(This is a long post. And I'm saying it's long. I thought about breaking it up into two parts, but I don't think that would do much good. Most of you should read more anyway.)
People naturally ask me what I do for a living. I can't blame them. I only very recently graduated from sleeping on the floor to a camping cot. In the past, I would answer their questions by telling them that I get money from book sales and then sometimes play guitar for a certain gospel singer. While this is true, I do make money that way, it's not what I really do. I mean, that's not my primary occupation or what sustains me.
Here's the real answer. Every day, I ask God what he wants me to do. Then I do it. Because I live in obedience to Him, God sustains me both supernaturally and through my creativity. This answer doesn't satisfy everyone, but it's the truth. So I'm not unemployed, I work for God.
To illustrate this point, I'm including a story from a friend of mine. We both felt weird about using his real name, so instead of making you wade through the boggy mess of endless pronouns, I've changed his name to "Abe". Abe, if you read this, there's a reason I chose this name. Sorry if you hate it.
Abe needs God to bless him. He’s waiting on a deal to come through and is short on cash. Instead of simply blessing Abe and leaving it at that, God sent Abe on a road trip to help people.
Abe left his temporary home in North Carolina to help his dad with some things in central Ohio. At ten minutes to five in the afternoon, he blew a tire out on a busy highway. He towed the car to a tire shop just before they closed. On the way back to his father’s house the next day, God tells Abe, “Stay in Columbus another day or two.”
At three in the afternoon, Abe’s father handed over one hundred forty dollars and said, “Get the other tire replaced.” At the tire shop, the same man was behind the counter from the night before. He gave Abe a forty-five dollar discount on the second tire. When they tried to remove the old tire from the rim the sidewalls disintegrated.
The tire shop is near a cafe. Abe headed over there to do some work on his computer. About two hours later his computer ran out of battery power despite the fact that it’s plugged in. Abe saw a flyer in the coffee shop advertising a local hotel with a low rate. Remembering the hotel is between the tire shop and Coffee Shop, Abe asked God if he should stay there. God said, “Stop in,” so he checked the rates at the hotel. The only room available was very expensive.
There was another man in the hotel lobby. He dressed in motorcycle gear and appeared exhausted. The man looked familiar, and Abe asked, “Can I help you?”
The man shook his head. “I just drove 8 hours by motorcycle from Kansas City."
Abe then remembered him from the International House of Prayer in KC, which surprised the motorcycle man. Abe asked, “Where are you going?”
“I’m headed to Cleveland, but right now I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to do for dinner and a room.”
Abe recommended a restaurant across the road. “When you leave, head toward Cleveland, take the next exit and stay in the Hampton Inn. It’ll be about twenty dollars more than a normal room would cost here."
As Abe walked to his car, the man called out, “Why are you leaving me?” He asked this question three times.
Abe replied each times, “Because I’ve answered all of your questions and told you what you need to know. You will be alright!”
Eventually, the man said, “How did you know that I had just asked God, ‘what am going to do Lord? What do I need to do?’”
Abe laughed when he told me this story and then asked me, “So how useful was this ‘day of unemployment’ to God?”
Instead of answering this question for you, I'm going to jump into the story of Elijah. I heard a man named Terry Virgo give a message on this passage a few weeks ago at a conference in Western Missouri. The passage is from 1 Kings 17:1-16.
The prophet Elijah told the king of Israel, "As the LORD, the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, surely there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word."
Then God tells Elijah, "Go away from here and turn eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. It shall be that you will drink of the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to provide for you there." Elijah goes to Cherith and the birds meet him there with food morning and night.
After some time, the brook dries up (because, hey, there's no rain) and God tells Elijah to move on. "Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there; behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you."
Again, Elijah goes where God leads him. He sees a widow in Zarephath and asks her for food. The woman replied, "As the LORD your God lives, I have no bread, only a handful of flour in the bowl and a little oil in the jar; and behold, I am gathering a few sticks that I may go in and prepare for me and my son, that we may eat it and die."
Elijah tells her, "Do not fear; go, do as you have said, but make me a little bread cake from it first and bring it out to me, and afterward you may make one for yourself and for your son. For thus says the LORD God of Israel, 'The bowl of flour shall not be exhausted, nor shall the jar of oil be empty, until the day that the LORD sends rain on the face of the earth.'" So she went and did what Elijah said, and they had food every day. The bowl always had some flour in it and the oil jar never ran dry.
Let me retell this story another way. Imagine God wanted you to have a meeting with the president. At the White House, you say, “Our economy is going to crash until I give the word. Then we’ll prosper again.” Soon massive flooding, early frost, and other natural disasters destroy the nation’s farms. Food prices skyrocket. Oil becomes so expensive that we see the Conestoga Wagon make a comeback. Dominos fall all over the place and crush everyone. The president remembers your crazy prophecy and adds you to the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Now you’re on the run, and all because you did what God told you to do.
God tells you, “Go to this one river in Montana. I’ve told an army of ants to carry food over to your campsite every day.” When you set up camp in Montana, sure enough, ants carry bread and meat and drop it off in front of your tent flap. Meanwhile, in a fit of panic, the government decides to build a dam on that river to form a reservoir for struggling farms. This simultaneously creates several jobs for the recently unemployed, which worked for FDR, right? Of course, your ants live in that valley and can’t swim. Now you don’t have a river or little ant servants and you’re starving in the middle of Montana.
Then God says, “Make your way to New Orleans. I’ve commanded a homeless man to take care of you.” You run into a homeless guy who insists that he’s Steve Guttenberg. He smells like the inside of a shoe, but he’s got a nearly empty jar of Skippy peanut butter and four slices of Wonder Bread. You ask him to make you a sandwich. When he agrees to feed you, the two of you somehow manage to make peanut butter sandwiches for months.
It’s crazy, right? But that’s what Elijah did. God took care of him because he obeyed. What if Elijah didn’t go to Cherith? He would never have met up with the birds God sent to feed him. And what about going to Sidon, a characteristically pagan region, to meet with the widow? Two people had to obey that one. First, Elijah had to go there even though hardly anybody followed God’s voice in that area. Second, the widow had to make Elijah's food first, trusting that God would provide for her family as well.
Now I’m going to tell my story. My car has been at an auto shop since mid May. God blessed me with such a rare car that I’ve had trouble locating a replacement part. Last week, a friend drove me to the auto shop in Franklin so I could get some things out of my car. She works at my church, which is about seven miles from the mechanic. Among the items I pulled out of my trunk, I felt compelled to put a few copies of my book into my backpack. I walked about three miles toward my church before I asked God if I could hitchhike. I figure, it’s Franklin. There are not a whole lot of ax-murdering ne’er-do-wells. But God said, “No, I’m sending someone to pick you up.”
Ten minutes later, a pickup truck pulled over. “Where are you headed? I can take you most of the way, hop in.” Of course, one of the first things he asked me was, “What do you do?” I told him that I follow God’s voice in obedience and I also write. I told him about my book. He said, “That’s interesting. I saw you walking earlier and something told me to pull over for you.”
I said, “Really? Because I asked God if I should hitchhike. He said, ‘No, I’m sending someone to pick you up.’ I think that’s you, mister.”
“Where can I get this book of yours?”
“I have some copies in my backpack.”
He pulled out cash and bought one. It paid for my lunch. He drove me the whole way to church so we could continue our conversation. This story is an example of how God blessed me obviously and immediately. There are other times, however, that are not so obvious or immediate.
One of my roommates moved back to Michigan yesterday. After I helped his parents pack their trailer, God wanted me to walk a mile and a half to a café. He said, “Work on the new book there. Don’t wear headphones.” I usually listen to music while I write, so I wondered what God had in mind. A little while later, my roommate came in and repaid me for a bill I had covered. I gave him a hug goodbye and he said, “Keep writing. Keep making the world a better place. You know that’s what you’re doing.” I thanked him and went back to work when he left.
An hour later, I asked God, “So... why did you want me here? Did I miss something?”
God pointed out that a man had been sitting in the chair next to me most of the afternoon. “He has been asking me a question and I put you in place to give him an answer. He heard what Dustin said to you. That was his cue and he didn’t take advantage of it. If you had put headphones on, you would have blocked him out. But now he has no excuse.” He was no motorcyclist from Kansas City, but my mission resembled Abe’s. God put us in place to do His work. I wonder if God had a backup guy in the cafe…
Now, this may seem silly. You might say, “Of course we should all obey God, but there comes a point in time when a man has to stand up and take responsibility, work the soil, earn his bread with the sweat of his brow.” If so, I would ask you to consider Matthew 6:31-34. Jesus said, “Do not worry then, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?' For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
When I seek God’s direction in my life and obey what He asks of me, I am actively seeking Him and doing the work of His kingdom. This is not passive. I have to do something in order to obey. God routinely tells me to write, or sing, or arrange meetings with people. It’s not all divine appointments and money falling from the sky, but my provision still comes as a result of obedience to God. Because I’ve learned to trust His provision, I have peace in my heart as I sleep soundly on my cot.
I have the best job ever.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Judgment As a Marriage Proposal
My roommates recently told me about this preacher. He’s on television. His church is massive. His books become bestsellers, I guess. I’ve never read them. Like I said, I just heard about this guy. The roomies said he was on Larry King Live so I watched a few clips on YouTube. The guy didn’t want to offend anyone (any potential readers, maybe?) so he wouldn’t say whether or not anyone would go to Hell. His whole message is thick with positivity. He insisted that he believed in Jesus. Jesus, and some good deeds. When asked if Jews or Muslims would go to Heaven without believing in Jesus, he said, “It’s not my place to judge”. He said that other faiths “love God” and are very sincere, so he didn’t want to impose his beliefs on them.
A lady from Minneapolis introduced me to the term “Easy Gospel Church”. This kind of church is the feel-good, non-confrontational, theatrical sort of place. Lots of people come, but many of them don’t have a strong relationship with Jesus. I wonder if the preachers don’t want to offend anyone by saying a judgmental thing like “Jesus alone brings salvation to mankind.”
What do you say we talk about the gospel today? Let’s start with John 3:16, a well-known verse thanks to people with poster board signs at stadium events. But instead of leaving it with the one verse, I’m going to tack on verses 17 and 18. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
The word judgment, in a religious sense, gets a bad rap. We’re told not to be judgmental. Don’t judge lest ye be judged, and all that. If you take John 3:16-18, judgment is given objectively. Jesus is asking, “Do you trust me or not?” God didn’t do this to bring condemnation, but offer the choice. He allows people to accept or reject Him and then people are objectively held to their choice. In one sense, that is easy, and it does appeal to seekers. Circle “yes” or “no”, right?
A woman once told me, “I can’t believe in a God that would send people to hell.” I replied, “Think about it like this. God wanted to spend the rest of eternity with a person. Jesus was kind of like the marriage proposal. If the person accepted the proposal, then he and God would begin to develop an ongoing relationship. But if that person rejects the proposal, God honors that person’s wishes and remains separate from him. And separation from God is Hell.”
That’s the true “easiness” of the gospel. It’s not about a good feeling or the show, or even the eternal security. It’s about putting your trust in Jesus and developing a relationship with God through that trust. But that decision is crucial, and if we don’t present the gospel as such, then what are we doing?
Let’s go back to the mega-preacher. I wrote a post several weeks ago about people who preach the message of Jesus for selfish reasons. I’ll ask the question again. Wouldn’t it be great if that preacher heard his own gospel message and came to really know Jesus as the only Son of God? Instead of image and sales and a feel-good ministry, what if he used his gift of influence to spread the truth?
It’s needed more now than ever. There is a highly debated statistic that predicts 4% of teenagers will be Bible-believing Christians by the time they reach adulthood. Those numbers may or may not be accurate, but it wouldn't surprise me to find that Christianity is dwindling among young Americans. I have to wonder, has the feel-good ministry approach worked? Have the stadium signs brought droves of people to Jesus? Are the safe answers and non-confrontational messages enough? Or are kids starting to see that something doesn’t line up? But what if we developed that deep relationship with God through Jesus, then lived it, and then told people about it?
If that makes you nervous, don’t sweat it. God’s the one proposing to them, you’re just His messenger. Or maybe you’re like the glass of champagne with the ring inside of you. If the person rejects the proposal, you haven’t imposed judgment on them for it. Judgment, like the wedding ring, was theirs to accept or deny.
A lady from Minneapolis introduced me to the term “Easy Gospel Church”. This kind of church is the feel-good, non-confrontational, theatrical sort of place. Lots of people come, but many of them don’t have a strong relationship with Jesus. I wonder if the preachers don’t want to offend anyone by saying a judgmental thing like “Jesus alone brings salvation to mankind.”
What do you say we talk about the gospel today? Let’s start with John 3:16, a well-known verse thanks to people with poster board signs at stadium events. But instead of leaving it with the one verse, I’m going to tack on verses 17 and 18. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
The word judgment, in a religious sense, gets a bad rap. We’re told not to be judgmental. Don’t judge lest ye be judged, and all that. If you take John 3:16-18, judgment is given objectively. Jesus is asking, “Do you trust me or not?” God didn’t do this to bring condemnation, but offer the choice. He allows people to accept or reject Him and then people are objectively held to their choice. In one sense, that is easy, and it does appeal to seekers. Circle “yes” or “no”, right?
A woman once told me, “I can’t believe in a God that would send people to hell.” I replied, “Think about it like this. God wanted to spend the rest of eternity with a person. Jesus was kind of like the marriage proposal. If the person accepted the proposal, then he and God would begin to develop an ongoing relationship. But if that person rejects the proposal, God honors that person’s wishes and remains separate from him. And separation from God is Hell.”
That’s the true “easiness” of the gospel. It’s not about a good feeling or the show, or even the eternal security. It’s about putting your trust in Jesus and developing a relationship with God through that trust. But that decision is crucial, and if we don’t present the gospel as such, then what are we doing?
Let’s go back to the mega-preacher. I wrote a post several weeks ago about people who preach the message of Jesus for selfish reasons. I’ll ask the question again. Wouldn’t it be great if that preacher heard his own gospel message and came to really know Jesus as the only Son of God? Instead of image and sales and a feel-good ministry, what if he used his gift of influence to spread the truth?
It’s needed more now than ever. There is a highly debated statistic that predicts 4% of teenagers will be Bible-believing Christians by the time they reach adulthood. Those numbers may or may not be accurate, but it wouldn't surprise me to find that Christianity is dwindling among young Americans. I have to wonder, has the feel-good ministry approach worked? Have the stadium signs brought droves of people to Jesus? Are the safe answers and non-confrontational messages enough? Or are kids starting to see that something doesn’t line up? But what if we developed that deep relationship with God through Jesus, then lived it, and then told people about it?
If that makes you nervous, don’t sweat it. God’s the one proposing to them, you’re just His messenger. Or maybe you’re like the glass of champagne with the ring inside of you. If the person rejects the proposal, you haven’t imposed judgment on them for it. Judgment, like the wedding ring, was theirs to accept or deny.
Friday, June 13, 2008
God's Backup Guy
Even though I’ve known how to hear God’s voice for over a decade, I didn’t listen regularly until about five years ago. Dad and I had begun work on our book, Stark Raving Obedience, and I wanted to immerse myself in listening prayer. It was practice, research. I’m not sure if I knew how screwy a life of obedience could appear both to me and others. Every once in a while, God would ask me to go somewhere. Sometimes He’d send me to a park or a café, usually a public place. When I would arrive, I’d sit for a while, looking around to see why God wanted me there. Pastors and teachers had often talked about “divine appointments”, where God put people in place to do His work. I would ask, “What’s going on? Am I meeting someone here? Is there a baby about to fall out of its high chair? A fire I have to put out?” And all I would ever hear in reply was, “Wait.” After a while, He’d say, “Okay, you can go.”
You can imagine how this frustrated me. I mean, I guess I wasn’t very busy. I’d been kicked out of college, left my job, been dumped, and so on. I wanted answers from God. He should have guided me back into a stable life, given me peace and comfort, or something. So those times where I felt like God told me to take up space made me a little angry. Then, for a while, we moved on to the peace and comfort part. He brought people into my life who helped me through those hard years. He stopped asking me to “go here and there” to sit. I assumed my lesson was to obey even when it didn’t seem to have a purpose.
About a year ago, He told me to walk to a library. I sat in the main room and waited. Nothing. “Stop playing games, God. I thought we were past this already.” Then He said, “It’s time to go.” After this little episode, I had a conversation with my friend Bob. He told me about God sending him to divine appointments. Sometimes, he would sit in one place until God pointed out the person who needed to talk to him. Other times, God would show him other people He had sent to take care of the situation. If that person didn’t follow through in obedience, Bob would have to step in and do the job instead. I said, “So you’re saying that sometimes God needs a backup guy?”
At that moment, God reminded me of all those times He put me in a place and said, “Wait.” In those days when I needed answers and comfort, God wanted people to speak to me. Sometimes they didn’t obey. Others did obey, and they were the ones who prayed with me and encouraged my trust in God during difficult times. And then later, at the Library, after my trust in Him had strengthened, He needed me to help a person in case someone else didn’t obey. I was God’s backup guy.
It took some time adjusting to the idea that God has a bullpen, people in place and ready in case the starting pitcher leaves early in the game. But then again, it also gave me comfort. There are times when God asks me to call someone or pray for a person or give money to a guy, and for some reason I don’t obey. When I realized that I failed to obey God, I’d feel searing condemnation. It never occurred to me that God’s will for mankind would rest on more than my obedience. He’s got backup. Even if I totally miss my opportunity to further the work of His kingdom, I haven’t ruined His plans. And what about those times when I did obey and nothing seemed to happen? Maybe it was a matter of corporate obedience, like a secret team effort where a few people had to obey at precise times. Does God refuse to bless me because some other people didn’t listen to Him? No, it just means He has to call in other people who will take orders.
One of my favorite stories from the Old Testament takes place outside of a city called Kadesh-barnea. God wanted to give the land to His people after their time of wandering. In preparation for battle, Moses sent twelve spies into the city as reconnaissance. When the spies returned in Numbers 13 and 14, Caleb and Joshua said, “let’s go! The land is amazing, and God has promised it to us.” The other ten spies kept talking about giants and fortresses and convinced the Israelites to back off. God told the people that they wouldn’t enter the land and forced them to wander forty more years. Of that entire generation, only two were allowed to live in the Promised Land: Joshua and Caleb. And they lived out their years receiving God’s full blessing. The disobedience of others didn’t ruin God’s plan for their lives. He brought in another generation to take the Promised Land with them.
In Judges 4, several decades after the time of Joshua and Caleb, Canaanites had taken control of the Promised Land. A prophet named Deborah tells a man named Barak to gather an army and fight their oppressors. Barak says, “If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” Because he wouldn’t step into the authority God had given him and deferred to her, Deborah tells Barak, “I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the honor shall not be yours on the journey that you are about to take, for the LORD will sell Sisera (the Canaanite general) into the hands of a woman.” The Israelites are victorious in battle, but Sisera flees into a politically friendly area. A woman there takes him into her tent and gives him something to drink. When Sisera falls asleep, she drives a tent peg through his skull. Sometimes backup comes from unexpected places.
All of this makes me wonder if Jesus wanted God to find a backup guy for the cross. Maybe that’s why He prayed in Matthew 26:39, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.” It was a part of Jesus’s humanity that He should desire to live. When He understood that no other person on earth could bring salvation to mankind, His willingness to obey under duress was the first part of His sacrifice.
I want to be the guy who obeys. I want to see the blessing God has promised to those who obey Him. But if I miss my opportunity, I know that God is bigger than my failures. This also means that I have to find patience in those times when His commands don’t make any sense. Who knows? I just might be God’s backup guy.
You can imagine how this frustrated me. I mean, I guess I wasn’t very busy. I’d been kicked out of college, left my job, been dumped, and so on. I wanted answers from God. He should have guided me back into a stable life, given me peace and comfort, or something. So those times where I felt like God told me to take up space made me a little angry. Then, for a while, we moved on to the peace and comfort part. He brought people into my life who helped me through those hard years. He stopped asking me to “go here and there” to sit. I assumed my lesson was to obey even when it didn’t seem to have a purpose.
About a year ago, He told me to walk to a library. I sat in the main room and waited. Nothing. “Stop playing games, God. I thought we were past this already.” Then He said, “It’s time to go.” After this little episode, I had a conversation with my friend Bob. He told me about God sending him to divine appointments. Sometimes, he would sit in one place until God pointed out the person who needed to talk to him. Other times, God would show him other people He had sent to take care of the situation. If that person didn’t follow through in obedience, Bob would have to step in and do the job instead. I said, “So you’re saying that sometimes God needs a backup guy?”
At that moment, God reminded me of all those times He put me in a place and said, “Wait.” In those days when I needed answers and comfort, God wanted people to speak to me. Sometimes they didn’t obey. Others did obey, and they were the ones who prayed with me and encouraged my trust in God during difficult times. And then later, at the Library, after my trust in Him had strengthened, He needed me to help a person in case someone else didn’t obey. I was God’s backup guy.
It took some time adjusting to the idea that God has a bullpen, people in place and ready in case the starting pitcher leaves early in the game. But then again, it also gave me comfort. There are times when God asks me to call someone or pray for a person or give money to a guy, and for some reason I don’t obey. When I realized that I failed to obey God, I’d feel searing condemnation. It never occurred to me that God’s will for mankind would rest on more than my obedience. He’s got backup. Even if I totally miss my opportunity to further the work of His kingdom, I haven’t ruined His plans. And what about those times when I did obey and nothing seemed to happen? Maybe it was a matter of corporate obedience, like a secret team effort where a few people had to obey at precise times. Does God refuse to bless me because some other people didn’t listen to Him? No, it just means He has to call in other people who will take orders.
One of my favorite stories from the Old Testament takes place outside of a city called Kadesh-barnea. God wanted to give the land to His people after their time of wandering. In preparation for battle, Moses sent twelve spies into the city as reconnaissance. When the spies returned in Numbers 13 and 14, Caleb and Joshua said, “let’s go! The land is amazing, and God has promised it to us.” The other ten spies kept talking about giants and fortresses and convinced the Israelites to back off. God told the people that they wouldn’t enter the land and forced them to wander forty more years. Of that entire generation, only two were allowed to live in the Promised Land: Joshua and Caleb. And they lived out their years receiving God’s full blessing. The disobedience of others didn’t ruin God’s plan for their lives. He brought in another generation to take the Promised Land with them.
In Judges 4, several decades after the time of Joshua and Caleb, Canaanites had taken control of the Promised Land. A prophet named Deborah tells a man named Barak to gather an army and fight their oppressors. Barak says, “If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” Because he wouldn’t step into the authority God had given him and deferred to her, Deborah tells Barak, “I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the honor shall not be yours on the journey that you are about to take, for the LORD will sell Sisera (the Canaanite general) into the hands of a woman.” The Israelites are victorious in battle, but Sisera flees into a politically friendly area. A woman there takes him into her tent and gives him something to drink. When Sisera falls asleep, she drives a tent peg through his skull. Sometimes backup comes from unexpected places.
All of this makes me wonder if Jesus wanted God to find a backup guy for the cross. Maybe that’s why He prayed in Matthew 26:39, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.” It was a part of Jesus’s humanity that He should desire to live. When He understood that no other person on earth could bring salvation to mankind, His willingness to obey under duress was the first part of His sacrifice.
I want to be the guy who obeys. I want to see the blessing God has promised to those who obey Him. But if I miss my opportunity, I know that God is bigger than my failures. This also means that I have to find patience in those times when His commands don’t make any sense. Who knows? I just might be God’s backup guy.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Light Armor
In the first book of Samuel, we find the people of Israel in conflict with the Philistines. A giant man, a seriously large dude, named Goliath proposes a challenge during a face-off on the battlefield. “We’ll save the energy and people by avoiding a battle. Let’s just see if any of you can beat me in one-on-one combat. If you win, we’ll become your slaves. If I win, you’ll become our slaves.” Goliath’s got a reputation. Saul, Israel’s king, knows about this guy’s military history. Everyone remains silent while their hearts sink to their sandals. And then this scrappy shepherd boy named David gets pissed and accepts Goliath’s challenge. He even tosses a little defiance into his reply.
This story is so well known that it’s a part of the public lexicon. Every underdog movie is a “David and Goliath” story. A lot of focus is put on the small boy defeating a giant warrior. The little guy wins. My favorite part about this story is how David prepared himself for battle in 1 Samuel 17:38-40. “Then Saul clothed David with his garments and put a bronze helmet on his head, and he clothed him with armor. David girded his sword over his armor and tried to walk, for he had not tested them. So David said to Saul, ‘I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them.’ And David took them off. He took his stick in his hand and chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in the shepherd's bag which he had, even in his pouch, and his sling was in his hand; and he approached the Philistine.”
The armor should have suited him. I mean, the king gave David his own armor, the best armor. He should have been fit for a battle against a giant warlord. But David took it off and used the tools with which God had trained him as a shepherd. The armor was too heavy to be effective.
Another famous Bible passage is found in Ephesians 6:13-17. “Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, and having shod YOUR FEET WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” Portions of the text are in capital letters because they refer to Old Testament scripture. Paul, trained as a Pharisee, had learned scripture in the rabbinical style. Rabbis often used a technique in their teachings called “Remez”. This Hebrew word means that the rabbi mentioned one part of a scripture as a reference to the whole passage.
In Isaiah 59:17, God clothes Himself with the Breastplate of Righteousness and the Helmet of Salvation. But why? The whole chapter of Isaiah 59 speaks of mankind’s separation from God. He saw that no one would intercede and stand up for justice or righteousness, so He came to bring salvation Himself. The feet prepared with the Gospel of Peace refers to Isaiah 52. In this prophecy, Israel has been released from slavery and oppression. God has restored Himself to His people. Isaiah says in verse seven, “How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who announces peace and brings good news of happiness, who announces salvation, and says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’” The Belt of Truth is derived from Isaiah 11:5, “Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins, and faithfulness the belt about His waist.” Bible scholars call this passage “The Peaceable Kingdom”. It’s a picture of the Messiah’s rule over the world.
So let’s look at these three passages, Paul’s three remez. First, God comes to bring salvation to the world. Then, people are sent out to proclaim God’s salvation. At the end, we have the hope of the Messiah’s kingdom. One could see the armor of God as an allegory of the Gospel. If this was Paul’s intention, then the armor takes on a meaning far different from how I had always perceived. Teachers focused on the different parts of the armor, detailing how each piece applies to our lives. If we didn’t have the whole armor on, then we were susceptible to the enemy’s attack. There was a time when I tried to “pray the armor on” every day. It took so much time, and even then I still felt spiritually attacked. But how about daily living in the knowledge and truth of the Gospel? When I began to look at the armor this way, it felt like I had taken off the heavy armor and picked up a slingshot. But that’s all it took to kill a giant.
Revelation 12:10-11 describes how this new, lighter armor defeats the enemy. “Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, ‘the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.’”
Armed with our trust in the death and resurrection of Jesus and with our stories of God’s work in our lives, we wield a different kind of power than what the world expects. The message of the cross is powerful enough to move hearts, face adversities, and advance the Kingdom of God. Clothed in light armor, we can face the giants in our lives and proclaim, “Look at what God has done!”
This story is so well known that it’s a part of the public lexicon. Every underdog movie is a “David and Goliath” story. A lot of focus is put on the small boy defeating a giant warrior. The little guy wins. My favorite part about this story is how David prepared himself for battle in 1 Samuel 17:38-40. “Then Saul clothed David with his garments and put a bronze helmet on his head, and he clothed him with armor. David girded his sword over his armor and tried to walk, for he had not tested them. So David said to Saul, ‘I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them.’ And David took them off. He took his stick in his hand and chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in the shepherd's bag which he had, even in his pouch, and his sling was in his hand; and he approached the Philistine.”
The armor should have suited him. I mean, the king gave David his own armor, the best armor. He should have been fit for a battle against a giant warlord. But David took it off and used the tools with which God had trained him as a shepherd. The armor was too heavy to be effective.
Another famous Bible passage is found in Ephesians 6:13-17. “Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, and having shod YOUR FEET WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” Portions of the text are in capital letters because they refer to Old Testament scripture. Paul, trained as a Pharisee, had learned scripture in the rabbinical style. Rabbis often used a technique in their teachings called “Remez”. This Hebrew word means that the rabbi mentioned one part of a scripture as a reference to the whole passage.
In Isaiah 59:17, God clothes Himself with the Breastplate of Righteousness and the Helmet of Salvation. But why? The whole chapter of Isaiah 59 speaks of mankind’s separation from God. He saw that no one would intercede and stand up for justice or righteousness, so He came to bring salvation Himself. The feet prepared with the Gospel of Peace refers to Isaiah 52. In this prophecy, Israel has been released from slavery and oppression. God has restored Himself to His people. Isaiah says in verse seven, “How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who announces peace and brings good news of happiness, who announces salvation, and says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’” The Belt of Truth is derived from Isaiah 11:5, “Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins, and faithfulness the belt about His waist.” Bible scholars call this passage “The Peaceable Kingdom”. It’s a picture of the Messiah’s rule over the world.
So let’s look at these three passages, Paul’s three remez. First, God comes to bring salvation to the world. Then, people are sent out to proclaim God’s salvation. At the end, we have the hope of the Messiah’s kingdom. One could see the armor of God as an allegory of the Gospel. If this was Paul’s intention, then the armor takes on a meaning far different from how I had always perceived. Teachers focused on the different parts of the armor, detailing how each piece applies to our lives. If we didn’t have the whole armor on, then we were susceptible to the enemy’s attack. There was a time when I tried to “pray the armor on” every day. It took so much time, and even then I still felt spiritually attacked. But how about daily living in the knowledge and truth of the Gospel? When I began to look at the armor this way, it felt like I had taken off the heavy armor and picked up a slingshot. But that’s all it took to kill a giant.
Revelation 12:10-11 describes how this new, lighter armor defeats the enemy. “Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, ‘the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.’”
Armed with our trust in the death and resurrection of Jesus and with our stories of God’s work in our lives, we wield a different kind of power than what the world expects. The message of the cross is powerful enough to move hearts, face adversities, and advance the Kingdom of God. Clothed in light armor, we can face the giants in our lives and proclaim, “Look at what God has done!”
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Vain Imaginations
Kids all over the world play make-believe, pretending that they know how to fight fires or shoot bad guys or discover buried treasure. I put myself into anything that I read in books or saw in movies. There were quests to complete, rare elixirs to obtain, princesses to rescue. It was cool until about halfway through elementary school. But for those of us who didn’t play football or street hockey very well, we had to continue this childhood hobby much further into our lives.
Then came adolescence. Many young men and women probably carried their day-dreams and fantasies seamlessly into the hellish experiences of puberty. For some, they might have considered it the only way to endure those awful days. In their heads they were attractive, or brave, or loved, or cool. They could smack the jukebox with their open palm and play the hit parade. They could get a room full of people to orbit around them like metal shavings and a magnetic pole.
I had come to believe that life in my head was as real as, well, reality. So when I started a band at the age of twelve, nothing sounded better than our version of Ramones and Toadies songs. It may have been barely listenable. But in my head, we were hot stuff. No question. We’d play the hippest parties and girls would finally like me. Which leads to another disparity between life in my head and life in the real world. When I met a pretty girl, I’d have figured out the rest of my life with her before I even knew her last name. But why was that important if we were going to get married anyway? Her last name would eventually be Kallman, right?
Right?
This used to happen all of the time. Now, I try to remind myself of all the times fantasy and reality didn’t resemble each other. That doesn’t mean I won’t ever have happy endings to stories, but it keeps my expectations in check. Besides, thinking about all the great stuff that could happen takes up so much time and brain activity that I could easily miss what I should have paid attention to at the present. Allowing my imagination to develop into expectation gives opportunity for disappointment.
My baby sister graduated from college a few weeks ago. The school invited her to give a speech at their final chapel meeting. She spoke of a day when she walked through some woods telling God all the reasons why she felt angry. When she came to the end of her list, she realized that she wasn’t angry at all. What she mistook for anger was really disappointment. She was disappointed that her life didn’t happen the way she thought it would. Now, my sister is happy. She has good friends and her wedding is scheduled this summer. But growing up was pretty hellish for her. It could have been easier. She probably didn’t imagine those fifteen awful years. At the end of her speech, though, she spoke of how God pointed out the ways He used those hardships to make her a spiritually mature woman.
If we know that God has sovereignty in every moment of our lives, then we can still trust Him when the times are tough, keeping our eyes open for how He will use the situation to glorify Himself. And when He moves in unexpected ways, we won’t necessarily have our expectations blinding us.
I love the Jewish people. Ever since I went to Israel in 2000 to help Ukrainian Jewish refugees, serving them helped me understand the roots of my own faith. I met a man there. He would have coffee with my family and I nearly every night. One day, my parents asked him how he could know so much about Jesus, and how Jesus kept the Torah, but still not accept Him as the Messiah. What was keeping him from believing? He said, “The dead were supposed to rise when the Messiah came.” Someone replied, “But some of the dead did rise and interact with many people in Jerusalem.” He said, “Yes, but not all of the dead.”
He told us that every righteous Jew was to have risen with Messiah when He came into Jerusalem. Almost like an army following him in procession. The Jews expected the Messiah to overthrow Rome and act as a political ruler in Israel. In fact, they expected a lot of other things from the Messiah. But Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God, which had no borders or political structure as they knew. When Pilate interrogated Him, Jesus said in John 18:36, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.”
The Jewish people didn’t see Jesus as Messiah, but as an apostate blasphemously claiming to be the Son of God because He didn’t show the signs they expected. In Matthew 12:38-40, “some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, ‘Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.’ But He answered and said to them, ‘An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.’” This last bit refers to His death and resurrection. The Jewish people got a sign, but one they didn’t anticipate or understand.
Pilate thought Jesus was a foolish man, delusional, but not dangerous. Paul echoes both the Jewish and Gentile reactions to Jesus in 1 Corinthians 1:22-23. “For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness.”
I often wonder if these expectations, how we think God should act, sometimes gets in the way of our seeing how He does and will act. If I were in Jerusalem during Jesus’s ministry, would I have known that He was the Son of God? Or would I have stuck to how I imagined the Christ would come? Even now, when God moves, am I paying attention to what He’s doing at present, or am I waiting on something that only exists in my head? Is it possible that my expectations of God have become an idol that gets in the way of my relationship with God?
I’ve said it many times. I prefer a God who surprises me. Not all the surprises are new cars or mysterious checks that cover rent. If I’m trapped in my daydreams, trying to live my fantasies (religious or otherwise) out loud, I could miss some awesome moments in my relationship with God. I want my hopes and dreams to have their proper place instead of confusing it with reality. I want to be humble enough to admit that I don’t have God figured out. If I expect something to turn out bad in a situation, I want God to prove me wrong. If I expect something good, then I want Him to do something better.
Then came adolescence. Many young men and women probably carried their day-dreams and fantasies seamlessly into the hellish experiences of puberty. For some, they might have considered it the only way to endure those awful days. In their heads they were attractive, or brave, or loved, or cool. They could smack the jukebox with their open palm and play the hit parade. They could get a room full of people to orbit around them like metal shavings and a magnetic pole.
I had come to believe that life in my head was as real as, well, reality. So when I started a band at the age of twelve, nothing sounded better than our version of Ramones and Toadies songs. It may have been barely listenable. But in my head, we were hot stuff. No question. We’d play the hippest parties and girls would finally like me. Which leads to another disparity between life in my head and life in the real world. When I met a pretty girl, I’d have figured out the rest of my life with her before I even knew her last name. But why was that important if we were going to get married anyway? Her last name would eventually be Kallman, right?
Right?
This used to happen all of the time. Now, I try to remind myself of all the times fantasy and reality didn’t resemble each other. That doesn’t mean I won’t ever have happy endings to stories, but it keeps my expectations in check. Besides, thinking about all the great stuff that could happen takes up so much time and brain activity that I could easily miss what I should have paid attention to at the present. Allowing my imagination to develop into expectation gives opportunity for disappointment.
My baby sister graduated from college a few weeks ago. The school invited her to give a speech at their final chapel meeting. She spoke of a day when she walked through some woods telling God all the reasons why she felt angry. When she came to the end of her list, she realized that she wasn’t angry at all. What she mistook for anger was really disappointment. She was disappointed that her life didn’t happen the way she thought it would. Now, my sister is happy. She has good friends and her wedding is scheduled this summer. But growing up was pretty hellish for her. It could have been easier. She probably didn’t imagine those fifteen awful years. At the end of her speech, though, she spoke of how God pointed out the ways He used those hardships to make her a spiritually mature woman.
If we know that God has sovereignty in every moment of our lives, then we can still trust Him when the times are tough, keeping our eyes open for how He will use the situation to glorify Himself. And when He moves in unexpected ways, we won’t necessarily have our expectations blinding us.
I love the Jewish people. Ever since I went to Israel in 2000 to help Ukrainian Jewish refugees, serving them helped me understand the roots of my own faith. I met a man there. He would have coffee with my family and I nearly every night. One day, my parents asked him how he could know so much about Jesus, and how Jesus kept the Torah, but still not accept Him as the Messiah. What was keeping him from believing? He said, “The dead were supposed to rise when the Messiah came.” Someone replied, “But some of the dead did rise and interact with many people in Jerusalem.” He said, “Yes, but not all of the dead.”
He told us that every righteous Jew was to have risen with Messiah when He came into Jerusalem. Almost like an army following him in procession. The Jews expected the Messiah to overthrow Rome and act as a political ruler in Israel. In fact, they expected a lot of other things from the Messiah. But Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God, which had no borders or political structure as they knew. When Pilate interrogated Him, Jesus said in John 18:36, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.”
The Jewish people didn’t see Jesus as Messiah, but as an apostate blasphemously claiming to be the Son of God because He didn’t show the signs they expected. In Matthew 12:38-40, “some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, ‘Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.’ But He answered and said to them, ‘An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.’” This last bit refers to His death and resurrection. The Jewish people got a sign, but one they didn’t anticipate or understand.
Pilate thought Jesus was a foolish man, delusional, but not dangerous. Paul echoes both the Jewish and Gentile reactions to Jesus in 1 Corinthians 1:22-23. “For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness.”
I often wonder if these expectations, how we think God should act, sometimes gets in the way of our seeing how He does and will act. If I were in Jerusalem during Jesus’s ministry, would I have known that He was the Son of God? Or would I have stuck to how I imagined the Christ would come? Even now, when God moves, am I paying attention to what He’s doing at present, or am I waiting on something that only exists in my head? Is it possible that my expectations of God have become an idol that gets in the way of my relationship with God?
I’ve said it many times. I prefer a God who surprises me. Not all the surprises are new cars or mysterious checks that cover rent. If I’m trapped in my daydreams, trying to live my fantasies (religious or otherwise) out loud, I could miss some awesome moments in my relationship with God. I want my hopes and dreams to have their proper place instead of confusing it with reality. I want to be humble enough to admit that I don’t have God figured out. If I expect something to turn out bad in a situation, I want God to prove me wrong. If I expect something good, then I want Him to do something better.
Monday, May 12, 2008
A Short Commercial.
The second edition of my book, Stark Raving Obedience, is now available.
In it, my father and I propose that God still speaks to people today on an individual basis. But how can you discern whether that's really God talking to you, or just your own head, or something else all together? And if God asks you to do something that seems crazy or stupid, would you be willing to obey?
You should be able to see the introduction and first chapter here. Those were my first few posts.
If you are interested in reading the whole book, you can buy directly from me for $15, or you can visit www.hearinggod.org and do that paypal business.
In it, my father and I propose that God still speaks to people today on an individual basis. But how can you discern whether that's really God talking to you, or just your own head, or something else all together? And if God asks you to do something that seems crazy or stupid, would you be willing to obey?
You should be able to see the introduction and first chapter here. Those were my first few posts.
If you are interested in reading the whole book, you can buy directly from me for $15, or you can visit www.hearinggod.org and do that paypal business.
Monday, May 5, 2008
The Triumphant Chord – Thoughts on Motive and Grace.
(A guy named Adam left a comment on the tithing post, and I promised to give a response in the form of a post. Adam, I hope I’ve given a worthy answer.)
Over the course of time, I’ll use a lot of the same words to describe God. This can be credited to the fact that, while God is infinite, I am finite and unable to properly describe His complexity. Any Bible teacher will use pictures to portray the different facets of His character, including the writers in the Bible. God is our father, our Lord, our shepherd, our shield, our loving provider, etc. In some periods of our life, we ascribe one of these aspects of God to the situation and assume His attitude accordingly. In terms of sin, we imagine that God is our dad. We just broke a window playing ball in the backyard and He’s going to be pissed when He gets home. Then in terms of repentance, God is like our mom reassuring us that dad really isn’t that mad, that He forgives us. Then she gives us a popsicle and sends us back outside to play.
The fact is that we can’t always assume how God feels about a situation. For example, in Jeremiah 25:9, God calls Nebuchadnezzar “my servant”. This came as a shock, I’m sure, to the Judeans. They were God’s chosen people, but here He was calling a pagan imperialist his servant as if he were chosen instead. In Isaiah 44:48 and 45:1, God calls Cyrus, king of Persia, his “shepherd” and his “anointed”. Calling a goy (a non-Jewish peron) anointed, “messiah” in Hebrew, must have really spooked the Jewish people. It spooks some Christians, too, when they realize the connection. This isn’t to say that Cyrus was THE Messiah, but God chose him for a special purpose in the history of His people.
There you have two examples of people who didn’t serve God, and yet God used them. In the case of Nebuchadnezzar, he devastated Jerusalem and killed a lot of people. When thinking about God as a loving parent, this looks confusing. When thinking about God as the Righteous Judge, it makes sense, but then He seems cruel.
Sometimes God is just God. In some circumstances, there are no sufficient comparisons that exist to explain Him. I love this part of God, the inexplicable God, because it means He’ll still surprise me. On a recent family road trip, my mother brought a pile of book-on-tape. For a majority of the drive, we listened to The Silmarillion by J.R.R Tolkien. This extensive mythology begins, like other mythologies, with the story of creation. Creation is represented through a song. God comes up with a melody, a theme, and invites his angels to help build the song. Then one particularly prideful angel has creative differences and tries to make the song dissonant. Instead of letting this jerk ruin the song, God reinvents the theme so that the song resolves out of the dissonance. The magnificence of His resolution causes the whole of heaven to fall down in worship.
I could have wept at the lesson in this nerdy fantasy book. No matter how much evil tries to screw up the beauty of God’s creation and order, He’ll always turn it around and make it good. I often talk about the story in John 9:1-3. “As He (Jesus) passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.’” God didn’t strike this man with blindness as punishment, as the disciples thought. And they had a right to think this way, because their question came from laws in the Torah. But God is more than the Judge. He is also the Redeemer. Surprise! The song just resolved into a major key again.
Now when he writes in Phillipians about those teaching the gospel for selfish reasons, Paul acknowledges the fact that God will use everything for His glory. If these teachers tell people the truth, then the truth is heard and God is glorified. Their motive can be inconsequential for the result. Now, their motives don’t please God and they risk His judgment for their actions, but I seem to remember a parable where Jesus spoke of weeds planted among a field of wheat. Instead of tearing out the weeds, and thus damaging the grain, the master of the field waits to separate the good from the bad at harvest time.
As a believer, I grieve that weeds are in the field. At the same time, I am thankful for the good that I see growing in the same field. In everything, God will be glorified. I think Paul also talks about this in Romans when he says that sin allows for greater measures of grace, although people shouldn’t sin as if it enhances grace. What a remarkable thing if one of those selfish teachers suddenly heard the truth in his own teaching and came to know Christ!
So don’t worry about the hearts of others. Pray for God’s glory to be done in everything, and it will come. The Farmer will eventually separate the wheat from the weeds, and the Master Composer will finish His song with a triumphant chord.
Over the course of time, I’ll use a lot of the same words to describe God. This can be credited to the fact that, while God is infinite, I am finite and unable to properly describe His complexity. Any Bible teacher will use pictures to portray the different facets of His character, including the writers in the Bible. God is our father, our Lord, our shepherd, our shield, our loving provider, etc. In some periods of our life, we ascribe one of these aspects of God to the situation and assume His attitude accordingly. In terms of sin, we imagine that God is our dad. We just broke a window playing ball in the backyard and He’s going to be pissed when He gets home. Then in terms of repentance, God is like our mom reassuring us that dad really isn’t that mad, that He forgives us. Then she gives us a popsicle and sends us back outside to play.
The fact is that we can’t always assume how God feels about a situation. For example, in Jeremiah 25:9, God calls Nebuchadnezzar “my servant”. This came as a shock, I’m sure, to the Judeans. They were God’s chosen people, but here He was calling a pagan imperialist his servant as if he were chosen instead. In Isaiah 44:48 and 45:1, God calls Cyrus, king of Persia, his “shepherd” and his “anointed”. Calling a goy (a non-Jewish peron) anointed, “messiah” in Hebrew, must have really spooked the Jewish people. It spooks some Christians, too, when they realize the connection. This isn’t to say that Cyrus was THE Messiah, but God chose him for a special purpose in the history of His people.
There you have two examples of people who didn’t serve God, and yet God used them. In the case of Nebuchadnezzar, he devastated Jerusalem and killed a lot of people. When thinking about God as a loving parent, this looks confusing. When thinking about God as the Righteous Judge, it makes sense, but then He seems cruel.
Sometimes God is just God. In some circumstances, there are no sufficient comparisons that exist to explain Him. I love this part of God, the inexplicable God, because it means He’ll still surprise me. On a recent family road trip, my mother brought a pile of book-on-tape. For a majority of the drive, we listened to The Silmarillion by J.R.R Tolkien. This extensive mythology begins, like other mythologies, with the story of creation. Creation is represented through a song. God comes up with a melody, a theme, and invites his angels to help build the song. Then one particularly prideful angel has creative differences and tries to make the song dissonant. Instead of letting this jerk ruin the song, God reinvents the theme so that the song resolves out of the dissonance. The magnificence of His resolution causes the whole of heaven to fall down in worship.
I could have wept at the lesson in this nerdy fantasy book. No matter how much evil tries to screw up the beauty of God’s creation and order, He’ll always turn it around and make it good. I often talk about the story in John 9:1-3. “As He (Jesus) passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.’” God didn’t strike this man with blindness as punishment, as the disciples thought. And they had a right to think this way, because their question came from laws in the Torah. But God is more than the Judge. He is also the Redeemer. Surprise! The song just resolved into a major key again.
Now when he writes in Phillipians about those teaching the gospel for selfish reasons, Paul acknowledges the fact that God will use everything for His glory. If these teachers tell people the truth, then the truth is heard and God is glorified. Their motive can be inconsequential for the result. Now, their motives don’t please God and they risk His judgment for their actions, but I seem to remember a parable where Jesus spoke of weeds planted among a field of wheat. Instead of tearing out the weeds, and thus damaging the grain, the master of the field waits to separate the good from the bad at harvest time.
As a believer, I grieve that weeds are in the field. At the same time, I am thankful for the good that I see growing in the same field. In everything, God will be glorified. I think Paul also talks about this in Romans when he says that sin allows for greater measures of grace, although people shouldn’t sin as if it enhances grace. What a remarkable thing if one of those selfish teachers suddenly heard the truth in his own teaching and came to know Christ!
So don’t worry about the hearts of others. Pray for God’s glory to be done in everything, and it will come. The Farmer will eventually separate the wheat from the weeds, and the Master Composer will finish His song with a triumphant chord.
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