Romans 4 Surprise

I have been camping in Romans 4 for a number of days and have been releasing from it a great deal of encouragement and insights for myself through the ministry of the Spirit to my heart. Just now I reached the end of the chapter and received exciting revelations that I need to hear and embrace.

The last couple days I have been absorbing the vital truth about what the core essence of faith really is. In the illustration of what it looked like in Abraham's life, Paul exposes possibly the plainest explanation of faith in the whole Bible, at least for my understanding. As I have carefully analyzed this chapter to really grasp what its meaning is for me, I see the first half of the chapter laying out in detail the fact that Abraham was not trusting in his obedience to God's commands as the basis of his faith. And God was not basing His acceptance and relationship with Abraham on the signs and external symbols of obedience.

That is not to say that those things were not important to both of them. But the obedience and the evidences of obedience were not the cause and basis of their relationship. Those things are called “works”, and while works are all present in the life of a believer they are not the foundation. Paul goes to great lengths to make this point in the book of Romans as well as in most of his writings. He stressed this point so emphatically that he inadvertently set up a pendulum effect that has caused millions of Christians for centuries to heatedly debate back and forth the importance and merits or lack thereof of “works” in the life of a true believer. Even James and Peter had to weigh in on the subject to give some balance to Paul's extreme stressing of this point, but they did not detract from the underlying truth that Paul was trying to reveal when it is understood in its true light.

I have grown up in a culture where the emphasis and correct view of grace and faith as presented by Paul has always been viewed with quiet underlying suspicion and even avoidance. Because of this upbringing I have spent many years trying to understand for myself the real truth in the writings of Paul without becoming entangled in the unbalanced extreme ideas that have overtaken much of the Christian world that my sub-culture was reacting against. I can remember terms like “cheap grace” and “lawlessness” typically used to describe those who disagreed with “us”. And while those descriptions may have been somewhat accurate of many of our opponents, our thinking also tended to isolate us and move us quite far to the other extreme of constant emphasis on “the law”, obedience, intellectual “truth” and resulted in a very stunted experience of true grace and freedom.

So for the past few years I have been deliberately trying to lay aside all of the preconceived beliefs that I can as I invite the Holy Spirit to reveal to me directly and personally what the Bible is really showing me about God and this plan for my redemption. It has been a wonderful growing experience for me and has brought me more and more peace and assurance as my previous misconceptions and prejudices have been exposed and replaced with balanced, critical truths central to God's plan for the salvation of every human being. This has been my desire and prayer as I have meditated on various portions of Scripture over the past few years to discover for myself what God desires to reveal to me about Himself and His ways. In the process I have seen more and more consistency and less apparent contradiction throughout all of the Bible though there is still a very great way to go yet. I simply want to be tutored by the Holy Spirit as a humble, open-minded student and be transformed into looking, acting and feeling more like Jesus.

I'm afraid the results of this are still very difficult for most of those close to me to see and that disturbs me greatly inside. I still have deeply entrenched blocks of resistance, pride and ignorance that need to be excavated and replaced with grace and truth. But I am not in charge of this mining operation in my soul, I can only try to cooperate as God continues to tear open and repair the various areas of my damaged heart and mind. This message spoken to me in Romans 4 over the past few mornings is my anchor that I cling to as this process continues in my life.

Something that I was impressed with a couple days ago in my study was the phrase in verse 15, “the Law brings about wrath”. This reminds me of 1 Cor. 3:6 which also says, “ the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” This statement that the Law brings about wrath was very interesting in the light of the subject of “hell” that I have been discovering over the past few years. It also ties back to Rom. 2:5 where he talks about storing up for ourselves wrath against the day of wrath. But that is another subject that I don't have time to get sidetracked with at this point though it is extremely important. What is important is the fact that wrath is closely tied to the Law.

This point was really brought home to me the next day when I uncovered the contrasting phrase just a little later in the text. Rom. 4:20 says of Abraham that “he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God”. This growing strong in faith in my view is a direct contrast to the debilitating “wrath” in verse 15 with which I am very familiar. Trying to live by law-keeping to earn God's love and favor indeed generates and stores up within me more and more wrath in more ways than one. I want to live in the example of Abraham who grew strong in faith not wavering in unbelief and giving glory to God.

This too, has a great deal of meaning to unpack but I still want to move on to what I am learning today. For the very next verse drops the bombshell that destroys many of the myths about what faith really is by plainly revealing what real faith looks like. Verse 21 says, “being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform.”

I, along with many others in the church, have spent years of my life trying to “work up” faith as we assumed its meaning. In my mind, faith was the total vacuum of all doubt. It was a pure, mental atmosphere where there was no longer any particle of doubt about the results of whatever it was I was trying to exercise faith over. This usually meant that we would ask God for something we wanted and then try very very hard to believe that it would happen. When it didn't happen we assumed that there must have been a little doubt left in our mind which contaminated our faith so it couldn't produce the desired outcome. And when our prayers were seemingly answered we became very excited that at last we had maybe found the right formula to make this religion thing work.

That may be a very simplistic explanation of what happened, and we certainly would not have put it in those words at the time. But looking back, that seems to sum it up very accurately for what was going on in our minds. Religion to me and my friends was all about learning lots of information, obeying lots of rules and avoiding endless distractions and “temptations” to turn our attention away from developing perfection of character. I cannot remember any significant emphasis on an intimate relationship with a personal God except in intellectual theory only. Most of the language we used had assumed meanings for most of the words which I am now learning were often nearly opposite of their true meanings. What I am now learning as I read and meditate and listen with my heart is a revelation of a God who's greatest desire to connect with my heart and cause me know His heart. All of the other symptoms like obedience, “good works”, witnessing, etc. are outgrowths of that foundational heart-based relationship. When that is not attended to first, trying to arrange all of the other elements in place only creates confusion and some form of hypocrisy.

Paul bases his explanation of the true essence of what constitutes “righteousness” on the Old Testament description about how Abraham was considered righteous. It is based solely on Abraham's exercise of a simple belief that God can do what He says He can do. And the safe assumption within that is that God also wants to do what He says He can do for us and will indeed do it when we give Him the permission He needs by believing that very thing about Him. That is simply a description of a relationship, a healthy relationship between trusting friends. When that kind of relationship exists between us as God, in God's eyes and in His “book” we are considered righteous, pure and simple.

Of course that leads to the next conflict which is, “how can God get away with considering us as 'righteous' when much of the physical and spiritual evidence of our lives seems to contradict that assertion?” That is directly addressed in the last three verses. What really caught my attention was something I had never seen before in the very last verse. “(Jesus) was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.”

I have understood in a growing sense what it means that He was delivered over because of my transgressions. But the next phrase came as a surprise to me. He “was raised because of our justification.” I have always thought and have heard taught that Jesus' death and resurrection created the reason for my justification. But evidently according to this text only half of that is accurate. Jesus death while assuming my actual guilt for all of my sins was in fact the act offered to justify me before God. But that act was only an offering, not a demand. There was a point during that weekend when the offered death of the Son of God had to be taken under consideration and a decision had to be determined whether this offering was in fact going to be able to stand up to the scrutiny, not only for the consistency of the justice in God's own character, but to the satisfaction of any mind ever in existence either before or after this event who would examine this arrangement of atonement. It is not only God Himself who must be satisfied with the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf, it is the reflection of God hard-wired into every intelligent being that He ever created that also must come to the point of agreeing that this arrangement was just and fair. God took all that into consideration before deciding whether Jesus would receive the call to resurrection or would remain in the grave forever.

What this text is claiming is that the resurrection of Jesus was contingent on the acceptance of His death as a justification for our sins. If in any tiny degree there was anything that could not be accounted for, any sin that was not completely exhausted in the complex suffering that the Son of God experienced during the crucifixion weekend, then the justice of God to be consistent with itself before the universe would not allow Jesus to be raised from the dead. He would be forced to remain a prisoner in the tomb forever and the experiment of evil would continue to spread throughout the universe reeking its havoc and destroying life everywhere it turned. This is not a fictional impossibility – this was a very real potential that was in no way a foregone deal in the bag. Jesus took a very real and immense risk of failure when He submitted Himself to become a human and shoulder all the guilt of all sin everywhere when his life was destroyed by the resistance of sin in the presence of the pure, holy passion of an infinite Almighty.

What Paul is stating unequivocally here is that, based on the above facts, the very act of the resurrection is proof positive that our justification is in fact an undeniable reality. It is not something we can earn or acquire, it is only something we can believe and claim for ourselves as we identify ourselves as “in Christ” and, dying to self with Him we can then also experience His resurrection power here and now in our transformed, rebirthed lives. This truth lies at the very center of the plan of salvation. And this is why Satan is so intense on causing us to disbelieve in the resurrection, or at the very least dismiss it as irrelevant to our own lives.

We hear a great deal of talk about the power of the resurrection, but we do not yet see a great deal of evidence of it in the transformed lives of matured, saved Christians. But this is what brings glory to God, and I firmly believe that this kind of glory and all its fruits of obedience, passion and godliness is what we are about to see in the explosion of glory described in the beginning verses of Rev. 18. God is preparing millions of people who are open to His grace to participate in the final revelation of His true character of love, hope and faith. I want to be a part of that grand experiment of which it is said that angels stand in amazement at the transformation that happens in a life when God does what He says He can do.

(next in series)

Works and Faith 1

Here are some short thoughts impressed me this morning that I would like to explore much more. I compared Rom 4:1-5 with James 2:21-24 and Heb 11:17-19 about Abraham and the relationship of works and faith. I know this may be a worn out argument and I am not interested in a rehash. What I do want is to understand just for myself what God is trying to teach my heart when I looked at these this morning.

One thought that came to me was this.

Faith is like the seed, or maybe the planting of the seed.

Works is like the ground work, the preparation, the cultivating, the weeding that allows the seed to take deeper root and flourish. Work does not give the seed its life and is not the same as the work of the sower. My work is what continually creates the environment that encourages and protects the plant from withering away.

In this analogy it can be seen that while works do not save you, the lack of works can destroy the ability of the seed to flourish thereby suffocating your lifeline connection the the source of salvation resulting in ultimate loss of salvation. This is not due to God's unwillingness to save but in my loss of ability to cooperate and the destruction of my desire.

There is a lot more to unpack here but I have a lot of things to “work” on today while I think more about this.

Relating to Abuse of Power

I just had one of those “un-nice” dreams that woke me up from the intense emotion that it generated inside of me. After I woke up and wondered what it might mean I felt the Spirit explaining it to me more clearly and I knew I needed to get up and write it down for my own sake so I would not forget it. It is partly an answer to my pleadings with God to explain to me or clarify the real issues involved in my most vulnerable area of weakness.

My dream evolved out of some events and places in my dream that I cannot now remember as is usually the case. I can only remember the point where there was a cabin cruiser boat sitting alongside a street somewhere that for some reason evoked my curiosity. Another person and I decided to climb up on it and look around for a few minutes just to see what was there. It was dry-docked and I think it was nighttime with very few people around although there seemed to be something else involving a few others which I cannot now remember.

At any rate, we clambered up onto the boat and just looked around in the nearly empty cabin for a few minutes when I noticed a police car pulling up at the end of the block nearby. The boat was parked next to some trees and beyond the trees was a more commercial area of stores and streets. I quickly alerted the other person that the authorities were about to come and get us into trouble and then jumped over the dark side of the boat and ran into the trees before the police had noticed me. The other man was still on top of the boat and I don't know what happened with him after that.

I decided to calmly walk out of the other side of the clump of trees into the shopping area as if nothing had happened. I did not feel particularly guilty except that I knew if I was caught on the boat I would be accused of something or other that would be false but would imply I was some sort of criminal with malicious intent. The quicker I could distance myself from the boat and be nonchalant about it the safer I would be. At this point the dream seemed to dramatically shift. The only tie-in from this part of the dream was my state of mind as I went into what happened next.

As I approached the street I noticed that suddenly quite a number of police cars raced into strategic positions around the area and a large contingent of riot police jumped out and quickly encircled a large area with a rope so that none of us inside the area would be able to escape. As I approached one of the officers I tried to innocently ask what was going on here and also told him that I was not from around here so whatever was going on with the others I was not involved in. He ignored my protestations as the police moved to corral everyone caught in their arbitrary net operation. As they tightened the circle around the people caught inside they began clubbing and beating everyone they came to in typical riot-suppression fashion. This outraged me with the injustice of it all to the point that I woke up with fear and intense anger wondering what was going on.

That seemed to suspend the dream to the point where I must have dreamed just a little more almost as a sequel. I remember asking someone or maybe more than one why this was happening this way. I was impressed that this is the way the world's system imposes submission. It uses overwhelming force against an arbitrarily picked group of people to make them an example so as to instill the same fear and terror in a much larger group of people who hear about or see what happened to them. It is sometimes not based on any reason or even excuse; it is simply an abusive assertion of brute force designed to enslave the minds of as many as possible into total submission to the complete control of the “authorities”.

The next obvious question I had was, “How am I supposed to relate to a situation like this?” I have found myself in situations all through my life where I felt somewhat similar feelings and it always produces an overwhelming amount of rage within me almost instantly which, if unchecked, will get me into a heap of trouble in a very short time. Most of my friends who are aware of this problem usually steer me toward the idea that I just need to submit to authority and I have to deal with my problem with rebellion and that I need to just get over it.

While there is no doubt that I struggle with explosive feelings of rebellion inside that threaten to sabotage me and betray me at any moment, the counsel I have usually received seems to lack something very important that I can't yet really identify. The very act of attacking my symptoms, pointing out my pride and telling me to just blindly submit to all authority usually triggers memories and intense feelings from my childhood when similar situations strengthened the rebellion within me originally. My father particularly tried to use beatings to force me into submission which at times may have produced outward conformity but inside only increased my hatred of him and further inflamed my feelings of anger and rebellion against authority. I am now left with the legacy of that method and trying to apply more of the same simply doesn't seem to make sense to me.

Looking back on my life when people now try to insist that I just get rid of my pride and submit seems to my heart to be saying, “Injustice doesn't matter. Just give in to it and accept it and stop resisting it.” But injustice does matter and ignoring or denying it in blind submission under its crushing force is a perversion of how we are created. I guess I have always had a very intense sense of justice and these kind of short-circuited answers just do not cut it for me. Yes, I know that rebellion and pride are involved in this problem, but the solution that most have offered me or tried to force on me so far seems nearly as bad as the problem itself if not worse. I have grappled with this inner threat for years and sometimes feel no closer to freedom than when I was a very angry little boy in the hands of an angry father whipping me with an army belt to force me to obey his rules. The only difference is that now I am old enough that most people do not try to force their will on me like he did – except, of course, the uniformed type who drive around looking for someone to intimidate and trigger.

That's where it gets dicey and potentially even very dangerous. For there are people and despotic, tyrannical forces out there that can easily trigger the same hatred and intense anger inside of me that could expose this unresolved weakness in me. After they play me to be a fool I will then be represented to be a massive spiritual fraud and a hypocrite. I cannot deny that these dark feelings of anger and resentment lurk inside of me waiting to explode in fury when the protective casing around them is breached. And it is also true that the demoniacally-inspired forces in this world would like nothing better than to brutalize me, triggering this reservoir of wrath stored up within me and then blaspheme the name of God through my catastrophic and spectacular meltdown. This is not just a naïve scenario; this is a constant and very present threat that always lies not far beneath the surface.

For me to even face this in such a direct way feels very frightening to me. It threatens my image to others of a well-behaved, self-possessed Christian and creates a great deal of discomfort not only within myself but in the minds of many others as well I suspect. I know that I must experience healing and freedom from this dragon that lives within and threatens to destroy me on frequent occasions. It is a frequent source of fear and apprehension for me. I realize from what I have been learning over the past few years that anything that causes me to be afraid, especially at this level, must be faced and dealt with at the root level or it continues to empower the control of a false god in my soul. It has been a subject of much prayer and pleading with God for deliverance and it seems this morning that I heard something in response.

As my mind ran through the options I would be faced with while being clubbed by riot police for no good reason, at first it seems there are only two responses. The first, which is the one that my inner dragon would precipitate very eagerly, would be to fight back in rage and try to defend myself against impossible odds. But one only has to briefly look at the news from nearly anywhere in the world to see what the outcome of that would be. The cruelty and exploitation that sin has brought reaches unthinkable levels as the depravity of humans approaches that of demons. To attempt to fight back only invites more cruelty and vicious treatment as the abusers employ greater force to overcome all resistance. Trying to overcome force with force is a dead end road and indeed will lead quickly to an end of death after much suffering.

The other apparent option which many seem to believe is the right alternative is to simply cave in and “submit” to whatever demands are imposed on you in the abuse, at least that is what their advice sounds like. But something smells very suspicious in this option that rings of character weakness and appeasement at the expense of integrity.

I believe that there is an important third and correct option that I have yet to understand more clearly. The “force” of the world is calculated to conform us to the thinking of this world either through our indulgence of force in resistance or the destruction of our souls and value in the violations perpetrated on us. I like Phillips rendition of Romans 12:2 “do not let the world squeeze you into its mold.” There must be a way to not fall for the temptation to indulge the same spirit of force in retaliation while still having a sense of unaffected value and identity that cannot be violated or stolen.

As I pondered this and questioned God about these things while still lying in bed, bits of the following verses began to flash across my mind.

Matthew 16:25 “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. (2 Corinthians 4:7-11)

He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed." (Matthew 21:44)

It is difficult to capture these things in writing as they are things that my heart needs to understand and assimilate more than my mind, and things of the heart are not readily describable in the realm of words. At the same time it seems that if I do not capture them and condense them into words as best I can within a reasonable amount of time then they are much more readily to be forgotten and not secured in place as effectively.

I try to understand the problem that pride presents. Pride is like a traitor within who represents himself to be my greatest ally and defender. Pride's main purpose is to give me a sense of worth, to feel that I have value and that I am important to someone – if no one else then at least to myself. I don't think I really understand pride as much as I need to so I can know how to effectively deal with what I am up against. I have a deep and legitimate need, as everyone does, to feel valued, respected and wanted. I want to be cherished and acknowledged and desired – that is how we are created.

Pride is the natural part of me, my flesh, that offers to fill that legitimate need, that vacuum within me that craves fulfillment so I can have a reason to live. Everything in our world is designed to nurture and supply the function of our pride while at the same time the suppliers are trying to feed their own pride. The problem with this model is that in being self-focused we am actually attempting to operate our mental machinery backwards from what it was designed to do and the result is all the effects of sin we see around us.

Another major factor that plays into this is my sense of identity. This is linked to the function of pride and is most often found to be closely tied to the dysfunction of my life as well as my supposed achievements. I find myself confused about who I really am but whatever that is I cling to my perceived identity tenaciously for my very survival. Pride's main function is to shore up my weak sense of identity so I can feel valuable. So to threaten my pride is to threaten to remove all my identity. And whether it is me removing the main supporter of my identity and value, or it is external abusive forces trying to rip away my identity, the same fear underlies both options.

Now I am well aware that great volumes of discussion are carried on about realizing our true identity in Christ. I believe that is very true and is crucial to entering into eternal life even now. But moving that from an intellectual belief system to a heart experience is far easier said than done. I know what the metaphors are – dying to self, surrendering etc. But implementing them into actual experience is a titanic struggle that is made infinitely more difficult because of the evasiveness of the false gods that have commandeered my mind. This realization takes me right back to Paul's very accurate description of this plight in his eloquent portrayal of his frustrations with his inner self in Romans 7. And with him I have to land hard on his transition declaration of emancipation in Romans 8:1, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:1-2)

I still don't believe I have expressed very well what I wanted to capture this morning. But I guess I have taken another small step in my self-discovery, self-disclosure and reception of God's thoughts to me. I know I will be thinking about this more over the coming days and months and will continue to seek a deeper understanding and heart-realization of the truths that are beginning to emerge for me.

After I finished this post I opened my Bible “at random” to Isaiah 1 and read the following words.

"Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword." For the mouth of the LORD has spoken. (Isaiah 1:18-20 NIV)

I then looked up the original word translated “willing” and found it very interesting. It means to breathe after, to rest content. It is presented in this text in a double parallel contrasted with “resist”. It seems clear that the contrasts may be defining each other. Willingness, or rest with contentment is the opposite of resistance. Obedience is the opposite of rebellion. What is also meaningful is the order of the words. Rest, giving up resistance, being content is placed ahead of obedience. It may even be a prerequisite for successful obedience. On the other side resistance lies at the foundation of rebellion.

However, I still believe that not all resistance is bad. We are instructed to resist certain things by God and resistance is an important part of a healthy life. What we need to pay attention to more than the resistance itself is what it is we are resisting.

Healthy resistance and pushing against resistance followed by periods of rest and quiet is the prescription for strong muscles as well as strong minds. But resisting the wrong things or without needed rest is a recipe for problems and pain. I guess a lot could be induced from this text, but what impressed me the most was how relevant it was to what I had just expressed and how God sometimes uses a “random” opening of my Bible to speak directly to what I am thinking about.

Safe for Confiding

I am once again startled at the ways of God in my mind. Even though this happens almost on a regular basis it still impresses me with the way God chooses to relate to me sometimes. Once again this morning as I was trying to read at the beginning of my intimate time with God I felt an almost overwhelming compulsion to write down the thoughts springing up in my mind. The main reason I usually go ahead and get them written down, at least in brief notes until I have more time to expand on them, is because if I don't capture them immediately they will have evaporated when I go to look for them later.

Sometimes I am tempted to view these urges as distractions that are meant to get me off track or to get focused on myself more than on God. I do have to be careful about that and for that reason I sometimes simply try to capture the essence of what I am thinking until later. But then it is sometimes difficult when later comes to recapture the fullness of what was originally in my heart and I have to wait until it comes around again and I feel the inspiration of the idea so I can explore it again.

I do want to make sure that I spend some time listening carefully for any messages or impressions from God in the context of meditating in the Bible. But occasionally I am so carried away in trying to write out what seems to be pouring into my mind that I run out of time. At these times I am tempted to feel guilty for not finishing my usual routine, but then I am reminded that the routine itself is not to become my god, but my attention and value needs to be constantly directed toward knowing and experiencing God Himself; and whatever means He may choose to reach my soul I need to be open to relating to.

Yes, the issue of time can be a sticky one as well. It comes down to the issue of how to set priorities and what that reflects about my big picture. I don't want to live in constant guilt or become unbalanced in my life, but I have to constantly re-evaluate what is most important and be willing to make adjustments as I feel is necessary.

Feeling satisfied that I had written enough to be able to come back after listening to God in various books that I use in the morning, I laid aside the computer and read through the two devotionals that I am using this year. As I finished reading the second one, My Utmost for His Highest, I was once again surprised that the very questions I had just written were directly addressed in today's reading.

Every time this happens I get something like a warm feeling in my heart, a feeling of appreciation, a tangible sense that I am valuable enough to God that He would surprise me this way even though I obviously don't deserve His attention through my own merits. Once again I get to see grace on display and up close.

So here are the questions that I put down before reading this morning. These come on the wake of thoughts discussed both during and after the men's group last night which was very enlightening and stimulating for me.

I don't feel completely safe with anyone.

Maybe we aren't safe for God when He doesn't show up.

What does safe mean?

What happens when we confide when it is not safe?

Why would God not trust His “confiding” to ones who are not safe?

What would “safe” look like for me?

What would “safe” look like for God? How can I find out?

Why do we want to confide in another?

Why do we want to be confided in?

What can I do or be to make myself safe for God to confide in and trust?

Why do I want to be that person?

What would it take for me to really be able to confide in God, to totally abandon myself to Him?

What does this text mean and does it have anything to do with this subject?

“But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.” (John 2:24-25)

The thoughts presented in My Utmost today are phrase by phrase exposition on Galatians 2:20. “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

The last paragraph is what really got my attention. “'And the life which I now live in the flesh...,' not the life which I long to live and pray to live, but the life I now live in my mortal flesh, the life which men can see, 'I live by the faith of the Son of God.' This faith is not Paul's faith in Jesus Christ, but the faith that the Son of God has imparted to him – 'the faith of the Son of God.' It is no longer faith in faith, but faith which has overleapt all conscious bounds, the identical faith of the Son of God.”

Pulling Weeds

I had a good talk with someone very close to me last night. She related that while enjoying a Christian concert she was musing over the dissonance between what was being sung and her own feelings. She has believed for a long time that life was not worth living really and has struggled with negative feelings for much of her life. Suddenly she felt a strong impression that simply said, “You know that's a lie, don't you?”

She was caught by surprise by this thought, partly because she has known that intellectually for a very long time but has been unable to believe it with her heart. I am praising God for this evidence of His work in her heart that is in part His answer to my many prayers for her. I suppose that this discussion brought back to my mind the issue of lies embedded deep within us that form the basis for the false gods that operate in our heads.

As I pondered about this concept this morning another idea came into my thinking that may seem to many to be a misapplication of Scripture, but it may contain a lot more truth than first thought if it is considered without prejudice.

First it would probably do well to very briefly review a little of what I have been learning about this over the past few years from various sources. In summary, I have learned that demonic influences, whether possession, harassment, or just false gods (don't make me define and discriminate between all of these just yet) all derive their access to our minds by one door only – lies within us that give them permission to operate.

When this very important principle is understood it radically changes the way we may approach dealing with them and even threatens to unravel many large ministries oriented around their focus on demons and different methods of deliverance. When it is seen that the real problem is the inner lies more than the presence of demons then, for effective ministry, we can shift our focus to dealing with the foundational problems and begin to see permanent freedom and victory.

There is a certain stigma associated with demons and their influence or control in a person's life. Many do not even want to acknowledge their existence because of this and others, while admitting that it may be a problem somewhere else or at a different time in history choose to believe that people today in a more enlightened society are generally not bothered by such uncivilized notions.

On the other hand I have seen others who seem to see demons everywhere they look and are eager to “exercise their gifts” to perform all sorts of rituals or methods to cast them out every chance they get. However, it has seemed to me that very often these people appear to be trying to draw more attention to themselves and their abilities to fight the supernatural than they are bringing glory to God's reputation, even though they claim to operate in His name. (see Matt. 7:21-23)

The important point is that it is the lies that we still believe in our HEARTS that allow these various problems to continue to thrive and exist within our minds. It is not so much the intellectual lies we may believe, although they can be a contributing factor, but it is the lies we received during experiences particularly in our formative years that have the most affect on us. These lies cannot be simply dispensed by confronting ourselves or each other with factual truth. Fact-based truth may be ever so true, but it is primarily left-brain, intellectual truth and does not register in the right brain where the real problem lies remain embedded. Those lies were received usually during times of trauma or intense emotion and can only be addressed effectively by the Spirit of God speaking to our soul directly.

Sometimes I believe He uses new experiences that find access through emotional channels to reopen to parts of our memory to expose these lies and challenge them. Sometimes He may speak directly to those memories and speak the truth into them. Whatever happens, we are faced with a choice in a moment of truth to decide whether we will cling to those lies as being the true definition of our identity or whether we will release them in exchange for real truth and embrace the real identity that God has in mind for us.

Now that I have attempted to lay the background for my understanding in this area I will share the idea that came to me this morning. It has to do with one of the parables of Jesus found in Matthew 13.

“Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, “Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?” And he said to them, “An enemy has done this!” The slaves said to him, “Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?” But he said, “No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, 'First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.'”'” (Matthew 13:24-30)

I am well aware of the normal understanding and interpretation of this parable and in no way am trying to challenge that. At the same time I believe that many parables as well as prophecies have more than one application. I wonder if this parable may have application in the area of an individual person's mind as well as the larger application to the church as a whole? As I observe my own life and how God seems to be working with me, I see great significance in this story in my experience.

The field represents my heart, part of my mind, where, especially during my growing up years “His men were sleeping” on the job as far as protecting my heart from damage. During some of the abuse and neglect done to my spirit during those days the enemy implanted seeds of lies deep into my soul that caused me to believe they were my identity. These seeds appeared, in the early stages of growth and in an externals-emphasized religious atmosphere, to be quite similar to true religion and were usually affirmed as such. I could itemize these various seeds but right now I haven't taken the time to identify them in particular though I can generally see many of them. They have to do with fitting in to church life and looking good and conforming so that others praise me for being a “good Christian”. But they were springing out of the seeds of lies about myself and about God that had been planted in my “field”. It is now becoming more evident that indeed “an enemy has done this!”

Then comes the time when the differences start to become more noticeable. What used to appear very pious and righteous now starts to appear in its true light, full of pride, fear, low self esteem and secretly trying to appease an angry or temperamental God. This may sound harsh, but it is the reality for many of us now discovering the roots of our life-long religious activities and behaviors. Now comes the time when we have to decide what we are going to do about these deeply embedded lies and the resulting “weeds” that they have produced in our lives.

Our first impulse is to take strong action and uproot these weeds from our souls. We are ashamed of what they have done in our hearts and are afraid of what others will think of us if they discover all these problems in us. We are afraid of being exposed and even enter into some confusion as to who we really are. Viewing our “field” within us we wonder sometimes if we are really Christians or are we just pretenders with a lot of nice fruit mixed in with a lot of hypocrisy and evil character traits. We are tempted to give up in despair and believe yet another lie of the enemy that there is no hope for us or that we are not good enough to be a Christian.

But those who determine to continue the struggle and want to have a clean field with only plants of true quality in them find themselves in a dilemma. They discover that uprooting these lies can create real upheaval in their hearts as the lies have strong roots intertwined with the roots of truth in their hearts. As we try to forceably remove these lies from the outside either in ourselves or in others, we find that often we cause more damage than success. It is now that we need to consider the wisdom of the counsel from the Master, “Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, 'First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.'”

What does this mean in our experience? I cannot give a complete answer right now. I am still in the process of processing this. But I sense that there is a great deal to learn here in how to effectively deal with hearts, both others and our own. Some things seem to be evident here though. Allowing the lies to mature to the point that they become obvious before they are dealt with may have some benefit, whatever that may be. Secondly, it may be important to involve God's agents under His direct supervision to deal with these at the right time. From what I have observed this may be simply God speaking directly to our heart at a unique time when I least expect it. Or it may mean an intense ministry session with a person or group of people who are simply there to facilitate an atmosphere where God has freedom to work without coercion. It may happen during times of personal prayer or public worship or a concert that touches our emotions and releases the grip of the roots. Whatever form it takes, it must be in God's timing Who knows our hearts and when the weeds are ripe for removal.

This may help me in my own struggle as I have wondered what I am supposed to do as I recognize the various false gods circulating in my own mind. I accept that it is important to first recognize them and maybe even identify them, especially to distinguish them as not really being my true identity as they have always asserted. But many of them still remain, and I am sometimes tempted to wonder if it is wrong for me to still find myself in this condition. This parable reminds me that while I am impatient to uproot these false gods that are becoming more and more evident in my life, that God has His plan for my complete deliverance at the right times and by the right means. This does not mean I can sit back and continue to embrace the lies and allow them to flourish. I will continue to challenge them and pray for deliverance and resist they lying voices inside of me. I must continue to discover my true identity in Christ and who I really was created to be. I continue to crave more blessing and more truth and want to strengthen the legitimate plants growing in my soul. And when God shows up to pull up another weed I want to fully cooperate no matter how painful the uprooting may feel. I want to see the joy on His face as He looks into my soul and sees His reflection that most often I cannot yet see there. I choose to let Him do what He does best in His time.