One or the Other

2 Corinthians 4:5 NIV

 For we do not preach ourselves,

but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.

Who Runs The Show?

A few years ago a little Chihuahua mix showed up in our yard without tags.  Two of the kids were the first ones to spot the little dog and they thought they noticed someone in a parked car watching to see what happened to the dog and when they picked her up, the woman drove away.  Pretty soon it was clear the puppy was a part of our family and I cannot say which is true: we adopted her or she adopted us.  Early on, Salsa, as we named her, responded to me as the alpha male.  She quickly came when I called her and although others in the family might give her a command, it was hit or miss whether she would obey.  Our daughter taught her cute tricks and Salsa loved everyone in the home and everyone loved her but my voice always brought her obedience even if others might find her stubbornly resistant to doing what they said.  Even now, when someone must get her back, it is me that can push her to obey if no one else can.

The Civil War in the United States was not about slavery although that was the spiritual issue.  The Civil War was fought over authority.  Who would make the decisions for the entire country?  That was the question at hand and it is the chief issue for each person today and from the beginning of time.  Who directs the soul?  We make religion unnecessarily complicated.  Most intuitively comprehend its essence but it is a ball of tangled twine when put in human hands.  The question we face today and since the first humans walked the earth is, “Who runs the show for you?”  We have lots of possible candidates.  Science.  Political figures.  Celebrities and You-tube stars.  Parents.  Spouses.  Employers.  Allah.  Shiva.  Fame.  Fortune.  Yourself.  Christ.

The very first sin in the world was initiated not by lust or even desire but by a question as to who runs the show.  Pay careful attention to the interaction between Satan and Eve.  It begins with a rather innocuous question.  Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" (Genesis 3:1 NIV)  Essentially Satan was asking Eve if she was sure what God said.  Eve replied without hesitation. The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'" (Genesis 3:2-3 NIV)  There was no fumbling for an answer.  She stated precisely what the Lord told her husband Adam before she was made.  And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." (Genesis 2:16-17 NIV)

So Eve was not unaware of the command of God.  She knew exactly what the Lord’s instruction was.  Quickly Satan came back with the most devious of insinuations.   "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."  (Genesis 3:4-5 NIV)  It was subtle, this intimation.  “You can’t count on God to tell you everything.  I know what I am talking about and I can help you enjoy life better.  Trust me in this!”  Eve fell for the trap.  Her loyalty shifted and Satan gained her trust.  Most are like Eve.  They don’t even realize what they have done before its too late.  Rather than be God’s through and through they take up some other lord for a bit and then as they go along, it is not God at all but Satan who is trusted.  Nothing about this transaction seemed weird or devious to Eve.  It was not premeditated or spiteful.  Satan gained Eve’s confidence and off she went like a child chasing the ice cream truck down the street

Most of us don’t decide that Satan is our great friend and advisor.  We aren’t a part of some devilish cult!  Yet we give ground to Satan in our hearts and without knowing what we have done, great tracts of our reasoning and decision making become Satan’s.  It killed Eve and it kills us too.  Not immediately and never grotesquely but comfortably, casually.  Nothing illustrates this quite so eloquently as the brief comment the Apostle Paul makes at the end of his life.  Writing to his good friend Timothy, Paul sadly tells of how his once faithful co-worker Demas gave ground to Satan and changed his mind on God.  Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica.  (2 Timothy 4:9-10 NIV)  “Loved this world” is code in the Bible for taking up with Satan.  It sounds rather comfy though.  “Loved this world.”  Warm and cozy like sitting in front of the fireplace as a toasty fire burns brightly, loving the world seems reasonable when put before you by Satan.  It just means that you like to be comfortable, you want to enjoy life.  Do what makes you happy.  Yet, dogging our steps as we slip through the door and into the world is that what was true for Eve and then for Adam is true for all of us.  “The wages of sin is death…”

If you knew Demas, you probably would say that he was a good guy.  He may have been witty, smart, talented, working for good causes.  Yet, there was something terribly wrong with him and it was that Jesus was not Lord of all for him.  Christ was a companion, a great source of insight and important to him but not Lord and that is the dividing line in life.  Either, Christ is Lord and King over you or Satan is reasonable and makes sense to you.  It is fascinating the account of Joseph and his unyielding allegiance to God.  We cannot say how Joseph acquired such persistent loyalty to the Lord.  It probably was not his mother who pushed him along there because she famously stole away from her father his household idols.  Joseph was firm in his commitment to God and it manifested itself in his response to temptation.  When Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and came to be a servant of the Egyptian Potiphar, Potiphar’s wife tried her best to seduce him.  Joseph’s response to her revealed his fidelity.  How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?"  And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.  (Genesis 39:9-10 NIV)  This was real commitment to God that transcended cool interests and enticing opportunities.  It was loyalty.

When Jesus gave the summons to James, John, Peter and Andrew to come follow Him, it was not about what most stress.  Nearly every teacher of the passage emphasizes the wrong aspect of it.  Read Jesus’ invitation in its entirety. "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." (Matthew 4:19 NIV)  When you follow Jesus and really do follow Him, not just when it is convenient or necessary or reasonable, He remakes you.  What is so damaged and wrecked by sin becomes His to heal and make perfect.  In the disciples’s case, Jesus said He would make them into fishers of men.  What might He do with you if you choose Him over Satan at the moment there is a choice between the two?  It is impossible to know just now but you will find that He will do this.  He will remake you and could there be a more wonderful and desirable gift you could ever receive?  Depression and discouragement will be taken out of you when you are fiercely loyal to Jesus.  Anger and addiction will be removed also.  Even the hurts and brokenness caused by sin will be carefully and tenderly done away with in you if you are loyal to Jesus.  So many Christian people struggle to be free of the damaging effects of sin in them and they could be made right by ceaseless loyalty to Christ.

Elijah put it to the people of his time this way.  "How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him." (1 Kings 18:21 NIV)  Either it is God or it is Satan.  Waffling between the two leads to every plague of the heart.  Consider just how badly warped both Adam and Eve were psychologically after only one time choosing Satan over God.  They were afraid of God, disconnected from each other and self-loathing.  Imagine the complexity of brokenness hundreds and thousands of times choosing Satan over Christ brings.  Jesus put it another way.  "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”  (Matthew 6:24 NIV)    It is either Christ or Satan at any moment and you must decide who it will be that runs the show.  You can always tell when someone has let Satan lead them around and be the one guiding them.  They lack the supernatural peace only Christ can give those who follow Him.  Remember just what Jesus says to each of us who come to Him.  "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28 NIV)

Poor Me

Numbers 20:2-5 NIV

 Now there was no water for the community, and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron.  They quarreled with Moses and said, "If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the Lord!  Why did you bring the Lord's community into this desert, that we and our livestock should die here?  Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates. And there is no water to drink!"

Have You Been Given a Fair Deal?

During one of my trips to Russia, I was shocked to discover as I was about to board the plane back to the U.S. that I didn’t have my ticket with me.  This of course was not the end of the world.  The airline could simply look on the computer and find that I had purchased the ticket for that flight and reissue me a ticket and boarding pass.  That is what I thought would happen.  Apparently the Russian airline did not keep records of tickets issued in a data base and I was going to have to purchase a new ticket if I was going to board the plane.  Terribly annoyed, I gathered my luggage and trudged over to the customer relations window and waited to meet with a service representative.  By the time someone was able to speak with me, I missed my flight.  What was worse, the airline people said they could not find any record of me buying a ticket with them and that if I wanted to fly out of Moscow, I would have to purchase a new ticket.  What was I to do?  It seemed incredibly unfair for me to have to pay for a ticket I had already bought so I sat in the airport and stewed, waiting for someone with more authority than the ticket clerks to help me.  In the meantime, all the other flights leaving Moscow for London where I was to transfer were booked.  I began to feel sorry for myself.  “Why did I have to pay extra money to fly home?”  “Why wasn’t God helping me?”  “How come I had to miss my flight?”  “What sort of airline treats its customers so unfairly?”  I finally called the school where I had spent two weeks lecturing and complained to the director about my terrible situation.  He told me to hire a cab and come back to the school and figure out what to do there.  Now I had to spend fifty dollars for a cab ride back to Moscow.  What a joke!  What a waste of money!  I just knew the cab driver would overcharge me too!  Where was I supposed to stay when I got back to Moscow?  What would I have to pay for a hotel room?  Why did this have to happen to me?  It wasn’t right that I sacrificed so much to come and teach in Russia and then to have to put up with this.

Have you ever felt sorry for yourself?  Of course you have!  You have been mistreated and misunderstood.  You haven’t had enough money to get what you wanted or take the sort of trip you would like to take.  So-called friends have ignored you and taken advantage of your kindness.  You don’t get paid what you deserve.  Everyone else gets to relax while you have to keep working.  Why did you have to get sick now?  How come your car had to break down where it did?  Why did you have to get hit or your house robbed?  The work you do isn’t appreciated.  There is so much that isn’t fair in life!  How come God doesn’t take better care of you?

Perhaps you can relate to Ahab and his attempt to buy a field near his house.  He went to the owner of the field with a quite reasonable proposal.  Ahab said to Naboth, "Let me have your vineyard to use for a vegetable garden, since it is close to my palace. In exchange I will give you a better vineyard or, if you prefer, I will pay you whatever it is worth." (1 Kings 21:2 NIV) Ahab, although king of the land, did not use his political power to force Naboth to sell to him.  He nicely and respectfully tried to work out a deal with him.  However, to King Ahab’s surprise and dismay, Naboth refused to sell the land.  When nothing Ahab said could convince Naboth to sell his vineyard, King Ahab literally went back home to his bedroom and sulked.  Ahab’s wife later found him in his bed, refusing to eat because he felt so sorry for himself.

This is a brilliant example of how self-pity operates.  Almost always it is a product of lust.  Many mistakenly think of lust as merely some sort of misguided sexual desire but it is much more than that.  Lust as we see it in the Bible is the wreckage of desire.  “I want this now and I must have it.”  It could be anything that becomes an object of lust.  I want someone to respect me.  I want to be appreciated in this home.  I want that job.  I want a better income.  I want to buy that car.  Desires are built into you by God and they are important to your personality.  However, a corrupted desire is rooted in the unwillingness to wait for God to satisfy the desire His way.  When King Saul tried to kill David because of his jealousy over David’s popularity, his longing to kill David flowed out of his lust for respect.  Jacob lusted after his brother Esau’s place in the family and betrayed his father and his brother by trying to wrest it away from Esau by deceit.

When a lust is not fulfilled, when we don’t get what we want and we are not willing to wait for God to satisfy the desire we have in His way within His time frame, self-pity is the result.  I want this and I want it now.  If I don’t get it, I feel sorry for myself and become either angry or depressed.   She must love me.  He must treat me fairly.  They must respect me.  I deserve to have a better salary.  Lust, the unwillingness to let God work things out for me so that my desire can be fulfilled in the way He wants, leads to self-pity which can disconnect me from God and replace God’s joy and peace with misery.  The great sin of Job’s friends was that they pushed him into self-pity.  Rather than encouraging Job to patiently wait for God to sort things out for him, they prodded Job to become dissatisfied with God by insisting the Lord was punishing him for sins he knew he had not committed.  The more they accused Job of hidden wickedness, the more Job’s dissatisfaction with God grew.

The great lie of Satan which he first tried with Eve is that God is not good enough to make your life right.  This festering discontent with the Lord bubbles up into bitterness, frustration and depression.  It saps us of our moral strength and incites rebellion against God.  Listen to how Satan sowed the seed of discontent in Eve.  "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman.  "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."  (Genesis 3:4-5 NIV)  “God is keeping you from something good and it is not fair the way He is holding you back.”  Lust refuses to accept God’s plan for how to have one’s needs met.  Self-pity is our response to a lust that poisons our heart before we engage in outright rebellion against God.

There are two principles that every single person must be taught and if they are embraced, the peace of God can be attained.  The first is: God is in complete control of your circumstances.  Satan isn’t.  Luck isn’t.  Others around you are not.  God is in complete control of your circumstances.  The second is:  If you are in love with God, then every circumstance in life is good for you.  Why would you feel sorry for yourself if you know that God, who loves you with unlimited affection, is in charge of your life and will make it perfect in every way if you just trust Him?  Consider how Joseph from the Old Testament long ago discovered that these two principles were true.

When he was seventeen, Joseph’s brothers, out of jealousy, (or more precisely because of lust) sold him into slavery.  For twelve years his life wasted away first as a slave and later it got even worse after he was unjustly sent to prison.  Everything that happened to Joseph was unfair, at least from a human standpoint.  He did not deserve to be a slave and certainly it was not right for him to be in jail.  But you must remember and it needs to be certain in your mind, God is in complete control of your circumstances and everything that happens to you will make your life better.  At the age of twenty-eight, the Lord put Joseph to the test.  Into the prison where Joseph languished came two former employees of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.  One was Pharaoh’s chief baker and the other his cupbearer.  Both were sent to prison because of Pharaoh’s dissatisfaction with them.  On the same night, each had a dream that baffled and troubled him.  Joseph asked them to tell him their dreams because as Joseph put it, “Do not interpretations belong to God?”  After Joseph explained to the cupbearer what the Lord was telling him through his dream, Joseph asked him to try to get Pharaoh to release him from prison.  He added this bit of commentary about why he was in jail.  For I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in a dungeon." (Genesis 40:15 NIV)

In this one simple statement, Joseph showed that he had not yet learned to live by the two principles.  He did not believe it was God who brought him to prison and he did not see any good coming out of it.  As a result, Joseph had sunk into self-pity.  What Joseph did not realize and perhaps could not know was that the Lord was preparing him for the great task that only someone with tremendous humility and unbending loyalty to God could perform.  To make such a person, the Lord had to put him through slavery and unjust imprisonment and in it all learn to trust the Lord and stay loyal to Him no matter what.  Joseph was being prepared to become second in command of Egypt and bring the knowledge of God to that pagan nation.  All arrogance and self-pity and lust had to be squeezed out of Joseph before the Lord could entrust him with this responsibility.   Finally, after two more years in jail, Joseph was ready to trust God in any and every circumstance and believe that no matter what he faced, the Lord was good.  How do we know Joseph learned that the two principles were true?  When Joseph was finally freed by Pharaoh and Pharaoh put him in charge of running the country, his brothers who had sold him into slavery came to Joseph begging for food to feed their starving families.  Rather than making his brothers pay for what they had done to him, he reassured them that he did not blame them for selling him into slavery but rather was thankful God let him go through what he did.  "So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt.” (Genesis 45: 8 NIV)  Later, after their father died, Joseph reassured his brothers once more that God put him in Egypt for good both for him and many others including his brothers and their families.  But Joseph said to them, "Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God?  You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Genesis 50:19-20 NIV)

How much happier and more peaceful we would be if we could just see things like Joseph did.  Everyone around us would be uplifted by our approach to  life.  We would be encouragers rather than discouragers.  We would lift up the spirits of those who are feeling down and be like a breath of fresh air everywhere we go.  There is no reason to feel sorry for yourself if you know that Christ is in charge of your life.  If Christ could take the brutal beatings and barbaric crucifixion He suffered and turn it into salvation for you and the rest of the world, then He can and will work out everything we face with perfect care.

Earthy Lives

Recently we went camping and it was quite the adventure.  Of course we forgot major items…like pillows, a bin for washing dishes, a first aid kit.  Fortunately no one got hurt, we figured out a way to wash the dishes and who needs pillows when you have arms where you can rest your head.  We were surprised when we got to the campground by the weather.  We should have known better than expect warm weather like we had at home.  The campsite was right by the ocean a couple hours north of San Francisco which is famously foggy in the summer.  Not only was the fog so thick that we could not even see the ocean despite it being right next to us but it was freezing cold.  I was the only one without a sleeping bag and the blanket I had was too small so I tossed and turned all night trying my best to get warm.  The next day I sat next to the fire and did not wander far from it.  The funny thing about camping is that we intentionally go somewhere where we will be dirty all day, smell like we came out of a forest fire, have to go outside into the cold in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, get bit in the evening by mosquitoes and have no access to our cell phones.  For a few days, we were “earthy”.

When you think of someone as being earthy, you probably have one of two ways of interpreting the description.  One, the person is interested in the environment, not into technology, grows vegetables, rides a bike to work and doesn’t take showers very often.  Earthy people avoid shaving, live in rustic settings, are either strongly for guns or against them, let strange animals wander about on their property.  Another way to think of one who is earthy is that the person is casual, easy to get to know, does not try to impress others but is always “just themselves”.  Earthy people are relaxed and comfortable with themselves, may belch in public and are unconcerned about how they pronounce words or their choice of words.  But when we talk about being “earthy” with regard to our discussion today, it will be to describe what the Bible literally says about you.  You are earthy.

To do justice to the discussion of the earthiness of humanity, we must take a brief journey into the far ancient past.  The Bible is rather opaque in its account of what took place before the six days of creation and the putting together of Adam and Eve.  The Bible provides some hints at what occurred and we must admit that we might be wrong about what we think it is saying.  In the quite old book of Job is a fascinating passage that is generally overlooked.  "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?  Tell me, if you understand.  Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!  Who stretched a measuring line across it?  On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone— while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?  (Job 38:4-7 NIV)

What the NIV translates as angels is literally in the Hebrew “sons of God” but “angels” is precisely what the verse is describing.  There was a time in very ancient history when the earth’s structure was being put together that the stars “sang together and the angels shouted for joy.  Before Satan rebelled against God and threw the universe into chaos, there was great happiness at what God had done among the spiritual beings He had made.  The angels cried out their tremendous pleasure at God’s work.  But then the cataclysmic insurrection took place among the angels.  How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn!  You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!   You said in your heart, "I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain.  I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High." (Isaiah 14:12-14 NIV)  This passage, although it is used metaphorically to describe the actions of the king of Babylon, also tells us about the rebellion of Satan and Satan’s allies among the “sons of God’.  Rather than submitting themselves to God during the early days of the universe, Satan incited anarchy among the angel beings (the morning stars) so that some joined Satan in the fight against God’s rule and others stood with God as Sovereign Lord.

Jesus refers to this war on God when He responded to the joy of the seventy-two disciples who during their mission trips found the demons submitting to the name of Jesus.  He replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” (Luke 10:18 NIV)  Where did Satan fall when like a lightning bolt Satan was cast down from heaven?  Isaiah 14 tells us it was to the earth.  Revelation 12: 7-9 agrees.  And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back.  But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven.  The great dragon was hurled down — that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. (Revelation 12:7-9 NIV) Our Lord saw this before He became a man born in a manger.  He saw this before the earth was made the home of humanity.  Now, we are going to speculate about something and we might be wrong in this but it seems to be the case.  There is a fascinating set of terms our Lord uses to describe the earth before the six days of creation.  In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.  (Genesis 1:1-2 NIV)

So in the beginning when Satan and Satan’s fellow anarchists existed and the angels who were loyal to God existed, the heavens and the earth existed.  Isaiah tells us of the existence of heaven and earth when the terrible rebellion took place. How long the heavens and the earth existed before the six days of creation occurred, we have no way of knowing.  But if Satan and Satan’s allies were cast down to earth it is not surprising to discover something rarely discussed about the earth before God prepared the earth for the coming of mankind.  It was as the NIV translates it, “formless” and “empty”.  These two English words do not give us the complete picture of what the earth was like during that time.  Formless and empty are translations of two Hebrew words that rhyme: “thohu” and “vohu”.  The first, thohu, speaks of wreckage and chaos.  So before God made the earth ready for mankind, it was wrecked and full of chaos.  The second term, Vohu speaks of that which is under judgment.  So the earth, at the time the six days of creation began was under judgment and wrecked.

In Genesis 1: 3, God reclaims the earth for His special creation, prepares it with loving care for the “apple of His eye”, those made in His own image, humanity.  The chaos is pulled into order, the wreckage becomes a beautiful paradise and then at the pinnacle of the six days, God crafts man out of the dirt of the earth and breathes a spirit into him.  People are not just spiritual beings, they are earthy and spiritual, a part of the earth and a part of God.  But Satan was not willing to idly sit by while God established a new society on the very spot where he had ruled.  Satan, as a serpent, tricked Eve into rebelling against the God who gave her life and Adam chose loyalty to his wife over the clear command of God and together, Adam and Eve pulled the universe into chaos once again with their Sin and rebellion against God, the perfect environment for Satan to flourish.

Satan is called the “god of the world” in 2 Corinthians 4: 4 in the KJV, the “god of this age” in the NIV.  Both are correct as the Greek word that is used in the verse can be translated either way.  Satan has authority both in this age and in the world where the Lord cast him.  Here though is the key point.  The full verse reads, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (NIV)  Satan’s chief skill set is to convince people they don’t need Jesus Christ and that they are better off not involving Him in their lives.  Paul’s accusation leveled against a sorcerer says much about the sorcerer but even more about Satan.  "You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord?” (Acts 13:10 NIV) If Elymas the sorcerer was a child of the devil, an enemy of everything right and full of all kinds of deceit and trickery, what does this say of the devil?  We must be careful here to realize that Satan is known most for fooling the world and shifting the world’s opinion of what God is really doing.

No one ever thinks they have been caught in a trap of Satan’s.  Eve didn’t.  She thought she made the decision all on her own to eat the forbidden fruit.  Adam simply chose Eve over God.  You never enter into one of Satan’s schemes thinking you have been fooled.  Otherwise you would see right through it.  When you come alongside Satan in his rebellion against God, you don’t generally think about Satan at all.  You are just mad, you feel like you have been treated badly, you want something you don’t have, you are frustrated, you are having too much fun, you are bored.  Satan doesn’t attack God when he comes after you; he gives you an option that makes sense.  David didn’t commit adultery with Bathsheba because he wanted to rebel against God!  He slept with her because it seemed reasonable to him and it was reasonable to Bathsheba.  Peter did not stand up to Jesus’ insistence that He would soon die because he was fed up with Jesus; he did so because he thought Jesus was being too pessimistic and not trusting the Father enough to see Him through this new crisis.  Jesus knew this contention of Peter’s came straight from Satan and made that clear when He demanded, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." (Matthew 16:23 NIV)  Satan makes certain that when we rebel against God, it seems reasonable to us and perfectly normal.

Satan’s great plan; it is his plan since the earth was in chaos and he saw what the Lord did in six days, was to somehow cut off the connection between heaven and earth, to make humanity self-reliant, independent, secure.  Satan does not want us broken-hearted, depressed or sick.  Satan wants us confident, sure of ourselves.  Satan wants us not needing God, functioning well without Him.  But when we begin to see who we really are, when our false sense of independence starts to unravel and we realize that we are sinners and we have an emptiness and real brokenness that only God can make right, the sham is uncovered.  Satan is the liar and father of all lies and life without God, without Him at every inch of it will fall apart.  Jesus Christ did not die so that we might live free of God at times but that in every way we build our lives in Him.  We seek Him with every decision we make, turn to Him at every moment, trust Him with every part of our day.  Satan has fooled the world into thinking we don’t need God.  We don’t have to turn to Him, don’t have to seek Him with our decisions and circumstances.  It is a lie.  Every inch of life needs Christ to fill it and you are not the exception, you are the rule.  Turn to Christ!  Turn to Him again and again.  Don’t stop turning to Him.  He is your Savior…not just for Heaven but also for Earth.

The Worthiness of Jesus Hearing

Malachi 3:16 NIV

Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name.

How Important Is Listening?

The other day I went to get my haircut and after getting me seated in my chair, the hairstylist took a look at what she had before her and told me I had great hair.  Now, I know that I am an old man with gray popping up everywhere and I have been shown how my hair is thinning in the back of my head but I must admit I kind of strutted a bit after I heard that comment.  I felt younger, handsomer and more impressive yet nothing about me had changed.  I was the exact same person I was before I got my haircut with the same list of accomplishments and failures, the same talents and abilities and the same looks but on this day I heard that I had a “great head of hair” and it made a difference.

What is it that you love hearing most?  Is it a compliment?  Would it be the sound of laughter or a baby cooing?  How high on your list would be jazz music or classical music or rock or rap?  Do you love the sound of wood crackling in a fireplace or popcorn popping just before it is ready or the gurgling sound of a mountain stream?  Maybe it’s the roar of the ocean, a good story or a podcast?  Perhaps it is the sound of birds singing or the Bible being read aloud.  Do you love the sound of your children’s voices, of your husband or wife on the phone?  Do you like to hear the sound of thunder or rain drops or the quiet stir of snow falling?  Do you recall hearing the sound of your baby’s heartbeat for the first time or the interviewer telling you that you got the job?  Do you have a favorite sound of all time?  How important is listening to you?

The Bible often speaks of God hearing.  The Lord has heard my cry for mercy; the Lord accepts my prayer. (Psalm 6:9 NIV)  Again in the Psalms we see, In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help.  From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears. (Psalm 18:6 NIV)  And in Psalm 40: 1 is the declaration, I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. (NIV)  Because God is Spirit, it is perhaps a bit strange to think of God hearing as a person hears but we must remember that all the language of the Old Testament that gives God the same characteristics as humankind possess are prophetic of what is to come; that one day God would indeed have the very features of people because our Lord was to become flesh and dwell among us.  (Consider John 1: 14)

When our Lord did become flesh, His ability to hear was human in every way.  Just a few examples will illustrate what we mean here.  A Roman centurion approached Jesus begging him to heal his ailing servant.  Jesus offered to go with the centurion and heal the servant at the centurion’s home but the centurion responded to this offer in a stunning way.  The centurion replied, "Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed…When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, "I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.” (Matthew 8:8.10 NIV)  Jesus, just like you or I heard the centurion’s reaction to Jesus’ offer and reacted to what He heard.  Another example and we will make our point regarding our Lord.  In John 9 is the interesting account of a man born blind who was healed by Jesus.  The religious leaders in Jerusalem were not happy with how the man who had been healed answered their questions regarding Jesus and the miracle and would not let the man have access to the synagogue.  Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" (John 9:35 NIV)

In both cases and in every example we can find of Jesus hearing something said, He heard just like we do.  There is no evidence, as far as we can find, that Jesus had any supernatural power to know in advance what was going to be told Him.  He reacted just like we do to news we hear.  It was in real time as it was happening.  Jesus was astonished, just like we would be at new news He received regarding the spoken faith of the centurion.  When the man He healed was thrown out of the synagogue and Jesus heard about it, our Lord went and found him.  Like us, Jesus heard for the first time a wide range of statements and ideas and accounts and when He heard them, He had to process like we do what He heard.  He did not have ten thousand years to think about what He already knew.  It was for Him as a man fresh every time, the words He heard.  God experienced what it is like for us to hear something, be shocked by it, excited by it, amused by it, saddened by it, appalled by it and then have to think through what He heard.  That is an amazing revelation of Scripture.  God had ears just like us, a mind just like us and He had to process what He heard just like we process it.  We know how hard it is to figure out what to do with what we hear when we hear it.  God also knows how hard it is because He has faced the struggle Himself to take what He has just heard and decide what to do with the new information He has gained.

In Genesis 2 and 3 we have the first descriptions of hearing occurring.  Some sort of hearing is discussed in Genesis 2.  The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.  And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." (Genesis 2:15-17 NIV)  It would seem that because everything in this passage is physical and not spiritual: Adam put into a physical garden and directed to do the physical work there of taking care of the garden and then given a command about the physical act of not eating fruit from a particular physical tree that the talking that takes place was also physical but we cannot say for certain.  It certainly seems like God was speaking to Adam in a normal physical way and Adam heard Him in a normal physical way.  Later in chapter 3 a physical being spoke to Eve, a serpent.  That physical creature asked Eve a critical question that Eve answered.  "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" (Genesis 3:1 NIV)  Eve knew what the serpent said and responded to what she heard.  "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'" (Genesis 3:2-3 NIV)

This is precisely what God did say to Adam and so Adam had to have repeated this to Eve who heard it.  The conversation ends with the serpent insisting that God was wrong about them dying if they ate from the tree in the middle of the garden and that what they didn’t realize was that the fruit from the tree would make it so that like God they would know the difference between good and evil.  Eve of course did eat the forbidden fruit and so did Adam and immediately their eyes were opened but not as they hoped.  It was horrible for them.  Sin completely wrecked their personalities and they were ashamed of their nakedness. The way Adam and Eve processed information was ruined by the Sin they committed and no longer could they think how God built them to think.  They were broken people.  How they processed what they heard next is telling.  Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?" (Genesis 3:8-9 NIV)

There is in this a fascinating admission in Scripture.  There was a time when God allowed Himself to be physically heard by people.  Adam and Eve heard God rustling about in the garden like all of us hear.  The way they processed this hearing is critical because it clearly was not in the same way as before they sinned.  The two hid from God; they now were afraid of Him.  Whereas before, the sound of God made them happy; after they sinned it paralyzed them with fear.  From this point forward, people began to no longer physically hear God.  After He sent them out of the garden, God would make Himself heard in a physical way only a few times.  The Bible says that God spoke to Moses face to face as one person speaks to another.  He spoke physically to Abraham before that and Jacob but almost never did He give people the opportunity to hear Him speak through the normal process of ears to brain.  Satan became completely cut off from man’s ears.  Never again in the Old Testament do we read of Satan speaking in a physical way to people; Satan could only talk directly to God  Demons spoke and speak but not Satan.

What were we to do though if God stopped speaking to us physically?  Something amazing happened when Jesus Christ came as a man and became a part of human society.  Satan was given his voice and allowed to speak physically with Christ but only with Christ and the Father spoke physically with Jesus too and let the Disciples hear Him speak.  A rip in the barrier between the physical and spiritual realms occurred with the coming of Jesus.  Both the horrific evil of Satan could be heard physically as well as the perfect love of God.  In this great moment in time, salvation came to us.  Jesus Christ put us back in touch with God by letting Satan do every possible terrible act in the physical realm to Him; let Him arrange His beating, scourging and crucifixion.  Upon His death, the power of Satan was broken in humanity and Sin could no longer keep us from God.  In that instant, when Satan tried to destroy Christ and every single link between God and His people, Christ rose victoriously.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ brought to all who put their faith in Him for salvation the magnificent new way for God to speak to us.  The Holy Spirit joins with us in conversations that are in a completely different manner than anyone has ever spoken with us in the past; in a supernatural way.  But like babies, we don’t realize when He is talking with us, understand what He is saying or try very hard to make sense of God’s way of getting through to us.   It is humiliating at times, frustrating often and sad to admit how little we recognize the Holy Spirit’s communication with us but it will not always be like this.  By reading the Bible we learn how God really speaks to us…how to tell the difference between our own thoughts and the Holy Spirit breaking through our thoughts to talk to us…Spirit to spirit…  Take a week to practice listening for the Holy Spirit speaking to you.  Every opportunity you get, invite God to guide you, show you what to do, how to respond to what you face.  The Holy Spirit will bring Scripture to mind, past experiences to mind and point out ways you can make the most out of the opportunities God gives you to be loving, generous and kind.

I Know What I Am Doing

How often do we trick ourselves into thinking we've got it but those around us don't.  Far too soon in our Christian journey we come up against the oldest of Satan's tricks; the implication that we know what we are doing.  Eve convinced Adam that she knew what she was doing and Peter tried to convince Jesus too that he had the right idea when he lost his mind over three shelters.  It is a fallacy to believe that we can make it on our own just this one time because we have figured out other things so well.  What do we make of the Cross then?  Did Jesus endure it because we were only a few marks off in our thinking or because we were thoroughly wrecked by sin?  The notion that once we become Christian we somehow need Jesus a bit less if we play it sharp is an insult to the blood He poured out upon the ground of our lostness.  We need Christ at every moment of every day and the Holy Spirit must be heeded far more than ever now.    You do not need to read the Bible less as you move along because you have gotten familiar with it;  you need to read the Bible with greater fervor than ever because you should realize even more just how wicked you really are without the Word of God filling you head to toe.  Your point of comparison is not some poor soul next to you whom you barely know; it is the filth of the tar pit that stands within you waiting to suck you in at just one bumbling stumble over a cock-sure determination.  The love and mercy of Christ is not poured out for your independent strut but to galvanize your total  dependence upon God to take you through each day.
You save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty. Psalm 18:27 NIV

Imitation

Have you taken serious stock in your ability to be imitated?  It is the simplest thing in the world; to have someone watch you and then do the very thing you did.  It is happening carelessly in your daily routines.  Adam imitated Eve without giving it much thought.  You too are emulating the very ones who seem silly or irritating as well as the models of competence.   Keep your eye on the prize even as others watch you out of the corner of their eye all the while looking for the prize too.  If you can imitate Christ just this one time, it might make it easier for the person next to you to do the same thing.  Love is rich with observable declarations of your real intention.  Even if you spend your time imitating the love of others, eventually it will be yours and then someone near you will make it theirs.  Actual love starts with Christ and at some point ends with Him. too.  The imitation of Christ will eventually be worked out as an overlooked offence or a swallowed criticism that could be justified if it were not for the criticisms Christ has held back from you.  Love never fails...(1 Corinthians 13:8)

Tempting...

Genesis 3:6 NIV
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.


We know almost nothing about Eve except what we find here in Genesis three. Was she kind and warm or cold and calculating? Did she enjoy parties or prefer to be by herself? Was Eve a thinker or driven by her feelings? How was she as a wife and later as a mom? Was Eve a good cook…a good housekeeper, a good story teller? Eve, who some estimate gave birth to as many as 100 children has a seductive, alluring aura about her that may be due to all the naked renditions that have been made depicting her in the garden and later with the fig leaves after she sinned but was she attractive, or friendly or fun to be with? Did Adam enjoy her company as they grew older? Eve, whose name sounds like the Hebrew verb that means “living”, is known almost exclusively for her brief encounter with Satan and almost immediate plunge into sin. Other women have been known mostly for their sinning…Delilah, Jezebel and Potiphar’s wife. However, no other woman is so completely associated with sin and temptation as Eve.

What is most fascinating about Eve though is not her final decision to eat the forbidden fruit; it is rather the illuminating description of how temptation worked with Eve and what lead to her fall. The scene in Genesis three is surreal, a talking serpent is the central character along with Eve in a battle that would permanently alter the condition of the human race. The serpent we are told is crafty, shrewd. Satan’s take on God’s command to not eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is telling. “You will surely not die. Now Eve had just told Satan that the Lord commanded they could not even touch the forbidden fruit lest they would be killed. Satan’s strategy in the temptation is enlightening. He immediately shifts Eve’s consideration once he discredits God’s warning by telling Eve that on the “day” she eats the fruit, her eyes would be opened and she would know good from evil.

Satan brings into the dialogue a most critical factor in temptation…time. Whereas God’s warning was not bound to a point…you die on the day you take the forbidden fruit as you would with a lethal poisoned apple, Satan’s promise was. The day you taste that fruit, a magnificent wonder will happen. Temptation rests upon this one pillar…today and not yet. Today you will have open eyes. Today you will enjoy insight into mysteries unknown to you before. Today it will be sweet and pleasant and good. Tomorrow isn’t going to happen. Tomorrow is nothing to bother you. Tomorrow is the slave of today. Every temptation works this way. I will be leading next month a seminar on child abuse and the molester does his perversion because he takes tomorrow out of the equation. Upping the ante on murder…making the penalty worse, the execution more gruesome, the hanging more public has statistically been proven to be inconsequential to reducing the rate of murders both in the U.S. and elsewhere because every homicide is done without tomorrow. The catching part of the murder, the finding it out part of it, the punishment aspect, is left out when the murder is committed. Satan’s temptation was that tomorrow isn’t but today very much is. It still works that way. When I stole candy from a store as a child, I did it because I didn’t think I would get caught…actually I didn’t even think about it. The theft was based totally on today. Get the candy. The now of the Jolly Ranchers swallowed up the tomorrow of being nabbed.

This Topic will be completed in the next blog