Do You Need Help?

Exodus 2:23 NIV

During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God.

If You Needed Help, Would You Ask?

A few weeks ago I went to an office supply store needing to order business cards.  I went to the copy center and a very nice person asked me, “How can I help you?”  Normally I would rather robotically just answer the question the way it was intended to be answered.  But this time something went wrong within my brain and I started thinking about all the various ways I could use help.  “Yes, I have a problem with a skin tag on my eyelid.  Do you have any suggestions?”  “Sure, how can I get my daughter to keep her room clean?”  “Do you know what I should do about the sermon I need to deliver next week?”  “How can I get affordable housing in Fremont?”   “What should I do about my arthritic knees?”  Fortunately for those waiting in line behind me, I only told the clerk about my need for business cards.  Yet it would have been nice if she could have helped me with the other matters too!

If God asked you directly, “How can I help you”, how would you respond?  Would you take the question seriously?  Would you tell Him about your real concerns or just give a few trivial problems to solve?  Do you want help from God or are you pretty satisfied with how everything is going?    Would you consider the Lord your lifeline when nothing else works or are you dependent upon Him to help you with even the smallest of issues?  What part does God play in solving the problems you face?

Nothing is quite as certain as this!  If you are not struggling with something too big for you now, eventually you will.  When you find yourself in such a predicament, you will fall into one of two camps.  You will either ask God for help or you won’t.  It is interesting but considering that the Bible is a religious book mostly about God, you can find in it plenty of accounts of those who show no interest in getting help from God.  The Pharisees were one of the most religious people of their time.  They studied the Old Testament.  They carefully kept as many religious laws as they deemed possible.   They even made up laws just to be careful to keep God happy with them.  But when Jesus Christ, God in flesh appeared, they did not want to have anything to do with Him.  They often tested Jesus to see if they could find flaws in His Bible knowledge.  They never though asked Him for help.  Of all the miracles of Christ, it does not seem that the Pharisees ever found a problem they needed Him to solve.

Imagine if you knew of a man who had been born blind, was blind through childhood and into adulthood and that man had been miraculously healed by someone.  What would have been your reaction?  Would you have thought of things this person could do for you?  Would you bring your needs to Him?  The Pharisees certainly did care about the miracle but they did not seem interested in getting His help with their own problems.  They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind.  Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man's eyes was a Sabbath.  Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. "He put mud on my eyes," the man replied, "and I washed, and now I see."  Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath."  But others asked, "How can a sinner do such miraculous signs?" So they were divided. (John 9:13-16 NIV)

It is striking the total disregard the Pharisees had for the good Jesus could do.  They clearly did not care about finding out how Jesus could help them also!  Yet one of the Pharisees, Nicodemus came at night wanting Jesus to help him with the questions he had.  The priests who ran the Temple were Sadducees, another religious group that was much less interested in what the Bible had to say than the Pharisees and they did not have any confidence in God’s ability to do anything miraculous.  Despite all the miracles happening in Jerusalem and the greatest of all the miracles, Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, the priests did not want Jesus’ help either.  In fact when they heard about what happened with Lazarus, they wanted both Lazarus and Jesus dead.  Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.  "What are we accomplishing?" they asked. "Here is this man performing many miraculous signs.  If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation."  Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, "You know nothing at all!  You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish…. So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well…  (John 11:47-50, 12: 10 NIV)

When the Roman governor of Judea finally met Jesus, having heard the reports of all the good things Jesus had done, he struggled with the insistence of the Jewish priests that Jesus needed to be executed.  Meanwhile Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?"  "Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied.  When he was accused by the chief priests and the elders, he gave no answer.  Then Pilate asked him, "Don't you hear the testimony they are bringing against you?"  But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge — to the great amazement of the governor. (Matthew 27:11-14 NIV)  Pilate, who certainly had plenty of needs himself given all we know about the problem Pilate had with his supervisors in Rome as well as the Jewish people he was supposed to govern, did not look for any help from Jesus for anything.  Pilate’s wife ironically did have a need.  She begged her husband to not harm Jesus because “…I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him." (Matthew 27:19 NIV)

One of the strangest of all the accounts of the humiliations and beatings Jesus suffered before He was crucified involved Herod, Jewish king who ruled over the Galilean region.  When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time he had been wanting to see him. From what he had heard about him, he hoped to see him perform some miracle. (Luke 23:8-9 NIV)  Herod Antipas had plenty of problems, including an impending war with his former father-in-law yet he saw no need of help from Jesus.  He had heard of Jesus’ great miracles and thought of Christ as a trick pony instead of the one who could make his life right.  Rather than ask Jesus to save him, which is what he needed, he had Jesus beaten and joined with others in the court mocking Christ.  Yet interestingly enough the manager of his household was married and his wife humbly came to Jesus for help. …and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod's household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means. (Luke 8: 2-3 NIV)

Consider carefully what Jesus announced at the Temple during one of the great Jewish feasts.  On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."  By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. (John 7:37-39 NIV)  The entrance of the Holy Spirit into a life only happens when someone wants Him.  You must come to Christ on your own if you are to have the Holy Spirit.  God does not force Himself upon you.  He says that if you are thirsty, come to Him.  You must need God and know you need Him before He will do anything of substance with you.  If you want the Holy Spirit flowing in and out of you, clearing up your mind, straightening out the way you think, impacting those around you and giving them through you the taste of Christ, then you must ask Christ for this.

Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3 NIV)  Are you poor in spirit?  Do you want God filling your life more than anything?  Have you become so in need of God that you crave Him like an infant craves her mother’s milk?  Try this little experiment.  Pick out someone you care about and pray for that person thirty days in a row. Ask for Christ to be that person’s blessing.  Put his or her name on your mirror and pray for Christ to bless that soul.  See what God does in you as you pray: how the Holy Spirit joins with you in your praying.  Give your worries about yourself a break and put your concentration on the Holy Spirit praying through you for the one you have been given to bless in prayer.  Out of you will flow streams of living water.  Take the thirty day challenge.  I wonder what might happen when God works through thirty people committed completely to being vessels of God’s goodness and grace for thirty days.

The Fullness of You...Touching

Mark 1:41 NIV

 Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!"

                                         Does It Matter Who Touches You?

More than thirty years ago Mary Jo and I started doing things together.  We went to movies, went out to eat, her family had me over to the house for Sunday dinners, we went to the New Orleans Jazz Fest, walked along the Lakefront, hung out in the French Quarter and played on the same volleyball team.  Although Mary Jo didn’t have a boyfriend and I didn’t have anyone I was dating, we had a friendship that was not in a sense romantic.  We had never kissed, we didn’t even hold hands.  Then after a year and a half of maintaining our relationship this way, we both started working at the same Christian camp in North Carolina.  Mary Jo had arrived a week before I did and so we both were happy to meet again after being apart.  My first afternoon there the two of us went hiking along a trail that went through the woods on the campus and to my complete surprise Mary Jo took my hand and held it as we walked.  It felt like electricity flew through my body.  We had never held hands before, not even when we prayed and I was stunned by the sensation of being touched by her.  On that day, touch, even as benign as holding a hand, initiated a chain of events that completely changed our lives.

Touch is perhaps the most powerful of all our senses as it is the only one that impacts the entire body.  As a result, touch is a dynamic force that fuels a wide range of emotions.  Even our use of the term “touch” in its metaphorical suggests an effect that is significant.  If you say that “she touched you” it implies something much deeper than the gathering of sensory information, it means that somehow the person impacted your heart….the center of who you are.  Are you comfortable being touched?  Do you like to touch others?  Do you find that certain people like it when you touch them?  How important is touch to the Church or even to the practice of Christianity?

There are reasons to mistrust the use of touch and the Bible gives several examples of how touch is misused.  Old and blind Isaac wanted to give a blessing from God to his oldest son Esau but the younger son stepped in without the father’s knowledge and pretended to be Esau.  He put lambskin on over his arms and neck so that when his father touched him, he would be tricked into believing he was the older and hairier brother.  Jacob got away with the ruse too and stole the blessing from his brother.  Jacob went close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, "The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau."  He did not recognize him, for his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; so he blessed him. (Genesis 27:22-23 NIV)  Both Isaac and the older brother were devastated when they discovered what Jacob had done.

Have you ever been fooled by someone’s touch?  You thought you were loved but you actually weren’t.  You believed the touch meant you could trust the person; assumed the touch would be good for you.  How many have been touched for evil reasons, corrupt reasons.  When Amnon touched his sister Tamar, it was because he lusted after her but had no love for her.  His touch destroyed the personality of Tamar and left her emotionally crippled. 

But he (Amnon) refused to listen to her (Tamar), and since he was stronger than she, he raped her. Then Amnon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her. Amnon said to her, "Get up and get out!"   "No!" she said to him. "Sending me away would be a greater wrong than what you have already done to me."  But he refused to listen to her...Tamar put ashes on her head and tore the ornamented robe she was wearing. She put her hand on her head and went away, weeping aloud as she went…And Tamar lived in her brother Absalom's house, a desolate woman. (2 Samuel 13:14-16, 19, 20b NIV)

In contrast, when Jesus touched, He healed.  His hands brought joy and comfort.  When the sun was setting, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them. (Luke 4:40 NIV)  Children were blessed by His touch.  And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them. (Mark 10:16 NIV)  The elderly were comforted by the feel of His hand.  When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, "Woman, you are set free from your infirmity."  Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.  (Luke 13:12-13 NIV)  Crowds thronged to Jesus, the people wanting to touch Him because of what they believed would happen if they did. People brought all their sick to him and begged him to let the sick just touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched him were healed. (Matthew 14:35-36 NIV)

The Apostles, following Jesus lead also used touch to bless and change the lives of those they touched.  Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. (Acts 8:17 NIV)  Even non-Apostles were instruments of God’s work by their use of touch.  Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, "Brother Saul, the Lord-Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here — has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit."  Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength. (Acts 9:17-19 NIV)  Touch became the way believers in Christ confirmed God’s calling to ministry and service.  In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: …While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them."  So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.  (Acts 13:1-3 NIV)  Paul the Apostle especially used touch to bless and heal.  When Paul placed his hands on them (new Christians in Ephesus), the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. (Acts 19:6 NIV)  Paul followed Jesus’ lead and let touch be the instrument though which God healed many.  There was an estate nearby that belonged to Publius, the chief official of the island. He welcomed us to his home and for three days entertained us hospitably.  His father was sick in bed, suffering from fever and dysentery. Paul went in to see him and, after prayer, placed his hands on him and healed him.  When this had happened, the rest of the sick on the island came and were cured. (Acts 28:7-9 NIV)

Touch has been lost as a way to bring the love of our Savior to the world.  Many have been psychologically damaged by touch and are afraid of what it might do.  Others have lost their confidence in God to help them and aren’t interested in being touched by the Lord’s people.  Mostly though, Christians have stopped believing what God can do through them when they touch others.  We find in the book of Hebrews that touch is one of the rudimentary ways God uses His people to change lives.  It is “basic Christianity”.  Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.  And God permitting, we will do so. (Hebrews 6:1-3 NIV)

Let us not worry ourselves much about why Christians don’t use touch as instruments of God.  They have the Holy Spirit in them so as they gain experience as believers, they will gradually learn how to live with God as part of them.  A critical component of Christianity is touching people and believing that a supernatural work of the Lord will happen when doing so.  Recently I was stunned by how someone I touched through the Holy Spirit was healed by God.  Years ago the Lord told me to pray by touching a couple who for years had been childless.  In three months they called me to say that the next month they conceived.  We have no right to give up on our ability to touch people who need God’s help!  If God flows in you, He will flow out of you and your touch is what He wishes to use to bring comfort and help to the world.  Touch the weak, touch the broken, touch the proud and touch all who feel like they have lost.  Touch and God will touch through you.

Forgiveness Journey

Hebrews 9:22 NIV

In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

How Is Forgiveness Working For You?

A number of years ago I went whitewater rafting with some friends.  We were going through a particularly rough stretch of water when we came upon a bend in the river where a giant boulder stood at the turn.  The water was rushing fiercely through the gorge there and despite our river pilot in the back urging us to with our paddles turn the raft to the left, we didn’t make it and we came barreling into the boulder.  The force of our impact cause one of the guys at the front of the rubber inflated raft to be catapulted into the air and he went flying ten feet in the air backwards and into the pool of water behind us.  At that moment, we watched in shocked disbelief as he shot past us; we were going one way and he another.  We were suddenly going on separate journeys, us sliding upon onto a rock and down the river and him soaring through the air and back into the chaos of the swirling caldron of white-water.

All of us are on journeys; some going one way, others a different road.  There are those heading for higher education, others not interested in further schooling.  Some are building families, others prefer to stay single.  Many are trying to save all the money they can, still more looking for ways to spend it.  There are those wanting to connect with as many people as they can, others would prefer to be left alone.  Some like to take it easy, others would rather work hard.  Sometimes we decide what journey we take, other times the journey decides who we are.  You might be on a journey of honesty and integrity or a journey of fraud and corruption.  Our journeys may be similar or quite different but every one of us is on a journey and eventually it will bring us somewhere.

It seems that the Bible has described a pair of journeys that between which we all must choose.  The first is the journey of Sin and the other of Forgiveness.  Sin is what the Bible calls the “broad road” and many enter through it. (Matthew 7:13 NIV)  The journey of Forgiveness is narrow because few choose to take that path.  Sin is your default direction.  All are sinners and come short of God’s glory.  The result of being sinners is that we die in our sin.  The other journey is that of forgiveness.  Acts 10: 43 declares that from ancient times, the Lord has been telling us through His prophets that we can enter a journey of forgiven sins.  All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name." (NIV)  The Bible throughout declares that one day and now it has come to pass, our sins would be taken from us, as the Psalm puts it, “as far away as the east is from the west.”  Through Jesus dying on the Cross, that has happened.  Paul in Ephesians 1:7 lists two results of Him dying on the Cross.  In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace… (NIV)  We are no longer slaves to sin and sinning and the guilt of our sin is removed.  We are now free to live completely in line with God and our lives immersed in Him.

Sin has a devastating effect upon our personality.  It leads to confusion, frustration, bitterness, depression, anger, selfishness, pride, discouragement, stress and worry.  The sins we commit always damage us and the long range effect cannot be calculated for it is too immense.  The sins others commit injure us terribly and we are mangled by both ends of sin.  What Christ has done by pouring out His blood on the Cross is begin the work of making us holy and free of the damage sin has caused us.  He is “redeeming” us, taking us out of it.  Because we have lived in a world of Sin and that is all we know, we are like a frog slowly cooking in a pot of water growing hotter by the hour.  We have never known life without the damage of sin and so we are not conscious of all it has done to us.  The Bible says that what Sin brings us is death…psychological death, social death, emotional death, mental death and eventually physical death.  The miracle of all time is that God decided to put an end to the destruction of Sin by placing all the sin of the world upon His Son Jesus Christ and letting the Sin itself die in His crucified body.

This of course may be “old hat” to you.  You understand the Cross and God’s work with Sin but here is something that must be considered profoundly in regard to sin forgiveness.  Jesus declared that our determination to forgive sins is linked to God’s generosity in forgiving our sins.  This is underscored in the model prayer He taught us during the Sermon on the Mount but given naked expression in Matthew 6:14-15.  For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (NIV)  There is an undeniable link between our forgiveness of the sins of others and God’s forgiveness of our sins.  Often it is thought that if we don’t forgive the sins committed against us, then God won’t forgive our sins.  But then, what is the point of Christ dying on the cross if not to put away our sins...if it is really dependent on what we do?

Paul cements this relationship between God’s forgiveness and ours in Colossians 3: 13.  Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. (NIV)  It is established by Christ and the Apostle Paul that all Christians are forgiving people.  They put up with the quirks and difficult behaviors of those in their circles and they forgive or “show grace” as it literally is, to those who treat them badly.  Now the Greek which Paul used to give us this teaching is a bit tricky.  Literally it reads, “As also the Lord showed grace to you, so also you”.  To show grace to someone is a bit broader than to forgive the sins of that person but it includes it.  The primary teaching here is that as Christ has done for us, the same is to flow out of us to others.  If that does not happen, then we have to ask what is wrong with us.

There is a most fascinating teaching found in Hebrews 9:22ff.  In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness...But now he (Jesus) has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself…so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. (NIV)  Paul here declares that forgiveness of sins is not possible without the shedding of blood.  That means that I cannot, even if I wished, forgive a single sin of any person, regardless of how good or bad I view that one—good or bad.  It is beyond the scope of my ability!  So why does Christ and Paul insist we forgive sins?  There is only one explanation.  Through Christ’s death on the Cross, He brought us into His redeeming work.  He made us the freer of slaves.

Christ’s poured out blood upon the Cross completely altered the moral landscape of the world.  Every sin, before that, was irrevocable…it could not be removed and had to be punished.  If you sin against me, whether it seems important to us or insignificant, it was a deadly sin and we could not change its impact upon the one who sinned.  Paul stated this clearly.  “For the wages of sin is death…”  (Romans 6:23a NIV)  Before our Lord’s blood shedding, I could not help you out of your sins against me, even if I wanted to do so.  I could not wave it off and say “no big deal” because it wasn’t for me to decide.  God’s law said the sin brought death and that was the end of the matter.  But with Christ’s death and His loving forgiveness through it, I now can forgive the sins of anyone that has hurt me or offended me.  I am joined with Christ through His poured out blood in the work of forgiveness.

Consider this one aspect of sin.  Each sin has a devastating impact upon the personality.  One sin wrecked Adam and Eve and if you multiply that ten thousand times, there are layers and layers of damage in each of us.  Forgiveness is God’s way of healing us and making us whole.  Somehow, God uses us to bring forgiveness to those we encounter and it is no small privilege or responsibility.  Every forgiven sin is a removed sin.  What does this mean?  Forgiveness as a Biblical teaching is not me accepting whatever you have done wrong to me and saying, “No big deal!”  Forgiveness is the removal of sin in an actual way.  The word Jesus used in saying we are to forgive the sins or “transgressions” of others means “to put away”.  In other words, we do something with the sin, at least as far as it is connected to us.  Of course, that is only possible because of the pouring out of Christ’s blood.

Here is a crazy analogy on the part we play forgiving sins.  When Jonah began his journey running away from God, the Lord did not let him go very far before he sent a gigantic storm to get his attention.  It was a blazing light of chaos for everyone on board the ship…not just Jonah.  The only way the storm could be shut off, it was discovered, was to throw Jonah overboard.  Jonah knew it and he convinced the sailors it was so.  But no one wanted to actually toss Jonah into the raging sea…they felt badly about it.  We are like that with forgiveness.  We don’t want to let go of the sin.  We prefer to nurse it, coddle it, relive it and cling to it.  God though tells us to toss it away.  Forgive it.    Meanwhile, for the sailors and for us, the storm continues to rage.  The damage of sin keeps increasing as we hold onto it.  Only, when by the power of the blood of Christ, we toss the sin away does God stop the storm it creates.  Jonah, the one who caused the storm, also began a new journey when he was thrown into the sea.  He was in fact rescued and given a new life by being tossed overboard.  When we forgive the sins of someone, we in a way rescue that person.  We give him or her a fresh start.  A forgiven sin stops being an active sin; it is a crucified sin and is no longer able to damage either the one who forgives it or the one who has had the sin forgiven.  It is a new journey when a sin is forgiven…a journey of peace within and without.  We can either refuse to forgive a sin and continue being damaged by it, or forgive it, and be set free from it.  Somehow, in a way only God can explain, when we forgive a sin we join Christ in His work on the Cross and by His blood, keep the sin from hurting us or others anymore.  

Pro-Choice

Have we seen yet that we are completely free to live within the world we choose?  We can go down one road or another and it becomes our road but what sort of world we find as we travel along the road is completely up to God.  The Hebrews did not determine the sort of country they would have when first they chose a wilderness and then Palestine.  In neither case was it up to them when the manna fell or didn't, when the storms arrived or stayed away, what hills sprang up along the way and how much dew settled upon their tents.  We choose a home but our Lord decides how that home will be.  Heaven is not up to us to build and Hell cannot be demolished by human hands.  When the poor beggar chose Abraham's country, he could not make it more delightful and when the wealthy Lazarus selected Hell, he could not take down its sorrow.   God sovereignly rules over the worlds but we are kings of the road.  The man or woman who calls for the Law of his or her own way must accept the Law to the end God has determined.  But whoever opens the door to Grace has Grace in its all its wild unpredictability.  The wine that came out of the water pots was from Jesus but the water that was poured into them came from the friend of the groom.  We each live within the economy of our choices but the value of the coin we have in our pocket is decided by God.    God's commands are built on the construct of choice.  We do them or not but His rewards for keeping them are not our choice; they flow out of the Sovereign will of our Savior's Cross.  He chose to take away our Sin, we did not.  He chose to put together a home for us, we did not.  Choice for humanity started in the Garden of Eden...the Garden was not our choice nor was the deconstructed world where Adam and Eve found themselves later but at the point between the two, choice was theirs. Take the low road of "my will" and you have what follows.    Take the high road of "sovereign grace" and every command of God will lead you up and in to a world prepared for you by the same Lord who died to save you. 

"Set up road signs; put up guideposts. Take note of the highway, the road that you take.    Jeremiah 31: 21 NIV

Lovers

It seems that love is ubiquitous.  Even Adolf Hitler had his loves.  But like him I can only love you so much and no more and that is how it is with you too.  There are limits to our loving...it does not in actuality go beyond our liking.  Love is for us an ebb and flow of sensibilities.   There is a reasonableness to love that is perpetuated by the myth of the straightness of our thinking and evaluating.  When it comes to love, we make decisions on it based on how we determine the rightness and wrongness of each other.  Fairness of love is evaluated constantly.  We love but only so far...so far as we think is best.  Love was never intended to be reasonable though.  It is as chaotic as a hurricane when it gets in the hands of God.  The swirl of crashing wants and desires wrecks our love at every turn.  But God's love is determined; a bulldog that won't be budged.  He loves the adulterer, the molester, the perverter of justice, the liar, the racist and the despot.  The miracle of God is that He somehow turns the sins of the many into the Sin of the One and through Christ, Love is unleashed into the unreasonable world.  I cannot love a single person I don't like yet in the boundless mercy of God, I have the capacity to love where love is not found in me.   No Christian with the Love of Christ in him or her can say, "I cannot love that far!"  We can.  And we must.  If God has worked His way in us, then His love must work its way out of us or we will be the most miserable of creatures.  Love withheld becomes a stench within.  But when we let His love flow from us wherever He chooses to take it, a swelling joy takes it place so that it too spills out like Mary's perfume...which she poured out onto Christ in love.

 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 1 John 4: 7-8 NIV

Confounded By Grace

Nothing is more confounding to the world than the life hidden with Christ in God.  It is the most absurd of all determinations and cannot be explained on rational grounds it seems.  Such a person seems stubborn, obtuse; any reasonable soul would go ahead and "break the rules", "take a break", "bend a bit".  It certainly seems that something is mixed up in the mind of the poor one not fitting in with the crowd.  The nonsense of it though is not to be located in the mind of the life hidden with Christ in God...it is in the mind of Christ joining with that other mind.  The mind of Christ breaks out in unexpected ways...love for an enemy, the forgiving of a grievance, an integrity that can't be bent, a standard of purity that is "quirky".  Jesus asked what good it did to gain the world and lose one's soul.  That thought dominates the life hidden with Christ in God and it is manifested in real ways that become unreasonable to the watching world of lost souls.  Don't fight the determination of Christ to work His way out of you...not if you want to possess His peace and joy!  Give in to the urge of God to be holy and pure and full of love and compassion.  Settle in your heart that you are joined to Christ in a wonderful and glorious adventure of holiness and purity.    Let the world say and think as it wishes.  You love the God who saved you and it is your great privilege for Him to work His way out of you in the nooks and crannies of each day He gives you.

Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.  For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.  Colossians 3:2-3 NIV

The Daily Dilemma

When we reach the conclusion of a day, do we give much thought to how it went from God's perspective?   There seem to be two non-Biblical takes on a day.  The first is that God really doesn't care much how it went.  It seems laughable to many that anyone would even attempt to ascertain God's view of experiences and reactions.  Commentators mock the fools who claim God gave them victory in sporting events or brought them success at what they did.  The other view is that everything always goes just as God wants it to go and so each decision made and every circumstance is divinely determined and thus "His will".  And yet the Scripture seems to be in neither of these two camps.  God is presented as angry at how some things go and pleased as punch on other occasions.  The details of the day seem to matter to the Lord; they aren't just meaningless minutia or orchestrated point by point as God determines.  We can really decide to turn left or right and in the examples of life lived out in actualities we find in Scripture, God cares which way the people go.  It genuinely seems to sadden and anger God that Israelites bend into paganism and He appears really happy when a single sinner repents and turns to Him for help.  It may appear clownish for a young wife to pray her husband like the meal she prepares or for a basketball player to pray he win his game but even if such praying is immature, it isn't for the reasons often voiced.  We are told to pray for God to intervene in our circumstances; no parameters are set for us.  And if things cannot and do not turn ever on our praying, then what an absurdity it is for the Lord to tell us to pray for our daily bread and the "whatsoevers" of our day.  It is meaningless noise if everything is set in stone by the will of God or not even noticed by Him.  As a young scholar stretches his vocabulary by reading great works and an athlete builds her strength by pushing her muscles to the limit, so we build intimacy with God and develop holiness by turning to Him for the breadiness of our minutes and hours.  Each day is filled with a multitude of "daily bread" moments that God wants us to bring before Him and admit our need for His help.   Why does an old man go to a doctor for medication if not because in his maturity he recognizes his limitations and admits his poverty?  Have we so little faith and are we so childish that we do not have it in us to persist in knocking and seeking and asking?  Are we so calloused by our troubles and failures that we no longer have space in our day to go to God and expect Him to have at least as much concern for what we face as us?  Is God not god enough to care for you and want to wrap you in His arms in a tender embrace ?  Do you not think He celebrates with you your victories and weeps over your defeats?  Aren't you aware of how much He cares about your reaction to the temptation you face, what you decide about your long-standing grudges and how you respond to your critic?  It is odd, just based on what is clearly evident in Scripture, that any believer would dismiss the possibility that God has something to say about His day.  And it seems to be an absurdity that He would do nothing to try to ascertain what His thoughts might be!

Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?" He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.     Mark 4:38-39 NIV

Blindsided by Grace

We shuffle back and forth between believing God, questioning His goodness and forgetting His existence.  There is something God wants to do with you but it requires your perfect acceptance of His love for you in a matter and the moment you try to fix things yourself without Him working through you, the work crumbles.  Christ cannot and will not fill you if you slight God's love by complaining about your circumstance or by questioning His goodness.  Job was blindsided by the miracle of grace being worked out in Him and the Lord could not finish His work until Job threw up His hands in faith and accepted his place as creature rather than creator.  Job's friends proved to be of no help to him in this as they kept distracting him from the real development.  They pushed the discussion outside the realm of actuality by questioning Job's morality and integrity when those parts of him were never the issue.  Grace doesn't contend at the point of one's personal goodness  but rather at the spot of the Lord Himself working His own character into you.  Christ did not suffer the cross so that you could make a go at getting yourself straight or gaining some flury of accomplished gilding but rather to completely reconfigure your personality into the dynamic of God worked thoroughly through you.  Like yeast in dough, Christ risen in your heart will recreate all the promise he planted in you at the beginning through the difficulties and trials and mundane tasks of your everyday activities.  Be careless about what you're making of yourself but obsessed by the hand of God everywhere around you.

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." 2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV

What Do I Do?

The problem with Christianity is not that it is too difficult to practice, it is that Christianity is too easy to believe.  Nothing is simpler than following a GPS turn for turn and the allowance of the Holy Spirit combined with the clarity of the Bible to direct each step is just as effortless. Where we stumble out of the gate is the frozen unwillingness to do what we are told.  "Turn right!"  We turn left.  "stop!" We go.  The grace of God is too astounding to believe, the fact that Christ really died for us is nearly unbearable.  How can that much love be poured into us?  We simply do not in the crunch of time accept it.  Otherwise, how can we explain the knee jerk response to bear outside the lanes of God's clear directions.  Don't complain any more about not knowing what the Lord wants you to do.  Simply do what you know He has said and let Him work out for you the instantaneous flow of your momentary actions.  The one who keeps His eyes fixed upon Christ is the will of God.

Thomas Kinkade My Eulogy

Thomas Kinkade

My Eulogy

For thousands of years certain people have been bigger than life.  Perhaps unfairly, they are beloved more than they deserved and critiqued more harshly than was warranted.  The Christian community has been as guilty of this as any collection of people and this has been particularly true of our own.  And yet a strange twist on this has taken place recently that has troubled me.  Thomas Kinkade makes this point clear almost perfectly.

Beloved by many in the Christian community for his bold proclamation of his faith through his paintings, Kinkade was derided by critics in the art community for his style and technique.  His passing brought out the best and the worst in his life and made his legacy an object of public scrutiny.  Yet was it deserved?   Should this be the way we react to those who “make a name for themselves”?

Recently a number of public figures have made strong statements of their faith in Christ and their popularity among Christians has provoked a backlash that has stunned many of us.  Jeremy Lin, Tim Tebow, George W. Bush and Thomas Kinkade among others have become heroes of sorts because their success has catapulted them into the public arena where their proclaimed love of Christ has reached a broad audience.  Because that clear public loyalty to Jesus has infuriated many, they have become polarizing figures beyond the scope of their professional success.

The success certainly has fueled their exposure in the press but it has also guaranteed them undo scrutiny.  The technique, talent, skill and worth of these popular Christian artists, athletes and leaders have all been excoriated by those who just don’t like them.  Of course  they all have flaws and certainly they don’t always get it right in their private lives but must they receive such caustic contempt?

Thomas Kinkade’s brother has been quoted as saying that the extreme criticism Kinkade received in the art community hurt him badly and that does not seem implausible.  It is painful to be derided publicly or even privately by one’s peers.  Was it warranted though?  Did Kinkade have to be Dali or Picasso to deserve the popularity of his works?  Did he have to hate the Gospel or be a serial adulterer to gain favor in the art world?  Regardless of one’s take on his creativity or skill set, Thomas Kinkade did something with his art that I will forever be thankful. He made the love of Jesus Christ a topic of discussion among those who considered his works.  That can of course be said of Jeremy Lin, George W. Bush and Tim Tebow.  Each in his own way made his professional status a forum for proclaiming devotion to Jesus.

When you reach the status of viral popularity, you become a target for those who think little of your abilities and less of your acclaim.  That must be accepted but it does not need to characterize the response of the Christian community.  Cannibalism is common within every grouping.  Democrats are guilty of it as well as Republicans. Evolutionists and Creationists have engaged in it.  So too have liberals, communists and conservatives.  If one of us steps out of line, we are just as prone to turn on our own as we are to attack those outside our group.  Which brings me to my own, the Christian world. 

The Christian community must make it anathema to practice cannibalism at any level.  When finally someone of us reaches the privileged place of a Thomas Kinkade, we must do our best to protect him or her.  I am embarrassed to admit my failure to pray even once for Kinkade, to send him a single note encouraging his faith, to attend to the spiritual battle surrounding his work.  We must do our best to ignore the foibles and style points these public figures generate and simply give our best to fight spiritually for their lives. They need our help and Satan will do his best to attack the chinks in their armor.  One prayer can save Kinkade from a bar fight, rescue Tebow from sexual immorality, protect Bush from ignoring crucial advice.  We don’t need our public spokesmen but they need us.  They need our joy in their testimonies, our support for their efforts to honor Christ and our prayers for their protection and help.  The gospel does not depend on these public figures but because they are ours, they depend on us.  The body of Christ must be the safest and most supportive home another believer has and we cannot shatter this by ignoring, critiquing or disabling the ministry of others trying to be brave Christians in a disparaging and slashing unbelieving world.

I salute the Christ who called out Thomas Kinkade for more than just a shallow, muted faith.  I applaud the Father who enabled Thomas Kinkade to have a forum for honoring Jesus with his work.  I bless the Holy Spirit who gave voice to Thomas Kinkade’s longing to make of God’s grace an object of praise and wonder.  May the memory of Thomas Kinkade and the lingering evidence of his witness in his art bring us a renewed commitment to stand together in the faith and be a living laboratory of true spiritual union and love.

Risky Business Concluded

Verse five continues the thought. At that moment when grace came our way, we were in every single part of our lives enriched in Christ. The wealth of Christ came to us out of two sources: every word and every insight brought by Him. In other words, when the Gospel came to us and by the revelation it carried in our hearts, we gained the wealth of the grace of God. Just as an inheritance is gained in its fullness and not piecemeal when the will is read, so with the acceptance of the Gospel we gain it all at once: eternal life, transformation and citizenship into the Kingdom of God.

Verse six answers the question, “How is this so?” We already have been enriched by grace because the witness of Christ was established at that same time in us. Now there are two ways to interpret the witness. It could be what others (the Bible, the Holy Spirit, those who shared the Gospel with us) provided us as witness or it could be the witness of Christ Himself in declaring us His. The Greek word translated “establish” means “to render constant and unwavering” or “to ratify”. It is the picture of a judge declaring an adoption finalized or the Supreme Court determining a law constitutional. The witness of Christ that the grace of God is ours is irrevocably decided and declared. Now it is my contention, that the witness, for this reason is not the one given by a friend but rather the witness of Jesus that when we received the grace of God through faith, we were established by Him as His. No verbal testimony can decide our place in the Kingdom but Jesus’ word can and does. It is the witness of Jesus Christ that decides our fate and upon the receiving of God’s grace, the witness is fixed.

As a result of the witness having been irrevocably established in us, we are made a promise in verse seven. Or, to be more precise, a fact is stated. We will not, in any single way come up short with regard to anything promised to God’s people when Jesus Christ is revealed at the end time. Paul uses a double negative to make his point conclusive. There is not one benefit of being God’s child we will miss when Christ returns. “Oh, but how can this be”, is a legitimate question. What if you fail in some important something you should have done? What if you don’t live up to all of your obligations as a Christian? Isn’t there some debit charge we will accrue at the end of time? How can you have all I have when Christ returns if you weren’t as good as me at living up to your responsibilities? Now logically, as we evaluate what ought to be upon Christ’s return, there should be some tallying done and spiritual accountability. A divine ledger ought to reflect a comparative analysis between us.

Of course that is what makes sense to us but it is not reflected in the Apostle Paul’s assessment of Grace. Not one gift of God will be missing from our stocking when Christ returns. The naughty or nice accounting of Santa Claus is just not there for God’s people. In Christ, we will not lack a single gift of God when He returns. The gifts are settled by the established witness of Christ that we are His own.

If verse seven lifted the lid of Pandora’s Box, verse eight blows it from its hinges. Verse eight makes a complete wreck of any semblance of end times retribution for the Church. It really is quite astonishing what verse eight states. Listen again to the Apostle Paul. “Which also he shall establish you unto the end, unblameable ones on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ…” Unblameable is perhaps not a real word but it best explains the Greek term Paul uses. It means irreproachable, not charged, not on trial. Born-again Christians will not be charged at all at the end. Not a single claim will be made against us and the reason will be because God will make this certain. It is, as Paul puts it, “established, unwavering, never in doubt”. It is not our innocence that will be established, it is us as blameless that is established. This is not an overlooking of guilt, a closing the eyes and passing on what is obvious to all. God will, to the very end, make sure we are completely blameless with no one to charge us with a single fault. This is an astounding claim.

Verse nine concludes the section with the reason why we should believe we will be kept blameless until the end. God is faithful. God, through whom you were called into the fellowship of his son Jesus Christ, is faithful. You may not be able to count on your husband or your children, your boss or the economy but…you can trust God. What He has done is called us into a select group, the fellowship of His son Jesus Christ. We are not in the end Democrats or Republicans, Asians or South Americans, rich or poor, male or female or any other sort of classification the world tries to make us settle. We are only one sort of person; within the fellowship of Jesus Christ or not. If we are, no matter how badly we condemn ourselves, how horrifically we are ridiculed or rejected by others, we will be, in the end, blameless. And why will this be so? Because we are in the fellowship of Jesus Christ and it was God who called us into it.

Many in the Christian community are not ready to hear this. They feel much more comfortable trying to work out all their faults on their own and have a tough time thinking God will not somehow make us accountable for the many bad things we do as Christians. I cannot say it is fair that God will make us blameless on the last day and I admit it seems like some Christians I know should have to pay a price for their greed, immorality, bad temper and affection for primetime TV shows but I am as you are, left with the very clear pronouncement Paul makes here. In the end, we will, in Christ be let off scot free without a single charge brought against us. It is dangerous for God to do this. What is to keep some Christian man from professing Christ and then murdering his family and still be let into heaven? My own son asked me this very question about grace. If the cross teaches us anything, it is this. God is not afraid of our sins. And…the blood of Christ is sufficient to make clean the worst of us sinners.

The Pandora’s Box is opened. Grace has escaped.

Starting At First Corinthians Continued

The church is identified as “the purified ones” in Christ Jesus. The Greek word I translate, “purified ones:” is the famous “hagiazo”, the noun form being the term we know as “saints” Paul is noting that the church is all those who have been made saints, or to put it more precisely, purified and separated out from the rest of the world. This is not a work of the church, nor something any individuals within the church accomplish. It is an action outside the church, a doing that is incomprehensible in a purely natural sense. We look at physical, emotional and even spiritual qualities and try to mark the church by what we see but according to Paul, it has nothing to do with what we perceive. The Church is comprised of all those who are supernaturally purified in Christ Jesus.

The picture is of a container, being Christ Himself and those who are purified have been dropped in Him. Mysteriously, mystically, each one placed in Christ is made purified and set apart as God’s own…the collection of whom is the “Church”. The very meaning of the word church hints at this process. Ekklesia or church means “called out ones”. It is the assembly of the transformed; those who have been pulled out of their circumstances and placed within Jesus Christ in whom everything changes. Paul probably felt this sense of being taken out and dropped in more than anyone he knew. Enemy of Christians and persecutor of the Church, by the supernatural sky hook of the Holy Spirit, Paul was torn out of his old life and dropped without warning into a completely different world of Christian faith. Flying overseas has a bit of that same feel to it. One hour you are in a familiar airport within your own country, twelve hours later you are in Seoul Korea and no one talks like you and no one looks like you and everyone bows and likes kimchi. Paul was catapulted into a new world by Jesus and he could honestly say, “it wasn’t my fault”. The only difference between Paul’s transformation and the example given is that not only was Paul put into a new world, he was made into a new person, it is as if he was suddenly Korean without looking any different, and that is what makes the church the church.

Our identity as a church is not based on what we have done: it is completely determined by where we are placed. We are, as Paul puts it, “in Christ Jesus”. Now the question could easily be raised, “what part do we play in all of this”. Intuitively it feels like we are not just robotically programmed into following Jesus. The end of verse two explains the connection between God’s call to us and our interest in following Him. It literally reads, “with all the ones calling upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in all the places of them and us.” A true Christian is marked by this lovely quality. She is continually calling upon Jesus everywhere she goes. We cannot let the expression “name of our Lord Jesus Christ” confuse us in this. The name is simply the person, the cry to the Lord Himself. The Christian community is a dependent collection of misfits who are only really at home in the bond they have to Jesus. Take out the stuff of Christian activity…whether it be the prayer meetings or evangelistic events or the Bible classes and the core of Christian life is this dependence on Jesus that finds no other outlet but Him.
To Be Continued...

Temptation--Conclusion

I have often wondered what the allure to the forbidden fruit was. Satan told Eve that if she ate it, she would know good from evil. But didn’t she already? She knew staying away from the forbidden fruit was good…touching it was evil. The difference between the two was as plain for her as the nose on Adam’s face. So what did she hope to gain by tasting the fruit? So many have made much of the temptation being an entrance into a moral awakening, that God was keeping Eve and Adam from understanding what good was in contrast to evil. That was not the case at all. Good and evil were both known to Eve. She stated as such when she told Satan what she was to do and what she wasn’t to do. That is the knowledge of good and evil.

What Eve was being led to enter was a whirlwind of terror. The Hebrew words translated good and evil are not so centered on moral opposites They are rather decribers of outcomes. “Tov”, translated good means pleasant, good, agreeable. Evil, “rah” means misery, calamity, injury, That was what Eve had never tasted. The good she knew. Peaceful living, quiet contentment, loving relationships. That was all hers. She had tov. The misery, calamity and injury was nowhere to be found in her world though. What Satan was inviting Eve was entry into a nightmare, into rah. He was taking her from Technicolor dreams to black and white devastation. I once saw a black and white painting depicting a battle scene of blown up buildings, fire scorched trees and broken bodies littering the landscape. That was what Satan had for Eve, a world of Rah.

So why would Eve have any interest in entering a nightmare world? There are two parts to the temptation that battled fiercely against her. In Genesis 3: 6 we see the power brokers that make temptation work. The first is found in the comment, “the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye.” The word translated pleasing, means desirable. It has an attractiveness that works within the body, a physical longing. Within Eve’s body, Eve was being pulled toward the fruit. Shakira’s lyric that explains why she must decide to give in to her boyfriend’s sexual urgings, “my hips don’t lie” profoundly describes this. The body, whether it be the hips, the tongue or the eyes is a monster of strength when it comes to temptation. Physical desire combines with physical need to drive the mind to sin. Eve felt the fruit in her eyes pulling her to it.

The second part of the temptation is a bit complicated to explain but quite easy to understand. It is said that for Eve, the fruit was “desirable for gaining wisdom…” The Hebrew word translated “desirable” is most often used in a bad sense…a selfish desire, an ungoverned desire, a pleasure considered that is wrong. The Hebrew expression translated, “for wisdom” describes a pondering, a considering, a thoughtfulness. What Eve was doing was ruminating about the forbidden fruit. She couldn’t take her mind off of it. This longing for the fruit was all she thought about. It kept popping up when she was eating dinner, when she and Adam were walking through the garden and picking any of the other fruit they had. Selfish desires given free rein in the imagination are monsters to defeat.

Temptation powered by the mind and the body when both are pulling against the will can be deadly. Look at what Eve got for her money. The scripture says she and Adam when their eyes were opened realized they were naked. This was not the recognition of right from wrong as so many mistakenly interpret the outcome. Adam and Eve, by their sin, were brought into the world of nightmare. If you have ever had a dream that goes bad, quickly, you know the terror these two felt as they lived with their new choice. Once I dreamed I was drowned by a tidal wave that swept over my dad and me as we were enjoying a pleasant conversation. Sin is the dream turned nightmare…the hope made slimy and filthy. Eve, perfect in her form, lovely to her husband, confident in her endeavors, became naked. She suddenly was despised and forlorn and isolated.

Living for God could be defined as the fight against temptation. The battle to follow God is brutal and once we submit to temptation, it brings us into a nightmare that is uncontrollable and deadly and we never can be certain where it will bring us. Sin is not a servant, it is a master and it controls us, we do not control it. As the Apostle Paul put it, Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey-whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? (Romans 6: 16 NIV) Temptation on the other hand can be mastered but it is tough. Both our body and our mind push us unceasingly toward sin and there is only one way out. What Eve did not do, we can. Hebrews 4: 15-16 reminds us that Jesus, having been tempted in every way that we are tempted, sympathizes with our weaknesses…the press of our bodies and the pull of our distracted minds make it almost impossible not to give in to the nightmare sin brings. But verse 16 gives us the secret to not giving in to sin. Only one force breaks the power of our bodies and mind. The grace of Jesus! Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

The old game show offered three doors and only one could be chosen. If you chose poorly, you went home with junk, choose wisely, your fortune could suddenly be made. Life is an unbroken chain of door number ones or door number twos. Eve chose door number two and her life became a nightmare. What, might be behind door number one? Only God knows. But, it won’t be door number two. Just ask Eve what she thinks of that!

Temptation--Continued

...The delay in punishment…death does not come immediately and definitely doesn’t occur when the temptation is working on us, makes temptation a ruthless enemy. If Adam would have seen Eve keel over as soon as she bit into the fruit, he might have thought twice about biting into it himself. Or even Eve, if she felt sick to her stomach as she gazed upon the fruit, she might herself have stopped short. But temptation works in a timeless fashion. The punishment isn’t there for you…all you have is the object of your desire. Tomorrow doesn’t come.

Temptation works at a second level. It rejects the premise that God speaks truthfully. When Satan denied God’s assertion that if Adam or Eve touched the fruit, they would die; he stated emphatically that they most certainly would not die. Temptation is more than a nod at something to do; it is a turning from someone who is. If God is not dependable and His words not trustworthy or more importantly, He isn’t really out there; then who can say what is right and wrong. Temptation is mostly a listing toward what seems good when God isn’t there to make sense of it.

The most interesting part of Joseph’s success at fighting off the temptation of Potiphar’s wife is that he never let go of two crucial parts to the sin he was facing. Potiphar had been good to him and sleeping with his wife would be horrible. Secondly, God was still and sinning against Him by sleeping with her was even a worse thing to do. His retort, when Potiphar’s wife kept pressing in her seduction was, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house, everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” (Genesis 39: 8 NIV) If Potiphar was merely a shadow image and God just a picture on the wall, then Potiphar’s wife was pretty appealing. But if both existed, then the sin was terrible to contemplate. Temptation is like a drug that makes God go away and everyone impacted by the sin go away. They aren’t really gone, it just seems like they are. Like a child who puts a blanket over his head and thinks no one can see him, so is the one being tempted tricked into believing the temptation has mystical powers. It makes you think God is gone...

Continued in next blog...