Discomfort with Judgment

I was sitting in church pondering some of the issues that were being discussed and/or avoided and I began to think again about the relationship of judgment to other things in life. For instance, why is it that the closer one gets to really knowing God the more uncomfortable one can become? After all, one of the main reasons many of us try to know God to start with is to find relief from much of our pain, both physical and emotional. And yet when we truly come to God with our hearts finally starting to open to receive love for maybe the first time in our life, we find that coming into His presence stirs up old issues that cause us to squirm and duck and try to avoid what we are being convicted of that we don't want to face.

But as I thought about this it started to make much more sense to me. After all, God is really the most powerful judge in the whole universe, and we expect to come close to Him without facing judgment? Come on, get real! You can't expect to cozy up to One who's very identity is that of Judge while expecting to avoid judgment can you?

So in that respect it should be no surprise at all that when we start to get serious about knowing God that we will begin to feel the effects of true judgment in our lives. So how should we relate to this? Try to manipulate the Judge? Try to bribe Him with good works and lots of praise and worship? Try to remake Him into our image as one who is so lenient and loving and full of grace that He will overlook our mistakes and secret sins? Just how are we to get intimately close to the great Judge Himself? How do we deal with the natural reaction of fear when coming into the presence of judgment?

I am coming to understand that much of our problem with being afraid of judgment and true judges is that we have such a contorted view of what this really means. What I have been learning through careful study and observation is that the word judge and its related words like judgment and judging are in actuality simply talking about exposure of what is real and what is hidden on the inside.

Because so much of what we call judging in this world is a perversion of true judgment, we have come to be afraid of the idea of facing the final day of judgment before the throne of God. I am not saying there is not great reason for being quite concerned to be ready to face the judgment. But I am saying that our concern should be for possibly different reasons than what we have usually assumed.

Counterfeit judging usually involves arbitrary decisions based on arbitrary and often fickle rules and laws that are often conflicting and even unjust. Judges have come to be known for their unfairness and selfish interests in many of their decisions and millions are possibly imprisoned right now, not because they are guilty of any real crime but because prosecutors, lawyers and judges have colluded to find someone to blame to take the heat off of their own unjust system of political power sharing.

Earthly judging also almost always involves imposing shame on others, whether it is imposed by a court of law or whether it is the judging that we typically do to each other in the normal course of our day. In addition, nearly all of the news that we hear from the media is skewed to create assumptions of judgment even before we have heard all the facts. We are being trained by our culture in constantly judging others while at the same time desperately trying to avoid being judged ourselves. As a result of this mindset that is so widely pervasive we have assumed that God acts pretty much the same way we do, handing out arbitrary decisions and imposing them on the guilty with force that cannot be questioned.

But is this really how God relates to the children that He loves so tenderly? Is God the Judge different than God our Father? Do we find ourselves wishing that God would judge others harshly who are hurting and oppressing us but want Him to extend extra grace to us and our kind? Are we so bent on insisting that God is just the way we insist that He must be that we cannot see the real truth about how He feels about us or what is involved in real judgment?

I am becoming much more aware that real judgment really means open exposure of what is inside the heart, what the true motives are that cause us to do and say the things that others see on the outside. If what is truly on the inside is less than honest or honorable or moral, then we likely have very good reason to fear true judgment, for real judgment simply exposes for everyone to see clearly what we have been desperately trying to hide from them for so many years. And it is inevitable that as a person comes closer to the real God (not the God that religion has created in the image of the world's system) who is also the real judge that the person themselves will necessarily begin to experience the exposure of what is deep inside. This is only natural, for as John clearly explained in his gospel, the closer we get to the light the more clearly will our faults be exposed.

So what is the result of this unavoidable consequence of coming closer to God? What is becoming more clear to me is that an unwillingness to face exposure in our life, to face truthfully the inner faults, sins and corruption that lies deep within every one of our hearts, actually blocks us from knowing the real truth about God. For it is absolutely impossible for anyone to really become close friends with the real Judge without being willing to experience the exposure that is the essence of that presence itself.

I also believe that resistance to true judgment in the authentic presence of God is part of the foundation of all false and counterfeit religions in this world. Resistance to real judgment also is the root of many of the popular lies about God that so permeates much of our thinking and assumptions about Him. We suppose that we want to get close to God so we can feel better, but at the same time we resist the personal exposure that always accompanies coming into His presence. But knowing God for real and avoiding exposure is attempting an impossibility. The only way this is ever going to happen is if we substitute alternate, deceptive ideas about what God is like for the real truths about Him. And that is what happens most of the time in religious circles.

What are my gut-level immediate feelings whenever I hear about the great day of judgment? Am I afraid? Terrified? Intimidated? Motivated to strive harder to be a “good” person (whatever that means)?

One thing I am perceiving is that our initial reaction and feelings that we have at the gut-level whenever we seriously think about judgment reveals the truth about how we really feel about God too. For since God is in charge of the judgment and is indeed the Judge Himself, the judgment is going to reflect His own character and personality in how it is conducted.

Whatever people may think about judgment, the reality is that the secret thoughts and motives of every single thinking individual who has ever lived will be fully exposed for all to see plainly. But real judgment does not just take place at one time far off in the future. Those who choose to get close to the Judge today and accept His offer of salvation and intimacy with Him will have to be willing to seriously enter into judgment beginning right now. And this exposing of the secret things of the heart and life will continue to intensify and become more and more explicit the closer we get to maturity.

One thing I have observed is that God usually, if not always, starts at the individual level and brings conviction to the heart in an attempt to expose what needs to be dealt with and resolved with them alone before ever moving on to more public exposure. God is very kind and faithful and respectful of our feelings and freedoms. He wants us become honest with Him and with ourselves and to release our sins to Him that He exposes in private judgment with Him. If we are willing to cooperate with Him at this level we will be able to find the freedom and peace and integrity that He is eager to place in our hearts to avoid the public embarrassment of open judgment.

But if we resist His quiet convictions and refuse His offers of repentance, but instead deny our faults and problems, we force Him to become more and more public with the circumstances that bring exposure to what is hiding within. All through this process of personal judgment and exposure we have opportunity to accept repentance from Him and in humility confess the truth about what He is revealing to us about ourselves. As long as our heart is not totally seared from over-resistance to His Spirit we have opportunity to come into alignment with His will and His ways through His grace.

But there is also coming a day when everyone and everything will converge together to finally expose, not only the real truths about what is in each heart whether honest or deceitful, but will also be a surprising revelation or exposure of what is in the heart of God Himself. The great day of judgment – which really means the great day of exposure or revelation – is when every heart, motive and thought, both human, angelic and divine, will be laid out in full view for all the universe to finally judge according to the built-in principles of reality that are hard-wired into every living, conscious mind.

Am I still afraid of the judgment? Am I still afraid of God? Am I still afraid of others seeing what goes on inside my secret thoughts and imaginations? If I am aware of any of these fears, I am not to run away from them and the convictions of the Spirit, but my real hope is to acknowledge those fears as symptoms of things that have yet to be judged and resolved so that I have no fear of them coming out in the final judgment when it will be too late to have them removed from my character.

For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God. (John 3:20-21)

Jealousy or Joy

Those God places around me are quite often the ones who tend to trigger my faults and negative reactions the most easily. How I choose to respond to this situation determines whether or not I will grow spiritually, emotionally and socially.

The counterfeit system of religion that I am more familiar with than the true, generally causes me to try to avoid such uncomfortable interactions and to instead look for people who make me feel better about myself rather than trigger me. I don't think it is wrong or bad to have people around who want to encourage me or remind me of who I am in Christ; I think that is actually very important for all of us to have those people in our circle of friends. But the idea that I should be able to live outside the troubling atmosphere of those who more often trigger me than encourage me is a philosophy inherent in my old system of religion, not the real truth that I am now learning about how God intends to mature me.

I am trying to perceive my areas of blindness concerning this. I am praying for a different perspective, not only intellectually but far more importantly emotionally in the heart. I want to overcome my fears of those who can influence or control me with their ability to ignite my internal lies that anchor the handles by which I can be manipulated. I want to come into much closer alignment with God's way of thinking and feeling so that I will be the one exerting the stronger influence of attraction on behalf of Jesus instead of being the one operating under the influence of fear (OUI).

I want to be holy. That means that I want to be a person who's supreme desire is to exclusively draw attention to the beauties of God and His characteristics. I want to have the kind of influence on others that was seen in John the Baptist that caused Jesus to declare that "among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he." (Luke 7:28)

These words have always seemed like a riddle to me, and I still am puzzled by them yet today. But I know that a very strong clue as to their true meaning is rooted in the attitude that permeated the life and activities of John and that are most clearly seen in his own testimony about his lifework and his true identity.

He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. So this joy of mine has been made full. He must increase, but I must decrease. (John 3:29-30)

Those words about joy really resonate with a deep craving in my own heart. I so much desire to have a joy that is full and overflowing. It was this joy that was seen in the life of John that made him such a powerful and effective witness to attract people away from all the disappointing attractions offered by the world and to open their minds and hearts to consider heaven's offering in the Peace Child. Yes, I want to have the spirit of John the Baptist that gets excited about others getting excited about falling in love with Jesus and becoming His bride.

But another dark part of me is jealous and wants to play the role of the bride myself. And even worse, a dark part of me wants to steal away some of the affections of the bride from others to enjoy for myself instead of living to point others exclusively toward the only legitimate Bridegroom. This part of me rationalizes that there is plenty of love to go around and if people attach some of their affections onto me while I am sharing the beauty of Jesus with them there should not be much harm done. By indulging in this “flirtation” my own emptiness might be satisfied to some extent by enjoying a part of their affections while they should still have plenty left to connect their hearts to God as well.

But this kind of reasoning, no matter how subconscious or obscure it may try to remain, is another symptom of a deeply embedded lie in my soul that will betray both me and God's plans into the schemes of the enemy to undermine what God is accomplishing in the hearts of His children. This is where true holiness must be strictly understood and uncompromisingly obeyed. There can be no dividing of anyone's affections. Not only must my affections be totally surrendered to the Lover of my soul, my Savior and Redeemer, but likewise I must be just as jealous as John the Baptist was that the loyalty of every person coming to know Jesus is not diverted in the slightest by anything I may crave for my own heart. I must embrace fully the spirit of John the Baptist who lived his whole life to attract others exclusively to Jesus. John exhibited a complete and selfless commitment for the glory of Jesus. He must increase, but I must decrease.

To imagine that my joy could be made full by decreasing my importance in the eyes of others runs counter to everything that seems intuitive, but that is just the problem. Everything that feels intuitive almost always emanates from the flesh, and the flesh will always, always steer me in the wrong direction and give me answers that sometimes sound and feel correct but will in the end betray my heart.

Logic, reason and feelings tell me that to feel good about myself and to have joy I must cause others to like me, to want to be around me and to speak well of me. So I try to manipulate what people think about me through various means so that I can have as many people as possible affirming me, so that my fears and self-doubts can be reduced as much as possible. I naturally tend to try to use religion and religious activities to influence what others think about me so that they will maybe speak well of me sometimes and praise me for being such an upright, noble, true-hearted Christian.

It frightens me deeply to even give voice to these inner realities, for when they become exposed to the light of expression they also take on the darker shades of falsehood and hypocrisy that betray their true nature. To even acknowledge that these kinds of feelings and motives exist inside of me is shaming and causes me to want to deny them as really true. But to do that would be to once again hide from the very light of truth that is necessary if I am to ever to be free and experience the kind of full joy that John talked about.

I wish I could say that I have this all sorted out and have the answers neatly packed away and functioning in my heart. But that would not be true and would only be a denial of reality. I also wish that I could describe just how this condition is going to change, how from now on I am going to be completely transparent, honest, loving, unselfish and dedicated like John to drawing everyone around me into a passionate intimacy with Jesus while I am willing to stand by and watch them all pass me by and forget about me in the process.

I can say that I know I should be this kind of person. I do know that this is the true role that God wants me to fulfill. And I suspect that this is likely the only course that will lead me to that state of full joy that I so long to live in each day. But to say that this is what I am going to do and be from this point on would be the height of presumption – except for the catalyst of the presence of Jesus in my life that can accomplish the impossible in and through me.

As I look at my relationships with those around me, in my family and my church not to mention my almost total lack of any meaningful relationships with others in my community, I see very little evidence of the disposition described in these words from John the Baptist. No wonder my life has so little influence for God. But that is not to say that I am ready to just remain stuck in my impotence and fears. I cry out to God for deliverance from this evil man that controls me from within. I want to be transformed from the person described in Romans 7 to the joy-filled, Spirit-led life described in Romans 8. And all that I know to do to get there from here is to throw myself on the mercy and grace of God and trust Him to continue to guide and change and grow me.

God, I have such mixed motives down under the cover of looking good on the outside. Thank-you for exposing some of these to me this morning. I don't know how You are going to change me but I give You unconditional permission to do whatever it takes to transform my heart and mind and life into what You have in mind for me, even though saying that is very frightening. Continue to reveal more of Your glory to me and more of Your intense beauty. I want to be a clean, holy, passionate channel of Your glory to everyone who sees me just like John, Your friend was back when You started Your ministry on earth. Have Your way in me today. Fill me with Your humility, Your love, Your spirit of instant forgiveness, Your overwhelming kindness, Your grace for anyone who offends me today. Glorify Your name in my life and in the atmosphere around me today.

Our Anniversary

Today is the anniversary of our marriage after 31 years of life together. We have certainly been through many kinds of experiences together, had our share of difficulties in trying to learn how to get along and had many stresses that have tested our commitment to each other. But I can honestly say that we are glad to be together and continue to work on understanding each other more deeply.

Attempting to express things in this area of life is possibly one of the most hazardous undertakings I might venture, so I will keep my words as few as possible. My ability to give voice to our relationship is always subject to intense analysis by those who know me and then I tend to get defensive. But I can say that our commitment to each other is permanent and has been since the day we promised to love and cherish each other through good and bad times.

I remember taking my wife out to eat at a fancy restaurant in Houston, TX on our fifth anniversary and being surprised at the amazement of the people working there that we had been married for so long. Today it seems that being married at all can produce something along the lines of amazement since it seems that marriage itself is becoming obsolete in many circles. But I grew up in a home where divorce was not only out of the question as an option for a marriage but it was strongly taught that it should not even be entertained in the mind or ever become part of a discussion. I believe that growing up in that kind of background has given me the edge at times to push my way through some of the most difficult parts of our marriage and to only look at options that would bring healing and reconciliation when others would have been ready to bail out.

We have both done a lot of growing up in the last 31 years but still have a great way to go. We are not satisfied with the level of emotional intimacy and transparency with each other that we would like to enjoy, but we have come to respect much more each others freedom to grow at their own pace. I know that we spent too many years thinking that we could somehow change the other person so that they would be more like us. But this only created frustration and far too much conflict and tension in our home. When we finally came to the place where we were willing to just accept the other one as they were without preconditions, we began to have the freedom to relax and actually were more empowered to make the changes that needed to happen.

Our life has changed a great deal over the past 31 years together. We have had an empty nest for some time now and have ended up living in my parent's home near where I grew up, which is something I never wanted to do. But God has His plans for us and we are looking to see how to cooperate with those plans. For I know that it is only as we synchronize with God's plans that we will really experience the deep satisfaction that our hearts crave.

This weekend we are enjoying the visit of our daughter who was our firstborn. We learned a great deal about life in raising two children and wish so much that we could have known then even half of what we have learned in the past few years long after they were gone. But that is impossible and we have to trust our God to direct the lives of those we no longer have much influence over. We are learning the same lesson that we had to learn with each other, to leave them in God's hands, love them as they are and enjoy their company when we can.

We love our children and we love each other. We may not have the sparkle and energy that many couples have in their marriages but we have a deep commitment to each other and are learning to listen to God more each day. So for the love that became officially permanent 31 years ago today, I will say that I am yours and you are mine. I love you honey.

Reluctant Farewells

Today is my last day in Pennsylvania. I came here over a month ago to help my sister-in-law and her husband work on getting their house ready to move into by December 1. We have been working very hard to get it ready and have accomplished a lot, but it is time for me to leave. My plane leaves early tomorrow morning and I will get home just half a day before my 31^st wedding anniversary with the love of my life and definitely better half.

This last weekend I once again attended the church in Wilmington, Delaware that I discovered three weeks ago. I posted my thoughts on this at that time and was very glad to find such a friendly church. Over the three weeks that I have attended there I have to say that it has only gotten better. The study class that I visited each week was so accepting and affirming and diverse that I could hardly believe it. I continue to be amazed at how ethnically mixed this church is in its composition with a large segment of members originating in Africa and some from Europe with a good cross-section of age as well. And yet I could hardly detect any spirit of competition or jealousy in this congregation. I am sure that they are not without problems, but the way in which they choose to relate to their differences has resulted in a group of people who seem to be reflective of the spirit that God wants to use to reveal His glory in this world. Their spirit of genuine friendliness still boggles my mind.

I was surprised at how many people in such a short time of me being there actually remembered my name and would greet me at random in the hallways. (This may puzzle someone who doesn't know me, but I am not an outgoing, greeting kind of person naturally.) I ended up spending the whole day there this week and nearly all day there was one person or another who would come up and spend time visiting with me. I even ended up inadvertently playing the piano briefly for an African choir that was getting ready to practice in the afternoon before I realized who they were. Then after their warm-up with some hymns that they insisted I play for them to sing, the director invited me to practice with them as they learned a new song. Later after they started practicing a song in Swahili I decided it was time to let them take it from there and I moved out to the hallway to see what else was going on. They ended up singing and worshiping for the whole afternoon, which one member in the hallway told me they do nearly every week.

As I visited the study class for the last time that morning I came with a sense of heightened emotions. I could not help but feel a great deal of sadness for leaving such a wonderful group of people who had welcomed me so warmly over the past few weeks. In fact, as they went around the room with each person relating what they were thankful for that week as they do each week, when my turn came I found myself unable to even speak over a few words. My emotions become so intense that I began to lose my composure. The teacher was very understanding and immediately guessed what was going on and verbalized my feelings for me. How gracious and kind. I just wish that I could take every one of these people back and import them into my church at home.

But I also cannot mistake the conviction that God has plans of His own for my church and that this refreshing reprieve for my soul is for a purpose. It is giving me perspective and a model for my heart to remember so that I can have some idea of what can happen if I will allow God to use me to initiate this same kind of friendliness and kindness to those in my own church. I have been praying for a new vision and new eyes to see each person in my church through heaven's eyes instead of the filters that I am so used to using. I want to perceive what God is up to and to join Him in cooperating with His ventures in my part of the world.

I have learned many things while I have been here this month. But more importantly my heart has received fresh infusions of experience from many different directions. Having access to high-speed internet while here has enabled me to download a number of talks and videos from inspiring sources that are having an impact on my thinking and direction. And of course, being separated from my wife for a month except by phone each day always reminds me of how important our relationship is.

I have really been blessed by getting to know my wife's sister and husband better. I have wanted to spend more time with them for a long time so that I could get to know them and I have not been disappointed. They are such kind and caring people who have done everything possible to make my stay here enjoyable and have bent over backwards to provide anything I wanted or might want. Both of them are very hard-working, fun-loving people who enjoy life and are devoted to each other. I am going to miss them after I leave as well.

But though I physically must leave many behind when I return home I will also take my memories and bonds of friendship with me for further development. I have been really blessed over these past few weeks and hope that I can be half as much of a blessing to others when given the opportunity.

We are looking forward to our daughter coming home for the weekend the day after I arrive. She is very special to us and we look forward to spending time together with her. At her suggestion we are planning to get involved in some activities to help be a blessing to those in need this Thanksgiving instead of just focusing on eating alone. I look forward to seeing how that develops.

Well, I must get ready for my last day of work here. I look forward to seeing my brother-in-law's brother once again who has been working with us the whole time on the house. He is also a very energetic and friendly person that I have very much enjoyed getting to know. Today will be my last day and I need to get everything packed and ready to leave tonight. So it is time for the goodbye's and the hello's of life once again.

Hopelessly Saved

There are some thoughts that are starting to come together in my mind that I want to explore a little further. I recently heard some discussion about the doctrine of once-saved-always-saved that is quite popular among many Christians today. Apart from the fact that a careful study of Scriptures will not support such a theory, I pondered the significance of what this teaching portrays about how God relates to us and how He feels about us.

This doctrine claims that once a person has given their heart to Jesus and has been “saved” (according to a unique interpretation of this word), then nothing can ever change that immutable decision and they are locked into a guaranteed place in paradise. Nothing they choose from that time on for the rest of their life can reverse their situation with God or prevent them from entering heaven.

When it comes to people who have gotten “saved” but later turn away from God and live a life of open sin, the stress that such an example puts on the credibility of this doctrine is easily brushed aside by claiming that obviously the person was not sincere when they accepted Jesus the first time. It is claimed that they were just probably faking it and that they were not really saved at all but were just pretending to be Christian.

But instead of producing the effect of confidence and assurance in people's hearts as the intention of this doctrine seems to be, this kind of logic can actually produce even more doubt and fear about our salvation. For if it is true, as religious leaders claim, that people who wander off into deep sin after claiming to be saved were never sincere in the first place, then how do I know if my own encounter with salvation was sincere enough to stick? This teaching places much of the responsibility for salvation on our own shoulders by asserting that the level of our sincerity is the determining factor in whether we are really saved or not.

Because all of us have different feelings and moods at different times in our lives, we can never be completely sure how to measure our own level of sincerity about anything, much less try to second-guess someone else's depth of sincerity. Instead of producing boldness and peace in the heart to overcome sin in our life, we are too often subtly led down the path of judging – both ourselves and others. We are trying to live in an illusory world that is arbitrary and irrevocable and that actually robs us of much of our freedom of choice.

I am very sympathetic to our need for assurance and peace about our salvation. I grew up in a religious culture that was just the opposite as that described above and that itself has been the motivation for many to embrace this doctrine. I lived for many years in constant fear and uneasiness about whether or not I would ever make it to heaven and the religion in which I grew up seemed to intentionally like it that way. Insecurity about salvation was seen as something of an asset for promoting our desire to put more energy into striving for a perfect life to please God and get to heaven. And though it is seldom stated openly, the insinuation was always very present that only those who achieved complete perfection (whatever that meant) would ever enter the kingdom of heaven.

In reaction to this tendency toward legalism by people like us, those who embraced the opposite theology gravitated more and more toward the other direction and emphatically taught that it is impossible for humans to be perfect. I hear many Christians today who quickly insist that they will never be perfect because that is an impossibility – only Christ was perfect and all we can do is trust in His perfection as a substitute for us. This kind of logic seems to get us off the hook so that we don't have to take sin or righteousness too seriously; it allows us to remain comfortable with hanging on to whatever vices we think are just too difficult to give up.

This tension between opposing views of salvation has created endless arguments, heated debates and deep schisms among Christians for centuries. And instead of honestly seeking to know what God thinks about this or caring how our views reflect on God's reputation, we more often simply align ourselves with the teachings of whomever promotes what makes us feel the best and that most accurately corresponds to our preconceptions.

But I think one of the best tests for any doctrine or belief is to carefully consider how it causes us to view God and whether those ideas cause us to see Him as more consistent and loving or whether they paint Him as arbitrary and unpredictable. Does what we believe about God tend to project onto Him the characteristics that reflect what we are like or do they, by contrast cause us see our own faults and our disharmony with His perfect character? Do we find ourselves having to twist the plain truths about His unconditional and never-ending love to fit our own paradigms?

What I have seen over the years is that both sides of this debate are forced to use very twisted rationalizations and convoluted reasoning to substantiate their positions. They sometimes become very defensive when challenged about the logic and truthfulness of their respective positions and often resort to demanding that you must just believe and have faith that their teachings are true without understanding the reasons behind them. This is really resorting to force when the weaknesses of a theory begin to undermine its credibility. But the human heart is so aligned with the ways of selfishness and the logic of sinful thinking that sooner or later it seems we have to go back to fear and force and shame in our interactions with others who differ from us in order to try to maintain the kind of unity that we insist must be present in the body of Christ.

So what does it say about God if it is impossible for us to be lost after getting “saved”?

We often use the analogy of marriage to describe our relationship with God after becoming a Christian. I believe in many respects this is very accurate. But if we go with this illustration of our connection with God, does that mean that we are locked into marriage with Him no matter how miserable we become, no matter how much adultery and abuse we commit against our Husband? Does God force us to remain married to Him no matter how disconnected we become from Him or how much we want to be married to more exciting partners?

Malachi 2:16 says that God hates divorce. Does this mean that it is completely out of the picture as an option in our relationship with Him? This certainly seems to be part of the foundation of much of the theology we see today in beliefs about Israel. Christians are embracing teachings that claim that Israel is hopelessly locked into the promises God made to their ancestors no matter how rebellious they may have become. Consequently all sorts of scenarios are being presented to explain prophecies from the Old Testament that revolve around physical wars in the mid-east and Jerusalem being the worldly capital of God's kingdom on earth.

But there are other places in the Old Testament that clearly quote God as saying He had written a divorce for His chosen people. But every time He talks about this it is with intense anguish and is always based on the unfaithfulness of those He had worked so long to draw close to Himself. And prophecy itself actually reveals that shortly after His people crucified the Son of God and rejected their marriage with God, God reluctantly accepted their final decision and allowed them to divorce themselves from being His chosen bride. The New Testament is very clear that now the chosen people of God are made up of people from every imaginable description of people groups on earth who choose to accept His invitation to be bonded in love with Him.

But if we insist that once we have become firmly attached to a relationship with God that it is impossible for us to ever be lost, we are denying many plain Scriptures that teach the contrary. But worse than that, we are distorting the picture of God in the hearts of others and even ourselves by presenting a God who will not respect your freedom of choice once you have chosen to follow Him. This kind of thinking is far from making Him more attractive – it actually makes Him out to be more of a despot locking us to Himself like the slavery that sin holds over our lives. God wants to deliver us from abusive bondage, not take away our freedom to choose.

The marriage-type relationship that God offers to enter into with us is not based on an irreversible, one-time decision that we are never allowed to escape. It is a relationship of real freedom that allows us to grow in maturity, to make mistakes without fear of being rejected, of having the opportunity and time to grow up into Christ while not living in fear of losing our place in God's heart by acts of ignorance or even lapses of loyalty. What is really at issue here is God's faithfulness that challenges the assumptions on both sides of this doctrine.

For the “conservatives” who imply that we must be perfect enough for God to save us in heaven, the truth challenges us to examine the real nature of God's heart toward us and His complete lack of fickleness. It challenges us to trust much more in the faithfulness of God's love that will never, ever end. It reminds us that God's patience is not something that snaps someday when His dark side erupts in anger to destroy those who are not good enough for Him. The truth about God and reality is actually far better than we have ever dared to dream.

For the “liberals” who believe that perfect obedience is never possible and that God refuses to let anyone leave Him after making a decision to follow Him, the truth challenges us to examine our dim view of His power to transform us and restore us completely into His perfect image. It is true that righteousness is never about our achievements in being “good”, but at the same time we must stop underestimating the power of God to accomplish in our lives just what He says He intends to do. Living a righteous life – which is crucial to being prepared to survive the rare atmosphere of heaven in His presence – is not something we are supposed to achieve by our own efforts but is something that we have to allow Him to accomplish in us if we ever want to see His face and live. This is accomplished when we change our pictures of God and seek to dwell on the real truth about Him. For as we focus on His perfection we will inevitably become transformed into that perfection, not by our own efforts but by the principle of beholding.

Let is not accuse God of robbing us of our freedom to choose whom we will serve. Our destiny does not hinge on just one choice in our life but on the direction of millions of daily choices. All throughout eternity we will continue to have complete freedom to choose whether or not to be obedient and loyal to God, for this kind of freedom is the only climate in which real love can flourish.

The last part of the verse from Malachi that where God says He hates divorce has one of the most important messages to each one of us who desire to truly know how to be saved. God says, So take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously. It is never God's idea to initiate a divorce, but ultimately He will always respect the final choices that we make about our relationship with Him and His offer for us to spend eternity in close fellowship with Him.

What I want to experience more fully in my own life is a clearer view of God's true character, to even see the emotions reflected on His face, to be filled with the same passionate love that ever flows from His heart. I want to have such a clear view of God that my life will glow with His glory and sin will lose all its attraction and effects on me. I want to know the life of natural righteousness, not forced perfection. I love a God who values my freedom so deeply that He will not lock me in without options to a life in heaven with Him when my desire may be to live in selfishness. I like it that God respects me that much.

Father, show me Your face more clearly today. Fill me with the assurance that comes from Your faithfulness and Your compassion. Thank-you for the truth I find in Your Word about You and how You feel about me. Continue to draw me closer to Your heart and cause me to reflect Your beauty more accurately so that others will better see Your loveliness in my life.