October 11,2018
Luke 14:26 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple."
Luke records Jesus speaking this to the crowds of people that followed him. Any sane person says, "Wait a minute, we need to clarify what Jesus is really saying." That is reasonable and right given what we know about Jesus from the Scripture. Then we can read how Jesus spoke in the same way to His disciples:
Matthew 10:37 "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."
Now, we see it makes a little more sense. One might say, "Yes, I can see that is right. I should love Jesus more than anything, but how do I do that and how will I know if I am doing it? This also is hard." There is something similar recorded about a young man who asked Jesus how to obtain eternal life.
Matthew 19:21 Jesus said to him, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
This seems pretty clear and one might say, "What a fool that young man was! Of course, he should have sold his goods. What a shame that he loved money more than eternal life. This is something one could do."
One thing Jesus says seems out of order; not understandable. Another thing He says seems sensible but difficult and the third reference seems to be a no-brainer. However, none of these are about easy or hard or should or shouldn't. They are all impossible. These are about value assessments of Jesus and no matter how much you tell yourself that you should value Jesus above all, you cannot and you will not unless you are able to see His value. However, once having "assessed" His value, you cannot not do these things.
To love one thing more than another requires that a value be assessed for the things compared. You can't assess something that you have never seen or experienced. It doesn't really matter if the value is based on emotion or practical use. You will value what you value and although you can discourage or encourage the valuing, you can't really think yourself into loving or not loving something. If that thing or person has value to you, that is the assessment. The only thing that can change a bad value assessment is to know something of better value. So surly, you know where I am going with this. Don't ask me why it takes so long, it just does :)
God's value is hands-down, beyond-words greater than anything or anyone, ever! However, unless He reveals Himself, one cannot value Him. It is impossible to value God more than a piece of trash if He has not revealed Himself to you. Now, once one has seen and known God, because God has made Himself known through Christ, on a personal basis, God's value remains in that person. It is true that we may become temporarily distracted and always tempted to value other things more than God, but once God has made His value known to a person, that person will ultimately love Jesus more than all things and all people. The Holy Spirit will light up the soul again and again so as to enable one to see and to cherish Christ forever.
One who knows God will love Jesus more than everything; not because he has to in order to avoid being kicked out of the kingdom, or because a toll has been placed on the road to heaven that he must pay up front, or because he is so very strict with what he allows himself to enjoy on the earth. He will love Jesus more because he will not be able to do otherwise; because Jesus is so much more valuable. Now, as I pointed out, all who love Jesus, will be tempted and will unintentionally and momentarily value Him less than they would if they were seeing correctly. But God, being most eager to uphold His great value (and rightly so!), will, in a variety of ways, help that one to see rightly. And when we see rightly, we say as Peter did: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God." (John 6:68-69) It is notable that Jesus had just pointed out, in this same conversation, "I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father." (John 6:65)
We can trust that since God was pleased to reveal His Son to us and knows that it is impossible to love Him above ourselves - even for a second - without His enabling, that He will help us to value Him in Christ that we might keep His commands. It is also given us to help ourselves and to help each other. Rather than rehearsing to yourself (again) all the reasons that you cannot obey God such as: your sinful human nature, the personality you had the bad luck to be stuck with, the rotten deal you got in childhood, the lack of discipleship and good examples in your life, or whatever; try calling to mind all the things about Jesus Christ that you can. Think and read and tell yourself about how He is, who He is; His kindness, goodness, real humility, true wisdom, unmatched power - it never ends. He never ends! Help yourself to remember and see how valuable He is. Then, help someone else. Stop putting "humility" over the excuse to talk about yourself! Maybe being honest about how rotten you are helps the next person feel a little better about how rotten they are, but it doesn't promote what is necessary, which is valuing Christ over yourself. I think the reasoning is that if we see that one thing has little value (ourselves), we will see the other (God) as being more valuable in comparison. So the idea is that if we see how bad we are, we will see how good God is, in comparison. That is not good reasoning! There is no comparing! God is absolutely more valuable than anything or anyone at any time. Even if we weren't all rotten to the core, which we are, He would still be of infinite, eternal, seriously unknowable-on-this-earth valuable - the MOST HIGH. So it isn't good reasoning and it doesn't work. That is why the Bible is about GOD, not about us.
Consider this example (maybe a silly one): Let's say that I have an old piece of furniture that I am very attached to. I love it. You come to my house and you comment on it's character and style and good condition and when you leave I love it more. Or maybe you come over and you make a face at it and others do the same. After a short while, I love it less. Maybe no one ever even comments on it. They don't even notice it. Over time I will love it less. We like to think that we do not influence each other in this way, but we do. We are meant to influence each other, for Christ valuing and Christ loving, so that we don't have to walk around worried that when the bill comes we won't have the guts to pay the cost of discipleship. Keep your eyes on the prize of Christ; go gaze at that Pearl of Greatest Value; run out and run your hands through the Treasure in the field and you will know that whatever the cost, no thing or person can out-value Jesus, the Son of God.
Thursday, October 11, 2018
Tuesday, October 9, 2018
Natural and Supernatural
October 9, 2018
Anyone who has managed in a business or who has worked for a manager or who has been a teacher or who has had a teacher knows that business school does not make one a manager and a college education does not make one a teacher. One who manages effectively and one who teaches well benefits and adds to their strength with education, but they manage and teach well because they are managers and teachers to begin with. It is who they are.
An artist does not become an artist through art school and a singer does not sing because of voice training. However, they certainly do well to take on training if they can get it. They paint and draw and sing and dance because it is who they are. It is who God has made them.
When speaking about the things of the earth, this concept seems obvious, at least to me it does. It puzzles me, therefore, how it seems that there are so many men who are accepted as pastors simply because they went to seminary and they are accepted as preachers because they have learned how to speak effectively.
In the natural, earthly realm, there are things one can teach but the essence of that thing must become known on a deeper level than simply remembering things that were read or heard and repeating them or reenacting them. That is why people say they have a good doctor or a good mechanic. They don't think so much about the training, in fact, they probably don't even check to see if they were trained at all. But they can tell, at times, almost intuitively, whether or not they know what they are doing. People make these judgments all the time.
As in the natural or earthly realm, so it is with the spiritual realm. Or I should say that as it is in the spiritual, it is in the earthly, since the spiritual came first. My point is that since we recognize the difference between cerebral knowledge and deeper knowledge (the sense of acquaintance with something) in our earthly dealings, how is it that this practice of discernment is so neglected when it comes to God's words and ways? If a man has graduated from seminary, he is said to be a pastor. If he can also speak well publicly, it may also be said of him that he is a preacher. This does not mean that he knows Jesus Christ or that he acts and speaks from Christ.
God is spirit and His loving Word is spiritual. It is not possible to deal with God and work in His work and minister with His Word with the natural man running the show. God must be running the show through His Spirit, if it is to be truly ministry. If the Holy Spirit is not in it, it is not from God. Anyone can read a Bible text and repeat what others have said about it. And it would seem anyone does just that - but only that. But, some will say, "look, he is actually reading from the Bible", apparently as opposed to the many who don't even do that. So what! Reading from the Bible is not the same as knowing the author and speaking in His interests. That is only done by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is not natural; human. It is supernatural; of God, spiritual, and is discernible by those who have the Spirit of God. Others may say, "Yes, but he is of our doctrine." Right. Just because you can read the menu doesn't mean you can cook the food - or should even try. What most would say and do say about discernment is something like: "Who am I to judge?" You are to judge! You are to be watching and listening and judging it all! The largest word in the Bible is not "UNITY"; it is "GOD", specifically, "JESUS".
Generally, people seem reconciled to the fact that the majority of those who say they are Christians have not actually met Jesus Christ. It follows then that those behind the pulpit would also follow the ratio of believer to hypocrite. I suppose my question, however naive it may appear, is "why is that OK?" Why is it rational and acceptable for me to say that I don't want to use a particular dentist because I don't get the feeling he really knows what he is talking about, but if I say that about a guy who is in a pastoral position, I am being mean and judgmental? What do I know about dentistry? Not much, but they are my teeth! What do I know about being a pastor? Nothing. But, I know THE Pastor. I know the kinds of things that Jesus says and does and I know what He likes and what He hates and if you know Him, so do you.
So, what is the fuss about? Why do I get on a soap box about something like this? Because a natural man feeding God's sheep is a danger and an insult. It is dangerous because the spiritual man is always tempted to deny God and do things according to the flesh. The natural man cannot see or teach God's word from anything but an earthly perspective so he is always drawing the eyes of his hearers down, toward themselves - even with the best and most sacrificial and humble sounding language. It is an insult because Jesus Christ has appointed spiritual leaders - where are they!? There are men equipped especially by God to tend to His sheep. What an insult to Jesus to leave this position laying around for the common man to pick up. The spiritual man is not exempt from error, of course, but only he can speak from a Godly perspective, because in Christ, he has this very perspective. It is not theory for him, but reality. This man will draw the eyes of the hearer upward toward Christ - even on accident. Listen to these things:
"For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generations than the sons of light." Luke 16:8
Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. "For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ. 1 Cor. 2:12-16
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Heb. 5:12-14
Anyone who has managed in a business or who has worked for a manager or who has been a teacher or who has had a teacher knows that business school does not make one a manager and a college education does not make one a teacher. One who manages effectively and one who teaches well benefits and adds to their strength with education, but they manage and teach well because they are managers and teachers to begin with. It is who they are.
An artist does not become an artist through art school and a singer does not sing because of voice training. However, they certainly do well to take on training if they can get it. They paint and draw and sing and dance because it is who they are. It is who God has made them.
When speaking about the things of the earth, this concept seems obvious, at least to me it does. It puzzles me, therefore, how it seems that there are so many men who are accepted as pastors simply because they went to seminary and they are accepted as preachers because they have learned how to speak effectively.
In the natural, earthly realm, there are things one can teach but the essence of that thing must become known on a deeper level than simply remembering things that were read or heard and repeating them or reenacting them. That is why people say they have a good doctor or a good mechanic. They don't think so much about the training, in fact, they probably don't even check to see if they were trained at all. But they can tell, at times, almost intuitively, whether or not they know what they are doing. People make these judgments all the time.
As in the natural or earthly realm, so it is with the spiritual realm. Or I should say that as it is in the spiritual, it is in the earthly, since the spiritual came first. My point is that since we recognize the difference between cerebral knowledge and deeper knowledge (the sense of acquaintance with something) in our earthly dealings, how is it that this practice of discernment is so neglected when it comes to God's words and ways? If a man has graduated from seminary, he is said to be a pastor. If he can also speak well publicly, it may also be said of him that he is a preacher. This does not mean that he knows Jesus Christ or that he acts and speaks from Christ.
God is spirit and His loving Word is spiritual. It is not possible to deal with God and work in His work and minister with His Word with the natural man running the show. God must be running the show through His Spirit, if it is to be truly ministry. If the Holy Spirit is not in it, it is not from God. Anyone can read a Bible text and repeat what others have said about it. And it would seem anyone does just that - but only that. But, some will say, "look, he is actually reading from the Bible", apparently as opposed to the many who don't even do that. So what! Reading from the Bible is not the same as knowing the author and speaking in His interests. That is only done by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is not natural; human. It is supernatural; of God, spiritual, and is discernible by those who have the Spirit of God. Others may say, "Yes, but he is of our doctrine." Right. Just because you can read the menu doesn't mean you can cook the food - or should even try. What most would say and do say about discernment is something like: "Who am I to judge?" You are to judge! You are to be watching and listening and judging it all! The largest word in the Bible is not "UNITY"; it is "GOD", specifically, "JESUS".
Generally, people seem reconciled to the fact that the majority of those who say they are Christians have not actually met Jesus Christ. It follows then that those behind the pulpit would also follow the ratio of believer to hypocrite. I suppose my question, however naive it may appear, is "why is that OK?" Why is it rational and acceptable for me to say that I don't want to use a particular dentist because I don't get the feeling he really knows what he is talking about, but if I say that about a guy who is in a pastoral position, I am being mean and judgmental? What do I know about dentistry? Not much, but they are my teeth! What do I know about being a pastor? Nothing. But, I know THE Pastor. I know the kinds of things that Jesus says and does and I know what He likes and what He hates and if you know Him, so do you.
So, what is the fuss about? Why do I get on a soap box about something like this? Because a natural man feeding God's sheep is a danger and an insult. It is dangerous because the spiritual man is always tempted to deny God and do things according to the flesh. The natural man cannot see or teach God's word from anything but an earthly perspective so he is always drawing the eyes of his hearers down, toward themselves - even with the best and most sacrificial and humble sounding language. It is an insult because Jesus Christ has appointed spiritual leaders - where are they!? There are men equipped especially by God to tend to His sheep. What an insult to Jesus to leave this position laying around for the common man to pick up. The spiritual man is not exempt from error, of course, but only he can speak from a Godly perspective, because in Christ, he has this very perspective. It is not theory for him, but reality. This man will draw the eyes of the hearer upward toward Christ - even on accident. Listen to these things:
"For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generations than the sons of light." Luke 16:8
Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. "For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ. 1 Cor. 2:12-16
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Heb. 5:12-14
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