At the Moment

 

Our Bible-study teacher often started the class by asking “What jumped out at you in this chapter ?”  There were always some folks in the class who had read and meditated on the chapter, and had “heard” a word there from the Spirit that they were eager to talk about.

The hour of discussion that followed usually gave us insights, questions, and challenges enough to ponder all week.  I appreciated the teacher’s wisdom in opening the class that way: it encouraged us to hear the Spirit speaking in scripture, and fed our spirits all week.

Not every student heard exactly the same word, of course: God doesn’t make robots.  There were even times people heard seemingly-contrary things in scripture.  Those times, it seemed folks in the class were able to practice spiritual discernment…another opportunity for us to hear the Spirit…and sort out differences, so they weren’t problems.

But usually our “differences” were like the blind men describing an elephant: our limited perceptual abilities “touching” the totality of God’s Wisdom at the different places we could individually reach.  When we realized that, I think it renewed, and increased, our awareness of God’s active UNITY, in His Spirit and His Logos.

It was amazingly frequent, too, that God confirmed something we’d been discussing in Bible-study, in the pastor’s sermon.  He didn’t sit in on our Bible-study, and had prepared his sermon some days previous; but it often turned out the pastor spoke on the same topic we’d talked about in Bible study that morning: sometimes exactly the same scripture: or a related topic that tied-in, or gave nuance, to what we’s discussed in Bible-study.

When that happened, it was exciting, and impossible to miss that God was actively guiding us.  It felt like His verification that we were hearing Him aright in our studying the Bible, and the pastor in preparing his sermon.  It gave us a powerful sense of God’s approval, that the church-body was walking in His Way.

Church leadership decided a few months ago to start on a year-long study-program of the Bible’s major teachings.  Among other things, the program co-ordinates the topics for Bible-study classes and the pastor’s sermon each week. 

Praying about it later, I was hearing that the program was not the way to go, and twice asked the pastor and a couple church-leaders to pray about it again.  My understanding of I Corinthians 14:29 is that private words from the Spirit should be submitted to the judgement of others who hear Him, and these brothers do.  They affirmed the program, however; so I have to think the word I heard was personal direction for me.

My wife said I’d still be able to hear the Spirit in the new Bible-study, as I do in the pastor’s “co-ordinated” sermons; and she’s right.  Anyone who’s listening for the Spirit will hear Him, in whatever way or place He chooses to speak.

My wife’s argument is tempting, and I greatly miss being in the Bible-study.  Miss most of all the sense of God’s immediacy and approval when He verifies the word we hear by His “co-ordination.”  If I was the least bit uncertain of the word I was given…that it’s not the right thing, at least for me…I’d act on her argument.

But I’ve spent years practicing to discern the Spirit’s voice: practicing, most of all, to distinguish His voice from the voice of self-will we all have to deal with.  I’ve learned that when I get it wrong (a normal part of any learning-process), He’s gracious to give me credit for asking, and for doing what I thought I heard from Him.  Learned too that if I continue listening to Him, He’ll correct me in anything I get wrong.

So I don’t doubt the new program is “good,” or that the Spirit will work through it.  I also don’t doubt His word of personal direction, that it’s not the way I should go.

It’s an uncomfortable place to be, for the moment: I miss Bible-study.  But it's the place God wants me to be, for the moment.  I’m eager to see what He has for me next.

 

Son of God, sons of the devil

 

"You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies."

                                                                                --  John 8:44

I have no doubt Jesus IS the Son of God.  So when He tells us how He recognizes the children of satan, we have to pay attention.  He would know.

They are first of all plural, and clearly they were already around in Jesus' lifetime.  There were still many sons of the devil around when Jesus' disciple John wrote about them some years later:

"Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour" (I John 2:18, my emphasis) 

You're right to be aware The Anti-Christ is coming, says John: but be aware too that his little spiritual brothers and sisters are already here, and will be until The Lord returns to settle accounts.

(Which is certainly not to diminish the centrality of The Anti-Christ in satan's scheme.  Just as Jesus Christ is the Incarnate and Only Son of God, here present in human flesh, anti-Christ will be the unique, full-on, counterfeit of Christ, satan's own son, present on earth in human flesh.)

Many of us are convinced we're living today in what John calls "the last hour."  If so, Jesus' major teaching on the "end-times," in Matthew 24, must be of critical relevance to us.  And that discourse is notable for Jesus' repeated warnings to His disciples not to be misled, and not to be deceived, even by the "many [who] will come in My name" (v. 5).

So Jesus again emphasizes that the children of satan will be on the scene, that they will be "many," and that they will be busily spreading their father's lies: for how else are people "misled" and "deceived" than by lies ?

Jesus warns that the "many antichrists" of the end-times will even be spreading "Christian" lies ("in My name").  Indeed, those whom Jesus called children of satan to their face appeared to be "Christians:" they had followed Jesus in Person, and "had believed Him" (John 8:31; for even liars must admit Jesus is speaking truth).  So Jesus' command in Matthew 24 is that we discern, as He discerned, the children of satan by the fact they do satan's characteristic deeds.

(My opinion is that in our day we especially need to heed Jesus' warning, "do not believe them" (Matthew 24:23,26), regards the many "Christian" teachers of "end-times prophecy."  Jesus flatly says that no man knows God's timing (v. 36); and that world-political events and natural disasters are NOT primary prophetic signs of the end-times (vv. 6-7).  In broad characterization, many of today's "Christian" interpreters of "end-times prophecy." predicate their teaching exactly on those things Jesus proscribes.)

We therefore know that satan's children can be discerned by their lies.  And we certainly know what lies are: statements contrary to fact, and reality: statements contrary to Truth, Who Jesus says He IS (John 14:6).

(I often hear people try to excuse themselves from obeying Jesus' command with the complaint that "it's hard these days to know what's true."  That excuse is itself a lie.  In these days of the internet, it's easier than ever to verify, from multiple official, news, or fact-checking websites and "citizen-journalist" sources, what someone has actually said, or if an event actually happened...often with on-scene video of what was said or done.  The only relevant question is if a person loves truth enough to search for it...more properly, Him.)

Jesus says the other "spirit" by which we should discern satan's children is their desire to "murder."  Our varying systems of human criminal-law have rather muddied our understanding of what constitutes "murder:" but Jesus gives us His definition in Matthew 5:21-22.  Jesus says that angry, violent, contempt for others is murder...whether or not blows are struck, or lives lost.

America's experience has verified Jesus' definition.  Violent contempt for others, which has become...rather, has been made...a dominant spirit of national politics, has repeatedly produced in our country horrific mass-murders which meet even humans' legal definitions.

We've also seen that the greatest spouters of violent contempt have also made lies a dominant spirit of American politics, to an extent never before seen.  And it's not hard to see that this change has taken place because lies and murder...Jesus' checklist of "sons of satan"...have been politically successful, tactics for them.

Incredibly, even some Christians have followed the politicians whose ways are, relentlessly and always, lies and murder.

So this blog is my plea to those Christians to repent, and quickly turn back in these last days from following those Jesus has warned us are "children of the devil."

Amen.

Biden Preaches the Gospel

 

A few days ago President Biden went to Buffalo to meet with and console the folks who'd lost family in the mass-shooting there.  Afterwards, he made a speech to them and the nation.

Biden's not a great intellect.  He's not a great orator.  That's not what made his speech notable.

Joe Biden is a man who genuinely cares for people.  An American President should care for the people whom God's put in his charge: so Biden was in Buffalo.

He's also a man of faith, a man with a "moral compass," as his speech showed.

“…evil will not win. I promise you. Hate will not prevail." -- Joe Biden

Biden spoke SPIRITUAL truth to those who are suffering, in Buffalo, and throughout our nation.  In all the hatred, and death, and destruction that assail us, “evil will not win.”  The comfort he offered those survivors, and all of us who grieve for our nation's suffering, is the good news that our King sealed to reality by His life and His death, that “evil will not win.”  The comfort Biden offered those survivors, and all of us who grieve for our nation's suffering, is that in Jesus' rule we have hope that will not be disappointed.

I was also impressed that Biden stands to gain no political advantage by his speech.  The "spiritual discernment" we see manifested by America's "conservative Christians," it's doubtful any of them will hear Christ's comfort or hope in Biden's words: and unlikely any of them will turn back from their delusional adulation of the liars and haters they follow.

Bumper-stickers and The Mind of Christ

 

It's not an perfect metric, of course.  Not every driver wants to publicly state his or her personal opinion, or feels strongly enough about some issue to do so: but bumper-stickers are probably a good indicator of the thoughts of those who do.

Or perhaps better, "attitudes."  Some bumper-stickers are indeed only "attitude," and probably minimally indicative of thought.  Someone whose car is plastered with bumper-stickers like "You'll Only Take My Guns From My Cold Dead Hands" is probably not open to thoughtful (or calm) discussion of the meaning of the Second Amendment.

Most other bumper-stickers presumably indicate the driver has considered his or her viewpoint/opinion/preference on "issues" or candidates.  When that's the case, a bumper-sticker can be an insight to the driver's personal thoughts.

Which sometimes we don't want to know.

I recently had to park in a distant part of the church parking-lot...behind a car with a "Trump 2024" bumper-sticker.  When I left after church I literally prayed I wouldn't see which of my fellow-parishioners drove that car: how could I not think less of that person's moral character and intelligence, knowing those were his or her political thoughts ?

But what's most been on my mind these days is if we should remain at our current church after we move, or go to a church nearer our new living-place.  It has seemed that God may be saying, in the latter eventuality, we should test our Spiritual discretion in choosing a church, and see if we are attuned to His will: able to be "guided by His eye."

So God's metric for a church has been a recurring meditation.  And bumper-stickers may also be relevant there.

As I wrote in an earlier blog, the Great Commission's "make disciples" has seemed to me Jesus' absolute metric: so my question has been what Jesus deems a bona-fide disciple.

The Greek word there is literally "learner:" appropriate for one who follows and listens to the Teacher.  I don't doubt that Jesus also means His disciples will be, in today's phrase, "life-long learners:" since that's how long we are to follow and listen to Him.

And He means more.  His teaching, and that of those He commissions, is that "all nations...obey..." His commands: not merely hear to His teachings, but act on them.  That's considerably more than "evangelizing." which is how the Great Commission is usually preached.

The meaning of our English word "disciple" is undoubtedly enriched by the fact that the Latin word for "learner," discipulus, has also given us the word "discipline."  (And Latin is, of course, one of the first translations in which the gospels spread.)  In regard to preparing those who hear the gospel to act on it, I think we'd be on the mark to connect "making disciples" with teaching people the disciplines that Jesus taught.

Having "the mind that is in Christ" (Philippians 2:5, I Corinthians 2:6, and elsewhere) is undoubtedly one such discipline.  Not natural to us: we must learn it...learn, in the title of one of my teacher Derek Prince' most powerful series, "agreeing with God"...and practice it, to make it our absolute habit-of-mind.

The old saying was that someone was "as nervous as a whore in church."  If a church is making disciples, and its people hear the gospel, I have to think anyone who prefers to hear satan's lies (such as those of the above politician) would be even more uncomfortable in that church: and wouldn't go there at all.

It's not an perfect metric, of course.  But in discerning if a church is "making disciples" according to Jesus' command, driving through the church' parking-lot might provide some insight into whether or not its members' thoughts manifested "the mind of Christ."

My Problem With "conservative Christianity"

My problem with so-called “conservative Christianity” is its hypocrisy: its attempt to pass off its political agenda as “Christian,” to achieve its political ends.   That hypocritical political purpose has been evident from the beginning, when it delivered 80% of “evangelical” votes to the 1980 “conservative” Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, giving him victory over his Christian opponent.

(But then Reagan was also hypocritical in claiming to be "conservative."

The touchstone of that doctrine was always that government has no business “interfering” with citizens’ personal "rights."  As Governor of California, Reagan enacted that conservative principle in state law when he “de-criminalized” California’s abortion laws so women could make that choice themselves, without government "interference."

But Presidential-candidate Reagan's “conservative” initiative to Christian voters was that he opposed abortion.  It worked so well for him that it remains…at least during every election season…the lip-service "principle" of every “conservative” politician today.)

Christians have been deeply foolish to be deceived by political hypocrites; especially when the deceivers were so blatant as to give their counterfeit a political label.  But my greater grief is Christians’ failure to live up to scripture’s teachings.

The Church has long allowed itself to be rent by division, contrary scripture’s numerous teachings about our unity in the Spirit (I Corinthians 12:13 and Ephesians 4:4-5 for example): and most grievous of all, contrary Jesus’ prayer that our unity be like His with the Father, witnessing His glory to the world (John 17:20-22).

We’ve accepted the divisions we’ve created as manifestations of our obedience to God, by our theological purity.  Or is that not why the Orthodox and Protestant churches separated from the Catholic church, Calvinists from Reformed, Puritans from Church of England, Fundamentalists and Charismatics and Evangelicals from all those other kinds of Christians ?

While they may have some descriptive usefulness, every modifier we’ve attached to “Christian” is a way we divide ourselves from “those other Christians” (or “them” from “us:” either way, the work of the flesh that Galatians 5:20 calls “factions”).

Born of our, not God’s, spirit, those “religious” divisions also embody more than a little human pride.  Thinking we obey God by our superior theological purity, how can we not be rather pleased with ourselves…and think ourselves better (more “Orthodox,” for example) than those other Christians ?  To my experience, the “Fundamentalist,” or “Evangelical,” or “conservative” Christians I know are, get down to it, rather prideful in their chosen denominator.

Which is my problem with “conservative Christians.”  The denominator they choose to identify with is a human political one: so Its pretense of “obedience to God” and “theological purity” is transparently false.  It is, worse, hypocrisy so absolute that its adherents are political followers (as was their manipulators' purpose) of a man of lies and violence: the kind Jesus called a “child of the devil” (John 8:44).

But God is merciful.  It may yet be that He will awaken a few “conservative Christians,” so that they repent and return to follow Him.

---

 [SH1]

Receiving the Holy Spirit

 

A former pastor said once that it was possible to receive the Holy Spirit the way we might answer a friend's knock at the door.

"Hey, I'm upstairs, in the middle of something.  Come on in and have a seat."

My teacher Derek Prince used to say the Spirit is a gentleman, and won't force Himself on us.  So I can imagine Him taking a chair in the front-room, and waiting for us to join Him, and talk.

It could be that many have received the Holy Spirit that way, and that He's still waiting for them.  It may be that our "receiving the Holy Spirit" is actually a matter of His receiving our time, our attendance, our attention...ourselves.

The Great Commission: Making Disciples

 

"All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

 

My wife has Parkinson's, and we're moving to a smaller, one-level "retirement apartment" in a town north of us: a living-space she can navigate better, nearer to her doctors and medical facilities.

Our church is in the country, about 10 miles south of us.  Our apartment will be about that much farther from church.  It's not a great distance; but enough that we're having to consider whether we should go to a church in town.

The certainty we have is that God puts His people where He wishes: He is the Head of the Church: it is solely His prerogative. Discerning where God wants us to be is how we've changed churches the 2 or 3 times we've done so in our lives.  It's how we'll make this decision, if He indicates we should move.

It's an opportunity for self-deception, of course: and we're as prone as any human beings to convincing ourselves "God" is telling us to do what it is we want to do.  That's the usual way people put a "religious" veneer on doing what they want to do.  (But God's rule is so total that I've even seen Him put people where He wants them that way...whether or not they act with reference to His will.)

But we've had some experience of God defeating that kind of self-deception.

When we moved to this town 45 years ago, we started going to a church where we heard the congregation were "good people," and the pastor "taught the Bible."  Both were true. 

But the church quickly impressed me like those world-record pumpkins people grow: impressive eye-candy, but flavorless.  It was a church that never felt like a body, in any but name.  For eight years I asked God to let us go to a different church.  For eight years He said He wanted us to stay where we were.  We stayed until He gave us permission to go elsewhere.

This current occasion, it seems God may be stretching us a bit.  Always before, I've looked for His direct word to "go" or "stay."  This time, I sense He may be telling us to use our discernment whether to go or stay; and then check ourselves to see if it conforms to His.  It could be that this time He wants us to test ourselves, to see if we are able to be "guided by His eye" (Psalms 32:8).

So I've been forced to think about God's criteria for a church.  And I'm thinking that a church which follows Jesus will "make disciples," as He commanded in the "Great Commission."

We almost always hear that scripture taught as a command to evangelize: but I think it involves a great deal more.  Obviously a church which obeys Jesus in "making disciples" will produce believers who operate in His disciplines.

So I'm asking about Jesus' words what a graphic our pastor used this week (not coincidentally, I think)  asked: "What did he mean by that ?"

I'm pondering Jesus' metric, to get it in my own thinking so I can hear Him right.  I've also asked some of the "iron" people God's put in our lives (Proverbs 27:17) to pray we'll hear Him right. 

It will probably be a while before we're able to make this decision; but I think we've found where we should start.

"The World"

 

I'm reading Franciscan Richard Rohr's short book about evil, The World, The Flesh, and The Devil (2021), and benefitting from many of its insights.

(Starting this blog, I wanted to cite the verse where those "enemies of our souls" are enumerated...and was quite surprised to find there is none.  That specific formulation seems to have originated with the writings of Peter Abelard (d. 1142) and Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), and was established in English-language usage by its appearance in in the first Anglican Book of Common Prayer (1549).

    Some point to Jesus' temptations in Matthew 4 and Luke 4 as the basis of our familiar formulation, though the order of temptations in those passages differ from it.).

I'm less conversant than Rohr with much current theology, and recent psychological and social research, and sometimes can't follow his meditations on evil's manifestations.  But many of his comments, regards our life-experience in Christ, seem spot-on.

    Rohr emphasizes the role "the world" plays as a vector of sin in our lives (after carefully disclaiming any attempt to de-emphasize the role of our human failings, "the flesh").  Coming from a tradition that treated sin almost-exclusively in terms of personal wrong-doing (and primarily as literal "fleshly" sins: our drunkenness, sexual immorality, and the like), I was struck by his comment that

"...this much deeper meaning of sin is found in the largely social judgements of YHWH against the whole society, in the oracles of the prophets that were almost always aimed at Israel's corporate evil.  How did we not see this ?"  (p.14)

Of this "social matrix" which encourages and enables sin, he also reflects that

"Conformity with the loudest group's mood is--for many people, maybe even most people--equated with being moral...the public mood is another way to describe 'the world,' evil's first hiding place..."  (p. 23)

It occurs that "the loudest group" closely equates to "majority rule:" society's largest group will always be the loudest.  Similarly, Rohr's "the public mood" is probably very much what we mean when we invoke "public opinion," or "the will of the people."

God asserts that He, ALONE, sovereignly rules all things...the "Kingdom of God," which Jesus says is first priority.  So it's hard not to view our much-vaunted belief in "democracy" (demos +kratia, "the people rule") as directly contradicting...and affronting...God.

And per Rohr's insights, the operative mechanisms of democracy seem to be those which most encourage and enable societal sin, "the world"...and which we thoughtlessly "equate with being moral."

It goes a long way toward explaining why human beings believe passionate absurdities ("the war to end all wars," for example), that we think problems can be solved by means which are the problem.

 

Wisdom

 

The idea I've long held of what scripture says about wisdom...and it says a lot...is that wisdom is essentially a moral quantity.  I consider that "wisdom," in scripture essentially means knowing, and doing, "the right thing."

But scripture also recognizes what it usually terms "worldly wisdom.;" and which is never about doing "the right thing."  I was thinking about that fact this morning: how can both (even with one's contrasting modifier) be rightly termed "wisdom" ?

My teacher Derek Prince once preached on wisdom from Ecclesiastes 10:10:: "If the axe is dull and he does not sharpen its edge, then he must exert more strength.  Wisdom has the advantage of bringing success."  And I think that may be the key.

Wisdom makes our efforts successful...in whatever purpose we expend our efforts.  If our purpose is worldly...to enrich ourselves, glorify ourselves, make our lives comfortable...there is an app for that, a worldly "wisdom" that enables us to succeed: even if our endeavors totally lack any intent to do the right thing.

That may be what's going on in Jesus' surprising commendation of the unrighteous steward in Luke 16:1-9: that even though his purpose was entirely to feather his own nest, he evidenced an understanding of how God's creation "wisdom" works, and trusted it to succeed, even among the "sons of this age."

As God's creation, we know wisdom is a good thing: and man possesses no good thing except by God's gift.  Wisdom is one such gift: and I think Romans 11:29 may apply here, that God's gifts are "irrevocable" in doing the work for which He created them.

I AM

 

There can be no end to the depth of wisdom contained in His Name, when God commanded Moses to tell the Israelites that "I AM" had sent him.

But the first, hidden-in-plain-sight, meaning must be God's absolute IMMEDIACY.  That in all we time-bound creatures perceive as "now," or "the past," or "future," God IS.

God therefore deserves our absolute immediacy.  As Jesus put it, that "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." (Matthew 22:37).

God is absolutely Immediate to us, for us: we're called to correspondingly be to him.