Erect standards to keep out the unworthy; and who will be
left inside? Apply standards upon the
wicked, but only by the righteous, and who will ever be disciplined? There are churches under the Christian banner
who claim to be absolute in their understanding of scripture. These bodies believe no other is capable of
adding context, wisdom, or value to any discussion of Jesus Christ. They believe the narrow road to salvation
begins with conversion to their particular brand of Christianity, and adherence
to their particular set of beliefs, at the exclusion of all others. They preach it with certainty. So much so, they are afraid to add wisdom, or
context, to their own beliefs. Whatever time
those beliefs were forged in cement, it must now remain exactly like that for
all time and eternity to come. Whatever
debate preceded that time, was simply an age of looking for truth. All ages since have found that truth and will
rely upon it without alteration.
Expansion is akin to heresy in these churches. Certainty is their cornerstone. Not Jesus mind you, but certainty. So I ask, have they built walls of
fortification to keep evil out? Or have
they merely contained evil forever within walls of their own incarceration?
The simple truth is that not everyone of us gets it
right. This incorrect point in any one
person’s particular journey with Jesus Christ happens often. We believe something at one point in our
journey, only to find we were mistaken further on down the road. It happens because we let Jesus lead, instead
of deciding we already know everything, and He has nothing to teach us. Sometimes a kernel of truth, a small seed, is
planted. And with time, and care, the
seed blooms until our understanding of that nugget of truth becomes an entire
tree of knowledge regarding it. The
whole point of letting Jesus teach us, is not to remain stagnant but to
grow. Growth then requires the virtual
death of certainty. We can only grow as
much as we are dependent upon Jesus to teach us growth. It is our certainty about any given topic,
that stunts our growth in that area. We
become too sure, that “we” “know” what scripture says now. No more study needed. No more thought. No more listening, to anyone, including Jesus. And so we close our eyes, ears, common sense,
and worse – faith; off to growth that would otherwise happen, if we just let
Jesus lead. But to do that, we need to
learn to accept, that we are not always right about everything. More often we have only glimmers of truth
about anything, and there is a WHOLE LOT of room to grow our understanding
under the supervision of Jesus Christ.
But those who worship stagnation of truth, are fond of the
idea of erecting walls between us and “them”.
Them being defined as anyone who does not exactly believe the same we do
on any given topic. The walls, from the
point of view of those who prefer stagnation, are to “protect” us from the evil
influences of “them”. Under this logic,
we are to isolate ourselves away from evil, lest we be drawn into the evil and
lost in the result. This is based on
trust, but it is trust of ourselves, and our walls, to keep us from evil. It does nothing to confront the evil already
within us. And cuts us off from perhaps
the very growth we need to save us from the evil we fear. Our motives and desires remain the same. Our trust in Jesus to save us from ourselves
never really materializes. And the doom
we fear, we in fact insure, by our own actions to save ourselves from it. Walls thought to be those of castle to
protect us, turn out instead to be prison walls to mire us in stagnation,
instead of free us to grow.
This is nothing new.
And it happens to the best of us.
Luke wrote to his friend Theophilus in his gospel letter about falling
in to this kind of mental spiritual trap.
He begins in chapter nine, picking up in verse 37 saying … “And it came
to pass, that on the next day, when they were come down from the hill, much
people met him. [verse 38] And, behold, a man of the company cried out, saying,
Master, I beseech thee, look upon my son: for he is mine only child.” This rather revealing incident begins with a
desperate father looking for help for his only son. His son you see was plagued by a demon,
perhaps more than one. And like any
loving father, the father sought help for his son. You can bet, the father likely first sought
the help of the Temple staff. Rabbi’s
far and near were consulted to see if any could help his boy. They should have been able to. It was in their written procedures on what to
do about stuff like this. But those
writings were not studied day in, and day out.
They were more obscure. And once
failure set in, as it does with us, we get more timid on whether to try it
again or not. You see if you continue to
fail at something like this you begin to look bad. After a while the people begin to doubt if a
priest is really any kind of good priest if he cannot pull this off. So it might be better to just not try, than
to try and keep failing.
So dad comes to Jesus for help. But there is a bit of a twist. Luke continues in verse 39 saying … “And, lo,
a spirit taketh him, and he suddenly crieth out; and it teareth him that he
foameth again, and bruising him hardly departeth from him. [verse 40] And I
besought thy disciples to cast him out; and they could not.” And there it is again. Failure. This time by the very disciples of Christ who
had been given power by Jesus Himself to deal with matters like this. In this incident, the first church of Jesus,
the Israelite faith had failed to help dad and son. But now worse, the second church of Jesus,
the new apostolic faith, had also failed to help this dad and son out. Why?
Is the devil and his minions, now somehow stronger than our God is? Particularly stronger than God the Father,
who the Israelites believed in, even if they did not believe in Jesus yet. No.
And as for Jesus, not a single devil or minion was ever able to stand up
to Him. Not once. Not ever.
So why did the second church of Jesus fail as miserably as the first to
help this poor dad and son out?
Both churches were certain they were right about their
beliefs. But both faith’s had mistaken
ideas at that time. Further mistakes
later, sorted out even later than that.
Here was a prime example. Neither
set of beliefs had enough faith in who they worshipped to make this
happen. But was that because they were
wrong about doctrine? Like say, the idea
that the Messiah was supposed to be a David-like-king who would end Roman
oppression forever. First and second
church were wrong about this idea at the time of this event. Only the second church would begin to change
what they believed as events unfolded.
The first church would cling to their certainty, and kill Jesus for
it. No.
This was not a question of doctrinal accuracy. It was a simple question of faith. This was not a question of the righteousness
of the disciples or the Rabbi’s who may have attempted to help this father and
son out in the past. It was a simple
question of faith in the God they served who is the only One who is truly
righteous.
Luke continues with the answer of Jesus picking up in verse
41 saying … “And Jesus answering said, O faithless and perverse generation, how
long shall I be with you, and suffer you? Bring thy son hither. [verse 42] And
as he was yet a coming, the devil threw him down, and tare him. And Jesus
rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the child, and delivered him again to
his father.” Yikes. Well first of all Jesus did rebuke the evil
spirit who left the boy but tried to mess him up good before he left. But Jesus heals the boy of all that damage
and any other, before returning the boy to his father once again, whole,
restored, reclaimed. So this was never
really any contest between the power of the devil and the power of God. God always wins. Which takes us back to the rebuke offered by
Jesus to those listening. Jesus calls us
a faithless, and perverse, generation.
And He is right.
How much perversity do we cling to behind the walls of our
homes, in secret, when unattended? The
problem with erecting walls to defend us from evil influence, is that they may
only guard us from the evil outside.
What about the evil that is already here, in our hearts, our desires,
and ultimately in our actions? A lack-of-opportunity
defense against evil, still leaves us looking for opportunity. It does not rid us from evil at all. It leaves it dormant always lurking, looking
for a way to get out in our expressions.
Our walls do nothing but leave us imprisoned with the evil within us,
with no way out again. If we are to end
our perversity, we must look to Jesus, and trust in Him to save us, not in any
actions we take to do so. The problem
with our delay in looking to Jesus is that our perversity begins to look
“normal” in our eyes. Alternate
lifestyles are considered different not bad or good. We take the bad and good judgment calls out
of what we do, until people who suffer from evils as bad as pedophilia believe
they too are only “alternate” not bad. It
is the effect of perversity to disguise itself as “normal” when “normal” is the
worst adjective we could assign to it. This
is not about judging others. This is
about looking closer in the mirror to see just how infected we have become with
it.
Our perversity remains, because our faith is equally weak
and misguided. We follow the path of
self-based salvation. We look to
ourselves, our willpower, and our self-denial against evil as the defense
against evil instead of looking to Jesus and trusting in Him to save us. When we cannot even look to Jesus to save us,
how can we possibly believe we are ready to face a live demon and send him
packing. We don’t trust Jesus enough to
pull that off. And the Rabbi’s of his
day, nor the disciples of his day, had any better result against this evil
spirit as a result. Ultimately, they
both believed the same central tenet, it was about “them” instead of about
“God”. And we in the modern Christian
church may believe we are long past this.
We don’t face demons very often if ever.
At least we don’t think we do.
But how attuned are our eyes at discerning what we actually face, in
others or in ourselves. We might think
we listen to Jesus better so are better equipped. But really?
Luke continues in verse 43 saying … “And they were all
amazed at the mighty power of God. But while they wondered every one at all
things which Jesus did, he said unto his disciples, [verse 44] Let these
sayings sink down into your ears: for the Son of man shall be delivered into
the hands of men. [verse 45] But they understood not this saying, and it was
hid from them, that they perceived it not: and they feared to ask him of that
saying.” Here was the seed of truth
being planted by Jesus. Later, let me
say that again, Later, it would be understood.
Not then. Not now. Some elements of truth we are simply not
ready to hear. Timing it turns out does
matter. This may be why your journey
with Jesus matures over time. The thing
or truth you thought you knew matures perhaps into something much bigger, or
much different than you first thought, because of timing and care and
submission. Here was Jesus directly
telling His disciples something, that for practical purposes they completely
chose to ignore. Are we any different?
Your church doctrines are not the commandments of God. They are interpretations of scriptures
designed to bring you closer to God. But
they are not absolute statements of fact and truth, only interpretations of
facts and truth. I do not ask you to
denounce what your church teaches; only to use what you have learned as the
“starting point” to your journey of faith.
Leave room to grow. Leave room to
accept that what you believe today, may not be the full picture of what Jesus
has in mind to teach you to believe. The
more you trust Jesus, the more you will learn.
The more you tell Jesus what “you know”, the less He is able to teach
you about anything.
I have a challenge for you to deepen your skills in
this. Try reading any given story, the
same story, in scripture five times.
Once each day for five days. If
you keep an open mind, and ask Jesus to lead you each day before you read the
story, I guarantee you will pick up on something new each time you read it. If you really want to blow your mind, ask someone
else to read it with you, and ask what they get from it. For each person you ask, a new point, or
context, or idea will emerge. It is the
same story you have always read. But the
perspective changes, when you are willing to be led, or willing to talk about
it with others. This does nothing to
destroy your beliefs. It will teach you,
that no matter how much you think you know right now. There is more to learn. That is the whole point. There will be an eternity to learn, why not
start now. Don’t lock yourself behind
walls of incarceration that pretend to be castles; tear down the walls and find
freedom to learn, to love, and to live like Jesus can free you to live.
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