O Lord, what is man that you regard him,
or the son of man that you think of him?
Man is like a breath;
his days are like a passing shadow.

This right here should start us on a track toward proper worship of God. By worship I mean both corporately (in church, singing, preaching and praying) and privately (singing, studying and praying). I believe that all of these are of the same substance. We should approach them with the same sentiment, language and posture. One does not boogie dance to music, look pious and clingy in prayer and then studious and critical in study and claim a consistency of understanding of what worship really is. In support of this argument, one of my all-time favorite verses:

Romans 12: 1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

This post will be sort of ramblish again in quality, but I’m trying to capture the point of an important subject. Notice: I’m not targeting CCM or Standing-up-hands-raised or other controversial practices (I have no good judgment to offer on these in general). I’m targeting the Mentality, not the Mode. Correct the approach to worship and the mode of worship should fall right into place. Once we’re looking at God the right way, we’ll see the right way to worship him and we’ll be more suited to discern between the man-pleasing pop that’s making people ooh-ah and what makes God say “Exactly Right, faithful servant.”

Think about that. What would God say in return to appropriate praise? If we got it right, would he go “awwwww!? soooo special, good job baby!” Or would he simple nod gravely and affirm it, “Precisely, child, you have cast me in the right light and I am pleased to hear you.”

I’m thoroughly convinced (convicted and intellectually inclined) that our God approves most, if not exclusively of reverence, humility and awe in our worship. He is not “Buddy Jesus” who wants us to pal around with him and “draw close” in a familiar sort of way.

Based on my own antinomian, health&wealth tendencies (I think many of us have these no matter how hard we strive not to), I cannot say I am completely converted to the proper form of worship. And, though God can certainly with no trouble at all fix this, I ‘m pretty sure I’m not gonna be truly “falling on my face in worship and humility” before our Lord until I’m actually in His presence in heaven.

Here is what God is looking for in the practice of worship: Holiness.

What does holiness mean?

Here’s the Dictionary.com answer:

I found this at Precept Austin:

The Hebrew word for holiness is  kadesh which means something which is cut off, separate or set apart.

And this is quoted from Tozer at the same site:

Holy is the way God is. To be holy he does not conform to a standard. He is that standard. He is absolutely holy with an infinite, incomprehensible fullness of purity that is incapable of being other than it is. Because he is holy, all his attributes are holy; that is, whatever we think of as belonging to God must be thought of as holy

That basically means to me that when we worship, we pray, praise, revere and examine the qualities of God. We call upon him for our sustenance, our hope and our faith. He upholds us and we depend on the greatness of him, which is his immutability, eternalness, omniscience, omnipotence and so on all of which is HOLY. It is to be feared and revered. We trust him and believe in him and love him with a reverence that has no comparison to the things we love on earth. We don’t love other people like this. That love for other people is closer to our love of things and ideas than it is to a true love of God.

When we worship God, we are worshiping the Creator of all things who was not made. All other things we “worship” are just that — things. They are created. People, toys, money, all are creations. So there should be a marked difference, a FANTASTIC difference between how we relate to God and how we relate to everything else.

Our prayers, our singing, our spoken praise and our approach to the Word of God must be with clean hands, clean hearts, the weight of God’s immense glory bearing us down to the ground, on our knees, faces to the ground. We should be coming to him in a sense of profound awe at our state of being forgiven, the Thing he has done for us, the things he has promised us. We should be struck dumb at the awesomeness of God.

I suggest these for a little bit of an idea:

You’ll see that worship is not filled with anything that’s mushy-gooshie like the love junk that’s passes around most days in our churches. In a sermon recently, our pastor referred to the god who entertains such garbage as the huggy god.

I think a proper (high) view of God demands a proper view of worshiping him. In the Bible, here’s what that looked like:

2 Chronicles 29: they sang praises with gladness, and they bowed down and worshiped.

Nehemiah 8: they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.

Nehemiah 9: they made confession and worshiped the Lord their God.

Job 1: Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped.

Matthew 2: they fell down and worshiped him.

Matthew 14: those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Revelation 5: the elders fell down and worshiped.

The Lord’s prayer is the example provided upon request by Christ. That should suffice enough for the prayer portion of worship, in content and structure. We can follow its progress through without crossing the line of impropriety and outright disposal of the absolutely prostration-worthy glory of God. OBTW: I really like the King James Version for this one.

Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

They did NOT sing the sentiment-dripping seeker-sensitive drivel that we hear on the Christian Self-Help Radio today. Here’s a quote from an article on singing from Sproul’s website, ”

These “Jesus-is-my-boyfriend” types of songs can be sacrilegious or profane. While it is true that Scripture portrays the church as the bride of Christ, that imagery is collective, apocalyptic, and creational. It is not romantic, erotic, or sentimental, as such.”

How can we get sentimentally mushy over a God who is the Most Holy One, Creator of Heaven and Earth? What drives us to reducing our speech and song to childish gibberish, foolish repetition and silly puns before him? We don’t grovel and snivel at his feet, licking and murmuring with self-serving promises of fealty as Golem did with Frodo at the brink of Mordor and we don’t sidle up to him with a “side-hug” just fresh from the locker room and go “Good game!”

David did this one in Psalm 139:

Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.

This passage has remained one of my favorites. Even before I was saved I held onto this (though I had no clue why, at the time). My friend, Steve Smith turned me on to a group called the Violet Burning when we were teens and they had a powerful rendition of part of this verse. I believe it is a good picture of how we can dare to come before the throne.

At night I hear the sound
Of two hearts breaking
In the light I see the scars left behind

Through my tears I know
One thing remains
You, always you

I’ve held the hand of fear
In the night I was shaking
I drank the cup of sorrow
The taste so sweet on my lips

I am nothing
I am nothing
Unless you make me more

If I descend into the depths of hell
You will find me
And if I climb above the stars
You are there

Through my tears I know
One thing remains
You, always you

I am weak
I am nothing
I am tired
I am torn in two

I’ve seen the lonely people
Crying out in the night
Screaming out for shelter
From the storms of this life

There is just one thing
That remains
You, always you

If I descend into the depths of hell
You will find me
And if I climb above the stars
You are there

Through my tears I know
One thing remains
You, always you

A very quick two-point-3 thoughts for today.

PART 1:

An article I read inspired a single question: Where is the reverence that should accompany any interaction with our God? Why, when we do whatever it is that we do in the world, is God at best considered a buddy with whom we share the popcorn bowl in front of the idiot-box. Of course, more usually, we don’t even acknowledge his existence when we kneel at the altar of our worldly garbage. Duh. Because he’s not on the throne, the garbage is. Even more depressingly real is that, when we are directly involved in God’s things (Church, Bible study, prayer) where is that which should accompany the Most High, the Alpha and Omega, the Author and Master?

Incredible that Tolkien could muster up such feelings in his masterpiece, the LOTR; or the Catholics in their incredible cathedrals and whatevers. But we have seemingly none of that in 99% of our daily lives.  Who’s first here?  I’m ashamed.

I mean, what’s this happy-go-huggy thing we have for God? He doesn’t do coffee with us. To my understanding, Moses didn’t pal around with the Voice in the burning bush, or do some belly dance thing as he tried on the veil before getting down the the serious business.

Genesis 3:14 – God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

Where is our sense of wonder?  Like when you see the Grand Canyon or Pike’s Peak?  Or out in the middle of the Pacific without land for hundreds of miles, under the stars?  God is bigger than all that, and greater.

And the seriousness of the cross.  We don’t take that up daily, do we?

I’m not getting into some sort of self-beating mood here, where it all needs to be serious all the time with a bunch of penitent station-walking, bead counting misery and humiliation.  I’m just saying that there’s a lot of that reverence and holy-silence sort of thing missing.  The clutter is really building up and the sanctuary is getting hard to find in all the swap-meet trappings.

PART 2:

The pastor unpleasantly reminded me of two things that have bothered me for a long time. I’ve slipped into a semi-comfortable oblivious state regarding them.

The abomination that we are planning to officially, openly embrace in our miltary. I am obligated to obey the commands of those appointed over me. They are becoming increasingly closer to what we should consider unbiblical. Repeal of the Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell is a clear statement, clearer than ever before, that it’s okay and we all condone homosexuality as acceptable and right. For the record: I don’t.  For the record:  the job has brought many disappointments, but this latest one? I’m ashamed.

Yep. I understand that it’s not a Christian organization. I get that in regards to citizenship we are all, regardless of etc. etc. etc. supposed to be free to whatever.

I suspect that things are going to change drastically and the clash is gonna be more than we’re ready for.  I know this is yet another attack on the integrity of the faithful.  And it’s not cool.  Even so, Lord, come quickly.

I am trying to imagine my feelings when they tack the First Servicemember to get an award for celebrating diversity or for support of LGBT efforts “reflecting great credit upon him/herself and in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Navy.”

Finally, part 2 of part 2:  Prayer in the Service. Tell a representative of the One True Faith that he cannot pray in the name of the source of that One True Faith. Plain English: Why, again, can’t we pray in the Name of Jesus Christ? Once more, of this institution, I am ashamed.

I am convinced, though many insist this is a Christian Nation, we are not.

Thinking about contentment and peace in my heart.  Challies had a well crafted discussion of the topic today at his website.  The whole idea has more to it than choosing to be at peace with things or to choosing battles, selectively avoiding stuff that disrupts our contentment in Christ.

Experience tells me that the flow inward will directly affect my contentment and peace.  Just as what I put in my mouth affects what comes out, so does that same food affect my internal state.  What I put in my mind and heart affects the attitude and mental state of me as well as what comes out of my mouth.  Contentment produces contented actions and words.  Things that make contentment must be taken in order to get or maintain contentment.

But that’s all in the Bible too, well before my limited learning could apprehend this gem of an idea.

A quick run through the engine at www.BibleGateway.com gave me some examples of this in and out stuff:

Job 20.

Proverbs 10:14

The wise lay up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool brings ruin near.

Proverbs 10:31

The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom, but the perverse tongue will be cut off.

1 Corinthians 6:13 says:

“Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

So what I really need is more Romans 12:1&2

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to 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.

I need to keep a steady flow of the Godly into me in order to combat the fear, the confusion, the disturbance, the misery, the hopelessness that surrounds me.

I’ve always stuck to the rule that good food doesn’t have to just be healthy.  There’s a real goodness to food that makes you feel good.  Even if it’s well below the level of good for you, and borderline bad for you, it can be good.  Take the Double Whopper With Cheese from BK.

This is way bad for you.  Greasebomb cholesterolpill 3-days-of-calorie-rations nastiness.  But when I get sick, tired and worn-out with a cold or other booger-hacking-slimy affliction, one of these and a gallon of orange juice serves to set me just right. I might not get healthier because of the non-nutrients this food is giving me, but it improves my mood and outlook significantly.  The DWWCfBK is better than a Tylenol and a nap.

How much more effective in our spirits is the Word and Prayer and Worship and Fellowship.  They are just the right nutrient-filled, tasty treat to banish our fretting and malcontent.  You can’t live off these things (well, except for the fellowship part, if you go to the right church), but I tell you, you can LIVE off these things.  In the last few weeks, I’ve started leaning back toward them, taking more and more in, slowly increasing the dosage and man, I can’t seem to understand why it is that I ever back off these good things!

And you can’t live without them.  A man without the water of life flowing through him is a dried up shell.  There’s no point to being a Christian if you’re not being one.  What a waste.

So turn off the gunk and put on the Gospel.  Put away the pulp and pick up the pulpit.  Dump the despair and decide on devotion.

Newsboys sing about it.  They’re not old fuddy-duddies from the turn of the century.

Jars of Clay sing about it too.  Ditto.

Oh, wait.  That is an old song.  But wait!  It’s cool, cause J.O.C. sings it!

Nobody can say our Christian culture is behind the times and there’s no relevant way to compete with the garbage that’s out there.  Say you need something better than

Blah.  Enough pandering to the masses.  The Bible, with all its GLORIOUS conservative, single-minded, absolute, timeless, beautiful, convicting, unfaltering, unforgiving, forgiving, loving, exclusive, intolerant, sacred, one-of-a-kind message is more than enough, tons more than enough for the sickness inside.  It’s gonna teach you contentment that no burger, no beer, no hit, no therapy, no home-run, no sabbatical will get you God.

The Bible with the escorts and vanguard of the great writers and singers and bands and artists that believe the BIBLE is true and right and that the ONLY way to the Father is through the Son, is all we need.  Fooey on the rest.

So I’m content.

More of the Chuck Colson I heard this week on the Focus On The Family radio broadcast.  Marines during the Vietnam war spent countless hours training every day to be able to fight and survive Over There.

Why don’t Christians, who have so much more to lose, to gain, even come close to that sort of preparation for combat?  I thought the same way when I was a Newbie to the faith.   I’ve distressingly slacked off on my PT and combat conditioning as a Christian since.  I absolutely must (and want) to get that back.

Also, an alarming thing that has been around a while, but is sparked by not just the Colson this week, but with Anika’s history course in college (her term paper) and a bunch of other stuff, including a sudden, rather interesting resurfacing at work of my writing from last year.

Truth.  We still have a massive problem with truth.  Apparently, over 50% of christians cannot grasp or commit to the concept of True Truth, of absolute truth.

Let me make this clear, any denial of absolute truth, the existence of such or the questioning of such in regards to the Bible, is a denial of the Gospel.  Introduce one speck of doubt that the Word of God is true and what follows is denial of the Gospel.  One can claim not to understand certain parts all day long.  One can be in sin, sad and in confusion about Biblical principles or whatever.

But if a christian claims to believe the Gospel, on the name of Jesus Christ (John 3:16), and says there are parts of the Bible that may not be true, or that they just can’t believe in absolute truth, that person is seriously WRONG.  Here is where rubber meets the road.

Allowing the Bible to have non-absolute truth is what has brought the Episcopal church in America to the swine-pens.  It is what has made good churches flop to eating peelings and offal with the animals.  It is what has led to the tarnishing of the name of God in the eyes of the world.

Lemme say, I’ve read over and over and I believe whole-heartedly that humans need boundaries.  We must have concretes and absolutes.  Kids must have their boundaries or they will face horrid challenges as adults to conform, to perform, to meet the face of their peers, cohorts and enemies and deal properly with each.  Adults must have the same.  I see the lack of boundaries and absolutes in the Navy as The One Most Devastating cause of morale and discipline failures we have today.

Absolute truth, concretes, laws (not the ones passed in the USG, but those which really are RULES) must exist, must be comprehended and must be committed to by the superiors and the subordinates in all places of our society.  There is no exception to the church or to individual christians.  Period.  In fact, I am certain that it is actually EXCEPTIONALLY true about Christ’s house and inhabitants.  We are the salt and light, and our projection upon the earth is that of God’s Absolute Authority over our lives, those outside God’s family and all of creation.  Period.

Colson said this problem is why so many are turning to Islam, because it is a source of concrete rules, of doctrine where the adherent is required (REQUIRED) to follow the rules.  Period.

SHAME on me.  Shame on us.  Shame on us for not following God’s rules, his directions throughout our lives.  Double shame on us in handling his word as a business manual for making our own names big and our pocketbooks fatter.  TRIPLE shame on us who deny that God’s testimony of himself could even possibly, even minutely unimportantly, be questionable.

If I don’t agree with the Bible, saying it is wrong in this place or that part, I am wrong, not the Bible.  Be my argument the handling of sex and relationships, I am on the losing end.  If my argument is health and wealth being mine and not at the sole discretion of my God in his unwavering will, I am at fault.  If I want to chill out with a cold one and a smoke and talk about the hot chicks at work for hours, giving up the chance to go to worship and renew my walk with my fellow christians in the race that we all swore we’d begin and complete without reserve, and I argue that the Bible has given me that freedom now, for I am free…  I’m wrong there too.

And I’ve done them all.  All three listed and plenty others.  Some still hurt, the miserable, sinful, horridness of my choices AS A PROFESSING CHRISTIAN and I shudder to recall them.  I am forgiven, but the chills remain, an inescapable cross that casts its shadow on my face, reminding me of how much argument with my God costs.  I still haven’t finished dealing with some of it.  Some of my sins’ shadows are going to come knocking here eventually,  and there’s really nothing I can do but wait for the color to show and seek the restitution as it becomes possible.

All that simply means that personal defiance, denial, departure in regards to God’s Word is the stuff of nightmares.  It’s death to testimony, death to ministry, to fellowship, to witness, you name it.  It might not destroy your salvation, which God has fore-ordained and pre-paid from before time and through Christ’s sacrifice for the death penalty, but it can render us with empty pockets and bare feet when we come home to him, asking in our groveling shame to be numbered among the lowest servants.

Worthiness to be called sons of God includes living up to the terms of adoption.  We enter a new house, we fall under its rules.  Children grow up under a set of rules in their homes.  If ever they return to their childhood home, the rules, I would think, would still be there.  We owe Our Lord that commitment, that very signature-in-blood-oath that is our own fundamental, unshakeable, absolute truth:  Obedience and belief.

Walking the fence?  Peril.  If you fall off, you’ll hit hard on either side.  There’s your ground truth.

So today I think I’m going to talk about issues of the heart.  All of them, maybe.  One at a time.  Easy enough?  Here goes (I’ll start off complex and work my way progressively to more simple stuff):

A boss today essentially told me I needed to straighten up my act.  There’s a guy who works for me that has serious problems with authority.  He is a classic case of aggressive-passive (intentional wording).  Given a task, he will comply to the very minimum requirements of the task and grumble, back-bite, whine, blame and whatever-else-can-issue-from-the-mouth to the very maximum tolerance of his surroundings without actually crossing the line into blatant defiance.  And he cares not a whit for who hears him or observes it.  But this whole thing isn’t about him.  It’s about me.  The boss said I shouldn’t take that from him.  He said I really need to ratchet down on my little problem-child and basically tell him to put up or shut up.

The boss is right.  And I agreed with him.  As explanation (as opposed to excuse), I said I’d never really run into this type of character at work before and I wasn’t sure what buttons I could push to start getting through to him.  I’ve been in a lot (I think, A Lot) of odd situations with odd circumstances and a broad variety of characters, but honestly I don’t think I’ve ever been saddled with this type of total butt-pain.  So I’ve never really had to use the #9 boot calibration method, which is required in this situation.

The boss said “You wouldn’t let this kind of garbage go on at home with your kids, right?”  To which I obviously had to say, “Of course not.”  And that, of course, gave me pause and I really had to think.  Would I?

It’s two different situations.  I’ve spent my life with my kids and 13 years with my Wife.  I think I know how to diffuse, control, stop, bypass and deal with this sort of mess at home.  And I enjoy an authority and influence at home that I certainly do not possess at work.  So he’s right.  I wouldn’t let that go on in my own home.

At work, I’m in a different situation (keep with me here, it’ll make sense).  I’m experientially subordinate to the people who work for me.  They’ve been in the specific field we work in for a dedicated 3 years wherein I’ve been at it for less that 6 months.  They’re well acquainted with each other and the majority of the other workers in the environment.  I am not.  They have become set in their routine, methods and practice.  I am not part of that.  All of this combines to make a battlefield in which I am at serious disadvantage.  I don’t really know the lay of the land.  The enemy is thoroughly entrenched and they know the ranges, weather, terrain and maneuvers to get what they want done.

Bullshit.  If a guy consistently cusses you out behind your back and essentially tells you where you can stuff it, even if he ultimately complies with orders, he is an insubordinate failure.  And you have allowed him to fail.  Point one to God’s law.  As leader, I am responsible.

If someone persistently offends, practicing unacceptable practices, hurts others, leads the progression of others’ growing skills in the same negative behavior, then that person is a failure.  And you have allowed him to fail.  Point one to God’s law.  As leader, I am responsible.

It’s a matter of the heart.  I’ve a better grasp and performance rating in this leadership process at home.  While nowhere perfect at it, I strive as patiently and enduringly as I can to battle uprisings of bad attitudes, hurtful actions, fighting, backbiting and general monstrocity daily.  And I am as relentless as I can be.

I have not taken that integrity, ethic, standard to work with me.  Because I am afraid.  Because I’m dealing with people with whom I’m not intimate and with whom I’m not familiar.  So I err on the side of weakness, avoiding conflict with the problems because I want to be liked.  Because I want work to be good.  O do I want the work to be good.  But instead I hate my job.  I spend no little amount of time hating myself because of what I do (rather, don’t do) at work.

I have not kept my faith in my God in focus.  I faith myself to death at home.  Praying doggedly for my family in general and in specifics.  I push my kids’ buttons with as much strength as I can to get them as sin-free as I can, knowing each time that success is of God and not of me.

But I don’t do that at work.  I change faces at work.  And the face I have is not particularly admirable.

Simple bit:  It’s of the heart.  I’m not sick.  It is not the fault of the jerk at work.  It is not the environment at work.  It’s not the lack of fulfillment at work.  It’s not stress at home making my work wrong.  It’s me.  Me resisting the pulls of the Spirit to pursue God’s ways at work.  I have let the World work a weak spot of corrosion in my character.

It’s of the heart when you’re dealing with a liar.  It’s of the heart when you have a deep depression.  It’s of the heart when you’re battling someone who just. won’t. listen.  It’s of the heart when you can’t seem to give up this or that.

Yes, physical conditions, the environment, other people, the weather, body-odor can all contribute to aggravate a problem.  But the real root is just that, the heart.

We’ve been studying in Romans at church.  We read in Chapter 1 how things suck so bad that if we really grasped the depth of the problem, we’d probably all just curl up into little balls and wait for the meteor to obliterate us.

Romans 1:28,

“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.”

Simple.  31 flavors.  One for everyone.  Pick.  I have most of them in my toolbox.

Simplest:  Just in case anybody didn’t see their personal colors in 1:28, here’s the catch-all:

Romans 3:10 (and Psalm 14:1-3)

“As it is written:  ‘There is none righteous, no, not one;’”

We’re messed up.  It’s in the heart.  Can’t blame it on the rain.

Now how does it apply to the current theme here on my little blog?  Healing?  Look.  I am aware of the physical problems.  I know about medications now, and clinical diagnoses and everything.  I may not know everything, but I know way more than I really want to know now.  I’ve done research and see the light.  There’s no denying a physiological and environmental part, huge part, in all this trial.  But in the end, should all those things be cured…

It’s still in the heart.

And that’s what I’m praying for most of all.  That He’ll put us all in the way of fixing her heart.  He’ll do it, I’m sure.  I just want the joy of being a part of that miracle.  And I want it more than I want to fix the thing at work.

But, I think, as I’ve said and have been told a million times before:  If you can’t be trusted in the little things, how can you make it in the big time?

Parable of the Talents, Matthew 25:14-30.  Look it up.  I did.

I’m in Job right now.  Chapter 38.

“Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?  Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me.”

Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?  Tell me, if you have understanding.”

We normally base our individual lives on what we have experienced.  We don’t take into account the fact that God Himself put in the controls and actuators in the world.  We judge people just as they judge us.  We accept or battle our circumstances, be they physical conditions or mental, personal or interactive, based on how other people appear to us (not even as the REALLY are, but how they appear).  We determine our status, attractiveness, capabilities, our very worth based on what everything around us sets as the standard.

Based on this concept, I can claim that I am the smartest man who ever lived, because I’ve never met anyone who thinks all the things I think about right now in my life. I can claim I am righteous above 99% of the population for I’ve seen everyone around me do evil that I would never consider doing.  I can claim there is nothing wrong with me for all the rest are just plain screwed up through and through.

Job 38:2-3, above, refutes this mess.  God set the mechanics of creation, including the emotional, spiritual concepts.  He is the sole judge of my condition.  My salvation is completely dependent on me seeing myself His way and not because I finally understood through experience that I am worthy.  Left to my own judgment, I would never have come to Christ.  I had to see what He saw and then surrender to that vision.

“Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it?”

We are raised by the world to know without a doubt that we control our circumstances and can change them and that everything we hate about our state is our fault or someone else’s.  Advertisements say “get the new you” and “you deserve it.”  Propaganda says “believe in change” and “here’s who you can blame.”  Based on this, my weakness, my evil thoughts and my unjust actions are something I can change.  I can remove myself from the bad guy next to me and everything will be okay.

Job 38:12-13 above completely argues against this.  I do not have the right to blame me or others, nor can I simply drop what galls me and become something else.  God runs the show because He wrote the play and only He can change the characters as He sees fit.  We comply or fail to comply based on whether we choose to see things as He has told us to see them or not.

There’s a lot of emotion that boils up in every portion of our lives.  When we are hurt, emotion, feelings, pile up and tip the scales of our attitudes.  When we are weak, the same happens.  Just as importantly, when we are strong or are in good situations, our emotions, our feelings, rise with us.

It’s a good thing to have the feelings, for they are God-given.  They support our actions with the energy to continue when things are going well and warn us when things are not going so well.  But feelings are not the basis for our judgment of condition. Yesterday my little article said a lot that included feelings, and I wanted to address that important point further.

Even our feelings are subject to failure because our world is corrupt.  What we think about anything is skewed by our corrupted nature.  What I feel about you is potentially all wrong and what you feel about me is potentially just as wrong.  We cannot trust our emotions, our thoughts without safeguards.

Here, then, is the safeguard.  God has directed us how to approach good events and evil ones.  God has told us the value of our own wisdom and philosophy.

Proverbs 18:12

“Before destruction the heart of a man is haughty, and before honor is humility.”

Proverbs 18:17

“The first one to plead his cause seems right, until his neighbor comes and examines him.”

Proverbs 19:3

“The foolishness of a man twists his way, and his heart frets against the Lord.”

Proverbs 19:21

“There are many plans in a man’s heart, nevertheless, the Lord’s counsel — that will stand.”

We don’t work on our own judgment.  We can’t.  But we do anyway.  This is why, many times, we need to shut up and take the Word for its word.  When God tells us that this is the way to do it, we must make the conscious decision to do just what He says and how, regardless of our own feelings about the subject.

When we fail, we take God’s opinion of the thing, not our own.  When we hate ourselves, we take up God’s position on our plight.  Yes, that seems impossible in almost every case, but it must be done.  We must, We Must, put ourselves to the side and choose to act as He would have us, as much as we do not want to.

NOTE:  By now, I believe I may appear exceedingly pretentious and high-and-mighty in my message.  In the back of my mind, that is what I’m feeling as well.  But I have consciously chosen to deny this pile of garbage sequence of feelings, because I have my Bible right in front of me and I am confident that I am coming from the viewpoint of the Lord and not of my own opinion.

Look at this verse:

Proverbs 20:22

“Do not say, ‘I will recompense evil’; wait for the Lord, and He will save you.”

We do not take action on our own judgment.  We take action on the Lord’s direction.  We wait for Him in all things.  We must, when faced with our own feelings, stop ourselves and consider what God has prescribed as proper view of the circumstances.

Many times those choices aren’t easy.  Many times we just can’t seem to bring ourselves to be emotionally attached to these Godly choices.  We can’t feel the motivation to pursue them.  That’s sin, still, putting out the final effort to keep us from turning from the old man.  We must, many times over, simply do that which we must do, regardless of how we feel about it.

Trust Him that through our cooperation with His viewpoint that He will bless us with the strength to comply and eventually even the understanding of His ways.

This, I believe, is the root of good works.  We rarely do good works out of a genuine desire that matches God’s desire.  We do them because we expect reward of some sort.  Better that we perform good works simply because our Master has told us to do so and trust that our reward (the only one that counts) is a closer walk with Him.

This applies to our character as much as our deeds.  We must unreservedly choose to act as God told us.  In truth, we cannot do better, for our corrupted nature prevents us ever being able to comply because it’s natural to do so.  We are holy because God declared us holy, not because of any innate ability to be so.

Ephesians 2:8-10

“For by grace have you been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

Our purpose is His purpose.  We do not set our own course, and that means our own opinions and convictions, on our own terms, are not valid.  He gives and takes away as He sees fit.  Our joy and misery are dependent on His point of view.

In other words, we should be joyful when we know His desires are being met.  We should be miserable when we know His desires are being resisted.

Here’s what repentance looks like to me, and I hope I will choose, consciously, to repeat this whenever I realize I have overstepped God’s point of view:

Job 42:2-6

“I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.

“You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’

“Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.

“Listen, please, and let me speak; You said, ‘I will question you, and you shall answer Me.’

“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You.

“Therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

We pride ourselves on being logical, most of us. There are two routes for logic. One is right.

One is based on perception. “As I see it…”
The other is based on assuming Conception. “As He made it…”

uestion to provoke thought:  Why is it that every few sections in this book, there are repetitive statements of promised benefits for obedience?  Specifically, have you noticed all the statements that contain “that it may be well with you,” are peppered all over Deuteronomy?  This isn’t really so much a question as an observation that I think is rather important.

God is telling Israel over and over again, “Don’t do this, Do that.”  And, “If you do, it will be well with you.”  And God is constantly giving to the Israelites, all through the book.  Just in this passage alone, there are a bunch of gifts, commands, conditions and promises for the People.

“So it shall be, when the Lord your God brings you into the land of which He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you large and beautiful cities, which you did not build, houses full of all good things, which you did not fill, hewn-out wells which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant — when you have eaten and are full — then beware, lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.  You shall fear the Lord your God and serve Him, and shall take oaths in His name.” — 10-13

There was a ton of giving in that last bit.  And pretty clear warning for just the appropriate time, too.  When do we forget our Lord?  When we’re fat, dumb and happy.  Too busy enjoying ourselves to be bothered to pay God His due, we waste away our time in enjoying His creation without including Him.  Sure, God made everything and told us to enjoy.  It says so right here on the box, right?  Yeah, but He made us for His glorification.  One doesn’t work without the other.

“You shall not tempt the Lord your God as you tempted Him in Massah.  you shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, His testimonies, and His statutes which He has commanded you.  And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may be well with you, and that you may go in and possess the good land of which the Lord swore to your fathers, to cast out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has spoken.” –16-19

There’s the “be well” bit right there.  But what more?  Note the “right and good” statement.  Taken in context, we are not commanded simply to do what is right and good.  Note this.  Here’s where many, many of us go wrong, not because we don’t understand this passage, but because we don’t think about it in the first place.  The command here is “Do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord.”  How many times have we worried about what’s “right” or “good” in the sight of the world?  And how many times have we held our hands from doing what looks wrong to the world when we knew durned well that it was absolutely right and good in God’s will?

Let’s just chase this rabbit for a moment.  Discipline;  Dirty word in our society.  We daren’t “discipline” our children in public.  We certainly cannot lift ourselves up so high as to bring correction to a fellow worker or even a subordinate.  If someone is doing wrong, we often find ourselves with tied hands (half the time of our own choice), unable to do anything about it.  And I am willing to bet — no, strike that — I’m willing make that oath mentioned in verse 13, that if we are doing what is right in God’s sight, and it is in His will, His guidance, His Word that we are supposed to be “hard” or “tough” or chastising or “mean” as the world views it, then He’s going to back us.

Look at what Chapter 7 says.  Look at all the MEAN things, CRUEL and WASTEFUL and HORRID things that God told the People to do with Canaan’s 7 nations. That’s what the world would call them.  That’s what the politicians would call it if the US did that with all the places in which we are fighting today.  But God’s view is NOT the world’s view and therefore when He told the Israelites to move in, sans mercy, efficiency or economy, He was right when He said it, They were right when they did it, and we are right when we tell it (as directed in verses 20-25).  We have to get this through our thick skulls that if God says it’s so, then  It.   Is.   SO.  No arguments.

Which brings me to one of my favorite thoughts on being a Christian, on having the Bible.

6:20-25 “When your son asks you in time to come, saying, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies, the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord our God has commanded you?’  Then you shall say to your son:  ‘We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand; and the Lord showed signs and wonders before our eyes, great and severe, against Egypt, Pharaoh, and all his household.  Then He brought us out from there, that He might bring us in, to give us the land of which He swore to our fathers.  And the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that He might preserve us alive, as it is this day.  Then it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to observe all these commandments before the Lord our God, as He has commanded us.’”

We, Christians, are the recipients of The Greatest Story Ever Told.  It’s filled with all the best types of literature, it’s all true, it’s all fantastic, miraculous, fascinating and it’s real.  We have THE legacy.  Not a legacy, but THE legacy.  I love that.  I’m a fantasy nut, loving those high-adventure stories and majestic images and all that.  The Bible leaves them all so far behind that it may as well be none of my other favorite books need have been written in the first place.

It’s not just the children of the Israelites who need to hear the meaning of all this.  It’s us, it’s our children.  They need to hear the coolest story, the Only True Story that really counts.  They SHOULD hear what happened here to Israel, because every single day of their lives is so very similar to the challenges, the commands and the temptations the People faced.

We are tempted to have mercy on the sins here in our lives and in others’ lives.  We are tempted to marry into the enemy’s hands.  We are tempted to return to the captivity from which God delivered us.  We constantly build golden images and fall on our faces before them.

And God constantly promises us blessings for perseverance, punishment for giving in, constant molding and shaping to fit us to His image and trimming and pruning most painfully to get the dead parts of us off.

But look at the story.  It’s so true and so relevant.  If you think the Bible is outdated, that the bronze and iron-age fables in the OT and NT are just too antiquated to be of use, read ‘em again in light of the blessings God has given you personally and in light of the sin God wants you to fight personally.  What a few thousand Jews faced thousands of years ago, in comparison to what one of us faces today, is really quite similar, I think.  At least as far as God, His Commandments, His Promises and His Point of View are concerned.  The Bible is also not just True or Eternal, it is PERSONAL.  It is the roadmap to salvation, to Eternity, to restoration.

Boiled down.  I think I need to, and most everyone I know needs to as well, concentrate constantly on what God’s view of things really is.  Actions and attitudes the world percieves as wrong, is not accurate nine-times-out-of-ten, according to God’s Revelation of Himself.  The converse, what the world says is right, is also inaccurate just as often. And it’s because they don’t believe this story is true.  We have to separate ourselves from the world’s viewpoint.  We need to take God’s promises as truth, we need to look through the clear glass of His window into the world, rather than the funky cool shades with which we were born.  It’s not cool to be cool when God says it’s not cool.

o mistake in the title. I backtracked to verse 13 because I learned something. This last passage is about certainty. John started it out in 13, giving several principles for Christian certainty. I already talked about one last time, but wanted to tie all of it together. Verse 13 is a pretty cool bridge for what John wrote before and after. All through the letter, he’s given us checks and validations for our faith, our performance and our instructions. Now he’s finishing up with the guarantees, or certainty of our condition, reaching all the way back to chapter 1 in the end.

(I broke this up into sections. It’s long)

“These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.

“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.”

Confidence is the bolstering of faith. We gain confidence and our faith grows by our actions. So when we pray for things that will please God (another way to say “according to His will”), we are acting as He would have us act. Prayer is an act of love, both love of God and love of brother. So our confidence is built up when we pray our praise, our needs, our desires for His will. And when we have love in our hearts, we will never run out of things to pray for.

God hears every single prayer. Note that there’s no guarantee that He’ll answer (act on) every single prayer as we’ve put it to Him. Though we pray in regards to His will, God’s plans and purposes usually surpass our miniature little lives. We can’t always know what He’s going to do. If I pray for my daughter to grow up big and strong, and she lives a life, physically frail and often sickly, is that a failed prayer? Not necessarily. Perhaps that is not God’s will, but instead to make her faith stronger through her physical weakness, and thereby impact the faith of many others.

A real example of this is the final months of my grandmother’s life. She wasn’t well at all. Many prayed for her to recover, or have peace and comfort with no more troubles as she neared her return to the Lord. It didn’t quite go as well as I’d envisioned it would, if the Lord answered my prayers. I think Grandma didn’t have a whole lot of comfort then. But the impact of what went on during that period was incredible. My grandpa, in his regular visits to Grandma’s hospital room, got to witness to many who worked or lived there. He made friends of many of the staff, and his faithfulness to Grandma really impressed them all. God worked through Grandma’s trial (and Grandpa’s, too, for he was probably very troubled by all this sad situation), to make a great impact on the people around both of them. So I think Grandpa was strengthened, my family’s faith was grown, and Grandma probably has a whole lot of positive things to say about her last day (and I can’t wait to talk to her in heaven and find out).

“If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death. There is sin leading to death. I do not say that he should pray about that. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin not leading to death.

“We know that whoever is born of God does not sin; but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him.”

This next part looks kind of difficult, but it really isn’t. One might decide, based on verse 16 that there are two types of sin (mortal and not mortal). Included with the package of verses 14 through 17, this sort of determination won’t work.

So what does John mean about this sin which leads to death? I can’t remember quite when or where this conversation took place, but I was involved in a discussion concerning a particular drug-user. This person became critically ill shortly after being saved. He was unable to conquer his drug addiction. I think most of the discussion group all agreed that the very best thing for that poor person was to be reclaimed by his Lord, freed from the trap into which he’d fallen. I think this situation illustrates what John is talking about.

It is very possible for a Christian to really mess up, and get locked into the repetition of this sin. We can’t argue much about this, for the Bible is constantly warning us, reminding us and exhorting us about our sinful nature. Pick a book in the Bible and you’ll see sin within. Try Romans, of course. Read 1st John over again. Ecclesiastes will certainly drive us into that dark time of the soul where sin seems to be on all sides. The pastoral epistles (Timothy and Titus and such), are full of instructions for leaders concerning combating that constant sin. Not only that, but those books in particular make very strong orders to the leaders, reminding them of their qualifications and conduct, which is a powerful indicator that though sin is defeated, it is still here among us, with very powerful death-throes.

So when a Christian fails, falls down into sin and gets himself into so much trouble that there is no hope for him, it is entirely possible that the Lord has designed to prune the defective part. It is sad, and we certainly would not be wrong to mourn such a loss, but at the same time, for us to pray in futility for a “lost cause” is simply wasteful. This is a hard instruction, but if we look at it from God’s perspective, we know that when He says “ENOUGH…” well, that’s it, isn’t it? Pray more ahead of time. We have the chance to catch and combat sin before it leads to death. For more reading on this serious issue, go to James 1:12-15. There’s no argument that God will, when He sees fit, bring someone home. It’s sort of like being benched, but we’re in the last quarter, so there isn’t going to be another chance to get back in the game.

All sin is unrighteousness, and if we work at it, fighting it through prayer, counseling, teaching and accountability (and LOVE), we will minimize the fatalities, for that goal is most certainly in God’s will.

The certainty we have, though, is simple. We know God answers prayer. Every time. Our faith is made more concrete through praying and receiving the answers. We have certainty that God will not only hear us, our pleas and our praises, but He will deal with them in ways far superior to the outcomes we envision.

“We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.

“And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.

“Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.”

And John warns us very gravely that we still have to contend with the world. The whole world is corrupt, and it is constantly going to encroach on our territory. We can’t forget that we’re in the world. Our personal lives, our families, our thoughts, our habits and our churches, all those things which belong to Christ are all under attack. The world sneaks in and even barges in.

Our certainty is that the world will combat us. It’s not a fun certainty, but look at it from God’s perspective. He’s opposed to the ways of the world. Not just “against them” as though it was just His opinion, but He’s literally in opposition to the sin-coated mess we call earth. He wants it one way, and it will be so one day. If we look at it like this, it’s very clear when we’re acting in His will. The world is going to buck and bite us at every turn. That’s a very tangible certainty.

The blessing (the MIGHTY blessing) we have is that Christ’s sacrifice for us enabled us to receive the understanding of this whole equation. We can grasp the difference between what God is and what the world is. We can grasp the difference between what He wants and what the world wants. And we know what love really is, and can compare it, through our precious gift of understanding, to the world’s version of love.

And the finality? Almost too short? I love it. Makes me smile, even. It’s one of the best things John says in this really powerful letter. It’s akin to saying “mind your Ps and Qs” to the kids as you leave them with the baby sitter. Keep your hands to yourself! Keep away from those treats the wicked-witch of a world keeps offering. We get tempted, tangled, tied up and then strangled by our idols. Don’t get yourself killed by idolatry. Don’t kill your ministry, your relationships, your walk with God for those things of the world which give us only fleeting, false satisfaction.

John wants us to be free. God intends for us to be free. In the five chapters of 1st John, I’ve learned what the keys are for this freedom. The biggest key, you could call it the master key, is love. And the keys that work on that door into freedom are faith, prayer, good works, knowing God’s will, learning about Him, knowing the truth, standing for the truth, trusting in Him, believing in Him.

Look at God the right way. Look at the world the right way. Deal with sin as God would deal with sin. Pray as Christ prayed. All these things will lift our confidence, empower us to do greater things for Him and bring peace to our troubled lives.

he Automated Defense System. Christians have a very special gift from God that helps them in the face of false teachers.

“You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are not of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”

Just as we can tell a spirit’s source when they are sought to “confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh,” we can also tell by their language. A worldly source is going to speak in worldly terms (as opposed to Biblical terms). A preacher who presents a reward system for good works to his church in the form of worldly promises such as money, health, respect and whatnot, is not preaching Biblically. Our rewards for our works are to be sought in the context of, and expected to be stored up in, heaven which isn’t even spelled like world (not a single letter in common).

So we can tell by the context of preaching or even just religious discussion what a person’s foundation is made of. Now, this is not a cue to start freaking out at everyone you know. We all contextualize our thoughts and actions in the world’s terms. We make the mistakes of applying worldly values to Godly things. What this passage is saying is that a consistently world-based presentation of Biblical (theological) teaching is error, false teaching. We should constantly seek the consistently word-based presentation of Scripture in our conversations and from our preachers.

Backing up, since I got out of order. The first sentence in the passage is speaking of God. Specifically, the Holy Spirit. He is in us. He is our Promise, our Helper, our Seal of security and the source of Truth in our lives. Is the Holy Spirit not greater than anything in the world? Is the Holy Spirit, being God Himself, not greater than the devil? If this is true, then we have nothing to fear, for we have God Himself in our lives, with us wherever we go, with us whatever we hear. We are given a guarantee by The Guarantee, that we will not be led astray. Here is another test of our salvation. If the false teaching rears up in our midst, where does the flock go? The church that follows the latest false teacher is a dead church! There are not going to be many true believers in a church that picks itself up and chases a new doctrine. This is not because Christians are inherently smarter than the unbelievers, but because we’ve inherited a far smarter Counselor to keep us from the false doctrines. The unsaved, pseudo-Christians will bend and flow with the world’s currents, and will be easily snatched from the Church, in dire danger of losing their near-salvation.

Sad to say, but it is a sign of our discipleship and devotion to the truth being shoddy when we watch members of our church wandering off to the “easy-believer-church” down the street (not always our fault, of course, for unbelievers are hardly going to be positively affected by our teaching if they haven’t accepted the Gospel to begin with). Having the promise that we, as Christians, are immune to the tricks of false teaching does not entirely protect us from the effects. We can slide off, as the entire book of 1st John depicts, the main route of Truth, and into the false teaching for a time, and the return to the Lord is not necessarily going to be a quick left back to the on-ramp. For a good analogy of getting lost and trying to get back on the road, watch the movie, “Cars.” Our fellows in the Faith can suffer similar situations, and so can we (I’d certainly appreciate someone revealing false teaching to me!).

So why keep verses 1-3 if we have the cure-all of verses 4-6? I’m going to reach back to an earlier commandment John illuminates in the letter. Here’s my suggestion: Loving my brethren includes studying my Bible. Is it love if I do not take the trouble to help my fellow Christian who is facing false teaching? That stuff is attractive sometimes.

I’ve had a few friends who have been tempted toward the RCOG. If you haven’t heard of them, search out Restored Church Of God on the Web. It’s a very hard-hitting, apparently Bible-Thumping, organization, resembling a lot of Christian teaching, but close scrutiny will show…Guess! YEP. Verses 1-6 of 1st John, chapter 4 are suddenly pretty handy. Glad to say none of the pals I know from that situation stuck with that false teaching very long. The Holy Spirit helped them out. And the Lord used some of my insight in part to help that protection. My knowing the truth, from the Bible, about that particular situation and organization was beneficial work for the benefit of the brethren.

Studying my Bible helped someone else who was facing false teaching. I think that pretty much summarizes the last paragraph succinctly.

And another, final thing. When we try to preach and teach the Word, truthfully and without worldly contextualizing, it’s going to be fairly easy to figure out who is with us and who is not. The last sentence in the passage, verse 6, clearly states that whoever listens to our teaching is of God. That means that if you just….can’t….get…. that simple doctrinal truth through to someone who really needs it, then there may be a much bigger disconnect than just a misunderstanding. When repentance from sin doesn’t occur in a person’s life, no matter how much you try to explain to them their sin, their need for absolution and the need to repent, then there may not be any source of motivation for the change. If God is not in a person, no matter how “nice” or “Christian” they may appear, they are not going to hear and apply Biblical teaching. The unsaved person is, period, diametrically opposed to God. We’ve discussed this a few times already. Black and White Christianity doesn’t have fuzzy subjects.

All this is why we have the Church discipline concept as in Matthew 18:15-19, 2 Thessalonians 3:6-7 and Titus 3:10-11. We are directed to depart from, or avoid the opportunity to be misled by false teachers, potential untruth and all the other evils that can mislead us or hurt us. This is one way of practicing love for our neighbors, too. An objective observer sometimes sees more in the situation than those actually involved. A Scripturally educated observer may be able to truly discern the false teaching or worldly context at war in another person’s life and be able to lead them away from sin!

Love your neighbor: read a Bible today!

iscernment. This is reaching all the way back to the beginning of the letter. Remember that John was writing all this to a church plagued with a heresy. One called gnosticism.

“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.”

What does test mean?

I’m going to refer to one of my new favorite authors here. He wrote a whole book on the term.

JUDGE

DETERMINE

PROVE

“…from the Greek word dokimazo, the root of which can also mean prove, try, examine, or discern. It points to a process of testing or validating in order to prove that something is genuine.” … Tim Challies, “The Discipline Of Spiritual Discernment”

Spirits can be of God or they can be of Satan. Easy enough to balance that one. But how do we know?

We have to figure it out. Challies’ book goes through the process (and it is certainly a process, scientific and all) far better than I can, so if you’re interested, grab it before supplies run out. Anyway (shameless plugs secured), John gives us the straightforward answer. There is a whole lot more depth in this easy-appearing explanation.

Every Spirit That Confesses That Jesus Christ Has Come In The Flesh Is Of God.

How many ways can we break this sentence down?

The spirit must Confess: This doesn’t mean “nod in assent.” Confessing means proclaiming (with conviction). It means clearly stating “Jesus Christ is the Son of God sent to earth.”

The spirit must confess that Jesus CHRIST has come. That means the Spirit is proclaiming that Christ, the ANOINTED one, the promised Messiah has come.

Now the spirit has not just agreed, but has clearly stated that he believes in these portions of the Gospel. Are you following my logic?

The spirit must confess that Jesus Christ came in the FLESH. He was human. Important? Yes, absolutely, for He must in order to die for our sins.

There is a LOT of depth to these confessions.  It’s not just a surface rippling sound from the mouth of a teacher.  It’s a resounding, explicit demonstration of conviction.

John has claimed that this is the test. Now how are we to confirm this test works? There are many ways for false teaching to get around all this statement and agreement stuff, right? Here is where all that earlier definition of test comes in.

If we don’t know our Gospel, how can we know what that spirit guy is saying? Just in case the spirit thing is misunderstood: A spirit is a teaching, a person teaching, not just some spiritual spirit. John’s audience was dealing with real humans claiming to be Christians, but who were teaching false gospels.

Again: if we don’t know our Gospel, how can we know what that spirit guy is saying? John is telling us that we’d better know our Gospel. We have to know God’s Truth, be walking in His commandments. I believe I mentioned a few posts back about knowing God’s will and his Word. Here is the test of that knowledge. We probably could get along with a pretty simple knowledge of God’s Word and will if all was good and there weren’t any false teachers around. But false teachers are everywhere, and they’re not wearing black polo shirts with red horn insignia on the front and “I’m on the other team”painted on the back. They’re SNEAKY. Remember that John, in chapter 2, refers to the false teachers as “They went out from us, but they were not of us…” This means they left the church. They left the believers. That means they were among the believers first! Scary! It is pretty clear that John was writing to people who didn’t even realize what kind of trouble they were in.

Here’s the final thing about this passage: The Antichrist, mentioned in chapter 2 is, in chapter 4, already among us in the world. The spirit that will eventually be introduced officially in the end times, is already at work here.  The spirit of deception and misleading partial truths is all over. This is where the cults and the heretics and craziness is coming from. If you look at the various Christian churches out there and into the history behind them, I’ll bet NOT ONE of our Gospel believing denominations has been unscathed by a false teacher amongst them. Not just a dissenting voice, but a false teacher who took off “Out from us” and brought a group of disciples with him into the world, all filled with some false variation of the Gospel?

I’ll bet that most of them false ones came from them Bible believin’ ones first.

The end?

Nope.

Once more with feeling: If we don’t know our Gospel, how can we know what that spirit guy is saying?

P.S. my personal input:

When someone says something to the tune of “I’m not one to judge” or “Who are you to judge?” I would raise my hackles and start to consider what’s at stake. This is a blatant indication that I need to be on firm ground with the Bible. The speaker is about to throw all number of verses or relativism into the debate, and a clear understanding of the word “judge”and its process (and prerequisites) is going to be in demand right off. I’ve learned this to my shame through not being prepared. Even now, though I would say my understanding of the Word and collection of prerequisites has grown, I am not up to the challenge set by people who have a skewed view of the Gospel and use the “JUDGE NOT” defense. They’re tough nuts to crack.

Personal pride is at stake when you refute a man’s bad theology. Stability and comfort are threatened. Self-image and all sorts of other worldly armor feel stressed when Christians proclaim the Truth. I know it well enough. I had all that armor and weathered the beatings when I was a pagan. Since being saved, I’ve seen it from the other side, and it’s really really hard to face the defensive flare of bad theology when it’s under attack.  Additionally, the command to love the ones who deny the Lord’s Gospel is very hard to accomplish.

So, along with all that close study of the Word and walking in the Light and Truth, we need desperately to pray. Pray for our own sakes and for those we love and seek to bring to the Lord’s feet.