Even before I became a Christian, the most important character traits in my mind were truth and truthfulness. Despite that, the first man I married was a chronic liar—so good at it that he believed his own lies (or maybe believing them was what made him so good at it!). Now, after a lot more experience with life and people in general, I believe what the Bible says, “Let God be found true, but every man a liar.”
In contrast, Jesus said of Himself, “I am the way, the truth, and
the life. . . .” He personifies truth, is true, never lies, not even a little white one that tells me I look good in some navy jacket just to keep me being His friend. He is truth and cannot tell a lie.
Jesus says something else about truth: “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”
Those who heard Him immediately defended themselves. They thought He was talking about slavery and insisted that they were never in bondage to anyone. But Jesus was not talking about being made to serve anyone. He replied, “Whoever commits sin is a slave of sin . . . therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”
His promise is ultimately about knowing truth that gives us ultimate freedom. Those who know Jesus are set free from sin—from its penalty, its power and eventually its presence.
Yet what He says about truth and freedom has all sorts of implications. The human race has all sorts of bondage, not just the physical kind presumed by the Jews.
For instance, if I believed that my parents did not love me (which is a lie), I could be in the bondage of trying to prove myself and win their love, even long after their deaths. This lie is often at the root of a driven, workaholic lifestyle. If I believed that I was obese, I could be in the bondage of an eating disorder, never satisfying the elusive and deceitful desire to be thin. If I believed that God was not sovereign, I would be in the bondage trying to control everything, and/or worrying all the time about it.
The list could go on for pages. Every anxiety, every bad habit, every sinful thought, word or action is based on a lie. The only cure is truth, truth that exposes and counters the lies, gets at the root of the problems, gouges them out. Truth may hurt (like a scalpel), but truth is good medicine.
Today our family gathers for our monthly “Family Feast” day. It’s partly a birthday party for our oldest son who turned 44 last month, but also a party for Jesus, and in my mind, a celebration of truth. He died for my sin and I am set free from it. Yippee!
I’m making Mexican food, and when asked why not traditional Easter stuff, I said, “It’s Easter in Mexico too.” So as we eat enchiladas and chili peppers, we are celebrating our son who knows the Truth, and the risen Christ who is truth’s author and the One who offers each one of us the wonderful gift of freedom.
Even though today marks a black moment in history—the death of the only sinless person who ever lived, today is called Good Friday! It is good for a human-centered reason; Jesus died for our sins. It is good for an eternal reason too—He did not stay in the grave, but rose again and lives forever, interceding with God on our behalf, living for us that we might live for Him.
People of faith celebrate today and Sunday because we not only believe the biblical account of the death and resurrection of Christ and realize it is a well-documented fact of history, but we also know deeply in our hearts that it is true. We know an incredible assurance of the reality of His victory over sin and death. This is the most important event that ever happened and the most important gift that God offers to us and to all who will believe.
I’m reminded this morning that those who trusted God before Jesus came, lived, died and rose again also had this inner assurance. For instance, King David of Israel knew about life after death.
David was not a perfect man. He was attracted to another man’s wife, took her, arranged the death in battle of her husband, and was severely rebuked by the Lord. The child that was a result of his adulterous act became ill soon after he was born. David “pleaded with God for the child, and David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground.” He would not eat and his servants were very concerned. When the child died, they were afraid to tell him in case he harmed himself.
But they were surprised. When they finally told David that the child was dead, “David arose from the ground, washed and anointed himself, and changed his clothes; and he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house; and when he requested, they set food before him, and he ate.”
The servants were shocked. They asked him why he fasted and wept while the child was alive, but when the child died, he stopped and ate food.
David replied, “While the child was alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who can tell whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’ But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.”
David knew he would join his son in death, but this and other passages indicate that David also knew there would be a reunion after life is over. Death is not the end. Because of the word of God and the promises of God, life is eternal. Jesus came to not only insure it, but prove it.
In John 5, Jesus talked about life after death in very straight-forward terms. He said, “Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.”
The point is that everyone will live forever, but there are two eternal realities where eternal life can be spent. One of those realities is condemnation and separation from God forever. The other is life in His presence and with all those who trust God for their salvation from sin.
David trusted God and he knew that he would see his infant son again in the presence of God. He knew his sins were forgiven, even adultery and murder, because God is merciful and because His Messiah would come and shed His blood for those sins. The Old Testament animal sacrifices were only a temporary ritual; he knew the reality was coming, the reality is Jesus.
I know my sins are forgiven too; large or small, they are covered by His blood. I also know that someday I will be with Him in eternity, and will even see David and that child, as well as all others who believe in Him. I know this deeply in my heart because He lives in me and gives me that assurance. I also know it is true because on the black and white pages of His Word, He says so.
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More good news: Yesterday our granddaughter got a job! Thanks to all who prayed. She still needs Jesus, but she is out of her depression and moving forward. Today also brings another answer to prayer; our friend from Scotland received her visa, and after months of waiting she is putting her house up for sale and will be moving to Canada!
Last night we attended a juried recital by a jazz violinist, sweet friend, and superb musician. Her music makes my heart sing. Congratulations on a fine performance, Erika!
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This morning, I’m thinking about symbols. I’m not much for them, at least not compared to reality. For me, a © signifies a more important legal reality, photos cannot replace a person’s face, the actual win is more significant than the trophy. All reality is more far important than whatever represents it.
In the spiritual realm, the words in the Bible, as any words, are symbols representing the truth God actually speaks. The elements of communion are symbols representing the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, the Ark of the Covenant was a symbol of God’s presence, and while it didn’t guarantee that He was with them, at least at one point, His people thought that it did.
In 1 Samuel 4, Israel went out to battle their enemy, the Philistines and were defeated. They came back to camp and wondered, “Why has the Lord defeated us today before the Philistines?” In their minds, God is sovereign and had allowed their loss. Clearly, He was not “with” them, which was correct. However, they made the same error over and over; instead of asking God what was wrong or for any direction at all, they took the matter into their own hands. They assumed that since His presence was symbolized by the Ark, the Ark was the missing ingredient. “Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord from Shiloh to us, that when it comes among us it may save us from the hand of our enemies.”
The symbol did encourage them. “When the ark of the covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel shouted so loudly that the earth shook.”
It also scared the Philistines, “When the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, ‘What does the sound of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews mean?’ Then they understood that the ark of the Lord had come into the camp. So the Philistines were afraid, for they said, ‘God has come into the camp! . . . Woe to us! Who will deliver us from the hand of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness. Be strong and conduct yourselves like men, you Philistines, that you do not become servants of the Hebrews . . . . Conduct yourselves like men, and fight.’”
So they sucked up their fears and fought. The Israelites were defeated in a very great slaughter and the Philistines captured their symbol, the Ark.
At that, did either side think that God now dwelt in the camp of the Philistines? They must have. At least one Israelite said that, “The glory has departed from Israel” and the Philistines put the Ark into the house where they kept their idol, Dagon.
I wonder what God thinks of such shenanigans. His people’s idea of His presence was no different than their idol-worshiping enemies. Yet in this narrative, the next morning the Philistine idol was tipped over on its face before the Ark. They set it upright, but the next day, it was again tipped, this time its head and hands broken off. The people were struck with tumors and decided to move the Ark to another city, where even worse things happened. They finally sent it back to Israel, realizing that they had somehow offended God. Duh.
I don’t think they really understood His true nature at this point, but I can see from this incident how prone people are to confuse symbols with reality. We do it all the time.
Yet there is a more important lesson here. When I go to battle against any spiritual enemy, God will not allow me to claim a victory if my heart is not right. I might claim His goodness, cling to His promises and other representations of who He is, but that will not take precedence over His ultimate goal for my life. He wants me to be like Jesus, and Himself glorified as a holy God, not one that will tolerate my sin and let me ‘win’ anyway. If I will not turn to Him and seek His grace and strength for my life, but only make a show of religious piety by holding up my Bible and still doing things my own way, then just like that idol, I will fall on my face.
True faith is never in symbols, or even in His words and promises; it is in Him, the One who gave the words. This may sound like hair-splitting, but there is a difference between ignoring what might be wrong in my life and chanting in my prayers, “But You said . . . “ and cleaning up my life because I’ve put all my hope in the One who said it and know that His holiness is more significant than the appearance of me winning.
We used to attend a large church in a different part of the world. This church had over sixty elders, and their policy was that no motions would be passed unless they had 100% agreement on the elders board.
Anyone who has worked with large groups of people doing any sort of business might think that they would never get anywhere with this criteria, but it worked. On one occasion, while we were there, the plan was to build a new education building. The blueprints were done, the start-up money raised, but there was one problem. One elder on that large leadership board felt that this was not the right thing to do.
The rest of them listened to him, and it was decided all should pray about this until they were in unity. After a few days of prayer, the Holy Spirit worked to get the unity that can come only from Him; all sixty plus agreed—and the plan was put on hold indefinitely. It was simply not the right thing to do at the time.
Later, the reasons became obvious, and the church rejoiced that their leaders were so committed to unity that they did not go for “majority rule” but would listen to the concerns of one person among them.
That incident always makes me rejoice in God’s power to work in the lives of His people. He is not the Author of confusion or dissension. If His people are listening to Him concerning the direction He wants us to take, we will hear the same thing and be in agreement about it. While this might explain some of the differences between Christians (we are not listening), it is more about our ability, through God’s Spirit, to see eye to eye, regardless of tremendous differences in our thinking, background and way of doing things.
God is pleased when we get along. Psalm 133 says, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” Unity is a reflection or picture of what God is like. He is not fighting with Himself over anything. Father, Son and Holy Spirit agree, and when I am yielded to my Lord, I enjoy a precious like-mindedness with others who also are yielded to Him.
Being yielded is the key. Unity cannot happen if I want my own way, if I push my own agenda. God’s will must be held as priority, but when it is, the results are as the psalmist says, “good and pleasant”—and very much like the God we serve!
Another mystery of Christianity is that two people might have opposite views and behavior concerning a peripheral issue (not commanded by Scripture) and both are doing the right thing.
For a black and white person like me, I’ve been perplexed by the instructions of Romans 14. It says just that. One person can do one thing, another the opposite, and they are not supposed to judge one another. Both are pleasing the Lord. How can that be?
This passage is about weak and stronger believers. They have opinions about eating meat offered to idols, observing the Sabbath, and other matters of conscience. The weaker believers (from a Jewish background) feel guilty eating that meat and think their seventh day of the week is more important than other days. Others (particularly Gentiles) have no problem with Jewish ceremony and (rightly) understand their freedom in Christ from the old ceremonial laws. They feel free to eat whatever they want and consider all days the same.
Paul tells them not to judge one another. He says, “Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls, indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand.”
Matters of conscience is God’s business. I remember hearing a story about a man who was a baseball fanatic. He neglected his family and sometimes his work to be at or watch the games. When he became a Christian, he realized that baseball had been his idol, began to feel guilty about this passion, and avoided it so he could do his duties as an employer, husband and father. One day his Christian friends invited him to a baseball game. They were shocked when he recoiled in horror and said no way. How could they do such a sinful thing?
This helped me understand Romans 14. For the new Christian, watching baseball had been a sinful thing, not that baseball is necessarily evil, but his passion for it had been. His conscience told him to stop this obsession, and even though others could do it without any guilt, he could not. But he also didn’t understand their freedom.
That understanding might happen later. I also knew a woman who had a problem with any kind of card game. This came out one evening when she came for dinner. Our small (at that time) granddaughter wanted to play a game. The woman agreed, so the little one brought a deck of cards and said, “Let’s play fish.”
The woman told her that she wasn’t very good at cards, and could they draw pictures instead? Later, she explained to me that her family had been compulsive gamblers who used cards. When she became a Christian, she steered clear of cards, but did not condemn others who wanted to play; she felt guilty herself but understood that everyone was not the same.
Strong convictions based on conscience must be given my attention. God gave conscience as a means of warning me. While my conscience can be wrong, I should still pay attention. Even if His Word is not directly forbidding something to me, I may have a sinful attitude toward whatever it is, and that sinful attitude needs my attention.
Romans 14 says, “For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. for to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living.”
My focus is not to be on pleasing myself or even on appeasing my conscience. My motives should always be to please Christ. Even if I am mistaken about my freedoms involving non-sin issues, God is more concerned about why I do something (again, a non-sin something) than what it is. I can freely draw animals, write stories, make quilts if I’m doing this to please Him or to be of use to Him in some way, but if I do those things with greed for personal glory, or some other recompense, it wouldn’t surprise me if my conscience began to bother me when I do them.
Jesus is my Lord. Dead or alive, I belong to Him. Living for Him involves everything I do, including those things that are not sinful or forbidden, including daily chores. That is why I need to focus on my own issues, not be picking on or judging others. “Therefore, whether I eat or drink, or whatever I do, do all to the glory of God.”
One of the greatest ‘mysteries’ of the Christian life is knowing the difference between walking in the Spirit and living according to the flesh. Watchman Nee, who wrote the devotional book I’m currently using, said being a Christian was like having two dogs fighting inside you. I hesitate to use a dog as a metaphor for the Holy Spirit, but have to agree with the reality of the struggle. Part of me wants to be in control, make things happen, have my own way. That is my flesh.
But the Holy Spirit lives in me too, and His way is always the opposite of mine. That makes this struggle between flesh and Spirit not merely one of conscience. My conscience makes me aware of right and wrong, but both sides of that argument can still be self-centered and focused on what I want.
Illustration: a new neighbor moves in across the street. My conscience tells me I should welcome them, maybe make a pie, impress them with friendliness. My lazy side argues that I’m too busy to make pie, they might be on a diet anyway, and another neighbor might have already done that. However, if the Holy Spirit gets into this, He would tell me something that I didn’t even think of, maybe to call in and offer them lunch every day until they get their boxes unpacked. My flesh might argue with that; it’s too big a sacrifice or I’m too busy.
My flesh resists the Spirit’s commands, but it also can twist the motivation for obeying them. At first, I might think that is a big sacrifice of time, but God says to do it, so I proceed. But then I get thinking about it, how to impress them with my cooking skills, or some other self-centered thing, and put me, myself, and I back into this act of service.
When Paul wrote to the church at Philippi, he was concerned that they were listening to “Judaizers” who insisted that salvation required circumcision. Their idea was that you cannot be a Jew without this, and if a person becomes a Christian, they must also identify themselves with God’s people in the same symbolic way. The problem with circumcision is just that; it didn’t mean anything anymore. This ritual lost its significance as a symbol of the need for a clean heart because Christ did away with the need for any symbols and meaningless rituals. His people are actually cleansed from sin and must not rely on circumcision or any other ‘work of the flesh.’
He told these Christians to “beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation! For we are the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”
In ordinary English, he is saying to watch out for anyone who tells you that you need to please God by your own efforts, whether it is by a Jewish ritual or anything else. The true people of God have had sin literal cut out of their lives by the atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross and the cleansing power of His blood. We worship God through the Holy Spirit, not by rituals. We rejoice in Jesus Christ because He is our salvation, and we do not trust anything that we do in our own human strength or power.
The mystery is that I could take that pie to the neighbor and think that no one would know for sure why I did it. I could work at hiding selfish motives, even to the point where I didn’t recognize them myself, but as in all mysteries, something would not add up. The pie would be the wrong thing, my timing would be off, they have allergies to pumpkin, or something in my attitude would give me away as being a show-off.
But when the Holy Spirit asks me to do something, it is never off. Years ago, a new family came to our church. The Spirit told me to take them some rhubarb. That is a very odd request. My flesh might have argued, How many people even like rhubarb, never mind have time to do anything with it right after a move? But I did it. The woman told me later that she loved her new home, but the first thing she missed about their former place was her rhubarb plant. The day I showed up with some, she was homesick and really wanted to make a rhubarb pie.
Walking with the Holy Spirit, learning to worship God in the Spirit, letting Him direct my life—all are every day challenges. Learning to discern what is Spirit and what is flesh is also a challenge. Hebrews 4:12 says the Word of God is “living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit . . . and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
Without the Word of God, the Spirit/flesh mystery would be completely unsolvable, but with it, and the help of the Holy Spirit, He makes this mystery known. Today, I’m rejoicing that God gave me both His Spirit and His Word. I can count on Him to give direction for every detail of my life—even including if and when to use my cookbook!
Fashion puzzles me. The current mystery is the price of a handbag. I could pay a few hundred dollars for an imitation, a knock-off of a purse priced at several thousand dollars. Some would call that a bargain, but I think the imitation is over-priced. And then there are imitations of the imitations—the Wal-Mart specials that might look like the real imitation, at least at fifty yards.
In my mind, no one imitates something that has no value, but how on earth can a handbag cost as much as a small car? It doesn’t make sense.
Another puzzle is false teaching, fake Christianity, people who say they know God but have never entered a relationship with Him. Jesus warned about “wolves in sheep’s clothing” and these wolves have always been a problem for the church. For two thousand years, genuine believers have been duped by fakes and led into error, which is far more serious than buying an imitation purse. I don’t think Christians are more gullible than anyone else. It is just that the truth of God is so valuable that false teachers work overtime to come up with ways to use it to exploit others. For them, it is a way to have power, then get people’s money.
Paul wrote to a young pastor in 1 and 2 Timothy. He warns him about those who “strive about words to no profit, to the ruin of the hearers.” He tells him to “shun profane and idle babblings, for they will increase to more ungodliness.” Clearly the early church had the same imitators as I see in today’s religious circles.
Further, Paul said false teaching “will spread like cancer” and can even “overthrow the faith of some.” But he does not sound surprised at this. He says as a statement of fact that, “In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor.” He tells Timothy if anyone cleans up his act and rids himself from any false teaching and false ideas about God, that person can become a “vessel of honor” and be useful for “every good work.”
I hate to be fooled by a fake, but know that I don’t need to study false teaching so I can spot it. Someone told me he saw a wall of counterfeit bills under glass at the Franklin Mint in the U.S.A. He asked the security guard how much time they spent studying these bills. The man said none; to spot a phoney, they study the real money. By being familiar with it, fakes become obvious.
Paul said the same thing. “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed (or duped), rightly dividing the word of truth.” That last phrase means to “cut it straight” as a carpenter would, be accurate. Anything less than that is shameful.
In my mind, false teachers seem easy to spot; they do not know the Bible. The parts that they do know are interpreted out of context, and made to say something that suits the false teacher’s agenda. But that does not mean I’m infallible and can never be fooled. Paul’s command to be diligent applies to me too, especially when I think I know the fakes. The Bible says that pride goes before a fall, so I must not boast that I know God’s Word. Instead, I need to remember that I’m easy to fool—and I can’t tell the difference between a genuine $45,000 Louis Vuitton and a $35 knock-off.
the life. . . .” He personifies truth, is true, never lies, not even a little white one that tells me I look good in some navy jacket just to keep me being His friend. He is truth and cannot tell a lie.
