What is a Single Rain Drop's Worth?

Perhaps the most difficult part of life is the waiting.  Into our periods of living inevitably come those spaces  between when we see not even a hint of progress, either in our own lives or in the lives of those around us. 

Whatever the situation, it seems as barren as the winter, where we plant seed after seed, eternally watching and waiting for the first sprout.  Each day finds us swinging wide like a pendulum between greatest joy when we think we see signs of new life and deepest despair when those hopes are dashed in the light of the next dawn.

We want to rush every process, to do whatever it takes to ram our future into our yesterday.  But that's not how it works.

The past two weeks, we have looked into the Shema of Deuteronomy 6, first focusing on how we must love what we teach about the Lord in order for it to be effectively communicated to those around us and then focusing on how we must rest in the comfort that our teaching moments are empowered by the Holy Spirit instead of by our own feeble abilities.

This week fast forwards us to the last day of Moses' life when Scripture says he "spoke the words of this song until they were finished, in the ears of all the assembly of Israel" (Deut. 31:30).

After Moses had written down the entire law of the Lord, all Israel gathered 'round to hear his parting words.  Not surprisingly, they began with a message about faith, patience, and love.

Moses sang,  "Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth. May my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, like gentle rain upon the tender grass, and like showers upon the herb.  For I will proclaim the name of the Lord; ascribe greatness to our God!" (Deut. 32:1-3).

In two short verses, Moses gives four different similes concerning rain to symbolize what the teaching of God's Word should look like.  The choice of water is intentional, since for the Israelites, water from heaven was the difference between life and death in the desert.  Without rain, even the deepest of wells and cisterns would run dry, and all would perish.

The message here is quite simple--the Word of the Lord is life giving for all whom it falls upon.

The way that life-giving water falls on individuals, however, is not always the same.

In the first instance--"drop as the rain"--the Hebrew word translated here as "drop" means "to drop, drip...trickle."*  The image here is of what my children call "a sprinkle," not even enough water falling from the skies to call it a "shower." 

In the second example, Moses compares his teaching to the "dew," the gentle mist that falls silently at night to coat everything like a damp quilt.

The third example is of "gentle rain."  The Hebrew word here meaning "raindrops, rain showers"* implies the drops are large enough and consistent enough to take notice so that we could actually call it a "shower"; yet, it is by no means a storm that will result in a great rain. In fact, the KJV refers to it as "small rain." 

The fourth example--"like showers"--in Hebrew is defined as "copious showers, heavy showers"*  The Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon says this word indicates "showers, from the multitude of drops....plenty of water"**  This is a heavy rain.

The last example of a heavy rain is what we like to hear when we speak of sharing God's Word--we want His Word to be a flood, making such a big impression on those we're sharing with that their lives are instantly transformed in a huge way.  And, as Moses shows, that kind of eternal-life-giving transformation is possible.

But also notice that Moses only symbolizes teaching as a heavy rain after giving three examples of light showers and watery mist.  Somehow, I don't think that is a coincidence.  Instead, it seems he is communicating what we should anticipate in our routine sharing and teaching of God's Word....and how we should alter our expectations about "results" in light of this.

In three of the four above Hebrew words for "rain," the amount of water that falls is so insignificant that often, our listener may not even know he got wet!  And yet, that gentle rain or morning dew is so very important, as ever so slowly, it gives life.  Given time, it can accumulate drop by drop until our cup literally runneth over.

This should be an encouragement to those of us who may not get the chance to have a whole conversation with someone concerning the gospel.  Perhaps we only have the opportunity to share a sentence at a time.  Or perhaps, it's not even that much.  Maybe it's just an act of loving kindness done in Jesus' name for another. 

Mother.  Father.  Sister.  Friend.  Neighbor.  Co-worker.  Whoever it is that you're trying to teach about Jesus--don't give up.  Keep planting those seeds of the gospel with your very life.  Keep offering His life-giving water found in the Word, even if all you do today is coat them in the gentle morning dew of God's love shining through you.

We must be faithful to share His Word in sprinkles, dew, and light showers, trusting in God's perfect timing that one day, He will give someone--maybe even us!--the opportunity to speak the heavy rains upon their hearts and see them born into the kingdom.

Now that would be a flood worth celebrating.





* Strong's Concordance--Blue Letter Bible.org

**Hebrew Word "rabiyb"  http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H7241&t=KJV

jessica.pfaff@pearson.com“Give ear, O heavens, and let me speak;
And let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
² “Let my teaching drop as the rain,
My speech distill as the dew,
As the droplets on the fresh grass
And as the showers on the herb.
³ “For I proclaim the name of the Lord;
Ascribe greatness to our God!

jessica.pfaff@pearson.com

jessica.pfaff@pearson.com"

Empowering Our Teaching Moments

By the time my children bounce down the hall and into their beds each night, I am in desperate need of a little down time--just husband, me, a sofa footrub, and maybe a burst of caffeine to get me through the next four hours until my own bedtime.  Sometimes, though, just as I turn to go down the stairs, my little ones will ask the question sure to tug at my heartstrings:

"Mommy....will you snuggle me?"

When my daughter uses those words, she truly wants to snuggle, to nestle into my arms and brush her face against mine.  Sometimes, we speak.  Sometimes, there is only silence apart from the sounds of our breathing.

The boys?  They just want to talk.

This night, I lie next to my oldest son, both of us high off the ground in the top bunk as he reads aloud the funniest pages of his most recent book.  The night before, I lay in the the cozy cavern of youngest son's bottom bunk while he regaled me with tales of his day. 

Every once in awhile, these snuggle sessions will turn into relaxed theology seminars, weighty questions about God all held in the non-threatening, soft glow of two AA batteries and an LED bulb.  Questions about God are easier to ask in the dark.

Last week in this space, we looked at the Shema in Deuteronomy 6 and how we must love what we teach our children.  Otherwise, our words will be wasted air if our daily actions don't demonstrate a deep and abiding love of the Lord.

This week, I'm still stuck in the Shema, feeling the weight, the burden of this burning command to teach the words of God every second of my entire life: 

"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise" (Deut. 6:4-6).

What overwhelms me so much is the "where" and "how often" I must be teaching: when I (1) sit, (2) walk, (3) lie down, (4) rise.  Basically, that's my entire day in an action verb nutshell--sit, stand, walk, lie down, sleep.

Yet, there have been plenty of times within the past 24 hours when my love of God hasn't been easily evident or when I have simply wasted moments.  In all honesty, some days I wake to first remember how I blew it the day before.  

With this kind of command and its sense of all-consuming urgency, it is easy to feel defeated before I have a single interaction with my children. And that's where God draws everything back into focus by inserting Himself into my sitting, my lying down, and my rising up. 

The Psalmist writes:

"O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether" (Ps. 139:1-4).

God divinely chose the same action verbs used in Deuteronomy to show how much He knows about us.  Every time we think of speaking about the Lord to our children, every time we think of demonstrating our love for God--whether we are sitting, rising, or lying down, He is already thinking of us.

Even better, the apostle Paul reminds us that the Lord, Himself, is praying for us: "Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us" (Rom. 8:34).

This command for us to teach our children to love the Lord is only possible if we love Him with our whole hearts, souls, and minds.  But it is also only possible because He intercedes for us at the right hand of the Father.  Yes, you and I are constantly on Jesus' mind as He prays for us.

How comforting and empowering would it be if we remembered this truth and allowed it to changed our thinking?

How much could it change our thinking if we remembered that every teaching opportunity we are given to share with or demonstrate the Word and love of God to our children, we are going forth under the power of our Lord who not only knows what we're doing/thinking before we do but who has also already prayed for us to have victory in that specific instance?

Such knowledge that we have been prayed for, are being prayed for, and will be prayed for as we move throughout our daily tasks should empower our obedience and compel our hearts all the more to diligently teach our children about the Lord God.

You Can't Teach What You Don't Love

Living with an eight-year-old and twin six-year olds, rarely a day goes by that I'm not caught saying, "Did you hear me!? What did I just say?"

Sometimes, the children honestly didn't hear me over the noise of a very alive household.  Other times, they can't hear because that would require their mouths to close.  And then there are those times when I'm convinced they have simply tuned me out completely.

In this information overload culture of ours, I know the feeling.  I needn't leave my bed to be hit with a barrage of content that I must choose whether to sift through or simply ignore.  Often, good messages get lost in the steady stream of data bombarding me because it's easier to scan the long page or, more often, flick my index finger to delete them. 

How, then, are we as parents to communicate the gospel effectively to our children? With my children, I've already learned that even the medium-length lesson isn't worth the effort.  When their eyes glaze over, Twitter's 140 characters don't look so bad--maybe soundbites would reach their small, overloaded minds.  But while lengthy lessons don't work well for imparting a love of God and Scripture to our children, mere soundbites seem insufficient as well.  

Still, the Shema communicates the importance of teaching our children to follow God's commands.  It reads,

"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates" (Deut. 6:4-9).

As a parent, I am to "teach...diligently" the words of God to my children.  In the context of the book of Deuteronomy, Moses was basically telling the people to explain the law to their children just as he was explaining it to them before his death.  

In this passage, parents are commanded to make every moment a "teaching" moment.  Whether we are sitting (ha!), walking, lying down, or rising, we are to be teaching about God's law. 

There are easy ways to intentionally fulfill the literalness of this command.  Scriptures we have hidden in our hearts should readily flow from our lips.  We must stop being bashful about speaking the name of God to our children.  Instead, His name should be as common in our conversations as any other named member in our household.  

I understand this type of teaching and have worked diligently over the past few years to put it into practice, learning to routinely speak aloud my praises/requests/thoughts about God and the Bible rather than merely to keep private my relationship with Him.  As a result, conversations about God have become as common as conversations about what's wrong with mom's choice of dinner fare.   

But frankly, I sometimes wonder if I'm saying enough....if my words are getting through to my children, or if it's just more information overload that won't penetrate their hearts.  

The problem with this vein of thinking stems from me missing part of Moses' lesson.  I somehow skipped over a verse, separating this command to teach from the other command that precedes it.  

After proclaiming God's one-ness, Moses starts the passage with, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might" (v. 5).

Before we can properly teach our children, we must properly love the Lord with our everything.

It doesn't matter what we say about God to our children.  It matters how we love Him! Even Moses knew the old adage, "Actions speak louder than words."

If God's Word doesn't impact our hearts, how can we expect it to impact theirs?  The answer is that it won't.  Our teaching will necessarily fail if we do not love God with every atom of our beings because we will be guilty of saying one thing and doing another.

Yet, for those who do love the Lord and who seek to love Him all the more, this should be a comfort--even though we may not feel that our intentional teaching moments are reaching our children, we can rest a little easier knowing that our words aren't the only ways we're teaching them about following Jesus.

Every moment we breathe is a teaching moment because our very attitude teaches our children about the Lord.  

• When we are excited about a passage of Scripture and share what we learned, we have just taught our children that the Bible can be exciting.  
• When they see us intently studying Scripture on the sofa or see our Bible Study classes penciled in on the wall calendar, we have just taught them that making time for God is important.  
• When we give money to the poor or take a meal to a sick friend, we have taught them to love their neighbor as themselves.  
• When we choose to play praise music in our cars and enthusiastically sing aloud, we have just taught them the importance of singing praises to God in our routine, daily life outside the church walls.

The list of our daily actions could go on and on.  We are teaching our children to love God with the very lives we live, both before Him and before them. 

This week, we must continually ask ourselves if we are loving Jesus with all we've got. 

We will teach best what we love most.

Don't Make Your Wilderness Into Your Grave

We've all experienced a season in the wilderness.  Maybe we've even experienced more than one.

In our memories, it is a dark place of uncertainty, struggle, difficulty, and often pain.  It is not a desert we ever would have chosen to walk through, even if what it led to was worth the trip in retrospect.

There we stood in the wilderness--day after day, month after month, maybe even year after year....struggling to lift one foot in front of the other as we slogged up sandy dunes taller than we had ever climbed before.  Each dune was so tall that when we slid down to the valley between them, we could see neither where we were headed nor where we had been.  Some days, in the deepest core of our wilderness, even when we mastered another summit, all we beheld from that height were equally-high mountains of sand as far as the eye could see.

We lived in the wilderness, a barren desert with no entrance to retreat back through and no visible exit.

Why am I here?

The Israelites surely must have asked this very question as they camped in the wilderness with Moses after leaving behind the slavery of Egypt and aiming towards their Promised Land.

We all know the story, how an eleven day journey transformed into a 38+ year wandering in the desert after the people lacked sufficient faith to possess the Promised Land.  Thirty-eight years of pointless wandering in circles, all the while transforming their wilderness into a graveyard as tens of thousands of people died to fulfill God's judgment.

God said to that unfaithful group: "your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness" (Num. 14:29-33).

God's desire was not for the Israelites to wander aimlessly in their wilderness for 40 years.  He longed for them to have faith in Him.  He longed for them to obey Him.  Instead of grumbling and disobeying God in their lack of faith, God wanted them to understand that yes, they were meant to go through this difficult time in the wilderness, but to also understand that He. Was. There.  What's more, He. Was. Enough. 

God was with them in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night.  God was with them in the daily manna.  God was even with them in the evening quail after they grumbled about the monotony of manna.   

All the while, He was striving to prepare their hearts in that wilderness.  He was working to bring them to a Promised Land of plenty that He had prepared for them.  

As Moses told the Israelites, "And he [the Lord] brought us out from there [Egypt], that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers" (Deut. 6:23). 

The Lord brought them out of Egypt so he could bring them in to the Promised Land.   

He didn't merely bring them "out" in order for them to remain in the wilderness.  He desired to bring them "in" to a land where they could be fruitful.  And yet, instead of believing God....instead of obeying God, their disobedience kept God from bringing them "in" to the land of promise.

What cuts me to the quick is that last verse in the Numbers 14 passage above: "And your children....shall suffer for your faithlessness" (v. 33).

The children suffered for the faithless disobedience of their fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers.  Innocent children.....suffering needlessly for their elders' sin.  

This is not a mere history story.  It is not a "let's point our fingers at those stupid Israelites" story either.  No.  This lesson applies even to those of us this side of the cross--to those of us adopted into Moses and Abraham's spiritual family.  

Jesus told His disciples to expect difficulty in their lives if they chose to obey and follow Him: "A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also" (Jn. 15:20). He promised them trials to test them, to sanctify their souls. In short, He promised the child of God seasons in the wilderness.

God will send you and me through the wilderness. If for no other reason, He will be saving us from ourselves by working to sanctify our souls.  It's just a matter of when.  

When those seasons come, though, we can rest in peace knowing that as we struggle through the difficult days, God does not intend for us to remain there in our wilderness until all that's left are our sun-bleached bones. The wilderness need not be our grave.  

God only leads us "out" into the wilderness to "bring us in" to something far greater, to somewhere that we can bear fruit!  It's simply up to us to seek Him in our difficulty so that our hearts do not turn bitter and defiant.  

Otherwise, in our disobedience, we not only doom ourselves to pointless wandering in our wilderness, but we doom our children to all too many years of that fate as well.



Image: Stone marked grave in Libya

Accepting The Best and the Worst in People

Even as an adult, I find children's books are so comforting to read. The bad guys are always bad.  The good guys are always good.  By the end of the book, evil is soundly defeated, and nobody is sorry when he (or she) is dead and out of the picture.

There is rarely this fuzzy grey area where the good guys do something so off the charts wrong that you recoil from the pages to say, "Woah.  I'm not sure you really are the good guy if you could do something like that"

Reality, though, isn't quite like that.  Humanity isn't at all like that.  People sold out to the cause of Christ and to doing a lifetime of good are still going to shock and disappoint us with actions that are the complete opposite of mercy, grace, and righteousness.

In Scripture, God tries to show us this truth through stories of amazingly righteous individuals who fall flat on their face into the tar pits of adultery, legalism, cowardice, lying, murder, and everything in between.

Even those listed in the spiritual hero hall of fame of Hebrews 11 are far from completely righteous.  These individuals sprinkled throughout the pages believed God, demonstrated their faith time and again in the fruit of their actions....and then they would do something so obviously immoral that we must pause, maybe even question their commitment to God.

We easily remember David who murdered one of his subjects after having an adulterous relationship with the man's wife. We remember Abraham who lied twice, telling both a neighboring king and a pharaoh that his wife was his sister.

Somehow, though, in reading the story of Queen Esther, I have always thought of her as some devout little Jewish girl, one bubble of light growing up in the dark paganism of Susa in Babylon.

Anyone who would say "And thus I will go in to the king, which is not according to the law; and if I perish, I perish" and then act on those words to potentially sacrifice her life in order to save all Jews had it all together, surely (Esther 4:16).  And so, I mentally put her in the "righteous" column while firmly placing Hamaan, King Xerxes, and the rest of the pagan citizens of Babylon into the "unrighteous" column.

Never did I once consider that no matter how hard Esther's adoptive parents tried to instill in her heart the Jewish ways of faith in Yahweh alone, perhaps Esther wasn't so lily white.  Perhaps she had materialistic longings like other young girls in Babylon--to be rich, to be loved by the king...maybe to even be queen.

In Angela Hunt's newest book Esther: Royal Beauty, she begins with this assumption that young Esther heard the siren's song of Babylon with all its worldly beauty, color, an pageantry.  Calling her by her Jewish name--Hadassah--she fictionalizes the Bible story through first person narrative, presenting parallel, intertwining stories told through the lips of both Esther and the King's head eunuch, Harbonah.

Hunt's book begins, "You may think you know me, but how could you? Others have related my story, and most of them paint a pretty picture. But unless a woman is allowed to speak for herself, no one will ever fully understand the events of a lifetime..and the secret recesses of a woman's heart" (p. 7).

From page one, she challenges the vision of Esther presented in the popular movie One Night with the King, instead, presenting a more complex girl who struggles to come to terms with the Jewish faith of her childhood and the strong lure of the world of Babylon.

Unlike the Esther held up on a pedestal in my mind, Hunt's Esther is more real.  She is one I can relate to.  She is a girl who wants to be true to God and the tenets of her faith but who, likewise, wants to be a part of Babylon, too. 

In a way, Esther must confront the choice presented in Matthew 6:24: "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.."  

Esther must choose the world of the flesh or the world of the Spirit.

As Paul says, "But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please" (Gal. 5:16-17).

Paul's words seem so easy--Just. Choose.......only it's not as simple.  The fight against the flesh is a life-long endeavor called sanctification.  We will not be free from sin, from this battle against unrighteousness, until we leave behind this life and enter the next realm.

These Bible-time heroes of the faith are as equally human as our modern day heroes of the faith.  When they sin and become mired in their unrighteousness......and when we sin and become mired in our unrighteousness--may we come alongside them in love, extending mercy and grace as we would have them do to us.

Not even the Godliest man or woman has arrived at perfection yet.

Is God Holding Out on You?

"Really? " asks my youngest son.  "Really.....REALLY?" he repeats several more times. 

Over the past week, he has used this phrase with ever increasing frequency, each time his tone communicating how incredulous he is.

It doesn't matter that I have never lied to my children, nor that I don't weekly remind them that mommy will never lie to them even if the truth hurts.  There's just something in my children that doesn't want to believe what someone else tells them, even if that someone else is a loving parent with their best interests at heart.

The problem doesn't just lie with my children, though.  Grown men and women are equally doubtful of others, believing that everyone is forever holding out on them.

In fact, Satan, himself, planted the thought in Eve's mind as early as the dawn of man in the Garden of Eden.  

The book of Genesis says, "Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” (3:1).

There it is, a mere three chapters into recorded history--the implication that God, Himself, is secretly lying, is holding out on them....is keeping the best, the naked truth for Himself.

Eve responded, The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die’” (v. 2-3).

But even in her response, that tiny mustard seed of doubt must have already been growing in her mind, for she didn't walk away, didn't leave the conversation.  Instead, she waited there while Satan spun his warped version of the truth: "You will not certainly die!...For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (v. 4-5).  

God is holding out on you.  That blind obedience bit is just a ruse...don't you want to know what He's really hiding behind that threat of death?

Really!?

And Eve took the bait.  She chose to disobey the one rule God had put before her because she doubted His truth; she doubted that He had her best interests at heart....she believed the lie that there was something more, that there was something better than what God had given her.

Scripture says, "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves" (v. 6-7).

As much as we want to look back at this story of original sin and click our tongues in disapproval, I would argue that this scene plays out each day, only now the setting has changed from the pure innocence of the Garden of Eden to this fallen speck of earth in a vastly expanding universe.

Satan's message is the same today as it was all those many millennia ago. And can you blame him?  Why change a sales tactic that continues to work?

"God is holding out on you," Satan continues to say to every man, woman, and child. "There is more to be had in this world than what God offers you.  There is more freedom and pleasure that God is denying you by binding you to the limitations He's set forth in Scripture and The Ten Commandments. You can become your own god...you can know all things, be all things...just reach out and take what you want."

But every word Satan whispers or yells--it's all a lie.  Jesus even said that Satan "was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies" (Jn. 8:44).

God is NOT holding out on you or me.  He isn't trying to take away all our fun, all our freedom by asking us to obey His Word as found in the Old and New Testaments.  Instead, His Word is sent to protect us from ourselves, from the ravaging damage that sin can wreak in our lives.

As James said, "Don't be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights" (Jas. 1:16-17).   Even Paul says we should "put [our] hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment" (1 Tim. 6:17).  Our enjoyment!!!

If we had any questions about whether God was holding back His best gifts or knowledge from us, those questions should have been laid to rest at the foot of the cross where God demonstrated His boundless love for mankind by sending His one and only son to die for every sinful, defiant, doubtful soul.

Yes, even as man continued to believe Satan's lie, God sent the fullness of all grace and truth to us in the God-made-flesh body of Jesus Christ.  And through Jesus' death on the cross, God made a new covenant promise with mankind wherein He reconciled us to Himself so that He could give us an eternal inheritance: "Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance" (Heb. 9:15a).

Satan's sales pitch is persuasive because we can't imagine a God who holds nothing back, who never lies, who wants only the best for us.  But, it's the truth. 

The only more to be had in this life is found through salvation in Jesus.

Realizing There is No Choice "C"

"Well, when I grow up and have my own house..." or "Well, when I have my own kids..."

These are phrases I hear quite often from my three little ones.  In their innocence, they believe the lie of childhood which views the world of adults as a veritable theme park wonderland of freedom and fun.

Being an adult means having to answer to no one but themselves.  It means making their own rules versus following the ones mommy and daddy set forth.  In short, being an adult is ultimate power and control over their lives. 

I just smile, sometimes explaining the impossibility of such dreams and other times just playing along, all the while knowing when they cross the great chasm into adulthood, they will be smacked in the face by a much less brilliant reality.

Most adults know something these children can't possibly understand--everyone is always serving someone, always following someone else's set of rules.

And yet, despite the seeming obviousness of this fact, it seems more and more that I see a nation of adults reverting to this dream of ultimate freedom once again.  The concept of being one's own boss is ever appealing--no time clock to punch, no boss to report to, no rules to constrain.  In America alone, 10 million workers reported self employment to the Census.

The problem with this philosophy is that it is as much a lie as it was when we were children.  Even if we work for ourselves, we still aren't free. We become slaves to ourselves...and much worse.

Scripture reminds us of this very fact that we will always be slaves, that we will never be our own boss.  There are merely two choices as to who we will serve under. 

For those who refuse the headship of Jesus Christ, who have chosen to not make Him the Lord of their lives because they find God's commandments to be too oppressive, there is still no freedom to do as they wish.  Instead, these persons are enslaved by their fleshly desires, which control them.

Paul says, "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts" (Eph. 2:1-3).

The image here is of someone incapable of true freedom because those desires, cravings, and disobedient thoughts are so magnetically powerful that the person has no choice but to follow them, no matter how hard s/he fights against them.  

The lost person is not a leader of his own life, not his own boss.  That is an illusion.  Instead, the above verses show that he is a follower of the world and Satan, "the ruler of the kingdom of the air."  In essence, even though the lost person insists on his own freedom to act as he chooses versus submitting to God as a hard taskmaster, this person is actually under the control of Satan whose spirit is "now at work" in those who disobey God.  Modern vernacular would say that Satan is that person's boss.

Choice B requires a person to follow the commandments of God as set forth in the Bible.  As Jesus says, "He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him" (Jn. 14:21).  

For this person who lovingly submits to the Lordship of Jesus, who gives up his will and rights to himself, who makes Jesus his master--this is the person who finds the true irony of life is that the most freedom is found in the greatest submission to authority.  

No longer will the person be tossed to and fro by the desires of his flesh.  Instead, the person submits to God in order to be freed from the flesh for his ultimate benefit: "But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life" (Rom. 6: 22).

Paul summarizes this choice a person must make in regards to his freedom: "Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness" (Rom. 6:16-18).

A man can be a slave to sin and his flesh or a slave to righteousness and God.  With our every action that we convince ourselves we have "freely" chosen, we serve Satan or we serve God.   There is no "Choice C" in this life.  There is no choice of "Self" as our own boss, our own master.

It is the ultimate irony--only by submitting ourselves completely to God will we achieve the freedom we desire.