Trophies of War

This is one of those mornings when the Spirit coordinated both books that I use each day to induce a unified revelation to my heart. The word “righteousness” has been one of the most troublesome religious terms that I have grappled with for most of my life. This is partially due to the abuse and misuse of the word to convey some of the lies about God embedded in most religion. So for the past few years I have been very alert to discovering more relevant and real definitions for this mysterious and difficult concept.

Maybe I have grown enough in my maturity to be able to put bigger pieces together now. As God has been teaching me many things they have become like sections of a puzzle partially assembled and laid aside for future insertion into a bigger picture. This seems like a couple of pieces that fit very well together and also fit perfectly into some empty spots within my experience and feelings.

As I look back over my experience, even in the past few hours, I can see more clearly what it means to look for satisfaction from shallow streams. This becomes even more clear to me after having tasted satisfaction from a much purer fountain of truth about God and experiencing the energy and stimulation that it brings to my soul.

The common thread of gold that runs throughout these two meditations is the passionate love of God that is available to transform my thinking, my life and make my heart come alive. It is the only true source of satisfaction to fulfill the cravings I desire in every area of my life. Putting this into words seems to diminish the inward intensity and “realness” of this understanding though. It makes it start to sound like religious jargon again that has bothered me for most of my life. But now the words come from an attempt to express feelings and connections deep inside that are real and true because I am beginning to taste them for myself and know the reality of what good love can feel like. And that experience makes me intensely hungry for much more, for in reality it makes me much more aware of how empty and parched my thirst really is.

Here is some of what I received this morning with highlights of the words and phrases that really spoke to my heart.

Righteousness is love, and love is the light and the life of God. The righteousness of God is embodied in Christ. We receive righteousness by receiving Him.

Not by painful struggles or wearisome toil, not by gift or sacrifice, is righteousness obtained; but it is freely given to every soul who hungers and thirsts to receive it....

We need not seek to quench our thirst at shallow streams; for the great fountain is just above us, of whose abundant waters we may freely drink, if we will rise a little higher in the pathway of faith....

The words of God are the well-springs of life. As you seek unto those living springs, you will, through the Holy Spirit, be brought into communion with Christ.... You will know that Christ is leading you; a divine Teacher is at your side. {SD 304}

Now thanks be to God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ. 2 Cor. 2:14.

The viewpoint of a worker for God must not be as near the highest as he can get, it must be the highest. Be careful to maintain strenuously God’s point of view, it has to be done every day, bit by bit; don’t think on the finite. No outside power can touch the viewpoint.

The viewpoint to maintain is that we are here for one purpose only, viz., to be captives in the train of Christ’s triumphs. We are not in God’s showroom, we are here to exhibit one thing—the absolute captivity of our lives to Jesus Christ. How small the other points of view are—‘I am standing alone battling for Jesus’; ‘I have to maintain the cause of Christ and hold this fort for Him.’ Paul says—‘I am in the train of a conqueror, and it does not matter what the difficulties are, I am always led in triumph.’ Is this idea being worked out practically in us? Paul’s secret joy was that God took him, a red-handed rebel against Jesus Christ, and made him a captive, and now that is all he is here for. Paul’s joy was to be a captive of the Lord, he had no other interest in heaven or on earth. It is a shameful thing for a Christian to talk about getting the victory. The Victor ought to have got us so completely that it is His victory all the time, and we are more than conquerors through Him. “For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ.” We are enwheeled with the odour of Jesus, and wherever we go we are a wonderful refreshment to God.

Chambers, Oswald: My Utmost for His Highest : Selections for the Year. Grand Rapids, MI : Discovery House Publishers, 1993, c1935, S. October 24

As I thought back over the life of Paul who wrote this, I realize how much his own life experience demonstrated the things I have been learning from what he wrote in Romans 7 & 8. Before he met Jesus in the confrontation on the road earlier in his life, he was the perfect example of living a religious life from the head, very studiously striving to keep every rule that could be found and working very hard to be a person that God could accept and bless. He was formula driven, Bible-based, proof-text perfect and full of passion for defending true religion against all corruption or threats from emotional contamination. He had succeeded so well in perfecting his religious life that he was considered the champion of God's holy church in his zeal to cleanse the church of all heresy.

But in living this way he had suppressed his real heart and was blinded to the real condition of his spirit. He lived in an increasing state of agitation fired by what he sincerely believed was holy zeal for the reputation of God and the purity of His church. His activities in persecuting the dissenters who were introducing new theology and heresy into his church made him a favorite among his peers and even his elders. Everything seemed to confirm that he was justified in his extreme positions and he was emboldened to take even more intense actions against those who disagreed with his views about religion. As his popularity increased so did his confidence that he was doing the right thing and that God was proud of his work to purify the church and protect the sanctity and holiness of the truth.

When God met him on the road to Damascus in his passionate intensity to defend “the truth”, He did not confront him about any of his theology or try to argue with his doctrines. He went straight to the emptiness of his heart, the long suppressed aching void and craving for love that Saul had tried to hide all of his life from everyone including himself. With just a few words of kindness and compassion all of Saul's defenses collapsed like a house of cards and his heart was left naked and exposed in the presence of the very embodiment of love Himself.

In that moment Saul, who became Paul, experienced the reversal of direction from living a head-led religion based on facts and formulas to being a captive of the heart led around by his spirit chained to the heart of God with the love of the Holy Spirit. These chains were nothing like the chains of force and fear that Saul had employed in his attempts to live the perfect life, protect the truth of God and enforce his view of truth on others. These chains were the silken cords of tenderness and love and affection that awakened such intense desires and hunger inside of Saul that he could not stop himself from falling madly in love with this God who treated him so carefully, so gently and cared about him so deeply.

In the days of the Romans it was quite common after great battles for the conquerors to chain together many of the people they had captured, particularly the important leaders and resistors, and upon returning home to drag them through the streets behind their chariot for the crowds to jeer at and gloat over. The prisoners were often dirty, smelly and many times even naked as it was intended that they experience the most humiliation possible after their defeat. It was assumed that the more their enemies were humiliated that by contrast the championing heroes would be elevated in the eyes of the people.

In the passage quoted by Oswald Chambers in the above reading, Paul takes this illustration and transforms it into an example of what God does in the lives of those who's hearts He has captured with His love. But instead of making them objects of humiliation and using chains of force and shame to demonstrate His power like humans love to do, God demonstrates the superior power of selfless love that captures more securely the hearts and lives of people who are stunned with amazement at the real truth about God's passion and love for them. They become “chained” to His heart with an intensity of responding love as they see the real truth about His feelings for them. They are paraded before the world as trophies of His conquering grace and goodness, but instead of being naked and ashamed they are seen to be wearing the very same clothes as the King Himself. And the odor that wafts from their bodies and spirits are the sweetest and most compelling fragrances ever encountered. This is God's version of a triumphal procession and a demonstration of how God treats prisoners of war. He makes them His sons and daughters and entrusts them with the full inheritance of everything He possesses.

We are not in God’s showroom, we are here to exhibit one thing—the absolute captivity of our lives to Jesus Christ. How small the other points of view are—‘I am standing alone battling for Jesus’; ‘I have to maintain the cause of Christ and hold this fort for Him.’ Paul says—‘I am in the train of a conqueror, and it does not matter what the difficulties are, I am always led in triumph.’

To Dance with Joy

Why am I so reluctant to dance?

For me, I think dance is so closely related to being a true expression of my heart that my deep inhibitions in this area are simply reflective of my unreadiness and lack of synchronization with the hearts of those around me. When people with whom I have unspoken but unresolved tension ask me to dance with them it is like asking my heart to pretend that everything is OK between us when it is not. In a way it is like asking someone to have sex when you are not in a committed marriage relationship with them.

Maybe that is why dancing in general is so much of an issue in religion. Dancing is very much a form of intimacy with others, and in the world it is often the synchronization that is used as a precursor to sex outside of marriage. But that is not the only thing that it can be used for. Dance has received a very bad rap from many Christians because it is only associated in their minds with inducing people into illicit relationships. But that is the counterfeit of something very real, legitimate and powerful that could and should be experienced when living in the reality of God's ways of relating. Just because we spot a counterfeit does not mean that everything that looks anything like it is wrong too. That kind of thinking is fear-based and is Satan's means of keeping us away from the very things that can bring us the most healing.

Of course, there are quite a number of different ways of dancing and different reasons for doing so. And just because we engage in what we consider to be legitimate kinds of dance does not necessarily make them true or healthy for us. It can just as easily become an external, forced symptom that we try to artificially engage in to make us look good just like any other form of “works” righteousness. Even if we think we are completely comfortable with it does not mean that our heart is fully engaged and is free of dissent and friction between us and those we are dancing with.

My heart has been telling me that it wants to dance and has been doing so for many years. When I participated in a worship team for a couple of years I felt the pull of the Spirit to experience dancing with God. I began to realize that there was a very important part of my being that was disengaged and that God was awakening a hunger in me that He had implanted in humanity at creation. But my heart strongly pulls back every time I get close to this powerful form of expression and if I override my reservations with my left brain and join in dancing in a group my heart simply goes into freeze mode and allows the override to do whatever it decides. But while my body may be going through the motions, I am not enjoying the heart to heart synchronization that is supposed to be the basis for dance in the first place. I am only going through the motions to keep peace and satisfy someone else's insistence for me.

As I try to listen to what my heart is telling me about this, I realize that what it really wants is to experience and enjoy the intensity of closeness with a number of other hearts first that would then cause me to spontaneously and freely engage in dancing with them in joy without inhibitions or fears. I do not want just an external exercise no matter how convincing it may appear. Oh, those kinds of dance can certainly make people feel much better and can even lead to more bonding so that they can get closer to the real motives. But my heart keeps insisting that I get the horse in front of the cart and not settle for cheap substitutes.

This is not a head decision, because my head is much more pragmatic about it and simply wants to keep peace between me and others. But inside, my heart says that for dance to be real and to have the powerful and positive effect on me and my relationships with others, that I need to be much closer to being in unity of spirit with those whom I allow myself to synchronize with in this way.

It feels even scary to expose these feelings into writing. Not only am I afraid of censure and condemnation from those who severely disapprove of dancing in general but I am afraid of being misunderstood or pressured in this area. The heart is a very sensitive and vulnerable thing and is often very frightened by disclosure. But at the same time I am getting a better picture of the quandary that God is in trying to prepare us to live in full synchronization with Him for eternity. We have so many stupid and tenacious ideas about religion and God that are false that if He were to try to engage us in the activities and joy of heaven in our present mindset we would simply have a total meltdown in our resistance to Him. In fact, that is exactly what hell will be all about.

So in a way I am already experiencing hell and trying to get free from it now in preparation for being fit for heaven. Heaven is where we live fully and freely from our hearts without resistance and with our spirits fully synchronized with everyone around us. In that state of being we will be able to dance, sing and engage in every way possible with others without any inhibitions, fears or regrets. We will know the full meaning of joy and peace as we live in the intimate presence of the Source of all joy and aliveness.

But to enjoy that for eternity I must begin to experience it here and now. It is part of the healing process involved in the plan of salvation. For salvation is all about the healing of the heart and correcting the lies of the mind. The Spirit of God is working to move my toward a life of total freedom in Christ, a freedom from inhibitions, from fear, from resistance toward the joys that God designed for me. I am often very frustrated at how slow I am to release my resistance and I wonder if this healing will ever take deep root in my life. But I also have to remember that it is God's responsibility to finish the process that He began in my life and I have to trust Him to continue whatever He needs to do to bring me into full harmony with His heart.

Nature's Anticipation

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (Romans 8:20-21 NAS95)

When I read this this morning I drew a complete blank as to what this means or why. It doesn't make sense the way the words are arranged to imply that the bondage of creation to decay is because of God, that it is God's fault that creation is such a mess. I asked God to explain this to me and finally decided to go check out the Greek to see what I might find.

After examining the Greek words in this text carefully (as much as an untrained person can with the tools at hand) I noticed that there doesn't seem to be any original word behind the “Him” in this verse, so it must be an assumption on the part of the translators. That is not to say that it is not correct to assume a “him” in the context of the sentence, but it does mean that there may be a possibility that it does not have to be there. That would certainly create potential to change the flavor of this passage considerably.

The word for futility carries the idea of “transientness” or impermanence. I think most people who believe in Divine creation would agree that nature as we know it today is dramatically altered and different from its original design. There is a great deal of adaptation that has taken place that makes it even very difficult to imagine what the original design looked like in many ways. Even though the cycle of life makes a lot of sense to us in our context, in the original perfect world things had to have functioned much differently. If there was no death or pain then animals would not kill to eat, leaves would not die and decay etc. I am starting to see in this verse a reference to this pervasive “transientness” that we see in nature today. Paul says that it was not voluntary – nature did not choose to come under this terrible bondage to death and evil.

There is some possibility that the (missing) him mentioned in this verse might also refer to Adam, the one who's sin triggered all of creation to come under this bondage to decay and death. It was Adam's choice, not nature's choice, to indulge in sin and by which all the terrible consequences were unleashed on everything on this planet. But God was also very actively at work in this situation providing the element of hope, not only for man's salvation but for restoration of the whole planet back to its original pristine condition.

Embedded within the very modification of how creation functions after sin entered the world, God formed lessons and examples pointing us to His plan to restore us to the perfect condition from which we have fallen. The hope that can be discovered in the study of creation and nature is a reminder of the hope that we find in the true understanding of the plan of salvation.

What Paul may be emphasizing here is the fact that God does not intend to leave nature on this planet in disarray for all of eternity while only restoring humans to their original design. Nature was created as a perfect environment for humans to thrive within and to provide for all of their needs. Nature was one of the main channels through which God provided His power and life to energize and satisfy the desires and needs of His children on earth. With the choice of humans to sin, nature – the environment containing those humans – also fell into a state of being very temporary and suffering from the many effects of death, which is the result of separation from the only Source of life.

I looked through a number of other translations of this text and found one that seemed to explain it maybe a little better.

For Nature was made subject to imperfection – not by its own choice, but owing to him who made it so – yet not without the hope that some day Nature, also, will be set free from enslavement to decay, and will attain to the freedom which will mark the Glory of the Children of God. (Romans 8:20-21 TCNT)

Another thing I noticed when looking through the original Greek words behind some of these verses was something interesting in the previous verse. Verse 19 says, “For the anxious longing (intense anticipation) of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.” (Romans 8:19) The words that were translated into “revealing of the sons of God” do not seem to imply a plural for the word “sons”. In fact, what it seems to be talking about is very possibly a reference to the Son of God and pointing to His return to this earth. Given the surrounding ideas of the restoration of creation to its original design, it would make much more sense to view it in this manner.

It seems to me that these verses would be talking about a time on this earth when God's redeemed children will be fully healed from all the wounds and damage of sin and will reveal the glory of their Creator. Then God will want to restore, to re-create the perfect environment of nature that He had originally designed for them to thrive in with the addition of His own presence in the form of the capital city of the universe being located here. Paul is saying that not only will the effects of sin be overcome with the glory of God revealed in the lives of the Redeemed but that God will restore nature as well so that sin and its affects will be eliminated from the universe forever.

For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. (Romans 8:22-23)

In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words... (Romans 8:26)

I find it very interesting that the idea contained in “groaning” is in reference to three different entities here. I have not yet unpacked it very much but thought I would mention it. If you have any thoughts on this feel free to share them with me.

(next in series)

Fearful Slave or Joyful Child?

I am looking at Romans 8:12-17 and observing the counterfeit and the true mentioned or eluded to here. The word obligation is brought up (debt in KJV) and suddenly the sentence seems to be aborted. The strong implication that I see is a reference to the very strong motive underlying all of man-made efforts to get right with God. These are always mixed with varying amounts of fear, for fear is one of the basic ingredients and symptoms of sin.

Paul is not saying here that the opposite of being controlled by a sense of fear-filled obligation is to feel no obligation at all. But what he is trying to say is that a true motive for serving God will never be found to have fear as its fuel. Verses 14 and 15 make this very clear. When we are led by the Spirit of God we will not receive from that Source an attitude of slavery which leads to fear. The opposite, or counterpart of the counterfeit, is a spirit of joyful abandon as children – even better, adopted children. For to be adopted as a child is to be specifically chosen, not just born. There is usually a great deal more intentionality in the planning of an adoption than there is in a natural birth. And just in case we still have to deal with our ingrained fears about this attitude of God toward us, the Spirit of God is ready and eager to testify with our spirit that we really are children of God.

Of course, this means that our spirit needs to testify to this fact so that the Spirit of God has opportunity to testify alongside, reinforce and embellish our testimony. I see the need for me to encourage and give in to every opportunity to indulge in confessing the truth about this relationship with God. It does not often feel safe or even reasonable to do so, but if I choose to do so the Spirit is waiting to reinforce my testimony and deepen my awareness of this reality.

I notice a number of uses of the word “with” throughout these verses. I have come to realize from the insights from Jim Wilder about how our mind works, that this is very often a clue that there is joy involved. The neurological definition for joy is when someone is glad to be with us, when we sense that we are special to them and they want to share our presence. This is particularly true in this case. “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit...” – joy. “Fellow heirs with Christ” – joy. “We suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him” – joy. The following verses even seem to imply that all of nature and creation is eager to share in our joy when it becomes more fully revealed.

God, make me more willing to enjoy Your presence today. Remind me to testify with my spirit and remember with my mind that I really am an adopted son of the awesome originator of the whole universe and have a very special connection to Your heart. Remind me of who I really am and what it looks like to live as a son instead of as a slave. Teach me what it means in this context to act like myself under any circumstances. I invite Your Son to take up residence inside of me and demonstrate what it looks like to be a son through Your transformation of my spirit.

(next in series)

What Must I Do?

Each morning I open the passage I am studying and ask God to highlight something I haven't seen before. He is very faithful and gracious and I have been enjoying the Word like never before in my life as well as being instructed in both mind and heart. It is helping me to grow in maturity, knowledge and wisdom that comes back during the day to be applied to real-life situations.

Today the focus that comes to me is the action words that I find in this part of Romans 8. There is always a lot of question about what is God's part and what is my part and the two usually become confused with me trying to do all sorts of things that are only possible by God. But I can also fall into the problem of waiting for God to do things that He is waiting for me to do. So it is good to see from the Word how I can cooperate with Him in becoming a Spirit-led witness for His name and reputation.

Here are some of the action words that I see as I look at this passage:

• walk according to the spirit (4)

• set my mind on things of the spirit (5, 6)

• have the Spirit of Christ (9) this is not completely a direct action but is a focus

• put to death the deeds of the body (13)

• receive the spirit of adoption (15)

• cry out in that spirit, “Daddy, Father” (15)

• testify with my spirit that I am a child of God (16)

• suffer with Him (17)

• experience the groans within myself as I wait eagerly for the complete fulfillment of adoption (23)

• hope for what I do not see, wait eagerly for it (25)

As I read through the chapter to ferret out these verses I notice how many things God is doing on His part as I choose to respond on my part. What is described here is a relationship of trust between two minds and hearts that grows and strengthens and deepens as each responds to the choices of the other. I believe that this chapter really is a parallel, a practical description of what it means to abide in Christ as talked about in John 14 and 15.

(next in series)