Resistance is Futile

It's kind of funny how we try to hide from God. Maybe we aren't trying to actively hide from God - maybe we just push our conscience to the subconscious. Whatever it is, it's kind of funny. For God, it must look like the guy in the picture when we try to hide. It reminds me of when my boys try to hide from me. They will put a blanket over themselves. I can still see the blanket moving. I can still hear them. I still love them.

Personally, I'm sick of trying to hide every time I sin. There is no point - it's hopeless even trying. I have found that the best thing to do is just turn around, ask Jesus for forgiveness and move on. This needs to happen right away - it is urgent. If it doesn't happen right away, I find myself in a downward spiral. My heart becomes desensitized to God's presence. I stop reading the Bible. I get a little calloused and it becomes harder and harder to turn around. The 'weight' of my sin bears down on my soul. Sooner or later something happens that causes me to wake up, but every time I wait I find myself wishing I would have turned around sooner.

Sometimes we wait waaaay too long. The danger with this is that if we wait too long, we risk falling asleep. Our heart becomes hardened - too calloused to sense God, who is Spirit. We become carnal - worldly - unable to see, hear or feel God's presence, even though it drenches us every day like we're standing under a waterfall.

It's interesting that when Jesus talked with the Samaritan woman about her sin (John 4), he touched the most sensitive spot in her life - "Go call your husband." Of course, Jesus knew she had no husband. In fact, he knew that she had five different husbands and that the man she was currently sleeping with was not her husband.

Why did Jesus strip open this woman's inner life like this? Because he knew that the quickest way to the heart is through a wound. I like what John Piper has to say about what happened next:

Now watch the universal reflex of a person trying to avoid conviction. She has to

admit in v. 19 that Jesus has extraordinary insight ("You're a prophet!"), but instead

of dealing with her guilt she tries to suck Jesus into an academic controversy: "O, so you're a prophet, well, where do you stand on the issue of where people ought to worship?" Verse 20: "Our fathers worshipped on this mountain; and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." 

A trapped animal will chew his own leg off. A trapped sinner will mangle his own mind and rip up the rules of logic and discourse. "Why, yes, as long as we're speaking about my five husbands and my adultery, what is your stance on the issue of where people should worship?" Brothers and sisters, that kind of double-talk and evasive, verbal footwork is very common. And texts like this incline me to think that wherever I hear it someone is hiding something. If your conscience is clean reason can hold sway; if it's not, you will be instinctively irrational.

I find this true in my life also. When confronted with my sin I'm tempted to change the subject or revert to faulty logic. Why do we do this instead of just "manning up" and dealing with it? After all, we know that "if we confess our sins he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). So, what's the problem? Why do we wait?

I don't want to wait anymore. There is no point in hiding. I don't want to become desensitized. I don't want to become calloused. I want to hear God. I want to see God. I want to feel God. But most of all, I want to know Him. We might as well keep the path to God clean and tidy - free from snares and stumbling blocks. If you run into one, throw it in the ditch. Confess it. Quickly! God is waiting with open arms.

Judged or Convicted?

There is quite a misunderstanding out there.

Somehow during the past couple decades, the distinction has been lost between being judgmental and telling the truth. I believe this lost distinction is the result of Biblical uncertainty which has infiltrated the minds of Christians - the idea that yesterday's Truth is no longer Truth for today. It's the idea that sins described in the Bible are no longer sins - that the Bible is no longer relevant. It therefore becomes more and more natural for people, even Christians, to say someone is judgmental simply because they believe sin is still sin.

Do you consider yourself to be a Christian but question the relevancy of the Bible? Do you like passages like 1 Corinthians 13 which talks about love being patient and kind but question other passages that talk about the problems of sin? If so, why are you a Christian? By that I mean, what passages compelled you to make a decision to follow the teachings of Jesus? After all, if you question certain passages of the Bible, how do you know those passages are relevant on which you're basing your faith?

If we take Jesus at his word - that he is literally personified truth - are people really being judged by Christians or are they being convicted by the Spirit of Christ? Could it be that they are confusing Christian judgment with Christ conviction? Could it be that the 'guilt' people feel from others isn't really guilt but rather the conviction of God?

I used to dread the word conviction. Whenever I thought about the word conviction I would think of a courtroom drama where the judge sentences a criminal to life in prison. But there is a huge difference between conviction and condemnation. Conviction is known in the Bible as Godly sorrow. God's Word tells us that Godly sorrow is what leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4). Condemnation tells you, "You are such a failure! Look at what you did!" while conviction tells you, "Come to me... and I will forgive you!"

Conviction is good. When we feel convicted by God, it is the equivalent of God reaching down to us and embracing us. It is God opening His arms and asking us to love Him as much as He loves us. It is God singling us out and calling us by name. "Jeff, I want the very best for you. I love you and I want to show you a better way."

Yes, conviction is a very good thing. Just don't get it confused with being judged by Christians. Most of them are only reciting the words of God anyway. :)

Temporary Guardian

Susie was upstairs getting dressed. Chase came up and said, "Owen took a cookie and ate it but I put mine back."  So they went downstairs and as they were walking downstairs Chase said, "Owen's gonna be in big trouble!" Susie looked for Owen in the kitchen and he wasn't there. She asked Chase where he was and he led her into the living room and pointed behind the chair where Owen was facing the wall and eating that darn cookie as fast as he could. He didn't have much to say for himself - his mouth was jammed full of cookie.

Yes, it's funny I know. But it kind of reminds me of Adam & Eve in the garden. They ate of the forbidden fruit and then hid from God. I'm really proud of Chase for putting his cookie back and telling Susie about what he did. It makes my heart melt!

It's hard to always be 'on' in our parenting. We get tired, we get frustrated and sometimes we're just upstairs getting dressed. But the fact is, we can't trust our children to do the right thing until they get older.

Galatians 4:1-7

As long as children are underage they are subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by their fathers. So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery. But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Daddy, Father." So you are no longer slaves, but God's children; and since you are his children, he has made you also heirs."

It's interesting to me that the Bible refers to the Ten Commandments (the Law) as a temporary guardian for us, until we come of age. When we are born as babies, we are born under the Law - we are under both God's Law and our parent's rules. Our parents set the rules and we are expected to follow them until "the time set by our fathers" which is normally around the age of 18. 

Around the age of 18, we are expected to leave our parents and apply what we have learned in the outside world. Do the rules cease to exist? No, they don't. However, we are no longer subject to them - we are no longer under them. Do our parents still expect us to follow them? Probably. But the rules are no longer enforceable. They have fulfilled their purpose.

Or have they?

Do we really stop breaking the rules when we turn 18? I know I didn't. The rules didn't transform me into a law-abiding citizen. I needed to be transformed from the inside out.

I believe God gave us this earthly example to illustrate a heavenly reality. On Earth, we "come of age" when we reach maturity and can start making intelligent decisions on our own. In the spiritual realm, we "come of age" when we use this new decision-making ability to be born again into a new family that doesn't need rules, because it has Spirit.

John 3:6
"How can anyone be born when they are old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother's womb to be born!" Jesus answered, "Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit."

By trusting Jesus, "God sends the Spirit of his Son into our hearts." This Spirit doesn't weigh us down with rules but instead transforms us into the rules. He doesn't change the rules, he changes us! The ironic thing is that becoming the Law sets us free from the same Law. We move from slavery to freedom by becoming that which we thought was oppressing us. Crazy! God sure has a way of turning things upside down.