Why I'm Against Religion

Sometimes people are taken aback when they hear me say that I'm against religion. That's the last thing that they'd expect to hear a professing follower of Jesus Christ say, and even more true of a pastor. Why am I against religion? It really a simple answer. It's because of what it is and what it does to people.

Religion began in the garden of Eden when Eve believed the lie that there was something she could do to cause herself to become more like God. The serpent told her that if she ate from the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil, she would become like God. There was one big problem with that lie. She was already like God. Her Creator had made her in His image.

But, believing the lie she ate the forbidden fruit and her husband soon followed suit. Because this was the first man, the physical AND spiritual DNA of all humanity was inside Adam. So we inherited two serious congenital problems from him. The first was a sin nature and the other was a built in affinity for religion.

People generally don't have a problem believing it's true that the sin issue began in the garden, but they find it hard to believe that religion is a result of the fall. However, it was. The second religious step Adam and Eve took was to make coverings for themselves with leaves so they wouldn't feel ashamed in front of God. Religion still causes feelings of shame and still motivates people to try to do something on their own to make themselves more presentable to God. All over the world today, religions of every kind are nothing less than man's attempt to make himself acceptable to a god he wrongly imagines is judging and looking down on Him.

Remember - it was religious people who harassed and ultimately crucified Jesus. Why? Because He refused to jump through their religious hoops. Jesus Christ isn't religious. Never has been, never will be.

The word "religion" comes from the old Latin word, religare, meaning "to bind up." It points people toward obligations they have toward a deity. So the essence of the word is that it puts people into bondage and causes them to feel condemnation for not measuring up.

The authentic message of the gospel of grace is largely absent in the religious climate of the church world today. The gospel of grace is the proclamation that our God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit have come down to this world, dealt with sin once and for all and have reconciled us back to God. Sin has been dealt with and has been forgiven! That is the truth of the gospel! Our privilege is to proclaim that reality to the world and encourage them to simply believe it so that the objective reality of the finished work of Christ becomes a subjective reality in their own experience.

Religion blinds people to the gospel by causing them to think there's something that God expects from them. There isn't! He has done everything that needed to be done. The only thing left for us is to say "thank you!" in faith and enjoy the eternal ride!

Christ Jesus didn't just set you free from sin. He set you free from religion too. You don't have to perform to score points with your Father. It's all good because of what He has done on your behalf. So, when you see religion - run from it, but be sure you run straight into the arms of your Father who loves and accepts you just the way you are at this very moment.

Resting In Christ

It is amazing how the default setting in contemporary Christian culture tends to oppose the concept of spiritual rest when that is exactly what Jesus promised to give those who follow Him. (See Matthew 11:28-30) This concept requires a new mind set for most people, especially in western culture. We live in a society where people go on vacation with their Blackberrys and laptops. To rest in Christ, trusting Him to express His life through us sounds lazy and negligent after having lived in the wilderness of rigorous religion for such a long time. Many mistakenly think of rest as some sort of passivity, which it is not. Resting simply means to trust Jesus Christ as our Life-Source, depending upon Him to empower our actions with His strength and direction.

For many years the concept of rest was so foreign to me that I couldn’t comprehend it. I didn’t know rest was a gift from God. I thought it was a sin. I sincerely believed that the only time we would find complete rest was when we died and went to heaven. There was a verse I used to read at funeral services to give comfort to bereaved families. I would share Hebrews 4:10 with them: “For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.”

When I shared this verse, I would tenderly point out that our beloved friend who had died “has now entered into God’s rest and ceased from his own labors.” I talked about how heaven is a place where there are no more struggles. It is a place where we simply rest in Christ and enjoy Him forever.

Entering into His rest and ceasing from our own works. It sounded like dying and going to heaven to me. Then one day I read the next verse in the passage — Hebrews 4:11 says, “Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall down through following the example of disobedience.” What? Be diligent to enter that rest? Now I was in trouble. I had always taught that rest means dying. Now here I was being confronted with the verse that says to be diligent to enter that rest or else I would be disobedient to God. I knew I had better go back and reexamine that verse again and hope that my interpretation had been wrong or else I was in serious trouble! I didn’t know at the time that I had already died with Christ and was able to cease from my own works.

“I understand that salvation is a gift, but when we become a Christian we do have certain responsibilities in living the Christian life, don’t we?” somebody asked me. “We don’t just sit back and coast to heaven with no obligations in the meantime.” Her concern is common. Her statements reflect a belief that if we don’t take ownership of certain things that we must do for God, we may become passive and lazy.

What is the responsibility of the believer toward God? The disciples once asked Jesus about the works they were to do for God. “They said therefore to Him, ‘What shall we do that we may work the works of God?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent” (John 6:28-29). When asked what we are supposed to do in order to do the work of God, Jesus gave one work. Believe.

If we are to take the words of Jesus at face value, faith is the sole work of the Christian (and even that is a gift from Him — see Ephesians 2:8). That fact doesn’t mean that nothing else will be done, but that nothing else can be done unless it flows from the abiding relationship of faith in Him as our constant Life-Source (See John 15:5). The activity of our lifestyle comes from the overflow of our intimate union with Him. As we trust Him, we will discover the reality of the truth that “Faithful is He that calleth you who will also do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:24, KJV)

Negative Faith

Some people have a negativity being broadcast inside them practically all the time. Sometimes it is a conscious broadcast. At others it is subconscious. This negativity causes them to look at a scenario and immediately see the negative aspects of it.
“Do you want to get well?” Jesus asks them. They don’t even hear the question. Like the man beside the pool of Bethesda, their response is immediately a negative, “why it won’t work for me” type of response.

They are prophets of doom to themselves. “I’ve always been this way. It’s just the way I am. That could never work because . . . My situation is different.” They have a thousand reasons why things won’t change for them. They will say they wish thing could change, but then prosecute their own case by reminding themselves of all the reasons why things never will.

They are masters of imagining potential scenarios and superimposing a negative outcome onto them. Their tendency is to play out a scene in their mind that hasn’t even happened yet. It is borrowing trouble when none even exists at the moment. It is appropriating negative faith that things will turn out in negative way.

This kind of negativity is a sour note that will deeply affect any of us who hear it if we don’t change stations. Here’s how it happens: As the discordant background “music” plays in our minds, it creates a certain mood within us. That mood influences the way we think about things. When you combine the way a person both thinks and feels, together these create a certain paradigm on life – a negative one.

This negative paradigm determines our expectations when we face any situation in life. That expectation is nothing less than a reflection of our faith. Jesus said, “According to your faith, so be it unto you.” It becomes clear, then, that some of us are going through life expressing great faith – negative faith! Then we wonder why things don’t seem to “go our way.” According to your faith be it unto you.

Why did Israel wander in the wilderness for forty years? It was because of their negative faith. The Bible says, “they could not enter in because of unbelief” (Hebrews 3:19). Too many people have blamed God, other people, or just their own “bad luck” for not reaching their destiny, when the truth is that the fault lies squarely on their own refusal to believe in God’s basic goodness and in His desire to guide them in fulfilling His will. Are you waiting for God to act? Has it occurred to you that God may be waiting for you?

Have you been short-circuiting your life by appropriating negative outcomes in the situations you face in life? Is there an underlying AM (awful mentality) station playing in the background inside your head all the time? Change stations.

Faithless thinking doesn’t really exist because there is no such thing as an absolute absence of belief. Put any of us in any situation and we will begin to draw conclusions about our circumstances based on what we see. We will evaluate our situation and mentally predict how things are going to unfold as times progresses. In other words, we will come to believe that we know what our future will hold.

Those beliefs become our faith system. Once it is established, it becomes very hard to think outside the walls of expectation we have built around ourselves. We box ourselves in by our limited thinking, which developed through a human assessment of the details of our lives at a given moment in time. Functioning now from a negative faith, we begin to look for evidence in our circumstances to validate that our initial analysis of the situation was right. “See, I knew it!” we affirm when visible evidence tends to support our negative perspective.

The trap tightens its grip on us as we affirm again and again that “this is just the way things are” and as we appropriate hopelessness that things can ever change. Our faith, negative faith, grows by leaps and bounds. Every day seems to take us further from hope that things will ever change.

I’ve heard people say that we shouldn’t put God in a box. “Let Him out of the box!” they’ll challenge others. It’s not God who is in the box. It’s us. God is too big and too powerful to let our puny negative faith box Him in. Let’s not flatter ourselves by thinking that we are squelching God. “Come out of your box and believe Me and I’ll do “great and mighty things like you can’t imagine,” says our Father of grace. (See Jeremiah 33:3) Begin to expect things to go your way because God is “for you.” Recognize that God’s grace equals guaranteed success. Approach life with an optimistic expectancy, based on the goodness of God.

God once told Abraham, “I will give you the land as far as you can see.” There is an interesting principle embedded in that statement that raises a question: What can you see? Do you see life never advancing, never expanding? Maybe the only thing that needs to change for you to move boldly into the fulfillment of your potential is a change of focus.

Will you lay hold on the hope of fulfilling the God given dreams of your heart? The Apostle Paul did. He wrote, triumphantly, “Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope (Ephesians 3:20, NLT)! “Without wavering, let us hold tightly to the hope we say we have, for God can be trusted to keep his promise (Hebrews 10:23, NLT).

-- This article is an excerpt from my book, Walking In The Will of God. For more information about the book, click this link: http://gracewalkresources.com/item.asp?cID=0&PID=555 The book is on sale this month.)

You Shall Know They Are Christians

Imagine giving a description of what God is like to somebody who had never heard of Him. How would you describe Him to them in a short summary?

I hope you would mention God's love in your description. Since that is the essence of His nature, to do justice to any description of Him requires that we talk about His love. If the world only understood the truth about the love of Father, so many more would come to Him in faith. Sadly, their understanding is often a distorted caricature of who He really is.

One reason it is so important to understand and accept your Father's love is because we all eventually become like the whatever we imagine God to be. People trapped in legalism see God as a judgmental, cosmic eye-in-the-sky who is watching and waiting for them to mess up in the way they live. They imagine that how they behave is what matters most to Him. Consequently, that's the kind of person they become in the way they relate to other people. They become harsh parents, demanding friends, dictator-type pastors, etc.

What they need is to understand the agape love of their Father. That's where you come into the picture. As a grace-walking evangelist, you will become more and more effective in sharing His love with others as you become more and more persuaded of how much He loves you. You won't have to struggle to witness, but will be a witness because you can do no less than point people to Him through your walk and your words.

Jesus Christ is head over heels in love with you. Have you become fully persuaded of that truth? He plans to spend eternity proving His love to you in ways beyond your wildest dreams. His love is pure, yet passionate. It is an objective fact with profound subjective implications for your life. He longs for you to know how much He loves you, to feel how much He loves you and to see how much He loves you.

As the revelation of God's extravagant love becomes more and more real to us, love becomes our trademark, our identifying characteristic. It's what we're known for, just like love is what God is known for too. More will be said as you move through this week's studies about sharing God's love. For now, make a mental note that as you experience deeper intimacy with Him, you will become more and more like your Father. The outcome of that is that you will find yourself becoming more loving to everybody.

If others were to describe the kind of person you are right now, what would they say? Would they use the word "loving" in their description? What one word would each of these people use to describe you?

Your mate? Your children?

Your best friend? Your co-workers?

People at church? Your neighbors?

Don't condemn yourself if you can't imagine some of these people using the word "loving" to describe you. Transformation is gradual, but it will come to you as you continue to grow in intimacy with God.

As you experience your Father's love, you will begin to express it more and more to other people. Some people you encounter won't immediately accept it though. Be prepared that some will resist because it doesn't make sense to them.

Some will caution you against the dangers of shallow emotionalism. That viewpoint isn't totally wrong. There are those who reduce their understanding of the relationship they have to Christ to the place of emotionalism. Nobody would deny that, but there is an equal or maybe even greater danger that people will spend the rest of their lives relating to God only through their minds. Religious intellectualism is just as far out of bounds as emotionalism.

The idea of unconditional love from God is hard for some people. They will ask questions like:

What if I turned my back on God and renounced Him?
What if I intentionally committed a horrible sin?
What if I am spiritually lukewarm?
What if I lose faith?
What if...?

There are a thousand "what-ifs" people can ask as they struggle with the idea of unconditional love. The reason they have such a hard time believing that nothing can stop God from loving them is because it isn't normal. In fact, it's not even human. It is divine. Unconditional love is rarely seen in this world. Sadly, that's true even among Christians. If you doubt it, just watch what happens when a Christian falls into sin.

That's why it is so important for you to determine to cling to the truth of God's love. Don't back down on your belief about it for anything. It is the only thing in existence that cannot fail you. "Love never fails," said Paul in that famous love chapter in 1 Corinthians 13 and that is the truth.

Stand strong in the truth about God's unconditional love. In time, you will become known for it. It will become your trademark, not a bad way to be known!

-- This article is an excerpt from my book, Journey Into Intimacy. Find out more about the book by clicking this link: http://gracewalkresources.com/item.asp?cID=0&PID=525

When Others Try To Put Expectations On You

One of the greatest changes grace brings to followers of Jesus when we are set free from legalism is the release from being controlled by the religious expectations others try to put on us. The essence of religion is that it binds you up and controls you. (The origin of the English word "religion" is religare (Latin) and means "to bind." See http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080404080629AAginSu)

Legalism is religion in its glaring ugliness. My definition of legalism is "the viewpoint that we can make spiritual progress or earn God's blessings based on what we do." In contrast, grace "is the system of living in which God blesses us because of what Jesus Christ has done on our behalf and for no other reason."

Legalists (rules-based religionists) always seek to impose their behavioral expectations on others and judge people when they don't live up to those expectations. This has been the history of religion from the beginning. Their fundamental belief is, "Our way is the right way and if you don't believe exactly like we believe and do what we do, you're wrong!"

Jesus encountered the religious legalists in His day and described them this way: But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places, who call out to the other children, and say, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn’ (Matthew 11:16-17)

In other words, they became angry because Jesus wouldn't do what they expected. They played their discordant music and He refused to dance to it. They sang their sour dirge and He wouldn't act like they wanted Him to act. He refused to submit to their expectations.

As you walk in grace, don't be surprised when you are criticized by rules-focused religionists. Make no mistake about it - they simultaneously hate your freedom while they envy it. Their plausibility structure for their lives leaves no room for the kind of freedom you know. Deep down, in their spirit, they want it but they have been so indoctrinated with faulty teaching that they sincerely think they would be compromising at the least and denying the faith at the worst if they were to abandon their prison of behavioral bondage and begin to run barefoot and free in the fields of grace.

Because they don't understand the transforming power of knowing our true identity, they're scared that if they surrendered to grace they might go off the deep end into sinful actions. They've never been free to live a godly lifestyle but have spent their lives trying to squelch sin so they think that to stop trying to squelch sin would empower it. They can't focus on Jesus because they spend all their energy trying to fight sin, not knowing that it has already been defeated once and for all at the cross.

They don't know that understanding the efficacy of the Father's grace in their lives would actually be a fire extinguisher to the blaze of the suppressed lusts of every kind that they constantly battle. The just don't get it, that grace ignites holy passion within us. They can quote the Bible verse, "For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace, (Romans 6:14)" but don't have the slightest clue what it actually means.

If you come from a religious background, you may find yourself vulnerable to their criticisms and judgmental attitudes. You may find yourself wondering at times if you have accidentally veered off the path of orthodoxy. If you've ever lived in the Landfill of Legalism, they know how to push the buttons in you that may cause you to have doubts about the way you understand grace.

Don't listen to those doubts. Paul's words to the Galatians are meant for you too: It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery (Galatians 5:1). The legalists at Galatia were trying to get the believers there to turn back and Paul cried out, "Don't do it! Stand strong!" His instruction to them will serve us well today too.

Walking in the freedom embedded in grace provokes the ire of the religionist, but for your own peace of mind, for the sake of others who need to know the truth of the gospel of grace and for the honor of the finished work of Jesus, don't turn back. Stay the course. Stand firm. Endure the criticism. Accept the sanctions from others. And keep your eyes on Jesus because He has set you free and "He whom the Son sets free is free indeed!"

It's Not True That Grace Is An Important Doctrine

"Why do you stress the grace of God, but don't talk much about His other characteristics?" I'm often asked. People often like to remind me that there's much more to theology than grace. "We need grace but there are other important things too," somebody recently said.

I think this kind of criticism misses the point altogether. Grace isn't an important doctrine that takes its place in line with other doctrines. Grace is the essence of the gospel. In fact, the Apostle Paul called it "the gospel of the grace of God" in Acts 20:24. The essence of our Triune God's DNA is grace. He has been and will always be a God of grace. To talk about grace is to talk about Him.

Some think they are making an admirable statement to say that grace is an important doctrine, but while asserting such a thing sounds complimentary it actually undermines the strength of grace. Grace is not an important doctrine. It is not to be put on a list of doctrinal teachings. It is from our Father's grace that every other spiritual reality we can know flows. Every doctrine and all our understanding of theology must recognize God's grace as the fountainhead of truth.

To suggest that grace is an important doctrine is like saying that breathing is an important part of my life. That would be an understatement of ridiculous proportions. Breathing is not an important part of my life. When Paul said, “For me to live is Christ,” he might as well have said, “For me to live is grace.” They are the same in essence. John said that Jesus came “full of grace.” (See John 1:14) It’s who He is, not something He does.

The word gospel means “hilariously good news.” What is this good news that Paul said he had been entrusted to share with those around him? It was the good news of the grace of God. So, we see then that grace is not an important doctrine. It is what gives the gospel it’s meaning.

Sometimes pastors have said to me, “This year we are focusing on grace in our church.” “What are you focusing on during other years?” I find myself thinking. Grace isn’t important. It’s everything.

Did The Father Forsake Jesus On the Cross? No!

For many years I taught the seven sayings of the cross and when I came to the words of Jesus, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" I used the text as evidence that the Father had turned His back on His own Son when Jesus was on the cross. "The Bible is clear that God cannot look upon sin!" I would boldly proclaim. It seemed reasonable to me that God turned away from Jesus. After all, isn't that what Jesus said?

The answer is, "No, that is not what He said. That is what He asked. There's a big difference between making an assertion and asking a question."

"Do you mean Jesus was wrong?" you might ask. My answer is that it was Jesus, the Man who became sin for us. When he absorbed the darkness and weight of the sin of the world into Himself, He had the sense of abandonment by God the Father that sin always brings. Blinded by sin and horrified by its effect on and in Him, the man Jesus cried out of His humanity, "Why have you forsaken me?" In that moment, He identified Himself with every person who has ever felt abandoned by God. He became one who felt isolated, lonely, abandoned, forsaken and hopeless on behalf of you, me, and everybody who would ever feel that way.

The question Jesus spoke was a direct quote from the prophetic Psalm 22, where in the very first verse the psalmist asks, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" It is noteworthy that this is the only time Jesus ever called His Father "God" and not "Father." In that moment,the man Jesus felt forsaken. Having become sin for us, He could not feel or sense or see His Father's embrace at that moment.

The gospels don't record an answer to His question, but Psalm 22 does. In response to the first verse where the psalmist cries out the prophetic words, "Why have you forsaken me?" there is an answer in verse 24. Here's the answer to the question of Jesus, the question of the psalmist and the question of every person who has ever felt abandoned by the Father: For he (God the Father) has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.

Sin may deafen our ears to the answer, but the reality is that the Father has never and will never despise, disdain or turn His face away from us, forsaking us. He has heard our cry for help!

God the Father forsaking His own Son? Impossible! God the Father was "in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself!" (2 Corinthians 5:19) Jesus didn't feel it at the time. It seemed like the Father had forsaken Him, but He hadn't! Nor will He ever forsake you.

But what about the "God cannot look upon sin" part? Doesn't the Bible say that? Well, it does but we need to put that comment in context. It was Habakkuk the prophet who said that as he watched evil people seemingly getting away with their sins. Here's the whole quote in context:

Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves? Habakkuk 1:13

To paraphrase him, Habakkuk said, "Your eyes are too pure to look on evil and you can't tolerate wrong so why are you?" In other words, it made no sense to Habakkuk that God was looking on sin when Habakkuk believed that wasn't possible. He was smearing the face of God with the guilt and shame of humanity the same way Adam had done when he hid himself in the Garden of Eden because He thought God wouldn't want to look at him after he sinned. Adam was wrong. God came for His walk that day just as He had every day. And Habakkuk was wrong too.

The fact is that God can look upon sin. Some people act as if the relationship of God the Father to sin is like Superman's aversion to kryptonite. They act as if God is afraid of sin, but nothing could be further from the truth. In Christ Jesus, sin has been destroyed - finished- end of story. (See Daniel 9:24) Through the finished work of the cross, sin has been defeated! God hates sin because of what it does to us, not because it does anything to Him.

So, on the cross Jesus took the sin of the world upon Himself. As a man who became sin for us (so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him), He felt forsaken, but He was not. The Father did hear His cry and, as the empty tomb three days later proves, did not forsake Him. The question of Jesus the man was: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The answer from God the Father was: "I haven't! I've not despised, disdained nor forsaken you. I'm here with you, in this moment, carrying you through this death to the glorious resurrection on the other side."

That was true for Jesus when he felt forsaken and it's true for you when you feel that way too.

Theodicy And My Own Idiocy

Okay, friends - I traveled to Florida yesterday to arrive and find there was quite an interest in what I wrote in yesterday's blog about suffering. Here's a follow-up which will probably stir the pot more but at least will clarify my thinking :)

Theodicy is the word used to describe our attempts to explain the existence of evil given the fact that our God is a good God. "How can a loving God allow evil?" Since the ancient prophets raised the question, no satisfactory answers have been offered. So I suppose it may be idiocy on my part to even touch on the subject, not one time but twice!

First, let me say that I make certain assumptions when I write my blog. Foremost is the assumption that those who read it already know some things about me - things that I don't have to assure readers about before setting forth potentially controversial ideas. So in writing the blog yesterday, I assumed that you, the reader, know what I believe about the basic underlying goodness of God and I assumed that I don't have to put that into the record again before proceeding.

I enjoy wrestling with hard truths and ambiguous issues in Scripture. In the case of suffering, it isn't a question of whether or not our Father is good and loving. The question concerns how we sort out in our minds how He can either "allow" or "cause" what seems to us to be horrible things to happen.

I don't claim to have a definitive answer on this matter any more than the countless others who have addressed the matter throughout history. I do have an opinion though. If I'm wrong, that's okay. It's neither the first nor the last time. My attempt to address the topic here is nothing more than "thinking out loud" and here are my thoughts:

1. Our God is Sovereign over every detail of everything that happens in this world. Nothing happens outside of His control. If that isn't true, we're in big trouble, because if one thing can happen that He had no control over, what else might happen that could have catastrophic and even eternal consequences for us all? Either God is in complete charge or He is not. Again, if He is not, we're all screwed - plain and simple.

2. Under the umbrella of God's sovereignty is the reality that this whole world is under the power of "the wicked one." (See 1 John 5:19) God has allowed Satan and his minions to have run of the house for a time. However, this run of the house isn't without limitations. There are boundaries to what Satan can and cannot do. Those boundaries are set by Almighty God.

3. Does God "cause" or "allow" bad things to happen? First, we have to affirm that God doesn't tempt anybody to do evil. (See James 1:13) Left to himself, apart from the intervening grace of God, mankind will do evil as surely as water runs downhill. That has been true since the Garden of Eden. Then the question comes, "Does God allow evil?" and the answer is, "Of course, He does!" How else would it happen?

4. Could God prevent the evil things that happen from happening? Certainly. Does He always prevent them? No, He does not. Why doesn't He prevent them? Because the things that we see as horrible and evil fit into a greater plan than the vision of short-sighted humanity can see. In other words, God allows evil events to happen because in some way the dark threads of man's sinful behavior fits into the greater plan that God has.

A perfect example is the crucifixion of Jesus. Had we have been there that day, nobody could have ever convinced us that God had anything to do with this, but He did. Did God tempt Judas to betray Jesus? Of course not. Did God tempt the soldiers to crucify Him? No. However, by virtue of the fact that He allowed it, He is complicit in the whole event. After, all Jesus is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. What happened that day had to happen.

As the sign on President Truman's desk used to read, "The buck stops here." If somebody allows something that they could have stopped, it really makes no sense to argue whether they "allowed it" or "caused it." The answer becomes a moot point. Again, if God can stop something and doesn't stop it, we must acknowledge that there was a reason for His choice. If somebody tried to hurt Melanie, I would fly into that person in a rage to stop it from happening. However, when medical doctors hurt my children during physical treatments they needed as children, I stood by and watched it happen because I understood the greater cause present that my children couldn't see at the time.

5. That point brings me to the issue of our trying to defend God's reputation. We can't make sense out of why some things happen. The events violate our sense of justice so we sometimes say, "God had nothing to do with that!" (Billy Graham said that shortly after 9/11 and, though I love the man, I cringed when I heard it.) Something in the world got out of hand - God's hand - for a moment??? What a terrifying thought! If that were true, how could we know when He will have control over everything and when He won't??? No, our loving God is in full control at every moment - even in the darkest and worst times of life. He walks through those moments with us, holding us in His loving arms and saying to us, "You can't understand, but you can trust."

Some play the free-will card when they try to explain the apparent horrors of life. "God gave man free will and he can do what he wants," they argue. I know my next statement will probably set off an alarm with many people but here it is: I don't believe in free will. Free will? What does that mean? I'll try to be careful how I say this so as to not be misunderstood: We do make choices in life, so please don't give me the worn-out "robot argument." However, those choices don't don't emerge from a will that is free. Every person's will has been shaped, influenced, and directed by the stimuli that has come into their lives. There is a reason people make the choices they do. Choices aren't made in a vacuum. They are made in conjunction with influences that move our wills in one direction or another. Again, there is a reason why people make the choices they do. Could God have protected a person from the influences that led him to make a wrong choice? Of course. Then why didn't He? That is the question of the ancients as well as contemporaries and, to our dismay, has no satisfactory answer. When we reach a dead end on the street of reason, we have to take a sharp turn onto the road of trust. It's that simple.

Why does God allow rape, incest, murder, torture, etc? I don't know! But if He could stop it (and He could!) and He doesn't, we must assume it serves a greater purpose than our finite minds can comprehend. Don't think for a moment that I come to this conclusion with callous disregard for those who hurt. My own wife was repeatedly molested as a child by her grandfather - a man I long wanted to kill and hoped would one day go to hell - a man whose grave I imagined writing "child molester" on with Round Up (a weed killer that would kill the grass wherever it touched.) Yes, I have known anger about injustices and evil in this world. (As an aside, both Melanie and I forgave him and have recorded a teaching that gives the details. It's called, "Freedom Through Forgiveness.)

The bottom line is that if God doesn't stop something that He could stop, the existence of that event must serve an eternal purpose. We don't have to understand it, but to come to peace with the event, with ourselves and even with God, we must trust.

The older I get and the deeper I go with biblical truth and with my pursuit of theology, the more I realize there are many paradoxes (two facts that are equally true but appear to be in contradiction) with our God and His ways. We must learn to be content with those paradoxes and not insist on finding definitive answers to every question. God doesn't need us to defend Him nor explain Him. He just wants us to trust Him. He is good. That's a given. How terrible events can be reconciled with that fact is a question that most likely will linger as long as the world stands.

A Throne In Heaven

Things don't just "happen" in this world. A sovereign God has written the script for the drama we call life. The world is not hanging in the balance, with the outcome yet to be determined. Some people seem to believe that the throngs of heaven are on one side of the stadium and the demons of hell are on the other, each hoping their side wins. Within the context of their twisted theology, it becomes man’s decisions that will determine who wins. Meanwhile, God is keeping His fingers crossed. With that perspective, it’s no wonder that so many experience such anxiety!

That line of thinking is nothing less than religious humanism and is an insult to God’s sovereignty. It puts man in the driver’s seat and makes God nothing more than a nervous passenger who is doing all He can do to make sure everything turns out all right. It’s a perspective that portrays God as sometimes encouraging us, sometimes threatening us, but always hoping that man will respond in the right way.

All of heaven isn’t holding its breath waiting to see how things turn out in the end. We aren’t at the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded and the enemy’s home-run slugger up to bat. The fact is that eternity’s headlines have already been written. They read, “God Wins!”

When John saw the throne of God in heaven (see Rev 4:1-2), there was Someone sitting on it. Sitting – not standing. (See also 1 Kings 22:19; Isaiah 6:1; Daniel 7:9) Your heavenly Father isn’t pacing the corridors of heaven worrying about how things will be resolved. He’s seated because He already has it all worked out, to the last detail. Being omniscient, nothing takes Him by surprise. He already knows everything. There aren’t any unknown variables that will cause Him to need to react. God doesn’t react. He only acts.

If His omniscience gives Him knowledge of everything, His omnipotence means He has the power to do something about it. God is all powerful. The Bible teaches that He will do whatever He wants and nobody or nothing can stop Him. (Daniel 4:35) Why He sometimes allows things to happen that seem wrong to us and won’t allow things that seem right to occur are hidden within the mystery of His sovereign wisdom. It doesn’t sit well with our human ego, but God’s job is to be in charge. Ours is to trust. That’s the only way we will ever be content in life.

Either God is in control of everything that happens or we couldn’t be sure He is in charge of anything. Sometimes when evil things happen in this world, some well meaning Christians will argue, “God had nothing to with that!”

Is that so?
Did He know about it in advance?
Did He allow it?
Could He have stopped it?

The obvious answer is yes. God is connected to and stands in authority over everything. Anything outside the realm of His control would be as great as Him, and nothing is as great as God.

If you can think of things that have happened which you believe God could not have prevented, then a horrifying question must be considered. What else might happen that’s beyond God’s control? If God can’t prevent some things from happening; if some things are beyond His will and control, then maybe the worst is yet to come! There would be no reason for us to ever have even a trace of contentment in life if a single thing can happen apart from God’s control.

Thankfully, the truth is that nothing can happen independent of His authority. Why, then, does God allow events that seem terrible to us? Only in heaven will we learn the answer to some questions. In the meantime, we need to be sure that we don’t try to understand who God is based solely on our circumstances. To the contrary, we must interpret our circumstances based on who God is, and by what we do understand about Him. There’s one thing we know for sure about God – He is love. (1 John 4:8)

Don’t try to understand God by your circumstances. Look at your circumstances through the grid of God’s love and like Paul, learn to be content in whatever circumstances you are in at the moment. You can be content because the victory has already been won for every battle you’ll ever face.

Do we really believe it when we sing,

“Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come.
Tis grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home?”

It’s called home because we already live there. In some way that defies the ability of our human minds to grasp, you and I are actually already seated with Christ beside the throne of God. The Apostle Paul wrote:

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus"(Ephesians 2:4-6).

Harry Ironside, a great preacher of the early 20th century once had preached on this passage just before he greeted a young child after the service. “Did you enjoy the message?” Ironside asked the little boy.

“Yes, sir,” the child answered.

“What did you understand from my sermon?” Ironside asked.

“Well,” answered the boy, “I didn’t understand it all, but I learned one thing. We’re sittin’ pretty, ain’t we?”

There’s a good reason for us to have peace – in Jesus Christ,“we’re sittin’ pretty.” When we trust in the sovereignty of our loving Father over the details of our daily lives, peace will permeate every aspect of our existence. If it’s true, as the old spiritual song says, that “This world is not my home. I’m just passing through,” then why seek contentment from this brief stopover? Look through the open door and recognize that your Divine Lover is sitting on a throne, ensuring that everything is unfolding according to plan.

The Value of Laughter

When Nehemiah led the people of Israel to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem, they had a ceremony after the reconstruction was complete. Ezra, the priest, stood before the people and began to read the Law of God to them. As he read, the people were moved to tears and began to weep as they worshiped God. Nehemiah encouraged them with these words: “Do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10).
Children naturally find strength in joy. I remember a joy I experienced as a young boy that generated a sense of physical strength in me. It was the joy of a new pair of tennis shoes. Paul Parrot Shoes sold a pair that had the personal guarantee of a talking parrot on the television commercial. Not only would he give you a free plastic egg filled with candy, but this parrot assured young customers that his shoes would “make your feet run faster, as fast as I can fly.”

On one occasion when my parents bought me a pair of shoes, I begged for Paul Parrot Shoes. When I got those shoes home, I put them on, laced them up and went outside to try them out. I timed myself as I ran completely around my house. It was true! I could feel the strength these shoes were giving me. I laughed out loud as I imagined Paul Parrot himself trying to keep up with my running if he were flying beside me. It was my fastest speed ever to run around my house. I had never actually timed myself before, but it didn’t matter. I just knew this was a record.

Do you want to find strength to “run and not grow weary?” (Isaiah 40:31) Then resolve to laugh and have fun. If anybody has a reason to do so, you do. The party in the kingdom of God is going on right now. Don’t be like the older brother in the story of prodigal son who stood outside and missed the fun. Come on in to the celebration and watch your strength grow.

Laughing at ourselves is a healthy part of a a godly lifestyle because reminds us that life doesn’t have to be taken so seriously. To laugh at yourself has the effect of a good dose of medicine. I have often laughed at my own weaknesses – my terrible sense of direction, my pathetic lack of mechanical skills, as well as many other things that I’m not secure enough to tell you right now!

Topping the list of causes to laugh at myself are the foolish things I have mistakenly said. There was the time in church after I had spoken when I wanted everybody to stand to their feet and bow their heads for prayer. That’s what I wanted. What I said was, “Will you please stand with your head bowed to your feet?” Later, some people told me that they thought I was beginning some sort of aerobics ministry right there on the spot. We all had a good laugh, especially me. My worst misspeak in church was when I was a young pastor teaching in church about what the Bible says concerning our responsibility to care for the older widows in the church. "The Scripture doesn't indicate that we have the same duty toward younger widows, probably because they're still young enough to get out and hustle for a living." As I watched the shoulders of the whole congregation start to shake with laughter in union as they tried to squelch their laughter, I realized what I said and remember that while I meant the word "hustle" to mean "work hard," they had another meaning of the word in mind. "You're all sick!" I finally laughingly said to the whole congregation.

Learn to laugh at your own idiosyncrasies and mistakes and you’ll discover that you can create a joyful atmosphere that’s literally refreshing.

Can You Go Too Far With Grace?

One of the most frequent accusations I hear as I teach the truth of grace is that we have to be careful about not taking grace too far. After all, people will go crazy and abuse grace if you aren't careful. Some suggest that there is "grace and truth" and that we need to keep the two in balance, as if there is anything else we could do. You can't divide truth from grace. When we do, truth stops being true and grace becomes disgrace.

It is important to remember that grace involves God expressing His unconditional love and favor toward us; independent of anything we ever do or don’t do. Grace is personified in Jesus. So to say that you can go too far with grace is like saying that you can go too far with Jesus. It simply isn’t possible.

Some people are afraid that if you teach the pure grace of God, people might be encouraged to go out and commit sins. That kind of fear shows a lack of clear understanding about what grace does in a person’s life. It certainly doesn’t encourage sin!

The idea that you can go too far with grace is an irrational fear. When a believer sins, he is acting in a disgraceful way by contradicting the very essence of the grace of God which is in him. Grace empowers us to honor our Father through our actions, not dishonor Him. It is possible to pervert grace so that it stops being grace, but it isn’t possible to go too far with it.

Paul explained it this way in Romans 5:17: “Much more, those who received the abundance of grace, and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ. He said that if we’re going to reign in life, there needs to be an abundance of grace, which provides the gift of righteousness. The result will be that we reign in life.

The word “abundance” in that verse suggests an overflow. It doesn’t mean filling something to the top. It means filling it beyond the top, so that it spills over. Paul said that is what has happened to the Christian. We have received an overflow of grace.

Go too far with grace? There’s no way. The fact is that most Christians haven’t gone far enough in their understanding of it. We need an overflow of grace, especially in the modern church. Especially in the lives of Christians today who’ve been ambushed by legalism. As much as we say we don’t want to live under the law, we’re scared to death of the grace of God.

We need to boldly proclaim God’s grace to the church world -- not only to the unredeemed, unsaved world, but to the church world. We need to proclaim the grace of God because the fact is that, even if you could go too far with grace, which you can’t, I’ve not been in a church yet where there was even a remote possibility of going too far with the grace of God.

Go too far with grace? Not a chance. We need an abundance of grace in the legalistic barrenness of the modern church. It’s only when we jump in over our heads, into the river of God’s grace, and we experience that abundance, that we know the victory that is ours in Jesus Christ.

Celebrating Life In Every Situation

Celebration was a foundational aspect of the growth of the early church. The second chapter of Acts portrays a group of people who laughed and loved, who shared meals and money; people who took seriously the practice of partying under the direction of God’s Spirit. They would have fully affirmed C. S. Lewis’s claim that “joy is the serious business of heaven.” The result was that “multitudes were added to the church” (Acts 5:14).

A spirit of carefree, lighthearted, God-centered celebration is often conspicuously absent in the lives of most contemporary Christians. When did we begin to take ourselves so seriously? What urgent matters have we allowed to rob us of our playful spirit? We are going to live forever. How important can things really be that won’t even be remembered, let alone matter a hundred years from now? What are we trying to prove by our stress-filled agendas and to whom are we trying to prove it? There’s no doubt about it, most of us need to lighten up.

When we don’t maintain an attitude of internal joy that can’t be touched by external circumstances, the rhythms of grace in our life become discordant. The music soon stops.

The Apostle Paul wrote, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Let me say it again, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4, emphasis added)! Paul had obviously learned the value of celebrating our Father's loving faithfulness because these words weren’t written from a villa on the Mediterranean sea. They were written from a prison cell where he was being held for preaching the gospel. Paul had learned to dance to the blues as well as to an upbeat, cheerful melody in life.

There is something childlike (not childish) about a man who can celebrate when he is in prison. Normally, a child has an innate sense that no matter what is going on in the world around them, everything is going to be alright. After all, they reason, their parents have everything under control.

I have vague memories of the Cuban Missile Crisis that happened when I was a young child. Some say it was the closest the United States has ever been to nuclear war. One of the main things I remember is that our church family brought canned food and bottled water and put it under a stairway inside the church building. The plan was that we would all would all gather together at church if a missile were to be launched against us.

As I and my young friends explored, we sat under the stairs with the stockpile of food and water and I thought to myself, “This wouldn’t be a bad place to stay for awhile.” I wasn’t worried about the potential danger at hand. I knew something very bad could happen, but reasoned that my parents would take care of me no matter what might happen. So while adults worried and prayed and collected bottles of water and cans of food, I played without a care in the world.

To rejoice in the Lord doesn’t mean we’re oblivious to danger, but it does mean we trust in the protection of our Father. Our security rests in Him, not in the outcome of whatever circumstances we may find ourselves. We celebrate Him, not what is happening at a given moment in time. Wherever we might be, we find what C. S. Lewis called “patches of Godlight in the woods of our experience.” The light of His presence in any circumstance is all the light we need to keep the party going.

Christian Cataracts

Sometimes people with failing vision have been known to pretend to see better than they do. They find it hard to admit that they can't see clearly. That’s what a Christian legalist does. In an effort to keep up appearances, those blinded by legalism profess all the more loudly about how clearly they can see. They go through religious motions, but with each passing day their view of the Divine Lover’s face grows dimmer. Those actions which were once animated by His indwelling life and which were motivated by love now become religious routine. They have traded a Person for performance.

They read the Bible, but it doesn’t read them. They say prayers, but don’t pray. They watch and listen, but no longer see and hear. They are more than willing to tell everybody around them how to walk, but don’t have the vision to know where they are going themselves. They are “blind leaders of the blind.” (Matthew 15:14)

The source of legalists’ behavior is not love for Jesus Christ, but dead, religious duty. They believe they can gain God’s favor because of what they do. The miss the point altogether that it isn’t a certain behavior that brings God pleasure. God is pleased only by faith. (Hebrews 11:6)

Those blinded by legalism typically get hung up on the technicalities of the religious rules they deem obligatory, but have lost sight completely of the things that are really important. They argue over incidentals that have no eternal value. They are missing Jesus!

Jesus spoke to them in Matthew 23, telling them the way it is. Eugene Peterson paraphrases the scene in The Message, when Jesus said to them,

You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God’s Law, things like fairness and compassion and commitment- the absolute basics! – you carelessly take it or leave it. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required. Do you have any idea how silly you look, writing a life story that’s wrong from start to finish, nitpicking over commas and semicolons?

Much of Matthew 23 is filled with the renouncement of Jesus against the legalism of the Pharisees. Their obsession with rules above relationships was the definitive evidence of their blindness. They were missing the whole point, says Jesus.
Have you become blinded by legalism? Some might argue that a Christian can’t be a legalist. They understand the word to refer only to those who hope to become a Christian by their works. While that certainly is one expression of legalism, it isn’t the only way a person can act as a legalist.

The Apostle Paul wrote his epistle to the Galatians because of the threat of legalism in their church. False teachers had come into the fellowship there, teaching these young Christians that, along with Christ, they needed to embrace the law. Paul wrote to them to say, “No! Your life isn’t built around the law! Your life is in Jesus Christ!” He asked them, “Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?” (Galatians 3:2)

Paul wasn’t writing to them because he was concerned that they might misunderstand salvation. He knew they had believed the gospel and received God’s Spirit. How could they become confused about what it takes to become a Christian? They had already become Christians! His concern for them was that, as Christians, they might become ensnared in legalism.

The Pharisees were not believers in Christ. The Galatians were. It’s possible to be a legalist whether a person is a believer or non-believer. Do you want to clearly see the spiritual reality of Christ? Then allow the Great Physician to remove your cataracts of relgious rules and regiment. When you do, you'll find yourself singing with new understanding, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see!"

Interview With Dave Bilbrough

Dave is a dear friend and an outstanding worship leader. I used this video on my "Sunday Preaching" broadcast recently but wanted to post it here for those who haven't seen it. You can learn more about Dave's ministry at www.davebilbrough.com

Is God In A Bad Mood?

“I think God is out to get me!” George Castanza once said to Jerry on the popular Seinfeld television sitcom.
“I thought you didn’t believe in God,” Jerry answered.
“I do for the bad stuff!” George replied.

George’s comical answer reflects a sad attitude common among many people, even many Christians. Legalistic religion often paints a portrayal of a god who is perturbed most of the time, if not downright angry. After all, when you consider that sin runs rampant in the world and if you add to the equation that even Christians can’t seem to get it right much of the time, why wouldn’t God be in a bad mood?

God in a bad mood? That concept carries some serious implications. I’m reminded of a tee shirt I saw in a store which read, “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” Transfer that viewpoint onto Deity and we’re all in serious trouble! If God is in a bad mood, then all of creation had better tow the line because if He were angry and if His anger were to be stirred up, it’s no small matter.

Is God short-tempered? Does His patience wear thin when His children don’t act the way they should? The fact is that nothing could be further from the truth. If you believe otherwise, your faulty beliefs are going to be a major hindrance in your enjoyment of Him. After all, who wants to be close to somebody who is scowling at them? Especially if that Person is God.

To experience genuine intimacy with the Father, it may be necessary for your current understanding of His demeanor to be completely dismantled. I’ll state the truth as plainly as possible – God is in a good mood! He isn’t edgy about all that is going on in this world. God doesn’t bite His fingernails or take Maalox for a nervous stomach.

We can know that God is in a good mood because of Jesus. In the incarnation of Christ, God can be seen running out of heaven toward man with a big smile on His face. In fact, the birth of Jesus was surrounded with jubilant celebration in the heavenly realm. One angel, shouting with enthusiasm above the others, was heard to say, “I bring you good news of great joy, which shall come to all people” (Luke 2:10, emphasis added). Good news of great joy – that sounds like a reason for a party!

It’s noteworthy that His first miracle was performed at a wedding party. (John 2:1-11) One of the last things He told His disciples before leaving this world was that He wanted them to continue to be full of the joy they had seen in Him. (John 15:11) Jesus was a fun-loving person.

If your mental picture of Him is that He was a religious sourpuss, you had better take another look. The people who were attracted to Him were dishonest businessmen, vulgar sailors, prostitutes, and the like – none of which you could exactly call “churchy people.” His opponents, on the other hand, came from a hyper-religious crowd who couldn’t crack a smile if their lives depended on it.This uptight, hyper-religious crowd once even challenged Him about his lifestyle. Jesus answered them,

For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, “He has a demon!” The Son of Man has come eating and drinking and you say, “Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Luke 7:33-34)!

You just can’t please the Pharisaical hyper-religious crowd who love rules more than people. Even Jesus couldn’t! Of course we know that Jesus wasn’t a glutton and a drunkard, but the point to be understood here is that He obviously wasn’t so tightly wound that He didn’t enjoy life. He came into this world in the midst of celebration, lived a life of joy (even amidst great sorrow) and on the last night of His life here challenged the disciples to hold on to that same joy.

Since Jesus said that He and His Father are one, we can understand much about the Father by looking at Jesus. Judging from Him, our God isn’t a cranky old Deity who doesn’t enjoy laughter and joy. To the contrary, He is its ultimate source of celebration and pleasure. He is a happy Father who has everything under control. He has already written the ending to this story that is actually His story and it's a good ending. So let's not draw a caricature of Him in our minds by imagining a crotchety old Deity who is in a bad mood. Nothing could be more wrong.

Joe Cocker And Grace?

One time I was speaking at a conference on the subject of hearing our Father express His love to us in nonreligious ways when I asked the group, “Are you able to hear God speak to you if there is no religious tone who what you hear?” The audience waited for me to continue. “Close your eyes and listen to the song I’m about to play, “ I encouraged them. “Perhaps you have heard the song before, but this time, listen for the voice of the Divine Lover in it.”

Then, at a spiritual retreat, in a room filled with Christians, I played a recording by a well known rock singer, Joe Cocker. The words he passionately sang are, “You are so beautiful to me. You are so beautiful to me. Can’t you see? You’re everything I hoped for. You’re everything I need. You are so beautiful to me!”

As the song played, grown men and women began to cry. For the first time, many were hearing their Divine Lover’s voice from a source they had never thought to consider before now. For every person there, this song would never again be the same. God’s love had redeemed it and brought it into the kingdom as a gift for those who listened.

Does this concept seem uncomfortable to you? If so, consider this question: Why should Jesus Christ be restricted to only communicating to you in religious ways? He is Lord over all the earth and can use anything He chooses to express love to those who are His! One unmarried lady I know says that she listens to a radio station that plays nothing but romantic love songs and that she often hears the Lord sing to her through those songs. Who would tell her she is wrong?

I have experienced a sense of transcendent joy that couldn’t possibly find its origin in fallen man at times when I have heard certain non-religious music. I was enthralled as I watched a live performance of the musical The Phantom of the Opera. On another occasion, tears filled my eyes as I attended a concert by the great Italian singer, Andrae Boccelli, despite the fact that not one word was being sung in English.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not suggesting that every time we have a positive feeling, it’s God manifesting Himself to us. I recognize that our emotions can be manipulated by various influences. However, I also believe that Christians are sometimes guilty of dismissing the pervasive presence of Christ in this world by relegating experiences that aren’t directly religious as being “non-spiritual.”

I can almost imagine that when I listened to Andrae Boccelli in concert, Jesus was saying, “Isn’t this great? Steve, I love seeing how you enjoy this concert. I can’t wait until you get Home. I have even better ones waiting for you here.”

The world is our Father's pulpit. Let's learn to open our eyes and ears and listen for His melody of His love being sung to us from unexpected places.

Hearing God Speak

In his book, Without Feathers, Woody Allen offers an essay which spoofs the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. As Allen tells the story, Abraham is reporting to Sarah and Isaac about how God has instructed him to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. While this description contains elements of humor, it isn’t so far removed from the way some Christians think that God must speak to them.

And Abraham awoke in the middle of the night and said to his only son, Isaac,“I have had a dream where the voice of the Lord sayeth that I must sacrifice my only son,so put your pants on.” And Isaac trembled and said, “So what did you say? I mean when He brought this whole thing up?” “What am I going to say?” Abraham said. “I’m standing there at two A.M. in my underwear with the Creator of the Universe. Should I argue?”

“Well, did he say why he wants me sacrificed?” Isaac asked his father. But Abraham said, “The faithful do not question. Now let’s go because I have a heavy day tomorrow.” And Sarah said, “How doth thou know it was the Lord?” . . . And Abraham answered, “Because I know it was the Lord. It was a deep, resonant voice, well modulated, and nobody in the desert can get a rumble in it like that.”

Hearing God's voice necessitates learning to recognize when He speaks. Don’t wait for a deep, resonant, well-modulated voice. The Lord may speak, expressing His love to you in unexpected ways and at unexpected times. Keep your ears open to hear Him at any moment in any situation.

A Jed Clampet Sort of Grace

To practice the discipline of contentment, we must be set free from an all-consuming goal to increasingly achieve and attain. It’s still true that a man can’t serve two masters. (Luke 16:13) Real contentment comes when we begin to focus on spiritual depth instead of the superficial breadth lauded by modern standards.

Contentment never comes to those who are held captive to the eternal lust for success. When John Rockefeller was asked, “How much money is enough?”, his answer was, “A little more.” That will always be the answer to the question, “How much is enough?” Contentment where we are is a great blessing.

A scene from an old TV program illustrates the point well. The following is a conversation between Jed Clampett and Cousin Pearl in the classic 1960's television program The Beverly Hillbillies. The exchange took place right after Jed discovered oil had been struck on his land.

Jed: Pearl, what d’ya think? Think I oughta move?

Pearl: Jed, how can ya even ask? Look around ya. Yore eight miles from yore nearest neighbor. Yore overrun with skunks, possums, coyotes, bobcats. You use kerosene lamps fer light and you cook on a wood stove summer and winter. Yore drinkin’ homemade moonshine and washin’ with homemade lye soap. And yore bathroom is fifty feet from the house and you ask, “Should I move?”

Jed: I reckon yore right. A man’d be a dang fool to leave all this!

It's all a matter of persepective, isn't it? May our Father give us eyes to see His blessings and a heart to be content in whatever place we find ourselves in life.

Looking Beyond The Religious Lens

My wife, Melanie, and I have loved the chance to occasionally vacation in the Carribean. At times I have stood in scenic spots overlooking the ocean, with my camera in hand. I’ve felt overwhelmed by the majestic beauty that surrounds me. Blue, crystal clear water stretches out to the horizon until it becomes impossible to tell where the water stops and the sky begins. White, powdery beaches reach as far in both directions as the eye can see. Picturesque palm trees lean forward with fronds reaching out to the water as if they too desperately want to feel the lapping waves. A gentle breeze that seems to promise to breathe youth into any person who will inhale its ocean fragrance. Do you have the sense of what I’m describing?

Now, imagine at those moments that I lift a fifteen dollar disposable camera to my face so that I can take a picture and capture the beauty that lies before and around me. I don’t want to lose this moment. I love it and I want to seize it on film. I want to pull the total impact of everything I’m experiencing at the moment through that camera’s lens and take it home with me on a 3x5 photograph. I want to go home, look at this picture and feel exactly what I’m feeling as I stand on the beach at that moment.

Do you think it will happen? Of course not. A snapshot could never do justice to the beauty. It’s only a minuscule representation of what I’ve seen, but it just can’t do it justice. It can only remind me of the beauty of the moment, it can’t duplicate it. The beauty is simply bigger than any camera can capture.

That’s how it is when we try to see the beauty of Jesus through a religious lens. He is the personification of God’s love—a love much too big to be contained by religion—consequently He reveals Himself in nonreligious ways. For instance, the Bible says that “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1). Clouds aren’t religious. The blue sky isn’t religious. So God doesn’t only communicate through church-talk, but also through cloud-talk. These are only two of His many dialects.

The means by which God declares His love and presence are without limit. Many ancient saints understood themselves to be living in a “God-bathed” world. If we want to deeply experience intimacy with Him, it helps immeasurably to view the world in the same way. Our Divine Lover reveals Himself in many ways. Jesus is whispering to you right now, every day, in a thousand ways and many of them aren’t religious. We need only to be watching and aware.

Idleness With Jesus

In Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, there is an intense scene where Captain Ahab’s whaling boat presses through a churning sea in pursuit of the great white whale, Moby Dick. One can almost smell the salt air and feel the ocean spray as Melville describes the chase. For the sailors onboard at that moment, nothing else exists apart from the pounding waves, violent winds and the great sea monster beneath the water.

Bulging muscles are taunt and determined minds are irrevocably resolved to do whatever necessary to triumph in this cosmic battle between good and evil. The swells of the ocean waves lift the whaleboat high above the water’s surface, only to slam it back down again. But the morally outraged Captain Ahab will not give up. Everything that matters is in the balance at this moment. No energy or determination can be spared. The boat may break apart, but to forfeit the fight is out of the question. The demon beneath must be destroyed. As Eugene Peterson notes:

In this boat, however, there is one man who does nothing. He doesn’t hold an oar; he doesn’t perspire; he doesn’t shout. He is languid in the crash and cursing. This man is the harpooner, quiet and poised, waiting. And then this sentence: “To insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooners of this world must start to their feet out of idleness, and not out of toil.”

Nobody would dispute that a cosmic battle exists today between the forces of good and evil. We see this struggle on the sea of humanity in every culture of the world. Pastors and churches urge us to not give up the ship, but to labor on, to fight at all costs to ensure victory. Recruiters appeal to our sense of what is moral and right to enlist us in the struggle.

Every Sunday in churches across the world, sincere Christians rededicate themselves with a renewed determination to become more involved and consistent in the battle against evil. Their hearts are in the right place. They feel the need to do something, but where can they be most effective in the boat?

The majority are determined to become better oarsmen who will work harder. A few are sure they sense the calling of Captain Ahab on their lives. They express their intent to attend a religious naval academy where they can learn to be the skipper of their own boat. They want to lead other sailors and together conquer the demon of the depths. . . thus goes contemporary church life in the world today.

The question that begs an answer is, "Where are the harpooners of the 21st century church?" How are we supposed to overcome the demons of the depths? In many instances, we often don’t even know how to strike a death blow against the carnality of our own behavior, much less admonish others about theirs or lead others like ourselves into battle. Note Melville’s statement again: “To insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooners of this world must start to their feet out of idleness, and not out of toil.”

Idleness? When a violent storm is raging; when our enemy is so close that our very lives are in danger; when everybody else around us is frantic with hyperactivity; idleness is not a natural response. Yet surely it is indeed to an “idleness” of sorts that we are all called. For the person who wants to know triumph in the struggle, this idleness is indispensable. Those who are weary with fatigue are in no position to strike the fatal blow against the enemy. It is in a certain idleness that we find our strength. Idleness with Jesus Christ is the most active, invigorating, energizing experience of life. Don't allow yourself to become so busy with the demands of life that you forget the value of holy idleness with Him. Doing nothing with Jesus is to do all you can do to do all you need to do in life.

Imagine No Legalism

Grace Walk is reaching across the world to share the Father's love and grace. This video highlights a few of the places our team has served. As of today, we've been able to personally visit many countries on six continents. People are hungry to know the love and grace of our God!