Spitting in the Face of God ...

It is unthinkable isn’t it?  Even for someone who does not believe in another form of religion, human decency would prevent them from spitting in the Pope’s face, or in the Dali Lama’s face, or in Billy Graham’s face.  I may not agree with another person on a spiritual basis, or subscribe to their line of thought, but spitting in their face seems all but impossible.  So for a Christian to think it is not only possible, but plausible, that they are still – spitting in the face of Christ, is all but unthinkable – yet true.

During His trial here on earth, Christ suffered perhaps more than anyone has ever suffered at the hands of men.  The war was between Christ and Satan, but Satan refused to lift one of his own hands to do the dirty work of torture and death.  Instead he used men.  Inspired and insighted by Satan, men were the willing tools of the entire night of ridicule, torture, and death that came to the Creator God.  It was not Satan who spit on his redeemer, but men, who refused to see divinity wrapped in so lowly and humble a package.

The hardest part I believe, was knowing that within Him is the complete power to end it all.  Christ could have stopped everything by just letting a glimpse of His divinity show through the human veil of His suffering.  This is how He had cleansed the temple a few times before.  He allowed men to see a bit more of Him, and they fled from the source of purity as their shame required.  But during this farce of a trial, He remained silent.  Had He debated these men, He could have obtained a pardon, for His truth, was no match for their lies.  He had to remain silent in order that the conviction might stand, and the sentence be carried out.

Men spat in His face.  And He did not try to return the insult.  Rather, some of His few words were, … “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”.  Christians having the Bible, and the benefit of hindsight, often like to compare what they might have done with the Biblical record in these situations had they been there instead.  Our collective instinct when presented with the horrors being inflicted on Him, would be to try to stop the proceedings.  Break Him out.  Save Him.  We were not the only one with these thoughts.  Even then countless unfallen angels, must obey the instructions of their God, to allow this to occur.  Against all their better instincts and judgments, they must watch and do nothing to prevent the torture and death of their Lord and King.  How tested heaven was.

So perhaps even if our salvation must allow His death to occur, at least we would not participate in His torture, or His humiliation – would we?  One other difference between the Jews and Romans who took part in this His night of agony and death was our basic set of beliefs.  The Jews thought Christ to be a heretic, to be an instrument that threatened the very religion He had created.  The Jews thought that if they did not put a stop to His heresy, the entire faith might be destroyed.  So He must die.  The Romans thought Him to be merely another Jewish extremist criminal.  Their racially based hatred in trying so long to subdue this rebellious people led them to despise Jews in general, and particularly the criminals they were able to actually catch.

So when they spat in His face, they were trying to humiliate someone they believed to be a threat of one kind or another.  We know who He was.  We know what it took for our salvation, and theirs.  And while it was not our own hands that took up the whip, the spear, the cross, the crown of thorns – it was still for us that this price was paid.  So how could we ever spit in the face of this much love?

I have heard some people talk about “Cheap Grace”.  The concept is that since God will forgive us all of our misdeeds each time we ask Him, we can do whatever we want to as Christians and simply ask for forgiveness later.  This idea cheapens the value of Grace, and is a part of one of the most insidious deceptions ever to attack the souls of men.  To an extent, because it is true.  It is true that each time we ask forgiveness from Him, He forgives us everything.  The problem with attempting to leverage this idea for a more corrupt advantage however, is that the farther we choose to walk away from Him, the less likely over time we are prone to return and ask forgiveness again.  At some point, we just stop asking, choosing to do the things we “enjoy” rather than seeking His will.

When I refer to this idea as “Cheap Grace” there is another reason as well.  When you sin, or embrace evil, you make it necessary again for the enormity of the sacrifice He offered to redeem you.  It stops being Roman and Jewish hands that drove the nails through your Savior, it becomes your hands by proxy.  As you continue to sin, again and again, it is less and less the Roman hands who drove a spear through His side, and more and more your hands.  As He attempts to interfere with your acts of sin, offering you a way out before you complete them, but you stubbornly choose to complete the sin you were in the process of committing – it is you who spits in the face of Christ.

Your spit, your hammer and nails, your twisted crown of piercing thorns, your spear, your cross, and your tomb.  The weight of your sins required all of this from your Creator God in order that you might be spared a life of slavery to the sins you embrace.  He would have died for only you.  To save only you.  And the salvation He offers, only you can accept for yourself.  He does not recoil from the insults you hurl at Him.  He does not leave you, because you disobey and deserve the fate you run towards.  He does not resist the nails, or the torture, He must endure to free you, because He loves you this much.  Even with your own hands as you slay Him, He dies for your redemption.

It is not the Jews, or the Romans, who need to be blamed for the death of your Savior.  The blame is found in the mirror of self.  Each of us, singularly are to blame, and collectively should share the burden of this.  The burden is NOT the guilt, but the understanding of what sin would lead us all to perform.  Sin, if left unchecked and embraced, would lead each of us to kill the savior sent to save us.  Sin is the anti-God.  When we embrace deviation from all that is good, we embrace slavery to all that is bad.  We forsake life for death with our sins and our actions, even the ones that seem so small, and harmless.  They all lead to the same result – the death of our God himself, at our own hands, our spit in His gentle face.

The Grace our Lord gives to us, was bought at tremendous price.  It was paid for in self-restraint, humility, suffering, ridicule, and even death.  The entirety of unfallen worlds, and beings, remained in check following the commands of their God and ours, to not interfere, and allow Him to die.  The enormity of this sacrifice will never be fully understood.  Why my God would do this for me, is a question I cannot answer, save to say I am His child, and He is my Father.  I am the most of unworthy, I will never deserve this, I must then learn to accept the gift He has offered.  And rather than try to be worthy, I should learn how to submit, and to serve.  For it is in service that I will find His will more closely.  It is in humility I will understand His peace so much more.   And it is in obedience to Him, that perhaps finally I can learn to stop spitting in the face of Christ …

Accountability ...

The new buzz word since the departure of the Bush administration has become accountability.  The idea is that we will hold someone responsible for the tasks they have been assigned to fix.  If they fail, they will be held to account.  Crooked CEO’s could be held to account for fraudulent or perhaps even stupid actions and decisions.  I imagine the thirst for “justice” is fairly pent-up at the moment, and this new buzz word may hang around for a while. 

It is unfortunate, but there are those in the Christian community who are more than willing to accept the truth that God is the only being capable of freeing them from their evil nature.  However, their willing acceptance of this truth is coupled with the idea that if they then continue to embrace evil, God is ultimately responsible for their evil.  Accountability can safely be transferred to God, leaving them free to do whatever comes their way.  They have correctly embraced the freedom of the gospel, but have forgotten what the gospel actually is for.

Every single individual will ultimately be responsible for the one singular choice they make – whether to accept or reject the gift of salvation God has to offer them.  This decision is monumental, as it is a life changing decision.  It has effects both here and now, as well as an entire plan beyond the scope of this world.  And unfortunately because of free-will, it is not a one-time only non-revocable deal.  Having chosen to embrace the gift of God, you remain free to change your mind and ultimately reject it later.  It is not a decision that robs you of your free-will, therefore it reinforces it.  You do not have to recommit every other day, or after every mis-step or mis-deed.  It is neither your good deeds that save you, nor your bad deeds that cause you to lose out on salvation.  It is a simple choice to follow God or not.  To accept His gift or to reject it.

One of the real problems with evil, beyond its addictive nature, and its destructive nature, is its repetitive nature and the impact it has on the overall decision making process.  Any repeated behavior becomes habit over time, even instinctual.  When engaged long enough it becomes a part of who you are at your core, and can wind itself into your genetics to be passed on for generations to come.  If evil is allowed to run unchecked it spreads like a cancer as fast as it can go, taking over every facet of mind and body, attempting to crowd out even the thoughts of a saving God alternative. 

Accepting yourself as an evil creature by design, with no ability to change yourself, is ONLY half the way to salvation.  It is not accepting yourself and therefore your evil nature as just who you are, that God is looking for.  He is looking for you to complete the thought, and embrace His power to change you.  This is the GIFT of salvation itself, a life free from evil.  That is what He is trying to give you.  Your condition is not an excuse to stay evil, it is a recognition of the need for change only He can provide.  Recognition is a wake-up call, it’s time to change, not fall back to sleep.  Recognition is not supposed to be a snooze alarm.

Those who cling to evil, do not yet see it in its truest form.  They remain deceived by its meticulous marketing campaign, refined over the last 6000 years, by the master crafter of every form of evil.  Ever since the talking snake lied in the tree in the Garden, the lies have only gotten bigger, better, and harder to uncover.  Evil has only one recourse since its failure and ultimate extinction is guaranteed – it must work harder to inflict pain wherever it can on whoever will buy this form of junk.  Satan has spent his existence glorifying that which would destroy you and criticizing that which would renew you.

Think of the emptiness that follows the pursuit of power, control, wealth, and even living forever.  All men die.  And so ends whatever wealth, health, power, or acquisitions they have managed to accumulate in their meager time on earth.  Yet all these empty vain pursuits are so glorified by Satan they become the very fabric of the American dream.  Work hard, earn a good living, buy your own home, and make life better for your kids.  Problem is, since you have no control, you can do all these things and accomplish nothing.  In the end, having achieved all these things, the meaning is still missing, because service has been all but forgotten in the chase.

Serving the poor, the destitute, those in prison (who may well be guilty, but like you, their guilt does not change their need) – these actions are considered under the category of charity which can be excused in other forms such as giving money to United Way, in church, or to the occasional homeless guy.  Actual serving of others with our own hands, feet, sweat, and time are hardly ever even considered.  Service suffers from the pursuit of our life goals (all of which have been highly influenced by evil).

Our perceptions are warped.  We must remove the shackles from our eyes and see evil for what it truly is – pain incarnate.  Pain in a box.  Pain in a shiny wrapper.  Pain for you, for those who love you, for those you love.  Evil is nothing but pain for everyone.  Every variation of evil leads back to pain.  Christians who have the audacity to declare they can sin whenever they want to, cause God is in charge of fixing them – are effectively saying – I like the pain I live in, and want to keep hurting me, you, and everyone else, cause pain is fun.  Sin is not the reward, it is the punishment.  Freedom from sin is the reward.  To not act in a way that causes pain, is the goal.

Holding on to sin, or evil, in any form is like holding a sharp knife to your own naked body, and begin cutting things here and there.  “Cutters” in our society are restrained for their own good by “thinking” people.  The reason is that the “cutters” do not recognize the pain they inflict on themselves.  They like it.  They like the feeling of cutting into their own flesh.  “Normal” people see this is as a problem.  Yet the damage evil causes is just as real as cutting oneself, or even others.  Not all of the consequences of evil are as immediate to see as cutting yourself, but often the delayed consequences carry even more damage when finally seen.

The entire point of salvation is not to accept a life of sin, it is to embrace a life free from it.  You are accountable for your decision to accept God’s gift.  In accepting this gift of freedom, you are allowing God to change what needs to be changed in your life.  In every facet of your life.  Remember that like cancer invades many things and poisons everything it touches, so evil invades your desires, your thoughts, your ideas, the very core of who you are.  To remove evil, God must begin removing, and recreating these parts of who you are down to the very core of your being.  But you can trust Him.  The things He removes, He recreates the way they were intended.

He will take away your emptiness and give you purpose.  He will identify you uniquely from every other living being who has ever lived on planet earth or who will ever live on it – and speak to your heart, heal your needs, restore your hope, and be your God.  Your life is His gift to you.  He will remove all that plagues it, all that creates pain and chaos, and give you peace.  This is the gift of God.  A reason for hope itself.  Freedom from evil that will last through eternity is the agenda He brings to you.  Isn’t this what everyone needs?  Isn’t this exactly what you need?  Will you accept a restoration with your God?

Out of the Dark ...

Gloria Estefan had a very inspiring song she used to sing entitled “Coming Out of the Dark”.  I believe she wrote it after a fairly serious car accident / personal tragedy in her life.  From time to time I still hear the powerful chorus repeating in my head and I wonder to myself, are we Christians ready to finally come out of the dark?  Are we ready to depart from spiritual Babylon and leave her to her own condemnation?

In order to answer this question the first thing you need to do is separate criticism from counsel.  Maligning motives, negative language associated with inner thoughts and feelings, tearing something down, - these are all forms of criticism and tend to inspire a defensive response in the listener.  It should not be confused with statements of fact, or even opinion, that run counter to traditional thinking. 

Telling someone they are “doing it wrong” is not the same as telling someone “they are bad”.  You could be trying to tie a necktie for example, and be doing it wrong.  This can be fixed with a little advice.  Being “bad” is more of a subjective criticism and much harder to recover from.  And to carry the example a bit farther, often there is more than one way to tie a neck tie, or even recover from “being bad” so no-one who offers advices or counsel should believe they have an absolute lock on truth.

But in order to come out of the dark, I think it is important to realize how we got here, and where the dark is.  Most people associate darkness with evil, and simply believe the acts of the church members are like those of the world, therefore this is a call away from performing evil acts.  But I do not read in this text (in Revelation for those who are looking) as a call to perfection, but a call away from confusion that surrounds us.  I believe this is a call to clarity that will lead to perfection, but not the one without the other.

When you look at “the world” and “the church” the similarities are astounding.  In point of fact it is quite difficult to tell the difference between the two.  Christians that are bold enough to declare their faith seem to get caught in acts of betraying it left and right.  Christians who try to be quiet about their faith (the greater majority by far) find themselves engaged in all the “bad” behavior of their worldly counterparts, albeit seeking forgiveness for the trespasses.  Divorce rates in the church are just as high as in the world.  Drug addiction plagues both.  Alcoholism is found everywhere.  Sexual misconduct.  Judgmentalism.  In and out of the church, it looks no better.

This is the very definition of darkness.  But why is the church lingering here?  At its core, Christian churches have abandoned the idea of the “gift of Salvation”.  We have replaced the “gift of being saved from sin” with “sanctification is the work of a lifetime”.  We have replaced the simple joy of accepting the gift, with getting “ready to meet God”.  In short, we have substituted the work of surrender to God for victory over sin, with a partnership with God where we both work on our own problems.  But partnerships do NOT work.  And so Christians get up from their knees trying harder and harder, and failing more and more, until they just stop trying altogether.

We are in this darkness not because we fail in our actions, but because we fail in our thinking.  We would not be here if we finally learned what it means to surrender our will.  To give up to win, not to try harder.  To trust that God will not let us slide back into bad behavior, but longs to free us from it altogether and forever.  The relief and the peace that comes from this knowledge is the very siren call that will lead us all away from the darkness.  This is in fact the call away from confusion.  The call away from the focus on self.  It is time to relearn submission.

These days the name or term “fundamentalist” is applied to Christians with the same accuracy as the “Patriot Act” is applied to preserving our personal freedoms.  Christians have all but lost sight of their own fundamentals.  For instance, Christians the earliest variety and therefore most pure (closest to Christ) were the first group of people on earth to adopt communism.  They pooled all their wealth, sold everything they had, lived in one accord, and gave to each according their need.  Mind you, their form of communism, was built on the foundations of belief in Jesus Christ as their Savior, so it was far from Godless, but it worked, and they followed it for many years.

The first group of Christians were so disinterested in which government was in power, that they willing accepted their lot in life, even if that life was one of a slave.  They went about their duties performing them to the best of their ability, and honoring God all the day long.  They did not rebel.  They did not seek freedom of body.  They sought and found freedom of the soul.  Today’s Christians seem bent on not only being involved with Government, but literally controlling government so that they can enact an agenda that will prevent others from performing moral misdeeds, while losing complete sight of freedom of the soul.

The first group of Christians did not have extensive wardrobes.  They worked and labored for their food and lodging.  They taught those they worked with, ate with, worshipped with, and were in prison together with.  Believers were regularly put in prison for their radical beliefs, either by the established religions who did not want the competition, or by the governments who did not understand their radical beliefs.  In either case, believers did not rebel, they merely continued the work inside of the prisons they were sent.  In these conditions, can you imagine Christians trying to preserve a collection of jewelry to wear.  More than likely that would have either been sold for money to give to the poor, or been stripped away from them by their persecutors.  In either case, humility was far easier to achieve.

The first group of Christians taught with power and miracles and wonders followed their message and ministry.  Today we don’t even trust God enough to let Him conquer the sin within us, preferring to do the work ourselves.  With a record of abject failure in this regard, we have lost all belief that miracles could be worked through us.  And with our focus so bent inward, were we to have a miracle worked through us, the attention would go to us.  The glory, the credit, the honor, and the power – would be considered embodied in us, for this is our inherent nature we have yet to learn to sacrifice on God’s altar.  Until we surrender and become devoid of self, we remain ill suited for the working of miracle through us.

Yet the call remains, … “come away from her my people”.  Christ calls us from the confusion we have so surrounded ourselves with both inside and outside of our temple walls.  He calls us to the clarity that will embrace surrender.  The realization that you cannot, but God can.  The trust in God, that He will.  And the praise to God, when He does.  The abject death of self is on our horizon.  And once we experience it, we will no longer be “doing it wrong”.  We will stand apart from the masses.  We will be a light on the hill, though it will never be our light, but His light that shines within us.

I long to be a fundamentalist, who understands the fundamentals properly.  I wish to know what Salvation means.  I wish to know how to love.  I wish to know what freedom from sin is like.  I wish to know what it is like to serve with no expectations.  I wish to be immersed in the depths of Christ and completely dead to self.  I wish no more to embrace evil, but only to understand it properly so as to avoid it forever trusting in my God to save me from its bondage.  These are just a few of the fundamentals I wish to know.  For now I see only through a glass darkly, but the call remains to … “come out of the dark”.

Earning What You Deserve ...

“The wages of sin is death.”  The apostle Paul penned a sentiment that was more profound than a cursory first view might reveal.  Most of us read this text and infer that by embracing evil (committing sin) it will result in our ‘eventual’ punishment – i.e. death.  We interpret the death to be physical, and therefore this text reads like a threat – if you sin, you die.  But perhaps there is more to it than that.

Wages are traditionally the reward for work that you have agreed to do, not a punishment for it.  In this context, death would be viewed as a positive reward for the works-of-sin, not as a punitive measure.  But then how could you see the termination of your life as something good?  What would you compare your death against, that would make your death look like the better choice?  Herein is the mystery of iniquity.

“Give me liberty, or give me death” wrote the patriot.  And his words were meant to convey that a life where you have no choices, and no real freedoms, is a life not worth living.  How many a proud American in our armed services has died to protect our “freedom”.  We as a nation have rationalized (and rightly so), that our freedom exceeds the value of our own lives.  In this way, so it is with sin.  Embracing evil is a horribly addictive, horribly destructive, method of robbing one of his freedoms.  The worst characteristic of evil is the bondage it asserts over its willing victims.  In this way, those who embrace evil, become its slave, and therefore live the life of a slave which according to our patriotism is not worth it.

“We must make it clear that we do not torture” said our new President Obama upon coming in to office.  Torture is the infliction of agony on someone.  Often it does not even require a motive to perform.  The victims of torture depending on their tolerance for pain, all eventually reach the same conclusion – better to die than to continue to live in a state of constant torture.  Given how bad torture hurts, we can all understand this sentiment of the victims.  Death is more merciful than torture.

For our purposes, the next most horrible characteristic of evil is its ability to inflict pain on everyone it touches.  It is not just the perpetrator of a crime who will suffer, but the victims of crime, their families, those who love the doer of evil, literally everyone it touches.  And evil is relentless, it never stops inflicting pain.  Every evil action causes pain to someone. 

To know God is to know everything that is good, everything that would make you happy beyond your wildest dreams.  The slightest deviation away from God leads to the utter degradation we have come to know as evil.  The opposite of God is everything bad.  Living in this condition, is living in constant torture.  And as we already discussed earlier, a slave to torture, with no hope of freedom, living forever in this condition is beyond cruel, it is inconceivable. 

As the author of evil, the devil suffers from its effects perhaps most of all.  He above all others, knows the crushing weight of living in ultimate agony, where his memory would have his life before sin, as living in ultimate freedom and happiness.  The devil like any torture victim craves an end to his own existence, and according to scripture will someday be granted that mercy.

The idea that Hell is someplace where victims are tortured by fire in a never-ending state of being undead and fully conscience of pain is not Biblical, nor is it consistent with the character of a God whose makeup has no evil within it.  Every scripture on the topic of Hell in the Bible clearly states that evil will be consumed by the final flames.  Consumed, not forever tortured by them.  After the flames of Hell the world will be remade new.  How could this be if it never stops burning?  The death of evil is what will be the result of the flames of Hell, and the death of evil will last forever and ever, not the “killing” of evil, the “death” of evil.  Those who believe in a never ending state of torture that requires flames, do not understand the nature of evil itself.  It requires no fire to inflict its misery.  It is the definition of existence in torture.  The flames are actually the mercy of God in that they once and for all time consume what remains of evil.

The idea that death in our original text was something ‘eventual’ and only applies to the physical realm may be something else to take a look at.  God told and Adam and Eve in the Garden that if they ate the fruit of the tree of evil they would die.  They were not even supposed to touch it.  Yet finding herself alone with a talking snake, Eve is already touching it, and the serpent reminds her … she is not dead.  But a deeper view might find that indeed there was an immediate consequence from the touching of that fruit that perhaps she did not see.  Something did die right there, right then.

You could argue that it was her innocence that died.  You could argue that she was naïve against the wiles of the devil, and the tricky serpent tricked her.  Really, not so much.  He flattered her.  He told her she could become more wise, and be like God.  This appealed to the common human weakness of “doing the wrong thing for the ‘right’ reasons”.  But in the end, Eve chose to disobey, and in so doing, she yielded up her freedom from sin.  What died in that garden was her own ability to walk away from the choice of evil of her own accord.  Her freedom died, because she killed it.  It would not take the savior to enter our world, and live out His perfect life of service.  It would take one free from the slavery of sin, to CHOOSE not to embrace sin.  And in this way, her death was immediate.

One of the biggest mysteries of God is the length, depth, and nature of His love for us.  It is really hard to understand WHY He loves us.  We know that He does when we read His word to us, or when we see the tenderness of creation designed for us.  But trying to figure out why He loves us gets very hard.  Yes we have the family unit that teaches much about forgiveness, and the beauty of intimacy.  We have children of our own, that we love somehow in spite of their imperfections, and who love us the same way.  So we can look and see that love does exist.  But why He should choose to give us such a precious gift as love, and love us so unconditionally, remains a bit of a mystery.

This is what draws us to Him.  It is the fact that He loved us first, that makes us want to know why.  “The Wages of sin is death”,  Then it is death that we deserve, it is death we have earned, death should be our reward.  If there only existed Justice, it would demand our death and even then would be showing us a kind of mercy.  But the text does not end with a profound examination of nature of evil, it continues “but the Gift of God is eternal life”.  And just like the first part of the text we so often gloss over, we look at the second part and just assume it is talking about living on streets of Gold, playing a harp, or doing some other mindless activity.  Wrong!

The “Gift” is just that a gift, not something you deserve, you can not earn it.  You can accept it, or reject it, but you cannot earn it.  The Gift comes only from God, nowhere else.  Not from your friends, family, co-workers, or the person you look to for spiritual guidance – it comes only from God, directly to you, no middleman needed, or wanted for that matter.  And the gift is life. 

A life that IS WORTH LIVING.  A life that is without the bondage or torture of evil.  A life that does not require the constant cycle of sin and repent, but a life that is without sin any longer.  This is life.  This is something where eternal begins to matter.  This is the only condition where you would want to prolong your existence, is in a state of perfection.  Life does not start on streets of Gold, it merely continues there.  This is what God intended your life to be, not the miserable existence you contend with now, the perfection of what is to come. 

The gift of life begins now, and reaches fulfillment in the end.  The pain you live with now, begins to leave you, as you allow God to remove the sting of evil from the core of who you are.  And as the pain leaves, the joy replaces it.  Your mind begins to see things differently as evil leaves your soul.  What was once a chore, now becomes the most sacred of privileges; and what was once so desired, becomes that which is now so abhorred.  Without the fog of evil, and its insidious dark influence on who you are, you begin to see more clearly through the lenses of the Eternal one who knows no evil, and truth is revealed, beauty is revealed, and life becomes worth living.