Elattoo

What constitutes a devout Christian? What makes a person righteous in the eyes of a Holy God? Is it regular church attendance, tithing faithfully, helping with the kids program, passing out tracts to strangers, even teaching a Bible study or Sunday School class? Obviously, those are not bad things, but when they make up the extent of our “religion” it’s not enough.

God does not get all that excited about our attempts at righteousness. We see this in David’s confession in Psalm 51:

¹⁶ For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it;
You are not pleased with burnt offering.
¹⁷ The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

Many other places in Scripture reveal that same idea. It really is clear that God is not after our attempts at piety or religious formality. He wants our hearts, our passions, and our energy to be totally dependent on his grace. He wants us humbled and broken.

⁶ Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired;
My ears You have opened;
Burnt offering and sin offering You have not required.

- Psalm 40:6

¹⁰ Then it happened that as ^[e]Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and ^[f]sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples. ¹¹ When the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, “Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?” ¹² But when Jesus heard this, He said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. ¹³ But go and learn ^[g]what this means: ‘I DESIRE ^[h]COMPASSION, ^[i]AND NOT SACRIFICE,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

- Matthew 9:10-13 (NASB)

If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’^[a] you would not have condemned the innocent.

- Matthew 12:7 (NIV)

James 1:27 tells us true religion is “to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world”. Jesus is constantly beating the drum of having compassion and mercy on the lowly. In fact, we see this run all the way through the Bible.  And yet, at least in most churches in the U. S., we are all too busy and too self-focused to see this gaping hole in our Christian walk. Most churches focus on individual spiritual growth, corporate worship, attendance, giving, and evangelism…which are not bad things. But do we hear very often about personally helping the poor in our community, or do we just give money to the church and let the “professionals” handle that?

I personally do not do enough of this. It is so much easier to sit in the comfort of my home and examine this issue academically, be moved, get motivated, and write a blog than it is to spend a Saturday helping a single mother or finding ways to reach out to the poor in my city. However, that must change if I’m going to hear “well done good and faithful servant,” rather than “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!”

I bet many of us can relate to the great king Nebuchadnezzar. Full of our own pride and sense of entitlement, we pursued our own desires. God will often choose not to fight his children when they continually rebel or stray, but instead will give them over to these desires. The lessons learned by the resulting natural consequences are painful, but not quickly forgotten.

There was a time, in years past, that I drifted like this wayward king. Having previously known God’s great wisdom, healing, and grace, I plowed ahead toward my own desires. My pursuit of my new agenda was driven by a mixture of selfishness, greed, lust, anger, and frustration, and I was bolstered by certain well-meaning friends. These passions and desires are actually very similar in nature to eating grass like the ox, being drenched with the dew of heaven, and having hair and nails growing wildly. Our sin nature reduces us to our very basic animal characteristics of self-centeredness. We think nothing of God or eternal consequences, but only how we can quench our current thirst, hunger, or longing. Touted by the world as living free, it is really just bringing us down to our lowest level. There is nothing noble or praiseworthy in being selfish.

Like Nebuchadnezzar, by God’s grace I “raised my eyes toward heaven, and my sanity was restored.” Over a period of a few weeks, my depravity screamed out indictments for the road of destruction I had laid down. I began to make attempts at turning back to God. He was quick to receive and forgive, but there was much to be undone. In the end, it is God who is to be praised for his infinite mercies. It is he who orchestrated my deliverance.

If you should find yourself grazing like an ox and living wildly, apart from God, be quick to heed His Spirit calling you to look to the heavens. Living your life to merely satisfy your every desire will ironically only bring dissatisfaction, destruction, and death. We should constantly check ourselves against Galatians 2:20:

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

- Hebrews 12:11

I bet most of us can relate to seeing someone else try and negotiate with their unruly child. It’s painful no matter the outcome. There’s the screaming, crying, pleading, whining, faking, manipulating, relentless pursuit to win the argument, and I’m not even talking about the kid. Finally, concessions are made, ground is given, a deal is struck, and the stand-off ends…for now.

It’s fairly easy to fall into this habit, because discipline is painful. It requires an unyielding commitment to stick it out and follow through more often than not. It’s much easier to just appease the child, thinking that some how they will be reasonable and see why being obedient is the logical and right thing to do. Think about it…does that ever work? Does it ever correct the behavior long term or do you always have to fight the same battles? Most likely, they are getting worse at the same time. The level of frustration rises for both parent and child, until finally, all out war is declared in the teen years.

Another contributing factor is the type and severity of the discipline if it is actually carried out. Much like many of the other solutions offered by today’s supposed experts in relationships, the politically correct versions of discipline are flawed. By nature, discipline must be painful for the child, and typically it’s more effective if it’s carried out quickly and not drug out over days or weeks.  I firmly believe that biblical principles will always stand the test of time. For 50+ years, Americans have applied soft or no discipline to their children. The results are obvious and sad.

In contrast, the results of biblical discipline are “a harvest of righteousness and peace.” Isn’t that what we want as parents: righteousness from our children and peace in our home? Too many Christian parents have fallen prey to the theories of the world, and their families have suffered the consequences.

“There you will remember your ways and all your deeds with which you have defiled yourselves; and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for all the evil things that you have done.”

- Ezekiel 20:43

“I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.”

- Zechariah 12:10

“BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen.”

- Revelation 1:7

I don’t understand the Jew-hating Christian. Even Jesus told us that the Jew was to be honored and cared for by those grafted in to the vine: “to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.” (Matt 25:40). In a day where America finds itself wondering if it should support Israel in the face of a growing Muslim threat, the Christian’s perspective should definitely be YES.

Furthermore, looking at the quoted verses above from Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Revelation, Israel will be restored even to the point where they mourn their own “piercing” of Jesus Christ (John 19:37). They will mourn him as the loss of an only son, because indeed he was one of them, a son of David. They had their Messiah, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), and they missed him.

The Christian should take a personal interest in the well-being of Israel. He should rejoice with them and mourn with them. We should look forward with excitement to the day when Israel’s eyes will be opened and they will see him clearly. It will all come into focus and the remnant will be truly restored to its place. And all of it will be only because of the grace of God, who has foretold it and who will bring it about. Praise Him!!

 17 “You also took your beautiful jewels made of My gold and of My silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself male images that you might play the harlot with them.

 18 “Then you took your embroidered cloth and covered them, and offered My oil and My incense before them.

 19 “Also My bread which I gave you, fine flour, oil and honey with which I fed you, you would offer before them for a soothing aroma; so it happened,” declares the Lord GOD.

 20 “Moreover, you took your sons and daughters whom you had borne to Me and sacrificed them to idols to be devoured. Were your harlotries so small a matter?

 21 “You slaughtered My children and offered them up to idols by causing them to pass through the fire.

- Ezekiel 16: 17-21

This indictment against the nation of Judah by God (via Ezekiel) struck me as profound. Intellectually, we know that everything we have comes from God. We know that sin is ugly and terrible. However, I have never considered this kind of imagery of us taking God’s gifts and using them to fuel our own sin and lusts. This idea of Israel being an adulterous wife is common in the Bible. It applies to us as well though.

Imagine, if you are married, taking the ring off your finger, melting it down to fashion some new ring that you then give to your secret lover. Not stopping there, you continue to withdraw money from your joint account with your spouse to buy lavish gifts for your lover. The parallel could continue into even uglier comparisons that unfortunately, truly do happen in reality. Most of us cannot relate to such literal treachery, yet our own sin is no less treacherous.

No matter the sin with which we struggle, we most likely don’t stop to think about how we are taking the gifts of God and perverting them in this same way. Our bodies and the short time we have on earth are not our own creation. They are the gifts of a loving Creator. Even something as seemingly harmless as watching a bad TV show…we are using his resources and the limited time he has allotted to us to put trash into our minds and dull us to his voice. We really need to try and see every situation as one in which we are stewards of valuable commodities, rather than spoiled little rich kids who have no boundaries.

Fortunately, God is gracious. I’m a living testimony to his mercies. He is quick to forgive and quick to bless if we can get our hearts in a place of brokenness and submission.

The descendants of Jonadab son of Recab have carried out the command their forefather gave them, but these people have not obeyed me.’

- Jeremiah 35:16

The Recabite family were amazingly obedient to the command of their forefathers in a day when most others around them were doing anything but. Yet they failed to hear the voice of God through the prophet of Jeremiah. He had repeatedly told Judah to surrender to the army of Nebuchadnezzar, yet nobody was listening or obeying him.

Christians today, to varying degrees, have become like the Recabites. We follow the traditions and “rules” of being a Christian, at least as defined by the “church”, yet we have not sought or heeded the voice of God in years. When we pray, it is more self-focused than God-focused. We give greater weight to the things that go on at “church”, than we do in our daily following hard after God.

I’m not suggesting that traditions are bad. While some may be distracting to the true purpose of the church, most are good and justifiable.  However, we do need to be cautious that we do not fall into the trap of just becoming habitual in our religion. Church is not a place we go or thing we do. Being a member of the body of Christ is an all-consuming daily pursuit. In fact, James defines true religion in part as caring for widows and orphans. In other words, loving, caring for, and serving those in need trumps regular attendance, corporate worship, and hanging out with the right crowd.

How do we hear God’s voice in a day where we don’t have a Jeremiah screaming at us from the gates of the city? God speaks to us through His Word, which means we need to be reading our Bible. We should be struggling and praying about things in our lives. How can we teach our children to be in the world and not of it? Am I doing all that I can do to serve my spouse just as Jesus served the disciples? Am I truly fulfilling my responsibilities in the body of Christ? We should be praying with a spirit of humility.

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

- Luke 18: 13-14

Any time we begin to feel like things are going well and we have it pretty well figure out, we should probably think about this tax collector and ask God for mercy. It’s probably a sign that we are too comfortable in our daily habits and traditions.

“Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.”

- Isaiah 55:6-7

“‘…They will be filled with the dead bodies of the men I will slay in my anger and wrath. I will hide my face from this city because of all its wickedness.”

- Jeremiah 33:5

Reading the passage from Isaiah, it’s easy to take it as theoretical, or to gloss over the “while he is near” part. Israel found out that continuing in wickedness forces God to have no other choice but to display his wrath. He hid His face from them and refused to hear their cries, after years of mercy and pleading for them to return to Him. 

People today don’t want to think about God as a God of wrath, requiring righteousness. What kind of loving God would pile up bodies of people that he loves?  Yet, the Bible is full of examples where God was forced to deal with sin. America today is very similar to Israel and Judah during this time. We are drunk with what we perceive as our own greatness. We live in abundance, safe and secure due to centuries of blessing from God. We have turned to serve the creation rather than the Creator, even to the point of denying He even exists. In times of tragedy, we turn briefly to the Lord as a temporary crutch. When we are facing a change, we may call to Him like a lucky rabbit’s foot. But once the occasion has passed, we quickly go about our lives until the next time He is needed. We continue this way, but steadily spiral downward into darkness and sin, moving the standard of righteousness in our own eyes.

The good news is that once God’s wrath is satisfied, He is quick to bring “health and healing” and to “restore”, as in the following verses.  However, the time for this nation to return to the Lord is now. Why wait until we find ourselves in bondage and destruction? We cannot continue to push Him away without consequence. We need to “seek the Lord while he may be found.”

“I will make them abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh son of Hezekiah king of Judah did in Jerusalem.”

- Jeremiah 15:4

That’s some pretty harsh consequences for one man’s sins. What on earth would have been bad enough to cause God to turn away from His people? The list of offenses found in II Kings 21 are both long and detestable, and the whole nation goes down with the king due to their participation. Not a bad lesson for western culture today, specifically the USA.

He [Manasseh] rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he also erected altars to Baal and made an Asherah pole, as Ahab king of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshiped them.

He built altars in the temple of the LORD, of which the LORD had said, “In Jerusalem I will put my Name.”

In both courts of the temple of the LORD, he built altars to all the starry hosts.

He sacrificed his own son in [a] the fire, practiced sorcery and divination, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the LORD, provoking him to anger.

He took the carved Asherah pole he had made and put it in the temple, of which the LORD had said to David and to his son Solomon, “In this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my Name forever.

I will not again make the feet of the Israelites wander from the land I gave their forefathers, if only they will be careful to do everything I commanded them and will keep the whole Law that my servant Moses gave them.”

But the people did not listen. Manasseh led them astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the LORD had destroyed before the Israelites.

II Kings 21: 3 – 9

So, basically, Manasseh decided to go his own way and do everything opposite to that of his father, Hezekiah, who spent years reforming Judah back into following the Law. He didn’t just dabble in sin, he worshiped other gods in the Lord’s temple, and sacrificed children by fire – a horror that Hezekiah survived as a boy due to his father’s own abominations.

The nation doesn’t get off the hook.  Verse 9 in II Kings 21 spells out their indictment. They went right along with Manasseh, and “they did more evil than the nations…”  They were taught the law and knew about God’s covenant from Hezekiah’s reign. So they were without excuse.

The same is true for us today. We have been blessed by God for 200+ years, but have been led astray by our own lusts and desires. As a nation, we have no one to blame but ourselves. If only we would repent, pray, acknowledge God again, and begin to clean up our ways, maybe we would be spared the same fate as Judah during Jeremiah’s day. We should be afraid for another reason. At least Israel had a binding covenant with God. All we can claim is centuries of mercy and goodness from a loving God. We have squandered that goodness, scoffed at His mercy, and spit on His love. The day is quickly approaching when our debts will be called, and we will be found severely lacking.

There are some portions of biblical teaching that I would just as soon ignore rather than implement in my life. This passage from The Sermon on the Mount is one of those:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’

“But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

“so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

“If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

“Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

- Matthew 5:43 – 48

Whether you believe he was teaching only to his disciples, to the Jews of his day, or to believers in general, this is a difficult concept. We have this pre-wired belief in justice, and for good reason. God is just and requires justice, and we are made in His image. I don’t think it’s fair to say with certainty that he was speaking tongue-in-cheek, for then we would be forced to question some of the other portions of the Sermon on the Mount.

The context here is being salt and light to the world, standing out, being different from the norm.  Obviously, doing things like walking an extra mile when forced to go one (v 41), turning the other cheek (v 40), etc. will turn some heads. So, I believe His point is that in the spirit of furthering the gospel, we are required to show this kind of quality that not only goes against our default reaction, but is only a quality that could be devinely inspired.

Seriously, how do we practically love our enemies? I think part of the problem is our definition of love in our modern world. We have come to think of love as this squishy, shmoopy feeling that we feel inside when we hold hands for the first time. Obviously, that’s not the kind of love Jesus is talking about here. To understand this kind of love, we can look to how Jesus responded to his enemies. He asked God to forgive the people who crucified Him. He was always respectful and accomodating to the Roman soldiers with whom he came in contact. By definition, we were his enemies prior to his selfless act of saving grace. So aren’t we greatful that He loved his enemies first?

So, we need to change our view of what love is. In addition, we also change our view of ourselves in light of being former enemies of God. We did nothing ourselves to “switch sides”, it was only out of his grace. So, what right do we have to think of ourselves more highly than others? If our enemies are fellow-believers, then we should show grace and love out of obligation to our brothers and sisters in Christ. If they are non-believers, then we should show grace and love in hopes that they should be led to Christ and saved by his grace.

Our struggle to obey is not one we will win through self-discipline alone. Without a fundamental change to our hearts, to our way of thinking, we will be destined to repeat our failures. When you look at it, it’s consistent with the rest of creation. New life is born when something else ceases to exist in its previous form. As Jesus said in John 12:24, “…unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” He was speaking of his own death, but it applies to our transformation as well.

“that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit,

and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind,

and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.”

- Ephesians 4:22 – 24

This death of the old self is vital to our spiritual growth.  We have competing wills and desires. As long as we allow our own desires to rule us, we will struggle to make any real progress toward becoming like Christ. It requires mental discipline, prayer, and major changes to the things we dwell on.

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, …”

- Romans 12: 1 – 2

Our minds have to undergo a continual renewal. How do we accomplish this? Paul gives us a clue in Philippians:

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

- Philippians 4:8

This idea has a very real and practical application in our daily lives. God has made us so that if we are thinking godly thoughts, we cannot at the same time be thinking sinful or self-centered thoughts. If a child is told “no” to wanting a piece of candy, he will tend to be disappointed (or worse!) However, the child could choose to appreciate the fact that he already had four pieces before that and was lucky to have them. Adults are the same way. We tend to focus more on what we want that we are not getting, instead of all the things we already have that we have failed to be thankful for.

If an unhappy marriage is your struggle, then consider how often you put your spouse ahead of yourself. You could completely refine your marriage if you work hard to do more giving than you do demanding. Instead of being upset that your spouse isn’t considerate or thoughtful (which is basically you saying you aren’t being treated how you want to be treated), decide to serve and love regardless of how they are to you. This is what Jesus did. At the very least, it will lesson your expectations and free you from getting upset when you aren’t the center of your spouse’s focus.

It’s the same in all other areas of life – work, family relationships, and how we interact with complete strangers. We get upset because we think too highly of ourselves. We tend to think we are entitled to some kind of special treatment, when in actuality, we should consider ourselves in light of Job:

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.

Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?

On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone-

while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?”

- Job 38: 4 – 7

Think about it. In reality, over what aspects of our lives do we truly have control? Can we guarantee our safety, our oxygen supply, the foundations upon which our houses are built? We have done nothing that requires God (or others) to meet our expectations. Does this mean we should allow others to just walk all over us and treat us like dirt? No, I think there is a point where we can distance ourselves from those who continue to hurt us. But I dare say that we err on the side of selfishness more often than not. And that we struggle with humility because we are constantly thinking of ourselves and our own desires.