Holy Communion

And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me."  And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, "This cup which is poured out for your is the new covenant of My blood."  --Luke 22:19-20

When I was a kid we lived in a small town.  This was before the internet, so we had to observe the world from our little corner of it.  A guy I knew had some railroad spikes.  I never knew where he got them from, but he gave me one to keep.  I was fascinated with it, because it was a square nail.

All I had known up to that point was round nails, ones that looked like pins or sewing needles, only bigger.   I had seen large nails before, ones my Dad had called 16-penny nails.  I guess I assumed that all nails were round, and that's just how they were nailed.  In my childhood logic, spikes were just larger nails; all nails were round; therefore, spikes should be round, too.  (It was not until I was much older that I discovered some nails were square, as well--especially ones in older homes, where all the materials were hand-made.  I suppose it is easier for a blacksmith to pound out a nail with four flat sides than it would be to mold a cylindrical one with a cone-shaped point.)

I think of those railroad spikes my friend and I shared every time our church has Communion.  They pass out the elements, and every congregant picks up a tiny cup of red grape juice, and square, flat, tasteless wafer that looks like a tiny cracker.  It is a dull white color, and when placed in the center of your palm, it looks a bit like a four cornered scar.  Kind of like the wound left after the removal of a square spike.

Never having had a spike pierce my palm, my mind immediately turns to Jesus.  He was crucified, meaning He had nails driven through His hands and feet--nails large enough to keep Him from pulling them out of the wooden cross behind him--and He slowly bled to death.  The longer He hung up there, the weaker He became.  As His strength slowly ebbed away, it became more and more difficult to even breathe; painfully pulling Himself up by the spikes in His hand to get a deep breath became next to impossible during the third hour of this torturous ordeal.  "But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed." (Isaiah 53:5)

Knowing that He is God, and that He had all authority at His command makes this sacrificial act all the more amazing.  It was love that kept Him on that cross, not just the nails.  It was mercy that made Him endure the pain and agony--He did not deserve death, but willingly took our punishment for sin upon Himself so that we would no longer live under the curse of sin.

During one communion service a couple of years ago, the pastor asked us all to raise the cup over our heads.  He said he was doing this to show us that we are all under the blood of Jesus.  "How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." (Psalm 32:1).  It was a physical representation of a spiritual truth, and I have never forgotten it.

So this morning, as the pastor was praying, I positioned the wafer in the palm of my hand, to remind myself of the death that my Savior died for me.   I raised the cup, not as a toast to heaven, but as a symbol that His blood covers me.  Thus blessed, I consumed the wafer and the juice in remembrance of Him.  Thank God I can identify with Christ in this way.  Because of my Christian identity, I can also have the hope of the resurrection.  Just as He was raised from the dead, so too can I be raised on the last day.

Honor.  Healing.  Hope.  This is what makes communion holy.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. --Matthew 4:10-12

Most Christians seek the blessings of God in their lives.  Only their definition of "blessing" is wrong.  Some teach that God wants you to be rich.  Others teach that He never wants you to be sick, and that by exercising your faith you will always be healed.  The world has heard this message, and has created a skewed definition of "God".  They say that God is love, and that He loves everyone, so everyone is blessed.  If you aren't rich, or aren't healed, or you aren't otherwise "blessed" in big ways, then you can look at small things in your life and count them as blessing.  I woke up today, I am blessed.  You had a hot meal today, you are blessed.

I am not saying that God cannot bless you with food, or with life, or with healing, or even with riches.  I am saying that God blesses us in ways we don't always think of as blessings.  At least not at first.  In keeping with my current theme of "Lies the Enemy Tells Us," I want us to look at Numbers chapter 14.

You remember the story.  Moses sent twelve elders, one from each tribe, to scout out (some translations say "spy out") the land of Canaan, which God had promised to them.  After 40 days, the men came back carrying a cluster of grapes so heavy that they had to hold it on a pole propped on two men's shoulders.  They described a land "flowing with milk and honey."  The land was not just good land, it was incredibly good.  "Nevertheless," they said, "the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large."  We saw very tall men there, they said, "and we were like grasshoppers in their sight."

However, two of the men that had spied out the land believed God was bigger than their fears.  Joshua and Caleb both said, "We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will surely overcome it." (Numbers 13:20).  Unfortunately, the two men of faith were shouted down by the other ten scouts.  "It is a land that devours its inhabitants," they said, "and the people there are all gigantic."  The facts were overshadowed by their fears.  No longer content in giving a true report, they began to embellish their story.  Earlier they had said it was a good land; now, it was a land that eats people whole.  Before it was very tall men; now it was filled with giants.

So convincing were their lies, that the people of Israel raised their voices and wept, "and the people wept all night." (Number 14:1).  They began to say evil things against Moses.  Eventually, they took a vote, and decided to go back.  "They said to one another, Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt."  Better to be a slave to Pharaoh than to face giants in fortified cities, even if the land did have great produce.  They looked past the milk and honey, and all they saw was cow dung and stinging bees.

Moses and Aaron stepped up and fell prostrate before the people.  Joshua and Caleb tore their clothes (a sign of mourning.)

The land which we passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land.  If the Lord is pleased with us, then He will bring us into this land, and give it to us--a land which flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord; and do not fear the people of the land, for they will be our prey.  Their protection has been removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them. --Numbers 14:7-9

Now watch what happens next.  I have read this passage for years, and do not remember seeing this next verse at all.  "But all the congregation said to stone them with stones." (Numbers 14:10)

Stoning was a form of capital punishment.  God had commanded them to stone people who had broken the Law of God in the worst way.  It was reserved for murderers, idolaters, and people involved in witchcraft and sorcery.  Which of these sins were Caleb and Joshua guilty of?  Did they think that Israel was being led to certain death by following the Faithful Four (Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and Caleb) into the land God had promised them?  That only meant that the people thought these four dudes had more power than God.  Did they believe Joshua and Caleb were following other gods?  Moses had been telling them that God was going to give them the land all throughout their journey through the wilderness.  They had replaced the words of God with their own words.  Did the men of Israel believe that Moses and Aaron had led them out of Egypt by means of sorcery and witchcraft?  They mistook the signs of God with cheap magic tricks  Worse, their actions did not match their words, for they had said they would follow God with all their hearts (see Exodus 19:8, 24:3, and 24:7--three times they had said, "all the words that God has spoken we will do.")

Our culture is like that.  They like to spout religious truisms like "God is Love", but recoil at the thought of God's wrath.  They ridicule religion as "smoke and mirrors" and "magic mumbo jumbo", and follow their own way.  Too often, some Christians are like that, too.

Little thought is given to the underground church in North Korea.  Tolerant westerners bend over backwards to welcome Syrian refugees while Muslims in Syria are beheading Christians there.  We refuse to take a stand because against evil because we do not want to be thought of as fundamentalist or extremist.

I began this essay with the thought of "blessing" being equated with healing and prosperity.  I heard a quote from a famous faith healer who said something like this: when he gets to heaven, he wanted to ask God why He didn't heal everyone.  This sincere man of God was truly frustrated that God would heal some and not others.  I think I know.

God doesn't bless everyone with prosperity, because if only the Christians became rich, then the world would follow riches and not Christ, the One who gave up the splendor of heaven to show grace to us (2 Corinthians 8:9).  He doesn't heal everyone, because then everyone would come to Him for healing and would lose sight of His message of righteousness and holiness.  Most of all, God doesn't heal us all, so that some of us will go to the sick people of the world and give them hope.  God doesn't give us all riches, so that some of us will go to the poorest of the poor and tell them of Jesus.

Don't worry if the world seems to be against you.  In the story of Joshua and Caleb, they were the only two men of their generation who were allowed to go into the Promised Land.  The rest of the people died in the wilderness because of their sin and disbelief.  God always rewards faith--just not in ways that we may want.

Give Us Barabbas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f19_wl57rhw

Clear the Stage by Jimmy Needham

Clear the stage and set the sound and lights ablaze
If that's the measure you must take to crush the idols
Jerk the pews & all the decorations, too
Until the congregation's few, then have revival
Tell your friends that this is where the party ends
Until you're broken for your sins, you can't be social
Then seek the Lord & wait for what He has in store
And know that great is your reward so just be hopeful
'cause you can sing all you want to
Yes, you can sing all you want to
You can sing all you want to
And still get it wrong; worship is more than a song
Take a break from all the plans that you have made
And sit at home alone and wait for God to whisper
Beg Him please to open up His mouth and speak
And pray for real upon your knees until they blister
Shine the light on every corner of your life
Until the pride and lust and lies are in the open
Then read the Word and put to test the things you've heard
Until your heart and soul are stirred and rocked and broken
We must not worship something that's not even worth it
Clear the stage, make some space for the One who deserves it
'cause I can sing all I want to
Yes, I can sing all I want to
I can sing all I want to
And still get it wrong
And you can sing all you want to
Yes, you can, you can sing all you want to
You can sing all you want to
And still get it wrong; worship is more than a song
Worship is more than a song
Worship is more than a song
Clear the stage and set the sound and lights ablaze
If that's the measure you must take to crush the idols

True confessions:  I belong to what is considered a "mega-church".  The founding pastor is a solid Bible teacher, and I always learn something when I listen to his sermons.  Alas, when the pastor is not there, attendance drops by about 20%. That means that up to one-fifth of the members of our church are in a cult of personality.  They just won't come when a guest speaker is there. Sometimes that 20% includes me.

Another startling statistic:  if you polled the members of my church and asked them why they come to church even if there is a guest speaker, I'll bet that half of them would say that they come for the praise and worship. I might even be one of them, because I love praise music done well.  I also love to be entertained, but that's just me.  I am often convicted by the Holy Spirit that I do not go to church to be entertained.  Worship, I believe, is more than the tingle in your spine or your goosebumps on your arm when the singing is especially beautiful.

I truly do love music, especially when it is done well.  I was a music major in college--I sang with the A cappella choir, and have been a part time music minister/worship leader/choir director from time to time in my career.  I know the power of music in people's lives:  it can lift you up; it can bring you down; it can make you want to dance.  But music can't replace worship.

True worship is admitting our brokenness before Almighty God, and adoring Him as True Perfection.  It is giving reverence to our Creator, our Sustainer, and our Eternal Hope.  Yes, this can sometimes be aided by reciting religious poetry set to a melody, enhanced by harmonious accompaniment.  On the other hand, it can happen in a quiet moment, when you are alone in God's presence as He brings to mind a word from Scripture.  Quiet meditation can be as thrilling as shouting Hallelujahs in a crowded building with a thousand other Christians.

We just need to be careful what we are worshiping.

Keeping with the theme of "Lies The Enemy Tells Us,"  I want us to look at a Bible character mentioned in all four gospels.  This man was not a disciple, but it turned out that given a choice, the mob assembled before the Roman procurator asked that he be pardoned for his crimes, while at the same time demanding that Jesus be crucified.

The man is known to us as Barabbas.  Some called him Jesus Barabbas.  At the time, Jesus was a popular name, so he may have shared the given name of the Messiah.  The Jewish spelling was Yeshua (or Jeshua), meaning "savior" or "deliverer".  Parents gave their sons that name in anticipation of the Messiah's coming.  Just like you can look for your name in Google (or another internet search engine) and find other people with the same name, people in ancient Israel could often look at Scripture and find other people with the same name.  Examples of men named Jeshua in the Bible are found in 2 Chronicles 31:15, Ezra 2:6 and 36, and Nehemiah 3:19 and 8:7.  There is even a town in Judah with that name, mentioned in Nehemiah 11:26.

The surname Barabbas literally means "Son of the Father."  When a Jewish boy turned 13 years of age, he was given a bar mitzvah, meaning "son of blessing", signifying his ascent into manhood.  "Bar" means "son of", as when Jesus was talking to the disciple Peter, who was also known as Simon: "Blessed are you, Simon bar Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in Heaven." (Matthew 16:17).  Simon's father's name was Jonah, thus the name Jesus called him: Simon, bar (son of) Jonah.  By the way, what was Jesus commending Simon Peter for in that verse?  What had been revealed to him by God the Father?  It was that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

So Jesus went around teaching that He was the Son of God, and that we could call God our Father.  Keeping this in mind, we turn our attention back to the character known as Bar-Abbas, or son of his father.  His first name may have been Jesus, and he may have often been asked whether he was the Jesus that turned water into wine, that fed the five thousand with five loaves and two fish, that had healed the sick and raised the dead.  Unfortunately, this man was famous for another reason: Luke 23:19 says, "He (Barabbas) was one who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection made in the city, and for murder."  Why would a mob shout to the Roman Procurator that a murderer and insurrectionist should be pardoned?

Well, let's look at other people throughout history.  Che Guevara, for one.  Fidel Castro.  Joseph Stalin.  These were people who were termed revolutionaries or insurrectionists (depending upon who tells the story).  Each one had killed people, but still each one had a following.  If any one of them had been imprisoned, their followers may have rioted, demanding a pardon. Just like the mob in Jerusalem in the courts of Pontius Pilate that day.

Here is the point I am trying to make.  Just like those people who sentenced Jesus to death, we are often given a false choice.  Would we rather hear a poor itinerant preacher like Paul, who was not much to look at but who rightly divided the word of truth?  Or would we rather hear someone with a huge following, like Joel Osteen or Oprah Winfrey?  Which one would be more likely to fill a stadium today?  We should not be so quick to judge the mob in Jesus' day, because when given the choice between Jesus, the Son of the (heavenly) Father, or Jesus, son of the fathers (religious or political icons who have gone before), many would choose the latter.  Many might be confused, which makes it incumbent upon us to clearly define the differences.  Those who choose rightly choose (eternal) life.  Those who choose wrongly choose death and damnation.

Perfidy in Scripture, and in Life

Perfidy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the context of war, perfidy is a form of deception in which one side promises to act in good faith (such as by raising a flag of truce) with the intention of breaking that promise once the enemy is exposed (such as by coming out of cover to attack the enemy coming to take the "surrendering" prisoners into custody). Perfidy constitutes a breach of the laws of war and so is a war crime, as it degrades the protections and mutual restraints developed in the interest of all parties, combatants, and civilians.

In practice, combatants find it difficult to respect protected persons and objects if experience causes them to believe or suspect that their adversaries are abusing a claim to protection under international law to gain a military advantage.

_________________________________________________________________________________

In my last two postings I picked up a theme that I'd like to continue on for awhile: Lies the Enemy Tells Us. One of the first stories in the Bible is of Satan lying to people, and people believing the lie. Turns out, the Bible is full of similar situations. One of those is in the story of David and Goliath.

You might have noticed the rather cartoonish image at the top of this page. I picked it because most adults today think of the story in 1 Samuel 17 as a children's story. Like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, we tell kids all kinds of outlandish stories. Some are old wives' tales. Others may have been written initially to make a point. Some of the stories we tell because we hope to instill in our children certain character traits, like courage in the face of danger, not giving up when facing seemingly insurmountable odds, or being prepared in any situation. This kind of thinking reduces the historical accounts in the Bible to mere myths. Instead, we ought to hold these biblical characters out to be heroes of the faith.

In any case, the scene begins when David's father sends him to see how his older brothers are doing. They have joined the army of King Saul, who has engaged in a seeming never-ending battle with the Philistine army. (Side note--the region of Philistia was by the sea, and the term "Philistine" literally meant "Sea Peoples". It is also the root word for the modern term "Palestinians". But I digress.)

David approaches the battle lines, which have been drawn up on opposing ridges overlooking a valley. Neither army seemed to be willing to give up their position on what they saw as the high ground. Eventually, they would probably have come together in the valley, which would have made an excellent battlefield. Saul apparently has lost his nerve, because he has not made the first move. The Philistine army must have sensed that fear, because they were standing on the mountain taunting the Israeli army. It sounded like they were ready to descend into battle, but they sensed that Saul's army was frozen in place. If one side went down into the valley alone, without the other side coming down as well, then the attacking army would literally have an uphill climb. The army that didn't move would literally have the high ground, and thus the advantage.

David heard the taunts, and asked his brothers and their comrades in arms why they didn't go down to engage their opponents in battle. Just about that time, the Philistine champion, a man named Goliath, rose up on the opposing precipice. A huge man, over eight feet tall, with a booming voice. He didn't taunt them. He issued a challenge. Like David, he probably was tired of the taunting, done with words and ready for some action. He said he that Israel should pick a champion, and the two of them would fight to the death. His proposal was that the winner of this epic death match would see the losing side lay down their arms. "If your champion wins," he bellowed, "we will be your servants. However, if I win, you all will be our servants."

Am I the only one who, upon reading this, thought that he was sincere? Maybe the Israelite army, having grown up under the Law of Moses, believed that if they chose a champion who lost to Goliath, then Israel would be enslaved to Philistia. Sizing up the situation, they didn't like the odds. Maybe I am naive, but I always thought that Goliath was proposing the rules of engagement, and that by sending David out to fight him, both parties were agreeing to those terms.

Read further into the story, however, and we see that the Philistine army did not think that way at all. When Goliath fell, they ran. Why would they run? Hadn't they agreed to be servants to the Israelites if he lost? However, "When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled." (1 Samuel 17:51). Why would they run? Because they thought that the Israelite army would slaughter them. Why would they think that way? Because that was their plan if Goliath had defeated David. All that discussion of disarmament and detente was disinformation designed to dull their senses.

It was all a lie.

How many times do we find ourselves in the same situation? The world tells us to "coexist". We are encouraged to lay aside our Bibles and not be so intolerant, in order to get along with the world. Yet the Muslims still pray six times a day. LGBT folks use the symbolism of a rainbow to appear tolerant, but they still bring lawsuits against a Christian baker who said she would rather not bake them a cake for their gay wedding (while suggesting six other local bakeries where the customer could get exactly what he was asking for.) Atheists ask Christians to ignore a God that they apparently cannot ignore, or they wouldn't be so offended by Him.

Jesus faced a situation much like this. He came to do good. He was literally bringing God to the masses, performing miracles, showing them that God wanted relationship with them, not just religion. The religious leaders of the time, however, did not agree. Look at John 11:47-50:

Therefore the chief priests and the Pharisees convened a council, and were saying, "What are we doing? For this man (Jesus) is performing many signs. If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation." But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing at all, nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that whole nation not perish."

Caiaphas was hoping that they could betray Jesus to the Romans, and that Jesus would be killed; with that one death, he thought that they could return to the status quo: they would still be in charge, Israel would be intact, even if they were in subjection to the Romans. In essence, he thought that if he threw Jesus down into the battlefield, that He would be extinguished, and that the Romans would see it as the Jews laying down their arms. No insurrection here, no sir! That one fellow, He was kind of a nut. We're glad you guys took care of Him. Now we can go back to offering our sacrifices and forcing the people to follow the Law.

It didn't turn out that way. Jesus wasn't forced to die, He went there voluntarily. He became our sacrifice. Then, when He was resurrected, He became the hope of our salvation. The Jewish leaders were no more--by 70 AD the Roman army killed them all and drove all the Jews out of Jerusalem. The followers of Jesus, however, flourished. They became aware that one Man did have to die for the people, not so the Romans would spare the Jewish leaders and their capitol city, but that the world through Him might be saved.

Lies the Enemy Tells Us (part 2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8MYiyNwGy4

Forbidden Fruit
Nina Simone

Eve and Adam had a garden everything was great
Till one day a boy says pardon Miss my name is snake
See that apple over yonder if you'll take a bite
You and Adam both are bound to have some fun tonight

Go on and eat forbidden fruit
It's mighty sweet forbidden fruit
It's quite a treat forbidden fruit
Go ahead and taste it you don't wanna waste it

The Lord had said in the beginning everything is free
Except that apple that leads to sinning so let that apple be
But Eve got tempted so she tried it and as all chicks do
Teased her man till he decided he'd just try some too

Go on and eat forbidden fruit
It's mighty sweet forbidden fruit
It's quite a treat forbidden fruit
Go ahead and bite it I bet you'd be delighted

I hate to tell you all what followed the Lord was most upset
Saw them making love and hollered "what have you two et?"
And when they made a full confession the Lord said hmm I see
I guess I'll have to teach you a lesson about not minding me

Go on and eat forbidden fruit
It's mighty sweet forbidden fruit
It's quite a treat forbidden fruit
You all went and did it now you gonna get it

The Lord made Eve Adam's madam have his kids and all
Placed some labor laws on Adam and he made the snake to fall
Ever since the days of Eden folks been sinful my
Nowadays they're even eating apples in their pie

Go on and eat forbidden fruit
It's mighty sweet forbidden fruit
It's quite a treat forbidden fruit
Go ahead and taste it you don't wanna waste it
Oh go ahead and bite it I bet you'd be delighted
You all went and did it now you're gonna get it
Forbidden fruit

If you haven't heard Nina Simone's recording of this song, it's quite catchy. I have posted a link to the original recording (sorry bout the ads).  I heard another version on the radio tonight that has a kind of Samba beat (I think).  If you click on the link and listen while reading the text along with the song you might just find yourself tapping your toes or nodding your head to the song. Music has that effect: we get so caught up in the melody that we miss the message.

It's the same with Scripture. We are so used to hearing the Bible stories that our minds wander. We know about the biblical characters, but we forget that it was real life. We gloss over the fact that the decisions these men and women made at that very moment had consequences, both for them and for us several millennia later. 

On my last post I identified 3 lies that Satan literally told Eve, and that Eve presumably passed on to Adam, that made them disobey God. These three little lies plague us even today:

• You will not die; 
• You can be like God;
• You must experience evil to truly know good.

It won't kill you

I won't rehash what I wrote last time, but the gist of it is that if you take the argument that Satan used to its logical conclusion, it is that death with knowledge is better than life with ignorance.  Blind faith is ignorance, and if God demands your obedience, you are missing out on a lot.

God's perspective is much different.  If Man had just obeyed in the first place, we would still be living in Eden, which was literally Heaven on Earth.  If we learn that lesson today, we would know that obedience to God is always preferable to sinful disobedience.  Unfortunately we usually don't see it until it is too late.  A junkie would not be on skid row if he had not taken that first hit.  An alcoholic would not be in jail charged with DUI if she had never taken that first drink.  The family would not be broken by divorce and bankrupt keeping separate households with court-ordered alimony and child support if the couple had been faithful to each other in the first place.  But when the party is in full swing, and everybody says go ahead, it won't hurt you, it'll be fun--it is tempting, isn't it?

We know better

Satan often tempts us by appealing to our minds.  We all have our own biases and opinions; sprinkle in a few facts, and we think we know it all.  All that stuff in the Bible is just kid's stories, or myths, or outright lies.  This is the 21st Century, for God's sake.  We have all this accumulated knowledge about science and stuff, so God didn't create us.  We don't believe that we are created in His image, so we have self-esteem problems that we try to solve by saying drivel like, "You're the best you that you can be."  What does that even mean?

We believe that our morals trump those of Scripture because our culture says so.  We can have sex with anyone we choose, because we have modern birth control methods that work 99% of the time.  And if it doesn't work, we have abortion, so there won't be any pesky kids to remind us of our past indiscretions.  We don't even have to limit our love-making to the opposite sex, because "you can't choose who you love."  Again, what does that even mean?  If that isn't enough, this generation thinks they can choose among dozens of gender models, and self-identify as one or more of them, without ridicule or shame.

What we forget is that we all will die.  When your dead body is on the exam table at the morgue, the Medical Examiner is going to look at your DNA and say you are biologically either a male or female, based on chromosomal evidence that has been present even before you were born.  When you were in your mother's womb, you were biologically identified as one gender or the other.  

When we die, our spirit lives on.  What will we tell our Maker when we meet Him face to face?  "I knew better than you did how to live my life"?  God told the prophet Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations." (Jeremiah 1:5).  Before a thought even went through your tiny little mind, God knew all about your life, what you would be like, and whether you would choose Him.  King David sang this song to God:  "For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb.  I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." (Psalm 139:13-14).

God knows us.  He knows what is best for us.  All we have to do is trust Him.

How can I know what's right for me if I don't experience it all for myself

Sometimes we accuse God of being unfair.  He made this list of "Thou shalt not's", and we don't even get a say in it.  So we rebel.  We go our own way.  If it works out, great, and if it doesn't, we think we can self-correct.  In the end, we want to be able to say we were in control.

Trouble is, we weren't.  We never were in control.  So many variables are thrown at us, there is no way we can be in control.  We all face a million micro-decisions every minute, and our response is tempered by our education, our family support structure, our finances, our employment status, our culture, our friends, our food choices the day before, our toilet schedule (and whether a clean, sanitary toilet is even available to us), our hunger or thirst at any given moment, the way we feel physically, our emotions, whether there was coffee available that morning, how we slept last night (and with whom), the weather, the traffic, the news--the list goes on and on. And we think we can control any of it?

The Bible says, "Yet  you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.  You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away." (James 4:14).  We are all ships on a vast ocean, tossed to and fro by the winds and the waves.  We can trim the sails and turn the rudder, but what good will that do in a tsunami?  If we are honest with ourselves, we should admit that we can only control the choices we make, and that we will ultimately be judged by the outcome of those choices.

If God demands an account for our actions, we have no defense.  If we say, "Nobody's perfect," His response is "I AM."  If we say "I did the best I could," He will answer, "I gave you my Word, did you refer to it at all when making your decisions each day"  If we say we had a hard life and we weren't as well off or as protected as Billy Bob or Sue Ellen, he will bring the conversation back to us and ask, "But what about you?  Did I not give you all you needed for life and godliness?  You didn't have to die to know that life was preferable to death, did you? "

We may feel hopeless, but we shouldn't.  God made a way for all of us to find Him.  "All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him." (Isaiah 53:6).  No matter what you have done, He still loves you.  No matter what choices you have made, he sent His Son to die for you.  Jesus took all of our guilt and shame on Himself, and was punished severely for it.  Because of His sacrificial death and resurrection, we can have a hope for new life, too.  We don't have to go to hell to know it is somewhere we would not want to spend eternity.  I am grateful He made a way for us, if we will follow Him.

Lies The Enemy Tells Us (part 1)

The serpent said to the woman, "You surely will not die!  For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." --Genesis 3:4-5

Our culture is a morass of misinformation.  We believe whatever sounds good at the time, or whatever is repeated often enough, or whatever is spoken the loudest.  In time, our cherished beliefs get crushed by reality.  Truth sinks in, usually too late.  Either that, or we die in blissful ignorance.  Either way, there are consequences, in this life or the next.

I believe the Bible warns us of devious deceptions that can ruin our health, our happiness, and our holiness.  We would do well to heed all its warnings.  The Psalmist was right when he said, "Thy word have is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path."  If we walk in the light, we can avoid the pitfalls of the world.  The problem is we enjoy walking in darkness.  It's not necessarily that we are drawn to danger, at least not at first.  It begins when we find that continually being in the light is exhausting:  we must be vigilant, ever alert and watchful, attentive and observant lest we fall, and ever wakeful.  We seek rest and respite, and in our relaxed state we get distracted by what lurks in the shadows.  Our curiosity overcomes us, and we go to take a closer look.  That's when temptation overcomes us, and we fall.  Some of us seek redemption, and look back to the light.  Others hide in the darkness, getting mired deeper and deeper into sin.

God gave the Law to sanctify His people, to keep them separate and holy.  When they messed up, He gave them grace to come back into His presence after repentance and restitution took place.  When Jesus came, He reflected God's redemptive plan by becoming sin for us, and bearing the punishment we deserved.  "For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ." (John 1:17).

I believe you cannot know grace without knowing truth. "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths." (2 Timothy 4:3-4).  Sadly, our religious culture centers on the grace of God, without giving heed to the truth that sin has consequences.  Yes, Jesus came to forgive, but on more than one occasion, and to more than one person, He also said, "Go, and sin no more."

On the other hand, to preach the wrath of God without preaching the grace of God does a disservice to the hearer.  Guilt and shame may call us to repentance, but without restoration we are still lost in our sins.  This truth is illustrated in the Biblical narrative of Adam and Eve.  

God had created a literal heaven on earth.  Eden was a very beautiful place, a place where God dwelt among men.  He brought all the animals before Adam to see what he would call them--God was engaged with Adam, interested in what he thought, encouraging the man's creativity.  God regularly walked with them in the cool of the evening.  He showed them how to work in the garden He had made for them: how to keep it, cultivate it, and gather a harvest from it.  Yes, God had made it, and it was good, but He was showing them how to make it better still.

Then along came temptation as a serpent.  Satan approached the woman, Eve, and asked her how she liked the garden God had made.  Surrounded by every good thing, she was satisfied.  But Satan asked if God was keeping anything from her.  Had He set limits on what she could enjoy?  Indeed He had--there was one tree from which they were forbidden to eat.  Satan set about making that tree irresistible.  To do that, he had to tell her three lies:

• You will not die;
• You can be like God;
• You must experience evil to truly know good.

It won't kill you.

Some scholars believe that Adam would have lived forever if he had not sinned against God.  I have even heard it said that there were no carnivorous animals in Eden.  Beasts that we know now as predators may have lived on fruit and berries until sin entered the world.  We have no way of knowing how long Adam and Eve lived in the garden, in the presence of God, before the Fall.  It could have been months, or it could have been years.  I believe that as long as they lived there, no living creature experienced death.

Let me just say here that I believe in a literal six-day creation.  I believe the Biblical story here is true.  If you believe it is an allegory, you must admit that it loses some of its meaning.  For example, if you believe that God did not create the world in six days, but instead set everything up for life to evolve on its own for twelve billion years or so, then the idea of God becoming engaged with His creation loses a bit of its luster.  I mean, if God was present at the Big Bang, then went off somewhere and cooled His heels for a few billion years before coming back to check on things, at what point can we say that we are created in His image?  If that Scripture is not true, then what other parts of the Bible must we ignore as not trustworthy?  And most important, if man simply evolved from lower life forms, why would God come in the form of a man to become the supreme sacrifice for us?  Why go to the trouble of redeeming us unto Himself if He could just allow us to obliterate ourselves off the planet for our sins?  Wouldn't the Earth repopulate itself through the same evolutionary process?  There is a lot of theology that becomes meaningless if God did not create us.

In any case, there was no death until Satan introduced it via sin.  When Eve tried to argue with the serpent, she said something she did not fully understand: "We must not eat of it, nor touch it, lest we die."  Satan used that to his advantage.  With her naivete, Satan was able to convince her that death is better than life.  You and I have the advantage of experience--we have seen enough people die to know that life is preferable.  She only had her trust in God to keep her obedient.  If God said death would result from disobedience, then He should know what He was talking about.  Satan invited her to test the waters, to see whether disobedience was better than obedience, whether the God she knew was better than the god she could become (if the serpent's message was to be believed).  He tempted her to see if in fact life was better than death.

We know now that it was all a lie.  Life is better than death.  The God of the Universe is greater than the gods we purport to be.  Obedience is indeed better than disobedience.  We know from experience.  Adam and his wife Eve didn't know from experience, but they knew what God had told them.  If they had kept strong in their faith in God, then sin and death would not have been allowed in.  Losing faith in God demanded that death and other consequences must be enforced.  God had spoken; there was no other way.