What Freedom Cost ...

In our quest to get to know our Creator God, one of the first things we want to know is what He is like?  What does it really mean for God to say that He loves us?  I guess the first way to begin to answer this is to understand what God has already done for you, to be able to offer you your freedom and the ability to reconcile with Him.  We have already talked about how a plan was made even before our creation, in the event we would require Salvation.  But what were the specifics of this plan?

There are rules in nature, as there are in mathematics, physics, and biology to name a few.  Rules seem to surround us.  They define how we exist.  They give us boundaries.  They protect us.  For example, without the ‘rule’ of gravity, we could float away from the ground, eventually reaching a point where the atmosphere is too thin for us to breathe, causing us to lose oxygen and die.  Gravity therefore binds things together, such as us to the ground, keeping us safe.  No matter what the ‘rule’ is, breaking it, leads to a consequence.  It is equivalent to the concept of cause and effect, and this is true even in the area of moral laws, not just physical ones.  When ‘trust’ is broken for example, it is quite difficult to restore.  It is not impossible to put back, but the effort to rebuild a broken trust is no small endeavor.  It is then far easier to keep trust than to restore it.  So it was that the choice of things other than good, had consequences that must be addressed.  The nature of evil, once explored, takes over its victim, corrupts their judgment, and wreaks havoc on them until they completely self-destruct.  It is somewhat ironic that placing focus on self, leads so thoroughly to self-destruction.  None the less this ‘penalty’ (or result of these choices) must be paid. 

After preparing our world for us, with an abundant variety of plants, animals, birds, and fishes our Creator God made the first human creation and called him Adam, later He made Eve.  We will discuss this act of creation in much further detail, but for now were going to stay focused on the topic of the details of God’s plan for us.  In order to insure that God truly offers all of His creations freedom of choice, Lucifer (now called Satan) was permitted access to our world.  He lied to our ancestors, and they failed to trust God.  That failure led to disobedience, and disobedience self-perpetuates and consumes its victim, as it did to Adam and Eve.  It was at that point that the death of man seemed to be our only fate.  Having embraced ‘evil’ we would now have suffer the fate of ‘evil’. 

But instead, God took pity on man, and laid out what His plan was to save us.  God, in the form of His Son Jesus, would come to this world.  This Messiah would come as a man, live a perfect life (accomplishing what we failed to do as a species), and then pay the penalty for our sins.  He would literally die in our stead.  He would suffer cruelty throughout His lifetime here on earth.  He would be spit upon.  He would be beaten with whips that held pieces of glass in their tip.  He would be abandoned by those that stated they loved Him.  Those who He loved would be the instruments of His torture.  This was the level of commitment God made to save us, to reach out to even His most devout enemies.  To endure all of these things, while all the time being able to choose not to follow-through with it.  He could have simply resumed His God status and left the misery of this world behind in a second – but that would have left us condemned to the fate we deserve.  And He would not.  He chose to die for us; to pay the consequences of the broken laws, on our behalf.  Oh the depths of love, to do ALL of this for someone so unworthy as Hitler, and Saddam Hussein, and me.  To offer the very least of mankind the fate that God deserves, and take on Himself the fate that we deserve.  Herein lays the most compelling evidence that our Creator God is the ONLY God.

For thousands of years man looked forward to the promise of a Messiah.  During this time, the Universe watched our world and continued to hear Satan blame God for all the woe and calamity here on earth.  And the remaining intelligent life beyond our world continued to trust God, but pondered Satan’s arguments.  Then the Messiah came, and even Satan was amazed that God would go this far for fallen man.  Though God had given many prophesies to help men know the time of His coming, we were completely unprepared for His arrival.  But as promised, He lived that perfect life, and at our hands He died.  At that point ALL life in the remainder of the Universe saw the true nature of ‘evil’ – Satan was unmasked.  He was seen for what he was, and it was known that any and all ‘evil’ would eventually result in the death of the Creator.  At this Satan was completely rejected everywhere in the rest of the Universe.  No intelligent life would ever listen to him again.  His arguments had been proven completely false.  And so for the last 2 thousand years, man has been given an opportunity to see evil for what it truly is.  It is our turn now to choose to reject evil, and be bound by it no more.  This is the plan of Salvation done for us.  Our freedom cost the Son of God, our Creator, His very life.  Though after 3 days, the Messiah arose from death, and conquered it.  He returned to His Father’s side to see if the sacrifice was enough to reclaim us.  And the Father God accepted the sacrifice of His son, and declared our Salvation complete.  We should not ever forget what was done for us, and while we were yet His enemies.

As we continue our journey to know and grow close to our God, we can begin to KNOW He loves us more than His own life.  It is much easier to trust someone who loves you.  We can accept what He asks us to do, and accept the advice He gives us – KNOWING that everything He asks or says is based in complete love for us.  He did not die for us to bring us evil, but to deliver us from it.  He did not die for you to be sad for the things you ‘give up’ to be close to Him.  He died and arose for you to begin to see what evil truly is, and to avoid those things that would wish to destroy your very existence.  These are the stakes - A Creator God who craves our well being, and a Satanic master of evil and deceit whose only wish is to torture and kill us. 

So what lessons of good and evil can we learn next?  How about for starters a conversation on a topic we all enjoy (or want to) that is, what sex was meant to be, (it’s probably not what you think) so stay tuned …

The Consistency of Dreams ...

“Perhaps to dream” … mused Shakespeare.  What is a dream made up of?  Is it merely the synapses of the brain firing in a semi-conscience sleep state associated with rapid eye movement, or something more?  Could it be the late night pizza right before bed, combined with the everyday stress and periodic fantasies that then come to life when trying to get some rest.  But more than all of these, God has spoken to men through their dreams.  So has his enemy.  They can’t all be meaningless any more than having them all mean something significant.

Growing up I frequently had dreams of flying.  The sensation was something I cannot describe with my conscience mind, only to say it felt like I imagine it would feel like.  The scarier side of the flying dream, was the anti-gravity dream – in this one I just can’t stay on the ground no matter how hard I cling to it.  I rise up relatively fast, above the neighborhood, city, state, nation, and planet, eventually into space and beyond the Milkyway.  Now as an adult I have some idea through NASA photos, and science fiction movies and TV what that might actually look like.  But having this somewhat scary dream at age seven seems a bit intense, even for me.  I cannot explain why the imagery was so perfectly clear in either kind of childhood dream, nor do I attribute any significance to either one.

In my teen-age / early adulthood years the most positive dream I ever had was about Heaven.  I was there literally with Christ (though I could not discern His face); we were working with 24 elders on something I thought had to do with judgment.  We were in a room inside a palatial building inside the city of Heaven that remains too beautiful to describe.  When I woke from this one, I felt the best feeling I have ever had.  On the converse, I also dreamed I encountered Satan himself (although I could not discern his face either) in a black robe with red lining along a country road somewhere in the hills and woods of the deep south.  The dream terrified me as his presence was so evil I cannot find the words to convey it.  I just knew who it was.  Both these dreams were intense and when I awoke my entire body reacted to both sets of stimuli.  But I attribute no special significance to either of these dreams.

I tend to side with the agnostics regarding the spiritual significance of dreams and their interpretations.  As the mind nears consciousness I am able to control the actions and course of my dreams until the moment I awake.  My past experiences lead me to believe that a true communication from beyond my own plain would be a truly rare thing.  It is not that I do not believe it to be possible, but in general I remain skeptical, and slow to accept the idea.  The metaphysical question of what is a thought, or what is a dream, is more of interest to me personally. 

But how do you know when you are being communicated with or not?  In the Old Testament, Pharaoh was given a dream regarding the future of Egypt and the surrounding world.  Several things interest me about that story.  First, Jacob was God’s chosen servant, and he did not get the dream.  Second, Joseph was in Egypt at the time and he did not get the dream either (even if only to corroborate what Pharaoh saw).  When Joseph interpreted the dream he first declares it to be from God.  Joseph’s ability to interpret seems as much the miracle as Pharaoh having the dream in the first place.  Then of course, everything predicted happens exactly as foretold.

This example tells me that communication through dreams is not only possible, it has happened before, and may again.  The second thing it tells me as that the person who has the dream does not have to be perfect, have their own relationship with Christ, be a saint, or even believe in the Hebrew God.  Pharaoh in point of fact was an active blasphemer who already claimed he was god on earth.  The second thing this example tells me is that Pharaoh, probably because of all the conditions I just listed, could not tell the meaning of his dream, but knew it meant something.  Next up was Joseph, whose relationship with Christ was close enough to be able to discern the meaning in Pharaoh’s stark imagery.  The dream itself by the way, did not make sense.  Famine cows consuming fat cows, withered corn stalks eating up ripe corn stalks – sounds like a Stephen King movie to me.  But Joseph saw the next 14 years foretold in that sequence.

One other notable lesson from this example, Pharaoh being human, likely had dreams his whole life long – both before and after this event; none of them ever had the same effect.  And contrary to the endless doomsayers who speculate on God as being a vengeful, angry, killer of men – God sent this very dream to save people, not destroy them.  Though his diligent work of building granaries and storing the excess crops for the first seven years, Pharaoh and Joseph saved not only the chosen people of Israel (Jacob and his rather large household who were striken by the famine even in the promised land), but they saved the people of Egypt, and the other surrounding nations as well.  Trading corn and grain for gold and silver, Egypt became a world power through this series of events.  But not to lose the point, God sent this dream to Pharaoh as he alone could spare SO MANY of his children.

Unfortunately, for the rare factual God based communication that was given to Pharaoh, there is a myriad of people who also believe they too have been given a message to the world from God.  Well intentioned folks believe that any kind of communication sent to them, must by default come from God.  They do not assume that late night meals, visual stimuli, chemical imbalances, and the human imagination could ever conjure up these messages.  They assume that because a frequent visitor brings them messages it must be real somehow.  It is possible.  After all Pharaoh proves that.  But probable?

To know what is what we have a few things to consider.  First of all, logic dictates that and we have already discussed that the nature of God is good, lacking all evil as evil self-destructs.  Therefore it stands to reason that God would be consistent.  He does not change or vary from one eon to another, only good is there, both now, then, and always.  So if the contents of a dream do not align with what we already know about God it is highly likely the “message” did not come from Him. 

God uses communication to save, to uplift, for the benefit of mankind (and frankly not just some of mankind, but all of mankind).  God is not about destruction, but about salvation.  His entire love letter (also known as the Bible) and his creation of the beauty and complexity of nature itself, are consistent with who He is.  While evil may taint our world, our minds, and our ability to understand – God is consistent in His communication with us to teach us of His love. 

Love is a free will choice.  Love is not without constraints.  I show you my love for you by what I do for you.  It would be hard to reconcile the idea that I love my very small child, if I allow my child to start playing in the street with high traffic.  I keep them out of the street as I know better than my child, what will keep them safe.  So it is with God.  If the message says to let go, run wild, embrace evil, everything will be fine – it is probably not from God.  Conversely if the message is designed to constrict thinking, reduce choices, or enforce mandates without reason it too is likely not from God.  Love is a free will choice.

Evaluating messages based on the person who delivers them is completely pointless.  Pharaoh proved that too.  But evaluating messages based on the content of the message is our responsibility.  We must compare what is being said, to what we know of God, what we read in His word, and what we see in nature.  If still confused or uncertain, we should bring it before the Lord in prayer and ask for guidance.  God is ALWAYS out to teach us of His love, what love is, and what it means to love.  He is our salvation, not our deceiver.  He will not lead us away from His throne of grace.  We must look to our Father God, our Creator God, and ask for, and be willing to receive guidance from Him in these matters.

The problem with scrutinizing these kinds of messages and dreams is that most of them (if not all) fall apart fairly quickly.  The inconsistencies are usually clear to see and point out.  The dreamers appear the most reluctant to scrutinize their own messages as they seem less interested in finding out their “source” may not be what they thought.  If we are not willing to hear the “no”, how can we be ready to hear the “yes” when it comes.  Truth is out there.  It can and one day will come in the “dreams of your young men” as we have been promised, as well as in the “prophesies of your old men”.  Someday.  But we must learn to discern truth from error, realizing there is much error and little truth in our world.  When truth comes, it will stand scrutiny, as Christ stood scrutiny.  He has His accusers as well, but they could not break His purity or His purpose.  Truth will stand in this way as well …

Heaven's Language ...

There is a phenomenon in many Christian churches where believers possessed by ‘the spirit’ begin speaking in a language no-one can easily understand.  It is referred to as “speaking in tongues.”  It is generally accompanied by a feeling of euphoria and sometimes involuntary muscle movement (lifting arms, etc.).  This is thought by some to be a very important part of the “Christian” experience.  Some groups of believers think without participation in this kind of supernatural demonstration, the person has not yet been touched by the Holy Spirit, and others believe you cannot be saved without this kind of thing in your worship style.

It seems like gibberish to the non-believer and this is something worthy to take note of.  God does promise His people certain gifts of the Holy Spirit.  This is one of the most powerful and meaningful promises in the entirety of scripture.  And it is important we realize what receiving one of these gifts means to us as unique individuals.  First, a gift from God is not the same thing as being granted superman-style abilities.  Herein is the biggest obstacle believers face, and the reason why so few are given these important gifts – we forget they are NOT ours – they are truly gifts, given to use for the glory of God, NOT for our glory. 

Too many of us, would perform or use a gift, and immediately turn to our neighbor and say “look what I did” – emphasis on “I”.  We do it all the time with what we have already been given.  We claim our victories over evil and temptation as “ours” instead of giving God ALL the credit as He alone deserves.  We claim our faith as “ours” instead of recognizing even faith is a gift from God.  We have a history of taking credit for every religious benefit we discover from serving God, so how can we be trusted with more?  We do the same with our strengths of character and body.  We believe the traits we excel at to be a result of our hard work, or genetic predisposition, rather than ponder whether they too were gifts from God.

We make self-centered statements like “promising” to do things (as if we could predict or control the future to allow us to fulfill our commitments).  Instead we are told simply let your “yes” mean “yes” and your “no” mean “no”.  We make vain statements like saying “I would NEVER do that.”  This is a statement that works out to a virtual guarantee we in fact WILL do the very thing we disavowed.  It is not in our power to use words like NEVER.  Even when we are referring to ourselves and our actions, this word is not something we can control or predict.  Our ideas change over time, our actions reflect them.  I think God teaches us important lessons, reminding us of our use of the word NEVER in our lives.  It always comes back to haunt us, to remind us of what humility is.

If we could learn to put away our selves, and constantly offer God ALL the praise and ALL the glory for the good in our lives, we would then be ready to accept the responsibility of the gifts God wants to bestow on use through His Holy Spirit.  These gifts are for the building up of His church.  The actual “gift of tongues” was considered to be one of the least of the gifts we are given.  It was designed to accommodate the multi-lingual culture of the early Christian church.  There were people who spoke Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, Egyptian, and Roman just to name a few, on a regular basis in and around Jerusalem.  In order for everyone to understand what the early followers of Christ were saying, they were offered the “gift of tongues” (the ability to speak in a single language, and be understood in many at once).  Sometimes a person “interpreted” sermons for large crowds without ever having studied the language (this too was a variation of this gift).  The idea of speaking gibberish was not what was intended for the use of this gift.  Heaven’s language is effectively universal.  It is the ability to have your audible sounds interpreted perfectly in your mind regardless of whether the spoken words reflect English, Latin, Hebrew, or an unknown language.

But the ability to communicate was considered low on the scale of gifts given by God.  To some (i.e. those who have the character, skills, interests, humility, and preparedness) He gives the ability to prophesy, to teach, to discern between truth and error, to comfort, to heal.  All these gifts are waiting for the believer who prepares himself by giving up all credit for his strengths, giving over total control to God, yielding the idea of self-gratification to that of service for others.  These gifts while supernatural, do not ever cancel the counsel given in the written word, nor do they negate the character of God.  To employ them with the intent to do harm, or for self gratification, would be only to employ evil as the source.  Yet the promise remains.

We do not need to attempt to imitate the actions of others who appear euphoric or who seem to speak random gibberish.  This is not the goal of the servant of God.  Our goal is to serve others, to love others, to accept and forgive others – even those who wish us harm.  To this end we are promised gifts of the Spirit of God.  It is not for us to turn our focus inward, and spend our time seeking to be happy and joyful in our worship, by entertaining a euphoric state of nonsense.  Rather let our euphoria come in the rejoicing over the sinner who repents and comes home.  Let our joy ring out loud as we learn to forgive those in our family who have wronged us.  Forgive those who have hurt us.  Let our forgiveness bring us true freedom, and become happy in our worship as we realize the joys of these much more simple gifts.  Perhaps as we embrace humility further we will learn even more the true power of our God…

That Still Small Voice ...

There are those that say God is mute.  That He never actually speaks to us in an audible voice, or in any direct way, making it impossible for us to know His will in any given situation.  When presented with these situations they believe that ‘doing your best’ is all that is required and completely sufficient.  Were this true, the implication would be that God has deserted us, and left us to our own best judgment; and we throughout the course of this blog have come to realize ‘our’ own best judgment is far from good.

So when something comes up that requires a decision, how do we determine what God would want for us to do?  The simple bumper-sticker concept of What Would Jesus Do seems a bit insufficient.  After all, the sentiment is good, but it leaves open the interpretation and still does not directly answer our question.  The first place to turn is usually the Bible.  It offers excellent advice on many topics, however, for decisions that result from a modern age, you would have to have studied the Bible enough to interpret the values it espouses to our current situations.  Again the interpretation of scripture is sometimes subjective, and can lead one to follow the desires of their own heart anyway, rather than seeking an objective answer, a danger we all face.

Since God created nature (His first book if you will) people sometimes examine how nature functions and try to interpolate an answer for their given situation.  However, even nature is currently cursed by sin.  Were it still pure, the animal kingdom would be dining on hay, rather than have formed a dog-eat-dog, or little-fish-gets-eaten-by-big-fish dogma.  Nature still offers answers but is also a silent instructor. 

After exhausting the best direct vehicles for learning what God wants, humans tend to seek council from each other.  At least another human is capable of understanding our issues and fully capable of offering advice in an audible understandable format.  It seems wise to seek the advice of a ‘learned spiritual counselor’ as people who appear to have studied religious things for a long time might have a better knowledge of God.  If the person whose council you seek seems very passionate about God, perhaps they truly do know him better.  This approach is not to be condemned, but it should send up a small warning flag for us.  We need to ask the question of ourselves, do I seek another more spiritual person’s advice because I do not trust my own connection with God in this matter, or because my own connection does not exist at all?  A ‘second’ opinion or ‘third’ opinion is an excellent thing, but it should not be taking the place of a ‘first’ opinion.

God is fully capable of speaking directly to each of us.  His methods vary by our willingness to listen.  When we pray for example, do we pose our questions, and then remain silent listening for an answer, or do we so quickly move on with our next request, leaving Him no time to respond.  The Holy Spirit, the third part of the Godhead, is in our world today.  He is our comforter.  Part of His role is to facilitate our prayers to heaven and the communication back to us in ways we can understand.  Have you ever heard a sermon, or musical song that praises God, or listened to someone who was simply on-fire for God?  Do their words, or song, move you?  How so?  In my own case, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.  I get cold chills from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet.  This physical phenomenon is a personal indicator to me that the words I am hearing are true, and of God.  If I am unsure of the source of my physical manifestation, I pray the quick prayer, “in Jesus name, where do you come from”.  If it is not of God, it disappears immediately.  But that is not usually the case I have come to know.

In the old testament, the children of Israel faced decisions for which there was no written word to answer.  They did not always have Moses to tell them what God wanted.  And therefore the high priest wore a breastplate with 2 different gem stones.  One stone for yes, and one stone for no.  When they posed a question to God, either the yes or no stone glowed from within so brightly the outcome was not in doubt.  Why not have God just speak to them directly?  He tried this.  After coming out of Egypt the entire camp prepared to hear the voice of the Lord directly themselves.  They cleaned up for 3 days, preparing.  On the selected day, when the Lord began speaking, it sounded like a combination of trumpets, tornadoes, and thunder.  All were stricken with fear that prostrated them face down in the dirt (so much for cleanliness), but in spite of their fear, some began to stand and recite the words of Lord, as they began to understand what He was saying.  You see our sin blinds us to the words of our God, but His patience is greater than our demise.  His love is more tender than our degradation.  And despite our condition of terminal sin, He reaches out to us still and still today talks directly to all who will listen.

God is not mute.  Why would He be?  He desperately cares about each of us, not just in whether we choose to follow Him or not, but in the course of our daily lives.  He cares about the little things we encounter, like finding that parking space, or missing set of car keys.  Yes, the creator of the Universe will gladly make time to help you find the car keys you misplaced last night when you came home, cause “you need to get to work now”.  Talk about a sense of humor – “YOU” need to get to work – don’t you think God might be a little tied up, what with running the entire Universe and answering the pleading prayers of millions of those who cry out? – but no, wait a minute, you lost your car keys and now need Gods help finding them.  The irony of this situation (which creates the humor for me) is that God does take time just for you.  He really does help you find those missing little car keys.  That is how much He cares about you.  That is the priority He places on you, you personally.  You mean that much to Him.  Thinking that God remains silent when you ask Him something of great importance is crazy when we sit back and realize how many little things he does for us all the time.

Don’t get me wrong, cold chills and a still small voice are not a replacement for the Bible.  Physical manifestation of God’s response to our questions is not designed to undo His work in our lives through reading of His word, or studying his book of nature.  The physical manifestations (whatever they may be to you personally) should only add or clarify His earlier instruction, not replace it.  The Bible is very self explanatory in most cases.  And one key principle we have already discussed from a purely logical perspective is that God does not change the character of who He is.  When God issues a directive He seldom undoes it.  The idea of “not stealing” for example, is a partial definition of how to love someone else.  Obviously just not stealing from another person, does not mean you completely know how to love them – but it is a start.  This concept will not be undone, because you get cold chills when thinking about stealing from your bank.  That is not God telling you it is OK to go against His principles, that is Satan tempting you to ignore what you know already.

But sometimes the physical answer from God can help us out when the way is unclear.  And sometimes when it is silent, it should cause us to re-examine the question we pose and see if our either-or scenario is not too limiting for what God actually intends for us.  Our version of yes-or-no is not always so complete a response from the perspective of an infinite God.  I love the Lord for many reasons, but one is most assuredly that He hears my pitiful requests for help, and that He despite my horrid condition of sin, answers me both in His word, in his creation, and through a personal physical phenomenon that reminds me of His love.  I praise Him for this tender care and personal response …