Joy in Jesus

As I was praising the Lord this morning during my shower I began to have a realization about life, God, the devil and man. I realized who my greatest enemy in life is. The devil, demons and forces of darkness sound horrible and frightening and they are, but they are not my greatest enemy. The greatest enemy has always been myself. I used to often wonder why God put us here on this world. God wanted relationship with man, an awesome indescribable relationship of love between God and man. However, in order for this to happen man would have to choose to want God and God would have to choose to want man. Without these two voluntary elements the relationship is contrived and cannot truly exist. So, God made the world and setup this thing we know as life for man to have. Life and the things that transpire during it happen according to cold, hard, rigid laws. There is room for great joys and peace as well as great tragedies and torment. The purpose of this hostile environment is for man to meet God and for a relationship between them to be fostered. The kind of man that rejects God and desires to be wicked has made his choice and God will respect it, because any other relationship with that man would be contrived and not real. But this wicked man is evil and must be apart from God forever. But the man who hopes in the Lord and clings to him has found the purpose of his existence and has fulfilled God's highest hopes for him. To him the trials and burdens of this life are nothing but minor troubles. In other words they are "light and momentary troubles which are achieving an eternal glory that far outweighs them all". Because these very troubles that we generally consider bad are actually being used to present us with situations where we must choose whether to cling more tightly to God through them or not. This is why James writes "Consider it pure joy when you encounter trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance and perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete not lacking anything". In Isaiah it says, "Those who hope in the Lord will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint". This is because our strength and our joy is in our hope in the Lord who is able to meet all our needs and carry us through to the end. God has such a powerful furious love for man that we can hardly comprehend it. He even sent his son on the cross to pay for our wicked mistakes and ways that we might still have a chance at being with him! God always loves us, even the lost ones that have chosen the way of wickedness, but not their wicked ways. If you begin to express love toward God that is genuine and set your focus on him in this way he will reciprocate and you will have a revelation of his love for you as well. This is why the scriptures say "You will seek me and find me if you seek me with all your heart" (Jeremiah 29:13).

I have never really liked rain at all. It is just so dark and melancholy and wet. :) I like sunshine much better, for it is like joy and fun. This morning there is a heavy dark rain. I realize though that even when there is heavy dark rain in life, when I cling to Christ, there will always be a bright warm sunshine in my heart. (I know that sounds kind of cheesy, but it really is so true.) This is in fact the key to making it through life. This is the highest hope God has for us is to cling to him through the darkness trusting that he will see us through. The process of going through it strengthens our ability to hold on to Him and results in growth of our relationship with Him.

The most dangerous enemy we have is our own neglect of God over time. No matter how intense the fire of an enemy that is brought to our door, our God is able and willing to fight it back for us on one condition. That is that we cling to him through it and trust him for the help. This very trial achieves for us a closer bond with God which is worth more than silver or gold. Jesus is our high priest, our friend, our King and the sacrifice for our sins. He is the author and perfecter of our faith. No one comes to the father, but through him. He is our light and our salvation in this dark world. Sometimes we forget God until there is pain in our lives and then we try to ask for his help and be buddy buddy with him. He still loves us and will use that to draw us, but how much better when we have already been hoping in him and loving him before the trial. In some ways it seems that all of life is a trial. There is no drug, no friendship, no relationship, no food, time of sleep, television show/movie or amusement park roller coaster ride that can ever fulfill my heart like I deeply long for it to be filled. There is only one satisfaction for my soul and it is through the love of God and intimacy of his Holy Spirit living in me made possible by Christ and his sacrifice for me on the cross! My hope is always and forever in Him. Our doubt is really and always has been the only true enemy for us. When we doubt his love, his ability to deliver us, his big plan that is in place for the world, his existence or anything that is true about him we lose our connection with him. For connection in relationships is built on trust. And that is what we must have... a relationship with the living God. That is what our souls long for and will never be truly satisfied until they find. This connection to Jesus we have is our strength, our authority, our power, our love and our joy.

Lies and Camping

I've been thinking about the tree of knowledge of good and evil and about John 8:32. John 8:32 says you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. I am perplexed by sin. You would think if Adam and the human race gained this knowledge then we would know more truth and therefore be more free. Yet it seems that things became much worse after more knowledge came. It also seems ironic to me that the serpent was trying so desperately to use deception on Adam and Eve into gaining the knowledge of good and evil. Deception seems to be our enemy's most famous tactic yet the father of lies was trying to trick Adam and Eve into knowing truth. Because with knowledge comes truth. However, then I realized the devil was showing them the law. The wicked beauty of the thing to him was that not only was he tricking them into disobeying God and into following the evil desires forming in their hearts, but also the moment they bit into the forbidden fruit they would simultaneously know the law and already have broken it beyond repair. Knowledge of the law is a kind of truth, but there is more truth that needs to be known to be truly free. Knowing the law for Adam and Eve as well as for us now means being aware of your own wickedness. I believe I was thinking about John 8:32 out of context at first though. If you consider John 8:31 with it Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free." Jesus' truth was that the only way out of the devious trap laid by our enemy and that we ensnared ourselves in from the beginning was from God. More precisely, that the culmination of God's plan for our freedom was realized in Christ himself and his sacrifice for us. Only when we hold to his teaching will we live in an awareness of the truth that frees us. Old Testament heroes of the faith didn't know about Jesus yet, but they did realize this truth that their only hope from the condemnation in the law hanging over them was in God.

I find Jesus' statement interesting that the way to really know the truth is to hold to his teaching. So, if you hold to his teaching you will know truth which will set you free thereby giving you more strength and ability to hold to his teaching. The more ability to hold to his teaching you have the more you will be able to know truth. This describes the process of faith. It grows in degree incrementally. But ironically you must take hold of one (or both) to get a grip on the other and start the cycle of faith growing. Either you believe the truth and begin holding to his teaching or you begin holding to his teaching to see if it yields knowledge of the truth. Either way at some point you must have some faith to get more.

Lies are downright mean. In fact quite often they are more than mean, they can be cruel. The cruelty lies in the fact that a liar tricks the deceived into a false hope. He leads them into a faith based on ideas that simply aren't true. In a way it is a betrayal of the deceived's trust in the deceiver. Betrayal is at the heart of every lie and I believe is the real core of wickedness and treachery. I suppose that is why Judas' sin was so intense. He betrayed the savior from betrayal as well as all sin. You could say betrayal is fueled by selfishness, but really I don't think it is wrong to want good things for your self. The real evil is to trust a deceiver that leads you to think you can get good things for yourself by viewing everything in life through a self-centric lens and giving in to a lifestyle of selfishness. Our enemy the devil specializes in raw deals a.k.a. lies. He is also often stealthy enough to make us think his proposals were really our own thoughts and ideas. Granted we do have evil desires living in our fleshly bodies and these desires are sometimes the culprit behind sin, but you can bet that anytime we even remotely begin to toy with an evil desire the enemy or an agent of his is there trying to foster it and sometimes encourage it into existence. Imagination is the part of us that dreams about things that may or may not be true. It is the seed of hope and faith or worry and fear. You begin to believe what you imagine either is true and/or possible or very likely will be. Any sin begins with an imagination that dreams of what things will be like when the sinful thing is done and the dream is always a lie. What makes the dream and sin so deviously cruel and treacherous though, is that often times even after the sin has been committed we fail to see the lie and go on believing that the pleasure we found in the act of disobedience was a fulfillment of the dream we held in our imagination enabling us to want to do it again. Yet what we don't realize, the truth our enemy craftily shades us from, is that with each consecutive sin we slowly destroy our very hearts piece by piece until at some point we can't even recognize the wickedness and death it is so disgustingly full of. His highest hope for us is that we will go to our graves completely deceived having lost sight of the truth of the wickedness, pain, death and eternal condemnation that goes along with disobedience to God.

I can't figure out if I like camping or not. I know my wife really loves it and I have found enjoyment in it too at times. But there are also times when I don't enjoy it as much. It occurs to me that when we go camping we are no longer at home and we no longer have the comforts of home. I have to sleep on a bed that is less desirable than the one at home and I have to eat food that is different from the kind I would have at home. But at the same time I find that in that new environment I am a little closer to God's creation and often things are a bit quieter. It is more secluded which sometimes seems undesirable, but after a time of being there can seem desirable. The hypnotic dance of the flames in the campfire often lure my mind into a meditative state and sometimes I will begin to sing praises to my God there and remember who I am. I realize that in this world we are camping. Our home is in heaven and the comforts of that heavenly home will be great. They will be much greater than this world we camp out in for now. Paul refers to our earthly bodies as tents. Sometimes we forget that this world is just a campground and that the comforts our hearts long for are at home. Sometimes appreciating comforts of home only comes when we leave them and we never really have a comfort until we truly appreciate it.

Hope

Sometimes I get so discouraged. I find myself longing for something better. I had high hopes for this new year... I still do I suppose. But, I just seem to have no self-discipline. I realize spending time with the Lord, seeking, praying to and worshiping him is something that has the greatest affect cumulatively and when practiced consistently. It is like exercising. Working out once in a while and hoping to become buff is futile. It's like sporadically dieting every now and then when the thought occurs to you that you're fat rather than consistently following a plan and sticking to it. So it is with one's walk with the Lord through life. A man's focus defines the man. As a man thinks in his heart so is he. (Prov. 23:7) Focus is so powerful and sometimes so hard to control. Like the grip of emotion in a sad song, a man's focus can be latched to negativity or despair. Each previous thought or note leads into the next. We are creatures with moods and associative minds. Each idea somehow leading to the next. Randomness in a discussion is often thought odd or funny and seldom is it truly random. Our thoughts flow like a river through mud, creating gullies over time that become harder and harder to escape. Part of being a Christian is having a new way of thinking. Do everything without complaining or arguing. (Phil. 2:14) Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things (Phil. 4:8) Negativity, hopelessness, despair and faithlessness are all wicked and from the evil one. Following these gullies in the mud is a way of darkness and ultimately death. But fixing our minds and hearts on whatever is true, lovely and pure as Phil. 4:8 says is a way of joy and life and light. I remember when I was first taking cello lessons, my cello teacher used to get upset with me for practicing something he hadn't shown me how to do yet. The problem was I would try it, but do it all wrong and then practice it that way. The more I practiced it the deeper ingrained it would become in me to play the song the wrong way. So it is with life and God. We need him to teach us how to play the songs we face when living in various situations. We need to learn how to play them right and once we know, practice them correctly and daily. "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." 2 Cor. 10:5 Our thoughts are precious and our enemy knows this. If he controls or sways our thinking he controls us and possibly even our destiny. (This is why television programs exhibiting the worldly culture and way of thinking often even only on a subconscious level are so powerful and dangerous.) Learning to recognize a negative, faithless, hopeless, worried or despairing thought and rebuke it replacing it with a faithful thought rooted in our commitment to believing in God, his love and saving power is vital to walking in the Spirit as Christians. Trying to do this on your own is dangerous as well. Though God does not magically change us and our lifestyles when we become Christians, he offers us all the tools and help we need to do it. As long as I am pressing on and trying to be His and live His way trusting him for the rest, he will cover the rest for me. Because he is faithful and he is love.