Salvation Revisted

We have long thought that salvation is about getting us to heaven so we can rest and be out of range of evil. Then we will be able to coast along in perfection because there won't be anyone there to cause us to do wrong. We will no longer need grace because we will not have any evil desires or impulses to resist. But for now, we have to strive hard to hang on to God's strength and by His power resist and overcome evil both within and without until we are safe on that distant shore. We have to fill our minds with lots of truth that will outweigh or expose all the wrong information that may still be in our minds. Or, if we have been in the church long enough some people actually have the audacity to believe that the only job left for them is to convince others of the truths of doctrine so they can come into line with what we know to be true. Since there is very little truth that we haven't heard repeatedly from the pulpit or in our writings, then our emphasis shifts from learning to teaching (or arguing) to spread the “gospel” to all the world. Pretty much the outline of the good, solid left-brain religion I was brought up in.

As I read My Utmost yesterday morning the realization began to deepen that our dependence on God will not cease when we get to heaven as we have subtly assumed but not necessarily taught. In fact, salvation is the relationship itself of learning constant dependence and enjoying continuous intimacy with our Creator and Lover. Our preparation for heaven is not achieving perfection of behavior and outward conformity or even a perfectly disciplined imagination. We are not using the plan of salvation just to get us out of the mess of sin so we can be independently wealthy and happy in the new earth in fellowship with other like-minded saints. Salvation is the experience of living in a vital connection with the Source of life which results in the symptoms of life growing naturally out of our lives. This process is called Salvation and the condition itself is called eternal life. That's why Jesus said we would enter into life eternal NOW when we believed in Him. (see John 6:54 & 17:3) Our intimate relationship with Jesus, our continual surrender to be governed by an outside Source of authority in that relationship is the essence of eternal life. It begins to reconnect us to the Tree of Life that we have been deprived of for millenia. And the same relationship that we experience and enter into here is the one that will continue for all of eternity while strengthening in deeper and deeper surrender, being swallowed up in the identity of God Himself.

All throughout the Bible there are indications that the people of God are being formed into a united “dwelling” place, a building, a sanctuary for God to dwell in. Salvation is not turning us into gods who will take over heaven. Salvation restores us into eternal life which is being swallowed up into the body of Christ that God is assembling to be fully revealed at the great wedding day at the end of the millenium. (see the Great Controversy overview)

Weakness of Law

Last night I was reading a court case about a man attempting to get a birth certificate because he had completely lost all memory of his history and identity through an accident. He had looked for months for someone who might know him and fill him in on his past and appealed to every official he could think of to help him but no one could solve his problem. He was trapped in legal limbo because he could not get a job or leave the country without first getting a birth certificate to prove his identity. But he could not get a birth certificate without finding someone who knew him or producing paperwork proving his identity. The only paper he had was a card from the hospital where he awoke with his presumed name, age and possible place of birth. Since he had lost all memory of his life before the accident he could not verify any of these facts. He appealed to the court as a last resort to give him an identity and a birth certificate so he could function in society and get a job to support himself.

As strange as the case seems, what struck me even more profoundly as I read this case was the underlying, unchallengeable presumptions implicit in the arguments that the only solution to his identity crisis had to be uncovered in the immense maze of legal opinions and laws based on literally centuries of legal code and court actions. Any sensible person even with a hard and callous heart could look at his case and see what other human beings should do to help him. But society is so completely committed and entrenched to the system of relating to each other only under the rule of ridiculously complex legal codes that it is impossible to perform one simple little request that would allow this man back into a functioning place in society.

To me, this case is a classic example of the failure of the whole concept of law as part of the unholy trinity. It reveals that we have set up law in place of God. This belief insists that every decision for every situation must be condensed into a legal code or opinion that becomes not just a guideline but an enforcement on humanity from this time forward. It is a counterfeit to being led by the Spirit. It is counterfeit wisdom. It assumes that the accumulated decisions of men over time are of greater weight than the wisdom that God wants to impart through His Spirit to those who will live from their heart. Sin's illusion that humanity can achieve perfection through collective formulas that are in turn forced on everyone around us is fatally flawed. It is the ultimate “living from the head, or intellect” in place of living from the heart. It is much of the make-up of the “beast” described in the book of Revelation.

As addiction to law is expanded to smother out the last few remaining pockets of “heart-livers” on the earth, it will be asserted that its long-promised goal of a perfect society under law is almost within reach. In the urgency to rush to the finish line it will be decided that the last remaining holdouts who have chosen to prioritize living from their heart and placing their allegiance in God instead of law must be eliminated from society so that there will be no dissenters to the grand utopia of perfection under law. Since force is the foundation for the counterfeit trinity of law, kingship and economics, then force is the logical means to accomplish its perfection. This is the final deception that is fast closing its last few loopholes in its final push to rule over the whole earth.

We can see the outline of this development in current politics and war, the caustic tone of the media and the blind obsession for fame and money permeating nearly everything and everyone around us. The unholy trinity is not just a theory through which one can interpret history, it is a powerful reality that fully intends to lock the whole world and every last person into its vice grip by either deception or force. The book of Revelation prophecies that anyone who refuses to submit to its demands will be evicted from its benefits by being cut off economically in the earth. “He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.” (Revelation 13:16-17 NIV)

While there are many beliefs about what constitutes the various elements of this important prophecy, it is absolutely true that this prophecy is about to be realized. Notice the element of force. This is the trademark of the unholy trinity, the counterfeit government set up in opposition to God's way of relating to His people under the family model. Also note the two options presented under the system of accepting “the mark”. You can have the name in your forehead, which is fully embracing internally the identity emanating from this beast, or you can have the number, which implies the idea of living by formulas in place of living from the heart and being led by the Spirit.

At this point many people may immediately exit onto a sidetrack of arguing about what constitutes the correct interpretation of these words thereby missing the whole point here. In fact, they will jump into their favorite formula and quote their favorite authors to prove their correctness and justify their conclusions. But is this not a demonstration of more formula-based living and thinking? I'm not suggesting there is no right or wrong way to look at this most important passage. What I am saying is that the spirit with which we come to it may be even more of a problem than the conclusions that we end up with. It may be the classic example of desperately looking everywhere for the cause of our distorted vision while ignoring the lenses we are looking through which are the cause of the distortion.

He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant-- not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (2 Corinthians 3:6 NIV)

It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. (John 6:63 NRSV)

But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code. (Romans 7:6 NIV)

Transfiguration

I've been thinking for some reason about what happened on the Mount of Transfiguration and how Peter acted during that experience. I am starting to realize that one of the reasons Peter's comments were so hopelessly out of place is that he was living primarily in a religion of the head and the transfiguration was an event almost completely oriented in the heart. This is why Peter was at a complete loss as to how to act or what to say and ended up with a bunch of blather coming out of his mouth that was immediately embarrassing even to himself.

Peter, like most of us, had not yet learned to live from his heart. He was in training and once in a while he could synchronize with what Jesus was doing, but most of the time he would just blurt out whatever he thought was important and often make a fool of himself. This incident was certainly no exception.

But then I remember how Jesus related to Peter even though He knew what Peter was like and often even got Jesus into hot water. I am amazed at the patience and compassion with which Jesus always related with Peter even though Peter was so clumsy and spiritually inept many times. Jesus believed in Peter and saw his heart. He was drawing out the real Peter from deep inside that even Peter did not know about yet. He always included Peter when only three were selected on various occasions to accompany Jesus at crucial moments. And even though Jesus knew ahead of time that Peter would stick his foot in his mouth on the Mount, he took him with Him up the mountain to experience what few men have experienced in the history of the world.

The event of the transfiguration was not about putting on a show to impress three of His followers and convince them that He was indeed God. The reason for this crucial event in the life of Jesus was to strengthen His heart and dramatically increase His joy strength and capacity to be able to go through the intense conflict of the final events just in front of Him. Joy is being happy to be together and the strength that is derived from that experience. In this moment Jesus brought together the family of heaven and His family still on earth for a few minutes of very intense joy that is almost, if not completely, only an experience of the heart, not an intellectual exercise. Moses and Elijah did not come down to inform Jesus of vital information that He would need for His time of trouble. They came down to reassure Jesus of their support as representatives of both heaven and humanity. The three disciples were included as current and future representatives even though at the time they were clueless as to why they were there.

The transfiguration was a visible demonstration of what the kingdom of heaven is all about. It was a foretaste of the unity and glory that God intends for all of His family. It was shared with His disciples to break the stranglehold of formalism from their minds and cause them to think radically outside the religious box that they were so used to living within. And after the Spirit filled them at Pentecost and they looked back on this event from the perspective of the final events of Jesus life on earth and His ascension to glory, it all began to come together and make much more sense in their minds. Then they were starting to make serious progress learning to truly live from their hearts like Jesus had demonstrated before them for three and a half years.

Yes, they still had issues that came up and prejudices to overcome and blind spots to be unmasked. But they had made a distinct shift from a head religion to a heart spirituality that soon shook the entire world. And until it became contaminated with error and selfishness a few years later, the power of that heart-based spirituality compelled by the mighty power of the Holy Spirit was an unstoppable force that swept over the entire civilized world.

Sometimes I think I act like Peter. Oh, I may not be as bold and outspoken as he was, but I am certainly capable of speaking religious talk while disconnected from my heart. I often soon regret many things I say and advice that I give or offhand comments and criticisms that so easily slip through my tongue. More and more I find myself trying to hold my tongue while trying to perform an internal check to see what my current motives are and the condition of my spirit. Very often I realize, sometimes too late, that my spirit is quite selfish and hasty and eager to make myself look better in comparison to others. I come across as condescending or patronizing. And always, my motives have at least some degree of self-interest mixed in to even the most noble motives that are prompted by His Spirit. I am never completely free of bias or prejudices no matter how hard I strive. I realize more clearly that without total dependence on the untainted merits of Jesus' motives and character alone to recommend me to heaven, I am a goner for sure.

But the wonderful good news is that every one of us have been freely supplied with more merit and righteousness than we could ever use or need. If we will accept it, claim it and believe God wants us to have it, we will be transformed by it. In doing so we will become participants in the transfiguration ourselves. The glory of God and of all heaven will infect us and emanate from us and attract others to the beauty and truth about God.

Satisfying God's Heart

“'Give Me to drink.' How many of us are set upon Jesus Christ slaking our thirst when we ought to be satisfying Him? ...'Ye shall be witnesses unto Me' – that means a life of unsullied, uncompromising and unbridled devotion to the Lord Jesus, a satisfaction to Him wherever He places us.

...The greatest competitor of devotion to Jesus is service for Him.... The one aim of the call of God is the satisfaction of God, no a call to do something for Him. We are not sent to battle for God, but to be used by God in His battlings. Are we being more devoted to service than to Jesus Christ?” (My Utmost for His Highest 1-18)

After reading these thoughts yesterday I guess my mind began cogitating on them in the background. For when I awoke this morning the Spirit picked them up and began to impress me with the extreme importance of the concept of satisfying God's heart. So much of the time we think of religion and God as a means of bringing us relief from pain and satisfying our own desires but very seldom think of trying to satisfy God's heart or desires. Or when we do, to often it is associated with a strong sense of duty and obligation which translates into just another issue of performance that we must fulfill.

To think of the possibility that I could actually have an effect on God's heart by bringing Him satisfaction in an emotional way almost sounds bizarre but also exciting. My mind was directed to the story that Jesus told in response to His disciple's request for more faith and I got even more excited. For this story strongly reinforces this relationship and the importance of satisfying God's heart. In fact, Jesus teaches that this kind of relationship with God is precisely what creates great faith within us.

The story is found in Luke 17:5-10. When this is studied very carefully word by word, phrase by phrase, it can be seen that the relationship between the servants and the master in this story is very unique and different than what most of us are used to. On the surface, the masters words even sound harsh and demanding if the close, intimate relationship with his servants is not perceived. But if it is carefully pondered it can be seen that in fact this story contains one of the most powerful secrets to unleash a dynamic and growing faith relationship with the Almighty Creator of the whole universe.

The secret unveiled is the importance of making the satisfying of God's heart our highest priority. When we have our hearts in sync with the desires and feelings of God's heart and learn what brings satisfaction to Him and creates a big smile on His face, we have entered into a whole new dimension of existence. The next logical question that has continued to lodge in my mind is, “what kinds of things does God crave that I could satisfy Him with?”

As I sat down this morning with these thoughts chasing around in my mind I was a little reluctant to start reading for fear I would lose these insights before I could get them captured in writing. However, I decided to read the day's devotional from Sons and Daughters of God. I was delighted, but not too surprised, to find that instead of being distracted, the reading was strongly reinforcing and adding to what was already expanding in my heart. God was telling me in strong, sensitive words what He could really get pumped up about, excited about, things that I could grasp that would bring deep satisfaction to His heart.

Christ was strong to save the whole world. He wanted all. He could not endure the thought that one should be lost. He wept at the grave of Lazarus, that He could not save every one whom Satan's power had laid low in death. He had given Himself a ransom for many, even all who would avail themselves of the privilege of coming back to their loyalty to God. (SD 25)

I sensed an intensity of feeling for a few moments while reading these words. I caught a glimpse of intense passion in the weeping eyes of Jesus longing to draw every person into His love and intimacy. His great, frustrated heart yearns for every soul to experience life and thriving in growth and strength, bonding with each other and living in harmony and unselfishness. When I choose to live in loyalty to God, believing in my heart that He cares about me and never wavers in His passion to save me from sin and its effects in my life, I can bring satisfaction to the heart of God. I can lessen the intense pain revealed in the weeping eyes of Jesus at Lazarus's tomb longing to save every person who had been lost to the terrible curse of sin. In the words of Luke 17, I can bring food to the table so the master can eat and be satisfied. And the promise is implicit in the words of verse 8 that afterward I will eat and drink and be satisfied myself.

When spirituality is understood as primarily a relationship of the heart and our relationship to God is viewed through these lenses, all of the Word of God can be perceived and understood in radically new and refreshing ways.

Implications of Fear

When someone tries to make us afraid, they are trying to be important in our thinking. It reveals something about how they feel about themselves. Deep inside, people who intimidate others to fear them are craving more of a sense of value. They want to appear powerful and important and valuable and effective. Because they do not have the inner peace and character qualities necessary to have the respect they crave, they resort to force, intimidation, anger and threats to command attention.

Fear-brokers are people who act as assistants to the intimidators by making sure everyone around them is afraid of the same things they are afraid of. This increases the power and influence of the person initiating the fear. This oppressive atmosphere creates a sense of power over others both in the originator and the fear-brokers. But it also is a strong indicator of inward shame, worthlessness or low self-esteem that is desperately trying to be filled with worth.

Fear-tracking is a function of a small part of our brain called the amygdala. Its primary purpose is to alert our consciousness to what it considers through training and experiences to be the most important thing to pay attention to. It screens all incoming information from our senses for what is good, bad and scary. When it sees something that it considers a serious threat developing it tags that information before passing it on the the next level of the brain as high priority. People who have been raised in an environment where fear was the primary motivator become fear-trackers. That is, they ignore what is good in favor of focusing on what is bad or especially on what is most scary.

The amygdala forms very strong opinions about what is scary at a very early age and usually through some type of trauma. Once embedded, this opinion never changes throughout the rest of the life, no matter how illogical and unreasonable the fear is. The only thing that may change what we fear the most is when something even more fearful presents itself and then the amygdala transfers its attention to the more intimidating subject of focus. The fear messages are generated below the conscious level so they are not affected or changed by updated contradictory new information about that thing. The only way our mind can relate differently to that fear is to acknowledge it and then make arbitrary decisions to override it based on more mature information in our belief system.

This interesting dynamic of our mind plays into a great deal of our behaviors and beliefs. It helps us understand some of our irrational fears and why some people seem to return back to the same self-defeating situations and behaviors time after time even though intelligently they know better.

The fear-tracking part of our brain has been one of the primary aspects of our human nature that Satan has exploited the most. Because he knows that what we are conditioned to track we will pay the most attention to. What we pay the most attention to becomes what is most important to us. What is most important to us and what we pay attention to will have the strongest influence on shaping our lives, our identity and our view of what constitutes reality. And ultimately, what is most important and what we allow to consume our attention and shape us becomes what we worship. For worship is simply the giving of our highest priority. What we worship is what we become and also what we will influence others to become. It is an irrevocable, unchangeable principle of life that what we focus on the most has the greatest power and influence over shaping who we are.

Because our minds operate in this way, it is easier to perceive why Jesus made the statement that He did in Matthew 10 in the middle of some comments about fear. "Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." If we have been so trained to give highest priority to fear, then the only way we can shift our fear-bonds off of what is designed to destroy us is by temporarily seeing God as even more fearful. In our minds we ascribe power to what we are afraid of. This is what Satan craves and in fact what empowers him to have so much influence in our lives. Proverbs 9:10 states that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” If God cannot get our attention and priority through the attraction of love and the truth about His character, then we are invited to use our well-developed fear-tracking circuits to shift our attention away from Satan's power to the ultimate power of life and death in the whole universe. Notice that this is just the beginning of wisdom. For when we do give our attention to the One who truly holds and sustains all of life itself, after a time our focus will cause us to realize there is much more important things about God than what first attracted our fear.

When we better understand the insight that inducing fear in others betrays internal emptiness, it is interesting to apply this discernment to Satan himself. Since Satan is the greatest intimidator in the universe it becomes obvious that he has the greatest amount of inner turmoil and lack of value more than any other creature. He desperately craves the worship and attention of every intelligent being. He uses every form of lying deception, force, seduction and intimidation available to accomplish this. He does everything possible to cause every person to be afraid and fear-track what we believe threatens us the most. Many of us can observe this about Satan and accept that he operates in this fashion even while still somewhat under the confusion of his delusions.

But there is another far more subtle application of this understanding that we have overlooked and that Satan has succeeded in implanting into our thinking. What does our popular theologies about God that are based on fear imply about our belief of who God really is? Most of us grew up more or less taught ideas about a God who uses some level of threats and fear to gain our attention and respect. For most people this method lies very near the center of their beliefs about God. It is displayed quite obviously when tragedies strike and people immediately react by wondering why God imposed or at least allowed this terrible thing to happen. All sorts of conjecturing is stimulated about what is in God's thinking, but the bottom line effect is usually a propagation of more lies about a God who carries mixed motives toward his subjects.

Given this pervasive system of beliefs in a fearful, unpredictable God who keeps his children in line with regular doses of intimidation, trauma and punishment, what does it say about our subconscious belief about this God? Does it not belie the fact that if we were completely honest, we might actually believe that a God who has to make people afraid of him to serve him is a God who harbors self-doubts and may be hiding dark secrets about himself, who craves, even demands, the worship of his subjects to make him feel more valuable? This sounds at first like blasphemy and heresy, but even that reaction may be based on a deep-seated fear of analyzing our real motives for serving God and the nature of the God that we perceive. This is, in fact, the very lie that the serpent sold to Eve which first got us into the deep mess we are in today. These things may be a strong indication that very possibly the God in which we claim to believe may in fact be a god we have collectively created in our religion to actually reflect us, our own feelings, self-doubts and manipulative ways.

Along this line it is interesting to note some statements that reveal that Satan has indeed projected onto God's reputation the very attributes that he himself possesses. Carefully consider the following insights.

In Isaiah's day the spiritual understanding of mankind was dark through misapprehension of God. Long had Satan sought to lead men to look upon their Creator as the author of sin and suffering and death. Those whom he had thus deceived, imagined that God was hard and exacting. They regarded Him as watching to denounce and condemn, unwilling to receive the sinner so long as there was a legal excuse for not helping him. The law of love by which heaven is ruled had been misrepresented by the archdeceiver as a restriction upon men's happiness, a burdensome yoke from which they should be glad to escape. He declared that its precepts could not be obeyed and that the penalties of transgression were bestowed arbitrarily. {PK 311}

Sin originated in self-seeking. Lucifer, the covering cherub, desired to be first in heaven. He sought to gain control of heavenly beings, to draw them away from their Creator, and to win their homage to himself. Therefore he misrepresented God, attributing to Him the desire for self-exaltation. With his own evil characteristics he sought to invest the loving Creator. Thus he deceived angels. Thus he deceived men. He led them to doubt the word of God, and to distrust His goodness. Because God is a God of justice and terrible majesty, Satan caused them to look upon Him as severe and unforgiving. Thus he drew men to join him in rebellion against God, and the night of woe settled down upon the world.

The earth was dark through misapprehension of God. That the gloomy shadows might be lightened, that the world might be brought back to God, Satan's deceptive power was to be broken. This could not be done by force. The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God's government; He desires only the service of love; and love cannot be commanded; it cannot be won by force or authority. Only by love is love awakened. To know God is to love Him; His character must be manifested in contrast to the character of Satan.{DA 21}

When it is seen that force, intimidation and fearfulness are some of the chief elements of Satan's government, then when we use those methods in the name of God or insinuate that He uses them, we join the enemy in perpetuating his lies about God and further blacken His reputation. Not exactly what could be considered truthful and faithful witnesses. But such is the testimony of most Christians and even non-Christians today.

It is time to challenge the underpinning assumptions of fear and force and all related elements in our religion, our theologies and our personal relationships with each other and with God. It is time to grow and mature in our thinking, acting and beliefs. It is time to discover and demonstrate the real truths, the glorious truths that have remained buried for millenia under the rubbish and lies about God that Satan has piled up as high as heaven. It does not matter how deeply entrenched they are in our traditions and religions or how adamantly they are defended by carefully constructed strings of texts and quotations (often very restricted to only one version of the Bible), the real truth about God and what he is like will, and is, emerging with or without our acceptance. But if we choose to believe and grow and be transformed by this refreshing breath of reality we can be privileged to become like Him and enter into the experience termed “the joy of the Lord”.

This is what we were created for. It is what only will truly satisfy the deepest cravings of every human being in existence. This is the experience of knowing what it means to be fully alive, thriving and connected. “Until we're all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God's Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ.” Ephesians 4:13.