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Spiritual Secrets   Making Sense of Jesus and the Bible   The Greatest Spiritual Discovery   God’s Mysterious Ways     The Designer of every molecule in your brain might know a thing or two. The God who could use as marbles suns more powerful than a billion nuclear bombs, might just be big enough to meet our needs. And yet . . .   Jesus’ teaching – in fact the entire Bible – has dire consequences if ignored, yet God’s way seems so illogical and unworkable that few of us dare try it. Even among devout believers much of the Bible gets left gathering dust on the “nice sentiment but impractical” shelf. Our brain flashes, “Does not compute,” and fails to program the instructions into our daily living. It is easy to become so familiar with the words of Scripture and so conscious of the importance of revering the Word of God, that we are barely aware that we are not actually living according to its directives.   After staking virtually everything on God’s method we will gradually begin receiving personal confirmation that it really works. We must first, however, reach that critical point where we are willing to risk this plunge into the unknown. Much of what follows is therefore devoted to building confidence in God’s way of doing things. To assist in this, a goal of the webpage is to make the relevant mysteries as easy to understand as possible. We will pursue this from several different angles, using as a main tool simple illustrations from the world we live in.   Let’s be frank   Most biblical revelation is the exact opposite of what any sensible human would come up with. This should come as no surprise. There would be little point in God giving us a Bible if it were filled with truths that mere common sense tells us. A helpful way to understand why spiritual principles seem illogical and unworkable is to consider many tragedies that have occurred in Australian deserts.   A rule of survival in the harsh Australian Outback is if your only vehicle breaks down in a remote place, stay with the disabled vehicle. That seems dangerously out of touch with reality if you have no means of raising an alarm, you are somewhere that does not see a human for weeks at a time, and your water supplies can keep you alive for only a few days. So people in this predicament often disregard the warning and try walking the long distance to where help is more likely to be found. Eventually, they are reported missing, a search locates their vehicle, but no one is there. The Coroner’s investigation later confirms that vehicles are more easily located than walkers, there was more water in the vehicle than walkers can carry, and the extra exertion demanded of walking hastened the dehydration and sunstroke that led to their death. They died because they tried to save themselves. Had they done nothing except trust that they would be saved, they would have lived. They dismissed advice that would have saved their lives because such instructions only make sense to people who can believe that rescuers will arrive in time.   Likewise, whether Jesus’ advice seems reliable enough to bet your life on it hinges on whether you can believe that someone – in this case, God – will come to your rescue. This is why faith is so critical to Christianity. If the Almighty will powerfully intervene for you, the best course of action is usually the exact opposite to what you would do if you are in this predicament alone. The tragedy is that most of us, petrified that God might let us down, usually suppose we are playing safe by choosing whatever option would work best if God doesn’t care enough to intervene. We would dearly like to have a bet each way – hoping that God will act, while covering ourselves in case he doesn’t. With the God who knows our every motive, however, hedging our bets is as impossible as surviving by walking in tight circles half way between a stranded vehicle and a very distant source of help.   Signed in Blood   Since the Bible is the Word of God, every statement in it is backed with an iron-clad guarantee from Almighty God. To ratify his pledge, the One who put the stars in space and who keeps your heart beating, put his guarantee in black and white, and signed it in the blood of his own Son. He who cannot lie, then had his guarantee published around the world in thousands of languages so that the Holy One’s entire reputation with humanity hinges on him keeping his word.   Whenever Scripture says something that seems out of touch with reality, the One who runs the entire universe is pledging his integrity and power on the fact that he will make it happen. It means the Creator and Sustainer of every law of physics is announcing a new law.   Unless God’s physical laws are correctly understood, they will be thought to fail. It is not always true, for instance, that what goes up must come down. The law of gravity is more complex than that. Likewise, whenever the Almighty establishes a spiritual law, the conditions must be accurately understood or we will sooner or later discover what we mistakenly think is God’s failure to keep his word. What we would actually be discovering are defects in our understanding of God’s promise. A common error is to misunderstand the time frame. The Eternal One’s timing often shocks us. Even before Abraham plunged the knife into his son, he got his son back. On the other hand, the fulfillment for God’s promise to Abraham about the birth of his son had dragged on and on for so long that the situation seemed utterly hopeless. Moreover, it was not until centuries after Abraham’s death that some of what he had been promised was fulfilled. It might have happened after the end of his earthly life, but Abraham will be rejoicing over it for all eternity.   Another error is failing to realize that most of God’s pledges apply only to people who are in true, intimate fellowship with God. Some promises have even more conditions attached. Tragically, some people have been devastated by what they imagined was God letting them down but was actually a tragic misunderstanding of God’s words. For more on this see  When Promises Aren’t Promises.   It would be ridiculous to expect spiritual laws to be easily verifiable. When, for instance, the Bible says, “it is more blessed to give than to receive,” it is not implying this is a readily observable fact – if it were obvious it would hardly be a significant revelation. By placing it in the Bible, the Almighty is declaring he will ensure that ultimately – not necessarily this side of eternity – those who give will end up more blessed than if they had received.   Obviously, the frequently stated biblical truth, “He who humbles himself will be exalted,” comes with a similar guarantee that the Lord will ensure it happens in God’s time. That’s a scary path to honor. It is most unlikely to work unless there really is a Holy Lord whose integrity makes it impossible for him not to keep his promise. So the pressure mounts for us to disbelieve the Word of God and try to boost ourselves rather than leave it to God. The Lord of heaven and earth, however, not only expects you to stake your life on the fact that he will keep his side of the deal, he has already staked his Son’s life on it. Moreover to disregard this directive is to risk your eternity on the presumption that the Word of Almighty God is a lie when it says that God resists the proud.   “Nothing but Dirt”   Suppose someone suggested you sell absolutely everything you have – your car, house, furniture, jewelry, even your best clothes – to raise the cash to buy a barren piece of land that to you is nothing but dirt. That’s about as ridiculous as what Jesus seems to be asking of us – to give up things we hold dear and for this enormous sacrifice he offers what seems little better than dirt. But what if the person urging you to buy the land were a devoted friend who had discovered oil on the property? Underneath that land is enough crude oil to make you an instant multimillionaire. You would not be able to stop grinning as you excitedly sell all you possess. You would be focused not on the house you are losing, but on the mansion you will soon be able to buy. You would be too busy thinking about sports cars, limousines and Lear jets to mourn the loss of your old car. That’s how eagerly we would follow Jesus’ seemingly crazy requests if we really understood what God is offering us in exchange. If, for instance, we are horrified when God asks us to give up our puny, selfish ambitions, it is only because we have been too pre-occupied with ourselves to gain the slightest conception of how excitingly superior are God’s ambitions for us. If only we understood we could hardly contain our joy.   Back to Earth   As wonderfully true as this is, for me to leave you floating in the clouds would be less than honest without first tackling the issue that most preachers and teachers, myself included, are sorely tempted to side-step. We must face up to the cost, plunging into those icy waters while desperately clinging to the truth that by an incomprehensible but divinely-guaranteed miracle, the benefits are exceedingly greater than the enormous cost.   Jesus is our Savior – saving us from many things we could never bear, including an eternity in hell. In addition, Jesus is our Example – the Pioneer who trail-blazed the route for us to follow, all the way to the cross and beyond. “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). Not only was it necessary for our Leader to suffer  en route  to indescribable victory, joy and honor, so must his followers. Prayerfully consider the following:    . . . if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God.   (21)   To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps   (1 Peter 2:20-21).   Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude . . .  (1 Peter 4:1).   Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.   (13)   But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed   (1 Peter 4:12-13).   This truth is strongly emphasized in Scripture. Most of us will find the relevant Scriptures in the verses not underlined in our Bibles.   Act like Christ – which is possible only by letting Christ live in you and express himself through you – and you will end up like Christ – despised, rejected, humiliated and finally reigning in honor on God’s throne for all eternity.   Sheer Agony   “Anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me,” declared our Savior (Matthew 10:38). I dare not rob that chilling statement of the dread filling the thumping hearts of Jesus’ original hearers. Crucifixions were so common that all Jesus’ contemporaries must surely have seen condemned criminals dragging their crosses on the way to a most torturous death. Later, many of his hearers witnessed their Leader agonizing on the cross, confirming the enormity of the cost involved.   It is an inescapable fact that the cross is sheer agony. I would be little better than a charlatan to suggest otherwise. I, for instance, made what at the time seemed a huge sacrifice for the Lord. Over twenty years later it still hurts deeply every day, with no hint that the pain will ever cease this side of eternity. I am unaware of the slightest compensation for all the suffering, except for an increased capacity to minister to hurting people. If I hold on until the end, however, what had seemed a sacrifice will prove itself one of the shrewdest imaginable investments.   Following Christ starts by sweating drops of blood, sobbing the prayer, “Not my will but yours.” It necessitates abandoning our pet sins, even though the incessant craving may gnaw at our insides day after endless day. It involves lowering ourselves in our own eyes; viewing ourselves as weak, ignorant and useless without Jesus’ constant input, and believing we are so morally corrupt that we deserve endless torment in hell. It could well mean letting people walk all over us, or choosing a path that exposes us to rejection, ridicule, perhaps even physical suffering. It will probably involve giving up whatever is dearest to our heart. It might be prized possessions, hobbies, loved ones, a promising career, financial security, or the right to marry the person we love, but whatever most rivals our love for God may have to go. Jesus’ teaching is crammed with this emphasis and if it is currently unpopular to talk about it, that just shows how far we have yet to go before we truly reflect Jesus.   Our Lord was forever warning would-be followers of the enormous cost involved. This worries most of us so much that we would like there to be two categories of believers: disciples and ordinary born again Christians. But scripture makes no such distinction. There are indeed two categories: true Christians and fake Christians. Or, expressed another way: those who are genuinely born again and those who merely think they are. Space allows only a couple of reminders of how Jesus’ approach to potential converts differs so markedly from what we typically hear today:   Luke 14:25  Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said:   (26)  “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple.   (27)  And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.   (28)  Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it?   (29)  For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him . . .  (33)  In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.   Matthew 10:25  It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebub, how much more the members of his household!   John 16:2  They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God.   The apostles, of course, followed Jesus’ method of evangelism and teaching. Thus, for example, we find Paul and Barnabas “strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. ‘We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,’ ” they said (Acts 14:22). “Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,” promises 2 Timothy 3:12. Today we are so eager to declare people “co-heirs with Christ” that we often gloss over Scripture’s proviso, “if indeed we share in his sufferings” (Romans 8:17).   “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ,” said Paul (1 Corinthians 11:1). We know how much Paul suffered. “I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church,” he wrote (Colossians 1:24). Paul kept his side of the bargain. He paid the price of following Christ. What about us?   The cost highlights why faith is so essential to authentic Christianity. Faith is the glue without which our entire spiritual life disintegrates. Without faith, we would not dare pay the price. We would be left only with false religion, no matter how much we cite Christian doctrine. And what faith it takes! Without a foretaste, it is nearly impossible even to imagine anything so wonderful as to make the cost worthwhile. Whatever could move anyone to pay such a price? I suggest the greatest of all motivations: love. The future joy that moved Jesus to endure the cross was not the happiness that ease and luxury gives, nor an empty euphoria like a drug-induced high. What held Jesus to the cross was the thrill and matchless satisfaction of knowing he was delighting the Father who meant everything to him, and the ecstasy of obtaining eternal fellowship with us, whom he loves with an intensity beyond our comprehension. Likewise, it was supernatural love pumping through the hearts of the early Christians that propelled them to exult in what they regarded as the privilege of suffering for their Lord (Acts 5:40-42). And it was that same love that exploded within the heart of Paul, driving him to count all his earlier achievements as trash relative to the joy of intimately knowing Christ and of sharing in Christ’s suffering (Philippians 3:8-10). We love because Christ first loved us. We embrace pain because he first did it for us.   When I remind you that “hope” is a theological term about the certainty of the reward, you will see that we have been discussing the big three – faith, hope and love. No wonder Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 sang the praises of these three qualities. They empower us to embrace the cross and thus plunge into the riches Christ has purchased for us.   New Life   To take up our cross and follow Christ sounds horrific, until we discover that following Jesus takes us not only to crucifixion but to resurrection; not only to the death of self but to a gloriously new and superior life. It is only the spiritually corrupt part of us that we are asked to let die. Once that goes we find ourselves tingling with life like never before. It’s the death of the grub so that butterfly wings might be stretched and soar heavenwards. It’s the death of the sin-addict, the groveling sin-slave, the despicable weakling, and the rising of the glorious conqueror. It’s the death of pollution and the emergence of purity; the death of lonesome self-infatuation and the release of true love.   ‘Self’ refers to everything within us that is weak and ignorant and ugly. It is all that would ultimately darken us with shame and misery – the foolish choices that seemed a smart move at the time; the sweet things that turn sour. This, and only this, is what your loving Lord wants to die, so that a new you can burst onto the scene. Like (and through) Jesus risen from the dead, the new you will be a person brimming with life; glowing with purity, honor and a thrilling future.   I have sometimes so much craved sin that I actually felt that without it life was hardly worth living. That is utterly ridiculous and yet temptation is all about the enemy of our souls creating a dangerously false but highly convincing illusion. The critical issue, however, is that even if sin really were the only thing that made life seem worth living, I should lay down my life for the sake of the One who laid down his life for me. Christ paid the ultimate price for me, even though I deserve nothing. This leaves me utterly without excuse for not laying down my life for the exalted Lord who deserves everything. As Christ resurrected to a new and glorious life, so will I, as I cling by faith to my Savior. Through the One who died a slow, agonizing death for me, I will gain a sparkling new life, far superior to the old, sin-stained one. This new life will be fully manifested only after I physically die. Nevertheless, as I “die daily” – daily sacrificing a life of self-centeredness for the sake of my Lord – I will receive greater and greater foretastes of this new and excitingly superior life. Since they are only foretastes I will still have times when life feels awful, but in faith I plow through those times, refusing to surrender eternal reality for temporary illusion.   Making Room for God   Alex, a friend of yours, inherits a massive fortune in diamonds. He knows you have a small safe for personal valuables. “I have many diamonds with me,” he says, “I’d hate for them to be stolen. Could you put them in your safe?”   “Okay,” you say, none too pleased. You open the safe. It’s crammed with stuffed toys and fake jewelry.   “You’ll have to remove your things to make room for the diamonds,” Alex observes.   “What?” you exclaim, “and risk having my valuables stolen? Not on your life!” You angrily show Alex the door.   You later meet a friend and tell him about it.   “Alex kindly approached me, too,” your friend replies with a big grin, “I gladly threw out my valuables for his diamonds!”   “You did?” you reply, taken aback. “You took your valuables out of your safe, when he has enough wealth to buy a million safes of his own?”   “Alex didn’t want to use our safes!” laughs your friend, “He wanted to share his new-found wealth with us. All he wanted was to ensure you had a secure place to store your diamonds until you made up your mind what to do with them.”   “You mean all those diamonds would have been  mine to keep ?” Your ‘valuables’ suddenly seem worthless. “If only I’d understood, I’d have immediately emptied that trash out of my safe!”   Most of us make that same tragic mistake when God makes his offer. Like no one else, God is a giver, yet we mistake him for a taker. We each have, as it were, a treasure chest within us. We usually cram it full with such trinkets as self-righteousness, self-pity, self-promotion and bloated self-esteem. Pathetically, we horde these fake commodities, foolishly thinking them valuable. We realize they are inadequate, but they are all we have and we don’t think God would give us genuine valuables. We think the Lord asks for sacrifices, when all he wants is for us to clean out lesser things to make room for priceless treasures. Most of us fail to realize that by making room for God, we are making room for a vast treasury of divine riches that will be ours to keep.   If God filled that treasure chest within you, it would make you of infinite worth. While that chest is filled with yourself, however, there is no room for God. The more you make yourself small, the more of God there can be in that chest. The thought of making ourselves small terrifies us until we discover that it is simply making room for real riches that will be ours forever. Anyone opening up to God and pricking the balloon of his/her own importance, fills with divine importance. The new you fills with divine glory and supernatural power and majesty and joy and goodness and love and wisdom.   By emptying ourselves, we free up space for God to cram honor, beauty and eternal riches into our lives. When we shrink our estimation of our unaided ability, we make way for more of the ability of Almighty God to come flooding in.   Dying to self means coming to life like never before. It is trading trinkets for treasures; taking desires that end in despair and exchanging them for superior passions that produce life and fulfillment. And yet, when we have only known the inferior, it is so hard to even imagine the superior that it seems an enormous sacrifice to swap our darling trinkets for things of eternal value.   You might have heard it said, “God does not make junk.” The implication is that because we are God’s creation, we are of great worth, irrespective of whether we are filled with self or filled with Jesus. There’s a flaw in that logic. A brilliant artist will only make masterpieces, but any fool can vandalize a work of art until it is worthless. Our value lies only in our potential to be restored to the condition the Master originally intended. This restoration cannot happen if we keep Christ at arm’s length. We were divinely crafted to be filled with Jesus. As a human body without life is nothing but a putrid, decaying shell, so is a human spirit without Jesus.   Ironies   So upon opening yourself up to God, the more you shrink in your own estimation, the more you grow in worth, honor and usefulness. Here’s an example that may startle you: the more morally superior to a rapist Jane thinks herself, the more of Jane there is in that chest and the less there can be of God. On the other hand, the more Jane regards herself as morally corrupt and worthy of the same eternal fate as a rapist, the more she makes room for the Holy Lord and so the more she grows in purity and eternal honor. Consider Jesus’ parable of the tax collector and Pharisee praying in the temple. The one overwhelmed with a sense of moral depravity went home pure in God’s eyes. The good-living man, however, left morally corrupt in God’s eyes because he considered himself better than notorious sinners (Luke 18:9-14). Likewise, we see in the life of the apostle Paul, the more he grew in spiritual stature, the lower his opinion of himself. That’s the only way anyone can grow spiritually. Paul went from thinking himself the equal of any apostle, to regarding himself as the least of Christians, to concluding he was the worst of sinners (Galatians 2:6-14; Ephesians 3:8; 1 Timothy 1:15). The more we lower ourselves, the taller we stand. Life is filled with such ironies and spiritual life is crammed with them.   Consider these ironies:   Jesus, without equal in wisdom and spiritual power, regarded himself as useless without God.  “By myself I can do nothing,”  he said (John 5:30).   “The meek . . . will inherit the earth”  (Matthew 5:5).   “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted”  (Luke 18:14)     “So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants . . .’”  (Luke 17:10)   “Honor your father and mother and love your neighbor as yourself,”  said Jesus, quoting the Old Testament (Matthew 19:19). And yet another time he said:  “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple”  (Luke 14:26).     “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”  (Galatians 2:20).   “I die daily,”  wrote Paul, (1 Corinthians 15:31) who had discovered how to really live.     In a nutshell:   The world says  love  yourself,  Jesus says  deny  yoursel f.   How can this be the gateway to fulfillment and supernatural joy? Continued

Spiritual Riches   One with Christ! Our union with Christ is like that of a perfect marriage in which there is a total merging of assets. Since this is the perfect union, however, the oneness extends far beyond what normally occurs in marriage.  Everything  that is ours becomes Christ’s (our sin – that’s what killed him – time, talents, possessions, relationships, etc) and everything that is his becomes ours (his perfection, endless life, abilities, achievements, honor, riches, relationships, etc).   The principle is stated in general terms in many different parts of the Bible. For example, in 1 Corinthians 3:21,23 we read, ‘All things belong to you . . . and you belong to Christ. (See also Song of Solomon 2:16; John I6:15,23; Romans 8:32; Philippians 4:13; 2 Peter 1:3.)   ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours,’ the father (representing God) told the prodigal son’s brother in Jesus’ parable (Luke 15:11-32). The older brother had missed out on so much because he had failed to realize the extent of his father’s love and generosity. He hadn’t realized that he only had to ask. In fact, having full faith in his father’s generosity, he should simply have taken and used his father’s things. We, too, can so easily miss out, if we don’t realize all that God has lovingly given us.   A true Christian has Christ (2 John 9) and this includes Christ’s:   *   Knowledge  – John 15:15; 16:13-15   *   Riches  – Philippians 4:19   *  Glory  – John l7:22; 2 Thessalonians 2:14   *  Throne in Heaven  – Ephesians 2:6; Revelation 3:2l   *  Peace  – John 14:27   *  God’s Kingdom  – James 2:5; Revelation 22:5; 2 Timothy 2:12   *  Joy  – John 15:11   *  Moral purity  – 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Corinthians 1:30   *  Miracle-working power  – John 14:12,13   *  Victory over Satan  – Romans 16:20 (1 Corinthians 15:25)   *  Spirit  – Romans 8:9   *  Mind  – 1 Corinthians 2:16; Philippians 2:5   *  Power over death  – 1 Corinthians 15:55-57   *  Likeness  – 1 Corinthians 15:49; 1 John 3:2   *  Inheritance  – Romans 8:17   *  Life  – Galatians 2:20; 1 John 5:12   *  Ministry  – John 17:18 (compare John 8:12 with Matthew 5:14)   *  Presence  – John 14:23; Ephesians 3:17   *  Relationship with God  – John 17:23,26; Galatians 4:6; Hebrews 2:11   *  And there’s probably more!   Any eye can glide down that list but to grasp anything like the full ramifications demands much prayer and deep thought.   Truly,  ‘in him  [Christ]  you have been enriched in every way . . .’  (1 Corinthians 1:5)! Your potential is  limitless  (Philippians 4:l3). But we can still make the mistake the older brother made and fail to enjoy what is rightfully ours. We must take the gifts that cost God so much to make available to us. We do this by believing God has given them to us and then, while nothing seems to have changed, acting as if we have received them. That might sound strange, but that’s the way God operates. Displaying faith in God’s generosity is the greatest way to thrill him. Back

Understanding the Goodness of God Being in love with God is the most exhilarating, fulfilling and liberating experience a human can ever enjoy. Any doubts about God’s goodness, however, will cast a gloomy shadow over our ability to delight in the most beautiful Person in the universe. Bookmark or note the web address of this page to ensure you won’t lose it and then explore each of the following links. Why I Hate The Myth of a Cruel Christian God Why would a God of love allow suffering? Where was God When You suffered Unspeakable Horrors? God Isn’t fair? How could God be fair when some get an abundance and some get a raw deal? Life’s Mysteries Explained If Anyone has Reason to Hate God, it’s Sue A victim of rape and sexual abuse shares her discoveries about God. Angry at God Is it Mad to be Mad at God? Why CHRISTIANS Suffer An easy to read but in-depth biblical examination Basking in Infinite Love When God denies you what you desperately want. A brief, devotional thought. Rejected by God? When God seems harsh. What about the Heathen? Is God fair in his treatment of those who have never heard the Gospel? Sweet Revenge! God’s justice on behalf of those who have suffered Insights into Suffering Seeing martyrdom and persecution with new eyes The Joy of Unanswered Prayer Suffering Makes us Worthy Suffering empowers us to minister to others The Role of Sickness in Your Life A fascinating and helpful look at the many possible reasons for your illness. Why Bad Things Keep Happening to Some People Why Christ’s Suffering can Change your Life Why God’s Wrath is Comforting Does God Love Me? Your Very Own Revelation of God’s Love Deeply moving Comforting Thoughts When Distressed or Depressed Keep following the main link at the end of each page The Spiritual Value of Suffering Trials: Why Hard Times Bless Christians The Surprising Joy of Trials Help When Doubt Knocks How to Triumph in the Face of Doubt - Link coming soon

Peace that Passes Understanding? God’s Supernatural Answer to Worry, Panic, Fear and Doubt Peace can be perplexingly elusive – even for saintly, highly committed Christians. That’s reality, and I refuse to dodge even the harshest of realities in my determined quest to help you live in peace when battered by the very worst that life can throw at you. For your sake, I resolve to whitewash nothing and ruthlessly abandon spiritual pipe dreams. My passion lies not in trying to add a “spiritual” gloss to some flimsy, feel-good platitudes of human origin, nor to seize one or two biblical texts, wring the life out of them, and use them to tease or condemn. Instead, I ache to offer profound help and genuinely ease your burden by grappling with real-life complexities in the light of the full scriptural revelation of God. That goal is too high to fully achieve, but it is where my sights are fixed. With each of us being unique, it is inevitable that some parts of this article will be less relevant to your current situation than other parts but I am determined to side-step nothing in my prayer-drenched quest to discover those factors that are particularly important to you. Many of the issues raised are explored in greater detail in valuable links. Since this website is enormous, however, it is easy to get lost. So I recommend that you note the web address of this page so that you can easily return to it. To find the unique peace that Jesus offers, we must first know what we are looking for. We could walk through a wilderness strewn with diamonds and discard the lot if we don’t know what diamonds in their natural state look like. Likewise, we could have God’s peace and discard it if we have mistaken ideas of what divine peace looks and feels like. Exploding myths and false hopes about what divine peace might involve can seem disturbingly negative, but it is essential to finding the genuine article. Divine Peace Does Not Mean Being Spared Severe Temptation This point might initially seem of little relevance, but for at least two significant reasons, an understanding of temptation is critical to our search for peace. The most obvious connection is that it might seem contrary to peace to have to suffer intense battles with temptation, but we will later discover even more relevance. Jesus promised us his peace and yet he himself suffered horrific temptation. Luke 4:2-3  . . . for forty days, being tempted by the devil. He ate nothing in those days. Afterward, when they were completed, he was hungry. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” Matthew 26:37-39,42-44 He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful [“deeply distressed,” says Mark 14:33] and severely troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here, and watch with me. He went forward a little, fell on his face, and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from me; nevertheless, not what I desire, but what you desire.” . . . Again, a second time he went away, and prayed, saying, “My Father, if this cup can’t pass away from me unless I drink it, your desire be done.” He came again and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. He left them again, went away, and prayed a third time, saying the same words. Luke 22:44-46 Being in agony he prayed more earnestly. His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground. When he rose up from his prayer, he came to the disciples, and found them sleeping because of grief, and said to them, “Why do you sleep? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.” Hebrews 2:18 For in that he [Jesus] himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted. Hebrews 4:15 For we don’t have a high priest who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in all points tempted like we are , yet without sin. (Emphasis mine) One of the most ridiculous notions some Christians fall for is that holiness means no longer being strongly tempted to sin. To be tempted is to be attacked by anti-God forces, just as Jesus was attacked. If a particular sin seems undesirable, there is nothing heroic in avoiding it. Anyone – even the most self-serving, anti-God person on the planet – would avoid a sin that repulses him. The proof of righteousness is when a person denies himself something his flesh cries out for. It is only when temptation rages – only when sin seems the most desirable thing in the universe – that you have the chance to prove that you are committed to doing God’s will, rather than selfishly following your own desires. Some people foolishly imagine that if temptation is so strong that they keep surrendering to it, then God has let them down, or Christianity does not work for them, or they lack faith. Their failure is for no such reason but simply because they give in too easily. Usually this is because they have not realized the extent to which all of us must suffer for Christ. Read this carefully: Hebrews 12:1-4  . . . let us . . . lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with patience . . . looking to Jesus . . . who . . . endured the cross, despising its shame . . . consider him who has endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, that you don’t grow weary, fainting in your souls. You have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin. (Emphasis mine) 1 Peter 4:1 Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind; for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. Lack of temptation does not make a person holy, any more than lack of opposition can make anyone a champion. Christlikeness means acting like Jesus in Gethsemane sweating as it were drops of blood. Everything within him screamed to flee from God’s will, and yet he forced himself to submit. That, not lack of temptation, is true holiness. Let’s approach this from a different perspective. Miraculous deliverances glorify God. Displays of divine power draw attention to the Almighty and win him immense praise. If our Lord were into ego trips, such attempts to wow us would be commonplace. But our Lord is never egotistical, nor superficial. Instead, he is the ultimate in sacrificial love and wisdom. He seeks to exalt not himself but us. Like a wise parent who lovingly gives his children vegetables when they want nothing but candy, he will even risk breaking his own heart by exposing himself to the wrath of his darlings by doing things we do not realize are ultimately in our highest interest. Whenever God miraculously spares people from temptation – a heavy smoker instantly losing all desire to smoke, a porn addict never again tempted to lust, a junkie suffering no withdrawal symptoms, and so on – God is glorified and the recipients of the miracle are denied the opportunity to win glory for themselves. In contrast, if he lets us battle temptation, his name is blackened whenever we lose and when we win we bring ourselves eternal honor. Such battles build Christlike character like nothing else can achieve. Until our appetite for Godliness matures, however, most of us would rather be spoilt brats than Christlike. We crave a soft life, but that is not how anyone becomes a spiritual champion. In the short-term we might prefer to be lazy, but the King’s goal is to make his children regal. As research for a webpage, I collected dramatic testimonies of supernatural deliverances from powerful addictions such as heroin. To my amazed disappointment, when interviewing these people I kept discovering that despite the astonishing miracle, most were still defeated by yet another addiction in their lives. Even though in at least one area, victory had been almost effortless, the Lord refused to make effortless other victories over sin. What makes this discussion about temptation so pertinent goes beyond the fact that such divinely-assigned battles seem contrary to a peace-filled life. Keep reading and you will discover that the divine path to peace usually involves not a miraculous deliverance (the lazy, easy way we hope for) but battling the temptation to fear or worry. Nothing is more important to the Holy One than breaking bondages to sin, and it is possible only through Jesus, and yet if even that takes immense effort on our part, and even the Holy Son of God agonized in Gethsemane’s garden over yielding to God’s will, we cannot expect God’s peace to be any easier to obtain. Like freedom from sin, divine peace – freedom from doubt and worry – is something we must fight for. There is another thing we need to understand about temptation. After forty long days of fighting temptation, the devil “departed from him for a season” (Luke 4:13, KJV). “Left him until an opportune time,” is how the NIV renders it. We can therefore expect seasons in our lives when our peace is more under attack than other times even if, like Jesus, we remain consistently devoted to God. I fully endorse the miraculous side of Christianity, but I refuse to do so in any way that contradicts truths that people do not typically underline in their Bibles. Temptation is Spiritual Rape Do you think the holy Son of God was tempted to lust? Was Christ tempted to punch someone, to hold a grudge, to be lazy, to swear, to get drunk? That is surely what the Bible means. Hebrews 4:15  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin. (Emphasis mine.) Temptation occurs when an evil intelligence violates your mind, invading your inner person with its filth. The temptation could be anything that is not in your highest interest. It might be to hate yourself, to over-indulge, to doubt, to smoke, to hold a grudge; the list is endless. It is something that in the short term seems right or desirable but in the long term ends up robbing and hurting you. For brevity, I call the source of temptation Satan, or the devil, although we are more likely to be tempted by one of his underlings than by the Prince of demons himself. To understand the nature of spiritual rape, we need to consider physical rape. I’d rather avoid this distasteful subject, but I feel the need to demonstrate just how disgusting temptation is. Suppose the trusted boyfriend of a virtuous girl one day goes way too far. He forcibly but painlessly immobilizes her and begins to gently and seductively violate her. Her mind is repulsed by what is happening, but her body is designed to respond to certain stimuli by sending pleasure signals to the brain. This physiological fact has nothing to do with her purity or morality. It simply means she is normal. After the ordeal she ends the relationship and yet, for years afterward her sensitive conscience is tormented with false pangs of guilt; wrongly imagining she must have the morality of a harlot to have had her feelings of horror tinged with the slightest feelings of pleasure. She eventually marries but she cannot forget her involuntary bodily reaction to the rape in which pleasure signals were sent to the brain. She so despises herself for feelings she had no control over that she becomes convinced that her husband must secretly loathe her for her past, even though he actually sees his darling as being utterly pure. Despite all her husband’s loving assurances and tenderness, this poor woman so focuses on that awful event that she continues to feel immoral, unloved and unwanted. Overwhelmed by this illusion, she starts telling herself that she has so ruined her life that she could not be more immoral if she became a prostitute. Tragically, after years of such thinking, convinced she is doing her husband a favor, she leaves the man she mistakenly thinks can no longer love her. Finding no other means of support and imagining she has no purity to preserve, this highly moral woman ends up the harlot she wrongly saw herself as being. Sadly, such a route to promiscuity is not uncommon for sexual abuse victims, harassed by false feelings of guilt over the pleasure signals involuntarily sent to the brain when their will was violated. A similar tragedy could be played out in anyone of us if we condemn ourselves over the fact that temptation, by its very nature, makes sin seem enticingly pleasurable. Jesus is the purest person ever to walk this planet: Hebrews 7:26  Such a high priest [Jesus] meets our need – one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Like us, when the Holy Lord was subjected to the inner urge to sin – a craving to do wrong – it was spiritual rape. His mind and spirit were repeatedly and shamefully violated. You know he emerged from the horrific experience with his purity intact. And, because of him, so can you. Moreover, ponder the staggering implications of this Scripture: Hebrews 2:17-18  For this reason he [Jesus] had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God  . . . Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. (Emphasis mine.) What equipped Jesus for the exalted ministry of being a merciful high priest was not lack of temptation, nor even the mildness of his temptation but that he “suffered” temptation in, to quote from a previously cited verse, “every way, just as we are,” (Hebrews 4:15). Likewise, for his followers, it is suffering temptation to the extreme that, after finally overcoming, empowers with Christlike mercy to minister to others. So it would be ridiculous to despise yourself when evil thoughts come to you, or when you find yourself longing to do wrong. It simply means that, like God’s holy Son, and all his saints, you have been spiritually molested. Like the most despicable child molester, the Evil One tries to make his innocent victim feel guilty for his crime, and for pleasurable feelings he induces. Nevertheless, if you let God have his way, he will turn this ugly assault into something that brings both you and God eternal glory, just as it did for our Lord. It’s only if you cease trying to resist those evil thoughts and urges, that the harassment could touch your purity. And even if you totally gave in, you would have no rational basis for continuing to imagine you are impure, because the instant you return to your Savior with genuine regret, you are again spotless in the eyes of the Holy One. Does Satan often appear and speak to you face to face? He’s far too cunning. He speaks in your mind, pretending to be your own thoughts. Disown those thoughts. Refuse to cave in to false guilt. Imagine how hard it was to tempt Jesus. Satan had to try to persuade the Son of God to act totally out of character. And yet it is exactly the same when the Evil One tempts you. He tries to inflict you with a desire to do something utterly contrary to your nature. The real you is Christlike. From the moment you were born again, Christ took up residence inside you. You gained his goodness, his holy character, his purity of motives, his inexhaustible love. You might have committed a certain sin hundreds of times a year since childhood, and continued for the many years you have been born again. Nevertheless, every time you commit that sin, you are acting out of character. Satan will muster all his brainwashing skills to try fooling you into thinking that sinning is your real nature. You will be like a rape victim plagued by a wrong self-image. This is more than just unpleasant; keep believing that false self image, and you will end up acting as if it were true. Perhaps the most twisted thinking that we Christians commonly fall for is the ridiculous notion that to be strongly tempted to sin suggests a person is ungodly. To be tempted is to be attacked by anti-God forces, just as Jesus was attacked. The more one refuses to be defeated, the more furious the fight becomes. Someone who always quickly gives in to the slightest sinful whim will never experience sinful urges with a fraction of the intensity that a more godly person suffers. Picture Jim, a heroin addict reeling in the pangs of withdrawal. Whenever he let himself, he could steal a chemical fix. His flesh craves relief so intensely that the torment could not be greater if he were being flayed alive for his faith and at any time could end his agony by denying Jesus. Nevertheless, moved by his newfound passion for Jesus, he clenches his teeth and endures the horrors. Now see Darren, lounging in idle ease, blissfully unable even to imagine what a torturous craving for a chemical high would feel like. Never in his life has he even been offered an illicit drug. Who is the hero in this story? The one who has never had a drug battle in his life; who thinks his world is coming to an end if he so much as gets a pimple? If, later on, both were actually being tortured for their faith, which of them is more likely to honor his Lord? To be tempted is to be afflicted with ungodly yearnings. It is only when temptation rages – only when sin seems the most desirable thing in the universe – that you have the chance to prove that you are committed to doing God’s will, rather than selfishly following your own desires. If to you a sin seems undesirable, there is nothing heroic in avoiding it. Anyone – even the most self-serving, anti-God person on the planet – would avoid a sin that repulses him. The proof of righteousness is when a person denies himself something his flesh cries out for. Of course, to deliberately stir up a desire for sin is itself sin. I’m not for a moment suggesting you do that. My point, however, is that lack of temptation does not make a person holy, any more than lack of opposition makes one a champion. Lack of desire for sin is no more proof of spiritual life than lack of desire is proof of physical life. Christlikeness means acting like Jesus in Gethsemane sweating as it were drops of blood. Everything within him screamed to flee from God’s will, and yet he forced himself to submit. That, not lack of temptation, is true holiness. More     Life’s Mysteries: God’s Loving Wisdom in Allowing Severe Temptation       Help When Doubt Knocks       The Secret to Defeating the Devil and Overcoming Temptation God’s Peace Does Not Mean the Absence of Trials I’m on your side if you find the above heading so bitterly disappointing that you are tempted to dump the entire webpage. Let’s not forget, however, that our quest is for divine peace – the type that “passeth all understanding.” There is nothing even remotely beyond understanding about being at peace when everything is hunky dory. Let’s also remind ourselves that although this webpage will soon begin exploring ways to increase peace, we must first find it. What chance has anyone of finding something without knowing what it looks like? Even if it seems boring, our first goal must be to learn how to recognize divine peace lest, as we said, we end up like someone foolishly throwing diamonds away because he does not know what raw diamonds look like. So let’s explore deeper. John 16:33 “I have told you these things, that in me you may have peace. . . .” If ever we should not take Scriptures out of context, this is such an instance. Note Jesus’ very next words: John 16:33 “I have told you these things, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have oppression  . . .” (Emphasis mine, NIV) Here’s how Paul and Barnabas set about “strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith”: Acts 14:22  . . . through many afflictions we must enter into God’s Kingdom. This was a common theme: 2 Timothy 3:12 Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. When detailing his agonizingly long list of sufferings, the apostle added: 2 Corinthians 11:27 in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst . . . Then he confided: 2 Corinthians 11:28 Besides those things that are outside, there is that which presses on me daily, anxiety for all the assemblies. Earlier in the same letter he expanded on what he meant: 2 Corinthians 2:4 For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears . . . Let’s not fall into such arrogance as to think ourselves superior to the great apostle, nor get a distorted view of how free from normal stresses a Christian can get: 2 Corinthians 2:13 I had no relief for my spirit, because I didn’t find Titus, my brother . . . There might be “no peace . . . for the wicked,” (Isaiah 48:22 – repeated in Isaiah 57:21) but even Job, of whom God boasted, “For there is no one like him in the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears God, and turns away from evil” admitted: Job 3:26 I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither have I rest; but trouble comes. So Bible-based peace does not mean the absence of distressing times. Luke 6:26 Woe, when men speak well of you, for their fathers did the same thing to the false prophets. 1 Peter 2:20  . . . if, when you do well, you patiently endure suffering, this is commendable with God. Here’s an inspiring Scripture: Romans 16:20 And the God of peace will quickly crush Satan under your feet. . . . But note that word will . He is writing to devoted Christians telling them that there will be a delay. To be at peace with God necessitates having anti-God forces, both human and nonhuman – opposed to you. You are on the winning side but they could attack you at any moment: Genesis 3:15 I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel. John 15:19-20  . . . I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his lord.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. . . . John 17:14 I have given them your word. The world hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 1 Timothy 1:18  . . . wage the good warfare Revelation 12:17 The dragon grew angry with the woman, and went away to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep God’s commandments and hold Jesus’ testimony. Revelation 13:7 It was given to him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them. . . . Ephesians 6:11-13 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our wrestling is . . . against the principalities, against the powers, against the world’s rulers of the darkness of this age, and against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand. More: The Joy of Trials Peace Does Not Mean the Absence of Grief Discovering what divine peace does not include is as gut-wrenching as seeing a jeweler work on a huge rough diamond. With each cut making the diamond smaller, an inexperienced observer might worry that the process is making the gem less and less valuable, when it is actually increasing its value and beauty. What makes peace so exquisite is that it can shine in the midst of severe temptation, trials and grief. So let’s briefly explore the biblical view of grief. Without ever intending to, vast numbers of caring, Bible-loving Christians have slipped from the Bible’s perspective. They suppose they should be more lion-hearted than David the giant-killer, the man after God’s own heart who, upon finding Ziklag burned and his family taken captive, wept aloud until there was no strength left in him, before heroically seizing back from the enemy everything that had been stolen (1 Samuel 30:3-19). There are Christians who think they should be less human than Jesus, who often wept, and more spiritual than the Spirit-filled early church. See how the power-packed early church reacted to the death of its first martyr: Acts 8:2 Devout men buried Stephen, and lamented greatly over him. In contrast to the New Testament’s directive to “Weep with those who weep.” (Romans 12:15), many well-meaning Christians think the truly Christian thing to do is to gently chide mourning Christians for not rejoicing. The Apostle Paul’s references to joy and rejoicing have inspired modern day super saints to think it spiritual to act like robots, but the great apostle spoke often of the tears he shed in his labors for the Lord. What an embarrassment he is to those of us who sincerely think we are following his lead by never showing sorrow. Tapping into, and releasing, emotions is not only psychologically healthy, it is a highly biblical factor in finding peace. The Bible mentions men shedding tears more than 130 times. That’s without even considering all the biblical references to women crying. Being ruthlessly honest with oneself and with God about one’s negative feelings – inner pain, doubts, guilt feelings, anger or frustration toward God or people, and so on – is the biblical norm. Trying to suppress such inner turmoil, and refusing to face it, is a significant enemy to peace because it is denying ourselves and God the chance of ever resolving it. Just as we cannot expect divine forgiveness while trying to suppress the extent of our sin, so living in divine peace necessitates courageous honesty with ourselves and with God about everything that is troubling us. This applies whether the source of our unease is grounded in the present or the distant past. Study the Psalms until they become your emotional roadmap. The inspired poets typically worked through their issues until reaching the pinnacle of praise, but to get there they were fiercely honest in confronting raw emotion and inner turmoil. For example, Psalm 13 ends with: Psalm 13:6 I will sing to the Lord, because he has been good to me. But it starts with: Psalm 13:1-2 How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul,having sorrow in my heart every day? How long shall my enemy triumph over me? God alone thoroughly understands us and has answers to the most complex matters we could ever face. In theory, we need only God to resolve our inner turmoil and meet our every need. In practice, however, the Lord has purposely arranged it so that we need the help of other people. As he says of fellow Christians: 1 Corinthians 12:21-22 The eye can’t tell the hand, “I have no need for you,” or again the head to the feet, “I have no need for you.” No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. Christ is always the Head – the Source – but because of his great love for his spiritual body, he often deliberately limits himself by choosing to meet certain needs within someone only through another Christian. Consider how in the following, healing is made contingent upon seeking human help (elders) and upon confessing sins not to God but to other Christians: James 5:14,16 Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him . . . Confess your offenses to one another , and pray for one another , that you may be healed. . . . (Emphasis mine) As perplexing and embarrassing as it is, the Sovereign Lord sometimes even chooses to speak through one’s godless enemies (2 Chronicles 35:20-24). If we consider ourselves too superior or “spiritual” to seek human help – a Christian counselor, perhaps – our pride could be cutting ourselves off from divine help and the peace that results. Note who it is that God guides: Psalm 25:9 He will guide the humble in justice. He will teach the humble his way. No wonder the Bible is filled with such scriptures as: James 4:10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you. Seeking God is obviously of extreme importance in obtaining the divine wisdom exalted in the book of Proverbs, and living in this wisdom is sure to increase one’s peace. It would be a critical mistake, however, to overlook the importance this inspired book gives to seeking human help and advice: Proverbs 12:15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he who is wise listens to counsel. Proverbs 15:22 Where there is no counsel, plans fail; but in a multitude of counselors they are established. Proverbs 19:20 Listen to counsel and receive instruction, that you may be wise in your latter end. Proverbs 20:18 Plans are established by advice . . . Consider carefully the implications of these Scriptures: Matthew 11:25  . . . I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you hid these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to infants. 1 Corinthians 1:19-21,26-29 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, I will bring the discernment of the discerning to nothing.” Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the lawyer of this world? Hasn’t God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For seeing that in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom didn’t know God, it was God’s good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe. . . .not many are wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, and not many noble; but God chose the foolish things of the world that he might put to shame those who are wise. God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong; and God chose the lowly things of the world, and the things that are despised, and the things that are not, that he might bring to nothing the things that are: that no flesh should boast before God. Intelligence, learning and theological knowledge, instead of making us superior and independent, can actually contribute to arrogance that blocks one’s ability to receive spiritual revelation. Though few of its victims realize it, this blockage renders those who think themselves highly capable more dependent than ever on people they are tempted to look down upon. From early childhood, men, in particular, are trained to pride themselves in their independence and to treat asking for help as humiliating weakness. Countering this brainwashing is not easy, but renewing our mind and dying to self needs to include an extensive revision of such worldly thinking. Mo re:      Real Christians Grieve       Men Crying in the Bible       Courage to Heal from Inner Pain Healing of Fears and Hurts Most of us have an exaggerated fear of at least one thing. Common examples are a fear of spiders or snakes or heights or flying or public speaking. If your phobia differs from mine it hardly makes one of us godlier than the other. The cause of exaggerated fears is usually neither spiritual nor medical but an unpleasant past experience. Many of us also have an inner wound due to some highly unpleasant past event and until it is healed it is like an open physical wound in that even a gentle touch on that area can be distressing. Just as serious physical wounds need attention, and neglect can make them worse, so it is with inner wounds. Trying to suppress or ignore inner pain is neither being spiritual nor strong but will prevent healing and perhaps even worsen the situation. We cannot expect God to miraculously flood this sensitive area of our lives with peace if we keep trying to run from it rather than face it head-on. God’s longing is not to anaesthetize but to heal; not to promote cowardly living in denial but courage. More:       Why Living in Denial is not of God       Fear, Phobias, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Christian Help & Cure The Rarely Understood Medical Factor Suppose you meet someone at church who is looking particularly haggard. You ask if anything is wrong and he informs you that he has been waking up in the middle of the night with a start and thumping heart. Would you embarrass yourself by piously launching into a dissertation as to how Jesus gives us peace, or would you wait for him to explain that his faulty smoke detector keeps going off randomly? Many of us make a mistake of this magnitude without ever realizing it. Our bodies are ingeniously designed to set off an inner alarm when there is danger, but like a faulty smoke detector, things can go haywire. A common medical disorder can cause the inner alarm to keep blaring when there is no danger. This excess anxiety is a medical problem, not a spiritual issue, just as a faulty fire alarm is a technical matter, not a spiritual one. Although most people with this medical problem suffer only one or two of the symptoms, it can manifest itself in a wide range of disturbing ways including: * guilt feelings that could get so intense and persistent that the victim keeps feeling utterly unforgivable * uncontrollable blasphemous thoughts * panic attacks that might be so severe that they seem like heart attacks * phobias such as agoraphobia or social phobia Believing the right thing is important, but when the primary cause is not what you believe but medical, the distressing feelings and side-effects will persist until the medical issue is healed. Medical problems require medical solutions and it is only Christians who are blind to this who should feel ashamed. It is my conviction that our wise and loving Lord sometimes allows trials and/or this medical condition to linger in order to build our faith, just like a sports coach can seek to build muscle in favored athletes, turning them into champions by insisting they run up hills, press weights and other activities that, in the short term, exhaust them and seem to weaken them rather than strengthen them. More: Scrupulosity: Religious OCD (Keep following the main link near the bottom of each page.) The Use of Medicine and Doctors: A Christian Perspective Peace with God Being at peace with God is of such mind-boggling importance that if the price for it were a lifetime of terror, worry and anxiety, it would be infinitely worth it. When the Bible speaks of peace with God it is referring to the fact that he has signed with his own lifeblood his total commitment to being our friend. This is despite the terrifying reality that, regardless of whether or not we feel it, the Holy Lord should be the enemy of everyone who has ever missed his immutable standard of absolute moral perfection. Romans 5:1, 10 Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ . . . while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son . . . (Emphasis mine.) The fearsome Lord of righteousness is the eternal enforcer of moral perfection and the executer of justice. As the ultimate owner of everything we have ever misused and the zealous defender and passionate lover of every person we have ever cheated, exploited, lusted after, lied to, gossiped about, resented, been jealous of, felt superior to, or have mistreated in any other way, the Holy Lord should be our resolute enemy and source of torment for all eternity. Instead, the Pure One took all our moral filth upon himself and the Innocent One assumed full blame for all our atrocious offenses. This is so staggering that the human mind has no hope of comprehending the enormity of what he did for us. Nevertheless, the consequence of the most stupendous display of love the universe has ever seen is that he, who should be our eternal enemy, has declared peace with us and made us his friend. And yet many of us needlessly allow ourselves to continue to assume blame, as if this magnanimous act of divine proportions had never occurred. More: Forgiving Yourself (and keep following the main link near the end of each page). Even those of us with a superior understanding of the magnitude of God’s forgiveness often waste far too much of our lives striving with God; treating him, if not as an enemy, at best as a reluctant friend who does not understand us. We squander our peace by struggling with him, rather than snuggling into him and pampering ourselves in the wondrous reality that he is even more on our side than we are. He is a better friend to us than we are to ourselves; loving and forgiving and believing in us more than we do. He weeps for us, making our pain his pain, understanding us better than we understand ourselves and having our highest interest more at heart than we do. If only we spent less time fighting our greatest Friend and more time luxuriating in faith-filled thanks to the most wonderful Person in the universe, our minds would rest in far more peace, far more comfort and far more contentment and fulfillment. Instead, we get frustrated with God, not understanding his heart and the perfection of his timing. We might even take our ignorance to the scandalous extreme of falsely blaming the Perfect One. Finite minds cannot be expected to comprehend the exquisiteness of God’s mind-blowing wisdom, nor the necessity of his timing, but we should at least be able to revel in the certainty that every speck of the limitless wisdom and power of the one who agonized on the cross for us is passionately focused on maximizing our highest good. Don’t frazzle yourself, squandering nervous energy on trying to get God to love you more, when his exclusive love for you is not merely stupendous but keeps exploding with mind-boggling intensity in every direction and dimension for all eternity. Fretting over how to get God to love you more is as needless as working yourself into a tizzy trying to get the God of infinite knowledge to understand your need, when his knowledge of your situation is already infinitely superior to your own understanding. Peace & Faith As much as we might wish it were otherwise, it is unbiblical to expect, in this life, peace that is never seriously challenged. We have no right even to expect imperfect peace to come without effort on our part. 1 Peter 4:12 Beloved, don’t be astonished at the fiery trial which has come upon you, to test you, as though a strange thing happened to you. Not only does living in God’s peace take more faith than I had once supposed, even when you experience that peace, it often takes faith just to believe that it is truly supernatural and not merely “mind over matter.” To be honest, I find that disappointing. The truth, however, is that faith is critical to every part of the Christian life. Consider Gideon. If Gideon had somehow misheard God, the results would not just be terrifying for him but catastrophic for the entire nation. He needed a faith boost, so he asked the angel for a sign that he was truly hearing from God. He got an astounding one. The angel touched the offering. It exploded into flames and then the angel vanished into thin air. Wow! Soon afterward, Gideon started worrying about the same thing again. He felt the need for yet another sign that would pump up his flagging faith. This time, he reasoned, he would leave nothing to doubt. The sign would be of his own choosing. He pondered the matter and decided to formulate a sign so ingenious that he knew it would annihilate all his doubts. He would put a fleece outside and if in the morning it was wet and the ground around was dry it would be such a miracle that he could be at peace, knowing for sure that God was with him and that all would be well. It happened just as he had asked. Then something totally unexpected occurred: his mind went into overdrive. What if there were some natural explanation? What if it had rained lightly early in the night and then evaporated from everywhere except where it was protected by the fleece’s fibers? Could an animal have been attracted to the fleece and urinated on it? What if . . . ? (Judges 6). If what he was certain would be the ultimate faith-boost, giving him the peace he craved, had fizzled to nothing in minutes, we can expect the same. Surprisingly many spiritual experiences that we imagine would be dramatic enough to boost our faith if they happened to us turn out to be more subtle that we expect and in the cold light of day take faith to believe they were actually supernatural. Divine peace is no exception. We imagine we crave some experience that boosts our faith but by that we really mean we want to experience something that is so compelling that we don’t need faith. Faith grows only when everything within us screams the opposite. Faith is spiritual muscle. It must be exercised if it is to grow or even be maintained. Peace: A Divine Partnership Discovering how to appropriate God’s peace, however, gels with what I learned decades ago from my yearning for my writing to be totally of God. I wanted it to be all of God and none of me. To my mind, it was obvious that this would most delight my Lord and I kept praying and praying and praying for it but to my bitter disappointment and frustration, Almighty God was not interested in overriding my role in the creative process. I was initially annoyed at God’s refusal but even in the original text of the Bible, the literary style of each human writer shines through. In Breakthrough in Creativity I detail the beautiful reasons for God loving each of us too much to reduce to mere dictating machines even his most inspired writers. Just as Naaman’s miraculous healing hinged on whether he decided to dip in the Jordan (2 Kings 5:10-14), God lets us determine the extent to which he moves in our lives. In fact, The Almighty so humbles himself that in the entire biblical record of God’s acts, the Omnipotent One did almost nothing without rendering himself dependent upon human help. For example, the sovereign Lord declared: Exodus 33:2 I will send an angel before you; and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite Nevertheless, even the commencement was delayed forty years because of the Israelites’ lack of faith. The miraculous collapse of Jericho’s walls depended upon the Israelites marching around it again and again and again. Then the next step in the divine battle plan was sabotaged because of Achan’s sin (Joshua 7). Next, the Lord’s plan to annihilate the inhabitants of Gibeon was foiled because Joshua forgot to consult God and mistakenly made a peace treaty that the Almighty then obligated himself to respect forever (Joshua 9:3ff). And the saga of people messing up the sovereign Lord’s battle plans continued. When two people love each other so much that they become one, their offspring becomes a unique creation that bears the characteristics of both partners. God loves us so passionately that he wants in our ministry – the offspring resulting from our intimacy with him – a similar blending of his characteristics and ours. God is not remotely like a drug pusher and his peace is not some heavenly version of dope. Regardless of how unworthy we might think ourselves, God loves, honors and trusts us so much that he refuses to reduce us to automatons but insists on moving in partnership with us. Whether it be spiritual gifts or any other aspect of the Christian life, God yearns not to do it all himself but for us to play a significant role. Us living in peace is no exception to this divine principle. Let’s look at this another way: the Bible groups peace with the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). In both biblical Greek and Hebrew (and even older English) “fruit” is a rich word. The term is not limited to just an aspect of plant reproduction but includes human reproduction (children). So “fruit of the Spirit” could be translated “the Holy Spirit’s offspring or child”. The Biblical Meaning of “Fruit” Fruit is an integral part of a plant’s reproductive system. (Not only does the fruit house the seeds, the fruit is designed to attract creatures that distribute the seeds.) To the writers of the Bible, however, the word applied not just to plants but to human reproduction. Just as the New Testament Greek word sperma was used not only for plant seed but human seed (sperm or children), so it was with the Greek word for fruit. Here’s irrefutable biblical proof: in the following verses, the same Greek word used for the fruit of the Spirit is clearly used to refer to human offspring: Luke 1:42 She called out with a loud voice, and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb !” Acts 2:30 Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body , according to the flesh, he would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne. (Emphasis mine.) Consider also the following Old Testament examples (the Old Testament considerably influenced New Testament Greek): Genesis 30:2 Jacob’s anger burned against Rachel, and he said, “Am I in God’s place, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb ?” Deuteronomy 7:13 And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of your body  . . . Psalm 127:3 Behold, children are a heritage of the Lord. The fruit of the womb is his reward. Psalm 132:11 The Lord has sworn to David in truth. He will not turn from it: “I will set the fruit of your body [“descendents” – NIV] on your throne.” Micah 6:7  . . . Shall I give my firstborn for my disobedience? The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? (Emphasis mine.) Just as physical intimacy with a human produces physical offspring, so intimacy with the Spirit of God produces spiritual offspring. What a beautiful thought! But here’s the rub: children take after both parents. Both the gifts and the fruit of the Spirit in your life are products of your union with God, and as such they bear, as it were, both your genes and God’s; having both natural and supernatural elements. The human contribution makes the result less than perfect, and yet God is so in love with us that every product of our intimacy with him delights him. Perfection can wait until heaven but the fruitfulness of our union with God starts now and it is something that we contribute to, as well as God. Let’s approach this from yet another angle: neither fruit nor children come fully grown. Fruit is initially unpalatable and newborn babies can do little but cry. If fruit takes long to sweeten and children need years of training, we are likely to be disappointed if we expect peace to start off as robust and fully developed as we might wish. As in the natural, everything in our spiritual life takes time to develop. Consider these Scriptures: Proverbs 4:18 But the path of the righteous is like the dawning light, that shines more and more until the perfect day. Mark 4:26,28  . . . God’s Kingdom is . . . first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. Ephesians 4:15  . . . we may grow up in all things into him, who is the head, Christ Colossians 2:19  . . . the Head, from whom all the body, being supplied and knit together through the joints and ligaments, grows with God’s growth. 2 Thessalonians 1:3  . . . your faith grows exceedingly , and the love of each and every one of you toward one another abounds 1 Peter 2:2 as newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the Word, that with it you may grow. 2 Peter 3:18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. . . . (Emphasis mine.) Spiritual Growth Psalm 84:5, 7 Blessed are those whose strength is in you; . . . They go from strength to strength . . . Mark 4:30-32 . . . God’s Kingdom . . . It’s like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, though it is less than all the seeds that are on the earth, yet when it is sown, grows up, and becomes greater than all the herbs, and puts out great branches, so that the birds of the sky can lodge under its shadow. John 15:2 Every branch in me that doesn’t bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 1 Corinthians 3:6 I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase. 2 Corinthians 9:10 Now may he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food, supply and multiply your seed for sowing, and increase the fruits of your righteousness 2 Corinthians 10:15 . . . as your faith grows . . . Galatians 4:19 My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ is formed in you . . . Philippians 1:9 This I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment Colossians 1:6 . . .even as it is in all the world and is bearing fruit and growing, as it does in you also, since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth 1 Thessalonians 4:1 . . .we beg and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, that you abound more and more. 2 Peter 1:5-8 . . . adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence; and in moral excellence, knowledge; and in knowledge, self-control; and in self-control patience; and in patience godliness; and in godliness brotherly affection; and in brotherly affection, love. For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful to the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Despite us wanting everything immediately, the Bible keeps insisting that spiritual things grow. Seldom, if ever, do they arrive fully developed in a Christian’s life. Moreover, even for the divine elements within a Christian, there is a human contribution that inevitably renders them less than perfect, just as a little child’s best efforts are imperfect and yet they still delight a loving father’s heart. Additionally, we have gleaned from Jesus’ battle with temptation that we can expect times when our peace is more under attack – and hence harder to hold on to – than at other times. Peace is Resting in the Certainty that God Knows Best A missionary was ill. To make matters worse, her support money had not come through. Things were so desperate that she had nothing to eat. The only food left in her cupboard was oats. And this appalling situation kept on and on and on. When faced with such a predicament, we can either fret or rest. It is not for God to supernaturally flood us with gooey feelings. It is for us to choose. What would your choice be? Would you choose to think that God is cruel or would you snuggle into the certainly that God is good? Would you fear that God has abandoned you or bask in the integrity of the faithful Lord who said, “I will in no way leave you, neither will I in any way forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5)? Would you accuse God or blame evil forces? Would you narrow your thinking to this speck in time or seek an eternal perspective? Would you resent God or maintain that it is infinitely better to die of starvation serving the King of kings than feast in luxury while wasting your life, achieving nothing of divine significance? Would you beat yourself up for lack of faith or recall that the great apostle Paul wrote often of being hungry, and even the Lord of glory went hungry when he walked this planet? Apostle Paul Philippians 4:12 I know what it is to be in need , and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry , whether living in plenty or in want. 1 Corinthians 4:11 To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty , we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. 2 Corinthians 6:4-5 Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger 2 Corinthians 11:27 I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food ; I have been cold and naked. Jesus Mark 3:20 Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat . Mark 6:31 Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat  . . . Matthew 4:2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. (Emphasis mine) Would you see it as an unredeemable disaster or delight in the fact that trials build Christlike character, which brings eternal reward? Would you rail against God or lovingly delight in the assurance that God’s ways are higher than our ways? Would you complain that God owes you or gratefully acknowledge that all you deserve is an eternity in hell from the moment of your first sin? Would you worry that God is displeased with you or rest in the knowledge that the forgiving Lord gave his very life for you? Would you bring yourself down with a pity party or lift yourself with a praise party? Would you gripe about not having luxuries or give thanks for the oats? Would you sink in despair, concluding that no good could possibly result from this or would you keep your head above water by clinging to God’s promise to work all things together for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28)? Eventually, things improved for the missionary. Some time later, she related the story to a doctor. He informed her that with the particular illness she had had, a normal diet could have killed her. The best thing in such circumstances, he said, is to eat oats. One of the keys to divine peace is choosing to praise when everything within us wants to fret, worry and be miserable. At the very time that we most need it, praise is like trying to drag our weary bodies out of bed when it is freezing cold outside the blankets. But praise lifts us heavenward, empowering us to look down on earthly problems, causing them to shrink in our view and lose their power to upset us as we gain heaven’s perspective. The first link will inspire you to make that life-changing move. The other links will open your eyes to how astoundingly trustworthy and good God is. More:    Praise: God’s Anti-Depressant     God’s Will for You: More Wonderful than You Dare Hope       God’s Goodness The Power and Limits of Faith and Prayer Isaiah 26:3 You will keep whoever’s mind is steadfast in perfect peace, because he trusts in you. Note how peace is contingent upon keeping one’s mind steadfast and on trusting God. The role of a steadfast mind is expounded here: James 1:5-6  . . . let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach; and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, without any doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed. Mention of the sea takes me full circle by bringing my mind back to another reference in Isaiah to peace: Isaiah 57:20-21 But the wicked are like the troubled sea; for it can’t rest, and its waters cast up mire and mud. “There is no peace”, says my God, “for the wicked.” Peace comes from being resolute and unwavering, both in one’s commitment to be godly and in one’s conviction that God is good and is passionately devoted to our highest good. Learning not to waver is like learning to ride a bike: it takes time, and one is sure to be wobbly at first. Falling off the bike is not a defeat nor an indication of ungodliness; it is part of the learning process. Likewise, living is peace is learned through practice and it is normal for early efforts to look pathetic even though it is to be the path to success. Let’s look further into the role of faith and prayer: Philippians 4:6-7 In nothing be anxious, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving , let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God , which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus . (Emphasis mine) One of the invaluable things about praying with thanksgiving is that focusing on God’s blessings builds up faith. Faith and prayer are indispensable to every part of the Christian walk. It is a serious mistake, however, to try to pervert these precious gifts into an excuse for spiritual laziness. Too often we find ourselves waiting for God to answer our prayer, when he is waiting for us to act. When Faith and Prayer are Not Enough Exodus 14:15 The Lord said to Moses, “Why do you cry to me? Speak to the children of Israel, that they go forward. . . .” Joshua 7:8,10-12 Oh, Lord, what shall I say, after Israel has turned their backs before their enemies! . . . The Lord said to Joshua, “Get up! Why have you fallen on your face like that? Israel has sinned . . . Therefore the children of Israel can’t stand before their enemies . . .” 1 Samuel 15:22  . . .Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the Lord’s voice? . . . 1 Samuel 16:1 The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go. I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite; for I have provided a king for myself among his sons.” Psalms 66:18 If I cherished sin in my heart, the Lord wouldn’t have listened. Proverbs 28:9 He who turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination. Isaiah 58:6-8 “Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen: to release the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke? Isn’t it to distribute your bread to the hungry, and that you bring the poor who are cast out to your house? . . . Then . . . your healing will appear quickly . . . Isaiah 59:1-2 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it can’t save; nor his ear dull, that it can’t hear. But your iniquities have separated you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. Micah 3:4 Then they will cry to The Lord, but he will not answer them. Yes, he will hide his face from them at that time, because they made their deeds evil.” Matthew 5:24 Leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. 1 Peter 3:7 You husbands, in the same way, live with your wives according to knowledge, giving honor to the woman, as to the weaker vessel, as being also joint heirs of the grace of life; that your prayers may not be hindered . (Emphasis mine) For example, we can be praying for peace, when God is waiting for us to dispel fear and worry by building up our faith through praising God. We can be waiting for God to zap us with peace, when he is waiting for us to die to self. We can be “believing God” for a soft life when God is expecting us to use trials as a training regime to develop Christlike character. We can want God’s peace as a sleeping pill, when what is keeping us awake is our refusal to make peace with someone by forgiving him. We need less gimmes in our prayers – give me gooey feelings, give me bliss, give me a lazy, carefree life – and more thankyous and showmes. We need more prayers like: * Thank you that you will bring me through this. * Thank you that you are continually sustaining me and blessing me more than I realize. * Show me my current concerns from your holy, eternal perspective. * Show me what I must do to be Christlike – to delight you, to live in holiness, to walk with you in love, joy, peace, etc. We must take this seriously: James 4:3 You ask, and don’t receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it for your pleasures. Why Peace Seems So Elusive My rough count reveals at least 89 instances in the Bible when God either directly or through a divinely inspired spokesperson (such as an angel or prophet) told people not to be afraid. Include times when he told people not to worry or be anxious and you pass the hundred mark – and still more if you include telling people to “go in peace”. You have probably met this so often in your Bible reading that you find it unremarkable. So let me pose this question: why did the Almighty Prince of Peace repeatedly go to the effort of making such statements rather than simply zapping those people with peace as if firing a celestial tranquilizer gun? Here's a quote from one of my webpages about fear: I heard a Christian song. The words were fine except for part of one line that said something like, take away my fears. I don’t recall anything like that in the Bible. Instead of God repeatedly promising to stop us from feeling afraid, I read over and over and over of God promising to remove all reason for us being afraid. Then he puts the onus on us by telling us not to cave in to fear. I read such things as: Isaiah 35:4 Tell those who have a fearful heart, “Be strong. Don’t be afraid. Behold, your God will come with vengeance, God’s retribution. He will come and save you. Isaiah 41:13 For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand, saying to you, ‘Don’t be afraid. I will help you.’ Isaiah 51:7 Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law: Don’t fear the reproach of men, and don’t be dismayed at their insults. Jeremiah 42:11 Don’t be afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid; don’t be afraid of him, says the Lord: for I am with you to save you, and to deliver you from his hand. 1 Peter 3:6 as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose children you now are, if you do well, and are not put in fear by any terror. 1 Peter 3:14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed. “Don’t fear what they fear, neither be troubled.” Genesis 15:1 After these things the Lord’s word came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Don’t be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.” Exodus 14:13 Moses said to the people, “Don’t be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today: for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you shall never see them again. Deuteronomy 20:3 and shall tell them, “Hear, Israel, you draw near today to battle against your enemies. Don’t let your heart faint! Don’t be afraid, nor tremble, neither be scared of them Ezekiel 2:6 You, son of man, don’t be afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns are with you, and you do dwell among scorpions: don’t be afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house. Luke 12:4 I tell you, my friends, don’t be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. John 14:27  . . . Don’t let your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful. Revelation 2:10 Don’t be afraid of the things which you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested; and you will have oppression for ten days. Be faithful to death, and I will give you the crown of life. If I were willing to risk boring you by getting excessive, I could cite over seventy more such Scriptures. There is no point trying to pass the buck, saying, “Lord, do it – you take my fear away. He simply replies, “No, you do it – refuse to let fear hold you back.” The God of truth declares you have no reason for being afraid. So don’t be bullied by irrational feelings. Your feelings are not your God, so refuse to act as if they were. Don’t let them dictate your beliefs or actions. Being overwhelmed by powerful waves of peace is as empty as a drug-induced haze, relative to the God of infinite knowledge and power – the God who cannot lie and whose love for you is more vast than the universe – stating that everything is okay. To prefer feelings is like preferring $5 in cash over a check for a billion dollars. What makes it interesting is that, unlike the trifling amount of cash, a check requires faith in the person who signed it. We have noted that many people fall into temptation because they keep waiting for God to do what he expects us to do: to put in the effort. Likewise, many of us miss out on peace because we are idly waiting for a miracle rather than putting in the effort required to take God at his word that there is no need to fear or worry. It is like Peter walking on water: even though the result was supernatural, when Jesus said “Come,” he still had to take Jesus at his word, climb out of the boat and start walking (Matthew 14:29). Whether it be Moses having to throw his rod on the ground before it turned into a snake, the Israelites having to march around and around and around Jericho before the walls fell, the servants having to draw the water before it turned into wine, or so very many other biblical examples, miracles almost always hinge on people doing something natural before the supernatural manifests itself. Yes, the Omnipotent Lord could (and occasionally does) miraculously deliver from temptation or give peace when the human participants put in little or no effort, but God’s usual preference is for miracles to be a partnership between us and him, and if we do not do our part, the miracle will never occur. I used to naively assume that if God gave me peace I would be enveloped by the blissful feeling no matter what. But gifts don’t operate that way. If I gave you a warm blanket on a cold night, what you do with my gift is up to you. To enjoy the blanket you must choose to snuggle into it and stay in its warmth. If you decide you don’t deserve my generosity, or object to its color, you can push it aside and shiver in the cold, no matter how cozy the blanket is. My eyes were opened to this as I helped a friend I’ll call Robbie. There was a real possibility of virtually her worst nightmare becoming gut-wrenching reality. As a young mother, Robbie had been subjected to terrifying dangers regarding the safety of her baby. So intense was this prolonged crisis that this strong woman developed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This awful affliction causes people to see dangers even where there are none. It is what compels courageous soldiers to remain on hyper-alert, diving for cover when a car backfires and suffering nightmare after nightmare after returning from frontline dangers to the safety of home at the end of active duty. Through no fault of her own, panicking when there was no danger had become a way of life for Robbie and it had continued for almost two decades. Now there was a real chance of the terrors that had created her Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – threats to her child’s safety – materializing into icy cold reality. She had done her very best as a mother but, like many good mothers, guilt and wishing she had done more were always stalking her like a pack of wolves. The Lord clearly spoke to her, saying he was giving her peace that passes understanding but that she must embrace that peace and not cave into the guilt and condemnation that so persistently haunted her. Despite God’s gift of peace, Robbie discovered how easy it is to yield to the deceptively enticing but maliciously false accusation that unless one is worrying, one is not showing sufficient love and compassion for a loved one. She also found that because God’s peace passes understanding, embracing this peace will be at odds with logic. Logic should be your friend but in this case it will turn against you, giving you reasons to worry. It will entice you to explore a million what ifs , but to do so is to let go of your Christ-bought peace. Robbie found that God’s peace was like holding on to a priceless gift in the midst of a jostling crowd. Often the gift would slip from her grasp and she would have to seize it again. Many in the crowd would have loved to steal it but through Christ she was stronger and able to grab it back. Is this Really Biblical? We have used logic and one woman’s experience to affirm that no matter how much supernatural peace God gives, it still depends on us whether we let that peace rule in our hearts or we cave into negative thinking and emotions. Logic and experience, however, are weak indicators of God’s ways. The critical issue is whether it is taught in God’s Word. We have already examined many Scriptures, but since what we have been discovering in the Bible clashes alarmingly with common presumptions about divine peace, let’s indulge ourselves by exploring even more of God’s biblical revelation to humanity. Here is an intriguing Scripture: Hebrews 12:11 All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been exercised thereby . (Emphasis mine.) Note how peace is linked in this verse with training. We are instantly granted Jesus’ righteousness when we place our faith in him and yet for us to daily live righteous lives we must learn how to exercise our Christ-bought power over temptation. Likewise, it takes training before we can daily live in peace. As little children, we had to learn how to walk. We would fall and cry but we kept trying until we finally mastered the art. Similarly, we need to learn how to walk in the Spirit, one of the results of which is peace. Note also this: 1 Peter 3:11 Let him turn away from evil, and do good. Let him seek peace, and pursue it. (Emphasis mine.) So here, too, we see that righteousness and peace takes effort on our part. Romans 14:19 So then, let us follow after things which make for peace, and things by which we may build one another up. (Emphasis mine.) We know that the Bible bunches peace with the “fruit of the Spirit”: Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace , patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. . . . (Emphasis mine.) So for further confirmation that peace takes effort on our part let’s sample some of the Spirit’s fruit. For an overview, let’s select the first and the last in the divinely inspired list. The romantic emotion that hits a person independent of his or her will is not biblical love. No matter how much love God gives us, it still comes down to whether we keep deciding to resist the temptation to be selfish. Similarly, just because the Spirit gives us self-control does not mean we can never sin. Regardless of how Spirit-filled we are, how much we live in love and self-control is our choice. Likewise, no matter how much peace God gives us, whether we live in that peace or let fear, doubt and worry dominate us, depends upon our moment-by-moment decisions. This is confirmed by the following: Colossians 3:14-15 Above all these things, walk in love . . . let the peace of God rule in your hearts . . . (Emphasis mine.) Neither love nor peace is something that is automatic for Christians. You must keep choosing to “ put on love” and to “ let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts”. We have looked at the beginning and the end of the Bible’s description of the fruit of the Spirit and both these products of divine intimacy require effort on our part. Is this just coincidence? Let’s examine yet another: faithfulness. Jesus repeatedly said such things as: Matthew 25:23  . . . Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord. So faithfulness is clearly an achievement; something worthy of commendation and reward – not something that comes effortlessly. But what if we follow the King James rendering and take this reference in the fruit of the Spirit as referring not to faithfulness but to faith? Remarkably, the conclusion is identical. For example, we find Jesus repeatedly praising or rebuking people according to their level of faith. It hardly takes a genius to realize that patience, kindness, goodness and gentleness fall into the same category. They are all virtues, moral achievements, praise-worthy acts. Having now looked at more than two-thirds of the Spirit’s fruit and consistently found them to be praise-worthy decisions, not feelings, isn’t it safe to assume that that this applies to all the fruit of the Spirit, including peace? Perhaps you find joy a sticking point. If one part of this divine list of the Spirit’s fruit is a feeling, not a decision, we might be left with a nagging doubt that perhaps peace is likewise not a decision we make. Like love, however, the Bible keeps commanding us to rejoice and be joyful: Deuteronomy 16:14 You shall rejoice in your feast . . . Deuteronomy 28:47-48 Because you didn’t serve the Lord your God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, by reason of the abundance of all things . . . you will serve your enemies whom the Lord sends against you . . . Psalms 100:2 Serve the Lord with gladness. . . . Luke 6:22-23 Blessed are you when men shall hate you, and when they shall exclude and mock you, and throw out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake. Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy . . . Romans 12:12 rejoicing in hope; enduring in troubles; continuing steadfastly in prayer (Emphasis mine) Philippians 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always! Again I will say, “Rejoice!” James 1:2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various temptations 1 Thessalonians 5:16 Rejoice always. Clearly, for anyone other than an idiot to command anything, it must be something the person has the power to choose to do. If joy were merely a feeling that occurs because of circumstances or a sovereign act of God, scriptures such as the above would be nonsensical. So, as we have kept finding with the fruit of the Spirit, joy is a virtue. It is an on-going decision; the product of a daily resolve to rejoice in God; to delight in him no matter what circumstances we face: Habakkuk 3:17-18 For though the fig tree doesn’t flourish, nor fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive fails, the fields yield no food; the flocks are cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls: [i.e. even if everything goes wrong and I am facing financial ruin and possible starvation] yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in the God of my salvation! This attitude, by the way, will also greatly help peace. We will later discover that the interconnectedness within the fruit of the Spirit is of profound significance to anyone wanting peace. It would be wandering way off track to devote still more space to proving that joy is not spiritual dope but takes determined effort on our part. Our fleeting glimpse, however, should suffice to indicate that joy being grouped with peace in no way weakens what the rest of the Bible indicates about peace requiring effort on our part. But here’s the clincher: John 14:27 Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, give I to you. Don’t let your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful. This is crystal clear: even when Jesus gives his peace, we still have to choose not to let our hearts be troubled and not to be afraid. This dovetails with: Philippians 4:6-7 In nothing be anxious, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus. Despite this text strongly emphasizing the supernatural nature of this peace, we see yet again that enjoying this stupendous gift hinges on us striving to “not be anxious about anything.” We have seen from our brief but extensive overview of the Spirit’s fruit that the Bible categorizes peace not with sovereign acts of God but with virtues and moral achievements such as patience, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. Moreover, we found that these products of divine intimacy are not plopped full grown into our lap but take much effort on our part to develop. What we are discovering from other Scriptures about peace slots perfectly into this framework. The Surprising Secret of Supernatural Peace I have experienced mind-boggling peace. The miracle occurred through entering deeper than ever before into what the Bible calls dying to self. This peace ruled during an astounding set of circumstances that, to the utter bewilderment of my wife and I, seemed to indicate that I was about to lose not only my house, but my most precious thing on earth: my wife whom I so passionately love and am very dependent upon. Moreover, I was led to believe that I was going to be betrayed and falsely accused worldwide of such atrocious things that the result would not merely be devastatingly embarrassing but that my ministry (which is virtually my entire life) would be ruined. Everything that meant anything to me on earth was about to be lost forever. The person at the center of this colossal misunderstanding ended up seeing things as they really were and fully repented of the very real threats aimed at me. Nevertheless, I found the experience invaluable in highlighting to me the link between the peace the Bible speaks of and its many references to dying to self. It is sickening enough to be reeling under a satanic onslaught without having some holier-than-thou do-gooder twisting the knife by falsely implying your agony is because you are an inadequate Christian. So it is most important to me that my writings remain firmly entrenched in spiritual realism and not enter some exaggerated or fanciful realm that leaves readers floundering, or vulnerable to the Accuser’s attempt to falsely condemn during times when practical reality does not match what I portray. So I must point out that the situation when I thought I was facing disaster came out of nowhere and lasted only a day or so. This short timeframe means there must have been an element of shock involved – a natural, rather than supernatural, numbing of one’s distress. Nevertheless, there is a strong biblical connection between the fruit of the Spirit (of which peace is a part) and dying to self: Galatians 5:22-24 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace . . . and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts . Some people feel as if the only way to have peace is to try to have full control of their circumstances. The reality, of course, is that this is doomed because no one can control all of his or her circumstances. In fact, lasting peace necessitates us relinquishing our efforts to control our circumstances and letting God assume full control of every aspect of our lives. The theoretical advantages of dying to self are undeniable: go to any extreme you wish to threaten a corpse, slander it, rob it, torture it, terrify it or expose it to great danger, and it will remain unmoved. Reaching that degree of disinterest while one’s heart is still beating, however, is quite another matter. Moreover, we fear what we wrongly perceive as frightening disadvantages associated with dying to self. These supposed disadvantages are exploded in the Spiritual Secrets link below. The fundamental key to finding the peace that transcends all understanding is reaching that point of yielding to God where nothing (not life, happiness, material things, relationships, reputation, vocation, avoiding suffering, or anything else) really matters to you except God and him having his holy, wise and loving way in every aspect of your life. If, for example, everything you regard as your treasure is in heaven, you will not fear losing your job, being robbed, or a global financial meltdown. Reaching this point of abandonment and trust, however, is not easy. One key is to not wait for a crisis but even when things are going swimmingly to continually practice these Scriptures: Colossians 3:2 Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth. Psalm 49:16-17 Don’t be afraid when a man is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased. For when he dies he shall carry nothing away. His glory shall not descend after him. Psalm 62:10 . . . If riches increase, don’t set your heart on them. Psalm 119:36 Turn my heart toward your statutes, not toward selfish gain. Psalm 119:37 Turn my eyes away from looking at worthless things. Revive me in your ways. Luke 12:15 . . . Beware! Keep yourselves from covetousness, for a man’s life doesn’t consist of the abundance of the things which he possesses. Romans 8:5 . . . those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 1 John 2:15,17 Don’t love the world or the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the Father’s love isn’t in him. . . . The world is passing away with its lusts, but he who does God’s will remains forever. Dying to self doesn’t mean ceasing to care about people – people are infinitely important to the God of love. It doesn’t mean giving up – through God we are winners. It doesn’t mean ceasing to put in enormous effort – Jesus sweat until it was like blood. Dying to self means no longer trying to get things for yourself – whether protection, fulfillment, achievement, peace or whatever. Such things are no longer your concern. If they come, praise God; if they don’t, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is God, because his way is perfect and can never be improved on. And when that attitude floods your heart, you have peace no matter what horrors are exploding around you. More:  Spiritual Secrets: Dying to Self Peace, Contentment, Fulfillment: A Radical Call to Authentic Christianity The Neglected Essentials for Peace Let’s return to our earlier observation that the very spiritual activity that promotes joy – rejoicing in God no matter how bleak the circumstances – also contributes to peace. This interconnectedness is no coincidence. Some scholars make much of the Bible saying, “The fruit of the Spirit is . . .” rather than, “The fruits of the Spirit are . . .” If someone learning English asked what part of an apple is the fruit, you would reply, “The fruit is the skin, flesh, core and seeds,” just as the Bible says the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace and so on. The various elements of an apple are not fruits. It is only fruit when all the elements form one whole, by being united in the way that God grows fruit. Each element is so dependent upon the others that if just one element – the skin, the core, or whatever – were removed from a fruit growing on a tree, the entire fruit would soon begin to rot. Every part of the Spirit’s fruit is not only from the same source – our intimacy with God – every part is a facet of the one jewel or, looked at another way, a vital organ of the same divinely-conceived baby. Of particular interest to our search for peace is that each aspect of the fruit of the Spirit contributes to peace. For example, a dear, chronically ill friend of mine was crossing a street at night with a female companion. A car deliberately sped up and my friend’s companion narrowly escaped being hurt. The car stopped and four men got out, one of whom punched my friend in the face. That would shake anyone up but what powerfully calmed my friend is that he filled with deep love and compassion for the four strangers involved in the incident. Love powers forgiveness which quells anger, an enemy of peace. Likewise, patience, gentleness and self-control combine to increase one’s peace by lessening conflict in interpersonal relationships: Proverbs 15:1 A gentle answer turns away wrath . . . Proverbs 16:32 One who is slow to anger is better than the mighty; one who rules his spirit, than he who takes a city. Here are a few more examples of how each aspect of the Spirit’s fruit/offspring contributes to peace: * What we give we will receive “pressed down, shaken together, and running over” (Luke 6:38), so if we give people kindness we are more likely to receive kindness and so enjoy less relationship strife and receive more support. * Self-control in spending will lower financial stress. * Patience aids our peace by helping us be less focused on the immediate. * If you are faithful in prayerfully reading the Word of God, you will accumulate a vast store of spiritual wisdom with which to handle a crisis. * And the more you think about it, the more helps to peace you will discover in the fruit of the Spirit. We have learned much about peace from the company it keeps and there is still more that this approach will uncover. For example, there is a particularly strong link between peace and righteousness: Isaiah 32:17 The work of righteousness will be peace  . . . Psalms 119:165 Those who love your law have great peace. . . . Isaiah 48:18 Oh that you had listened to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea. Isaiah 57:2 He enters into peace. They rest in their beds, each one who walks in his uprightness  . . . Isaiah 57:21 “There is no peace”, says my God, “for the wicked.” Isaiah 60:17  . . . I will also make peace your governor, and righteousness your ruler. Malachi 2:5-6 My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him that he might be reverent toward me; and he was reverent toward me, and stood in awe of my name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many away from iniquity. (Emphasis mine) This link with righteousness is not surprising: to have the fruit of the Spirit, one must have abandoned the works of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21) and “walk by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25), which involves being in submission to his holy ways: Romans 8:6-7, 13-14 For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace; because the mind of the flesh is hostile toward God; for it is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can it be. . . . For if you live after the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are children of God. Peace cannot survive in a spiritual vacuum. Lasting peace is impossible except by nurturing all the rest of the fruit of the Spirit, plus prayer, thanksgiving, righteousness and every other aspect of godly living you can think of. Consider these Scriptures: 2 John 1:3 Grace, mercy and peace will be with us, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love . Psalms 85:10 Mercy and truth meet together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Isaiah 55:12 For you shall go out with joy , and be led out with peace  . . . Zechariah 8:19  . . . Therefore love truth and peace . Romans 15:13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing , that you may abound in hope , in the power of the Holy Spirit. 2 Corinthians 13:11  . . . Be perfected, be comforted, be of the same mind, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Ephesians 6:23 Peace be to the brothers, and love with faith , from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Timothy 1:2 to Timothy, my true child in faith: Grace, mercy and peace , from God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. 2 Timothy 2:22 Flee from youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart . Romans 14:17 for God’s Kingdom is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. (Emphasis mine) And, of course, there’s the Scripture already quoted: Philippians 4:6-7 In nothing be anxious but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving , let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God , which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus. (Emphasis mine) Divine peace arrives permanently melded to every other quality God expects his children to manifest. All Godly qualities – of which peace is one – are like essential bodily organs than can survive without each other no more than your brain could survive without the rest of your body. Or look at this way: the Prince of Peace needs to dwell in us: Galatians 4:19 My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ is formed in you John 14:23 . . . If a man loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him. No one can carve up the holy Son of God, saying, for example, his joy can enter but not the rest of him. You cannot invite the Prince of Peace to reign in your heart without extending the same invitation to the Lord of lords. The same person is both the forgiving Savior and the terrifying holy Lord who stays set apart from sinners. The one who stoops to lift us up remains the one before whom we must bow. He is both the lamb and the lion. He who is mindful of our every weakness is a consuming fire. There is healing in his wings but he comes as the sun of righteousness. He who came not to judge will return as Judge. We cannot have peace without devoting ourselves to everything else that is Christlike. Wrap Up If seeking peace means we are seeking an easy life, we are hurtling headlong into a spiritual crisis. We will get very frustrated with God until we finally realize that his plans for us are far higher and nobler than most of us dream. We want to feel good; he wants us to be good. We long to be comfortable; he longs for us to be great achievers and spiritual champions. Romans 8:17 . . . heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him. 2 Timothy 2:3 You therefore must endure hardship, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 2 Timothy 2:12 If we endure, we will also reign with him. . . . We want peace to be something we don’t have to work at. We hope for a divine miracle that requires little or no input from us. But despite being all-powerful, the God of love is into partnership, not domination. He is into relationship and faith. He yearns for regal children, not slaves; Christlike confidants, not robots; moral achievers, not drugged-out zombies. Peace is a virtue; a praise-worthy achievement that requires divine help but demands our full-blooded cooperation and input. Like the love the Bible keeps commanding, biblical peace is a decision, not a feeling. And living in peace is about continually opting to do so. We overcome fear by taking Christ’s hand and facing our fears. Likewise, we overcome inner turmoil, not by trying to push it down and pretending everything is fine, but by facing those issues with Christ, acknowledging their intensity and pouring out our heart to God until they are resolved. Just as leprous Naaman had to humble himself by dipping in the dirty Jordan before God acted, so for God to bring about inner healing we might have to humble ourselves by seeking human counsel. We have noted that peace and all the rest of the Spirit’s fruit is a product of our union with God. Merely signing a marriage license will not cause anyone to “be fruitful and multiply.” To have many children takes years of frequent intimacy with one’s partner. And children are a huge responsibility. It takes much effort and commitment to properly look after and train children. As with the natural, so it is with the spiritual. The Spirit of God is overflowing with love, joy, peace, etc. The closer we get to God, the more we will become like him. The more we get to know God, letting him share with us what is on his heart, the more we will be able to view from his perspective everything that worries, frightens, annoys, frustrates or defeats us. Seeing people, events and circumstances as God sees them will transform our outlook, incrementally filling our hearts with more and more love, joy, peace and every other aspect of the fruit of the Spirit. It takes time to gain God’s view of the universe, and continual effort to train ourselves to keep seeing things God’s way when it is so easy to revert to our old, human way of seeing things. Taking on God’s perspective is related to dying to self – denying ourselves our old, human way of seeing, believing and acting – and accepting God’s way as the right way. This is not a one-off spiritual experience but a daily occurrence: Luke 9:23 . . . If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. ( NIV, Emphasis mine.) 1 Corinthians 15:31 . . . I die daily. I could have sought popularity by pandering wishful thinking about peace. Rather than set you up for bewildered disappointment, however, I have sought to be ruthlessly honest about what the Bible really teaches. It turns out that peace is not heaven’s drug; it is an achievement. It is not a tranquilizer gun that God keeps in hand for emergencies. It is the product of continual intimacy with God; of daily following Scripture’s directive to store up treasure in heaven, not on earth; to fix our minds on things above; to die to self and declare with the great Apostle, “For to me, to live is Christ . . .” We will never find the peace of God in a piece of God. For the peace of God we need all of God. For God’s peace to rule in your heart, God himself must rule in your heart. Peace is not found in a box of spiritual trinkets we can rummage through and select whatever titillates us. It comes inseparably melded to everything else that together makes God’s heart. Having peace necessitates not only acting as if we have the heart of God but, through the miracle of spiritual new birth and daily dying to self, actually having his very heart throbbing within us; driving our thoughts and deeds every moment of every day. Those who seek peace will never find it, just as those who seek to save their lives will lose their lives (Luke 9:24). We come alive to God by dying to self – by surrendering all claim to our comfort and desires. We have the peace of God when the God of peace has us, but even then, God has promised us troubles and trials. There will be times when God’s peace in our lives will be so seriously challenged as to be hardly recognizable. We have seen godly Job and St. Paul speaking as if they had no peace, and even the Holy Son of God, who urged us to follow him, had to wrestle in the garden over doing things God’s way. So we all can expect significant battles. When Christ struggled in the garden he seemed anything but peaceful, but as he was victorious, so can you, by uniting with him, letting him be your leader and inspiration as you keep crucifying the flesh and making Christlike decisions. The result with bring glory to God – and to you. Related Pages Fear: Help & Cure Help When Doubt Knocks: How to Grow in Faith Life’s Mysteries Explained Spiritual Secrets: Dying to Self

The Faith that Gets Results The following is from my How to Know God Deeper series. I urge you to read the entire series but if you prefer to focus exclusively on faith, here are the relevant parts. If you don’t believe your efforts to know God better will be rewarded by knowing him better, your motivation will evaporate. Since faith and being motivated are inseparable, consider all the people in the Bible who would have missed out if they had just been a little less motivated and had given in just a little to natural shyness and defeatism. We will look at women and men who were hoping for healing or deliverance. Like them, you want results, but if what you want differs from them, don’t be distracted by what their heart was set on. Instead, zero in on what these incidents reveal about the type of faith that wins God’s praise and gets results. ♦ A paralyzed man had no way of getting to Jesus. Rather than resign himself to the impossible, he talked and talked until he had persuaded enough people to carry him to Jesus. When they finally got there, the house was crowed out. Refusing to give in to the hopelessness of the situation, they had the audacity to somehow hoist him onto the roof and then dug a hole in it – a great way to make yourself popular – and then lowered him through the hole (Mark 2:2-4). ♦ A Canaanite woman, scorned all her life by every self-respecting Jew as a pagan foreigner, seemed to get the same treatment from Jesus. He ignored her pleas, virtually called her a dog and said it wasn’t right to heal her. Pushing aside not only Jesus’ inexplicable behavior but a lifelong history of rejection, she kept on trying. By sheer persistence she not only ended up with the miracle she craved but was publicly praised by Jesus for having impressive faith (Matthew 15:22-28). ♦ The father of a demon possessed boy hunted down Jesus’ very disciples, begging them for help. They tried their hardest and failed miserably. Instead of realizing it was impossible and giving up, this desperate father sought out the busy Jesus himself and pleaded for his help. He, too, ended up with what he wanted (Matthew 17:14-16). ♦ A despised beggar kept shouting out to Jesus. Told by the crowd to shut up, he refused to do the dignified thing and comply, but shouted all the louder. He got his miracle.(Mark 10:46-52). ♦ The woman who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years was unclean. She had no right being in a tightly packed crowd trying to touch a holy man. In any case, weakened by her illness, she could hardly expect to compete with all the healthier people jostling for a position close to Jesus who, (why not add another complication?) was on an urgent mission to get to a dying girl. Like all the others I’ve mentioned, no matter how impossible it seemed, she kept trying. Despite everything and everyone seeming to be against her, she forced her way to Jesus and got her miracle. ♦ Someone actually got to physically touch the Son of God for quite some time and to be publicly honored by him. To achieve this, she had to be so desperate to be close to Jesus that she not only gatecrashed a party where she knew the host and his friends despised her (Luke 7:39) but to literally let down her hair and humiliate herself by crying in public, with her snotty nose next to Jesus’ unwashed feet (Luke 7:44) that had walked in open sandals on streets that were not only dusty but strewn with little gifts from donkeys, camels, hens, goats, sheep and who knows what else. By recording such instances over and over in his Word, do you get what God is so keen for us to see? Faith isn’t about mental gymnastics or screwing up your face until you burst a blood vessel. It’s simply refusing to give up, no matter how tempting it is to conclude that not just circumstances but the Almighty himself, who could change circumstances in the blink of an eye, must be against you. Consider all the Apostle Paul’s humiliations, floggings, stonings, foiled plans, and opposition from people in the church. Foiled plans Romans 1:13 Now I don’t desire to have you unaware, brothers, that I often planned to come to you, and was hindered . . . Romans 15:22 . . . I was hindered these many times from coming to you 1 Thessalonians 2:18 We wanted to come to you – indeed, I, Paul, once and again – but Satan hindered us. Opposition from Within the Church Paul faced much opposition, not just from those outside the church, but from genuine Christians and from imposters who were mistakenly accepted by some in the church as Christians. Some of the most uncomfortable parts of Paul’s letters are where he feels pressured into defending his spiritual authority (and hence the accuracy of his teachings) to Christians were beginning to be persuaded by people in the church who were teaching other doctrines. Here are some Scriptures that hint at this: 1 Corinthians 4:15 For though you have ten thousand tutors in Christ, yet not many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, I became your father through the Good News. 1 Corinthians 9:2 If to others I am not an apostle, yet at least I am to you . . . 2 Corinthians 11:20 . . . you even put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or pushes himself forward . . . (NIV) 2 Corinthians 3:1-2 Are we beginning again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as do some, letters of commendation to you or from you? You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men Galatians 2:11-13 But when Peter came to Antioch, I resisted him to his face, because he stood condemned. . . . the rest of the Jews joined him in his hypocrisy; so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. Galatians 3:1 Foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you not to obey the truth . . . Galatians 4:19 My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ is formed in you Acts 15:24 . . . we have heard that some who went out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your souls . . . Philippians 1:15-17 Some indeed preach Christ even out of envy and strife, and some also out of good will. The former insincerely preach Christ from selfish ambition, thinking that they add affliction to my chains . . . 2 Timothy 2:25 in gentleness correcting those who oppose him: perhaps God may give them repentance leading to a full knowledge of the truth 2 Timothy 4:16 At my first defense, no one came to help me, but all left me. May it not be held against them. Galatians 2:4 This was because of the false brothers secretly brought in, who stole in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage 2 Corinthians 11:12-13 And I will keep on doing what I am doing in order to cut the ground from under those who want an opportunity to be considered equal with us in the things they boast about. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ. (NIV) 1 Timothy 1:19-20 holding faith and a good conscience; which some having thrust away made a shipwreck concerning the faith; of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I delivered to Satan, that they might be taught not to blaspheme. 2 Timothy 2:17-18 those words will consume like gangrene, of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus; men who have erred concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection is already past, and overthrowing the faith of some. 1 Corinthians 5:4-5 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, you being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, are to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. 2 Thessalonians 3:11-12, 14-15 For we hear of some who walk among you in rebellion, who don’t work at all, but are busybodies. Now those who are that way, we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread. . . . If any man doesn’t obey our word in this letter, note that man, that you have no company with him, to the end that he may be ashamed. Don’t count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. Romans 16:17 Now I beg you, brothers, look out for those who are causing the divisions and occasions of stumbling, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and turn away from them. 1 Corinthians 5:11-13 . . . I wrote to you not to associate with anyone who is called a brother who is a sexual sinner, or covetous, or an idolater, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or an extortionist. Don’t even eat with such a person. For what have I to do with also judging those who are outside? Don’t you judge those who are within? But those who are outside, God judges. “Put away the wicked man from among yourselves.” Titus 3:10 Warn a divisive person once, and then warn him a second time. . . . (NIV) 1 Corinthians 15:2 by which also you are saved, if you hold firmly the word which I preached to you – unless you believed in vain. And I get annoyed if I get a toe wet by stepping into a puddle!You might dismiss some of these trials as opposition from anti-God forces but add to this list Paul’s four shipwrecks. 2 Corinthians 11:25, which mentions three shipwrecks, one of which involved being in the open sea for a night and day, was written before the shipwreck described in Acts 27:41. Perhaps all, but certainly the shipwreck we know the most about, was because of a storm (Acts 27:18-20, 41). In the light of Jesus calming the sea (Luke 8:24), the biblical affirmation that the Almighty “has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm” (Nahum 1:3 – note also Psalm 107:23-29) and that he used a storm to prevent Jonah from sailing away from God’s calling, it would be so easy to fall into despair by mistakenly interpreting such events as signs of divine disapproval, or at least indifference. But despite all sorts of opposition, Paul drudged on. rom Jesus. He ignored her pleas, virtually called her a dog and said it wasn’t right to heal her. Pushing aside not only Jesus’ inexplicable behavior but a lifelong history of rejection, she kept on trying. By sheer persistence she not only ended up with the miracle she craved but was publicly praised by Jesus for having impressive faith (Matthew 15:22-28). The father of a demon possessed boy hunted down Jesus’ very disciples, begging them for help. They tried their hardest and failed miserably. Instead of realizing it was impossible and giving up, this desperate father sought out the busy Jesus himself and pleaded for his help. He, too, ended up with what he wanted (Matthew 17:14-16). A despised beggar kept shouting out to Jesus. Told by the crowd to shut up, he refused to do the dignified thing and comply, but shouted all the louder. He got his miracle.(Mark 10:46-52). The woman who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years was unclean. She had no right being in a tightly packed crowd trying to touch a holy man. In any case, weakened by her illness, she could hardly expect to compete with all the healthier people jostling for a position close to Jesus who, (why not add another complication?) was on an urgent mission to get to a dying girl. Like all the others I’ve mentioned, no matter how impossible it seemed, she kept trying. Despite everything and everyone seeming to be against her, she forced her way to Jesus and got her miracle. Someone actually got to physically touch the Son of God for quite some time and to be publicly honored by him. To achieve this, she had to be so desperate to be close to Jesus that she not only gatecrashed a party where she knew the host and his friends despised her (Luke 7:39) but to literally let down her hair and humiliate herself by crying in public, with her snotty nose next to Jesus’ unwashed feet (Luke 7:44) that had walked in open sandals on streets that were not only dusty but strewn with little gifts from donkeys, camels, hens, goats, sheep and who knows what else. By recording such instances over and over in his Word, do you get what God is so keen for us to see? Faith isn’t about mental gymnastics or screwing up your face until you burst a blood vessel. It’s simply refusing to give up, no matter how tempting it is to conclude that not just circumstances but the Almighty himself, who could change circumstances in the blink of an eye, must be against you. Consider all the Apostle Paul’s humiliations, floggings, stonings, foiled plans (Scriptures), and opposition from people in the church (Scriptures). You might dismiss some of these trials as opposition from anti-God forces but add to this list Paul’s four shipwrecks. Perhaps all, but certainly the shipwreck we know the most about, was because of a storm (Acts 27:18-20, 41). In the light of Jesus calming the sea (Luke 8:24), the biblical affirmation that the Almighty “has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm” (Nahum 1:3 – note also Psalm 107:23-29) and that he used a storm to prevent Jonah from sailing away from God’s calling, it would be so easy to fall into despair by mistakenly interpreting such events as signs of divine disapproval, or at least indifference. But despite all sorts of opposition, Paul drudged on. Great faith does not mean an end to dark times when everything and everyone in hell, heaven and earth seems to be against you. Great faith means slogging on regardless; stubbornly holding on to the conviction that nothing – not “oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword . . . nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing” (Romans 8:35-39) – can mean that God has stopped loving you or has given up on you. I do not say this lightly: rather than being indicators that you are second class; silences, hindrances and delays are divine invitations to enter into heaven’s hall of fame, just like the very ordinary but inspirationally persistent women and men mentioned above. Inspired by the Canaanite woman whom Jesus exalted as a role model for faith, we must refuse to take every apparent no for an answer. That’s why I emphasize being passionate. It is not that biblical faith is selfish or augmentative; it is convinced of God’s kindness, goodness and generosity and that God delights in us building muscle on our faith by pushing through obstacles. We are to “hunger and thirst after righteousness” (Matthew 5:6). In fact, Scripture goes as far as saying: 1 John 2:3-4 This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commandments. One who says, “I know him,” and doesn’t keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth isn’t in him. Disobedience distances us from God and alarmingly dulls our spiritual perception. Scripture affirms this so frequently and powerfully that it is hard to limit the quotes: James 4:4 . . . don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 1 John 2:9 , 11 He who says he is in the light and hates his brother, is in the darkness even until now. . . . he who hates his brother is in the darkness, and walks in the darkness, and doesn’t know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. 1 Peter 3:12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears open to their prayer; but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. Isaiah 59:2 But your iniquities have separated you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you . . . 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 For this is the will of God: your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in sanctification and honor, not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who don’t know God; that no one should take advantage of and wrong a brother or sister in this matter; because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as also we forewarned you and testified. For God called us not for uncleanness, but in sanctification. Therefore he who rejects this doesn’t reject man, but God, who has also given his Holy Spirit to you. Consider what faith looks like in this light. Without this mellowing influence, faith could almost turn ugly. Jesus grants us the honor of praying in his name, but do we take to heart what this means? To act in someone’s name is to act as his representative. It’s a grave responsibility because to act foolishly or immorally in his name is to blacken his name, damaging his reputation. Biblical faith is not just about believing, but believing the right thing. It is trusting in Jesus’ righteousness and not in your own attempts as sufficient for you to have divine approval. It is refusing to resign yourself to receiving anything less than all the wonderful things God wants you to enjoy. It is being so convinced that God’s way is always best that you are unshakably committed to obeying and honoring him. No matter how great the agony, you join your Savior in saying, “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42). And because God is good and you do not resist him but let him do everything he wants in your life, he purifies you, believes in you and has good plans for you, no matter how much evidence to the contrary seems to pile up. Our persistence makes God proud. Of course, if our Lord truly means no, as he did with Jesus in the garden and to Paul with his thorn in the flesh, faith yields, confident that God’s way is best, but it refuses to yield to signs that merely masquerade as a divine no. Notice that in the incidents just mentioned, Jesus and Paul took so much convincing that God’s ‘no’ really meant no that both of them sought God not once, not twice, but three times over it (Matthew 26:44; 2 Corinthians 12:8). Too often, however, instead of seeing beyond all the oppressive circumstances and silences and apparent rebuffs, we mistakenly presume that they reflect God’s heart. When we think that way, instead of pushing through, we will give in to the obstacles and so rob ourselves of the blessings God has prepared for us. Then we have the audacity to take our refusal to break through into all that God wants for us as proof that we were right and that God did not want to bless us! Most of us tragically miss out on far too much, simply because we are too easily tricked into the believing the lie that God treats us as second class Christians or that he is stingy. God is a rewarder, not of those who cave in to laziness or defeatism, nor of those who convince themselves that God is stingy or prejudiced against them; he is a rewarder of those who, by stubbornly clinging to the truth that God is love and is good, are sufficiently driven to keep pushing through. By having a high view of God’s love, generosity and goodness, they not only honor God but eventually end up with concrete evidence of his love, generosity and goodness. Faith is believing that when God seems to be standoffish and to treat us as inferior to other people, that no matter how convincing it seems, God isn’t like that. And this is the faith that causes us to know God better. Like Jesus agonizing with God in the garden, faith is surrendering to God. It is saying, “Nevertheless, your will be done, not mine.” It is stubbornly persisting with one’s determination to not settle for less than God’s best; never an attempt to get your own way at the expense of God’s best. Faith must never be confused with manipulating God, forcing his hand or making him do anything he is genuinely reluctant to do (rather than something he merely seems reluctant to do). Trying to use faith and prayer to get our own way at the expense of God’s best might be some form of witchcraft (regardless of whether we tack Jesus’ name on the end of it) but it is by no means Christian. We know that the Bible contrasts faith and works (Romans 3:27; 9:32; Galatians 2:16; Ephesians 2:8-9) but even faith could degenerate into a works program if we lose sight of truly biblical faith. Faith is responding to God’s initiative. It might not feel that way, but we come to Jesus only because God draws us (John 6:44; Luke 10:22; 1 John 5:20). Faith gets results because it empowers us to receive what God wants for us. And because of this, faith is resting in God, not wrestling with him. Some people (why is everyone looking at me?) can get very discouraged when they ask God something and are greeted with icy silence. I – er, they – need reminding that just as prayer is not always instantly answered, even though the answer eventually comes for those who persist, so it is with answered questions. Our faith is critically important to God and, as frustrating and counter-intuitive as this truth is, it is delays that end up doing the most for developing our faith. Not only do delays to answered prayer stretch and strengthen our faith, having to hold on by raw faith without being given any reason for that delay, also strengths our faith. When not being given the reasons for a delay has suitably strengthened faith, however, I’ve found over and over that God eventually gives me reasons. (I once heard a sermon titled God is Slow. Boy, ain’t that the truth!) For example, the Lord showed Daniel something he couldn’t make head or tail of. So he asked God, “What in the world was all that about?” (at least that’s my version). You could have heard the crickets chirping half a mile away. But instead of sulking, Daniel kept on asking for an answer for three weeks of fasting until finally an angel turned up. Then – and only then – was his question answered, plus he was told the reason for the delay (Daniel 10:1-14). Even if it takes faith and the memory of an elephant to realize it, God eventually gets around to telling me what I need to know. To my frustration, however, it in his perfect time, not mine, and in the way he chooses, which, to my exasperation, is often an inconvenient moment and comes in mere dribbles rather than an impressive gush, and in thoughts that seem indistinguishable from my own. Like Elisha telling Naaman to have a bath (2 Kings 5:11), it’s easy to get offended by the way God does things. Doesn’t God care that I want it to be quick and more dramatic so that I feel special? Isn’t he concerned that I already feel too pathetically inferior to ever show my face in the presence of all the spiritual hotshots with their flashy testimonies? Even if I’m kicking and screaming or sulking the whole way – and I usually am – he prefers to force me to grow in faith in his love, rather than giving me signs and goosebumps that require almost no faith to believe he really cares about me. Even I can believe God has spoken if he announces it with ten thousand angels (I might even settle for a few hundred) in dazzling white nighties in the presence of a million human witnesses (although a commemorative video would be nice, just in case at some time in the future I begin to worry that it was just my imagination). At the heart of my beef with God is that I keep thinking that spectacular displays cause faith to grow but they merely cause spiritual laziness to grow, and faith to atrophy. To say, “If God really cared he would have done it this way,” is to abandon faith in God. It is to stop believing in his love, goodness and wisdom. What one is really saying when making such a statement is, “If God loved me as little as I do and were as short-shorted and dull-witted and as intoxicated by my own yearnings as I am, he would have acted differently.” Silences do not mean God doesn’t care, nor that you have less faith than someone who gets a quicker response. They do, however, (and this will shock you) mean that God is smarter than me. I can see God’s glory through the eyes of faith far more than when I was younger because I’ve seen so many apparent disasters in my own life turned around by the King of Glory until they shine. I am now more able to look at evil and by faith see into the future when God turns it around for his glory. We can see divine glory in Joseph’s life when he was raised to prominence in Pharaoh’s court, but would we have had the faith to glory in the divine plan before it became obvious, and Joseph was still languishing in prison? It is typical of our astonishing Lord to pour so much good into an appalling situation that the evil ends up swallowed by good. Surely this is the good Lord’s greatest glory; the pinnacle of which is the cross. We should be careful, however, not to insult the Holy One by confusing God defeating evil this way and him initiating or approving of evil. That, of course, would be utterly contrary to who he is. The disgusting behavior of Joseph’s jealous brothers, Potiphar’s wife’s attempted seduction and scandalous accusations resulting in false imprisonment, and the cupbearer’s betrayal, were in no way divinely inspired, even though the Almighty, in his genius and power, triumphed over it all by managing to wring good out of acts that sickened and infuriated him. God’s glory truly is over all the earth, even if sometimes it is simply his astounding grace in allowing opportunity for repentance by displaying stupendous patience in deferring his execution of justice. To be raptured by his glory, however, we must seek God for the ability to see through the blatantly obvious. We need never fear the full truth. It is merely gaps in our knowledge and understanding that challenge our faith. But faith does not run from a challenge. Faith stands its ground and by doing so brings itself eternal glory. Related Pages Save this list until every link that interests you has been explored Fear, Phobias, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): Christian Help & Cure Does God Love Me? God’s love for You Revealed Help when you doubt God’s special love for you Hounded by Guilt Help when you doubt God’s forgiveness God & Suffering Help when you doubt God’s goodness To God, You Are Special When you doubt your ability to achieve great things for God God’s Wonderful Will For You When you fear obeying God Tempted, Condemned, Put Down Demonic influence in our doubts Faith in God Vs Faith in Self When self doubt is good God Isn’t fair? What matters to God is not the size of our faith (or anything else entrusted to us) but solely how well we use the little of much we have Faith for Finances Stories to inspire faith for financial miracles When God Seems Far Away: Spiritual Wilderness Survival Guide When you can’t feel God Peace: God’s Supernatural Answer to Worry, Panic, Fear and Doubt God’s Mysterious Ways Help and inspiration when god seems cold and indifferent Issues that Make Christians Squirm Common objections to Christianity Fact or Fiction? The historicity of Jesus’ bodily resurrection

When God Lets You Down or Does Not Keep His Promise When Everything Says: God Lies & Breaks Promises What could be more devastating than being forced to conclude that God is a liar who does not keep his promises? If God lied to you and broke his promises, you have every right to be reeling in anger, bitter disappointment and confusion. You might feel bewildered beyond words or so betrayed as to hate God with a burning fury. No matter what explosive emotions are raging within, however, you deserve insights that finally deliver peace. There are two truths I dare not avoid. One is that there are people who claim to speak for God when they are either sincerely mistaken or are moved more by a desire to impress or by greed than by God. The other truth is that this accounts for only a portion of broken promises. I will sugarcoat nothing. If someone has misrepresented God or misread the Bible, I will say so, but if God has been less than truthful, I will expose it. I once had a job fixing the computer problems of literally hundreds of people. Typically, people would get everything perfect except for one tiny step, such as switching on the power. Although they often felt stupid when I eventually found a simple error, they were no fools. All of them had above average intelligence (they even had to sit for an IQ test before being employed). Please do not think I am insulting your intelligence if I feel obligated to act like I did back then and eliminate all of the supposedly obvious things before moving on to the more challenging. So as not to test the patience of readers for whom a particular matter is not relevant, I’ll move at breakneck speed. When, however, it begins to seem that an issue raised might possibly apply to your situation, it is vital to stop right there and explore further by visiting the link provided. Because of their extra detail, the links are often the most important part of this webpage. If a webpage name is given in italics the link to it is provided at the end of this webpage. It clearly begs the question as to why God would allow it, but have you noticed how the Bible warns over and over that deceivers will worm their way into churches? Whereas some fraudsters are devilishly clever, could the devil himself occasionally add his own powers to the cocktail? More should be done to protect innocents from these snake oil salesmen. Nevertheless, people clamor to hear them. The sad truth is that many of us would rather hear that God wants to pamper and prosper us than hear from a God who says we must walk in the steps of the crucified Lord who sacrificed everything for love. Lest I lose readers whose issues lie elsewhere I must rush on. I remain acutely aware, nevertheless, of how deeply wounding it is to have been hurt or hoodwinked by a wolf in a wool suit, or by a sincere believer like the apostle Peter, who at times could attain such spiritual revelation as to receive Jesus’ high praise for it and yet could quickly slip so far into becoming the devil’s spokesman that Jesus had to say, “Get behind me Satan!” It is surely no coincidence that both instances appear in the same passage. The inspired writer is ramming home how quickly and easily a sincere believer can slip from attaining such spiritual revelation as to win Jesus’ high praise to being the devil’s mouthpiece. Matthew 16:17-23 Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven . I also tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my assembly, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give to you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven . . .” From that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up. Peter took him aside, and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This will never be done to you.” But he turned, and said to Peter, “ Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men .” (Emphasis mine.) My webpage, Hurt & Confused by Fake Personal Prophecies, is the product of my passionate concern for the many who are reeling in pain because of false prophetic utterances, and if you have suffered this way I urge you to read it immediately for the comfort and support you deserve. I refuse to whitewash the fact that the blame for only a portion of broken promises can be laid at the feet of spiritual con artists. Just before leaving this, however, I should briefly mention that although misguided preachers differ from fraudsters who claim to be prophets infallibly declaring the very words of God, they can be just as dangerous. There are respected, doctrinally conservative Christians who use the Bible to preach a ‘Jesus’ that only the very discerning can recognize as false. As one of only twelve divinely-chosen apostles, Judas Iscariot must have been revered as favored by God and a spiritual leader by the thousands who flocked to Jesus. Since the Lord Jesus deliberately chose Judas, knowing what he would do, and the rest of the New Testament keeps emphasizing that false teachers will infiltrate the church, it seems likely that Judas was welcomed into Jesus’ inner circle so as to imprint on the minds of all future followers what to expect. Judas was but the first of a long line of spiritual leaders willing to betray his Lord for a chance to line his pocket. As Jesus kept on loving Judas, Christians should keep on loving, but that is a world away from being gullible. There will always be those who would rather sell their children for a little fame and a few bucks than preach Jesus’ unpopular message. Will we, however, choose to follow those dripping with worldly success or follow the despised and rejected one? Will we worship those promising we can have what we lust after, or will we choose the one who insisted we must deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow the one who was spurned and tortured to death? Perhaps there are those who would promise anything for a fast buck and would gloss up hell’s booby-trapped trinkets, trying to pass them off as heaven’s treasure, but I have no heart to attack anyone. He who is without sin might be qualified to throw the first stone but why, beside Jesus who most certainly did not throw stones, would such an exquisitely perfect non-human choose to visit this planet? I am keen to give anyone the benefit of the doubt. The worry about preachers who handle the Word of God with the integrity of snake oil peddlers, however, is that the way they mangle God’s Word clouds the thinking of spiritually hungry hearers – even when the pure in heart do their best to read the Bible for themselves. Preaching a cheap Gospel is devastating because it seduces the sincere into misreading the very Word of God; reading into it promises that were never there. Being a victim of a misguided preacher might not apply to you but if it does, it is devastating and I have much support for you. This time it is found in Spiritual Abuse . Of course, taking frustratingly long to fulfill a promise does not constitute a broken promise. Let’s quickly touch on it, however, before dealing with more perplexing matters. The Bible insists that God is eternal and works in an alarmingly different timeframe from us. Even the first book in the Bible rams this home. Despite his God-given dream – in fact, because of it – Joseph’s life kept crumbling from bad to worse for year after agonizing year, with his brothers hating him, then languishing in slavery and then rotting in a prison that made even slavery seem idyllic. And still earlier, God promised Abraham a son, but nothing happened year after year until having a child became impossible. That reminds me of Jesus waiting for his dear friend Lazarus to die before finally getting around to helping him (John 11). God promised the land to Abraham’s descendants but Genesis ends with this promise still unkept. In fact, it was hundreds of years before they got the land. Believe it or not, the reason given for this enormous delay is God’s mercy – the original inhabitants of the land were not yet so despicably evil as to warrant removal (Genesis 15:16). With a God whose responsibility extends to the entire universe and claims to love not just us but his enemies – and our enemies – things get mind-bogglingly complex. In fact, not only is the disturbing statement that with God a thousand years is as a day given as one of the reasons for the Lord’s promise to return to earth still being unkept, the other reason cited is God’s mercy. Every moment he delays, is another moment in which sinners, like we once were, have time to repent and find divine forgiveness before it is too late (2 Peter 3:7-10). Galatians 6:9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up . Hebrews 6:12 We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised. Hebrews 10:36 You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. (Emphasis mine.) I have an entire book filled with annoyingly valid reasons why God keeps good people waiting. If it is possible that God’s promise merely has been delayed for an infuriatingly long time, you should read Waiting . . . . (The link is at the end of this webpage) Anyhow, the Israelites eventually got their land, promised as “an everlasting possession” (Genesis 17:8), only to lose it again, with multitudes going into exile and the rest having to live under foreign occupation. The Jews did not keep their side of the deal. The Agreement Leviticus 18:28 That the land not vomit you out also, when you defile it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. Leviticus 26:27,32-33 If you in spite of this won’t listen to me, but walk contrary to me; . . . I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies that dwell therein will be astonished at it. I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you. Your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. Deuteronomy 4:25-27 When you shall father children, and children’s children, and you shall have been long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make an engraved image in the form of anything, and shall do that which is evil in the Lord your God’s sight, to provoke him to anger; I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from off the land which you go over the Jordan to possess it. You will not prolong your days on it, but will utterly be destroyed. The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations, where the Lord will lead you away. Deuteronomy 30:16-18 For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances, that you may live and multiply, and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land where you go in to possess it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them; I denounce to you today, that you will surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you pass over the Jordan to go in to possess it. Joshua 23:16 When you disobey the covenant of the Lord your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods, and bow down yourselves to them. Then the Lord’s anger will be kindled against you, and you will perish quickly from off the good land which he has given to you. It would not have been fair for God to have removed the former inhabitants from the land because of their sin and let the new inhabitants be equally sinful. God obligating himself to execute justice fairly, introduces another complication: his need to be moral. There are people who rather absurdly disregard this. For example, a man wrote to me, mad at God because his wife, who had taught Sunday School and belonged to an anti-drug organization, had ended up addicted to drugs and left him, taking the children as well. I replied: You could have kidnapped your wife and imprisoned her, thereby forcibly preventing her from taking drugs and from leaving you. You chose not to do so because you are too decent a man for that. Do you really expect God to have lower morals than you and forcibly prevent your wife from breaking God’s heart and yours? We can take to ridiculous extremes the fact that God is all-powerful. Just because God can do anything does not mean that the Holy Lord is so immoral that for him anything goes. This can never justify the breaking of a resolute promise. It is, however, one of many restrictions under which the good Lord must operate. Just because our puny intellect fails to detect a reason why God should not do something does not mean a vitally important reason does not exist. Our failure to realize this could cause us to try to join the dots and assume God has promised something when, in reality, we have unwittingly stuffed words into God’s mouth and made promises on his behalf. We will later delve into other divine promises, but promises about prayer warrant priority because they affect so many of us. Moreover, insights uncovered in this investigation can be applied to other biblical promises. Does God’s promise to answer our prayers mean the Almighty has obligated himself to ignore what we have just discussed and do immoral or foolish things for us in response to selfish or short-sighted prayers? Our intellect is far too limited to know all the complex chains of events sent skidding off in all directions and hurtling through time whenever the smallest thing is done. If we had God’s infinite intellect, flawless morality and Christlike selflessness, answered prayer would be a breeze. Our strong tendency to ask stupidly, however, turns prayer into something exceedingly complex and filled with roadblocks. If, instead of ripping words out of the Bible to create our own fanciful collection of divine promises, we respectfully pieced together the entire biblical revelation about prayer, we would discover that God has detailed very many limitations when it comes to answered prayer. Even the eternal Son of God, as he agonized in sweat-drenched prayer in the garden, had to conclude it with “. . . yet not my will, but yours be done,” (Luke 22:42). The Almighty expects us to treasure his Word by being thoroughly aware of all of it, and to honor him by interpreting everything he says, not only according to the immediate context but according to the totality of his biblical revelation. The good Lord has good plans for us. Too often, however, we edge toward letting ungodly attitudes muddy our definition of good. If we slip in this direction, what seems to us to be the Spirit confirming to our spirits that we have heard from God could actually be our wayward hearts leaping in excitement about the pipe dream that the Holy Lord might indulge our fallen nature. John 15:26 When the Counselor has come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me. Acts 15:28 For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit . . . Romans 8:16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God. Romans 9:1  . . . my conscience testifying with me in the Holy Spirit. Hebrews 10:15-16 The Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying, “This is the covenant that I will make with them: ‘After those days,’ says the Lord, ‘I will put my laws on their heart, I will also write them on their mind;’” 1 John 5:10 He who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. . . . 1 John 2:27 As for you, the anointing which you received from him remains in you, and you don’t need for anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie, and even as it taught you, you will remain in him. The Bible repeatedly insists we must put to death/crucify, or rid ourselves of, our sinful nature. It is so important that we detach ourselves from our sinful nature that the Bible uses very many different expressions to describe it. Below are some are some samples. The fact that there are so many indicates not only that it is critically important but that dying to self is not a one-off experience for a Christian. It is a daily battle. Matthew 10:39  . . . he who loses his life for my sake will find it. Luke 9:23  . . . If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself , take up his cross, and follow me. Luke 14:26 If anyone comes to me, and doesn’t disregard . . . his own life also, he can’t be my disciple. John 12:25 He who loves his life will lose it. He who hates his life in this world will keep it to eternal life. Romans 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with , so that we would no longer be in bondage to sin. Romans 8:4 That the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh , but after the Spirit. Romans 8:13 For if you live after the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body , you will live. Romans 13:12  . . . Let’s therefore throw off the deeds of darkness , and let’s put on the armor of light. 1 Corinthians 6:18 Flee sexual immorality . . . . 1 Corinthians 9:27 But I beat my body and bring it into submission , lest by any means, after I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected. 2 Corinthians 6:17 Therefore “‘Come out from among them, and be separate ,' says the Lord. ' Touch no unclean thing . I will receive you.' Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live , but Christ living in me. . . . Galatians 5:24 Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts. Galatians 6:14 But far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me , and I to the world. Ephesians 4:22 That you put away , as concerning your former way of life, the old man , that grows corrupt after the lusts of deceit. Philippians 3:13  . . . Forgetting the things which are behind , and stretching forward to the things which are before. Colossians 2:11 in whom you were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh , in the circumcision of Christ. Colossians 3:2 Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth. Colossians 3:5 Put to death therefore your members which are on the earth : sexual immorality, uncleanness, depraved passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Colossians 3:8-10 But now you also put them all away : anger, wrath, malice, slander, and shameful speaking out of your mouth. Don’t lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his Creator. Titus 2:12 Instructing us to the intent that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts , we would live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. Hebrews 12:1  . . . let us  . . . lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us , and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. James 1:21 Therefore, putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness , receive with humility the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. 1 Peter 2:1 Putting away therefore all wickedness, all deceit, hypocrisies, envies, and all evil speaking. 1 Peter 2:11 Beloved, I beg you as foreigners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts , which war against the soul. 1 John 2:15 Don’t love the world or the things that are in the world . If, however, that part of us we should kill is only wounded, we are in danger. It takes only a little of our old nature to distort our spiritual perception enough for us to be alarmingly vulnerable to deception. Many of us find it worryingly easy to convince ourselves that the Holy One is a ridiculous mix of a genie in a bottle and our cosmic slave. Could we have things so wrong that we don’t want to serve God but instead want him to serve us? Driven to delirium by less than saintly desires – laziness, greed, lust, envy, self-infatuation, a yearning to exact revenge, lord it over people, be idolized, or whatever – we can make our own wild presumptions about God’s promises. Then, with our fleshly cravings drowning out the Spirit’s whispers, we can top it off by having the audacity to blame God when our self-centered fantasies fizzle in the light of reality. Consider this much-cited Scripture: Psalms 37:4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Instead of giving adequate weight to the first part of that statement, the eyes of the self-obsessed latch on to the latter part and think they can use the verse to manipulate the Holy Lord into indulging their fleshly desires. This, along with other Scriptures that seem to say we can ask for and receive anything we want, is similar to St Augustine saying love God and do whatever you want. Augustine could confidently say this because to truly love God is to be so passionate about pleasing God that you would rather die than do anything that displeases him. Those who delight in God (or seek first God’s kingdom, or love their Lord with all their heart, soul and mind, or “lose” their lives, or offer themselves to God as a holy sacrifice and put an end to worldly thinking by the renewal of their mind, or submit to God, and resist the devil, or whatever expression a particular Scripture uses) end up with spiritually transformed desires. Their yearning, like Paul, is to share Christ’s sufferings (Philippians 3:10). They have learned to be content, even when in need or hungry (Philippians 4:12). For them, “to live is Christ and to die is gain,” (Philippians 1:21). On the other hand, God’s Word is adamant that self-centered prayers are not answered. “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures,” (James 4:3). Prayer Mysteries: The Joy of Unanswered Prayer , explains in detail why it would be utterly contrary to biblical revelation for God to answer every prayer. The webpage even cites many instances of prayer by New and Old Testament spiritual heroes that were not answered. It also explains why it is comforting that God leaves some prayers unanswered. Another webpage, Prerequisites for Answered Prayer: When Faith & Prayer Do Not Work delves into the Bible, confirming that God insists that answered prayer has many conditions attached to it besides faith. In just one of the webpage’s numerous biblical references, it lists twenty-seven Scriptures emphasizing that any request from a sinful heart will fall on deaf ears (other than a prayer of sincere repentance). In another section, the webpage lists eighteen Scriptures commonly used to imply we can have anything we ask for in prayer. It shows that, in each case, the immediate context – usually the same sentence – specifies that the promise is conditional. Sometimes the promises have exacting conditions we have taken no effort to comprehend. For example, correctly understood, to pray in Jesus’ name transforms prayer; making it as radically different from what many of us call prayer as living for Jesus differs from living for self. Daring to do anything in the name of the exalted Lord, the Judge of all humanity, is to put his holiness and reputation on the line. What could be more devastating than being forced to conclude that God is a liar who does not keep his promises? If God lied to you and broke his promises, you have every right to be reeling in anger, bitter disappointment and confusion. You might feel bewildered beyond words or so betrayed as to hate God with a burning fury. No matter what explosive emotions are raging within, however, you deserve insights that finally deliver peace. There are two truths I dare not avoid. One is that there are people who claim to speak for God when they are either sincerely mistaken or are moved more by a desire to impress or by greed than by God. The other truth is that this accounts for only a portion of broken promises. I will sugarcoat nothing. If someone has misrepresented God or misread the Bible, I will say so, but if God has been less than truthful, I will expose it. I once had a job fixing the computer problems of literally hundreds of people. Typically, people would get everything perfect except for one tiny step, such as switching on the power. Although they often felt stupid when I eventually found a simple error, they were no fools. All of them had above average intelligence (they even had to sit for an IQ test before being employed). Please do not think I am insulting your intelligence if I feel obligated to act like I did back then and eliminate all of the supposedly obvious things before moving on to the more challenging. So as not to test the patience of readers for whom a particular matter is not relevant, I’ll move at breakneck speed. When, however, it begins to seem that an issue raised might possibly apply to your situation, it is vital to stop right there and explore further by visiting the link provided. Because of their extra detail, the links are often the most important part of this webpage. If a webpage name is given in italics the link to it is provided at the end of this webpage. It clearly begs the question as to why God would allow it, but have you noticed how the Bible warns over and over that deceivers will worm their way into churches? Just some of the New Testament’s Warnings To Christians About Being Deceived Matthew 7:15  Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves. Matthew 7:22-23  Many will tell me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, in your name cast out demons, and in your name do many mighty works?’ Then I will tell them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you who work iniquity.’ Matthew 16:6  “Be careful,” Jesus said to them. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Matthew 24:4-5  Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. Matthew 24:11  and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Matthew 24:24  For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect – if that were possible. Mark 12:38-40  As he taught, Jesus said, “Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely.” Luke 21:8  He replied: Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. Acts 20:29-31  I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard! . . . Romans 16:17-18  I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. 1 Corinthians 3:18  Do not deceive yourselves. . . . 1 Corinthians 6:9   . . . Do not be deceived: . . . 1 Corinthians 15:33  Do not be misled . . . 2 Corinthians 11:3  But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray . . . 2 Corinthians 11:13  For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ. Galatians 1:7-8   . . . Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! Galatians 2:4  This matter arose because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. Galatians 6:3  If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Galatians 6:7  Do not be deceived . . . Ephesians 4:14  Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Ephesians 5:6  Let no one deceive you with empty words . . . Colossians 2:4  I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments. Colossians 2:8  See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. 2 Timothy 2:17-18  Their teaching will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have wandered away from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some. 2 Timothy 3:5-6  having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them. They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires. 1 Timothy 4:1-2  The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. 2 Timothy 4:3  For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears . . . 2 Timothy 4:14-15  Alexander the metalworker did me a great deal of harm.  . . . You too should be on your guard against him, because he strongly opposed our message. 2 Thessalonians 2:3  Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way . . . Titus 1:10-11,16  For there are many rebellious people, mere talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision group. They must be silenced, because they are ruining whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach – and that for the sake of dishonest gain. They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good. Hebrews 3:13  But encourage one another daily, . . . so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. James 1:16  Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers. James 1:22  Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. . . . James 1:26  If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself . . . 2 Peter 2:1-3  But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them – bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping. 2 Peter 2:18-19  For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity – for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him. 1 John 1:8  If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 1 John 3:7  Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. 1 John 4:1  Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 John 1:7  Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. . . . Jude 1:4  For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. Jude 1:12-13  These men are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm – shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted – twice dead. They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever. Warnings to Churches that Spiritually Dangerous People Are in Them: Revelation 2:14-16  Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: You have people there who hold to the teaching of Balaam . . . Likewise you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. Revelation 2:20-21,24  Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants . . . I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. . . . Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets (I will not impose any other burden on you) . . . Whereas some fraudsters are devilishly clever, could the devil himself occasionally add his own powers to the cocktail? More should be done to protect innocents from these snake oil salesmen. Nevertheless, people clamor to hear them. The sad truth is that many of us would rather hear that God wants to pamper and prosper us than hear from a God who says we must walk in the steps of the crucified Lord who sacrificed everything for love. Lest I lose readers whose issues lie elsewhere I must rush on. I remain acutely aware, nevertheless, of how deeply wounding it is to have been hurt or hoodwinked by a wolf in a wool suit, or by a sincere believer like the apostle Peter, who at times could attain such spiritual revelation as to receive Jesus’ high praise for it and yet could quickly slip so far into becoming the devil’s spokesman that Jesus had to say, “Get behind me Satan!”. My webpage, Hurt & Confused by Fake Personal Prophecies, is the product of my passionate concern for the many who are reeling in pain because of false prophetic utterances, and if you have suffered this way I urge you to read it immediately for the comfort and support you deserve. I refuse to whitewash the fact that the blame for only a portion of broken promises can be laid at the feet of spiritual con artists. Just before leaving this, however, I should briefly mention that although misguided preachers differ from fraudsters who claim to be prophets infallibly declaring the very words of God, they can be just as dangerous. There are respected, doctrinally conservative Christians who use the Bible to preach a ‘Jesus’ that only the very discerning can recognize as false. As one of only twelve divinely-chosen apostles, Judas Iscariot must have been revered as favored by God and a spiritual leader by the thousands who flocked to Jesus. Since the Lord Jesus deliberately chose Judas, knowing what he would do, and the rest of the New Testament keeps emphasizing that false teachers will infiltrate the church, it seems likely that Judas was welcomed into Jesus’ inner circle so as to imprint on the minds of all future followers what to expect. Judas was but the first of a long line of spiritual leaders willing to betray his Lord for a chance to line his pocket. As Jesus kept on loving Judas, Christians should keep on loving, but that is a world away from being gullible. There will always be those who would rather sell their children for a little fame and a few bucks than preach Jesus’ unpopular message. Will we, however, choose to follow those dripping with worldly success or follow the despised and rejected one? Will we worship those promising we can have what we lust after, or will we choose the one who insisted we must deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow the one who was spurned and tortured to death? Perhaps there are those who would promise anything for a fast buck and would gloss up hell’s booby-trapped trinkets, trying to pass them off as heaven’s treasure, but I have no heart to attack anyone. He who is without sin might be qualified to throw the first stone but why, beside Jesus who most certainly did not throw stones, would such an exquisitely perfect non-human choose to visit this planet? I am keen to give anyone the benefit of the doubt. The worry about preachers who handle the Word of God with the integrity of snake oil peddlers, however, is that the way they mangle God’s Word clouds the thinking of spiritually hungry hearers – even when the pure in heart do their best to read the Bible for themselves. Preaching a cheap Gospel is devastating because it seduces the sincere into misreading the very Word of God; reading into it promises that were never there. Being a victim of a misguided preacher might not apply to you but if it does, it is devastating and I have much support for you. This time it is found in Spiritual Abuse. Of course, taking frustratingly long to fulfill a promise does not constitute a broken promise. Let’s quickly touch on it, however, before dealing with more perplexing matters. The Bible insists that God is eternal and works in an alarmingly different timeframe from us. Even the first book in the Bible rams this home. Despite his God-given dream – in fact, because of it – Joseph’s life kept crumbling from bad to worse for year after agonizing year, with his brothers hating him, then languishing in slavery and then rotting in a prison that made even slavery seem idyllic. And still earlier, God promised Abraham a son, but nothing happened year after year until having a child became impossible. That reminds me of Jesus waiting for his dear friend Lazarus to die before finally getting around to helping him (John 11). God promised the land to Abraham’s descendants but Genesis ends with this promise still unkept. In fact, it was hundreds of years before they got the land. Believe it or not, the reason given for this enormous delay is God’s mercy – the original inhabitants of the land were not yet so despicably evil as to warrant removal (Genesis 15:16). With a God whose responsibility extends to the entire universe and claims to love not just us but his enemies – and our enemies – things get mind-bogglingly complex. In fact, not only is the disturbing statement that with God a thousand years is as a day given as one of the reasons for the Lord’s promise to return to earth still being unkept, the other reason cited is God’s mercy. Every moment he delays, is another moment in which sinners, like we once were, have time to repent and find divine forgiveness before it is too late (2 Peter 3:7-10). Galatians 6:9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Hebrews 6:12 We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised. Hebrews 10:36 You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. (Emphasis mine.) I have an entire book filled with annoyingly valid reasons why God keeps good people waiting. If it is possible that God’s promise merely has been delayed for an infuriatingly long time, you should read Waiting . . . . (The link is at the end of this webpage.) Anyhow, the Israelites eventually got their land, promised as “an everlasting possession” (Genesis 17:8), only to lose it again, with multitudes going into exile and the rest having to live under foreign occupation. The Jews did not keep their side of the deal (Scriptures). It would not have been fair for God to have removed the former inhabitants from the land because of their sin and let the new inhabitants be equally sinful. God obligating himself to execute justice fairly, introduces another complication: his need to be moral. There are people who rather absurdly disregard this. For example, a man wrote to me, mad at God because his wife, who had taught Sunday School and belonged to an anti-drug organization, had ended up addicted to drugs and left him, taking the children as well. I replied: You could have kidnapped your wife and imprisoned her, thereby forcibly preventing her from taking drugs and from leaving you. You chose not to do so because you are too decent a man for that. Do you really expect God to have lower morals than you and forcibly prevent your wife from breaking God’s heart and yours? We can take to ridiculous extremes the fact that God is all-powerful. Just because God can do anything does not mean that the Holy Lord is so immoral that for him anything goes. This can never justify the breaking of a resolute promise. It is, however, one of many restrictions under which the good Lord must operate. Just because our puny intellect fails to detect a reason why God should not do something does not mean a vitally important reason does not exist. Our failure to realize this could cause us to try to join the dots and assume God has promised something when, in reality, we have unwittingly stuffed words into God’s mouth and made promises on his behalf. We will later delve into other divine promises, but promises about prayer warrant priority because they affect so many of us. Moreover, insights uncovered in this investigation can be applied to other biblical promises. Does God’s promise to answer our prayers mean the Almighty has obligated himself to ignore what we have just discussed and do immoral or foolish things for us in response to selfish or short-sighted prayers? Our intellect is far too limited to know all the complex chains of events sent skidding off in all directions and hurtling through time whenever the smallest thing is done. If we had God’s infinite intellect, flawless morality and Christlike selflessness, answered prayer would be a breeze. Our strong tendency to ask stupidly, however, turns prayer into something exceedingly complex and filled with roadblocks. If, instead of ripping words out of the Bible to create our own fanciful collection of divine promises, we respectfully pieced together the entire biblical revelation about prayer, we would discover that God has detailed very many limitations when it comes to answered prayer. Even the eternal Son of God, as he agonized in sweat-drenched prayer in the garden, had to conclude it with “. . . yet not my will, but yours be done,” (Luke 22:42). The Almighty expects us to treasure his Word by being thoroughly aware of all of it, and to honor him by interpreting everything he says, not only according to the immediate context but according to the totality of his biblical revelation. The good Lord has good plans for us. Too often, however, we edge toward letting ungodly attitudes muddy our definition of good. If we slip in this direction, what seems to us to be the Spirit confirming to our spirits that we have heard from God (Scriptures) could actually be our wayward hearts leaping in excitement about the pipe dream that the Holy Lord might indulge our fallen nature. The Bible repeatedly insists we must put to death/crucify, or rid ourselves of, our sinful nature (Very many Scriptures). If, however, that part of us we should kill is only wounded, we are in danger. It takes only a little of our old nature to distort our spiritual perception enough for us to be alarmingly vulnerable to deception. Many of us find it worryingly easy to convince ourselves that the Holy One is a ridiculous mix of a genie in a bottle and our cosmic slave. Could we have things so wrong that we don’t want to serve God but instead want him to serve us? Driven to delirium by less than saintly desires – laziness, greed, lust, envy, self-infatuation, a yearning to exact revenge, lord it over people, be idolized, or whatever – we can make our own wild presumptions about God’s promises. Then, with our fleshly cravings drowning out the Spirit’s whispers, we can top it off by having the audacity to blame God when our self-centered fantasies fizzle in the light of reality. Consider this much-cited Scripture: Psalms 37:4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Instead of giving adequate weight to the first part of that statement, the eyes of the self-obsessed latch on to the latter part and think they can use the verse to manipulate the Holy Lord into indulging their fleshly desires. This, along with other Scriptures that seem to say we can ask for and receive anything we want, is similar to St Augustine saying love God and do whatever you want. Augustine could confidently say this because to truly love God is to be so passionate about pleasing God that you would rather die than do anything that displeases him. Those who delight in God (or seek first God’s kingdom, or love their Lord with all their heart, soul and mind, or “lose” their lives, or offer themselves to God as a holy sacrifice and put an end to worldly thinking by the renewal of their mind, or submit to God, and resist the devil, or whatever expression a particular Scripture uses) end up with spiritually transformed desires. Their yearning, like Paul, is to share Christ’s sufferings (Philippians 3:10). They have learned to be content, even when in need or hungry (Philippians 4:12). For them, “to live is Christ and to die is gain,” (Philippians 1:21). On the other hand, God’s Word is adamant that self-centered prayers are not answered. “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures,” (James 4:3). Prayer Mysteries: The Joy of Unanswered Prayer, explains in detail why it would be utterly contrary to biblical revelation for God to answer every prayer. The webpage even cites many instances of prayer by New and Old Testament spiritual heroes that were not answered. It also explains why it is comforting that God leaves some prayers unanswered. Another webpage, Prerequisites for Answered Prayer: When Faith & Prayer Do Not Work delves into the Bible, confirming that God insists that answered prayer has many conditions attached to it besides faith. In just one of the webpage’s numerous biblical references, it lists twenty-seven Scriptures emphasizing that any request from a sinful heart will fall on deaf ears (other than a prayer of sincere repentance). In another section, the webpage lists eighteen Scriptures commonly used to imply we can have anything we ask for in prayer. It shows that, in each case, the immediate context – usually the same sentence – specifies that the promise is conditional. Sometimes the promises have exacting conditions we have taken no effort to comprehend. For example, correctly understood, to pray in Jesus’ name transforms prayer; making it as radically different from what many of us call prayer as living for Jesus differs from living for self. Daring to do anything in the name of the exalted Lord, the Judge of all humanity, is to put his holiness and reputation on the line. Here are some selections from that webpage about conclusions drawn from a careful study of the Bible’s teaching on prayer: I once saw a shop advertising free range eggs. “Look! Free eggs!” I joked to someone with me who enjoys a bargain. To my surprise, she immediately became excited about getting range eggs (whatever they are) for free, not realizing that “free range” refers to uncaged chickens. Many of us are like that with God’s promises; gleefully latching on to a few words without bothering to consider the intended meaning. If Scripture were to list all the conditions and exceptions every time any subject were raised, we would need a wheelbarrow to carry the Bible around and we would all be complaining about how tedious and boring it is to read. The Bible’s teaching on prayer is founded on the presumption that those praying have died to self (and hence to spiritual laziness) and are committed to doing things God’s way. Since the Bible’s promises about prayer were usually addressed specifically to people who were already devoted to God, there was no point in continually adding at the end of every verse, “Of course, this only applies if you are living this Book, i.e. have died to self, been spiritually transformed by spiritual union with Christ and are in total submission to God; in everything thinking and acting like him.” Such additions would be as ridiculous as an instruction manual for a high performance vehicle stopping at the end of each statement to explain that what it says only applies to that particular vehicle. To claim for ourselves Bible promises divinely given to people who were more devoted to Christ than we are willing to be, is as fraudulent as tampering with someone’s last will and testament, by trying to scratch out someone else’s name and replace it with our own. It is not only taking Bible promises out of context, it is ripping them out of Christianity and putting them into a false religion. Hoping to exploit God for our selfish ends might bear similarities to voodoo or witchcraft – I know too little about these religions to be sure – but it most certainly is nothing like genuine Christianity. To receive everything we ever request would make us as terrifyingly powerful as the Omnipotent Lord. Who would you dare let have such unlimited power? Would it be generous or irresponsible for the good Lord to use prayer to entrust Godlike power to anyone whose motives are not Godlike? Do we suppose the way to get our selfish way is by prayer to the God who demands we die to self? Has anyone the audacity to think we can trash all that the Bible says about the necessity of studying God’s Word and storing it in our hearts because prayer for wisdom and revelation will work as an alternative? Imagining that prayer can somehow allow us to bypass the need to follow Scripture’s instructions is not only ludicrous but offensive to God. Dare we, for example, defile the holy Word of God by coming to the very Bible that devotes so much space and passion to denouncing the love of money and seizing a verse about prayer as an open-invitation to use faith-filled prayer to feed our addiction to money and perpetuate our adulterous love affair with material things? That would be as perverse as praying for guidance, wisdom and protection in robbing a bank, or praying for God to provide victims for a hideous sex crime. Do we really think we could dupe the Holy God into giving us anything that by his impeccable standards is unholy, or that he would invite us to pray for such things? If it were possible for prayer to nullify the Word of God, we would not be praying to the God of the Bible. The unspiritual side of us, however, keeps hoping to avoid God’s way and find some cozy alternative. Alarmingly, the Deceiver has gleefully prepared many such options for those who prefer the easy road that leads to destruction. And he is delighted to let them remain smugly convinced they have got away with it. God is all about love. 1 John 4:7-8 . . . for love is of God; and everyone who loves has been born of God, and knows God. He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love. 1 John 4:16 . . . God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. Matthew 22:36-40 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. A second likewise is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” So prayer to the God of love must be all about love – verbalizing our love for God and wanting to know him better, to be more like him and to please him, glorify him and see his purposes furthered. Since love focuses on the beloved, prayer should be God-centered, not self-centered. And trying to make it God-centered just because you think that approach will better aid your attempt to manipulate God into giving you what you crave is no improvement on any other self-obsessed attempt to exploit God’s goodness. God’s piercing eyes expose all such schemes. Prayer should be about companionship and intimacy and yieldedness. If it is all about us or about continually getting rather than giving, it is not real prayer; it’s a perversion. Romans 8:26 . . . We do not know what we ought to pray for . . . (Emphasis mine). The rest of the verse explains that the Holy Spirit mercifully compensates for our deficiencies in wisdom. We should not grieve or quench the Spirit, however, by seeking things that offend his holiness or by supposing that we are smarter than him or insulting his love by imagining we have our best interest at heart more than he does. On the other hand, we should not freeze with fear over what we pray for. The Spirit of our gracious Lord is always eager to forgive. Nevertheless, he is also eager that we stop blindly repeating our mistakes, and especially that we not hurt ourselves by pulling back from God through being so foolish as to get mad at him for mercifully not giving us things that to us seem wonderful but are actually inferior – sometimes dangerously so – to God’s plans for us. Often we are like King Midas, having no idea of the consequences of what we request. In the fable, Midas was granted his greedy wish (that everything he touched would turn to gold) before he realized the devastating implications for every morsel of food and every loved one he touched. God would be too kind to answer such a prayer. How tragic it would be, however, if any of us were to turn our backs on God simply because it is beyond our comprehension how superior the divine alternative plan is to the one we have concocted. Having seen that it is widely taught in the Bible – though not from the pulpit – that answered prayer is conditional, let’s move on to other alleged promises in God’s Word. Some of them turn out to be statements few Christians have any right to claim as a personal promise, and there are others that modern readers often misapply or warp into something grotesquely different from God’s meaning. Let’s start with a general observation: An enormous source of conflict between God and us is that we misunderstand him. Isaiah 55:9 As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Even getting to really know someone who is less complex than the infinite Lord is a lifelong struggle. Not only do most of us jump to conclusions about what God is saying without devoting years to getting to know him, many of us think we should be able to get away with exploiting God by treating him with the disdain of an insurance policy. We largely ignore him until we have a problem. Try treating a marriage partner that way and see how long the marriage lasts. Dare we extract perhaps a dozen of the Bible’s three-quarters of a million words and then have the audacity to twist them in an attempt to reduce the Living God – the most dynamic person in the universe – to a lifeless formula? And not only would this insult God by depersonalizing him, many of us do not even give him the respect worthy of an insurance policy. Few of us bother to delve into the Bible to investigate the limits and conditions of the policy and many do not even make the on-going payments required to keep the policy current. And then we have the nerve to still expect a payout when we need it. If we insist on treating God like an insurance policy instead of a person who craves our attention and deserves our devotion, we should know that not even an insurance company will pay out in these circumstances. “What’s this about ‘on-going payments’? Salvation is free,” you complain. Well, it was not free for Jesus. Words fail in any attempt at describing how much it cost the one who said we must likewise deny ourselves and take up our cross. If it doesn’t cost us, why did Jesus insist we should count, or carefully consider, the cost so as to avoid the shame of beginning to follow him and then dropping out (Luke 14:26-33)? It is not that there is no on-going personal cost but that no matter what extremes we go to, we could never pay the price of our salvation. If you are drowning in the middle of the ocean and someone saves you by lifting you into his boat, no matter how free your salvation is, it depends on you remaining in the boat. Decide to leave the boat and revert to doing your own thing, and you are back to fending for yourself. Scripture affirms that if we have truly received “the grace [free gift] of God that brings salvation,” it will teach “us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives,” (Titus 2:11-12). Those of us who have merely skimmed the Bible usually assume that a prophecy of God is a declaration or promise that the event described will happen. This is mistaken. Prophecy is a revelation of what is inevitable, only if there is no significant change of attitude in the hearts of those targeted. The Lord of the universe seldom bothers giving what to everyone is useless information because there is nothing anyone can do about it. Nor is prophecy God showing off. Prophecy is the loving Lord’s passionate attempt to inspire something beneficial in the lives of his audience – repentance in those who are errant and/or persistence in those who are faithful. So the outcome of a divine prophecy is not set in celestial concrete but hinges on the response of the human recipients. If key figures in the prophecy change, so will the outcome of the prophecy. For example: Isaiah 38:1-6 In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, “This is what the LORD says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.” Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, . . . And Hezekiah wept bitterly. Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah: “Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘This is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. . . . Likewise: Jeremiah 18:7-8 If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation . . . repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And again: Jeremiah 26:13 Now reform your ways and your actions and obey the LORD your God. Then the LORD will relent and not bring the disaster he has pronounced against you. And again: Ezekiel 33:14-16 And if I say to the wicked man, “You will surely die,” but he then turns away from his sin and does what is just and right . . . None of the sins he has committed will be remembered against him. He has done what is just and right; he will surely live. In all these cases (and for still more, see The Mysterious Nature of Prophecy ) it is to our advantage that a prophetic declaration is not a promise. It can sometimes work in reverse, however, with a prophecy of blessing not materializing, as indicated in the verse immediately before the last quote: Ezekiel 33:13 If I tell the righteous man that he will surely live, but then he trusts in his righteousness and does evil, none of the righteous things he has done will be remembered; he will die for the evil he has done. Egged on by certain over-enthusiastic preachers, many of us have a tendency to find promises in God’s Word that simply aren’t there. Consider this, for example: Acts 16:30-31 . . .“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved – you and your household.” It was already past midnight but in the next three verses the account continues, stating that that very night all the jailor’s household (which probably included servants) were gathered and the apostles expounded the way of salvation to them. They all believed the message and were immediately baptized. As staggering as it seems, over the years I have heard several different preachers seize this solitary statement to an individual and claim it to be an iron clad promise from God that, regardless of what marriage partners and their children do or believe, every family member of every believer will be eternally saved. This is despite the fact that not just the same Bible but the same apostle elsewhere says virtually the exact opposite i.e. that there is no certainty about a family member’s salvation: 1 Corinthians 7:16 How do you know , wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know , husband, whether you will save your wife? I do not doubt the sincerity of these preachers. Nevertheless, it is a serious matter to misrepresent the one to whom we must all one day give account. Here’s another example of “claiming promises” where there are none to be claimed. The apostle Paul said that he had learned the secret of being content, whether he had an abundance or was so lacking that he was hungry. In this context of having learned to be content no matter what the circumstances, he stated that he can do all things (Philippians 4:11-13). Some people rip those few words out of context, like ripping a fetus from its mother’s womb, and try to apply them to every conceivable thing. Some even apply “I can do all things” to never going without, even though Paul was actually saying that this is the very thing experiences had taught him to do. Just verses after saying he had gone hungry (a fact repeated in four other parts in his anointed writings) he says, “my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus,” Philippians 4:12  . . . In everything and in all things I have learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry , both to abound and to be in need. 1 Corinthians 4:11 Even to this present hour we hunger, thirst, are naked, are beaten, and have no certain dwelling place. 2 Corinthians 6:4-5 but in everything commending ourselves, as servants of God, in great endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in riots, in labors, in watchings, in fastings. 2 Corinthians 11:27 in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, and in cold and nakedness. 2 Corinthians 6:9-10  . . . as punished, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor , yet making many rich; as having nothing , and yet possessing all things. (Emphasis mine.) (Philippians 4:19). Whatever that means, it is clearly not intended to preclude the possibly of an anointed man of God having to endure times of hunger, and yet some people claim it as a divine promise, not for necessities, for a flashy car. You might find it hard to believe, but the one who said, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head,” had surprisingly few cars in his garage. (For help in understanding biblical teaching on this subject, see: Forgotten Christian Secrets of Prosperity: Prosperity Doctrine Peace & Contentment: The Christianity that Most Christians have Missed. A Radical Call to Authentic Christianity “. . . your word is truth,” prayed Jesus (John 17:17). “Let God be true, and every man a liar,” says Romans 3:4. “God is not a man, that he should lie,” (Numbers 23:19). The self-sufficient Lord of the universe has no need to try to impress and neither makes mistakes nor has any imperfections he needs to cover up. Passionately mining the Word of God for promises you can claim for yourself and for other people is a holy task that can bring you and our Lord glory when you “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth,” (2 Timothy 2:15). When, however, we fail to treat the Word of Truth with due reverence and care, and falsely assert that God has made promises that he hasn’t, or we hypocritically assume we have fulfilled the conditions on which those promises were based, we become liars by lying about God. To portray God as a liar by perverting his holy words into promises he has never made to us, framing the Innocent One for a crime of our own making, is a grave offense. It is not that we knowingly do this. Blinded by greed, lust, envy, or some other failure to learn to be content in all things, we wander off from the Word of Truth into wishful thinking until we begin believing our own fantasies and then have the audacity to blame the God of truth when we crash into reality. The Holy Lord who sacrificed everything for us has plans to shower us with blessings beyond our wildest dreams, but his ways are not our ways, and they most certainly do not conform to the lusts of this world. We have all been like prostitutes divinely rescued from a pimp, but too many of us expect God to be our new pimp. Christ died not to aid anyone’s quest to become a better class of sinner but to deliver us from sin; not to feed our infatuation with worldly definitions of success but to break that addiction. Related Pages Why I Hate The Myth of a Cruel Christian God Angry at God! Is it Mad to be Mad at God? God Isn’t fair? The Spiritual Essentials for Accurate Bible Interpretation God & Suffering Truth: An Awesome Responsibility Major Pages Mentioned in the Body of this Webpage Hurt & Confused by Fake Personal Prophecies Waiting . . . Prayer Mysteries: The Joy of Unanswered Prayer Prerequisites for Answered Prayer: When Faith & Prayer Do Not Work The Mysterious Nature of Prophecy Forgotten Christian Secrets of Prosperity: Prosperity Doctrine Peace & Contentment: The Christianity that Most Christians have Missed. A Radical Call to Authentic Christianity

Tempted, Condemned, Put Down   The Hidden Reason for Our Doubts   Do we wrestle against spiritual foes, as the apostle Paul claimed?     The following testimony is by Christine, a sexual abuse survivor. This Christian sees into the spirit world more clearly than most of us, but her true account exposes the source of our own doubts, guilt feelings and fears.   The devil, not being infinite like God, cannot be everywhere at once. So when he tempts us he usually must use his evil underlings to do his dirty work, rather than dealing with us personally.   Whenever we let ourselves believe we are unforgivable, we are playing into the hands of anti-God forces, giving demons sadistic pleasure, as we let them rob us of our rightful spiritual inheritance. These disgustingly filthy creatures get high on us being needlessly miserable. Like the most repulsive parasitic worms sucking the spiritual life out of us, these evil tricksters gleefully feed off our doubts and insecurities. They specialize in deceit and slandering both us and the power of Jesus’ sacrifice.   Our spiritual enemies, who lust after our destruction, rarely blow their cover by letting us see them as demons. Instead, they slip thoughts into our minds that most of us assume to be our own thoughts and they follow this up with devastatingly believable feelings of guilt and powerfully deceptive feelings of abandonment by God.   Christine’s insight into the spirit world is very practical, even though it had a symbolic element. The demon’s sword represents his power to hurt her.   Here’s what happened:   In the darkness of morning, when I was more asleep than awake, I heard a demon. “Here we go again,” I told myself.   “You’re going to die! You’re going to fail and there will be no money. You’re a horrible mother.” On and on he went.   I grabbed my sword, the Word of God, and fought, rebuking the demon by quoting the Bible. Finally, in the spirit, I saw that I had pinned the demon’s sword and I took it from him. I now had the very sword that he had raised up against me to strike me down.   He stopped. He smiled and changed into a very friendly-looking being. He laughed a little and told me sweetly to give his sword back.   I was surprised but refused his request.   “Oh, but that makes you a thief. Are you a thief?”   I didn’t answer. With pretended kindness, he said, “Now, when a thief is found out [he giggled] he or she [he gave a sick smile] must pay seven fold [Proverbs 6:30-31]. That means you have to give me seven fold and you don’t want to do that, do you?”   Hey, he had been trying to kill me with that sword!   The spirit of deceit was so strong that it was blinding. I was getting confused. I consulted the Holy Spirit. All he replied was, “Remember when they tempted Jesus in the wilderness?” I did. It was a blinding temptation that many wrongly suppose was a breeze for Jesus to resist. Not even the Son of God found resisting temptation easy. Consider the sweat on his brow in the Garden of Gethsemane over yielding to God’s will.   In my weakened state, the demon starting throwing up my past, and hissing with a deceitfulness that only those who have knowingly faced demons will understand. Throughout the attack the Holy Spirit was guiding and teaching me. He wasn’t blaming me or being hard on me for the attack. He blamed the demon and told me, “Be strong and of good courage. I am with you and I will never leave nor forsake you.”   I put my head down and said, “Yes, but I am guilty of some of the things that demon accused me of.”   “Not anymore!” the Lord replied, “You asked for forgiveness and I forgave you. It is under the blood. That is what makes what those demons say so offensive. How dare they deny the blood!”   Then the demon changed his tactic. “You’re smarter than the rest. You’re prettier. Now, give me the sword,” he cooed seductively.   I realized he was getting high. By just talking to me, he was getting a fix. He was feeding off me, in a sick, perverted way. Any guilt, confusion, or anger of mine, was sending his perverted senses high. At that instant I clearly saw that whenever any of us believe that we are inferior, or beyond forgiveness, or get tormented, demons get high on a power trip, just like paedophiles. When we let guilt feelings or feelings of hopelessness, get to us, we are being seduced by twisted demons.   I looked that demon in the eye. I was shaken. I could see in his evil black eye that look of sensual pleasure; that twisted, high look that a paedophile gets when you cry out in pain or when he sees you can’t fight anymore, and he gets his way with you.   Domination and perversion: that is what this creep wanted.   I replied, “I am giving the sword to God. And if it is yours, you can get it from him. Go talk to Jesus.”   At that name he hissed like a child molester after having used his victim and then hating the victim, since it was through that person that he got his high and fell into sin, which means he was dominated. No matter how much sex abusers seek to dominate, their own addiction dominates them. I remember expecting to die when my childhood abuser looked angry enough to kill me. I didn’t understand his anger. Now I do.   No matter how demons seek to use us to satisfy their evil appetites, they will end up hating us because they are dominated by their lusts, and defeated by Jesus.   Every time we think we are bad, demons get high. Every time we feel dirty, they get high. Every time they talk to us, even in an almost imperceptible whisper, they get high. They are eternal addicts and slaves to their own lusts. They infest paedophiles and feed on anyone else who lets themselves be fooled by their lies. We can’t understand the magnitude of evil that infests them and consumes them.   Beware: demons seek their warped pleasure from your despair, your failure to keep believing in the power of Christ’s forgiveness, your giving into anything less than the identity you have in Christ.   When I realized this demon was like a sick sex pervert getting high just from trying to dupe me, I resisted the demon.   He left and I woke up. My skin felt dirty. I wanted to take a bath. I know it as the feeling left behind by the presence of a demon.   What a morning! And all I had wanted to do was sleep!   Demons aren’t easy to deal with. It is hard even to realize we are dealing with demons. They disguise themselves in a myriad of faces and voices, with the same end in mind. They hate humans. They are slaves to their own perversion, and addicts to their sins. They feed on our doubts and guilt feelings and take glory in them. We fight them by stubbornly clinging to the truth of the Word of God, even when their lies seem so convincing, and when their accusations would be so very accurate, were it not for the cleansing power of Jesus sacrificing his life for our every sin.   How You Can Win, Like Christine   – By Grantley   Since God has ordained that salvation, along with all other spiritual blessings and authority over demons, is by faith, spiritual attacks focus on what we believe, especially on whether we believe that Christ forgives us and that through our spiritual union with Christ, God is pleased with us. Our spiritual enemies know that our beliefs about other people’s standing with God will not free us from being the playthings of demons. So spiritual attack usually focuses not on pretending that Jesus’ sacrifice failed to forgive  other people , but that Jesus was a failure in that his tortuous sacrifice cannot forgive  me . Some of us don’t even realize that by letting these evil whisperers dupe us into thinking we are unforgivable, we are joining them in slandering the power of Christ’s forgiveness.   In the following webpages are many inspiring testimonies from people who, after having once been convinced that their blasphemies and gross sins had rendered them unforgivable, can now see through the demonic lies and realize that they are forgiven. What is critical for you, however, is not other people’s breakthroughs but your own. You must join them by yourself engaging in spiritual warfare against those demonic whisperers, and deny those cheats the sadistic delight they get out of any of us being fooled into thinking we are unforgivable. No matter how gross and blatant and repeated and blasphemous your sins, don’t let filthy liars trick you into slandering Christ by denying his power to forgive you.   Since I want to speed your personal breakthrough, I suggest you bookmark this page so that you can continue with this testimony series later, but first learn more about how to defeat demonic cheats who get their kicks out of us letting them dupe us.   Critical to Christine’s victory was quoting the Word of God. For help in finding appropriate Scriptures when you feel hopelessly condemned, see:   Rock Solid Bible Truth: Heart-warming Bible Proof of Your Forgiveness   You Are Not Unforgivable: Bible Proof   For help in learning how to fight deceitful spiritual con artists, and stop those malicious weaklings from cheating you out of what Christ died for you to enjoy, see:   Spiritual Warfare: Turning Spiritual Attack into Victory   You Need More: If you want a rest from reading, now is a good time. If you worry that you are in spiritual danger, however, you will need to return to these webpages whenever you can and read more. Record the web address of the next webpage before leaving.   Next Testimony: When you Cannot Stop Bad Thoughts: Scrupulosity Testimony

Recovery: No longer being dominated by past traumas and defeats From soon after birth, Jake was subjected to extreme physical and sexual abuse from his mother, father, and siblings. He is progressively healing from the psychological damage inflicted on him. It took quite a time for him to reach the point on his healing journey described in this webpage. Jake has great potential as an artist but just one consequence of his abuse is that it kept him from developing his artistic ability and caused him to shrink from success in any career. What Jake says can be applied to any aspect of your past that is keeping you from the freedom, fulfillment and success you were born for. Jake’s father was an artist and he severely ridiculed and punished Jake as a child for his attempts at art. From then on, Jake rarely attempted any art and if ever he did it was usually followed by dark feelings mixed with fear and anxiety; the haunting consequences of his father’s reaction to his artistic attempts so many years ago. Jake rightly sees the devil as ultimately inspiring the abuse and attacks he has suffered. The devil is “The thief [who] comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10). Grantley Morris Founder, netburst.net Jake writes: I am weeping from anger and grief about what has been stolen from me. I will no longer tolerate the loss of dreams, beauty, and art. I shall be God’s artist; his hands of grace to speak to a world whose pictures are dark, yet can be restored. I shall arise and be what I have been created to be, and do what I was created to do. With my Abba Father I shall arise and go to the thief, demanding what is rightfully mine; not only what was stolen, but also the years that were lost. Sevenfold shall this thief pay (Proverbs 6:3). He shall not escape my Father’s fury, nor mine. I am no longer faceless, voiceless, or useless. No longer shall my sword arm lay useless and withered, for the Almighty has touched it and given me strength. Don’t cry for my scars, for they are dear to me. They tell the stories of battles fought and won. They no longer speak of a victim. No longer do they speak of a plaything of the enemy who steals and destroys. They speak of a child of the King who gives life, and gives it abundantly. If I need to weep in this battle, that is okay. At times, grief brings strength. For it is a time of letting go of the weakness, and embracing divine strength, as my sword is laid at his feet and then taken up for the King. The other day, painting was a time of the deepest joy I have ever known. It seemed I was as I was meant to be. Father God was with me, and I delighted in the joy of his presence as I painted for him. The joy that filled me was overwhelming, soft, pure, true, and wonderful. I was with my heavenly Daddy as he delighted in me. I am weeping for joy and sorrow over the moment; sorrow for what was lost, and joy for what is being restored. He is the One who redeems, and he shall redeem the years that the devourer has eaten away. I am redeemed, and I am God’s! I’m no longer a victim, but a prince; a son of the highest King. I remember Father God telling me to draw, and that he would bring healing to me through it, yet the fear and anxiety used to be so strong that it got in the way. Regardless of whether the world will see me as a great artist, I know that is how God sees me, and that makes my heart sing. I am aware that I still have further to go in my healing, and that the anxiety and fear might sometimes be hard to push through, but I pray that he will help me be disciplined in it, no matter what it costs and that the root of those feelings will be pulled out completely. I also must not let perfectionism rule me, but I will let myself have fun with my art, and enjoy the process and the completeness that Father will bring to me. His promises are being fulfilled in me. The destroyers shall depart, and the builders shall build. Father God has let me play a part in this building process that he is doing in my heart as he builds his temple in me. It must be done his way, as I am unskilled, and he knows all. He is the Architect, the Designer; my Daddy who knows everything. I trust him for I don’t really know what the best building materials are, nor do I know the most fragrant flowers that delight the eyes, but he knows. I am like a child in a garden saying, “Daddy, look what I did!” with great excitement, wanting just to hear his voice. I look with wide-eyed, childlike wonder, not really seeing that most of the watering, planting, weeding, and pest control is done by my Daddy in the garden that he lets me call mine. I hear his loving voice saying, “Wow! Oooo! Ahhh! You did wonderfully!” Then he says to the angels, “Look, my son has done this!” Love, pride, and joy that I am his fills his heart. As I become more trustworthy, he entrusts more of this garden to me, because my trust is being built in him. And with that trust, I will push through any fear that could keep me from reclaiming everything stolen from me during my past abuse. Related pages The Abuse Survivor’s Ultimate Revenge Reclaiming your sexuality Afraid? Help and Inspiration When Gripped by Fear There’s Hope! A Sane Guide to Finding Hope When There is No Hope Extreme Grace More of Jake’s Testimony The Hidden Reason for our Doubts More about Resisting Restrictions Vital Help For Both Genders The above is just part of a series of free webpages devoted to the full recovery of survivors of all forms of sexual interference. It is essential that you read Comfort, Understanding and Healing for Abuse Survivors for an overview and links to the other critically important pages.

Compassionate Christian Answers to Doubt How to Grow in Faith Triumph in the Face of Doubt! Heroism is not the absence of fear, but plowing on regardless. Likewise, faith – spiritual heroism – is not the absence of doubt. In fact, doubt serves us as our personal spiritual trainer, enabling us to build spiritual muscle, and thus empowering us for eternal greatness. One might expect that muscles would thrive in the perfect ease of weightlessness, but instead they waste away. The Bible says we have reason to rejoice when hit by trials because trials do us good spiritually (Romans 5:3; James 1:2-4). Likewise, we can rejoice when hit by doubts because our faith needs doubt like our muscles need gravity to grow strong. Just as someone with a nagging toothache is more conscious of the little weakness in his tooth than of all the strengths in his body, so we are usually highly aware of a nagging doubt and oblivious to there being many areas of life in which we have above average faith. In different people, doubt targets different areas. So a role of this webpage is to direct you to other webpages that deal more specifically with the area of life where, for you, most of the fiery darts of doubt are targeted. I have scoured my hundreds of webpages to bring together those snippets most likely to inspire you to soar in the midst of doubt, and to this I have added original material. It is a well-established medical fact that many people suffer a chemical imbalance – sometimes it’s as simple as a vitamin or mineral deficiency – that induces continual anxiety, which has the surprising effect of filling these people with doubts. Although it affects only a small percentage of people, the number totals many millions worldwide and, alarmingly often, it goes undiagnosed. I will move on to other doubt-related issues, but this medical condition is so torturous, confusing and rarely understood outside of medical circles that I feel obligated to give priority to briefly mentioning it. Unless you are one of the few who already understand it (in which case, feel free to skip it) this information could radically change your life, or that of someone close to you. The Doubting Disease Anxiety acts as an alarm that goes off within us indicating that something is seriously wrong and causing our brain to keep seeking the reason, so that it can be corrected. Medically induced anxiety, however, means that the anxiety is driven not by a rational reason for concern but by a chemical imbalance. When, for example, a fire alarm goes off, it sounds the same regardless of whether it was triggered by an actual fire or by a technical malfunction. Since a false alarm sounds exactly the same as when it is triggered by genuine danger, it is very tempting to feel disturbed about the alarm continuing, even when you have checked and confirmed that there is no danger. So it is with your anxiety. Unfortunately, for as long as you suffer from this anxiety you will just have to keep reminding yourself that it is a false alarm and get used to it blaring and being unpleasant and refuse to treat it as if it were real. When anxiety is a false alarm it is not only disturbingly unpleasant, it can confuse us spiritually. Anxiety feels like a torturously guilty conscience that keeps nagging away no matter how utterly we are divinely forgiven, cleansed of all sin and made holy by faith in Jesus. Since anxiety is far too incessant to be ignored, however, it is hard not to slip into believing the persistent, overwhelmingly strong feeling, rather than keep stubbornly believing God’s promise to forgive all who put their faith in Jesus. Add to this the fact that anxiety keeps telling us that something is seriously wrong when everything is actually fine, and the foundation to our entire relationship with God – believing that through Jesus our past failings no longer hinder our relationship with God – is under attack. The spiritual confusion can be serious, if we cave in to believing our powerfully deceptive feelings rather than resolutely clinging to raw faith in both Christ’s eagerness to secure our full forgiveness and his ability to do so. For those with Clinical Anxiety, living by raw faith is much harder to do than for other people, but it is like a coach making his star athlete engage in much heavier training than others – it will end up making him stronger than others, even though during tough training sessions he will seem much weaker than those who are lazing around. It is like a runner lugging heavy weights on his back – it feels as if it is weakening him but it will actually make him stronger as he keeps struggling on. As I explain in my webpages, here’s what I have ready to paste into the emails of people who, due to this condition, keep seeking assurance or keep finding new doubts or new Scriptures to worry about. It will help you understand how the mind of someone suffering anxiety acts: I am desperate to help you, dear friend, but despite what one might expect, my very many years of experience with hundreds of Christians asking such questions has proved over and over that answering your questions will not end up helping you. Your questions will end up being literally endless. This is the nature of the tricks your mind is playing on you. You will never feel sure, no matter what experiences you have (angel visitations or whatever) and no matter how well you know God. It is obvious from your questions that you suffer from excess anxiety – a medical condition – and this anxiety will remain no matter what I say or anyone else says. So, unfortunately, the unavoidable fact is that I would be wasting your time and mine answering your questions. You will feel sure that an answer will give you peace – and it might for a day or so – but the doubts will then start up again. So what you need is not answers to your questions but an understanding of the real source of your anxiety – Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). OCD is called the doubting disease and it goes to absolutely ridiculous lengths. Your OCD takes a religious form but to understand it, consider someone who checks locks over and over because of OCD. He locks the door and is sure it is locked. Then in just a couple of minutes’ time he begins wondering if he really locked it. The doubt grows until, rather than put up with the doubt, he decides to “put his mind at rest” by checking. Phew! It’s locked. He is now at peace and can get on with life. But then in a couple more minutes he begins to wonder if maybe the door had not been correctly locked. He puts up with that nagging thought for a while but the worry grows stronger and stronger until he is again convinced that the only hope he has of finding peace is to check all the locks. It would only take one check and then he would be really sure and will never have to check again that night. He checks and feels so much better. Then a couple of minutes later . . . What feeds this ridiculous addiction to checking is that checking temporarily feels good because it relieves all the anxiety. But like all addictions, the good feeling is short lived and it just inflames the yearning for more. The only way to break this addiction – and any other addiction – is to stop feeding the habit – refusing to ease the anxiety by seeking reassurance that everything is okay. When people keep writing to me about this, I am forced to tell them, “Like everyone else with OCD, you will never be able to ask enough people or get answers that satisfy you. No one should keep pandering to your OCD. It will not only wear them out but in the long term it will not only end up achieving nothing for you, it will actually make your OCD worse.” To reassure someone with OCD is like buying drugs for an addict when what is needed is for the addict to simply endure the craving for drugs because giving him the drug will give no more than temporary relief and it will then end up increasing the craving. You simply have to accept as a fact of life that you will be repeatedly harassed by doubts, fears, anxiety, guilt feelings, etc, and learn not to believe them, no matter how convincing they feel. The only permanent help is to seek medical help (in itself this will not be a complete cure but it can help) plus break the addiction to seeking assurance. Like the breaking of any addiction, this will be agonizingly tough and there will be severe withdrawal symptoms – anxiety – but every time you give in, it will strengthen the addiction. You simply have to hold out, putting up with anxiety and refusing to relieve it. Eventually – after days or weeks – the anxiety will begin to fade, but do not expect it to disappear. So for me to feed your OCD by answering your questions would be for me to act like a drug pusher. And don’t you dare feed it – and hence inflame it – by, for example, asking other people, going to other websites etc. All of this and much more is carefully explained in my website and it is most important that you keep prayerfully reading it until you fully grasp this concept because I know of nothing more I can say or do to help you understand than what is fully expounded in those webpages. Start at Scrupulosity and then keep following for very many pages the main link toward the bottom of each page. Doubting God’s Goodness In links we will explore rational answers to intellectual doubts about Christianity but, as one of the links explains, even intellectual doubts usually mask deeper, spiritual issues. In fact, it might surprise you to discover that despite the variety of doubts, most doubts can be tracked back to doubting the goodness of God. The first temptation was to doubt God’s goodness. The deceiver fooled Eve into thinking that God, by telling her not to eat from one tree, was selfishly keeping something good from her. Had she resisted the temptation to doubt God’s goodness, Eve would have realized that God was restricting her only to protect her from harm, and would never have fallen. Ever since, most temptations – including temptations to doubt – question God’s goodness. Every second of every day, everyone on this planet depends on Almighty God to uphold the laws of the physical universe. If the Lord is as morally good as the Bible claims, he is dependable not only in the sense of having astounding power but because he is mind-bogglingly unselfish and a God of impeccable faithfulness and integrity. No matter how extreme the provocation, he keeps his word and remains steadfastly devoted to you. Because he is good, he tenderly, passionately loves you. As proved by Christ’s torturous death, your eternal joy is of such priority to him that there is no extreme he wouldn’t go to in order to give you his best. Romans 8:32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? We are simply not used to relating to anyone marginally as trustworthy as God. He is so staggeringly moral – so incomparably, incomprehensibly and impeccably good – that Jesus declared that only God is good (Mark 10:18). The fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control – reveal his heart. God is delightfully, passionately, breathtakingly warm. Search all of humanity for the finest examples of character traits that are exquisitely lovable and fill you with deepest admiration, add them all together, subtract every imperfection, then multiply them by infinity, and the result is beginning to approximate the wonder and beauty of the most exciting person in the universe – God. Since God is good, he is no hypocrite. He didn’t tell us to forgive seventy times seven if there were a limit to his eagerness to forgive you whenever you repent. The deceiver, however, longs to trick you into thinking that God frowns on you when you fall into sin. Yes, God is disappointed, but when a little child falls, what’s the first thing he does? He runs to mommy or daddy for comfort. You, too, can run to a patient, gentle, kind, loving, forgiving Daddy, who longs to take you in his arms and dry your tears whenever you fall. Satan, however, longing to rob you of the comfort you deserve and the divine strength that is your Christ-bought right, wants to make you feel bad about running to God. He knows we instinctively recoil from anyone we fear might be unforgiving, and hence angry or displeased with us. The deceiver is desperate to fill you with false feelings of condemnation because he longs for you to be standoffish from the only One who can truly deliver you, and defeat Satan in your life. He doesn’t want you to rejoice in God’s goodness and forgiveness but to feel miserable and keep God at arm’s length. Faith Despite Evil If the mess this world is in causes you to question God’s goodness: think again. We aren’t in heaven yet. On the contrary, we live in a world in which the dominant species – humanity – is in rebellion against the good Lord. If acting contrary to God’s will produced something good, then God’s will could not be good. Of logical necessity, a world rebelling against a good God must be filled with pain, suffering, injustice and despair. You cannot fervently love someone without aching for that person to love you – especially if you know that person desperately needs you in his/her life. To deeply love someone means you could have everything else in the universe, and yet without that person’s love you would still be heartbroken. To love is to make oneself so vulnerable that even having unlimited power could not help. Omnipotence could easily force someone to obey you. Or it could produce something like a ‘love’ potion, causing a person to be under the illusion of loving you. But genuine love can never be compelled. If attempts to induce it involves force or chemicals or deceit or bribery, it is a sham and can never satisfy your yearning for that person’s love. There are things that not even omnipotence can achieve. It cannot, for example, produce a square circle. It can easily turn a circle into a square, but the instant it has straight sides it is not a circle. Likewise, if someone is forced to act in love, it is not genuine love. Even with unlimited power, there is little anyone could do to induce genuine love in a person, other than be loving and wait for a response. We would be appalled if a man kidnapped a woman and raped and enslaved her because he claims he loves her, wants her as his wife and is convinced he can make her happy. It would be an immoral abuse of power, regardless of whether he used physical force or threats – in which case she would be conscious of the violation of her rights – or if he used drugs or hypnotism so that she is unaware that what is happening is against her will. Real love respects the desires of the beloved, no matter how much it clashes with the lover’s personal longings, and no matter how certain he is that the person would benefit from a lifelong intimacy with him. God wants a relationship with us more intimate, more permanent and more exclusive than the most wonderful marriage any human couple could ever experience. When we learn that he wants us to love, honor and obey him, we back off in horror before discovering that in every way we benefit from this relationship and that it is God, not us, who gets the raw end. He loves you more than you love yourself and has your best interests at heart even more than you do. He alone has infinite understanding and – as demonstrated by Jesus suffering on the cross for you – he is utterly unselfish and would sacrifice anything for your eternal happiness. To disregard the advice of someone of infinite intelligence who wants only your best, makes as much sense as deliberately harming yourself. Any time we fail to love, honor and obey the God who is devoted to our welfare, we ruin that part of our lives, relative to what we would otherwise have enjoyed and achieved. Should you start looking for reasons to doubt God’s goodness, the stench will attract demons from every direction. If, for example, you are willing to let one or two Scriptures sabotage your faith in God’s integrity, slimy hordes will rush to your assistance in finding Bible verses to bolster your doubts, just as Satan quoted Scripture to tempt Jesus (Luke 4:9-12). Rather than wrestle incessantly with the Scripture Satan cited, Christ considered it sufficient simply to quote another Scripture and cling to it. In contrast, the way to send demons into a frenzy of malicious delight is to refuse to accept the rest of the Bible as sufficient and focus on an inadequate understanding of one or two Scriptures; arrogantly demanding a full explanation of obscure Scriptures before conceding the truth of all the other Scriptures that unambiguously insist on God’s goodness, selflessness, dependability, love of justice, and so on. Once demons see that just one or two doubts is all it takes to undermine your faith, they will delight in you as a soft target and pour their united effort into keeping you focused on doubts and the arrogant stupidity of demanding full understanding of every Scripture and circumstance before you will put your faith in Christ. The great temptation is to rely on our intellect to battle such attacks but the weapons of our warfare are not human but spiritual. 2 Corinthians 10:4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the throwing down of strongholds Ephesians 6:12-13 For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world’s rulers of the darkness of this age, and against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand. 1 Corinthians 1:18 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are dying, but to us who are saved it is the power of God. 1 Corinthians 2:4-5 My speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith wouldn’t stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Zechariah 4:6  . . . ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord of Armies. 1 Samuel 17:45,47 Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin; but I come to you in the name of the Lord of Armies, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. . . . And that all this assembly may know that the Lord doesn’t save with sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hand.” The way to win is not through argument but to rebuke the spirits behind the lies, stubbornly refuse to cave in to the doubts that incessantly scream at you, and keep clinging to the fact that God is so much more righteous than us that, as Jesus indicated, no one but God is truly good (Mark 10:18). It is proper to seek God for deeper understanding but we must not make our determination to love and serve God conditional upon receiving instant answers that our finite minds can grasp. If all God’s ways were intelligible to us he would not be God but an imposter. God – not our puny intellect – must be our God. God’s Love for You Let me explain what makes belief in God’s goodness critical to faith. Few of us doubt that God can do amazing things. We can easily believe that the atom-holding, earth-spinning, galaxy-sustaining, life-giving Source of everything wonderful can do whatever he likes. Even the devil believes God’s power. My difficulty is believing that God’s special love for me makes him long to use that power for ordinary, inconsequential me. And most likely you share my problem. We suspect we are not sufficiently special in the Almighty’s eyes to warrant such attention. Oh yes, ‘God loves everyone,’ but we have a hunch that by the time that love reaches us, it has spread pretty thin. ‘I’m just one of millions. Why would God want to focus his omnipotence on me?’ we secretly tell ourselves. I used to think yeah, yeah, God loves me, but he loves everyone. To him, I’m just one of millions of Christians. God has his favorites and I’m not one of them. I thought I was being humble thinking this way. But what I was really doing was accusing God of imperfect love – of not being good in the highest possible sense of the word, but subject to prejudices like fickle, selfish humans. In fact, I was being arrogant. To believe that you or I are of only minor importance to God is to believe his love is a sham. That makes God a liar. There is nothing humble about calling the holy Lord a liar! If we could grasp the enormity of God’s love for us, our faith would sky-rocket. Pray for a revelation. Ephesians 3:17-19 highlights the necessity of such prayer: I pray that you . . . may have power . . . to . . . know this love that surpasses knowledge . . . (Emphasis mine.) Awareness of how much we are loved is forever slipping from our consciousness. Partially in sight for a few days, it begins to fade again. There are important links at the end of this page to help you nurture your awareness of how special you are in God’s eyes. The Amazing Power of Wavering Faith Even among dynamic people of God with earth-shaking ministries, weak, wavering, doubt-plagued faith is the norm. It’s all we need to achieve great things in God. Take heart from the man whom Scripture exalts as the supreme example of faith (Romans 4; Galatians 3:6-9; Hebrew 11:8-19; James 2:21-23). In an early chapter of Genesis, God tells Abraham on two separate occasions that he will give him the land and descendants (Genesis 12:2,7). Just four verses later we find Abraham humiliating Sarah, denying that she is his wife. In cowardly deceit, he stands dumbly by as Pharaoh marries Sarah and takes her into his harem (Genesis 12:10-16). Next chapter, God yet again details the promise of land and descendants (Genesis 13:14-17). Nevertheless, two chapters on, we find Abraham expecting to die childless. For a fourth time God insists he will give Abraham descendants. At last the old fossil believes. The Lord, thrilled with Abraham’s re-found faith, repeats his vow to give him the land. In disbelief, Abraham asks for a sign (Genesis 15:2-8). With divine patience God dramatically shows the mighty man of faith not only his future descendants, but what will happen to them. In the next chapter we find our faith model throwing away any hope of a miracle from God. He resorts to highly dubious natural means to forcibly accomplish what God seems unwilling to do. He bypasses his wife and turns to her maid for a baby (Genesis 16:1-3). Years later, the Lord yet again reaffirms his promise to Abraham and declares that Sarah would conceive. Abraham laughs. He is sure his wife has more potential as an Egyptian mummy than as a Hebrew one. ‘She’s too old. Just bless Ishmael,’ is the crux of his reply (Genesis 17:17-18). Yet the Lord persists. One more time our hero gropes for that slippery fish called faith. Before long, he is again passing off Sarah as his sister, showing more faith in his powers of deception than in God’s integrity. This time it is King Abimelech who almost has a go at impregnating Sarah (Genesis 20:2-3). Just weeks later, (assuming Genesis 18:10 to 21:2 are in chronological order) she conceived Abraham’s baby. Faith is not a non-stop flight above reality; it’s a fight. What distinguishes people of faith is not how rarely they hit the dirt, but how often they get up again. To be perpetually positive is impossible. The mere attempt embroils us in prayer battles and Abrahamic effort. The enemy often flees to his corner, only to prepare for the next round. You might even have climbed out of the ring, but the reward for getting back in exceeds anything anyone could offer. The Faith You’re Given is All You Need People are putting money in the offering. You see varying amounts go in. A well-dressed man pulls out a huge wad of notes. Your eyes nearly pop. There must be thousands of dollars in his fist as he drops them in. Then it’s the turn of a withered, shabbily dressed woman. In her time-ravished hand are two five cent coins – a miserable total of ten cents. Why does she even bother ? you ask yourself, What good . . . ? Suddenly you notice that Jesus’ eyes have lit up. Excitedly, he gathers his disciples around him and proudly declares, ‘This poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything – all she had to live on’ (Mark 12:43-44). It was the one who seemed to be giving the least, whom he exalted as giving the most. Jesus makes visible the very heart of God. What matters to God is not how much we give but how deep we had to dig to give it; not the actual value of our contribution to the kingdom, but how much of what we have that we give. This divine principle applies to every aspect of life. If, for instance, we have almost no faith but we give God ninety percent of the little we have, the all-knowing Lord sees this as being more commendable than those who display much greater faith but are actually using only eighty percent of all the faith that they could muster. A person filled with doubts and fears and suppressed anger at God, but still doing the little he or she can to hold on to God, could easily be seen by the Lord as having more faith than someone used to raise the dead. Depending on their past experiences beyond their control, animals vary greatly as to how trusting they are of people. So it is with how trusting people are of God. Faith belongs to that long list of things – wealth, health, intelligence, beauty, status, fame, and so on – that is distributed very unequally among humanity, and often for reasons largely beyond the recipients’ control. This inequality is reflected in Jesus’ parable in which different servants were entrusted with different amounts of money (Matthew 25:15). Although each servant was responsible for what he did with what was loaned to him, none had the slightest control over the original size of the loan. There was a time when I did not realize that this applies to faith as well as everything else in life. My many years of counseling people, however, have affirmed over and over that experiences beyond people’s personal control – such as whether their trust was violated by adults during their tender, impressionable years – makes not just faith in people but faith in God much harder for some people than for others. Likewise, there are psychological afflictions and illnesses, such as religious obsessive-compulsive disorder, that make faith devastatingly difficult. You might not understand this, but humanity’s Judge certainly does, and he takes it very much into account in rewarding us, just as Jesus did in assessing people’s generosity. If you demand biblical proof, I’ll give it. God’s Word declares that the gifts of the Spirit are divinely apportioned unequally. God ensures that people differ in their spiritual gifts because people differ in their function in Christ’s body. One of the gifts specifically mentioned in that passage is faith (1 Corinthians 12). Ponder also the implications of these Scriptures: Romans 12:3 . . . think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Romans 12:6 We have different gifts, a ccording to the grace given us . If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it i n proportion to his faith. Ephesians 4:7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. ( Emphasis mine.) Taken together, the above Scriptures suggest that although we have each been given (it is a gift, not something that is self-generated) a degree of faith, the size of the gift varies from person to person. As in the parable of the talents, we have the potential and responsibility to increase that gift, but our Master is acutely aware that some have been given far more than others. God is never impressed by the size of our original gift. After all, it is something we are given, not what we have achieved. Just as a good father is as proud of a helpless new born baby as he is of its toddler brother and teenaged sister, the Omnipotent Lord thinks no higher of someone who has been gifted with great faith. The sole thing that moves the Almighty is the extent to which we seek to maximize however much or little he has entrusted to us. And Jesus is emphatic that God expects much more from those who have been given more (Luke 12:48). If our eternal reward hinged on earthly advantages we might have reason to question God’s fairness, but the Judge is not like that. None of us knows our true potential. God alone knows how we have fared, relative to that potential, and it is on this basis that Christians are rewarded. God is Judge, and everyone knows that a judge must be impartial. ‘Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?’ asked Abraham (Genesis 18:25), with as much confidence as if he had asked, ‘Will not the sun rise tomorrow?’ Our conviction that a judge must be fair comes from God himself. What God Requires of a Judge Exodus 23:2 You shall not follow a crowd to do evil. You shall not testify in court to side with a multitude to pervert justice. You shall not favor a poor man in his cause. Exodus 23:7 Keep far from a false charge, and don’t kill the innocent and righteous: for I will not justify the wicked. You shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds those who have sight and perverts the words of the righteous. Leviticus 19:15 You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor show favoritism to the great; but you shall judge your neighbor in righteousness. Deuteronomy 1:17 You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is God’s. The case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it. Deuteronomy 16:19 You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality. You shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise, and perverts the words of the righteous. Deuteronomy 27:19 ‘Cursed is he who withholds justice from the foreigner, fatherless, and widow.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ 2 Chronicles 19:7 Now therefore let the fear of the Lord be on you. Take heed and do it: for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of bribes. Proverbs 24:23 These also are sayings of the wise. To show partiality in judgment is not good. Of course, there is such a thing as a corrupt judge, but wherever you go in the Bible it shouts that God is righteous. Life is full of injustices, and the ultimate injustice was when the Son of God – in the absolute sense, humanity’s only Innocent – was crucified. But one day all injustices will be righted and we will be eternally compensated for every temporary unfairness. We will then discover that what matters for all eternity is not how much faith (or anything else) we were given on earth, but how well we used it. Many who have had only tiny faith to work with will receive far higher eternal rewards than those who were given much greater faith. This thrilling truth is expounded further in a link at the end of this page. We Rarely Know When We’re Showing Great Faith We often get things so terribly confused that what we suppose to be great faith, is actually weak faith, and what we think is almost no faith is great faith. For this reason I’ve written elsewhere: Faith grows best in the dark. Life in the sunshine is so exhilarating that we seldom notice our faith beginning to droop. It’s when things are dim, that spiritual life mushrooms. When it’s sunny we want to run off and play. It’s when it’s darkest that we hold Father’s hand the tightest. In the gloom, qualities like faith, grit, and dedication, are stretched to limits we have never before reached. Yet life seems so oppressive we are oblivious to our triumphs. In pristine conditions eyes of faith can see forever. When storms close in, it is a mammoth task for those same eyes to even slightly pierce the swirling murk. It is the conditions, not you, that have deteriorated. Contrary to every feeling, you are not regressing. Though offered with the best intentions, much sentimental waffle is sometimes uttered about returning to one’s ‘first love’, as if the starry-eyed euphoria of new Christians is greater than the mature depths of your average older Christian. Poppycock! Most spiritual honeymooners are radiant primarily because they think they have entered a blissful world of near-perfect Christians, instant answers to selfish prayers and a life forever free from pain, heartache and trials. Theirs is most likely mere puppy love, relative to the ardor moving you to tough it out. It’s pain endured in the valley, not gooey feelings in the afterglow of mountaintop ecstasy, that validates love. By all means, passionately seek the face of God, but don’t assume that emotional deadness – a normal phase of anyone’s spiritual life – implies spiritual deadness. We march by faith, not by warm fuzzies. An athlete, in the midst of a record-breaking run, has never in his life been so fit and strong. Yet his pain-racked body may have never felt so weak. Likewise, in the midst of a spiritual trial, it is not uncommon to be stronger and yet feel weaker than ever before. And to fellow Christians you might seem hopeless. An ultra-marathon champion staggering up the final hill looks pathetic. A child could do better. Anyone not understanding what this man has gone through would shrink from him in disgust. Only someone with all the facts would be awed by his stamina as he stumbles on. Miracles and signs of God’s favor and positive feelings give only an illusion of faith. Real faith is what is left after all this is stripped away and the only feelings left are unpleasant ones. Often when people seem to have great faith, it is merely God compensating for their lack of faith, until he is sufficiently confident in their spiritual maturity to strip away the props so that their faith may at last begin to develop. Precious metals dug from the ground are of little use until they are refined. Removing signs and feelings is like removing the dross from faith and so that at last it becomes useful and of great value. The process whereby our faith is made of great value is often so painful and can seem so cruel that it is almost like being thrown alive into a furnace and this imagery is common in the Bible. Look especially, however, at these Scriptures: 1 Peter 1:6-7 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Psalms 66:10-12 For you, O God, tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance. Zechariah 13:9 This third I will bring into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on my name and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The LORD is our God.’ James 1:2-3 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. (Emphasis mine.) Over a couple of years, a very intelligent friend of mine had read the following few paragraphs several times, and yet she was still struggling with faith. I decided to risk her annoyance by reading it to her yet another time. To my surprise, this time it really impacted her. You, too, might need to prayerfully read not just the following but the entire webpage many times to receive full benefit, but let’s see what finally helped her: In what was perhaps my most painful trial, I was convinced I desperately needed personal indications of God’s presence, and I felt badly treated by God when he left me to stagger though life devoid of any tangible proof that I was important to him, even though he gave people all around me the signs I craved. The more I sought God, the more he seemed to leave me floundering. Crushing disappointments and devastating blows dragged on for years, despite fervently seeking God. Eventually I remembered Thomas, who was granted perhaps the greatest of all such experiences – the opportunity to physically handle the risen Lord. How blessed he was! And yet the astounding thing is that Jesus told Thomas that the person who is really blessed is the one who is not granted an experience like him. The best is reserved for the person compelled to hold on by faith alone (John 20:29). Finally I understood how I had forced my Lord into the position where he either had to deny me the experience I was hankering for, or deny me the greater blessing he had planned for me – the chance to gain glory by finding faith without experiencing anything dramatic and, by doing so, grow in faith, that exquisite commodity more valuable than gold. The Lord had lovingly risked my wrath so that he could give me the greater blessing. And instead of being grateful, I was annoyed at him! How often we must unknowingly put God in such a situation. Seeing only one possible solution, we demand it of God, convinced that he must either act the only way we can figure, or God cannot be loving. We force God into either denying us what is best or acting in a manner that we have fooled ourselves into thinking he is unloving. We repeatedly find ourselves in such situations because God is so intellectually superior to us. Puzzling things that God does, or omits to do, sometimes make us secretly wish God had our intelligence! When all is revealed, however, these are the very things that will fill us with eternal praise that God does not have our intelligence. Isaiah 55:8-9 ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’ And yet the power of an infinite intellect finds its match in infinite love. Psalms 103:11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him. Faith Boost Fizzlers We so often think, ‘If only God did so and so, then I’d have great faith.’ The benefits are so obvious to us that we get annoyed that God doesn’t do it. Looking at Thomas has inspired us to consider that God might happen to know best after all. Let’s look at this from another angle: If Gideon had somehow misheard God, the results would not just be terrifying for him but catastrophic for the entire nation. He needed a faith boost, so he asked the angel for a sign that he was truly hearing from God. He got an astounding one. The angel touched the offering. It exploded into flames and then the angel vanished into thin air. Wow! Soon afterward, Gideon started worrying about the same thing again. He felt the need for yet another sign that would pump up his flagging faith. This time, he reasoned, he would leave nothing to doubt. The sign would be of his own choosing. He pondered the matter and decided to formulate a sign so ingenious that he knew it would annihilate all his doubts. He would put a fleece outside and if in the morning it was wet and the ground around was dry it would be such a miracle that he could be at peace, knowing for sure that God was with him and that all would be well. It happened just as he had asked. Then something totally unexpected occurred: his mind went into overdrive. What if there were some natural explanation? What if it had rained lightly early in the night and then evaporated from everywhere except where it was protected by the fleece’s fibers? Could an animal have been attracted to the fleece and urinated on it? What if . . . ? (Judges 6). He had been so sure that this was the sign he needed but soon what he had fully expected to be sky-high faith was plummeting so alarmingly that soon an ant wouldn’t trip over it. If what he was certain would be the ultimate faith-boost, giving him the peace he craved, had fizzled to nothing in minutes, we can expect the same. Surprisingly many spiritual experiences that we imagine would be dramatic enough to boost our faith if they happened to us turn out to be more subtle that we expect and in the cold light of day take faith to believe they were actually supernatural. Divine peace is no exception. We imagine we crave some experience that boosts our faith but by that we really mean we want to experience something that is so compelling that we don’t need faith. Faith grows only when everything within us screams the opposite. Faith is spiritual muscle. It must be exercised if it is to grow or even be maintained. Increase Your Faith Faith is fundamental to all Christian service (Mark 11:24; John 14:12; Galatians 3:2-3; Hebrews 4:2; 11:6; James 1:6-7; 1 John 5:4). Like a seedling, it should constantly grow (2 Corinthians 10:15; 1 Thessalonians 3:2). ‘Lord, increase our faith,’ pleaded the disciples. ‘If you have faith the size of a mustard seed . . .’ came the reply (Luke 17:5-6). Perhaps our greatest need is not huge faith, but to fully use our small faith. Perhaps we miss out because we devalue our faith, not using it to the fullest because we wrongly imagine that tiny faith is too insignificant to move the hand of God. If faith is more valuable than gold (1 Peter 1:7), the merest speck is too precious to despise. Do not let feelings of inadequacy strangle your faith. Just keep pressing on. Past greats achieved much with floundering faith. So can you. Although weak, wavering faith is standard, we should nevertheless work hard on increasing it. We earlier noted that doubt is nothing to be feared. Indeed, faith needs doubt like muscles need gravity. This doesn’t mean doubt should be encouraged, any more than a physical trainer would encourage laziness. It is by regularly resisting gravity that muscles remain healthy and grow strong. Likewise, it is by regularly resisting doubt that we flourish spiritually. It is easier on ourselves if we start exercising faith now, in minor things, than to expect to pluck out of the air mountain-moving faith when critically needed in a crisis. Like everyone, my faith levels fluctuate. Usually I am aware that a few moments dwelling on faith-building truths or squashing negative thoughts would boost my faith a little, but I foolishly let myself remain at a lower faith level than I know I am capable of. I have failed to take faith as seriously as Scripture does. If it is as valuable as Scripture affirms, then only a fool would pass up an opportunity to slightly increase it. If our Lord valued faith at a dollar, then a one percent increase is not worth bothering about. What can you do with a cent? If common faith is of immense value, however, everything changes. On a million dollars, one percent is $10,000 – well worth a little effort! False Humility: Faith’s Deadly Enemy To explain a serious threat to my faith, I will have to quote myself again: For most of my life, scriptures like ‘God opposes the proud’ (James 4:6) have filled me with such dread of the dangerous trap of pride that I felt driven to avoid it at all costs. Tragically, this commendable attitude got me nowhere. My godly intentions were sabotaged by such a mistaken understanding of pride that all I managed was to fall into false humility. I wrongly thought I could foster humility by thinking negatively about myself. To my horror, I eventually discovered that false humility is itself a form of pride. I correctly understood that if I thought I could achieve anything of lasting value without God’s help, or if I thought I were moral enough to gain God’s approval outside of Christ’s forgiveness, then humbling myself involved lowering my opinion of myself. My mistake was in wrongly concluding from this truth that the basic ingredient of humility is having a low opinion of oneself. Godly humility flows not from thinking lowly of oneself but from seeing things through God’s eyes. Pride is having the audacity to disagree with God. It is saying I know more than the God of the universe; my puny intellect knows better than the Almighty; the God of truth is wrong and I am right. Since the God of love sees you as lovable, and true humility involves taking God’s assessment of everything as gospel, humility requires you to see yourself as lovable. If God sees you through eyes of love, how dare you see yourself in a different light, as if your perspective is right and your Creator and Savior is wrong? If God forgives you, to refuse to forgive yourself is to have the audacity to imply that you have higher moral standards than the Judge of all the earth; that you are holier than the Holy Lord. Isn’t that the very pinnacle of pride? Please avoid this deadly trap. Make God your God by agreeing with him. He says you are the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). Dare you exalt yourself above God by disagreeing with him? Stop wounding yourself by squandering your faith on a lie, thus robbing God of faith that should be invested in him. Refuse the sinful, pride-filled path that deceptively seems humble but is actually implying that you know better than the Almighty. Set yourself free. Embrace God’s truth. So true humility centers around believing what God believes. If he says you can do something, to believe you cannot do it is to choose to disagree with Almighty God. That is audacious pride. Faith is Stubborn Persistence Among the lessons to be learned through Abraham becoming a father is not that we should do nothing and leave it all to God. Had this been Abraham’s attitude, the miracle would never have happened. The key lay not in doing nothing, but in doing the right thing – trying yet again to fill a barren womb. Faith is leaving the security of inactivity and deliberately exposing ourselves to the painful possibility of defeat. It is Jonathan and his armor-bearer going out to meet the enemy; not his comrades hiding in holes hoping for a miracle (1 Samuel 14:1-15). It’s Peter saying, ‘If that’s you, Lord, bid me come. . .’ and then stepping out of the boat (Matthew 14:28-29). It’s that same fisherman saying, ‘Lord, we’ve toiled all night and caught nothing. Nevertheless, at your word . . .’ (Luke 5:5). It is Paul, once again facing a hostile crowd. It is you, trying one more time. I have found much in the Bible that for a long time seemed ludicrous to me – it is more blessed to give than to receive, trials are so beneficial that they are something to rejoice about, those who lose their life will find it, and many more spiritual truths that jar my idea of common sense. As I have tried to act in faith upon these seeming nonsensical principles, I have discovered that faith is about pushing forward into territory in which everything within you screams that it is insane but when you do your best to keep going anyhow, the rewards are immense. As you keep staggering on in faith you will gradually receive more and more confirmation that what you are desperately trying to believe really is the truth. It might take years of stubborn persistence, but eventually you will reach the point where it no longer takes faith because it has become so obvious to you that it is true. Now, for instance, I don’t need to be told that trials are a blessing, I know they are. I have proved it over and over and over in my own life. How did I get that proof? Only by repeatedly stepping out in shaky faith when it seemed unbelievable. My Faith Battles Perhaps the greatest faith challenge I’ve ever faced was spending over twenty years with an almost explosive yearning to serve God despite being kept on ice with close to zero ministry opportunities. In a desperate attempt to keep sane I spent about ten years writing books that only I read, my favorite one being called Waiting for Your Ministry. I had no idea that the book would become the foundation for my entire Internet Ministry. Here’s an extract: I was driving home from church, dejected. Prayer had been offered for people who felt any special call upon their lives. Though I longed to respond, God has never spoken to me about future service. ‘The Lord gives almost everyone a personal word to cling to while waiting,’ I mused. Abraham may have languished for years, but God had promised him descendants. Young Joseph had a dream. David was anointed with oil. And the names kept coming. ‘Lord,’ I complained, ‘you’ve never given me a promise!’ ‘Except the million in God’s Word,’ came the thought. I went to bed, still agitated. As I lay there next morning my mind floated to Ruth, who found God’s blessing by stubbornly resisting the pleas of the most godly woman she knew (Ruth 1:4-17). My thoughts flashed through the centuries to the Canaanite who won her daughter’s healing and Jesus’ praise by persisting, despite being ignored, called a dog, and told her request was improper (Matthew 15:22-28). My heart leapt. Maybe God is doing the same to me! Surely, despite heaven’s silence, God’s heart is still open to my cry. I recalled something I placed in an early draft of this book: Most biblical teaching on prayer can be summarized thus: God delights in lavishing his blessings upon those too resolute to take ‘No’ for an answer. It’s true, and I hate it. Not only does it sound like a grueling endurance test, I loathe arguments. I cringe at the thought of pestering the One I love, or grieving him by not instantly yielding to the slightest indication of his wish. Further, I’m awed by the realization that God’s wisdom is infinite. That makes mine infinitesimal. Who am I to haggle with the greatest Mind in the universe? Jacob was blessed because he wrestled with God – and won (Genesis 32:24-30). I thought we scored by letting God win! This side of prayer seems to tear up everything Scripture teaches about love, submission and respect. After years of confusion a gleam penetrated in the guise of a startling thought: ‘God is a tease’. I slammed shut my mind. It couldn’t be. God’s not like that! Yet as I dared peek at that mysterious ray, light flooded my understanding. It’s true! God is a beautiful, loving tease! He declares he is the giving God (James 1:5, literal translation) and then lets everything suggest he is a tightwad. ‘You can’t have it! It’s not worth having. You’re not good enough!’ heaven and hell seem to howl. All the while he is hoping we will see through the jest to the heart of God. Play-fights with God make us strong. They are not to be taken lightly, however. Eternity holds its breath. Ruth’s sister-in-law surrendered to Naomi’s repeated pleas and returned to her people, turning her back on God’s blessing. Elisha wanted a double portion of Elijah’s spirit. The hide of the man! Time and again God’s oracle tried to shrug off that bald-headed upstart, yet Elisha clung to him with the obstinacy of a blood-sucker (2 Kings 2:1-15). That’s what made him grate – er – great. Heaven’s strong room is plundered by everyone with the audacity to ask and the tenacity to receive. And God is tickled pink! Look above the stern ‘No’ on God’s lips to the sparkle in his eyes. That was written about fifteen years ago. Here’s my current definition of faith: Faith is being so sure of God’s goodness that you stubbornly refuse to settle for less than God’s best. Throughout the years and years and years of writing and rewriting and rewriting material that virtually no one read, it was a massive struggle to keep believing that it was not a pathetic waste of effort. Despite having to work full time to support myself I worked on my writings every day and night without allowing myself the slightest vacation. I describe in two sections toward the end of the book what kept me going. I believe the same principles will help you. With God as my co-author, I write best sellers. That’s my new self-image. (More accurately, my Lord, Creator of humanity’s creative writers and Author of the world’s best-seller – the Bible – in his exorbitant love dares share his ability with me, and lets me tamper with his perfection. If only I can stifle my tendency to write solo, the result will be stunning.) So new is this self-image that the cement hasn’t set. I had hardly finished shaping it when along came some ‘helpful’ criticism. ‘I hope you find these comments encouraging,’ he said. I didn’t. My revamped self-image oozed back into a nebulous blob. It had to be laboriously rebuilt. That meant hours of prayer and dwelling on faith-building truths; constant battles against negative thoughts, when surrender seemed perversely alluring. Without frequent repair and maintenance, my new image would soon be flattened by life’s squalls. So far, I have nothing tangible to show for my inner struggles, but whenever I have patched things up and look in the mirror of my mind, the image I see causes less nausea than it used to. I bounce with new zing toward the goal (Compare 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; Philippians 3:13-14). Too often I think and act as if the darkness of my inadequacy could extinguish the brilliance of Christ. I have seen myself as a failure and I have seen the results of such thinking. Now I endeavor to see myself as a born failure, born again a success. That’s scriptural. Without Christ I am brain-frozen with inadequacy. But I am not without Christ. I am tired of being hauled through the sludge by my former view of myself. I had backed off so far from the monster of pride that I had almost fallen into the ditch of despair, dragging God’s glory with me. Though I hate egotism, I must hate doubt with equal passion. (I suspect that if I truly knew my Lord, self-image would be a non-issue. I would be so in love with Christ, so captivated with his splendor that I couldn’t bear to wrench my eyes off him long enough either to berate or congratulate myself. I’m not there yet, however.) Despite my relentless longing to share these truths, it hurts to let this book be published. The more I work on the book, the more immersed in its truths I become. It’s continually washing away layer after grimy layer of negativity and buoying me ever higher. I hate the thought of this process ever ending, but dour experience affirms that it will – soon after I put the book down. I have had to reread it scores of times to halt my slide back into the bog. And still I need it. Though my need is chronic, I doubt if the mildest affliction could be relieved forever through one reading of this book. I expect you to feel better after a single dose but regular doses are essential for a permanent cure. So I urge you to keep this book handy, even after completing it. Long-term problems need long-term solutions. I covet a new life for you, not just a momentary easing of the pain. Experience suggests you will need this book year after year. We never reach the point where temptation leaves us forever. Negative thoughts have been roosting in our heads, pecking away at the fruit beginning to form in our lives. We’ve shooed these pests away, but they will stealthily return. That’s our cue to skim through the book again. Highlight the parts that especially speak to you or uplift you. Personalize them. Write them out. Display them. Memorize them. Add to them. Share them. Live them. They will keep the vermin away and bring you to new levels of fruitfulness. Find ingenious ways to keep in your consciousness truths you particularly need. At work I must set and use several computer passwords. I might say to myself I will praise the Lord at all times, while typing the first letter of each word. IWPTLAAT then becomes my new password. No one could guess such an apparently random string of letters and I can remember it only by rehearsing in my mind that positive declaration every time I must use it. Perhaps you could put a little heart somewhere to remind you how much you are loved by God. There are thousands of possibilities. Finding some that work for you will be well worth the effort. I’d be thrilled if my expressions sometimes help. I have tried to shape them to stick in slippery memories. But don’t be chained to my words. Using your words will help the truths become yours. And don’t be confined to the paltriness of my insight. Hound God with the passion and confidence of a cherished lover until you receive your own Bible-based, Christ-centered revelations. No matter how hot it’s served or how much it’s sweetened, second-hand revelation is as insipid as second-hand tea bags unless the Holy Spirit comes upon you, exploding those words within you with such power that it becomes your own divine encounter. A hand-me-down word from God might bring a little refreshment, but a truth super-charged by the Spirit of God percolating through one’s life is so superior that no cost is too high a price to pay for it. Fervent prayer and Bible meditation is the usual price. Though I have prayed incessantly that this book bless you as much as it has me, I fear I’m asking God to break one of his principles. Why should he command us to seek and to ask and devote our lives to poring over Scripture unless that’s the way he prefers to reveal his truth? It is truths in the heart, not words in a book, that set us free. And lodging them there takes spiritual and mental effort. I crave the joy of serving you by doing all the prayer and study, but that’s like trying to play tennis for you – I get the healthy exercise and you miss all the fun. My plea to keep reading the book now applies to my entire website. Look to Jesus, Not to Faith Even though faith is critical, whenever we look at it we are in danger of losing perspective. To focus on faith is like trying to drive focusing on the windshield rather than looking through the windshield to the road. Even in a webpage in which I’ve got you thinking about how good God is and how we can achieve much with little faith, I worry that I’ve got you thinking too much about your faith rather than the object of your faith. Faith connects you to God. It is as vital as a phone that connects you to a loved one interstate, but focusing on that phone – thinking about all its features and its electronics – will distract you. When using the phone, you should keep your focus on the person the phone enables you to talk to, rather than focusing on the phone itself. Suppose I want to fly overseas so I get a dozen birds, tie string to their legs, and tie the other end around my waist. No matter how great my faith, I’m going nowhere, except perhaps to a mental asylum. On the other hand, no matter how petrified I am of airplanes, if I get inside a jumbo jet I’m going to fly – as long as I don’t so cave in to doubt that I bolt out the door before take-off. All that matters is choosing wisely what I put my faith in. Beyond having the sheer willpower to stay in the plane, the size of my faith will not affect how far I soar, but merely how white my knuckles are. Depending on the level of my faith, the journey can range from being torturous to filled with wonder, comfort and fun, but I’ll go just as far, just as quickly. What is needed to propel us to spiritual greatness is not great faith in a weak God but weak faith in a great God. Some people who seem to have great faith end up spiritual underachievers – sometimes disastrously so – because much of their faith is in themselves or in good fortune or in positive thinking, rather than in God. Surprisingly, as explained in a link below, self-doubt is an invaluable spiritual asset. By driving us to put our faith in God rather than in ourselves, self-doubt can lock us into the supernatural, empowering us to achieve the humanly impossible and win eternal glory. What makes praise and worship mind-bogglingly powerful is that it gets our focus off ourselves onto the all-powerful Lord. Praise magnifies our estimation of God. Our faith will grow effortlessly as we let our awareness of God’s greatness and goodness grow. Another powerful key to true faith is to spend long, not only praising God for who he is, but also praising and thanking him for giving us what we need before we actually receive it. This corrects our focus from begging a stingy God to receiving from a generous God. James 1:5 If any of you lacks . . . he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault . . . Yes, James had wisdom in focus but he was highlighting an important spiritual principle. We see here two vital aspects of God’s goodness: he is generous and he doesn’t find fault. The devil loves condemnation because it sabotages our faith in God by making us erroneously suppose that God finds fault with us. In itself, the feeling of condemnation is just a harmless annoyance but it turns dangerous when it tempts us to suppose that God is displeased with us and it turns even more deadly when it tempts us to erode our belief in God’s goodness even further by thinking that if he is displeased with us he will turn into a tightwad. The glorious truth is twofold: that God loves even his enemies – giving all things to all – and that through Christ we are his friends. Sin that we are pleased about and intend to keep repeating is serious. In contrast, sin – no matter how gross or repeated – that is genuinely regretted and by faith laid upon our crucified Savior, will never keep us from Christ’s cleansing and God’s generosity. Answered prayer is always the expression of the infinite generosity of God; never the reward of our ‘holy’ living. I put the word holy in quotes because only God is good. There is no holiness outside of our faith-union with Christ. It is Christ’s holiness, not our dirty imitation of it, that gives us access to all the riches of God. Our faith must always be in the once crucified, now risen, sinless Son of God, not in ourselves. And because our faith is in his moral perfection, our faith can soar. In my personal walk with God, here is one of the most life-changing Scriptures I have ever encountered: Mark 11:24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. This confirms that it is critical to believe that we have received before we get. Prayer is not complete until we move beyond merely believing that God can , to believing that he will . Trying to beg God or manipulate God or hoping to impress him by how desperate we are or how worthy we are, is not Christian prayer. It’s heathen. I’ve also found that gritting my teeth, trying to manufacture faith as if I were trying to lay an egg isn’t the way. All I need do is simply keep thanking God for the answer before I hold it in my hand. Philippians 4:6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. (Emphasis mine.) Thanking God for the answer before it arrives is faith in action. It’s delightfully easy. And it’s fun. It lets us party ahead of time. I don’t know if you believe in love at first sight but here’s a saying I fell in love the moment I first laid eyes on it: Quit telling God how big your storm is and tell your storm how big your God is. How different life would be if we’d live that way! There’s a snag, however: Jeremiah 14:11-12 Then the LORD said to me, “Do not pray for the well-being of this people. . . . I will destroy them with the sword, famine and plague.” Jeremiah 15:1 Then the LORD said to me: “Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before me, my heart would not go out to this people. . . .” Romans 8:26 . . . We do not know what we ought to pray for . . . 1 John 5:14-15 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of him. (Emphasis mine.) Praying For the Wrong Things. Ezekiel 14:14 though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, says the Lord. (Emphasis mine) Matthew 7:9-10 Or who is there among you, who, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, who will give him a serpent? Mark 10:38 But Jesus said to them, “You don’t know what you are asking . . . James 4:3 You ask, and don’t receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it for your pleasures. Faith or Presumption? Faith is not about manipulating God to get what we want – that’s what witchcraft tries to do. Biblical faith involves trusting God enough to submit to his loving wisdom. Christian faith is about dying to self; not about ‘dying’ to get your own selfish way. This is not an endorsement of defeatism – resigning ourselves to never getting our hearts’ desire – but of delighting in the perfection of God’s will and putting more faith in him than in ourselves when it comes to knowing what is best for us. There’s a vital difference between faith and presumption. Presumption is about seizing some Scripture and rashly claiming it as a promise for ourselves without first seeking God’s heart on the specific situation we face. Why have so few Christians with supposedly great faith literally walked on water? In this case, the disciple famous for flapping his gums before engaging his brain acted with great wisdom. He walked on water not because he was claiming some Scripture such as “I can do all things through Christ,” or “ . . . if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart . . .” or “Everything is possible for him who believes,” and so on. Peter’s faith was not in some general Word of God, but anchored on God’s specific word to him for that precise situation. He said, “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water” and then did nothing until Jesus replied, “Come” (Matthew 14:28-29). That’s real faith, because it was based not on treating God as a machine that dispenses goodies when the right buttons are pushed, but based on intimacy and loving submission to God. Peter was not desperately trying to apply some general promise of Scripture, hoping that it might work in this specific instance; he was stepping out on a personal word from his Lord. Until we receive a personal word from God, so-called faith is often hit-or-miss. What we claim to be faith tends to be more our hope that we have guessed the will of God, than faith in God himself. I know that God is good – and this inspires me to pray – but I also know that although God has infinite wisdom, I don’t. If I don’t receive a special word from God for a particular situation – and I usually don’t – then a hope that I’ve correctly guessed God’s will is all I’ve got. It’s better than nothing, but the ideal is to keep praying until we truly hear from God and then put our faith in what he says by thanking God for answered prayer before we see it. 1 John 5:14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will , he hears us. (Emphasis mine.) In fact, a deeper look at this matter reveals that unless we take this seriously, we could anger God. We have no specific Scripture we can claim for walking on water but there is one for, as it were, walking on air: Psalms 91:11-16 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. “Because he loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.” Does this mean we can step off a precipice, knowing by faith that God will protect us with his angels? Would this be the height of God-honoring faith? No! Rather than being a daring faith experiment, Scripture portrays such an attempt to ‘name and claim’ as a temptation from the Evil One himself. It is a serious satanic ploy to deceive and corrupt: Matthew 4:5-7 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ ” Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” Not even the Messiah had the spiritual authority to seize random scriptures as a springboard for ‘faith’. Even though the specific scripture seemed quite appropriate for him to apply to himself, not even the eternal Son of God could ‘name and claim’ it, and remain undefiled. The Scripture Jesus used to highlight the sin the devil was tempting him with was a reference to how the children of Israel treated God in the wilderness. Deuteronomy 6:16 Do not test the LORD your God as you did at Massah. Here’s how Psalms describes the consequences of putting God to the test: Psalm 78:18,21,31 They willfully put God to the test by demanding the food they craved. [prayer] . . . When the LORD heard them, he was very angry; his fire broke out against Jacob, and his wrath rose against Israel . . . he put to death the sturdiest among them, cutting down the young men of Israel. Numbers puts it this way: Numbers 11:33 But while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the LORD burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague. Here’s Paul’s description of the consequences of putting God to the test: 1 Corinthians 10:9 We should not test the Lord, as some of them did – and were killed by snakes. Whatever way you look at it, putting God to the test is a grave offence and yet this was what Jesus’ retort to Satan implied he would have been guilty of, had he tried using that Scripture as a basis for expecting a miracle. Do you suppose Christians are granted some sort of divine license to do the very thing Jesus refused to do, or that we have immunity from the serious consequences of committing the grave error of testing God? Then what was Paul doing warning the Corinthian Christians not to fall into it? Jesus’ response to Satan quoting the Bible highlights how everything must be done in reverent submission to God, including how we use his holy Word. Danger Despite having already mentioned the danger of focusing on faith, rather than on God, I still worry that I have might not have made it clear enough. Let me express it this way: God is love. That renders him highly personal. To put it mildly, God is warm. Above everything, he yearns for intimacy with you. A distorted emphasis on faith has the potential to distract us from this. We can become self-obsessed – infatuated with our faith rather than with our loving Lord, and on us receiving things rather than on companionship with God. We can end up focused on trying to extract from God spiritual trinkets (or even less noble things) rather than on loving God and enjoying him. Sadly, many of us break God’s heart by treating him like an unfeeling poker machine; hoping that if we feed in enough prayer and faith we will win some goodies. We cannot depersonalize our Maker, however, without dehumanizing ourselves. Anyone treating God like a machine is like someone who turns his heart to stone, refusing to love, and trying instead to claw emotional satisfaction from objects. Too many of us are like a passionately loved wife who keeps breaking her husband’s heart by her coldness because she married him for his riches. Instead of reveling in the glory of God’s love and the matchless beauty and wonder of who he is, we lust after trinkets that can never fill the God-shaped void within us. The real treasure lies not in his gifts but in the Giver himself. The Thrill of Faith To be human with an earth address makes temptation not just normal but inevitable. Not even the sinless Son of God could avoid it. Temptations to doubt are equally normal, and nothing to be distressed about. Being hit by doubts need keep you from your destiny no more than bugs hitting a car windshield. Assured that there is no such freak as a Christian who is never buffeted by doubt or temptation, simply doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs (source: The saying Believe your beliefs and doubt your doubts apparently originated with F.F. Bosworth. ) and keep going. Spiritual adventure involves the terrifying excitement of pressing on despite everything within you screaming that it cannot be true or that it is too risky. You were born for achievement and born again for the challenge of living life on the edge. Faith empowers us to soar beyond human limitations into the realm of the divine. Live life to the full! For More Help, See The Faith that Gets Results

Is it Mad to be Mad at God? Mad at God? You’re not alone. Even saints in the Bible were mad at God! Bible Saints Angry at God Numbers 11:11,15 Moses said to the Lord, “Why have you treated with your servant so badly? Why haven’t I found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? . . . If you treat me this way, please kill me right now . . .” Psalm 13:1-2 How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart every day? How long shall my enemy triumph over me? Jeremiah 15:17-18 . . . I sat alone because of your hand; for you have filled me with indignation. Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed? Will you indeed be to me as a deceitful brook, like waters that fail? Jeremiah 20:7 Lord, you have persuaded me, and I was persuaded; you are stronger than I, and have prevailed: I am become a laughing-stock all the day, every one mocks me. Jonah 3:10-4:9 God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way. God relented of the disaster which he said he would do to them, and he didn’t do it. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. He prayed to the Lord, and said, “Please, Lord, wasn’t this what I said when I was still in my own country? Therefore I hurried to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and you relent of doing harm. Therefore now, Lord, take, I beg you, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.” . . . “I am right to be angry, even to death.” Lamentations 3:1-26 I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in light. Surely against me he turns his hand again and again all the day. My flesh and my skin has he made old; he has broken my bones. He has built against me, and surrounded me with gall and travail. He has made me to dwell in dark places, as those that have been long dead. He has walled me about, that I can’t go out; he has made my chain heavy. Yes, when I cry, and call for help, he shuts out my prayer. He has walled up my ways with cut stone; he has made my paths crooked. He is to me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in secret places. He has turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces; he has made me desolate. He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow. He has caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my kidneys. I am become a derision to all my people, and their song all the day. He has filled me with bitterness, he has sated me with wormwood. He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones; he has covered me with ashes. You have removed my soul far off from peace; I forgot prosperity. I said, My strength is perished, and my expectation from the Lord. Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me. This I recall to my mind; therefore have I hope. It is because of the Lord’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassion doesn’t fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. When, as they often do, Christians admit to me that they are angry at God, I’m delighted. I feel the relief doctors must feel when patients finally admit before it’s too late that they have a suspicious lump. The affliction is not nearly as dangerous or as foolish as living in denial. When angry at God, the rage feels highly justified. If God can do anything, will tell ourselves, then he should . . . (Fill in the blank.) If God is cold and uncaring or arrogant or selfish or abuses his power, he deserves our contempt. He’s clearly no better than we are. Let’s pause a moment to ask ourselves: could reality be a little more complex than we suppose? What if we’re still seeing the beginning of the movie and have yet to see all the twists and the unmasking of villains and secret plots? Have we been duped into jumping to conclusions before the surprise ending? Is it over-simplistic to say God can do anything? No matter how much we rage in anger, it remains illogical – absurd, in fact – to suppose that infinite power could create a circle with straight sides, for example. The moment omnipotence forces straight sides on to a circle, it is no longer a circle. Likewise, not even with infinite ability could someone be moral and honest while at the same time cheating, lying and stealing. To act in love and integrity necessitates the voluntary limiting of omnipotence by refusing to do whatever is unloving or immoral. If there is a God of love, consider this: you cannot fervently love someone without aching for that person to love you – especially if you know that person desperately needs you in his/her life. To deeply love someone means you could have everything else in the universe, and yet without that person’s love you would still be heartbroken. To love is to make oneself so vulnerable that even having unlimited power could not help. Omnipotence could easily force someone to obey you. Or it could produce something like a ‘love’ potion, causing a person to be under the illusion of loving you. But genuine love can never be compelled. If it involves force or chemicals or mind-control or deceit or bribery it is a sham, and can never satisfy your yearning for that person’s love. If a man kidnapped a woman and raped and enslaved her, we would be appalled, no matter how much he claims to love her, wants her as his wife and is convinced he can make her happy. It would be an immoral abuse of power, regardless of whether he used physical force or threats – in which case she would be conscious of the violation of her rights – or if he used drugs or hypnotism so that she is unaware that what is happening is against her will. Real love respects the desires of the beloved, no matter how much it clashes with the lover’s personal longings, and no matter how certain he is that the person would benefit from a lifelong intimacy with him. So do you want an omnipotent God to abuse his power or act in love ? To be mad at God is as mad as angrily smashing your fist into a wall. It hurts you deeply. Being mad at God is as mad as a little child so furious at his loving parents for not letting him drink poison that he runs away from home; having no conception of the dangers and deprivation he is exposing himself to. We understand Infinite Intelligence no more than a baby can understand its mother’s decisions. To be mad at God is as mad as being angry at an encyclopedia for always being right; as mad as being angry at a doctor for diagnosing your lump as cancerous and wanting to treat it; as mad as a drowning man fighting off his rescuer. If we don’t come to our senses, the consequences are more appalling than a surgeon mistakenly amputating the wrong limb; as a terrified mother confusing her child with an intruder and shooting to kill; as a disorientated bomber pilot sinking his own aircraft carrier. Tragically, when we are reeling in pain, hurt and frustration we often get things so horribly wrong that we act like people too delirious with pain to realize they are fighting off the only person who cares enough to tend their wounds. Arrogantly assuming we know the end of the story when we’re still on the first page, we blindly jump to conclusions when we only know a fraction of the facts and get things so wrong that we end up blaming the one person who is utterly innocent, treating as a sadistic torturer the only person who cares enough to tend our wounds, accusing of callousness the only one so moved by our plight that he weeps in secret; despising the person who has given us both his kidneys, and instigating a hate campaign against the sweetest person in the universe. We can be so desperate for a scapegoat that we end up pouring all our contempt and blame on the only Person who is utterly innocent, truly cares for us and has the solutions we crave. The amazing thing is that this very Person actually volunteered to be our scapegoat. The term “scapegoat” has entered modern language via the Bible. In an annual religious ceremony, two innocent goats were chosen. One was killed for the people’s sins. The sins of the entire nation were placed on the other. It was then driven into the wilderness; ostracized because of the people’s sins. This peculiar custom was instituted by God himself to prepare the people for the fact that one day the Messiah would come, the innocent Son of God, and become the scapegoat for the sins of the entire world. Claiming we know more than the only Person who has all the facts, and thinking ourselves more righteous than the Source of all morality might not be the smartest thing we have ever done. Anyone supposing he knows more than the one who knows everything, and that he is smarter than the one with infinite IQ, has set himself on a collision course with reality. If we really think the one we can never hide from and who has the power to torment us for all eternity is cruel or heartless, why would we risk the fury of the Omnipotent One by raging against him? That he lets us get away with this shows that God is extraordinarily loving and patient. Astoundingly, it is this mind-blowing love and patience that not only lets us rage but is the reason for our rage. We foolishly want God to execute instant justice without stopping to realize that instant justice would have sent us to hell. Ironically, what infuriates us about God is the very thing we should be most grateful for. No, we should not be grateful for all the evil in this world – it grieves, hurts and infuriates God even more than it does us – but God’s decision to give time to repent rather than instantly executing justice is the very thing that has given us time to come to our senses before it is too late. God is not some clinical observer. Our pain sends him reeling and it drove his eternal Son to the cross. We can rest in the certainty that God is good and absolutely righteous and has infinite love and infinite wisdom. He is always right because he alone has everything it takes to be always right. If we imagine we have come up with something smarter and more loving and more righteous than God, it is because we have failed to grasp the full ramifications of what we have postulated. That’s okay. We cannot be expected to equal God. We cannot hope to know all the complex chains of events sent skidding off in all directions and hurtling through time whenever the smallest thing is done. We can, however, be smart enough to realize our limitations and God’s perfections. We might not have great faith but we can have the intelligence to doubt ourselves enough to trust God more than we trust our own abilities. One of the frustrating and often hurtful things about relating to humans is disagreements. Whenever I disagree with a human, one or both of us is wrong, but because we are both fallible it is unclear who is right, so unpleasant arguments can arise. I find relating to God a welcome relief from this frustration, since logic affirms that whenever I disagree with Infinite Intelligence I can know immediately who is right. With God I can live in peace, sparing myself all the pain and emotional energy of vainly trying to prove myself right. Not everyone, however, has reached that blissful realization. Millions of us have engaged in fights with God. Very many people have confided in me, admitting to cussing God out and saying and thinking the vilest imaginable things to and about the Innocent and Perfect One. I am also in the privileged position of having many people who have suffered immensely, including large numbers of sexual abuse survivors, pouring their hearts out to me. For many of them, their suffering has fuelled bitter rows with God, some of which have not yet been fully resolved. Drawing upon my long years of intimacy with God and adding the deeply passionate and sometimes volatile experience with God that others have had, I can affirm with absolute certainty that even when we are being our most obnoxious, waving our fists at God and spitting cusses at him, he is still longing to cuddle and nurture us. The staggering thing about God is that while we were still his enemies he loved us fiercely [Romans 5:6-10]. How much more can we trust him when we eventually come to our senses and choose to become his friends by seeking his forgiveness! When angry at God, if you don’t get it off your chest it could crush the life out of you. Suppressing it or trying to convince yourself that you don’t feel that way is as smart as pretending you don’t have a medical condition that is curable if treated in time but deadly if ignored. God wants a relationship with us more intimate, more permanent and more exclusive than the most wonderful marriage any human couple could ever experience. When we learn that he wants us to love, honor and obey him, we back off in horror before discovering that in every way we benefit from this relationship and it is God, not us, who gets the raw end. He loves you more than you love yourself and has your best interests at heart even more than you do. He alone has infinite understanding and – as demonstrated by Jesus suffering on the cross for you – he is utterly unselfish and would sacrifice anything for your eternal happiness. To disregard the advice of someone of infinite intelligence who wants only your best, makes as much sense as deliberately harming yourself. Any time we fail to love, honor and obey the God who is devoted to our welfare, we ruin that part of our lives, relative to what we would otherwise have enjoyed and achieved. Related Pages Bookmark this and then explore the links: Why I Hate The Myth of a Cruel Christian God Where was God When You suffered Unspeakable Horrors? God is a Liar? When God Lets You Down God Isn’t Fair? How could God be fair when some get heaps and some get a raw deal? Do-It-Yourself Healing The secret to inner peace Is God Really Good? Many useful links If anyone has reason to hate God, it’s Sue Life’s Mysteries Explained Christian, Be Angry! And Sin Not: The Role of Anger in True Forgiveness God Loves Me? Receive Your Very Own Revelation of God’s Love

(Beginning of Series ) Why does God allow us to be strongly tempted? We have seen that temptation and suffering are inseparable. They are not only joined at the hip but joined at three places: * The same Greek word can be translated either trial or temptation. In each of the following, the same Greek word is used. Temptation Matthew 6:13 Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. . . . Luke 4:13 When the devil had completed every temptation, he departed from him until another time. 1 Timothy 6:9 But those who are determined to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful lusts, such as drown men in ruin and destruction. Trial 1 Peter 1:6 Wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been put to grief in various trials 1 Peter 4:12 Beloved, don’t be astonished at the fiery trial which has come upon you, to test you, as though a strange thing happened to you. Test Revelation 3:10 Because you kept my command to endure, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, which is to come on the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth. * Suffering can become a serious source of temptation. It can tempt us to chemical abuse, resent God, deny him, or the ultimate refusal to serve him on earth: kill ourselves. * Intense temptation can itself be a significant form of suffering. Not surprisingly, given its strong connection with suffering, we have already mentioned temptation several times. There is still more to learn, however. This time we will focus on what for many people is a staggering concept: the spiritual benefits of temptation. Understandably, most of us view temptation as an entirely negative experience, even when we end up victorious over it. Nevertheless, not only does Scripture say it was necessary (Hebrews 2:17) for the Son of God to be made like us and thus suffer temptation (Hebrews 2:18), Jesus himself says that temptation of other people “must” happen (Matthew 18:7) or, as Luke 17:1 puts it, it is “impossible” for temptations not to occur. Additionally, Romans 8:28 says “ all things [including temptation?] work together for good” for those who are devoted to God. The Necessity of Jesus’ Temptations Obligated says the WEB version of Hebrews 2:17, as well as the New Heart English Bible, the Modern English Version, the Mounce Reverse-Interlinear New Testament and the Lexham English Bible. Necessary says the New Living Translation. It was essential says the Amplified Bible. A number of versions use the uncommon word behoved , meaning a duty or responsibility. Most versions simply say had to . Suffer Temptation Bible translations are extremely consistent in using the word suffer in reference to Jesus being tempted (Hebrews 2:18) and rightly so because the identical Greek word is used in contexts such as the following. Matthew 16:21 From that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up. Matthew 17:15 Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is epileptic, and suffers grievously; for he often falls into the fire, and often into the water. Luke 22:15 . . . I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer Acts 9:16 For I will show him [Paul] how many things he must suffer for my name’s sake. We cannot gain maximum understanding of why Christians suffer without probing this mystery. Before plunging in, however, let’s query Scripture’s implication that temptations are necessary. Why, if nothing is impossible with God, is anything ‘necessary’? Let’s begin by reminding ourselves that just because God has no limitations does not mean that the humans he relates to have no limitations. Then, just because something is possible does not make it good or wise. This brings to mind: 1 Corinthians 10:23 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are profitable. “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things build up. And this, in turn, makes my mind leap to: Hebrews 2:10  . . . it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. (NIV, emphasis mine.) The bottom line, however, is that for most things I neither have the full answer, nor do I need it. My soul soars in agreement with the heart-warming words of a Christian who suffered the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp, “When you know God, you don’t need to know why” (Source: I do not recall the exact source. It might have been Corrie ten Boom, possibly in The Hiding Place. ). Nevertheless, our wonderful Lord has superb reasons for everything he does and the more we seek him in faith , the more answers we will find – and the more we will marvel. So let’s proceed with exploring why God allows strong temptation. I used to presume the divine ideal is for us to be miraculously delivered from all addictions and besetting sins in an instant and thereafter suffer no more cravings. I eventually discovered that this is so devoid of wisdom that I now feel a little foolish for thinking that way. I have told the story elsewhere, and if you have already read it, I suggest you skip to the next question. If this concept is new to you, however, it is so relevant to our topic that I will include a shortened version here. Thinking such testimonies would draw people to God, I interviewed people who had had miraculous, almost effortless, deliverances from terrible addictions. As I proceeded, however, I grew increasingly perplexed to discover that despite spectacular victory over heroin, alcoholism or whatever, almost all of them, much to their frustration and embarrassment, were still floundering in a battle with at least one other addiction, often smoking. I never sought such information. It was so bothering them that they blurted it out. Sincerely wanting answers that would empower Christians to live in victory, I passionately sought God, puzzling over why he allows this conflict to persist. Temptation is never from God and always from the Evil One or from our own evil heart. What the Lord revealed to me, however, is that strong temptation does a work in us that an easy, temptation-free life can never achieve. I discovered there are two types of divine deliverances from slavery to sin. There is the sudden deliverance that takes almost no effort on the person’s part, and there is the slow deliverance that requires the person to cooperate with God in fighting a prolonged, painful battle with temptation. The deliverance where God does it all, is a manifestation of God’s power and brings him great glory – at least initially. The deliverance that hinges on our partnership, however, is a manifestation of God’s love and wisdom, and brings us eternal glory. In the second type, God risks his name being blackened whenever we fall, and he dares share with us the honor when we win. Like nothing else, the prolonged battle builds within us the Godlike character that equips us to rule with God for all eternity. God loves us so much that, eventually, the opportunity for this training comes to all of us, if we live long enough. Often what most keeps us bound to sin is that we are inadequately motivated. Anyone, for instance, who thinks he can’t stop stealing, suddenly finds new power to resist when a police officer is near. The removal of temptation might make our actions more Godlike but it wouldn’t do a thing to make our heart more Godlike. It would do nothing to heighten our personal motivation to do what is right. To be like Christ is to sweat blood praying, ‘Not my will.’ Jesus, who might just happen to know a bit more about it than your average evangelist, said that to be his follower we must deny ourselves (Luke 9:23, note the context). The Context Luke 9:22-25 saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up.” He said to all, “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever will lose his life for my sake, the same will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits his own self? If Bill’s flesh is crying out for sin and he fights that desire, he is denying himself. With every second’s resistance, he is becoming more like his Savior. Take away the craving for sin, however, and that opportunity is lost. Without that nagging itch to sin, Bill could act as godly as an archangel while pursuing his own desires as selfishly as the devil. He wouldn’t be choosing to do what is right but simply doing whatever he felt like. Even the devil can act like an angel of light, says Scripture. What matters is one’s motives for acting that way. There is no glory in acting godly if your heart is black. Rather than help us, the weakening of temptation would merely deceive us by concealing just how much unlike God our motives and heart really are. It could also produce false confidence, lulling us into straying dangerously far from God into enemy territory. To better understand the importance of motives, consider for a moment what might motivate a married man to stop looking at other women. Pure selfishness If his wife catches him eyeing women one more time, she’ll divorce him and that would cost him mega bucks, people might think him a loser and he would have to do more housework.   He couldn’t bear for her to withdraw her love That’s a far nobler motivation. He forces himself not to eye other women because his wife’s love and approval mean everything to him.   He’d hate for his wife to be hurt. That’s even better. He restrains himself because even if she kept loving him, he doesn’t want her to feel the slightest hurt.   He longs to make her as happy as he possibly can Better still: he doesn’t want merely to avoid hurting her, he passionately seeks her happiness, and for this, he keeps his eyes pure.   He longs to do what is right Another advance: even when his wife would never know, he still forces himself to not look at other women, simply because he wants to remain faithful to her.   He only has eyes for her Through persistent effort, he has eventually so trained himself to delight exclusively in his wife that, most of the time, every other woman might as well be wallpaper. This does not mean he is never tempted. Temptation is spiritual rape whereby hostile spiritual powers assault us with feelings that come from them, not from our heart. Even Jesus suffered a violation of his purity that came from the devil, not his heart. Nevertheless, years of persistent self-discipline have brought this man to the point where it is his habitual, unthinking response to only have eyes for his wife. He has had so many victories in this realm and it has become such a deeply ingrained part of his character that the devil has virtually given up all hope of successfully using women to entice him. Sidenote: We might seem to be straying off topic but any insight into temptation is an insight into suffering, since temptation is a form of suffering, and suffering is a form of temptation. One follows the other as day follows night, and night follows day. You cannot have one without it eventually turning into the other. Slide your eyes back down those numbered lines and note the progression. God is working within us, seeking to coax us through a similar progression in our motives for serving God; advancing from fear of punishment, to not wanting to hurt God, to longing to delight God. Each higher motivation should add to, not replace, lower ones. Thus we should never lose our longing to delight God, but we can add to it by becoming so like God that we do right not only because it thrills our divine Lover but also simply because it is right. Finally, our heart can be so Godlike that we find ourselves doing the right thing because it is our very nature – our heart response. But for our motivation to be perfect, underneath that unthinking response must be the other levels of motivation, right down to being terrified of the consequences of disobeying God. Of course, the holy Lord neither wants us to fail, nor tempts us. He simply doesn’t always hide from us our inadequacies by miraculously removing temptation. The resulting struggle helps bring us to the point where, in the words of Jesus, we hunger and thirst after righteousness , displaying a passion for holy living worthy of a child of God. Here’s how it works: whenever we surrender to temptation, it hurts us, either by the natural consequences of sin or by the conviction and disappointment we feel at having failed. For a Christian, the end result of the unpleasantness of failing is that we learn to hate sin more, appreciate God’s love and grace more, and realize more fully how as an embryo must draw everything from its mother for its survival, so we desperately need to draw upon God and his fellowship for everything that sustains our spiritual life. Like many delays in answered prayer, God not responding to a lazy prayer for instant deliverance from temptation serves to purify our motives and to stretch our faith and so expand it. It seems obvious that, in the short-term at least, the Almighty would receive the greatest glory by miraculously removing temptation from his loved ones. I have provided a logical explanation, but is it really biblical to believe that the Holy One would choose to deny himself that glory by letting temptation rage in the lives of those Christ died for, despite their cries for an easier life? As a child, I memorized what is arguably the Bible’s most powerful promise of victory over temptation. Ever since, I have clung to this glorious truth like a limpet to a rock in stormy seas. Ironically, despite my passion for this life-saving Scripture, there is an aspect of it that had eluded me for almost half a century. Thankfully, I had gleaned this truth from other parts of God’s Word but I had not seen it in this Scripture. Here’s the verse: 1 Corinthians 10:13 No temptation has taken you except what is common to man. God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also make the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. What had not hit me is that this is nothing remotely like a promise that God would make strong temptation melt away for his beloved. Instead, it is a promise that we would be able “to endure it.” The King James Version uses the expression “able to bear it.” The point is that if the divinely-provided “way to escape” was for the temptation to go away, there would be nothing to “bear” or “endure”. Too many Christians wrongly suppose that if temptation continues to rage after prayer, there must be something wrong. The divine game-plan has never been to prevent us from being hit repeatedly by fierce temptation, but to empower us to endure it. The promise is not that God will mollycoddle us, treating us as embarrassing weaklings who would shame him the moment things get tough, but that God will hide within us everything that we need to heroically survive the onslaught – and by so doing be acclaimed forever as spiritual champions. Even in the Old Testament, God’s people were called to fight the enemy, keep themselves holy and in no way compromise and yet, for at least two divinely brilliant reasons, God chose not to give them quick deliverances but to keep them battling their enemies year after year: Exodus 23:29 I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the animals of the field multiply against you. Judges 3:1-2 Now these are the nations which the Lord left, to test Israel by them, even as many as had not known all the wars of Canaan; only that the generations of the children of Israel might know, to teach them war . . . What seems a simple solution –the removal of temptation, for example – often turns out to be a superficial solution. God is rarely interested in the superficial. He wants to do a work so deep that it gains you eternal glory. Whereas the evil one, the very opposite of the good Lord, seeks to defile and degrade, God’s goal is to purify and exalt us. The Story So Far As some people are miraculously spared from suffering, some are miraculously spared from addictions and temptation, and yet for such intervention to continue indefinitely would keep them spiritually weak and vulnerable. Continued:Part 17

Beginning of Series What are the spiritual implications for us if we refuse to suffer for our enemies? It only takes the slightest glance at Jesus agonizing in the garden to know that even the decision to suffer for one’s enemies (Romans 5:6-8, 10) can be a horrific battle. Nevertheless, it would be morally wrong (encouraging sin) for the Holy Lord to eternally forgive anyone who does not want God to deliver him from selfishness. (Hence the Bible’s emphasis on denying oneself, dying to self, crucifying the flesh, and so on.) Moral considerations aside, allowing selfish or self-righteous people into heaven would spoil its perfection. In time, in fact, such a place would probably end up with as much suffering as our planet currently has. Moreover, what’s the point of wanting God to rescue us from the sins we hate if we refuse to let him rescue us from the sins we love? The sins we love are just as spiritually damming as the sins we hate. I’m not referring to works but a heart-attitude – a willingness to take on board God’s values. (For more on this subject, see this short but separate webpage: Repentance: Why We Can’t be Forgiven While Refusing to Let Go of Sin – listed in the links at the end of this page.) How can Christ live in our hearts if we are heading in opposite direction to him because we refuse to be like him? He is Isaiah’s prophesied Suffering Servant; the innocent one who so loves the guilty that he sacrificed not only his comfort but his very life for them. Children bear the genes/likeness of their father. How can we be children of God if we have no desire to be like him? He is the one: * who loves those we are tempted to hate * who, because of his love, blesses both the just and the unjust with sun and rain (Matthew 5:44-45; Acts 14:16-17). * whose goodness and mercy is intended to lead the guilty to repentance (Romans 2:4) because he wants no one to perish (1 Timothy 2:3-4; 2 Peter 3:9; Ezekiel 33:11). The apostle Paul wrote: Romans 9:1-4 I tell the truth in Christ. I am not lying, my conscience testifying with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brothers’ sake, my relatives according to the flesh, who are Israelites . . . I have every confidence that Paul would say the same about being willing to be spiritually dammed for non-Jews if it would bring about their salvation. Nevertheless, merely consider the suffering non-Christian Jews inflicted on him. They seem to have done actually more to persecute him than the Gentiles and often stirred up the Roman authorities to attack and, they hoped, permanently silence him (Details). Soon after his conversion, the Jews conspired to kill Paul (Acts 9:23). In another time and place, they stoned him and left him for dead (Acts 14:19). Not once or twice but on five separate occasions, Paul received “ from the Jews  . . . forty stripes minus one” (2 Corinthians 11:24 – Comment). And yet Paul so loved them that he was not only willing to endure all of this in the hope of them finding Christ, he would willingly suffer eternally for them, if that were possible. Paul's Passion for Gentiles 1. Paul (and God) made much of the fact that he was called to serve Gentiles Acts 9:15 But the Lord said to him, “ . . . he [Paul] is my chosen vessel to bear my name before the nations and kings, and the children of Israel. Acts 13:45-48 But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with jealousy, and contradicted the things which were spoken by Paul, and blasphemed.Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, and said, “It was necessary that God’s word should be spoken to you first. Since indeed you thrust it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles. For so has the Lord commanded us, saying, ‘I have set you as a light for the Gentiles, that you should bring salvation to the uttermost parts of the earth.’ ”As the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of God. As many as were appointed to eternal life believed. Acts 18:6 When they opposed him and blasphemed, he shook out his clothing and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am clean. From now on, I will go to the Gentiles!” Romans 11:13 For I speak to you who are Gentiles. Since then as I am an apostle to Gentiles, I glorify my ministry. Romans 15:15-16 But I write the more boldly to you in part, as reminding you, because of the grace that was given to me by God, that I should be a servant of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, serving as a priest of the Good News of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be made acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Galatians 1:15-16  . . . it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me through his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles . . . Galatians 2:7-8  . . . they saw that I had been entrusted with the Good News for the uncircumcision, even as Peter with the Good News for the circumcision (for he who appointed Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision [Jews] appointed me also to the Gentiles) Ephesians 3:8 To me . . . was this grace given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. 1 Timothy 2:7 to which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth in Christ, not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. 2. Paul kept insisting that there is no spiritual difference between Jews and Gentiles Acts 22:21-22 “He said to me [Paul], ‘Depart, for I will send you out far from here to the Gentiles.’ ” They listened to him until he said that; then they lifted up their voice, and said, “Rid the earth of this fellow, for he isn’t fit to live!” Galatians 2:3 But not even Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. Galatians 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision amounts to anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love. Romans 10:12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich to all who call on him. 1 Corinthians 12:13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks . . . and were all given to drink into one Spirit. Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek . . . for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:12-14  . . . you [Gentiles] were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off are made near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of partition. Colossians 3:11  . . . there can’t be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision . . . but Christ is all, and in all. 3.Paul willingly sacrifices himself for Gentles 1 Corinthians 9:21-22 To those not having the law [Gentiles] I became like one not having the law . . . so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. (NIV) Galatians 2:12-14 For before some people came from James, he ate with the Gentiles. But when they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews joined him in his hypocrisy; so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they didn’t walk uprightly according to the truth of the Good News, I said to Peter before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live as the Gentiles do, and not as the Jews do, why do you compel the Gentiles to live as the Jews do? Galatians 5:11 But I, brothers, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? . . . Galatians 6:12 As many as desire to look good in the flesh, they compel you to be circumcised; only that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. John has been called the apostle of love, and yet it takes little thought to realize that Paul has truly earned that title. In fact, I don’t know what anyone could do to display greater love than Paul: John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. Romans 5:7-10 For one will hardly die for a righteous man. . . . But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. . . . while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son . . . What gives hope for us all on our path to Christlikeness is that although John and Paul ended up loving like Christ, both started off so far from it they burned with murderous rage toward those they disapproved of (Luke 9:54; Acts 9:1). A moving display of Christlike love is powerful in winning people to Christ. Paul, who under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit wrote, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1, NIV), proved his love by his suffering. An angel can talk about love and anyone rich and/or powerful can give impressive gifts, but it is suffering that provides by far the greatest proof of love. Love is at the heart of the book of Job. This man’s behavior was exceptionally righteous but Satan’s argument was that Job was only that way because of what he got out of it (Job 1:8-11; 2:3-5). It was only through his suffering that Job was able to prove to the world and to anti-God powers just how genuine he was. It is noteworthy that, as with Christians suffering little persecution, the attack on Job and his possessions and family was physical but the source was spiritual (satanic), rather than human persecution because of his beliefs. As is typically also the case among us, a significant human source of his torment was not the ungodly but his marriage partner (Job 2:9 – probably drunk with pain over her own grief) and his righteous friends with their less than helpful attempts to support and advise. Everything mentioned in this section dovetails with Jesus’ emphasis that our forgiveness hinges on our willingness to forgive others. We are acutely aware that the Son of God suffered horrifically, despite being perfect and innocent like no one else, and the darling of God’s heart. We know there is no way that we are greater than our crucified Lord. Nevertheless, we Christians tend to think – I certainly have – that because Christ graciously suffered on our behalf, at least those who are exceptionally close to God should be spared earthly suffering. We have been seeing, however, that God’s precious Word is emphatic that this is not so. Through our suffering Lord, we are headed for an eternity of perfection that is completely free from pain and suffering. Despite the hopes of some, however, not even the greatest Christian, is guaranteed an easy, pain-free time in the here and now. It is understandable that we are not instantaneously whisked away to heaven the moment we surrender to Christ. We are needed down here. The nagging question, however, is why are Christians who are currently fulfilling an earthly mission not divinely placed in some sort of protective bubble so that now that they are in spiritual union with Christ they are spared earthly suffering? Not even the best of us deserve divine forgiveness. Jesus alone was truly innocent and suffered horrifically for you to be forgiven. We were once God’s enemies and were rescued from eternal damnation only because God loves his enemies. The Lord, whom many of us secretly consider to be too good, makes the sun rise and life-giving rain fall both on those we consider respectable and those we look down on (Matthew 5:44-45). There are those we consider unworthy of God’s kindness, when the humiliating reality is that the only thing any of us are worthy of is death from the moment of our first sin (Romans 6:23). We have seen that although suffering is totally contrary to the perfection of God’s will, our sins – our actions that were totally contrary to the perfection of God’s will – that God tolerated until we eventually came to our senses (and sins we have even dared commit afterward) – slander, cheating, lying, stealing, and so on – have inflicted suffering on people. For even the best of us, the Lord had to keep enduring our rebellion against him until we eventually came to our senses and accepted divine pardon through Christ. Do we, then, have the hide to claim the Lord who wants no one to perish but all to come to repentance (Isaiah 45:22; Ezekiel 33:11; 1 Timothy 2:3-4; John 3:16; 2 Peter 3:9) should not also be patient toward those we dislike? It’s mighty hard to read the Bible without concluding that it is possible for dynamic, faith-filled Christians to suffer devastating persecution, including not just the plundering of one’s worldly goods (Hebrews 10:34) but incarceration, torture and death. Jesus even pronounced special blessings on the persecuted. And it’s harder still to believe we are spared such suffering because we are more devout. But what of other forms of suffering? Does anyone believe he reveres God’s Word and yet claims to have more faith and spiritual understanding that the inspired writers of the New Testament who either suffered horrific persecution or taught that others can expect it? Such arrogance would be mind-boggling but I guess some today might feel forced into that dark corner because we live in the pleasure-seeking era prophesied in Scripture in which people will turn from “sound doctrine” and only want to hear what suits them (2 Timothy 3:1-5; 4:3). All of us have been mercifully spared most of the innumerable forms of suffering – every form of natural disaster, physical disabilities, mental afflictions, the vast number of different illnesses (even if eventually healed), rape, betrayal, not being understood, loneliness, death of loved ones, poverty, the ravages of aging, and on and on – and yet it is rare for the most impressive, Spirit-filled Christians to float through a long life without being hit by at least one or two of the possibilities. And while they are suffering, dare we accuse them of lacking faith? Links I have a vast number of other webpages, but the following are particularly pertinent to this topic. A highly relevant webpage that I urge you to read, if you haven’t already, has the unlikely title Biblical Examples of Unanswered Prayer & the Implications for Us. What connects the two pages is that our natural reaction to suffering is to pray against it. If, however, suffering involves loftier purposes than we suppose, the high good and our greatest glory might be achieved by those prayers not being answered. The page contains valuable biblical insights into suffering that have not been covered above. The Surprising Joy of Trials Christian Insights into Martyrdom and Persecution God isn’t fair? God’s Execution of Justice on Behalf of Those who have Suffered More About God & Suffering Repentance: Why We Can’t be Forgiven While Refusing to Let Go of Sin Biblical Examples of Unanswered Prayer & the Implications for Us Receive More Spiritual Revelation: The Help You Need to Find Deep Spiritual Secrets