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

Speaking Out or Speaking In

Speaking out for God or speaking in the name of God. What is the difference and how significant is that difference?

As I begin to think about this idea this morning I realize that this is another counterfeit/genuine pair showing up again. I have observed that much of what we do as Christians is based on the assumption that God needs people to defend Him, to further His goals and plans on earth and that maybe without our efforts for Him He might be in a quandary. I know we don't put it in those exact terms, but the way we talk and behave many times demonstrates that kind of thinking.

Much of the motivation used for enlisting volunteers and workers for mission work is spun in such a way as to sound like God would be almost powerless without us. We tend to formulate our grand plans for furthering the work of God as we believe it should be done and then ask God to empower us to carry out our plans for Him and then claim that they are His plans. All through this process we may be praying and asking God to guide us, but I question how much we are really tuned in properly to listen to what He might have to really say. We are so consumed with our plans and excitement about working for God's cause as we see it that we often become too busy to spend very much time feeding our own souls and hearts and in quiet meditation before Him, waiting to perceive His will that just might be completely different than what we are thinking.

Listen to many of the preachers and teachers today who profess to be working and speaking for God. The tenor of their talk tends along the lines of trying to say all the right things to convince others and even themselves that they are working for God. And I believe that indeed God does work a great deal through these people and in these circumstances. But sadly I feel that too often God is being pushed into working through our efforts in spite of our plans instead of our being synchronized together with His ways which would result is extremely higher efficiency.

Then there is the example of the true prophets of God. It is much easier to identify them from Bible times for there is much less ambiguity about who were the correct ones and who were the shams. But even then, more often than we might think even God's true prophets at times slipped into promoting their own agendas ahead of God's, though many times quite unconsciously at first. I have mentioned Elijah a number of times as an example of this but there are others as well. But over all, God's true prophets usually speak in His name after receiving His word that He wants delivered to the people of their time.

Speaking for God in the sense of championing our version of what we believe to be His causes takes on similarity to showing up on a new job site and trying to jump in and begin ordering people around without knowing what the boss has in mind. Our furious efforts to look very busy and productive may or may not help the situation depending on our own agenda for showing up, but if we fail to first accept directions and instructions from the one in charge and take time to be sure to understand them thoroughly, we will likely create more problems than accomplishments.

There is also the factor that many times God doesn't reveal His immediate plans to His people but asks them to trust Him and obey His individual promptings while He quietly coordinates everyone's activities from outside of our awareness. One of the main reasons Jesus gave for sending His Spirit to this earth in the Christian age was to coordinate the work of God on earth and impart God's wisdom and gifts to each one as He sees is necessary for the building up of His temple. When we go around claiming that God has ordained our plans that we have come up with for promoting His kingdom on earth we may actually be working counter to what the Holy Spirit is working to accomplish.

One of the biggest pitfalls in attempting this is the problem of our terrible poverty of real truth about what God is like. So when we formulate plans and call them God's plans and work with others with similar misunderstandings about God, we end up actually projecting very misleading impressions of God to the world that are both confusing and many times very discouraging. When we believe things such as a God that endorses the use of force, fear or sometimes even deception to further His work on earth, we end up misrepresenting the truth about our heavenly Father and would do well to step back and take more time to get better acquainted with who He really is before launching into our own grand plans for Him.

As I came away recently from sharing some spiritual thoughts with a friend that I have been praying for and didn't know how to relate to recently, I was reminded again that this man was not my responsibility. This is God's project and He is fully in charge of drawing this person to Himself. Yes, He chose to have me involved in a small way, but just because I am allowed to share what God is doing in my life and put in some hopefully attractive words on behalf of God whom this man has very little real knowledge, that does not in the least mean that I am supposed to come up with a plan to push this person into a relationship with God. In fact, this message became so clear in my mind that I said out loud while I was driving down the road, “You are God and I am not. I want that to be very clear in my head. I am not God and You are God. You are in charge of this situation and I can relax and just wait to see if you have anything else You want me to do or say. This man is all Your problem and it is not mine to solve.”

But what does it look like to speak in the name of God? How should one go about coordinating efforts with the Almighty to accomplish what clearly He has stated He wants to see done on this earth? Is there really anything that we can contribute that will actually make a difference in the true work of God on earth or is it all just a game of pretend?

And what about people who claim to hear the voice of God in various ways? What are we to make of these kinds of claims? Are they outrageous? Blasphemy? Silly? Dangerous? Absurd? What should we do or think in reaction to the many people who really believe they are hearing the voice of God to their souls?

I struggle personally with this question because as anyone knows who has read much of what I have written, I too claim to hear the “voice” of God in my heart and mind many times. I try to be very cautious about making such assertions but at the same time I feel that I must be honest about what I am experiencing. Otherwise by default I would be implying that many of the insights that have inspired me were of my own making or wisdom, and I know that certainly is not the case. So I have to confess that many of the things that surprise and inspire me that I then put into writing or share with others must be coming from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit whom I trust and ask to guide me and speak to me while I quiet my mind and heart to listen.

But there is a big difference between sharing with others what I believe that God has shared with me on a personal level and a person declaring that they have a message of God to deliver to some other person. To sort through this issue I have been helped by some talks from one of my favorite speakers, Clarissa Worley Sproul. I have a series of hers called The Great Teachings of Jesus. In one of the talks entitled Speaking Truth, she talks about the difference between my truth and God's truth.

When we talk to another person about something we feel convicted about or feel inspired to say, we must realize that this insight may be very relevant to our own life but may or may not be what another person is supposed to receive right now. We may even feel very strongly about their need to hear what we have maybe just learned, but that is even more reason to exercise extreme caution and reservation in what we say to them. And if we do share it with them we must make it clear that this is our truth and is not the same as God's truth which is really quite a different thing.

This is not to say that my truth is not true. God may be convicting me about something that I need to accept and incorporate into my own life and so my truth may be the voice of God to my soul at this time. But when I have any amount of feelings or intensity in my desire to share my truth and apply it to someone else's experience, if I follow through with that urge without first laying aside my own personal compulsions completely then I am engaging in judging or even counterfeiting the Spirit of God instead of passing along God's truth.

There are times when God sends messages through chosen people to pass along to others. At times those messages may be very painful to the recipients and the backlash against the messenger may be harsh or even fatal at times. But anyone commissioned by God to speak for Him to others with specific messages must be very authentic in his own relationship with God and disconnected in a certain sense from any feelings of intensity toward those to whom he has been sent. Otherwise the message will become contaminated with a false spirit from within the messenger and the clearness and effectiveness of the message will be greatly diluted.

I believe that we should be much more ready to share with others what God is doing in our own lives and hearts than most of us are at present. We can confess what we are receiving from God in our ongoing process of maturing into the fullness of Christ. This will result in much more openness and transparency in the lives of Christians which today is seldom seen. It will also enable us to more closely bond with each other, to pray with and for each other and to help bear one another's burdens. But at the same time I think it is very important that when we are sharing what is going on in our lives that we take ownership of our ideas and be truthful about our own need to relate properly to the convictions of God in our hearts without assuming to apply it to someone else as the truth of God for them.

As we share with others how God is working to grow and shape and mold us, others will be attracted to desire to have that same dynamic relationship with God for themselves and we can become more effective witnesses for God. A true witness is really testifying that God indeed can do what He says He will do in the lives and hearts of sinners who come to Him. We can bear witness to the transforming power of His grace to heal our pain, to resolve deep triggers from our past, to bring full healing to deep emotional wounds that keep us ineffective and hobbled in our relationships. As people see the effective work of God over time transforming our hearts and lives into exhibitions of greater beauty and godliness, then the works of God that He is using in our lives may become springboards for the Spirit to use to draw other people into a similar intimacy with Jesus.

I really have no desire whatsoever to be a spokesman for God to convey messages of rebuke or correction for others. If He ever does ask me to do so I will need to be sure to have any similar issues completely resolved in my own heart before I should attempt to speak for Him in that way. But to share the thoughts and insights that He is daily revealing to me in various ways and times is a privilege that I hope can be used to benefit others whom God may lead to observe my experience when the time is right in their life.

But I want to be very careful to not try to attach God's “label” to my plans and then assert that they are the will of God for others around me. I am trying to cultivate a spirit of open listening for His thoughts in which I rest in the presence of God in quietness or in meditation on His Word while suspending as many of my own preconceptions as possible. I can then feel safe within that protected environment to release even my beliefs on key issues, doctrines and definitions so that if need be the Spirit can bring me new insights that are more in line with the realities of heaven. As I have tried to do this more over the past few years I have found that indeed God's Spirit does come to alter some of my beliefs and assumptions, change what I think are the plans of God and readjust my understanding of the bigger picture and how I fit into it.

I believe that there is a great need for many to be taught how to think more carefully, to teach them in practical ways how to really listen for God's voice in their spirit and soul and to help people learn how to have their faith really grow and take deep root in their heart linked with the Word of God. I am amazed at how few people I meet have any real perception of God in their lives or even know much at all about the Scriptures. Religion to most people is a rather nebulous concept that they leave up to the supposed experts who will predigest it for them and hand it to them each weekend. What an extremely high risk way to prepare for eternity!

The Bible tells us that if anyone comes claiming to be spokesman for God that the most important thing we must do is to test their spirit. But to be able to do this properly our own spirit must be aware of the true perspective of God's Spirit and the way He thinks and relates to us. God has given us His Word to act as a most important objective “virus check library” so to speak, as the most important asset we can use to verify the authenticity of anyone claiming to speak for God. If their spirit is in harmony and synchronized with the Spirit of Jesus then we can move on to the next step which is observing the results of their words. God's Spirit will always be in agreement with God's ways and everyone who is truly led by the Spirit of God will resonate with all others who are of the same Spirit.

Let us allow God to be the one who orchestrates the plans to be carried out in His name. And let us allow God to chose who He will use to implement those plans without our meddling in His affairs. If we will humble ourselves and acquaint ourselves with His ways, be filled with His disposition and reflect His character by focusing our affections on Him, then He will be able to use us far more effectively in carrying out His great works among both the lost and the saints. Let us allow God to be God.

Secrets in the Two Altars

A reading that I looked at this morning referenced the verse in Revelation 16:7 about the altar in heaven speaking out. What followed really grabbed my attention and a flood of thoughts began to come to me. Here are a few things I had to quickly write down.

The two altars in the sanctuary seem to be linked very closely with each other.

They both have fire on them.

They both have incense burned on them in one way or another.

They both give off smoke that appears to affect God's thinking.

They both seem to be focal points but in different areas of the sanctuary.

The fire that is used on the incense altar comes from the sacrifice altar.

Is it possible that these two altars represent the final destiny of two groups of people?

If we refuse to be separated from sin in our heart do we end up being consumed on the altar of sacrifice? That is where all the animals were burned up that represented the sins of the people – after they had already been killed.

In contrast, there is no animal or flesh offered on the altar of incense. The coals from this altar are brought from the sacrifice altar to ignite the fire that is used to burn the incense. But the main purpose of this altar is to fill the inner sanctuary with an atmosphere of sweetness that is attractive. The incense clearly represents the prayers of believers who are called saints in the Bible.

Those who make up the body of Christ in the end will be all those who allow God to completely cleanse them of all their bondage to sin in their minds and hearts. Their lives are marked by the presence of much prayer, constant interaction with God, praise, gratitude and encouragement. This is the atmosphere that produces in the life the reflection of the attractiveness of God's character.

But the fire that ignites all the elements that smell so nice after being burned comes from an understanding of the true nature of sin and its effects on the life. Fire represents passion, but that passion must be the holy fire, the holy passion that can only come from God. It is a fatal mistake to ever substitute human-generated fire into the sanctuary service. And that is clearly a stark warning that human passion must be completely eliminated from our thinking as a means of achieving at-one-ment with God.

It is not that we must be free of all passion. Far from it – we were designed for passion. Passion is the fuel which causes us to grow and thrive and be more fully alive. But the tainted fuel of human passion that has been contaminated by selfishness and sin is so inferior and dangerous that to allow it to remain in our system to motivate our spiritual life will cause fatal meltdown when we encounter close proximity to the presence of the Almighty.

The altar also are the focal point for the issue of justice. A closer look at references to the altars reveal that justice was a key issue involved in the services that revolved around the altars. There was even provision for mercy – another aspect of justice – whenever a person was being pursued for an accidental death by an avenger if the person being pursued ran to the altar and grabbed the horns of the altar. They were to receive instant protection by this act of claiming justice and they were to be given a fair hearing before anything else was decided.

In Revelation there are several references to the altar which have interesting insights related to justice. The “souls beneath the altar” cry out for justice for all the suffering and maltreatment they received on the earth. Later in Revelation 16 the altar itself cries out declaring that God Himself is just. This makes sense because all the demands for justice that have ever been made on earth are ultimately directed at God. The implication is that God is responsible for restoring everything to being right, fair and in balance again. At the same time there is always the implicit implication that God is not being fair or just because injustice still seems to be rampant. Sin is still wreaking havoc against the hearts and bodies of millions suffering injustice at the hands of others and people are supposing that God is not doing anything about it.

Revelation is the place where we find the story of how all of this will be resolved and justice will ultimately be maintained for all – but in God's ways, not the way we would choose to do it. Man's preferred methods of establishing justice is to impose revenge and serve out arbitrary pain and suffering in greater proportions than what was originally committed. But this only tends to further the weight of injustice in this world instead of making things right. The cycle of revenge through men's methods only accelerate the vicious cycle of sin and death. Throwing people in prison and treating them like animals for many years for some act they committed that crossed human-made rules is not justice; it is the amplification of injustice.

God makes it very clear that His ways are not our ways and that we must leave all vengeance up to Him and not take our own revenge. Our revenge only serves to cloud the issues and add to the problem, not resolve it. God views justice and fairness from a far better perspective that we can and He knows that when we finally get all the facts and can see all the motives laid out plainly that we will all agree without any coercion that He was really just and fair all along. But the real core issue involved is the reputation of God. This has been the issue from the very inception of sin in the mind of Lucifer and is the core problem to be finally resolved on the great day of God's judgment when everyone decides the verdict in God's trial.

The sanctuary plan is the parable-like model that reveals the way salvation works and God's method to fix the whole sin problem and recover the universe from this terrible cancer that has caused so much infection and doubts about God. Every detail of the sanctuary and its services are filled with rich significance that cannot be exhausted for it is the wisdom of God folded into a very compact container. So if we want to begin to grasp the way God plans to resolve the great controversy between Christ and Satan and save all who are willing to cooperate with His means of restoration, then we need to spend some time examining the illustration He has given in the sanctuary as the outline of our path back to wholeness and reality.

I want to spend a lot more time contemplating this link between the two altars for I believe it holds some important keys to unlocking more mysteries of the kingdom. I know that the Holy Spirit is ready to teach and mentor everyone who is willing to listen with a correctly aligned heart open to new ways of thinking. I sense that there is a lot here that I have never seen before and I look forward to unpacking this much more.

Love and Force

I could tell you but then I would have to kill you.

I could show you my glory but you could not survive the experience.

I could force you but that would destroy your heart's ability to love.

Force has a very important place in the workings of the principles of creation. God has set up natural laws that have unimaginable potential for force. We sometimes call them “forces of nature”. Likewise, there are principles in the spirit realm of intelligent beings (that includes us) that have tremendous forces in place that can either be powerful motivations for living and thriving or terrifying threats that induce fear and submission and suck away the life out of our bones.

As I have been thinking about this issue of force it seems to me that while God put in place all the counter-balancing forces in creation designed to perfectly function together, He intentionally carved out a sacred space in His creation design that was to be free of all force, where relationships could flourish and love could blossom. Force is a poison that prevents love from growing in the heart and it is extremely important that the atmosphere surrounding the heart be free of all coercion if it is to flourish and thrive. And because God operates only on the principle of love in all His dealings with the intelligent beings He has created, He fiercely defends each individual's freedom of will and choice so as to protect the potential for the plant of love to spring up and thrive in the heart.

But here on earth we have already experienced so much force and abuse of authority that our hearts are numb with pain and fear and are incapable of producing real love on our own. Often the thing which we do feel from others and that we think is love is only the selfish advances of people who may try to care about us but in the end are seeking to exploit us, even when that is not their conscious intention. And it works both ways. Even when we honestly believe we are motivated by genuine concern for others and try to bless them, our motives are always mixed and the selfishness that mingles in with our love contaminates it and confuses the heart.

Selfishness is always looking for ways to make us feel better, to have a sense of value, to draw attention to ourself in some way so we can feel more important. We legitimately do have a need to feel valuable and important to others. It is one of the most elemental needs of the brain to feel cherished and loved by another – that is the definition of joy. But trying to get it from others without first genuinely knowing we are valued and loved by God is an exercise in futility in the long run. We end up substituting pleasure for satisfaction and exploiting others more and more to try to fill our own emptiness. This is what sin is all about.

The suspicions aroused in the heart by repeated experiences like this have made us extremely skeptical of even the existence of genuine, selfless love. So when someone tries to describe to us a God who loves us with no selfish motives attached we find it nearly impossible to imagine it, much less believe it could be true for us individually.

Because we are so unfamiliar with the nature of real love but are intimately familiar with the workings of force, all of our beliefs about reality and the supernatural are distorted by our mistaken assumptions about the use of force. We do not cherish the fierce protectiveness that God has for personal freedoms. We are far more focused on performance, appearances and solutions to problems than we value intimacy of relationships. To us, putting healthy relationships ahead of looking good in our behavior appears to be weak-minded, maybe even fickle or sinful. We also assume that relationships must have some degree of force involved at least once in awhile to keep them on track. We simply can't imagine having “successful” relationships with others without having the option to resort to force “when necessary”.

What ends up happening is that we insist on mingling our addictions to force in with our assumptions about God and coming up with a formula that we believe He must use to solve the sin problem. We end up creating our own religion based on teachings about a loving God who tries as long as possible to reach people with gentleness, kindness and compassion but in the end is compelled to resort to force to get His way when all else fails. Depending on our own experience and upbringing, the point where we believe God switches from being nice to getting stern and resorting to force varies greatly. But the very fact that we insist that God cannot win this war against evil without resorting to our ways of dealing with problems through force betrays the immense unbelief we cherish about the true power of love operating free of all coercion.

One of the ways we convince others of the supremacy of force over love is to bring intense emotional pressure on those who are truly trying to imitate God's ways. If and when in their weakness they succumb to the fear of our intimidation and are overcome due to their immaturity, we then hold up their failure as an example of the inferiority of trusting in love alone. But is forcing someone else to fail a legitimate proof of the weakness of love to overcome all sin? How does this line up with the teachings of Jesus who came to reveal the heart of the Father to us?

Jesus told Paul that His strength was made perfect in weakness. (2 Cor. 12:9) So why do we as Christians continue to glorify the supposed virtues of force when repeatedly throughout Scripture God tells us that His ways are strikingly different than our assumptions? If we are ever to find the truth about reality we must be willing to release our vise-grip hold on our life-long assumptions about the use of force and allow the gentle Spirit of Jesus to retrain our thinking and rewire our reactions and fill our hearts and minds with the ways and will of the true God.

The more I have studied the story of Elijah on Mt. Carmel and the surrounding stories, the more clear it becomes to me that this was one of the main lessons that God had to reinforce in Elijah's mind and heart when He took him through the retraining session on Mt. Horeb some days later. Elijah had succumbed to the temptation to indulge in the use of force by killing the priests of Baal on Mt. Carmel, and all the subsequent embarrassing choices made by Elijah flowed from that wrong decision. I believe Elijah realized this too late and is the reason why Elijah ran back to where he was sure he could sort things out with God and get his head on straight again. God lovingly but carefully took Elijah through a series of examples of things to avoid when trying to discern the voice of God in the soul. And pretty much all of them were typical reflections of force.

In the end it will be seen that the use of force to accomplish what we believe is God's will is never the right thing to do no matter how right it feels like at the moment or how much affirmation we get from those around us while doing it. Man's ways are not God's ways and until we learn to trust His ways and be constantly led by His Spirit, we will be vulnerable to falling into the trap of resorting to force on occasion to accomplish what God can easily do through other means and resources.

What God desires more than anything else – including perfection of performance and behavior – is a trusting heart that is humble, teachable, full of self-distrust but also full of confidence in God's love and ability to accomplish what He wants done in our lives. God wants a deep relationship with our heart far more that He wants what we think are good outward appearances. When the heart is changed and transformed first, then the outward life will begin to reflect the inward transformation without our having to work hard at it. This is natural righteousness by faith. And this is the life that trusts so fully in God's character and righteousness that it can release all desire to employ force to gets its own way.

Passion Continued...

For those interested in more thoughts on this issue of passion that I have been visiting for several days, I have posted more thoughts on another blog where I am studying the book of Romans currently. As this issue has been swirling around in my head I am seeing interesting implications in the passage that I am currently considering. The relevance of the effect of force on passion is what I am considering right now. Sorry for seeming to jump around between blogs, but generally I keep this blog for things not directly related to my current passage study. But sometimes the train of thought crosses back and forth between the two.