Someone Else's Baby

The dream was disturbing.
There I was, in beautiful fellowship with my husband,
enjoying God's creation by the sea.
Something separated us.
Wolves came in, and tore my baby out of my arms,
biting into her, and flinging her off the pier I was on
to the rocks and water below.
The wolves chased me, trying to bite me, too.
I couldn't get to my baby.
They were stronger than me, faster than me,
and used the very beauty of the place I was in
to the destruction of my child.
My husband returned, the wolves fled, and he held the baby in his arms.
I woke up to the sound of her screaming.

Today I read, "Beware of dogs.
Beware of evil workers. Beware of the mutilation."
And I remember Paul's warning to the Ephesian elders
about the wolves who would come,
the false prophets who would come out of their own midst,
not sparing the flock, and drawing away disciples with perverse teachings.
Then he commended them to the word of His grace,
which is able to build them up
and give them an inheritance among the sanctified.

And I thought about Jesus' words in Matthew 7,
about the hypocrisy of trying to judge and cleanse a brother
while in a state of crippling blindness and under judgment.
And the application of the law has never removed a plank from my eye,
nor can it remove the speck from my brother's.

And all they did couldn't bring them into the kingdom.
Not prophecy.
Not exorcisms.
Not mighty works.
Jesus said you would know the tree by its fruit,
and all the fruit of human effort is rotten.
But the fruit that comes of connection with Him is holy.
"I never knew you," was the judgment.
The fruit was illegitimate.
Someone else's baby.
Because the law cannot produce the fruit of the Spirit.
And what is holy is not for the dogs.

The holy fruit, the precious treasure, is for the askers.
It isn't the work of the doers.
It isn't for the dogs, but for the sons.
Not for proximity to holiness, but relation to it.
A good gift from a good Father.
Sustenance offered to a child.
Not an attainment of the flesh.

There is a big wide gate that lots of people walk through,
and it leads to a road of human achievement.
And it is the way of destruction.
But Life is down the narrow road. 
Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
No man comes to the Father but by Me."
"I never knew you," was the judgment.
He called them workers of iniquity.

Paul traded his vast resume for one thing and one thing only:
the blood of Christ.
The connection.
The relation that bears fruit.
He traded his circumcision, his law-abiding status,
his zealous pursuit of Biblical theology,
his heritage, his family tree,
his prestigious education,
his religious superiority --
all of it --
for the knowledge of Him.
Because the one left him working iniquity.
All the works of righteousness achieved through the law
are a damning record of the unrighteousness of the doer.
They are hypocritical.
They are clean words from unclean lips.
They are coming to the marriage bed pregnant with someone else's child.

And the teaching of the works of the law as the means to grace
is the perversion of the gospel.
There's no inheritance there.
It's unclean. It is destructive, evil work. And it mutilates our souls.
It does not spare the flock of God.
It tears it up.
It is the result of separation from Christ.
It casts the fruit of union with Him on the rocks.
And it chases down the Bride to destroy her, too.

And it is the word of His grace that is able to build us up,
and give us an inheritance with the sanctified.
Are you worried about sanctification?
It is ours through His grace.
The inheritance of the holy is only born of His holiness.
And all our efforts are wood, hay and stubble apart from union with Him.

Caught

Early the next morning he went back to the Temple. 
All the people gathered around him, 
and he sat down and began to teach them. 
The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees brought in a woman 
who had been caught committing adultery, 
and they made her stand before them all. 
"Teacher," they said to Jesus, 
"this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. 
In our Law Moses commanded 
that such a woman must be stoned to death. 
Now, what do you say?" 
They said this to trap Jesus, so that they could accuse him. 
But he bent over and wrote on the ground with his finger. 
As they stood there asking him questions, 
he straightened up and said to them, 
"Whichever one of you has committed no sin 
may throw the first stone at her." 
Then he bent over again and wrote on the ground. 
When they heard this, they all left, one by one, the older ones first. 
Jesus was left alone, with the woman still standing there. 
He straightened up and said to her, 
"Where are they? Is there no one left to condemn you?" 
"No one, sir," she answered. 
"Well, then," Jesus said, "I do not condemn you either. 
Go, but do not sin again."
~John 8:2-11

I was reading about this woman this morning.
It's revealing to me of His heart that,
although He did assent to the 'justice' of her death sentence,
He, the Only Just Judge, remained inactive in her judgement,
stooping down with His hands on the dirt, and not on the stones. 
Refusing to condemn.
We are told to be like our Father in heaven,
who sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.
Raining mercy: indiscriminate blessings.

But also, that woman walked away knowing two things:
she was guilty as charged, and deserving of death,
but uncondemned, and given instruction
by the only One who could justly sentence her to stop it.
Stop this wickedness.
And doesn't it stun you that He works life and liberty out of such material?
That He speaks righteousness into the unrighteous?
That He makes of those who are not, something real and living?
His words have the power to rearrange our chaos into order.
To give life to the dead, and power to the powerless.
To make sons out of slaves, and foreign ones, at that.

Something Jesus Would Never Want You To Do

When my husband and I were first married,
we were 'counseled' by Christians regarding the bearing of children:  
Yes, children are a blessing of the Lord, but God wants you to be wise.
As though receiving a blessing from the Lord could be unwise.

The problem, of course, is that those who give advice along these lines,
have made their wisdom the standard.
Setting our own opinions and preferences up
as the way to really honor God drives people from Him.

My son told me that years ago, a teacher told him,
"Tearing the papers off of crayons is something
Jesus would never want you to do."
Frankly, it made my heart hurt.
Because he said he believed her.
He thought he had sinned against God.
I wish I had known it sooner.

"If you really want to be a God-fearing person, 
you will wash your hands 
in the prescribed (but extra-biblical) manner 
before eating your food.
If you are truly a believer, you will keep a spotless house, 
so that others can see the cleanliness of Christ in your dust-free home.
If you are sold-out for Jesus, you will forfeit marriage 
in favor of communal living in an elder-dictated community.
Jesus would never walk with a cigarette-smoking sinner.
Give up your tobacco so Jesus will speak to you.
My preferences are God's preferences, 
and I can show you how to please Him."

Jesus said, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father."
And He didn't say a word against the tearing of crayon wrappers.
But He did have a few things to say against teaching men's opinions
in the place of God's requirements.

It causes a conflict when we read what God's word actually says.
We attribute evil to God when we see Him doing the things
men have told us are wrong to do.
But He is good, and He does good.
Or we hide ourselves from Him (and from our brothers and sisters in the Lord)
because we think He's angry.

And when it cost Him so much to give us access,
I don't think we're doing His work when we push others away from Him.
Furthermore, it trains the consciences of those we teach
to dismiss real evil as inconsequential
while carefully obeying worthless edicts.

That's not the Gospel.

Making More Sins Than God

My husband made a delicious dinner tonight.
The conversation was good, too.
We asked our kids a bunch of questions which weren't planned,
but which I think were important.

Do people ever dishonor marriage in the way that they live? (Yes.)
Should we, then, say Christians shouldn't get married?
Can we do evil things with money? (Yes!)
Is money evil? (No!)
Can we honor the Lord with money? (Yes!) 
If people might do evil things with money, maybe we should ban money.
Can we do evil things with our bodies? (Yes.)
Does that make our bodies evil? (No!)
Can we honor the Lord with our bodies? (Yes!)
Can we do evil things with meat? (Yes.)
What kind of evil things could you do with meat?
(You could take it away from hungry people! You could be a glutton!)
So is meat evil? (No!)
Can we use meat in a way that honors the Lord? (Yes!)
Maybe, since people can use meat in a way that is evil, all meat should be destroyed.

There is an interesting passage in 1 Timothy 4:
Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times 
some will depart from the faith, 
giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, 
speaking lies in hypocrisy... 
forbidding to marry, 
and commanding to abstain from foods 
which God created to be received with thanksgiving; 
for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. 
If you instruct the brethren in these things, 
you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ, 
nourished in the words of faith 
and of the good doctrine which you have carefully followed. 
But reject profane and old wives' fables, 
and exercise yourself toward godliness. 
For bodily exercise profits a little, 
but godliness is profitable for all things, 
having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.

Reading the whole thing in context makes it plain
that the forbidding of the gifts of God,
which He has given us to be received with thanksgiving,
and which are made holy by His word, and by prayer, 
is a teaching of deceiving spirits, 
a lie, 
a doctrine of demons, 
a departure from the faith, 
and a profane old wives' fable.
Pretty strong words.
Good ministers of Jesus Christ reject such teachings.
The 'discipline' of abstinence from these things
(which are holy if done in holiness)
profits little.
But godliness is always profitable.
And godliness comes by faith in Him, and in His work.

"Do not suppose that abuses are eliminated
by destroying the object which is abused.
Men can go wrong with wine and women.
Shall we then prohibit and abolish women?"
~Martin Luther

"Thomas Shepherd, pastor and friend of Governor John Winthrop  
(Puritan governor of Massachusetts),
advised against forbidding a temptation.
He wrote Winthrop to argue
that forbidding a temptation provokes God
because it makes 'more sins than (as yet is seen) God himself hath made.'"

Nothing To Commit

"Grace to you and peace from God our Father
and our Lord Jesus Christ,
who gave Himself for our sins,
that He might deliver us from this present evil age...
I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him...
The gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.

I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries...
being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions...
But when it pleased God... who called me through His grace,
to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles...
they glorified God in me."

~excerpts from Galatians 1

"To attempt to change the gospel has the effect of making it the very opposite of what it really is."

"The gospel shuts out all works."

"The other day a man said to me, 'I want to become a Christian.
I am going to try to be a little better, and if I improve, I am going to become a Christian.'
"I said to him, 'If you improve, you will never become a Christian.  
The only class that God is saving is the ungodly.
The Lord Jesus said He didn't come to call the righteous; He came to call sinners.
There is none righteous, no, not one.
The righteousness of man is as filthy rags in God's sight.
Law condemns us, and it must make us speechless before grace can save us.'"

"The gospel of grace puts us in the dust and makes us beggars before God."

"We have nothing to commit to Him...
You have nothing to commit to Him, my friend.
He wants to commit something to you.
He is the One who died, and He is on the giving end."

~excerpts from Thru The Bible With J. Vernon McGee, on Galatians 1

What stood out to me in pondering Galatians 1 this morning was Himself.  
He is the gospel.  
He is the good news.  
He is the message.  
He is the deliverance.
And He is the One we turn from when we turn from the gospel.

The good news is the work of Christ accomplished for us.
Complete in Him.
Not our advancement beyond our contemporaries in zealousness,
but the revealing of His Son in us through His grace by His will
that we might preach HIM,
that God would be glorified in us.
God is not glorified in our righteousness.
He is glorified in the work of Christ --
the righteousness of Christ.
The deliverance of Christ.

All We Have

My dear friend Conor was speaking at the church I was at today.
He talked about Mark 8:31-35 where Jesus tells His disciples He must suffer,
and be rejected,
and be killed
and rise again after 3 days.
And Peter pulls Him aside to rebuke Him.
You know what Jesus said to him:
"Get behind me, Satan."

My friend focused on Peter's mind being influenced by the things of man,
and not the things of God.
He pointed out that it was the GOSPEL -- the work of Christ on our behalf --
that Peter was trying to correct.
He was speaking the words of Satan when he corrected Jesus.
"Satan is not opposed to going to church, to praying idle prayers.
He's opposed to the gospel."
The work of Christ is central.
"The gospel is all we have! Jesus is all we have!"

I had never thought of it before.
(Peter being opposed to the gospel.)
In a sense it comforts me to see Peter, who was opposed to the gospel,
become one of the foremost instruments of promoting the gospel --
although he had to be corrected again by Paul on the very subject of legalism.

"I want God to take this blurry watercolor of the cross and show it to me in HD," Conor said.

Legalism sucks all the life out of Christianity.
It's like posting the rules of my marriage on the wall:
Eight kisses every day are required, and they must be passionate.
You must bear eight children in order to be considered remotely fruitful.
All meals must be gourmet, and the house spotless at all times.
Two hours of one-on-one conversation must take place every day at the same time.
And sex is scheduled four days a week.

How It Ends

The longest chapter in the Bible concerns God's law.
Its perfection.
Its necessity.
The blessings of keeping it.
Curses on those who don't keep it.
Walking in it.
Delighting in it.
Meditating on it.
Hiding in it.
Being lit up by its entrance.
Having our steps directed by it, that iniquity might not rule over us.
Hoping in it.
Being judged by it. 

How it ends: 
"I have gone astray like a lost sheep;
Seek Your servant,
For I do not forget Your commandments."

We have all gone astray.
And He comes looking for us.

Seek us, Lord. 
We remember You. 
We remember Your word. 
Come rescue us.

God's Plan

"Understand God's mysterious plan, which is Christ Himself.
In Him lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
I am telling you this so no one will deceive you with well-crafted arguments...
Let your roots grow down into Him, and let your lives be built on Him.
Then  your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught,
and you will overflow with thankfulness."
(Colossians 2:2-7)

God's plan is Christ. Mysterious. Beautiful. We have no wisdom and no knowledge in ourselves. But in Him they lie hidden. And when we let our roots grow down into Him, we draw our strength and our sustenance from Him. Letting our lives be built on Christ, we reject the alternate foundation of anything else. Christ is our base. He is our soil if we would bear fruit. He is the plan of God. God has no alternative route to holiness for me. If I would be sanctified, if I would live -- it is Christ I must live in. If I would be God's child, Christ is my only hope.

If I am trying to grow in holiness outside the soil of Christ Himself, I will wither and die. When I consider Him, I can lift my head in faith, because of who He is. My faith grows strong, because it isn't in me, and thankfulness is unavoidable because He works in me.

Good News?

A friend of mine recently shared a quote from Martin Luther: 

"It is the supreme art of the devil that he can make the law out of the gospel." 

I keep thinking about it. 

'Gospel' means 'good news'. And isn't the gospel the best news you ever heard? God loves you! He loves you so much He sent His Son for you. He sent His Son to die so you could live. He paid the price. He opened heaven to you, although you were entirely steeped in sin -- and He is holy. He made a way to have fellowship with you, although your sins separated you from Him. He comes to dwell here in this fallen place, to inhabit our bodies, which were previously temples to sin. He promises help and hope and love and companionship and eternity to us. 

The law is not the way to heaven. The law is the way to hell. 

Because we can't keep it. We can't be holy. We can't be acceptable to Him. But His Son, who is accepted, was willing to trade places with us, and clothe us in Himself. We are accepted in the Beloved, in His Son, with Whom He is well pleased. Do you understand that? In Him, we are well pleasing to God. He is satisfied looking at us in His Son. And His Holy Spirit comes to make a home with us, in us, to bring us into our inheritance.  

And the enemy of our souls makes it a law. An abomination of striving miserable service. A 'you have to do this now because you're saved'. A driven list of musts and mustn'ts. 

Although the Scripture says if you walk by the Spirit you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh, the enemy says we can't trust the Holy Spirit to lead us away from sin. We need some laws. And if we listen to him, he'll lead us right out of the Spirit's leading into a straightjacket of our own contriving which can neither keep us holy nor bring forth fruit.

Do you know that what God has for you is GOOD NEWS? He gives rest to our souls by means of His easy yoke. He wants to fellowship with you. He doesn't come with 12 steps to holiness. He comes with His Son and an offer to exchange your unrighteousness with His holiness. And by the same Spirit He makes us alive in, He wants to keep us alive. 

Good Boys and Girls

"Some talk to children about such things as being good boys and girls; that is to say, they preach the law to the children, though they would preach the Gospel to grown-up people. Is this honest? Is this wise? Children need the Gospel, the whole Gospel, the unadulterated Gospel. They ought to have it. If they are taught of the Spirit of God, they are as capable of receiving it as persons of ripe years. Teach the little ones that Jesus died, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God."

(C.H. Spurgeon, Spiritual Parenting)