The Danger of Words

“Words divide reality between either/or, living experiences are both/and.” ~ Richard Rohr 

Words are a necessary part of life. We must have words to function in society.  Not to mention to know people and be known by them; to communicate ideas and thoughts so others will know what is going on inside of us. Even people who cannot talk have a language all their own where they use their hands to communicate. If you have ever traveled to a foreign country you know the problem of not speaking the language. You are reduced to hand signals or facial expression, or speaking your own language louder as if the problem is their hearing and not your words. Not having words in life produces chaos. 

However, there is another problem. Words divide reality and cause us to see things as we want to see them. In a simple illustration let’s use a chair. Once I call a chair a “chair” I reduce it to something I sit on. But in the coffee shop I am at, the chair in front of me right now has my feet in it, the one next to me holds my backpack. So the chair is also a stool and a table. Also these chairs are made of metal and wood, they are put together well. Someone designed them to be sturdy and to last for a long time. But if I took one of the chairs apart and spread all the parts out on the floor it would no longer be a chair, per se, it would just be a pile of wood and metal, but it would have the potential to be a chair again. So really the chair isn't a chair, it just has a “chairness” about it. 

How about a more serious illustration, what about when we label people? When we assign a word to someone we immediately assign a kind of worth or value to the person. For instance, when I say, “That sure is a pretty lady” I am saying everything about her is pretty. She never has an ugly moment, she wakes up pretty, she is always pretty. Or if I say , “That is a nice guy” I do the same thing. In a sense I pass a kind of judgement on said person. I may not be judging on purpose, but I am saying they are a particular “something”. Derogatory comments work the same. I may say, “He is just a redneck” I am assuming some things about this person which may or may not be true, yet in my mind (and maybe verbally to others) I have placed my definition of reality on this person. I have now reduced this person to just a few bad character traits. I am assigning him the reality of the “him” I see. My reality, my viewpoint.  When we use racially slang words to this process it gets even uglier. People  are always complex and the product of many issues in childhood and on. We must know the whole person in order to “know” them. 

What about when we do the same thing to God? What about when we place words on God we think are truth about him?  If humans are complex, God is infinitely complex. I will address words about God in another post, but we need to think about these things. If we are going to love God and each other the way Jesus called us to, we must think before we speak and try to see people from multiple view points; not just the one most obvious or most in line with our worldview.

In order to love one another we have to see the both/and of each other. We have to realize people are good and bad all wrapped up together in many different ways; and we all struggle in our own battles. We have to see the woman on welfare who is trying to mother 3 children; and also broken over her mistakes; and also deals with depression and a lack of education. We have to see the man who works all the time and neglects his kids and wife because he is striving to please the ghost of his father who was never satisfied. We cannot stay stuck in our either/or thinking of each other if we are ever going to love as Jesus called us to love. 

The key is to see each person as Jesus sees them, his creation, who he loves, he died for and he cares for. Before you speak a word about people make sure you are seeing them through many points of view. How God sees them. This is the only way we will ever get past hate and hurt in the world and take on each others burdens to see change. Jesus paid for our sins by taking them on himself, maybe we can get over each others sins by sharing the burden of them together. We have to see from multiply points of view. 

“If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless.” James 1:26

A viewpoint is a view from a point

The other day as I drove with my wife and 21 year old daughter, we started discussing gas prices.  My daughter said something that made me giggle. She said, "I used to wonder what the big deal was about gas prices. I mean, we have to buy it no matter what. But then I had to start paying for it!" We all had a good laugh because she had been enlightened. I had a similar experience when I first moved out of my parent’s home and recieved my first utility bills. I thought, "What in the world?!? They charge for this stuff?" Up until then my parents had handled all of that. From my point of view, and my daughter’s, to worry about those things was ridiculous. Until the point we were viewing them from changed. 

A point of view is the way we see things from where we are. People say, "You can't see the forest for the trees" which is the same thing. Some times life has us at a point where we cannot clearly see and sometimes we have to move to be able to see what matters. Humanity, however, tends to not want to move. Moving means change and change means stepping into the uncertain. We don't like uncertain, we want certainty. Richard Rohr says, "When we give into the fear of uncertainty life becomes a series of insurance policies.” This is truth, when we will not allow ourselves to step boldly into uncertainty we spend most of our time trying to insure no one or no thing will upset our certainty and life becomes defensive.  (More on this later)

I went mountain biking with a friend the other day, we were talking about critical thinking and how it has become a lost art. He said the most profound thing, "In order to think critically we have to remove ourselves from ourselves and objectively put ourselves into someone else's position and see from their point of view." We have all heard this, its called, "walk a mile in my shoes" or empathy. 

Every point of view is a view from a point. And every point of view has a life of experiences and beliefs behind it. Every person on the earth has a view on things and that view is from a point of experience. But just like my daughter with gas prices, once your beginning point changes, your view changes. Once you have moved from one point to another things become clearer or more obscure. Once my daughter moved from having her gas paid for to having to pay for her gas her view of gas prices changed.

Jesus taught this. In Matthew 7:1-5 he said, "Judge not lest you be judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brothers eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is a log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the log out of your brother's eye." There is so much in here I can't even begin to write about it in one blog post (maybe there will be more on this) but there is one important point Jesus teaches here- before you can see clearly to help anyone, you have to look at yourself first. The blind cannot lead the blind.

Most of us are much more comfortable telling everyone else what they need to do instead of figuring out what we need to do ourselves. I am the world’s worst about this. I can see other’s faults much clearer than my own. I have to look for mine, search for them and dig them out. It’s a hard job, and it requires changing my point of view. As hard as this is I want to give a pointer on how I have begun this process.

In my years of studying about and thinking about Jesus and his teachings there is one little trick I have learned to be effective in growing, it’s pretty simple but also profound at the same time, as many deep things are. When we see Jesus teach something as emphatic as "The measure by which you judge you will be judged" it tells us something about his teaching. What I like to do it turn that around on itself. So I may say, "The measure by which I am judging everyone else, I need to judge myself with." Here is how that works. Say I am around someone who talks over everyone and it gets on my nerves and I say to myself "what a loud belligerent jerk" I find if I will just ask myself "Do I do that?" I usually see I do! So I realize that my point needs to move so I can clearly see myself! Once I get "me" out of it, then I can effectively help someone else out of the same problem, if they want me to.

This is important as Christians because if we are not careful we tend to be the morality police. We tell everyone else what they need to be and not be doing, but yet cannot control ourselves in the process. So we tell people to not have monogamous same sex marriages, but Christianity's history has been plagued by sexual sin. We tell people to love their enemy, but Christians can be perceived as sign-carrying haters of opposing people groups. Christians must get the plank from our own eye before we attempt to help anyone with a speck or very simply keep our mouths shut.

How do we start? With ourself. If we come to terms with our own brokenness, failures, sin, hate and points of view which are wrong, we can start to move our points. When we realize we do not have the corner on truth, and sometimes someone's life is not as simple as right and wrong, we start to see the person, and not just the action. We start to move our "point". And when we move our "points" our view will become more clear, and gas prices will make more sense.

Part 14

Been a while since I have posted, I apologize for that. Life has just been busy! Hopefully we are back on track now. 

You can tell a lot about a person by their creation. A painting reveals much about a painter. The colors she or he chose. The objects he desire to paint. The details she chooses to put in or leave out. The painting is an extension of the painter. A cabinet will tell you a lot about a carpenter: round edges or square? Did he sand the surface carefully by hand or use a electric sander? Are the drawers dove tailed or just nailed together? A cabinet is an extension of the carpenter. 

As much as you can tell about the painter by their painting, or the carpenter by their cabinet, you cannot know the actual painter or the carpenter through their creation.  You have to get to know the person.  In order to do get to know them you have to spend time with them. You have to learn about them. You have to know them. And here is the cool thing; once you know them, their actual creation, the painting or cabinet, will come even more to life. The creation will make even more sense once the creator is known more fully. The obscurity and dark colors of the painting will make more sense in light of the dark past of the painter. The intrinsic detail of the cabinet will make sense in light of a carpenter who grew up with a father who could never be pleased. Or the painter choosing to paint mountains will make more sense when you know how much peace the mountains bring the painter. Or the smooth surface of hand sanded wood will make more sense when you realize the joy of the carpenter feeling the wood and smelling the wood as they work with is slowly and methodically.  Something that once made little sense about the creation can all the sudden make complete sense when the creator is known. 

The bible talks a lot about us (human kind) worshiping the created. It starts at the beginning when our original parents chose the created tree over the Creator God. And it has not let up since. The man still worships his work. The woman still worships the man. The parents still worship the children. The environmentalist still worships the environment. The alcoholic still worships the alcohol. On and on it goes. The heart is crying for the Creator, but instead settles for the creation.  Even though the creation is just a reflection of the creator. 

The sun shines on the moon from the other side of the earth at night. The reason we can see the moon is because the sun bounces light off of it. Without the sun, we would not see the moon. However, the light from the moon is not "moonlight" it is still sunlight, it just bounces off the moon first. But the moon is not the sun, it is a refection of the sun. Just like the creation is not the Creator, it is a reflection of the Creator. 

Just like the sun and moon we would not see anything in the created were it not for the Creator. The Creator gives the created life. The Creator gives the created meaning. The created is only a reflection of the Creator. It is a shadow. We can know things about the Creator through the created, but if we want to know the Creator we have to do that through a relationship. 

This is where it gets tricky, because God cannot be physically seen or touched or heard. His creation can, but he cannot. So when we say we want a relationship to the Creator, there is only one way to have a relationship; faith. "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1). 

The question becomes, how do I have a relationship with a God I cannot talk to, or hear from? And in the question lies the answer. You have a relationship by talking to and hearing from Him. But it's only by faith. You talk through prayer, you hear through his word. But not just reading his word; studying his word over and over. Meditating on his word for hours. Taking retreats with just you and God and staying soaked in his presence. And trusting in a God you cannot talk to or hear from but trusting that you are talking to and hearing from him. 

Now for the grand finale, your gonna love this; once you come to know the Creator God more and more, the more his creation will make sense. The more the sky will look more blue, the more the taste of food will bring joy and not addiction. The more relationships will point to him and not self. The more you know the Creator God the more you will enjoy his creation, but not worship it. Instead, you will worship the Creator God who is to be forever praised, Amen.  

Part 13

Instincts. We all have them.  Organic instincts you are born with while neurological instincts you have to train.  For instance; putting your hands in front of you when you fall is an organic instinct. From early childhood you had it. As soon as you could walk, and even before, if you fell face first your hands would instinctively go in front of you to prevent busting your nose. If someone throws something at your face you instinctively put your hands up, close your eyes and turn your head. Those are organic instincts. You didn’t do anything to get them; they are just part of who you are.

Neurological instincts are quite different. You were born with a “seed” of them, but it takes practice to train them into effectiveness. For example, throwing a ball. Everyone can throw a ball. You can instinctively pick up a ball and throw it. But I have a friend whose brother plays baseball for the Giants and he can throw a baseball 100 miles an hour. He was not born with that ability. He has spent hours of his life practicing, studying and doing exercises to make him a better pitcher. Or how about hunting? I was born wanting to hunt. Before I was old enough to go I knew I wanted to be a hunter, shoot guns and kill tasty animals. I was born with that. But it took years before I could see a deer before it saw me, or call up a turkey before it could see me. It took practice.

You see there are certain things you are born with, and then there are certain things you have the capability to do, but practice sharpens the instinct.

Solomon wrote in his journal, the book of Ecclesiastes 3:11, “He [God] has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” Here is the thing, God has written eternity in your heart and my heart. Every person alive has, written in their heart, a knowledge that we will live forever. Somewhere. Even the atheist deals with it; they just choose denial as their means of dealing with it. We all have it. Eternity, in our hearts.

But check out the second part of the verse, the part that says, “yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” A little weird. We have eternity in our hearts, but yet we cannot know what God has done? Let’s look at another passage written quite a few years later.

A prophet named Ezekiel wrote this verse. Prophets were men whom God called to speak truths to His people. In this particular passage Ezekiel is writing about a time to come in the future (their future our past) when God will no longer deal with His people externally, but will deal internally. Check it out, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statues and be careful to obey my rules.” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

This was a whole new idea. The Spirit of the Living God in us? No longer out of us? No longer do we have to go to him, but he is coming into us? Mind blowing.

But what does this mean to us?  

Before Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection and the giving of the Holy Spirit, all mankind had was the idea of eternity in our hearts. We knew something else had to be. But after the giving of the Holy Spirit we have Eternity in our hearts. Literally. The Jesus who gives us eternal life dwells in our hearts. The Hebrew understanding of the heart was not the organ currently pumping blood through your body, but the place of all origin of who you are. The heart was understood to be the center of all mankind is. So before, we knew about eternity.  Now we have eternity. Simple as that.

But it gets better. Ezekiel says that God will not only give us his Spirit, but he will teach us how to live by his law. Here is where instinct comes in.

So you were born with the organic instinct that there is a God and there is an eternity. However, at salvation, you were given a seed, the Holy Spirit, in which you now are able to bring forth a neurological instinct. A godly instinct. A life lived pleasing to God. Paul says in Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Renewing your mind. Neurological. Paul also says in Philippians 2:12 we are to. . . “work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Work it out. Exercise it.

That’s a lot to digest. But let me try to summarize. You are born with an organic instinct of eternity. But God is external, he is outside of you. At salvation you are given the Holy Spirit, God with you, and the seed for knowing God and obeying his law. However, it is in your mind, your thought process, your world view, your paradigm, whatever you want to call it, where this new law gets worked out. Starts to change who you are. And that takes practice.

I started taking piano lessons at a young age. Mom and dad just realized I liked it so they put me in lessons. And the first thing my teacher had me to do is learn how to play scales. I played them over and over and over and over. . . I started hating scales. So I quit practicing them. When I would struggle with a fairly difficult piece she would ask me, “Have you been practicing your scales?” Because she knew, I had to practice the elementary things in order to achieve the complex things. But I thought I was far enough along to leave those scales. I was wrong. If I wanted to keep playing the same elementary songs I could stop playing scales, but to progress, I had to keep practicing the basics.

Many Christians do this. We will start to create a godly instinct with prayer, bible study, fasting, giving, seeing God in nature, looking for God in the small things like family and friends. But then somewhere along the line we tend to move away from those things. We may start to think we have moved past them. But the next thing you know we stagnate, stop moving and get discouraged. We must keep doing the basics if we want the more complex maters of God to come clear. We have to nurture that godly instinct he put in us at salvation if we want to be able to be all the God wants us to be.

Press into the God who lives inside of you. I know there are a million things telling you that it’s too hard, it takes too much time, you don’t know the Bible well enough. . . on and on and on they go. But I will make you a promise, if you will discipline yourself to “Feed your godly instinct” you will not regret it. Matter of fact you will find, “The peace that surpasses all understanding and guards your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” 

Part 12

My family and I were at the lake a few weekends ago celebrating my son’s birthday. I was sitting on the back porch early one morning reading, and just enjoying time to reflect on my life when two fishermen came by bass fishing. When I saw them something immediately resonated in my soul. It wasn’t the people, or their boat, or that I wished I was the one fishing; it was nostalgia, it sparked memories. 

I grew up fishing with my dad. Some of my fondest times with him were fishing on Lake West Point. We would get up early and drive, stop at the Huddle House to eat, and be on the water before the sun came up. It was great. Some days we would catch a lot, and some days we wouldn’t catch a thing, but we were always together fishing. Inside of me something was growing, a love of fishing and wonderful memories; something which will be with me the rest of my life. 

I enjoy taking my son fishing now. We go when it’s cooler outside. We go trout fishing and someday want to go to Alaska for salmon fishing. He loves it. And he is good at it. Something is growing inside of him also. Something which one day, when he is sitting on the back porch reflecting on life, will resonate with him also. We are making memories. 

I don’t think I can explain the feeling I got on the back porch. It was a feeling something was “right” with those guys fishing. It was a “I should be fishing” feeling. I get the same thing when it comes to hunting, or camping, or anything I loved to do when I was a kid. It is like there is something inside of me that knows I am supposed to do “that”, it’s in my soul. It’s part of me. Something in me remembers those times and longs to feel that again. 

I think you know the feeling I am talking about. It’s a feeling you get when you see something that feels like you were made to do “that”. Whatever “that” is. Maybe when you go to a football game you can feel the game coming back from childhood. Or maybe when you watch someone play the piano it takes you back to where you know you are meant to be. It’s strange, you can’t put a finger on it, but it’s there. That feeling is sparked by memories. 

Experiences make memories, and memories shape our life. History, our history, shapes everything about us. It makes us into the person we are. It shapes what we love, what we don’t love, how we react to people. Memory is a motivator. You can act on faith when you have memories. For instance I will fish one spot longer than another if I have had good luck in that spot in the past, because I have a memory in that spot.  

Memories also make that which we can’t see easier to believe. For instance, I love to go ride my mountain bike at Bull Mountain. There is a creek crossing there I have been over many times. In the middle of the creek there is a deep channel that will suck your tire under and throw you over the handlebars. However, there is one rock there in the middle; if you hit that rock just right it makes a bridge to scoot right across. I was recently riding up there after a rainy day. When I got to the creek crossing the water was up and muddy.  I could not see the rock, but I knew it was there; I had a memory of it being there. Without hesitation I went right across. Someone who had never been there would have gotten off and walked because they would not have known the rock was there. My memory gave me trust to have an experience. 

We also have a faith memory. It is the things God has done in our lives which brought about change. The thing about your faith memory however, is you are more apt to forget those. You are more apt to write those off because they are spiritual instead of physical. It’s easy to speak about seeing the fishermen reminding me of my dad and our memories; it’s quite different to tell about an experience with Jesus changing my life. I think what can happen is in the spiritual realm there is more room for doubt, or it's easier to forget because it isn't necessarily tangible. I can see the rock in the creek but I can’t see the Rock that leads me through my life. I can feel the rock under my tire but I can’t physically feel the Rock that I stand on every day. This can create a problem. 

So many times I think about the Israelites. I feel like they were idiots in a lot of ways. Think about it, God delivers them out of Egypt in a mighty and miraculous way. He not only gets them out of Egypt, they plunder the Egyptians as they are leaving. They take their gold and silver with them when they go. And when the Egyptians pursue them, God not only parts the Red Sea so Israel can walk across on dry land, he collapses the sea on Pharaoh and his army and kills them all. Now I don’t know about you, but I would consider that little story a miraculous deliverance! That would make one heck of a memory. You would think Israel would learn to trust God from it . . . you would think. 

As soon as Israel gets across the sea they start to complain and doubt. They complained about water, (Ex 15:24) they complained about food (Ex 16:2-3). Every time God provided and then Israel would find something else to complain about. Even after all of these miracles when it came time to take the promise land Israel decided the task was too big, even though God told them he would give them victory (Num 14). You would think after all this Israel would have all the faith in the world, you would think the memories they had would produce faith. 

Moses was constantly telling the people, “Remember the LORD your God who brought you out of Egypt.” Over and over again in the Old Testament there was a calling to remember. When you remember you literally re – memory. You recall memories from the past. Moses was asking Israel to recall the memories of what God had done in the past and trust him to do it again. When faced with monumental tasks, Moses called them to remember. He wants them to rest in what God has already done so they can trust he can do it again. 

I find this at work in me. I am an idiot as well. I know what God has done. I have seen him provide when I had no idea where provision would come from. I have seen him heal when healing seemed impossible. I have seen him repair relationships when it seemed all was lost. Over and over I have seen God at work. But I still find myself doubting. I find myself thinking, “That was then, this is now” kind of thoughts. But if I will get still long enough I can feel myself get calm. I can feel the memories bringing me peace. 

It’s the times when God came through that will bring you the strength to take the next step forward. Many people get stagnant in their faith. They sit still. They don’t want to move forward. Because they forget. They forget all God has done and therefore lose sight of all he wants to do. God has worked in your life. He is also working and also wants to keep working until you are complete in Christ Jesus. Some of the steps God may ask you to take are scary. Some of the steps God may ask you to do seem crazy, like crossing a sea he promises to part, but the fact remains memories will get you through. Memories of what God has already done and can do. 

Sometimes when I leave these posts I feel as if I leave you empty handed, so today I want to give you something practical to do. I want you to go get a spiral notebook. I think they are 99 cents at Kroger. I want you to write down every time in your life when you remember God doing something. Then, daily, I want you to write the things God continues to do in your life. Because when things go bad, when faith seems to get thin, you can go back to memories, times when you and your Heavenly Daddy went fishing together, times when the Rock was in the center of the creek, and the peace of God can flow through you and relieve your anxiety. 

Part Eleven

We have been talking a lot about law, and obedience to the law.  Today, I want to talk about grace and how it interacts with the law.

How should God react to our sin when we break his law? Is there to be no consequence? Is He just supposed to say, “Aw shucks, it’s ok, don’t worry about it. Try and do better next time.” Is that just?  Is that holy? Is that righteous? Imagine someone broke into your house, stole your grandmother’s jewelry sold it all and got caught. The day of court comes and the judge says, “Aw shucks, it’s ok, don’t worry about it. Try and do better next time.” How would you feel? I would hope you would feel outraged! That’s not just! No just judge will let a criminal go no matter how miniscule the crime is.

The next logical thought in the world of Christianity is, “Yeah but Jesus paid the price for my sins, so God will not judge me for my sins.” Now this is very true, but this is also where grace gets sticky. So let me ask a logical question. Does forgiveness make one sin more?

Consider this scenario.

 Someone breaks into your house, steals your grandmother’s jewelry sells it all and gets caught. They go to court and you are there to hear the sentence.  The judge pronounces the thief guilty, the gavel falls, and the penalty is announced “Ten years in jail.” Just then the perpetrator’s father walks in and says, “I will take that penalty for him.” It turns out the man who broke into your house has 5 kids and a wife with a drug addiction and he is doing all he can to provide for them. He works two jobs. He used to be a thief and quit ten years ago but came out of retirement to provide for his family. His dad hears about his problem and steps in to take his place so he can continue to care for his family. Now what do you do? Well you still want justice, as you should. Someone has to pay for the wrong someone has to pay the price for stealing your grandmother’s jewelry which can’t be replaced. A price has to be paid for justice to be served.

The sentence has been passed.

Judgment has been made.

The righteous judge then allows the father to do the ten years and lets the son go free. We have quite a few questions don’t we.

First why should someone else be able to pay the price? Second, why should the guy’s story be taken into account? And finally how could a just judge let a guilty man walk free? One word. . . grace. There is no other explanation but grace. Grace allows someone else to pay the price, grace allows the story to be taken into consideration and grace lets the guilty man walk free. Grace. But you could say, “That’s not fair!” BINGO! It is not fair, it is grace! It is not fair, it is unmerited favor.

But now let’s deal with another problem, what if the guy walks out of the courtroom, goes down the street and breaks into another house and steals another grandmother’s jewelry? Now it’s getting really bad right? Why? Why would that outrage you so much? Because his dad is sitting in jail paying for his crime and he is out doing it again! The father does not deserve that. The first time this happened we could possibly understand, even if we didn’t like it, why a “stand in” was necessary, but now, now we say, “But you went and did the same thing again. The sacrifice was for nothing!” The dad sacrificed his life for the son but the son went right back and committed the crime again.

If the son would have felt the weight of the gift he had been given there is no way he would ever walk out the door and rob again. He would have been transformed by the power of forgiving grace, instead of feeling like he got away with it and could go do it again.

This is deep.

This is the making the eighteen inch journey from the head to the heart.

Check out this scary verse that has been translated a million different ways, “For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of truth, there no longer remains sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of the judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.” (Hebrews 10:26-27) I have heard people say this is not saying what we think it is saying, but I think it is straightforward because of one word in there, “knowledge”. If we keep going into sin deliberately after we know what has been done for us there is nothing else that can be done for us. Knowledge creates belief and belief changes behavior.  If you truly believe Christ died for your sins, stood in your place and took the penalty, then you will not keep doing the same things over and over.

I realize this may bring even more difficulty. Paul said himself “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. . . For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.” I get it, I truly do, (more than you know) but here comes the question, does “that” break your heart? Do you say what Paul said, “Wretched man I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Does the fact you keep doing what you are doing break your heart to the point you feel the weight of the sacrifice Jesus made for you? If you cannot feel that weight, then I am not sure you have fully understood grace.

I don’t think Jesus is as worried about what we do as much as he is worried about why we do what we do. If we keep doing what we do and it breaks our hearts when we do it then we are being transformed. If we keep doing what we do with no regrets then we have not understood exactly what Jesus did.

The simple truth is we all “steal grandmother’s jewelry”, we have all, as Christians, walked out of the courtroom with our penalty paid by our father, but the problem is we are prone to steal again. Is there progression though? Is there movement toward leaving the “old life”? Does that proneness bring you to tears at night? Does your ability to keep on sinning in spite of what Jesus did drive you toward him or away from him? That’s the issue. The life transforming power of Jesus is in the grace he has given us in spite of our guilt. It should drive us to Him.

I realize no matter what metaphor I try and use it will break down at some level. We are dealing with a mystery of God. He forgives over and over and over no matter how much we sin. But on the other hand we cannot just keep sinning as if we have a license to do so. There comes a point where the sacrifice of Jesus breaks us to the point of obedience. And obedience starts to bring blessing. I will save that for the next post. 

Part Ten

We went on vacation last week. I really needed it. My family looked forward to it for weeks. We would say, “two more weeks”, “One more week”, “Three more days”. . . it was a countdown until we left. Once we got there and got settled in it started to feel like home.

We were fortunate to be able to stay on the beach this trip. We had a patio outside that over looked the ocean on one side, and a lake on the other side. In the mornings sometimes I would go out on the patio to sit and enjoy the day. One morning, as I relaxed on the porch, I started thinking about the guard rail. We were quite a few floors up and I was thinking, “If that guard rail were not here I would not feel safe sitting here.” As a matter of fact if that guard rail had not have been there I probably would not have wanted to be on the patio at all. It would have changed the whole dynamic. A place of peace and serenity would have become a place of anxiety and fear.

And then I thought what if the guard rail was lower? Like maybe 6 inches lower? I may still feel safer, but it would definitely be less safe feeling. And then I thought (yes I know, welcome to my world) what if it were two feet lower and the rail itself was only one foot high? In that case it may as well not even been there. This rail was playing a huge part in my morning peace and quiet. It was enabling my serenity. I could stand up and lean on it, I could prop my feet up on it, I could hang my wet towel off of it. The rail had so many uses, but if it were removed the entire balcony would become useless. One piece of metal ten feet long and three feet high held in by eight bolts made my whole vacation more enjoyable and less stressful.

So you must be asking, “What does this have to do with my life and the eighteen inch journey?”.  . .  Glad you asked. . .  Everything.

I want you to envision the guard rail as The Law of God. And I want you to envision the patio as the world. God offers you peace and serenity in this world. He does not want you to leave this world like the monks thought, nor does he want you to dive off into the world mindlessly, like satan tempted Jesus to do. Instead he wants you, in this world, but protected by his law in order to keep your peace in place, in order for your “patio” to remain safe. His laws are not meant to restrain you from having peace they are there to secure your peace, to make sure you stay safely on the patio which brings the serenity you are looking for.   The Law is not there to restrain you from living life it is there to enable you to live life in a way that brings you freedom. God is not trying to keep you from happiness he is trying to give you true happiness. The Law is your guard rail to keep you inside of true life.

Think about this, what if we lower the law just a little bit? What if we say, “Well God wrote that for Israel back then. The Law doesn’t pertain to me now. We are now under the New Testament. We don’t follow the law. So the Law may have some good moral ideas, but it does not mean much to me.”? What you just did was lower the protection of your patio and endangered yourself. You lowered the law. 

In lowering The Law what we are saying is, “I know how to live. I don’t need anyone telling me what I can and cannot do. I Got this.” That is exactly what happened in the Garden of Eden. And it is why you will buck The Law. It’s wired into your DNA. But you have to trust The Law and The Law Giver. You have to trust not only is The Law good and holy and righteous, but so is the Law Giver.

Once you realize this you can lean on The Law, you can prop your feet on The Law, you can hang your dirty laundry on The Law. Then you can know the law is good because you are trusting in The Law.

So many people see The Law as a condition of God’s love. In other words, if I will follow The Law then God will love me. Nothing could be further from the truth. Instead The Law is a product of God’s love. He loves his people so much he wants to keep them safe, and in peace.

So pick a Law, any Law, how about, “Thou shalt not bare false witness to thy neighbor”. In redneck terms, “Don’t gossip about your friends”. What if we remove that rail? We just tell whoppers all the time about your friends? What if you expose peoples business and expound on it into places you do not even know about? It will not be long before no one trusts you, no one wants to be around you, no one enjoys the company of a gossip. How about, “Thou shalt not commit adultery”? What if we remove that one? Peace is gone, serenity is gone, lives are ruined etc. . . are you getting the point?

The sooner we see God’s Law as a guard rail and not a jail cell, the sooner we can find the freedom and peace that he so desperately wants to give.