Religious or being Spiritually Real

Sometimes when I am reading the day's selection from My Utmost, I find it impossible to find a way to express the intensity of the truths any other way than how they are already put down. All I can do is supply the thoughts and memories that are awakened and stirred in my mind and heart as I am reading. Today's passage was one of those. If you do not own one of these books and you are wanting to be serious about experiencing true reality, I suggest that you go out and buy one soon. They usually only cost about $5 and can be found in any Christian bookstore. This book and author is considered one of the all-time great classics and nearly every day that I read it I can easily see why. I just wish that I had started reading it 40 years ago instead of 7 or 8.

One of the things I took to doing in my daily reading of this book each year is making notations in the margin along with excessively underling many portions. One of the things I look for in each passage are self-definitions of words and terms. I have found this helpful not only with this author but with everything I read. Each author has in their mind a particular meaning for the words they choose that may often be quite different than what we understand them to mean, particularly if it was written over 50 or 100 year ago as is the case here. For example, Chambers defines clearly what he means by the word “lust”. In his writings lust means “I must have it right now”. The main emphasis in his mind is the demanding, impatient nature of our spirit, not whatever it is that we are desiring at the moment.

Of course, most of us have almost exclusively associated lust with sexual activities and thoughts so this definition by Oswald Chambers comes as a bit of a shock to many of us. But it also help greatly in understanding the real point the author is trying to make any time they use the word when we allow the definition that they supply themselves even if it is quite different or even opposite of what we expect.

I have noticed this problem with words and terms from the Bible as well and we would understand a great deal more about God if we took the time to let Him define His terms instead of overlaying our very limited current usage of words and terms on Scripture and then extrapolating all sorts of strange doctrines and rules to define Christianity.

“A Christian worker's greatest need is a readiness to face Jesus Christ at any and every turn. This is not easy, no matter what our experience has been. This battle is not against sin, difficulties, or circumstances, but against being so absorbed in our service to Jesus Christ that we are not ready to face Jesus Himself at every turn. The greatest need is not facing our beliefs or doctrines, or even facing the question of whether or not we are of any use to Him, but the need is to face Him.”

As is the case throughout most of this book, I am strongly reminded here that I am always in danger of allowing all sorts of good things distract me from the one and only important thing in life – facing God openly and constantly with my heart, soul and mind. And those distractions often appear to be things that fool me into thinking I am doing what is important, things like “service to Jesus Christ”, studying “doctrines”, working on my “religious experience” and examining my “beliefs”. While all of those things should not be ignored they can so easily eclipse the one, most important thing of staying in the presence of the One who created me, Who loves me unlimitedly and Who is the only source of real life and satisfaction.

“Jesus rarely comes where we expect Him; He appears where we least expect Him, and always in the most illogical situations. The only way a servant can remain true to God is to be ready for the Lord's surprise visits.”

This reminds me of the times – the least-expected most illogical times – when my heart has been suddenly awakened and my mind squirmed with great protests in trying to avoid embarrassment and shame. Unfortunately my mind usually wins out and I suppress my emotions and feelings for the sake of “saving face”. But always I regret it later when I realize that I once again probably missed an opportunity to experience something very significant, possible a surprise visit by God to take me to another level of intimacy with Him.

“This readiness will not be brought about by service, but through intense spiritual reality, expecting Jesus Christ at every turn. This sense of expectation will give our life the attitude of childlike wonder He wants it to have. If we are going to be ready for Jesus Christ, we have to stop being religious. In other words, we must stop using religion as if it were some kind of a lofty lifestyle – we must be spiritually real.”

First I would like to point out that I believe one of the most tragic things most of us have lost and subconsciously mourn is our sense of “childlike wonder” and the accompanying freedom of innocence and abandon and joy that it seems only young children are capable of enjoying. All too soon the world moves in to begin its destructive, damaging abusive activities on the hearts, minds and bodies of the young to steal from them the natural reflections of God's character and personality that still persist after thousands of years of sin. And worse than that, much of this damage is carried out under the cloak of “religion”, whether in the family or in the church. It is no wonder then that Chambers says that “we have to stop being religious” if we are going to be ready for Jesus Christ. The true alternative to this counterfeit is to “be spiritually real”.

The amazing thing about this statement is that many times the people I meet who have more of an aura of being “spiritually real” about them are often people who have little to nothing to do with organized religion. And while I cannot blame them for that considering that state of “religion” today, I believe they are potentially ripe for experiencing true spirituality if they are really honest enough to accept the real truths about God that He has expressed. They are often very much closer to the “kingdom of heaven”, according to Jesus Himself, than most of the “religious” people claiming to be in charge of that kingdom.

The last paragraph of this passage is a description of those who choose to accept the challenge of getting real instead of acting religious.

“If you are avoiding the call of the religious thinking of today's world, and instead are 'looking unto Jesus' (Hebrews 12:2), setting your heart on what He wants, and thinking His thought, you will be considered impractical and a daydreamer. But when He suddenly appears in the work of the heat of the day, you will be the only one who is ready. You should trust no one, and even ignore the finest saint on earth if he blocks your sight of Jesus Christ.” (My Utmost for His Highest 3/29 edited version)

Debating with the Heart

As I read the two devotional books that I am using this morning, I was impressed at the convergence on one theme – living from the heart verses any other alternative. The reading in Sons and Daughters of God was about Moses. I learned a number of things I had not known before. But nearly all of them revolved around God's training for Moses to teach him to live from his heart. What is even more instructive is that it appears that living from the heart seems to be synonymous with consistently living in the awareness of the presence of God and in complete trust in Him.

The first time Moses fled from Egypt for his life he had tried to employ the counterfeit tool of force to accomplish God's purposes. Even though he was loyal to God, while growing up in the system of the world his heart and mind had been deceived to the point where he believed in the idea still popular today that God's role is to give us goals and then add power to our plans to accomplish those goals. Like a country song I couldn't help overhearing on someone's radio yesterday, “God rules the world with a staff and rod – me 'n God, we're a team.”

So after Moses made a spectacular failure trying to free his countrymen with force and was then overcome by fear and terror, he ran for his life into the wilderness expecting to never be seen or heard from again in Egypt. “Then, in a special sense, God undertook his training.... He had yet to learn the lesson of dependence upon divine power. He had mistaken God's purpose. It was his hope to deliver Israel by force of arms. For this he risked all, and failed.”

“In the stern simplicity of the wilderness . . . Moses gained that which went with him throughout the years of his toilsome and care-burdened life,--a sense of the personal presence of the Divine One. . . . When misunderstood and misrepresented, when called to bear reproach and insult, to face danger and death, he was able to endure 'as seeing him who is invisible.'”

What struck me as very significant in this passage was the following result seen in his life after he learned to live with “a sense of the personal presence” of God and had time to develop the characteristics of a shepherd in the desert. By the time he was sent back to Egypt to fulfill God's desires and represent the truth about God before the whole world, he had become one of the world's most skilled examples of living from his heart in sympathy with God.

“He spoke from the heart and it reached the heart. He was accomplished in knowledge and yet simple as a child in the manifestation of his deep sympathies. Endowed with a remarkable instinct, he could judge instantly of the needs of all who surrounded him. . . . Of the man who is noted for his meekness, Christ says, He can be trusted. Through him I can reveal Myself to the world. He will not weave into the web any threads of selfishness.” {SD 94}

That is the real goal and mission of the plan of Salvation for every one of us. That is what I want to become – one who speaks from the heart in a way that reaches other hearts and to be open as a child in my manifestation of deep sympathies.

The text used for this reading was taken from Heb. 11:27 “By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.” This alerted me to something quite amazing that I have noticed about God for some time now. It often seems the case that God takes our most humiliating and public disasters and transforms them into our most obvious strengths of character. In this case Moses is especially noted in God's “Hall of Notables” (I don't think fame is the best word in God's system) partially listed in Hebrews 11 as the person who did not fear the wrath of the king. I find that amazing after the fact that the greatest apparent failure he experienced was his untimely and shameful night trip fleeing for his life from the wrath of a king who most likely considered Moses the greatest threat to his throne and the ultimate traitor. Nothing could have been more devastating to the career of Moses than to be branded as the coward who had lost all courage while claiming to be working for God and the good of His people

And yet God picked this very focal point of shame in the life of Moses and declares in Hebrews 11 that Moses is to be remembered as one who was not afraid of the king. The contrast between his first scandalous exit and the nobility and courage that he displayed during the now famous exodus from Egypt was due to one key element in his life spelled out clearly in the text - “he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.”

As I then opened My Utmost for His Highest for today I found it very relevant that this reading too was all about living from the heart. It was almost like a continuation of the heart-lesson that God wants to teach me right now. (The following quotes are from the edited edition of this book as I went off and left all of my study books and papers at another location on my last trip.) As in the previous quotes, there is far more in the original passages that are also excellent and instructive, but for space and time considerations I am only presenting a few of the highlights that really spoke very strongly to me.

“To put my view of His honor ahead of what He is plainly guiding me to do is never right, even though it may come from a real desire to prevent Him from being put to an open shame.... When I begin to weigh the pros and cons, and doubt and debate enter into my mind, I am bringing in an element that is not of God. This will only result in my concluding that His instructions to me were not right.”

At this point I could easily remember many times when I have indulged in debate about following instantly the impulses that I felt from the Holy Spirit. And nearly always I later regretted doing so as I had missed yet another opportunity to bless someone and/or receive a blessing or experience another step of important growth in my life. What I am starting to see here is the constant conflict between the left/intellectual side of my brain where typical “religion” resides fighting with the right/heart-oriented side of my brain trying to live out the quiet but insistent directives of the Spirit. My intellect and knowledge and formula-based religious training and my logical, flesh-dominated mind always wants to interfere with the activities of my heart. It almost seems jealous of the intimate connection that God wants to have with my heart and is always trying to insert itself into that relation. (That painfully reminds me of what I have sometimes tried to do in other people's relationships with each other that I wanted to be a part of.) That is what I see as the “element that is not of God” operating in my own experience.

“Many of us are faithful to our ideas about Jesus Christ, but how many of us are faithful to Jesus Himself? Faithfulness to Jesus means that I must step out even when and where I can't see anything (see Matthew 14:29). But faithfulness to my own ideas means that I first clear the way mentally. Faith, however, is not intellectual understanding; faith is a deliberate commitment to the Person of Jesus Christ, even when I can't see the way ahead.”

This penchant to “clear the way mentally” is one of the greatest obstacles I have seen to living from the heart. And if it is not my own mind demanding explanations on how this is all going to work out, there are usually others around ready and eager to ask those kinds of questions before being willing to encourage me to step into a position of faith. We are all probably guilty of being a source of discouragement to someone who is trying to learn to live in this condition of faith from their heart. If I have done that to you, the one who is reading this right now, please forgive me and encourage me to live from my heart in the context and awareness of the constant presence of God. And I want to strongly urge you to also practice listening to the quiet voice of God speaking to your own heart and enjoy the delights of living in His presence.

“Are you debating whether you should take a step of faith in Jesus, or whether you should wait until you can clearly see how to do what He has asked? Simply obey Him with unrestrained joy. When He tells you something and you begin to debate, it is because you have a misunderstanding of what honors Him and what doesn't. Are you faithful to Jesus, or faithful to your ideas about Him? Are you faithful to what He says, or are you trying to compromise His words with thoughts that never came from Him? 'Whatever He says to you, do it' (John 2:5).” (My Utmost for His Highest 3/28)

Romans 4 Surprise

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(next in series)

Works and Faith 1

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

One thought that came to me was this.

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

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

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

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

Relating to Abuse of Power

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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