Honesty

For all who do such things, all who act dishonestly, are an abomination to the LORD your God.
Deuteronomy 25:16

You are truth
Your words are true
You do not lie
In all You do
You are the Truth

But we believed The Lie
and now dishonesty
is everywhere with us
the truth is hard to see
because we believed The Lie

You call us to truth
and You change us within us
so that righteousness can be known
as we find truth and life in Jesus
You call us to truth

We know the Truth
You set us free from sin
so that honesty can be known
and truth can flow from within
We know the Truth


- Posted with my iPad. The Apple Kool-Aide tastes fine.

Nobody Deserves God's Grace.

Know, therefore, that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people. Remember and do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the LORD.
Deuteronomy 9:6-7

Israel was blessed solely by the promise of God and not because the present generation had earned the gift of the Promised Land. It was clear that they could not be righteous under their own power. God was helping them by the gift of the Law, by the leadership of Moses, and by bringing them into the Land He covenanted to give to Abraham.

Any grace we are given by God rests solely in His nature and benevolence. It does not come because we earned it (Ephesians 2:8-10). God loves us while we are yet sinners (Romans 5:8). He did so with the rebellious Israelites in the wilderness. He does so with rebellious post-moderns who must look to the cross of Christ for forgiveness, perspective, and life.

I too am a rebel heart. I must not forget that. I must not think that I ever earned anything. Hell is what I deserve. Separation from God was my destiny. But mercy and grace were offered by Christ at the cross. I accepted it, and Christ's righteousness has been the only fitness that could take me to God.

- Posted with my iPad. The Apple Kool-Aide tastes fine.

another reason for controversy

The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.

John 7:7

 

Jesus was controversial because He showed that the natural ends to all the work of a collective of fallen, depraved sinners was evil. He was not about reinforcing some spark of goodness in depressed humanity. He was about confronting sin all around Him. Not arrogantly, for sinners were drawn to Him, but truthfully, so that people could repent and follow Him. The worst sins were done by those who disguised sinful motivations and selfish pride in beautiful religious clothing.

 

The context of this statement shows tragic human depravity at two extremes. The first is personal depravity represented in the brothers of Jesus. They sinned in refusing to believe in Jesus (John 7:5). And they were pressuring Him to go to the Feast of Booths in Jerusalem to make a huge public spectacle of Himself. They were motivated by pride.

 

The second extreme, also characterized by pride, was found in the Jewish leaders who challenged Jesus all throughout John 7. They did not believe in Him either… but their reasons for rejection were viewed as “good” even “religious” reasons. They rejected Him as well. His teaching had the unnerving affect of eliminating their profitable market share and destroying their religious livelihood.

 

So there are two evils to guard against in my heart. The first is my own tendency toward prideful lack of faith, wanting to take all actions, even decisions of faith, into my own hands. The second is my tendency to look “holy” by public religious spectacle, rather than to let God make me holy through private obedience and submission to Jesus. Both of these are evils that Jesus exposes in the world and in me. Only by faith, trust, and obedience to Him can I find that Jesus will heal me of them.

 

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sin, death, and ritual impurity

If the man who is unclean does not cleanse himself, that person shall be cut off from the midst of the assembly, since he has defiled the sanctuary of the LORD. Because the water for impurity has not been thrown on him, he is unclean.

Numbers 19:20

 

God gave ancient Israel certain practices regarding ritual impurity in His worship that do not correlate well to the New Testament experience of life in Christ. This chapter is one of those kinds of things. At issue is not whether the ashes of a dead bovine mixed with water essentially convey holiness. The point is obedience to God’s command on the subject. Certain life experiences rendered a person “unclean” regarding contact with God in worship or contact with His people in the assembly.

 

The “water for impurity” made from the ashes of the red heifer was used daily no doubt. One of the main situations described in this passage involved ritual impurity when coming in contact with a dead body. And people lived and died in the desert camp daily. So on any given day there were hundreds of people who had become ceremonially unclean. The practices in Numbers 19 brought them back to a ritual purity that allowed full participation in worship again after confronting the death process personally.

 

We tend to read hygiene into this sort of thing. That was not the issue. I think the reason ritual impurity existed at the presence of death was to remind Israel that the curse on sin is death. There is a consequence. Paul called death the wages of sin for good reason. Death separates us from God because sin separates us from Him. Participating in a ritual that restored purity emphasized this over and over again in Israel.

 

Technorati Tags: Christianity,Religion,Sanctification,Discipleship

Even dedicated people will do wrong…

Then the priest shall present them before the LORD and shall offer his sin offering and his burnt offering.

Numbers 6:16

 

What is interesting about this verse is that it describes the condition of ending a Nazirite vow. This was a special vow that a person could take to dedicate themselves uniquely to the Lord. They set themselves apart by not cutting their hair, refraining from wine and all products made of grapes (hard to do in a Mediterranean culture), and avoiding any potential contact with dead bodies of people or animals. It was a unique vow meant to help the person who took the vow concentrate on their relationship with the Lord. And the hairstyle made it visible to everyone else in the person’s life. The most notorious Nazirite in the Old Testament was Samson. But Paul in the the Book of Acts appears to have taken this kind of vow at one point.

 

What is interesting was that at the end of the time period of the vow (set by the person taking the vow) in addition to a haircut by the priest, the person also offered a sin offering along with additional offerings. Even though the vow was meant to concentrate on sanctification, the sacrifice of the vow was not enough to remove the guilt of the sin. They still did wrong things. The sin offering was meant to deal with that issue. The Nazirite vow then did not make them sinless, or even “more holy” than someone else, even though they were concentrating on God with an unusual fervor. God still had to atone for sin despite the efforts of the Nazirite.

 

Here is where I am going with this. God knew we have a tendency to trust in our efforts, and the Law, though it was good, by nature fed this in us. And the Nazirite rules were even more restrictive. It would be easy to think that keeping the rules made me holy. God made sure that was not the external emphasis for the Nazirites by insisting that sin offerings be part of the vow. The same principle holds true today. When we come to faith in Christ, we are saved by His work, not our own. And He keeps us holy, even as we are called to obey. I still must confess my sins. I still must seek forgiveness from God and those I may sin against. This will always be the case until I reside with God in heaven.

 

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…when a man or woman commits any of these sins…

Speak to the people of Israel, When a man or woman commits any of the sins that people commit by breaking faith with the LORD, and that person realizes his guilt, he shall confess his sin that he has committed. And he shall make full restitution for his wrong, adding a fifth to it and giving it to him to whom he did the wrong.

Numbers 5:6-7

 

God’s views on sin are described here. We see how He defines it, and how we should deal with it as a society. I think these two things are still important for us today. Mankind generally acts sinfully in all categories. It is ingrained in our actions and attitudes and embedded in all our achievements. And this state of affairs does not end until God wraps up human history into the eternal worship of Himself. Until that day, we will deal with sin and its consequences in and among us.

 

The way God deals with the nature of sin is important. It is clear from this context that the type of sin being explained involves personal injury or property loss between two human parties. But God makes it clear that all sin is committed against Him first and foremost. He describes it as “breaking faith with the LORD”. So all sin… any sin… every sin is an affront against God first. Our need to confess sin starts with God. And it often does not end there.

 

The extent to which we expand the circle of confession grows as we deal with any people we have sinned against. In cases of property or injury, God was clear in the Law: full restitution of the value of the loss plus an additional 20%. That was the standard. This was not excessive and it wasn’t solely punitive. It was meant to restore and to atone. And God wisely saw that human relationships may need such material resolution in order to see complete reconciliation and forgiveness take place.

 

I see this as more than a principle to use in counseling. It is a maxim for my own life and dealings with people. I will sin against people… probably will do so even today. And I need to seek confession, restitution beyond the value of the loss, and true reconciliation under God’s clear principles.

 

Technorati Tags: Christianity,Religion,Discipleship

One Sinner Who Repents

Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

Luke 15:7

I think it is important to think about what Jesus is and is NOT saying with this statement. I think that the force of this story may get misunderstood by advocates of cheap grace. Jesus is spending a lot of teaching time in Luke 15 to establish God’s great love for all people. And Jesus makes it clear that sinners who repent and turn to God are warmly received by Him. So the focus is on God’s heart and not the degree of the sinner’s sinful condition. God is not MORE happy when a really bad sinner repents than he is if a LESS sinful person comes to Him. Both people are sinners in need of relationship and forgiveness from Him.

We tend to think in this verse that God is not really happy with the ninety-nine righteous persons. Jesus is not saying that. The point of the parables in Luke 15 is comparative. It is not that God has no joy over His obedient children… as if those who stay true to Him somehow bore Him with their obedience. It is more that God’s heart for repentant sinners brings great joy to Him the moment a sinner repents, and truly obedient children will rejoice with Him at that time! In other words, every act of genuine repentance by a sinner gives God great joy. And whether it is one sinner or a hundred sinners who come to Him, God treasures each one!

I have read some current Christian writers (Donald Miller among them in “Blue Like Jazz”) who seem to think that mucking around in our sin is understood and tolerated by God, perhaps even good for us in the long run, and that we can somehow be better people in that behavior. Miller even goes so far as to say that drug-smoking free-love hippies have more understanding of real love and acceptance than many church-goers. These writers look at the end of Luke 15 and the story of the prodigal and sadly seem focused more on the stuff the prodigal son got forgiven of. The point they seem to make is we can do anything and then return to God, and Has has to take us.

But the focus of the parable is not the son’s depravity. It is the Father’s relationship with both sons to whom He offers the same relationship. And both sons need repentance. The prodigal returns in terms of obedience and conformance to the relationship. He does not want to return to sinful indulgence! The tragedy is found in the elder son’s confident trust in his own obedience and his rejection of relationship with a father who forgives awful sinners. When there is joy in heaven when a sinner repents, it is God Who is rejoicing along with His redeemed. He invites us to be part of His heart for sinners. And when we are truly converted, we can’t help but feel the same thrill. God loves all sinners… returning prodigals and obedient sons.

Technorati Tags: Luke,Jesus,Repentance,Sin

Repentance and Restitution

…if he has sinned and has realized his guilt and will restore what he took by robbery or what he got by oppression or the deposit that was committed to him or the lost thing that he found or anything about which he has sworn falsely, he shall restore it in full and shall add a fifth to it, and give it to him to whom it belongs on the day he realizes his guilt. And he shall bring to the priest as his compensation to the LORD a ram without blemish out of the flock, or its equivalent for a guilt offering.

Leviticus 6:4-6

This passage deals with ways in which human beings have sinned against other human beings. It focuses on property and transactions. The passage explains that the following kinds of things are serious sins among people: deceiving for financial gain, robbery, oppression of the poor or needy, claiming a valuable lost item for yourself without due process, or in any other way hurting someone and gaining personally from it.

The principles for dealing with these issues involved first of all a willingness to repent of the wrong done, secondly, a readiness to make restitution (20% was the suggested interest value to add to the restoration), and finally offering a significant guilt offering before the Lord to make atonement for the sin. This recognized the personal, societal, and spiritual impact of these crimes and dealt with them accordingly.

When we sin against others there are impacts. We are weakened as people. The sinner is made worse by his sin, which is why repentance is a good start and restitution a good act. It makes an effort at confronting fallen natures and stirring them toward something good. The hurt that is done to the other person can never fully be taken away. We cannot eliminate it. But a fair and uniform system of compensation (120% value is a great start for tort reform!) can go a long way toward society being impacted by restoration and restitution to the victim. Of course, the biggest need is spiritual. The reason the pain or the oppression or the loss occurred in the first place was because a sinner acted on sinful impulses and sinned like sinners do. To find forgiveness with God as well as restitution with society helps set the person on a new ground of forgiveness. He cannot make restitution to God, only to man. But God can grant forgiveness, and that grace changes hearts.

Technorati Tags: Leviticus,Sin,Repentance

Responsibility: the down side

If anyone sins, doing any of the things that by the LORD's commandments ought not to be done, though he did not know it, then realizes his guilt, he shall bear his iniquity.

Leviticus 5:17

Perhaps one of the reasons the book of Leviticus suffers from a lack of reading is that it constantly reminds us of the down side of being human. It shows us the tremendous drag on holiness that sin can be. We see just how much we are unable to live as God intended for us to live. Verses such as this one tend to bring us down. Any sin, even one that is initially unintentional leaves us bearing guilt before God and responsible before Him for our sin that separates us from Him.

But there is an up side to this down side. It is the realistic understanding that as sinners we are in NEED of God to do something for and with us. We have to deal with sin in our hearts with practical understanding. Sin drives us to an awareness of the greatness of God and when He offers forgiveness, we marvel at the wideness and depth of His mercy and sustaining grace.

We live in sin and with the consequences of sin every day. We cannot get away from it. It is the water in which we swim. It is the air which fills our lungs. Sin is environmental. But God is bigger. In Leviticus there were always clear instructions for the sacrifice. God always had a way to deal with the down side. So for every moment where we are sinned against, we see He grace. For every moment where we blow it, there is an offer for mercy and forgiveness. For every disobedience, God is ready to receive our repentance and obedience. There is responsibility before Him. We are responsible for accepting our offense. We are responsible for coming to Him. And God brings grace.

In this way, even in the worst of our human experiences and actions, God is glorified. We find our life changed for the better. We find forgiveness. It is all what He has totally provided. We just accepted and followed. God gets the glory in His grace. Amen!

Technorati Tags: Leviticus,Sin,Forgiveness,Responsibility

unleavened

No grain offering that you bring to the LORD shall be made with leaven, for you shall burn no leaven nor any honey as a food offering to the LORD.

Leviticus 2:11

Most commentators take a mild stand on this prohibition for the grain offering. The reason: the text does not really say why. But I think that there is precedence based on symbol. The first has to do with history, the second with a generality.

Starting with Israel’s history, we know that the generation that first received the revelation of the levitical system was the same generation of the Exodus from Egypt. The whole vivid reminder of the sacrificed lamb with blood on the doorposts… eating unleavened bread in haste…all of that was fresh in their minds. So offering a grain offering without leaven was consistent with thanking God for His deliverance.

Generally, leaven is also symbolic of the corruptive influence of sin. Jesus used the metaphor this way (Matthew 16:6-12), as did Paul (1 Corinthians 5:6-8, Galatians 5:9). It would make sense that God would set up these sacrifices in this way and that the people would see this prohibition as instructive.

So in the picture of the grain offering is a prohibition that reminds us that even the smallest of sins are destructive to our relationship with God. We should take holy living and obedience to God seriously.

Technorati Tags: Leviticus,Grain Offering,Sin

Consequences

And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it.

Exodus 32:19-20

This is the more unsavory part of the Exodus story. Moses has just spent forty days on the mountain with God. He comes down from Sinai with the law of God, represented in the tablets of stone, in His hand. And he comes down to find Israel in complete pagan idolatry. We know from Paul’s New Testament commentary that sexual idolatry was taking place. Israel was ruining the precious relationship with God even as Moses had just spend forty days establishing the terms of the covenant that would make that relationship unique.

Moses’ response was one of anger (he was a hothead after all). He stormed into camp, reduced the calf idol to powder and humiliated their New Age spirituality by forcing the people to consume the gold dust that had been their “god”. The remnants of calf worship literally ended up in the latrines of the Israeli camp. This was not just symbolic. It made the point of the pointlessness of idolatry. Then Moses rallied the troops and the Levites sided to him. They were commissioned to take down the worst of the idolaters, and 3000 men died by the edge of sword for their sin.

Then Moses confronted Aaron… the priest of Israel. He sheepishly acted as if he had played only a passive role in this sin. He mixed paganism with the worship of God (Exodus 32:4-5). And he was going to pay the price. Moses quickly returned to God on the mountain to intercede with the people. God withheld immediate punishment, but did not relent from “visiting” this sin on them in the future, which came immediately with a plague of sickness on the camp. (Exodus 32:34-35)

Sin has its consequences. Even if it is playful sin. Just ask Israel who sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. Sin has consequences, even if it is partial sin. Just ask Aaron who mixed a little bit of paganism with a little bit of truth. Sin has sin, even if it is personal choice. Just ask the three thousand families who lost their fathers to a commitment to idolatry. Sin has consequences, even after you have turned from it. Just ask the Israelites who got sick from the plague of judgment that fell on their idolatry. Sin has consequences. Say it. Believe it. Know it. Fear it. Turn from it.

Technorati Tags: Exodus,Sin,Consequences

The powers that be

But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts. So Pharaoh's heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the LORD had said. Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and he did not take even this to heart.

Exodus 7:22-23

The great lesson from Exodus is that God is in control. And the last person to learn this the hardest way possible was Pharaoh. I have always found it odd that the magicians of Egypt would duplicate the water being turned to blood. It seems that Egyptian could dig wells as a new source of water. The magicians immediately showed Pharaoh they could do the same thing. However, what is telling is that they were absolutely powerless to undo the plague. They weren’t much help were they?

The power that confronted Moses was the power of a corrupt human heart. And human hearts will naturally defy God. They will deny Him outlandishly. This is as defiant as Richard Dawkins asserting that there “probably is no god, so get on with your life and stop worrying.” This does not offer much perspective. And it offers no solution to the plague of sin or the devastation of the inevitable judgment of conscience that all humans feel.

When the powers that be deny God, the reality is that God becomes more clearly in control. That is what we see in Exodus. Pharaoh holds on to his kingly authority only as long as God lets him. Eventually God will move so decisively that not even the most powerful human on earth can resist him.

Technorati Tags: Exodus,Providence,Sin,Unbelief

Who wins the spiritual battle?

And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!"

Revelation 12:10-12

There is no doubt that we are involved in a conflict much greater than ourselves. That is one of the lessons of the book of Revelation. We get a glimpse into the spiritual world and the activity there that so drastically effects the lives of human beings.This passage shows us the spiritual battle that leads to the final conflict God has with those who will not turn to Him. And it is summed up in a struggle with Satan.

We don’t have to look for the bizarre manifestations of Neil Anderson’s version of spiritual warfare. Satan goes after the nation of Israel in this passage. When he cannot succeed against them because of God’s protective care, he goes after the Christian believers. He is at war with the people that God has made His own. And He will work non-stop against them because he is against God.

But the passage says something interesting. The saints in heaven are rejoicing at Satan’s fall to earth because the saints have ALREADY conquered the devil through the blood of the Lamb. Satan cannot win. He has already lost. That is the perspective of the saints in heaven that helps us on earth. He is conquered. He is a defeated foe. Satan has no chance at all of winning. He will fight, but He is a loser. Why should we worry ourselves with a beaten foe? That is how we handle spiritual challenges. We remind Satan that he has already lost in the blood of Jesus. And thus ends the conflict.

Technorati Tags: Revelation,Sin,Satan

God’s concern for the heart…

The Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it."
Genesis 4:6-7

I find it interesting that the conversation that we have recorded in this passage is not between God and Abel, but between God and Cain. When we read in the text that God was not pleased with Cain's sacrifice, we would think that God would have also been uninterested in pursuing anything with Cain, but that is not the case. In fact, these verses show us quite the opposite situation. God was interested in helping Cain understand what it would take to be right with Him. He is conversing with the rebel heart, drawing it to Himself.

Cain was angry, and I surmise that Cain's heart was not where it should have been prior to this conversation. His sacrifice was certainly the KIND of sacrifice God was pleased with. Many of the levitical offerings concerned fruit and grain offerings. But it was the heart behind the sacrifice that clearly was the problem, as evidenced by Cain's anger over God's response. It seems Cain had hoped to get by with some sort of physical worship without spiritual engagement. And that is what God corrects with this conversation.

Cain's anger was at God, not himself. God encouraged him to "do well", which was a call to repentance. God promised through the rhetorical question to accept what Cain might have offered with an attitude of "doing well". But Cain was going through the motions, content to let sin crouch at the door. God's warning was that if he was not careful, sin would overtake him like a wild beast. By "doing well" and serving God, he could instead tame it and rule over this dominating sin. But ultimately Cain did not agree with God. And God’s imagery of the wild beast would be all to real… Cain would be that beast.

Of course the result was the first murder, a fratricide, and even then God's mercy came to Cain again. God graciously spared his life for the sake of the human race, but Cain sadly did not seem to learn what it truly meant to worship God and conquer life-dominating sins.

So with Cain we see God's early emphasis on the heart of humanity. It is who we are at the heart that God seeks to help us know, respond to Him with, and cultivate in righteousness.