The title of today's post is a Phil paraphrase of 2 Timothy 3:16, 17 which in a Phil - combination of versions could read “Every Scripture is God-breathed (given by His inspiration) and profitable for instruction, for reproof and conviction of sin, for correction of error and discipline in obedience, for training in righteousness (in holy living, in conformity to God's will in thought, purpose, and action), so that you a man of God may be complete and proficient, well fitted and thoroughly equipped for the tasks God has for use (AMP, NIV, Message).
I have been saying that the personal proof that the Scriptures are what they claim to be, is to be found in continuing, obeying and putting into practice the teachings of Scripture. Today's verse is telling us that Scripture is God-breathed/ inspired. I want to put another scripture together with this. It is part of John 16:12,13. Jesus says to the disciples “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.”
The teaching of the Church on inspiration and illumination are based on these verses. God – breathed could also be translated “God-Spirited.” There is just one word in the Greek for both 'breath' and for 'Spirit.” So part of what this means is that was the Holy spirit who “moved men of God” to write them (2 Peter 1:22), but also it cannot be properly understood without the illuminating presence in our lives of the Holy Spirit. We can get this out of balance and we do. There are groups that emphasize the Word with little reference to the Spirit, and then the other extreme groups that emphasize the Spirit but not the Word. There is a saying we need to take account of “The word without the Spirit we dry up, the Spirit without the Word we blow up, but the Word and the Spirit together in the fellowship of the believing Church, we grow up”. We will not grow properly without all three ingredients (see Hebrews 10:25).
There are several things I want to take note of in these two verse. Firstly we are all, at some level, like the disciple not yet able to bear the truth. And if we are to become whole and to grow the way He wants us to grow we need to “continue in His Word” (John 8:31) and we need to cooperate with and not “grieve the Holy Spirit” by doing things that grieve Him. The quotation is from Ephesians 4:30, and the nuts and bolts of some of the things that will cause Him grief are contained in the context of this verse!
Its all about relationship. I came to Christ out of a life full of things that grieved the Holy Spirit. But I did not immediately know what they were. I was grieved too. I came to Him in the first place because I was hurting and burdened and heavy laden, and in doing so found rest and comfort (Matthew 11:28; 2 Corinthians 1:4). Holy Spirit used all of this to teach me, and I believe I became very teachable. It worked like this, I would do something that grieved Holy Spirit. And it was as if He said “You can do that Phil, but you cannot do that and be close to Me”. And as I continued, the pain and the loneliness and the emptiness would start to come back. And I would run to Him saying “Whatever it is please show me, I cannot live without You.” And I could not, and I cannot! I have often said “I would be dead without Him,” and I mean that quite literally. I cannot go back, I cannot!
You do not need to be (or have been) as desperate as I was. However, you will not grow the way He intends for you to grow, nor experience the fulness of life and the freedom He promises unless you enter into your own journey with with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. We also need the balance of Spirit, Word and fellowship in the believing Church to grow. We need to “study to be approved unto God, a workman who does not need to be ashamed need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15). We will have more wisdom than all of our teachers if we mediate consistently on His Word (Psalm 119:99). In particular we will see and prove (Romans 12:2) that His ways the ways of holiness and integrity and faith are not only good and right and proper, they are the way to the abundant life (see Psalms 34:12; 63:3; 91:16; 103:4; 119:50, and Proverbs 1:19; 2:19; 3:18, 22; 4:10 etc., etc. and their contexts)!
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Friday, March 30, 2012
Is it real, is it relevant? By their fruits you will know them
My last few posts have been dealing with the question of truth. But actually a more frequent (and more modern) question than “Is it true?” is “Is it relevant?” It is a good question. So does it matter, does your (my) faith make any (positive) difference? The World accuses Christians and those of other religious faiths of being deluded. The point of course is that nothing good can come from delusion. And it is also true that there have been too many wars fought over religion, and that a great deal of religion is divisive and destructive. Many have been hurt by church.
But does this mean that all religion is destructive, and that no good whatsoever comes out of it? Yes many have been hurt by church, but does that mean there is no good in it at all? If that were the case why would anyone go? Do I stop using $20 bills because there have been forgeries? If we overreact to (admittedly real) wrongs, are we not in danger of throwing out the baby with the bath water? Do we distrust the Bible because some people twist its meaning (and to their own destruction – 2Peter 3:16)? The Bible itself talks about true (and hence by implication false) religion (James 1:27). It also tells us how to discern which is which, it is “by their fruits you will know them,”and “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit” (Matthew 7:20, 18). Note by these verses, that the Bible knows that there is both good and bad fruit, that not everything that claims to be genuine is genuine. We are not always honest about what we do, who are and where we are coming from. When was the last time somebody said to you “You do realize that I am being manipulative don't you?” If we are trying to fool others, we are not likely to be up front about it – even if the one I am trying to fool is me! It would kind of defeat the purpose :-).
So if it is by their fruits that we know, then we need to ask what kind of fruit there is from their (and our) faith? What does good fruit look like? Let's ask some more questions. Here are a few: Is their (my) faith helping them (me) to become a better person? Does it hold up, under the trials of life? Will it sustain us, and bring us through the difficult times? Is it real, or have I believed lies, cunningly devised fables and/or illusions?” Good fruit will not come from delusion! “Does my faith give practical answers the questions of life and death in a way that enables me to face the present and the future with confidence?” "Does my faith help me with my identity crises and my woundedness?" "Is my faith leading me to become more and more whole? Is my faith real/helpful/relevant, does it make a positive difference in my life?" Jesus tells us that He came that we might have fullness of life. "Is my life more fulfilling because I am a Christian?
The question is important to both those inside and outside the faith. We were talking last day about the inner witness of the Spirit. But the fruit needs to be seen from the outside too. They will know we are Christians by our love (John 13:35). Even some of those who are antagonistic to the gospel tell me that my conversion has been good for me. It is God who is at work in me (Philippians 2:12), and the credit for improvements goes to Him. If the faith out of which we operate is no more than an intellectual conversion, an intellectual belief that Orthodox Christian teaching is true, then it is no conversion at all. If my life is not in the process of being conformed and transformed to His life (the life of Christ) then the answer to most of the above questions is “no.” If my words and my actions are at odds with each other, then such faith is not a Biblical faith. James puts it this way “Someone will say, “You have faith; I have actions.” Show me your faith without actions, and I will show you my faith by my actions.” To put it another way genuine faith is seen by what we do, and how it changes our lives. This is not how we get saved (Ephesians 2:8,9), but is is how it speaks to the World of it's genuineness (or not). Too much of Western Christianity has a disconnect between what is said and what is done. We need to come back to the Biblical question "Is there good fruit from all of this?"
But I do need to inject a word of caution. We should not be too quick to judge the fruit (either positive or negative). Jesus tells us that the wheat and the weeds (good and bad) are growing together (Matthew 13:24-30). One of the implications of the teaching here, is that it is not always immediately clear which is which. Part of this is bound up in the fact that the Church is intended to be a hospital for the sin sick. You would not criticize the local hospital because it admitted a lot of sick people. Likewise we should not expect the church to be full of people who are fully whole. Many come to Christ in the first place because of their messed up lives. I know I did. The day after I was saved I was still messed up, messed up but saved. And He is still at work in me! In one sense it is to the credit of the Church that we admit so many wounded, hurting and hence often difficult people (hurt people spread the hurt!). Of course we do need to be in the process of becoming whole. But I also know there have been periods of my Christian life where I appeared to be going backwards. This looking for fruit then needs to be long term looking. On the other side of the coin, from the parable of the sower, we see that some of what claims to be genuine and for a while looks genuine will be (in the long run) shown not to be.
I remember hearing “Two thirds of it is fake.” But if you think about it two thirds fake means one third genuine. I have learned it is better not to judge too quickly, or by the outside appearance. The Lord does not do this, the Lord looks on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). And in the end, it is what the Lord thinks of me that is important, not what man thinks. For sure we will not always be appreciated even for the good. But the Lord sees the good, and what He sees He will reward.
But does this mean that all religion is destructive, and that no good whatsoever comes out of it? Yes many have been hurt by church, but does that mean there is no good in it at all? If that were the case why would anyone go? Do I stop using $20 bills because there have been forgeries? If we overreact to (admittedly real) wrongs, are we not in danger of throwing out the baby with the bath water? Do we distrust the Bible because some people twist its meaning (and to their own destruction – 2Peter 3:16)? The Bible itself talks about true (and hence by implication false) religion (James 1:27). It also tells us how to discern which is which, it is “by their fruits you will know them,”and “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit” (Matthew 7:20, 18). Note by these verses, that the Bible knows that there is both good and bad fruit, that not everything that claims to be genuine is genuine. We are not always honest about what we do, who are and where we are coming from. When was the last time somebody said to you “You do realize that I am being manipulative don't you?” If we are trying to fool others, we are not likely to be up front about it – even if the one I am trying to fool is me! It would kind of defeat the purpose :-).
So if it is by their fruits that we know, then we need to ask what kind of fruit there is from their (and our) faith? What does good fruit look like? Let's ask some more questions. Here are a few: Is their (my) faith helping them (me) to become a better person? Does it hold up, under the trials of life? Will it sustain us, and bring us through the difficult times? Is it real, or have I believed lies, cunningly devised fables and/or illusions?” Good fruit will not come from delusion! “Does my faith give practical answers the questions of life and death in a way that enables me to face the present and the future with confidence?” "Does my faith help me with my identity crises and my woundedness?" "Is my faith leading me to become more and more whole? Is my faith real/helpful/relevant, does it make a positive difference in my life?" Jesus tells us that He came that we might have fullness of life. "Is my life more fulfilling because I am a Christian?
The question is important to both those inside and outside the faith. We were talking last day about the inner witness of the Spirit. But the fruit needs to be seen from the outside too. They will know we are Christians by our love (John 13:35). Even some of those who are antagonistic to the gospel tell me that my conversion has been good for me. It is God who is at work in me (Philippians 2:12), and the credit for improvements goes to Him. If the faith out of which we operate is no more than an intellectual conversion, an intellectual belief that Orthodox Christian teaching is true, then it is no conversion at all. If my life is not in the process of being conformed and transformed to His life (the life of Christ) then the answer to most of the above questions is “no.” If my words and my actions are at odds with each other, then such faith is not a Biblical faith. James puts it this way “Someone will say, “You have faith; I have actions.” Show me your faith without actions, and I will show you my faith by my actions.” To put it another way genuine faith is seen by what we do, and how it changes our lives. This is not how we get saved (Ephesians 2:8,9), but is is how it speaks to the World of it's genuineness (or not). Too much of Western Christianity has a disconnect between what is said and what is done. We need to come back to the Biblical question "Is there good fruit from all of this?"
But I do need to inject a word of caution. We should not be too quick to judge the fruit (either positive or negative). Jesus tells us that the wheat and the weeds (good and bad) are growing together (Matthew 13:24-30). One of the implications of the teaching here, is that it is not always immediately clear which is which. Part of this is bound up in the fact that the Church is intended to be a hospital for the sin sick. You would not criticize the local hospital because it admitted a lot of sick people. Likewise we should not expect the church to be full of people who are fully whole. Many come to Christ in the first place because of their messed up lives. I know I did. The day after I was saved I was still messed up, messed up but saved. And He is still at work in me! In one sense it is to the credit of the Church that we admit so many wounded, hurting and hence often difficult people (hurt people spread the hurt!). Of course we do need to be in the process of becoming whole. But I also know there have been periods of my Christian life where I appeared to be going backwards. This looking for fruit then needs to be long term looking. On the other side of the coin, from the parable of the sower, we see that some of what claims to be genuine and for a while looks genuine will be (in the long run) shown not to be.
I remember hearing “Two thirds of it is fake.” But if you think about it two thirds fake means one third genuine. I have learned it is better not to judge too quickly, or by the outside appearance. The Lord does not do this, the Lord looks on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). And in the end, it is what the Lord thinks of me that is important, not what man thinks. For sure we will not always be appreciated even for the good. But the Lord sees the good, and what He sees He will reward.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
If you continue in My Word ... then you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free.
We have been saying that the proof that the Bible is true can be found in doing, in following, in obedience to the Word. But this promise of the Bible is about much more than intellectual knowledge that God exists. I want to illustrate this point from the promise in the title of the post. It comes from John 8:31,32 and part of what it is saying is that the knowledge the Bible brings will change us when, with His help, we respond to it the right way.
Lets look at the passage more closely. Combining various versions (AMP, KJV, NKJV, NIV) we can paraphrase the full text as “So Jesus said to those Jews who had believed in Him, 'If you abide in, and continue to abide in, My Word, hold fast to My teachings and live in accordance with them, then you are truly My disciples. And you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free.'”
There are a couple of things to note before we get into the meat of the text. The first is that it is spoken to believers. There is a clear implication here, that you can be a believer and still not be free. For it is only “if such and such" that can we claim this promise to be made free. The second thought is similar, it is that not all believers are true disciples. Again “if ... then you will be my true disciples ....” It is only as the conditions are fulfilled that the conclusion follows. The word 'disciple' literally means 'learner.' The closest to the Biblical meaning that we have in our culture is 'apprentice', or perhaps 'graduate student'. We are not talking here about a student who crams the night before the exam and vomits it out the next day on the test. I call this the binge and puke method of Education. We sucked it all in, and hold it in with our breath until the exam, then we let it all go. And guess what? It's all gone. Do we remember anything from the times we did this? Yet this method is used widely in our culture.
If we approach our spiritual lives this way, the truth will not set us free. After all it has cost Him to bring about our freedom, this approach makes Him want to vomit (Revelation 3:16). And which one of us has not been at that place at times? When we find ourselves there, we need to heed the command that follows later in the Revelation passage, and that is to be repent and to be zealous (verse 19). As I said last day if we really want to know the truth, it will cost us everything we are and have. In the words of 12 step programs “half measures profited us nothing.” There is no fence, if you do not gather with Him you scatter (Matthew 12:30), and you will not be being progressively set free. We are in a war to the death with the enemy of our souls. He gives his all, and we need to give our all too!
The next thing we need to see in these verses is that though we do need to give our all, it is the truth that sets us free, not our efforts. It works like this, when we give it our all, the Truth becomes operational in our lives. But what is truth? The concept of truth is a dirty word in our culture and before we continue I need to say more.
It is interesting to me to note that the very same culture that denies the existence of truth, has no problem denying the existence of lies. On the other hand, it does have a problem with the existence of the father of lies! It is also interesting to me that Jesus calls the Devil this, in the very same context of our primary text (see John 8:44). But let's come back to the question 'What is truth?” I have found that being asked this question, is a common response to my talking about truth. In one way it is a very modern question, in another it's as old as the hills (unless you are in Manitoba :-)). This is the very same question that Pilot asked Jesus when told “Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice” (John 18:37, 38). But as that passage clearly shows, it wasn't really a question, he was saying “truth is unknowable.” The point is, that both then and now when we don't want to have to come to terms with truth, we can use this “question” to bypass the challenge it brings. But then and now, truth is proved to be truth in the “pudding of doing” (see last day's post).
On the other hand, if you have ears to hear, the question “what is truth?” can be answered. And when you see it, it makes perfect sense of what Jesus said to Pilot that everyone who is of the truth hears His voice. You see Truth is not some abstract thought or idea, Truth is a person. Jesus tells us this in John 14:6. “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” If this is true (and it is) then what He is saying to Pilot is that embracing the truth is the same as embracing Him, and that from that vantage point we can indeed hear Him. I said earlier that the Bible is either true or it's a bunch of baloney. John 14:6 always reminds me of John Stott's trichotomy. Stott says “I want to prevent you from saying the really silly thing, that Jesus was just a good teacher." The point is that if He is not who he says He is, He is either a lunatic, or a liar. And if He is neither of these things, then He is who He says He is. That is, He is Lord (see also “ Lunatic, Liar or Lord” March 2011).
But the fact of the matter is that Jesus is Truth incarnate, and as Truth incarnate He sets us free as we learn to abide in His Word. Actually He is not only the Truth, He is also the Word (John 1:1). The word “abide” (meno in the Greek) is the word used in today's main passage (verse 31). It is the very same word used in the well know passage in John 15. So reading our text as "If you abide in Me ... I will set you free" would be a valid paraphrase of it.
So then it is in being vitally connected with Jesus in ongoing loving intimate relationship, that we become progressively free. You see the essence of Christianity is not a bunch of propositional truths, is it a person, the person of Jesus Christ. As I have pointed out before, the essence of eternal life is to know Jesus and the Father (John 17:3). We need (I need) to keep coming back to this Truth (that is to Him), for we far too easily pass over it. I know that God exists, but it is not enough for me. I have two degrees in theology, but it is not enough. It is not enough for me to know about God, I need to know Him (in the way that we know persons), and I need to know Him more! And this is what the verses we were looking at last day promise “I will let Myself be clearly seen by him, and make Myself real to him” (John 14:21 - Amplified Bible).
Another way to think of this is as His presence. His presence in my life is everything. In His presence I am comforted and healed and set free. In His presence there is fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11), a joy that lifts us above the circumstances of life. But it is so much more. He Himself “is our exceedingly great reward” (Genesis 15:1). I don't know why we seem to struggle so much to see and/or enter into the reality of this. But what I am aiming for, pray for and long for, is to come to the place where my will and His will are no longer in contention. I know intellectually that if I am “filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding” (Colossians 1:9) then I will agree with Him this His will is the very very best for me and for those I love. But I want to know it in my heart. So this prayer (from Colossians) along with the prayer “Holy Spirit please put to death the deeds and the desires of the flesh,” is my most frequent prayer. If the Son shall set you free, you will be free indeed (John 8:36).
Prayer: Father, Your Word tells me that You are able to do exceedingly above all I ask or imagine. Lord I know in my head that you are my exceedingly great reward, I want this truth to permeate my heart and life and my very being. Only You Lord can put to death the things that hinder, and only You can add the things that will make me whom You want and intend for me to be. Show me the what and the how, and give me the wherewithal to do my part in drawing close to You, so that I can claim the promise that You will draw close to me. It is only in You that I will become more and more free. In Jesus Name Amen
Lets look at the passage more closely. Combining various versions (AMP, KJV, NKJV, NIV) we can paraphrase the full text as “So Jesus said to those Jews who had believed in Him, 'If you abide in, and continue to abide in, My Word, hold fast to My teachings and live in accordance with them, then you are truly My disciples. And you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free.'”
There are a couple of things to note before we get into the meat of the text. The first is that it is spoken to believers. There is a clear implication here, that you can be a believer and still not be free. For it is only “if such and such" that can we claim this promise to be made free. The second thought is similar, it is that not all believers are true disciples. Again “if ... then you will be my true disciples ....” It is only as the conditions are fulfilled that the conclusion follows. The word 'disciple' literally means 'learner.' The closest to the Biblical meaning that we have in our culture is 'apprentice', or perhaps 'graduate student'. We are not talking here about a student who crams the night before the exam and vomits it out the next day on the test. I call this the binge and puke method of Education. We sucked it all in, and hold it in with our breath until the exam, then we let it all go. And guess what? It's all gone. Do we remember anything from the times we did this? Yet this method is used widely in our culture.
If we approach our spiritual lives this way, the truth will not set us free. After all it has cost Him to bring about our freedom, this approach makes Him want to vomit (Revelation 3:16). And which one of us has not been at that place at times? When we find ourselves there, we need to heed the command that follows later in the Revelation passage, and that is to be repent and to be zealous (verse 19). As I said last day if we really want to know the truth, it will cost us everything we are and have. In the words of 12 step programs “half measures profited us nothing.” There is no fence, if you do not gather with Him you scatter (Matthew 12:30), and you will not be being progressively set free. We are in a war to the death with the enemy of our souls. He gives his all, and we need to give our all too!
The next thing we need to see in these verses is that though we do need to give our all, it is the truth that sets us free, not our efforts. It works like this, when we give it our all, the Truth becomes operational in our lives. But what is truth? The concept of truth is a dirty word in our culture and before we continue I need to say more.
It is interesting to me to note that the very same culture that denies the existence of truth, has no problem denying the existence of lies. On the other hand, it does have a problem with the existence of the father of lies! It is also interesting to me that Jesus calls the Devil this, in the very same context of our primary text (see John 8:44). But let's come back to the question 'What is truth?” I have found that being asked this question, is a common response to my talking about truth. In one way it is a very modern question, in another it's as old as the hills (unless you are in Manitoba :-)). This is the very same question that Pilot asked Jesus when told “Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice” (John 18:37, 38). But as that passage clearly shows, it wasn't really a question, he was saying “truth is unknowable.” The point is, that both then and now when we don't want to have to come to terms with truth, we can use this “question” to bypass the challenge it brings. But then and now, truth is proved to be truth in the “pudding of doing” (see last day's post).
On the other hand, if you have ears to hear, the question “what is truth?” can be answered. And when you see it, it makes perfect sense of what Jesus said to Pilot that everyone who is of the truth hears His voice. You see Truth is not some abstract thought or idea, Truth is a person. Jesus tells us this in John 14:6. “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” If this is true (and it is) then what He is saying to Pilot is that embracing the truth is the same as embracing Him, and that from that vantage point we can indeed hear Him. I said earlier that the Bible is either true or it's a bunch of baloney. John 14:6 always reminds me of John Stott's trichotomy. Stott says “I want to prevent you from saying the really silly thing, that Jesus was just a good teacher." The point is that if He is not who he says He is, He is either a lunatic, or a liar. And if He is neither of these things, then He is who He says He is. That is, He is Lord (see also “ Lunatic, Liar or Lord” March 2011).
But the fact of the matter is that Jesus is Truth incarnate, and as Truth incarnate He sets us free as we learn to abide in His Word. Actually He is not only the Truth, He is also the Word (John 1:1). The word “abide” (meno in the Greek) is the word used in today's main passage (verse 31). It is the very same word used in the well know passage in John 15. So reading our text as "If you abide in Me ... I will set you free" would be a valid paraphrase of it.
So then it is in being vitally connected with Jesus in ongoing loving intimate relationship, that we become progressively free. You see the essence of Christianity is not a bunch of propositional truths, is it a person, the person of Jesus Christ. As I have pointed out before, the essence of eternal life is to know Jesus and the Father (John 17:3). We need (I need) to keep coming back to this Truth (that is to Him), for we far too easily pass over it. I know that God exists, but it is not enough for me. I have two degrees in theology, but it is not enough. It is not enough for me to know about God, I need to know Him (in the way that we know persons), and I need to know Him more! And this is what the verses we were looking at last day promise “I will let Myself be clearly seen by him, and make Myself real to him” (John 14:21 - Amplified Bible).
Another way to think of this is as His presence. His presence in my life is everything. In His presence I am comforted and healed and set free. In His presence there is fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11), a joy that lifts us above the circumstances of life. But it is so much more. He Himself “is our exceedingly great reward” (Genesis 15:1). I don't know why we seem to struggle so much to see and/or enter into the reality of this. But what I am aiming for, pray for and long for, is to come to the place where my will and His will are no longer in contention. I know intellectually that if I am “filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding” (Colossians 1:9) then I will agree with Him this His will is the very very best for me and for those I love. But I want to know it in my heart. So this prayer (from Colossians) along with the prayer “Holy Spirit please put to death the deeds and the desires of the flesh,” is my most frequent prayer. If the Son shall set you free, you will be free indeed (John 8:36).
Prayer: Father, Your Word tells me that You are able to do exceedingly above all I ask or imagine. Lord I know in my head that you are my exceedingly great reward, I want this truth to permeate my heart and life and my very being. Only You Lord can put to death the things that hinder, and only You can add the things that will make me whom You want and intend for me to be. Show me the what and the how, and give me the wherewithal to do my part in drawing close to You, so that I can claim the promise that You will draw close to me. It is only in You that I will become more and more free. In Jesus Name Amen
Thursday, March 22, 2012
The proof is in the pudding
I have met many people who would like to believe (at least that is what they tell me!). But they do not seem able to. But what if there was a way to know? Well actually there is, and the Bible itself tells us how. There are not too many options here, either the Bible is true, or its a bunch of baloney. The Bible challenges us to prove it is true. I should warn you however, that it will cost you everything you are and have, but you can know, and it is worth it. I need to take a small diversion to discuss how we know.
What I want to say is that we can know the Bible is true, we can prove it to ourselves, but it's not a mathematical or a scientific proof. Actually, we have been duped into believing that scientific knowledge is the only real knowledge. But if you think about it even a little, you will know that scientific and/or Mathematical knowledge is not the only way we know. How do people know they are in love? Do you claim we cannot know we are in love? You cannot prove this scientifically (see “I know too much Science to believe in God” – posted June 2010). Or take the law courts. In a law court the testimonies of witnesses are heard and examined and acted upon. Testimony is not scientific proof, but people have been sentenced to death on this kind of proof. We do this in life too. We act on what other people say, and when someone who we know to be reliable tells us something, we act on such knowledge. To say we can only be certain of knowing by scientific proof is absurd, and in any case is totally contrary to the way we operate in life. We act in certainty about all kinds of things, or we would not even get out of bed. I am certain the airlines only allow qualified pilots to pilot their planes. If I did not “know” this, I would not fly. We all live by faith in something. The question is, are our certainties (our trust/belief /faith) reasonable? I will need to say more about “A blind or a reasonable faith.” The Bible tells us that from the inside (after conversion) we can know. We are told “The Spirit of God witnesses to our Spirit that we are children of God” Romans 8:16. It is the testimony of many that you can know and be confident in the reality of this witness. If you think about it, we do know when we are (or are not) loved!
The Bible tells us both the what and the how, or if you like the path to this knowledge we are talking about. There are two verses that say it explicitly. Let's look at them. The first is John 7:17 which, in the NIV, reads “Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.” The second is like unto it, it reads “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” (John 14:21). The Amplified Bible expands “manifest Myself” to “I will let Myself be clearly seen by him, and make Myself real to him.”
These two verses can be thought of as encapsulating both a principle and a promise. In terms of it being a promise, like most Biblical promises, there is a condition that needs to be fulfilled before it can be claimed. Our part in the first promise is to choose to do the will of God, and the implication is that you can determine that by reading the book! Our part in the second promise is to have the commandments, and to keep them. So our part is to both know His commandments (and hence His will), and then to put them into practice. In my own journey, when the Holy Spirit began to convict me of sin of righteousness and judgement (John 16:8), I knew that I needed to change, to turn over new leaf. It was in the doing (or rather the attempting) that I discovered how far short I fell of being able to do it. So then it was in trying to do what He commands that I discovered my desperate need of Him to save me. Having tried my best, I know first hand the truth of what lies behind Romans 7:15 - “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do”. When I discovered this, so much more began to make sense, and to fall into place (see also “This book knows me”). And yes I knew it was all true!
But there is also a principle behind the promise. The principle is that what we do, and what we know and believe are not independent realities. In other words knowing/believing and doing are intricately interconnected. I have no clue how the conversation came round to this, but one time in the cafe this young woman said to me “I don't think adultery is wrong.” Without condemnation I looked her in the eye, and said to her very gently 'That's because you want to do it'. She lifted her hand not quite quick enough to hide her “guilty as charged” smile. You see if God says “You must not commit adultery,” and you want to, one of two things has to go. Either your adultery will go, or your belief in God will. How easily we rationalize what we want to do! To me the truth that we suppress truth by unrighteousness (Romans 1:18) is compelling!
One dictionary describes rationalization as the provision of plausible reasons to explain to oneself, or others, behaviour for which one's real motives are different, unknown or unconscious. The Bible knows all about this, but it's more blunt. The full text of the verse just indicated reads “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Romans 1:18). Being a Father helps me to understand why God takes this so seriously. Have you ever seen a mother (or father) angry because someone had hurt their child? This is how God feels about the selfishness and meanness that comes out of His children toward others of His children. And which one of us is exempt? We often don't see it (at least in ourselves), but the fact of the matter is that all unrighteousness is at some level destructive to others and actually in the end to ourselves too.
We don't see it, because we don't want to see it. But even if we do, we will likely excuse, dismiss or marginalize it. Nobody wants to think of themselves as wicked, so that when we are determined to do something wrong, or not to do something we should, we are always quick to find ways to rationalize or to excuse our behaviour. And when we want to do what we want to do, it makes it hard to hear what we need to hear. But until we begin to recognize this in ourselves we will be easily fooled by the deceitfulness of sin. Actually it's worse than just being fooled, because when we follow through it causes a hardening of our hearts (Hebrews 3:13).
So to summarize the principle, it has two sides. Our wrong doing promotes unbelief, and our right doing promotes faith. To put the negative side of this in the language of the last couple of paragraphs, we can say that the appetites that we develop, and the wrong things that we want to do, will if we pursue them be the very things that cause our unbelief. And the converse is true too, that if we follow His teaching then we “will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31, 32). There is much to say about this passage of Scripture and I will come back to it again and again.
So in short, doing and believing (or not believing) go hand in hand. There is no fence, we are either growing in faith or diminishing in faith. Jesus puts it this way “Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them" (Matthew 13:12). Or to put it yet another way, the proof that all of what we have been saying is true, is to be found in the “pudding of doing”.
What I want to say is that we can know the Bible is true, we can prove it to ourselves, but it's not a mathematical or a scientific proof. Actually, we have been duped into believing that scientific knowledge is the only real knowledge. But if you think about it even a little, you will know that scientific and/or Mathematical knowledge is not the only way we know. How do people know they are in love? Do you claim we cannot know we are in love? You cannot prove this scientifically (see “I know too much Science to believe in God” – posted June 2010). Or take the law courts. In a law court the testimonies of witnesses are heard and examined and acted upon. Testimony is not scientific proof, but people have been sentenced to death on this kind of proof. We do this in life too. We act on what other people say, and when someone who we know to be reliable tells us something, we act on such knowledge. To say we can only be certain of knowing by scientific proof is absurd, and in any case is totally contrary to the way we operate in life. We act in certainty about all kinds of things, or we would not even get out of bed. I am certain the airlines only allow qualified pilots to pilot their planes. If I did not “know” this, I would not fly. We all live by faith in something. The question is, are our certainties (our trust/belief /faith) reasonable? I will need to say more about “A blind or a reasonable faith.” The Bible tells us that from the inside (after conversion) we can know. We are told “The Spirit of God witnesses to our Spirit that we are children of God” Romans 8:16. It is the testimony of many that you can know and be confident in the reality of this witness. If you think about it, we do know when we are (or are not) loved!
The Bible tells us both the what and the how, or if you like the path to this knowledge we are talking about. There are two verses that say it explicitly. Let's look at them. The first is John 7:17 which, in the NIV, reads “Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.” The second is like unto it, it reads “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” (John 14:21). The Amplified Bible expands “manifest Myself” to “I will let Myself be clearly seen by him, and make Myself real to him.”
These two verses can be thought of as encapsulating both a principle and a promise. In terms of it being a promise, like most Biblical promises, there is a condition that needs to be fulfilled before it can be claimed. Our part in the first promise is to choose to do the will of God, and the implication is that you can determine that by reading the book! Our part in the second promise is to have the commandments, and to keep them. So our part is to both know His commandments (and hence His will), and then to put them into practice. In my own journey, when the Holy Spirit began to convict me of sin of righteousness and judgement (John 16:8), I knew that I needed to change, to turn over new leaf. It was in the doing (or rather the attempting) that I discovered how far short I fell of being able to do it. So then it was in trying to do what He commands that I discovered my desperate need of Him to save me. Having tried my best, I know first hand the truth of what lies behind Romans 7:15 - “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do”. When I discovered this, so much more began to make sense, and to fall into place (see also “This book knows me”). And yes I knew it was all true!
But there is also a principle behind the promise. The principle is that what we do, and what we know and believe are not independent realities. In other words knowing/believing and doing are intricately interconnected. I have no clue how the conversation came round to this, but one time in the cafe this young woman said to me “I don't think adultery is wrong.” Without condemnation I looked her in the eye, and said to her very gently 'That's because you want to do it'. She lifted her hand not quite quick enough to hide her “guilty as charged” smile. You see if God says “You must not commit adultery,” and you want to, one of two things has to go. Either your adultery will go, or your belief in God will. How easily we rationalize what we want to do! To me the truth that we suppress truth by unrighteousness (Romans 1:18) is compelling!
One dictionary describes rationalization as the provision of plausible reasons to explain to oneself, or others, behaviour for which one's real motives are different, unknown or unconscious. The Bible knows all about this, but it's more blunt. The full text of the verse just indicated reads “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Romans 1:18). Being a Father helps me to understand why God takes this so seriously. Have you ever seen a mother (or father) angry because someone had hurt their child? This is how God feels about the selfishness and meanness that comes out of His children toward others of His children. And which one of us is exempt? We often don't see it (at least in ourselves), but the fact of the matter is that all unrighteousness is at some level destructive to others and actually in the end to ourselves too.
We don't see it, because we don't want to see it. But even if we do, we will likely excuse, dismiss or marginalize it. Nobody wants to think of themselves as wicked, so that when we are determined to do something wrong, or not to do something we should, we are always quick to find ways to rationalize or to excuse our behaviour. And when we want to do what we want to do, it makes it hard to hear what we need to hear. But until we begin to recognize this in ourselves we will be easily fooled by the deceitfulness of sin. Actually it's worse than just being fooled, because when we follow through it causes a hardening of our hearts (Hebrews 3:13).
So to summarize the principle, it has two sides. Our wrong doing promotes unbelief, and our right doing promotes faith. To put the negative side of this in the language of the last couple of paragraphs, we can say that the appetites that we develop, and the wrong things that we want to do, will if we pursue them be the very things that cause our unbelief. And the converse is true too, that if we follow His teaching then we “will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31, 32). There is much to say about this passage of Scripture and I will come back to it again and again.
So in short, doing and believing (or not believing) go hand in hand. There is no fence, we are either growing in faith or diminishing in faith. Jesus puts it this way “Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them" (Matthew 13:12). Or to put it yet another way, the proof that all of what we have been saying is true, is to be found in the “pudding of doing”.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Bible the best of the best Solutions III: Presence
Too much Christianity in the West concerns itself with doing or not doing, with purpose and goals, with getting the job done, with the end result, with the bottom line. I am not saying these things are not important (they are!). The point I am wanting to make though, is that unless these things flow out of a living, loving relationship with God, they will always, at some level be toxic. And this is true both for the givers and the receivers.
To say this another way, we will not operate in the world with Christ like love and compassion, unless we are in the ongoing process of receiving these things from Him. I am talking about intimacy with God, with experiencing His ongoing loving presence poured out into our lives. We cannot give away what we have not received. Paul is talking about this in 1 Corinthians 13:3 when he says “If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing." The bottom line here, is that in order to be whole and to operate out of that wholeness, we need to know and feel loved by God. It is in His presence that our “love tanks” keep getting filled up. It is in His presence that we become whole and find enough love to keep giving it away to this wicked and hurting world. And He wants that far more than we do!
My son, disillusioned with the academic scene told me “They are just a bunch of people trying desperately to impress each other with how brilliant they all are.” There is a lot of truth in his observation. But it's not just in the University, or in the business world, it's in the Church too. Far too many of us operate out of a need to to be admired, or a need to be heard, a need to have a following, a need to be in control, a need to be seen to be successful. When these things drive us we tend to look more towards building up our ministry, than we do towards advancing the Kingdom. People become projects, and perhaps this is a big part of why so many people have been hurt by Church! Nobody want to be a project!
We are all wounded at some level or other, and we all operate out of that woundedness, and when we do we wound others even as we try to help them. We need to enter into a Christ centered recovery where we will be becoming more and more whole. A huge part of the problem is our collective identity crisis. We have forgotten who we are. If you ask someone "And who are you," they will likely tell you what they do for a living. 'I am a teacher', 'I am a business man', 'I am a Lawyer' etc., etc., etc. But this is what they do, not who they are. We are human beings, not human doings. I was like this for most of my Christian life (40 years this fall!), I took my identity from what I was doing for the Lord. In essence I was a Christian workaholic, desperate to find my place and acceptance within the Christian community.
All this flowed out of my woundedness. The most noticeable wounding centered arround the separation from the daughter I loved desperately, and more so because of the separation. It became who I was. You could not even begin to understand me until you knew the pain I carried for her every day. It was a wounded father, unable to properly father his child. It affected my whole life, it affected my relationships, my work, my every waking hour. It debilitated me, and in the end brought me to a nervous breakdown. That was both good and bad. Of course breakdowns are not good in and of themselves, but it was the vehicle that God used to get behind all my self defenses and to bring me to Himself.
Your situation may not be (or have been) as extreme as mine, but still we are all wounded, and we all carry our wounds with us. We bring them into our relationships, and they warp them. We need to get our hearts healed. It's what He wants. He was sent to heal the broken hearted (Isaiah 61:1). Until then, often without knowing it, we do operate out of our woundedness. And when we do this we poison our relationships, as we consciously or unconsciously expect and/or demand others meet the deep seated needs that only God can meet. But others have needs too, and the mutual demands and/or expectations can too easily spiral out of control. When they do, we end up empty, disillusioned and, if we are not very careful, bitter.
This scenario works itself spouse to spouse, parent to child, boss to employee and friend to friend. It is a wonder we have any functional relationships at all, as our society becomes sicker and sicker, as it moves further and further from God. We probably know at some level that we are wounded, but I believe that most of us don't have a clue just how wounded we are. We wear masks to hide the pain and the emptiness, sometimes even from ourselves. “There is no use complaining, nobody wants to listen”, so we push the pain down, and pretend that we are “fine” or “not bad.” But the reality is that far too many of us live lives of quiet desperation.
I have been saying that the Bible points us to the best solutions to life. In answer to our hopes, expectations and demands to have our needs met we read “And my God shall supply all of your needs according to His riches in Glory” (Philippians 4:19). The “and” is important here. We must not take verses out of context. Paul had been talking about how he learned the secret of being content in any and every situation (4:12), how to access the peace of God that passes all understanding (4:9 and context) and how to live a joy filled life that is not dependent on circumstances (the whole epistle).
Paul is in prison as he writes, so this not just some pie in the sky theory that does not work, it is something he lives. In fact, the whole letter resounds with joy, but it's not just this. The Philippians had seen first hand that Paul lives what he is teaching. After they had been severely flogged, thrown into prison and their feet put into stocks, he (and Silas) were praying and singing hymns to God at midnight (Acts 16:23-25). So just what was the secret he was taking about in 4:12? In chapter 3 of this same epistle, Paul tells us of the things that hindered him, and of the things he gained when he surrendered them to Christ. The things that hinder us can even look good. Paul had been depending on his Race, his Education, his Theology, (the equivalent of) his Denomination, his Zeal for God, his (self) Righteousness (Philippians 3:4-6). But, what he formerly put his trust in, he now thinks of as poop (3:8 KJV dung). These “good things” were the very thing that got in the way of gaining the “surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (3:8) and from knowing “Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings” (3:10).
The power of His resurrected life in us, is part of what I was talking about in the last post, but what is the fellowship of His sufferings all about? They say that there is no friendship like those of men who become buddies in the midst of battle. And make no mistake about it, we are in the midst of a spiritual war to the death with the enemies of our souls. When be begin to fully realize this, we see that everything that happens, has the potential to either draw us closer to Christ, or to drive us from Him. We choose, and with His help it can be the second of these two options. In particular if (again with His help), we radically follow the teaching of Christ, and abide in Him in His presence (John 15) then we will be drawn into real and tangible fellowship with Him. In this place, in His embrace, we become free indeed (John 8:36), we receive comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3-5), peace (Phil 4: 7) grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16) etc., etc., etc.
In His high priestly prayer, speaking to the Father, Jesus describes the life of the age (everlasting and abundant life) as “knowing You the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John17:3). What He is saying is that freedom, the abundant life and the Kingdom is all about knowing God. Too often we have make it about knowing about God, but it is in His embrace that our hearts are healed. It is in His embrace that we come to know who we are (precious sons and daughters of the living God). God wants to “pour out His love into our hearts” (Romans 5:5). We are meant to experience this, and it is all found in His presence. The hymn writer wrote about this when he talked about being “lost in wonder love and praise”. To settle for anything less than this, is to short change ourselves.
There are many things that hinder. Like with Paul it can be the “good things”, or it can be the bad things (our sin). But whatever things keeps you and I from knowing Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering, they are dung, whether we acknowledge it or not. His presence is everything. In his presence there is healing, in His presence there is joy, in His presence there is peace, and hope and grace and blessings and love. Yes, the Bible points to the best solution, and the best solution is Him, His presence. The Psalmist puts it this way “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). Why do not more people see it, and/or enter into it? Jesus Himself puts it this way “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life” (John 5:39,40).
Healing, wholeness and fullness of life is not found in religion, it is found in Him, the One who created us for Himself so that we could be with Him for ever (Colossians 1:16). John Arnott has a neat way of putting all of this in perspective. He describes our journey as having three aspects/phases: the inward journey, the upward journey and the outward journey. The inward journey has to do with getting our hearts healed. This takes place progressively and supremely as we enter into the upward journey (talking about relationship with Him). When we incorporate these things, then our participation in the outward journey, the passion to share Him and to bring in His kingdom, will be a lot more fruitful. And it will be a lot less toxic than if we start the outward journey without the ongoing process of simultaneously and progressively entering the inward and the upward components. It is His intention that what we do flows out of who we are in Him. When we do, we do not need to find our self worth in the approval of others, or in what we do. When we do, we start the process of operating out of His wholeness in us rather than out of our unhealed woundedness. When we do, we start to experience “joy unspeakable and full of Glory” (1 Peter 1:8).
Prayer: Father it says in Your word that we love, because You first loved us (1 John 4:19 NIV). What this means is that our capacity to love at all comes from You. In particular I need You to help me to love You. Pour out Your love in my heart today, so that I may love You and others as you would have me to do. Father please show me what You need to take away that hinders me loving You with all that I am and have, and please give me what I need to love You as You deserve. Abba, Daddy come and fill me now. In Jesus Name Amen!
To say this another way, we will not operate in the world with Christ like love and compassion, unless we are in the ongoing process of receiving these things from Him. I am talking about intimacy with God, with experiencing His ongoing loving presence poured out into our lives. We cannot give away what we have not received. Paul is talking about this in 1 Corinthians 13:3 when he says “If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing." The bottom line here, is that in order to be whole and to operate out of that wholeness, we need to know and feel loved by God. It is in His presence that our “love tanks” keep getting filled up. It is in His presence that we become whole and find enough love to keep giving it away to this wicked and hurting world. And He wants that far more than we do!
My son, disillusioned with the academic scene told me “They are just a bunch of people trying desperately to impress each other with how brilliant they all are.” There is a lot of truth in his observation. But it's not just in the University, or in the business world, it's in the Church too. Far too many of us operate out of a need to to be admired, or a need to be heard, a need to have a following, a need to be in control, a need to be seen to be successful. When these things drive us we tend to look more towards building up our ministry, than we do towards advancing the Kingdom. People become projects, and perhaps this is a big part of why so many people have been hurt by Church! Nobody want to be a project!
We are all wounded at some level or other, and we all operate out of that woundedness, and when we do we wound others even as we try to help them. We need to enter into a Christ centered recovery where we will be becoming more and more whole. A huge part of the problem is our collective identity crisis. We have forgotten who we are. If you ask someone "And who are you," they will likely tell you what they do for a living. 'I am a teacher', 'I am a business man', 'I am a Lawyer' etc., etc., etc. But this is what they do, not who they are. We are human beings, not human doings. I was like this for most of my Christian life (40 years this fall!), I took my identity from what I was doing for the Lord. In essence I was a Christian workaholic, desperate to find my place and acceptance within the Christian community.
All this flowed out of my woundedness. The most noticeable wounding centered arround the separation from the daughter I loved desperately, and more so because of the separation. It became who I was. You could not even begin to understand me until you knew the pain I carried for her every day. It was a wounded father, unable to properly father his child. It affected my whole life, it affected my relationships, my work, my every waking hour. It debilitated me, and in the end brought me to a nervous breakdown. That was both good and bad. Of course breakdowns are not good in and of themselves, but it was the vehicle that God used to get behind all my self defenses and to bring me to Himself.
Your situation may not be (or have been) as extreme as mine, but still we are all wounded, and we all carry our wounds with us. We bring them into our relationships, and they warp them. We need to get our hearts healed. It's what He wants. He was sent to heal the broken hearted (Isaiah 61:1). Until then, often without knowing it, we do operate out of our woundedness. And when we do this we poison our relationships, as we consciously or unconsciously expect and/or demand others meet the deep seated needs that only God can meet. But others have needs too, and the mutual demands and/or expectations can too easily spiral out of control. When they do, we end up empty, disillusioned and, if we are not very careful, bitter.
This scenario works itself spouse to spouse, parent to child, boss to employee and friend to friend. It is a wonder we have any functional relationships at all, as our society becomes sicker and sicker, as it moves further and further from God. We probably know at some level that we are wounded, but I believe that most of us don't have a clue just how wounded we are. We wear masks to hide the pain and the emptiness, sometimes even from ourselves. “There is no use complaining, nobody wants to listen”, so we push the pain down, and pretend that we are “fine” or “not bad.” But the reality is that far too many of us live lives of quiet desperation.
I have been saying that the Bible points us to the best solutions to life. In answer to our hopes, expectations and demands to have our needs met we read “And my God shall supply all of your needs according to His riches in Glory” (Philippians 4:19). The “and” is important here. We must not take verses out of context. Paul had been talking about how he learned the secret of being content in any and every situation (4:12), how to access the peace of God that passes all understanding (4:9 and context) and how to live a joy filled life that is not dependent on circumstances (the whole epistle).
Paul is in prison as he writes, so this not just some pie in the sky theory that does not work, it is something he lives. In fact, the whole letter resounds with joy, but it's not just this. The Philippians had seen first hand that Paul lives what he is teaching. After they had been severely flogged, thrown into prison and their feet put into stocks, he (and Silas) were praying and singing hymns to God at midnight (Acts 16:23-25). So just what was the secret he was taking about in 4:12? In chapter 3 of this same epistle, Paul tells us of the things that hindered him, and of the things he gained when he surrendered them to Christ. The things that hinder us can even look good. Paul had been depending on his Race, his Education, his Theology, (the equivalent of) his Denomination, his Zeal for God, his (self) Righteousness (Philippians 3:4-6). But, what he formerly put his trust in, he now thinks of as poop (3:8 KJV dung). These “good things” were the very thing that got in the way of gaining the “surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (3:8) and from knowing “Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings” (3:10).
The power of His resurrected life in us, is part of what I was talking about in the last post, but what is the fellowship of His sufferings all about? They say that there is no friendship like those of men who become buddies in the midst of battle. And make no mistake about it, we are in the midst of a spiritual war to the death with the enemies of our souls. When be begin to fully realize this, we see that everything that happens, has the potential to either draw us closer to Christ, or to drive us from Him. We choose, and with His help it can be the second of these two options. In particular if (again with His help), we radically follow the teaching of Christ, and abide in Him in His presence (John 15) then we will be drawn into real and tangible fellowship with Him. In this place, in His embrace, we become free indeed (John 8:36), we receive comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3-5), peace (Phil 4: 7) grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16) etc., etc., etc.
In His high priestly prayer, speaking to the Father, Jesus describes the life of the age (everlasting and abundant life) as “knowing You the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John17:3). What He is saying is that freedom, the abundant life and the Kingdom is all about knowing God. Too often we have make it about knowing about God, but it is in His embrace that our hearts are healed. It is in His embrace that we come to know who we are (precious sons and daughters of the living God). God wants to “pour out His love into our hearts” (Romans 5:5). We are meant to experience this, and it is all found in His presence. The hymn writer wrote about this when he talked about being “lost in wonder love and praise”. To settle for anything less than this, is to short change ourselves.
There are many things that hinder. Like with Paul it can be the “good things”, or it can be the bad things (our sin). But whatever things keeps you and I from knowing Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering, they are dung, whether we acknowledge it or not. His presence is everything. In his presence there is healing, in His presence there is joy, in His presence there is peace, and hope and grace and blessings and love. Yes, the Bible points to the best solution, and the best solution is Him, His presence. The Psalmist puts it this way “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). Why do not more people see it, and/or enter into it? Jesus Himself puts it this way “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life” (John 5:39,40).
Healing, wholeness and fullness of life is not found in religion, it is found in Him, the One who created us for Himself so that we could be with Him for ever (Colossians 1:16). John Arnott has a neat way of putting all of this in perspective. He describes our journey as having three aspects/phases: the inward journey, the upward journey and the outward journey. The inward journey has to do with getting our hearts healed. This takes place progressively and supremely as we enter into the upward journey (talking about relationship with Him). When we incorporate these things, then our participation in the outward journey, the passion to share Him and to bring in His kingdom, will be a lot more fruitful. And it will be a lot less toxic than if we start the outward journey without the ongoing process of simultaneously and progressively entering the inward and the upward components. It is His intention that what we do flows out of who we are in Him. When we do, we do not need to find our self worth in the approval of others, or in what we do. When we do, we start the process of operating out of His wholeness in us rather than out of our unhealed woundedness. When we do, we start to experience “joy unspeakable and full of Glory” (1 Peter 1:8).
Prayer: Father it says in Your word that we love, because You first loved us (1 John 4:19 NIV). What this means is that our capacity to love at all comes from You. In particular I need You to help me to love You. Pour out Your love in my heart today, so that I may love You and others as you would have me to do. Father please show me what You need to take away that hinders me loving You with all that I am and have, and please give me what I need to love You as You deserve. Abba, Daddy come and fill me now. In Jesus Name Amen!
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Bible Best Solutions II: Principles, Promises, Power
Last day I was saying that principles that work can all be found in Bible, but the “what” is only part of what is best about the Bible. There is also the “how” and the “why.” Often our biggest challenge is not so much knowing what we need to do (or not to do), but rather having the wherewithal (the “how”) to (not) do it, and perhaps even further back, our even wanting to do it (or not to do it). This latter part is the “why,” or if you like the motivation for it all. The Bible points us to the best help in all three areas, the what, the how and the why.
Last day I was talking about the principle that our ancestors faults and sins impact us in a negative way. In fact they act like curses upon us. But there is another principle which if we embrace it (loving God and obeying Him, Exodus 20:6), will start the process of reversing the said curses. But when we do this, we are not left to struggle though on our own, and today I want to talk about the help we can get to put Biblical principles into effect. I want to talk about the promises and the power (the wherewithal) to do what needs to be done.
Again in a single post, I can do little more than illustrate the point, and I have chosen to use Philippians 2:12,13 which in Philip's translations reads “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, because God does it all for you” (Philip here of course is Philip Heath :). What it really says it that God is at work in you both to will and to do His good pleasure. The first thing I need to say is that we go badly wrong when we fail to hold apparently contradictory statements in tension. In particular, the bit about working out our salvation with fear and trembling can seem at first sight to contradict the Biblical principle that we are not saved by works, but by grace alone by faith alone in Christ alone (Ephesians 2:8,9). Like many other Biblical principles and commandments, the two parts need to be held in tension. Perhaps the best way to understand how to do this in this particular instance, is to see that its all about proactive cooperation with God. We certainly have a big part to play, but when we do God fills up for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
Part of the problem may be that we have understood salvation only as a fire escape from the fires of hell. It certainly includes this, and as great as this is, it is not all that the word "salvation" means. It covers a lot more. For example, Jesus used the very same word (in the Greek) when He healed the blind man at Jericho (Luke 18:42 – see KJV). One preacher put it this way, salvation (deliverance) has three aspects. We have been saved (delivered) from the penalty of sin (at conversion), we are being delivered from the power of sin (and it is ongoing), and finally on that Day we will be delivered from the presence of sin – Hallelujah!
So Paul is talking here about that aspect of salvation that concerns our deliverance from the power of sin. As anyone caught in the grip of addiction can tell you, we do need help. So why fear and trembling? The point is that we will not be delivered from the power of sin unless we surrender absolutely. Jesus tells us that if we want to be His disciples we must deny self, take up the cross and follow Him (Matthew 16:24). In Luke's version we are told that this has to be a daily thing (Luke 9:23). This is the very opposite of half heartedness. In the words of AA “half measures profited us nothing”. It sounds simple, but it seems to be incredibly difficult.
Part of the problem is that we are forever wanting to take shortcuts. We want to stop the behaviour, but we don't want to go through the pain of working through it. We want to get rid of the pain, but we don't want to have to put in the effort to do it. We want to be delivered from our addictions, but not just yet, just one more time! We want to be close to God, but on our terms not His. The hymn writer put it this way “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.” We need to know ourselves well enough to know that are hearts are wicked (Jeremiah 17:9), and that we far too easily find excuses to take the shortcuts. This is why we need to fear and tremble. We are by far our own worst enemies. Many times we will not discover, until we give it our best shot at living for Him and obeying His commandments, that we cannot do it without Him. Many times it is only when we have given our all, that we start to fully discover that we do the bad things we don't want to do, and don't do the good things that we want to (Romans 7: 19). The default does not lead us into fullness of life (John 10:10). If we do not “give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard" (as in fear and trembling), we are in grave danger of “neglecting so great a salvation” and so then "how will be be delivered - saved" (Hebrews 2:1,3).
Philippians 2:13 is one of the “exceedingly great and precious promises" of the Bible, which as the Message puts it, is our ticket to participation in the life of God after we turn our backs on a world corrupted by lust” (2 Peter 1:4 - The Message). So verse 13 of our text in the Amplified Bible reads “[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight”. The “for” in verse 13 links it to verse 12. We are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling for – i.e. because (when we do), then God will work in a two fold way in our lives. That is firstly to give us the wherewithal to do (or not to do) the things that please and delight Him, and secondly He will also work in us changing our desires, so that we will want to do the things that please Him and which work for our spiritual, emotional and physical well being.
We need His help, I need His help. When we have developed appetites that demand to be satisfied (as in addictions and compulsions) those appetites need to be starved, starved to death. Romans 8:15 tells us that if we live to satisfy these appetites, then we will die (spiritual death), but if by the Spirit we put them to death we will live. Note that it is (a) by the Spirit, and (b) it is "we" who put to death the deeds of the lower nature. An oft prayed prayer by yours truly is this “Lord show me my part in putting to death the deeds and the desires of the flesh (sinful desires). When we do our part we can claim the promise of the power in our lives to do what we cannot do without Him. Our part (working it out in fear and trembling) has much to do with taking very very seriously our own tendency to neglect all of what He offers. When we do this, we live far below the potential He has for us in Him, and we do not glorify Him in our bodies. This is so, so inappropriate for we who have been bought with a price (the precious blood of Jesus). See 1 Corinthians 6:20.
Prayer: Father Your Word tells me that through Your exceedingly great and precious promises I can live the life You call me to, and even to share your very nature (2 Peter 1:4). Lord show me how to tap into Your promises and the power to live the Christian life. Please give me Grace to receive the Grace I need, so that I will not fall short of Your Glory. In Jesus name Amen.
Last day I was talking about the principle that our ancestors faults and sins impact us in a negative way. In fact they act like curses upon us. But there is another principle which if we embrace it (loving God and obeying Him, Exodus 20:6), will start the process of reversing the said curses. But when we do this, we are not left to struggle though on our own, and today I want to talk about the help we can get to put Biblical principles into effect. I want to talk about the promises and the power (the wherewithal) to do what needs to be done.
Again in a single post, I can do little more than illustrate the point, and I have chosen to use Philippians 2:12,13 which in Philip's translations reads “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, because God does it all for you” (Philip here of course is Philip Heath :). What it really says it that God is at work in you both to will and to do His good pleasure. The first thing I need to say is that we go badly wrong when we fail to hold apparently contradictory statements in tension. In particular, the bit about working out our salvation with fear and trembling can seem at first sight to contradict the Biblical principle that we are not saved by works, but by grace alone by faith alone in Christ alone (Ephesians 2:8,9). Like many other Biblical principles and commandments, the two parts need to be held in tension. Perhaps the best way to understand how to do this in this particular instance, is to see that its all about proactive cooperation with God. We certainly have a big part to play, but when we do God fills up for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
Part of the problem may be that we have understood salvation only as a fire escape from the fires of hell. It certainly includes this, and as great as this is, it is not all that the word "salvation" means. It covers a lot more. For example, Jesus used the very same word (in the Greek) when He healed the blind man at Jericho (Luke 18:42 – see KJV). One preacher put it this way, salvation (deliverance) has three aspects. We have been saved (delivered) from the penalty of sin (at conversion), we are being delivered from the power of sin (and it is ongoing), and finally on that Day we will be delivered from the presence of sin – Hallelujah!
So Paul is talking here about that aspect of salvation that concerns our deliverance from the power of sin. As anyone caught in the grip of addiction can tell you, we do need help. So why fear and trembling? The point is that we will not be delivered from the power of sin unless we surrender absolutely. Jesus tells us that if we want to be His disciples we must deny self, take up the cross and follow Him (Matthew 16:24). In Luke's version we are told that this has to be a daily thing (Luke 9:23). This is the very opposite of half heartedness. In the words of AA “half measures profited us nothing”. It sounds simple, but it seems to be incredibly difficult.
Part of the problem is that we are forever wanting to take shortcuts. We want to stop the behaviour, but we don't want to go through the pain of working through it. We want to get rid of the pain, but we don't want to have to put in the effort to do it. We want to be delivered from our addictions, but not just yet, just one more time! We want to be close to God, but on our terms not His. The hymn writer put it this way “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.” We need to know ourselves well enough to know that are hearts are wicked (Jeremiah 17:9), and that we far too easily find excuses to take the shortcuts. This is why we need to fear and tremble. We are by far our own worst enemies. Many times we will not discover, until we give it our best shot at living for Him and obeying His commandments, that we cannot do it without Him. Many times it is only when we have given our all, that we start to fully discover that we do the bad things we don't want to do, and don't do the good things that we want to (Romans 7: 19). The default does not lead us into fullness of life (John 10:10). If we do not “give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard" (as in fear and trembling), we are in grave danger of “neglecting so great a salvation” and so then "how will be be delivered - saved" (Hebrews 2:1,3).
Philippians 2:13 is one of the “exceedingly great and precious promises" of the Bible, which as the Message puts it, is our ticket to participation in the life of God after we turn our backs on a world corrupted by lust” (2 Peter 1:4 - The Message). So verse 13 of our text in the Amplified Bible reads “[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight”. The “for” in verse 13 links it to verse 12. We are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling for – i.e. because (when we do), then God will work in a two fold way in our lives. That is firstly to give us the wherewithal to do (or not to do) the things that please and delight Him, and secondly He will also work in us changing our desires, so that we will want to do the things that please Him and which work for our spiritual, emotional and physical well being.
We need His help, I need His help. When we have developed appetites that demand to be satisfied (as in addictions and compulsions) those appetites need to be starved, starved to death. Romans 8:15 tells us that if we live to satisfy these appetites, then we will die (spiritual death), but if by the Spirit we put them to death we will live. Note that it is (a) by the Spirit, and (b) it is "we" who put to death the deeds of the lower nature. An oft prayed prayer by yours truly is this “Lord show me my part in putting to death the deeds and the desires of the flesh (sinful desires). When we do our part we can claim the promise of the power in our lives to do what we cannot do without Him. Our part (working it out in fear and trembling) has much to do with taking very very seriously our own tendency to neglect all of what He offers. When we do this, we live far below the potential He has for us in Him, and we do not glorify Him in our bodies. This is so, so inappropriate for we who have been bought with a price (the precious blood of Jesus). See 1 Corinthians 6:20.
Prayer: Father Your Word tells me that through Your exceedingly great and precious promises I can live the life You call me to, and even to share your very nature (2 Peter 1:4). Lord show me how to tap into Your promises and the power to live the Christian life. Please give me Grace to receive the Grace I need, so that I will not fall short of Your Glory. In Jesus name Amen.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
The Bible has the best solutions for life
I always seem to want to say more than I can possibly say in a single post. Perhaps “The Bible has the best solutions for life,” is a book too. But I want to say two things today. The first thing is that principles that work can always be found in some form in the Bible. The second is to say that though there are some good things out there, the Bible got there first. A prime example of both points comes with the discovery by secular research (several thousand years after the Bible told us about it), that we inherit our parents faults and difficulties (see Exodus 20:5 and below). One of the buzz words Psychology uses in its study of these things is the word 'genogram.' Genograms were first used in clinical Psychology as an aid to recognize family patterns of dysfunction. The hope was that recognizing them would help to prevent them. I say more about this in the post “The Sins of the Fathers ... August 15, 2010). But there are also many Biblical principles that secular Psychology has not yet cottoned onto, and/or are still in the process of discovering.
I do not want to give the impression that I don't think the insights from secular psychology are useful. I have found that secular research can give me insight into Biblical principles, and at times confirm them. But there are also times when the Scriptures correct secular insights and/or bring them into balance. A primary example of imbalance is the early teaching on “catharsis.” Anger often gets bottled up inside us, and the early idea of catharsis was simply to release this by expressing anger. The hope was that by expressing it, it would simply vanish. It is balance I am talking about here. The Bible does not say that anger is wrong period (see “Be angry and sin not” January 16th). But when we “let it all out,” it can too easily result in the grievance behind the anger being nursed, and nursed anger tends to grow rather than diminish. Secular research is in fact catching up, and more recent teachings on this subject are more balanced.
In a single post, all that it is possible to do is to give an illustration. The point I want to illustrate today is about the balance of the approach the Bible takes. I do need to say that we do need to take the whole council of God, and not just zone in on a single verse here or there. I guess I don't need to say that we Christians can be out of balance, especially when we don't know our Bibles very well! The following two Scriptures come from the single context of the ten commandments. The first is “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me” (Exodus 20:5). The second is “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long …” (Exodus 20:12).
These two Scriptures need to be taken together to get the balance I am talking about. It would be easy just to take the first scripture, and use it as an excuse for parent bashing. The secular literature does this at times. When for example you see such titles as “Toxic parents,” you have to wonder if it is more about selling books, than helping people. So I am certainly not into parent bashing, but neither do I want to minimize the pain and the difficulties and even abuse that some of us have to deal with. The Bible does not minimize it either. But there is another side which those in pain may find hard to hear or even see. Bad things happen, but God does not want us to allow them to warp our souls. And bad things will indeed warp our souls if we let them. And when we do, we will then more often than not, pass the same warping onto our children. We do of course have choices (as do our children), but part of what the first scripture is saying is that the default is for the family to get stuck in dysfunctional patterns that go down generation after generation.
It is no easy thing to let go, but the Bible shows us the way, and as usual it is radical. The saying from 12 step programs keeps coming back to me “half measures profited us nothing”. The radical solution the Bible proposes is to be found several verses later in the commandment to honour the very ones who handed the garbage down to us. For many this is not Biblical recovery 101, it is more like the second or third graduate course. It is in the end the best solution, but it may take some time for us to accept this, and even longer to fully enter into it.
Many I speak to, know the verse quoted above about the sins of the fathers being visited on the children. But few know the next verse (verse 6). It starts with a “but.” A “but” changes everything. “I had a winning lottery number, but...” I hardly need to finish the sentence. When we hear such a “but” we will inevitably be waiting for the other shoe to drop. Here it comes “but I lost the ticket”. That “but" changes good news into bad, the “but” of Exodus 20:6, changes the bad news into good. Here is the good news “but showing mercy to thousands (of generations), to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” There are two things here that need to happen to affect the reversal. The first is our turning to the Lord (to love Him in ongoing relationship), the second is our costly obedience to His commandments. I say costly because when we clearly see the faults of our ancestors, we may not want to let go of our resentment, let alone go the extra mile to honour them (well they deserve our resentment right?). The greater the faults of the parents the harder it is. It helps I think, to understand that most parents do the very best they can with what they were handed down.
This is true even when there are severe dysfunctions in the family. As an example alcoholism can often be traced back generation after generation. When this happens, our parents inherited the very same difficulties we experience, and they may not have had this teaching that you and I are getting here. I need to say very clearly, that it is not enough to vow “I will never by like my father, never!” (see July 2010). Many have made such vows, only to discover to their horror, that down the road they are far more like their parent than they ever imagined. We become like what we focus on (its called idolatry in the Bible), and the vow puts the focus on “not dad,” and actually pushes us to be like him rather than what we want to avoid. So then we do what we do not want to do (Romans 7:15). So again the default, if we do not deal Biblically with these things, is that down the road our children will be making the same vows about us.
But it is not just our children who benefit from our turning in obedience to God, we do. The second of the two commandments quoted above to honour our parents, is described in the New Testament as the “first commandment with a promise.” Let's look at it. It promises not only length of days, but it also “that it will go well with you” (Ephesians 6:2,3). We may need to cling to this promise as an aid to obeying the commandment. It might also be encouraging to us and our children, that the above quotation in Ephesians is followed by the command to the parents not to exasperate their children (verse 4).
The outworking of the principle just outlined in Exodus 20:5,6 is not something that happens overnight. Part of why it framed in terms of love, is that it is all about relationship with God. In a loving relationship we will spend time with each other. Similarly it is in spending time with God in intimacy, and in His Word, that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:1,2). In most cases the generational messes we find ourselves in, did not get the way they are overnight. And we will not get out of them over night.
In summary then, part of why the Bible has the “best solutions” is that it knows the problems, it points to the way to addresses them in a balanced way, and to solutions that address the long term. I want to close by saying something about the outworking of Biblical balance in my own life. The Bible is balanced but we are not. We have this “wonderful” tendency when we see an error, to go to the equal and opposite extreme. I have gone through two broken marriages. In the first (before I was a Christian) we fought too much. In the second after after I became a Christian we did not fight enough. We do need to fight fair though, for example no name calling or punishing silences. What the Lord taught me though his Word (and which I also had to learn the hard way) is that conflict avoidance is in its own way just as destructive to relationships as freely expressed anger. The Bible has the balance. We are told not to let the sun go down on our wrath, to be angry and sin not (Ephesians 4:26), but we are also told to deal with what needs to be dealt (Matthew 18:15-17). We are to be honest, but we are to deal with each other in love. In particular we are to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), and when we need to confront, we are to do it with meekness and fear considering ourselves lest we fall into the very same error (Gal 6:1)
So I made many mistakes, even after I became a Christian. We will not be perfect in this life and I am not (just ask my children). What I do want to do though, is to leave my children the heritage - the example of, as much as is within me, following Exodus 20:6 by seeking to love and obey God. A big part of this is the ongoing process of learning to deal Biblically with the hand we re dealt, and with our own contributions to the dysfunction. If they pick up on this, then they and the succeeding generations will be blessed and find steadfast love and mercy in Him. If we won't do it for ourselves, perhaps we will do it for our children.
I do not want to give the impression that I don't think the insights from secular psychology are useful. I have found that secular research can give me insight into Biblical principles, and at times confirm them. But there are also times when the Scriptures correct secular insights and/or bring them into balance. A primary example of imbalance is the early teaching on “catharsis.” Anger often gets bottled up inside us, and the early idea of catharsis was simply to release this by expressing anger. The hope was that by expressing it, it would simply vanish. It is balance I am talking about here. The Bible does not say that anger is wrong period (see “Be angry and sin not” January 16th). But when we “let it all out,” it can too easily result in the grievance behind the anger being nursed, and nursed anger tends to grow rather than diminish. Secular research is in fact catching up, and more recent teachings on this subject are more balanced.
In a single post, all that it is possible to do is to give an illustration. The point I want to illustrate today is about the balance of the approach the Bible takes. I do need to say that we do need to take the whole council of God, and not just zone in on a single verse here or there. I guess I don't need to say that we Christians can be out of balance, especially when we don't know our Bibles very well! The following two Scriptures come from the single context of the ten commandments. The first is “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me” (Exodus 20:5). The second is “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long …” (Exodus 20:12).
These two Scriptures need to be taken together to get the balance I am talking about. It would be easy just to take the first scripture, and use it as an excuse for parent bashing. The secular literature does this at times. When for example you see such titles as “Toxic parents,” you have to wonder if it is more about selling books, than helping people. So I am certainly not into parent bashing, but neither do I want to minimize the pain and the difficulties and even abuse that some of us have to deal with. The Bible does not minimize it either. But there is another side which those in pain may find hard to hear or even see. Bad things happen, but God does not want us to allow them to warp our souls. And bad things will indeed warp our souls if we let them. And when we do, we will then more often than not, pass the same warping onto our children. We do of course have choices (as do our children), but part of what the first scripture is saying is that the default is for the family to get stuck in dysfunctional patterns that go down generation after generation.
It is no easy thing to let go, but the Bible shows us the way, and as usual it is radical. The saying from 12 step programs keeps coming back to me “half measures profited us nothing”. The radical solution the Bible proposes is to be found several verses later in the commandment to honour the very ones who handed the garbage down to us. For many this is not Biblical recovery 101, it is more like the second or third graduate course. It is in the end the best solution, but it may take some time for us to accept this, and even longer to fully enter into it.
Many I speak to, know the verse quoted above about the sins of the fathers being visited on the children. But few know the next verse (verse 6). It starts with a “but.” A “but” changes everything. “I had a winning lottery number, but...” I hardly need to finish the sentence. When we hear such a “but” we will inevitably be waiting for the other shoe to drop. Here it comes “but I lost the ticket”. That “but" changes good news into bad, the “but” of Exodus 20:6, changes the bad news into good. Here is the good news “but showing mercy to thousands (of generations), to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” There are two things here that need to happen to affect the reversal. The first is our turning to the Lord (to love Him in ongoing relationship), the second is our costly obedience to His commandments. I say costly because when we clearly see the faults of our ancestors, we may not want to let go of our resentment, let alone go the extra mile to honour them (well they deserve our resentment right?). The greater the faults of the parents the harder it is. It helps I think, to understand that most parents do the very best they can with what they were handed down.
This is true even when there are severe dysfunctions in the family. As an example alcoholism can often be traced back generation after generation. When this happens, our parents inherited the very same difficulties we experience, and they may not have had this teaching that you and I are getting here. I need to say very clearly, that it is not enough to vow “I will never by like my father, never!” (see July 2010). Many have made such vows, only to discover to their horror, that down the road they are far more like their parent than they ever imagined. We become like what we focus on (its called idolatry in the Bible), and the vow puts the focus on “not dad,” and actually pushes us to be like him rather than what we want to avoid. So then we do what we do not want to do (Romans 7:15). So again the default, if we do not deal Biblically with these things, is that down the road our children will be making the same vows about us.
But it is not just our children who benefit from our turning in obedience to God, we do. The second of the two commandments quoted above to honour our parents, is described in the New Testament as the “first commandment with a promise.” Let's look at it. It promises not only length of days, but it also “that it will go well with you” (Ephesians 6:2,3). We may need to cling to this promise as an aid to obeying the commandment. It might also be encouraging to us and our children, that the above quotation in Ephesians is followed by the command to the parents not to exasperate their children (verse 4).
The outworking of the principle just outlined in Exodus 20:5,6 is not something that happens overnight. Part of why it framed in terms of love, is that it is all about relationship with God. In a loving relationship we will spend time with each other. Similarly it is in spending time with God in intimacy, and in His Word, that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:1,2). In most cases the generational messes we find ourselves in, did not get the way they are overnight. And we will not get out of them over night.
In summary then, part of why the Bible has the “best solutions” is that it knows the problems, it points to the way to addresses them in a balanced way, and to solutions that address the long term. I want to close by saying something about the outworking of Biblical balance in my own life. The Bible is balanced but we are not. We have this “wonderful” tendency when we see an error, to go to the equal and opposite extreme. I have gone through two broken marriages. In the first (before I was a Christian) we fought too much. In the second after after I became a Christian we did not fight enough. We do need to fight fair though, for example no name calling or punishing silences. What the Lord taught me though his Word (and which I also had to learn the hard way) is that conflict avoidance is in its own way just as destructive to relationships as freely expressed anger. The Bible has the balance. We are told not to let the sun go down on our wrath, to be angry and sin not (Ephesians 4:26), but we are also told to deal with what needs to be dealt (Matthew 18:15-17). We are to be honest, but we are to deal with each other in love. In particular we are to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), and when we need to confront, we are to do it with meekness and fear considering ourselves lest we fall into the very same error (Gal 6:1)
So I made many mistakes, even after I became a Christian. We will not be perfect in this life and I am not (just ask my children). What I do want to do though, is to leave my children the heritage - the example of, as much as is within me, following Exodus 20:6 by seeking to love and obey God. A big part of this is the ongoing process of learning to deal Biblically with the hand we re dealt, and with our own contributions to the dysfunction. If they pick up on this, then they and the succeeding generations will be blessed and find steadfast love and mercy in Him. If we won't do it for ourselves, perhaps we will do it for our children.
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