I have become a confirmed “fence-sitter” about many things, and even about a number of Christian issues. AND THAT’S OK! I have been blessed by God with an inquisitive and curious mind. I have always wanted to discover how things worked. And there’s nothing wrong with that – it’s good. But after 74 years of seeking definitive answers to every question that pops into my mind, I have arrived at a conclusion: God doesn’t require me to take definitive stands on one side of the fence or the other. I CAN sit on the fence and survey both sides of the fence on many issues. In fact, the more I have used my mind the more I see that I am not able to jump down off the fence to land on solid ground on either side. I admit that at times I have leaned down on one side or the other hanging by my toes from the fence. But when I do, I don't touch the ground. What are you saying, Lou? That you can be wishee-washee about everything and that is OK? That you don’t have to step forward and make decisions? Not at all. God gave us free-choice and decision-making for a definite purpose – so that we would choose HIM. We have free-choice to choose Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord of our life. We have free-choice to continue in spiritual growth by the power of Christ within us. But we also have free-choice to “sit on the fence” about Christian issues that don’t involve the basics of faith in God and morality. Throughout my life, I have jumped off the fence to the ground on one side or another of many issues of life, including Christian issues. On some things, I have jumped back up to sit on the fence again; on others, I have jumped over the fence to the ground on the other side. My inquisitive mind kept me searching for the “right” position. But the “right” position is always God’s position – and God does not always reveal His position definitively! A friend of mine used to always say, “I’m not sure and when I see God, I’m going to ask Him about it.” This is THE answer that we must give in a number of Christian inquiries, because, let’s face it, the Bible does not cover every facet of every issue. You know what? I have learned to love the view from my perch on the fence. I can see farther and better from up there than I can down on the ground on one side or the other. Let me talk about some specific issues that I am on the fence with, and then on those issues where my free-choice from God were really meant to apply.
Young Earth – Old Earth
Through most of my life, I believed that creation was 6,000 years ago give or take a few thousand. That the “days” of Genesis One were literal 24 hour days. That dinosaurs and man were contemporary. That the Flood of Noah was approximately 2350BC. I chose to be on the ground on that side of the fence. Later in life, as I became more science oriented, I concluded that there are enough proofs of an “old” Earth and an “old” creation and that Genesis One concerned “ages” and not “days”. And on old creation did not require evolution of man from lower primates – God could have done His creating in stages or “ages”. So I leaped right over the fence to the other side. But both sides put forth some pretty persuasive arguments for their side. Which is right? Thankfully, I don’t have to be down on the ground, I can sit on the fence, survey both sides, and wait until I can ask God. Because this is not a basic issue of Christian salvation, faith and morality.
Universalism
Throughout most of my life, I was right down on the ground on the side that you were either saved to heaven or condemned to hell by your responses to God in this life. But some put forth a persuasive argument that all will ultimately be saved somewhere out there in the future – and they have scripture texts that certainly seem to suggest it. How God will accomplish salvation and how many humans will make it is up to God and His plan. The Bible gives hints about it both ways but we won’t know for sure until we see and ask God about it. I know this from the Bible: God wants us to spread the word about salvation NOW and He has persuaded me personally to accept Jesus Christ for MY salvation and Lordship. I can sit on the fence about the rest.
What Is Hell?
In my younger years, I was scared to death of “burning in hell”. I was firmly on the ground on that side of what hell was. And that certainly was a factor in the back of my mind as I came to accept Christ for salvation. But after my new birth in Christ, my inquisitive mind discovered about three concepts of “hell punishment”. 1 – eternal torment by fire 2 – eternal separation from a loving God 3 – eternal annihilation. I am on the fence here concerning what I have been saved from. But the key here is that I have chosen and jumped to the ground on the side that Jesus has saved me – a basic of faith that required me to jump to the ground and not sit on the fence.
Prophecy and The Book of Revelation
Here again, in my early years I was firmly on the ground about prophecy. It seemed like Jesus Christ was coming again to Earth in my lifetime. I put possible dates on everything. The Book of Revelation was practically all future for me. But here in my later Christian years, I have discovered other Christian views that most if not all prophecy was fulfilled with the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70AD. This is called a “preterist” viewpoint. And believe me, they have some powerful arguments and proofs from the Bible to back it up. Thankfully, God has allowed me to jump up and sit on the fence and survey both sides. I don’t have to ground myself on either side of the fence because, in all practicality, only God knows and it doesn’t matter definitively to me right now. The important and basic doctrinal issue is that God has called me now, God is saving people now, Jesus Christ comes to live by a new birth in Christians now. Did Jesus come back to be with His people in 70AD, or is He coming physically at some future date? The necessary understanding is that HE IS HERE NOW LIVING IN GOD’S CHILDREN!
Where We Can’t Fence-sit
We can’t sit on the fence about our personal salvation. We must choose to jump to the ground and accept by faith that Jesus took the punishment for our sins on the Cross; that we are risen with Him to a new nature and life; that by making Him the Lord and leader of our life, we can and will grow into the lifestyle that God wants for His children. We can’t sit on the fence about whether we choose to live our lives dependently on God or independently from Him. He has made it clear that there is only one right side of the fence and we must be grounded there. Too many people try to make black and white issues out of things that are not definitively revealed to us by God. One of the great joys of heaven will be sitting around the throne of God getting the answers that our inquisitive minds have wondered about. There our All-knowing, All-loving Father God and Son, Jesus Christ, will also take pleasure in seeing our inquisitive minds receive some fabulous information. We think we live in a computerized information age now – wait until then!
In what may be America’s worst natural disaster, nearly a million people have been displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Tens of thousands were stranded in New Orleans without power, without food, without drinkable water, without sanitation, without medical services, without police. New Orleans grabbed the headlines because it involved the most people, but the destruction was severe in southern Mississippi and Alabama, too. One tragedy piled on top of another to make them all worse. If only the city had been built in a better place. If only the people had built better levees. If only they had evacuated before the hurricane hit. If only the government had acted quicker to bring food and water, and to transport the refugees. If only…
Where was God?
All sorts of human decisions contributed to the tragedy, but it was nevertheless a natural disaster - nature gone awry - called an "act of God", (actually caused by an act of man at the Fall). Where was God when the hurricane hit land? Where was He when the 140-mph winds hit Mississippi? Where was He when the levee broke? Where was He when the people were trapped inside their attics when the water rose too high? God was there, on the ground, in His people, suffering along with them. When one part of the body suffers, Paul said, every part suffers with it (1 Corinthians 12:26) - and that includes the head of the body, Jesus Christ. He suffers with us - He has proven His willingness to do it before, and He does it time and time again. God loves His people - he loves even the people who do not believe in Him - He loves them enough to send his Son to die for them. When we grieve, He grieves, too. When we suffer, He suffers, too. God is big enough and powerful enough to do something about it. Sometimes He intervenes, and we hear stories of miraculous intervention - but often we do not. Maybe the hurricane could have hit harder and stronger than it did, but still, it killed thousands of people. God could have stopped it entirely, so that it didn’t kill any people at all, didn’t cause any property damage at all, and yet He did not. Whether the disasters are small or large, why does God let them happen? Frankly, we do not know the complete answer. The Bible does tell us that when sin entered the world, God said that nature itself would work against the people. "Cursed is the ground because of you…. It will produce thorns and thistles…until you return to the ground" (Genesis 3:17-19). When the first people sinned, nature itself went awry - and nature will win over every person, and every person will return to the dust from which they came (v. 19). Old age will strike - unless something else does first - and nature will have its say. Paul says that creation itself "was subjected to frustration" (Romans 8:20), and it waits for the day when it "will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom" (v. 21). Frankly, we do not know how physics would function without "decay" of some sort, and we do not know how God will fix the problem. But we do know that there is something wrong with nature, caused by sin, and God had chosen to allow that - even with the difficulties it causes, even though those "difficulties" are sometimes huge disasters that kill thousands of innocent people. Sin often affects innocent people, and sin has somehow affected nature itself. We may pray for the day when "the times comes for God to restore everything" (Acts 3:21), but we still have to live in the world gone awry.
Looking to Jesus
Jesus saved His disciples from a natural disaster - the storm on the sea of Galilee. He saved Paul and his companions on a storm-caused shipwreck near Malta. But nature still had its way, for they all eventually died. Many were killed by evil people, others by disease (another example of nature gone awry), some by old age. God allows nature to take its toll. Not forever, not permanently, but God still lets it happen. Someday, I suppose, we will see how magnificent the plan is, but for now it seems quite messy. Jesus talked about a natural disaster in one man’s life. Who sinned, the disciples asked: this man, or his parents? Neither one, said Jesus (John 9:1-3). Not all problems can be pinpointed to a particular sin. It’s just that nature doesn’t always work the way it is supposed to, and for this particular man, the result was a disaster in his own life. Jesus fixed that particular problem, but most of the time, He allows His people to suffer the consequences of a world messed up by sin, where even the forces of nature work against us. Jesus talked about another disaster in Jerusalem: the tower of Siloam fell and killed 18 people. It was not a natural disaster, of course, but a disaster nonetheless, a tragedy that killed innocent people. Jesus did not spend time blaming the engineers or the builders. Instead, He turned to the audience and said, "Unless you repent, you too will all perish" (Luke 13:4-5). Take that disaster, and instead of blaming somebody, examine yourself. Get your priorities in order, and the chief priority is your relationship with God. Bad things happen to good people as well as to the bad. The disaster that hit someone else could have just as easily hit us. God could allow it to hit us just as well as He could allow it to hit them - that’s the lesson we need to consider from these tragedies. We need to turn to God, to trust Him even when the so-called "acts of God" strike close to home. During his tremendous trial, Job said, "Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him" (Job 13:15). We need a similar kind of trust - knowing that the God who did not spare His own Son will never cut us off, though we walk into the valley of the shadow of death, though we enter death itself. The God who spared not His own Son also rescued His Son after He went through that valley, and He promises to rescue us, too. He will give us life again, but to do it, we live in a world that takes life away. If Jesus were talking to the families of the 18 people killed by the tower collapse, He no doubt would have been as compassionate as He was with the man born blind. When we are dealing with the victims of Hurricane Katrina or any other disaster, we need compassion, too - compassion that motivates us to help. Many of you have given generously, and no doubt will continue to help during the long recovery period. But we also need to examine ourselves. When tragedy strikes someone else, we do not need to ask where God is - we need to ask where we are, and whether we can do something about it. The only thing worse than nature gone awry is a heart gone cold. Can we trust God even when nature strikes us dead? Yes, we should, for one way or another, nature will strike every one of us dead. We have nowhere else to turn, for God has the only solution to the problem. But we need to trust Him. When disaster strikes, God is there, suffering in His people, and working in His people. Therefore, when disaster strikes, God’s people can be found standing with Him, not casting blame, but helping out, making a positive difference, loving as Jesus loves.
Some have found the following verses of the Bible hard to understand: “Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. ’Teacher,’ they said, ‘Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and have children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. The second and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. Finally the woman died too. Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?’ Jesus replied, ‘The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. But in the account of the bush, Even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to Him all are alive.” (Luke 20:27-38) In order to get the picture of this dialogue, we need to understand the Sadducees. They believed in God. But they believed in a God for this life only. To them, God rewarded obedience only with rewards for this human life. Jesus taught the resurrection, and they did not believe in a resurrection. They believed that when you die, you die forever, and the only thing that carries on is your good family name. And so they practiced levirate marriage (the practice of marrying the widow of one’s brother) to ensure descendants to carry on the family name. The Sadducees placed all their faith in the here and now. Their God was only the God of this life. The Sadducees were always trying to trap Jesus with a question He could not answer. To make Jesus’ teaching about the resurrection seem ridiculous, they presented Him with a scenario where one woman outlived seven husbands who were brothers, then died. Then came their stinging question, “In the resurrection, whose wife does she become?” The fear of death has forever plagued humankind. Humans have invented all kinds of means to attempt to evade its finality, with no success. But Jesus had the answer. His response to the Sadducees says that one does not need an heir to thwart death. One needs only to be “counted worthy” by God. Each of the “worthy” ones will experience a resurrection – God will bring them back to life, and more – they will never die! They will be made “equal to the angels” in that they will have eternal life. To further refute the Sadducees’ misconception, Jesus recalled the words of Moses at the burning bush. Jesus affirmed Moses’ confidence that even though sleeping, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not erased from God’s memory. The covenant relationship of God with these godly ones was not a temporary bond “till death do us part.” We may lose our friends in death, but not God. Even though they sleep for a time, God will awaken them at their resurrection and give them their inheritance, a place in His Kingdom of Heaven. Contrary to the belief of the Sadducees, death is for us the “last enemy,” and it will be destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26). God will not allow this enemy to separate any of His children from His love (Romans 8:38). He will give to those who seek Him a place in His everlasting Kingdom (Daniel 7:27). God is not the Sadducees’ God of human existence only, of dying bodies and fading memories. Those who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior will be given “glory, honor, and immortality…eternal life” (Romans 2:7).
How many times have you heard, “He’s only human!” or “She’s only human!”? Or more importantly, how many times have you said about yourself, “I’m only human!”? Well, all these statements are just plain wrong! An animal is just an animal. A fish is just a fish. A tree is just a tree. The Earth is just the Earth. The Sun is just the Sun. The galaxy is just the galaxy. All the elements of the universe are just material creation. BUT – we humans are more than just material humans. We have something that nothing else in creation has: “the image of God” (Genesis 1:26-27). In other words, we have been given something from the spirit world that animals and other lower forms of creation don’t have which the Bible calls the “human spirit”. This human spirit is the core of WHO WE ARE. And we are created to be controlled by this human spirit. Before our new birth as Christians, because of the Fall, our human spirit contained the nature of Satan (John 8:44). After our new birth, our human spirit contains and is joined to the nature of God through the indwelling Jesus Christ. God has said that he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him (1 Corinthians 6:17). He has also said that He is the divine treasure and we, the believers, are the vessels that contain Him. He is the vine and believers are the branches. He is their owner, and believers are His bondslaves. He is the deity placed in the human temple to manifest and display Him. He is the husband furnishing the seed to the productive wife. The vessel, the branch, the temple, the wife – are all dependent. The vessel is dependent upon the contents, the branch upon the vine, the temple upon the deity, and the wife upon the husband for the seed. With this in mind, if you have been seeing yourself as an “independent” person and have acted from that belief, realize that you have gone for Satan’s lie about the believer. You have gone for Satan’s lie about yourself. When God sees you, He only sees union with Himself through Christ. Satan sees and sponsors this divided outlook. The worst sin you will ever find out you have committed is the sin of wrong believing about yourself. For more on this subject, click here for a previous article.
We have a popular restaurant chain in the St. Louis area called Steak & Shake. Their TV commercials are very creative. One of them is as follows: The narrator says that when you go in to eat, you look at a menu on the wall, walk up and order at a counter, carry your food to a table, eat, and then clean up your trash and carry it to a disposal. All the while, the TV shows the hustle and bustle of a typical fast-food establishment. Then a curtain descends on the scene and you see the inside of a Steak & Shake. Everyone is seated at tables and is being waited on by serving attendants. Everyone is happy and relaxed. The narrator says over this happy scene, “Steak & Shake is a RESTaurant, not a WORKaurant!” God says that there is a type of working that IS resting. The writer to the Hebrews (probably Paul) declares that this life has rest, not strain as its basis (Heb. 4:1-11). It is the rest God has had since He rested on the seventh day after completing the creation. It is also that of Israel entering into the land of Canaan. But he goes on to say that the true rest is what we have in Christ, our Joshua. That rest is by no means a folding of the hands, but a fully active life that is a thrill to live because it has adequacy at its center, not inadequacy. Living life without what it takes to live it causes strain; living life with what it takes to live it produces rest. The resting life he describes this way: “He that has entered into His rest, he has also ceased from his own works, as God did from His” (4:10). Living by my own works was when I was the worker. The rest-life will have even more works, for He is the worker. BUT THAT TYPE OF WORKING IS RESTING. He defined rest as being a ceasing from our own works. Not from work, of course – that is an impossibility – but from works proceeding from self-effort. In other words sharing God’s rest doesn’t mean ceasing from work, any more than our ever-active God ceases, but resting in our work. If our activities are dependent on our own resources, we work from strain; if upon His, we work from rest. That is also the “second rest” Jesus spoke of in Matthew 11:28-30. He worked from rest, and He was so evidently relaxed. Why? Because in humbleness He thoroughly knew His human incompetence, and therefore could also know His indwelling Father’s allness. And being meek of heart, He knew how to abide in His Father in times of stress, rather than rushing off to handle situations His own way. The key to entering into God’s rest and continuing in it is by a revelation nowhere else so clearly stated in the Bible. The Hebrew writer distinctly connects the experience of this rest with ability to discern between soul and spirit (4:12). And my experience is that a great many of God’s people are confused and frustrated, and live in a great deal of false condemnation, because they have not learned this distinction. Modern psychology has invented its own vocabulary for what it considers are the subdivisions of the human personality, such as the subconscious, the super-ego, and so on. But God gave us His own definition and analysis centuries ago, and that will never be bettered. Man, the Bible says, is tripartite – spirit, soul and body – and in that order of importance (1 Thes. 5:23). In the Hebrew passage, it stresses that the difference between soul and spirit is very subtle, and indeed can only be recognized by inner revelation. Only the Word of God, it says, applied as the sharp sword of the Spirit to the human consciousness, can pierce “even” to that depth, sever between the two, and give soul and spirit their proper evaluation – so we can recognize the proper function of each without mistaking the one for the other, and thus enable the human personality to move forward in gear and remain there. The first essential is a clear recognition of the human spirit as the real self, the nature and ego within us. Soul and body are the clothing or means of expression of the spirit. The human spirit is that “image of God” spoken of in the Genesis creation. When I say, “I myself,” the I is the spirit, the inborn nature which can look out from within, as it were, and knows the myself, the rest of me (soul and body). The human spirit is love – self-love through the Satanic nature in the Fall, and when joined to Christ by grace, God’s selfless love expressed through the human love-faculty. Now we reach the important point: In what does the soul differ from the spirit? It is the means by which the invisible spirit can express itself. The soul is the reasoning mind, the emotions and feelings, and the chooser of action. Now unless we have a clear differentiation between the properties of these two, we can get into a great deal of trouble, because the soul is the intermediary between ourselves and the world. And it not only channels the spirit to the world, but has the reflex activity of channeling the world back into the soul’s decisions. Reason and emotion are wide open, not only to our spirits, but to the world around. Therefore our soul can be very variable. We may like this, or dislike that. This may appeal to us, that repel us – either things or people. We may feel exalted at one moment or lowly at another; dry at one time, fresh at another; fervent or apathetic; bold or fearful; compassionate or indifferent. If, therefore, we confuse soul with spirit, we quickly fall into false condemnation. Why are my feelings so variable? Why do I feel cold, dry, far from God? Something is wrong. Why do I dislike this person, or resent this happening? I am wrong with God somewhere. But I am beating myself in vain. Soul is variable, spirit invariable. In my spirit joined to Christ’s Spirit, I live with an unchanging and unchangeable Christ, and am myself equally unchanging by faith. I am not my soul feelings. I AM spirit. But if we didn’t have sensitive souls, we could not be affected by the cross current of human living; we wouldn’t be humans. We are to be affected by them, but not governed by them, just as He was “touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” But we so often allow our souls to be influenced by the world’s input of external appearances. They would lead our emotions to “feel” spiritually cold, dead, apathetic, hard, dry. We feel that we are a disappointment to God. We feel out of touch with God. NO WE AREN’T! All we need is not to be fooled by our souls! The well of living water has not stopped springing up within us, the living bread in our spirits has not gone stale, the fire of the Spirit has not burned low. Look within where you and He really are, spirit with Spirit. There is no change. Don’t be fooled by the color of your clothing – you soul feelings. You and Christ in you have not changed. Indeed we will have those kinds of feelings, and God intends that we should have, to stabilize us in the walk of faith. They are useful in driving us back to Him in our spirits. As we learn to walk more steadily in Him, we will find ourselves less and less bothered by that type of soul-feeling. A whole lot of the hunger people say they have, or need of spiritual refreshment, is at the core because they are mistaking soul-reactions for spirit-facts. The Reviver is already and always within! There would be much less talk of revival among Christians, if we had learned to walk in “vival” – in the fact of the unchanging life which is the real we, Christ in us. In our spirits we are undifferentiated. That is where we are all one person in Christ. In our souls we all vary, and are meant to. That is why the salvation of our souls is an ongoing necessity, because it is through the infinite variety of our souls that all the glories of Christ will be seen, each of us manifesting some different facet of His unsearchable riches. It is not wrong for the reasoning faculty of the soul to question and doubt, any more than it is wrong for the emotions to have their varied reactions. The Bible says that we have the mind and the faith of Christ joined to our human spirit (Galatians 2:20). When we understand the balance between the spirit of faith and the uncertainties of reason, and how the reasoning faculty is given us to face squarely all the various possibilities that confront us in life, then we enter with zest into life’s dialogues. Is a thing this? Is it that? We are not afraid of the cold winds of skepticism. We are not shaken by questions that seem to disturb our faith. We weigh things up and admit our ignorances and inabilities to produce our proofs. But we don’t live in the reasonings of our souls. We move back to where we really are – in our spirits. There is the place where eternal directions come from. We affirm what we know and are – by faith. Where reason has helped to clarify and confirm, we are strengthened and thankful, and are more ready to share those reasons with others. Where reason raises questions, we are always willing to consider and learn and adjust; but we never permit it to cross the bridge which is forbidden to it, the bridge of revelation from God which has become the bridge of faith, the bridge which has nothing to do with rational concepts, but is a Living Person, Jesus Christ. So how can we be a RESTaurant and a WORKaurant at the same time? By resting in Christ within our spirit from attempting to do things in our own strength AND doing the work out to others in the strength of Christ.
It’s 4:00 in the morning when the alarm goes off. You hate getting up at 4:00, but you do it. You are measuring spiritual growth by a strong quiet time with God – and that quiet time has to be disciplined. Discipline, it seems to you, is the ticket to true spirituality. And you are determined to be truly spiritual. You are up, bleary eyed, reading (or attempting to read) your Bible, praying (sometimes incoherently, which is how you do most things at 4:00 a.m.), meditating (which looks occasionally like snoozing), attempting to memorize Scripture and being silent before God. Every morning you consider yourself either a success or a failure depending on whether or not you showed up for work (spiritually speaking). Eventually, all this may cease to be meaningful – and your deep dark secret is that you don’t know why and, in fact, are beginning to resent the spiritual disciplines. What are the “Spiritual Disciplines”? Christians have long considered certain behaviors to be the product of Jesus living His life within believers. When we are saved by grace, not by works, God begins to produce His works in our lives (Ephesians 2:8-10). Historically, some of the habitual routines that were considered as products of being in Christ came to be called “disciplines.” Biblical evidence for spiritual disciplines includes: Prayer (Col. 4:2; 1 Thes. 5:17), Bible study (2 Tim. 2:15, 3:16), meditation (Joshua 1:8), silence before God (Psalm 46:10), worship (Psalm 29:2) and fasting (Luke 5:33-35). God can use such spiritual disciplines in our lives, not only producing them in the first place, but using them as His tools to help us grow in grace and knowledge (2 Peter 3:18). HOWEVER, if we’re not careful, we can allow the practice of disciplines to become legalism or “commandments” toward self-denial for self-denial’s sake, where we seek to earn God’s favor through rigorous self-denial. Ironically, as a new Christian before you knew about any spiritual disciplines, you may have read your Bible every night. You may have prayed throughout the day. It seemed so natural – a passion – not a duty. It was later that things began to get a little unnatural. Slowly the joy seeped out of your quiet times, while ironically, pride seeped in. You became proud of your ability to deny yourself and felt a cut above, spiritually. You were doing God a tremendous favor! All throughout the Old Testament God continually railed against His people for doing the right things (sacrifices, festivals, etc.) with the wrong motivation. You can see how that happens. Gradually, a seismic spiritual shift can take place where you find yourself spending time with God, not in order to know Him better, but in order to fulfill a spiritual duty or obligation or commandment. It is discipline, but not for the purpose of godliness. You may begin to see God as a demanding school teacher, checking your homework every morning. If you don’t turn it in, you get a zero for the day and go throughout the day wallowing in guilt. But when you do show up, you get your gold star and are sent to the head of the class. And sadly, you even feel that God likes this arrangement. If we’re not careful, we can begin to see the disciplines as a way to demonstrate to God (and others) that we’re “on track”. The disciplines can become little more than a measuring stick by which we attempt to measure our spirituality. The danger is that you can assume that you really are spiritually on track. Yet, if you read the Scriptures but don’t truly seek to listen to God, if you pray in simply a mechanical and passionless way, you can deteriorate spiritually, all the while thinking you’re making great progress. When we view the disciplines as spiritual measuring sticks, rather than products of God’s grace that enable us to grow closer to and more like Christ, we miss the point. It’s like dating your wife or husband because you know you’re supposed to. But on you date all you do is stare into space, make small talk and glance continually at your watch wondering how long it will be until this drudgery is over. Your spouse would be neither flattered, not fooled. Sadly, God is often on the receiving end of this kind of “spiritual date.”
A Disciplined Life In Christ
The spiritual disciplines aren’t rigid rules we must follow like some complicated tax code, but the natural moving of the Holy Spirit in our lives as we seek Him. And the Spirit in turn leads us to the awareness of our union with Christ so that we can replace our old desires with a desire to seek God and serve Him first and foremost. The spiritual disciplines are designed to help us do just that. However, they are more than a scheduled spiritual pit stop with God. Here is how I have come to view the spiritual disciplines. I give God the best of my time (which isn’t at 4:00 a.m.). When I am thoroughly awake and ready to face the day, I sit down and read the Bible. I have read it many times, but I read it for one purpose only now: to hear my Heavenly Father speak to me. The only thing that has changed is my attitude, but that changed everything. Sometimes I read a chapter a day, sometimes two or three. Sometimes I spend two weeks on a Proverb. Sometimes what God is saying takes time for me to understand, so I wait. There is no hurry. Instead of plowing mechanically through a laundry list of prayer requests, I begin to pray about what Jesus wants, and it gradually becomes a conversation with my Lord, something it was always supposed to be. Jesus raises a topic with me, something for me to consider from the Bible or from the latest news of the world or from my relationships with people. Prayer becomes instinctive and natural, like two people speaking with each other, both intensely involved in the conversation. I then follow up on the topic either by writing an article about it or by taking steps to correct a problem pointed out to me. It is hard not to get legalistic about the spiritual disciplines. We tend to ask, “Have I done them?” but not “HOW have I done them?” We are used to asking whether or not we did “it” rather than did I HEAR Him? We are used to settling for “mission accomplished” rather than “relationship strengthened.” God gives us no brownie points for mechanically going through spiritual motions. If He did, He would have praised the Pharisees instead of criticizing them – because that was their modus operandi. The spiritual disciplines have great value when approached with a passion to grow closer to the great subject of our discipline, Christ Himself. They become empty “commandments” and even counter-productive when we look upon them as spiritual busywork for which we receive great spiritual credit.
“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a NEW creature - old things are passed away; behold, all things have become NEW.” (2 Corinthians 5:17 King James Version) “When someone becomes a Christian, he becomes a brand NEW person inside. He is not the same anymore. A NEW life has begun!” (Same verse, Living Bible Version)
There are often people who hear this glorious and liberating message of salvation and ask the question, “Why doesn’t the salvation which Christ brings really SEEM to wash away the sins of the past, and why doesn’t it really SEEM to make us new people?” The answer to this is two-sided. The first side of that is, of course, Jesus Christ did die to remove the punishment due us for our sins and to bring salvation in Himself. And we are a new creation - the old has gone; the new has come. Definitely, this is what the verse states. However, on the other side, there is nothing in this verse, or for that matter any other verse I know of in the Scriptures, that obligates God to remove instantly everything that we don’t like about our past or about ourselves. In fact, there are three things which may NOT be permanently removed. The first of these is EMOTIONAL PAIN FROM OUR PAST. While coming to Christ in the new birth takes all of the fire and the hurt out of our past that had to do with our sin, it does not necessarily take away the emotional pain and stress that comes from past happenings. The one thing we know for sure about being in union with Christ is that there is no guilt or condemnation (Romans 8:1). Being free of the guilt and condemnation takes much of the hurt and pain out of our past experiences. However it is a fact that none of these things that have ever been in our past are erased from our mind and very often can be triggered by events and issues of the moment. This makes many people think that God has not fully delivered them. But of course the apostle Paul saw it a different way. He saw that these things were a necessary contrast in our lives: 1. To not let us forget that from which we have been delivered, and 2. so that we would not forget who we are in Christ and our ultimate need of trusting our union with Christ as our only hope. Would we be better off without these emotional scars from the past? Would their removal at conversion be a true blessing? God obviously feels that it would not because He assures us He wants the best life for His children and yet He does not see fit to wipe them away at our new birth as a new creation. The second thing we see that God is not obligated to remove instantly is THE FRUIT OF OUR PAST SINS. You cannot live a sinful life separated from God and not bear the fruit of this. This does not mean we bear the penalty of the sin, for that is done at the Cross, and no man can pay for his own sin. However it does not mean that the things we have done are erased from our physical bodies; nor would we cease bearing the fruit of them. If a person is an alcoholic, has an automobile accident, and is injured, coming to Christ may not take away the wounds, and the broken parts of the body may be permanently damaged for a lifetime. If a person contracts AIDS through promiscuous sex, the fruits, that is the symptoms and pains of AIDS, may last a lifetime and result in premature death. God by His grace gives us peace through Christ who is our new life. This means that in Him who is perfect, we stand perfect, but within our humanity we may still have present the fruit of our past sins. A third thing that God is not obligated to do by 2 Corinthians 5:17 is TO MAKE US DIFFERENT PEOPLE THAN WE WERE BEFORE. God does not rewire our unique DNA material or instantly change our unique talents and abilities - our strengths and weaknesses. In our mother’s womb, every human being was created by God and gifted by God to be something of importance to themselves and of praise and glory to Him. The purpose of our life on this earth is to come to that understanding. We are a new people, a new creation in Christ, but we are not a different people according to our creation purpose. Let us now go to three important facts of what IS OURS through 2 Corinthians 5:17. First, we have A NEW CAPACITY TO RELATE TO GOD. Most human beings have never completely related to God because they have been spoiled by Satan’s nature which was their motivating and driving force of life. But now in Christ they have a whole new motivation and drive, Christ living through them. Trusting in Christ gives them a new capacity to relate to God. We are offspring of God, members of His Family containing His divine nature. And regardless of what might happen in our life, we remain His offspring. A second thing that we have as a fulfillment of the verse is A NEW DESTINY. Most people would think that our new destiny was heaven, and that is so and that is important…and is the greatest destiny of all. But until we die, we can experience a new destiny on this earth. We can now wake up every morning knowing that our jobs, our families, our words, and our very thoughts and intentions have to do with Christ - that we are never in a separated state from Him. This gives us a destiny which we never had as sinful creatures or unknowing believers. Then there is a third fulfillment of the verse - A NEW SOURCE OF POWER AND LIFE. This is where the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit work in our life. God never intended for a human being to live a powerless, haphazard, weak, and insignificant life on this earth. We were purposed to live locked in His love and His power and by that fulfillment enjoy life and be free to live as God intended. We will have the same abilities, same background and the same DNA that God “proposed” in our creation. His “wiring” has not changed. This new power and life in Christ is so that Christ within can work through our unique characteristics and wiring and thus deal in a “Christian” way to those around us. What God has planned for every human being by the power of Christ is far greater than anything we could develop on our own or could reach out for on our own in this life. Very often 2 Corinthians 5:17 seems to be a “mysterious” verse to translate - to bring forth its depth of meaning. Discerning the difference between soul and spirit is the key. At our new birth in Christ, EVERYTHING is changed about our human spirit - Satan’s nature is out totally, and God’s nature in Christ becomes indwelling totally. But in our soul, that unique wiring within our minds where our talents and weaknesses are located, NOTHING is changed at our new birth in Christ except possibly a little increase in tenderness toward the things of God. Our day to day Christian living is a renewing of the mind, a gradual transformation to trust in Christ (Romans 12:1-2). Before our new creation, we did not have a MOTIVE to want to please God - we wanted to please ourselves, and if this happened to please God, so much the better. We did some “good” but our desire was always to please ourselves. But after our new creation, we have a new built-in MOTIVE (Christ’s motive) to want to please God. We slip up in our weakness and do some “bad” things but our true desire is now to please God. A new Life has begun! And we are growing!
Some say that the creation account in the Book of Genesis and the scientific claim of a “big bang” and billions of years of the universe cannot be harmonized. Here is the testimony of Hugh Ross, PhD. Taken from his book Creation and Time, pages 143-154.
I was seventeen years old when I began to study the Bible. I had heard some portions of it read aloud in my public elementary and junior high classrooms in British Columbia, and I had caught tidbits of it from my parents at home and at a United Church of Canada congregation that my family attended for several months during my childhood. But I had never studied it for myself. I had been studying science instead, which was my main interest from the time I was seven. I started my Bible reading with the Genesis creation account. After all, it appears on the first page. I had another reason, though, for starting there. In my study of the history of astronomy, I had read dozens of creation stories from the world’s religions, and I wondered if this one would be like the rest. The others were good for a few laughs, with their ludicrous descriptions and inventive disordering of events. I half anticipated that the Bible’s story might be just as strange and unscientific. What immediately caught my attention was that God established the point of view (on the surface of Earth’s oceans) for the passage right at the outset, before outlining the sequence of events. This anticipated my first concern – the perspective from which the account unfolds. Then I made another startling observation: Along with identifying the viewpoint, Genesis 1:2 also stated Earth’s initial conditions, again clarifying the context of what followed. To be sure, not everyone would recognize these two features of the text as complementary with the scientific method. But any careful reader couldn’t help but notice that they colorfully and dramatically set the scene. With the point of view and initial conditions identified, I could proceed in my reading without relying on guesswork. In fact, in only a few minutes I understood what the text said about the order of events. Now I was even more stunned. As far as I could tell from my limited knowledge, everything in Genesis 1, from the initial conditions to the identification and sequencing of major events made sense not only as a story abut also scientifically. Never had I seen anything remotely like this in other creation accounts. I realized that the Bible had a perfect batting record on the ten creation events plus the initial conditions. I realized such a record required supernatural assistance. The human author could not have been guessing or presenting his own or his culture’s ideas. The discovery that Genesis might be a divinely inspired book challenged me to dig deeper into the text. I recognized that the Bible could not be taken lightly or frivolously. Because Genesis 1 proved so accurate on the description and order of creation events, it seemed entirely possible to me that it might also prove true on the creation time scale. Why? Because I, like many other citizens of this century, was aware that modern astronomy has confirmed the first verse of the Bible, that the whole of the cosmos had a definite beginning, a beginning not in the infinitely distant past but only about 14 billion years ago. Thus, when I encountered the six creation days of Genesis, it seemed possible that the word day could refer to longer periods than twenty-four hours. But I wasn’t sure. My first clue to some flexibility of usage for day was the reference to the beginning of day and night. Obviously, the word day here had at least two meanings. My second clue was the use of the word heaven on the second creation day. The firmament called heaven in verse 8 was distinct from the heavens of verse 1. Here again was a word taking on more than one definition. At this point I was beginning to discern that the original language of the Old Testament (Hebrew) had fewer nouns than English. Then I remembered my high school English teacher proudly pointing out that the vocabulary of English is much larger than that of most other languages. My third clue was the lack of an evening and a morning for the seventh day. The only reason I could imagine for the author’s breach of parallelism, his failure to mention the evening and morning of the seventh day, was that the day might not yet be over. When I saw that the seventh day was a day of rest for God, I recognized a possible answer to the enigma of the fossil record. Throughout the fossil era, new species appeared one after another after another, and species went extinct too one after another after another. But throughout the history of the human race, only the extinction rate is high. The speciation rate is negligible. During my teenage years I had been mystified by this fact. Now I found an answer where I did not expect it – for six days God created, repeatedly and miraculously introducing new species of life on earth, but on the seventh day He ceased from His work of creating new life. A final clue came from Genesis 2:4. There the day refers to the entire creation week. It was one more piece of evidence that the Hebrew word for “day” could indeed refer to a time period other than twenty-four hours. That first night of serious Bible study absorbed many hours, and I made my way through only the first 35 verses. But by the time it had ended, I felt a remarkable exhilaration. Though not yet completely convinced that the words I was reading and all that followed were indeed the Word of God, I knew that I could not discount the possibility. Nor could I ignore the challenge to study the rest of the Bible, testing whether or not it proved similarly plausible. I invested nearly two more years in the testing process, but that fist night was a turning point. Before that night I strongly doubted that the Bible could be the error-free Word of God. After that night, I became more and more convinced that it was. My experience was not unique. I have since learned that it characterizes the approach of many with a scientific or analytical bent. If such an individual gets through the first chapter of Genesis, unless he or she has personal (or moral) barriers to belief, that person will become a believer. If someone stumbles in that first chapter, his or her unbelief may never be overcome. A widely held conviction that persists to this day is that the words of the biblical account and the facts of science are irreconcilably at odds. Some reject the reliability of the Bible. Others reject the reliability of secular science. Still others assert that Genesis 1 and science address different kinds of truth, truth on different planes of reality, and the twain need never meet. All three groups of people make the claim that since it appears impossible to accord the description and order of creation events in Genesis 1 with the established scientific record, one might as well concede that the biblical and scientific dates for creation are at odds. Ironically – perhaps I should add, unwittingly – in my first night of Bible study, I picked up and used an oft-overlooked key to reconciling the text with science. Years ago I mentioned that key while conversing with a renowned seminary professor. He struck his head in amazement at something so simple, wondering how he could have missed it. He encouraged me to share it as widely as possible. The seeming futility of the attempt to integrate Genesis with the scientific record arises from an error in applying Galileo’s rule: “Begin by establishing (not assuming) the point of view.” Most Bible commentators assume the point of view to be out in the heavens looking down on the earth. As a result, they present an order for creation that is absurd next to established science. Ironically, Genesis 1 precisely and clearly identifies the point of view for the creation account: Darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (verse 2) This simple statement suggests that the reader interpret the events of creation from the perspective of an observer on the surface of the earth. The view looking upward and around from this vantage point makes a huge difference in understanding the sequence of creation events. From misplacing the perspective in the heavens, it appears that light was created after the earth. The creation of the sun, moon, and stars seems to take place after the creation of plant life and after the establishing of the water cycle. But with the point of view on the surface of the earth, looking up at the atmosphere of the earth, we recognize that God’s miracles are taking place in the atmosphere of the earth, not beyond it in the galaxy and the solar system. Light was not created on the first creation day. On that day the light already created “in the beginning” suddenly broke through to the earth’s surface. This breakthrough required the transformation of the atmosphere (plus the interplanetary medium) from opaque to translucent. On the fourth creation day we see yet another atmospheric transformation, this time from translucent to transparent. Through that transformation, the sun, moon, and stars became visible for the first time on Earth’s surface. It’s not that God made (or created) them on the fourth day; He simply made them visible and distinguishable on that day. With the point of view fixed on the earth’s surface, the “dark,” “formless,” and “empty” initial conditions make sense. It is dark in spite of the already existing heavens and earth because the earth’s primordial atmosphere and the solar system’s primordial interplanetary debris prevent the light of the sun, moon, and stars from reaching the surface of the earth. The earth’s surface is empty of life and unfit for life, because without light photosynthesis is impossible. With the point of view and initial conditions correctly identified, the sequence of Genesis creation events no longer seems difficult to harmonize with the record of astronomy, paleontology, geology and biology. The few purported conflicts with the fossil record stem from inaccurate interpretations of some Hebrew nouns for various plant and animal species. For example, some have ridiculed Genesis for declaring that insects appear late in the record of life on earth, after the birds and sea mammals and just before human beings. The problem reference is to the creatures “that creep upon the earth” (Gen. 1:25-26). The Hebrew word in question is remes, and its broad definition encompasses rapidly moving vertebrates, such as rodents, hares, and lizards. But remes in verse 24 has a more restricted usage. The creatures under discussion are the nephesh (verses 20-25) – soulish creatures, creatures that can relate to humans; creatures with qualities of mind, will and emotion. These can only be birds and mammals. So the remes of verse 24 cannot be insects or even reptiles. They must be soulish and able to relate with the human species. Another point of ridicule is the mention of land mammals (Gen. 1:25) as part of the sixth creation day, while sea mammals (1:21) show up on the fifth creation day. The fossil record clearly shows that the first sea mammals came on the scene after the first land mammals. The answer to this ridicule comes from again identifying the specific classes of land mammals in verse 1:25. They are soulish, that is, apparently these particular land mammals were designed to coexist with human beings. The fossil record confirms that such land mammals do not show up until after the initial appearance of birds and sea mammals. Events of the third creation day have also been challenged. The Hebrew phrase translated as “seeds, trees, and fruit” (Gen 1:11-12) has been taken by some as a reference to deciduous plants. However, the respective Hebrew nouns, zera, ets, and periy are generic terms that easily can be applied to plant species as primitive as those that appeared at the beginning of the Cambrian era (about 500,000,000 years ago). Their early mention in the Genesis creation account poses no scientific problem. Scientific evidence for ocean life predating land life poses no threat either. The Spirit of God “brooded” over the face of the waters (Gen. 1:2), possibly creating life in the oceans before the events of the six creation days begin. Here is a general order of Genesis 1 creation events: 1. Creation by God’s miracle of the entire physical universe (length, width, height, time, matter, energy, galaxies, stars, planets. etc.). Note: Planet Earth is empty of life and unfit for life; Earth’s primordial atmosphere and the solar system’s interplanetary debris prevent the light of the sun, moon, and stars from reaching the surface of the earth’s ocean. 2. Clearing of the interplanetary debris and partial transformation of the earth’s atmosphere so that light from the heavenly bodies now penetrates to the surface of the earth’s ocean. 3. Formation of water vapor in the troposphere under conditions that establish a stable water cycle. 4. Formation of continental land masses together with ocean basins. 5. roduction of plants on the continental land masses. 6. Transformation of the atmosphere from a translucent condition to one that is at least occasionally transparent. 7. Production of swarms of small sea animals. 8. Creation by God’s miracle of sea mammals and birds. 9. Creation by God of land mammals capable of interacting with the future human race. 10. Creation by God’s miracle of the human species. Obviously, no author writing more than 3,400 years ago, as Moses did, could have so accurately described and sequenced these events, plus the initial conditions, without divine assistance. And if God could guide the words of Moses to scientific and historical precision in this most complex report of divine activity, we have reason to believe we can trust Him to communicate with perfection through all the other Bible writers as well.
There is one theme that weaves its way throughout the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation — it is the prophecy that one day all people will be involved in some kind of a “seed” process. In nature, seeds are the most important part of a life-containing organism. Everything that exists in the organism comes back to the function of its seeds. Within the seed itself is all the DNA which is necessary to produce the complex and mature organism. The Bible begins and ends with the idea of a “seed” being necessary for the proper development of the human race. This is certainly true of the egg and sperm “seed” development of the physical human. But Scripture puts forth the all importance of another “Seed” — a spiritual “Seed” which God will use to form a new human people, a new Spirit race of His children. This “Seed” is Jesus Christ. The theme began with a vague promise to Eve that, through her seed, mankind would ultimately be recovered from the power of Satan — the author of sin and death. God, speaking to Satan, said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; it [her seed] shall bruise your [Satan’s] head, and you [Satan] shall bruise his [the Seed’s] heel” (Gen. 3:15). Here is just a glimmer of hope that a promised seed, a Messiah would one day deal a fatal blow to the head of Satan, thereby ending the struggle between good and evil. Adam and Eve may have expected that one of their sons would be that promised seed. Their son Abel was a faithful man of God, but when Cain killed his brother Abel, in jealous anger, the hopes of Adam and Eve surely waned. In one devastating act, they lost two of their sons — one in death and the other in spiritual wickedness. No, the prophecy was yet for an appointed time, as hinted at by the faithful Enoch: “And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of this, saying, ‘Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints...” (Jude 14). Time and generations passed and all those with faith waited expectantly for the realization of the promised seed. And as all of humankind became thoroughly corrupted, only the family of Noah survived the great Flood. But the prophetic promise of a seed continued through the line of Noah. Noah’s son, Shem, was faithful to the Lord and became the line through which the seed of promise would pass. No doubt, Abraham learned of the prophecy through the patriarch Shem who lived contemporaneously with Abraham for 150 years. Abraham was unique in his generation because of his strong faith in God. Because of this, God swore an oath to Abraham: “...I will multiply your seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore. . . in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 22:17-18). This was a two-fold seed promise covering both a physical seed down through the nation of Israel to be blessed, but also a spiritual Seed, Jesus Christ, would be of the lineage of Abraham. Inheritance of this seed and Seed passed to Isaac and then to Jacob. Upon Jacob’s deathbed, God pronounced them a nation of twelve tribes, indicating that, now, to them as a nation, descended the Abrahamic promise — “in your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” To protect the lineage from which the promised Seed would come, God specially protected Israel as His chosen people. “You only have I known of all the families of the earth...” (Amos 3:2). But in fact, during the period from Jacob’s death to the birth of Christ, only a remnant of Jews remained loyal and obedient to God and appreciated the privilege of the inheritance. At the chosen time, God did send His son Jesus to be the Messiah — the physical seed of the lineage from Abraham, and the spiritual Seed to all the human race. And to many of the nation of Israel the prophecy to Abraham seemed to be fulfilled through this miracle worker from Nazareth! But Jesus was put to death as a common sinner upon the cross, and all seemed lost. Indeed, Satan thought he had broken the thread of the original prophecy, and that therefore the seed of the woman, Jesus, could no longer deal him that fatal blow. But, contrary to Satan’s evil plan, within three days, Christ was raised from the grave “to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory and blessing” (Rev. 5:12). Yes, it was not until the sacrificial life and death of Christ that the scriptures began to open up more clearly on the plan of redemption which God has provided through His obedient Son — the Seed. And how was this Seed to function in the lives of humanity? Basically it was to function in the same way that physical seed does in material organisms. The Seed was “planted in the ground” — Jesus died and was buried — but the Seed sprouted forth after three days — the Resurrection of Jesus. Jesus Christ was the Firstfruit of many forthcoming Seeded believers. The nature of an organism is in the seed. Human beings after Adam were born and are being born with the seed or nature of Satan. Their spiritual DNA comprising their nature is that of Satan. They are seeded with Satan. But the process of redemption by the death, burial and resurrection of Christ now allows for a new Seeding! Each individual who chooses to accept his redemption and make Jesus Christ the Lord of his life gets a new Seeding. The old basic DNA of Satan is removed from the core structure of the human spirit and the spirit is reSeeded with the Godly DNA, the nature of Jesus Christ, the SEED. Until all Christians come to the reality that this reSeeding has taken place in their lives — that they are totally new people inside, a newly seeded race, then the answer for the trials and frustrations of daily life will never be understood. First, it must be understood that this new Godly Seeding is permanent. Romans 8:35-39 in the Message version makes that abundantly clear: “Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture...none of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing — nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable — absolutely NOTHING can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.” And how has He embraced us? Not just externally by a hug, but rather internally — by becoming the new Seed, the new nature within our human spirit. The crowning feature of God’s marvelous plan is not only that of developing and blessing the seed of physical Israel, but that the Seed will extend this blessing to all the remainder of mankind. We are now in the age of the Church, the composite Seed of Jesus Christ. All people, not just Israel, can be blessed. And it is so simple when you understand it. All that is required for reSeeding is to humbly accept the SEED “and you shall be changed!”
