daily java

Daily Java:

Haughty eyes, a proud heart, and evil actions are all sin. (Proverbs 21:4)

The Bible says it is the attitude that will condemn you, not just the action.

In other words, you haven’t actually done a bad thing. But you sat around thinking about it. You are just as guilty. You haven’t taken things from poor people to enrich yourself, but you look at them as if you were better than they. So the guilt is there as much as if you actually stole from them.

What does that mean? Does it mean thoughtcrime – a word coined by George Orwell in the book 1984 – has been invented by God? We may not do something but because we thought of it, we are guilty and going to hell?

No. What it means is that you can keep the body clean but unless you also keep the mind clean, it does no good. It also means that legalism will not save you. Simply by not doing something you are not made holy. Your holiness comes from your attitude, from your heart, from the very way you conduct yourself.

God is not looking for ways and reasons to send us to hell. If he had been, we all would have gone long ago. If he had been, it would have been a waste of time to send Jesus to die for us to bring us back to him.

It was Jesus himself who said he did not come to condemn, but to save. It was he who said he had come to bring people back to the Father.

If it were true that he was looking for reasons to send us to hell, why bother with the bringing back part? Just forget it, look around for those who had managed to not actually do anything and save them.

That is what we do with politicians. We are looking for those who have never done anything wrong (and maybe never really done anything period). Maybe they are greedy, or grasping, or lustful, but they have never actually been caught in a sin so they are fine.

God looks at the heart, not at the actions. He knows the actions are going to be bad because we have all sinned. We start off sinning. We’re lost from the beginning. So what is the point of trying to pretend we are anything we aren’t?

It is the insides, not the outsides that will save a person. I would rather have a child who makes a lot of mistakes but whose heart is good than a perfect child with no real feeling for me either way.

daily java

Daily Java:

Who may climb the mountain of the LORD?
      Who may stand in his holy place?
 Only those whose hands and hearts are pure,
      who do not worship idols
      and never tell lies.
 They will receive the LORD’s blessing
      and have a right relationship with God their savior.
 Such people may seek you
      and worship in your presence, O God of Jacob. (Psalm 24:3-6)

It is not what we do that saves us, it is who we are.

Who are the ones who will stand before God? Those, he says, that have clean hands and pure hearts, who have remained loyal to him in spite of what the world demands, who keeps his ethics true.

Coming to the world is not something that we earn, or something we accomplish. Yes, the Christian life is hard and it is, as the apostle Paul said, a fight.

But there is a mindset that the Christian has that is what saves him. It is not his actions, because all sin. Everybody has already made too many mistakes to be saved on merit. The few things we can do in this short life can never be enough to merit, or earn, eternity with God.

So what is the point? The point is that it is our attitudes, our mindsets, our character that saves us. It is the condition of our hearts that brings us close to God.

Those are the ones who have the proper relationship with the Lord. Those are the ones who seek him. Otherwise, we just seek what it is that we can do, what we can accomplish in him.

It is he who saves. When we recognize that, it takes all the pressure off of what we have to do. And we recognize that he loves us, even when we fail.

But as long as we are trying, as long as we are making the effort, we have his heart.

And he has ours.

daily java

Daily Java:

But I want it to be a willing gift, not one given grudgingly. (2 Corinthians 9:5)

It is your birthday and one of your kids slaps a WalMart sack down in front of you with something in it. The item still has all the tags on it and the cash register receipt. He says, Here you old bag. Here’s your stupid present. And walks off.

Now theoretically, you can’t say that he didn’t give you a present. He did. And it may even be a nice something. But I know I wouldn’t like it and probably wouldn’t keep it. It is a gift of necessity.

Someone else comes up to you with a hand made item and gives it to you and tells you they love you and made this for you. It goes front and center on the bookshelves in the living room. It is a gift of love.

Both are gifts, both given for a particular reason. But one is unwelcome and one is welcome.

The first gift is given with no indication of love or caring. It was done out of pure duty, out of necessity. Well, it’s your birthday and I had to get you something, didn’t I?

The second gift is given with you in mind. The giver cared for you and did something special for you. It was done out of love because they loved you.

The offering plate is passed. Two people give. One throws some money in without even counting it out of duty. The other gives what he can with love for God.

Quite frankly, as a pastor, I take both, because I am not a judge of hearts. But you know God likes one better than the other.

Jesus was watching a group of people giving in a Jewish church service. It had turned into a contest, each giver trying to out do the other. One would give, the next would give more, the third would give even more and on. Then the second round would start.

Each person giving would try to show himself as the most righteous of all. See how much I give? Surely I am more righteous.

A widow came forward and gave two coins, all she had.

Jesus turned to his apostles and said She gave more than anybody else. The apostles were somewhat taken back by this statement. How can that be. They gave a lot, she only gave a little.

Jesus’ answer? They gave from their excess, she gave all she had. They gave out of pocket change, she gave out of her heart. They were only giving to show off. She gave because she loved God.

The apostle Paul says here that a gift should be from the heart or it is worthless. Over in 1 Corinthians 13, Paul goes out of his way to say that if your heart and if love is not in what you do, it doesn’t matter what you do. If love is not in it, it is worthless no matter who big the offering might be.

Hard thing to do, giving. Taking your money and giving it to the church. But on the other hand, it is what God wants and he will bless you for it.

However, he will only bless you if done out of your heart.

daily java

Daily Java:

Then Bildad the Shuhite replied to Job “How long will you go on like this? You sound like a blustering wind.”  (Job 8:1-2)

I am reading the book of Job in my daily Bible reading. Job had some real problems and his life was ruined through no fault of his own. When it came down to it, his problems were a result of a bet between God and satan. Satan told God that Job was only devout because God blessed him. God said, take it all away and he will still worship. And the contest was on.

Nothing that happened to Job after this was Job’s fault. Everything Job had was taken away. All he had left was his wife and three friends he could have done without.

Job’s wife was understandably upset. She saw her husband, whom she loved, broken and beaten, afflicted with boils, having taken residence on a trash heap. Her response was to go ahead and get it over with. Curse God and die. To her anything was better than this living hell.

His three friends were well-meaning, on one level, but they were also self-righteous men who, although they didn’t have the slightest idea what they were talking about, still felt compelled to give advice.

Bildad’s entry into the stupid advice pool? “If you would just listen to us, you would be able to understand. We know what is wrong and you refuse to listen.”

In his mind, as well as the minds of the other two, he had the answer, if only Job would listen. Job was wrong and they were right. It was that simple.

You come across people like this a lot. It is almost a gnostic sense of “I know what is right and if you were smart, you would listen to me.”

What did Job do when faced with these well-meaning friends who knew nothing? He ignored their advice.

Job knew what his relationship with God was. Later on, he makes the beautiful comment:  

But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last. And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God! (Job 19:25-26)

Of course, just because you think you are right doesn’t mean anything. In fact, you can feel you right down to the very core of your being and still be wrong. Two examples of this.

First is the passage from Jeremiah 17:9-10:  

The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? But I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve.

Only God knows our hearts and what is truly right. We may think we do, but what we think is too colored with our lives and what is going on in our lives. We cannot be objective. Which brings us to the second thought and our example.

In 2 Samuel 6, King David decided to move the ark to a new location. Instead of carrying it like God said, with poles put in special rings carried by priests, he decided it would be nice if he carried it on a new wagon pulled by young horses.

As it hit a bump in the road, a young man names Uzzah put his hand up to steady it and dropped dead immediately.

A perfectly normal reaction to try to save the ark from falling off, but no one was to ever touch the ark, God had said, even in good intentions.

It scared David so much he parked it and waited.

The point? Just because you think something is a good idea and what God wants doesn’t mean it is. And like in Bildad’s case above, just because you think you are right doesn’t mean you are.

Job knew his relationship, and these three men, I think, were secretly pleased to see such a great man fall.

Just the kind of friends Job needed.

condemning heart

Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. (1 John 3:18-20)
All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. (Isaiah 64:6)

I was just reading an article by a guy who said his life was like a tennis match. It went back and forth from I am fine to I am a rank sinner.

That is how I feel and have felt much of my life.

I was talking to someone the other day who has a very poor self-image. The person has had a lot of problems in life and it just gave them no real way to look at themselves positively.

I am the same way, although no one would know it to look at me. I have always had a very confident demeanor. Some have even called me arrogant, although he they made the attempt to know me they would never have said that.

I suppose I had confidence in what I could do much of the time, but I will have to admit that the confidence could be eliminated easily. In fact, in the past few years, I have come to the point that I feel that confidence ebbing away daily.

Things that I used to do easily, I can either no longer do them or they have been maligned by others to the point that they are in danger of being gone.

Add to that the overall life tiredness I have and it makes for a problem.

I know God loves me and has plans for me. He has told me so. Yet I am in a hard situation after a long life of service to him. On the one hand, my heart condemns me.

“If you were a better person, you would do better.” “If you were a better person, God would love you more.” Stupidity like that.

And it seems that everything I do, I can find reasons for it and reasons to deny that it is any good. The good things become filthy rags, not necessarily because they are in comparison to God and his glory, but because I have decided they are.

I see rejection. I just left a denomination in which I was soundly rejected. I believe that it was far more stylistic rejection than anything else. I did not fit the mold of an Assembly of God preacher and was unwilling to put on that idea.

My own church many times refuses to see my call or work while churches around are supportive of us and can see it. I suppose that is because when they are paying your salary, they expect different things from you.

And then I see acceptance. I look at the way some perceive me and tell me that they can see the call on my life. The Foursquare Church just finished ordaining me. In that ordination ceremony, I was told publicly that the call could be seen on my life. And I believe that I have been called, and also that I have not been released from that call.

But I see myself as a sinful man, and a failure before the throne of God. I look at what I have accomplished in the past and I look at where I am right now and they do not go together. I cannot see the hand of God in it.

And it does not help when someone tells me that the Foursquare Church made a mistake and that I am a fake.

But – again but – I know that the call in my life is real. If God is real, and if he is in control – and I have to believe he is – and if I am trying my best to remain in his will. I am where he wants me to be. I can do nothing else than what I am doing.

Just thinking. I sure am glad 1 John 3:18-20 is in the Bible. My heart is the most self-condemning heart I know of.

daily java

Daily Java:  

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)

The problem with church sometimes is that when you come, you find out all the stuff you are supposed to do. by the time the church loads you down with all of the “commands” of God, you almost cannot turn around without sinning.

But that is a problem. Jesus never came to tell us stuff to do. He never came to give us more commands from God. He never came to add to our burden.

Anytime we expect people to do what we think God wants them to do, we add to their burden, not ease it.

In the Old Testament, God had a lot of commands. It was a law that was designed to show God’s people that they could not keep a law, no matter how hard they tried. It was a law that pointed to something better: Jesus.

In the new system, God writes his law on our hearts, not on paper or rock or other people’s motives or anything else.  In fact, Jesus said, in Matthew 22, that the new law of God was one of love. In other words, it was a law that changed your heart, not dictated your behavior.

I remember when I was younger and I read the injunction of Jesus in Matthew 5:28. He said, anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

What that meant to me at the time was not only was the law of God not to commit adultery, but it meant that if I even thought about it, I was dead. Thoughtcrime, as George Orwell put it, had been introduced into the kingdom. The new law of God was even worse than the old one.

You could get by without committing adultery under the old law, but you could think about it. In the new law, you were dead if you even thought about it.

There was no way anyone could keep such a law.

But that is not what Jesus was saying. He was saying that just because you don’t actually do something doesn’t mean you are fine if your heart was so full of lust and anger and all. It is not the commission or lack of commission of sins, it is the heart that matters.

That is why King David in the Old Testament was called a man after God’s own heart. He did wrong and Israel suffered because of it. But he was repentant. Even though he had sinned, his heart was that of a worshiper of God.

In other words, God forgives if your heart is right, even if you do something stupid. But he cannot forgive if your heart is full of hatred and anger and lust. It isn’t because he doesn’t want to. It is that he cannot reach through all that stuff to get to your heart.

When the new covenant came along, God sent Jesus. He came to give us rest. It is rest in the knowledge of the love of God and the knowledge that his grace will cover our inadequacies. It is the real rest of knowing God and his love.

God loves us even when we fail. And that is true rest.

more thoughts on the book of hebrews: preaching to the heart

For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)

It is always interesting when you are preaching and someone in the audience gets mad at something you said. After the sermon, they come to you and say, “I am mad at you! I didn’t appreciate your talking about things in my life publicly.”

You, of course, are taken aback. You may not even know who they are, or if you do, you weren’t talking about them. However, they took what you said to heart.

The scripture you read and the application judged the thoughts and applications of their hearts and they didn’t like it.

That is a problem with preaching. If you are preaching the Word, everything you say fits someone.

People who are aware of God working within their lives know that and they know that occasionally things will be said that will fit them.

I have been to churches where I knew no one knew me, yet the preacher says something that goes right to my soul. You feel like running away, but you don’t. The preacher doesn’t know you or that you are there, but God does; and if one is in God and desires the heart of God, God will move into his or her heart and judge.

Real preaching can be life-changing if people will respond. The problem is that they do not. They figure it is for someone else, or ignore the still small voice of God in their own hearts, or just refuse to change.

When they do time after time, it becomes like the boot I had with a nail in the bottom sticking up into my foot. After a while I didn't notice it. One day I took off my boot and there was a very small, round, perfectly formed callous on the bottom of my foot where that nail had been poking me. I no longer felt it because I had worked to not feel it by forming a callous. The nail was still sharp, but my foot had become dull.

The two sided blade is handy also. You can hack and hack and hack in your fighting of evil, and if the blade gets dull, you turn it over and there is a new blade ready to hack again. Kind of like those old razor blades.

The weapon of our warfare is never dull and is never useless, as long as we keep it sharp within our lives.

Of course, even dull preaching can hit home. I did cut myself one time on a butter knife, but you do kind of have to work at that. It is a shame that so many preachers use such dull equipment, never sharpening or learning their weapons.

I suppose that you can hurt a person in combat by throwing a rifle at them, throwing it just right, hitting them in the head. But what a stupid way to use a rifle.

In the same way, a bad preacher can show someone something good by bad and ill-informed preaching and study, but what better stuff could he do if he had good equipment and good preparation.