No Fault Divorce

Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"

Mark 10:2 NIV

When a relationship of yours is broken, how do you know it is your fault?  For some they are never at fault.  Surely you don’t fit into this category of people but most have trouble accepting blame when they are squarely in the midst of an argument.  It is too satisfying to keep at it, to keep pounding away at fault, keep hammering the point.  The ability to shut-up in the middle of a fight is a God-send, but only if it results in a change of direction.  Given our tendency to lay blame, it is almost a pipe dream to hope that we could see our fault in a matter when we are steamed.  Adam and Eve proved that at the heart of sin is a propensity to lay blame, to find fault without rather than within.  One of the clear signals that we have erred and perhaps erred badly is a righteous anger that we have been wronged.  Consider the admonitions we find in scripture regarding fractured relationships.  "Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.  (Matthew 5:23-24 NIV)  "But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. (Luke 6:27-28 NIV) "Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”  (Matthew 7:1-2 NIV)  "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. (Matthew 7:3-5 NIV) But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. (Matthew 5:39-40 NIV)

The weight of scripture is stacked against you if you are making your case in a broken relationship.  Whatever argument you may have wedged into your fight, whether spoken or unspoken is nearly always wrong or at least irrelevant.  There is almost no room for squaring things off; at least if you are pretty certain it is the other person’s corner that is misaligned.  Our bent heart rarely gets it right when we begin to assess blame.  Sin warps our view of nearly every accusation we have; we are much more likely to get it wrong when we are incensed than have grasped the right thread of a matter.  Nothing violates our life with God more than playing the judge in our disagreements; acting as the accuser in our fractured relationships.  Fault may be shown but most likely it will only be our own that we find uncovered in the rubble.  Better to forgive, ignore or let go than fight on and try to take it to the mat.  Adam knew it was his wife’s fault but right or wrong in his assumption, he was given bitter toil for life for his part…one must wonder what God would have done instead if he had simply said he was wrong and left the matter at that…leaving Eve out of it.  We know our God’s mercy.  Why trifle with his patience by keeping our fights alive when we can simply end them with forgiveness and a resolve to give up the cloak demanded of us?  Blessed still are the peacemakers for they will be called the sons of God.  Isn’t it better to be happy than cling to a warped form of rightness?

Do The Faith

Back in the Old Testament we see one of the most practical and profound examples of faith.  Abraham, but at the time we are speaking still known as Abram was living with his wife Sarai in Haran because he and his father Terah decided to move there.  Why they left their home in Ur to set out for Canaan which was much further south we don’t know but rather than continuing the journey, when they reached Haran, the little clan just stopped there.  Nothing is said of God telling them to go to Canaan or stop in Haran, they simply went there.  This though is where the story gets quite interesting because when Abram was 75 and his father 155 years old Abram was told by God to leave Haran and go on to Canaan.  Now how this came to him we cannot say; it may have been through a dream or a vision or just a sense but however it came to him, the message was clear.  Abram was to leave Haran and go to Canaan and there God would make his name great and everyone in the world would be blessed through him.  That of course was a monster of a word from God but again we don’t know how it came to Him nor how believable it seemed for Him or anyone else.  All we know is that Abram packed his things and brought his wife and nephew Lot and all his stuff as well as his employees down to Canaan.  Terah, his father, did not go however. Why didn’t he?  Perhaps he didn’t have faith in what Abram said was a word from God.  Maybe he was tired and just wanted to relax.  He did live another fifty years in Haran though so it isn’t like he was at death’s door.

Faith is a practical thing.  For Abram it was the quite concrete and common-place act of moving.  For you it could be quitting your job, giving more to the church, starting a cell group in your home, changing majors, building a friendship, stopping a habit, forgiving a sin, rejecting a sinful behavior, carving out time to study the Bible, praying over a sick friend, taking up the piano, giving away your TV, organizing a mission trip, starting a conversation about your faith, inviting neighbors over for dinner so they can hang out with a real Christian, saying “no” to an opportunity because you realize God is telling you “no”.  Abram had to leave his father in Haran when he wouldn’t go and move to a place filled with danger and corruption but he went because by faith he knew God wanted him to go.

Faith is the practical act of doing what has become clear God wants you to do.  The Holy Spirit can speak to you through a dream, through the Bible, through a Christian friend or just a clear sense of something but as it starts to become obvious to you that God is pushing you into an act, it is the most right and perfect thing for you to do, both for you and those impacted by you doing the faith act.  Your hesitancy only makes your relationship with God muddied and inhibits the blessing God has for those affected by your act of faith.  The longer you wait to do what God has said, the less you know anything of God and His ways, the more hard and unproductive your life becomes and the less you do any good for anyone.  In fact you may hurt greatly those you love by stopping at the point of faith.  We would never have had a Savior if Abram had stayed in Haran, but when He acted in faith he started the same sort of thing you too can start.  He kicked off a chain of events that resulted in God blessing Abram’s world.  Do the faith act and you will know God like never before and those you are afraid you will hurt by your obedience to Christ will be blessed beyond your dreams.  You are Abraham and you are Barnabas and you are Ruth.  Read your Bible daily and each time you know God has told you to do something act in faith and do it.  Do it and don’t hesitate.  Do the faith.

Minding Your Business

Minding Your Business

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. (James 4:1-3 NIV)

Every form of anger other than righteous or holy anger generated by the Spirit of God is due to a lack of contentment with what God has given you or allowed come to you.  When you want more than He wants you to have or feel that you deserve something better than what you have gotten, whether it be better treatment, more respect or greater influence, you get angry or depressed and the peace of God leaves you.  Angry, bitter thoughts sprout within a mind that has not made Christ its center or Lord.  Cursing, complaining and angry words are always a sign of idolatry; of wanting something more than what comes out of the hand of Christ.

When Christ is not the source of your joy and peace, your mind will become less able to guide you rightly, making you susceptible to depression, anger, apathy and confusion.  Nothing weakens your mind’s ability to make sense of things more than your devotion to Christ weakening.  You are less patient, more prone to take offence, less able to forgive, more judgmental, more frustrated and your ability to make sense of your life diminished.  The mind out of sorts with the Holy Spirit lacks the most important component needed to be happy and at peace; the guidance and empowerment of God.  The mind becomes a battleground where despicable and hurtful thoughts fight with what is right and good and all too often win.

The way to clear your mind and make your thinking free of its power to mislead you is to follow the instruction of Philippians 4.  Present your requests to God rather than ponder them, complain about them or fume about them.  Be thankful rather than disappointed, keep looking for the good Christ is doing for you and do not be misled into thinking you are somehow losing or missing out.  Every circumstance is being used by God for your good so there is never a reason to be frustrated or upset about how someone treats you or the difficulties you face.  The role of your mind is to keep bringing you to Christ if it isn’t, you must discipline it to do that very thing.  Force yourself to be thankful to God or ask for His help.  If you aren’t doing one or the other, you are losing your mind to every trap and misdirection Satan may use to confuse and confound you.  It is certain if you fail to pray for help or thank God for what you have at any moment, you risk losing your thoughts to a demonic attack upon your brain, one you may even know is happening.  Depression, anger, bitterness, jealousy, despair, loneliness, lust, disgruntlement, self-pity are not from God.  They are all the fruit of refusing to either ask Christ for help or thank Him for what He has given you.  You may be snared in one of Satan’s traps or just living in the natural result of your own sin but you don’t have to stay there.  Your mind can be happy and contented but you must go back to the one thing.  Praise Christ for what you have or ask for His help.  Reclaim your mind and get on with the business of having a good life today.

Blinders

One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched.   (Luke 14:1 NIV)

There are only two reasons to carefully watch Jesus.  Either you do so to know where to turn away from Him or you do so to know where to turn into Him.  Jesus put the Pharisees and religious leaders on the spot when He asked them if it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath.  If they said, “yes”, then they would begin to turn into Him but if they said, “no”, they would move away.  Jesus is the way; every turn from Him is toward hell and the bitterness of perdition.  Turn into Him and your soul begins to light up with the golden blaze of heaven and the comfort of His glory.  The move into Christ is subtle and quiet, away is loud and boisterous.  The cheers of the world give you a great boost as you jump out from His shelter.  It is exhilarating; freeing to turn outward and gain something fresh and pretty.  Yet the maggots begin to eat at the corpse and it soon becomes clear that the move out is one of the grave and the façade gives way to a very real end point. 

Turn inward though to Christ and the stillness of the move shocks you for you had hoped it would be more glorious, livelier than that.  You had planned on a great pleasure to overtake you, a mighty rush of joy to prove your rightness but it is more still than the breeze of the butterfly or the whisper of the creeping lizard.  The aloneness of the move inward frightens you for it is at once quite final and at the same time uninspiring.  Yet you are alive and living will take you captive, just as the antibiotic takes you captive with its dripping health.  The death of self is not a dying death; it is a living death that becomes more vivacious as you escape into Christ.  Your tears will come alive along with your wounds and terrifying doubts for the deadness of them before will wiggle free with the life of Jesus.  All wounds will be cause for glory, all heartache a well of sweet freedom and hope, all doubts a cup of faith.  Turn into Christ with each moment of the day, every trial you face and temptation stumbling your plodding steps and you will gain a bit more life, a bit more dynamic gumption.  Your mind will grow free of the former bondage that fooled it into thinking it was already free.  You will see and love and bless and be a well of living water springing up at the moment within the hub and bub of your normal contentious day.  Someone will feel your touch and it will be the touch of the Spirit slipping to them with all the power of the resurrection of Christ Easter morning.

The Right Spirit

The Right Spirit

 

A man’s spirit sustains him in sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?  (Proverbs 18:14 NIV)

 

Of the many tasks a church may have, certainly high up on the list is making certain none of its members have a crushed spirit.  There are countless ways a spirit can be crushed but never should it be a Christian who does it.  Jesus rebuked and sometimes fiercely.  His admonishment of Peter for insisting that Jesus would not suffer death was astonishingly stern and yet we can tell it did not crush Peter’s spirit nor was it intended to do so.  When our pride is struck a blow, our self-interest threatened or our greed throttled, viciously we go after the spirit of another and with the force of a hammer come down upon it with all we have.  We must pierce our own sin with the same tenacity of a surgeon going after infection but it is not ours to go after the sins of another.  We are too prone to cut off the arm when we find a sliver in the hand which we would never do about our own slivers. The tender generosity we have toward ourselves is not what we show toward the sinners we have grown to dislike.  We can tell just how far we have come by the way we view the atrocities of family members with whom we have grown weary.  A husband or wife or parent or sibling is our best barometer of real spiritual pluck.  If we give in to the temptation to try and batter the spirit of those closest to us for “making us” not like them, we know just where we are.  We have lost our mooring and strayed far from the Spirit’s shore.  It is hard to pray for one you dislike but it is the beginning point for regaining the love of Christ and the happy Christian life.  Certainly, if you cannot pray for the beast, then keep your mouth shut and stop being the beast.  Give yourself a chance to be the one those closest to you love to think about and find when they are with you gain renewed strength to rise above the sickness that comes upon us all.