Category Archives: Religion

The First Lesson

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The hardest lesson I have ever learned was the lesson of Shimei, son of Gera. (See 2 Samuel 16: 5-14 to see what I’m speaking to.)

King David was God’s anointed to be King of Israel. If there has ever been any man in history who had a right to demand respect or reject a lesson offered in the wrong spirit, it was David. Yet, when a man followed him and his entire entourage, cursing and throwing rocks, he told them to leave the man alone.

Likewise, for myself, there was a time in my life when I was in a position to be constantly wronged by another person. During that time, the first lesson I had to learn was that no matter what was done to me, my first responsibility was to do right MYSELF regardless of everything else.

I have an extremely pronounced, one might even say overblown sense of justice. When someone commits injustice, it enrages me. There is no shrugging it off–nor does it matter the size of the issue. The principle is what matters, and the intent (even carelessness or laziness) entirely eclipses the results. This is especially true when the person causing the injustice is in some position of authority.

So, when I was mistreated, then held to the highest standards in my own conduct, it brought this point directly into focus. It was among the top five hardest things I’ve ever done–looking to my own misdeeds first. In the end, I had to correct my own failings, even when I was having my nose rubbed in them by someone who, according to the splinter test (Matthew 7:5), had no business teaching me anything.

What not to do…

Normally, I try to focus on what to DO rather than what to avoid, but this is something we all need to pay close attention to. I almost never meet someone who has really taken this point to heart. Check yourself, see if you shift your focus from yourself to others when you do something wrong and have it pointed out.

1. Do you make excuses? (about anything at all?)
“But he said…”
“But all I did was…”
“But it’s my birthday, so…”
“I just can’t handle…”

2. Do you blame?
“You JERK! How could you…”
“If you don’t stop treating me like…”

Whatever it is, STOP. Change that habit.

The point here is really simple.

Your sins and wrongs should be your first concern.

And your second.

And your third.

And your fourth.

Maybe by the time you’ve thought about your own wrongs five or six times you can see if someone else is doing something wrong, but ONLY if your goal is to help them out. (Because really, it’s not your business anyway unless they want help.)

The only thing you have any influence over in an eternal sense is your own heart. Over everything else, God is the sole master.

Whitewashed Tombs

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Matthew 23:27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.”

Can you, my reader, see how this verse could in any way be applied to you? Does the image you present to others look better than the truth at your heart? Is the way you live in tune with what you hold inside?

(This, by the way, is the essence of hypocrisy–to act as if you are better than what you know yourself to really be. This is opposed to trying to fulfill a higher standard than you know you’re able to while still being honest about your failure.)

This image is almost entirely untrue for me now, but it wasn’t always so. There was a time when I projected an image that was better than what I knew myself to be at heart. It was when I was first going to college I realized that in order to clean out the inside of the tomb, I needed to open it up to the air.

This led to a difficult decision for me. As much as I was capable, which was not fully at the time, I chose to disregard other peoples’ estimation of me, either good or bad. In many people this might have been an act of rebellion, especially considering the age I was at. For me it was anything but.

Luke 10: 25-28 “On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“What is written in the Law?”  He replied. “How do you read it?”
He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.

First, with all your heart…

At the time, I lived in fear of man.

Fear is a difficult word, especially in a Biblical context, because it can have so many denotative meanings. In this sense, it means that I concerned myself with what man thinks and allowed that to move me emotionally and to occupy my mind. Ironically, at the time I was actually afraid of what people thought. Others’ opinions of my own actions brought me shame, and thus other peoples’ opinions were very much to be feared.

It was this realization that led me to the rejection of the “fear” of man, for good or ill.  Better, I thought, to try with all my might to please God and in doing so offend everyone who crosses my path than to divert even a tiny bit of my strength to pleasing others. Nor was this a simple rejection of facades–putting on a show for other people–it went deeper than that.

Matthew 5: 27-29 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”

I decided that if God looks on the heart, and it was His opinion that I was to regard, I would purge myself of that fear of man by living from my heart, for good or ill. There were standards in my life that I lived up to simply because other people thought they were right. …I might even agree, but I was not doing the right thing because it was right, I was doing it because other people would think less of me if I didn’t.

I chose to reject that way of living, even though I knew it meant letting all the rottenness that really was inside me out where it could stink up my life and push other people away.

A lonely road…

And it has–many people have found me absolutely repulsive, because I do not hide my weaknesses or my sins or my darkness. For anyone who has eyes to see them, those things are there, right on the surface. Even the people closest to me have been repelled, many times.

It took a long time to truly purge that fear of man from my heart, but in so doing I have discovered an ironic truth. Those who are really worth having as friends will not be offended by the truth, even when it really is ugly or unpleasant. For those who are seeking the light, truth is the most valuable commodity.

…and as I continue, I find that while I continue to open my heart to Him and the distractions like that one are lifted away, He has begun to purify my heart. The things that I used to be ashamed of, the things that others condemned me for and the darkness that once dwelt inside me are slowly falling away.

Matthew 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Don’t Die on the Wrong Hill

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The battle that so-called “Christianity” in America is waging against same-sex marriage is a wrong hill to die on–not just a bad hill or an undeserving one, a wrong one.

While homosexuality is clearly defined as immoral in the Bible, the response from the American “church” is entirely unlike Christ. Satan has suckered us into a position where we are fighting a selfish battle we deserve to lose and, truly, had already lost before it was ever really begun, both spiritually and in the popular mind.

First, what is the Christian response to homosexuality?

I begin here by reiterating a point that no Christian should need to hear twice, because scripture is clear. Homosexuality IS immoral. (See 1 Corinthians 6 and Romans 1. If you really follow Christ, this should be enough to lay that question to rest.)

That said, how would a real Christian respond to a claim of homosexuality in a brother or sister? I promise, it wouldn’t begin with a call to repent, or with a finger pointed in blame ( far less with acceptance). Such a claim should be met with the question “where have we gone wrong?”

This must be belabored, because too many people do not have eyes to see it. Homosexuality is an EFFECT, not a cause. It is an immorality that people are given over to as an indication of other CAUSAL sins. (This is stated plainly in Romans 1.)

As always, brothers and sisters must see each other with love, and love is always the closest possible friend. Homosexuality is no worse a sin than adultery, and far less a sin than pride or contempt or manipulation. If you are confronted with the sin of homosexuality, approach it in another the same way you would approach a sin that you personally are prone to. If you cannot do so, then it is YOU who are in error.

When you see one brother approach another with a pointed finger, beware. That brother is in the hand of Satan.

Now, what was that about the wrong hill?

It would be unjust if the church in America won a battle to strip freedom from others, even the freedom to do wrong. Our country was founded by Christian men on the principle that all men are given the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness BY God. …Those rights are not amended because we disapprove of the mistakes other people make on that pursuit. Why would God listen to us when we demand it be removed so that we can put others back under the law?

We are ASKING God to lend a hand in whitewashing what we know to be a tomb. Do you really think He is such a fool?

There are about a million ways in which that battle could have been fought justly–or at least not unjustly. The freedom of worship, for example, would have been a rock on which this battle might have been fought–instead of a sad footnote, left broken and near death in the wreckage.

The American church has branded itself with the iron of the pharisees, and it hasn’t even the secular power to make its decrees meaningful.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

When it comes right down to it, the ONLY effect the church has achieved by dying on this hill is to make God look weak and petty before all the world by association. This was not His battle the church just lost, or He would have fought it and won, but it IS His name that we’re dragging through the mud.

It seems to me that if the church is so apostate that it is willing to swallow camels and swat at gnats, a good dose of the fear of God is due us.

Yes, our nation is due a judgment, but it is NOT because of a sin like homosexuality as some would have you believe. It is because we, like Sodom, have “…pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease…” Ezekiel 16:49

In fact, America is in precisely the same position the house of Israel was in, as seen in Ezekiel 16. Let that sink in a bit. It’s scary.

Woe be unto America, but even more, woe be unto the body of the American church that has fought to whitewash this tomb instead of opening it up for cleansing.