Separating love from worship

We are born wanting to be worshipped. We want others to think we are wonderful because it feels good to be admired and paid attention to. It doesn't feel good to be ignored; we don't like it. So we do everything we can think of to be one of the worshipped ones. We perform well or go to great lengths and expense to look some way that we see gains approval or worship. We feel we will just die if we don't get those we value to value us with their worship. And we spend plenty of time worshipping others who meet our criteria as being worthy of our attention and approval. The people who worship us are not nearly as valuable as those we worship but everyone is changeably fickle. Often we are left in the middle, feeling terribly alone.

When He decides to begin to reveal Himself to us, we start to learn about the God of the Bible. In His very first commandment, He says he is the only one who is to be worshipped. And then we read that He loves us, enough to die for us. So we figure He is going to make us feel good, like when others worship us. But he doesn't worship us; He loves us. He knows we are in terrible trouble. The very fact that we desire to be worshipped indicates something is very wrong with us. The underlying reason why we are born wanting and needing so badly to be worshipped is because we are all messed up. We are trying to be god instead of the worshippers of God we were originally created to be.

So we keep reading His Book to find out what went wrong. We discover that when God made the first man and woman, everyone got along great. God loved them and gave them everything they needed, including heart-filling fellowship with Himself. They did everything He asked them and had a wonderful time with Him and with all the rest of the new creation. They worshipped God and loved one another. Everything was good; there was no shame, no right or wrong.

But when they were tempted to disbelieve that God loved them, when they were tricked into thinking that God was holding out on them, they disobeyed the only rule He had given them. Then their eyes were opened to a whole new world of man-wisdom, a place where a man worships other men or things instead of God (idolatry). But at the same time their eyes were opened to the new ways of man-fallen-into-sin, their eyes were closed to the wisdom of God. They lost His glory and so exchanged His goodness to them, His love and fellowship with them, for an idolatrous pretend-life that is really death. They were thrown out of the Garden and barred from re-entry by a flaming sword. God already had a Way in mind to make them part of His Kingdom family again but they didn't know it or see it. Their minds had become darkened, full of futile human wisdom.

Their babies were born like us, wanting to be worshipped, full of envy and strife, wanting to be the best so as to gain the most worship. In time, earthly kingdoms developed with the most powerful man in charge lording it over the others. Cruel tyrants ruled people as pawns with force and fear. Within the cruelest of all kingdoms, our Lord Jesus Christ was born, lived and died. When God raised Him from the dead, He had completely paid the ransom price for those who would receive His Spirit into their hearts and thus become new creations in His image.

These new brothers and sisters of our Lord were each one reborn into the former glory that had been lost in the Garden! They were the only ones in the earth able to worship and love God and love the people God placed in their lives. By the new birth into the glorious Godly wisdom now they could see others by faith as God had seen them. They could forgive just as our Lord Jesus forgave those who killed him because they had been reborn in His image. Many of them were killed just as cruelly as our Savior but their faith in Him kept them in peace in the midst of their martyrdom. They had been delivered from the man-lost-in-sin darkened way of thinking that made them desire to be worshipped and to worship anything but God. The chains of sin that had bound them to this selfish life of death had been broken. Now, the new and living Way of love was theirs, a Way filled with prayer to and praise for their Redeemer.

Because the concept of love had become so intertwined with feel-good desire for worship (idolatry) within the darkened ways of thinking of man-fallen-in-sin, a special term came into use to describe the kind of love God has for those He is redeeming. Only those who have been given the new creation Life of His Spirit are able to love God and other people with this same kind of love that God has for us. The Greek word 'agape', often translated 'charity', means an active choice, not motivated by feeling, to do the best for another. This is exactly what our Lord Jesus Christ did when he went to the cross. He did not feel like being cruelly whipped and crucified! He endured the suffering for the joy set before Him: gaining new brothers and sisters in His eternal Kingdom!

Only God's Spirit within us can make us able to love like He did and does. Only His power within can make us chose to do what love requires in the face of the natural feelings of our fallen flesh. Agape love can forgive when another does us wrong, not our natural inclination. Our natural inclination is vengeance. When another person receives some benefit, our natural inclination is envy. But with His charity filling our hearts and minds, we can chose to rejoice with the blessed person. And so on. Read 1Corinthians 13 for a full description of someone habitually given over to this supernatural kind of love.

This kind of love is the only kind that actually fills up the heart. An idolatrous heart is ever empty, ever hungry, never satisfied, always needy. But a redeemed saint who chooses to exercise the love power he has been given reaps a bountiful harvest of peace, joy and contentment as well as the myriad of other benefits of Kingdom life. Marriage was designed as a garden to grow the fruits of the Spirit, especially agape-style love.

So why do Christians get divorced and do all the other horrible things that non-Christians do? Some have forgotten (or never knew) the horrible sin-filled state that they were rescued from. We were all helplessly doomed to eternity in hell before our Father chose us for His Kingdom. He ransomed us so we would no longer be held captive by the power of sin. He gave us a new power that overcomes sin, the power of His love, agape. Nothing on this earth is more powerful. But because we are so used to our old, familiar sinful ways, we'd rather cling to them. The old idolatrous ways die hard since they are so ingrained in who we have learned to think we are. That is the very sad truth. But nothing amazes Him. When we see how repulsive clinging to this sin is, He is always ready to forgive and restore and re-empower us with His love. He does not love us because we are wonderful! He loves us because it is His nature to love and because He has chosen us for His own. He loves us because He Himself has made us valuable to Himself! The more we come to understand our new identity in Him, the less we are tempted to return to the old familiar ways of death.

God is the only One able to be worshipped because He is the only one without blemish, and because He is the only One who can handle worship. People do very well when they worship God because that is what they were made for. When people worship other people or cultivate being worshipped themselves, destruction always occurs because people were not thus designed. Worship does not replace love. Because God loves us, we can love Him and others. Children need lots of charitable agape love, not worship. As much as parents worship their children they destroy them, but if parents agape-love their children, their children will prosper. Same goes for spouses. Amen!

Seeing the Beatitudes in new light

At first, the Beatitudes just seemed impossible! They were diametrically opposed to everything I had learned about how to be successful in this life, beautiful words that just did not compute. Then, after I learned that Christ within me by his Holy Spirit is my Life and Goodness, I trusted that he was the only one able to fulfill and personify those impossible-to-me attributes so I didn't give them much thought. However, lately I am seeing them in a new light.

Our beloved pastor-through-his-written-sermons, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, has taught me that the Beatitudes and the whole Sermon on the Mount describe those who have been born again into God's Kingdom. Our Lord Jesus is giving us a window into how he lives in God while on earth and how we can as well when we have been born again by his Spirit. As citizens of this whole new way of life, we no longer conform to the pattern of this world, since the world's pattern is corrupt, thoroughly infused with the deceitfulness of vain, darkened sin. We have been delivered into his Kingdom of Light which has a whole new mindset, currency, etc.

Now in all my study over the years of what it means to live in the identity of Christ, never have I seen the Beatitudes included. In those identity in Christ lists, we are seated with Christ in heavenly places and we are the righteousness of Christ in God but never we are poor in spirit, mourning, meek or hungering and thirsting after righteousness. No, we have been saved, made holy, delivered, made righteous, victorious, and filled with his riches in those lists.

Now I have embraced all the truth in those lists and have benefitted greatly from the peace and joy living in these truths has engendered. However, several of my troubling sinful habits were not dealt with. I still compared myself with others, talked about others, judged others, criticized others, fought with others, found fault with others, was wounded by others and sought vengeance, etc. The Lord brought me to face all this sin and I was undone. I was ever seeing the mote in others while the beam was in me!

Now I am seeing that being delivered from sin is both once and for all, and ongoing. To be poor in spirit means to begin to see the depth of my sin so that never for a moment could I think myself better than another. This is an ongoing, continual process. Mourning is learning to hate my sin so I won't go back and wallow in it. (What an astounding, sobering revelation it was to realize that part of the horribleness of sin is that I like to do it!!) Meekness is knowing so well the deceitful nature of my sinfulness that I could never see another and think myself superior to them. Only then could I trust all to God and no longer need to stand up for myself to get vengeance. Only then could I hunger and thirst for his righteousness, to be filled anew with his grace daily. And only then could I be truly merciful as Jesus is. All this leads me to the purity of heart that allows me to see God in the sweet fellowship Jesus's has opened for me. And so on. It is an entirely new way of living life that is both utterly foreign to and greatly hated in the world system. It is the power of God, the love of God shown forth in complete contrast to the world's way of struggling to get on top.

I've known for a long time that living in the Kingdom of God was utterly removed from and foreign to the way of the world system, but this whole crucial core of truth was nearly absent from my concept. It is very sobering and humbling to begin to walk in this light but also welcome and freeing. Through resisting these horrid, sinful habits, I am beginning to walk in the perfect liberty in Christ to truly love others as he loves me. The Beatitudes reveal his nature that he has made possible for me to possess. Thus I am blessed and thereby bless others as I walk in this "more whole" identity of Christ.

The Warrior is a Child

The Warrior is a Child is the name of a song by Twila Paris. Those words are very true. As Christians living in a world of sin, we are warriors in the continual spiritual battle we face until our Lord Jesus Christ returns in his Day of the Lord to judge those not found in him and to make us his Bride. But, we are also children, his children, right here and now. Warrior children.

I am old enough to remember a time in the church when songs like "Farther Along", "Where Could I Go But to the Lord?","This World is Not My Home", "I've Got a Mansion Just Over the Hilltop" and "I'd Rather Have Jesus" were sung with conviction and the singers found comfort in the words of those songs. Then, simultaneously, the increasing prosperity of our nation combined with the decreasing belief in the supernatural world and all those songs became passe, even wrong. They were called, "pie in the sky by and by" because, the new way said, we could have it all right here and now! We could have peace and prosperity and health right here in this world, they said. You just have to think positive because the devil was defeated by Jesus on the Cross and the Lord wants you to prosper: such was the new way to think and live as a Christian. Heaven even started to look pretty boring.

I tried to live in that fantasy for many years, and you know what? It is exhausting! Any time anything went wrong or got hard or uncomfortable, I would think I had done something wrong. Everything became man-centered and God was somewhere on the periphery, maybe. Reality became something to avoid.

But the truth is, this world is not basically good. It is fallen and people living in it are sin-filled, controlled by the father of lies, Satan. I should not be amazed when things go wrong! It does not mean that Jesus did not defeat the devil on the cross or that God does not want me to prosper in the wealth I possess in Christ. But he says, "You will have trouble." He says, "If they hated me, they will hate you." The Apostle Paul's life was not a bed of comfort! It is hard to imagine anyone having a harder life, yet his faith in Christ is unsurpassed as far as I know. He says he knows how to be abased as well as how to abound. I've spent my life running from anything that resembled being abased! But no more.

These days I am happily singing those old songs, for they are true. The "Poor Wayfaring Stranger" and the "Man of Constant Sorrow" do have "a home in gloryland that outshines the sun" where there will be no more sadness or sorrow or sickness or sin. For now, the warrior is a child, singing as she goes!

Little Children

"Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever shall humble himself as a little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3

"Suffer the little children and forbid them not for such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein." Mark 10:14,15

Our Lord is asking us to enter his kingdom as a little child, not as a mature adult. Mature adults know the ropes and can do lots of things well without thinking. A little child is filled with the wonder of discovery, attempting to imitate, without regards to perfection, what they see the big people around them doing. They make lots of mistakes and need much correction. In the same manner we come to know who God is and how he desires us to live in the new kingdom he has given us birth into. He knows we don't inherently know all of his ways well but he is delighted we chose to embrace his adoption into his family. He trains us very patiently, helping us at every step, sometimes allowing us to let us fall or fail. Our growth in faith in him is his goal. He is very interested in our becoming like him but he is not crushed or disappointed in us when we err for he knows we are clay.

"As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby." 1 Peter 2:1 He gives us everything we need for life and godliness, including his word of Truth, which changes our old, deceived ways of thinking into his mind of Christ, full of Light, in a lifelong process called sanctification. If we start thinking we should be able to become like an adult, 'getting down' this being able to be like him, knowing the ropes and able to live holy without continual dependence upon him, then we haven't understood the nature of our new birth and have forgotten the depths of sinfulness from which we have been rescued. Continued humility as his child, content in his hands and in dwelt by his presence, begins from knowing the utter darkness of the vain life he rescued us from. He did not redeem us to live in the same manner as adults do in our fallen world.

The unspoken, ingrained motto of a little child is, "Anything worth doing is worth doing imperfectly." They want to find out about everything around them and care not at all about their skill level. When a child starts to value being right or looking all together more than exploring or experimenting in the world around them, their ability to learn begins to diminish. God never wants us to stop learning about the unsearchable riches he has bestowed on us in Christ! He is the one who changes us from the inside out. He is the one who makes us able to obey and learn his ways. He is the transformer.

God never desired that Adam and Eve would know the difference between good and evil. That is why he forbade them to eat of that tree. Little children do not trust in their ability to be good; they trust in their parents! Until a certain age, little ones are not aware they are their own separate person but rather see themselves as an extension of their mother. It is not that God doesn't want us to grow and mature in him and be a fruitful ambassador of his kingdom. Of course he desires that and makes it possible by his Spirit dwelling within us. However, he never wants us to trust anyone but him. He never wants us to trust in our own ability to be good, for apart from him, we have none. He is in us and we are in him and he is our Goodness.

Truth and Wisdom

Even though Jesus says he is the Way, the Truth and the Life, when I used to read that verse (John 14:6), I would automatically think it meant: Jesus shows me the Way, helps me understand principles of Truth and gives me eternal Life.

Then, around 10 years ago, Henry Blackaby's Experiencing God taught me that Truth is a Person, that Jesus himself is Truth. This started a revolution in my thinking. I went from trying to follow or imitate Jesus to embracing what he has done in me when he made me new. His very nature of Truth has been written into the DNA of the new creation he has made me. Formerly, as a fallen, sin-bound child of wrath I did not have truth written in my inward parts. I had, rather, the deception and deceit that is the nature of my former father, Satan. This sin nature of deceit is why I could always spot flaws in others but always excuse them in myself.

But now that I have his nature of Truth written upon my new heart, I am aware of both my inherent sinfulness and of his complete redemption of me from the power of sin. Even while I learn to walk in the power of his Spirit, bringing him glory by doing what he shows me to do by his power, I am increasingly aware of my natural, fleshly proclivity to deceit and sin. I have his power now to resist putting others down while excusing myself, but the temptation to do so will be with me until I receive a new, incorruptible body in Glory. So, the very Spirit of Truth that lives within me and makes me able to live in his supernatural power is also a mirror that reveals to me who I am apart from my Redeemer. This is very humbling. I am not even tempted to take any credit for anything good done through me, for all that is good is of him! When I choose sinful disobedience, I can sin really well, but that is certainly nothing to be proud of! I am so thankful that even when I temporarily revert to the old, familiar, deceitful ways, he patiently and kindly brings me back around to abiding in him, as a parent does their child. He is Truth, and He is mine and I am his.

He is so much more as well. I think of all his names given in his Word. He is my Way, my Life, my Savior, my Redeemer, my Righteousness, etc. in the same way he is my Truth. However, it took another Henry, Henry Morris, to help me realize that Christ himself resides in his Wisdom.

I ask God for wisdom all the time. Debi Pearl clued me in on this in her book, Created to Be His Help Meet. She taught me that if I want to be a help meet in God's image, I'll need constant infusions of his wisdom. He says I can pray for wisdom and he will give it liberally. (Note: apart from Christ, we are all very foolish. A fool thinks, in his deceived mind, that there is no God, that he can act apart from God to do what he thinks is right.) However, once again, I was praying for wisdom like I used to think of Truth, seeing it as principles. I was thinking, "He will show me what to do in this situation." While he always does show me what to wisely do in the same way he shows me what is true, I discovered there is so much more!

I was reading the first seven chapters of Proverbs, which is about seeking wisdom, in the Defender's Study Bible, with notes by Henry Morris. His note on Proverbs 3:19: 'The LORD by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens.', reads: 'Since Christ was the one by whom God founded the earth (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16), this verse makes it clear that in Proverbs, "wisdom" is actually personified and identified with Christ.'

I realized that when I am praying for wisdom, I am asking for Wisdom, who is Jesus! He replaces my natural folly with himself, who is Wisdom, just as he replaces my natural deceit with himself, who is Truth. Talk about a personal relationship! I'm beginning to understand what Paul means when he says, "My life is hid in Christ."

Belonging to His Name

"That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and you in him according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ." 2 Thessalonians 1:12

No one ever really belongs to their self. But before the light of truth dawned, before new birth into God's Kingdom, before I became God's child, I thought I was in control of myself-- I believed that lie. In truth, I was an utter slave of Satan, bound to do his will. In the spiritual realm, my name was Chris of Satan, or Chris d'Evil.

Now that I am born again, this time into the family of God, I am under God's authority. He has given me his Name. He has made me Chris of God, or Chris d'Christ. Because my flesh is not yet redeemed, I can still slip into believing that old lie that I am in control of myself. But the truth is my soul is bound forever to Him who both created and then redeemed me from my former cruel master. Christ's authority over me also gives me grace and power to do the works he ordained for me to do before I was ever born, my purpose. I am able to obey him and walk in these good works that bring him glory when I remember I don't belong to myself, but to him who gave me his Name!

Doing the Will of the Father

Jesus came into the world to do the will of his Father. (see Hebrews 10:7-9). His words, "Not my will, but Thine be done" were not just in the Garden before he gave himself over to death in obedience to his Father's will. He lived his entire existence seeking and doing the will of his Father who sent him. "I can of mine own self do nothing." John 5:30. "For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me." John 6:38. "I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things. And he that sent me is with me." John 8:28-29.

Why is this a big deal? Because, as a man here on earth like the rest of us, though he was also fully God, Jesus did have a will of his own. He could have looked out over the heart-wrenching needs of the people around him and decided to take things into his own hands. He could have called thousands of angels to defeat the ungodly men who held whole nations in cruel bondage. He could have organized teams to go throughout the earth healing all the sick, broken people. He could have caused all the wealthy people on the earth to share everything they had with the poor people so everything would be fair and equal. You may remember that the Jews were very upset that he did not throw off the yoke of the Romans as they thought the Messiah would.

But he did not do any of those things. He only did what he saw his Father doing. He did everything he did do in obedience to and out of love for his Father. All in obedience to his Father's will, he healed some and raised some from the dead, he preached the Kingdom of God, he laid down his life, was resurrected, ascended and now sits at the right hand of his Father in Heaven making intercession for all those his Father has given him.

Why didn't he do more about all the needs he saw? Because he was here to do his Father's will, not his own. Doing more or less than his Father asked would have been sin. His Father's will was that he would live a sinless life of obedience here. In that way, when Jesus laid down his sinless life, his obedient death would pay in full for all of the sin that had caused all the wreckage in the world. His resurrected life would then empower all those the Father had given him to live the same lives of dependence on and obedience to his Father. In this way, his everlasting Kingdom over all the kingdoms of the world would be built and reigned over by all those he redeemed along with him.

God is the only one who has the power to build his Kingdom. He saves us and fills us with his Spirit not so that we can go around doing all the good we decide needs to be done. (It is true that if we follow him as his children we will do good and exhibit all the fruits of his Spirit, but not by following our own wills.) He makes us able to commune with him, as he made Adam and Eve before they chose to follow their own wills. He has chosen to build his Kingdom through those who will obey him and do his will.

After our new birth into his family, when we are given his Life abiding within us, we are no longer our own to follow our own ideas of what we think needs to be done. "You are not your own, you have been bought with a price." We have been given the power of his Spirit to bring every thought captive (our own ideas and imagination as well as the goadings of the devil) so that we may be given over, as Jesus was, to do the will of our Father.

We have missed our purpose in life if we think our job is only to do what we have learned is right and good and pleasing. Nothing short of his will done on earth as it is in heaven is our purpose. We have not been given his new life to be good people. Doing good deeds is not our purpose, any more than it was Jesus' purpose. There are scads of people doing good deeds all around us who do not know God through Jesus Christ and who are not building his kingdom. They look good and others think well of them. But on the last Day, Jesus will say to them, "Depart from me, I never knew you, workers of iniquity!" If we content ourselves with doing what we think is good, we will fall short of bringing God glory, which is sin. And we haven't been given new life to keep on sinning!

We have been made like Jesus, children of God, to do as he did, to do the will of our Father. And the truth of the matter is anyone who does the will of the Father on earth will be hated as Jesus was hated. The earth is full of people doing their own will who, by so doing, hate God and all his children. Now it is true there is no law against the fruit of the Spirit but that fact hasn't prevented Christians from being martyred by those who hated them throughout the ages.

Now this is a very difficult thing. Naturally, no one wants to incur the wrath of his fellow man. It is natural to think that if what you are doing is causing a bunch of people to despise, resent and mock you, you must be doing something wrong. (Unless you are Rush Limbaugh!) We naturally think that anything God requires of us will produce peace, prosperity and a good name respected by others. We also naturally tend to forget about the cruel deaths that Jesus and all the apostles all faced.

However, our new birth into the family of God and our new citizenship in the Kingdom of God has translated us from natural into supernatural. We will fall short of becoming like Jesus if we cling to the old natural ways of thinking after we have become supernatural. His Spirit is hard at work within us to transform us into the the image of Jesus. So let us let him have his way with us. Whether we are to die martyr's deaths or not is all in his hands. Our job is not to worry about that or anything else, but to follow where he leads in obedience, to walk in his Spirit, to do the will of our Father in heaven. May we no longer disobey our Father by doing our own will, however righteous it may seem. That which looks good, sounds right or is commonly accepted is no longer our guide. He is.

Making Babies and the Gospel Seed

The supernatural power of God flowing through me to minister to others is like the way a woman produces a baby. She cannot get pregnant (start a baby growing inside her) by herself. She needs two additional things to begin a pregnancy beyond what she possesses as a fertile woman. She must have sperm donated to her egg and she must have the miracle of life occur wherein her egg is fertilized and implanted within her prepared womb.

But once her egg has been fertilized with sperm, which is all done within the darkness of her body and is miraculous even for the naturally fertile, her amazing body created by God makes hormonal changes to begin to nourish, nurture, protect and provide for the life growing within. Both before and after the fertilized egg becomes implanted in her womb, the choices made by this woman affect the mind, body, spirit, health, strength and happiness of the baby growing within. What she eats, what she thinks about, what harmful substances she allows or avoids, what she does in the way of exercise-- all the things the mother-to-be does or doesn't do, the peace she abides in or the rage she gives herself to-- all this affects the life, health and future of her child as she carries him to birth and, less directly, after her child is born. The miracle of life she cannot perform, but she has much power in determining the quality of that new life. She cannot determine the sex of her child nor its exact gene pool, but there is a great deal she does determine by the daily choices she makes before, during and after her pregnancy. She can even choose to have the life growing in her terminated.

This analogy is like the supernatural power of God flowing through me to minister to others in the following ways. I cannot produce the new creation of God's life in another's soul. Only God can bring a soul from death to life, the death in Adam unto new life in Christ. Only God can draw a man to receive His truth by faith. Only the Spirit of God can cause someone to be born again of imperishable seed unto eternal life. Only God can reveal Himself to a man's soul and convict a man of his sin so that he desires and seeks God's forgiveness and is ready and able to give up his old life for a new one in Christ.

What I can do as a supernaturally empowered minister of His gospel, however, is to nourish the life Christ has hidden in me, the life I now have which is hidden in Him. I can abide in Him and proclaim him. I have His power to walk in His Spirit and not in my past sinful, fleshly ways. I can praise Him and refrain from complaining. When I am afraid, I can choose to trust Him. I can pray for others and love them in many other ways. I can preach the gospel to others with my words backed up by my life which is all from Him. I cannot produce new life in Christ in myself or others, but I can do much to nourish what He has implanted so that when I proclaim Him, His seed is cast upon fertile ground where it can take root and grow and reproduce one hundred fold.