DEADLY DEVOTION

The hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.  And they will do this because they have not known the Father, nor me.  John 16:2, 3, R.S.V.


Jesus' prediction is puzzling.  How can people who don't know God kill someone on behalf of God?  Doesn't religious murder imply a consuming devotion to God?  Why, then, does Jesus say that such people don't even know God?

These religious zealots, these self-appointed guardians of public virtue, will never admit to not knowing God.  In fact, they probably quote Scripture and invoke God's name as they pull the trigger.  They might even thank Him for helping them have such good aim, because the "God" whom they worship is the kind of God who believes in using force in the name of righteousness.

Such people may kill in the name of God.  The problem is that they have the wrong God.  They might use the right names when referring to their God, perhaps even calling Him Jesus or Father.  But having the right name doesn't make Him the right one.  It's His character qualities, His manner of relating to people, His methods of solving the sin problem, that set the true God apart from every counterfeit.

To have a correct understanding of God's true character is vastly more than just theological icing on the cake.  Jesus' comment makes it clear that to worship an oppressive God is to become oppressive ourselves.  To worship a vindictive, punitive God is to become such ourselves, for by beholding God, weare changed into His same likeness.  If our picture is faulty, the change will also be faulty.

As tragic as it would be that Christians should be put to death for their beliefs, the vastly greater tragedy is that it should be done in the name of God.  To see a Christian go to his death-sleep abiding in Jesus brings no satisfaction to Satan.  But to see God's reputation blackened in the process brings him a perverse delight, for that is his goal.  If there is one thing that is worse than for a person to die, it is for him to die while alienated from God.  And nothing could be more alienating than for him to think that God is an oppressive murderer.

Though we will not likely kill in the name of God, may we never in other ways misrepresent Him because we have not known the Father or His Son.

PEACE BORN OF TRUST

Thou dost keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusts in thee.  Isa. 26:3, R.S.V.

Is peace the elusive reward we get from disciplined concentration on God?  Or is peace a tangible reality that comes from knowing that God is absolutely trustworthy?

The more we find God to be so utterly attractive that we cannot get Him out of our minds, the more at peace we will become.  This is no shallow sentimentalism, as when one sighs and pines for an earthly lover.  Neither can rigid intellectualism satisfy the cravings of the heart.  It is only as we begin to grasp the irrefutable truth of a wise and loving God that we finally come to make the most practical decision of our lives.  We trust Him, and in trusting Him we find perfect peace.

The psalmist wrote, "Righteousness and peace will kiss each other" (Ps. 85:10, R.S.V.).  Righteousness, that coming into right relationship with God because the misconceptions about Him have been removed, brings us peace as a natural consequence.  In fact, they are inseparable.  But what is peace, anyway?  An absence of trouble?  Emotional flatness?  Is it God's always being present to keep us from falling into the puddles?

Genuine peace is a statement of faith independent of circumstances.  It is unshakable confidence in who God is and how He has chosen to deal with the complexities of the sin problem.  It brings inner joy and celebration over the One who has so thoroughly resolved the apparently unresolvable--the blending of justice and mercy.

Peace is also very practical.  When you do all into the puddles, you know that God has not forsaken you.  You do not spend yourself trying to figure out why He let you get wet.  Instead, your settledness about Him and about your relationship with Him enables you to look beyond puddles.  You know that puddles go away eventually; God is forever.

Some look only to their feelings for peace.  By these feelings they test their spirituality.  Consequently, they spend much time thinking about themselves instead of moving forward in fresh understanding about God, the originator of peace.  Any negative emotions are quickly denied in favor of the euphoria they think peace should bring.  The sad truth is that peace never comes in this manner.  God does not give peace; He is our peace.

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that...you may abound in hope" (Rom. 15:13, R.S.V.).

CALLING SIN BY ITS RIGHT NAME

When he comes, he will convince the world concerning sin...because they do not believe in me.  John 16:8, 9, R.S.V.

She cried as one who would not be comforted.  She had been "labored with" by a fellow church member regarding some sinful thing she had done.  He had been "calling sin by its rightful name," and she freely admitted that she had done it.  "The Spirit is really convicting me," she said,  "I feel crushed!"  She seemed surprised when I suggested that the Holy Spirit might not necessarily be the one behind her convictions.

Strange as it may first appear, Satan is also in the business of convicting of sin.  Some people he persuades to care nothing about sin except to find new ways to plunge into it.  But he has a special approach for the conscientious.  He tells them that sin is fundamentally selfish actions, but he wants them to know nothing of a relationship with a forgiving Saviour who alone can heal this selfishness.

The Bible certainly does address the sinful actions that we humans find so easy to do, but Jesus knows that there is little value in sending the Spirit with an unabridged list of sinful actions to prohibit.  Those sinful actions are but the symptoms of a broken relationship with our Creator.  To focus on the actions without first healing the relationship would only drive guilt-ridden, intimidated sinners further from a holy God.

Satan's convictions of sin center around behavior, and the aim is to crush with despair.  The Spirit's convictions of sin center around relationship, with an aim to reconcile rebels into trusting belief in God.

Perhaps this should give us pause to consider our human endeavors to call sin by its rightful name.  We seldom have problems spotting the outward signs of other people's inward hurting--those things we call sins.  It could possibly even minister to our pride to be able to point them out, to "rightly name" them.

But unless we know why people are inwardly hurting, and unless we know how to walk them back to the arms of Jesus, we may well be participating with Satan's crushing endeavors.  When we come to the place where we can never talk about sin without talking about Jesus Christ, where sin makes sense to us only in terms of broken relationship with Him, then we are ready to be used by the gentle Spirit.

THE HIDDEN QUESTION

Jesus said to them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?"  They said to him, "Yes, Lord."  Then he touched their eyes, saying, "According to your faith be it done to you."  Matt. 9:28, 29, R.S.V.


Two blind men, pleading for money, approached Jesus.  Obviously they wanted to be healed of their malady.  But the way in which they asked revealed that they accepted what was traditionally held to be the reasons for blindness.  They asked for mercy, believing their blindness to be evidence of God's disfavor (see John 9:2).

Jesus met their request with a question.  Did they believe that He could heal them?  Surely, they knew He could!  They must have seen Him heal others or heard a good report.  We might well imagine that their answer came quickly, "Yes, Lord!"  But was more involved than His power to heal physically?

Was Jesus gently nudging them into new patterns of thinking?  Maybe later, as they lay on their back looking at the intense blue of the Mediterranean sky, the question came back as softly as the delicate wisps of clouds above.  Was there a hidden meaning in His inquiry?  As they mused on this were new thoughts awakened in their minds?  Did they begin also to see with spiritual eyes?

Jesus came to reveal the truth about the Father to His troubled earthly children, to explain that God loved them and never arbitrarily induced pain as a means of punishment.  He came to bring weary hearts back into fellowship with the One who could give them rest.  Did they begin to grasp a deeper meaning in Jesus' question?  Do you believe that God would want to do this?  Do you realize how much God wants to be involved with sinners?  That it is in keeping with who He is, to bring sight to your eyes?

Surely Jesus was telling them that God is never arbitrary.  He never acts out of anger.  He deals with reality, even as He desires us to do.  He wants us whole.  Yet it would be a big step for these humble men to believe such things in the face of all that the priests taught.  It would put them at odds with their friends, because then they, too, would have to address similar concepts.

The blind men had believed and went away seeing.  I only hope that they had the courage to let that be only the beginning.

​THE (SUBTLE) BATTLE WITH SELF

He died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.  2 Cor. 5:15, R.S.V.

It has been said truly that the battle against self is the most difficult battle the Christian must fight.  But that battle is made more difficult because many do not understand the nature of the battle.  Though it has a very overt level--the conflict against the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life--there is a much more subtle dimension, which has proved the downfall of many.

Many see it as a battle, indeed an unending struggle, against selfishness itself.  In this battle I try to make myself stop doing selfish things, or even to stop thinking selfish thoughts.  And when I fail to achieve as I know I ought, I am burdened with guilt.

But unless I know in my soul that God has pardoned and accepted me, I will find the questing after pardon to be the object of all my works, the focus of all my religion.  My concern for what God thinks of me (rather than for what the world thinks of God) will be the flavor of my spiritual life.  And thus self, rather than Jesus Christ, is the object of my attention.

This variation of the battle against self is so subtle because it sounds so pious.  We can even report our progress in prayer meeting and make it the focus of endless private anguish.  But that will only obscure the fact that "self" is still the reigning motivation in my life.

The only cure for this most basic of all forms of selfishness is fully to accept that God has indeed given that which I most deeply crave: His unconditional love, pardon, and acceptance.  This gift is not a reward for my accomplishments but an outflowing of His very character.

Having received as a gift that which I previously craved to earn, I am set free from self--free to live for Christ.  This is how selfishness is destroyed.  To see the sure message of the cross is to tell me that I no longer need to live for myself, but I can live for the One who died to meet all my needs.  I can live for His glory!

Perhaps the battle to believe is the real battle against self--to believe that God really is so effectively loving!

WHEN JUSTICE IS LIKE POISON

Do horses run upon rocks?  Does one plow the sea with oxen?  But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood.  Amos 6:12, R.S.V.


Whatever would make justice like poison?  It seems almost inconceivable.  Justice--why, the very word sounds like "equality" and the "rights of conscience."  Yet we Christians can make what is very right end up very wrong.

Often we assume to know God so well that we hold Him accountable for the choices that are our own.  We say the Lord made this happen or told me to go there, but is the Lord accountable for these things?  Some earnest souls claim God's guidance one day for the very things they blame the devil for the next.  What are we saying about our heavenly Father with such fickleness?  To unbelievers He must look rather capricious.

When we sternly say that God makes bad things happen to teach us lessons, is it no wonder that candid people feel a little sick to their stomachs?  Especially when such sentiments are couched in love language.  In fact, we make accepting Him just about as easy as it is to plow the sea with oxen.

How we act has a lot to do with this.  We raise our children "in the truth" by mouthing doctrines while we try,  as it were, to make them run their horses upon the rock-hard evidences of our own misconceptions about God.  We tell them that He loves them but that they will be torturously destroyed if they do not serve Him.  We reject them when they act disgracefully; or treat them with condescension, thinking that they don't notice, expecting that they should be grateful that we have chosen to do so.

God is not like that!  He knows that horses can't run on rocks.  He knows that we will never come to trust Him unless we discover how very reasonable are His ways.  His justice is not like poison, it is the great celestial antibiotic against the spread of the virus of sin in our hearts and minds.  Sin is our predictable response to such twisted concepts about our great God.  Justice is His persistent endeavour to reintroduce reality into our lives.

God's justice is not the justice of a judge exacting a price for our injustice, but rather that of a teacher wanting to impart truth to his students.  Shall we not all gladly come under His tutorship?

SAFE IN HIS PRESENCE

Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did.  Can this be the Christ?  John 4:29, R.S.V.


This woman's invitation to her friends becomes very startling when we recall just what it was that Jesus had told her about her past life.  She was only a few moments into a conversation with this total Stranger when He was telling her that she had gone through five husbands and was working on her sixth.

Let's admit it; even with intimate friends, one is usually very reluctant to become so vulnerable as to discuss the failures of a single marriage.  But to admit to a whole string of failures to a stranger?  Either she was pretty calloused or there was something about this particular Stranger that invited confidence.

We can be sure it was the latter, because she went back home to her friends and invited them to come and stand in the presence of this same Man, running the risk that He might well be able to tell them, too, everything that they had ever done.

She suspected that He was the Christ and named as her evidence His ability to reveal her past.  But she was eager to tell her friends about Him because of what He did with that sordid information.  He saw it not as a barrier, threatening to His unsullied purity, but as a portrayal of her needs.  And He got right to the point of meeting those needs.

Our God isn't just some sanctified palm reader.  He holds insights into our past failings, not so that He can shame us into submission or use guilt manipulation to entice us to goodness.  His only goal is to heal.  In His presence we can crawl out from behind our embarrassment, lift up our tenderest nerves for His healing touch, and even invite other injured sinners to join us.

At times we are inclined to hold a dim view of the work of the recording angels.  Perhaps we just aren't sure what God will do with the information that He will get from them.  But when we see that His every act is to bring healing, to open the door for self-honesty, our fears diminish.

Some people pay large sums of money to sit in the presence of a professional counselor who, by his accepting manner, makes it easier for them to face painful truths about themselves.  Wouldn't kneeling in the safe presence of Jesus accomplish the same thing?

ASKING AND EXPECTING

You do not have, because you do not ask.  James 4:2, R.S.V.

One of the most painful experiences in life is to have at your disposal the very thing needed by a loved one who does not seek it from you.  Worse still is to be rejected when you freely offer the item or service.  Either way, you hurt more for this person, knowing that they will go without, than you do for yourself.

God longs for us to ask Him for all that we need and desire.  In the most gentlemanly manner He makes known to us that He is well able to satisfy us entirely.  When we do not ask, He reminds us with divine sorrow that we do not have simply because we have not asked.

Do we play mental games with ourselves?  Have we come to feel that God's invitation is more for the testing of our souls than for the tangible answers available?  Do we feel a kind of spiritual high in "having faith" while "waiting on the Lord," while not really expecting an answer?  This kind of experience makes testing in and of itself of more value than the individual being tested.  Such concepts, whether harbored openly or only in the secret places of a doubting heart, cast an unhealthy shadow upon our heavenly Father.

Should we expect answers?  Why would our reasonable God play games with us?  He is very straightforward.  The more you know God, the more likely it is that your requests will be in harmony with His wisdom.  And the more you can be sure that reality will meet expectation.  Believing that God will give what you ask can make you feel vulnerable.  It is only when you learn that He delights in giving us tangible answers can such feelings be replaced by joyous anticipation.

There is no merit in the act of believing.  Our hope lies solely in the One in whom we believe.  And asking without any real hope of receiving is to mock the One to whom our requests are made.  Not to ask at all is perhaps the strongest statement that we can make about our doubt about God's goodness and His willingness to deal with us realistically

Perhaps God wants us to test Him more than He desires to test us.  And in testing God, we will find that He is absolutely reliable and wonderfully practical.

HOW FAITH MAKES US WELL

He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease."  MArk 5:34, R.S.V.

Jesus could have spoken to that startled, just-healed woman from the crowd in several different ways.  For example, He could have said, "Woman, My miraculous power has just made you well."  But He didn't, because that wouldn't have told the whole truth.

Instead, He was referring to the relationship between Himself and the woman in which she looked to Him in trusting confidence.  This was what produced the healing.

The brief encounter with an unnamed woman on the road to Jairus' house was an acted parable of the plan of salvation.  The healing of our sin-damaged lives happens as we enter into and enjoy a loving relationship with a great Friend.  And that, at the very core, is the meaning of faith.

In all our conversations about "righteousness by faith," we must be careful not to become so absorbed with righteousness that we forget about faith.  In the purest sense, we cannot talk about faith without speaking of the Object of our faith.  "Faith" does not exist in the abstract; there is only "faith in Christ."

And it is that confident, informed, involved relationship that is, itself, the healing power.  O that we could grasp all that Jesus meant when He said, "Your faith has made you well."  Was this recorded in Scripture only for women who are hemorrhaging or for those with other physical ailments?  What is faith capable of healing?  What transformations can vital love effect in one's life?

Consider: would there be any further need to stand on someone else's face in order to stand taller if we already knew we were proudly claimed children of the King?  Would we strike back in retaliation against those who threaten us if we knew that God Himself is on our side?  Such a grasp of the divine-human bond will bring genuine righteousness into one's life.

And that, at the practical level, is righteousness by faith!

HOW TO STOP SINNING

No man therefore who dwells in him is a sinner; the sinner has not seen him and does not know him.  1 John 3:6, N.E.B.

We may approach today's text at least two different ways, depending on our understanding of the meaning of sin.

Some would approach it thinking, Now, sin is an act that I do, like eating too much supper or snapping at the kids.  That means if I am abiding in Christ, I will always be temperate at supper time and always mellow with the children.  If I do eat an extra spoonful of beans, however, of course, it means I have ceased to abide in Christ.  Because of my failure, He has withdrawn from the friendship.

But the situation can also be understood in these terms: sin is, after all, living apart from Christ.  It means that I have chosen to alienate myself from Him.  So when I choose for Him to become the very center of my life and I resolve to be bonded to Him in loving fellowship, then I am no longer a sinner.

The difference between these two approaches is that the first focuses on sin as an act; the second sees sin in terms of relationship with a Person.  But which one did John have in mind when He wrote the passage?  The second part of the verse couldn't be more explicit: "the sinner has not seen him and does not know him."  No wonder he is a sinner (one alienated from God); he doesn't know the One who wants to be his finest friend.

How, then, do you stop sinning?  Do you concentrate real hard on how much you are eating?  Do you bite your tongue when the children have pushed you up against the wall?  Do you stand in dread of being judged by God as an inadequate friend?  Or do you get to know the One whom to know is life eternal?

The exciting thing is that this second alternative is to one that really works in changing our actions.  That close relationship, when maintained, does a great healing work in our hearts.  Those who are made secure by God's unconditional love no longer need to defend their parental image by snapping at the kids.  Having found real joy in union with Christ, they no longer need to seek cheap pleasure in overindulgence.  The great principle By beholding we become changed (2 Cor. 3:18) has come to the aid of one fascinated with Jesus!