Legal Tender

I got up this morning to capture another one of those unexpected ideas that was presented to me before I lost it. It is insights regarding the nature of debt, sin and salvation that have puzzled me for most of my life and keeps me looking for more answers that make sense and line up with the principles I have been learning from the Bible. This increased understanding is helping me to further sort out some of the troublesome questions that have haunted me for years. As I have spent time listening to others who have excellent insights into this subject and put that together with what God has been showing me over the years, the puzzle just keeps getting more filled in and the picture becomes clearer. If you would care to read it, I posted it at another of my blogs where the subject matter fits in with the theme of the site quite well. You can read it by clicking here. But be aware, it is not a real short post. Enjoy and have a great day. And I welcome any comments or ideas to enhance my own understanding even further.

Digging Past the Sand

I began to think about something this morning that I want to unpack more. As I thought about the motivations that we seem to wait for before most of us get serious about drawing close to God or obeying His will, I noticed that most of those motivations are rooted in fear. It is a pattern that is very pervasive in most of our lives and I see it in mine just as much. We tend to procrastinate doing the truly important things we should do until dangers are so imminent that we feel we must get serious about God or it may be too late.

There are variations on this pattern but it seems to be rather consistent. Sometimes we might decide to move closer to God for other reasons, but much of the time we tend to prefer to maintain the status quo or maybe we want to continue to indulge in a few pleasures first before we feel that we have to give up what we enjoy and begin to follow God's ways more closely.

But as I thought about the results of this kind of thinking something alarming came to my attention. And it is not the fact that we might not have enough time to finish getting close to God before we may die or be killed as many people might warn. No, there is a much greater danger than even death itself that can preclude or at least greatly inhibit our ability and desire to get serious about our relationship with God. This hidden danger has to do with the very nature of fear itself.

I am coming to realize that what God desires and what we really need in order to be properly aligned with Him and strengthened during a time of crisis and intense pressure is not more information or just facts of truth. What we must have if we are to be ultimately found on the right side of the great spiritual battle about to explode on this earth is an intimate and unbreakable love relationship with our Creator, Lover and Redeemer. We need a confidence that goes far deeper than just head knowledge or emotional good feelings.

This is something that I am afraid most Christians know very little about though they may talk about it a great deal. And I include myself in that class. The problem is that most religion is so oriented for the left brain or is just based on emotions alone that an intimate and obedient relationship with Jesus at the depth and intensity needed to carry us through the intense times just before us is outside of our present abilities to even comprehend.

This intimacy with God that we need so desperately is very similar to the relationship seen in very healthy and dynamic marriages which are also rather in short supply today. It is a relationship that is filled with real romance, real devotion to the other person and total commitment to the relationship no matter what may come or how one may feel. This is a covenant relationship that ultimately supersedes even our instincts for life itself which is also something very unfamiliar to most western minds.

But there is something very important about developing the many tendrils, like little silk threads, needed to have a strong love relationship with another heart. Cultivating this kind of deep heart-level relationship usually does not happen very effectively if at all in an atmosphere electric with fear. While fear may be a very powerful motivator, fear is also a very unstable and ultimately unreliable foundation upon which to build a relationship.

Fear and love are pretty much total opposites to each other. The Bible clearly says that perfect love casts out all fear. But the opposite is equally true as well. Fear seems to be designed to preempt and undermine the very essence of what makes up love. So now as we begin to see the tension here between these two principles we can also begin to realize the serious problem that emerges when we put off embracing an intimate love relationship with God until there is more fear present in the atmosphere around us.

We really are living in relatively peaceful times though we may not realize or believe it very much. Because of our tendency to dwell on our problems more than our blessings and opportunities we may think that we are already being severely oppressed and persecuted. But I have no doubt whatsoever that very shortly we will look back on these present days and would then give anything to return to the circumstances we are living in now to take advantage of the opportunities that will soon be gone forever. We will realize too late that in our current situation today it is far easier to pursue a deep, solid heart relationship with God than it will ever be when fear is forcing itself into our minds and hearts with an intensity that we have never known before in our whole life.

The book of Daniel prophecies that at the end of this world's history there will be a time of trouble worse than has ever been imagined in the whole history of this world. (Dan. 12:1) We know it is coming because God's Word cannot lie and every prophecy always finds fulfillment. But I also believe that we make a potentially fatal mistake when we try to use fear of this impending time of trouble to be the foundation of our relationship with God. God is not looking for a fear-based relationship with His children but a loving parent/child relationship and ultimately a marriage relationship that is full of love and trust and mutual intimacy at the heart level. This is the only kind of connection with the heart of God that will qualify us to be ready to meet Jesus when He comes again to take His children home with Him to heaven.

Fear is the worst possible motivator that we can rely upon to connect us with God and prepare us for the coming times ahead of us. Yes, God will make use our fears in the initial stages of our movement toward Him because that is all we are paying attention to at first. But God wants to wean us away from the false motivations rooted in fear as soon as possible and replace those unstable motives with a solid foundation of love, trust and saving faith that is best cultivated and nurtured in spending intimate time with Him in an environment free of all the coercion and distractions and stress that fear always produces.

Real love is free of all the counterfeit elements of Satan's kingdom, and this especially means that it is free of fear. We will learn to have a healthy respect for the tremendous awesomeness of God and the dangers of not being synchronized with God when approaching His presence. But this is not the same kind of fear that our flesh uses for motivating us. It is unfortunate that the two emotions even use the same word in English because it causes so much confusion in people's minds. It also has the problem of allowing many people to justify their use of the wrong kind of fear to motivate others to come to God for salvation.

A religion rooted and founded upon fear is like building a house upon the sand. (Matt. 7:26) Fear is very much like sand as a foundation for the life. Remember that sand is really just a lot of little rocks. It is not really different material from foundation rock that we need to build our Christian experience on except for at least one very major difference. The rocks that make up sand are unstable and easily shift position whenever it encounters wind, water and other shifting elements. On the other hand, a single solid bedrock is not vulnerable to those elements of crisis and keeps the house of our experience built upon it stable and secure when a crisis comes.

But we must not wait until we see the storm clouds looming on the horizon before we begin on securing our life on a more sure foundation of faith rooted in love. We need to spend every effort now while times are good in intimate interaction with the goodness and kindness of God's heart so that our own hearts will be filled to overflowing with all the positive attributes of God and there will be no room left for Satan's counterfeits.

I need this counsel and advice just as much as anyone. I want to take seriously my present circumstances to do everything possible to cultivate a solid connection with the heart of God to prepare me for the coming crisis that is coming very quickly. I do not want to be so distracted by thinking about the fears that try to impose themselves on me repeatedly that I fail to engage in real worship, in real passionate devotion encounters with Jesus that will teach me the tough lessons of faith that I need to secure me to the only true Rock. Neither do I want to waste away precious time in relatively meaningless distractions like news, entertainment or anything that will draw me away from keeping in tune with heaven. This is my prayer for myself today and for you as well.

Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, 'Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.' Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.' But the wise replied, 'No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.' And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, 'Lord, lord, open to us.' But he replied, 'Truly I tell you, I do not know you.' Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. (Matthew 25:1-13 NRSV)

Two Religions - Fear or Love

I am starting to see clear outlines of the contrasting approaches to religion in the following passages and the resultant attitudes that those two approaches foster in the heart and life. The true religion of Jesus is based solely on love and fosters confidence and unity. The counterfeit system of religion is founded upon fear and power.

Those in the counterfeit system view God as a power-broker that utilizes fear to intimidate His subjects into submission and obedience. Because of their insistence of false assumptions about the character of God they come to believe firmly in forceful punishment as the way that God executes vengeance. Believing in a God of force and control leads to believing in a God who uses threats of punishment as intimidation and motivation for His followers.

Yet this is not the true religion of Jesus. In these passages are revealed very different spirits with very different outcomes. However, this cannot even be easily seen in these verses if one has filters in place, beliefs in a vengeful kind of God who depends on force and fear to achieve compliance with His rules. Under these conditions many of the words have been assigned alternative meanings and as such they only tend to reinforce the false ideas about how God relates to His adversaries.

First let's review the passages that give us some of these insights.

Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near. For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and THE FURY OF A FIRE WHICH WILL CONSUME THE ADVERSARIES. (Hebrews 10:19-27)

We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. (1 John 4:16-19)

Men were scorched with fierce heat; and they blasphemed the name of God who has the power over these plagues, and they did not repent so as to give Him glory. Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom became darkened; and they gnawed their tongues because of pain, and they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores; and they did not repent of their deeds. (Revelation 16:9-11)

Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY." And again, "THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE." It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated. For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one. Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. FOR YET IN A VERY LITTLE WHILE, HE WHO IS COMING WILL COME, AND WILL NOT DELAY. BUT MY RIGHTEOUS ONE SHALL LIVE BY FAITH; AND IF HE SHRINKS BACK, MY SOUL HAS NO PLEASURE IN HIM. But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul. (Hebrews 10:28-39)

I think it is very helpful to take the phrases from these verses and place them in a contrasting column structure to be able to see more clearly the opposing nature of the underlying belief systems about what God is really like.

we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh... Is His flesh the veil itself, or is it the new and living way to enter the holy place beyond the veil? Either way, this identifies that our confidence is now to be based on something different and newer than the previous reasons used for confidence.	In previous times under the legal model of thinking, the holy place was off-limits to everyone except the priest. The veil was in place to hide the glory of God from humanity. But this was necessary due to our deeply distorted views of God that put us in danger of being consumed by that glory. But the veil can also refer to the deceptions that have blinded us for so long about the real truths about God's character.
let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. The dramatic shift of emphasis here contrasts counterfeit religion with true religion that is based primarily in the heart. An evil conscience is one that believes the old lies about how God relates to us. The demonstration of God's love at Calvary is the blood that sprinkles our conscience and cleanse us from those lies about Him.	Under the old system it became assumed that the externals were the most important thing to God though that was not His original intent for that system. Those who drew near to the holy place often did so with great fear instead of confidence. Evil was thought to be something that external blood had to expiate. But sin is rooted in the heart and conscience.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful Notice the motivation for holding fast to a new kind of confession based on hope instead of fear – the fact of God's faithfulness, not ours.	Under the law the thinking was oriented more toward outward obedience and conformance to rules and regulations and social titles. Ancestry was very important to Jews and their hope was often based on their lineage more than their trust in God's faithfulness.
let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds Again, notice the contrast in the motivation that we use to invite others into obedience from the heart and fellowship.	In a legal model the motivation is not based on love but on fear. Good deeds are viewed as a way to impress or manipulate God or cause others to value us more.
not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Love-based spirituality from the heart attracts people to draw toward each other and encourage each other. As they see the end of the world approaching they do not depend on fear to keep their loyalty and obedience strong but they press together even tighter to give strength to each other in love and courage.	When a person is law-oriented and living in a performance-based religion they will tend to separate from others and withdraw more and more over time in their attempts to achieve personal perfection. Their critical, fault-finding bent will wear away at their relationships with others and they will become self-focused in their attempts to purify their lives of everything they perceive as sinful. They will depend on fear of end-time events to motivate them to greater efforts to perfection their characters.
This knowledge of the truth is far more than knowledge of true facts or doctrines. It is a revelation to the heart of the beauty and attractiveness of the character of God, a realization of the drawing power of the love that is radically different than anything we have ever known before. When we see the real love of God and all that He has risked in His sacrifice on Calvary to change our minds about Him and then choose to keep on living in resistance to that love by self-indulgence and allowing sin to remain in our hearts, we will find that we have cut off our own ability to respond positively to that love and no longer have the capability to repent. (compare this with Isaiah 33:10-17)	if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and THE FURY OF A FIRE WHICH WILL CONSUME THE ADVERSARIES. I see this sinning willfully as an insistence on believing false concepts about how God feels about His children. If we reject the real truth about God by returning to a fear-based religious way of thinking based on false ideas about judgment and God's fire, then we will only have terror to motivate us in our relationship with God. And as a result we will ultimately experience the very things from God that our terror expects He will execute against His enemies even though in actuality that is not what is really going on.
We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. This is another description of true religion of the heart. This kind of know relates to intimacy that includes affections and emotions and personal shared secrets of the heart. As we experience this kind of intimacy with our loving Savior we learn to really believe with confidence the transforming love which God has for us.	In counterfeit religion we can talk about love from the head but we fail to really experience and embrace it at the heart level. Love that is not appreciated and experienced in the heart cannot really be truly believed. Thus we become hypocritical in our profession of being followers of Jesus while not having the evidence of true love emanating from our lives.
love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment Love is other-centered attention and a spirit of kindness that lives to bless. As our hearts receive and practice this through fellowship in the body of Christ, our confidence (absence of fear) grows. We learn that judgment means being fully exposed, not arbitrarily condemned, shamed or denounced.	When we think our confidence comes from our behavioral achievements and the elimination of all sin from our lives externally, we are setting ourselves up for a terrible shock. Perfectionism will never prepare us for the kind of heart and motive exposure that judgment always involves.
as He is, so also are we in this world We take on the same view of the Father as Jesus demonstrated while here on this earth. As a result we learn to relate to others around us the way Jesus did while here.	When the wrong filters are in place, this verse will be assumed to mean that we must perfectly copy the behavioral perfection that we believe Jesus demonstrated while on this earth. This thinking assumes that Jesus worked very hard to resist all temptations to sin and that we have to do the same with extra help from God. But this belief system is riddled with false definitions about the words involved here.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. This is another explicit contrast between love-based religion and fear-based religion. To be perfected in love one must let go of all counterfeit beliefs about God rooted in fear.	False religion is based on using fear as the primary motivator for driving people to repentance and turning them to God for salvation. God is viewed as having duplicity by coming to us with a carrot and stick approach to induce us to obedience. We believe that God threatens disobedience with severe punishment and offers rewards for good behavior. But real love cannot be perfected in this environment.
When the real truth about God and reality is experienced, we will begin to see that the plagues that come are a result of rejecting God's mercy and protection over the earth; they are only natural consequences of unleashed powers that are out of balance due to the effects from our sins. In truth, God's power has been exercised for centuries to prevent us from suffering these consequences, but when the world totally refuses His protection and forces away His mercy we will become exposed to the natural destructive forces that are inevitable from our own choices.	Men were scorched with fierce heat; and they blasphemed the name of God who has the power over these plagues Notice who it is who reacts with blasphemy – it is those who believe in power and control. Because their whole belief system is based on the exercise of power used to control others they believe that God is the one who is to be blamed for all their problems because they assume that He is controlling and abusing power like they do.
True repentance comes about by perceiving and appreciating the kindness of God (see Romans 2:4) When our repentance is thus motivated our lives will produce praise for God's goodness, mercy and kindness which is how He is glorified. When true repentance leads us into a complete trust relationship with God where He lives out His life from our hearts, our deeds will naturally become righteous because the One living within us is righteous.	they did not repent so as to give Him glory...and they did not repent of their deeds. See here what the purpose of repentance is supposed to accomplish. True repentance motivates one to give God glory, not blasphemy. And those who refuse to repent are those who's religion is very externally oriented. This is why deeds are mentioned here. Deeds – behavior – is the basis for counterfeit religion. This also shows that fear is not effective in producing repentance.
For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. (John 1:17)	Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy When choosing to function under the basis of law as the primary model, mercy is easily set aside. Violations of prescriptive law induce the arbitrary punishments attached.
It is dangerous to turn our heart away from the drawing cords of love back to selfishness once we have begun our romance with God. It does something to us that is much more serious than we can realize. It damages delicate parts of our inward abilities of the heart that can permanently prevent us from being able to return to that intimacy ever again. We must be aware of this danger and respect the sacredness of the intimacy that we are privileged to experience with God.	How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? This is very fascinating. It seems here that the author is still taking the view from the legal position. From that perspective – under the law – he is asking the reader a question, what do you think about how severe the punishment should be for such a serious crime as is itemized here?
For we know Him who said, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY." Now the author is switching back over to God's system of operation – relational. He is saying that we know Him – something that is way beyond law-based logic in relating to others and God. We know HIM – His heart, what He is really like. And He is not like the arbitrary way that law and rules function. This also touches our need to understand the truth about God's view of vengeance. (see the real definition of God's version of vengeance in Romans 12:19-21)	When we perceive the word vengeance from our human assumptions about that word, we will automatically believe that it is talking about God loosing patience and lashing out with severe punishments that are arbitrary and even hateful. But a very careful examination of the Scriptures on this subject will reveal that God's definition of vengeance is almost totally opposite of what we always assume it means. That is why God tells us to leave all vengeance up to Him, because He only can do it in complete love without perversion.
"THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE." It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. This too has a meaning that I believe may be different than first assumed. The word judge really means to be completely and fully exposed – every thought, motive and inward attitude of the heart brought out clearly for everyone's examination and evaluation. That is the kind of situation that every Christian must be prepared for and that is certainly reason to feel somewhat terrified. But this terror is not so much intimidation-based but is more like the thrill type of terror that one might experience when bungy-jumping or riding a high roller-coaster. It is a combination of high risk and trust that produces potential thrills that take us well beyond our normal comfort zone.	Under the deceptions common in counterfeit religion the word judge is usually assumed to mean something along the lines of condemnation, denouncement, accusation, demeaning etc. As a result of these negative assumptions, when this verse is read we assume that the terror referred to here is the fear that we are supposedly to live under that will somehow drive us toward obedience to God. This feeds into all the false ideas about hell and all of the lies about God in connection with hell and suppositions about God's threatenings to torture sinners for failing to love Him. This has been the cause for many to reject the whole concept of God because these teachings are so repulsive to the human heart that was created to operate on love, not fear.
remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle This is the definition of the previous reference to judgment. When God's people are judged they are exposed. But notice what it is that is exposed. His character becomes more fully revealed from their lives in the process. This verse reminds them of previous times when this happened in their life and alerts them that it will happen again.	In a fear-based religion, being made a public spectacle creates a great deal of dread and apprehension and shame. It also feeds into false ideas about how God treats us and leads many to think that God orders bad things to happen to us to teach us a stern lesson or two.
you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one. This is a reminder of how to correctly relate to judgment/exposure – showing what is inside. What is revealed is sympathy and non-resistance to the evil brought against you, joyfully accepting it by keeping your perspective of what is true reality, the bigger picture and your true identity.	For a person who is living in a legal, fear-based religion this verse is potentially very baffling. It goes against normal human nature to react with joy and sympathy under such treatment and so this would often be viewed as yet another command that must be fulfilled in our growing list of requirements that God demands we must meet to be a good Christian.
Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance It is not enough to just pass through being exposed one time. We need endurance – stick-to-it-iveness to cling to our confidence in God's faithfulness.	For a perfection-oriented religion the confidence of the person is based on some nebulous formula that keeps score of good deeds verses evil in our account in heaven. Endurance is yet another requirement that must be met by even more effort determination.
MY RIGHTEOUS ONE SHALL LIVE BY FAITH We have a choice to make when facing this exposure that is called judgment. If we choose to trust the heart and ability of God in our covenant relationship with Him, our soul will be filled with His pleasure in us.	IF HE SHRINKS BACK, MY SOUL HAS NO PLEASURE IN HIM If we are living in a religion based on fear we will will not be able to maintain our confidence when the pressure gets turned up. We will eventually crack and shrink back in terror because we have harbored the seeds of terror – fear in our hearts, and that is the fruit that will show up and produce its tragic results. When we live in a religion of fear we cannot experience the pleasure that comes from being linked with the heart of God.
those who have faith to the preserving of the soul	those who shrink back to destruction

Faith and Passion

I woke up early this morning with more thoughts about what was in my imagination yesterday about this issue of passion and electricity. As I pondered it more and listened to God's Spirit for what He had to say about it, I remembered my study of Jesus' answer to His disciple's request to increase their faith. It was one of the most surprising and enlightening studies that I have done and I continue to see more and more meaning in that passage found in Luke 17.

What came to me this morning with considerable force was the thought that it was the spirit of service and passionate devotion as portrayed in this story that was the secret enjoyed by the servants who had increased levels of faith. The distinctive attribute about their attitude was their unique devotion and selfless spirit in the service of their master.

Then I also remembered a quotation that was often quoted by the people and culture around which I grew up.

Our heavenly Father has a thousand ways to provide for us, of which we know nothing. Those who accept the one principle of making the service and honor of God supreme will find perplexities vanish, and a plain path before their feet. {DA 330}

Just like the servants in Jesus' story, people in His service serve Him first, not themselves. That is one of the main points that I realized when I first saw the true significance of the story that Jesus told. This story was not so much a formula to follow for getting more faith but was an illustration of the kind of relationship that people will be in who have ever-increasing faith.

But one of the questions that came up immediately in my mind was, how do we serve Him? In my mind, that is sort of like wondering how you are supposed to come up with a Christmas present for someone who already has everything they could ever need or want. If my duty and my desire is to serve my Master, my Father in heaven first before I attend to my own needs and desires, what does that really look like in practical application here and now?

The answer came to me again in the words of Jesus. The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.' (Matthew 25:40)

What I am learning from this passage in Luke 17:1-10 is that these servants are living in right relationship to God emotionally. They have actually become conductors of the power of His passion in the right direction. And the direction of passion is always extremely important. As I touched on yesterday, I am beginning to see more clearly that passion is the fuel that is needed for motivation. It is not bad in and of itself. The problem is the way and direction in which it is channeled.

To suppress or try to eliminate passion is to rob the soul of the energy it needs to thrive. Those robbed of passion live a stunted, dwarfed existence. Likewise, those who do allow outlet for passion but refuse to accept the healthy boundaries provided by God to properly channel their passion become drunk with the wine of fornication as seen in Revelation 17:2. This kind of passion is rooted in selfishness and will use and abuse others for its own pleasure at their expense.

True, God-like passion is not suppressed or perverted and does not exploit others for its own benefit. Real Godly passion is the spirit of blessing and uplifting others at any cost to one's self. That is what Jesus came to demonstrate first hand.

Jesus' life was a demonstration of the attitude and relationship described in the story of the devoted servants who had increased faith like the disciples wanted. When a person is in that state of mind and has that kind of orientation with the Master, they reflect the selfless passion of the Master in their determination to make sure His needs are met ahead of their own. But they do not do it merely from a sense of duty. If that were the case it would be impossible for them to enjoy the passionate kind of faith that is needed to thrive and live joyfully in the service of the King. They do it spontaneously from a passion that fires their heart to serve compulsively.

What is even more important is that they can easily confess that they are not the source of real worth, that their relationship with the Master is really one of reflective service. If they were not oriented to the Master with this kind of attitude it would be impossible for them to serve Him properly and selflessly. It is their state of mind that is the crucial point of this whole story, not so much the outward manifestations seen in their activities.

To think and function in any other way in the Master's service would actually be to live with a spirit of competition with the Master. To feel that the Master owes them something would be to subtly think of themselves as a master in some respect and God as their servant. Unfortunately that is the attitude of most Christians even though we don't realize it. But just take a look at many of the prayers that we pray asking God to serve us in some way. Where is the joyful eagerness to serve and bless our Master before we expect to be fed.

While it is true that Jesus came to reveal the servant spirit of God to us and relay to us that God has the same attitude toward us as the Son, it does not necessarily follow that we should assume that being served by God implies that we are somehow deserving of that service. To do so is to unconsciously invert our relationship which reverses the flow of passion. This is the trick of the enemy, to reverse the flow of current which always produces tension, unrest and ultimately resistance heat and finally death.

This story reveals that keeping the direction of the current always in the right orientation is one of the most important things we can ever learn if we ever hope to participate in the kingdom of God. It is more clear to me now that we need the current of passion to grow and thrive. Passion is not bad, it just needs to flow in the right direction.

So we need both the passion and the proper orientation to the true source of all passion in order to thrive as Christians. Getting those two things straight will result in producing the attitudes revealed in the lives of these servants and revealed in the attitude of Jesus while here on earth. That is the example that Jesus came to give that we are to follow. It is not the perfect outward symptoms of His life that we are to attempt to copy, it is His spirit of total abandonment to the will of His Father and the channeling of the Father's passion in selfless service to others and to God that is to be the prime object of our attention and imitation. That is the same spirit and motivation that is seen in the attitudes of the servants in the story that Jesus told in Luke 17.

Orientation of our relationship is everything.

Poverty of Spirit and Faith

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3)

Wow! This has got me really thinking again. As I thought about this after writing my last piece on this I continued to become aware of more verses that are very relevant that connect with this.

What is the natural reaction to learning that one is poor? Well, I don't think it is wrong to believe that a person upon discovering that they are poor should desire to be enriched in that thing in which they are deficient. And even though Jesus declared that the poor in spirit are blessed, I am not sure that it is safe to conclude that they should be satisfied to remain in that poverty just because they can be considered blessed. I believe that the reason they should consider themselves blessed is not because they should be happy and content in remaining poor but are blessed because they are honest enough to recognize their true condition. And this honesty will allow them and motivate them to hopefully move in the right direction to effectively address the problem of their poverty.

So what is the right way to deal with poverty of spirit? Well, it only makes sense that one would need to find a source that is rich in spirit and then establish enough of a relationship with that entity in hopes that possibly the one who is more wealthy may have enough generosity to take pity on the one who is poor and share some of their wealth with them. Isn't that what most of us would conclude?

That is why I got excited when another verse was brought to my attention that fits this very scenario. Check this out.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us... (Ephesians 2:4)

Now link that thought with this verse that explicitly tells us what God is.

"God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." (John 4:24)

So what I am seeing here is that God is clearly a spirit, the very area in which I am poor, and as a spirit He is extremely wealthy in mercy. In addition, a few verses on in Ephesians it says that He wants to demonstrate through us the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (v. 7)

Now, I don't think there can be much dispute about the fact that God is rich. In fact, far beyond being rich in mercy as is described here He is rich in absolutely every sense that we can imagine the word to define. And I don't think many people believe that God does not share what He owns with us because He is too impoverished to do so or His supply is just too limited. No, that is not the reason most people have when they doubt God's generosity toward them. What is far more likely to emerge is people's doubts about God's feelings and intentions and motivations.

Most everyone believes God is both wealthy enough and capable enough to give us absolutely anything we could ever desire or want. But at the same time very few people really believe in their heart that God is willing or eager to do so. As a result Christians tend to come up with all sorts of rationalizations and explanations to excuse God's apparent stinginess so as to make Him not look quite as bad as we might suspect Him to be otherwise.

Jesus addressed this problem quite a bit when He was here on earth. He had a lot to say about our attitude about God's disposition toward us. He even claimed that if we had even a tiny amount of real faith that we would be empowered to do astounding things that would amaze the world – like pick up whole mountains and drop them effortlessly into the ocean (look out for the ships and the swimmers below). But so far I have mostly only heard excuses trying to spiritualize away these bold statements by Jesus with the effect of seriously diluting the effect that His statements were intended to have.

What I am starting to sense is that the real problem is not on God's side of the issue but is always on our side and our willingness to really take Jesus and God seriously about what they claim about God's feelings toward us. I have heard enough rationalizations throughout my life to keep my spiritual life quite impotent. What I want to experience is the real effects of genuine faith that will accomplish what Jesus claimed could be accomplished by anyone bold enough to take God seriously.

What I am also becoming aware of is my own deeply-embedded doubts about God's claims of mercy, love, compassion and spirit of forgiveness, especially when it comes to my situation personally. Yes, I am beginning to believe it slowly over time, but the reluctance of my own heart is a constant source of frustration for me because I know that I am the reason that God cannot do what He so deeply desires to do through me if I would just allow Him through the choice of faith. I am quite confident that Jesus could say accurately about me as He did about His own disciples when He was here on earth, O foolish men and slow of heart to believe...! (Luke 24:25)

But I notice a real obstacle to living in the awareness of my own poverty of spirit. It can be embarrassing to admit that I am poor in spirit. It goes against nearly everything I have been trained to do in religion and in society. Appearances and public perceptions are such an important part of life that to be honest about a lack like this in my spiritual life is to admit that I am not nearly as competent as I may think I am or may appear to others. This creates a strong potential for others to look at me with suspicion, to question my credibility and beliefs and to maybe look down on me as inferior to what they thought of me before. And that can really mess up my careful image management program!

The only effective path that I see to arrive at that place of genuine faith and vital power under the control of the Holy Spirit is for me to continue to seek God's face, to pursue the real truth about Him and more frequently expose my heart to the truths about God's richness and kindness. Because the very things that we doubt the most about God are the very things that He is most rich in – like mercy, compassion, patience, justice, goodness, kindness, faithfulness and all the other things that describe the actual truth about Him.

So after coming to acknowledge the reality of my own poverty of spirit, which is a very important first step to maturing in my relationship with Him, I need to come to believe in the reality of His generosity and that He is not only willing but is intensely eager to share all of His true wealth with my impoverished spirit.

There was a man who came to Jesus and wanted Him to heal his demon-possessed son. He had enough faith to at least show up and ask for help but he also had a lot of doubts that were being reinforced by the intellectuals and the religious leaders present who tended to look down on those who thought God might actually want to help them. These people worked tirelessly to promote their view of God as a stern, judgmental deity looking for every reason to keep people out of heaven and who had rigid demands for perfection and purity that must be achieved before He could approve of anyone.

But in spite of all this the man approached Jesus and timidly, fearfully petitioned Him to take a look at his son's case. But Jesus, instead of immediately addressing what appeared to everyone else to be the main problem turned to the father and confronted him directly about the true condition of his own heart and his doubts about God's goodness and kindness. This man suddenly came to see that his words to Jesus had betrayed the reality of the double-mindedness that he had in his picture of God and that what God really needed in order to help his son was a total commitment from the heart to the truth about God by this father.

And Jesus said to him, "'If You can?' All things are possible to him who believes." Immediately the boy's father cried out and said, "I do believe; help my unbelief." (Mark 9:23-24)

What Jesus did for this man is what I need for myself and what everyone of us needs. What I believe Jesus wants from us even more than faith is honesty. Faith can be produced in an honest heart, but self-deception and an unwillingness to acknowledge inner confusion and unbelief is something that effectively blocks even the Almighty from accomplishing what He so much longs to do in our lives. But when this man confessed his true feelings even though they were less than admirable, immediately Jesus was able to bring healing and closure to this tragic situation and fill their lives with joy and peace and life.

I believe this story may be a vivid illustration of one who was poor in spirit and yet was blessed. When this man came to acknowledge his true poverty then he found himself in a position of willingness to receive from the riches of God's abundance. What a wonderful lesson for me. I pray for a spirit of complete honesty like this man so that I too can be in line to experience first hand the power and blessings of God and so that my life can be a demonstration of the amazing riches of His grace in kindness toward me.

I Want to Fly

I woke up a while ago from a kaleidoscopic of dreams involving various emotions, desires and problems that swirl around from my past. After I woke up, a thought began to condense that was amplified by the reading I enjoyed a few minutes later. I need to capture it before I lose it.

In my dream I was riding along a highway and saw a small group of people laying on top of a large kite-type wing riding it like a hang-glider. Then I saw other various similar flying contraptions, some without people on them and some being towed by boats or cars. Immediately an intense desire welled up within me to be able to fly on one of those. My desire to fly has been one of the deepest longings all of my life and when I was younger I used to have frequent dreams about flying, though many of them included great difficulty and inhibitions.

The dream moved on to other unrelated but strange and unexpected events involving pets, estranged family members and the collapse of a trailer house with our things in it after being hit by the wing of an old fighter aircraft taxiing past. I have no idea if any of these things have any meaning for me or they were just a collage created from the process of filing away yesterday's batch of memories. But the intense desire to fly continued into my waking consciousness and linked with the verse I read from one of the devotionals I read.

And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having an eternal gospel to preach to those who live on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people; (Revelation 14:6)

I have heard this text espoused and expostulated all of my life, but I never linked it with my own personal craving to be able to fly like the angels do even though that is exactly what I have always wanted. One of the conditions that I always had associated with my desire to fly was to have as little props as possible while enjoying the freedom of flight. In other words, gliding would be better than motorized flight and hang-gliding even better. Better yet, I heard about para-gliding in which a person could catch an updraft with nothing more than a carefully designed parachute type outfit and could soar around in the air under a giant canopy with very little apparatus involved while enjoying the thrills of seeming weightlessness and seeing the world from high above the ground.

At one point in my life I did manage to earn a private pilot's license but I have not been able to afford to fly for many years now in that capacity. But my desire to fly has not diminished much and I think that maybe it goes beyond just a fancy of my own and is rooted in a primordial function for which humans were originally destined to enjoy and has been stymied by the entrance of sin.

But there was another little element of my dreams that alerted me to something that I believe might be very significant in this context. As I watched some of the flying contraptions I noticed that some didn't have anyone on them and the reason was because it was against the local laws. This stirred up a bit of resentment in me that laws can be so limiting to restrict the natural desires of the heart that are implanted by God.

Upon reflection after I woke up I sensed that there was more to this than simply being prevented from having a good time for a few minutes riding around on something similar to a hang-glider. In fact, the more I consider this in the light of the messages from the three free-flying angels in Revelation 14 I think there is something here that may be very significant. For the longings and desires that have been slowly awakening in my damaged heart currently under reconstruction by the Spirit of God includes an intense desire to be free of the inhibitions that have suffocated my spirit for all of my life and prevented me from thriving and growing and really celebrating life with joy and abandon. And that is the same feeling that I begin to experience when I am allowed to really fly.

One thing that seemed drawn to my attention was the artificial restrictions imposed on those who fail to conform to the ways that the world demands they must live just a few verses earlier.

And he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name. (Revelation 13:17)

This is accomplished by the means of rules, part of the counterfeit system of control that has been invented by Satan to mimic the true ways that God relates to His created beings. I have explored this at some length before, but to put it simply, God operates on principles but the world follows the lead of the great deceiver and imposes artificial rules, laws and commands to accomplish its goals. The counterfeit system is based on force and fear and coercion while God's form of “government” is rooted in relationships linked with bonds of real love, selfless service and joyful community. The principles that “govern” all the universe far transcend just the spiritual dimension. What we have labeled as laws delivered by God throughout the ages are often simply revelations of innate principles of reality that have natural consequences both good and bad depending on how we cooperate or try to violate those principles.

But men's laws are based on the artificial system of government developed and refined by Satan, originally Lucifer who once was the closest created being in the whole universe to the throne and the mind of God. This angel is so well acquainted with the ways and truths about God that he is able to counterfeit them extremely convincingly and deceive many throughout the universe into thinking that his new ideas are superior to the ways of God that he considers too weak and too restricting.

In this context it is interesting to see the basic elements that will be involved in one of the final confrontations between the ways of God and the inventions of men following Satan's lead. One of the core beliefs promoted by the world is that community and success must be based on creating rules and laws that force everyone into conformity for the good of all. Law is considered the solution for nearly every problem in this world. But laws and regulations must be backed up by the threat of force through artificial means of enforcement in order to induce fear which is the primary emotion utilized to motivate all who are under the domination of Satan and his agents.

One thing I have noticed about the counterfeit system of law-dependence in this world is the ease with which laws can be enacted and changed on a whim. Laws are almost always created to promote the selfish interests of those in power and whenever another group of people achieve power they immediately follow the same pattern and use their position to impose their own will through laws on those around them.

Sadly, religious people have bought into this counterfeit way of thinking and viewing reality and are too ready with a great deal of condemnation and contempt for anyone who dares to challenge the whole concept of artificial law itself. As a result many people have come under criticism or have had their reputations maligned and destroyed by religious leaders and followers alike simply because they were trying to follow their conscience and the Spirit's leading in their life in contraflow to the imposed restrictions of laws and man-made rules. Religious people often have mistakenly believed that men's laws somehow carry a certain amount of divine weight and must be considered somewhat equal with the far greater principles of reality often referred to as God's laws.

Great wrongs have been committed and excused by following this kind of thinking. Christians under the reign of Hitler demanded that everyone should go along with his ideas and the laws he instituted because they were the rule of government and God commanded us to obey earthly authorities. This sort of logic has been repeatedly used all throughout history and is still very much in vogue today. However, the more I have contemplated and considered the ways and methods of God in relationship to His people the more I see the fallacy of this line of reasoning. On the surface it first appears to be very compelling, but upon closer examination I see that it is a very diabolical deception designed to control and suppress the true people of God by inducing fear and false guilt within their hearts to secure their compliance to men's artificial rule system of control.

So what does this have to do with flying? I think it has a great deal to do with it. For if my heart was designed to experience the thrill of uninhibited flight in dimensions far more important than just my physical body, and if that is God's real plan for my life, then I can be sure that the world's system is going to set itself up against the plans of God for His children and will employ anything and everything possible to prevent God's people from enjoying the freedom of the sons of God. And one of the methods that will be employed most is the full use of the artificial system of law with all its associated guilt, fear, condemnation and intimidation. It will culminate in the use of laws that will prevent God's people from participating at all in the economic system of the world which is another aspect of the counterfeit government that we live under.

Just as men create laws that prevent us from enjoying physical flight with freedom, so too are many of men's laws calculated to prevent us from flying in other dimensions of our life. So if I have a mindset that is controlled by the idea that men's laws are on a par with God's principles of creation and reality, then I am very vulnerable to the manipulation and inhibitions of the world designed to prevent me from following my heart in the ways God desires for me to do. I not only will be prevented from enjoying the thrill of physical flight on this earth but far more importantly I will remain grounded in my spirit and soul from following the lead of the Spirit of God in many other areas of my life.

Romans 8 tells me that those who are the real children of God will be led by the Spirit of God. But that leading will often put them at odds with the artificial restrictions of this world that are subtly designed to force us in a different direction. The tension between the world's system and the gentle, quiet leading of the Spirit will intensify until there will be a complete break between the two and the world will forcibly expel from society those who refuse to comply, they will be completely shut out of the world's sphere of privileges.

Those who have all their life served God from a spirit of fear, have tried to follow His “laws” from a spirit of duty and obligation rather than from a passion induced by and responding to His love for them, these will find it foreign to their thinking to break with their habit of obedience based on fear and will be overcome by the greater fear induced by the world's increasing threats against those who refuse to comply. But those who have been weaning themselves away from the counterfeit model of life on this earth and have instead invested their efforts toward intertwining their hearts with bonds of love and joy with the very heart of God will have a faith that will be found to be their vital link to the salvation provided for them by Jesus Christ. As Revelation puts it, they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death. (Revelation 12:11)

Like the angels that they are listening to, they will have learned how to truly fly. For it is not just the words of the angels in Revelation that are significant to God's children but the example and demonstration of how to live life with joy, with fullness of heart, with loud shouts of praise and honor for their God - this is the example that those in tune with the heart and mind of God will learn to emulate. And as we learn to align our thinking and affections with the true ways of heaven we will find that we are in the midst of the greatest flying lessons we could ever imagine even right now. We will learn to fly so well that we will be prepared to fly away from this earth and join the angels in their joyful abandon of praise and song in devotion to the greatest Lover in the whole universe.

Reason for Resistance

Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. (1 John 4:15-19)

After I wrote the previous post in which I used these verses as the end, I began to wonder all day what it is inside of all of us that resists believing the truth about God's unconditional, unthreatening love for us. What is it deep down inside of us, myself included, that rises up to resist any assertion that God does not use force, does not rely on threats of torturing punishment delivered directly from His hand to push us into obedience? What is it that causes us to doubt and disbelieve that God's love is as God has said it is? Why is it that we feel compelled to justify our darker views about God and immediately rush to supposed examples in the Old Testament to vindicate our entrenched beliefs that God is somehow bi-polar? Why are we so obsessed with insisting on an angry God and discounting the notion that His grace and mercy and forgiveness are all-pervasive and His love really does endure forever? Why do we feel so compelled to rationalize away the real truths about God that conflict with the beliefs promoted by religion?

This question hung over my mind like a heavy cloud for part of the day and I even shared it with my wife who also immediately brought up the issues of what to do with the Old Testament stories. I did not get an answer as to what lies at the root of this penchant but certainly got a typical demonstration of how we normally react to such assertions. I myself struggle sometimes with believing in the total goodness of God even though I have been revamping my whole belief system and revising nearly everything I think about God over the past few years. I have written hundreds of pages on this subject and have been thrilled with many fresh revelations of God's goodness and true glory as I unpack this. And yet, in spite of all that my mind is learning and accepting about the real truth about God, there are still deep pockets of resistance to this truth lurking in the recesses of my heart that react strongly whenever I am faced with situations that elicit strong emotions and questions about the real goodness of God just like everyone else struggles with.

Later in the day I sensed something that seemed to be an answer from God to this question of what lies inside resisting the real truth about God. But it was an answer that almost sounded too classic for me to accept. It sounded more like the clichés that I have heard all my life instead of the ringing truth that I sense when I receive fresh insights from the Spirit. But at the same time I could not deny that this answer did have the ring of truth to it and that it is likely the real answer that many of us would prefer to deny, at least when it comes to admitting it for our own hearts.

The answer I heard was that the part of me that resists the revelations of real love and the real truth about God is the core demonic, lying, sinful nature and the false gods that thrive in that part of my mind that are irreconcilably opposed to the truth about God. Because of this it is impossible to ever change the opinions in that part of my psyche no matter how much proof or evidence or even experience I may have to the contrary. And that is precisely why I have to die to self if I am ever to live successfully in the Kingdom of Heaven, either here on earth or throughout eternity.

While it may be true that there are real misunderstandings and false intellectual beliefs that can be countered and flushed out and replaced with truth that will enable me to embrace the truth about God's love, there will always remain a core of sinful flesh inside of me that will resolutely resist the conviction of God's Spirit in me and this inner resistance is impossible to escape until I am given a new body and more complete emotional freedom at the Second Coming of Jesus. But that does not mean that I must succumb to the lying assertions of this sinful flesh. I am to actively pursue its demise and surrender its control to the authority of Jesus Christ in my life every day and resist its resistance to the work of God in my heart.

This is likely what James was thinking about when he wrote, Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. (James 4:7-8) Resisting the devil is much more likely an activity carried out in the mind and heart than externally as many have supposed. It is in my own heart where the devil has the greatest influence to counteract God's convictions about the real truth about Himself and is the place where the devil is most urgent to stop that process.

In this case, submitting to God is to believe in the goodness and love of God instead of the lies the devil has implanted in my sinful core. The more I surrender to love and the real truth about love – which is the very same thing as drawing near to God who is love – the more I will find that His presence of love is close to me – which is the same as Him drawing near to me. The process of purifying my heart is urgently needed because I am double-minded about my opinions about God and this is due to the influences of the lying spirits, the false gods that contradict the truths about God in my soul. These lying spirits cannot be converted, they can only be resisted. But resistance can only be successful as I submit to the influence of the true Spirit of the Source of all love.

So the mysterious, changeable belief that lies hidden in the minds of people that causes them to compulsively resist the truths about God's love may not even exist in some aspect. That is because at the core of us all there lies an unchangeable, unfixable element of rebellion that we cannot escape but must be exposed by God for what it really is and submitted to the cross that each of us is invited to carry. Maybe that is why Jesus asked each of us to pick up our cross and follow Him – so that we would all have a cross very handy to crucify the lying, subversive nature, the selfish inner being inside of us that rises up repeatedly to defy the truth about God's unconditional love for us.

Control or Authority?

Over the recent past I have become more and more uncomfortable with using the word “control” when referring to God's relationship to our lives and especially to what goes on in this world. Because of the implications intrinsic in the way in which this word is used it conveys popular misconceptions about God's character and fosters a great deal of hidden bitterness in the hearts of millions of people.

Nevertheless it is a very popular theme in much of Christianity. There are popular songs written to promote this belief, and if considered carefully one will come to realize that songs are one of the most powerful means of instilling beliefs that there is. A great deal of the beliefs of many Christians is derived from the theology in the songs that they listen to far more than in any personal study and examination of the Word of God for themselves. This is why so many errors can perpetuate for so long undetected because there is so little accountability to the virus-checking function of the Word of God.

This idea of insisting that God is in control is possibly one of the most widespread assumptions in Christianity. It seldom is challenged as it never occurs to most people that there should ever be any doubt about it to start with. But if they stopped to consider it much more carefully I think most people would soon come to realize that in their real heart they don't really want God to be in control nearly as much as they thought they did.

What I have observed is that people like to believe that God controls events and people's choices as long as this God controls things for the benefit of the person believing that idea. It is definitely part of the create-god-in-your-own-image syndrome. Since we are ourselves addicted to wanting power and control over others we tend to gravitate toward belief in a God who will reinforce our desires and punish those whom we think are not making things work out the way we want. However, when it comes to our lives being at odds with someone else's concept of God and their desire for God to control or punish us to come into alignment with their desires, we recoil with horror and label them as heretics or even dangerous terrorists.

Just think about the world conflicts and tensions brought about by the discrepancies between the typical Christian view of God and Islam's view of God. Most Christians tend to view Muslims as dangerous because they are often so militant and violent in their promotion of their religious views. But if you stop to think about it more carefully you would realize that Christian's desire for domination and promotion of their pet beliefs are not that different as far as the issue of control goes. Muslims simply believe in a God who is to be defended at all costs and unbelievers are to be eliminated. But deep down inside many Christians harbor similar beliefs and want to eliminate all those who don't agree with them by converting them or causing them to become powerless when they refuse to cooperate.

So it can be seen that both sides of this conflict subscribe to the notion that God must be in control and many times His human followers are eager to help Him be in control. Our ideas about religion are deeply infected with the poison of belief in the power of force and coercion if gentle persuasion does not have its intended effect. The history of the Dark Ages is filled with the results of this kind of thinking and it is not nearly as far away from us now as we might imagine. We still worship, to a great degree, the god of power and control.

But to suggest that God is not in control sounds at first like one of the greatest heresies that a person could suggest. I know that many recoil with horror at the first thought that maybe God is not in total control and are afraid to even discuss that possibility. But again, if we are willing to be honest and consider the implications of a controlling God seriously I think most people would come to loath the idea of a God in total control because in their heart they know that they despise such a God.

Cherishing a picture of a God who is in control also affects the way we relate to each other and especially those under our “control” such as our own children. I have personally been aware of unspeakable horrors perpetrated in the name of godly control in the home by husbands or mothers who have tragically mistaken views of what God is like. Outsiders look on these situations with total disgust and unbelievers jeer at such examples of religion gone awry. But if we were to be really honest we would see the seeds for similar potential in our own hearts of flesh and particularly found embedded in these notions of the need for control.

Control, as the way it is typically inferred, is in direct opposition to the concept of freedom that God has such passion about. We simply have very little concept of how important freedom is to the heart of God. This is because of the blindness brought on by our addictions to power, control and force that permeates nearly everything else we believe in our hearts. Because we pay little attention to what is really important to God and instead try to make God out to be the enforcer of what we think is important, we largely miss the ability to see things from God's perspective or value the things that God deems most important.

Our theology of a God in control has lead to a lot of tragic notions when it comes to times of grief and pain. Because of our mistaken ideas about control we come up with suppositions and theories that fly in the face of reason and end up sometimes doing more damage to the heart than healing. We think we are comforting someone who has just tragically lost a child by telling them that God is in control and wanted to take their baby to heaven to be with Him. But in reality we are enforcing a picture of God as a selfish being up in the sky jerking us around on a whim with little consideration for our feelings or needs.

Our belief of a God in control also leads to all sorts of other false ideas that are generally accepted by popular Christianity too numerous to enumerate here. It lies at the root of popular Evangelical notions about the physical, political nation of Israel being restored to a place of power and prominence in the last days. It sometimes figures prominently in our nationalism and patriotism and our penchant for confusing the desires of God for the desires of our politicians to control other nations in the world by force if necessary. We find ourselves frustrated when this God who is supposed to be in control doesn't seem to be utilizing His abilities and powers to control things the way we think He should and so we sometimes assume that He is waiting for some help from us.

Insisting on a God who is in control influences the way we conduct evangelism and infiltrates many of the beliefs and conclusions we arrive at even in our study of the Scriptures. This is not a new notion and all throughout history can be seen the ill effects of people desiring a God who is controlling – of course always on their behalf and not the other way around. When it comes to someone else's idea of God being in control and ourselves being on the controlled end of that exercise of force we suddenly shift gears and then insist that their God must be a false God and their religion is dangerous. We then tend to turn to our own notions of God and try to figure out how to help Him be more effective in staying in control. Thus all of religion becomes something of a power struggle between opposing belief systems about God all subscribing to the use of force to accomplish their domination.

But the real truth is that God has no interest whatsoever in being a controlling God and He never created our hearts to thrive in such an environment. The whole problem of sin did not catch God by surprise and He has not needed to change tactics or His character to deal with this problem that has infected the universe. What He is about is working in and around and behind all things to bring us to a clearer revelation of the real truth about Himself and the truth about His feelings about us so that our hearts will be won back to allegiance to Him without any force or coercion. For the use of force is an element introduced by the enemy of all righteousness and has absolutely no place in the Kingdom of Heaven.

So if it is considered that maybe God is not in control in the way we usually think of control, then what relationship does He have over events in this world and our daily lives? As frightening as this scenario is for some to consider, if it is potentially true enough to examine then what is the alternative belief that will replace our penchant for believing in a God who is in total control? And how could we even come to appreciate the superiority of a God who does not control?

The real crux of this issue is the incredible respect and value that God places on the freedom of the intelligent mind and heart and will of every individual that He has created throughout all His vast universe. The real problem that He has to deal with in overcoming sin in the universe is not bad behavior but maintaining respect for the rights of freedom that every person has to not love. Yes, that's right, the freedom not to love. For love by its very nature is impossible to coerce, for the moment that force or coercion is introduced then any love that was ever present in the heart of the individual instantly evaporates and fear takes its place.

You see, God only accepts the service of true love and nothing less than this will ever satisfy His desires for any of His children. Love by its very nature must come from a heart free to not love or it is something other than love. If one stops to think about it carefully, our own hearts crave to be loved with this kind of unconditional love ourselves because that is just how we were designed – in the image of God. So to employ any amount of force precludes the very existence of real love and any imitation of love simply does not satisfy the heart the way real love can and must do.

So for us to live throughout eternity in the presence of a perfect God who is Himself the very embodiment of love we must be restored to a state of perfect freedom fostering spontaneous love based on genuine appreciation for the love that God has for us – for love cannot be based on fear. This is made explicitly clear in 1 John. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. (1 John 4:18)

If we were not designed to be controlled or to control others through the use of force or punishments, then what motivation is left to obey God? This is a very frightened question that often comes up into the minds of many who have been “serving” God from a basis of fear for all of their lives. They honestly believe that if we are not afraid enough of a God who waits to inflict dire punishments upon any who dares to cross His will that there would be no incentive left to obey Him and everyone would suddenly fall helplessly into the arms of temptation and would follow every evil desire of their heart. And that is true in the absence of a knowledge of the real truth about God and His passionate love for us.

But “obedience” based on fear of punishment is also based on selfishness at its root, and selfishness can never produce true love. This is why, when properly understood, God, in fact, never punishes the wicked directly in spite of what we assume the Bible teaches. Yes, God has used human language and adaptations to convey His warnings to us that make it appear that He uses threats and punishment to coerce obedience. But when we pull the veil back and we see more clearly into the real workings of God's heart, it will be seen that God is simply respecting our choices and allowing His protection to be removed from our lives in response to our insistent rebellion against Him and the natural consequences of sin take their course.

One thing must become very clear in our thinking, and the sooner the better. It is SIN that kills, NOT GOD. God is the Source and Author of all life and God does not go around conflicted with Himself. Death is not a punishment dealt out to anyone who refuses to pretend to love a God who threatens them with punishment if they don't love Him. Death is simply what happens to a person who refuses to align themselves with the only Source of life that exists.

So if control is actually a counterfeit, then what is the legitimate principle that it is counterfeiting? The bottom line issue at stake that we must relate to in this most important arena of our life is authority. And there is something quite interesting about authority that is often overlooked; authority must be given or ceded to someone, it is not something demanded or imposed on them. Authority is a choice made by the person living under authority, not something coerced on others against their will.

Our sinful hearts have all of our lives lived under the authority of Satan, the archenemy of God instead of choosing to make God the rightful authority for our lives. But since authority (along with love) cannot be forced on us by God, then if we are ever to experience the reality of salvation that He has provided for us, we must choose to come under His authority in response to a knowledge of His real love and kindness and compassion for us. Fear does not inspire love and God never attempts to do what our heart was not designed to do. It is only by love that love can be awakened and it is only by respect and love for the real truth about God that we will be attracted and drawn to cede authority over our hearts and lives to a God who genuinely cares for our heart no matter how good or bad our performance may be.

So the real truth about control is that it is actually a very convincing counterfeit of true authority and has become very confused in the minds of nearly everyone in this world. Subsequently we have projected these mistaken views of authority and control onto our beliefs about God and tend to view His actions toward us in the light of our own ideas about obedience and authority instead of the truth as it is in Jesus. We need to engage in a much more careful study of His Word and His dealings with His created beings all throughout the whole conflict brought about by Lucifer's rebellion and see more clearly the true heart of the Father.

If I want to know God and experience the power of His transforming love in my life, I must be drawn to Him by fresh revelations about Him to the place where I will freely choose to make Him the ultimate authority of my life above my own selfish desires that clamor for control. God will never offer to control me against my will, but He does offer to transform me so thoroughly through the presence of His indwelling Spirit and the influence of His kindness that I can become a loyal servant filled with the real joy of love to the One who loves me beyond all comprehension. I will become so glued at the heart level in my attachment to His heart that it can only be described in human terms as a love-slave, a bondservant of Jesus Christ. This is how many of the apostles came to see themselves and they enjoyed using this term to describe their emotions about their relationship with God. And this is the kind of relationship that I crave to experience much more fully as I get closer and closer to knowing the real truth about God.

I Want to be a Butterfly

God has given us many, many illustrations of the principles of true reality within nature. When guided by the Spirit of the One who created everything we can glimpse very helpful insights into truths that have escaped our notice or been obscured by the deceptions we have lived under all of our lives.

As I have been contemplating the idea of the importance of letting go of all resistance over the past few days (from my study of Romans thirteen), I was led to think of the example of the Butterfly. The dramatic change that is seen in the formation of a Butterfly after living most of its life as a lowly caterpillar has often been used as an illustration of the new birth experience that is needed in order to truly enter the kingdom of heaven. But I noticed that the way a Butterfly interacts with its environment is also descriptive of how a true Christian will live in many respects.

A Butterfly has a very important relationship and dependence on the sun. After it emerges from its cocoon it waits while its wings dry out and fill out in the warm sunlight. The sunlight highlights the striking and unique beauty of the Butterfly wings and are also examples of the loveliness that can be seen in the life of a person who is reflecting the true light of God's beauty.

Then as the Butterfly takes to the air, it does not surge into the sky with powerful wings like a hawk seeking out its prey but it simply lets the gentle breezes carry it along while guiding itself through those breezes to seek for the sweet nourishment from the beautiful flowers that God has provided for it to feed on. It does not seek out the rottenness and garbage like the flies commonly do but looks for the sweet and the beautiful.

I am reminded of the words of Jesus when speaking of the new birth experience. "The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8) A person who has been transformed and reborn by the miracle-working power of the Holy Spirit at the heart level will live as a gentle, beautiful Butterfly carried along by the breezes of the Spirit as they seek out the loveliness of Creation that God has given to cause us to thrive.

That is the kind of life I hunger for and that I sense God has been preparing me for in the many lessons that He is seeking to teach me. I think back over several of the important points that He has been instructing me on in the past few months and years and notice the pattern that is preparing me to live this kind of life.

He has warned me of the dangers of criticism and fault-finding and the destructive effects that it has not only on my own heart but on my influence on many around me. This problem is very deep-seated and is even generationally rooted in my past, but God wants me to become free of it so that I can become a more useful agent of blessing and truth in my sphere of influence.

He has worked to help me focus more on the goodness of God and the positive blessings all around me in direct contrast to the negative perceptions that I have had most of my life. I insisted that I was simply being realistic, but I have come to realize that what I believed was realistic evaluations of circumstances were actually endorsements of the enemy's spin on what is real in contrast with God's declarations of what makes up true reality. My dark views of God were due to the lies about Him that Satan has implanted in all of us to keep us from discovering the life-changing transformation that we could enjoy if we would simply believe in God's kindness and true attitudes toward us.

God took me on a two month intensive study of Hebrews twelve to focus on my deep roots of bitterness and carefully search out from His Word some of the causes of them and the ways in which I can become free of them if I allow the Spirit to have its way in my heart. Soon after that and more recently I plunged into a very uncomfortable study of Romans thirteen as I was forced to face some of the most volatile roots of bitterness and rebellion that are like tap-roots in my heart implanted there at a very early age by negative experiences with authority.

As I have opened myself up to the searching and convicting presence of the Spirit of God during this study, I have begun to see that resistance itself is possibly the most important part of the problem that is exposed by my problems with authority. But the issue of resistance is not confined to just confrontations with authority, but it may be most easily exposed under those circumstances. In contrast, Paul immediately presents the antidote to resolve this root of resistance which is the softening effects of true love working in the heart. Genuine love at the heart level puts me into proper relationship with everyone else and produces the result of aligning me perfectly with the requirements of the Law of God. But that love only comes from the Source of all love and is not something I can work up myself.

As I think about the flight of a Butterfly, one of the most obvious aspects of it is it's lack of resistance to the breezes that carry it from flower to flower. Even in the migration patterns that carry them for thousands of miles to places they have never personally seen before to join millions of other Butterflies for a giant love festival, they do not fight the winds but allow the breezes to assist them and guide them to their destiny. And as they are carried along they enjoy the blessings of beauty and sweetness provided for them as they also reflect the striking beauty of the gifts God has written all over their wings.

God reminded me of the destiny that He has spoken for my own life and how this example of the Butterfly fits so well with it. And the spirit of the Lord will come on you with power, and you will be acting like a prophet with them, and will be changed into another man. And when these signs come to you, see that you take the chance which is offered you; for God is with you. (1 Samuel 10:6-7 BBE) Another version puts the last verse this way. Now when these signs meet you, do whatever you see fit to do, for God is with you. (1 Samuel 10:7 NRSV)

That reminds me of the glorious freedom of the life of the fragile Butterfly that lives in perfect harmony with the provisions that God has given for it and that spreads blessing wherever it goes. Yes it is very vulnerable, but it trusts implicitly in the provisions of its Creator and lives a life that exemplifies perfect freedom and joy. It is carried around seeking out and sharing the beauties of nature on the warm breezes just as God wants me to do likewise trusting in His Spirit and living out a similar life of freedom and joy.

I crave the experience of the Butterfly that God has planned for me. I want to become free of all resistance and trust in the wind that blows me where It wishes. I want my life to be more full of beauty and attractiveness to inspire others who are still crawling around on the ground to allow God to take them through the metamorphosis needed to transform their lives into the wonderful freedom of Christ that He desires for all of us. I desire to be changed into another man so that as I live from my heart that the natural impulses that flow from it will be those that reflect the beauty and loveliness of heaven and the very heart of my heavenly Father.

Once again I find myself waiting for the Spirit to do its work in me today. I cannot change myself but I can and do choose to let go of my resistance and trust in the kindness and faithfulness of my God. I choose to accept His lessons and corrections and pray that God will finish to completion the work that He has begun in me. I feel like I am still wrapped tightly in a cocoon but I have to wait for His timing to accomplish His purposes in me.

I want my loving Father to make me a clean channel of love and light to others who are longing for something better themselves. I want to be a reliable friend of the Bridegroom to interact with those He is seeking to attract to His love nest so that He can ravish them with His attentions and comfort and lavish love. God, make me an instrument of Your peace and grace and loveliness today for Your name's sake.

Hey little butterfly, where'd you come from? Dancin' in the meadow playing in the sun! Hoverin' over flowers in the warm summer breeze Silently making music with your wings as they tease. Flitting high, flitting low, through the garden gates you go Until the perfect flower comes to make your day in the sun Free to linger, free to fly, Free to mingle with the sky, never showing you are shy Just free to be a butterfly! Hey little child, what do you know? Before I could be free, I had to learn to grow..... - By Licia Chenoweth