Divorce: (and other Broken Vows) ...

It used to be considered a ‘bad’ word, something not spoken of in polite company.  Then it became a banner of freedom and liberation from the tyranny of unhappy homes.  Now it is as common as the catching a cold.  Christians are not immune; they divorce as much or more than does the non-believer.  So why is this condition becoming so pervasive in our lives, and more importantly if it happens to us, then what?

The Bible tells a story about ‘vows’ that is none-too-pleasant.  You see a father is away from home, and is upset by some bad news.  In his haste, and arrogance, he ‘vows’ to kill the first person coming through his gate on his return home.  Of course the first person meeting this criterion winds up being his much loved daughter.  He informs his daughter of his vow, she asks for a little time to prepare, then he carries it out – killing his much loved offspring.  Why on earth tell this horrid story?  For only one key reason, to teach us humility – we are not supposed to be making vows at all.  God never approves of this incident from beginning to end.  It was stupid.  It was the arrogance of man making stupid commitments based on a warped sense of honor that winds up costing us the very thing we value most in this world.  Humans and vows don’t mix well.

Think about your walk with God for a minute.  Ever made a promise or a vow to God, that you were actually able to keep, without ever slipping, or needing forgiveness for going back on your word?  Even our promises of the best intent wind up short.  The reason is we completely lack the control to fulfill our commitments.  We cannot keep ourselves from danger, we cannot overrule the laws of physics, we are subject to the decisions and whims of others, and thus we tend to be blown around by fate more than we would like.  Admitting this shortfall is almost unheard of in this country, but it remains true.  Our ability to control is an illusion, therefore our follow-through on a vow is tepid at best.  It is not just bad vows we should avoid, it is any vow based on human strength.

So am I saying not to make vows at a wedding?  Sort of.  I am saying that declaring before the world what ‘we’ are vowing is a fairly worthless exercise.  We could however alter our language just a bit, and couch our words in the bosom of the Lord and be a bit safer about it.  We would be better stating, “as I renew my commitment today to our Lord, and in the strength of our God, so I ask Him to make me faithful to you.  To treat you as God has treated me.  To love you as God has loved me.  To forgive you and accept you in all things, as I have been forgiven and accepted by God.”  These are vows you have a shot at keeping.  The traditional ones just don’t seem to cut it, as statistics bear out.  You see were we to understand the nature of marriage better, we would be less likely to experience divorce. 

Think about how preposterous monogamy is based on the human will alone.  The male instinct is to hunt, not to stick around afterwards.  There are very few examples of mating for life in the world of nature – this is also true when looking at humanity.  So with evil bent on destroying a healthy image of sexual expression, combined with our natural inclination to blow our commitments, is it any wonder that vows made outside of God don’t last?  Even the ones before witnesses and with words like “let no man put asunder”; or “for better or for worse”.  Our problem, even during a wedding, is that our vows do not reflect our dependence on God.  What’s more, neither does how we think about relationships in general.

We need to understand that the differences between any two people on planet earth are enough to warrant separation.  Stay with someone long enough and they will “drive you crazy”.  It does not have to be a spouse; parents, even kids, can accomplish this feat.  Our differences would naturally drive us apart over time.  To overcome this dilemma we need to remember the God is the cornerstone of the relationships we are trying to build.  When we reach that point of sheer frustration, it is time to sit back, and pray about it.  Oh I know, you will be praying the other stupid person in this situation gets the ‘wisdom’ they need to see your point of view.  But as fate or God may have it, you might the one who experiences the change of heart.  Basing the success of a relationship on the interaction of God is both a recognition of our need, and a strategy that has a shot at success.  Notice it is STILL not a guarantee of success because so often the stupid person we are so eager to change turns out to be us.  And we have such a tendency to block God’s efforts to help US see the error in our ways.  We want God to change them not us.

So then is divorce a kind of screw-you (pardon the pun) for making promises you couldn’t keep?  Doesn’t Christ say that the only reason acceptable for divorce is adultery?  No actually.  When you start by basing relationships, even marriage on God, you begin to see the strength of a person’s relationship with God is a fairly good predictor of the strength of a relationship with you.  If you know a Christian, who has experienced forgiveness, is looking to escape the pain of evil, and tries hard to follow and make good choices – you have a working candidate for success.  When you know someone who could care less about God, exhibits destructive behavior, and seems more interested in pleasing themselves than others (even if they carry the name Christian), you have a candidate for relationship woe.  The latter person will be far harder to maintain a relationship with, than the former.  Other religions carry a common thread of working your own way to heaven or nirvana – these philosophies are bound to come up short in the real world, as we all know the extent of our own evil tendencies if left to our own devices.  This is why non-Christians do not make it easy to maintain a relationship.  Those that tout being moral as enough, or being good as enough, fail to use the proper standard to measure their goodness against, and are generally completely blind the nature of their own selfishness.

When a partner has no relationship with God, or breaks their relationship in a repeatedly destructive way, the ability to enter divorce becomes real for us.  It is not for any to judge the choices of another in this matter.  If a person chooses to ‘love it out’ with a prickly person, it is up to them.  But when they choose to leave, it is also up to them.  There should be no condemnation of others for how they react to evil that is forced upon them by someone else.  If adultery were the only ‘sin’ that ‘justifies’ divorce does it include lust?  Christ said if you lust, you have ALREADY committed adultery in your mind and are therefore guilty of breaking the law.  And since when does you sinning first, make it OK for me to sin later? (i.e. the first person commits the adultery and the second person is then free to remarry without guilt).  Moo-moo Ca-ca.  The order in which a person sins does not justify the act, ever.  If it is wrong for the first person, it is wrong for everyone, period.  This traditional view is nutty, and fails to address the real issue of a broken relationship with God that occurs before the human one is even visible.  It is here where we should spend our efforts for repair and healing.  Focus not on fixing the human one first, focus on fixing the one with our Lord first – then fix the human one.  After all, what is generally required to repair a relationship is a change in behavior, and who can accomplish that outside of God.

So what happens if we find ourselves divorced already for the 2^nd, 3^rd, or 10^th time?  Is there ever any forgiveness?  Like any other ‘vow’ we find ourselves breaking, there is always forgiveness.  But to change the outcome and avoid the next divorce you need to rethink the process now.  Base what you have to offer a potential or current partner from the viewpoint of your own relationship with God.  Be honest with yourself and your partner.  Tell them what you struggle with.  Don’t hide your weaknesses in the darkness and embarrassment of your guilt, shed a little light on them with the person who you will be the MOST vulnerable with.  If they are going to commit to you for life, don’t they need to know what evil tendencies they are up against?  The confession is not meant to serve as condemnation, but as a request for help.  For example, if I have a struggle with alcoholism, but you are able to drink in moderation with no second thought – you might be more aware of your behavior around me, and maybe even forego drinking altogether to help me out.  This is not your weakness it is mine.  But living with a junkie means taking a few more precautions, or risking the doom of my own predispositions. 

When looking for a mate, or talking to a current one, let them know how strongly you feel about a personal relationship with God and how and why it is so important to you – that they have one.  Remember you are not the evaluator of another’s relationship.  But you are the recipient of behavior strongly influenced by God or by the lack of Him, through another.  If we truly intend to beat divorce and not repeat divorce, we need to stop looking at ourselves and our vows as the strength we need to last.  We need to start looking at an eternal God, and seeing our strengths and weaknesses through His eyes.  We have much to offer another through our connection with God.  We have nothing to offer another without Him.  All our goodness stems from God, not naturally from within us.  We are a channel, not the fountain.  And so we must begin to see marriage differently.  We must replace our vow of words, with our active prayers, and perhaps only then will we escape a fate of self-inflicted loneliness.

Priority Dysfunction ...

If all the world is a stage, then ‘distraction’ has to be the name of the play.  Time flies past you at speeds that cause you to take it for granted.  And while you occupy your mind and body with the trivial, the meaningful eludes you.  It is not that meaning is out of your grasp, it is too often simply out of your thoughts.  Maintaining a big picture set of priorities with all the distractions that bombard you for your attention is difficult.  The miniscule takes priority, the repetitive becomes preoccupation, and before you know it, your life is mundane, routine, and without any real purpose.  Christians are not immune to this phenomenon; in fact they are particular targets of it.

The easiest way to keep you from reaching your goals is simply to keep your mind focused elsewhere.  One of the chief reasons God setup a permanent time-out for humanity once each week was to try to help us get over our prioritization problems.  Consider for a moment the life of a parent.  A parent bares the responsibility for the care and feeding of a baby.  But demands on our finances, to succeed at our occupation, and maintain shelter for family can often keep a parent so preoccupied that the real needs of their child go un-met.  Of how much more value is the closeness felt between breast-feeding mother and infant, than formula-fed day care dropped-off baby.  Of how much more value is the tender words and touch of a father at bedtime and breakfast than the commuter who is awake long before, and at home long after the child is conscience.  Demands of survival are often so acute in today’s world that parents are choosing special moments to bond with their children – school plays, concerts, graduations, birthdays, holidays, etc..  There is simply no time to bond on a daily basis. 

Yet to discuss regret, a parent rarely regrets the missed promotion at work nearly as much as the time lost with toddlers.  First steps and first words are not the only milestones to be cherished.  What about first questions of the meaning of love, of life, and of purpose.  How do we impart values without investing our time?  Truth is we are imparting values like it or not; we pass on the tradition of hard-work, and lack of intimacy.  Time is of such critical importance, but we manage it as if it were an infinite resource.  We fail to recognize hard choices as such, thinking there is ample time in the future to meet everything we want to accomplish.  But before you know it, failing health, circumstance and fate, shorten the once thought long-term to an immediate here-and-now.  Regrets are inevitable when we fail to keep our priorities of what is truly important uppermost in our mind, our scheduling, and our attention.

God knew far better than we, that evil would work tirelessly to keep us distracted from what is truly important.  The intimacy God would have us experience, we are kept from simply by keeping us busy.  The intimacy of husband and wife, the intimacy of parent and child, the special bond between siblings, and of course the life-altering connection between man and his Savior God – all these relationships matter most in life.  They far outweigh the trivial pursuits so many of us call our lives.  They require time and attention to grow.  They need to be nurtured.  When you begin to realize this, you begin to understand why the concept of a ‘Sabbath’ is so important in our world.  A God created time-out for man.  Stop what we’re doing.  Stop thinking what we focus on.  Not because what we think about is wrong, but because what we focus on is robbing us of what is really important.  Until we separate ourselves from our routines and choose to focus elsewhere can we be free to see what our choices really are.

When Christ stated “the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” He was trying to clear up the misconceptions of the day that man was obligated to ritualistic observance of the Sabbath.  The institution was created and ordained to help us push our reset button.  It is WE who need to break free from our self-imposed slavery to commercialism, materialism, and empty pursuits.  It is WE who so desperately need an institution like the Sabbath to give us a day of rest from the mind-numbing routines we enslave ourselves to.  It figures that the Creator of man who wrote the owners-manual would know best what man really needs to operate effectively.  We need a time-out or we being to break down, stress out, and find ourselves watching our lives pass us by.

Christians however sometimes misinterpret the true value and meaning of a Sabbath day.  They turn blessing into compulsion.  They turn an exercise in helping us reprioritize into a set of spiritual habits that are every bit as much a routine as the non-spiritual list of activities in our lives.  The Sabbath becomes a list of do’s and don’ts that could not possibly encompass the concept of ‘keeping’ the day holy.  No this is just the arrogance of man, combined with his ignorance and desire for blind structure instead of profound life-altering thinking that cannot be bound into a list.  How does one find his God and reconnect to Him through a set of arbitrary rules and lists designed to encapsulate morality without forethought to the values the lie behind it?  No, the Sabbath is about prioritization.  No singular activity can be evaluated in the light of the Sabbath the same way by all mankind.  Just as each human is an individual, each relationship with God will also have unique characteristics.  What one man finds as bringing peace and intimacy with his God, another may find no value in. 

The guidelines God gave were to help us bring home the point of prioritizing our lives properly.  First, God should be our number one priority – everything else, everything good, flows from the first thing we focus on.  Second we need to abstain from our career and commercial pursuits (i.e. our work).  We need to remember that our careers are NOT our lives, only a component of our lives.  Thirdly, we need to refrain from requiring others to work for us.  We must not be selfish in our time away from work, forcing others to take up our burdens, but we must allow them to share in the time away from routine.  Even our animals, or anything in our domain, should be allowed a break from the routine.  Lastly God reminds us that He is our creator, and this knowledge should help us understand that this time-out is for our benefit.

Following these guidelines and understanding the intense need we all have to reset our priorities makes the Sabbath an infinitely valuable tool in regaining meaning in our lives and steering clear of regrets.  Should we make the choice to come away from the world and give our minds the freedom to dwell elsewhere we can begin to live at a level we never thought possible. 

Christians must avoid the temptation to treat religious goals as weekly habits that occupy our times and schedules with the regularity of a Swiss watch.  Church service with a planned routine, followed by a meal, followed by a nap, followed by an evening meeting sound familiar?  Many Christians believe this is ‘keeping the Sabbath’, but is it?  Are we truly forcing our minds to break free from routine, or are we simply altering the content of our routines?  Routine limits creative thinking.  Routine can easily become forgettable, non-memorable, meaningless.  Christians develop an unhealthy dependency on their pastor to ‘feed’ them on a weekly basis.  Rather than being forced to confront God on their own, they seek anonymity within a congregation.  Rather than ponder the deeper meanings God wants to share with them personally, they seek to hear whatever the pastor has to say – after which they can feel good about criticizing his content and delivery.  Is this routine actually helping them, or just helping them pass the time.  Push the reset button folks.  Start thinking in non-conventional ways, the way the Sabbath was intended.

If we are to live without regret, we must learn to accept what God wishes for us.  We must learn to accept the happiness He wants to give us.  We must learn to prioritize what is truly important, and keep it there.  We must regularly check ourselves and insure our priorities have not been altered.  We must break free of the distractions of the stage we live within, and find the freedom only our God can bring …

Unto Caesar ...

There is a debate in this country regarding the separation of church and state.  Surprisingly the debate is not over the particulars regarding the state encroaching on the rights of a minority religious viewpoint; rather, it is over whether this nation should choose to remain with the powers of church and state separate at all.  Christians at large, believe their rights are trampled on when prayer is eliminated in public schools, or statues of the ten commandments are ordered removed from public courthouses.  Are they right?

We have been called a Christian nation.  Muslims around the world view us this way simply because the overwhelming number of religious people in the U.S. claim Christianity as their basic religion.  Though next in line would be Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu faiths respectively.  Atheists and agnostics make up only a small percentage of the nation.  Occult and Satanist religions even smaller than that (though occult is defined in the eye of the beholder).  So even though Christians make up the majority of the population to date, they are not the fastest growing belief system in the U.S..  Muslims hold this distinction.  It might be better to call us a nation of faith or beliefs than a truly Christian nation.

Going back to our beginning we find that our founding fathers were largely Christian believers.  They applied Christian thinking and morality to the nation’s first set of founding principles and laws.  They publicly talked about their devotion in speeches to both private and public audiences.  In essence, religious speech was not uncommon in governmental bodies as the nation first began to define itself.  They prayed in Congress, put chaplains in the military. and were unabashed about speaking publicly about their faith.  They were not perfect, nor are we, but they did believe.

However with the inquisition a not so far away phenomenon; and having recently emerged from the dark ages, our founding fathers did see the wisdom of allowing for the freedom of religion, by keeping the state out it.  When religious and political power were united (as they were first in Rome, then in England) great persecution arose in the name of God (but more accurately for the greed of gold).  Many died for no other reason than a differing faith or belief system, their wealth forfeited to either state or church or both.

So our nation became founded on Christian attitudes and prevailing morality, but chose to make the distinction between the church and the state.  In point of fact we were the first country to make such an issue of this.  But we were not the first advocate of it.  Christ Himself, while here on earth, answered one of those meant-to-trip-you-up questions by saying … “render unto to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”  This was the first admonition to separate how we think about government and religion, and was ironically proposed from within Christianity.  Christ Himself laid out for us our proper priorities.  Money was to go to the government, and our hearts were to belong to God.  Oh that we could learn that lesson, rather than so often reversing it.

A study of Biblical prophesy talks a great deal about the Beast, and his image.  Many characteristics of the Beast are articulated throughout scripture, but the most compelling trait was his desire to control the conscience of men on pain of death.  The Beast (an enemy of the church throughout scripture) tried to make men think a certain way.  He wants and demands worship and adoration.  And according to the scripture, a great many people follow after the Beast and his image.  Why is this important?

Because scripture also refers to a new nation that rises up in the world and helps the church.  That new nation is us.  Our country arises across the sea and restores freedom for religion to the world.  Those that believe can live here free from persecution, inquisition, and death.  The church is free to grow here at least for a while.  But alas, we do not remain true to our values according the same sets of prophesy.  Eventually we begin to speak just like the Beast.  Note this does not mean we are forsaking religion, rather the contrary, it means we are uniting with it to compel the conscience of man.  Sound familiar?

It is NOT a gradual slide into liberalism, or atheism, that causes us to become like the Beast.  It is the unification of religion and political power that attempt to control the will.  Christ never compelled anyone to follow Him.  He authored freedom of choice for all creation, even when that creation made the wrong choice back in the garden.  There was no forced will then, and there is no forced will now.  There is an offer extended to man, but nothing to force him to accept it.  Satan on the other hand, is all too happy to enforce his will on your mind, heart, body, and soul.  The very nature of evil is to corrupt and control the mind of man.  And so like its author, the Beast begins to speak like Satan.  Uniting the spiritual with the political under the name of “good” but with every action resulting in pure “evil”.

And worst of all, Christians are driving the truck.  It is the siren call of Christians who want to reclaim our nation’s morality that are responsible for speaking like the Beast and the Dragon that preceded him.  What is it they say about good intentions paving the way to … hell.  And this is the road we are on today.  Republicans, though wounded by the results of the last election have not softened their positions on social tolerance in any way.  Rather they believe they lost because of their LACK of firmness to their values.  Today’s Republican party is emerging from defeat even farther to the right, than to the center.  It’s most popular spokes people prove this point again and again.

Ironically it is not the entire Republican agenda that is a problem.  Fiscal responsibility, small government, strong defense, wide personal freedoms, and local oversight are excellent principles upon which to build a political party.  But mix in extra helpings of hate posing as religious fundamentalism, and you excite a base to take “mob” action, rather than deliberate tolerance.  Homosexuals and abortionists are no more enemies of Christ than are adulterers and gossip mongers.  There is no compelling spiritual reason to single out a particular set of evil for a zero-tolerance policy when this is not universally applied to every other set of bad behavior.  It is the devil’s work to try to legislate morality.

It is not the duty of the Christian to try to stamp out sin in the world.  It is the duty of the Christian to love his enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who persecute you.  In short, it is the duty of Christians to love.  There is no mention of sin in our list of responsibilities.  Those that wish to call sin by its proper name often use this language to hide their true meaning – they wish to call other people sinners, or hold people accountable publicly for their sins.  To truly call sin by its right name would involve only defining it as it truly is – PAIN.  All sin is inextricably linked to pain, whether felt immediately or over a longer term.  To point out the destructive nature of sin, without accusing anyone else or condemning anyone else, is to truly define sin.  Condemnation has never been our responsibility, nor has it ever saved anyone.  Whereas love has done more, and accomplished more than you could possible ever fully define.

Rather than spending our energies in trying to legislate sin out of the world, and God back into our nation.  Why don’t we exert the same energy in submitting our prideful will to God’s control and learn how to truly love each other as well as those who disagree with us and our beliefs.  There is still time to redefine Christian values from out of the mouth of the Beast and back to the source of all love.  Let us learn to emulate our humble leader, who though He was God on earth, He was servant to us all ... 

Jail the Righteous ...

No, this is not the slogan of angry atheists trying to reduce the numbers of voting republicans in the coming fall election.  Nor am I advocating we jail anyone who believes themselves to be righteous, which ironically would probably reduce the number of voting republicans in the upcoming fall election.  But I do ask, is everyone in jail guilty of the crimes they were convicted of?  And beyond this why would Christ place such a high value on visiting the sick and imprisoned?

There was a recent story in the news about a man wrongly convicted of rape and murder who spent 12 plus years in prison before DNA evidence proved his innocence.  I wonder, is he the guy I was supposed to be visiting when I went to prison as part of my ‘Christian’ duties?  Should I assume that somewhere out there is another innocent man, and God would like me to drop in on him to ease his burden?  After all when discussing the end-times judgment (or criterion) God thought important on separating the sheep from the goats – His question was did you feed me, did you clothe me, visit me in prison?  I note often He did not ask what I believed in from a doctrinal point of view, but He did ask about what we actually did for those ‘less-fortunate’.

Seems to me the greatest preponderance of those in prison are probably guilty of their crimes.  God would surely know this, so is He really asking me to visit the guilty?  Maybe this about redemption.  Maybe He wants me to bring guilty people the good news of the gospel.  Or perhaps He has a deeper intention in mind for me, after all, what is the difference between me and guy behind bars?  Yes maybe the guy in jail committed the crime he was charged with, how is that different from me.  In the eyes of God, are not I as guilty as the man behind bars?  Has not my sin caused pain and suffering as well?  To God, the guy behind bars is no better or worse than me, we look like brothers to Him.  So is that it?  This is about visiting family, and learning we are all the same in God’s eyes – maybe.  But there might be more.

What is the point of our penal system anyway?  We incarcerate those who commit crimes against us so that they will be unable to repeat their heinous action again.  This forced imprisonment also acts as a punishment to them for doing their evil deed.  We hope it serves as a deterrent to those would-be criminals on the outside to think twice before doing something that might land them in here (but statistics say this deterrent is hardly effective).  We talk about prisons as a place to engender reform.  That is the key isn’t it?  A place to go to unlearn evil behavior and relearn good behavior.  So why is the reform piece of our penal system in such miserable failure?  Recidivism is on the rise, and the argument could be made that prison only trains criminals how to be better criminals, not better citizens.  It seems all our punitive efforts have not resulted in many positive changes from this experience.

And it does not end there.  The idea behind serving your time in prison is that you are in-effect ‘paying’ for your misdeeds.  And though you may serve your entire sentence, your payment is apparently never quite over.  Your criminal record follows you on every job application, or credit application.  Your prospects for meaningful work go down dramatically because of your ‘record.’  If you were convicted of a sex-crime (and let’s remember the story of our innocent friend here, not everyone convicted of a crime did it), you must register as an offender which stigma GREATLY reduces the welcome you get in any living arrangement.  So let’s see, you can’t vote to change anything, can’t run for political office, can’t find work, or a place to live – if you are to survive what option is the one left open to you?  Note that military service might have provided a way out in the past, but in times of war, it is just another virtual death sentence.  Options for survival seem bleak at best, and statistically, we find our punished ones doing more evil and finding themselves back behind bars or worse.

What else could we do to deal with crime?  Take theft for instance, Christ said, if someone steals your coat, offer them your shirt as well.  How radical an approach is that!  Reward errant behavior?!  Give a thief more than even he thought to take, who does that?  What kind of weirdo approach is this?  What message would this send to the thief?  Glad I asked actually … perhaps it would demonstrate way more than any words ever could that someone in this world actually cared about the thief.  It might be the first time in the life of the thief that he gets to experience love and concern for him.  No threats of punishment.  No condemnations of his obviously wrong act.  No question about his guilt.  But in spite of his ugliness we show him unbounded love.  We attempt to meet his need based on what he took.  This kind of singular gesture of love inspires the thief to consider WHY anyone would do such a thing.  Returning love to acts of hate and malice has the most profound effect of getting under the perpetrator’s skin.  It is too hard to understand how love could be returned for hate.  They poke at it.  They prod it.  They test it again, and maybe again.  What’s the deal?  Perhaps this is the only approach that is capable of changing evil behavior.

Have you considered for a minute that this is exactly the approach God is taking with YOU personally?  You were and are guilty of crimes against yourself, those you love, and your creator – but instead of punishment for what you have earned, you get love instead.  Blessed rather than cursed.  Loved in spite of what you do, what you say, all of it.  You deserve to be behind bars, not because you have broken a law the US government setup, not because you might errantly be convicted of breaking a law, simply because your premeditated acts of evil cause pain to everyone you care about.  To protect you and those you love, you should sit in isolation of a jail cell; but that is not how God chooses to teach change in your character.  God reaches out to you in love no matter what your misdeed.  He gets you asking WHY would He do this?  And you test it, you poke it, you prod it, and you marvel at it.  But over time you accept His love, and in that acceptance are the roots of change in your life.  Reformation happens when love enters your life, not when love is removed.

I know we have hardcore evil-doers in our world.  Some seem almost demon possessed in their passion for causing pain to anyone.  Some do enough drugs to be completely out of their minds most of the time while they commit heinous acts.  I don’t advocate we open up the jail doors and let them loose on society.  But maybe we might take a minute and realize even the hardcore criminal needs love as much as we do.  We were ‘commissioned’ to go to prisons, to bring love with us.  Love inspires hope.  Hope can liberate someone bound to sin and give them freedom inside their cell.  Freedom the cancer of evil.  Freedom to reconcile with a loving God right where they are.  Freedom from the guilt of their misdeed, as they come to know the price for their freedom was already paid on a lonely cross 2 thousand years ago.  And when they realize this, and embrace this, we have effectively jailed the righteous.  The state may require its due, but the soul is made free in Christ.  At that point, the guy behind the bars is exactly like the guy who gets to go home after the visit – forgiven.

Justice ...

The devil demands justice, the righteous just beg for mercy that they know they do not deserve.  It is a strange part of the character of God that allows mercy to be greater than justice.  The standards for justice are outlined in the Old Testament of the Bible as … “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a life for a life.”  These 3 examples are meant to show the requirements of justice on those who inflict damage.  This is a rudimentary definition of fairness, equality, and justice.  The simple premise is that which you harm in the process of doing evil should carry a punitive consequence equaling that of the crime.  Most of our current legal system attempts to emulate this philosophy.

So where does mercy enter in?  In terms of crime and the results of crime (i.e. prosecution) it doesn’t.  There is absolutely no question as to our collective or individual guilt in committing offenses against ourselves, our neighbors, our loved ones, and yes even our God.  We all stand accused.  And what is more, we all stand guilty.  To determine the punishment we deserve we need only look at the standard of justice outlined in the Bible.  Note, this is the sentence for our crimes, which we deserve, not necessarily that which we receive.

But God does not change over time.  He was no less concerned about mercy in the days of the Israelite than He is in today’s age.  Even back then, at the same time, these other statements outlining justice were written into law, was a system of mercy written into the law as well.  If you had a fight with a neighbor and let’s say you did damage to his eye, justice would require your own eye be damaged as well.  Your neighbor had the right to bring you before a local judge, plead his case, you could plead yours, and then sentence was passed.  However, there was also a loophole provided.  If you fled to a predefined “sanctuary” city, your punishment could NOT be imposed.  You were granted mercy for your crimes, though you must remain in the city for the rest of your life.  In cases of accidental homicide, I’m sure this system was employed regularly.

But the point is not that you were somehow found not-guilty.  It took the eye-witness testimony of at least 2 people to convict you in the first place.  Taking advantage of “sanctuary” did not absolve you of your crimes, it only prevented the punishment.  But why give killers a way out in the first place.  People who believe God is obsessed with revenge do not know how to reconcile a complete system of “sanctuary” He created in His laws for us.  Those who believe strongly in the death penalty often quote the scripture segment “a life for a life” but do not ever mention “sanctuary”.  Those who demand justice, are those who believe they have been wronged.  They wish to punish others for the misdeeds committed against them.  But are they willing to accept their own punishments?

“How you judge others is how you will be judged.”  This scriptural fragment was used by Christ to remind people of their own role in the justice system.  So often, “the wronged”, forget their own guilt and other crimes.  The statement of Christ to “first remove the log that is within your own eye, before trying to take the splinter out of your neighbor’s eye”, was intended again as a reminder to us all, for we are all, both the victims and the perpetrator.  We are all the accuser and the accused.  Finally Christ told a story about a man who was forgiven much, but then unmerciful to those who owed him much smaller debts.  Again yet another reminder of what role we play in the justice system.  We are not supposed to be the prosecutors.

We are not supposed to try to inflict justice or even fairness on those who do us harm.  Instead we are supposed to show love to them.  Christ said to give the thief who steals your coat, your shirt as well.  There is no justice in that scenario, only love, only mercy.  There is no fairness.  There is no coat for a coat.  So who will demand justice for this thief’s misdeeds – the only being who really ever demands justice – Satan.  Satan is the one who wants to see us punished for what we do.  He instigates some of it, influences some of it, and just sits back and watches some of it; but he is relentless in wanting us all punished for it.  He calls on God’s sense of justice and demands fair play, fair action.  He speaks very often through the mouths of those who accuse.  He demands.  The righteous know better, they beg for mercy.

For we are not righteous because we do good deeds.  We do not suffer our deserved punishments because we have earned some sort of get-out-of-jail-free card from God.  We do not suffer what we deserve because we are not guilty, for we are ALL surely guilty.  First degree, premeditated sin.  But as we humble ourselves, see our guilt, and beg for mercy from a just God, we are granted it.  Our sentence is pronounced guilty as the law requires, but our punishment is put on the shoulders of the innocent Christ.  And He willingly takes on our burden of guilt and shame.  He carries our burdens through torture and ultimately to the cross to pay our debt of death.  And through His perfect sacrifice our punishment is marked as paid.  We are forgiven through this and made righteous not because we are inherently righteous, we are made this way and given this term, by He who gave up His life to make us so.

Justice demands our extinction.  Even what we do to our planet would someday bring this result were it not for the interference of a loving God.  Escaping a well deserved fate can ONLY happen because our God loved us that much.  This is why we are told not to seek equality in the justice systems on earth.  This is why we offer the thief more than he takes on his own.  This is why we forgive others as we wish to be forgiven.   This is why “sanctuary” cities were created even in the Old Testament times.  This is why Christ told the stories and parables He did.  Our goals are not justice but love.  We are not to seek fairness, but much more than what is fair, that is love.  Love is our ambition, love is our goal, love is greater than justice.

When it gets hard to love, when the wrongs done to you seem to cry out for justice, when you are hurt, in pain, every natural inclination is to get even – at these times more than any other – expel the thoughts of punishing the guilty, and fill your mind with the love that forgave you, and allows you to forgive those who have wronged you.  Nothing that is taken from you, or damaged, or even killed, can be kept from you forever.  For this life is not the last one those who have been saved by Grace will ever see.  The things you lose here are meaningless anyway, and the people you lose will one day be returned in perfect health, in perfection, for all eternity.  What is lost is but for a short time.  But Love, love is forever.

Who knows maybe the person you wind up forgiving, the person you wind up loving, might even one day be you …

A True Gift ...

There is a big difference between earning something and simply receiving it for free.  God recognized our complete inability to ‘save’ ourselves from our current condition.  He knew He would have to do all the work to restore us to perfection.  The effort and price that must be paid in order to reconcile us with Himself would be a burden He would have to bare without our help.  Therefore the plan of God to ‘save’ us from our condition included paying all the costs for us, and then providing us with the results as a free gift, we would never deserve.  This is a premise that man has historically had such a hard time accepting, the idea of getting something of infinite value for nothing.  All we have to do to receive it, is simply accept it. 

Here in America, we are fiercely independent.  We take great pride in our American dreams of working hard, and attaining the goals we set for ourselves.  We relish the idea of earning whatever we get in life.  And frankly we tend to condemn others as ‘lazy’ who appear any less fortunate than ourselves.  Accepting this gift, implies we did nothing to earn it, an admitted loss of control.  Accepting that God had to do ALL the work, means we do none of it.  A gift therefore, humbles us.  It becomes a sign that we indeed are NOT equal to God, but are in fact inferior to Him.  We need help to save us, beyond what we could ever do.  Even some Christians are completely reluctant to accept this idea.  They agree you have to take the step of accepting it, but then state in order to keep it, you have to perform a certain number of rituals, or good deeds, otherwise you lose it.  I don’t recall God ever asking for this gift back.  We are able to reject it, many do.  But it would not be a gift, if you accepted it, and then in order to keep it, had to begin working for it, to somehow earn it afterwards.  Get it straight Christians, there is no working on your part to be saved, it is a gift, pure and simple.

So what is the nature of the gift we are being given?  What does it mean to be saved from our current condition?  It begins with discernment.  The process of bringing us closer to God begins with learning what is truly ‘good’ and what is truly ‘evil’.  Think about it, if you knew which choice would ALWAYS make you happy, and which choice would consistently hurt you and those you love, wouldn’t you always choose the good one?  It would take a masochist or a junkie to choose something that always hurts you.  Understanding what is good is the first step in reconciling us to a perfect God.  This seems relatively obvious, doesn’t it, to want to choose good – so what’s the catch here?  It’s marketing.  Turns out, ‘evil’ has produced the greatest advertising and marketing campaign ever devised in the history of the Universe.  Its goal is to distort the sharp differences between good and evil – to make things that are evil seem cool, sexy, risky, and fun.  Then it makes what is actually ‘good’ for us to seem boring, a horrible sacrifice on our part, a waste of time, and dull.  And evil has had unparalleled success at this campaign.  Just look around you, everything that will probably wind up hurting you, are the exact things we all crave.

Why would ‘evil do this you ask, what’s in it for ‘evil’?  It seems ‘evil’ does know the real score, and ‘evil’ is destined to lose.  At some point in the not-too-distant future, evil will be eradicated, never to be heard from again.  And knowing this fact has pissed evil off.  Evil will not go down without a fight.  So how does one get back at an all powerful Creator God?  By attacking, torturing, and killing His children.  How could evil make even this heinous crime worse?  By having God’s children blame God for all the pain and sorrow, and then set about committing these crimes on each other (sometimes even using the name of God to justify their incredibly evil acts).  Evil is on the attack with rage and passion, and desperation as the time of its own doom gets closer and closer.  As the extinction of evil approaches, its fury intensifies, and we are in its line of fire albeit an indirect target.

To see just how effective evil has been in its marketing campaign to distort the judgment of an entire species (humans), take cigarettes as an example.  No, I am not saying that cigarettes are inherently evil, nor am I saying that the people who make them, sell them, or use them are ‘evil’ people.  (We’ll spend some time on another post talking about the dangers of ever judging someone else.)  I am simply calling attention to how the marketing campaign works in this case.  When you examine a cigarette physically, it is nothing more than paper, and tobacco (a plant grown on the earth).  There is nothing spectacular about a cigarette, no diamonds or gold produced from its consumption; it’s just plain old, paper and tobacco.  But how are cigarettes portrayed in this marketing campaign, they are associated with being cool, sexy, suave, and sophisticated.  Advertisers want us to believe that smoking will turn us into something more than we are today.  We will be better looking, more attractive, smarter, even richer from smoking – just look at all the imagery an advertiser uses to convey this message.  And it works.  But reality check here smokers, it is still nothing more than simple paper and tobacco.  It does not change ‘who’ you are.  A cigarette cannot take you from geek to chic.  Despite what marketers would have you believe; nothing you can buy, will actually make you more than you already are.  You were you, before the cigarette.  You will still be you, after it. 

Determining the true motive of evil is often quite hard to do.  Evil is very acquainted with the concept of lying.  Evil knows how to exaggerate, omit, embellish, and of course use the half-truth-half-lie approach.  And these tend to work very well in increasing confusion, obscuring the clarity of good decisions.  You see to continue our example a bit further; it would appear that cigarettes contain a chemical called Nicotine.  This chemical works directly on the chemistry of the brain to alter it (much like any other addictive stimulant or behavior), in order for you to begin to ‘crave’ the cigarette.  Now, smoking is no longer a matter of conscience choice, it becomes automatic or second-nature.  Instead of being something we choose to do, we pick it up ‘naturally’.  And we will not stand it long, to go without it.  We don’t even need the constant barrage of a marketing campaign to change our opinions after this happens, we self stimulate at this point.  And what is the problem with an addiction to cigarettes?  Tar, carbon monoxide, and half a dozen other far more dangerous chemicals that were also lurking around in our simple cigarette.  These far more dangerous chemicals will give a smoker a guaranteed change of life in the form of lung-cancer, throat cancer, mouth cancer, heart attack, stroke, and premature, deformed babies just to name a few.  How ‘cool’ is that?  And wait there is more.  Yes, it turns out that just 2^nd-hand-smoke can also give your partner or your family, or those you love around you – all the same diseases you got from smoking, even if they never touched the stuff themselves directly.  This exposes the true nature and agenda of evil; deceive the victim, alter his brain chemistry to make him a habitual victim, then torture him and everyone he cares about with monstrous pain and suffering and eventual death (and if possible blame God for everything).  This is the agenda of evil.  And again, it has been very successful.

The ability to see evil for what it is truly, is the first part of our reconciliation with our Creator God.  The reason we seek the counsel of God is because we are able to trust Him completely.  God NEVER lies.  God wants us only to be happy and completely fulfilled in our lives – God HATES it when we suffer and experience pain. It is especially hard on Him when the pain is often so unnecessary, and seemingly crazy.  I believe this is what the Bible refers to as “the Mystery of Iniquity” that any intelligent life would actually choose evil on purpose.  Yet people do it all the time.  Some just do not see past or through the marketing hype of evil.  We have bought in to some of the most hurtful lies in existence.  God did not ‘save’ man from his happiness, and freedom.  God ‘saved’ man to give it back to him.  God does not want little robots who go around worshipping Him out of repetition and fear.  He wants real people, who think, reason, and love.  He wants your love because you freely choose to give it to Him, like He has chosen to give it to you.  Our ‘Salvation’ then is not some distant reality, it is a present one.  We are saved from the conditions we are experiencing right now.  We are ‘saved’ from choosing evil in ignorance.  We begin to reconcile with our God starting right now.  No need to keep on suffering in darkness, but to leave pain behind and walk in the light.  To find truth that has never been hiding from us, but has merely been obscured by evil in an attempt to keep us in a constant state of self-inflicted pain.  This is Salvation.  And it begins with us simply accepting it.

It continues to mystify me that there are those who say, “I do not need to accept God’s salvation today.  I will put it off until I am old and about to die.  Then on my death bed, I will accept God’s gift and get the best of both worlds.”  This is ludicrous (not the rapper).  What this is really saying is – I choose to be in complete misery and pain, to wander around aimlessly in the dark, hurting everyone I claim to care about until I am just about to die.  Then I will finally leave all this misery behind and find compassion, healing, forgiveness, and joy for a few brief minutes right before I die.  How ass-backwards is this?  Why would you delay fulfillment, and meaning, and joy in your life until sometime in the future.  To do this is to have completely lost sight of what Salvation really means.  Reconciliation with our God is a journey, not a destination per se.  We will ALWAYS be learning more about Him, about what Love really means, and the learning will become our source of joy, wisdom, and contentment.  Everything ‘good’ that has ever or will ever exist is being offered to us freely, and immediately.  There is not a second I would waste grabbing hold of this free gift.

So what do we do, once we accept the gift?  How do we learn more about our God?  How do we figure out how to be closer to Him?  Excellent subjects for our next few posts.  Stay tuned …