Category: grace

Bitter Water, [The Cross]

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24 Then the people complained and turned against Moses. “What are we going to drink?” they demanded. 25 So Moses cried out to the Lord for help, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. Moses threw it into the water, and this made the water good to drink.

It was there at Marah that the Lord set before them the following decree as a standard to test their faithfulness to him.”

Exodus 15

In this brief narration we have a graphic portrait of the condition of many within the Church today. The situation is becoming critical and its effects are devastasting. Some call it ‘crossless Christianity,’ ‘cheap grace’ or the ‘new cross.’ The writer of Exodus 15 calls it ‘bitter water.’

The children of Israel had begun to murmur. They demanded water for the long and hot journey through the Sinai desert. Coming to the ‘springs of Marah’ they discovered it bitter and undrinkable.

Moses responds directly to directly quell this potential rebellion. He begins to cry out to the Lord (what else can you do?) and begs the Lord for wisdom. He must know the next step.  “So Moses cried out to the Lord for help,”

There was a tree, a piece of wood, and when that wood was tossed into the waters, the water were made sweet.

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Today– people are waiting— searching for water. And never, ever has there been such a desperate search. They stampede to any new well on the horizon, and they search for anything.  Any well will do. Most will seek there lives away, only to perish at the ‘end.’ They’re chasing a mirage.

The Church is to be a well, an oasis in a dry and desperate land. But the water is becoming ‘bitter.’ We have defiled it with ‘sin and self.’ Friends, please understand— the ‘bitterness’ of our ‘uncrucified’ flesh pollutes our wells. We have poisoned our own selves.

We need ‘the cross.’ It is a sweet source for our ‘bitterness.’

We must return to ‘the old rugged cross.’ We need to embrace its reality again. Jesus, himself said this: “Whoever doesn’t bear his cross, and follow me cannot be my disciple.’ Those who followed after Him needed no preacher to interpret.

Rome had a nasty habit of executing her criminals publicly. Everyone who had listened to Jesus Christ had seen people crucified.

One Roman general, after suppressing a Jewish rebellion crucified 2,000 men at one time. The roads into Jerusalem were lined with crosses of dying men. This was done purposefully and publicly.

Every man and woman would see the terrible price of resisting Rome. This would result in death, and there are no halfway about it. A cross is a radical thing. There is nothing ‘halfway’ about it. It demands ‘no less than all.”

The Cross is in danger of being misinterpreted’ today. Our cross seems somehow different. It seems softer, and more padded, it doesn’t rub us the wrong way.” It allows us much: our favorite habits, our prideful ways, and our self-centered ideas. It would seem that what we call ‘our cross’ has a built-in ‘life-support’ system that keeps our old man alive just a little bit longer.

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Dr. A.W. Tozer in an article entitled “The Old Cross and the New” wrote:

“The new cross is not opposed to the human race, rather it is a friendly pal, and if understood aright, it is the source of oceans of good clean fun, and innocent enjoyment. His life motivation is unchanged, he still lives for his own pleasure, only he takes delight in singing choruses and watching religious films, instead of singing bawdy songs, and drinking hard liquor. The accent is still on enjoyment, though the fun is on a higher plane morally, if not intellectually.The new cross does not slay the sinner, but redirects him.”

The old cross is a symbol of death. It stands for an abrupt and violent end of a human being.

 “Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves. Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you; if not, you have failed the test of genuine faith.”

2 Corinthians 13:5

Are we really carrying the cross of the Bible? Is our faith real? Are we carrying the real cross? We cannot be really His disciples unless we do so, and we are apostate if we do not.

“Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me.”

Mark 8:34

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The Hidden Smile of God, [Discovery]

 

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Imagine for just a moment, you can actually see the face of God. Is He…?

  • angry, seething with a vindictive hostility
  • rolling His eyes, amused, maybe a bit perplexed
  • disturbed, frustrated, ready to give up on you
  • not looking at all, bored, detached, not caring
  • smiling at you, like a proud Father?

Three simple verses for the God’s ‘face-seeking’ person.

13 “If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. 14 I will be found by you,” says the Lord.”

Jeremiah 29:13-14

3 “Long ago the Lord said to Israel: “I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.”

Jeremiah 31:3

32 “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

Luke 12:32

There are many, many more like these three. (But I didn’t want to scare you.)

God’s love is not logical, or mechanical. and you can’t see His face based on your performance. You simply just can’t do enough. So we all must come to Him the same way— on our knees. God’s love is outrageously understood, it is completely undeserved and perhaps just a bit scandalous. So settle this now, you’ll never, ever be good enough, (but you can be bad enough).

I believe the face of God is smiling on us, and He ‘lights up’ when we come into His presence. He is incredibly gracious. You can thank Jesus— it was His cross and resurrection that made access to God possible. (O.K., just one more verse.)

19 “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.”

Ephesians 2:19

There is a freedom that comes when you quit struggling and simply believe in ‘the smiles of God,’ and when you know deep-down that you belong. Everyone who comes to Him comes by the goodness (and sacrifice) of Someone else. And that is remarkably good news.

Hallelujah,

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When I Condemn Myself, [Guilt]

Understanding how to forgive is one of the most essential truths we must learn. We learn that we must forgive others– if we want forgiveness for our own sins. But we jump right into it when we pass judgement on ourselves.  This self-condemnation is insidious and very dark.  And yet incredibly, it is also quite prevalent in the Church.

We determine that we are guilty.  It doesn’t take a lot of imagination, as the sin is everywhere, it overwhelms us.  It meshes into us, and weaves into our very being.  We soon come to the point where we can no longer tell the difference between  what is our sin, and our personality.

If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 

1 John 3:20, NIV

Examining our own hearts, we start by probing the depth of our own evil.  There is now little room for any kind of self-deception– for we understand our darkness in depth.  It is at this crucial point when God steps forward and exercises His authority.  His understanding is complete.  He knows us inside and out.  He sees everything. We can do nothing cosmetically to “improve the corpse.”  He sees us without any ‘make-up’.

When we commence judging ourselves, it may seem appropriate and timely. And certainly, we must respond to the Holy Spirit’s conviction. But this is different!  This is unbelief of God’s Word, that rapidly becomes foul and fleshly, and opens the doors to despondency and despair.

But soon the ‘dark ones’ come, and the blackness becomes insurmountable.  We mournfully provide the chains, which they gleefully use on us.  Self-condemnation twists us and we become malformed and misshapen spiritually.

Guilt is a warning light that says something is wrong. Yet when it persists too long, it energizes Satan’s lies and strangulates spiritual growth. 

“For innumerable evils have compassed me about; my iniquities have taken such hold on me that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart has failed me and forsaken me.” 

Psalm 40:12, Amplified

When we look into the mirror, what do we see?  Are we besieged and battered by our sin?  I’m grieved for the many believers are walking as ‘zombie Christian lives’, more dead than alive, with little hope for any kind of escape. Jesus comes to bring us to life.

Brother, sister– Jesus has come to release you completely.  He completely understands your situation.  He is not surprised by your evil.  Your brazen, and dedicated love for your sin does not shock Him.

“But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.”

1 John 1:9, NLT

A Thought For the Truly Desperate:

“Here’s how to beat condemnation.  Confess your sin to God.  Then believe in Him.  Exercise the gift of faith that God has given you to believe that Jesus died for the very sins you’re being condemned for.  The punishment He received was for you.  His resurrection is proof that God accepted Jesus’ sacrifice.  The sins of your past and the sin you just committed were all atoned for; you need carry their weight no more.”

C.J. Mahaney

ybic, Bryan

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Evaluating Jesus Truly, [CS Lewis]

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“The Difference Jesus Makes,”  from C.S. Lewis

What are we to make of Jesus Christ? This question…has, in a sense, a frantically comic side. For the real reason is not what are we to make of Christ, but what is He to make of us? The picture of a fly sitting deciding what it is to make of an elephant has comic elements about it. But perhaps the questioner meant what are we to make of Him in the sense of  “How are we to solve the historical problem set us by the recorded sayings and acts of this Man?” This problem is to reconcile two things. On the one hand you have got the almost generally admitted depth and sanity of his moral teaching, which is not very seriously questioned, even by those who are opposed to Christianity….

The other phenomenon is the quite appalling nature of this Man’s theological remarks. You all know what I mean, and I want rather to stress the point that the appalling claim which this Man seems to be making is not merely made at one moment of his career. There is, of course, the one moment which led to His execution. The moment at which the High Priest said to Him, “Who are you?” “I am the Anointed, the Son of the uncreated God, and you shall see Me appearing at the end of all history as the judge of the Universe.”….

On the one side clear, definite moral teaching. On the other, claims which, if not true, are those of a megalomaniac, compared with whom Hitler was the most sane and humble of men. There is no half-way house and there is no parallel in other religions. If you had gone to Buddha and asked him “Are you the son of Brahman?” he would have said, “My son, you are still in the vale of illusion.” If you had gone to Socrates and asked, “Are you Zeus?” he would have laughed at you. If you had gone to Mohammed and asked, “Are you Allah?” He would first have rent his clothes and the cut your head off.  If you had asked Confucius, “Are you heaven?” I think he would have probably replied, “Remarks which are not in accordance with nature are in bad taste.”

The idea of a great moral teacher saying what Christ said is out of the question. In my opinion, the only person who can say that sort of thing is either God or a complete lunatic suffering from that form of delusion which undermines the whole mind of man. If you think you are a poached egg, when you are looking for a piece of toast to suit you, you may be sane, but if you think you are God, there is no chance for you….

Now, as a literary historian, I am perfectly convinced that whatever else the Gospels are they are not legends. I have read a great deal of legend and I am quite clear that they are not the same sort of thing. They are not artistic enough to be legends. From an imaginative point of view they are clumsy, they don’t work up to things properly…

[Take, for example] the strangest story of all, the story of the Resurrection. It is very necessary to get the story clear. I heard a man say, “The importance of the Resurrection is that it gives evidence of survival, evidence that the human personality survives death.” On that view what happened to Christ would be what had always happened to all men, the difference being that in Christ’s case we were privileged to see it happening. This is certainly not what the earliest Christian writers thought. Something perfectly new in the history of the Universe had happened. Christ had defeated death. The door which had always been locked had for the very first time been forced open. This is something quite distinct from mere ghost-survival. I don’t mean that they disbelieved in ghost- survival. On the contrary, they believed in it so firmly that, on more than one occasion, Christ had had to assure them that He was not a ghost. The point is that while believing in survival they yet regarded the Resurrection as something totally different and new. The Resurrection narratives are not a picture of survival after death; they record how a totally new mode of being has arisen in the universe. Something new had appeared in the universe: as new as the first coming of organic life. This Man, after death, does not get divided into “ghost” and “corpse”. A new mode of being has arisen. That is the story. What are we going to make of it?

The things He says are very different from what any other teacher has said. Others say, “This is the truth about the Universe.  This is the way you ought to go,” but He says, “I am the Truth, and the Way, and the Life.” He says, “No man can reach absolute reality, except through Me. Try to retain your own life and you will be inevitably ruined. Give yourself away and you will be saved.” He says, “If you are ashamed of Me, if, when you hear this call, you turn the other way, I also will look the other way when I come again as God without disguise. If anything whatever is keeping you from God and from Me, whatever it is, throw it away. If it is your eye, pull it out. If it is your hand, cut it off. If you put yourself first you will be last. Come to Me everyone who is carrying a heavy load, I will set that right. Your sins, are wiped out, I can do that. I am Re-birth, I am Life. Eat Me, drink Me, I am your food. And finally, do not be afraid, I have overcome the whole Universe.” That is the issue.”

– Asking Them Questions, Third Series, edited by Ronald Selby Wright (OUP, 1050), also reproduced inUndeceptions (Geofffrey Bles, 1971) and God in the Dock, Chapter 9 (Fount, 1979)
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