I want to pick up with the flood today. It’s important to understand what has been going on since the fall. Like I said a couple of weeks ago the human race stopped being the children of God when they turned to rebellion. They were still his creation but as a result of their rebellion the human race came under the dominion and authority of Satan. If we had continued walking in love taking dominion over the planet for love would have been our job. We were created to be kings and queens ruling and reigning in love over this planet for our Father. That’s what love was supposed to look like.
Instead, because we chose death and God gave us what we wanted, the planet began to be ruled by the father of lies and death. In spite of the supremacy of death as a consequence of our rebellion, as I said last week, God provided the promise of the end of Satan’s reign even as it was just beginning.
Life is a funny thing; even in the darkest of places it finds a way to survive. And for the next three thousand years of history death will try with everything that it has to rule supremely and conquer love. It almost succeeded in the first thousand or so years. God raised up Abel and King Satan made sure he was killed. Hate and death then began to grow like crazy. Like I said last week given a conservative estimate by the time of Noah there were probably several hundred million people on the planet and all of them except for one walked in death and hatred of love.
Genesis 6: 6 says this: The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The LORD said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them." We broke God’s heart when we rebelled but he gave us around 1500 years to come back to him.
I want you to understand that just because God is unchanging doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have feelings and that his feeling can’t be hurt. He is love. He did nothing but pour out love upon us from the beginning and all we did was spit in his face. This is love: even though he knew we were going to cause him great pain, we were going to break his heart, he created us anyway. He knows that, after 1500 years of rebellion only increasing that he must, for the good of the rest of the creation, stop this surge of death but he is so long suffering that he gives his creation 120 years more to repent.
Verse 8 tells us that Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. One man found grace. One man humbled himself and returned to the father. One man out of several hundred million people; that puts a new perspective on Jesus’ words: many are called but few are chosen. God called every single one of these people to repentance but only one of them humbled himself to receive grace.
In the receiving of grace Noah also received promises from God. God added to his promise of redemption and gave some more clarity because mankind had been walking in darkness and had turned their back on the law of love for so long that God had to remind them and encourage them.
So Love speaks to Noah and says: I will establish My covenant with you. In essence God says to Noah I promise to adopt you back into the family. I am beginning to see that one way that you can look at our relationship with God is as though it were an adoption contract. This is love personified. God offers to adopt any of the children of Satan that want to be loved. Anybody that wants to be taken out of their dysfunctional and abusive family relationship with their father Satan can be adopted back into the family of Love. It’s that simple.
I’d be willing to bet that every single one of us is familiar with somebody that refuses to give up their dysfunction, their addiction, their death wish. You see all of those things are simply examples of the kind of relationship we have with the father of lies. It’s all we know. We don’t trust the goodness of God; we don’t want to give up our imagined control. We may be sleeping in the gutter but it’s our gutter and that’s better than being love’s Slave. At least that’s what we tell ourselves. What we don’t see is that we are slaves to the gutter. Everybody else around us may see our condition but we refuse to accept it. We love darkness. We pant after death. We prefer hate over love.
But God says to Noah, who humbled himself before love: I will adopt you into my new covenant family. It’s not here yet but it’s coming and if you trust me and humble yourself before me I promise that you will be my child. And then he says: Here’s what you have to do if you want to be my child: enter the ark--you and your sons and your wife, and your sons' wives with you. 19"And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. 20"Of the birds after their kind, and of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive. 21"As for you, take for yourself some of all food which is edible, and gather it to yourself; and it shall be for food for you and for them." 22Thus Noah did; according to all that God had commanded him, so he did.
I want you to understand that this is what salvation looks like in everybody’s life. First, you humble yourself before love. Then Love adopts you into the new family relationship and then he tells you what you need to do if you want to be in love. Grace calls you to obedience to the commands of love.
Noah could have said ‘I will enter into the adoption relationship with you’ and then sat on his lazy butt and done nothing but he would have drowned with all the other millions because his actions would have revealed who his father really was. It would have revealed that he didn’t love love and that he hadn’t been adopted. God laid it out clearly: ‘this is what love looks like it’ and the grace of the adoption relationship empowered Noah to pick up a saw and begin to cut wood though he had no clue what rain was or what a flood was. He humbled himself before God. He trusted that love knew what he was talking about. And he obeyed love so that he could live. He submitted to the commands of love; according to all that God had commanded him, so he did.
That is love in action, grace in action, mercy in action, justice in action. Yes, justice. Noah received the promise of salvation. He trusted in that which was promised. He died not receiving the promise. Sure God was faithful to him but he didn’t receive the promised salvation until a couple thousand years later when Christ Jesus our Lord descended into Hell as the apostle’s creed tells us or the Lower depths of the earth as the book of Ephesians tells us, and set the captives free.
Noah had to wait 2000 years for justice to be served before he could taste the fruits of his belief. Noah received grace and mercy but had to look forward to the promised justice that would make the new family a reality. While we were yet sinners; what a great statement. While we were yet sinners Love provided the necessary justice so that grace and mercy could be applied. Without justice there can be no mercy. That is why the scripture calls us to do justice and love mercy.
Noah obeys God’s commands and even though at this point in time we have no evidence that the rest of his family believes, God allows them to enter the ark for the sake of the promise of love. You see love has promised redemption; he has promised a redeemer. God is not going to let death stand in the way of love. So to ensure that the promised seed will come love allows Noah’s family a longer time of opportunity to repent. Noah’s faith doesn’t save them but gives them more of an opportunity to repent than others received while allowing the lineage of the seed to continue. It also gives them greater condemnation if they do not believe because they have heard the good word of God and have seen him work in their lives.
God gives the rest of the earth what they want most; death and so all that is left on dry ground dies, not because God is mean or full of wrath but because that is what they want. Any of them could have entered the ark by simply humbling themselves before God and walking in the ways of love but they refused. They did what they wanted and what they wanted was unprofitable: Their choice. God had told them for 1500 years that ideas had consequences and now it was being demonstrated as clearly as possible.
Up to now I haven’t mentioned the concept of atonement by sacrifice but it has been present in seed form from the time of the fall throughout these 1500 years. God instituted sacrifice after he pronounced the consequences for turning from love to death. The scripture says: The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them. He sacrificed an animal and covered their nakedness as a picture of the seed who would crush the serpent’s head by getting his heal bruised. We see sacrifice again in the story of Cain and Able. Able sacrificed an animal and demonstrated his faith in the promise of justice and atonement. Cain refused to bow his knee in obedient faith and killed his brother who reminded him of his own rebellion and his hatred of love. By the time of Noah there is no mention of sacrifice because by the time of Noah there is no one else who has humbled themself before God. They don’t believe in sacrifice, they don’t believe in love.
After Noah and his family left the ark Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. The LORD smelled the soothing aroma. What is this smell that is soothing to God? Is it the smell of barbeque? No. It is the smell of justice. We love to talk about atonement for sins but what we more often than not forget to mention is that justice – the demands of Love fulfilled - is the only basis for atonement.
You are able to find mercy and be forgiven because love poured out justice upon a willing and innocent volunteer. Justice alone is soothing to God. The smell of justice is the smell of love. It is the smell of adoption into God’s family. That is something that we forget too easily. More often than not we try to say that love and justice cancel each other out, that you can’t have both. That is not what the love manual says. It says that if love has been rejected; if the children of God have rejected their inheritance and God as their father and taken Satan as their father, then the only way to be adopted back into a family relationship with God is JUSTICE. Love demands justice as a foundation for grace and mercy. Justice is the bridge that allows the rebellious haters the opportunity to get back on the path of life and be adopted into the family of God.
God smelled the aroma of promied justice and because of the sureness of the promise of a future sacrifice he makes more promises to the human race. The Lord said to Himself, "I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man's heart is evil from his childhood; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
Once again God pours out great love on people who have not humbled themselves before him. He continues to pour out grace in many forms. He allows the condemned to continue to live. He allows the world to continue on. He allows the seasons to continue. He promises that death will not be able to completely destroy the world or the way it functions. By exercising common grace upon both believers and unbelievers he gives the condemned haters more time to repent, more time to choose love. He gives the believers more time to mature and he ensures the coming of the lamb slain before the foundation of the world that will provide a new covenant relationship and a new creation.
God pours out blessing upon both believers and unbelievers. Now it is important that we understand that material blessings of God are not salvation they are ultimately a test of our hearts. The gracious gifts that God pours out upon all people will reveal the condition of our hearts. If we walk in love then the blessing will be a glorious exhibition of the goodness of God. If those who receive the blessings of God refuse to walk in love then those blessings of God will only serve to condemn the condemned even more. It will be one more proof that a haters gonna hate. It will reveal the fact that there is no love in an unrepentant heart. We should remember that when we think we see the condemned prosper: Love says that wicked will not prosper. Prosperity is not what you have now it is what you will have in the Kingdom of God. Riches and power don’t equal prosperity. Humbleness and obedience are the long term path to true prosperity.
So we see once again that love continues to love the haters of love by giving them time to repent. He also demonstrates his love for his non-human creation by removing those that are trying to destroy it through hate and death. To save the planet God will reward the condemned with that which they love the most –death and answer the cries of creation which continually lament the blood that has been spilled upon it.
We must remember that the story of the flood is a win win situation. EVERYBODY gets want they want. Life continues on and the linage of the seed is maintained. The one person who loved love gets to keep on loving with the hope of the promise of a future redemption more clearly defined. The majority of the haters receive the promise of death that they so long for. The rest of the haters get the opportunity to live in hopes that they will come to repentance. We can’t be certain that many of them ever did.
The promise of future justice has been placed upon the love hanger. Because of that the promise of redemption is securely on the Love hanger. The promise that anyone who wants to humble themselves before love and walk in its ways is also on the hanger along with the promise of death for all who choose to love death.
Contrary to popular opinion, love makes no demands upon us. It simply lays out for us the path of life clearly and surely and says if you want to live walk here. The choice is ours we can do what is profitable or we can do what is unprofitable. We can receive the wages of hate which is death or we can learn to love and walk in life. God gives us the freedom to choose which we want to do and then pays us accordingly. It is up to us to choose this day whom we will serve.
Let’s pray. Oh father, open our eyes to see the wages we are being paid. Please cause us to hunger and thirst after you. Teach us to love life and know the difference between life and death.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Only You
Hey to One and All,
It’s way too easy to forget to remember. I get so caught up in looking at the finish line and how far away it is from where I am that I forget to look back and see how far I’ve come. I can get so caught up in comparing my progress with the other runners that I see that I forget that the race isn’t over yet. It’s in those times that it’s easy to beat myself up into a bloody pulp. I get so much practice I’m thinking about turning professional. I know all the right places to punch to take myself to the mat. I know all of the submission holds, the flying kicks, the head locks and choke holds to make me cry uncle, or aunt or any word I want called out. All in the blink of an eye and usually without warning; then it usually takes me a week or so to figure out what I’ve been doing.
Then faintly I hear the Lord say: I don’t like you but I love you; Seems that I’m always thinking of you. Though you treat me badly I love you madly you really got a hold on me.
It may be the Miracles doing the singing but it hits me: I am my beloved’s and he is mine. I may beat myself up. I may treat God badly but that won’t stop him from loving me. He may not like the things I do but he won’t stop loving me. He has been binding my broken heart for over 40 years. He has delivered me from places I didn’t ask to go. And he is delivering me from places I wanted to go but shouldn’t have. He has been disciplining me because he loves me. I have been running a long and treacherous path filled with traps and obstacles and in spite of the little trenches behind me where I have been draging my feet, I have come out on the other side in one piece.
Today I’m grateful for that. I wish I was every day but honestly I’m not. I think the reason is mostly because once you start getting well it’s easy to forget how sick you were. And so today I find myself replying to the Miracles with the Platters: Only you can make this world seem right. Only you can make the darkness bright. Only you and you alone can thrill me like you do and fill my heart with love for only you. Only you can make this change in me for it’s true you are my destiny. When you hold my hand I understand the magic that you do. You’re my dream come true my one and only you.
I wish I could remember that more often than I do.
Still learning how to crawl,
Brad
http://www.cosmoyada.com/
It’s way too easy to forget to remember. I get so caught up in looking at the finish line and how far away it is from where I am that I forget to look back and see how far I’ve come. I can get so caught up in comparing my progress with the other runners that I see that I forget that the race isn’t over yet. It’s in those times that it’s easy to beat myself up into a bloody pulp. I get so much practice I’m thinking about turning professional. I know all the right places to punch to take myself to the mat. I know all of the submission holds, the flying kicks, the head locks and choke holds to make me cry uncle, or aunt or any word I want called out. All in the blink of an eye and usually without warning; then it usually takes me a week or so to figure out what I’ve been doing.
Then faintly I hear the Lord say: I don’t like you but I love you; Seems that I’m always thinking of you. Though you treat me badly I love you madly you really got a hold on me.
It may be the Miracles doing the singing but it hits me: I am my beloved’s and he is mine. I may beat myself up. I may treat God badly but that won’t stop him from loving me. He may not like the things I do but he won’t stop loving me. He has been binding my broken heart for over 40 years. He has delivered me from places I didn’t ask to go. And he is delivering me from places I wanted to go but shouldn’t have. He has been disciplining me because he loves me. I have been running a long and treacherous path filled with traps and obstacles and in spite of the little trenches behind me where I have been draging my feet, I have come out on the other side in one piece.
Today I’m grateful for that. I wish I was every day but honestly I’m not. I think the reason is mostly because once you start getting well it’s easy to forget how sick you were. And so today I find myself replying to the Miracles with the Platters: Only you can make this world seem right. Only you can make the darkness bright. Only you and you alone can thrill me like you do and fill my heart with love for only you. Only you can make this change in me for it’s true you are my destiny. When you hold my hand I understand the magic that you do. You’re my dream come true my one and only you.
I wish I could remember that more often than I do.
Still learning how to crawl,
Brad
http://www.cosmoyada.com/
Sunday, May 22, 2011
The hanger (2)
I know I made it through Genesis chapter 8 or so last week but I realized that I missed some important things and so I want to go back to chapter three. I want to go there because it is there that we see the consequences of ideas really unfold before us for the first time. Up to this point the consequences of ideas have been life. Adam and Eve have walked in the commands of love and have lived life to a fullness that we will never see on this side of glory.
The love manual tells us that the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. Let’s stop there. We know that the serpent is Satan. It says that the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field that word can also be translated subtle. Satan, in the guise of the snake, was very subtle. The new testament tells us that he often times comes as an angel of light.
It was not overtly obvious what the enemy was doing. He is also known as the deceiver which is exactly what is going on in this passage. The deceiver who looked and sounded like light and life said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?" 2The woman said to the serpent, "From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; 3but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.'"
We can see from this statement that legalism began very early. Eve adds to the word of love by saying if you touch the fruit of that tree you’ll die. God didn’t say that at all. He simply said if you eat of that tree you will die.
Satan’s response is to be the first to question whether or not the word of God is really true. He says: No, that’s not true. God is a liar. You will not die. God knows that the day you eat this fruit you will be a judge of right and wrong just like he is. It’s important that you understand that Satan doesn’t say that Adam and Eve will become gods he says that they will be their own judges and will be able to choose what they will or won’t do. He says, ‘if you eat that fruit you won’t have to take orders from Him anymore. You can do what you want to do when you want to do it.’
When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to give one insight, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. 7Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.
I want you to understand that this has very little to do with not having clothes on. The word naked here is a different word from the one used early where it says “they were naked and they were not ashamed.” This word has the connotation of being without covering, without protection, vulnerable. And that is exactly what has happened here. The moment they rebelled against love they left the path of life. They were no longer alive to God. That nakedness was the immediate consequence of choosing to determine right and wrong for themselves. That nakedness is simply another way of saying they were dead. They knew it, their eyes were opened to their lack of being covered by the love of God and their feet were no longer on the path of life and so they tried to cover themselves. The new judges tried to provide their own covering, their own covenant for themselves but it can’t be done.
8They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" 10He said, "I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself." 11And He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" 12The man said, "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate." 13Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" And the woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."
I want you to see something here: God is not angry. There is no mention of wrath in this passage. There is only an unfolding of the consequences of ideas and actions. Satan said God was a liar. Adam and Eve believed him. Now the consequences unfold. First, The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life;15And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel."
He is cursed but the world also becomes his dominion for a time. We are not told of any prior arraignments but there were some. We know that Satan became the ruler of the world because he offered to let Jesus rule his kingdoms for him as part of the temptation in the wilderness. So even though he is successful in his endeavor his is still going to receive consequences for enticing Adam and Eve off the path of life. They are long term consequences but they are consequences none the less. It will be nearly 4000 years before Satan’s kingdom is taken away from him. It’s been two thousand years since then and he still hasn’t been tossed into the lake of fire yet. Consequences can be slow in coming but they are sure in coming.
Next God speaks to the woman who was deceived into thinking that God was a liar and who added to the word of God all on her own. He lays out some of the consequences for wanting to be her own judge. To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you." Notice it doesn’t say that there would have been no pain in childbirth but that the pain would be greatly increased.
Another consequence of the fall is that Eve will desire her husband I believe that is more than sexual. She will desire her husband’s power, authority, she will continue to want to be her own judge but as a consequence of her actions she is put under the dominion of her husband. It seems that before the fall there was a more balanced authority relationship between man and woman. That was lost in the rebellion.
Finally, God lays out the consequences of rebellion for man. He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it'; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18"Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; 19By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return."
Notice that Adam’s rebellion wasn’t about being deceived it was about following the status quo. He didn’t really care for the things of God at all. Instead of dealing with the issue at hand he followed his helpmate into death. He went willfully into death. He didn’t even have to think twice about it she offered him the fruit and he took it and ate it. He threw everything away without a moment’s thought.
I get rather angry about that when I stop and think about it. All this mess, all this trouble, all this lack, all this work because two people decided they didn’t want to be told what to do anymore. Because two people refused to learn to grow up and learn obedience. I realize that I would have jumped ship too, if it were me. I do it every day. I baulk against the hard work that I’ve been given to do. I moan over the thorns and thistles that grow up in my life. I yell at God for taking his sweet time in bringing his kingdom.
There was a moment yesterday when I thought. Wouldn’t it be great if Jesus would come back today and get this mess over with? I’m so sick of having to work so hard and nothing ever seeming to come from it. What I’m really saying is I’m tired of the consequences from the idea of rebellion against love. My heart longs for my husband, king Jesus to rule over me. I want to be dressed in his robe of righteousness. I want to be under that covering. I’m so tired of my nakedness and my inability to do anything. I hunger and thirst for that covering to come in its fullness.
You see this frustration that I feel is a direct result of Adam and Eve’s rebellion. Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18"Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; 19By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return."
This isn’t just about farming this is about every work endeavor we put our hands to. Everything we do is cursed because of sin. Eating requires toil now. It didn’t before. Not only that but whatever we do as work will be filled with complications. Thorns and thistles are a consequence of rebellion. There’s an old saying about a job always taking twice as long as you plan. Well, that is an example of the curse of leaving life. That is what living in death looks like in the real world. Living life as a dead person in a rebellious world takes a lot of work. Living life as a reborn person in a rebellious world takes even more work. It takes sweat, not just physical sweat but mental sweat as well. You could probably say out of frustration and aggravation will you feed your face.
Because you have chosen to be a slave to rebellion instead of righteousness, you have chosen death over life, hatred over life I will demonstrate the death you live in by causing you to eventually become nothing more than the dust you were made from.
I want you to understand that all of these consequences, these horrible, horrible consequences are rooted and ground in love. God gave mankind what it wanted. He let them jump off the path of life and into death. They didn’t want his ways so he has let us taste our own ways for 6000 years or so. Hitler was what we chose. Starvation is what we chose. Murder is what we chose. Greed and covetousness, false witness and theft; these are the things we chose when we jumped ship.
Don’t blame God for the mess we’re in. I don’t ever want to hear anybody say “Why is God doing this to me?” God is not doing this to you: you are doing it to yourself. The consequences of choosing death over life are doing this to you. Someday the rebellion will be conquered by love. The haters will be allowed to hate but they will be so insignificant in things of the world that we won’t ever have to think about them. Love will put every enemy under its feet. Thorns and thistles will no longer impede our work. Scarcity will no longer be an issue. Those things are promised to us with a sure promise.
Here not long after the rebellion against God began we are given a sure promise that the serpent’s head will be crushed by the heel of a human being. The path to that glorious day has been set in motion. Remember I mentioned it last week: The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.
Where is the wrath? There is none, only consequences for actions: Judgment swift and sure for leaving the path of life – death. But the construction of the bridge to get back onto the path of life is begun with a promise and a sacrifice. Adam and Eve are covered by faith in God of promise and justice. Redemption is coming. I’ve always wondered about whether Adam and Eve ever repented or not. But I think we are given an answer in this passage. They gave up their own garments and let God cover them with a sacrifice. They humbled themselves before God. The consequences of their ideas and actions drove them to repentance. The pain of dying caused them to humble themselves before God and his promise of love.
Consequences either draw us to love or drive us away. That is the way God has made the world. Notice that their humbleness before God didn’t take away any of the consequences. Getting saved doesn’t make life turn out happily ever after. It simply provides hope that someday this too shall pass.
God gave them the promise of redemption and then told them to leave the garden and he ensured that they would never return. Crosby Stills Nash and Young were delusional when they sang: We’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden. It cannot happen. There is no turning back from the consequences of believing that God is a liar. That which was before is gone. There is no mending the broken covenant. Haters can’t get back on the path of love because there is no love in them. Their only hope is Justice fulfilled by death. Adam and Eve, you and I were born dead in the just consequences of turning our backs on love. Our only hope is to humble ourselves before love and beg for mercy. God will justly pour out mercy on any who turn from their own ways and submit themselves to the ways of love.
May God have mercy on us and our families. Let’s pray. Oh God, forgive me for wanting my timing to be your timing. Forgive me for confusing my ways with my ways. Be our God and let us be your people. In Jesus’ name we ask these things. So be it. Amen.
The love manual tells us that the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. Let’s stop there. We know that the serpent is Satan. It says that the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field that word can also be translated subtle. Satan, in the guise of the snake, was very subtle. The new testament tells us that he often times comes as an angel of light.
It was not overtly obvious what the enemy was doing. He is also known as the deceiver which is exactly what is going on in this passage. The deceiver who looked and sounded like light and life said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?" 2The woman said to the serpent, "From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; 3but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.'"
We can see from this statement that legalism began very early. Eve adds to the word of love by saying if you touch the fruit of that tree you’ll die. God didn’t say that at all. He simply said if you eat of that tree you will die.
Satan’s response is to be the first to question whether or not the word of God is really true. He says: No, that’s not true. God is a liar. You will not die. God knows that the day you eat this fruit you will be a judge of right and wrong just like he is. It’s important that you understand that Satan doesn’t say that Adam and Eve will become gods he says that they will be their own judges and will be able to choose what they will or won’t do. He says, ‘if you eat that fruit you won’t have to take orders from Him anymore. You can do what you want to do when you want to do it.’
When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to give one insight, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. 7Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.
I want you to understand that this has very little to do with not having clothes on. The word naked here is a different word from the one used early where it says “they were naked and they were not ashamed.” This word has the connotation of being without covering, without protection, vulnerable. And that is exactly what has happened here. The moment they rebelled against love they left the path of life. They were no longer alive to God. That nakedness was the immediate consequence of choosing to determine right and wrong for themselves. That nakedness is simply another way of saying they were dead. They knew it, their eyes were opened to their lack of being covered by the love of God and their feet were no longer on the path of life and so they tried to cover themselves. The new judges tried to provide their own covering, their own covenant for themselves but it can’t be done.
8They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" 10He said, "I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself." 11And He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" 12The man said, "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate." 13Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" And the woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."
I want you to see something here: God is not angry. There is no mention of wrath in this passage. There is only an unfolding of the consequences of ideas and actions. Satan said God was a liar. Adam and Eve believed him. Now the consequences unfold. First, The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life;15And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel."
He is cursed but the world also becomes his dominion for a time. We are not told of any prior arraignments but there were some. We know that Satan became the ruler of the world because he offered to let Jesus rule his kingdoms for him as part of the temptation in the wilderness. So even though he is successful in his endeavor his is still going to receive consequences for enticing Adam and Eve off the path of life. They are long term consequences but they are consequences none the less. It will be nearly 4000 years before Satan’s kingdom is taken away from him. It’s been two thousand years since then and he still hasn’t been tossed into the lake of fire yet. Consequences can be slow in coming but they are sure in coming.
Next God speaks to the woman who was deceived into thinking that God was a liar and who added to the word of God all on her own. He lays out some of the consequences for wanting to be her own judge. To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you." Notice it doesn’t say that there would have been no pain in childbirth but that the pain would be greatly increased.
Another consequence of the fall is that Eve will desire her husband I believe that is more than sexual. She will desire her husband’s power, authority, she will continue to want to be her own judge but as a consequence of her actions she is put under the dominion of her husband. It seems that before the fall there was a more balanced authority relationship between man and woman. That was lost in the rebellion.
Finally, God lays out the consequences of rebellion for man. He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it'; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18"Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; 19By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return."
Notice that Adam’s rebellion wasn’t about being deceived it was about following the status quo. He didn’t really care for the things of God at all. Instead of dealing with the issue at hand he followed his helpmate into death. He went willfully into death. He didn’t even have to think twice about it she offered him the fruit and he took it and ate it. He threw everything away without a moment’s thought.
I get rather angry about that when I stop and think about it. All this mess, all this trouble, all this lack, all this work because two people decided they didn’t want to be told what to do anymore. Because two people refused to learn to grow up and learn obedience. I realize that I would have jumped ship too, if it were me. I do it every day. I baulk against the hard work that I’ve been given to do. I moan over the thorns and thistles that grow up in my life. I yell at God for taking his sweet time in bringing his kingdom.
There was a moment yesterday when I thought. Wouldn’t it be great if Jesus would come back today and get this mess over with? I’m so sick of having to work so hard and nothing ever seeming to come from it. What I’m really saying is I’m tired of the consequences from the idea of rebellion against love. My heart longs for my husband, king Jesus to rule over me. I want to be dressed in his robe of righteousness. I want to be under that covering. I’m so tired of my nakedness and my inability to do anything. I hunger and thirst for that covering to come in its fullness.
You see this frustration that I feel is a direct result of Adam and Eve’s rebellion. Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18"Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; 19By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return."
This isn’t just about farming this is about every work endeavor we put our hands to. Everything we do is cursed because of sin. Eating requires toil now. It didn’t before. Not only that but whatever we do as work will be filled with complications. Thorns and thistles are a consequence of rebellion. There’s an old saying about a job always taking twice as long as you plan. Well, that is an example of the curse of leaving life. That is what living in death looks like in the real world. Living life as a dead person in a rebellious world takes a lot of work. Living life as a reborn person in a rebellious world takes even more work. It takes sweat, not just physical sweat but mental sweat as well. You could probably say out of frustration and aggravation will you feed your face.
Because you have chosen to be a slave to rebellion instead of righteousness, you have chosen death over life, hatred over life I will demonstrate the death you live in by causing you to eventually become nothing more than the dust you were made from.
I want you to understand that all of these consequences, these horrible, horrible consequences are rooted and ground in love. God gave mankind what it wanted. He let them jump off the path of life and into death. They didn’t want his ways so he has let us taste our own ways for 6000 years or so. Hitler was what we chose. Starvation is what we chose. Murder is what we chose. Greed and covetousness, false witness and theft; these are the things we chose when we jumped ship.
Don’t blame God for the mess we’re in. I don’t ever want to hear anybody say “Why is God doing this to me?” God is not doing this to you: you are doing it to yourself. The consequences of choosing death over life are doing this to you. Someday the rebellion will be conquered by love. The haters will be allowed to hate but they will be so insignificant in things of the world that we won’t ever have to think about them. Love will put every enemy under its feet. Thorns and thistles will no longer impede our work. Scarcity will no longer be an issue. Those things are promised to us with a sure promise.
Here not long after the rebellion against God began we are given a sure promise that the serpent’s head will be crushed by the heel of a human being. The path to that glorious day has been set in motion. Remember I mentioned it last week: The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.
Where is the wrath? There is none, only consequences for actions: Judgment swift and sure for leaving the path of life – death. But the construction of the bridge to get back onto the path of life is begun with a promise and a sacrifice. Adam and Eve are covered by faith in God of promise and justice. Redemption is coming. I’ve always wondered about whether Adam and Eve ever repented or not. But I think we are given an answer in this passage. They gave up their own garments and let God cover them with a sacrifice. They humbled themselves before God. The consequences of their ideas and actions drove them to repentance. The pain of dying caused them to humble themselves before God and his promise of love.
Consequences either draw us to love or drive us away. That is the way God has made the world. Notice that their humbleness before God didn’t take away any of the consequences. Getting saved doesn’t make life turn out happily ever after. It simply provides hope that someday this too shall pass.
God gave them the promise of redemption and then told them to leave the garden and he ensured that they would never return. Crosby Stills Nash and Young were delusional when they sang: We’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden. It cannot happen. There is no turning back from the consequences of believing that God is a liar. That which was before is gone. There is no mending the broken covenant. Haters can’t get back on the path of love because there is no love in them. Their only hope is Justice fulfilled by death. Adam and Eve, you and I were born dead in the just consequences of turning our backs on love. Our only hope is to humble ourselves before love and beg for mercy. God will justly pour out mercy on any who turn from their own ways and submit themselves to the ways of love.
May God have mercy on us and our families. Let’s pray. Oh God, forgive me for wanting my timing to be your timing. Forgive me for confusing my ways with my ways. Be our God and let us be your people. In Jesus’ name we ask these things. So be it. Amen.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
God Shuffled His Feet
Morning Everyone,
I haven’t been listening to anything new lately just a random mix of the large quantity of tunes that I already have on my computer. I’m often times surprised by what I have on here. I like the random shuffle selection because left to myself I tend toward the same things. So it forces me out of my little box of comfort. Like right now, I’m listening to either Glenn Miller or Duke Ellington (my song listings haven’t been updated on my new computer yet). It’s not something that I would have naturally selected but it’s good none the less. Of course that was immediately followed by the Crash Test Dummies ´God - shuffled his feet which is one of my all-time favorites but again I wouldn’t have chosen it this morning.
I thank God that he saves me from myself with change. It has been a time of change for me lately. As you know, I have been trying to make prayer a ‘discipline’ in my life over the last month but I have been reminded that, in my life at least, God seems to make it cyclical. I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before but God seems to take me through times when I am drawn to prayer like crazy. It may last a couple weeks and then the desire is gone. Some would say “well obviously you’re not disciplined enough. You need to work harder. You need to try more. Blah blah blah.”
Just living is hard enough work for me. I’m finding that prayer is more of a gift. It is given to me and I pray and then it is taken away (not completely but the urgency goes away) and then there is an unfolding. I guess it’s been a month or so ago that I started walking and praying in the mornings. And then the weather, which has been totally weird this spring, went south. That was followed by travel which severely messes with my head and routine. I still prayed but not in an orderly way.
I was pretty aggravated with myself over that; saying many of the above mentioned put downs to my self only a lot meaner and with fouler language. And then the weirdest things began to happen. My plans began to change. A meeting that I was supposed to go to on a Tuesday was moved to Monday so my Monday meeting had to be moved to Tuesday. At the Tuesday meeting I encountered an unexpected man that I wouldn’t have met if I had come on Monday. God used him to encourage me, strengthen me and remind me that He is the same God, working in much the same way that he worked in my life 25 years ago. It was a stirring and it was out of the blue.
I didn’t ask for it. I’m not sure I even wanted it but it was as if God was reminding me of his promises from years ago. He hadn’t forgotten; even though in the intervening years I had tried to run away. He reminded me of my calling and the fact that I’m doing what I do not because it’s a job but because he has called me to do it. I can run but I can’t hide. It is who I am and what I was made to be.
I try to forget those things but he won’t let me. He didn’t stop there. He nudged me, strongly encouraged me to pray for someone in a way I hadn’t prayed in 25 years. I prayed and it hurt. I laid my hands on this person and immediately their brokenness became my brokenness. I wept and sobbed. I grieved. And I was reminded of the call upon my life. A call that has been none too clear and that does not provide GPS; a vague call to a vague destination (at least on my side of the call).
Yes, vague. I know there are those of you out there who have been given clearer instructions than I have. You knew what you were going to do, took the necessary steps to get there, got there and were successful. I will admit that I am jealous, more accurately covetous and a little P.O.’d about it. Maybe I have a spiritual hearing disorder. More than likely I have a growth disorder. I heard the call long before I was able to begin to do the call. It’s like I was a paraplegic who received a calling to run marathons. It’s a wonderful thing that I have been healed enough to walk but yet my call is for something more than walking; it’s a call to run and that puts me in a continual state of dissatisfaction.
I expect more, maybe too much. But it is certainly not more than scripture promises. I could solve the whole problem by throwing out scripture and I would if I could but I can’t. I guess I could be like most people and just ignore the promises of God but that kind of defeats the purpose of believing in scripture doesn’t it? Why believe in something you’re not going to let impact your life?
Why have a promise that says God will bind up and heal the broken hearted and then live the rest of your life broken hearted? Why get sober and serve an impotent set of ideas that cannot reproduce life in you existence when you could be high and not care?
I’m beginning to see that this is the heart of the conservative liberal struggle in the church. Here are these people who say they have the scriptures all figured out. They have their doctrines fine tuned to perfection, but they have no power, they live lives of sin and brokenness behind masks of righteous indignation.
Then another generation arises and says these people are full of doggy do. They say all these things but we see behind the masks and they’re nothing more than liars. They say scripture is true and then they lie about their lives and say everything is ok when it’s not. The Scripture’s must not be the word of God or God must not be big enough to do what he says. So we will pursue a God who is strong enough and cares enough to do something in the real world.
Will the real creator of the universe please stand up?
Back to the Crash Test Dummies:
After seven days He was quite tired so God said:
"Let there be a day Just for picnics, with wine and bread"
He gathered up some people he had made Created blankets and laid back in the shade
The people sipped their wine And what with God there, they asked him questions
Like: do you have to eat Or get your hair cut in heaven?
And if your eye got poked out in this life Would it be waiting up in heaven with your wife?
God shuffled his feet and glanced around at them;The people cleared their throats and stared right back at him
So he said:"Once there was a boy Who woke up with blue hair
To him it was a joy Until he ran out into the warm air
He thought of how his friends would come to see;
And would they laugh, or had he got some strange disease?
God shuffled his feet and glanced around at them;
The people cleared their throats and stared right back at him
The people sat waiting Out on their blankets in the garden
But God said nothing So someone asked him: "I beg your pardon:
I'm not quite clear about what you just spoke
Was that a parable, or a very subtle joke?"
God shuffled his feet and glanced around at them;
The people cleared their throats and stared right back at him
I refuse to follow a God that shuffles his feet. I refuse to follow after an impotent, powerless but doctrinally sound God. I also refuse to re-make God in my own image. I understand the end results of God not being the absolute standard and I refuse to go there.
That leaves me in the nether world of pressing hard against the word of God until he either comes through with his promise keeping or the word breaks.
I believe with all my heart the truth will set me free. My question is when?
Here’s to grace and peace with great expectations,
Brad
www.cosmoyada.com
I haven’t been listening to anything new lately just a random mix of the large quantity of tunes that I already have on my computer. I’m often times surprised by what I have on here. I like the random shuffle selection because left to myself I tend toward the same things. So it forces me out of my little box of comfort. Like right now, I’m listening to either Glenn Miller or Duke Ellington (my song listings haven’t been updated on my new computer yet). It’s not something that I would have naturally selected but it’s good none the less. Of course that was immediately followed by the Crash Test Dummies ´God - shuffled his feet which is one of my all-time favorites but again I wouldn’t have chosen it this morning.
I thank God that he saves me from myself with change. It has been a time of change for me lately. As you know, I have been trying to make prayer a ‘discipline’ in my life over the last month but I have been reminded that, in my life at least, God seems to make it cyclical. I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before but God seems to take me through times when I am drawn to prayer like crazy. It may last a couple weeks and then the desire is gone. Some would say “well obviously you’re not disciplined enough. You need to work harder. You need to try more. Blah blah blah.”
Just living is hard enough work for me. I’m finding that prayer is more of a gift. It is given to me and I pray and then it is taken away (not completely but the urgency goes away) and then there is an unfolding. I guess it’s been a month or so ago that I started walking and praying in the mornings. And then the weather, which has been totally weird this spring, went south. That was followed by travel which severely messes with my head and routine. I still prayed but not in an orderly way.
I was pretty aggravated with myself over that; saying many of the above mentioned put downs to my self only a lot meaner and with fouler language. And then the weirdest things began to happen. My plans began to change. A meeting that I was supposed to go to on a Tuesday was moved to Monday so my Monday meeting had to be moved to Tuesday. At the Tuesday meeting I encountered an unexpected man that I wouldn’t have met if I had come on Monday. God used him to encourage me, strengthen me and remind me that He is the same God, working in much the same way that he worked in my life 25 years ago. It was a stirring and it was out of the blue.
I didn’t ask for it. I’m not sure I even wanted it but it was as if God was reminding me of his promises from years ago. He hadn’t forgotten; even though in the intervening years I had tried to run away. He reminded me of my calling and the fact that I’m doing what I do not because it’s a job but because he has called me to do it. I can run but I can’t hide. It is who I am and what I was made to be.
I try to forget those things but he won’t let me. He didn’t stop there. He nudged me, strongly encouraged me to pray for someone in a way I hadn’t prayed in 25 years. I prayed and it hurt. I laid my hands on this person and immediately their brokenness became my brokenness. I wept and sobbed. I grieved. And I was reminded of the call upon my life. A call that has been none too clear and that does not provide GPS; a vague call to a vague destination (at least on my side of the call).
Yes, vague. I know there are those of you out there who have been given clearer instructions than I have. You knew what you were going to do, took the necessary steps to get there, got there and were successful. I will admit that I am jealous, more accurately covetous and a little P.O.’d about it. Maybe I have a spiritual hearing disorder. More than likely I have a growth disorder. I heard the call long before I was able to begin to do the call. It’s like I was a paraplegic who received a calling to run marathons. It’s a wonderful thing that I have been healed enough to walk but yet my call is for something more than walking; it’s a call to run and that puts me in a continual state of dissatisfaction.
I expect more, maybe too much. But it is certainly not more than scripture promises. I could solve the whole problem by throwing out scripture and I would if I could but I can’t. I guess I could be like most people and just ignore the promises of God but that kind of defeats the purpose of believing in scripture doesn’t it? Why believe in something you’re not going to let impact your life?
Why have a promise that says God will bind up and heal the broken hearted and then live the rest of your life broken hearted? Why get sober and serve an impotent set of ideas that cannot reproduce life in you existence when you could be high and not care?
I’m beginning to see that this is the heart of the conservative liberal struggle in the church. Here are these people who say they have the scriptures all figured out. They have their doctrines fine tuned to perfection, but they have no power, they live lives of sin and brokenness behind masks of righteous indignation.
Then another generation arises and says these people are full of doggy do. They say all these things but we see behind the masks and they’re nothing more than liars. They say scripture is true and then they lie about their lives and say everything is ok when it’s not. The Scripture’s must not be the word of God or God must not be big enough to do what he says. So we will pursue a God who is strong enough and cares enough to do something in the real world.
Will the real creator of the universe please stand up?
Back to the Crash Test Dummies:
After seven days He was quite tired so God said:
"Let there be a day Just for picnics, with wine and bread"
He gathered up some people he had made Created blankets and laid back in the shade
The people sipped their wine And what with God there, they asked him questions
Like: do you have to eat Or get your hair cut in heaven?
And if your eye got poked out in this life Would it be waiting up in heaven with your wife?
God shuffled his feet and glanced around at them;The people cleared their throats and stared right back at him
So he said:"Once there was a boy Who woke up with blue hair
To him it was a joy Until he ran out into the warm air
He thought of how his friends would come to see;
And would they laugh, or had he got some strange disease?
God shuffled his feet and glanced around at them;
The people cleared their throats and stared right back at him
The people sat waiting Out on their blankets in the garden
But God said nothing So someone asked him: "I beg your pardon:
I'm not quite clear about what you just spoke
Was that a parable, or a very subtle joke?"
God shuffled his feet and glanced around at them;
The people cleared their throats and stared right back at him
I refuse to follow a God that shuffles his feet. I refuse to follow after an impotent, powerless but doctrinally sound God. I also refuse to re-make God in my own image. I understand the end results of God not being the absolute standard and I refuse to go there.
That leaves me in the nether world of pressing hard against the word of God until he either comes through with his promise keeping or the word breaks.
I believe with all my heart the truth will set me free. My question is when?
Here’s to grace and peace with great expectations,
Brad
www.cosmoyada.com
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
The Hanger series #1 5-15-11
I told you a couple weeks ago that I was going to start teaching through Romans but I've changed my mind because I think a much more pressing issue has come up that I feel the need to deal with it and that is the subject of love. I heard a sermon last week that began by using some of my own words. The Pastor said: Ideas have consequences. I know most of you have heard me say that probably a 100 times. And it is so very true and very important. Nowhere is that more important than with the idea of love.
But what does this word love mean exactly? This is where the rubber hits the road. You see when someone says Ideas have consequences it extends back to everything we think: Our presuppositions about the world, about scripture, about God; everything. Differing presuppositions lead to completely different consequences from the same ideas and it’s no different with love.
I want to once again state my presuppositions to you. Number 1: I believe that there is one God whose name is Yahway. He has always been and he will always be. He never changes. Number 2: He is so different from created beings, from us, that in order for us to comprehend him he had to condescend to our level and reveal himself to us. He chose to communicate through creation itself and with words that we could understand and he chose to have some of this revelation written down. The words that he chose to have written down we call the bible. Number 3: I believe that God is big enough and strong enough to have his word pass down through the centuries through the hands of men and still be close enough to the original that the meaning is still understandable and comprehend-able by human beings. Number 4: I believe that God is love because that is what God has chosen to reveal to us about himself. Number 5: I believe that it has not been left to us to define what love is. I believe that God has in his word defined love; he has defined himself, as fully as it is possible for us to understand. And it is from these presuppositions, this foundation of belief that I want to begin today. I want to begin there because if these presuppositions are not true then love can be whatever you want it to be because the individual becomes the interpreter of what reality is – you are your own God -determining what is right and wrong for yourself.
When I started thinking about this I wanted love, biblical love to be something out of the ordinary. I liked the idea of the King James calling it charity. But I have this thing about the Hebrew meanings of words being the foundation for the New Testament words especially in Old Testament quotes and so to my chagrin the Hebrew word for love simply means: To desire or to breathe after. When the Psalmist writes: As the deer pants for the water so my soul pants for you oh God’ he is saying how much he loves God. In scripture love is not segregated: you love whatever you pant after. Solomon panted after women. Esau panted after food. David panted after God's law and Bathsheba. We live in a time where we can pant after both life and death, love and death. We are not forced to do anything. As Paul writes everything is permitted but not all things are profitable.
What does the scripture say about love? In Matthew 22 starting with verse 36 we read: "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. "This is the great and foremost commandment. (Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy 6:5). He continues on and says, the second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Jesus is quoting Leviticus 19:18) "On these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets." In this statement I believe that Jesus sets forth the nature of reality and the nature of His Father who is love. He doesn't add to the law. He is not giving a new commandment. It's there in the heart of the mosaic law – god's law; the law of love. We are commanded by law to love God and love our neighbor. It is not optional if we want to live. Living, however, is an option.
Jesus says that all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments. I think more often than not we miss the depth of meaning of that statement. Listen to this: God who is love has laid out what love looks like for us. We are to be panting after God and after our neighbor. He tells us that all the rest of the word of God hangs on those two things. You see there is nothing in both the old and new testaments that is not either of the law or of the prophets. Every word in this revelation is therefore a word about both loving and panting after God or our neighbor. The biblical revelation is therefore the love manual. The whole revelation of God to us Hangs on Love. Loving Go with all your heart soul and mind and loving your neighbor as yourself is the hanger on which all of life hangs on. The psalms call it the path of life. If we want to love the way that God expects us to love then we had better start doing what love tells us love looks like. If you love me: Keep my commandments.
I want to begin to examine what love looks like in the revelation we have been given and I want to do so from the very beginning. The revelation begins by saying: In the beginning God. You could just as easily say; in the beginning Love created the heavens and the earth. The world was built by love for love. From the very beginning God condescended to his creatures. He walked with them in the garden. He told them what love would look like: taking dominion over the garden and the animals, being fruitful and multiplying; and oh yeah, don't eat of the fruit of that tree over there.
Love told his creation to walk in the ways of the commands of love and if they did so they would abide in love and life. If they did what love said to do they would continue to live. If they chose to hate Love and step out of the path of life laid down by God for them to live in then they would die. God is the originator of the concept of ideas having consequences: walk this way and live, walk that way and die. God doesn’t say you have to do it his way. His own word of love tells us that all things are permitted you can do what you want BUT he clearly says some things are profitable and some are unprofitable, some choices lead to life and some to death. Our first parents chose to turn their backs on love and in doing so they discovered the path of death. Their own actions condemned them to death.
It's important that we understand that we don't have to condemn anyone because of the sin we find them in. That is not our job. John writes in his gospel: He who believes in Jesus is not condemned; he who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. The moment that Adam and Eve sinned the human race was judged by God and it died. As a paraphrased CS Lewis says in The Great Divorce: Those who refuse love will be able to look back and see every day of their life as death.
Here is another vital presupposition that the revelation of God makes: Because Adam sinned every other human since has been born dead in sin in relationship to God; they are born condemned. I know that sounds harsh but that is what the revelation of God says in first Corinthians 15: in Adam all die. The Psalmist clearly says: Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. Things like this are why it is so important to begin with the presupposition that the scripture is the revelation of God to mankind. You see if this is not true, if people aren’t born in sin, then they really have nothing to be saved from. They don’t need Jesus – his death was waste of time.
This concept of the deadness of the human race is an idea with consequences. It is the reason that we are not all brothers and sisters. We are all created by God that is true but not all are his children. That is evident when Jesus tells the Pharisees that they are of their father, the devil, in John chapter 8. Let’s go there starting with verse 31: So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, "If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; 32and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." 33They answered Him, "We are Abraham's descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, 'You will become free'?" 34Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. 35"The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. 36"So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. 37"I know that you are Abraham's descendants; yet you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you. 38"I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father." 39They answered and said to Him, "Abraham is our father " Jesus said to them, "If you are Abraham's children, do the deeds of Abraham. 40"But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do. 41"You are doing the deeds of your father " They said to Him, "We were not born of fornication; (they are implying that Jesus was) we have one Father: God." 42Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me. 43"Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. 44"You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45"But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me. 46"Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me? 47"He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God."
The scriptures says that there are two creations, two races of humans: those who are dead in trespasses and sin and those who are of the first born of the new creation, Jesus Christ. Again I understand that these things can sound harsh but the truth is we chose to die in Adam. We chose to rebel against life and choose death. We chose to stop being children of God. In Romans Paul tells us that the commandments are written on everyone’s heart and that everyone knows the one true God and their own dead condition but they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. They despise love so much that they deny its very existence. Love doesn’t owe us anything. We deserve death because of our love of death and God will give us what we want as long as we refuse to humble ourselves before him. This is the condition of the human race because of their mutiny against life and love.
The very fact that God lets us live at all proves that he is a graceful God. We chose death but he continues to give us life that we might turn back to life and learn to love. Anyone that wants to can embrace love but as John so eloquently writes: This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
Yet, … while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Before Adam and Eve were forced to leave the garden of love as a consequence of their hatred of God; God provided the promise of future restoration. The New Testament calls it the old covenant because it was simply the foundation for a future means of redemption in a new covenant that would replace the one broken and abandoned in the garden. It was laid out in in seed form Genesis 3: 14-15: The LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life; And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel." This was the first prophecy that hung on the love hanger: God is going to provide a way of redemption.
What a glorious thing. Here are a people who have already been judged. They are already living in eternal death. They are separated from God because of their own hatred for love and the ways of love. And yet, God in his great mercy begins to lay out a plan of redemption so that anyone who wants to leave death and walk in life can do so. He lays forth the promise of a new creation where love rules and life is lived to the fullest.
But even with the promise of redemption most people refuse to stop dying. They refuse to walk in love. So much so that by the time of Noah and an estimated population of easily around several hundred million people only one person chose to walk in love. Only one person found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Only one person rejected death. The stench of death was so great that God gave the people 120 years more to turn to life but they refused. They were warned of the coming judgment every day with every pounding of the nail while the ark was being built. They all spoke the same language. Most of the people had heard the story of the rebellion first hand from Adam and Eve. Many of them probably saw the original couple die physically. Yet they loved death more than life and God gave them what they wanted. There came a time when the door was shut and no one could partake of grace. Love refused to let the spilled blood that cried out to him day and night go unheard and death was increased for the rebellious. They were given what they wanted.
The stories throughout the Old Testament are stories of grace; Grace that provides redemption, Grace that offers redemption but is rejected, Grace that is revealed in consequences. No one will be able to say: ‘I didn’t know’. No one will be able to say God is unfair. We chose death over life. Everyone, everywhere in all ages before and after Christ knows the truth; that is what the revelation of Love tells us. The majority of people will pant after death instead of life. They will refuse redemption because they will refuse to submit to the ways of love and life.
That’s how the story begins. Love has been rejected but love continues to persevere. Love provides a way for the haters to become lovers. Yet the saying is true: Haters gonna hate. In spite of that Love will be victorious. Every knee will bow and declare that love personified in human form, Jesus Christ is Lord.
Anybody got a question?
Let’s pray. Oh father, teach us how to love like you do. Help us to understand and believe that everything you do and command you do for love. Help us to love you, ourselves and our neighbors. That is a huge request for each and every one of us. Have mercy on us and save us from ourselves so that we might learn to pant after your love and the life that you offer. In Jesus name we ask these things, Amen.
But what does this word love mean exactly? This is where the rubber hits the road. You see when someone says Ideas have consequences it extends back to everything we think: Our presuppositions about the world, about scripture, about God; everything. Differing presuppositions lead to completely different consequences from the same ideas and it’s no different with love.
I want to once again state my presuppositions to you. Number 1: I believe that there is one God whose name is Yahway. He has always been and he will always be. He never changes. Number 2: He is so different from created beings, from us, that in order for us to comprehend him he had to condescend to our level and reveal himself to us. He chose to communicate through creation itself and with words that we could understand and he chose to have some of this revelation written down. The words that he chose to have written down we call the bible. Number 3: I believe that God is big enough and strong enough to have his word pass down through the centuries through the hands of men and still be close enough to the original that the meaning is still understandable and comprehend-able by human beings. Number 4: I believe that God is love because that is what God has chosen to reveal to us about himself. Number 5: I believe that it has not been left to us to define what love is. I believe that God has in his word defined love; he has defined himself, as fully as it is possible for us to understand. And it is from these presuppositions, this foundation of belief that I want to begin today. I want to begin there because if these presuppositions are not true then love can be whatever you want it to be because the individual becomes the interpreter of what reality is – you are your own God -determining what is right and wrong for yourself.
When I started thinking about this I wanted love, biblical love to be something out of the ordinary. I liked the idea of the King James calling it charity. But I have this thing about the Hebrew meanings of words being the foundation for the New Testament words especially in Old Testament quotes and so to my chagrin the Hebrew word for love simply means: To desire or to breathe after. When the Psalmist writes: As the deer pants for the water so my soul pants for you oh God’ he is saying how much he loves God. In scripture love is not segregated: you love whatever you pant after. Solomon panted after women. Esau panted after food. David panted after God's law and Bathsheba. We live in a time where we can pant after both life and death, love and death. We are not forced to do anything. As Paul writes everything is permitted but not all things are profitable.
What does the scripture say about love? In Matthew 22 starting with verse 36 we read: "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. "This is the great and foremost commandment. (Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy 6:5). He continues on and says, the second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Jesus is quoting Leviticus 19:18) "On these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets." In this statement I believe that Jesus sets forth the nature of reality and the nature of His Father who is love. He doesn't add to the law. He is not giving a new commandment. It's there in the heart of the mosaic law – god's law; the law of love. We are commanded by law to love God and love our neighbor. It is not optional if we want to live. Living, however, is an option.
Jesus says that all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments. I think more often than not we miss the depth of meaning of that statement. Listen to this: God who is love has laid out what love looks like for us. We are to be panting after God and after our neighbor. He tells us that all the rest of the word of God hangs on those two things. You see there is nothing in both the old and new testaments that is not either of the law or of the prophets. Every word in this revelation is therefore a word about both loving and panting after God or our neighbor. The biblical revelation is therefore the love manual. The whole revelation of God to us Hangs on Love. Loving Go with all your heart soul and mind and loving your neighbor as yourself is the hanger on which all of life hangs on. The psalms call it the path of life. If we want to love the way that God expects us to love then we had better start doing what love tells us love looks like. If you love me: Keep my commandments.
I want to begin to examine what love looks like in the revelation we have been given and I want to do so from the very beginning. The revelation begins by saying: In the beginning God. You could just as easily say; in the beginning Love created the heavens and the earth. The world was built by love for love. From the very beginning God condescended to his creatures. He walked with them in the garden. He told them what love would look like: taking dominion over the garden and the animals, being fruitful and multiplying; and oh yeah, don't eat of the fruit of that tree over there.
Love told his creation to walk in the ways of the commands of love and if they did so they would abide in love and life. If they did what love said to do they would continue to live. If they chose to hate Love and step out of the path of life laid down by God for them to live in then they would die. God is the originator of the concept of ideas having consequences: walk this way and live, walk that way and die. God doesn’t say you have to do it his way. His own word of love tells us that all things are permitted you can do what you want BUT he clearly says some things are profitable and some are unprofitable, some choices lead to life and some to death. Our first parents chose to turn their backs on love and in doing so they discovered the path of death. Their own actions condemned them to death.
It's important that we understand that we don't have to condemn anyone because of the sin we find them in. That is not our job. John writes in his gospel: He who believes in Jesus is not condemned; he who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. The moment that Adam and Eve sinned the human race was judged by God and it died. As a paraphrased CS Lewis says in The Great Divorce: Those who refuse love will be able to look back and see every day of their life as death.
Here is another vital presupposition that the revelation of God makes: Because Adam sinned every other human since has been born dead in sin in relationship to God; they are born condemned. I know that sounds harsh but that is what the revelation of God says in first Corinthians 15: in Adam all die. The Psalmist clearly says: Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. Things like this are why it is so important to begin with the presupposition that the scripture is the revelation of God to mankind. You see if this is not true, if people aren’t born in sin, then they really have nothing to be saved from. They don’t need Jesus – his death was waste of time.
This concept of the deadness of the human race is an idea with consequences. It is the reason that we are not all brothers and sisters. We are all created by God that is true but not all are his children. That is evident when Jesus tells the Pharisees that they are of their father, the devil, in John chapter 8. Let’s go there starting with verse 31: So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, "If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; 32and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." 33They answered Him, "We are Abraham's descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, 'You will become free'?" 34Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. 35"The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. 36"So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. 37"I know that you are Abraham's descendants; yet you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you. 38"I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father." 39They answered and said to Him, "Abraham is our father " Jesus said to them, "If you are Abraham's children, do the deeds of Abraham. 40"But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do. 41"You are doing the deeds of your father " They said to Him, "We were not born of fornication; (they are implying that Jesus was) we have one Father: God." 42Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me. 43"Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. 44"You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45"But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me. 46"Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me? 47"He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God."
The scriptures says that there are two creations, two races of humans: those who are dead in trespasses and sin and those who are of the first born of the new creation, Jesus Christ. Again I understand that these things can sound harsh but the truth is we chose to die in Adam. We chose to rebel against life and choose death. We chose to stop being children of God. In Romans Paul tells us that the commandments are written on everyone’s heart and that everyone knows the one true God and their own dead condition but they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. They despise love so much that they deny its very existence. Love doesn’t owe us anything. We deserve death because of our love of death and God will give us what we want as long as we refuse to humble ourselves before him. This is the condition of the human race because of their mutiny against life and love.
The very fact that God lets us live at all proves that he is a graceful God. We chose death but he continues to give us life that we might turn back to life and learn to love. Anyone that wants to can embrace love but as John so eloquently writes: This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
Yet, … while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Before Adam and Eve were forced to leave the garden of love as a consequence of their hatred of God; God provided the promise of future restoration. The New Testament calls it the old covenant because it was simply the foundation for a future means of redemption in a new covenant that would replace the one broken and abandoned in the garden. It was laid out in in seed form Genesis 3: 14-15: The LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life; And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel." This was the first prophecy that hung on the love hanger: God is going to provide a way of redemption.
What a glorious thing. Here are a people who have already been judged. They are already living in eternal death. They are separated from God because of their own hatred for love and the ways of love. And yet, God in his great mercy begins to lay out a plan of redemption so that anyone who wants to leave death and walk in life can do so. He lays forth the promise of a new creation where love rules and life is lived to the fullest.
But even with the promise of redemption most people refuse to stop dying. They refuse to walk in love. So much so that by the time of Noah and an estimated population of easily around several hundred million people only one person chose to walk in love. Only one person found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Only one person rejected death. The stench of death was so great that God gave the people 120 years more to turn to life but they refused. They were warned of the coming judgment every day with every pounding of the nail while the ark was being built. They all spoke the same language. Most of the people had heard the story of the rebellion first hand from Adam and Eve. Many of them probably saw the original couple die physically. Yet they loved death more than life and God gave them what they wanted. There came a time when the door was shut and no one could partake of grace. Love refused to let the spilled blood that cried out to him day and night go unheard and death was increased for the rebellious. They were given what they wanted.
The stories throughout the Old Testament are stories of grace; Grace that provides redemption, Grace that offers redemption but is rejected, Grace that is revealed in consequences. No one will be able to say: ‘I didn’t know’. No one will be able to say God is unfair. We chose death over life. Everyone, everywhere in all ages before and after Christ knows the truth; that is what the revelation of Love tells us. The majority of people will pant after death instead of life. They will refuse redemption because they will refuse to submit to the ways of love and life.
That’s how the story begins. Love has been rejected but love continues to persevere. Love provides a way for the haters to become lovers. Yet the saying is true: Haters gonna hate. In spite of that Love will be victorious. Every knee will bow and declare that love personified in human form, Jesus Christ is Lord.
Anybody got a question?
Let’s pray. Oh father, teach us how to love like you do. Help us to understand and believe that everything you do and command you do for love. Help us to love you, ourselves and our neighbors. That is a huge request for each and every one of us. Have mercy on us and save us from ourselves so that we might learn to pant after your love and the life that you offer. In Jesus name we ask these things, Amen.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Out Run the Wind
Hey Everyone,
I have these vast reservoirs of sadness that I keep hidden in the deep recesses of my heart. It’s not like I built a place for them there or anything; it’s more like there were times when the sadness, the brokenness, the pain was so great that if it all washed over me at one time I would have drowned. So those sad waters find a spot that’s out of the way and every once in a while something will trigger the release valve and little of that sadness will drain off. I long for the day when those reservoirs are bone dry but it probably won’t be while I’m still vertical and breathing.
The words to a Pat Terry song called Out Run the Wind have been emptying the pond a little bit lately. It’s amazing to me that God gives some people the gift of finding the right words to penetrate a stranger’s heart. Or should I say that it scares me that there are so many of us have experienced pain in similar ways?
“Like a hundred mile an hour wind driving pine straw through a pole
You went straight through my soul
With your temper, your poetry and your blue jeans full of holes
You were something to behold
There was a mystery in you when you kissed me what else could I do?
Your wildness your recklessness didn’t matter to me then
I could still out run the wind
I held you like a rosary prayed you like a prayer
sacrificed everything and didn’t care
That mean streak down inside you was that cross I couldn’t bear
My heart’s the proof: the scars are there
God knows I tried to brave the rain that filled the storm clouds in your eyes.
When I said I’d go the distance things were so much different then
I could still out run the wind
I never dreamed how hard it’d be but loving you took such a toll on me
So Reckless so fearless God how I loved you then
when I could still out run the wind
So reckless so fearless so foolish in the end
Thinking I could hold you and out run the wind.”
When I think of the foolishness that filled my heart for the first 30 years of my life well, it’s a wonder that I’m still alive. My idols should have killed me by now but God is merciful or else he has a really sick sense of humor- some days I’m not sure which it is.
I’ve spent a lot of time with my grandchildren in the last month. I have one getting ready to graduate from high school and another that is getting ready to graduate to crawling with four more in the middle. The younger ones know the pain of hunger and maybe of wacking their head on the corner of a table. The oldest knows more pain, more intimately and probably has reservoirs of sadness already though I don’t know if he knows it yet or not. I had several reservoirs by the time I finished high school but I didn’t know it because they were so deep and I thought an idol would be enough to see me through. So I married her.
I was foolish to the 100th power. I live with the scars of that every day. Who I am is shaped by those scars and I wouldn’t trade who I am now, here in the present for anything in the world. But I wouldn’t want to be that young fool again for all the money in the universe. I don’t ever want to be or see that fool again.
I long for the day when I stop trying to out run the wind and just stand still and let the wind of the Spirit blow through my heart until every reservoir of sadness is evaporated.
Typing through salt water eyes,
Brad
PS. On a lighter note the Final Word’s season finale is available for viewing at: http://www.youtube.com/bradleyscotstephens
I have these vast reservoirs of sadness that I keep hidden in the deep recesses of my heart. It’s not like I built a place for them there or anything; it’s more like there were times when the sadness, the brokenness, the pain was so great that if it all washed over me at one time I would have drowned. So those sad waters find a spot that’s out of the way and every once in a while something will trigger the release valve and little of that sadness will drain off. I long for the day when those reservoirs are bone dry but it probably won’t be while I’m still vertical and breathing.
The words to a Pat Terry song called Out Run the Wind have been emptying the pond a little bit lately. It’s amazing to me that God gives some people the gift of finding the right words to penetrate a stranger’s heart. Or should I say that it scares me that there are so many of us have experienced pain in similar ways?
“Like a hundred mile an hour wind driving pine straw through a pole
You went straight through my soul
With your temper, your poetry and your blue jeans full of holes
You were something to behold
There was a mystery in you when you kissed me what else could I do?
Your wildness your recklessness didn’t matter to me then
I could still out run the wind
I held you like a rosary prayed you like a prayer
sacrificed everything and didn’t care
That mean streak down inside you was that cross I couldn’t bear
My heart’s the proof: the scars are there
God knows I tried to brave the rain that filled the storm clouds in your eyes.
When I said I’d go the distance things were so much different then
I could still out run the wind
I never dreamed how hard it’d be but loving you took such a toll on me
So Reckless so fearless God how I loved you then
when I could still out run the wind
So reckless so fearless so foolish in the end
Thinking I could hold you and out run the wind.”
When I think of the foolishness that filled my heart for the first 30 years of my life well, it’s a wonder that I’m still alive. My idols should have killed me by now but God is merciful or else he has a really sick sense of humor- some days I’m not sure which it is.
I’ve spent a lot of time with my grandchildren in the last month. I have one getting ready to graduate from high school and another that is getting ready to graduate to crawling with four more in the middle. The younger ones know the pain of hunger and maybe of wacking their head on the corner of a table. The oldest knows more pain, more intimately and probably has reservoirs of sadness already though I don’t know if he knows it yet or not. I had several reservoirs by the time I finished high school but I didn’t know it because they were so deep and I thought an idol would be enough to see me through. So I married her.
I was foolish to the 100th power. I live with the scars of that every day. Who I am is shaped by those scars and I wouldn’t trade who I am now, here in the present for anything in the world. But I wouldn’t want to be that young fool again for all the money in the universe. I don’t ever want to be or see that fool again.
I long for the day when I stop trying to out run the wind and just stand still and let the wind of the Spirit blow through my heart until every reservoir of sadness is evaporated.
Typing through salt water eyes,
Brad
PS. On a lighter note the Final Word’s season finale is available for viewing at: http://www.youtube.com/bradleyscotstephens
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
If i had a million dollars
Morning Everyone,
My fingers don't want to touch the keyboard today. There are a myriad of things bouncing around in my head but I don't think they want to come out and play. I was reminded of an old Bare Naked Ladies song as I sat and stared at the keyboard: If I had a million dollars, I buy your love. (But not a real green dress; that's cruel) I'm not sure there's enough money out there for me to buy my own love some days. Don't know how I expect to love anyone else when as Van Morrision oft times mumbles in his muse: I can't stand myself. (down by the pylons).
If you are to love your neighbor as yourself it's a wonder there are still other people on the planet. I'm in this mood because I've been reminded that I've spent my life paying for mistakes. I clicked a button the other day on my website out of shear frustration and repairing the damage that I did cost me a $100. That's a drop in the bucket compared to all that have gone before. I've paid $10,000+ for a 10 second mistake, I've paid $100,000 dollar for a 10 year mistake and I write a check out bigger than my mortgage every month to pay for them.
You'd think I'd have learned by now; and to be honest I have really. A $100 mistake is 1000 times better than $100,000 one and a lot quicker to pay off. But it still puts me in a funk.
Some days I wonder how long? How long til the promises of God start to unfold (I mean the good ones. I see the bad promises unfolding all around me everyday).( Make note: all the promises of God are YES in Christ Jesus even the bad ones). For those of you out there who are still too young to have your choices catch up with you – well they will. If you cannot see that from my life then look at the choices this nation has made and the consequences that you have to live in because of them.
I've been hearing so much about justice the last few days that it makes me sick. Both sides talk as if they know what justice is – as if it were something simple to do or as if it were something that didn't need to be done. The command is to do justice and love mercy. We act as if a bullet in someone's head solves a 10 year problem but we lie to ourselves if we think this is just a ten year problem. This is a 50 or 60 or 100 year problem that began when we began to ignore our own constitution, not to mention true justice. How can you do justice to someone else when the problem was your fault to begin with?
How can a nation that slaughters 2500 of its own people everyday with no remorse whatsoever rejoice that the enemy has been defeated? How can we point a bloody finger at the enemy when we are the enemy? How can a nation who steals from its own citizens to pay for wars abroad, wars on poverty, wars on drugs, wars on ignorance and to pay bureaucrats find any sense of justification in pursuing an enemy that is one tenth as evil? Yes, one tenth as evil.
I know I am probably pissing off both my conservative and my liberal friends as I write these words. But I am just so sick of the charade of both sides. I'm sick of those who just want to get along because in a world of rebellion there is no getting along. I'm sick of those who refuse to look at the true condition of our nation's heart and the blackness that is there -especially in the church.
I hear people say that it is only by the mercy of God that they will make it to heaven but that is not the whole story. If it weren't for justice mercy could never be applied. Jesus was beat to a bloody pulp and hung on a cross to provide the foundation of justice upon which mercy could be built. When you get to heaven you may thank God for the mercy but I bet that elusive million dollars you will be in greater awe that Justice was done so that you could be saved from your own crimes. Love made sure that justice was carried out to the fullest so that mercy could be applied.
I'm tired of people telling half truths about the word of God. I'm tired of people trying to put shiny gloss on the actions of the nation and of the church. It's time to get out of our protective shells of fantasy and live in the real world. In the real world: thirty or so years from now Europe will cease to exist as we know it. It will be Muslim without a single shot being fired or bomb being exploded. In the real world in the next 5 to 10 years Islam will have more followers than Catholicism. In the real world we should be thanking God for the influx of Hispanics into our own country because they are the only thing that will stop us from becoming a Muslim country in the next 30 or 40 years.
I'm not making these things up they come from fertility rates from the various countries. Our genocide is catching up with us. The consequences of our sin (mistakes for the squeemish). The white and black population of our country is decreasing at a rate faster than it takes to maintain a culture. Even if we were to begin to have 4 children apiece it would still take 80 to 100 years to restore what used to be population wise (I'm not sure how long it will take to restore us spiritually because that reproduction rate is much lower at this point than the natural one).
I pay the consequences of my mistakes everyday but that pales in comparison to the price that my grandchildren and my great grandchildren are going to pay. If we want to give them a good gift then it might be wise to teach them Spanish and Arabic -they're going to need it.
How long are we going to only look at the surface? How long are we going to look no further than the end of our noses? Humbling ourselves now may save us but it won't save our culture -I honestly am not sure there is anything worth saving anyway. It certainly won't save the church. Judgment, which is really justice, begins with the house of God. I wonder if it is a coincidence that in the US the majority of the major national disasters have happened in the buckle of the bible belt? (channeling Pat Robertson by accident sorry).
Oops I did it again. When am I going to learn to comfort the people with lies and soft words?
Alabado sea Dios,
Senor Brad
My fingers don't want to touch the keyboard today. There are a myriad of things bouncing around in my head but I don't think they want to come out and play. I was reminded of an old Bare Naked Ladies song as I sat and stared at the keyboard: If I had a million dollars, I buy your love. (But not a real green dress; that's cruel) I'm not sure there's enough money out there for me to buy my own love some days. Don't know how I expect to love anyone else when as Van Morrision oft times mumbles in his muse: I can't stand myself. (down by the pylons).
If you are to love your neighbor as yourself it's a wonder there are still other people on the planet. I'm in this mood because I've been reminded that I've spent my life paying for mistakes. I clicked a button the other day on my website out of shear frustration and repairing the damage that I did cost me a $100. That's a drop in the bucket compared to all that have gone before. I've paid $10,000+ for a 10 second mistake, I've paid $100,000 dollar for a 10 year mistake and I write a check out bigger than my mortgage every month to pay for them.
You'd think I'd have learned by now; and to be honest I have really. A $100 mistake is 1000 times better than $100,000 one and a lot quicker to pay off. But it still puts me in a funk.
Some days I wonder how long? How long til the promises of God start to unfold (I mean the good ones. I see the bad promises unfolding all around me everyday).( Make note: all the promises of God are YES in Christ Jesus even the bad ones). For those of you out there who are still too young to have your choices catch up with you – well they will. If you cannot see that from my life then look at the choices this nation has made and the consequences that you have to live in because of them.
I've been hearing so much about justice the last few days that it makes me sick. Both sides talk as if they know what justice is – as if it were something simple to do or as if it were something that didn't need to be done. The command is to do justice and love mercy. We act as if a bullet in someone's head solves a 10 year problem but we lie to ourselves if we think this is just a ten year problem. This is a 50 or 60 or 100 year problem that began when we began to ignore our own constitution, not to mention true justice. How can you do justice to someone else when the problem was your fault to begin with?
How can a nation that slaughters 2500 of its own people everyday with no remorse whatsoever rejoice that the enemy has been defeated? How can we point a bloody finger at the enemy when we are the enemy? How can a nation who steals from its own citizens to pay for wars abroad, wars on poverty, wars on drugs, wars on ignorance and to pay bureaucrats find any sense of justification in pursuing an enemy that is one tenth as evil? Yes, one tenth as evil.
I know I am probably pissing off both my conservative and my liberal friends as I write these words. But I am just so sick of the charade of both sides. I'm sick of those who just want to get along because in a world of rebellion there is no getting along. I'm sick of those who refuse to look at the true condition of our nation's heart and the blackness that is there -especially in the church.
I hear people say that it is only by the mercy of God that they will make it to heaven but that is not the whole story. If it weren't for justice mercy could never be applied. Jesus was beat to a bloody pulp and hung on a cross to provide the foundation of justice upon which mercy could be built. When you get to heaven you may thank God for the mercy but I bet that elusive million dollars you will be in greater awe that Justice was done so that you could be saved from your own crimes. Love made sure that justice was carried out to the fullest so that mercy could be applied.
I'm tired of people telling half truths about the word of God. I'm tired of people trying to put shiny gloss on the actions of the nation and of the church. It's time to get out of our protective shells of fantasy and live in the real world. In the real world: thirty or so years from now Europe will cease to exist as we know it. It will be Muslim without a single shot being fired or bomb being exploded. In the real world in the next 5 to 10 years Islam will have more followers than Catholicism. In the real world we should be thanking God for the influx of Hispanics into our own country because they are the only thing that will stop us from becoming a Muslim country in the next 30 or 40 years.
I'm not making these things up they come from fertility rates from the various countries. Our genocide is catching up with us. The consequences of our sin (mistakes for the squeemish). The white and black population of our country is decreasing at a rate faster than it takes to maintain a culture. Even if we were to begin to have 4 children apiece it would still take 80 to 100 years to restore what used to be population wise (I'm not sure how long it will take to restore us spiritually because that reproduction rate is much lower at this point than the natural one).
I pay the consequences of my mistakes everyday but that pales in comparison to the price that my grandchildren and my great grandchildren are going to pay. If we want to give them a good gift then it might be wise to teach them Spanish and Arabic -they're going to need it.
How long are we going to only look at the surface? How long are we going to look no further than the end of our noses? Humbling ourselves now may save us but it won't save our culture -I honestly am not sure there is anything worth saving anyway. It certainly won't save the church. Judgment, which is really justice, begins with the house of God. I wonder if it is a coincidence that in the US the majority of the major national disasters have happened in the buckle of the bible belt? (channeling Pat Robertson by accident sorry).
Oops I did it again. When am I going to learn to comfort the people with lies and soft words?
Alabado sea Dios,
Senor Brad
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)