrained into me by formal religion. I want to be free of these lies, not just in my mind but even more so in my heart. I want to experience the abandonment of love to Jesus that I read about this morning in My Utmost for His Highest that was demonstrated by Mary when she poured out the perfume in wasteful extravagance on Jesus feet.

But right now when I look inside I have to honestly say my heart is painfully empty of very much love for anyone. When I try to conform myself to the example of Jesus that my heart really desires to be like, I too often find my experience to be all too much like the last half of Romans 7. I need a heart transplant daily and it has to come from an outside power, I cannot do it to myself.

As I was praying about this this morning I asked God to cleanse me from all unrighteousness as in 1 John 1:9. As I thought about that word I realized that the “un” in front of “righteousness” means anything other than the one genuine original. Only God is righteous and the only genuine righteousness is what Jesus lived when He was on earth. As I think about it there are unnumbered kinds of counterfeit righteousness that we attempt to tap into tailored to fit whatever flavor of religion or non-religion that we may subscribe to at the time.

There is the idea of inherent goodness that is very popular with many people and they feel that everyone should invest a sense of worth and value in the inherent goodness that can be found in humans to whatever extent that it can be seen. To counter this idea is to arouse the hackles and even anger of many who insist on this brand of “righteousness”.

Of course there are the many brands of religious righteousness from every corner of the earth that fight and argue with each other as to which is more valid or which has more value and efficiency to make a person good. Most of these ideas make “sense” to some degree or another, but common to all of them is the root idea that we all have something inherent within ourselves to some degree or another that can recommend us or assist us in claiming or producing value and worth, either before each other and/or before God. But it looks to me like any flavor or belief of righteousness other than what can be freely received from Jesus Christ, totally apart from anything we are or do, falls under the “un” heading.

This is likely one of the roots of my own slowness in growth. Subconsciously part of me wants to depend on something I can do or some value I have to leverage God to do His work in me. I say “subconsciously” because in my mind I assent to the truth that righteousness only comes from God, but in the fruit emerging from my life experience it appears that something else is still at work. When I look inside and see such an emptiness in the container that is supposed to be full of love I know there is something terribly missing. I am painfully aware, not only of this vacancy but of my inability to generate genuine, unselfish love no matter how hard I strive to do it. I simply don't have the necessary equipment to produce it. Oh, I can certainly experience feelings of affection and all sorts of other emotions that purport to be love, but when more closely examined they turn out to be self-serving in some way or another and are usually attempts to bring satisfaction and a sense of value to myself that I so desperately crave. Even when I experience what I believe to be genuine impulses of unselfish love implanted within me by God, it seems there is always present other mixed emotions waiting to exploit the moment to bring attention to myself and make me appear more valuable and worthy in the eyes of others. The description by Paul of his own experience in Romans 7 is very much what I experience and want to be delivered from.

I believe the answers to my dilemma really are buried in these chapters and I do not want to continue to miss them. The answers are issues of the heart, not just correct theological interpretations, so they have to be received in my spirit from the Spirit of God conveying them beyond my left brain analysis.

One thing I am noticing in this passage today is that verse 6 contains the two headings of the two options that I face in my condition as a recovering legalist. I will either serve in newness of the spirit or in oldness of the letter. This is parallel to what he told the other group in 6:13-16 about presenting yourself to one master or the other. But for the legalistic mind he uses a little different metaphor that is maybe more palatable. But because the religious person has possibly so much more baggage to unpack to understand what Paul is getting at, he spends considerable more time explaining the difference between living in the flesh verses the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (8:2)

The rest of Romans 7 is a description of what if feels like to live in the flesh while trying to serve God and be righteous. Apparently this is using one of the “un” forms of righteousness that fails to produce the effects of genuine salvation but religiously appears to be the real thing. This deception is so subtle that only the Spirit of God can deliver me from it. I still echo the exclamation of Paul in 7:24,25 in my desire to be delivered from this body of death in the flesh and enter fully into the freedom and joy described in chapter 8.

This is not something I can do to myself or work myself into with help from God. It is an experience that is going to have to come through the power of the resurrected Christ that melts away my resistance and installs in my heart an overflowing river of love that will be unavoidable by those around me. I want this experience, I ask for this experience, I choose to submit to whatever it takes for God to create this result in my heart, mind and soul.

God, cause what You describe in Romans 7:6 to be evident within my heart today. Make me Your experiment of grace that will amaze even the angels who have seen nearly everything. Do Your thing in me today and have Your glory revealed in my family today. Because it is really all about Your reputation, not mine. So fulfill Your word in my life today for Your name's sake.

(next in series)

Ghost Walker on the Water

I see a strong parallel between Peter's experience walking on the water in the storm with Jesus and the larger story of Peter's life overall. I believe that Jesus gave this experience to Peter to prepare him for the intense pressures he would experience during the final days of Jesus' life. But while Peter failed to apply the lesson he could have learned from getting soaked in the sea, Jesus never gave up rescuing Peter and finally Peter learned to really “walk on the water” for the rest of his life. The story is found in Matthew 14.

Immediately He made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side, while He sent the crowds away. After He had sent the crowds away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray; and when it was evening, He was there alone.

By the end of this chapter things had apparently reversed in a way from what happened here right after the feeding of the 5,000. What we see just a little later is that because of the intensity of His words and the faith required to believe them the crowds were leaving on their own instead of being sent away and Jesus queried the disciples whether they wanted to leave also. The crowds were eager to “believe” in Him when the blessings were temporal and benefited them externally, but when it came to responding to heart conviction and being asked to trust in something that seemed strange to what they were accustomed to they choose to stay with the familiar. (Read the context to get a feel for what was going on here.)

But the boat was already a long distance from the land, battered by the waves; for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea. When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, "It is a ghost!" And they cried out in fear.

This storm was an external analogy of the internal condition of their spirits. At the time of this event the disciples were very upset because Jesus would not allow the people to make Him king over Israel, and in their irritated state of mind Jesus sent them to the sea to receive some parallel turbulence to the stormy attitude they were cherishing on the inside. The key element in their heart that underlay all of their problems and that betrayed which supernatural spirit they were obeying was fear. This whole story, not only in its context but in its long-term application as a powerful analogy of how we relate to life, is a clear demonstration of the opposite effects of living under one spirit or another. We are either living in fear or in faith based on love. There are no other ways to live. Jesus was living in perfect love and submission to His Father's will for Him. In this event He was strongly resisting the temptation to accept an offered “shortcut to glory” offered to Him by the people and by Satan. The reason He became so forceful in His methods was because that was necessary in order for Him to defeat the intense temptation to His own soul.

But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, "Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid." Peter said to Him, "Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water." And He said, "Come!"

It is interesting to note that Jesus did not require a boat to cross the water but the disciples apparently did. That is because the spirit inside of them was so out of harmony with the spirit of heaven that Jesus cherished. Jesus pointed out the difference between their present condition and His desire for them very clearly in His invitation to step over into the courage of faith instead of dwelling in the shadowlands of death and fear. Peter was the only one to think outside the box far enough to let his imagination carry him away to Jesus. Jesus was eager to seize on any hint of faith and fan it into full flame as quickly as possible. In His response to Peter's question Peter could hear the echo of the first time Jesus had challenged him to step outside his comfort zone as a fisherman with his father and boldly leave the familiar for the thrilling terror of risking himself on God.

And Peter got out of the boat, and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But seeing the wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!"

I see a strong parallel between this experience in Peter's life and the events surrounding Gethsemane and Jesus' trial. If Peter had learned this first lesson of faith that works by love more solidly he could have been spared the humiliation of his denial of Jesus and all its regrets. At Jesus' trial He again found himself in a life-threatening storm and needed to keep his eyes unblinkingly fixed on Jesus. When there is no storm we might be able to live in His presence without constantly staring at His face, but when the intensity is ratcheted up we have to learn that our only safety is an unswerving fixation on the face of God without caving in to any distractions no matter how threatening or dangerous they may seem to be. For all of those distractions are designed to do one thing primarily – cause us to be infected with the spirit of fear. And fear has torment which is never God's will for us. Fear will destroy our ability to walk on top of the water in a storm and will always result in dropping us into the depths of despair.

Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him, and says to him, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?"

But Peter was following Him at a distance as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and entered in, and sat down with the officers to see the outcome. (Matthew 26:58)

The Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had told him, "Before a rooster crows today, you will deny Me three times." And he went out and wept bitterly. (Luke 22:61-62)

Peter had forgotten the lesson of the storm and so was compelled to repeat it. But again, the face of Jesus was there to convey to him the compassion and love that God ever has for all of His children whether they are trusting Him or not. Peter had again looked at the “wind” and thereby had become victim to the power of fear which dis-empowered him to live the bold life of faith that he had briefly enjoyed while walking in the storm on Galilee. But just like his rescue from his lapse of faith on the water, Jesus was there to save him when he was sinking in fear and shame after denying the closest Friend he had ever grown to love.

When they got into the boat, the wind stopped. And those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, "You are certainly God's Son!" When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret.

While Jesus does not need a boat to handle traversing across water like humans do, He has chosen to get into the boat with us instead of insisting on us always walking on water. I believe He would prefer that we walk with Him on the water and I believe that that is His ultimate goal for us and will finally be realized in every respect. But in the meantime, God chose to get into the limiting, restrictive boat of humanness with us so we could learn to relate to Him and respond to His love and grow in faith until we were ready to live in full faith and confidence in His power within us. As a result of this faith He has in us while condescending to live at our level, we can respond by worshiping Him and realizing His awesome superiority beyond all of our meager capacity. We realize that we are totally dependent on Him for everything including life itself and we can enter into the relationship with Him that we were created to enjoy in joyful worship and awe. For terror is simply the counterfeit of the awe which we rightfully need to experience in the presence of a pure and holy God. Perfect love casts out all fear, but does not remove our awe of His power and greatness.

And when the men of that place recognized Him, they sent word into all that surrounding district and brought to Him all who were sick; and they implored Him that they might just touch the fringe of His cloak; and as many as touched it were cured. (Matthew 14:22-36)

When Peter and the other believers finally recognized the truth about Jesus after the resurrection, they were filled with the Holy Ghost (just like the Ghost on the lake) and became little “Christ's” (Christians). They began to work and walk like He did in many respects and people began to respond to them as they had to Jesus. More believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women. They even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on cots and mattresses, so that as Peter came by, at the least his shadow might overshadow some of them. Multitudes also came together from the cities around Jerusalem, bringing sick people, and those who were tormented by unclean spirits: and they were all healed. (Acts 5:14-16 WEB)