Power in Humility

For not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. (Romans 10:3)

This may seem like a stupid question, but what is the difference between God's righteousness and human righteousness? How many kinds of righteousness are there anyway? It looks to me like knowing the answer to the first question must be pretty important if we are interested in experiencing the salvation healing that we so desperately need. According to this verse at least part of entering that experience is subjecting ourselves to the righteousness of God. But how can we do that if we don't even know what it is? And what does it mean to subject yourself?

For with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. (Romans 10:10)

I can't help but think that real righteousness – the kind that is called God's righteousness – must be connected with the heart more than the other righteousness which is usually, if not always, nothing more than a poor imitation of heart-based righteousness fabricated by some other part of our makeup.

There are two basic parts of our brain made up of the left and the right sides. The significant differences between the two are that the left side is where our intellectual, externally-focused, more conscious part of our logical thinking takes place and the right side is where our emotions, feelings and deeper sense of identity lie. I find it significant that our right brain is hard-wired to our physical heart. In most of the references in the Bible to these two parts of our being, typically the left is referred to as our mind and the right is referred to as our heart.

Some people feel that making these distinctions is superfluous and unnecessary, that the Bibles references to mind and heart are talking about the same thing, but I don't believe that. While it may not be necessary to understand these differences clearly to be saved, I believe that the more we learn about how we function and how to relate to what is going on inside of our head the easier it will be for us to relate properly to God, to each other and even how to relate to much of what we see and feel going on inside ourselves. It also helps unpack much of what is given to us in Scripture by the One who designed us in the first place.

I have been seeking to learn and relate to these issues for several years now and the more I learn and try to put into practice what I am learning the clearer the Word of God is becoming to me. That is why it may seem to some that I am using certain assumptions or lenses through which to view the things I am studying. While it is important to lay aside many of our preconceived ideas when approaching the Word of God, everyone brings assumptions to their reading and studying of everything they look at – that is unavoidable. Assumptions are not always necessarily wrong. The real problem comes if we are unwilling to reexamine our assumptions when new “light” and insights become available.

I believe that using the left-right way of understanding our being, our brain processes, helps to get much deeper into the meanings of many things God is trying to reveal to us, both in the Word and through other means used by His Spirit. I believe that the malfunction caused by the entrance of sin into humanity was largely the imbalance and almost antagonistic relationship that we now observe between these two parts of our makeup. So it just makes sense that in the process of restoring us (salvation) to our original condition of mental and emotional balance that God is going to address this imbalance and guide us into ways by which we can be restored. That means “rehabilitating” the parts of our being that have been underused, repressed and marginalized while at the same time bringing under control and reigning in the parts that have become far too dominant and all-consuming of our attention.

The emphasis in this process will be different for each person. But in general it seems to me that organized religion has typically over-emphasized left-brain activities at the expense of right-brain heart work, at least in much of the religion that I am familiar with. Of course there are plenty of opportunities for people to become imbalanced the opposite direction by trying to satisfy their emotional cravings through all sorts of “feel-good” activities both religious and non-religious and ignoring the proper training of their intellect. Sin does not care which side is messed up – preferably both. But the process of salvation is God's means whereby both our minds and our hearts need to be healed of the deceptions and lies and distortions that sin has used to damage us.

I believe, given this context and mindset, that these verses in Romans are clear messages from God to us about restoring the proper balance that we need to have to come into right relationship, a saving relationship with God. This is the work that is described here as subjecting ourselves to the righteousness of God. (v. 3) I believe that the more we study and learn about the truth of God's righteousness the more we will see that His righteousness is all about characteristics of the heart and relationships. The externals, the behaviors and words and the way we relate to others, are really only symptomatic of the presence and identity of the true beliefs buried deep in our hearts.

It is in our heart that it is so easy to be deceived because we cannot easily see or measure the deceptions like we can in our cognitive areas of the brain. Our intellectual beliefs and doctrines mostly reside in our left brain. But our sense of identity, our feelings about our value largely reside in the mysterious recesses of our right brain. And while we may desperately wish it we not so, the beliefs we hold about ourselves and about God in our right brain, our heart, are the basis upon which most of our thinking and relating proceed from, especially our reactions to times of stress. While our profession of beliefs and correct doctrines may be emphatic and determined and well-informed by cognitive Biblical information, when it really comes down to a time of pressure it is the much deeper beliefs hidden in our right brain that determines our reactions to what we encounter from others.

This is why God is so urgent that we come to realize that it is the condition of our heart that determines whether we experience true righteousness or not. The things we have learned with our head may be all fine and correct and provable ad nasuem, but if we are not being renewed at the heart level on a continuous basis we will be caught by surprise when the times of testing come upon us. No amount of left brain “correct” information, memorization or self-discipline will replace the work needed to displace the deceptions buried all throughout our right brain and heart. And that work cannot be accomplished using left brain techniques that are so common in religion today.

In this passage I see clear indication of the need for our left brain in particular to be submitted, to humble itself under the higher authority of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And when we come to understand more clearly what that entails I think we will come to see that it means listening and relating to Jesus through the means of our heart as well as our intellect. When we insist that our intellectual beliefs and doctrines reinforced by our interpretations of Scripture are the standard of measurement for perceiving our condition in the eyes of God then we are failing to realize the true nature of the righteousness of God and are trying to establish our own righteousness. For God's righteousness is much more a condition of the heart than it is a description of externals.

When we come to realize that real righteousness is a state of the heart more than a set of cognitive beliefs, then we can begin to understand what it looks like to submit ourselves to the righteousness of God. It means getting our left brain-dominant thinking to submit to allowing the right brain to operate as God intends for it to do. That is where responsive faith is ignited in our soul as we engage our emotions and deeper senses of feeling and identity in our seeking of God's face. That is where we encourage the cultivation of our growing hunger for intimacy with His heart. Submitting to the righteousness of God not only involves getting correct information into our minds but involves coming into a realization of our true heart-beliefs that are distortions of truth implanted in us by the enemy of souls. As the light of God's presence at the heart level shines into our memories and exposes the lies embedded there we have opportunity to receive experiential truth into our heart that is transformational. These are not intellectual lies that can be changed by updating our minds with correct information but are heart-based lies that cannot be changed except by the presence of a real Saviour.

In essence, what I am seeing here in Romans 10 is God telling me that my left brain religion needs to come under submission to the heart-based authority (Lordship) of Jesus Christ (reigned in) and my right brain needs to be raised up to embrace the truth of God's power to bring life into places of death just like He did for Jesus. The death-producing lies about myself and about God that lie hidden in my right brain, particularly in my early memories that still produce dysfunction whenever triggered by outside stimuli, must be exposed to the life-giving presence and power of the gospel, the good news and be replaced by truth that only God can bring into those memories. As I cooperate with God in this process and begin to experience freedom from those deepest lies that continue to cause me to react to provocations, I will discover to my amazement that what used to be sources of fear and pain and death to me no longer hold their power of influence over me. My triggers will become inoperable and I will be filled with the peace of God which passes all understanding, all cognitive explanation.

This is the work of faith, which is simply the reaction of growing belief in the power of God to bring life into places of death. As I receive heart-truth into the painful areas of my right brain that harbor lie-based beliefs that drive my dysfunctions, I will experience more and more the resurrection power that brought Jesus up from the dead. It is that very same power that brings life into my own heart which in turn produces the true fruit of righteousness. This is the real righteousness that God intends to produce in all of His children who choose to cease trying to establish their own righteousness by religious information and activities. This is faith-based righteousness that causes a person to thrive as they live more openly from a heart being transformed by the renewing of their mind.

What does it mean to believe? It means believing the truth about our value to God at the heart level. It means believing that the Lord we submit to abounds in richness for all who call on Him. (v.12) It means that our hearts are warmed with the love of God that causes us to become overwhelming conquerers through Him who loved us. (8:37-39) Faith/belief at the heart level is a natural response to the faith and belief that we discover God has in us. He was so confident in our response of accepting His love that He demonstrated it by allowing us to kill His only Son with our sins.

But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13)

(next in series)

Attainment Without Pursuit

What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. (Romans 9:30-32)

I know I touched on this once before but I cannot remember how much I explained what I find so meaningful here. I again looked up the words for “pursue”, “attained” and “arrive” to see what the main point was being made here. I find it very significant and something that I need to have more clearly in my mind.

There is something almost seemingly backwards being explained here that is easy to miss. One group gets something that the other group is desperately trying to get but doesn't. The irony is that the ones who get it are not aggressively trying to get it but do anyway while the other group spends a great deal of effort and even agony trying to possess but never achieves. That reveals that there is something unusual going on here that can possibly expose the same problem in myself if I am willing to carefully look at what Paul is trying to tell me here. If I am pursuing being right with God and am found to be doing it with the same methods or spirit that the Jews were I most likely will be just as frustrated at never quite getting there as they were.

What is it really that makes the difference between those who “get it” and those who “miss it”? I think I see a significant point in the description of the results as well as the condition of their hearts implied in the text.

Is it wrong to desire to have a life of righteousness that is in perfect harmony with the Law? I don't think so. The reason the Law was given was to make us aware of how perfect God is in comparison to how messed up we are. Being aware of the difference between my character and God's is a very helpful thing to know, albeit very discouraging many times. When I don't know how good God is I have very little initiative to be dissatisfied with my own condition and want to improve. It is very important to see the truth about God more and more clearly so that my longing to be more perfect, more in line with my original design will be intensified.

But it says here that the Gentiles did not pursue righteousness while Israel pursued the Law of righteousness. Now there is an important difference that must be seen here between the goal of each group. It says that even though the Gentiles were not pursuing it they attained righteousness. What is going on here? Aren't we supposed to set goals for ourselves so that we know what we are going to get or where we are going to arrive? How did this “attainment” come about without it being pursued? If I want to attain righteousness how can I get it without pursuing it? That seems to be the question that is left when this is distilled.

I think an important point is found in the definition of the word “attained”. Here is what I found when I looked up the word that was translated for this.

Katalambano: to take eagerly, i.e. seize, possess, etc. (literally or figuratively): – apprehend, attain, come upon, comprehend, find, obtain, perceive, (over-)take. (Strong's Greek)

What I get from this is a sense of excited discovery, like coming across an extremely valuable diamond in the earth and eagerly seizing it. Note that they were not particularly looking for it – pursuing it – but they came into possession of it anyway. But in this particular verse it does not explicitly state how that came about. I have to put more pieces together to see the picture more clearly.

To do so I compare their experience with those who were actively and aggressively pursuing. Again I note that what is arrived at – or not arrived at – is a little different for a very important reason. It says that what the Gentiles come into possession of is righteousness but what the Jews pursued was a Law of righteousness. Also I want to look at the method the Jews were using verses the method the Gentiles were not using, if that makes any sense.

Here is the meaning for the word translated “arrive” which Israel was seeking to do in their pursuit of the Law of righteousness.

Phthano: to be beforehand, i.e. anticipate or precede; by extension, to have arrived at: – (already) attain, come, prevent. (Strong's Greek)

The most significant difference I see between these two words defined here is the sense of excitement, the condition of the heart. It looks to me upon comparing these two words that they reveal a significant difference in the attitude and mindset of the two groups described here. The Gentiles are eager, excited, aware of something very valuable that has stirred up their intense interest to the point of seizing it even though they were not particularly pursuing it originally. Yet Israel in all their strenuous effort to attain or arrive at compliance with the Law, the external description of what the Gentiles came into possession of, failed to come into possession of its attributes – righteousness.

That makes me think a little bit of what I have heard about quantum physics. I have been told that there are particles that behave differently when they are being observed than when they are not. That sounds almost bizarre, but scientists somehow have figured out that it is true. It also makes me think of how the heart/right brain seems to work as well. It seems that the more you try to consciously focus on something going on in the right brain the more elusive the hearts emotions and feelings become at times. Yet when the conscious mind, the left brain particularly, relaxes and allows the right brain to function with more freedom then I begin to sense things that the left brain is incapable of coming up with on its own.

I believe that this may be an important key to understanding what Paul is trying to get through to us. The Jews were representative of everyone who is trying to achieve righteousness, or harmony with God, through focusing on the external descriptions and trying through every means possible to come into harmony and alignment with that description. While that may appear like a very noble undertaking, to become like God in whose image we were created, it is also using the wrong part of our brain to get there. The left brain tends to deal with the externals of our life by nature and cannot relate very well to the goings-on that the right brain was designed by God to do. This is the point that I think is the heart of this passage. It is a case of attempted symptom management instead of cause repair.

The Gentiles apparently, according to the implications of the following few verses, had their hearts stirred up with excitement by their exposure to the truth as it is in Jesus – real righteousness, the true gospel. They saw a beauty and an attraction that they realized would fill the emptiness in their heart and soul and would bring real satisfaction and peace. And while they had not been actively pursuing this goal, they realized when they saw it that it was exactly what their deepest hunger had been craving all along and they seized it with gusto. They embraced the gospel, the good news, the real truth about how God felt about them and what He had provided for them, and they opened their hearts as well as their minds to the living presence of Jesus Christ. They believed in Him with their hearts, embraced Him with their emotions and began to learn more and more about Him with their minds and they were not disappointed, according to this passage.

What was the difference between them and the other group who had long been actively pursuing the Law of righteousness without ever arriving there? I think one of the most important differences is that the Gentiles were willing to let their heart lead them without a left-brain pursuit of achievement getting in their way. This is not to say that their left brain went offline while they simply followed their emotions willy-nilly. But I think it does mean that they, unlike the religious addicts of that day, and ours as well, were willing to live from their heart and respond to the beauty they saw in the presentation of Jesus that most religious people have no understanding of because it cannot be appreciated by the left brain. That kind of reasoning becomes a stumbling stone and a rock of offense to everyone who insists on left-brain dominant religion.

As it is written, "See, I am laying in Zion a stone that will make people stumble, a rock that will make them fall, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame." (Romans 9:33 NRSV)

Why does it seem that I keep coming back over and over to the issue of living from the heart, allowing the emotions to have a proper place in my experience, finding the proper balance between the functions of the right and left brain? I do so because of my own personal pursuit, not of the Law of righteousness which I did for far too many years, but my pursuit of discovering the real meaning of what I am learning about how we are designed to live. I have grown up and lived in the environment of religion filled with religious addicts as I call them, for all of my life. My own brain is deeply influenced and molded around that kind of thinking and reasoning and has kept me dissatisfied for most of my life. My own heart and emotions have been suppressed, underused and even abused and as a result I have caused a lot of similar pain in the hearts of many others around me.

In my growing awareness of my own dysfunction I long to allow my own heart to begin to come alive, to thrive in a nurturing atmosphere of real love, to have my spiritual receiver repaired so that my spirit can be more alert to the constant incoming messages from the Spirit of God. That is often blocked or crowded out by the noise of the clamorings from my left brain logic trying to figure things out or compose new formulas to explain how things work.

Anyone who is more advanced in the arena of living from the heart than I am will probably find this very amusing. Much of what I write probably has a strong left-brain slant to it compared to what I need to be. And I still believe there is value in allowing the left brain to condense and try to explain what it is observing about reality and what is going on in the other side of the brain. I also think that the left brain at some level has to give its permission before the right brain is free to do its proper part in our life, so the left brain has to have enough information to do that. But for all of my life the left brain has been far too much in control without allowing the creativity and emotional growth to thrive that God designed for me to experience. I have felt like I have been under a dictatorship instead of a theocracy like God designed me to live. I have been robbed of the intimacy and peace that my heart was designed to thrive in and enjoy.

I am very much in growing pains and suspect it will become even more intense. Even as I write many of these things I find myself in a tension between wanting to write and explain and figure out (left brain eagerness) and occasional twinges of impulse to just stop abruptly and allow my heart and deeper soul to absorb more from what I am sensing in the Word or directly from the Spirit. There are times when I sense that my brain and fingers are so eager to figure things out that they run too far ahead of my heart. Whenever that happens it becomes evident by some things that are said or done that I am no longer living from my heart guided by the Spirit and that is when most of the damage is done that I later regret.

Yes, my own emotions can cause me to do many things that I regret as well, that could be prevented if my left brain was allowed to give warning and my will accepted those warnings. I am still a dysfunctional person on both sides of my brain. That is the reality of the presence of what Paul calls my flesh. My flesh will exploit both my logical reasoning and my emotional impulses. But by far I think the biggest problem I have, along with most other religiously flavored sinners on this planet, is the over-dominance of my left brain that thinks it can do the job of both sides without the inherent capability to do so. I see the terrible results of this problem both in others (where it is much easier to observe) and in myself.

The good news is that my heart really is waking up little by little as I focus more and more on the emerging truth and beauty about the character of God that is being revealed to me. I am beginning to sense what caused the Gentiles to seize “righteousness” as my own heart begins to ignite with the passion of God's heart. I am trying to cooperate with God's work in me to get my own brain into proper balance and exercise my severely underused heart capabilities by receiving healing and truth into those areas of my life that have remain hidden and malnourished for so many years.

The past few days I have been watching the newest video series from the Theophostic ministry by Ed Smith. I cannot recommend these enough to anyone who wishes to enter into this journey into the healing of the heart. This is a highly effective means of dealing with pain and baggage from the past that has crippled our life and stunted our growth. If you are interested in knowing more I will be happy to share with you directly my own experience or you can go to their website and check it out for yourself.

As I am going through each training session I become aware of the Spirit bringing things to my attention that God wants to heal in my own heart and memory that is hindering me from living freely from my heart. I am sensing a healing taking place, some of which is even beyond what my left brain can explain or identify. But the presence of Jesus is one that promises to bring true freedom and I want to seize it with eagerness just like the Gentiles that Paul refers to in Romans 9.

Whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.

(next in series)

Prejudice and Numbers

There is much more in these verses that I have not even seen yet and I like to review over them with an open mind and heart to see what else comes to my attention. (Romans 9:25 through 10:11)

I notice something in regards to a question I had about the meaning of using the reference to Sodom and Gomorrah. It looks to me like the primary reason Paul referenced that was in relation to numbers. That is significant given our own obsession with numbers in religion today. In the prophecy of Isaiah the Jew's trust in their growing numbers was exposed by the revelation that only a handful of people from the chosen would be saved. In using the prophecy from Hosea their prejudice against anyone outside their own select group was exposed when God declares that there would be children of His outside the parameters of what the Jews thought was acceptable.

He goes on to show that Isaiah foretold that if it were not for God's mercy in active intervention that in fact none of the original chosen people would be found saved at the end. This makes it even more clear that it is not the group or family or denomination that we claim to be a part of that has anything to do with our being saved as it has to do with responding to the grace, mercy and the real truth about God individually. If God had not worked hard to keep faith alive in the hearts of the few Jews who were willing to respond to the truth of the Gospel there would have been as many Jews saved in the time of Paul as there were people who escaped the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

He goes on to show the main reason why there were so few who would respond – just a remnant. They had so prejudiced their hearts against the goodness of God and against anyone who was not part of their “in” group that when Jesus showed up, even as one of their own, and treated all people without any prejudice – women, non-Jews, children, every single person – showing them compassion and undiluted love and grace, they found this kind of attitude to be highly offensive and repulsive to their narrow-minded, bigoted views of religion and righteousness. Instead of seeing Jesus and the character he displayed as the foundation stone upon which they could build the world-wide empire which God had conditionally promised the Jews through Old Testament prophets, they only saw him as an obstacle to their cravings for an empire of world-wide force, domination and control. He became to them a Rock of offense.

But while religion had so hardened the heart of nearly all of God's originally chosen people against accepting that God was like the demonstration seen in the characteristics of Jesus, there were thousands of non-Jews – Gentiles – who were ripe and ready to embrace the hope and transformation that could be experienced through believing the truth about God as revealed in Jesus. When they heard the truth about God's goodness, kindness, love and compassion, faith was awakened in their hearts and light flooded into the darkness of their superstitions about God and they threw themselves onto the mercy of God and were identified by God as His own children.

This action on God's part only served to further harden the hearts of most Jews, even all the way into our day. Their narrow view of God's love could not allow for them to believe that He wanted to save, especially so easily, those outside their own special, select group. And while we Gentiles today may think we do not have the same problem as the Jews we are easily falling into the same trap with just different labels and group parameters. Nearly every denomination claims to be the remnant, chosen people of God and usually looks upon all others as less deserving of God's favor.

I am not saying at all that all denominations are the same or even constitute God's chosen and saved. There is an enormous amount of deception going on in all denominations to a greater or lesser extent. And because it is deception the people thus deceived do not know they are deceived. Oh, it may seem easy to look at other churches and point out how they are deceived, and that may be true. But how ready is each one of us to take a fresh look at our own assumptions and doctrines and reexamine each one of them critically in the light of increasing revelations of truth about the characteristics revealed in the life of Christ? We often go through the motions of what we call Bible study, but all too often it is largely a sham, an exercise of filling in blanks from predetermined texts strung together by someone else to lead everyone to a predetermined conclusion. I find it difficult to see how that can be viewed as study.

The Jews had the same problem of vicarious thinking that most of us still have today. They put more importance on the conclusions and teachings of their leaders than they did on digging individually or in small groups into the Word of God to see for themselves what God had to reveal to them. I find the same frustrating situation today almost across the board. Either people are not willing to utilize their own mind and exercise and stretch it in mining the Word, or on the other hand they come to the Bible with strong opinions and dig very hard through it to find everything that seems to support what they want to believe. They then claim that their text-reinforced opinions are the solemn, cutting edge truths for this time and everyone else must accept their interpretations of Scripture or be eternally lost.

What tips one off to the problems encountered in this last group is the use of coercion and threats that they find necessary to promote their beliefs. Their often frequent claim that anyone who does not accept their doctrines will be lost is a subtle use of force which is inconsistent with the most fundamental principle of God's character – the right of complete freedom of our will and His preference for working primarily with the heart. While it is true that those who reject the mercy of God and the truth about His character will find themselves cut off from the only Source of life and in the end will be lost, it is not because their refused some arbitrary, intellectual doctrine that someone else insisted they subscribe to; it will be because they closed their heart to the loving attractions and drawing of the sweet Spirit of God wooing them into an intimate, synchronized (obedient) relationship with the very heart of God.

This issue is the very point where the Jews stumbled and most still do today. This problem is where most religious people still harden their heart while vehemently claiming to have “the truth” while not allowing the softening influence of the sweet Spirit of Jesus to fill their hearts with His love and compassion for those who differ with them. When we become more enamored with our list of doctrines than we do with the beauty and attractiveness of Jesus, then we too will not really know about God's righteousness but will be found to be establishing our own without subjecting ourselves to the righteousness of God (Romans 10:3).

Real, God-like righteousness is that which is naturally grown in our hearts through faith. Faith is a natural response to appreciating the beauty of God's character. And faith is something that takes place in the heart primarily. The mind, the left brain part of our being, simply does not have the proper soil for real faith and love to grow. It certainly has its place in God's plan for us, but it is the wrong place to grow seeds that were designed to thrive in the heart or right brain.

The righteousness based on faith speaks as follows: ...”The Word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord (left brain acquiescence), and believe in your heart (right brain emotional deep attachment) that God raised Him from the dead (because you experience Him in your soul as a real presence), you will be saved (healed from deep inner pain, lies, wounds, dysfunction, and the symptoms of these expressed in strong negative emotions and actions); for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation, for the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed (or ashamed). Romans 10:6, 8-10.

(next in series)

Real Righteousness

For not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. (Romans 10:3)

As I read this verse I asked God what it means to subject myself to the righteousness of God. Several things came to my attention from looking at the context.

First of all the beginning of this verse says that I first need to know about God's righteousness. That would make a lot of sense. How can I submit to something I know nothing about? I need to look around in Romans particularly and see what is explained about the truth of God's righteousness.

Secondly I need to avoid seeking to establish my own righteousness. That would be a very easy detour to get off on in seeking to understand God's righteousness. While trying to figure out what composes the righteousness of God it is so easy to forget that I cannot duplicate it by working hard at becoming like Him. The Law is a description of the righteousness of God. But if I focus on the Law instead of on the attractiveness of God I will end up in the same pit as all the religious addicts of all ages and my view of God will become terribly distorted.

The real focus that I need to have for my attention is explained in the next verse. I need to focus on the same thing the Law focuses on instead of the Law itself. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. (Romans 10:4) In my last post I pointed out that the word “end” here comes from the word “telos” in the Greek. If this is related to the word telescope as I suspect it may well be, then the Law is an instrument by which the perfection and righteousness of God is amplified. But if I focus my attention on the perfection that is needed in the construction and workings of a telescope to successfully focus properly on a very distant object, I will never have the ability or proper motivation to achieve that level of perfection myself. For my eyes, no matter how much work I do to improve my health or strain my eyes, will never be able to view a distant star with the clarity that a telescope can produce. Therefore I will become sidetracked into all sorts of useless diversions offered by Satan promising me “better eyesight” to become as perfect as a telescope when that simply cannot happen.

But as I choose to accept the invitation of Jesus to enter into a trusting, intimate relationship at the heart level with Him, I come to find out that in His presence my faith and trust in God will deepen as I learn more and more how attractive and loving He is. I will see the Law as an amplifier to view God better, but I must be careful not to become fixated on the Law itself as the object of my attention. I must enter into a relationship of faith and love that is a natural response of my heart to the Person who came to earth as the close-up example of what God is really like and how He wants to relate to us.

This brings up the issue of the importance of engaging both sides of our brain in this endeavor. When I only focus on the Law, which is the external description of God's character, I am utilizing predominantly only the left side of my brain and am not engaging my heart and emotions as God intended for me to do. God did not design us to live in this unbalanced way and He deeply desires an intimate heart connection with each one of His children. Relating to Him only in the restrictive environment of the intellectual while failing to engage our emotions and heart and feelings in the relationship is an insult to the Creator who designed us for intimacy.

How many marriages fail because one or the other feels empty in their heart or only used for the selfish exploits of the the other party but does not feel cherished at the heart level? If we can see this in the marriage relationship (but much of the time we can't) why can't we see that God designed us and craves the same relationship of intimacy with us? The fact is, God gave us marriage as a training tool for us to practice the very intimacy that He wants to enjoy with us Himself at an even deeper and more fulfilling level of joy. Our marriage problems are simply reflective of our confused concepts of what God desires for us Himself.

Paul goes on here to further explain the differences between these two ways of relating to God. Verse 5 states that whoever practices the righteousness which is based on law shall live by that righteousness. In other words, if I choose that method of trying to get right with God, which is the same as trying to align my life with all the principles of reality in the universe which God created, then I have committed myself to achieving absolute perfection and complete, undeviating compliance with every rule and principle, natural and spiritual, through the whole gamut of reality. The problem is, since there is no way to do this for beings who are corrupted with sin then I have taken on an impossible task. The only reason I would enter into this type of insane endeavor is because I have bought into the deceptions of the enemy who leads me to believe that I really can become like God without God's support. That's one of the first lies he presented to Eve in the garden and that is still deeply embedded in our minds.

Verses 6-11 of Romans 10 then reveals the only option by which we may successfully come into right relationship with God and be saved from our helpless condition. It talks repeatedly about the need to use our heart as well as our mind. In verse 10 our need to bring our heart, our right brain, into full partnership with our intellect really cannot get any clearer. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. (Romans 10:10 NRSV)

It seems clear to me in this verse that the heart, the right brain faculties of our being, must take the lead in our relationship with God. As our heart engages with the heart of God and we respond with a warming heart to the beauty and loveliness of God, then our left brain faculties can honestly connect and affirm through verbal expression what is going on at the heart level. This is called a testimony or confession. As this sequence takes place in the proper order the results are the evidence of the healing power of God in our lives, both emotionally and intellectually.

But anytime we try to reverse this process and attempt to achieve righteousness through the leading of our intellect without allowing our heart to take the lead we will find ourselves quickly being sucked back into the whirlpool of legalism, which is trying to achieve righteousness by focusing on formulas, rules and externals. That is like trying to craft a perfect testimony for a witness that uses all the right words and sounds most convincing but fails to have the first-hand experiential knowledge that is prerequisite for valid testimony.

True religion, what I prefer to call spirituality due to the vast distortions of the word “religion” today, is always of the heart, not a mind dominant exercise. I realize that this idea creates a great deal of controversy today, but then it always has. One of the most subtle aspects of sin is that it has deceived us into thinking that somehow we can figure this “righteousness” thing out with a little help from our Friend. But God says that unless you come to Him in the way we are designed and wired to function from creation, with our heart, we will always fail at forming a real saving relationship with Him. For He is not interested so much in what we know about truth but in how willing we are to allow Him into our deeper areas that are only accessed through our right brain and emotions.

Does that mean that what we believe intellectually makes no difference as I am sure some will accuse me of saying? No, that is not the point I am stressing, but for different reasons than what may first appear. The “facts” and doctrines that we fill our left brains with certainly have an effect on the directions that our heart moves. If we fill our minds with lies about God they will certainly affect our desires to get to know Him better negatively. Intellectual truth is important, but only because it is the raw material that is needed for the right brain to better use in its journey toward intimacy with God. It is the myriads of lies about God both intellectually and emotionally that keep us in confusion and doubt as to God's loving intentions toward us. But just pumping our minds (left brains) full of correct facts will not motivate the heart to change its opinions about God when the much deeper problem is the remaining lies that lay unseen and buried deep in our hearts and experiential memories that are completely unaccessible to our left brain logical abilities.

Salvation is much more a relation of the heart than it is a learning of didactic truths in the brain. I believe that an honest reading of this passage of Romans will make that more clear. Paul states in verses 9 and 10 that two distinct things are taking place which I see as parallel to the two sides of our being or brain. “Confessing” with our mouth requires a left brain function, for speech is supported from the left side of our brain. But believing, real believing at a deeper level than just acknowledgment of facts, requires a response of the heart or right brain that operates very differently than the left brain. But what I find very interesting here is that Paul states that righteousness proceeds from this kind of belief – a faith that can only be found in the response at the heart level to exposure to the beauty of God as revealed in the presence of Jesus.

For the Scripture says, "WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED." (Romans 10:11)

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Telescope of the Law

Brothers and sisters, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. I can testify that they have a zeal for God, but it is not enlightened. For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they have not submitted to God's righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. (Romans 10:1-4 NRSV)

I spent a little time looking up some of the words in these verses today and found some more interesting things. Here are a few of them.

The word translated “desire”, as in how Paul feels toward his “former church”, the Jews, conveys the idea of kindness, what would make him feel satisfied, his wish. Even though these are the very people who usually cause most of the trouble for him throughout all of his efforts to spread the gospel throughout the world he feels only a longing that they would come to see God through new eyes, to put down their defensiveness and embrace the truth about God's love for them as revealed in the life of Jesus. I am praying for God to implant that same kind spirit in my own heart toward those in my church and in Christianity who have unenlightened zeal for a form of Godliness without knowing God personally.

In my last post I stated the the “knowledge” (which is “enlightened” in this version) is the kind of knowledge used in intimacy, like when Adam “knew” Eve and she had a son. I need to back off of that statement a little after looking up the original word for it appears to not go quite that far, though it does move in that direction. This word is simply a lack of understanding, a failure to have the proper basis for doing something, a situation of ignorance. I believe that this lack of knowledge is both intellectual and heart knowledge. Their stubbornness in refusing to change their intellectual opinions about righteousness and the correct way to get in right relation to God was due largely to the heart remaining closed to the experiential knowledge that most religious people look upon with disdain.

The next phrase that is here quoted as being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God is not as clear to me and I would have to defer to someone more trained in reading Greek to see what the original might convey. Other translations simply refer to this as God's righteousness instead of the righteousness that comes from God. It is also quite possible that it could be stated both ways just as easily though it can mean two different things. Either way, the main point still remains that intensely religious-focused people all too often are ignorant of God's righteousness, the truth about how good God really is. For every religion that I know of on the face of the earth is riddled with lies about how God deals with sinners. We desperately need a fresh revelation of the true glory of God, a revealing of His true character of love. The Jews refused to believe that in their ignorance and most people are still doing the same today.

The next fascinating insight I ran across was when I looked at the word behind “establish”, as in seeking to establish their own (righteousness). Some of the words used to define this word are “stand, abide, appoint, bring, continue, covenant, establish, hold up, lay, present, set up”. This presents several things to my mind. The first comes from learning about the nature of covenants and all the implications that involves. I don't have time to go into all that here but it is a very fascinating and enlightening research well worth the time to look into it. The best resource I know right now is a teaching on CD called The Blood Covenant that can be purchased from Family Foundations International. You can find their contact information on my list of resources.

What I see Paul saying here in reference to the Jews is that they were insisting on either clinging to the covenant that had been set up with God at Mount Sinai (whatever you ask us to do we will do it), or they were trying to set up another covenant of their own devising. Either way, any covenant other than the one revealed through the death and resurrection of Christ cannot bring anyone into right relationship to God. This is borne out in the verses immediately following this.

Another reference that comes to mind when looking at this is the definition “to present”, as in one's own righteousness. That takes me back to the problems encountered by Cain when he attempted to present the f

ruits of his own labor, the best fruits that he could produce as an offering of sacrifice to God. I have little doubt that the gifts he brought were not the very best that could be produced, but it represented his own efforts to please God his own way and without submitting to a position of entrusting himself to the God who was providing the ultimate Lamb for all sinners.

Many people use this story to make a strong point about obedience and how Cain was cursed because he refused to obey. That may be true in a sense but ironically that type of spin of this story can also produce the very results that we think we are trying to avoid. The Jews themselves became prime examples of trying to please God enough through explicit obedience to get onto right terms with H

im. That is too often the implied (but not explicitly stated) goal of our rehearsing of the story of Cain. We are trying to intimidate ourselves into more perfect obedience which is often just a nice way of promoting performance. The failure of Cain's offering to bring him into harmony with God had much more to do with the condition of his heart than it had to do with the wrongness of his offering. In fact, the offering of improper gifts was simply a symptom of the condition of his spirit toward God. He was going about trying to establish his own righteousness just like the Jews and just like most of us are still doing today even though we try to deny it. For God makes it clear throughout the Bible that He is far more concerned with the offering of a humble heart that embraces and trusts in the covenant of God revealed in Jesus than in any amount or quality of supposed righteousness we may attempt

to perform and present to Him.

The next phrase I feel has much more embedded in it than I am yet seeing. They have not submitted to God's righteousness. I see at least two things here right away. First of all sin has caused us to resist being humble or being submissive. Submission in our world is also usually associated with force which is not part of God's way of dealing with His created intelligent beings. Therefore we start out with mixed ideas in the very concept of the words.

Secondly we have extremely twisted views of God's righteousness. As I have said before, righteousness is one of the most misunderstood words in religion. This is because the whole purpose of sin and Satan is to obscure the righteousness of God, His goodness, compassion, never-ceasing love etc. so it is no surprise that there is such ignorance about His righteousness because we are all living in the miasma of sin. And if we are ignorant as to the truth about God and what His righteousness really entails it makes it very difficult to submit our hearts and minds to something we don't understand or worse yet we are very afraid of.

I believe that possibly this is the sharpe

st point yet in this book where Paul is trying to make very plain what salvation is all about. This is where he is putting his finger on the most sensitive areas of our heart and trying to get us to see the truth of the gospel that he introduced in chapter one. Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

The word “end” here does not mean at all that the law is no longer applicable or a description of reality. What the original word means is that Christ is the focal point of the law. The Greek word is “telos” which I suspect might be the root for our word telescope. If it is then that would make a lot of sense, for a telescope is used to

focus and amplify a particular point in the distance so that we can view it better and admire its beauty.

In that case this verse could read, Christ's beauty and character is the object of focus that the Law amplifies so that in viewing the perfect revelation of God's righteousness in the life of Christ we will be made righteous through believing and embracing His attractiveness.

By beholding we become changed. That is the method that the gospel uses to heal and save us. As I focus my attention on Jesus through the lenses of the telescope of the Scriptures I become drawn to be more like Him naturally. The effects of staring at His beauty is the growth of fruit in my own life that look more and more like His loveliness. This fruit is not something I work hard to produce but is a natural outgrowth of simply spending time soaking in His love and presence.

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