We cannot even fake it...

The preaching in our church is such that a ‘pretend Christian’ likely would not stay long or at best stay that way. Transparent pastors who readily confess their shortfall from the pulpit as well as preaching grace rather than works puts a stop to Satan’s lie that we need to work hard to get into heaven. He tries to thwart the words of Jesus who said:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3)

This ‘do it yourself’ idea is subtle. It appeals to our pride and to the world’s teaching about striving and about doing your best. It flies in the face of all sports and other competitions and enforces the idea of survival of the fittest. However God says:

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1 Corinthians 1:20–25)

This is verified in that those who consider themselves wise want to rule their own lives. The  Pharisees said they didn’t want Jesus to rule over them. The same is true of many who think they have life figured out and do not need God. This passage goes on to say:

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:26–31)

This also fits with the Lord’s response to Paul, now considered one of the ‘stars’ in the family of God. However, when he’d been given much understanding along with visions from God, the enemy came at him with an unnamed “thorn in the flesh” and he prayed to have it removed.

But (Jesus ) said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9–10)

Being a Christian cannot be faked. Pretense is a pride thing, a desire to look good even when I know I’m not what I should be. Pride is the opposite of being weak, and weakness without pretense is required to being filled with the wisdom and righteousness of God. I cannot fake it. I cannot even fake being weak. Being “in Christ” is about thinking and walking in His way, His truth, His life. I cannot impress the wonder of new life to Him or anyone else by pretending, role-playing, or any form of doing it myself.

PRAY: Jesus, You know what it is like to drop all that You are and become a servant. You know the reality of weakness — Almighty God born in a manger, in a human form, able to control the wind and rain and rise from the dead, yet unable to disobey the heart that was willing to die for sinners. I face the rest of my life not knowing how it will end here, yet like You, there is joy set before me and the wonder of why You died becomes my strength in these days of weakness and not knowing. That You would fill me with Your same Spirit is both a mystery and a great amazement. I give thanks that in all this, I am never alone.

Will the real God please stand up . . .

I’ve heard it said that in a conversation between two people, there are at least “six people.” That is, there are two as they actually are, two as each imagines the other to be, and two as each wants the other to be. Very precious is the conversation between two who are actually who they are!

Today’s devotional reading reviews that worship is about accepting God as He actually is, and in the process He communicates Himself to us. Such worship is infinitely precious. Not only does it require that I be totally transparent before God, but that my understanding of who He is matches up with what He has revealed about Himself. This revelation came to us through Jesus Christ . . .

No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known. (John 1:18)

In this short verse, several things are said. One is that God is not visible, but He exists and He is the only God. Yet that “only God” is referring to the Son, Jesus Christ, who is at the Father’s side, God made flesh. The Son is not the Father, but He is God and makes the invisible God visible and known to us.

There is more. The Son makes God visible, but the Holy Spirit is also at work to make God known . . .

These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. (1 Corinthians 2:10–13)

When Jesus walked this earth, He knew He would not stay here forever; when He rose from the dead, He would return to the Father. However, He would also send the Holy Spirit who would continue to present God to us, not a god we imagine or a god that we make up, but the genuine, actual God.

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. (John 16:13–14)

Of course, idol worship is forbidden. My God cannot be a god that I imagine, or make up, or devise in any way. I am not to worship anything or anyone but the real thing, the real God. Whenever I get confused about the nature of the real God, then I can check what I am thinking against the Person of Jesus Christ, who is God visible, a God with skin, a God that revealed Himself in a way that I can grasp and understand.

The catch? First, I need to believe that God does exist and that He will reveal Himself to me. Second, I need to believe that Jesus and the Father are one, that the God who exists and reveals Himself has done so in the Person of the Son and whatever the Son has done is a revelation of this God that calls me to worship Him . . .

Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. (John 14:10)

Third, I must also believe and accept that what Jesus said about Himself. That is, He communicates through His Word, the Bible, and that gives me all that I can know about God and all that I need to know Him, the true and living God.

For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. (John 17:8)

If I trash the Bible or dismiss it, then my concept of God will be an error, and my worship a vanity. How can any worship be real if the god that I worship is not? And how important to remember that He wants me to be real also!

Protection & Glory

Walls are boundaries around a space. In at least one instance, school officials found that walls around the playground give children a sense of security. Without them, they play close to the school building. With them, they play right to the parameter of the playground.

Jerusalem was a walled city. Those walls meant security from outside forces, but also suggest separation from the world. When Ezra and Nehemiah sought to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, they met with violent hostility. Putting up that wall was a difficult challenge.

In the Christian community, that wall of protection and separation is also important. As my devotional guide says, Satan doesn’t like it and would rather put walls between believers than see us live in a manner that is holy and distinct from the rest of humanity.

As for the protection of walls, if I feel threatened, I want to be within the walls of my home, or even feel safer in my car. It works the same with animals. Horses have died when their barns were on fire because they ran back inside to what they thought was a safe place.

Sometimes I’m also as foolish as those horses. I put up walls of indifference, aloofness, or just silence, or try to protect myself by being defensive, or selfishly insisting on my own way.

Today’s verse reminds me that no matter the presence or absence of walls, or the condition they are in, the Lord is my ultimate protection. Zechariah 2:5 says, “‘For I,’ says the Lord, ‘will be a wall of fire all around her (Jerusalem), and I will be the glory in her midst.”

Even though this verse is about a city, Jesus also promises to protect me. He will never leave me or forsake me. He sovereignly guards my life and promises that no matter what happens to me, He will use it for my good, to make me more like Himself (which is of course the ultimate good). He is my wall of protection; nothing can come in without His permission.

The last part of the verse is mind-boggling; Jesus is also “the glory in the midst” and, while this verse again is about Jerusalem, it also means God lives in the midst of His people, collectively as the church and individually as believers. We are His tabernacle, His dwelling place, and the glory of the Lord is in us. Wow!

Jesus prayed, “And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.”

No wonder Satan tries to divide Christians; God’s glory is seen in our unity. Furthermore, by that unity the world may know that God sent Jesus and that He loves them just as He loves His Son. If Satan can build a wall between me and other believers, the glory that He has given us will be hidden and those outside His wall will not know the wonder of Jesus and His love for them.

His Spirit prods me to apply this to another kind of hiding—the walls I put up to defend myself, to hide the real me, to keep others from seeing my weaknesses. These too have the power to hide the glory of Christ. If I want His glory to be seen, I cannot mask it. I must be transparent.

Today in Banff, in misty rain, I’ve a tangible reminder of how even little things like droplets of water can hide something large and incredible. Like the mountains hidden by the mist, even small and foolish sins and the building of my own walls can block the glory of Christ from those who most need to see Him.