Golden Scars

Father, I am broken;

pieces of me are old and gold

while others are young and shattered,

yet evermore so bold in control.

The young boy, insecure and afraid,

lashes out in anger and selfishness,

vying for what he believes

he’ll never have.

He wages war against golden

knowledge and wisdom;

truth is abolished

in his tornado of feelings.

He spins and cycles,

ripped and tossed to and fro

by wind and sea and waves.

He languishes in the trough he’s carved out;

he believes himself safe in the depths.

All the while, the man of healed

golden wisdom and knowledge

hauls at the anchor

placed in faulty hope.

Day after day, he loses.

Night after night, he weeps.

Despair overtakes him because

the boy’s hope is in himself.

Yet, light shines over the dark of the expanse,

and the sea is calmed.

Trough and peak draw closer momentarily.

The Son appears; hope comes.

A piece of the boy is hauled up,

removed from the shadowed trench

and set on the highest mountain.

One worry is removed; the anchor lightens.

The Son brings the boy to the man—

“This is My son whom I love;

his hope is now in Me.

Nurture him, and his gold

shall aid you in your fight.”

The Son takes the man by the hand—

“You are My brother;

What is Mine is yours.

Keep up your battle,

for I will be your calm.

My Spirit will be your help.”

~Nathaniel G. Evans

The Parable of the Sower

The Difficulty of Coming to God

Jacob literally wrestled with God. Abraham experienced years of infertility and nearly sacrificed his son. Moses killed, and then fought God’s command to return to Egypt from the wilderness. Paul was blinded. I don’t know of many situations in scripture where someone came to knowing and following God easily.

“It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24).

Scripture tells us of a rich young ruler who could not bear to give away his riches to the poor to follow Christ, and we are told, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24). Luke 9:57-62 tells us of a man who wanted to go back home and bury his father and mother before following Christ, “But Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’”

The Seed Does not Produce Easily

In Mark 4, Jesus give the Parable of the Sower and explains its meaning to the disciples. Verses 5-6 say, “Other seed fell on rocky ground where it didn’t have much soil, and it sprang up right away, since it didn’t have deep soil. When the sun came up, it was scorched, and since it didn’t have a root, it withered.”

Then the explanation in verse 16-17, “And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: when they hear the word, immediately they receive it with joy. But they have no root in themselves; they are short-lived. When pressure or persecution comes because of the Word, they immediately stumble.”

It says, in verse 20, “’But the ones sown on good ground are those who hear the Word, welcome it, and produce a crop: 30, 60, and 100 times what was sown.’”

I find it interesting that scripture doesn’t say the seed that fell on the good ground was received with joy. It says, in verse 20, “’But the ones sown on good ground are those who hear the Word, welcome it, and produce a crop: 30, 60, and 100 times what was sown.’” I don’t think it’s wrong to receive the Word of God with joy, per se, but I don’t find it consistent with many conversions we know of. Rather, we often find the Word received with trepidation, caution, and an overflowing of grief, but because the Holy Spirit draws us into its overwhelming goodness, we are able to welcome it despite our pain.

Paul writes, “For godly grief produces a repentance not to be regretted and leading to salvation, but worldly grief produces death” (2 Corinthians 7:10).

To put it more simply, when people receive the Word of God, it’s a painful thing because we are immediately drawn to know the depths of our infractions against the infinitely perfect God of all creation. Paul writes, “For godly grief produces a repentance not to be regretted and leading to salvation, but worldly grief produces death” (2 Corinthians 7:10). And Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 1:18, “With much wisdom comes much sorrow; as knowledge increases, grief increases.”

Psalm 119:49-50 says, “Remember Your word to Your servant; You have given me hope through it. This is my comfort in my affliction: Your promise has given me life.”

I don’t necessarily find knowing my infractions against God to be a joyous occasion. Certainly, I think that the salvation that comes upon us will produce infinite joy, and we will be comforted by God’s promise of rescue, as Psalm 119:49-50 says, “Remember Your word to Your servant; You have given me hope through it. This is my comfort in my affliction: Your promise has given me life.”

My own turning to God was not an easy occurrence. I fought against it for 15 years. I wrestled with God and lived my own way, and yet, after this battle, His infinite joy has claimed me as His own, and I seek to produce a crop 30, 60, or even 100 times more than just myself. But it wasn’t easy.

The Gate is Narrow

And so we come to the point: a conversion easily won is not a conversion easily held. Jesus explains this clearly to the disciples that the ones who shot up easily in joy, in happiness, did not last long because the second a struggle came up, they turned away. It didn’t even take much: “’they immediately stumble.’”

Mark 4, verses 18-19 give us a bigger picture: “’Others are sown among thorns; these are the ones who hear the Word, but the worries of this age, the seduction of wealth, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the Word, and it becomes unfruitful.’”

These people whom the world chokes and stumbles find it easy to come to God because they are not giving up the things that keep them away from God, and this easy conversion makes for a just as easy deconversion. They are looking at the narrow gate and trying to walk the broad path. They want the joy but are unwilling to make the sacrifice.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 7:13-14, “’Enter through the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the road is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who go through it. How narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life, and few find it.’” It is not easy to come to Christ. The gate is narrow and the path just as small.

Coming to Christ is a Fight

If you find it easy to come to Christ, it is likely that you are missing something because our very flesh rebels against this cause, and our unclean spirits will aid the flesh until the Holy Spirit takes over the fight for us. But it is a fight, and it is not a fight easily won. I think Jesus is very clear about this. I think all of scripture is very clear about this.

God wants to produce in us His righteousness and character, but these fruits are not ones that come easily; rather, they take all of our self-control, aided by the Holy Spirit, to cast off the flesh and put on His righteousness each day. This is why we work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

The seed can be planted in a day, but the root takes time and difficulty and hardship and nutrients to grow. Acceptance of the seed with no root leads to a spiritual life that is easily choked out, but a deeply installed root in the grace of Christ will lead to a crop that produces multitudes. It is not easy, and it is not always joyous, but a fight with the grief of knowing our depravity will bring you to the full-fledged joy of Christ.

Obedience Takes Precedence - Mark 1

The Places Where Jesus Commands

Multiple times in the New Testament after Jesus performed a miracle, He commanded the one He healed or exorcised, and also the witnesses, to not speak of the work He did. Sometimes, these people listened to Him, and sometimes, they did not.

A non-exhaustive list of these occasions in which Jesus commanded knowledge of His works not be distributed is: Mark 5:21-43, Mark 7:32-26, Mark 8:22-26, Luke 9:20-22, and Mark 1:34. Most of the time when we see this command, it comes to one of three groups of people/beings: the disciples, the people, and demons. And from each group, we typically see a different response.

What Happens When Jesus Commands

When Peter exclaims that Jesus is “God’s Messiah” in Luke 9, Jesus commands the disciples not to speak of this to others because, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and be raised on the third day” (Luke 9:22).

“None of the rulers of this age knew this wisdom, for if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”

In this case, the disciples held in their knowledge, and we know this because Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2, “None of the rulers of this age knew this wisdom, for if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” The wisdom He speaks of is the gospel, that Jesus Christ is God, and that His sacrifice provided the means for our salvation and sanctification.

…’See that you say nothing to anyone; but go and show yourself to the priest, and offer what Moses prescribed for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.’ Yet he went out and began to proclaim it widely and to spread the news, with the result that Jesus could no longer enter a town openly. But He was out in deserted places, and they would come to Him from everywhere.”

When the demons in Mark 1:32-35 were brought out of the people they had possessed, they were kept unable to speak of who Jesus was because of His power over them. Not only did Jesus command them not to, they had no option but to listen.

The final possible response of these people is evidenced in Mark 1:40-45, most particularly in 44-45, which says, “…’See that you say nothing to anyone; but go and show yourself to the priest, and offer what Moses prescribed for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.’ Yet he went out and began to proclaim it widely and to spread the news, with the result that Jesus could no longer enter a town openly. But He was out in deserted places, and they would come to Him from everywhere.”

The Disobedience of the Leper

“This leper was disobedient to Christ—perhaps we might think he was naturally and excusably so—but we must never make excuses for doing what Jesus tells us not to do! Our duty is not to judge whether such and such a course will be profitable but to consider whether such and such a course is in accordance with the word of the Lord.”

Many sermons will include something akin to praise for the people who “just couldn’t hold in how amazing the works of Jesus were, so they just had to go and tell everyone.” And I was right there with them until I read through the note from Charles Spurgeon in my study Bible: “This leper was disobedient to Christ—perhaps we might think he was naturally and excusably so—but we must never make excuses for doing what Jesus tells us not to do! Our duty is not to judge whether such and such a course will be profitable but to consider whether such and such a course is in accordance with the word of the Lord.”

Perhaps I am the only one who never thought of this scripture in this way, but in case I am not, I feel it necessary to explain why this is the proper viewpoint by which to analyze these situations wherein a healed person or witness would deliberately ignore the orders of God.

First, we do not know why Jesus commanded people to keep silent about these situations unless He deliberately explains them. We may presume and make conjecture, but bar examples like with the disciples when He directly says it is so that He will be crucified at the appropriate time, we do not know for sure.

Second is that we reason with the leper’s humanity; of course, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the leper wanting to tell everyone about what had happened! Naturally, he would want to find every excuse to do so. But we also reason with the fact that Christ gave him an excuse: the law of Moses. He could have taken the appropriate sacrifices before the priests and joyously proclaimed God had healed him in accordance with His covenant with Moses. And this would have stolen no glory from the Lord.

Instead, we find an occasion somewhat in alignment with the way Job speaks to God as he rants about his desire to see God in court, to make a case for himself. The leper believes himself on a level at which he can approach God and say, “I am righteous enough to think my way of doing things is as good as, if not better than, Yours.”

Obedience is the Only Answer

But the prophet Isaiah is told, “’For My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not My ways.’ This is the Lord’s declaration. ‘For as heaven is higher than earth, so My ways are higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts’” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

“’For My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not My ways.’ This is the Lord’s declaration. ‘For as heaven is higher than earth, so My ways are higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts’” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

We are to never take up the act of thinking on our own as if we can make the right decisions. It is not our responsibility to determine if the course of an action is the appropriate one; it is only our responsibility to obey the course of an action that God directs us down to the best of our ability. When we start thinking we know better than God, we start to open up a real deep hole we can’t get out of, and suddenly we are lord, and God is not.

The Double-Edged Sword - Psalm 149

What is the Sword?

Many Christians today, and really, in all time, apply the Word of God as a single-edged blade, capable of only cutting in the direction which they slice or thrust it. But scripture is clear that as you wield the righteousness of God against others, so it will be wielded against you.

Psalm 149:6 and 9 says, “Let the exaltation of God be in their mouths and a double-edged sword in their hands… (9) carrying out the judgment decreed against them. This honor is for all His godly people. Hallelujah!”

Psalm 149:6 and 9 says, “Let the exaltation of God be in their mouths and a double-edged sword in their hands… (9) carrying out the judgment decreed against them. This honor is for all His godly people. Hallelujah!”

We find here an incomplete declaration of the sword that not only pierces the enemy but also the one who wields it. The mention of the sword is true in its double-edged nature, but its use is described only as an employ against the enemy nations, the ones surrounding Israel, the ones Israel would be used by God to bring judgment upon—so long as Israel is obeying God and living righteously as a nation. This fits with the theme of this psalm, and this section of psalms, which are doxologies, AKA the Hallelujah Psalms. They are songs of triumphant praise.

“For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

But Hebrews 4:12 tells us that the Word of God, this double-edged sword, is used just as much against the one who wields it as the one who receives the judgment of God at its edge. “For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

How to Use the Sword

The Word of God is righteous, and it is meant to be used against an unrighteous world, as the Israelites are proclaiming in Psalm 149:6, but it is mostly meant to be used against yourself. Christianity, and the sanctification of salvation, are much more an internal process than an external process. The most essential purpose of the Word is the remaking of the self through the sanctifying work of the Spirit indwelling in order to be made righteous.

This is why the Word judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart; it is to tell us how and where we are wrong and where we ought be changed. It can penetrate the deepest parts of ourselves, the parts we hide and shy away from, the parts we think are not us, the parts that are sin in us and need to be cut out. It can do this in order to cut it away.

Matthew 7:1-2 says, “Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged. For you will be judged by the same standard with which you judge others, and you will be measured by the same measure you use.”

And even if you don’t use the Word of God this way intentionally, it will be used that way regardless. In an oft misquoted and mis-contextualized passage, scripture tells us that the way we use the Word of God is the way the Word of God will be used against us. Matthew 7:1-2 says, “Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged. For you will be judged by the same standard with which you judge others, and you will be measured by the same measure you use.”

I could go off on a diatribe about how people use this as an excuse to not tell others they’re wrong, but it will be sufficient to say that this scripture completes the picture of the double-edged sword from Psalm 149:6 and 9. The honor is for the godly people to use scripture to judge the actions of others. This clarification of godly is important: when you use the Word, power, and righteousness of the living God to judge others, you’re going to be judged in the exact same way.

Israel was the recipient of this double-edged sword often. God used them to judge Pharaoh, the Assyrians, the Canaanites, the Philistines, all the nations around them. Through Israel, He judged and rebuked the nations, destroying them and reducing their power for their evil acts. But many times, Israel became just like Egypt and Assyria and Canaan and Philistia, and God brought them low, judging them and destroying their cities and people for their unrighteousness.

The standard of judgment is not just one we can bear against others, but as Hebrews 4:12 tells us, it is one we must bear against ourselves equally as much. There is no other choice. Either you first use it against yourself, and then it is an honor for you to show others the depth of their sins so they might come to the living God and be made whole; or you use it against others, and the living God will bring that sword down against you to show you the depth of your sins so you might come back to Him and be made whole.

The Sword for God’s Glory

2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, “All scripture is God-breathed and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, “All scripture is God-breathed and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

The Word is useful in all things for God’s glory; it is applied equally in judgment against the sinner and the saint so that the sinner might become the saint and the saint might become more like God than he was before. It is used to slough off the flesh of this world for all people so that we may only be judged here and not on the final judgment day. And as you exalt God in your life, you will find the double-edged sword of His Word applied both to you and those around you.

The Sovereign God - Psalm 135

The Background

I wrote on Psalm 129 that God’s sovereignty means He controls and dictates when both good and evil occur. I find this view to be consistent with scripture in both the Old and New Testaments. I think many will try to unrightly skew this fact of God’s character and power into a debate of Calvinism and Arminianism. I don’t think there’s a debate.

If you are Calvinist and find this to somehow stray too far towards the Arminian view for your liking, know that this is purely scripture. If you are Arminian and find this to be too close to Calvinism for your liking, know that this is purely scripture. You may argue with what I say about the scripture, but the idea of God’s sovereign control, of His vengeance that kills kings, and His love and compassion that slaughters civilizations, is evident throughout His Word. There is no mistaking that.

Paul writes in Romans 9:21-22, “Or has the potter no right over the clay, to make from the same lump one piece of pottery for honor and another for dishonor? And what if God, desiring to display His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience objects of wrath ready for destruction?”

Through this chapter of Romans, Paul frequently calls back to an OT God (who, I might add, did not change from then to the NT times to now) has mercy on whoever He wants and who raises up people for a display of His power. Elsewhere, we find Jesus claiming the same thing: a man who cannot walk is kept lame, not for his sin, but for God’s glory, to be healed by Christ in His mission to save His people and reveal the glory of the Father.

God is Great

Psalm 135:3-4 “Praise Yahweh, for Yahweh is good; sing praise to His name, for it is delightful. For Yahweh has chosen Jacob for Himself, Israel as His treasured possession.

Psalm 135:3-4 “Praise Yahweh, for Yahweh is good; sing praise to His name, for it is delightful. For Yahweh has chosen Jacob for Himself, Israel as His treasured possession.” Encapsulated here is a non-exhaustive list containing why God is great. He is great because He is good; He is great because His name is delightful; He is great because He has chosen for Himself His own people. This is the easy part to understand. All believers know God is good because of who He is and the good He does.

The hard part is recognizing that God is good when the act does not quite compute in our brains to being good. Or perhaps delightful is the better word here. In light of my post on Psalm 129, we know that good sometimes involves evil. That doesn’t mean that good turned from evil appears delightful to us, and it is at these things we cringe back saying, “Who is this God?”

But the psalmist says, “For I know that Yahweh is great; our Lord is greater than all gods. Yahweh does whatever He pleases in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all the depths” (Psalm 135:5-6).

But the psalmist says, “For I know that Yahweh is great; our Lord is greater than all gods. Yahweh does whatever He pleases in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all the depths” (Psalm 135:5-6). What follows is a description of the plagues, of the slaughtering of kings and the destruction of many nations (verses 8-12).

So Who is God?

Let’s be plain. There is no hiding the fact that our God is one who slaughters kings and destroys nations. He wipes out bloodlines and ends entire cultures. We cannot look at the scriptures and claim He does not do these things. There is no dodging or ducking conversations about this. God is the Author of salvation, the Creator of all things good. But He is also the God who told the Ninevites “repent or be destroyed.” He is the One who looked on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and destroyed them. And even Lot’s wife, who looked back on those cities, went with them.

Paul writes, “But who are you, a mere man, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” (Romans 9:20).

So let’s not hide from it. Let’s take it head on. Undoubtedly, our God is a good God, and undoubtedly, He commits acts that humanity would claim as devastating atrocity. But why do we get to make the claim of what is and isn’t atrocity? Paul writes, “But who are you, a mere man, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” (Romans 9:20). Half of Job includes Job questioning why things are as they are. It ends with God asking Job, “Who are you to ask me these things? Were you there when I set the world in place, when I defined all of reality as you know it and even the things you could not even comprehend?”

I just finished reading Paul Washer’s Narrow Gate Narrow Way. It’s a brilliant little sermon book. In it, he says this idea that pervades Christianity, and even the world at large, today: God is love, so He cannot be hate. But Paul and I both tell you, God is indeed both. God loves, and because God loves, He hates. God loves righteousness, so He hates unrighteousness. God loves children, so He hates those who kill and assault them. God loves His people, so He hates what harms them. To love intensely, you must hate the opposite of what you love with the same intensity. This is God.

The Matter of Compassion

Psalm 135:14 says, “For Yahweh will vindicate His people and have compassion on His servants.”

Psalm 135:14 says, “For Yahweh will vindicate His people and have compassion on His servants.” In line with what I said moments ago, we see there is no strange dichotomy between compassion and vengeance. If you love strongly, you hate just as strongly. God loves His people strongly; His compassion on them is beyond our understanding, even though it is written numerous times. Because His compassion is on His people, and He vindicates them, or justifies them, He commits acts of what we would call atrocity on those who harm them.

The demons, those following Satan, who attempt to inflict themselves on God’s creation in a manner of ways for evil and chaos seek nothing but to harm. They will influence the world and attack God’s chosen ones, whether we speak of Israelites or professing believers. God strikes down the nations of these people. He tears kings from their thrones. He annihilates entire generations because He hates them for their evil against His people. He hates their attacks on His chosen ones as the enemy seeks to pull them from His grasp.

The demons are bound for the lake of fire already. The people who reject God will go there as well. This is a matter of compassion just as much as it is vindication just as much as it is hate. They all go hand in hand. God loves His people and holds them close to justify their place as His creation; He has compassion on them in His hatred against the demons and those who take the broad way, and in this compassion towards His people and hatred of those who hate Him and seek to harm His people, He will slaughter and annihilate and turn them toward the lake of fire.

They go hand in hand. They are inseparable. For God to love us as greatly as He does, there is a necessity of hate against those who oppose Him, and, by proxy, us. For God to have compassion at all, He must have a hate that makes that compassion required. You can’t rightfully claim God does not hate evil, but you also can’t rightfully claim that God does not love, and have compassion on, those who come to Him.

The Forgiving Dawn - Psalm 130

---

The Reality of Mercy

I think we often have an inflated view of ourselves. I don’t think it’s difficult to see how this occurs when so many people believe they can work their way to Heaven. I came across this turn of phrase again recently and remembered how sad of a mindset it is: “Do your best, and let God do the rest.”

At first glance, there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with this idea, but at closer inspection, we can see behind it this notion that we can somehow close the gap between our sin and God’s righteousness with a measure of hard work, and, that, once we are finished coming close by our own power, God’s power is sufficient to cover the final distance.

The fault, as always, lies on our prideful thoughts that, somehow, we have the ability to come close to God with human power. But even our very first act of drawing near to Him is originated in the work of the Holy Spirit, who reaches out to us in order to affect our whole selves in seeing the glory of the Lord. In the very first moment of the first step to salvation, the mercy of God works, for it is by no other power that we reach out to perfection but perfection Himself.

Psalm 130:3-4 says, “Yahweh, if You considered sins, Lord, who could stand? But with You there is forgiveness, so that You may be revered.”

Psalm 130:3-4 says, “Yahweh, if You considered sins, Lord, who could stand? But with You there is forgiveness, so that You may be revered.”

This idea, perpetuated in much scripture, is how we get the series of events that first, God moves; then, we accept His work. If God considered sins, none could stand, and we know that the sins of the nonbeliever are, indeed, considered, lest there would be no judgment. But His forgiveness, which He reaches out to us, gives us the platform to revere Him.

This is mercy, that forgiveness is outpoured, and in this outpouring, we may glorify Him by His Spirit, which draws us near to Him. The form and function are that God’s power covers the entire distance, and our only involvement in the process is crucifying ourselves for the Spirit to do His work.

Awaiting Dawn

The great news about mercy is that it’s new every morning. Lamentations 3:22-23 says, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning: great is Your faithfulness.” Psalm 30:5 says, “For His anger lasts only a moment, but His favor, a lifetime. Weeping may spend the night, but there is joy in the morning.”

Pardon me for being so literal, but at each new dawn, there comes new mercy, there comes new grace, there comes new forgiveness for everything that happened in the darkness of night. There comes an abatement of righteous anger because the Lord is pleased to show favor to those He loves, if only we might find ourselves willing to wait through the night, watching for His mercy.

Psalm 130:5-6 says, “I wait for Yahweh; I wait and put my hope in His word. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning—more than watchmen for the morning.”

Psalm 130:5-6 says, “I wait for Yahweh; I wait and put my hope in His word. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning—more than watchmen for the morning.” Throughout history, the most terrifying, nerve wracking, and stressful time to be a guard is at night. Night is when the attacks come. Whether a guard is defending an encampment of soldiers and fears for a sneak attack, or even the prowling predator looking for a meal; watching over the walls of a city for enemy soldiers preparing to siege; or even a castle hoping to hold out a defensive position, he watches, trembling, hoping that nothing occurs before dawn. Because if it does, a battle is to come.

This is the image we see in Psalm 130. It’s not dissimilar from the ideas perpetuated in the The Parable of the Ten Virgins from Matthew 25 or the thief in the night from Matthew 25. We stand on guard as a soldier on a watchtower, waiting and hoping that our Savior comes.

When the Dawn Comes

Ephesians 6: 18 says, “Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert in this with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints.”

The reason we wait so attentively is because we know what the dawn means, what the arrival of the Savior means. In the night, there is the stress of keeping on guard. Ephesians 6: 18 says, “Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert in this with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints.” This is the role of the guard on watch. He stays alert, interceding for all in the city, ensuring that no enemy may sneak in to harm the guard or the citizens within the walls.

But in the morning, when the dawn comes, the city awakens, and the light of the sun makes it easy to see what’s outside the walls. The defensive readiness of the city is no longer an issue because an attacker can be seen from miles away. There is no fear or worry that an enemy might be right at the gates.

The arrival of the Savior means the guard can relax. It means that we no longer have to worry about sin and the powers and principalities that perpetuate it. When the Savior makes His arrival, all evil will be washed away, unable to touch us. When redemption comes, when perfection comes, we can finally let down our guard and stop straining against the darkness for any sight of the prowling enemy. There will be no darkness, only light.

But until that day comes, we stand watch, persevering, hoping in His promise that He will come, awaiting the mercy that comes to us in the morning.

---

Protection of the Oppressed - Psalm 129

The Background

Tuesday nights are one of three Bible study nights for me. I like to keep busy, and moreover, I love to study the Word with like-minded believers my age. We want to not just know the Word but also how others are seeing the Word and what we can do to teach those around us.

So Tuesday, May 9, we talked about demon possession and oppression. The world moves in cycles, and one on repeat recently has been this heavy focus on the work of the demonic. Ephesians 6 tells us that our war is not against flesh and blood but powers and principalities and commands us to put on spiritual armor, the armor of God, to combat it. It’s fairly clear Paul speaks of the demonic and not in a sense that the works of demons will cease until the judgment day.

The Theology of Evil Activity

We began with the foregone conclusion that those born of the Spirit of God, who indwells all who profess belief in Christ through repentance, are forever marked safe from the act of demonic possession. God is light, and there is no darkness in Him (1 John 1:5). The forces of darkness cannot overpower the Holy Spirit of God, and, thus, they are incapable of forcing Him to move from the temple He has chosen to indwell in order to occupy it for themselves.

But we reached many conclusions within this conversation about the works of evil, first and foremost of which is the sovereignty of God. In Job, whether we see this as mere metaphor or true story, God is the author of Job’s blessings and the allowance for his suffering. It is He who says to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” (Job 1:8).

Blameless, God calls him. There aren’t many in scripture who receive this distinction. Satan states Job’s righteousness is because of his blessings and seeks permission to take them away. God grants it, and so we have the book of Job. But there’s an important act to focus on. In order to touch Job or his blessings, Satan had to ask permission, and then God had to allow it. Sovereignty. Not even evil occurs without God’s okay. There are many tough theological nuts in here to crack, but I don’t have space for that here.

The understanding reached from this comes from many places. First, Paul’s declaration about the messenger of Satan he attempts to pray away thrice, and thrice, God refuses him. Second, Paul also writes in Romans 8:28 that all things work for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose (capitalization of “His” added by me). Third is Paul writing the reason this messenger of Satan is allowed to continue tormenting him: “to keep me from becoming conceited” (2 Cor. 12:7). So we see that God allows the works of evil to afflict His beloved in order that He might sanctify them fully because it is for their good.

A friend of mine often says, “God will always trade the finite for the infinite.” I find this to be accurate to a Tee. Both Peter, James, and Paul write multiple times of present suffering for eternal glorification and reward. God works in this just as much as He does in blessing, and we can’t discount this from the OT either: Israel is constantly being left to experience evil temporarily in order that they might come closer to God for permanent rescue. The story of God’s work is using the evil and pain and hurt of the world in order to affect His people to come closer, and as they do, they find blessing.

The Endless Battle

So we finally come to Psalm 129 — in the HCSB, this psalm is entitled “Protection of the Oppressed.” Verses 1-2 say, “Since my youth they have often attacked me—let Israel say—Since my youth they have often attacked me, but they have not prevailed against me.”

I’ll bring Paul back for just a moment: daily, he was attacked by this messenger of Satan. Whatever this thorn was, it was constant, consistent, and debilitating enough that it could keep him from inflating in pride. If the attacks ceased, might Paul have become prideful? We don’t know, but the discussion was had that in all things, there is good to be had for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.

I say all this to bring it back to what this psalm is titled and the information it carries: it is not “Deliverance of the Oppressed,” nor “Freedom for the Oppressed,” but “Protection of the Oppressed.” Now I’m aware that this psalm isn’t titled this way originally. But the scripture tells the same point. Nowhere in this psalm does it indicate that Israel permanently pacifies their enemy. Instead, it states they continued to attack, but they never prevailed.

The messenger of Satan against Paul never prevailed or we’d have a much smaller NT. Satan never prevailed against Job, for Job never once cursed God. He questioned, he struggled, and he cursed the day he was born, but Satan did not win Job’s curse. David was attacked by Saul over and over and over as he was inflicted by evil, yet David became the man after God’s own heart. In each case, a man was oppressed, and in each case, he was protected from turning away. His life was not stolen, and especially Job is very clear about that: Satan was allowed to touch Job, to inflict him with illness, but his life was not on the table.

Everything in a believer’s life works for ultimate good. You may be oppressed, whether by the work of the demonic or your own fleshly desires, but have these things stolen you from God? If not, you are protected. If you still seek God; if you still praise Him for His goodness; if you are still His (for who can pluck you from His hand?) then you are protected. You may be attacked ceaselessly, but driving back the attack and continuing to serve the Lord is a victory in and of itself.

Doing is Learning

Jonah is a book that we often reference as an example of what happens when you run away from God and His plan, but, and I speak mostly from anecdotal experience here, we rarely talk about why Jonah ran. And, personally, I find that odd because the reason Jonah ran, and the work God was doing in that time, is probably more important than the lesson to not run.

If you haven’t heard Jonah’s story, the summary is this: Jonah was tasked to go to Nineveh by God to deliver the message of their impending destruction for their evil acts, but he refused to go, instead attempting to run as far in the opposite direction as he could by sea. When a storm arose and threatened to sink the ship he was on, he directed the sailors to throw him overboard to calm the seas so they might live, and when he landed in the waters, he was swallowed by a whale or a giant fish, depending on your translation. After three days and nights, the whale/fish spat him up onto shore and he traveled to Nineveh where he prophesied their destruction, and the entire city repented at once.

Now, typically, we stop there when we tell Jonah’s story, but I believe the rest tells us so much more about God and how He works in our lives.

 Jonah’s Hatred of Assyria

Firstly, we need to understand the reason Jonah did not want to travel to Nineveh. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to make the journey, nor was it to avoid his responsibility as a prophet, necessarily. Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh because he hated the Ninevites. The people of Nineveh were diametrically opposed to everything God stands for. God is love; Nineveh was hate. God is peace; Nineveh was war. God is just; Nineveh was cruel.

Assyrians, the people of Nineveh, had a reputation as a warmongering people. They were a cultural and military power in the area because they were ruthless and evil. Everywhere they invaded, they caused widespread destruction, captured, tortured, and raped the people who lived there, and took those who survived as slaves. And as much as Jonah hated the Ninevites, the Ninevites hated Israel; the two nations had mighty conflicts frequently throughout biblical times. And it was for all these reasons Jonah hated them.

If you paid attention while reading through Jonah 1, however, you might still be questioning why Jonah refused to go to Nineveh. After all, God told Jonah to prophesy about their destruction, and surely Jonah would be fine and dandy with that since he hated them so much, right? And that’s the right question to ask. Once you get there, you start to understand just how well Jonah knows God as His prophet and just how deep his hatred for the Ninevites runs. And to see the whole picture, we’ll have to skip around in the book a little bit.

Why Jonah Refused to Prophesy

Jonah 1:1-2 says, “Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because their wickedness has confronted Me.”

Jonah 3:4 tells us that he did just that, eventually, though his sermon was quite lackluster by most accounts. He might’ve even take some form of sadistic glee in delivering his five word message (in Hebrew). “Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed, ‘In 40 days, Nineveh will be demolished!’”

And to wrap it up, Jonah himself tells us why he didn’t want to prophesy to the Ninevites in Jonah 4:1-2.

“But Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious. He prayed to the Lord: ‘Please, Lord, isn’t this what I said while I was still in my own country? That’s why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that You are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to become angry, rich in faithful love, and One who relents from sending disaster.”

To be very clear, Jonah knew who God is. He knew very well that the reason God sent him to Nineveh was not so Nineveh would be aware of their destruction so they could keep marching toward it, but so that they could repent and be saved from doom. Jonah refused to go because he didn’t want the Ninevites to be saved. He wanted them destroyed, dead, eternally. That was the depth of his hatred.

God Cares for All His People

After Jonah reveals the nature of his thoughts in prayer to God, however, is where the real theme of the book of Jonah reveals itself, and it all comes from a shade tree.

Jonah 4:4-9 says, “The Lord asked, ‘Is it right for you to be angry?’

Jonah left the city and sat down east of it. He made himself a shelter there and sat in its shade to see what would happen to the city. Then the Lord God appointed a plant, and it grew up to provide shade over Jonah’s head to ease his discomfort. Jonah was greatly pleased with the plant. When dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, and it withered. As the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind. The sun beat down so much on Jonah’s head that he almost fainted, and he wanted to die. He said, ‘It’s better for me to die than to live.’

Then God asked Jonah, ‘Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?’

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘It is right. I’m angry enough to die!’”

There are a few incredibly important things to point out in these verses, the first of which is God’s dual response to Jonah’s anger. He asks the same things both times Jonah admits to being upset with his situation: “Is it right for you to be angry?” At first glance, it seems to be a relatively innocent question with little connection between the two occurrences, but it becomes apparent in Jonah’s response to the plant providing shade for him what the purpose of the question is.

 God Cares for All His People

Verse 6 tells us that Jonah was greatly pleased with the plant, which he did not grow, but benefited from greatly, and it is in the understanding of this where God begins to reveal the purpose of having Jonah deliver the prophecy to Nineveh and the purpose of this book for us.

Verses 10-11 say, “So the Lord said, ‘You cared about the plant, which you did not labor over and did not grow. It appeared in a night and perished in a night. Should I not care about the great city of Nineveh, which has more than 120,000 people who cannot distinguish between their right and their left, as well as many animals?”

The Dual Nature of God’s Work

If you paid close attention to this book, you might notice that in God’s actions to move Jonah to Nineveh, He prompts two distinct outcomes in the people who experience them. The first example of this is when He brings about the storm while Jonah is at sea. When Jonah is tossed off the boat as a result of this storm, the sailors who threw him overboard know that they have experienced the one true God, and chapter 1 tells us they turned away from their pagan gods and to Yahweh, sacrificing and making vows to Him. The second result of this is in Jonah, who repents of his actions and chooses to go to Nineveh as he was asked.

This establishes an important standard for how events play out in the book of Jonah. Essentially, the formula is, wherever Jonah goes, God does two things: He impacts the people around Jonah, and He teaches Jonah a lesson about who He is.

Thus, Nineveh, where God impacts all the Ninevites, turning them to Him. But rather than learn his lesson this time, Jonah spits God’s character into His face, angry at God for being who He is. So God uses the plant to knock the lesson into Jonah’s thick skull: all people are His creation, and He is allowed to care for them all equally, to have mercy for them all equally. After all, He made them, labored over them, and knows them all individually.

 The Lessons for Us

And that’s two of the three main lessons we’re supposed to learn here, too. Firstly, it is that God cares for all His creation because He is jealous for them, invested in them. He created every single person and loves each one, and because of that, He chooses to save them. Secondly, we didn’t do any of those things, so our feelings shouldn’t negatively impact our mission to point them to God. We don’t get a vote in who God chooses for us to deliver His message because we had no part in making them; we just go deliver the message.

And finally, the third lesson comes in the revealed theme: when God calls us to do something, the benefit isn’t only for the people we’re called to help. Twice, Jonah’s actions helped others, and twice, God revealed more of Himself to Jonah through those actions. Jonah learned about God’s character: how He saves those who turn to Him, and how He cares and has mercy for all of His creation.

So the next time God calls you to do something for someone else, think about why He’s given you that task. Don’t just do it to do it, but truly seek God in the doing of it. You might find that you benefit from your actions just as much as the people you help.

Living vs. Surviving

A while back, I was listening to “Born to Live” by About A Mile, and my mind got stuck on the lyrics that open the song, and then part of the chorus:

“My heart’s beating inside my chest
My lungs breathe in the oxygen
But I need something more than this
To keep me alive…

There’s a higher calling on all our lives
Let’s live to love not just survive

Wake up! What are we waiting for?
We know that we were made for more
We’re not living just ‘cause we were born
There’s no doubt about it
We were born to live.”

The Difference Between Living and Surviving

Nowadays, we treat the words “living” and “surviving” as synonyms—using them interchangeably—even though they most certainly are not. There’s a completely different experience between someone who is living life and someone who is merely surviving it.

And actually, there is no better example of this than two people who started out living life and were relegated to barely surviving: Adam and Eve. These two were truly born, created, to live. They had no worries in the Garden of Eden. Their days were spent walking with God, enjoying the fruits of the garden, and overall, having a wonderfully joyous time. They were truly alive.

But then, the Fall happened, and no longer could they just live so easily in the presence of God. After they were removed from the garden, every decision was paramount. One wrong move, and the land that was once bountiful with everything they needed would turn against them. One faulty decision and they might not make it to the next day. They had to work with all they had to ensure they, and eventually their children, would survive.

The Existence of a Survivor

What’s important is that believers are called to do more than just survive. To the nonbeliever, all choices are made with one goal in mind: to preserve some sort of legacy so they can live on past their death. Take a look at some quotes that nonbelievers have about death, and you can see it’s a fairly universal idea amongst those who do not profess a belief in God. I’ll throw a few in just as an example:

“Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.” – George Eliot

“They say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.” – Banksy

“To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die.” – Thomas Campbell

There’s a key theme located in all of these things: worry. When Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, there was no reason to worry. They literally didn’t even know what worry was in the perfection of life prior to the Fall, whereas afterwards, worry was introduced as part of sin. No longer were their lives carefree. The people around who do not know our God worry ceaselessly about their survival, and that’s where we differ.

 The Life of a Believer

Matthew 6:25-34 tells us we are called to be above worry, to be above survival, to live, specifically in verses 33-34, which say, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

For believers, our worries in life are not meant to be over whether we will have enough to eat and drink or clothes to wear or a place to live. Those things will be provided for us as long as God has us on the Earth to do the work we’re called to do. Our worries are on other things including, but not necessarily limited to, our relationship with God, our community with the Church, and our outreach and discipleship work in the world around us. Those are the only reasons you’re still here and not done with this life, as I’ve written about before here.

The Hollow Reality of a Survivor in a Forest of Life

To borrow a metaphor, let’s say that humanity is a forest, and gathered in this forest are trees representing each person’s life. There are so many of these trees that look beyond perfect. The bark is thick, the roots look strong and appear to burrow deep underground, and the leaves appear a brilliant, deep green.

But in reality, many of these trees are empty, hollow. Attached to their trunks, right at the ground, is a plastic cover that seeks to project the picturesque image of abundant life but is only hiding the tiny seedling whose roots are so shallow they absorb almost no nutrients, and whose single leaf can barely gather enough sunlight to survive in the hollow cylinder that blocks the sun.

Now, all around these tiny seedlings in hollow, plastic trees are majestic oaks, towering over the forest floor, with roots that have dug deep and wide, branches that touch the sky, and leaves that pattern dappled shade on the seedlings around it, protecting them from the wilting heat of the day and allowing them to be nurtured towards a fruitful life. With reckless abandon, these trees bask in the sunlight knowing that their roots can gather all the nutrients necessary to protect themselves from any danger and repair any hurts.

So many people are like those tiny seedlings, projecting life when they are only barely clinging on to their survival, believing, fruitlessly, that the only thing keeping them alive is the belief that they are big and strong, when in reality, it’s the thing that’s killing them. If they were only to remove that plastic cover, they would be able to reach the sun and actually grow so they can live.

There’s a Practical Answer to Helping Survivors Learn to Live

This is the power a relationship with Christ grants us. Only He is able to pull away the plastic cover of sin that robs us of what we genuinely need in life, and oftentimes, He uses His people to do so. When it comes down to ministry, a lot of believers absolutely love being God’s hand to reach out and pull off that cover, but few are willing to help nurture that seedling into life.

There’s a hard line between living and surviving, so when we go out to show people how to actually live, we have a lot of work to do to get them to cross over that line. It’s paramount, then, to take care of the needs for survivors before showing them how to live, to guide and guard that seedling until it grows into a sapling, capable of standing, of reaching for the light of God, of diffing deeper into the Word and gathering the nutrients it needs to truly live.

No survivor is going to change what they think already works for something that can’t be proven effective. As believers, we know we were remade in Christ to live; it’s just a matter of convincing nonbelievers that they, too, were made for more than just surviving, and then showing them how to live as God calls us to.

Confronting Community Sin

As a believer, your sin is your responsibility to confront and remove from your life as you follow God. As a believer, the sin of others in your community is also your responsibility.

One of the hallmarks of a true follower of Christ is that they actively attempt to rid themselves of their sinful practices as they are sanctified by their relationship with Jesus, the evidence of which is seen as sinful behaviors fade from a person’s character and are replaced with the Fruits of the Spirit.

And in concert fashion, the distinction between a true community of believers and a community of “church-goers” involves the removal of selfish and sinful behaviors, reactions, and outlooks in the local community and the addition of selflessness, outreach, and good will towards the local community.

But contrary to what many might believe, the responsibility to push away sinful behavior and bring in righteous behavior in the church does not belong to merely the pastoral staff or those whose sin is more easily visible, but to all members of the church.

The Sin of the Few is the Responsibility of All

Deuteronomy 13 tells the Israelites what to do if someone tries to entice them away from God and promote sinful behavior, starting with family members and expanding to entire cities.

Verses 6-11 say, “If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you embrace, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, ‘Let us go and worship other gods’—which neither you nor your fathers have known, any of the gods of the peoples around you, near you or far from you, from one end of the earth to the other—you must not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity, and do not spare him or shield him. Instead, you must kill him. Your hand is to be the first against him to put him to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone him to death for trying to turn you away from the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery. All Israel will hear and be afraid, and they will no longer do anything evil like this among you.”

This starts the idea that God wanted to provoke among the Israelites: when one person falls to sin, it is the responsibility of those closest to the idolater, then the entire community surrounding the idolater, to end the idolatry and purge the sin. In the OT times, before Jesus’s reconciliatory death, the only true purge was death—complete and total annihilation of the sinner to keep the community from being infected. This is especially true with the post-Exodus Israelites, whom you’ll notice are an incredibly fickle people, ready to jump back and forth between God and idols at the drop of a hat.

The Consequences for the Few have Far-Reaching Effects

And, in true biblical fashion, there are consequences if the community fails to do what it is supposed to do. Verses 12-15 say, “If you hear it said about one of your cities the Lord your God is giving you to live in, that wicked men have sprung up among you, led the inhabitants of their city astray, and said, ‘Let us go and worship other gods,’ which you have not known, you are to inquire, investigate, and interrogate thoroughly. If the report turns out to be true that this detestable thing has happened among you, you must strike down the inhabitants of that city with the sword. Completely destroy everyone in it as well as its livestock with the sword.”

If the idolator manages to spread his/her view enough that word of the heresy is heard elsewhere, it becomes the responsibility of the entire nation of Israel to wipe the idolatry out. The consequences of such action means that not only do the idolaters in the city die, but the innocent, too.

But were the innocent actually innocent? Not really. By virtue of verses 6-11, we know that if the idolatry has spread beyond one person, the people sinned by going against God’s orders to stop that idolatry. So, they must face the consequences of their own inaction.

Current Day Sin-Banishing Responsibility

It’s entirely likely that some people reading this are thinking “But this is about the Israelites, and obviously, we can’t go around stoning idolaters.” And, well, you’re right. Please don’t go around trying to kill people who are not believers.

But, despite the fact that this passage is directly intended for the Israelites and the Israelites alone, there is a modern-day equivalent given to us by the New Testament.

Matthew 18:15-17 says, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”

Let’s run the parallels: In the OT, family members were to take care of sin in their family on their own, only calling in the community to help after they had done their part. In the NT, one person is to confront the sin of another, only bringing in more members of the church if that fails. The Israelites were meant to treat cities that failed to stop idolatry as enemy nations, wiping every last bit of life in them out for good. We are to treat those who fail to confront their sin as if they are not believers, but outcasts to the Christian community.

Confronting Sin is not Judgment

This subject is something the church fails at so often. We’re afraid to confront sin in others because we don’t want to lose friends, we don’t want our own sin to be called out, or we feel like it’s not our place. But it is our place.

“Do not judge lest you be judged” doesn’t apply here. Confronting sin is not judging someone. Our cultural definition of the word “judge” has changed from its original meaning, which involved sentencing someone for their actions, to mean mentioning someone’s wrongful actions to them in any way. Confronting the sin of a brother or sister in Christ is not judging them or a statement of condemnation; instead, it is a show of concern for their spiritual welfare.

Don’t let people point out your log as a way to avoid confrontation of their sin, either. You don’t have to be perfect to point out sin when you see it. (I’ve written more in-depth on these verses here, if you want to have a read, as I don’t have time to explain it more thoroughly in this post.) We’re all sinful—each of us has a log worth pointing out, and it’s time we started drawing attention to them so we can remove them.

A Call for Christian Qualification

As a, hopefully, quick last word, I think it’s time we start living out Matthew 18:17 a little more. Folks calling themselves Christians, but who are actually idolaters, are hindering the Christian community in a huge way. When people who aren’t actually believers start calling themselves believers while perpetuating a false gospel, we need to say something against it. We need to step up and qualify Christians as separate from “Christians” or we risk the Church falling apart as idolatry and sin topple it from within and without.

It’s time for us to call out prosperity gospels and pew-sitters who throw dirt on the name of God and His people and make sure the world knows they are not part of us because they’re hampering the mission, the Great Commission. We have “churches” like Westboro Baptist tarnishing the name of Christ under the guise of Christianity because we have become too lax in our qualifications, letting nearly anyone call themselves a Christian, and that needs to stop. The quitting begins by confronting sin.

Completely Destroy Sin

I champion the Israelites as our (current Christians) people because we are, in so many ways, exactly like them. Put simply, we are mirror images of each other in every way that matters, which is why it’s so brilliant to read through the struggles of the Israelite people and identify with them as I do so. It also makes for great teaching material because we can see exactly what helped them succeed and what caused them to fail. If our God is a God of metaphors, which I say He is, then the Israelites are our big metaphor, our great comparison.

And in Deuteronomy, they have quite a lot to teach us on how to best sin.

Doing What We Don’t Want

For me, it’s a fact of the matter that I sometimes feel too weak to stand up to the sin I perpetuate in my life. When I’m in a cycle of, as Paul says, doing things I don’t want to do, that I know are wrong, I frequently feel incapable of driving out the feelings, temptations, and behaviors I know are incorrect.

But what is truly factual is that I, and we, have the strength to destroy sin at its source in the flesh, just as the Israelites did, thanks to the power of God going before us and fighting the battle.

The Big Metaphor

If you pay close attention as you read the Old Testament, you’ll find an incredibly stark contrast between the Israelites and everyone else, and if you break that contrast down to its simplest pieces, you get two different adjectives to describe them. For the Israelites, we have righteous; for everyone else, we have sinful.

It’s fairly easy to work out: God’s people are righteous, just as we are made righteous when we become His today, and everything that is not with God is against God. Every person and thing that does not belong to God is sin.

It’s simple, then, to carry on this idea of the Israelites driving other peoples out of the Promised Land as driving out sin. (It’s even easier to carry on the idea when you read Deut. 7 because the Bible just tells you, but I had to explain the big comparison between the Israelites and us for teaching’s sake.)

The Strength to Thoroughly Destroy Sin

Jumping back up to the idea from the introduction in this post, the Israelites, then, felt too weak to destroy the sin they faced in the Promised Land. If you’ll remember, they were exiled from the land for 40 years because they were too afraid to fight for it, thinking they would be destroyed by the nations in it.

But, what the Israelites, and we, often forgot in fear, is that they had the strength from God to drive out that which does not belong, that which is not good.

Deuteronomy 7:15b, 17-19 says, “He will not put on you all the terrible diseases of Egypt that you know about, but He will inflict them on all who hate you. (17) If you say to yourself, ‘These nations are greater than I; how can I drive them out?’ do not be afraid of them. Be sure to remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and all Egypt: the great trials that you saw, the signs and wonders, the strong hand and outstretched arm, by which the Lord your God brought you out. The Lord your God will do the same to all the peoples you fear.”

Fear of being incapable, fear of the sin we face, even fear of facing God in our failures can hold us back from defeating sin. But God has given us the strength to destroy it, just like He gave the Israelites strength to destroy the nations inhabiting the Promised Land if they would stop being afraid of the people because of what they looked like.

But if we remember the strength of God to defeat our sinful natures and pull us to Him for salvation, if we remember the miracles He worked to draw us away from death in the first place, we’ll remember He easily has the power to inflict destruction on our sin now that we are His.

Why We Fail to Defeat Sin

Sometimes, even though we have the strength of God on our side, we still fail to defeat sin, though, right? Paul most certainly had the Lord with him whenever he was tempted, and still he sinned and did things he didn’t want to do. That’s because, so often, we fail to completely drive out and annihilate sin in the place we live.

Deuteronomy 7:1-2 says, “When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess, and He drives out many nations before you—the Hittities, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and powerful than you—and when the Lord your God delivers them over to you and you defeat them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy.”

And just like the Israelites, when we fail to completely destroy sin and route any chances it has at coming back to us, it slithers its way back into our lives. That’s why Matthew 5:29-30 urges us to gouge out our eye or cut off our hand if it causes us to sin because that’s the kind of extremism we need to go to in order to completely eliminate sin. (Please don’t actually go cutting your hands off and pulling your eyes out at the behest of this blog post.) It’s a metaphorical expression of extremism: whatever it takes for you, do it to stop yourself from sinning.

Extremist Application Methods

God’s goal with the Israelites was to create a land without even the barest hint of potential temptation for idolatry because He knew that was the only way the Israelites could resist putting the gods of Earth above Himself. That’s why Deuteronomy 7 is almost completely full of God telling them to destroy literally every last bit of the culture, practices, and evidences of the people who once lived there.

For us, it’s much of the same. When you allow yourself to even briefly consider sin, you’ve opened yourself up to temptation that is difficult to resist (Matthew 5:27-28). That’s why you must go to incredible extremes to avoid the hints of sin all around us. If that means you have to give up social media, TV, music, reading, sports, games, whatever, you should do it until you are capable of standing up to the temptation with God-given strength.

You have to destroy the world around you (metaphorically) to keep it from infecting you with sin until you glow brightly enough with the power of God to walk through the darkness without stumbling.

Living is Christ

What is the meaning of life? What is my purpose? Why are we here?

These questions plague the minds of nearly every person, if not individually, then collectively. It’s been the struggle of secular humanity since the beginning of time due to the belief that life was created by mere accident.

As believers, we know we have a purpose; we know we’re here for a reason, but I honestly find myself thinking that even we sometimes don’t grasp the “why” fully, even though it’s written out for us plain as day in the Bible.

The Problem with our Purpose Vocabulary

As is often the case, I find that our vocabulary starts the problem. I hear this around the church fairly often: God’s got a purpose for you; you may not know what it is yet, but you’re still here to do something. The problem with this phrase is that you do know what your purpose is already. What you might not know is the method by which you fulfill that purpose.

Here’s the thing. Once you become a believer, your purpose is the exact same as every other believer’s purpose: to make disciples. Your only goal, your only reason for still being alive is to point nonbelievers to Christ. That’s it. It really is that simple. If you don’t believe me, allow me to point you to Philippians 1:21, which says, “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

More on the second part later, but for now, let’s break down the first part. To live is Christ means that while you are alive, you are to be Christ. Disregarding all the things about Christ that we can’t achieve, such as perfection and sacrificing ourselves for the sins of all, what was Jesus’s purpose while He was here? His purpose was to make disciples so that people could be saved!

So, if we follow the Bible, which we should be doing, every believer’s goal is to be like Christ while they live. This means the purpose for each Christian life is the exact same; the only difference is the method. Just like Jesus fulfilled His purpose in a variety of ways: teaching, preaching, healing, etc. so are we to fulfill our purpose in varying ways. Believe it or not, this is also biblically sound.

Spiritual Gifts Give us the Means to Fulfill our Shared Purpose

Whether you get your list of spiritual gifts from 1 Corinthians 12 or Romans 12, they’re both a list of ways for believers to show the power and glory of God to the world. What they are not is a list of purposes for you to fulfill. If your spiritual gift is wisdom, you are not in this world to be wise. You are in this world to use the wisdom God has granted you to point people to Him. Likewise, if your gift is healing or prophecy, your purpose is not to heal or prophesy. Your purpose is to point people to Christ by providing mental, physical, or emotional healing or by speaking the Word of God to those who need to hear the message.

I’ve already written on this, too, but it needs repeating for context here, so I’ll cover it briefly. Paul provides us yet more proof that our purposes are one and the same following his list of the spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12. (You can check out the original post here: https://nathanielgevans.net/blog/unique-positioning.)

Every last part of your body serves the same purpose: keeping you alive. Your liver does it by purging toxins. Your heart does it by pumping blood. Your lungs do it by giving you oxygen. Your intestines do it by gathering nutrients from the food you eat. If the body of Christ is a body, each part is unified in fulfilling the purpose of the body while diversified in how they go about the process.

By this point, I’m hopefully beating a dead horse about our purpose being the same, so I’ll move on.

Lack of Purpose Fulfillment

Earlier, I quoted Philippians 1:21 and mentioned I’d get back to the second part later. Later is now. Something that disturbs me about Christians nowadays is the penchant for ignoring 1:21a and skipping straight to the second half of the verse: to die is gain.

For whatever reason, a number of Christians are so focused on the end times, on Jesus coming back, that they aren’t bothering to fulfill their purpose. They just want to die so they can get to Heaven; they just want the second coming so they can end their existence on this planet and be completed with God.

And to be fair, the desire to be complete and in Heaven is a good one. I can’t begrudge that because I believe that growing closer to God implants an intense desire to be with Him in our glorified bodies. There’s not even anything wrong with being prepared for Jesus’s second coming. The Bible says we must be ready for it to occur at any time (Matthew 24:42-44). What I can begrudge is those who neglect their purpose while on the path to true sanctification.

End Times Preparation

So, if just waiting in anticipation isn’t what you should be doing, what should you be doing? Why, fulfilling your purpose, of course; it’s selfish to do otherwise and in complete contradiction to God’s character. You can even see a clear example right at the crucifixion.

Even unto the moment of His death, Jesus was saving people. Luke 23:42-43 depicts Jesus saving one of the men being crucified with Him right before they were both to die on crosses. There’s even a chance that a Roman centurion who was there was saved as Jesus died. Three of the gospels include text indicating that at least one man knew Jesus to be the Son of God at the moment of His death.

What believers should be focusing on in Philippians 1:21 is the first half of the verse: living as Christ. We should settle for nothing less than doing as He did, preaching, teaching, healing, loving as He did. Whatever the method we were granted by God to fulfill our purpose, every action we take should be tailored toward making Heaven more crowded, right up until our dying breath. We should even hope for our actions to be so purpose-driven that they inspire people to turn to Christ after our death. If your every action isn’t directing people to Jesus, you’re doing it wrong.

Eating the Manna

Long time; no write! I could make plenty of excuses, but the fact of the matter is that I just haven’t written and created teaching lessons like I should have been doing. Though, sometimes, one of the best ways to learn from me might be learning how not to do things.

So, I have a short lesson before my actual lesson for this blog post: don’t fall into the trap of requiring motivation or a burst of God-given energy to do things you know are proper in your walk with God. Following Christ is not about motivation or feelings. It’s about self-denial and doing what is right in God’s sight. For more on that, check out this blog post: https://nathanielgevans.net/blog/when-motivations-gone

Our Humanity Desires Comfort Over Goodness

In our imperfection, we don’t always desire what is genuinely best for ourselves. We have issues with following Christ to what is actually good because the path to righteousness is difficult and sometimes painful. We are incredibly shortsighted, especially compared to the vision of God’s plans for our lives, and our ability to see goodness is determined not by what is actually good, but by the circumstances that surround us at the moment.

Our definition of “good” is circumstantial, subjective, even, whereas God’s definition of “good” is objective, and His is actually correct.

As a child growing up, I often hated going to bed. Not because I was energetic and hated sleep, although I did, but because the growing pains that afflicted me at night terrified me because they hurt so much. I thought they were the epitome of evil; at times, I thought I would’ve preferred to remain in a child’s body forever if it meant not going through those pains.

But in my shortsightedness, I wasn’t ready to consider that what I needed was growth. All I could see was the pain that accompanied it. Had I remained in my body as a child, I would be completely unable to do any of the things I do today. It would not be good for me now, and it wouldn’t even be as comfortable as it was when I was a kid. Now, being in the body I have is both more comfortable and better for me.

Growing Pains in The Christian Life

Things work the same way in our second lives as born-again believers. What was comfortable for us as nonbelievers is neither genuinely comfortable nor good for us. What was comfortable for our understanding as children in the faith is not comfortable as adults in the faith. There were things we couldn’t comprehend on our biblical milk diet that become difficult and possibly painful as we transition to bread and meat.

There are thousands upon thousands of metaphorical situations I could present to supplement this lesson, but the best one comes straight from our most accurate representation in the Bible: the Israelites.

The Israelites’ Desire for “Comfortable” Slavery

In Numbers 11, only a short time before the Israelites arrived outside the Promised Land, a number of people began to complain about their metaphorical growing pains.

Verses 1, 4-9 say, “Now the people began complaining openly before the Lord about hardship. When the Lord heard, His anger burned, and fire from the Lord blazed among them and consumed the outskirts of the camp. (4) Contemptible people among them had a strong craving for other food. The Israelites cried again and said, ‘Who will feed us meat? We remember the free fish we ate in Egypt, along with the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic. But now our appetite is gone; there’s nothing to look at but this manna!’ The manna resembled coriander seed, and its appearance was like that of bdellium. The people walked around and gathered it. They ground it on a pair of grinding stones or crushed it in a mortar, then boiled it in a cooking pot and shaped it into cakes. It tasted like a pastry cooked with the finest oil. When the dew fell on the camp at night, the manna would fall with it.”

Let’s put these verses in context. The Israelites had recently been rescued from slavery in Egypt where Pharaoh had issued a decree to kill all their male children right after birth. In Exodus 1, we’re told the Egyptians cruelly and ruthlessly worked the Israelites to the bone, hoping to make their lives as bitter as possible so they would become weak. Exodus 3:9 says their spirits were broken by the nature of the slavery forced upon them.

When the Israelites were brought out of their slavery, their trek to the Promised Land was through some of the harshest terrain found on Earth: the desert (The map below shows their path, but if you want to know how it really looks, check the satellite view on Google Maps. That should give you some real perspective). Numbers 1:46 says that the number of Israelites present in the wilderness just over a year after they left Egypt was over 600,000 (and that’s just those over 20 years old). If you know anything about the desert, you know that there is no way it could’ve supported that many people as they traveled through. Not without the divine intervention of God, anyway.

This map shows the area the Israelites traveled through from Egypt.

And divinely intervene, He did. God provided for every need the Israelites could’ve had as they wandered through the desert, even after they continuously rebelled against Him worshiping idols and intermarrying with other people groups. Even when they didn’t trust Him enough to take the Promised Land they were given, He provided for them in the wilderness for 40 years until they finally grew enough in their faith to enter a place overflowing with natural resources and the ability to easily sustain their numbers with excess.

The Difficulty of Current Trials Blinds Us

The Israelites had no right or reason to complain about their circumstances, but in their shortsightedness, they let the repetitive food cloud their understanding of what was good for them. Despite the fact that the food they had would’ve been some of the most delicious tasting stuff you could eat, they longed for what they thought was better in their past: the cuisine of Egypt. Their subjective understanding of “good” caused them to forget about or minimize the struggles they faced during their slavery in Egypt in favor of scratching an itch they had at that moment: the desire for different food.

In that moment of human imperfection and weakness, the desire for something as simple as different food clouded the vision of these people until they couldn’t see the goodness God had promised for their future and the atrocities He rescued them from in their past. Thankfully, God had a plan for that. Unfortunately, it hurt far more than just eating the manna and thanking God for their blessings would have.

God’s Answer to Our Misled Desires

Numbers 11:31-33 says, “A wind sent by the Lord came up and blew quail in from the sea; it dropped them at the camp all around, three feet off the ground, about a day’s journey in every direction. The people were up all that day and night and all the next day gathering the quail—the one who took the least gathered 50 bushels—and they spread them out all around the camp. While the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the Lord’s anger burned against the people, and the Lord struck them with a very severe plague.

Regardless of the Israelites’ personal feelings on their diet, the fact of the matter is that they were incredibly ungrateful. They fought against God in their craving of what was not good, what was lesser, and were corrected in their beliefs.

Regardless of what the plague was that they were afflicted with, it was certainly deadly to a number of them, and it was meant to be, undoubtedly. But it served its purpose in teaching the Israelites a lesson: the things of the past, the things they enjoyed in Egypt might have seemed good at first, but they came with a painful consequence. That consequence far outweighed the good that they enjoyed. After all, is a good-tasting quail really worth death? No.

And a lesson the Israelites should have learned upon their arrival to the Promised Land, that we can learn from now, was that God’s goodness for us is undoubtedly worth the minuscule pain we perceive when we are being delivered to it; the goodness of the Promised Land and its bountiful abundance was most certainly worth the time spent eating manna.

A Life of Joy is Worth a Little Manna

So, apply this to your life. When things seem a little annoying or painful in your walk with God, when the path God is guiding you down leads you through a desert and provides you manna to sustain you, remember the lesson the Israelites should’ve learned: a life of bountiful joy is undoubtedly worth eating a little bit of manna.

Harshness of Sins

If you grew up going to church, it’s likely that, at some point in your life, you were told all sins are equal, for the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). And that is fully true; I’m not here to discount that fact in the slightest. All sin leads to death—a final, eternal death followed by everlasting torment in Hell. The Bible is frequently very clear on that subject. But this known fact presents an interesting moral quandary—at least it does to me.

The Moral Quandary of Sin Equality

When you only acknowledge that all sins are equal because they all lead to death, you create some interesting thought patterns. All of a sudden, you must determine whether you treat all sins as harshly as murder or rape, or as lightly as a white lie. For if all sins are equal, they must all be treated the same, as the reasoning follows. With this follow-through, you can’t treat a murderer as any worse than a liar, and you can’t treat a liar as any better than a murderer.

For me, this completely fails to satisfy the innate morality impressed upon me by the image of God I am made of. And I believe that if you seriously consider it, we can all come to agreement on this. The nature of this sinful world is actually that all sins are equal. It’s built into phrases like “the ends justify the means,” which dictate that, so long as the end goal is accomplished, whatever is done to make it to that goal is perfectly allowable.

But God’s character doesn’t work that way. For God, the means justify the end, such that what is done on the journey leads to the final result. That is precisely why we cannot work our way to Heaven—our means are not good enough to get us to the end. Only by the means of Jesus’s death and resurrection are we justified to the end.

One Sin Cannot be Forgiven

If you truly pay attention to the Bible, you can find many instances when one sin was regarded as a less grievous offense than another, but let’s start with the biggest.

Matthew 12:31-32 says, “Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this are or in the age to come.

It really doesn’t get clearer than this. All sins can be forgiven except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. But that does mean there is a distinction among sins—some can be forgiven, and one cannot be. (There are different people who interpret what, exactly, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is. It’s not the purpose of this article, but in my opinion—based on the character of God—blasphemy against the Holy Spirit likely means a rejection of the Spirit, i.e., a rejection of the gift of salvation. That’s literally the only thing that will keep you from Heaven.)

Distinction Among Sins in the Old Testament

There are further distinction among the severity of sin offenses, too. Some of the clearest levels of sin distinction appear in Exodus and Leviticus as God lays down laws for the Israelites to follow, and more importantly in this case, how to profess repentance and find forgiveness for breaking those laws.

Exodus 21:12-14 describes a difference between planned murder and an accidental death. To murder was to invite the death penalty as punishment, but if it happened by accident, punishment was exile.

Fighting someone and injuring them required one to pay for lost work time and provide for the recovery of the person who was injured, as stated in verses 18-19. There are far more distinctions in chapters 21-23, but you’ll have to read those on your own time.

In Leviticus, God requires the Israelite people to provide different sacrifices depending upon the severity of the crime they committed against Him. Leviticus 4:3, 22-23, 27-28 and chapter 5:14-15 detail different sin sacrifices one must offer up based on their position within the people and the sins they committed.

We can even find direct contrasts of sins in situations like Abraham lying to Abimelek about Sarah being his sister and not his wife. There’s an argument to be made that Abraham was not lying because Sarah was technically his half-sister but lying by leaving things out is just as much a lie as directly stating incorrect information. Yet, Abraham did not receive punishment worth mentioning in the Bible for his lie, whereas we are told Abimelek would’ve been punished harshly had he been intimate with Sarah.

A Hierarchy of Commandments

God is incredibly purposeful in how He does everything He does, so it should be no surprise to any of us that the numbering of the Ten Commandments was more than just a way to keep track of how many there are. They’re listed in order of importance, the first being “Do not have any other gods beside me,” from Exodus 20:3.

Jesus reaffirms this in Matthew 22:34-38. The greatest commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. The second: love your neighbor as yourself.

And if there is a hierarchy of laws, it stands to reason there is a hierarchy of transgressions against the law. Thus, the worst sin would be to not love God. The second worst would be to not love others, and so on.

The Greatest Conundrum

I could go on and on listing sins and their punishments for thousands of words, but I leave it up to you to continue doing research in your own reading of the Bible, but it really all boils down to this: we believe all sins are equal because one price was paid for them all: Jesus’s death on the cross. But if you truly believe a murderer is no worse than a liar, then I challenge you to view Jesus’s sacrifice for sins not as one massive sacrifice, but as many, many trillions of sacrifices, each one equal to a sin that was, or will be, committed.

See, the sacrifice wasn’t just His death. It was the experience of separation from God He took on for every transgression against God. For the murderer, Jesus would’ve experience the punishment for murder. For a liar, He would’ve experienced the punishment for lying. For sexual immorality, the punishment for it, etc. For a God who is just, who outlines justice in His very character, who loves what is good and hates, detests, what is bad, there is distinction.

We see things as black and white or varying shades of gray far too often. Instead, many things are both. Character, morality, sin, and the law are both black and white and shades at the same time. There is a distinct line separating what is good and what is bad. Of that there is no doubt in the Bible. But there are things on the bad side that are farther away from the line. Liars stand much closer to the line of the law than murderers.

How Should We Treat Sin?

That is a far easier question than, “Is all sin equal?” The Bible is far, far clearer on this subject. In John 8:7, Jesus says, “Let he who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”

When it comes to your own sins, let your understanding of God’s character be the drive for your own choices—know that, even though some sins are more grievous than others—for the thousandth time I’ll state that it is far worse to murder than to lie—they are all, indeed, punishable by an eternity of separation from God. If you are a follower of Christ, seek to be like God, seek to emulate His character, and you’ll find that you worry less about how to avoid grievous sins and more about how to pursue righteousness. Hate your sin and resist temptation to escape from its grasp. Whether your sin is as harsh as murder or as small as a lie, you still sinned, and you still require redemption. As a liar, you are no better than a murderer in that regard.

When it comes to the actions of others, hate all sin. If you find you have a harsher reaction to murder or rape than thievery in your heart and mind, don’t worry for your salvation, your thoughts, or your heart and their place with God. But do remember that you do not get to mete out justice to those who commit sins against God. God has His holy system, as well as Earthly systems, in place to do that, and it’s not our business to act outside of those.

But truly, when it comes right down to the question of how we should treat sin, there is only one answer: Love your neighbor as yourself. Don’t deny someone the chance to seek Jesus because of their transgressions and your hatred. Until someone dies, they always have a chance to be redeemed, for all sins can be forgiven but one. If God loves them enough to give them a chance by continuing to breathe the breath of life into them, you have no right to take away that chance.

Not Far Gone

Listen to Never Too Far Gone on Spotify. Jordan Feliz · Song · 2016.

Jordan Feliz is one of my favorite artists because he does a wonderful job of tackling tough issues and circumstances while uplifting the people struggling through them.  In “Never Too Far Gone,” Feliz gives hope to those who feel far away from God, who have done wrong, who have hurt others, who have hurt themselves, and reminds them that there’s no place they can be physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually that God does not have covered in His loving presence.

The message of this song describes how, even when we run away from God, it takes only one step in the right direction to be back in His loving embrace. It takes only one action to be forgiven, only one action to be found, to be caught.

People all over the world are currently lost or in the process of losing themselves. Some may be stumbling around in the dark already, dazed, confused, blind, in despair and unable or unwilling to call out for someone to turn on the lights. Some are sprinting at a breakneck speed away from the light because it stung their eyes, and they think they will find comfort in the darkness.

There are two images I get from the lyrics in Feliz’s song. The first is kind of like a chase scene in a horror/slasher movie. If you’ve ever seen one, you know that the protagonist is sprinting as fast as possible away from the killer, who often appears to be casually walking, but never seems to lose him. No matter how fast the protagonist runs, nor how cleverly he disguises his path, the killer is always there.

In a way, that’s kind of what running from God is like. No matter how far or fast you run, God’s always right behind you waiting for you to slow down and give in, to recognize that it’s not a killer who’s after you, rather, in a parody of a horror/slasher situation, it’s a friend and guide who wants to help you escape from death.

I imagine that it might feel scary or daunting in some ways to those who only see the bright light of God from the darkness, who have never experienced the warmth and love that His light provides. And I personally think we don’t give enough credence to the fact that God can be scary to people who don’t know Him—Christianity can be scary to people who don’t truly know it, who have only ever seen it from the outside, or maybe just experienced the worst parts of believers and the church.

The second image/scenario I envision involves a large room filled with swirling darkness. The darkness ebbs and flows and changes constantly, seeking to block people in the room from seeing the light shining from the exit. The darkness is disorienting and confusing, causing those within to stumble and wander, losing all sense of direction. Even if they manage to spot the light, the suffocating darkness moves to cover it up, leaving them without a clue which way to go. But the God of light does not need to stay at the doorway; when someone calls out from the darkness, He goes to them, cutting a swath through the darkness with His light, picks them up, and carries them to the exit.

I don’t have to imagine reality for this scenario; I’ve been through things just like it. I’ve tried to walk myself out of the darkness of emotional and mental health struggles. I’ve tried to walk myself out of the suffocating room wherein I feel trapped. I’ve tried to combat my sin and temptation on my own. But it was only when I called out to God that He carried me free of those things.

In Sunday School this week, we touched on a related topic as we discussed grief and other hard-hitting emotions: the idea that Jesus, that God, has felt everything we could feel. And that’s true. We can attribute this experience of Jesus to His suffering and death on the cross. In those moments of His death, He felt every last bit of every sin. Before yesterday morning, I had never really given thought to the idea that Jesus had felt the same shame, guilt, failure, etc. that I’ve felt, that you’ve felt, that we’ve all felt. Not just that He has felt shame, guilt, failure,

Whenever I thought about Jesus being able to relate to me, I always dwelled on things in general; I never made the emotional, relational connection specific to me. But when He died on that cross, He felt all the bad, the things that God doesn’t, can’t, shouldn’t feel. A perfect God can feel no shame or guilt, but He did. He suffered under the weight of guilt for us. He suffered the load of shame for us. He suffered the pain of failure for us.

And He did not just generically feel those things. He felt the exact shame I feel whenever I give into lust or anger. He felt the guilt of each time I sinned and knew I was doing it. He felt the weight of every failure I have committed. Why? So He could chase us down, seek us out, pick us up, and show us with the scars on His hands, His feet, His side, and His head that we are not too far gone to be rescued.

Showing your Thankfulness

It’s very nearly Thanksgiving, so everyone, as usual, is talking about being thankful—why you should be thankful, what you should be thankful for, how to express thanks, etc. And, of course, I have something to say on the subject, too, but I want to approach this not from a why or what perspective, but from a how perspective, because we sometimes forget that certain things carry more weight than others.

When my dad and I would get upset at each other as I was growing up, sometimes conversation turned to me being an ungrateful child, and in many ways, I was. Not because I, myself, felt ungrateful for the things that were done for me, but because I often acted like I felt that way. It was always easy to be thankful with my words rather than thankful with my actions, and that created a disconnect between what I thought and felt and what I showed/proved to be true to my dad.

It’s rather easy to be thankful with your words—the phrase “thank you” is an incredibly easy one to say, even when you don’t mean it, which somewhat takes away its power. That’s why some people might even consider a “thank you” to be meaningless until the sentiment behind it is proved in some other way.

And I say all this to get to my final point: in terms of gratefulness, actions truly do speak louder than words. You can’t just talk the talk of gratefulness, you must walk the walk, lest you risk demeaning the gift given to you, and in a way, the person who gave you that gift as well.

Don’t you think, then, that you should be grateful to God in the same way? Don’t you think you should show your appreciation for His gift of eternal life by obeying Him, by doing as He asks? I do.  I truly think that you demean the gift of salvation if you don’t go out of your way to show how grateful you are to have received it. In that case, you should be giving thanks to God by going out and pointing others to Him so that they might receive the gift as well.

I like the Sidewalk Prophets’ song “Live Like That” for this reason. I think it captures quite well what we should all be doing to thank God for the gift of eternal life, to express the feelings of a grateful heart.

Was I love
When no one else would show up
Was I Jesus to the least of us
Was my worship more than just a song

We likely all know that worship and praise are part of us being grateful to God. We praise Him because of who He is and what He did and does. But the last line of this second verse points to what I said earlier—your praise and worship have to be more than going through the words of a song in church or whispering a practiced prayer. There must be feeling involved, a heartfelt expression of gratitude.

One of the best ways to express gratitude is to be who we are meant to be, who God wants us to be, by becoming more like Jesus and loving like He did and does because it requires more from us than to express thanks verbally, it requires a real change of who we are and how we act.

Am I proof
That You are who you say You are
That grace can really change a heart
Do I live like Your love is true

People pass
And even if they don't know my name
Is there evidence that I've been changed
When they see me, do they see You 

When my dad said I was being ungrateful, it was because I didn’t show proof of my being grateful through my actions. When he did good things for me, I didn’t treat him better—his gifts and hard work didn’t change my heart or attitude—or a better explanation is that I didn’t allow what he did to impact me. He was looking for evidence of me changing and finding none, despite the fact that there should have been some.

And when you accept God’s gift and choose Him as your Lord and Savior, there should be evidence of change, proof of a changed heart out of your gratefulness towards Him. You should treat God better, treat others better, and treat yourself better. You should have a different attitude—evidence that you were impacted by the gift you received.

I want to live like that
And give it all I have
So that everything I say and do
Points to You 

If love is who I am
Then this is where I'll stand
Recklessly abandoned
Never holding back

 In the end, the theme behind everything I write always turns back to love—to true, selfless, sacrificial love. And for good reason—sacrificial love is who God is, and it is who we should be also.

When you’re truly grateful for something, you find yourself trying to pay back the one to whom you’re grateful in equal measure to the gift you received. If someone buys you a $25 Christmas gift, it’s only fair and right to give them a gift of the same price in return. If someone gives an hour of their time to help you with something, it’s only just to give them an hour of your own time to help them when they’re in need.

Now, you can’t work your way to being even with God; you can’t pay the debt that would incur if you were to buy the gift He freely gave. That’s not what this is about. But you can show you’re grateful to Him by sacrificing yourself for Him the same way He sacrificed Himself, Jesus, for you. Jesus gave His life for yours; I think it’s only fair to give your life to Him. Isn’t it? That’s the same kind of love He showed when He did it. He held nothing back. Why should you?

Express your thanks in more than just a few words from a worship song or a nightly prayer—truly show your gratefulness by handing yourself over to God for Him to lead.

Listen to Live Like That on Spotify. Sidewalk Prophets · Song · 2017.

Disciple like Jesus

Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Matthew 28:19 is the Great Commission, and I would wager a guess that pretty much every Christian at least knows the verse, if not the book or the chapter and verse number. It’s likely mentioned frequently when talking about missions work, especially in other nations. It’s a command that all Christians should know and strive to follow each day, but do you know how to make disciples?

I reckon that almost everyone knows the Great Commission from Matthew 28:19, but do you know that’s not the entire command?

Here’s the whole thing from Matthew 28:19-20: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

A lot of times, Christians translate this verse to, “Go, therefore, and make believers of all nations.” But that’s not what it says. It says to make disciples. And a disciple is so much more than someone who just believes in something. A disciple is a student, a deep studier of someone’s teachings. They are experts in the knowledge of their master or teacher. Everything the master has ever taught, the disciple knows.

There’s a footnote for my Bible from the word “disciple,” that adds a few words, making Matthew 28:19 say this: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of, and disciple, all nations.” Disciple is as much a verb in English as it is a noun. When you disciple someone, you teach them everything you know with the goal that they will be able to teach someone else all that you know.

We, as Christians, as the Church, are incredibly good at making extras out of nonbeliever converts. Extras as in movie extras. Here’s what I mean: In a church, the pastor, deacons, and a few members tend to be main characters—they’re always involved in some way—and the rest of the congregation are just unnamed characters who fill out the void space in the movie so it doesn’t look like it was filmed in a vacuum. If you ever read the credits, they don’t even have names: they’re listed as “extra 1, extra 2,” etc.

And there are so many “extras” in the Church. They don’t speak, they don’t participate, they don’t really contribute, they just fill up the empty space in the pews. And when they die and they go to the credits, the Lamb’s Book of Life, their name won’t be there. And it’s not because they didn’t have a chance to be there; it’s because no one bothered to give them what they needed to become a main character.

Extras and background characters don’t know much about the plot of the story. One may be there to show a character along, to be a stepping stone, but they generally know nothing and serve little purpose to the theme. Main characters, on the other hand, have a deep knowledge of the workings of the story and are contenders and participants in the plot.

As Christians, as evangelists, as teachers and leaders and disciples of God, it’s our job to teach new believers how to step away from the role as an extra and become main characters. Because that’s what a disciple is: a main character. They have to know the plot that God’s writing, know how He works, understand what He teaches so that they can be active participants.

So many new believers are convinced to leave the Church, to not follow God, because they are confronted with the world and are unable to combat that with the teachings of Jesus. They don’t know enough about Him to deny the accusations and grasp of sin. They don’t know enough to resist temptation; some don’t even know they should resist temptation. They’re left hanging high and dry with scavengers picking at them, the sun burning them, and they can’t help themselves off the hook because they don’t know how.

And why is that? Because they weren’t taught how. It’s going to hurt, but I truly believe we, as believers, have a real habit of just believing that getting someone into church is enough, getting them to show up is the end goal. But it’s just not. We’re way too lazy about the work we’re here to do.

The end goal is more than getting someone into a pew or a Sunday School classroom. It’s teaching, instructing, loving, caring for, and preparing them to leave the safety of the church with the knowledge they need to protect themselves, and go out fishing for a person of their own to bring back and disciple in the same way.

We’ve frankly forgotten how to spread the Word of God like Jesus, Peter, and Paul did. God doesn’t care about the number of people sitting in your pews. He cares about the number of souls destined for Heaven. And it’s time we stop being lazy and start caring for souls the same way He does.

Folly Proves Itself

One of the most advantageous functions of the Christian belief is that it tends to root out those beliefs that are added on to its core and do not fit with the inerrant Word of God. Scrutiny of fake Christian tenets is guided by a strict and infallible gradebook, and one way or another, false beliefs always fail the test against the Bible, against God.

Solomon relates this to us in Ecclesiastes 10:1-4, which my Bible most accurately entitles, “The Burden of Folly.” Verse 1 says, “Dead flies make a perfumer’s oil ferment and stink; so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.

A perfumer’s oil should smell good, pleasant; however, the presence of dead bugs would cause the perfume to react in quite an unpleasant manner. I’m no biologist or chemist, so my less than satisfactory scientific explanation of this verse will have to suffice, but when animals die and are broken down, they typically begin to stink. A perfume would most certainly go from pleasant to unpleasant in the smells department if it were to ferment thanks to the introduction of any organic material that could complete the process.

But since I’m no scientist, and that breakdown was certainly lackluster, here’s an explanation that we can all make sense of:

Foolishness is a dense weight on the scales of life. A visual explanation of folly’s load can be easily found in the riddle, “What weighs more: 100 pounds of bricks or 100 pounds of feathers?” The answer, of course, is that they each weigh the same, but the conundrum is in the number of feathers one must use to equal the bricks. To balance the scales with a single brick of folly, you must match it with 100 feathers of wisdom.

The effect of that riddle, however, is that it plays on the mind by seeming to equate to unequal objects, and we do much the same when it comes to our choices and decisions. The idea of one good decision being the equal of one bad decision is one that has been perpetuated through many cultures and religions since the first sin. It’s the whole idea behind karma, and it is even prominent in certain sects of Christianity. It’s the entire function behind the “good works” faith denominations. If you do enough good, you can outweigh your bad deeds and make it to Heaven.

Speaking of which, this verse does not, in any way, affirm that good works can get you to Heaven. Even ignoring the verses in the New Testament that clearly state you can be saved by God’s grace alone through faith alone, Solomon, I believe because God wrote this through him, is quite intentional with his word choice here in saying that “a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.” Just the one sin is enough to outweigh all you good deeds.

With all that said, how does one spot a fake Christian belief? Well, by its stench, of course. A nonbiblical belief will stink beyond reason, even if it appears to be on the right path. By default, every other way will prove itself to be wrong at some point in its belief structure. That’s what Solomon says in verses 2-3.

“A wise man’s heart goes to the right, but a fool’s heart to the left. Even when the fool walks along the road, his heart lacks sense, and he shows everyone he is a fool.”

These verses are talking about people, but the idea behind the people applies to everything. A wise man walks the right path. If we equate the Bible with the “right path,” which it is anyway, the wise man follows the tenets of the Bible, and so too do wise ideas. Yet, a foolish man will not follow this path; he wanders aimlessly and, on occasion, stumbles across the road and travels along it for a bit before departing for the wilderness again. So, too, do foolish beliefs.

We can actually see this when we confront even something so broad among nonbelievers as simple morals and laws. To a nonbeliever, killing is, typically, just as wrong as it is to a believer. In this way, they’ve stumbled upon the path, but their reasoning for why killing is wrong will never hold up.

Once you jump down the rabbit hole of questions, there stands no good reason from an atheistic viewpoint that murder is wrong. No matter which way you take it, either no one had the power to decide that it was wrong, or it truly isn’t wrong. But down one path of questioning or the other, the belief has no foundation.

In terms of beliefs among Christians, the good works belief is the easiest demonstration because it can be dismantled with one question: If good works can get you to Heaven, why did Jesus have to sacrifice Himself for our sins? Because, really, if we were capable of paying for our burden ourselves, why would Jesus do it for us and then expect us to do it again by performing good deeds? He wouldn’t.

Metaphorically speaking, then, verse 4 tells us how to react when we spot beliefs that try to usurp God’s character and truth: “If the ruler’s anger rises against you, don’t leave your place, for calmness puts great offenses to rest.”

Being a follower of Christ is a great offense to some. They won’t be able to stand the fact that you believe in God. But the best thing to do is always to remain calm and stay down your path. Your best witness to those people is to always continue doing what you know is right. If you poking holes in the logic of their argument angers them, remember to treat them with love and kindness.

You don’t need to track down false beliefs or threats against the foundations of Christianity; they’ll weed themselves out by virtue of their own imperfections. In your own walk, remember to confront all teachings and beliefs with the Bible. If it doesn’t hold up to God’s Word, it’s not right, no matter what pastor, preacher, podcaster, YouTuber, blogger, or whoever tells you.

All Scripture's Value

“All scripture is God-breathed and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3:16-17. Every Christian should agree about a few things when it comes to the Bible: that it is inerrant, that it was written down by men who were chosen, inspired, and guided by God, and that it is just as useful and needed for believers today as it was for the Israelites and Jews in the times it was written originally.

There are some, however, who seek to twist the word of God into something it’s not, and even more who read the word but are unable to understand it and how it should apply to them.

Indeed, there is, as always, an attack against God and His word found in the so-called “Progressive Christianity” movement. They seek to change the Bible’s tenets and morph the true and inerrant word of God into a book meant to satisfy the world’s desires. They read the Word of God, not as a manual for our behavior or a way to understand the world, but as an influence to be twisted into whatever they feel fits current culture the best. It’s dangerous to them and to anyone who gets caught up in it.

But even true believers sometimes fail to understand God’s truth as they should. The Bible is a difficult book to read and apply to yourself. None of us can do it perfectly. However, God, as always, provides us with a method to help us grow closer to Him.

If you’ve ever struggled reading the Bible and wondering how to apply passages of scripture, you need look no farther than the verse at the beginning of this blog: 2 Timothy 3:16. It gives us four ways that every last verse in the Bible can be used: to teach, to rebuke, to correct, and to train in righteousness.

“Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”

— Matthew 24:35

I want to be clear here, too. Passages of scripture are not to be used as an either/or application in this manner. While I can’t speak to Greek sentence structure, I know that God’s word and meaning will be maintained for us to understand how He intended it, and the English meaning here is crystal clear.

In English, we have two forms of series or lists. One of them is an either/or list (it has no name, but for the sake of reducing word waste, I’ll call it a separative list), and the other is an additive list.

Separative lists include the conjunction “or” to separate items from one another, indicating that the items in the list are exclusive from one another. Each item in a list following this word becomes its own one word list. To put it simply, a separative list, such as, “you may have steak or chicken or pork for dinner,” means that whichever you choose, you may not pick the other options. Instead of one list with three items, you end up with three lists with one item.

The additive list includes the conjunction “and.” Each item that comes after this word in a list is added to the list. To put it simply, an additive list, such as, “you may have steak and chicken and pork for dinner,” means that all options can be chosen at the same time. You have one list with three items.

You might be thinking, “Hold on a second, there. Neither of those words appear in the list in 2 Timothy 3:16.” And you are, of course, correct. But what does appear is a comma. In English, commas are always additive, taking the place of the word, “and.” To have a separative list, you must have the word “or” included somewhere, else it defaults to being an additive list. And that’s what I’m getting at here.

If you’re struggling to learn from scripture, it is perhaps because you are being too narrow in your application of it. Instead of simply trying to find how scripture is rebuking your sins or correcting your behavior, think about how it can teach you about God, rebuke your sins, correct your behavior, and train you in how to do better.

The stories in Genesis are more than just stories. Each one of them serves to teach you a lesson about God’s character, rebuke sinful behavior, correct that behavior, and train you in how to behave in the future, it just depends on you to look for each of those things.

Take the story of Joseph, for example. The story teaches us about God’s commitment to His people, His loyalty, and His compassion for those who are mistreated. It rebukes the behavior of Joseph for being too proud in his place in his father’s heart and bragging to his brothers, which you can see in his punishment carried out by his brothers who sold him into slavery. That serves to correct proud behavior. But his brothers are rebuked as well for the revenge and anger they gave into. Their struggles and their shame served to teach both them and us a lesson, correcting that behavior. And, just as Joseph’s life as a slave trained him to be righteous and serve God, it does the same to us, training us to rely on God and do what we know is right even when circumstances don’t look like they’re going our way.

So, if you’re struggling to find meaning in God’s word, if you’re failing to find a way to apply it to your life, read it with 2 Timothy 3:16 in mind, keeping in mind that all four of these lessons are found in each and every passage of scripture. You’ll start to see the old stories and laws still hold quite a bit of knowledge and wisdom where you used to see only dusty words of boredom.

Life Isn't Fair

I think it’s incredible how some people are capable of taking incredibly complex topics and thoughts—wanderings about life, eternity, God, and anything else—and turning them into a paragraph or less that conveys the entirety of the thought process in just a few words. Take a couple of the following quotes, for example:

“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall”

            -Nelson Mandela

“If life were predictable, it would cease to be life and be without flavor.”

            -Eleanor Roosevelt

“Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.”

            -C.S. Lewis

I mean, I understand words pretty well, and I think I’m decent enough at using them, but some of these folks are able to grasp and synthesize information so well that they’re able to tell books worth of stories in a single sentence. But I came across a sentence today that tells billions of lives worth of stories. It’s found in Ecclesiastes chapter 9, verse 11.

“Again I saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, or the battle to the strong, or the bread to the wise, or riches to the discerning, or favor to the skillful; rather, time and chance happen to all of them.”

Man, is there a ton to unpack in that. Not only is Solomon explaining a universal truth that most people accept in each statement, like “the race is not to the swift,” but he’s counteracting them by pointing to the contradictions that come from the world we live in, which is both logically imperfect and divinely oriented.

This sentence briefs the hubris of man in every case, believing that we have guaranteed success when we have gathered sufficient skill, that our achievements come from the diligent work of our own hands and abilities. That’s a fact of our own human pride, and why many believe the way to Heaven is through works.

We believe if we are fast enough, we can outrun others to our goals; if we are strong enough, we can beat back the competition; if we are wise enough, we can make ourselves rich beyond imagination; if we are skilled enough, we can accomplish anything; if we are good enough, we can get to Heaven. In fact, this sentence reflects on similar events to the Tower of Babel, wherein people determined it among themselves that they could reach Heaven if only they could build a tower tall enough.

And if you know the story of the Tower of Babel, the Lord humbled those who attempted to reach Heaven in that way. He turned the hubris of the people into their humbling by acting in such a way to turn their beliefs on their heads. Because no matter how fast, wise, strong, or skilled we are, God is greater, and no amount of anything we possess is enough to displace God and His will.

But not only are we incapable of surpassing God’s will and feats, but we are also victim to sin, which has corrupted the world and turned the good processes God created here upside down in order to wreak havoc. Sometimes, we end up with people being in places they have no business being. Some businessmen have no understanding of running a business, but because of extenuating circumstances, they find themselves in control of a business. An unskilled worker may get a promotion over a skilled worker due to in-company politics. Because of the corruption of sin, things don’t always turn out like they logically should.

But more than that, things don’t always turn out like they morally should. Verses 13-16 say, “I have observed that this also is wisdom under the sun, and it is significant to me” There was a small city with few men in it. A great king came against it, surrounded it, and built large siege works against it. Now a poor wise man was found in the city, and he delivered the city by his wisdom. Yet no one remembered that poor man. And I said, ‘Wisdom is better than strength, but the wisdom of the poor man is despised, and his words are not heeded.’”

It’s not likely that this is the case, though I’m sure it’s possible Solomon could have had a vision about the future, but these verses remind me of Sennacherib’s invasion against Hezekiah. Compared to Sennacherib, Hezekiah had an incredibly small army, and he was expected to give in to Sennacherib’s strength. Instead, Hezekiah outwitted Sennacherib and forced his armies to retreat, delivering the city by his wisdom. Though his story is written in the Bible, he’s probably a less popular historical figure than Sennacherib.

But I know for sure that no one remembered Hezekiah’s wisdom, which came from the Lord. Not even Hezekiah himself. Shortly after, Judah returned to its old ways, abandoning God, and finding themselves in trouble once again. I think it fits pretty well, but what Solomon’s getting at more than a possible reference to events that happened a couple hundred years in the future, is that, sometimes we are outfitted with gifts and skills for a position we aren’t in.

It’s probably better explained in Ecclesiastes 10:7, “I have seen slaves on horses, but princes walking on the ground like slaves.”

This could be a literal reference to captured princes being forced to walk while servants of a conquering kingdom ride horses, but, as I wrote here: (https://nathanielgevans.net/blog/god-of-metaphors), God is a big fan of teaching us through metaphors, and I can think of no better figurative representation for Solomon’s statements in verses 11-16 than this.

Sometimes, you just happen to have skills for one thing but be in a place to do another. I’m sure there are many people out there who could be smart enough to cure cancer, fix many world issues, or unite people, but who will never see a science lab, a government seat, or a place of influence; it is simply a fact of this world.

Verses 17-18 say, “The calm words of the wise are heeded more than the shouts of a ruler over fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner can destroy much good.”

The good news is that, more often than not, people end up where they are supposed to be to do what they are called to do. Generally, you’ll find the science whizzes in the lab, the thinkers writing and speaking their thoughts into existence, the mathematicians with a calculator, the physicists discovering more of God’s design. But all it took was one to change this world from, “everyone will end up where they’re supposed to be,” to, “most will end up where they’re supposed to be.”

In the end, you can boil Solomon’s statements down even more—to just three words, in fact. Life isn’t fair. But I’ll qualify that statement. Keep this in mind the next time you see someone whose talents aren’t being employed properly, even more so when you become disgruntled with your position and believe it is your own talents that are being wasted. Life isn’t fair, but the God who holds it in His hands is just and good. He will not forsake you nor abandon you; He will use you as He needs you used and work things together for your good.