It Is Possible To Be Human And Perfect Too – Part One

Be therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Mat 5:48.

The LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. Gen 17:1.

It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect. Psa 18:32 

The LORD will perfect that which concerns me. Psa 138:8

God has reckoned that we are vanity. I think it is the Godly way of saying in few words that we are human.

He knows, and tells us so. That without Him we should soon turn aside and “go after vain things, which cannot profit nor deliver” (1 Sam 12:21).  

There is a physical perfection, and there is a metaphysical one. The former is to do with us. the latter with God. one transcends this world. the other we can touch and see with our own eyes.

Perfect implies: Without fault. Excellent. An ideal. Something that exists only in imagination. God though commands it. So it is doable. It can be achieved on this side of heaven.

Perfectibility is also a matter of attitude. One will say it is madness. Another will say “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” This is a Godly attitude, a positive attitude. The former is for the timid.

It is true Paul in Philippians could not boast he had attained perfection.  But he conceded in a double apprehension that it was something he was working hard to achieve.

He didn’t say it was impossible. He said he knew whom he believed. And that he was fully persuaded that what God had promised, He was able also to perform.

Paul knew God. Not only knew but believed it was He “who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were” (Rom 4:17). Paul trusted God to make that which concerned him perfect. Do you? Against hope, Abraham believed in hope. “He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith.” That He is faithful that promised. God made perfect His promise.

He still makes perfect that which He promises. Do you believe that?

Everything good flows from Him who is Perfect. It takes faith. And faith like grace is also a gift of God. The God who gives us all things freely will give it you if you ask Him. After that God in the Holy Spirit will begin the work of perfecting that which concerns you. You know it. let God also know it.

Therefore at the end of his life Paul could say with confidence, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” (2 Ti 4:7).  Paul might well have been saying he had done his best. He had his perfect.

We are not to be slothful though. We are not to say there is a lion in the streets. We are to work hard at that which we do until we come to perfection. “That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Heb 6:12).  For “By much slothfulness the building decayeth; and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through” (Ecc 10:18). 

You may not feel called to know Christ as well as Paul did, knowing “the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.” That was Paul’s ambition. And Paul achieved that. But don’t despise that which you are able to offer in the service of the Lord, however insignificant it might appear before men. To God all that is offered to Him faithfully and with a willing heart is significant. If at the end He should say, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant,” then you shall have earned your perfection in this life. Work at it as if you would receive that reward today.

Perfection therefore is a mark we aim at. “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil 3:14).

Don’t say you can’t make it. avoid procrastination. Perfection is not a preserve for the pedantic. Inculcate profitable habits, like reading.  Invest in good books, as Paul did and exhorted his disciple Timothy to do so: “when thou comest, bring with thee…the books, but especially the parchments” (2 Ti 4:13). “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2Ti 2:15). “Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine” (1Ti 4:13). 

Don’t raise others up. While you lower yourself down. Everyone can achieve perfection in whatever field they are in, so long as it is good. “Now the God of peace… Make you perfect in every good work to do his will…” (Heb 13:20-21).

James, in a capstone, beautifies that which is good as follows: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (Jam 1:17).

Barnes writes, “No cloud, no darkness seems to come from the sun, but it pours its rich effulgence on the farthest part of the universe. So it is with God. There is no darkness in him 1Jo_1:5; and all the moral light and purity which there is in the universe is to be traced to him.”

Henry says, “So that we have nothing good but what we receive from God, as there is no evil or sin in us, or done by us, but what is owing to ourselves. We must own God as the author of all the powers and perfections that are in the creature, and the giver of all the benefits which we have in and by those powers and perfections: but none of their darknesses, their imperfections, or their ill actions are to be charged on the Father of lights; from him proceeds every good and perfect gift, both pertaining to this life and that which is to come.”

Paul in a doxology renders it thus: “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God” (1Co 10:31). To his glory means all that which will bring honor to God. That is always the road to achieving a Godly perfection.

There is a glory for everyone of us, if only we would search deep inside us for it. “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory” (1Co 15:41). Find your glory. Then shine. Don’t worry that it is not very bright. If it lights your path and you can see clearly the road by its lamp, take and carry on.

Don’t be distracted by looking behind your shoulder to see how everybody else is doing. Have a “single” eye, minding your own. Many “eyes” will blur your vision. Then you are likely to  stumble at noon day as at night.

We have learnt it is possible to achieve perfection. It is good to seek it in whatever we do. That we seek it from one who is Perfect, that is God.

Perfection is something intrinsic in us. We live it daily, though sometimes we are hardly aware it is its unrelenting force which is driving us.

When a mother has conceived all that lies ahead in toil and mind is how to bring her baby into perfection. I believe our own interminable and incipient good hungers are implanted in us at that moment as well. Unless one is born into royalty with title and glory already assured, the rest of us we shall have to work out our own perfection daily until we are gathered to our people.

Next Friday, Part Two. How Adam Blew It.

Of Tongues and Strife: And Mountains That Sing and Trees That Clap!

Thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. Ps 31:20

For I have heard the slander of many. Ps 31:13

  

Who whet their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words. Ps 64:3

They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders' poison is under their lips. Ps 140:3.

Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop: but a good word maketh it glad. Pro 12:25

The earth is cooking beneath your feet. It is boiling, and the heat is climbing up your feet. The earth is burnt, and the landscape resembles the scab on a wound. The air is stifling. The throat is choking. “Heaven is clothed with blackness, and its covering is sackcloth.”

They have called you names and they stick in like needles. They echo in your mind like a hundred trees falling down in the forest. The words have melted and condensed in your mind like wax.

They gather like a lump in the stomach, and you feel the heat gathering up again. The bones burn. The ground becomes like a shell and feels like it will crack up and swallow you.

It rankles the mind. Inside it flows like a river and it washes everything in its path. But you can be saved. Hold on. Find a branch and hold on. That branch if you are a believer, is Jesus Christ.

In a fallen world you can possess either of two attitudes. You can go “out with joy, and be led forth with peace.” You can see the mountains and the hills breaking “forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field [clapping] their hands” (Isa 55:12). Or you can be shocked into silence. Then the mountains and the hills will keep mum. And the trees will fall.

A man can be called all sorts of names but still manage to walk uprightly. Others will be bent double. As if Satan should say, “Bow down that I may walk over thee.”

But First Let Us Put Things In Context

Words hurt. Words rankle. Words burn and words can cut like a knife. Men are evil and we cannot deny that.

Yet David, the man after God’s own heart, had his share of bitter words flung his way. His was only a precedent. Jesus was called Beelzebub, or the lord of the flies. The chief devil.

Jesus assured His disciples they would be called worse. He confirmed it to them that they will hated in the world.

We are sinful by nature, which includes hate. Love is not our nature. But we love because God first loved us. Without His grace we should never have known what true love consists of.  Hateful words have their seat in our fallen nature, which is ruled by Satan. Being sinful by nature people will argue and call each other names. And hate each other.

James reckons it is because of our lusts. “From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?” First we get angry. Next we fight. Either physically or verbally. After that it can become murder. Like Cain did to his brother Abel.

James says further that “Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?” We are a jealous lot. James advises that we should submit ourselves to God. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.” There is a natural man and a spiritual one. The spiritual is a “new creature, old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2Co 5:17).

The natural man is “old man” of sin. He is in the flesh. He is carnal. He is “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:1). Further, “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Co 2:14). “So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom 8:8).

There Is a Godly Hate, and There Is a Godly Anger

Now there is a Godly anger and hate, and there is an ungodly one. A believer has been called to teach, correct and rebuke. A believer ought to hate sin and rebuke it. This is called righteous anger, and is consistent with God.

“Ye that love the LORD, hate evil” (Ps 97:10a). “Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way” (Ps119:128). “Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee?... I hate them with perfect hatred” (Ps 139:21-22). “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil” (Pro 8:13a).

Being made in God’s image, we love what God loves. And we hate what God hates.

“Correction is grievous unto him that forsaketh the way: and he that hateth reproof shall die” (Pro 15:10).

But it is not the desire of God for anyone to die. “For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the LORD GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live” (Eze 18:32). “The Lord is… not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Pe 3:9).

Righteous indignation is also called “noble strife.” The psalmist asks, “LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle?” He gives the answer, “In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the LORD” (Ps 15:4). It is not the person who is contemned. It is not the person who is hated.  It is the sin.

However there is another anger that is inconsistent with God. Hate for hate’s sake. “He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes” (1 John 2:9-11). Essentially this is the hate of one believer for another fellow believer.

“Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him” (1 John 3:15).

Positive and Negative

Yes there are men who are positive and some negative. To deny that is to deny that there is both good and evil competing in our natures. Evil takes the precedence but eventually good will triumph – after Christ’s Second Coming. At that time the father of evil, Satan, will be vanquished.

The people hating you or calling you names, are essentially doing their father’s will. “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do” (John 8:44). “He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil” (1 Jo 3:8).

Satan is also called: “the god of this world,” “wicked one,” “tempter,” “adversary” and “the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience” (Eph 2:2). In a nutshell Satan is the origin of evil. He is the father of it. He is also the father of racial hatred and tribal hatred.

How We Should React To Hate

Natural men, or carnal, will react one way. Spiritual people will react another. The former will revenge. If one is called a dog, then one will feel justified to call the other a bigger dog,  or something worse. This can go on until all the expletives are exhausted in the book.

Believers will react differently. We are called to rejoice! “Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you” (Mat 5:12). Again we are called to love our enemies, “bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitelly use you, and persecute you” (Mat 5:44).

Here is where the believer calls for God’s double portion of grace upon him. That he will not dwell on the hurt. That he will instead focus his eyes upon the mountains and the hills which are singing, and on the trees which are clapping. They are many. And you will see them too if you look hard.

Forgive and forget. Not to do so is to allow Satan to bow your head so that he might walk over you. Whatever it is remember “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” (Rom 12:19).  Don’t call names. Don’t hate. Listen to the music instead. If the mountains and the trees can do it you can do it too.

Trust in God and “stay upon him.” Follow after righteousness.  “Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn”. God will comfort his people. “Fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings” (Isa 51:7b).

You are in the forest and all the trees are silent. The mountains and the hills have hidden their faces. Heaven is in darkness; “who shall be sorry for thee?” Look yonder. And “Behold your God!”

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Co 13:11-12).

Break forth into joy. The grass will wither. The flowers will fade. The trees will one day be cut down and the mountains will vanish. But the word of God “shall not pass away.”

Masters and Slaves: Why It Is No Easy Walk To Freedom – Part Two

 “He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye…So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.” Deu 32:10-12.

“They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods… to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up.” Deu 32:17.

“And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be.” Deu 32:20

“O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!” Deu 32:29  

Choosing Your God

They looked at the God given manna and they despised it; “there is nothing at all, beside this manna.” Always this has been the first instinct of the children of the world. To rebel against God and to despise his bread, which is his Word

.

People miss worldly bread. And the gods give them. People strive for their own inventions, and the gods give them. People crave happiness, and the gods give them. The things of God, wisdom, knowledge, and His Word are always despised. These lack taste.

So what was God to do? He folded His Hands. In a world where “God is dead,” everything is permitted. We should love to think we are whole but we are not. We are lame. We are standing prosthetically on one leg. Soon we will blow up even the good leg remaining if we are not careful. “I will heap mischiefs upon them.” Who has said God is not capable of humor?

Now nature screams in shock. Animals stare and shake their heads. The wind blows contrariwise in astonishment. Fires erupt in the wilderness in vexation. And the sea waves pummel the land in obnoxious detestation. “Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?” From Genesis to Revelation is God trying to make His people free from the shackles of Sin, Satan and the World. It is God speaking to this trio, “Thus saith the LORD…Let my people go.”

The clash has always between two civilizations. One worldly, symbolized by Egypt. The other is Spiritual, represented by God. One is characterized by ruggedness. The “waste howling wilderness” and the scorching heat. The other is luscious, rich and bewitching. The symbol of one is The Promised Land. The other is Egypt. But with God even the desert is conquerable. God is able to make a table in the wilderness for His children. So there is no need for fear.

But Satan always magnifies the vastness of the desert before us. The rocks and the heat become unbearable.  It brought a chill down the spines of the majority of Israelites. The desert sprawled before them like a monster ready to devour them. They looked back and ahead and saw nothing but the scorching desert. They forgot God was in their presence. How large is your desert? Remember you are not alone. You will get to The Promised Land. Just trust and obey.

Clash of these two civilizations is always between the short-lived, the here and now, and the long-lasting and cherished ideals of true freedom, and the eternal. Pharaoh offered the Israelites civilization, the oldest in the world. God was offering what? Wilderness! God’s Promised Land seemed too far.

But Egypt was ready, and it was available. Why not take it? Christ too was tempted like that. Satan “sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” Christ won over Satan by His written word. In the wilderness the Word was in their midst. But they forgot. Feeling the heat? Don’t forget. You are not alone. He is there. He is the Word. 

There is life in “Egypt.” But it is short. Moses saw that. Moses had grown under it. In Pharaoh’s own palace. There is nothing that Moses lacked. But Moses gave up all that. Lept from being a prince to a shepherd. But why?

Moses is not your inspiring figure at this time. But Moses had something his comrades lacked. Moses had vision. Moses saw the invincible. Moses aimed higher. “By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter;  Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible” (Heb 11:24-27).

   

In keeping Jethro his father-in-law’s sheep, no doubt Moses seemed a fool. In forsaking the Pharaoh’s palace and all its pleasures, Moses seemed a fool. But Moses had chosen to be a fool for God’s sake.

Keeping sheep was the price he was paying for his conviction. Moses kept sheep but he had the peace of mind. No doubt the road he took was the least travelled one. It was rustic. It was rutted. It was overgrown with tall grass. And it had no crowds. It was a lonely road but his sheep kept him company. “The LORD is my shepherd. I shall not want.” What company have you got on that road you are on?

“Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat; Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Mat 7:13-14).

There are higher things in life than being called a prince, greater things in life than the daily bread. Men toss honesty out of the window because “a man must eat.” Remember there are higher things in life than your daily bread; “man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live” (Deu 8:3).

The men of God knew this. They stood their ground; “not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection. And others had trial of cruel mocking and scourging, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment…they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented” (Heb 11:35-36).

There is a deliverance that is worthless. There is a victory that is pyrrhic. There is a victory that betrays the conscience. There is a price below or above which one cannot accept freedom. Esau sold his birthright because of stew. What is your desire and what are you willing to expend to obtain it? Fix your price on your window, and let the world know how much you are worth.

Cemeteries and Lost Opportunities

In wilderness, it wasn’t the death of men only that took place. It was death of opportunities. What they might have become died with them in the wilderness.

It is not in vain that cemeteries feel creepy. There is a languid heaviness that attaches itself to the atmosphere inside there. It drops down stealthily like a bullet, and ricochet’s on the tree branches and the leaves; on the grass and on the stones below. The headstones’ shoulders droop, and their long lonely ashen faces are frozen in an inimitable stare.

It is the stare or shock of things that might have been, but were never be. The wind blows inside and sheds tears.

There are twelve hours in a day for each of us. What have you put in them? Look back at the clock, and see if it agrees with you.

In a world where everything is permitted, who needs God? God is still in our midst. God is still daily calling His children out of Egypt.

You say the land next door is just like heaven? Perhaps. But a perceptible eerie feeling lurks. Of a world hurtling down the abyss like a phantom, heading to crash down below, to raise another “dust of death.”

It is history that drives this fear. Of great empires and great civilizations once huge, but now gone. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome. These now are years spent “as a tale that is told.”

We err not to know that history repeats itself. We err not to believe that. Then we err not to believe God. Finally we err not to believe the truth. So “What is truth?”  Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

 “And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables [fiction].” The way of truth “shall be evil spoken of” (2 Pe 2:2). It is that disdain again. The despising of the manna; “there is nothing at all, beside this manna.” The bread from heaven is still deemed to lack taste. How does it taste to you in your mouth, this “manna”? I wish it would taste to you like it tasted in Jeremiah’s mouth!

“Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts” (Jer 15:16). “If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious” (1 Pe 2:3). "O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him" (Ps 34:8).

Again Christ has spoken, and said once: “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away” (Luke 21:33). Think about that. “For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life” (Deu 32:47).

God is not bad. He still calls His people over at the table. For a talk. “Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons.” (Isa 41:21). “Put me in remembrance: let us plead together: declare thou, that thou mayest be justified.”(Isa 43:26).

God still swears His hand is not short that it cannot save, practically anybody; “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isa 1:18). That is the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is redemption. That is freedom. It has come!

So choose your destiny. Choose your end. Choose wisely. And before that ink dries on your paper, in your story of your life, choose your ending. Then write it down. 

Masters and Slaves: Why It Is No Easy Walk To Freedom – Part One

 “Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians?” Ex 14:12.

“Why came we forth out of Egypt?” Nu 11:20

In the narratives of the Master and Slave genre the Exodus of the Bible is the most grand and epochal in the history of man’s redemption. Yet that offer when it has come, it has not always been taken up willingly by the “slaves” themselves, but it has come through feats and jerks, through blandishments and outright persuasion. Finally it has come through tears and through death.

Men have even come up with cynical proverbs to justify why they should remain in servitude. “Zimwi likujualo halikuli ukakwisha.” Roughly translated it says “It is better the devil you know than the one you don’t.” Thus much later the children of Israel in the wilderness began to miss Pharaoh, as if they would say: Though he had doubled their tasks and killed their children, at least they knew him. They knew his Egypt. They had known it for 430 years. But as for this new thing Moses had brought up to kill them in the wilderness, they did not know it. They did not know how it would end.

It is no wonder Moses was reluctant to take the offer of leading that group. He clearly foresaw the questions those people would bombard him with, and he became afraid. Then he recalled that these same people had been hostile to him, in that earlier incident in Egypt, when he had only felt pity at them, and had killed an Egyptian who was harassing them, in his effort to try to alleviate their misery. But what did they do?  They had threatened to give him away. And now God was asking him to go and lead these same people out of Egypt!

The prospect of leading people and not sheep can be daunting to anyone, let alone Moses.  Keeping sheep seemed the easier way out. God was daring him to try something bigger. Search your own conscience, and decide if there isn’t something bigger that you can do than “keep sheep.” God was offering Moses something bigger, a huge task, but like all of us, Moses was reluctant to take it up.

Who is a Slave, Who is a Master?

A slave is somebody dominated by another, literary owned or controlled by another. That another is the master. Sin, as master, enslaves. Hence Christians are warned not to let it have dominion over them. Christ declaimed “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin” (John 8:34).

Instead, a born-again Christian becomes a servant or slave to a positive Master, which is Christ. That which now has control over us is Christ and the Holy Spirit, which both sanctifies us, teaches us, and leads us. We are therefore glad to be called slaves to these positive controlling forces, than the negative ones concerning sin and its shame. It is not in vain that Paul says “We are fools for Christ’s sake” (1 Co 4:10).  Christ, and not sin, now has dominion over our lives. “Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.” (Rom 6:18).

A master leads and others follow. The master is the boss. Thus Christians follow Christ. When sin is the master then its victims follow it. They pay obeisance to it. They obey it and respect it. The sin is their boss. But if one can overturn it, renounce it, then it is said one has mastered it. Unfortunately humanly speaking we are not capable of overturning sin by our own strength except through the grace of Jesus Christ. We are sinful by nature, and therefore more willing to do evil than good. That is why Christ came. To set us the captives free. Search your conscience. Do you need help?  Do you need to learn the truth about your present circumstances? Will you accept the offer of freedom or will you fight it?

Accepting that is itself a mountain. Admitting that you are a slave is a tall order. Satan will work overtime to convince you that you are not, that God wants to take away your freedom. Satan hides the truth from you, blinds you. God offers you the truth. Without mincing words. That it might set you free, and “ye [may] be free indeed” (John 8:32-36). Satan’s  freedom is slavery in disguise. First he hides the hideousness of your sin by giving it colorful names. Like gay for homosexuality. “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!” (Isa 5:20-21).

Satan’s freedom degrades one. It lowers one. Makes one dirty. One wallows in own vomit. The bed is transformed into a scatological slimepit. That is Satan’s freedom. Dirty. Smells bad. Are you ready to accept that hard bare knuckled truth and light which Christ is shining in your soul? Can you smell the putrescence in those sins? (All sins smell bad before God, all sins without distinction. The opposite are Righteous acts, called sweet savours before God). Will you accept His free offer of true freedom or will you fight it to death like the children of Israel did? Incidentally that is Satan’s chief goal. To bring you so low to the ground level, that then he can easily kick you into the hole and bury you. Next he will move on to his next victim, “seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pe 5:8). Forget about words like bigot. Those are tools of Satan’s distractions. The scales he pumps into our eyes.

This is the truth and the freedom which Christ is offering. It is truth and just because it is truth, it hurts. Sometimes it takes a hammer and fire to pierce through that welding. To separate one from that sin and death. Hence Jude wrote, “And others save with fire, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.”

For a patient sometimes to heal, one has to take a very bitter medicine. Only Christ can give you that desire and strength to take that medicine. Ask him. “And him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). Again it is written, “he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness” (Ps 107:9). Can you feel that longing or desire to be completely set free? May God grant you the grace to feel so!

Let My People Go!

  “And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go…” (Ex 5:1).

The children of Israel were in trouble. The new Pharaoh who came after Joseph’s death was a monster. He saw that the children of Israel were increasing in the land, and that worried him. Therefore he devised what might as well be the very first beginning of the holocaust against the Jews. First he did “set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens.” Next, “they made their lives bitter with hard bondage.” Next he “charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river…”

It was at this time that the cry of the children of Israel reached God. And He heard. And He came down to deliver them. And then trouble began. Hardly had they crossed the Red Sea than they began to fight: “Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness?” (Ex 14:11). Such was the lot of Israel in Egypt. 430 years of doing tasks they did not like, superintended by taskmasters they did not love, in a country which wasn’t their home. Yet when the call for freedom came they were reluctant to take it. They fought it to death. You are in bondage. Your cry for help has come up before God. He has heard you. He has come down to deliver you. Are you ready to go? 

The Reasons People Give

Many reasons attend to this. Like bread. Others are fears of the unknown. Others are afraid of grasshoppers and huge men. “The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight” (Nu 13:32-33).

Others are afraid they may never get another job if they quit this one, though it is sheer drudgery. Superstitions and irrational fears superimpose themselves on it. A pay slip can become an object of slavery, refusing to let go.

Onions and Garlic 

In short God had come down to offer His people freedom, in answer to their own cry. But when finally the bit where the rubber meets the tarmac came, they were reluctant to engage the gear, and let the car go. It began with Moses, as the reluctant driver. Next the captives themselves. When they got on the back of that van, it was to begin one hell of a ride for both Moses and his passengers. At every stage his passengers cried that it had been better if they had not taken this ride.  They fought the old man until the van overturned. Moses died. And all the passengers who had left Egypt alive died too. Except Joshua and Caleb.

Perhaps people can be addicted to oppression? Culture and tribalism can make a peoples’ vision very short indeed. It is slavery. Refusal to expand one’s world-view. The Israelites were adamant. They refused to see beyond Egypt. They forgot that God was there with them, that He “went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night” (Ex 13:21). They forgot their own cry, forgot their former tasks and their former taskmasters. They forgot God’s miracles and promises.

Instead they became weighted down by such minor things as food. “We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick. But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes” (Nu 11:5-6).

Some people fail to see far. They see only onions and garlic. These became matters of life and death to the children of Israel. Their vision became scandalously short. They refused to see the larger picture of their own salvation. Their logic became inverted. Now Moses (and God by extension) became their cruel master, not Pharaoh. God became not their solution but their problem. They forgot and began their malevolent tantrums. “Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him” (Ex 32:1). What they were saying in effect was this: “for as for this God that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.”

People suffer bondage. Then they cry “Where is God?” Yet He was constantly there with them. The people saw this and believed. But their belief lasted only until the time of the next meal. Pharaoh now seemed like he had been their erstwhile savior. The end was that the majority died in the wilderness because of their unbelief. Not for want of freedom but for want of onions and garlic.

You recognize you are in bondage. You have asked God for help. Help has come. Search your conscience. What more are you missing? May God grant you His grace. May it aid you in your search for Him. May you, one day, stand high on His Mountain and shout to the whole world below that, “Free at last! Thank God I am free at last!”  In Jesus Mighty Name! Amen!

Wounds, Loneliness and Grief

 “My heart is wounded within me… I am gone like the shadow when it declineth.” Ps 109:23

 “I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.” Ps 22:17

“Reproach hath broken my heart… I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.” Ps 69:20

“I called for my lovers, but they deceived me.” Lam 1:19

David’s entire life is a montage of the Christian life here on earth. It is a life of wounds, loneliness and grief.

Reckoned as a child to be future king over Israel, it wasn’t until he had fought his battles in the wilderness of this life for thirty years, that he eventually ascended to the throne. Betrayal, loneliness and grief dogged his entire life until death.

Many are the times when God has shown his people “hard things.” Many are the times God has made His people “to drink the wine of astonishment.” When Christ uttered the words “it is finished,” no doubt a lot of work got finished, but not all. Christ still works, as God still does.

Seated on the right hand of his Father, there is still more work to do before Christ’s Second Coming. This “first earth” is groaning, and is fallen. “All the foundations of the earth are out of course.” Until Christ comes again and puts everything back on course. Then all will be finished. In the “new heaven and a new earth… God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.”

Grief is always of a most aggravating and ineffable kind when it comes. The harp strings are broken. And we have hanged our harps upon the willows. How then shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? That’s more like how grief feels. It is one of those ineluctable things we have to do with in life. The “why’s” and “if’s” that assault and pulverize our sanity. The heart inside gets lacerated. Outside the air lumbers motionlessly as if in heavy stilts. Except one is in the grace of God one can die of a broken heart.

How Should We React?

Job’s friend’s fared well while they kept their silence. But then after one week without saying anything, their mouths felt compelled to say something. In the end that something very nearly killed Job. Sometimes it is better not to say anything at all however hard pressed we are.

Some refuse to reconcile their grief, perhaps the death of a loved one, with the idea of a just and loving God. “Where was God?” they ask. It depends in what attitude you ask that question. That will then determine whether you will receive an answer from God or not.

Most of our reaction to grief of any sort will usually be in direct proportion to the amount of knowledge we possess about God. If we had known God well then should we know Him like Job knew Him. “Shall we receive good at the hand God, and shall we not receive evil?” This does not mean God commits evil. He allows it, to bring about his own purposes in the world. Like He allowed Christ to suffer terrible shame and to die on the Cross like a condemned criminal. Redemption or liberation comes at a cost. “I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows.” 

Therefore believers don’t believe in God only when things are going their way, but we believe in Him too even when He makes us “to drink the wine of astonishment.” Remember it is his will that we pray to “be done in earth” and not ours. Sometimes that will might encapsulate very “hard things” upon our souls. “Can God will for my lover to reject me?” It might be for your own life’s sake. Or for their own life’s condemnation. No one forced Judas to betray Jesus. He did it out of his own free will. Therefore he condemned himself. In everything God knows the best.

That is the beauty of being in a personal relationship with Christ. “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” That implies somebody you know very well, and someone who knows you very well too. Someone you can trust. Someone who is your life and your strength. Someone who cannot betray you for thirty pieces of silver. Do you have such a friend? Of course it is a matter of vision. Which eyes are you wearing? The men in Hebrew Eleven saw beyond their normal eye sight. To see like that you have to wear the glasses God wears.

The wonderful thing is that God has never withdrawn our freedom to approach Him and reason with Him. After Christ’s redemptive work on the Cross, now we have both freedom and knowledge. We can go directly to the throne of grace… and pour out our troubles to Him in confidence, as if “face to face.”

Job and his friends employed that tool though they lacked much of the knowledge we now possess “in Christ.” But that did not hinder them. They went cerebral with God. Job especially went directly to the gates of heaven. He knocked and he never left knocking until God opened. Then God went cerebral too. To Job’s one hundred questions God asked Job one hundred questions in return. In the end Job admitted his abject ignorance, and he repented “in dust and ashes.” In the genre you choose to meet God in, in that genre God replies to you, and rewards you.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Your grieving is done. Your reasoning with God is over. It is then that you begin to understand that you were never alone. That there is much you did not understand then, but which you understand now. That immediately the light you cherished went out God lit another and placed it beside you. Only your tears prevented you from seeing it

Time heals. The frost will thaw. The plagues will distil, and wear off. The disquiet will vanish. Both the heart and the mind meeting at a point of sanguine convergence, will coalesce gradually into a calm halcyon repose. It is the peace of God. And in the end we will collect our harps from the willows and we will sing to our Lord a new song.