Category: deception

Looking at the Flip Side of Love

 

The other day Pastor Bryan posted an article titled “Making Some Sense of a Deep and Kind Love: 1 Corinthians 13.” It reminded me of a poem I recently wrote on my own blog, Linda Kruschke’s Blog. So I decided to offer it up here for your consideration.

This poem was born as I was pondering 1 Corinthians 13, and it occurred to me that I might gain a better understanding of what love really is if I looked at it from the opposite side. Taking each description of love in this wonderful passage of scripture, I turned it on its head and saw what hate is. Afterall, hate is the opposite of love.

So here is my poem illustrating what the opposite of 1 Corinthians 13 looks like. (I don’t want to spoil anything, but the final line is my favorite.)

Hate Is . . .

Hate is impatient,
toe tapping, eye-rolling,
in a hurry for instant gratification

Hate is mean,
treating others unkindly,
bullying, and insulting

Hate is envious,
not happy for others’ prosperity,
wanting what others have,
and for them not to have it

Hate is boastful,
puffed up, pointing to self-accomplishments,
not recognizing contributions of others

Hate is not humble,
but is arrogant, filled with hubris
proudly thinking oneself better than all,
pretentious and vain, always vain

Hate is rude,
abusive and insulting, vulgar,
disrespectful, and never caring for others

Hate is self-seeking,
it’s-all-about-me attitude,
selfish and egotistical, self-important

Hate is easily angered,
irritated by the slightest mistake,
hot-headed, unwilling to forgive

Hate keeps a record of wrongs,
every little sin catalogued and indexed,
ready as part of its arsenal of hostility

Hate delights in evil,
revels in rebelling against authority,
is pleased to go its own way

Hate despises truth,
closes its ears to teaching,
refuses instruction and correction

Hate attacks,
harms loved ones and strangers alike,
injures all in its way without care

Hate distrusts,
lacks faith in God or anything,
doubts there is anything good

Hate despairs,
has no hope for a future,
lives in misery and sorrow

Hate gives up,
at the smallest obstacle it gives in,
is defeated by the tiniest tribulation

Hate never wins

Always remember that last line. Hate never wins. Satan never wins. And love never fails, ever! God’s love prevail for all of us on the cross.

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The Evil of Twisting Scripture

“It came about when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, that his soul was annoyed to death.”

Judges 16:16, NASB

This has become a savage and vicious verse for me.  I used it to alienate a dear sister in the Lord. Vicki was a dear one who ran our office.  She had a heart that fully embraced our work of evangelism in the inner city in San Francisco.  She was an exceptional secretary.

She was wonderful.  She would constantly reach out to me, with the desire to see me established in this ministry of evangelism.  Her heart of kindness motivated me to press into the work of the Lord.  But there was something in my own heart that opposed her presence that was directed to me.

But her constant questions and comments every single morning had become a burden and a hassle.  Out of this frustration, I became somewhat more and more brazen and cynical toward her. I don’t really know why, really. Vickie continued to reach out to me, but I thwarted her work.  She wanted so much to contribute, and I figuratively slashed her tires with my dark skepticism.

One day I read this verse in Judges 16:16, “It came about when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, that his soul was annoyed to death.”  I so very absorbed this and laid it on her.  I can see her now opening the Bible she kept in her desk.  She read with eagerness “the Word of the Lord” from me, and she was crushed. The tears streamed down her face.

Mishandling the Word like this should be a capital offense.  I have deeply regretted that moment when I slammed my sister with my twisted interpretation of scripture.  I wounded her very deeply, all ‘in the name of the Lord.”  I imparted to her with “my verse” which was a certain evil, in spite of my noble ministry of evangelism to the lost.

“Brothers, do not speak evil of one another” (James 4:11). Is not this a word which is much needed by some of us today? Alas, in some quarters the habit of discrediting others behind their backs has become so common that it is regarded almost as a matter of course; the mentioning to others of a brother’s faults or a sister’s failures, the repeating of unfavorable reports which have come to our ears—is so general that few appear to make any conscience thereof.

But we do this every day. We contaminate everyone around us with an awful evil.  At the first observation, it seems true and holy.  But as we press into it we find a powerful iniquity.  It is camoflaged and hidden.  But it is quite corrosive and detrimental.

Oh, dear one.  I hope you can circumvent this issue.  I hope you can resist the evil of misguided truth.  We effect so many, we come to this place of analysis where we can reject those on the boundries.  We place them into our “unacceptable” folder.

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Theoretically Hackable

I encountered this particular phrase as I attempted to do a download from a reasonably effective source.  They came out and made this simple statement.  I suppose it was done for legal issues.  It was “theoretically hackable.” (That word, “theoretically” cracks me up!)  But I understand what it means.

And I started to see something.  It was a thing of some sense.  I am most vulnerable to things that are beyond my control.  I’m pretty much accessible to the many different things that could and should take me apart.  I have to tell you, that I regularly buy cheap “netbooks” with this fully in mind.  In a way they are like “Bic lighters,” I use them over and over, for 1 or 2 years, and than I ditch them.  I have gotten more than $400 out of them, and it beats the $800 plus to keep them going as they should.  It’s “Bryan’s Rule of Good Computing #87.”

“Theoretical Hacking.”  There is so much theology that gets rolled up into this phrase.  It has the idea that you can be accessible to anyone that has just a special urge to make things rough on you.  “Theoretically” speaking they can possibly walk right in and wipe you out.   It’s a bit nebulous, I’m sure, but the threat is out there, and it can happen–to the best of us.

“Hacking” is a bad word.  It carries with it a trickery, or a deceitfulness.  It most certainly is a word we avoid, as it carries with it very substantial problems.  And yet, it has a deeply theological concept.  Deception has incredible issues.  To walk out on it is thin ice.  You never, ever realize what the next step will bring us.  It really comes down to a deception.

We struggle with deception.  Kind of a theological deception.  The idea of being taken in, tricked and then destroyed.   We are so trusting.  Few of us carry the 24/7 “on guard mechanism.”  We step out without the slightest sense of betrayal.  We become “lambs” for the slaughter.

Evil is such, that we can never really factor through it completely.  It folds on itself to dimensions we could never fathom.  We can’t really approach it, because it expands things so rapidly.  It is full of deceit.  To encounter it face-to-face is destructive in itself.  We must hope in the presence of God.  He is the only one who can dismantle it.  Our trust (in the face of such evil) is in Him.

Yes, we are “hackable.” We are in a deep place of vulnerability.  But I must tell you, this is not a bad place to be.  In a theological sense we are pretty much accessible.  We have an openess that places us in front of the dark evil.  From here we have nothing to say.  We can do nothing but to believe that we are immune from the darkness.  That someone has stepped in and altered us, in a way that will prohibit us from harassment.

More info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(computer_security)

Exulting in Our Shadow

 

“So that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them. 16The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed.”

Acts 5:15-16, ESV

 

Astonishing!  It was Peter, who denied the Lord—three distinct and definite times. Since we are moving past Good Friday and our celebration of Easter, so we should rest for a moment and consider Peter, and think about this “rascal.”  He really isn’t magical, or a “miracle worker,” Peter, quite precisely is a definite loser.  The best you can say is that he is a displaced and “has-been”  fisherman, who hasn’t really got a good track-record.  He tries hard, but he always muddles it up.  He falls very short.

Peter’s shadow reveals the power of unconscious influence.  His shadow wasn’t magical or possessed a healing virtue.  In a deep sense we all influence people around us–for good, or for evil.  Our imprint on others is quite significant.  Our impact is quite noticable.  Watchman Nee in his book, “Release of the Spirit.”  Nee compared our influence to the “ring” we leave in the bathtub.  Everyone leaves his mark.  Looking at that we can understand (to a degree) what that particular person is really like.  But the reality is, we all leave behind some scum.

J.R. Miller relates this thought.  “There is a legend of a good man for whom was asked some new power. He chose that he might do a great deal of good and might not be aware of it. So it was ordered that when his shadow fell behind him, where he could not see it, it should have healing power, but when it fell before him, so that he could see it, it should have no such effect.”

We need to view this thing closer.  How exactly do we influence others?  What manner of people are we to acheive such attention?  Do we really deserve “the praise of men?”  Do we go as far as to exult  in our shadows?  If we really want to powerfully affect others, we have to be humble, perhaps even dismissive of the good that may follow behind us.  (It doesn’t belong to us.”)   When we become really conscious of our significance or sway, we are in mortal danger and risk spoiling everything.

The kingdom is not big enough for Jesus, and than us–who takes over the center stage?  There is a disturbing assumption that we are most significant.  We stack-up our blocks and create a facade of being quite exceptional people.  The reality is this–we are all very much like Peter, our lives belie what is truly real.  But our authenticity really is found in the “blood of Jesus,”  which covers our wickedness.  That dear one, is our “claim to fame.”  Essentially, due to the proportion of our pride, determines the glory that the Lord receives.  We often eliminate him from our consideration.  Your pride determines His glory, plain and simple.  So step up, who goes next?