NB! Daily Faith Articles

Atonement 3: Jesus defeated sin and his enemies

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Mon, 19 Oct 2020 07:09:00 +0000

The atonement festival seems complex and over-elaborated.

It was too. And it was precise. Every step had to be memorised by the High Priest and complied with, to the letter.

Why so? Because even then the foundations were being laid for the ultimate act of atonement at the cross.

If Moses applied such attention to detail, God the more so. If God himself were to fail the redemptive plan all else would have failed.

It could never have been mere reconciliation, appeasement, a moral example or whatever weak theory has been held by scholars.

It had to be right as God knew his nemesis would examine it carefully. Satan was motivated to find fault, for it was his only hope of escaping prosecution. And his motivation was intense. You see a sample of it in the story about Job.

It played out again in the Wilderness, where Jesus was intensely examined in his weakness and as a man, in the hope of finding a flaw in all that God was doing and so derail the case that God was building against him.

God could not let that happen, so the entire Old Testament narrative laid the foundations of the cross so that sin and righteousness were fully contextualised. Had it no been so, the cross would have lacked relevance.

As such atonement, while being more than mere reconciliation was not only between us and God.

The offence that was placed on Jesus when he became our scapegoat, drove him into the realms of his immortal enemy.

There he reclaimed the intitiave once lost to sin, by taking back the keys of death and hell. All who had ever been held captive by the fear of death, were freed (Hebrews 2:14-15), for Jesus destroyed him who had power over death.

Atonement would have been stillborn if it never dealt with the chief antagonist. Satan had to be judged and defeated.

Its interesting that while Adam and Eve were innocent until they sinned, we are not innocent of sin, for we know what it is and have been under its yoke, but like Adam and Eve, we too have a tree.

They remained free of sin and, as such, free of corruption and death, for as long as they ate of the tree of life and avoid the tree of good and evil. It gave them a "monastic" or insular concept of God.

But though we have known sin, we are freed of its power and its chief agent by the surpassing power of the cross, not to be ignorant, naively innocent or insulated, but to be triumphant over sin and to live as free-men in Christ.

The first tree was like the innocence of childhood.

There are things no parent wants their child to have to face before their time, so they blissfully exist in a free state, yet not because they are freed from what they must yet face.

But once they do face it and work through all the dark contradictions of say puberty and the changes in them, they gain mastery over that and learn to channel their innate drives (sadly not all do).

Its a good outcome, for the redemptive plan of God has not erased all or wiped everything away, as atonement implies. We will always know about sin and that we have succumbed to it and could do so again.

But we are now able to rechannel our faith in the freedom of our free-will choices, to rise above the offence and live unto God. That is a form of spiritual maturity that those who deny Christ can never enjoy.

They choose not to for fear of losing their apparent freedoms, but in Christ we now have true freedom in the reality of having been set free from sin's power and enslavement to it, so that we can rise above it and live a full life.

Satan may have been likened to a serpent, but Christ defanged him and he may be like a roaring lion, but is a toothless one. All he can still do to hold up a kingdom without foundations, is to rest on a base of lies and deceit.

When Jesus faced the cross he said, "now is the prince of darkness judged" (John 16:11). But how is that so? Because the laws under which Jesus lived and died, were applied to true innocence.

It meant that Satan's claim of innocence for having offended God before any law existed for its prosecution, is no more. His assumed innocence was foregone when he presided over the death of someone he had proved to be innocent of sin.

He was hoist by his own petard and defeated, not by might or power, but by the righteous wisdom of God, who outplayed him completely and then check-mated him. He has lost all his pretexts. He is undone. Christ is victorious.

So stand in that and choose every day of your life to live in that freedom, for God did not obviate sin by leaving you in a convent or a monastery that insulates us from temptation. Rather he gave us the power to choose our freedom.

And no one can deny you that. It is as cast in concrete as a constitution is to a nation. You are free for as long as you choose to be free.

Atonement 2: Sorry and forgiveness is harder than it seems

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Sun, 18 Oct 2020 15:31:00 +0000

Elton John sang the following chorus in "Sorry seems to be hardest word":

It's sad, so sad (so sad)
It's a sad, sad situation
And it's getting more and more absurd
It's sad, so sad (so sad)
Why can't we talk it over?
Oh it seems to me
That sorry seems to be the hardest word

So, after I posted on atonement earlier, I tried to share my thoughts at the table and then it came together for me.

Let's say I had deeply offended my wife. Well, saying sorry is notoriously hard for anyone, but let's say I found it in me to say sorry.

Would that be enough? The answer is not really. Sorry doesn't take away the offence or heal the wound. It appeases only.

She might well forgive me, but would remain wary of being hurt like that again. It might take time or even forever to really resolve.

Okay, so let's say I offered to pay damages to her, to compensate her with something costly to me and not limited to flowers, chocolates or a dinner date. Would that do it? Well many a parent has tried to buy love from their children, but their cry is always, "I need you, not your money".

And Jesus got that: it was not enough to settle the account. He had to fully invest himself and hold nothing back, to do what we could never do.

I need to relate aa personal story.

As a kid I once stole fuel out of a neighbor's car. It ate at me and I could not move on. Not so for them. They never even felt it as they were earning. So I took some of my savings and went to put it right. Only then did we all find closure.

Obviously then a price paid can put it right, if the price matches the cost of the offence, as in if I stole from you and paid back what was taken plus something extra for the offence. That must put it right? Not necessarily.

When I was a younger kid I drove my dad's car down our large sloping property towards the river at the bottom, but managed to steer it into a fence. Well, it was his birthday, so when he got home I ran out with a gift to wish him happy birthday. It didn't help. His anger had to be assuaged.

So, compensation can help, but can't truly resolve an offence and sometimes we can't even put a price to an offence. A father's anger is, for example, not easily bought off, as the offence is generally greater than its cost.

Thus the etymological definition of atonement may imply reconciliation but it is not enough. I can't just compensate or even know what price is worthy of an offence that could only be paid by the cross.

Did the cross then settle my account?

It took an act of God to pay price we could not pay, so he could be reconciled to us. We did nothing. He knew what was needed to heal the rift and paid it.

I have seen many souls cause offence only to then argue with a nagging wife that the matter is settled. But she sees beyond a gesture and knows that saying sorry is not enough, while paying for it is not much better. She will send him back, if she can, to fully identify with the offence and put it right.

But I cannot even grasp the offence I inflicted on God, so cheaply turning to the cross to imply, "its paid for, he'll just have to accept it", is not going to cut it, ever.

But Jesus became a man so he could fully represent humanity before God and he immersed himself in a sinful world so he could fully relate to sin and its implications.

Its so easy to assume he identified with us as though we were the victims of sin. But, he identified with the full weight and consequence of sin to heal the deep rift it caused after sin corrupted creation and cut us off from him.

But can we assume to know how the other party feels?

Men typically relate to what was seen to have happened, but wives relate to the unseen and unspoken implications that go way deeper than the obvious.

So, for Jesus to be a full atonement, he had to fully represent us before God and pay a price that went to the utter depths of the offence, not just to compensate for the tangible offence but to take away the consequences.

That gets us a lot closer to atonement. It reconciles, sure, but not by a simple gesture of peace-making. He also bore the consequence to pay a price that could only be weighed in another life.

The death penalty applied under levitical law, because, notably for murder, the only price of a life was another life. Nothing can ever compensate for a life taken other than to pay with one's own life. In Arabic nations it is then left to the victim's family to decide whether to pardon or fulfil a sentence.

Jesus paid with his own life to fully settle the offence. He fully healed the breech that separated us from God. His sacrifice wiped it all away and made all things new.

But that leaves one more issue.

Even if I were to fully make up for a past offence, how would that correct the nagging fear in my wife that in might happen again? How could I fully restore the trust that was lost?

Well humanly speaking that can only be proved over time. But Jesus rid us of our slavery to sin to free us from wanting to repeat the offence. It changed our hearts and broke the cycle. It restored all things.

I have seen men moved to tears before an offended wife, to the point of my being convinced that their repentance is real enough to persist.

But sadly, many a story has been told of souls that later derailed anyway. We cannot guarantee that we will not offend again.

But if what drives us to offend is removed and we are freed from its power, does that not assure us that it is far less likely to happen again?

Well its not a fail-safe guarantee as love is not possible outside of free will. Its finely balanced. We can fail again, which is why Hebrews says that if we turn back, we are beyond help and the cross if of no further value to us.

It is so, because the cross is more than capable of keeping us true. It doesn't take us out of the world or exempt us from struggle, but it gives us the power to rise above life so we can live a life fully reconciled and faithful to God.

That sets us above law or expectation, as it should be in a healthy marriage. No law can ever obligate a soul that is motivated by love and no religion can ever compensate for such a love. It has a life of its own.

There is one other aspect to all of this, but it will take another post.

For now, I trust I have taken the idea of atonement to a deeper level. Its no light thing nor should we ever take any of what we have for granted. It cost God everything to be reconciled to us.

But I thank the same God for the fact that he did so much more than merely reconcile us to him.

However, we must still look at what Jesus achieved against the darkness that stalks our souls.

Atonement 1: it is more than what it literally means, much more

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Sun, 18 Oct 2020 05:14:00 +0000

Atonement is, surpringly, one of the more contentious areas of theology.

Don't fret. I always try to distill inspiration and meaning out of biblical truth, rather than heavy doctrinal arguments.

That said, one of the reasons for the dispute is in the etymology of the word. In Greek it means "at-one-ment", or reconciliation, which is implied in Romans 5:11. Sure he reconciled us, but he also did far more than that.

Indeed, the word is only used once in the New Testament, but otherwise substituted with the word "reconciliation". It is tantamount to saying sorry.

Reconciliation is a bit thin. Atonement is far more than a kind of divine handshake or appeasement. In fact, appeasement is more typical of Paganism, as in pacifying the gods. But in any case, peace offerings were separately dealt with in Levitical law, so atonement must be more than that.

Its not a mere act of reconciliation or compensation. But to some atonement is less or limited, as in Jesus only atoned for some, maybe even many, but not all. That relates to the doctrine of election. Both ideas are unbiblical.

Before going further, let me summarise the 7 major theological theories on atonement:

Moral influence - argues that Jesus died in order to set an example and thus to morally influence humanity. That happened anyway but the theory falls well short of a full explanation. Its rather sentimental too.
Ransom theory - argues that Jesus paid a ransom price, supposedly to the Devil. That's way off the mark. Only God could accept the sacrifice, for "the father saw the travail of his son and was satisfied". Besides the blood of Christ fell to the earth, for only the earth from which we came and to which we must return had any claim over us, but Jesus redeemed us.
Christus victor - Jesus was victorious over sin and death. This was a dominant argument in the early church and is still partly valid.
Satisfaction theory - says that Jesus satisfied the justice of God. That is good, but he was also victorious, and he also redeemed us.
Penal substitution - contends that Jesus was punished on our behalf, so we could be exonerated. It adds a legal aspect to satisfaction theory. But, I see no sense of punishment in the original atonement model nor do I sense that God raged against his son. Its way subtler than that.
Governmental theory - argues that Jesus did not suffer what we deserved but paid a token price to express God's feelings about sin. I can't see that. He used the Old Testament for that purpose, but he also paid the full price.
Scapegoat theory - applies an aspect of the Old Testament scapegoat ritual to argue that humanity clamored for that when Jesus was on trial.

All the above, including the idea of at-one-ment, fail to capture the richness of biblical atonement.

The Jewish word 'Kipper' as in Yom (day) Kippur (of atonement), means to wipe-clean or erase. But it demonstrates a dual meaning through the overall feast.

The duality is found in a double sacrifice of two goats over which the High Priest cast lots:

One goat was sacrificed as a sin offering.

The other was the scapegoat. They laid their sins on it, tied a scarlet cord on its horns and drove it into the Wilderness to bear away their sins. It was called Azazel, a name for the Devil, for the Wilderness was his turf.

I could add other dimensions. Yom Kippur was uniquely presided over by the High Priest, not an ordinary priest. He carried an ephod that bore a precious stone for each tribe. He was also carefully prepared for the event and had to wear all the right garments. It was the only time any priest could enter the Holy of Holies.

I must add that the Kohen or High Priest had to carry coals from the altar and incense. He also had to sprinkle the blood of a calf and the goat. It was exacting, precise, rigorous. But what Jesus did was infinitely more so, as even the slightest flaw would have been exploited by Satan to fault the cross.

So, a better definition is that atonement erases sin, not just by way of a legal transaction of settling accounts, but also by bearing sin away. But it required a duly prepared priest in appropriate garments (Jesus wore his wounded flesh), to satisfy, not the devil or man or the people, but God and only God.

The atonement rite happened before God in the inner court of the Tabernacle. God's shekinah glory was there, between the cherubim above the ark, where God met with him at the Mercy Seat.

The implications:

Jesus did not merely wipe clean or reset things. He resolved sin. That involved not just paying for sins past or yet to come, which is a partial solution. In the Tabernacle era, only past sin was resolved but the next sin after the atonement reopened the account, so interim offerings maintained their status with God.

However, Jesus terminated the need for further sacrifice, as his sacrifice was perfect. The blood of bulls and goats was a form of appeasement. It didn't resolve sin, but appeased God, but temporarily. But Jesus satisfied every demand of God, once and for all.

It was not a mere upgrade even though animal sacrifices ended in AD70 and, with the people so scattered that returning to Jerusalem became impractical, finding forgiveness wherever we are and in whatever time is a better system.

But Jesus was also the scapegoat who bore our sins away. He delivered us from sin's power so that instead of us having to return again and again with more sacrifices for sin, we can overcome sin and have no further sin to resolve.

No, it doesn't mean we don't sin. That would be naive. Paul taught that we are no longer slaves to sin (Romans 6-8), we are servants of God unto righteousness, for Jesus broke the power of sin to set us free from sin and death, but in so doing he satisfied and exceeded the law to set us beyond its reach.

However, even if we do sin, that does not preclude us unless we wilfully return to what we once left. The cross guarantees our faith and, as such, we can call in the guarantee that was not available in the Old Dispensation.

Satan's involvement in atonement is not about receiving payment or compensation. Rather the cross was a two-edged sword that freed us while judging him. But drawing the imposter to the cross, Jesus made him subject to the same laws that now free us but judge him. It is exquisite.

So, rejoice today in a perfect salvation, made possible by a perfect savior, carved out and refined through the ages, through his Virgin birth, his sinless life and proof of his being unworthy of his own death. By him and in him, we are free.

Looking to Jesus - Hebrews 12: 1-3

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Fri, 16 Oct 2020 12:34:00 +0000

This is one of my favorite chapters in the bible.

It comes at the end of a long discourse that starts by telling us in glorious terms that Jesus is God and his throne is forever and ever.

But it started with the book's theme, as in "God who in different ways spoke in the past to the fathers, by prophets, has spoken in these last days by his son".

The theme is picked up in Chapter 2, with "if the word spoken by angels was so serious, how much more so what is now spoken through his son".

And from there the writer compares Moses to Jesus. That's because, on the mount of transfiguration, Moses and Elijah deferred to Jesus when God said, "this is my beloved son, now hear him".

But the author doesn't elevate the son from there. Rather, he shows him to be a servant, a priest and a sacrifice. It means that Christ's credentials did not vest in who he was in eternities past but in what he did in our world and our times.

By it all Jesus offered a lasting solution, when he replaced a complex and recurring sin-management system with a once and for all sacrifice that now no longer needs the blood of bulls and goats or a temple made with hands.

Then having recorded the faithful souls who lived and died believing in a future salvation, the writer tells that that they could not get it without us nor could we get it without Jesus. Thus both became one in him.

Then comes the climax. Having said its all about Jesus and who he is, we now look to him.

And my do we. We are surrounded by a vast cloud of witnesses, proof that the dead now do rise and are seated around the throne of God. Details to follow.

Evidently there is some interplay. Do they watch us? Do we sense them? Are they involved in our struggle? Nothing is said to guide us there, but their witness to what they lived and died for, is our inspiration.

They saw it all afar off and pursued it with all their hearts. They also spoke in prophetic mystery about the lion that would rise out of Judah or the child that would be born and the son that would be given to fulfil the blessing of Abraham that is endowed on us through his promised seed.

Yet, in the mystery of Godliness, that in no way excludes the Jew, for he come from their ranks to take the baton of history passed down to him by the greatest souls that ever lived. We have so much to thank them for.

Thus, the writer urges us to run our own race, looking to Jesus and pressing towards the prixe of our faith, while shedding every weight and every sin that hinders us. We don't need to handicap our race, we need to run to win.

But he did the same. For the joy before him, he endured the cross and all its pain and shame. What joy? The joy of sharing the salvation he secured, with all those redeemed out of the earth.

And having endured he sat down on the right hand of God. His work was done. Ours had begun. But the writer urges us to consider the contradictions Jesus faced so we can face our own and push through them.

And thanks to that, we do not lose heart or grow weary. We believe in all of this, beyond our capacity to believe. He gives us grace to hold on and persist against so many odds, but the greatest grace he gives is in knowing what he did and what he has prepared for those who love him.

Eye has not see, nor has ear heard, nor has it entered the heart of man, the things that God has prepared for all who love him. And, as we read in Chapter 10, if we don't give up, he who is coming will come and will not delay.

Well, there has been a 2,000 year delay, so maybe he will delay, if from all that you only draw an eternal perspective.

No. It also alludes to a temporal perspective. Whatever we face here and now, down here, he will yet come to save us from and so lift us up. For that cause he will not hold back, because he died for justice and mercy.

So, be strong and courageous. Look up, your redemption is now closer than you think. He will not fail his promises, for he is not a man that he should lie.

Be encouraged.

The keys to the door

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 15:22:00 +0000

A few years ago God led me to a vital principle.

I sent my family away on holiday and headed into the hills to fast and pray. On the way, I sensed God saying, "I will reveal the keys to your crisis".

I covered a lot of ground to reach a perch where I watched the sun rise a few hours later. But as I got up to go I realised I did not have my car and house keys. I had dropped them somewhere.

I tried restracing my steps to no avail - I had covered too much ground. Instead I returned to my "perch", prayed for help and then reversed my course, by taking ten paces before casting all around me to see if I could see them.

On my third stop I thought I saw something and went to it. My keys were there, lodged in a tuft of grass, but only visible (and then barely) from that angle.

In the moment God taught me that the keys to our crises are never far from where the crisis started as in there is no deep mystery or hidden secret or whim of God. Our crises relate to who we are and our life issues.

Over the next few years he revealed much about me and resolved the things that were hindering me and had set me off course enough to end up in a Wilderness.

Great, but a few days ago I had a deep sense of him standing nearby with keys in his hand, the keys that would not deal with shutting old doors but open new ones.

That led to more pondering and soul-searching.

I looked at all I was facing and the deep burden I feel for writing and I had to be honest that I really did not feel I was an ideal choice for any of that. But that revealed a dark trap that I think most spiritual souls fall into.

Being aware of my failings and flaws, I had fallen into thinking that only God can raise me to something and I must just trust him in obedience. That is partly valid for I have run out of ways to get published. Only he can help me.

And before you think I am being silly, consider that J K Rowling, like many other writers, had to reach rock bottom in her writing before she "felt the rock at the bottom". Its a path many souls tread for different reasons.

However, clinging to the hope that he will just lift us up and open a way, can preclude us from doing all that is needed to facilitate an open door. Its about preparation and pressing into something of singular focus, until it yields.

The desire for that is set in us by God who also gives us the desires of our hearts (Psalm 37:4). He sets in us what suits us. He doesn't drive us to be what we can never be or would have no passion for, he leads us to where our abilities point. We just can't see ourselves being there, which frustrates our cause. But he does.

In the process, he changes us by removing what hinders us and instils in us all we need to be effective in that role. So, Moses was literate, numerate and capable. He also boldly signalled his desire to matter, but he was a bit misguided.

Thus God sent him away for 40 years to remove the impulsiveness that hindered him, and whatever else that darkened his soul, while instilling, through his sheep, the patience and longsuffering he would need if he was ever to lead Israel.

And Paul, while being so well qualified for his role, was exiled for a long season to get rid of his impulsive ambitions and instil a much more gracious heart in an otherwise very skilled and well-suited man. He had all the desire and all the skill, but hit and missed until God corrected him and reset his course.

Only when such souls worked through their pains and contradictions could they reach the tipping point that matched their desire-fed preparation with the open door of opportunity. And when it did, history was made.

Instead of being fatalistic about what only God could do in them, they used their years to press into that possibility, which provided the abrasion that whittled away all that didn't belong, so that they could emerge from their stone.

But, by the same account, denying that you could yet be of value to God, is self-defeating, while choosing a lesser option to that will lead to painful frustrations.

So in all of that lie the keys to our frustrations.

We either are resigned to not getting there or find ourselves pursuing the wrong desires or don't push into what seems impossible even though it reflects the deep desire he has set in us.

Well, guess what? Unraveling all of that will open doors and bring our years of preparation to what he has preparated us for, as happened to both Moses and Paul. Our desires do not impose on God and he does not yield to them.

That kind of thinking may be what prosperity thinkers mean about us having faith for things, while in effect imposing our desires on God. That's crazy. Its wrong desires that snag us and get us into trouble, so how can we insist on our own way when so many of us are clueless about what is best for us?

I just had my hair cut. But the soul doing my hair has just recently gone through a lot of pain over someone he helped. He then said, "I told God that he was wrong to put such troubles on me and that he needed to sort it all out".

I think I know where his problem is, but it reminded me of another soul who kept on complaining that God wasn't helping him. Now forgive my being a bit graphic, but he would regularly speak of that "f'ing Christ".

So anyway, he got all offended by me until Covid-19 hit. Then we reached out to him in love. But when he wanted to thank me, I knew I had to speak directly to him, which I did by saying, "If I kept calling you f'ing whatever, would you listen to me or be inclined to my petitions or prayers?"

I cannot tell you what a miracle followed and how he wept about that, only for God to meet his desperate need in such a remarkable way.

Now the point to both of the above souls, is that all too often we are a lot like all that in how we relate to God. We expect, demand and presume. The faith and prosperity movement is all that and more. And God cares not for any of it.

But the soul who submits to his yoke and grows through his adversity, while pursuing the desire or dream set in his heart, will far outrun the presumptuous and reach a place of fulfilment that will be to the envy of most.

It means that the keys to locking out the past and unlocking your future, are in your hands, near to where things first went wrong. But if you press on in him and trust his outcomes, doors will open to you. Its simple logic. The tipping point comes when preparation meets opportunity.

I hope that gives you strength to keep on going. Don't turn back, for God has no delight in that. Hold out, for he who is coming will come and will not tarry (Hebrews 10:37).

The total commitment of God

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Tue, 13 Oct 2020 15:24:00 +0000

How invested was he?

Totally, I mean utterly invested in our salvation. He could commit nothing more. He gave everything.

We identify with Abraham having to sacrifice his own son. Atheists would argue that God unjustly imposed that, even though he stopped it.

Yeah, I get that. We are sensitive to our children. Yet God sent his only son, a son carved out through countless treasured hearts over thousands of years, a unique individual, priceless jewel. And he sent him to die for us.

But if you think it stops there, don't. Romans 8:32 says, "he who freely gave his son, will he not with him freely give us all things".

And therein lies the rub. God committed everything. Once his son died and secured the validation of his father, the covenant was sealed.

And inside that covenant lies all we need for life and godliness. It includes the power to pray, the right to be heard and the assurance of justice. It also includes life, restoration and healing.

It makes him our God as we are his people. It accepts us, forgives us, forgets all our offences and writes his laws on our hearts.

Now I know he didn't get a great deal in me. Many flaws, many weaknesses, not ideal. But God is no idealist. It wasn't ideal that Jesus had to die for me. Not at all. It just had to be so, yet not for me specifically but all who call on his name.

In Hebrews 11:15, we read of Abraham having every reason or opportunity to turn back from whence he came. He never did, but the door was always open. God could not oblige him in any way, only his free-will could.

Yet God, over a period of 4,000 years, saw all he needed to see about the wretchedness of man, to the point of wanting to abandon Israel until Moses persuaded him otherwise.

Yet, he never turned back, even though he could have. He saw it all through. And, as such, he is stuck with you and me. No really, he is. His covenant extends to you and me, no matter how unworthy we are.

And he cannot and will not go back on that. He swore with an oath and as he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself. As such, every promise of scripture is assured.

Regardless of his state of mind, as they say about death-bed testaments, he cannot renege or change his mind. He is in it to the end.

A wife in doubt has the chance to look at her ring and remember a promise made and be reassured by that. How much more so for us to look to the cross and remember that what he has done can never be undone. It is finished.

A friend saw his aged father come down a passage to where he stood on a deck. Then he laid his hands on his son and blessed him, before shuffling back to his room. But just before he got there he called to his incredulous son, to say, "my son, I knew what I was doing just now and I meant it".

Isaac was as old and as short-sighted when he blessed Jacob and then regretted it, but it could not be undone. However, God was not deceived or duped into accepting us. He entered into all of this with his eyes wide open.

Whatever you are facing, understand that he has secured your right of access to him and he will honor that. So draw near, lay your appeal before him and be heard. He is bound to that too.

And then believe it. Act as though you were heard not as though you still need to be heard or need to shake the earth to be heard. Our fathers may be like that, our governments certainly are, as are all bureacracies.

But God hears and answers, because he accepts us and receives us into his presence, worthy or not. It is possible not because you did something worthy of it, but because Jesus did. So believe it and let it go.

Growing up in Jesus explains why we struggle

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Sun, 11 Oct 2020 09:08:00 +0000

The historic journeys of Israel, humanity and individuals, has always been incremental.

Dispensationalism was a doctrine that described all of God's historic dealings with humanity, into discrete, open-shut dispensations.

That has had unfortunate consequences and is one of the primary reasons why Jews do not concede to Jesus. The notion that God did work with Jews and then ended that dispensation to work with Christians is both offensive and wrong.

For all that they contributed is critical to what we now have and potentially share with them. Indeed, we are the wild olive branches that were grafted into the natural root. We are nothing without them.

The better doctrine is called "progressive revelation", which implies that God has been revealing his full character and purpose through the various layers or phases of history that now desscribe the tell or mound of God.

I am sure that has its critics too and maybe it doesn't quite reassure Jews, because it implies that they knew less, and we now know more. Although I hardly find that compelling as we can be awefully shallow and naive in our thinking.

Yet, even Paul said, "I know in part, but then face to face". No one has it all. Paul added to that, "I put away childish things", for all who walk with God need to get beyond being children, to become as sons of God.

I prefer the idea of incrementalism, because it is a two-way process. After all, like a child growing into oversized clothes, like the Jews, we have had to grow into God or grow in our understanding and capacity to live in that understanding.

As such, its not just about God revealing more of himself but about our growing up in our relationship with him.

A child has one father for life, but grows into that, which alters the relationship over time.

When a child is under 6, it just needs instruction. It has no internalised value set, but a simplistic sense of right and wrong that is not really its own for it is all about what Dad says he can or can't do.

Its why I firmly believe that parents should spank until that age, because they are well-padded at that stage. But it is also the last time a parent can hope to instil respect, which is the most vital ingredient of the next phase of life.

That only works if it is correction in love not out of irritation, anger or malice. Without that, nothing else will work and that's why so many parents end up with a combative relationship with their children that ultimately alienates them.

From 12 they acquire a developed internal moral and ethical framework and a healthy sense of right, wrong and the principles behind that. That is why Jews then acknowledge them as under commandment as in Bar/Bat-Mitzvah.

That is when the age of accountability starts, and a child then needs to learn about consequence and responsibility. But ages 6 to 12 are teaching years that bridge them to what then becomes them at 12 or so.

From then on, they are coached, so Dad assumes a different role and is seen in a different light. He then takes them into the field of play, shows them the ropes and withdraws to the sidelines to let them learn by doing.

But many a child looks back on that stage with a deep sense of pognancy over the memories of him being there through those times as they reach the age of integration, when the child will come to Dad on its terms for mentoring.

Great, so far. But God has always followed a similar path.

In the formative years of Israel, he was harsh, distant and strict on boundaries. That set up the fear of Godd or respect that remains so fundamental to faith. It set the context for the cross by showing that sin is serious, and God is righteous.

Then as they started to grow up he left his mount and walked with them to show them his ways. Later he sent them, as he coached from the sidelines, but finally the reached autonomy. Then he stayed in one place and they came to him.

But that also describes our own relationship with God and it explains why the going can get so rough. We have no clue who God is in the early stages and very little idea for a large part of the years that follow.

So we also have our version of their golden calf, as in ideas formed in our own thinking about who God should be and how he should behave. Just like a child, at that stage we resent him when he doesn't act as expected.

But like the Golden Calf or our formative hero-image of Dad, God is then not who he is but who we make him to be and that, sadly, is a form of idolatry.

Oh of course he gets that, but he won't let it stay like that any more than a Dad would. A true father wants their children to outgrow them, leave the home and walk with God into their destinies, so he is always preparing them for that.

But I am sad to say that a lot of Christendom is stuck in this rut unable to let go of their image of a big, powerful God who only expresses himself in miracles and awesomeness. But they need to let go to find the heart behind all that.

Elijah also related to him via signs and wonders, but God stripped that away and all the noise and earth-shaking clamor that often gooes with our ideals, until he heard the still small voice that enabled him to rise to the challenges of his day.

And that was when he matured into a truly effective prophet. Signs and wonders were never going to change the heart of Israel as hearing his words and getting his heart would. He had to speak heart-to-heart.

The bottom-line.

Growing up is painful and full of painful adjustments. Walking with God is the same only more painful, and yet in the same breath, more wonderful and more meaningful for it leads us to a far greater outcome.

One of the instruments or chisels he uses to transform us and grow us out of our ideals, is personal suffering. He always uses what is to hand, so whatever life deals you, that is what he will use.

He rarely rushes in to deliver us from any of that, be it a tough home, a harsh boss, health or setbacks, because he has set Jesus in us. As such as we are pulled through contrary winds and waves, our old self is whittled away to reveal Jesus.

But Jesus also gives us all we need to keep going and the Holy Spirit comforts us with a constant feed of understanding that I equate to what tutors do for heirs (Galatians 4:1).

He will never forsake us, and he will get us through, for if the impulses of life set in our DNA drive us to grow up as individuals, the investment of Christ in us drives us to grow up in faith.

What manner of man is this?

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 13:45:00 +0000

This poignant scene between Jesus (played by Jim Caviezel) and Mel Gibson, assumes to direct the one who directed all of life.

When Jim Caviezel did the cross-scene in the Passion, a violent wind blew up and shook the cross. It was sited at the top of a cliff, so the violent shaking could have snapped the cross and sent him to his death. It didn't and he stayed in character.

But the next day when they reviewed the take, Mel Gibson said, "we can't use it". When asked why he said, "because it puts the focus on the cross not on Jesus".

You know there is a bigger truth there. A lot has displaced Jesus. In many churches the Holy Spirit has become more trendy. In other churches, Mary is more popular. For others even the moments that we remember him through the Breaking of Bread, conflicts with programs.

It goes further. Far too many preachers are content to speak on various subjects but with scant reference to the one who made our faith possible.

And going to church has become more about the music, the coffee, the building or the preacher than the real point behind it all.

No, I am not exaggerating. I sat under two fine preachers who regularly spoke of the Lord Jesus and gave him central focus in all their teachings. So that is the contrast for me. I have seen how it should be and it doesn't compare well with how it is.

Why should it matter if souls are going to church, enjoying meetings and getting on with it? Well because Jesus is the thin edge of the wedge. When we lose touch with him, error creeps in. All error starts when we depart from him, for he is the way, the truth and the life.

Just consider this quote by one of the greatest generals of all time:

I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creation of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for Him ~ Napoleon

Not to be outdone by the great man and his moment of deep reflection, consider this quote as well, written by one of the greatest authors:

I am an historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history ~ H.G. Wells

But that would not be complete without some words from the greatest scientist of all time:

As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene....No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life ~ Albert Einstein

Of course I could go on.

The kings of the east were neither Jew nor Christian, but as astronomers they interpreted the night sky and did the calculations to predict the significant birth and birth place of the greatest individual ever born to women.

They bowed before an infant and gave him gifts, not because he shone like the stars or had angels in attendance or even a royal retinue, but because what they saw in the skies pointed beyond all of that to true greatness.

Even the Centurion who stood at his feet and watch his life flow from his dreadfully wounded frame, said afterwards, "Truly this man was the son of God".

I'll tell you this, no faith is possible outside of him.

We can go through the motions of faith, attend meetings and do our bit, but that will all be shaken and will also fail unless it is founded and invested in the revelation of his Lordship.

There is none like him. If we get that, our faith will walk on water, take the kingdom by force and cast mountains into the sea. But if we merely have a religion under the cross, no matter how that has been abused, we will have nothing at all.

Paul, a great intellectual and learned Rabbi had so much to gain, but he counted it all loss for the surpassing knowledge of him whom to know is life eternal. He tore up his credentials and counted all things as loss, for the gain of Christ.

We are not an organisation or institution, nor do we represent a moral position. Nor indeed are we theologians skilled in the bible, not if that turns the focus to the bible, per se, while ignoring the one about whom it was written.

As Whitney Houston sang, albeit for another cause, "we have nothing, nothing, nothing, if we don't have him".

And that fact will become ever more true as this age climaxes in the times to come, for when all else has fallen away, the only thing that will truly endure is what is built on him.

He is before all things and by him all things consist. He is the Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, author and finisher. And where God spoke in times past by prophets, he is now revealing himself through his son, whom he apointed heir of all things.

Indeed of him, God said, "thy throne is forever and ever and a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom. The heavens will perish and you will fold them up like a garment, but you remain and your years will never end".

Oh that I could meet ....

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 09:30:00 +0000

Who would you like to meet if you had the choice?

I can think of many. I would love to have met some great statesmen, like Lincoln, Churchill or Mandela. And some of the great scientists too like Newton, Einstein or Hawking.

Among the great artists I'd have to include Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Beethoven, Mozart, Van Goch and a number of contemporary ones too.

And what about the great humanitarians, the innovators and the peace makers. My list would surely include the Queen, as the talk would be about the king she serves.

But of all that I could choose, I would prefer even a few minutes with Moses, Abraham, Paul, David and the great women too, like Ruth, Esther, Sarah, Mary and Rebekah.

But right now I can meet with the one person who eclipses them all and by whom all of the above are defined.

I gave up being a sentimentalist a long time ago. So don't think I am trying to put my thoughts into a pious context of syrupy Christianese sentiment.

It struck me as I was out walking with him today, that not one of the above could do anything personally for me. It would at best be an experience only.

Okay, so let me reduce the God I know and the son he sent to die for me, to their level. Lets take away every personal thing he may or may not do, which by the way he often doesn't do.

I hear Christians so glibly say, "what a mighty God we serve", but frankly I have never known the might of God, nor do I relate to his might. If any of those who make that claim have a different experience, great for you, but be careful for that knowledge is skin deep.

There are other ways I can touch "the skin" of God, through church life, fellowship, friendships, family, even nature. That is a bit subtle and in truth many have replicated that kind of experience without having to subscribe it to God.

So what draws me to him?

Well, if I only had the bible I would believe, for it is so profound, so exquisitely composed, so balanced, so elegant, so complete, that no man could ever have written it.

Oh different writers from different eras did contribute, but it is impossible that in writing over many centuries any one of them could have connected the dots and weaved it into the marvel it is.

So his revealed truth is, in itself, enough to set him way above all else. But its what is revealed in that and my personal experience of his word in my life, that really lifts all of this to the level of the sublime.

I once had a brief imminent encounter with him. I cannot compare it to anything I have ever experienced. There is no human analogue. He had every reason to be blunt, dismissive and correctional, but not only was he not, there was not the slightest hint of that.

Ah, there we go then. Its all gentle Jesus, meek and mild stuff. Who wants that? That is Sunday School 101 fare.

I don't find God to be gentle or tame, not at all. That's what Tirian said about Aslan. And Beaver added, "safe, who said anything about safe. He isn't safe, but he is good".

If a father is an aspirational bar for a fledgling son, God is that and more.

No one has ever challenged me, provoked me and inspired me as he does, but no one has been as honest yet gracious in his correction.

I know of no time when he was just not there. And every day of my life is a new day in him. He speaks life, meaning, hope and aspiration. He is a poet, a lawyer and lawmaker, an artist, a scientist, a creator, a thinker, a peace-maker, a writer, a lover of our souls, a musician, an orator, a whisperer, a soldier, a comforter, a healer and a king.

You know, all those souls I thought I'd like to meet - well, their ilk is accessible to me every day of my life. Yet he is so subtle, so understated, so down-to-earth, so accessible, so real, so relevant, so contemporary, so enduring.

You can look up and see the light of a distant star arriving from billions of years ago to tell a story that is now hopelessly out of date. But we can relate to him who is, was and is to come and know the heart of him who from ages past has never changed.

It blows my mind that atheists and others want nothing to do with him? I assume that they fear what change he will bring. Yes, maybe that is so, but with that he always gives us the heart to change. Its never religious compliance but desirable change.

Knowing him transforms me, changes my priorities, alters my outlook on life, shifts my perspectives, fulfils me, completes me and deepens my life. Everything else is so passé, so shallow, so vain, as Solomon said.

Oh we can get so, so worked up about all that doesn't matter at all and which will all pass away, only to then fretfully ask God to heal the consequences of such stress or anxiety.

But knowing him gives us a peace beyond understanding and the ability to sleep in storms, walk on waters, rise above inconvenience and live without all the baggage.

So what happens in November or to the economy. Our faith is in an unchanging reality that transcends all that seems so important in this life. So what happens to the world as it belts along on its path to self-destruction. Of course I care, but not in terms of a personal stake.

I don't vote my insecurities or look to any leader to ensure my future or to protect my way of life. My way of life is independent of all those things, for like you I seek a city whose builder and maker is God. I am but a sojourner, a tent-dweller, passing through.

So now, let me ask? Who do you really want to meet?

Einstein, Lincoln and Mandela are dead. Others too. But even if living, few would be accessible to any of us.

But Jesus is alive and God is alive. Accessibility is assured. It is both eminently desirable and gloriously possible to know him whom to know is eternal life.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Sun, 04 Oct 2020 10:05:00 +0000

In insurance you get comprehensive cover or specified cover.

Specified cover will only pay if an insurance event relating to the specified cover occurs. So if, say, you are covered (cheaply) for accidental death, then only if you die in an accident will you enjoy cover. If you want to be covered for more, you need comprehensive cover.

Well, in a sense, the Old Testament law was specified cover. It spelt out, not quite in the red-tape and policy wording of today's insurance contracts, but in otherwise very clear terms, what could be alleviated by a sacrifice, what was worthy of stoning, or whatever.

But, while it adapted through the so-called oral tradition, the law was pretty black and white about its specifics and ruled as such by its defenders. You can see how unblinking it was in the story of the woman caught in adultery.

However, the cross was comprehensive in its cover. It is not enshrined in written laws at all, but founded on precedents and principles. As such, it has no specifications to limit it. But it is not arbitrary either, for the terms of the covenant are clear to all.

Most comprehensive insurance is in itself specific and limited. It won't cover you for certain events. For example, you will not be covered if you go into a war-torn or riot area and deliberately expose yourself. In a sense neither will the new covenant.

Indeed, the book of Hebrews is full of specific exemptions (as we call them in insurance). Thus, turning away or abandoning your faith is excluded from cover and outside the realm of covenant, as outside as I am if I exit the jurisdiction of my nation's laws.

But for those who stay in the faith and keep going, even if at times that reduces to a snail's sliver, let alone a slow plod, God will stay true to his promises.

Those promises are totally inclusive in Christ.

So, is there any offence or sin beyond the scope of the cross? Well yes, but none of us really understands what "blasphemy against the spirit means", so few of us will ever default on that. In fact, even turning away is forgivable if a soul subsequently turns back.

No matter what a soul has done, many of life's worst have come to the cross: like the slaver, John Newton, who did terrible things until he discovered the Amazing Grace of God.

But what about our life issues? Is there anything that we face that the cross finds out of scope? The answer is no.

But David sensed that even before Jesus came, when he said in Psalm 139, "where shall I go from your presence?" There is no place we can go logically or metaphorically that is beyond the reach of grace. There just is nothing it cannot reach.

In "Avenger's Infinity war" (not my kind of movie, but it makes a good point), Thanos finally wins and destroys everything, but Dr Strange saw every possible move that Thanos could make and also saw the one move that would be his ultimate undoing.

Well, the cross saw every possible scenario, every conceivable angle that Satan might take to destroy its power and enslave us. His only option is to deceive us about it and so deceit now characterizes this age. But, he found not one crack or flaw in the cross, for there isn't one.

I put it to you, despite my own health challenges and those of many I know, that there is nothing, nothing, nothing that is beyond the scope of the cross.

When we can get over our over-simplifications of faith and naïve word of faith commands and presumptions, to find the heart of God, we will find in that heart such a willingness. The cross cries out that he is totally willing and that everything is covered.

However, such is the liberating power of finding his heart that long before your obvious needs are healed, a deepening faith will be healed of even needing to be healed, to the point where the peace that results will sort out most of what needed healing at all.

Not so, you may cry. Life would be so much better if only God would do this or that now. Really? Many a benefactor who has given an inheritance to a child at an age that they could not cope with, not only wasted the inheritance but also wasted their lives.

God knows what is best for us. Yes, he is most willing. The cross absolutely shouts out that he wants us to be whole, enjoy abundant lives and to find in him all we need for life and godliness. He has never revised his interest in that.

But we cannot reach life or any fulness thereof while we are so out of alignment in our walk with God, or while we are driven by things that mitigate our faith - like career pressures, stress, ambition, hedonism, materialism, debt, comparisons, egos and so on.

As they once said to me in the army, "it just doesn't work that way here". Our hearts need to change, transform and come to a right place in him, and then, well then frankly Jesus said "seek me first and all those other things will be added or add themselves or come to you".

We can't confuse our brass with our oboe. We can't put the cart before the horse. Most of what is really behind our apparent issues, like illness, is not caused by factors of health at all, but by lives that are in the wrong place.

Have hope.

All the promises of God are not yes, maybe, I will think about it or if-then-else, they are yes and amen - 2 Corinthians 1:20.

There is nothing impossible with God - Luke 1:37.

He hears and answers - 1 Peter 3:12.

I could so go on for there is so much. But have hope. If you are in crisis and struggling, have hope. It will not end as you think it will. God will direct your paths and lead you in righteousness. He will never leave nor forsake you.

Indeed, by way of confirming the reach of the cross, Romans 8:31-39 says that neither things present, to come, angels or principalities, can undo his love for us and what he has done.

Your life is in excellent hands.

Of Mice and Men and the well-laid plans that go askew

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Sun, 04 Oct 2020 08:09:00 +0000

It is tempting to only perceive a crisis in terms of its more obvious causes, but God is rarely in the more obvious.

Obvious cause can be a form of deflection or escapism from the bigger deal that is on the table, for as CS Lewis said, "pain is really God's megaphone to a deaf world".

Okay, to avoid being obscure, let me go back to a well-worn bible tale. The Prodigal son got into a serious crisis. Fine we get that. But why did it happen?

Its obvious, stupid, you might say to me. He left home. He turned against his father and effectively deemed him dead. That's why he got into trouble. Deserved it too.

Mmmm. Are you sure that's right? I'd put it to you that he was already in crisis. That crisis merely came to a head and revealed itself in his showdown with his father.

Why then was he in crisis? The story doesn't describe the relationship prior to his fallout, but I have seen enough of father-child breakdowns to know that they often unravel, often not in the home and, as such, often not obviously so until they impact a marriage or a career.

And years ago, some women in a home-cell said to me "its not just a guy thing either". They spoke for themselves about a shared crisis of identity.

My grandfather was a classic prodigal.

His father must have been high up in British society, for he offered Harold a choice between a high position in the church, a high commission in the military or a high rank in politics. But Harold declined all three.

He only wanted to be an engineer. So he was told he could use the servant's entrance from then on (a-la prodigal son). He did too, once, when he crossed the family threshold for the last time, to board a ship for South Africa where he became a leading engineer.

I must add that my own father walked in the shadow of his great father, fearful and deeply respectful of him. Yet even though Harold died in the week he married my mother, my Dad still took it out on us due to his frustration with trying to live up to his father's example.

So where was the crisis? In leaving home?

No, it probably started for all these souls early in life. And it happens with the best of fathers too. Some of the greatest dads have watched their sons go into crisis. Many homes that were great for all often have a black sheep or middle child or wayward son, anyway.

Either a child perceives an ideal or standard in their fathers that they cannot live up to or the father disappoints the child for lack of a clear standard. Either way, the formative child is defined by the only high beacon of reference he has, his father.

Dr Dobson confirms that children develop sexual identity issues in puberty if they lack a positive role model to help them in that time of ambiguity. They will identify with a father if he is a clear and positive role model, but they will likely stray if he fails in that.

Its also why criminals will send mother's day cards, but rarely send father's day ones, because to them their fathers are the cause for all their problems. They are only partly right, but not for the obvious reason. Its how they relate to the fathers that undoes them.

I am sure you will question the argument, so let me extend it to where it really matters, for there we will find redemption.

The reason for all spiritual crisis is not really about our fathers at all, but our relationship with a greater father and our expectations or frustrations with that relationship. In the simplest of terms, like the prodigal, humanity strayed from him, but the resulting pigsty can restore us.

No matter how you might argue the toss, not a single believer is exempt of a disconnect with that father. We enter our faith with all kinds of ideals that are shaped by our pasts, our own fathers, our cultures or, more likely, by our own thinking.

So, like Jacob, we feel we can make deals with God and let him be our God if he does what we expect of him. In one psychological school of thought, a young child is characterized as having a sense of omnipotence in being able to control its parents with a cry.

Well, guess what? Our sin natures are not much different. The result is that we end up worshipping or serving our ideal of God, a derivative of the true God molded in our image, on our terms and to our expectations. Which, of course, he will not live up to.

That sets up a tension in our faith that slowly breaks down as we realize, often slowly and with much difficulty, that he is not doing what we expect of him. The cartoon illustrates how that plays out.

My son would shout and perform when a computer game refused to do as he expected. The blasted thing would not work. It was, as so many in my world like to say, broken. It wasn't. He needed to adapt.

So, now lets see. Imagine idealistic Christian Joe, full of zeal and going for God, suddenly getting cancer. How will that affect his concept of God? I can tell you. He will be all shook up, then angry, disappointed and more, but like the Prodigal he will withdraw.

Or say its more like me, having received what I thought was a clear word from God about the business we started, which was soon invalidated by that business failing when the market turned against us. Did that crush my faith? You bet it did.

And that's how crisis starts.

Not with something going wrong, per se, but with how that event exposes our spiritual misalignment to reveal the real issues that hide beneath our veneer.

Will that lead to a pigsty? You bet it will. Jacob ran and kept running until the real reason for his running ran into Laban, who ran over him by exploiting the undercurrent that set him off in the first place. He carried fatherly wounds that were so exploitable.

Now I need to close here else this post will run away with itself, but I will follow up. However, for now, let me summarize by saying that crisis is inevitable for all of us and when it comes it will shake up our faith. But it will also set our faith on better foundations. It will heal us.

Hebrews 11, a tough chapter to write about without letting it speak for itself, but so glorious

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Sat, 03 Oct 2020 06:58:00 +0000

Laying the foundations (verses 1 and 6)

The chapter starts with a foundational truth, in verse 1: "now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen, for by it the saints of old gained approval." That pairs well with verse 6, "without faith it is impossible to please God, for he that comes to him must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him".

Someone said, "show me evidence and I will believe" but the reply was, "believe and I will show you". There is no way around it. Atheists who insist on evidence first have plenty yet would not believe even if God offered more. Our point of departure is a belief that God is and that he will reward our faith. Its all we really have.

A king in Sheol wanted to go and warn his family about the truths of eternity, but God said, "they have the law and the prophets, let them hear them". No, faith is what reveals God to us and brings our hopes alive. Without it, there is nothing, with it everything.

About Abel, Enoch and Noah (vs 1 to 7)

Abel had no precedent for his worthier sacrifice. He just had the kind of faith relationship with God that reached the right conclusion. That is contrasted by Cain's approach, which was pretentious, based on his own sweat and toil. Abel just offered what God first entrusted to him, but it was something of value to him.

That set Abel apart, for God saw a noble heart in him. Like Enoch, he pleased God, but not arbitrarily, only because his faith connected with God/ In the same way I know what my wife needs without needing a manual or list of demands. Its in the relationship.

But real faith moves us. It is never passive. Indeed, it drove Noah to the long, hard task of preparing for a flood he had no concept of and an ark he could not grasp the meaning of, because he acted in faith. What a lesson. Only time could validate such actions.

Abraham and Sarah (verses 8 to 12)

By way of confirming the heart of Noah, Abraham also followed God not knowing where it would take him. And that too took years of struggle in a windblown, empty desert, in search of the meaning behind the call over his life.

He was content to live in tents, for he sought a city whose builder and maker is God. He accepted the inconveniences as a worthy price for his greater hope.

And what they received was beyond price, for though Isaac was as good as dead, from him were born as many as the stars in the sky or sands on the shoreline - not just the Jews, for as the father of the faithful, all nations were blessed through Abraham.

Best of all, the promised seed, the redeemer of our souls, came from him. Sometimes we need to stop and consider how much we stand to gain in Christ compared with what we give up, for there is no doubt that Abraham gained more than material gain could ever offer.

They all died without realizing their hope (verses 13 to 16)

That is almost an anti-climax, yet not. God is inclusive. He never meant for one generation to get it all and so be done with it. Life and death came for all of them, but whatever they experienced in faith contributed to the tell of history. Every grain of sand mattered.

Abraham added much, yet so little in the context of the immense life that emerged from him: a life that captured all the richness of history in one man, the savior of us all.

Like those who lived and died before us, all those faithful souls wandered the earth in restless search of a homeland. Had they been mindful of what they left behind, they might have returned. Instead, they sought a heavenly home, so God, who is not ashamed to be their God prepared an eternal city for every child of faith.

The faith of the patriarchs (verses 17 to 22)

The narrative then tells of Isaac, about whom Abraham's faith stood in the firm assurance that God could raise him from the dead, if need be. It means he was fully invested in the sacrifice he almost made, just like the little girl who woke from a bone marrow donation operation to ask why she was still alive. She too was fully invested, albeit for her dying brother.

But from Abraham came Jacob and Joseph, who carried his blessing from generation to generation, by living out the hope that once moved their father.

The faith of Moses (verses 23 to 29)

A large section is devoted to another towering figure of history, the greatest statesman that ever lived. After all, he turned a rabble of slaves into a nation in one generation, within the constraints of a desert wasteland.

Faith surrounded his birth, his growing years and his choice to forsake his privileges for the people of God, for in the mystery of faith he deemed the reproaches of Christ worthier than the riches of Egypt. It meant he saw way beyond the obvious into the eye of faith.

That is something atheists and naysayers will never get. We are moved by something we believe with every ounce of our being and, though we lack evidence, we follow anyway, for his truth compels us to follow in the inerrant hope of vindicating our faith.

His faith also led his people through the sea into the wilderness, and through all they later faced, until he finally gazed out over the land of promise from the heights of Nebo.

Many others (verses 30 to 39)

What an incredible anthology of faith follows, describing souls who lived in caves, wandered in goatskins, were sawn in half, were destitute, afflicted and tormented, yet never turned back: such was their faith.

The context is a deliberate provocation of the Hebrew Christians that were suffering their own torments and thinking of turning back. The words are spoken by way of one of the most compelling half-time team talks in history. He was anxious to save those entrusted to him, knowing that while he could not spare them he could perhaps inspire them to endure.

Yet to their indictment, none of those before us received the promises. For it was all held back so that without us they should not be perfected. That is explained in Chapter 12, but it points to the simple truth that what was once started in Abraham was intended for all humanity.

The conclusion

I cannot give you absolute certainty, absolute evidence or incontrovertible proof to encourage your faith. A fearless man is a fool not a brave man, but a brave man is defined by the fears he faces and overcomes.

So too faith is defined by its contrasts. It is not blind like fearlessness, it is born out of deep pains, contradictions and challenges, but persists anyway, for that is what faith does.

Currently we are not being directly persecuted as the Hebrews were, but what is happening in our world is insidiously eating away at the fabric of our faith and tempting us to compromise what we first believed. Its a different kind of struggle but as real and urgent as what they faced and it is as critical as it was then for us to push through and overcome.

Give me a little space, allow me to heal

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Fri, 02 Oct 2020 10:27:00 +0000

I saw a not-so-great movie about a boxer whose impulsiveness got his wife killed and which duly alienated his daughter.

On his road to recovery, the boxer (Jake Gyllenhaal) reached out to an ageing trainer (Forrest Whittaker), to help him get back in the money so he could reclaim his daughter from child care.

But try as he may, she would not speak to him. She hissed and cold-shouldered him, then refused to even see him. To that Whittaker spoke a pearl of wisdom: "you must let her be angry. Give her space to heal."

I have often counselled those in great crisis that it is okay, human and understandable to vent our anger on God, to even blame him or shut him out.

It would be very false and indeed it would delay healing or recovery, to be stoic in such times. That won't solve anything. It is contrived and false, something he doesn't relate to.

Consider the Prodigal Son. In demanding his inheritance, he implied that he was done with his father and was leaving him. It was actually a blunt rejection. But the father let him go, knowing he needed to burn it out and find his pigsty or he would never recover.

The older son knew nothing of that because his stoicism denied him the value of breaking down and recovering. I think he started to break down when the errant son came back to full acceptance, but the father would have allowed that to play out too so he could grow up.

One of the biggest factors in all crisis is the false premise that we deserve it. Oh look, almost inevitably we will look back and realize what we did to bring it on.

But that's by the way. My sense of God is that crisis will come anyway, one way or another. And actually, you and I are completely incapable of avoiding that because to avoid it we would need to know ourselves in ways that our sin nature precludes.

But God sees where our characters will take us and he lets it play out, because that is the only path to a real walk with God and the only way to shed pretentiousness. Crisis will change us. But I have yet to meet anyone who was real or wise for having never struggled.

However, once we are in it, assuming that we deserve it and must pay our dues, is tantamount to arguing that we can offer a suitable sacrifice to appease God and resolve the crisis. Let me tell you bluntly. You cannot. That will only make it worse - ask Saul, he knows.

Any sacrificing is the purview of Jesus. And he already made that sacrifice, so nothing you add will add to what was a finished work. We are not victims. One victim was enough for God. But thinking you can put it all right is like wriggling in quick sand.

The way out is a bit like engaging diff lock in a mud-drift. Grasping the truth or principles of God, anchors us to the rope that will pull us out of the miry clay, by degrees, so that God can set us on solid ground, not shifting sands.

But guilt or compensation is about the shiftiest form of sand you can ever turn to. That is where the Devil wants you to be, all absorbed by guilt and self-recrimination. You'll never escape that. But because you feel you have let others down, you will blame yourself.

In a sense Job was on shifting sand as he twisted and turned over every argument or explanation for his predicament. But he escaped that by turning back to first principle, which was notably that God is good and just.

If that is your departure point in crisis you will come to a better and healthier conclusion and see your crisis through that healthy lens. But if you think God is out to get you, is unjust, unfair or just being God (as Calvinism implies), you will interpret it all through a very diseased lens.

So look up. If you persist in him and don't turn away from your faith, Hebrews 10:37 assures us that he who is coming will come and will not delay, as long as we don't turn back.

Order in the court

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 13:29:00 +0000

When regular priests served in the temple, they were not allowed to sit and had to stay standing even when eating the shewbread at the end of a week.

It was, after all, a holy place, not meant for familiarity or contempt. But it is as true of courts, where we stand for a judge until they are seated (historically the accused stayed standing), or in a royal court where subjects stand or bow to the seated monarch.

However, there was a seat in the temple or its earlier evolution, the tabernacle. So some sitting was expected.

We so readily speak of the mercy seat or what is now called the throne of grace, without realizing that it was a seat and, as such, was meant for sitting.

Now who then sat there? The only one who could was the High Priest when he entered the Holy of Holies once a year to petition for the sins of Israel.

Does that mean that he actually sat before the Almighty and his Shekinah presence? No, likely not. The Hebrew term for that which we now call a seat, was Kapporet, which implies a cover, not specifically a seat.

However, we do know that the shekinah glory of God appeared there and met with whoever was there, above the blood stained cover or seat and between the two golden cherubim that guarded it, as specified in Exodus 25:22. Its very specific. His presence was not all about the Holy Place, it was in that discrete place we call the Mercy Seat.

Israel never entered that place, only the priest did to represent them there. But actually, Exodus 25 is addressed to Moses, so in saying "I will meet with you there", God implied that Moses should also come to him inside the tent and engage him at the seat.

But, in the New Testament, in Hebrews 4:16, the place to find mercy is now called "the throne of grace". Thus, despite any dispute about it being a cover or a seat, it is now a seat.

If the priests in the sanctuary stood, the High Priest (and I assume Moses also), knelt before the ark and met God there on behalf of his people.

Yet, even way back then, it was intended to be a seat according to Hebrews 4.

It was reserved as such, to be sat on by a High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. The blood of Jesus dripped onto that seat from the cross and established it as a throne of grace, so that we might approach him, as others once petitioned a king.

It is intriguing that the glory of God in the Old Covenant only served to hear the petitions of the priest. The priest had to go outside and relate to the nation to receive the petitions he took into the tent once a year on Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement.

But the throne of grace serves both roles, as in both receiving our direct petitions and in presenting those directly to God. Jesus identifies with us first and then reflects that to his father.

He made it possible to enter and be heard, by the rending of the veil, which depicted the tearing of his flesh. So when we enter, we effectively pass through torn shards into his presence. They never repaired it. It may look incomplete that way, but to God it is complete.

The Hebrew word for the veil was Parokhet, which simultaneously meant rigorous or severe - alternatively - broken or fractured. That's a bit like non-Newtonian fluid (think of maize meal), which is fluid until you force it, then it is hard.

Amazingly, even then, what was rigorous and unyielding, on pain of severe penalty, was meant to be broken or torn. And it was. That brought another two ideas into a simultaneous oneness, when in one sacrifice the rigid, unmovable law was fulfilled in grace.

And that is needful. It is not by arbitrary whim or familiarity that we presume to enter into God's presence, but by a legal right enshrined in law so that it is absolutely rightful, yet is also made accessible by the fulfilment of that law in the sacrifice of Christ.

So, yes, we may stand or kneel before him, but like a hen gathering its chicks, Jesus invites us to come to him with our heavy burdens and to be heard.

He is seated, to receive us and to mediate for us. He does not assume a hostile stance, but one day he will stand, rise and ride out against his enemies.

Try to grasp that what may well be an earth-sourced seat with real earth-sourced bloodstains, is sat on by the son of God who was born to a woman, lived as a man and died on a cross to make it possible for us to be heard before God.

Now lets go back to the story of Samuel and Saul.

Saul was threatened by his gathering troubles. They were closing in from all sides. So he sacrificed because he knew that Samuel would do that and when he did the impasse would break. It was so, for after Samuel arrived, nothing more was heard of the Philistines.

But Saul's offence laying in offering what Samuel, the priest, was meant to offer.

In simple terms, in a crisis, troubles will mount up and close in and drive us to feelings of guilt or liability, with the assumption that we have earned our struggle and must pay accordingly, even though it is not for us to make the sacrifice that Jesus made.

That makes us victims. But to God, one victim was enough. There is no double-jeopardy. As such, what Jesus brings into our crises is all that the cross accomplished. And it is the answer to everything.

Therefor, by virtue of that cross we approach boldly, we are heard and far more than what drove the Philistines away is possible for us who trust in what he did.

Now add that to your prayer life.

What did you do?

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 10:25:00 +0000

Some totally irreverent movies or songs carry the thematic ideas of "what have you done?" or "I know what you did"

I am not into anything irreverent, so let me quickly clarify. I need to ask the question, that's all, and I do not ask it of you but of Jesus. It was also asked of Cain, as in "what have you done?"

One of the big pictures in my heart right now is that of Saul being asked to wait for the prophet Samuel. He fell short of the seven days wait imposed on him. But its the unsaid point behind all that which really matters.

He offered a sacrifice, which was not his to offer. That was a fundamental principle of the Jewish sacrificial system. The sacrifice could be brought to the temple by anyone, but only a priest could offer it. Why?

Because the greater sacrifice that now defines our lives as believers, could not be offered by anyone but Jesus. He was set aside from the foundations.

Do you want to know how fundamental that idea is?

The first few words of the Bible are "In the beginning". That translates to Barashyt in Hebrew. Its written backwards in Hebrew, but the ancient letters used to spell it are:

B - Bet/Beth as is Bethlehem, which means house (i.e. Bethlehem means "house of bread").

A - Aleph, which originally depicted a bull, means "strength" or "servant". But the original Hebrew does not have Aleph in this position, we merely insert it here to be able to say it.

R - Resh, means Head.

So logically it reads thus far as "head of the house", which is seen in Hebrews 3:6 in which we read that Jesus was a son over his own house. House in this context is like "House of David" which has a dynastic meaning.

A - Aleph. As said above, this means strong or servant. And it does appear now in Hebrew. It implies "the head of the house, though strong, became like a servant".

SH - Shin, means teeth or destroy.

Y - means hands (think of hands held up as in YMCA).

T - means symbol or covenant, but in ancient Hebrew was shaped like a cross.

So, putting it all together we get, "The son who was head of the house, was humbled as a servant and destroyed by his own hands, to make a covenant (through a cross)."

And that helps us understand what he has done.

That brings literal meaning to Revelation 13:8, which tells us "he was slain from the foundations", for in the very first utterance of scripture we see him set aside for a future death for the sake of a surpassing covenant.

John picks up on that in his more spiritual perspective of Jesus, by saying, "In the beginning (Barashyt), was the word, which was with God and was God". So, the intent of God spoken into the void, was the light of truth, the eternal word, Jesus, who then fulfilled the intent of his father to literally prepare a place for his own death".

To that end, Colossians 1 tells us that the worlds were made by him and for him and that he holds all things together, for without him nothing consists.

The implication of that might be best described by those horrible moments when a father tells his son to go out and cut his own whip, so that the father might punish him: a tactic used by fathers to slow things down and give the child time to reflect on his coming punishment.

Only Jesus was not punished, for he did no wrong.

But he did make the world and all that is in it, so that a body might be prepared for him (Hebrews 10:5), for the purposes of offering that as a sacrifice in obedience to God.

And that, in turn, traces straight back to Saul, for in his second offence God said, "obedience is sacrifice", meaning that any other sacrifice is mere appeasement or compensation, but not true sacrifice. Thus, God found the sacrifices to be an odorous "fly now, pay later scheme".

So, now to the question, "what have you done?"

Well, logically he offered himself on a cross, died and rose again. That we know. Its wonderful. I am eternally grateful for it too. But, he was the priest who offered what we can't.

Now here is the elegance. Whatever we bear in life cannot be a consequence of sin. Not possible. We were not expected to make our own sacrifice. Jesus sacrificed himself for us.

Nothing, absolutely nothing you do can compensate for sin. In Old Testament Law you could only escape sin by letting some creature die on your behalf. The suffering for sin was never ours to bear, although there is a sense of the sacrifice being personally costly.

It implies that all human suffering, and I mean all, is not meant to be a price for sin, nor can it be construed that way. But it also means that Jesus paid every price so that we do not have to pay what it is we cannot do.

So what did he do?

It came to me so clearly. Everything about my life will find its answers and solutions in the cross. No, there is no side deal and those preachers that assume to be specially endowed with God-like powers to command healing or invoke God's favor just don't get it.

Maybe signs and wonders are for the benefit of the lost. I can see that. Healing a lost soul is and always was a powerful sign of truth to them, which oft converted such souls.

But as Jesus said to the Syrophoenician woman, "Healing is the children's bread", meaning it is a logical extension of our heritage under the covenant of God. It should not require any gift of healing, for healing in believers is and was made possible by the cross.

Yet its not just healing that we derive from that cross. Jesus died not just to heal but make us whole, in every way, and to give us favor and advantage in this life. Not as a special favor that so many idly call a blessing of God. No, by the universal power of that cross.

You want to know what he did on that cross?

He made a covenant that is fully ours to enjoy and by which we enjoy all that we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3), for he has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places (Ephesians 1:3).

There is nothing beyond the scope of the cross. The law had limitations and didn't cover everything. But the cross covered everything, every possible angle.

Yep, I have battled with my health and other issues, so have all who read this. I get that, but whatever you are struggling with will lead you back to the cross so that, having resolved your many questions and predispositions, you may come to see that it is the answer to everything.

So in reply to our question, the only reply Jesus offered was "It is finished". Now it up to us to work out the full implications of that until we really know what he did.

Be blessed in that quest.

Knowing God is the key to really knowing ourselves

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 14:57:00 +0000

I made some rather challenging statements recently about how we can create idols when we don't really know God.

As such, when Israel grew restless over the absence of both God and Moses, they created an idol which was their best take on what God might be like.

In their minds, they were not specifically turning to an alternative God, just trying to characterize a God they barely knew and had never seen.

Of course there is mischief there, but maybe God allowed it so that they could come to know him, if not directly then by knowing what he is not. Contrast is very relevant.

After all, in our own journeys with God we entertain many concepts and ideas, both as individuals and as churches, about who God is or should be. That's how controversial ideas like prosperity, word-of-faith and many other errors have crept into our world.

Immature believers will not have a sound concept of God.

Hey, if I think about my own struggles over the past 45 years, there were many, many times when I was caught out by my concept of God. But each time I learnt what he isn't. And that's why God delayed the return of Moses, so that Israel could start to grasp who he is not.

So lets take another example: Saul was told to wait for Samuel (and God) for 7 days, at Gilgal. After running off to fight his enemies for 2 years, he came to Gilgal and waited almost 7 days. But he lost faith as he got close to full time.

Their enemies were closing in and he felt increasingly desperate. He just had to do something, other than waiting of course. So he compensated for the silence or the perceived absence of God and Samuel, by offering a sacrifice.

Barely had he done so and Samuel arrived, to rebuke him for doing what only a priest should do. It angered God greatly. But he could have survived had he not offered another illegitimate sacrifice later on, which marked the moment when the kingdom was torn from him.

I doubt if there is a believer alive who has not at some stage tried to fill in the gaps and make up for his silences with similar acts of appeasement. But it then deducts from the sacrifice God made on our part because he is or was the only one qualified to do so.

If, in times of crisis or uncertainty, we try to appease God with tithes, giving, going to church or by whatever other means, we are not trusting the work on the cross to make relevant sense in our hour of need. That distorts our ideas of God and assumes to get God to look past the cross to meet our needs by way of a side deal. I don't mean to be harsh, just real.

Well he won't respond as men do. He won't suddenly intervene, bless your finances or solve some issue, because you managed to appease him. He will do such things because Jesus made it possible through the cross. No further effort can make up for that.

And then there was Abraham.

What we do know about him is that he left a pagan world. Jewish historians say that he mocked pagan gods. Maybe, but his father was one of them. That shaped his thinking as our upbringings shape ours. And knowing God does not simply stop such thinking. It takes time and experience to learn what he is not, so we can know him as he is.

As such, when God made him offer his son, he stripped away every difference between Paganism and his faith. Both had temples, both had priests, both sought divine favor, both made demands and evidently both were capable of demanding the sacrifice of his child.

But, unlike Saul, Abraham held out until full time to feel an angel stay the knife. Why? Because, Abraham's past influences had created a misguided narrative of God around the barrenness of his wife and the unspoken fear that God might do as other gods would do.

God did do as they did, so Abraham could look his fears in the eye and settle with all those misgivings once and for all, to see that even if the differences were reduced to subtleties, what still set God apart was more than enough.

And so the differences that remained actually clarified God better by ignoring the big, obvious differences any one of us would recognize in a heartbeat, while revealing the differences that matter most - God's faithfulness, justice, mercy, integrity and love.

The blasted thing won't work.

My youngest has always loved computer scenario games, but man does he get angry when the game over-challenges him. Its always a stupid game, yet it plays as he expected it to.

Well, for many of us who turn to gap-filling, appeasement or compensation, there is an implied negotiation with God to get him to see life through our lens or to fit in with us or to bend to our will and, as such, become our cosmic butler.

We all do it. I have seen seasoned church leaders contrive all kinds of reasons why God should give them a fancy church building, down to selectively interpreting prophetic words or building elaborate cases to justify it all.

Indeed, many rely on fancy buildings, programs and great music to invoke the blessing and presence of God that is only enabled by the cross.

But if we want to play God like that, then sorry, the blasted thing will not work. The cross is the key to getting it right with God, for he blesses us, prospers us and solves our crises, because he entered into a covenant through the cross.

He may well, in proving that it is so, expose us to long waits or absences or painful contradictions to resolve in our minds what he is not, but through it all he will also settle who he is - faithful to countless generations, bound to be our God as we are his people and sworn to remembering our sins no more.

That is who he is. And he wants to be known by us on such terms - but, sadly, not on any other terms. He doesn't do deals. We cannot own him. It works his way or not at all.

Knowing God: discovering who he really is

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 14:36:00 +0000

However we cut and slice it, we may think we know God or get him, but I doubt if anyone does besides God himself.

When Israel put a veil on the face of Moses, it was, in Paul's interpretation, a way of masking the ultimate outworking of the law. The glory of the law, as in what it would eventually lead to, was the shine they displaced.

They replaced that, by implication, with a sense of "no we are happy with it as it is and can take it from here". As such, they made it an end to itself not the means to a greater end.

Well, ironically, there is a lot about our faith that falls into a similar 'business-as-usual' box, as in doing the things we feel we can do and can take from there, without fighting for the outcomes to which all of that is pointing.

To that end, church can just be a happy place where we go to get a sermon, meet friends, pay tithes and do enough to feel better. Its how its always been. Why change it?

Well, the fact is that church is also a means to a far greater end, a richer glory. We were not made to sit in rows and listen, but to outlive the legacy of Christ in a far greater way.

But that is not limited to taking Jesus home with you to share your weakly toils.

It is about growing up into him so that we can all share in the surpassing purpose of God, a purpose that will include us in what God is doing to make an end of all sin, restore all things and establish in us, his everlasting kingdom.

Okay, we get that. But what about knowing God?

In a sense I have partly stated the problem. Limiting the vast dimensions of God to our weekly programs, falls far short of knowing God. That may know in part and it may gain some things, but it will fall short of the richness that he had in mind.

Instead we grow through our faith to adopt what is said by others or is generally held by our culture, our family, our influences and our upbringings. And that forms in our understanding as a sketch or partial outline of who God really is. But it is biased by our experiences.

As such, it is inevitable (even Jesus had to face it), for us to face some or other form of wilderness. Crisis is, as such, inevitable to all of us.

Just think about that in pragmatic terms. Have you met souls who never never faced hardship. Are they realistic? Do they understand life? Do they have answers that you and I can relate to? Do they or will they ever really know God as he is to be known?

No. That's like the safe brother to the Prodigal.

Such souls may well do nothing wrong. Yet they also will never really do it right. For righteousness is not sinlessness or faultlessness, righteousness to God is what happens when we overcome contradictions of sin and struggle.

Likewise fearlessness is not bravery. Bravery is only defined in the context of fear. And Adam could not have been called righteous just because he had never experienced sin. He had to have at least some evidence of his choice, for righteousness and against sin.

As such, faith will be tested. It cannot be avoided.

We will never be real in our faith until we walk the wilderness. I am sorry if that sounds heavy, but we need the chips knocked off us and our ideals broken down, so we can learn what is not of God and discover what is. We also need it if we are to withstand the coming darkness.

But crisis when it comes is not meant to break us. Look at Job. God let the crisis run its course, but he saw Job through it. Peter was also sifted like wheat, but got through it.

However, once through it, we will emerge as very different souls, with a very different concept of God that, hard as it may sound, will not, cannot be limited to a church experience. It may take us back to church as sons or pillars of his house, but never as dependents.

Okay, once again, I cannot go further without making this a tome. So, in my next post I will explore what happens in a wilderness to bring the change that God wants us to experience.

Knowing God: he is not a stone or wooden image, he is a living and life-giving reality

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Tue, 22 Sep 2020 14:03:00 +0000

I am sure you are troubled a bit by my saying that we are at risk of creating idols in the ways we relate to God.

Let's review that a bit. Israel ended up with a golden calf that was based on Egyptian analogues as their best conception of what they thought God might be like.

But because we may think God is like this or that, or should do that or this, we too end up creating a kind of idol or representation of the unseen God.

First let me define the attributes of an idol.

Idols demand much, even our families or children. Men serve them in return for favor or prosperity. They then become enslaved to that. Yet, idols are made of wood or stone, so have no power to actually do anything for us.

In reality, if idols ever seemed to do anything for anyone, it was coincidental, just as a lucky pull on a one-armed bandit might well work for a few. But when it works for the few, the many tend to be drawn to that in search of their own good luck.

Its likely that idols were never authentic religious symbols at all but contrivances made up by powerful people to dope the masses and separate them from their money. I have to say, that most religions have suffered with that. That's why Jesus whipped the money-changers. But before the world says, "I knew it", I must add that the ways of this world are worse.

So, if you are slavishly serving something and expect a reward for that but are never gratified and feel led on by it all, while suffering the loss of your children, marriage or health, you may be serving an idol. Call it god if you must, but it is still an idol, and idolatry is cursed of God.

In a sense our entire culture is cursed by such things, thanks to the allure of mammon and hedonism, or the efforts we take to be accepted into such systems, which all exacts a toll on our lives, rarely helps. It is often called freedom, yet it never frees.

Lets play out some examples.

Take church life for example. It can well be contrived as a proxy for God, as in the tangible, visible representation of what we can't see or touch. Now don't get me wrong, church life is very important, but many have ended up serving church not God.

That carries demands of attendance, tithing and service, yet will only truly gratify a minority and will rarely, in my experience, bring us truly closer to God. It could and should do so, but can be so dressed up for visitors that it waters down truth and leaves souls empty.

But to keep them coming it then turns to music or even heady activities like word of faith commands or assumptions of power that build a wrong concept of God. When that is prayed to it tends to disappoint for he will not be shaped into our molds.

Or lets consider the workplace. No doubt it is useful to have jobs and it is honorable or worthy to work for a living. But there is a fine line. If our trust is in the work, not in God, we can be lulled into slaving at the job and so excluding God and our families.

Enough already. That's too negative.

I have no desire to hurt, be cynical or break down. My concern is with bringing you to the reality of God so that you can experience spiritual fulness, see your cup overflow, know answers to your prayers and find meaning in him.

But crisis will lead us through a wilderness of many conflicting ideas of God, that will all fail us, until we finally find the one door that leads to life.

It is unavoidable. Every soul will face a break down of their own concept of God until all that we expected lies shattered at our feet. God will use some or other crisis to confront our perspectives of him and to either save us from that or to reveal the falsehood in us.

Either way, he will not settle for a good-enough replica of his reality. Either we serve him in spirit and truth or we will spin out of his orbit and be lost to it all. He has no place in his economy for a lukewarm, middle-of-the-road, convenient faith. Its all or nothing.

But, if you reach the mount of reckoning as Abraham did or Israel did at Carmel, and choose to turn from all of that so you can embrace the truth and reality of the God that lit a fire in Moses, you will find healing, meaning, life, purpose, peace, joy and power in him.

Knowing God: where do we stand with him and how do we relate to him effectively?

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Mon, 21 Sep 2020 09:42:00 +0000

Using the narrative of Elijah, from 1 Kings 17 to 19, we can reach some important, yet incomplete conclusions.

So Elijah was told to invoke a drought for 3 years. That was because Israel was turning to false gods - he evidently did more to provoke God than any predecessor (1 Kings 16:33). Together with his wife, Jezebel, they established the priests of Baal.

That is why the drought happened. Elijah specifically told Ahab that it would happen, but it led the prophet into the eye of that storm, causing him to personally feel the bitter effects of that drought. It is important that Elijah was not exempted.

Then Ahab wanted to confront Elijah and the royal house was ready to lynch the man, so Obadiah mediated a meeting between the two, at which Elijah said, "bring all your 800 priests to Carmel and we will take it from there".

And, as you know, all 800 died on Carmel in one of the most dramatic demonstrations of divine power in the history of Israel.

But the context of the show-down was set by the drought.

Of course Ahab was a bad Arab before the drought, which is why the drought happened. But the drought, as with all crises, brought the worst out of the people (Ahab's people anyway).

Instead of repenting, they got angry with God and so the Baal-cult grew. But understanding that is an important cue to our own responses to crisis.

As Elijah found, God exempts no one. So what will happen in your own crises? I assure you that a common crisis will see very different responses in everyone around you.

Some 15 years ago, I saw a family crisis tear every member of that family apart and drive them down very different roads. Its not something I should relive here, but some revealed the dark side that had always been there, some withdrew, others grieved, and so on.

Well in any crisis, we also respond differently, but the silence, the dryness and the general lack brings out the best and worst in everyone affected by it. Some grow through it. Some are made or defined by it. Many will be worse for it.

As such, many who confess faith in God before such a crisis hits, will be found wanting as the crisis rages on and the shallowness of their faith is exposed. Many of those will still grow to a deeper faith through it, but many others won't. It cuts through us like a knife.

But out of that will come religious compensation.

The growth in Baal worship was a direct compensation for the dryness and silence. When Moses went into Mount Sinai and was gone too long, the deafening silences evoked the same response in Israel. They made a golden calf.

If you read about that contextually, that calf was their depiction of God or how they perceived him. It gave them something tangible to compensate for his apparent absence. But it was not God or of God, it was an idol. Only in their own minds was it like God.

Crisis is like a mirage. It plays with our minds and leads to similar distortions of truth ,aimed at trying to fill in the gaps, explain God or justify faith in our ideal of God. Just think of how so many charismatics will presume to speak for God in such times, by rebuking the devil or using word of faith language to command things to change.

But that kind of response brings God down to our context and molds him to our frame. The result is an idol, which high-minded preaching may well insist is God, is of God or is like God, but isn't God at all. Its an act of compensation.

Maybe God allows such crises to separate the authentic from the pretentious. I don't know. He is probably more inclined to do it to deepen our faith and reveal his heart to us. And he does that by provoking a journey of deep inquiry that leads us all from an idealized faith into the realities of God and his truth. To that end, silence is his blackboard.

A lot of Christian apologetics was blamed for God-of-the-gaps thinking.

Galileo Galilei was a Godly man who found no disconnect between science and theology, yet he was threatened with an inquisitor's examination if he did not recant on views like a helio-centric solar system. He saw out the rest of his years under house arrest.

So the religious order of the day deliberately and forcibly filled the gaps in their understanding of the world or the universe by insisting that God was as they said God was until irrefutable evidence said that the God they contrived was not God at all, just an opinion.

Believe me, atheists are worse at it and they come up with elaborate ideas aimed at excluding God, by pursuing an alternative that is ironically defined by God. What I mean is that they do so to avoid the implications of God and worship their contrived alternative.

How does this affect us?

I will not be able to go much further but will continue with a further post. There is much to explore, but what I have introduced shows how our faith distorts in times of uncertainty.

Some of that will be for the better, as in straightening what was distorted and correcting wrong ideas of God that had never been tested before or which we had come to live with.

Some will distort into all kinds of theories, for example some might say as they did with Job, "you must have sinned" or "you don't have enough faith" or "you brought this on yourself" or a favorite go-to, "its the devil's work".

Other aspects will distort into wrong solutions. I had many encounters with well-meaning souls who thought they had all the answers. I think prophecy often contrives answers to the unanswered and people are drawn to that in search of explanations.

And some of the wrong answers will help to provide a contrast to the right answer, for as we try all those wrong doors we will eventually find the right door and know it as such because we know the door-keeper.

So, while it seems hard that God allows such times, he uses them to shake us up, deepen our roots and set us on the rock of revelation. If you keep on going, it will come to make sense and you will grow in ways you could never have dreamed of.

In closing I will say this: whatever you have perceived of God will so change through a time of deep crisis, that you will never be the same again. As such, Paul realized that a lot of what he thought mattered, were the childish things that he put away for love (1 Corinthians 13).

Powerful inspiration

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Fri, 18 Sep 2020 15:42:00 +0000

Never, never, never surrender, never give up

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Fri, 18 Sep 2020 15:23:00 +0000

Hebrews 10: 19-39 is a tough and controversial passage of scripture, but contextually written to a persecuted church.

Its important to note where the writer is coming from. He is trying to hold them together and keep their faith going through a dark season of struggle.

But one of the reasons I think its James speaking, is because his letter is also a no-nonsense, blunt treatise written to believers who needed a few hard truths. Luther thought it was Apollos, but he was more of an orator, which is not the style in which this book is delivered.

I could go deeper, but to me James is the most pastoral of all the early church fathers. He doesn't teach or exhort or evangelize, he deals with personal faith in a personal way. However, Hebrews 2:3 does create some complications.

Anyway, in light of Hebrews 4 and the struggle to reach the other side of struggle, namely a rest state in God, the writer alludes back to the throne of grace where we find mercy and grace to help in time of need.

But now he speaks of our way being made open through the torn veil, which is his flesh. In that sense we pass through the torn shards of his broken body into fellowship with God. And we do so for the reason that veil was torn, namely that there is no more guilt or fear, no further alienation from God. So we can enter boldly, as sons.

Now comes the bluntness. But the writer is speaking to Jews, Hebrews to be exact, who knew what it meant to struggle. So in saying that sins under Moses were punished, he adds that the greater consequence is reserved for those who turn away from this faith and trample under foot all that Jesus did for us.

To that he adds a sober caution, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God". But we aren't fearful because the veil was rent so we can find the grace to persist.

Then he also adds what those struggling souls so needed to hear, what we all need to hear:

In just a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay ... but the righteous will live by faith and God takes no pleasure in those who draw back.

What a compelling hope he gives us. It was fulfilled too. Its estimated the the letter was written somewhere during the 7th decade of the first century, but before the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. We surmise that because the priestly nature of the letter would otherwise have referred to that event and the end of the sacrificial system.

There certainly was a lot of persecution before Paul was converted and in Acts 11 we read of a significant scattering of believers. But we also get the sense that this had happened before (verse 32-33) and had overcome before, so maybe this happened after that.

The consensus is that this was written to Hebrew Christians in Rome or Jerusalem. But otherwise it is unclear when, to whom or why it was written. However, we do know that they were suffering enough to turn away, hence the writer's strong words.

But they are assured that Jesus would return soon to restore their faith, but not for those who turned back. It flies in the face of "once-saved-always-saved" teaching, for clearly it is possible to turn away and lose our faith. As such, this is a very real book for real-world believers.

Now we are entering tough times, when our faith will become rather real to all of us. Given that, is it not time to make our faith certain and ground ourselves in him, lest we too turn away? I think so, for:

We do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.

Take your cue from Winston Churchill, who in the face of astonishing odds, inspired a nation with its back to the wall, to never give up, to never surrender, but to fight on the beaches and the landing grounds, in the fields and in the streets. To never surrender.

How you feel or think is rarely how things are ... but God is the better perspective.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Thu, 17 Sep 2020 11:05:00 +0000

Einstein spoke of a frame of reference that offers a valuable insight into our own lives. Its all part of the theory of relativity.

So in his example, if they ever thought the sun went around the earth, they were right. From their frame of reference they were because that is what is perceived. Okay, in reality the sun is not moving, we move around it, its just an illustration.

But in our walk with God we are often faced with a distorted frame of reference. I know what I know. I sense what I sense. God is unseen. His hand too. I cannot know what I do not perceive or see. That's life.

As a result we can face trying times that from our perspective just seem so: hard, tough, unfair. Job had it.

Seen from his perspective, lets say firstly as Job himself, it was very unfair and exceedingly painful. It was also random and purposeless.

Indeed, all his arguments hold that perspective. He defended himself, not principle, not God's prerogative and certainly not the bigger picture.

But stepping a bit away from that, the external but still limited perspectives of his three friends, added to his burden. They were pretty harsh and idealistic, arguing that he just must have sinned or that he must be in the wrong.

Well, it contrasted his own view, so that was at least somewhat helpful. How can we ever really know truth if we are totally subjective?

So, lets say each of those friends were representative of wider suffering. Lets say one was a woman who had lost her husband through illness, another was a believer who faced years of hardship and the third was a wealthy older man from a privileged background.

Hearing from the two suffering souls would help to restore some perspective. But the woman might just commiserate and say, "yeah life is tough and God is cruel". The privileged man might say, "oh its just a flesh wound, you'll get over it". But the believer might say, "brother, nothing unusual has overtaken you. God is in it and he will see you through".

Well, at least hearing those three divergent views might help to restore perspective to our own struggle, if we were Job that is. We might even be able to argue against some of that to reach our own conclusions about it all. Yet, in some ways, while there are valid aspects to each argument, they actually are all wrong. And that is true in anything you go through.

No one can know the shoes you walk in or the path you have trodden or why you are as you now are. No one can see their lives in the perspective of life, the world, a long history (to generations back), our upbringing or the issue that those who influenced us dealt with.

But neither can you, to be fair. How can we so detach ourselves from ourselves to know the full context of what we are facing?

But lets say your mom kept a diary that she gave to you to continue. And lets say that diary goes back 200 years. It has it all. It records the roots of your parents and their parents and everything that happened throughout their cumulative history.

Okay, that might help, especially in say a counselling situation. A lot could be explained. Yet, none of that would reveal the unseen dramatic ironies in heaven, where both God and the Devil have their own perspectives on your life.

To that I might add that for all his detachment, Satan also got it wrong with Job. He thought he understood his righteousness. He didn't. So even a prime seat in the stadium can't ensure a perfect perspective. God alone has that.

And God let Job have it. Why? Because God sees way beyond what anyone else in any of your related journeys will ever see. He knows the hairs on your head and knows your past all the way to Adam. He also knows where you are going and what he is leading you into.

He knows all your weaknesses and strengths in terms that you could never grasp, for most weaknesses have aspects of strength and most strengths have aspects of weakness. For example you may be patient (strength) yet inclined to not react when you should (weakness).

In many ways we have the kind of perspective that someone who has only ever lived in Central Park, has. There are such souls. Its all they know. They don't have a concept of how their lives could be or should be or would be if they invited God into their lives.

Its like being born blind. An unseen world is all that such a soul will ever see if that is so, but well as they might adapt to that, they cannot really know how it ought to be or could be if they had appropriate surgery. To that end they might never try to change things as the life they have is all they have ever known.

For example, many of the victims of communism who saw the wall fall and felt the freedom that Gorbachev brought to Russia, were so insecure in the new world that they wanted to go back to what they had, for there everyone was equally worse off.

When God did correct Job, he asked him "why do you darken my counsel and where were you when I made the worlds?" Job listened for a few chapters and then wept before God, for what he thought was the only valid perspective was as wrong as every other perspective.

So I give you this thought.

Until God breaks the silence and speaks, don't assume to understand it all. Its a walk of faith that will only truly make sense in retrospect. And when it does you will see that he always had his hand on you, even when it meant his having to let disaster or crisis overtake you.

Indeed, you will come to see how he used every crisis to craft something of far greater worth. That is the lot of every soul that puts their faith in him. It is not true of those who go their own ways. Then, well then life is just a game of random odds that we play to the best of our ability.

No matter what you are now facing and how hard it seems, pray until you gain God's perspective, for nothing in him is ever as it seems. Rather, through our changing perspectives, like Abraham, we will yet look up and know that it will not end this way.

The greatest day, the day that ended so much so that we could live

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 09:21:00 +0000

Hebrews 10:11-14, speaks of a repetitive, daily pattern of sacrifices and obligations within the Jewish liturgical system.

Whoever wrote the book (I think it was James, brother of Jesus), to my mind, had to be someone with insight into the liturgical history of Israel. But, as was true of James, the writer also had to be able to relate to a persecuted Hebrew church.

A teacher like Paul or even Jesus, in the context of their Rabbinical training, was not as specifically honed to the deeper aspects of the priesthood. I don't know all that Rabbis did then, but I do know that they left a big impression on broad Jewish life.

Today they will comment as broadly in the spirit of that great tradition. But today there are no priests, as such, as the priesthood ended with the fall of Jerusalem in AD70. And so it will remain until the third temple rises on the ruins of the second, Herodian temple.

Kohanim do fulfill a limited role in the synagogue, in leading the faithful in prayer or mediation. Broadly priests did what they did by representing men before God and mediating for them. But otherwise, the contemporary synagogue is led by a Rabbi.

Even that, by the way, was historically not so. Rabbis were itinerant and self-reliant. They carried food and money on their person and visited local Synagogues or Kehilla, but did not rule them.

Local lay leaders governed their communities, but multiple roles were filled by various people in serving the broad mandate of a Kehilla Kadosha or sacred community.

The point is that Rabbis had too broad a focus on general teaching to grasp the nuances and heartbeat of the priesthood.

Whoever wrote Hebrews had an intense personal perspective, not a specifically scholarly one.

He understood the heart of the role and its routine nature. It was deliberately continuous and repetitive. The same thing happened every single day, except for major festivals.

As such, David introduced 24 priestly courses to lead weekly rotations. Like guards in a palace, they served their week and then transferred the baton to the next course. The only time that was disrupted or extended was for festivals, when all the priests were involved.

Now its thanks to that and the breadcrumbs of information left us about the timing of the course of Zechariah, John the Baptist's father (who was of the course Abijah), that we now know when that occurred.

At the time he was struck dumb after doubting the message of an angel concerning the imminent conception of a child in his wife Elizabeth. Shortly after that John was conceived. And when he was born, 9 months later, his father spoke again, to name him John.

And thanks to that we know with a fair degree of accuracy that John was born in Spring and Jesus in autumn. December 25 is a most unlikely date.

Have I digressed? Yes, because its all interesting and yet no, because the metronomic regularity of everything that happened in the tabernacle and later in the temple, gave us reliable timelines but also confirmed the mundane repetition of their duties.

But Jesus contrasts that by doing away with the repetition through a once and for all sacrificial offering.

A typical priestly job-description included the offering of sheep, goats, cows and pigeons. But whatever purpose each of those diverse offerings served, Jesus offered a sacrifice that over-arched every other sacrifice with a single, all-inclusive offering.

But there is a deeper truth. Sacrifices were repeated on and on, because they were imperfect. They temporarily alleviated sin and brought forgiveness, but never stopped sin. The same souls were back the next week and the next, because sin was unresolved.

And that was partly because the sacrifice was anything but perfect. An animal cannot be perfect except in the sense of being without a visible blemish. Animals are not spiritual, have no knowledge of sin and offer no evidence of being perfected by resistance to sin.

Righteous perfection is only possible in someone born of a woman and subject to all the temptations that are common to men, but without actually sinning.

Now don't take my sentimental view on whether he was sinless. That might just be good old rhetoric speaking. Rather take the word of his greatest objectors and find intellectual honesty in that. And believe me, if Satan could so stridently object to Job, Jesus was in his sights.

Yet Satan robustly tried Jesus for 40 days and found no fault in him. That was aside from the long-term perfection of his astonishing pedigree and the timing of his birth, duly witnessed by three very independent Zoroastrian astronomers.

Even that was not enough. He was also tried by the Sanhedrin, the highest court in Jewry and when they could not be convinced of his offence, Rome also had a go and found no fault in him. That led to the sinless, perfected offering that graced the hill of Calvary.

And when it was done, the veil of the temple tore in two to confirm that repetitive offerings had been made redundant by the all-surpassing sacrifice that God made for us in the cross.

In the context, the New Covenant is restated, because the strength and certainty of a covenant that forgives our sins, makes God ours and ours his and writes his laws inside us not on an external stone of condemnation, vests in the perfection of that once-for-all sacrifice.

When Jesus said, "It is finished", I dare to say that to most minds it was deduced as an understatement. For we barely grasp how much and to what extent all of that was indeed finished and convincingly terminated by his death, so that we might now live.

Be uplifted, in this case only by a reading of scripture - powerful

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Sat, 12 Sep 2020 15:14:00 +0000

Delivering the soul from its own darkness

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Fri, 11 Sep 2020 12:35:00 +0000

We really don't need deliverance, we need to know the deliverer. Nor do we need divine intervention, we need to know the divine.

That reminds me of a great orator who was asked, by an old minister, to recite Psalm 23. He agreed on condition that the minister do the same.

The audience was rapt as the orator swept them away with his fine rendering of the great Psalm and their applause shook the place afterwards.

Then the old man took to the podium. When he was finished, no one clapped, no one spoke, no one moved, until the orator stepped in to say, "I know the Shepherd's Psalm, but this man knows the shepherd".

The more I walk with God, the more I realize that what drives our faces to shades of blue and leaves us in all kinds of crises, is not a big spiritual default that requires some form of deliverance or some major intervention of God.

Rather, a walk of real faith is the obedience he desires of us.

Indeed, as Energy = Mass, Faith = Obedience. They are proportional to each other. To that end, we read in Hebrews 11:6, that it is impossible to please God without faith.

Instead we turn to all kinds of works that detract from faith. In orthodoxy that generally amounts to heavy litany, which seems so worthy but is generally rooted in fear and obligation, not faith, or if it is faith it is faith in the process, not in God.

And before progressives say, "I told you so", know that they are just as bad in making performance, tithing, attendance or whatever else, the stuff that gratifies their faith.

Those are the kinds of sacrifices, albeit less bloody, that God found to be stench-worthy. When Israel got there it was because their sacrifices became a fly-now-pay-later scheme. But for us, its much the same.

And what does that do? Or if not done in church, what does similar 'religious' compliance do for those who work long hours to please the boss or to feel good enough about themselves in the workplace? It does a lot of harm to our health, our hearts and our heads.

Now many a soul might rush in to pray for that, thinking it must be the Devil's work that you are sick or dying. I have watched so many well-meaning but misinformed souls falsely comfort suffering souls with such ideas without ever getting to root-cause behaviors.

But any behavior not rooted in faith, will have the same effect. Only faith can truly let go and rest in God, because the rationale of such faith makes such actions reasonable - as in, knowing that God is true and faithful makes it reasonable to trust him in a struggle.

It can be a lot like learning to ride a bicycle or walk a rope, where the secret to not ending up with a black and blue bum, is a subtle drift towards smaller adjustments. Its the big adjustments that fell us, every time.

But inner-centredness and subtle corrections work. They stop our shaking and over-compensating and settle us into an unconsciously natural rhythm that has always been the less painful way to ride bikes or walk ropes.

Faith is like that. It knows that a supposedly big correction like an act of deliverance won't solve much, but dancing with God and feeling the rhythms of the relationship as we labor to enter into rest while ending our incessant striving, will change us forever.