Lawlessness, Part 1: anomia

“Who gave himself for us,

that he might redeem us from all lawlessness”

Titus 2:14

“You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness.

Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the

oil of gladness beyond your companions.”

Hebrews 1:9

When I began to work on my New Testament translation, a particular Greek word, anomia, caught my attention. That word, anomia, is usually translated “iniquity” in the King James Version even though it actually means “lawlessness”, or more literally, “without law”. In the beginning, I followed the example of the King James and other translators by translating anomia as “iniquity”, but something about doing that did not settle with my spirit. The more I worked on the translation, the more I began to think that “iniquity” did not adequately express what the writers of the New Testament intended with the word anomia. In the end, I decided that “lawlessness” is the only word that communicates what they intended to say.

John defined what sin itself is in 1John 3:4, using anomia. He wrote, “Everyone who does sin also does lawlessness, for sin is lawlessness [anomia].” By using the word anomia, John was teaching the children of God what sin really is; that is, sin is whatever is not according to God’s law. If in 1John 3:4, one were to translate anomia as “iniquity”, it would read, “sin is iniquity”. But what good would that statement be? Everybody knows that sin is iniquity. But not everybody knows that sin is living contrary to God’s law! Not everybody understands that sin is lawlessness! One can say “sin is iniquity” or “iniquity is sin”, and nothing is explained because both mean the same thing. But when John said, “sin is lawlessness”, he was educating us in the things of God. Iniquity is defined for us when we accurately translate John’s words.

Law Provides Social Boundaries

All of us need boundaries. We need to live with an awareness of what is appropriate behavior and speech. That is why God gave His law to man. Before God gave His law to Israel, rulers of other nations had devised laws of their own. I have studied several of these law codes, such as the famous Code of Hammurabi, and I am sure that they seemed very good to the people who crafted them. But those laws fell far short of teaching men what is truly right and wrong. God’s law, however, was perfect. It revealed a righteousness that no other law code had shown to mankind. God’s law taught men what kind of conduct was truly appropriate. People could please God and benefit their neighbors by walking in His law.

In our debased culture, we see lawless behavior everywhere we look. It is common now to hear foul language on street corners or in cafeterias, from the mouths of the old as well as the young and foolish, and to see people, young and old, dressed inappropriately in public places. Many people now seem to lack a sense of decency and order. That is lawlessness. That is what sin is. It is behavior that is not governed by the wisdom of God; it is life without an awareness of God’s presence. Lawlessness is to live without being guided by the law of God, without being aware of the boundaries of right conduct. In short, lawlessness is to walk in the flesh rather than in the Spirit because the flesh is lawless.

In this covenant, to be lawless is to be Spiritless. When we receive the Spirit, we receive the law of God into our hearts; God’s feelings, God’s thoughts, God’s will becomes a part of us. This is what Peter meant when he said that the children of God “have been made partakers of the divine nature.” Because God knows what is right, those with His Spirit can feel that knowledge guiding them. Because God loves people, those with His Spirit can sense what is appropriate behavior around people. Because God is wise, those with His Spirit within discern it when an unclean spirit of this age draws near. That being guided by the Spirit, that inner sensing of what is good, that discernment, is living, as Paul said, “under law to God,” and every other way of living is sin because every other way is lawlessness.

The “Self-Esteem” Agenda

“I am a worm, and no man.”

Christ, in Psalm 22:6

“What is man, that thou art mindful of him?

and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

David, in Psalm 8:6

An essay on self-esteem by Token Embry.

Self-Esteem is an important component of society today. Society frowns upon criticism of a child’s character. Yet the gospel teaches that in us, “there is no good thing” (Rom. 7:18) The point of the gospel is that we are born in need of some help from Jesus. We do not know how to choose what is good and right without the spirit to guide us in all truth. We are inherently bad creatures. We are inherently wrong in our hearts because we do not know God. This is opposite of what so many teachers, counselors and even parents will say to children today.

When I was a child in elementary school, the whole school was brought to the auditorium for an assembly on “Self-Esteem”. In an effort to teach us how wonderful we were, we sang over and over a one-line song, “I am special; I’m important; I’m unique.” I and many of my classmates were embarrassed. We avoided the microphone as it was passed around for us to sing into. But our teachers all encouraged us to sing it and sing it loud! This incident shows just how self-focused we were taught to be, and that symbolizes the whole approach to education that I received growing up by well-meaning adults.

In order to reach Jesus at some point, every child who was asked to sing that song will have to come to a different place where they say in their hearts, “No. There is nothing good about me. It is your love, Jesus, that has given me the wonderful life I have. I did not inherently deserve it or even know how to desire what was right. But you do, and I want what you want for me, not my own ways. I need your help to find what is right.” The point of the Gospel is that we need God’s help. We should seek him and pray to get it. It is a “pearl of great price” (Matt. 13:46). But if we are so “special, important and unique” then how can we admit fault and our need of help?

The Gospel teaches us that if there is anything good about us, it comes from above, from God’s life in us. It is His spirit that shows us how to love the ones we love and how to be good, like our Father. While it is God’s “good pleasure to give us the kingdom” (Luke 12:32), we can not forget it comes from him. What we need today is to know that God’s thoughts and feelings in us are not our own. We cannot have right thoughts without God. And we need to stop taking credit for what God gives us, confusing them as our own, but rather to enjoy freely the wonderful gifts they are. We need to esteem them so highly that no man can persuade us otherwise. To be so thrilled that God has rescued us, we do not let go of his instruction. To be so hungry for His Voice, that the sound overtakes any other sound around us. What we need is God-Esteem, not self-esteem.

God’s Chambers

“He brings the wind out of His treasuries”

Psalm 135:7

When the Spirit came upon king David and moved his hand to write out the pattern for the temple to be built in Jerusalem, that pattern included chambers within and around the temple. Into some of these chambers were brought the tithes and offerings for the priests, and into others were kept some of the other things necessary for the maintenance of the temple and cult of Israel. Chambers in which the king’s treasures were kept were referred to as “treasuries”, as in the verse above. Sometimes, prophets or prophetesses occupied some of the temple’s chambers, such as the prophetess Anna who came out of her chamber to greet the baby Jesus when his parents brought him to the temple for the first time (Lk. 2:36-38): “And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher (a widow about 84 years old), who departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. And coming in at that moment, she gave thanks unto the Lord, and spoke of him [the baby Jesus] to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem.”

The author of Hebrews let us know that the temple in Jerusalem was a figure of heaven itself (Heb. 8:5; 9:23), and so, it should not surprise us that the Bible often speaks of God’s chambers, or treasuries, in which He holds things in store. The “treasuries” mentioned in the psalm above is a reference to the chamber in which the wind is held, to be brought out and used when and where it pleases the Lord. God asked Job, “Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war?” (Job 38:22-23). David said that God “waters the hills from his chambers, and the earth is satisfied” (Ps. 104:13).

Winds, precipitation, sunlight, and whatever other essential elements of nature there may be, are all stored up by God to be used as it pleases Him. “By faith, we understand” that “mother nature” is a fantasy of man’s darkened heart and that this universe is held together and operates by the power and choice of God, not by the so-called “laws of physics”. This universe does not operate by it’s own power but by the power of God, through Jesus Christ His Son: “For by him were all things created, things in the heavens, and things on earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authorities, all things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things, and all things are held together by him” (Col. 1:16-17).

Jeremiah understood this. He asked the rhetorical question, “Can the heavens give rain?” (Jer. 14:22). The answer is, no. Rain can no more come from heaven than it can come from rocks. God gives us rain, and when we understand that, we perceive something about the goodness and wisdom and power of God.

Hiding Places

The most touching reference to the chambers of God is found in Isaiah 26. This portion of Scripture is a prophecy of the end of time, when God will strike the earth with merciless plagues – but only after sending His Son to take the saints up into chambers prepared for them in heaven, safely out of the way of the wrath on earth. Isaiah spoke of that wonderful mercy with these words: “Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee. Hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity” (Isa. 26:20-21).

God has already prepared a hiding place for us, to keep us in those days when death and disaster will cover the earth. When the time comes, our heavenly Father will send Jesus to take us up, and to cover us with his love until God’s indignation against the wickedness of this world is past. In spirit, David was moved again to sing of that time (Ps. 57:1): “Be merciful unto me, O God! Be merciful unto me! For my soul trusteth in thee. Yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until the calamities be overpast.”

Honoring Children above God

“Why do you kick at My sacrifice and at My offering which I have commanded,

and honor your sons above Me,

to make yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel My people?”

God, to Israel’s high priest, Eli, in 1Samuel 2:29

The only way to truly honor God is to follow His example and obey His counsel. Merely to agree that God is right about something brings Him no honor. We honor Him by doing things the way He says to do them. And if we are to honor God in all things, that must include the way we rear our children.

We are told by Paul to bring up our children in a caring, godly manner. He said, “You fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” To nurture means “to feed or nourish; to support and bring up to maturity; to rear”. It is to provide a child with a sense of order and goodness. When children are not provided with those things, they are more susceptible to spirits of self-will and lawlessness, as in the case of the two wicked sons of Israel’s high priest, Eli.

Eli failed to set a standard for his sons, Hophni and Phinehas. When they were young, he failed to chasten them, and the results when they were grown men were tragic for everyone in Israel. This same unwillingness to correct disobedient children and teach them how to behave is rampant in our society. On every hand, in public and in private, children, not Jesus, prove themselves to be their parents’ masters. By such ungovernable conduct as we commonly see now, parents everywhere are made to look weak and foolish. And they are. But God has the answer for those who are willing to receive it.

In our time, society has shifted away from the acceptance of spanking as a means of punishment. It is my understanding that children can be legally taken from their homes now if a parent spanks a child. Through Solomon, God said that the blueness of a wound would “cleanse away evil” (Prov. 20:30). But this culture seems to be saying that the blueness of a wound is sufficient grounds to forcibly take your children away from you. Thinking themselves wise, men often become fools (Rom. 1:22), and the tragic results for our society of the present mind set toward punishment of children, especially corporal punishment, has yet to be fully realized.

Solomon’s friend Agur described the spiritual condition of some youngsters of his day: “There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes! And their eyelids are lifted up.” But this condition is not the fault of the young people who have not received godly love and guidance. It is almost always the fault of parents who are so self-indulgent that they cannot bring themselves to chasten their children when it needs to be done. Every godly parent feels the pain of a child who is being punished; nevertheless, every godly parent will put himself through that pain if his child demonstrates a need for the punishment. Who wants to see one’s child sad? But better to make them sad now than to deny that correction to the child and let him grow increasingly self-indulgent and rebellious, and then suffer the awful consequences of self-indulgence and rebellion as an adult.

Some people characterize corporal punishment as brutality, and all children who receive such punishment would agree with those fools. I know that, as a child, I certainly would have characterized my spankings as brutality. But that is only because “no chastening for the present seems joyous, but grievous” and because “foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child”. But as Solomon said, “the rod of correction will drive foolishness far from them” (Prov. 22:15). And once that is done, the chastisement children receive “bears the peaceable fruit of righteousness.” I can only imagine now how lawless and self-consumed a person I would have become without my parents’ discipline. I know they loved me because as long as they had me under their roof, they would not allow me to live in a way that was destructive to myself and others. They set a standard in their home and made certain that we children lived by it – for our good, not just theirs.

Foolish parents love themselves too much to spank their children. In refusing to give their children discipline if they need it, they are loving themselves more than their children, and honoring their children above the God who tells us how to bring up our children. The only hope for such ill-trained young people is that God will call them into His kingdom. If He does, He will certainly chasten them, sometimes severely, and He will do so with no fear whatsoever that any government will come and take His precious sons and daughters out of His hand. “For whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives” (Heb. 12:6).

Here are a few Scriptures that concern the chastening of children by their elders, and the chastening of the saints by God:

God’s Instructions concerning the chastening of children

Proverbs 19:18:

“Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying.”

Proverbs 13:24:

“He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him chastens him betimes [that is, early].”

Proverbs 23:13-14:

“Withhold not correction from the child, for if you beat him with the rod, he shall not die. You shall beat him with the rod and shall deliver his soul from hell.”

The Way God Deals with His Children

2Samuel 7:14 (concerning David’s young son Solomon, when he would become King):

“I will be his Father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men.”

Psalm 94:8-14:

“Understand, you brutish among the people! And you fools, when will you be wise? He who planted the ear, shall He not hear? He who formed the eye, shall He not see? He who chastises the heathen (see Deut. 11:1-4), shall He not correct? He who teaches man knowledge, shall he not know?

“The Lord knows the thoughts of man, that they are vain.

“Blessed is the man whom you chasten, O Lord, and teach him out of thy Law, that you may give him rest from the days of adversity until the Pit be digged for the wicked. For the Lord will not cast off His people; neither will He forsake His inheritance.”

Psalm 118:18:

“The Lord has chastened me sore, but He has not given me over to death.”

Job 34:31-32: “Surely it is fitting to be said to God, ‘I have borne chastisement; I will not offend any more. That which I see not, teach me. If I have done iniquity, I will do no more.’”

1 Corinthians 11:30-32:

“For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world.”

Revelation 3:19:

“As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.”

Proverbs 3:11-12:

“My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary of His correction, for whom the Lord loves, He corrects, even as a father the son in whom he delights.”

Note: Proverbs 8:30 and Hebrews 5:7-9 and 2:9-10.

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Leviticus 26:14-45: In these verses, we see God refusing to give up on His people. He loved them too much not to punish them for their sins.

Isaiah 1:1-9: As with any parent, God at times became frustrated with stubborn children. Here in Isaiah, God says there is no use for Him to continue to chasten them, but He continued trying to help them, anyway.

Jeremiah 31:18-21: God’s heart aches for His chastened people. But He loves them more than He loves Himself, and so, He does for them whatever they need Him to do, including punishing them.

Hosea 11:8: When the time came for God to give His people over to the heathen because He could no longer reason with them, it broke His heart. He knew what horrible suffering they would have to endure at their hands. But for their good, He did it. We can feel God’s pain in these words: “How shall I give you up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver you [to your enemies], Israel? How shall I make thee as Admah? How shall I set thee as Zeboiim? [These two cities were destroyed along with Sodom and Gomorrah.] My heart is turned within me! My repentings are kindled together.”

Hebrews 12:1-17: This portion of Scripture is an exhortation for us to have faith in God’s love for us, even when He chastens us.

Keeping the Sabbath

A thought inspired by a conversation with Brother Earl Pittman

God was determined that His Old Testament people would honor His sabbaths. Not only were the Israelites commanded to rest on the sabbath, but foreigners who sojourned within the borders of the promised Land had to cease from their work on God’s Sabbaths. Even the slaves and animals that people owned were not allowed to work. Indeed, even the land itself was given a sabbath from being cultivated, every seventh year. God said to Israel, “the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the Lord. You shall neither sow your field, nor prune your vineyard” (Lev. 25:2-4). And God warned the Israelites that if they failed to keep their sabbaths, and failed to allow the land to keep its sabbath, then He would send them into captivity so that the Promise Land could at last keep the sabbath days that they had refused to give it.

This came to pass. After centuries of patient forbearance, God sent the Assyrian army, and then the Babylonian army, to conquer the Israelites and carry them away. When the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar overwhelmed God’s people, we are told in 2Chronicles 36:20-21 that “those who escaped from the sword, he carried away to Babylon, where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia . . . until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths, for as long as she lay desolate, she kept sabbath.”

We who live under this New Covenant are also commanded to keep God’s sabbath, the sabbath of walking in the Spirit and resting from our own works and ways. And God is just as determined that we will keep this new sabbath as He was determined that His Old Testament people keep their form of the sabbath. When the Corinthians failed to keep the Lord’s sabbath by ceasing from their own ways, Paul told them that because of their failure to walk in the Spirit “many are feeble and sick among you, and quite a few have fallen asleep” (1Cor. 11:30).

God is going to get glory from His people. If we give it to Him willingly by walking in the Spirit and keeping His sabbath while we are in these mortal bodies, we will be blessed. But if not, God may force us to cease from our own ways in this world by taking us out of this world altogether.

Let’s cease from our own ways and rest in the Spirit. Let’s keep God’s holy sabbath, and live!

Hating the Judges at the Gate

“All who watch for iniquity are cut off,

who make a man an offender because of a word,

who lay a snare for him who reproves in the gate,

and who turn aside the just for a worthless thing.”

Isaiah 29:20-21

Sometimes it happens that a child of God drifts away from righteousness and returns, as Peter said, “to his own vomit”; that is, he returns to the ungodly ways of his past. The good that he learned to love in Christ, loses its appeal, and those whose judgment he learned to respect seem, to him, not so important any more. It never happens overnight. It begins as a seed that, left to itself, grows quietly, almost imperceptibly. But when its fruit finally appears, how very bitter it can be! How much strife and hatred it can engender!

Envy is a seed that can produce such fruit. Solomon said that envy is like “rottenness of the bones” (Prov. 14:30b). This is true. Envy quietly but viciously eats away at one’s spirit like a cancer, whose end can be very painful indeed. Many thousands of people, this very moment, have the disease called cancer, but do not know it. Only when the cancer has grown to a certain size and begins to produce the fruit of bleeding or discomfort and pain will those with cancer learn that it is in their bodies.

Self-will can also produce such fruit. It can also quietly grow until it produces in a soul some of the most bitter of all strife and hatred. Many of God’s dear children suffer from this deadly spiritual disease and do not even know it. But if stubbornness is not recognized and dealt with in its early stages, it will grow and produce such horrible fruit in a life that God compared stubbornness to the sin of idolatry (1Sam. 15:23).

Such things as envy and self-will are invisible sins; they can be hidden in the breast. The thoughts and feelings they produce can be hidden, too, but not forever. If those spiritual weeds are allowed to grow in the heart, they will eventually produce fruit that cannot be hidden. This is why God’s people need pastors and teachers who know God and who have discernment. We all need spiritual “watchmen” who stand on the walls of the city and see things coming that we cannot see, and who warn of us things to come so that we can make the necessary adjustments in our lives to overcome the things that would destroy us.

In the beginning Scripture above, Isaiah mentions those who hate those who “reprove in the gate”. The judicial courts in ancient time were commonly found at the city gates, where respected elders of the city would gather and hear the complaints brought to them by citizens of the city. It happened then, just as it does now, that the guilty sometimes responded to judgments of the courts by confessing their wrong and repenting – and sometimes with anger and hatred. Just as now, sometimes those who are shown to be guilty continue to deny it, and cast aspersions on the character of judges who make right judgments. This evil response to right judgment is the fruit of the deadliest of all those quiet killers of the soul: pride.

Of all the spiritual diseases that can hide in the heart, unrecognized and, so, not cut out, pride is the most deadly because it is the most difficult to admit to. Confession of sin is anathema to pride. Pride would rather kill than confess, and this is why those afflicted with it will “lay a snare for those who reprove in the gate” instead of simply repenting when the judges point out their wrong. The judges who “reprove in the gate” are servants of God who judge without partiality, and historically, they have always been the targets of the wrath of proud people, men and women, whose deeds are evil and whose deeds are reproved.

Isaiah’s description of the proud is perfect. Instead of being healed and restored to fellowship by submitting to life-giving correction from the Lord, the proud turn on the judges at the gate like venomous serpents. They watch them like hawks, looking for anything the judges say or do that can be used to make the judges themselves appear evil. From the moment the proud are exposed by “those who reprove in the gate”, the proud carefully listen to every word that proceeds from the judges’ mouths – not to follow “the instructions of life”, but to see if there is even one word the judges speak that the proud can use to make the judges appear evil. If the proud had listened to the judges that intently when the disease of pride was still small in their hearts, they might have lived forever in peace and harmony with the saints. Now, instead of being healed by words of truth, they listen to those healing words for an evil purpose. How sad!

Pride compels those who are afflicted by it to strive, by any means available, to condemn the judges who reproved them at the gate. Otherwise, the proud themselves have to confess that the judges are right, and pride will never do that. The one goal in life of the proud who are judged is to justify themselves to the world, to win others to a worthless cause: the campaign to condemn those who dare to “reprove in the gate”.

There are a number of stories, old and new, which show that the proud can succeed for while in their craftiness. Sometimes, the proud do manage to move public opinion toward their cause. But I have also noticed, in those same stories, that the gates are never moved. The seats for the elders who sit in judgment remain in their places. And the judges whom God appointed to sit at the gate are still there, patiently doing their duty for God’s people, waiting for and trusting in the great Judge to enforce the judgments they have made.

“What Is Truth?”

Then Jesus said to the Jews who believed in him,

“If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,

and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

John 8:31-32

Pilate said to him, “What is truth?’”

John 18:38

I doubt that Pilate was being sarcastic when he muttered his question at Jesus. It was an exasperating moment for the Roman procurator. He knew Jesus was innocent, but he couldn’t find a way to get the Jewish mob to agree that Jesus should be released. Pilate was trapped, and at that moment, he probably was sincere in his longing to know what “truth” really was.

We could answer Pilate’s question, “What is truth?”, simply by referring to Jesus’ description of it. Jesus said that the truth makes you free; therefore, whatever makes you free is the truth. The truth, whatever it is, is powerful enough to set sinners free from sin, set the confused free from their ignorance, and set the fearful free from fear.

Pilate needed to be set free from fear of displeasing the angry, evil mob that confronted him; he needed to be set free from fear to do with Jesus what he knew was just; that is, to release him. The love of God would have given Pilate the strength he needed to treat his innocent prisoner justly. Had he possessed the love of God within, Pilate could not have harmed God’s Son. That liberating love of God, Paul said, “is shed abroad in our hearts by the holy Spirit which God has given to us” (Rom. 5:5). So then, for Pilate, God’s love was the truth he needed in his heart, but didn’t have.

Because the holy Spirit sets men free from evil influences, such as the wicked demands which this world makes of us all, John called the Spirit itself “the truth” (1Jn. 5:6). The Spirit will give you whatever truth you need to be set free from whatever binds you. Jesus said that every truth would come by the Spirit (Jn. 16:13), which is to say, all liberty is found by following after the Spirit. Knowing this, Paul wrote, “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2Cor. 3:17). We might add to that, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is not, there is bondage.”

If the Spirit which makes us free is what leads us into all truth, as Jesus said, and liberty is found only where the Spirit of the Lord is, as Paul said, then we cannot be mistaken to say that those without the Spirit are still in bondage and are without the truth. This is certainly what Paul taught. He said that those without the Spirit of God were “none of His” (Rom. 8:9).

This message of the necessity of the holy Spirit is not given to condemn, but to enlighten and to liberate. If you have been taught that your sins are washed away, but you have not yet received the baptism of the holy Spirit, you need to be liberated from false teaching. The Spirit alone will do that, and when you receive the baptism of the Spirit, you will understand what I mean because your heart will be liberated from the influence of those who, too, need to be liberated from a wrong idea about the way of salvation.

What Makes You Distinctive?

There is neither Jew nor Greek;

there is neither bond nor free;

there is neither male nor female;

for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Galatians 3:28

In Christ, NO earthly condition defines you. Do not allow ANY earthly thing to define you! Do not allow any man to persuade you to receive his label, for “you are complete in Christ”, and “he is our life.” You are neither a Jew or a Gentile in the world because “neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature” and “faith, that works by love.”

In Christ, you are neither tall nor short, black or white, young or old, American nor Asian, British, African, or Australian. You are neither Democrat, Republican, or Independent. If you are a part of anything other than Christ Jesus that makes you distinctive in this world, the Father is crying out to you, “Come out of her, My people!” There is nothing human about your Father, and in Christ, you are no longer human either, but you are deathless sons of God and ambassadors of the Father’s kingdom in this dark world.

Do not join any of the world’s religious clubs that set men apart from one another. In Christ Jesus, you are neither Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, agnostic, or atheist. Anything that divides you from other people, except for Christ, is of the world and is not of the Father. Do not call yourself by any earthly thing, for all of God’s children are “strangers and pilgrims” in this life with Jesus. Do not join or partake of anything that sets you apart from others, for in Christ Jesus, “we are all “one body, and one bread”, and everything except Christ makes us different from one another in ways that are not of God.

Let the love of God be what defines you. Let His power and His truth be what defines you. Let the fruit of the Spirit be what makes you distinctive in this world. Let Christ live in you, and He will set you apart, in every way, from what is not good in God’s sight. The difference that God’s holy Spirit makes in us is the only difference that needs to be made.

Prisoners to Freedom

“The Lord releases the prisoners.”

Psalm 146:7

“How you have fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning . . .

who opened not the house of his prisoners.”

Isaiah 14:12, 15-17

God is not a beggar. He and His ministers do not beg for money, and they do not beg for praise or for followers. “Whosoever will” means that those who want to follow Jesus are allowed to, but it also means that all who do not want to follow Jesus are allowed to follow their own heart instead. Jesus makes us so free that we cannot escape the liberty he has given to us.

Long ago, Jesus taught me to be like him and never put pressure on people to be a part of my ministry if their hearts were not in it. Consequently, I have never gone out looking for “members” or by any means attempted to persuade anyone to join in this ministry. Nor have I ever put pressure on the people God sent to be a part of this ministry to stay once they were here. Nor yet have I ever pursued after anyone who chose to no longer associate with me and my work. I leave all that up to God, and I thank Him for every one He sends to help, and for every one He takes away. Every person now associated with me in my work knows that if he or she chooses to leave, I will not ever chase after them, trying to change their minds. They know they are perfectly free to do what is in their hearts to do. I would not have it any other way.

In fact, decades ago, the Lord told me to offer a “money-back guarantee” to any person who became a partner here with me, but who – for any reason whatsoever – afterward regretted supporting this ministry with their tithes and offerings. God and His ministers are not beggars. And I have imitated my heavenly Father in making sure that every person working with me is doing so only because they truly want to, by making sure that they know (1) they are free to leave at any time and (2) if they want their money back, they can have it. (For obvious tax reasons, this refund can only apply to money given within the most recent fiscal year.)

The freedom with which the Son makes us free is so real and so all-encompassing that it can be frightening to consider. God is so much a God of liberty that He will have no unwilling servants. Of course, there will be dire consequences for unfaithfulness because every one of us will reap what we sow; still, God has determined that we be free to choose not to serve our Lord if we don’t want to. He will make real promises, but He will not manipulate; He will warn, but He will not threaten; and He will plead, but He will not hound those who turn from Him and go another way. God’s wayward children may be dearly loved and sorely missed, but when Jesus makes us “free indeed”, part of that gift of ultimate freedom is the freedom to cease from serving him if love for the world enters in. He will let us go if we insist on it. After all, he makes us “free indeed”, if we are not free to choose disobedience and rebellion, then we are not free to choose love and faithfulness. If we cannot turn from him and embrace eternal death, we are not free at all.

God willingly releases His prisoners if they want to escape from Him. He loves us too much to hold us against our will. He forces no one to serve Him, and if you feel discontent with Him, He would rather you feel content with someone else than to keep you bound in discontentment to Him. Only God really wants you to be free to live the way your heart wants to live.

Unmoveable

So then, my dearly loved brothers,

be steadfast, unmoveable, abounding in the work of the Lord always.

1Corinthians 15:58

Thoughts inspired by chapter 7 of the book, God Had a Son Before Mary Did

In order for Satan to be able to move someone, to influence a person’s choices, that person must hold in his heart a wrong idea about God. Satan cannot deceive, intimidate, or influence anyone who possesses the true knowledge of God. When Paul prayed that the saints would be “unmoveable”and “rooted and grounded” (Eph. 3:17), what he was praying for is simply that they would attain to the knowledge of their heavenly Father. When Jesus said that the truth would make us free (Jn. 8:31-32), he meant that the knowledge of God would make us free from the power of darkness to influence our feelings, our thoughts, and our choices.

The Lord showed me in August, 1981, that the biggest enemy of His people is not the devil; rather, our biggest enemy is what we still don’t know about God. He said through Hosea, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” Satan knows how to use our ignorance against us. He works in places we don’t yet understand. He maneuvers in those spiritual areas where we are ignorant. He cannot work in the light, for in the light, he is exposed for what he really is. Jesus promised that all who trust in him will have the “light of life” (Jn. 8:12), which means that if we trust Jesus, he will lead us to a spiritual place where Satan has no more influence on our spirits because we provide him no place to hide.

The way to eternal life is simple. All we have to do is walk in the light of the Spirit that God has given us, and the light of the Spirit is the knowledge of God. That is why Jesus once defined eternal life as simply knowing the Father and the Son (Jn. 17:3). If we possess that life, that true knowledge of God that comes through the Spirit, we will be unmoveable, free from the influences of every ungodly spirit, whether human or otherwise.

The Prosecutor

Thoughts inspired by chapter 7 of the book, God Had a Son Before Mary Did

Ezekiel said that Satan was “full of wisdom”(Ezek. 28:12). With this information, we can understand that when Satan doubted righteous Job’s strength to remain faithful to God in adverse conditions, he was not being simple-minded. He was basing that opinion on many years of careful observation of human behavior. Satan had no doubt seen many righteous people over the centuries become discouraged and turn from righteousness when hard times came. Other heavenly creatures probably felt just as Satan did; that is, if God caused Job to suffer, then Job would turn from righteousness and “curse God to his face.”

In the Old Testament, Satan is depicted as having the disposition of an unbending prosecutor. He regularly acted in God’s court as the accuser of those who did wrong; as in the case of a high priest in Israel named Joshua (Zech. 3:1-2), and even with Judas (Ps. 109:4-6; Acts 1:20). Satan is called “the accuser of the brethren”, but what most people miss is the fact that, in the Old Testament time, what he accused people of, they had usually actually done! Satan was unrelenting in his determination to see to it that transgressors of God’s law were tried and punished to the fullest extent. But he was proud, and unlike God, he did not rejoice in showing mercy to those who turned from sin and repented.

When Jesus condemned certain rulers in Israel as “sons of the devil”, he was condemning them most of all for being like the devil in their attitude toward sinners. Those highly respected elders in Israel demanded, with merciless vehemence, strict obedience to their law and their traditions, and they did not rejoice in mercy. They were, indeed, exactly what Jesus said they were: physical representatives of the invisible personality of Satan.

In one case, those elders brought to Jesus a woman caught in the very act of adultery. They quoted Moses’ law, which condemned her to death for such a sin, and they demanded that Jesus concur with their condemnation of the hapless woman. Ironically, Jesus did agree with them, and with the law they claimed to stand for, which held that the fallen woman was worthy of death. But Jesus went beyond that. He didn’t merely agree with the law God gave to Moses; he agreed with God, and he did so by reminding those elders that those who execute God’s righteous judgments must themselves be righteous. When Jesus did that, he rested his case, and left the defenseless woman to her cruel accusers. But her accusers, elders in Israel and prosecutors of the law, were condemned by their own conscience and drifted out, one by one, leaving Jesus alone with the adulteress.

The humiliated, humble woman stood there, silent, amazed that she had not been dragged out to be stoned. Jesus gently spoke to her and mercifully sent her home, with this one commandment: “Go, and sin no more.” What love! What mercy! That is something Satan has never felt to say to anyone. Prosecutors don’t do that.

God does demand obedience, and He warns us of the dangers of disobedience. But He is not proud. He is merciful, “not willing that any should perish.” He can be stern, and He will certainly condemn the guilty if they do not repent, but His heart is more like that of a defender than a prosecutor. His first choice is always that sinners turn from sin. And if any sinner does repent and begin to do what is right, God has promised that his past sins will never be mentioned against him again (Ezek. 33:14-16).

Satan, on the other hand, and those who are like him, cannot stop talking about the past sins of people. He is obsessed with prosecution. He is proud and cold-hearted, able only to live by the letter of the law, the same “letter” that Paul says kills men. Satan cannot feel as God does toward the fallen because he is proud of how right he is. He judges by the book, and he knows it well, but he cannot judge by the holy Spirit of God because God is more concerned with being good than he is with being right.

Every wise person takes advantage of the mercy that God offers those who have done wrong. They, like God, rejoice in mercy, but they rejoice not only in receiving it, but they also rejoice, as God does, in showing it to others.

Your First Love, Part Two

“I have something against you

because you have forsaken your first love.”

Jesus, to the Pastor in Ephesus, in Revelation 2:4

In Part One, we described in general what is involved in what Jesus called a believer’s “first love”. Now, I want to point out one element of that “first love”; namely, the willingness, even eagerness, to receive correction. Since, in the beginning of a believer’s walk, he considers everyone in the body of Christ to be better than himself, he is willing to receive guidance and correction from everyone in the body. But what about after he grows in the knowledge of God and he begins to see faults among fellow saints? If he retains his “first love”, he will still be able to receive instruction and correction even from those in whom he sees faults, and even from those who have wandered away from righteousness if God chooses to use them to correct him.

“The Lord tries the righteous,” and one of the trials which the Lord prepares for all of us, at one time or another, is to use wayward saints to send us a reproof or to point out a fault in ourselves. But if we have lost our “first love” for those who have gone astray, we will be too proud to listen to those in whom we see fault, even if our heavenly Father is using them to speak to us. God does do this, and he does it often, to see if we have become puffed up against fellow believers who are weaker than we, or less knowledgeable than we, or who have fallen away from righteousness altogether.

God used a donkey to reprove one of His prophets (Num. 22:28), and He used a rooster to reprove Peter when Peter cursed and swore that he did not know Jesus (Mt. 26:75). God will put it on a small child’s heart to make a comment that can convict a parent – that that parent’s first love is still in his heart. God will even use a sinner to point out a fault in one of His saints, to try the heart of that saint to see if it has lost its “first love”. God will use the worst of men to try the hearts of the best of men.

Solomon made this arresting statement: “The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord” (Prov. 20:27). We all know that the spirit of man is blind and foolish and completely void of the knowledge of God. How, then, could the spirit of man be “the candle of the Lord” except that the Lord sometimes chooses to use blind and foolish men to send us a message that we need to hear?

My Testimony

Over the years, there have been brothers and sisters in the Lord who have fallen away from righteousness and then made cruel and false accusations against me. Some of you, no doubt, have experienced that kind of persecution. I would not do the things I have been accused of doing even if someone threatened me and told me I had to do them. It has been with me as David once said: “False witnesses did rise up; they laid to my charge things that I knew not” (Ps. 35:11). And yet, on one occasion, amid a letter filled with hurtful, false accusations, there was one criticism that I felt the Spirit wanted me to pray about. I did, and I benefitted from it. What difference did it make if the criticism that I needed to hear was surrounded by cruel and baseless slander? If it was something Jesus wanted me to pay attention to, then that is all that mattered. And if in that instance, the Lord chose to try my heart by using a terribly backslidden brother, then wouldn’t I be foolish to reject that message because the vessel whom God used is “a vessel of dishonor”?

One’s “first love” is, first and foremost, a love for God. And as long as that “first love” remains in our hearts, we will receive anything that is of God, regardless of how it comes to us. A person who still has his “first love” will receive a message from God even if He chooses to send it by the hand of the devil. Paul did (2Cor. 12:7). The only thing that matters is that it is of God, and we are His servants.

Both Ways

The opposite may also be true. God may try our hearts by sending us something wrong through an otherwise righteous person, if our “first love” of God and the things that be of Him is alive in our hearts, we will reject the wrong, even though we still love and respect the person who brought it. The love of God, our “first love”, gives us the power both to reject error, regardless of who it comes through, and to receive truth, whoever it comes through. Jesus rejected Satan when he lied to him in the Temptation, and he rejected one of his most beloved disciples when Peter ignorantly opposed God’s will for His Son (Mt. 16:21-23).

Paul rebuked a wicked man named Elymas on the island of Cyprus when Elymas spoke evil of the gospel (Acts 13:11), but he also rebuked the righteous apostle Peter when he played the hypocrite before Gentiles in Antioch (Gal. 2:11-14). It was God who put Paul in the position of seeing Peter fall short of God’s righteousness, to see if Paul was a “respecter of persons” and would not speak up when the man of God was about to harm some of God’s children with hypocrisy. Moses received holy counsel from God, but he also humbled himself to receive counsel from the uncircumcised Jethro (Ex. 18:14-24). It was God who sent Jethro with that good advice to Moses, to try Moses’ heart, to see if Moses had become too proud to receive advice from someone who did not know God as well as Moses did.

Pray that God keeps your “first love” alive in your heart because without it, men often find themselves condemning what is right and justifying things that are wrong for no other reason than dislike of the vessel whom God chooses to use.

A heart in which one’s “first love” is still living recognizes what is true, and it recognizes what is false, no matter who speaks it. Once in ancient Israel, a prophet told a man to strike him in the face. That man refused to hit God’s prophet. He would have justified his disobedience with Scriptures such as, “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.” But he paid for his foolishness with his life (1Kgs. 20:35-36). When the prophet found another man and commanded him to strike him, that man’s “first love” was alive and well, and he struck the prophet so hard that he wounded him (1Kgs. 20:37). That man, even though he had struck one of God’s holy prophets, went away blessed. He had disobeyed a Scripture, but he had obeyed God.

On another occasion, late in Israel’s history, Jeremiah summoned a group of righteous men, “the sons of Rechab”, into the temple of the Lord and placed before them cups of wine. Then Jeremiah, following God’s orders, commanding those Rechabites to drink the wine, but they refused because they were under an oath not to do so. With them, God was well pleased, and He promised them one of the greatest blessings that Old Testament people could receive (Jeremiah 35). It was a blessing like “the sure mercies of David”, which was a promise from God that their seed would never perish from the earth. I am certain that to this day, known but to God, the line of the “sons of Rechab” still exists.

For God’s people, there are few things so precious as their “first love”. It keeps our hearts open to God and closed to evil. If our “first love” is alive and well in our hearts, God can speak to us through anything in Creation. If there is any person, anywhere, in any spiritual condition, through whom God cannot speak to you, it is only because you have lost some of your “first love” and pride has taken root. If there is anything in God’s Creation that He cannot use to speak to you, it can only be that you are lacking in that precious “first love” that keeps our hearts open to God. Would you listen to a donkey or a rooster if God chose to speak to you through one of them? Would you listen to what a fool had to say to you if God chose to use that fool to tell you something? We are made of dust, and whatever more than dust that we have become is a gift of God. That is why pride is such a dangerous enemy and our “first love” is so precious.