I talked to a friend a while ago who had just finished getting a divorce from a huge clusterfuck of a marriage. He had just come from Las Vegas and he told me. Geoff I’ve been really bad. But it’s been really good. He did all the things that need to stay in Vegas. Hookers, drugs, you name it. And the guy could afford it as well. Now this guy has had a hard past, but he also went to seminary and has a degree in theology. He knows all the ins and outs of the Trinity, and systematic Christology. He believes the right things, but is this translating into a With God Life?
I talked to another person a while ago who is a minister of Christianity. He believes it, and he would be the first to tell you so. And boy is he orthodox! He knows all of the creeds and the reason behind the creeds, and would be the first to call you out if you said something off. There’s nothing wrong with this until you get in a room with him. You see, it seems his need for correct doctrine stems from a deeper insecurity. Years ago he was rejected by a church several times, and one of the reasons for them rejecting him he has concluded is because they were heretical. So … “he will never be like THEM.” “He will never believe wrong things again.” Today he has a problem socially. He leers at women, and creeps them out. He is usually oblivious to it, yet there are some people that have been hurt by his obliviousness. His friends make excuses for him saying “well that’s just him... you have to look around his bull in a china shop behavior.“ Yet there have been instances in which those pieces of china have been people that he has broken. His strong desire to convey a message, is not exactly to convey a message, but to be “right”… to feel good about what he is putting out. He believes the right things, but is this translating into a With God life.
We all know them. The Hippocrites. The ones who say and know all of the right advice, but really gross us out when it comes to their life. The people that we know are “smart” but their life is ugly. They are the epitome of Irony. Like rayeyain on your wedding day. The ethics professor that treats the custodian with contempt. They are the ones who would say “I know the right way to live”, yet when you apply the magnifying glass you see that they don’t really practice it. They believe in Jesus, yet They are the THEY that we talk about who give love a bad name. The fish bumpersticker that just cut us off or flipped us the bird. What are your stories of some hippocrites that you know?
They believe in Jesus, yet is this translating into a With God Life?
Some have allowed their belief in Jesus to give them license for their perpetuated wrong doing. And in their wrongdoing the With God Life has vanished. Some have allowed their belief in who Jesus is stop them from being kind so that they can be “right.” And in their anger or meanness the With God Life has vanished. They are the professors of Christianity, without the chutzpah to witness to his light. They are the city set on a hill without electricity.
It’s in this vien that I agree with Thomas a Kempis who says “It’s better to have contrition then to be able to define it.” The definition of Contrition by the way is: the sincere remorse for wrongdoing. Just so you know I am not anti intellectual. I think it is a great thing to understand God, and Theology. Some people maintain that you can’t know about God, but I would maintain that those people haven’t read the bible. I am also orthodox in my thinking and I think that it is important to maintain that. But When we are confronted by believers who don’t take on the traits of their heavenly father, It makes me ask what is it that Causes the With God life? Can it be done? Some people don’t think it can… especially our hippocrite friends. I think it can, but I think you need to add something to your mere profession of Jesus as Lord.
Now these stories are good examples of hippocrites. But to some extent they may be a little unfair. I am sure if you applied the right magnifying glass to my life, and phrased it properly, at certain times in my life I would make this list as well. It’s easy to throw the “RUINERS of the CHURCH” under the bus. But then I ask us who are so eager to throw stones. Are WE living the “With God Life.” It’s for sure that our hippocrite friends are not living up to the eternal life standards that Jesus talked about. But Are we?
We know how to live. They don’t.
There were some people who knew how to live. They were Godly people. They knew the ten commandments. They knew that one shouldn’t commit adultary. They knew that that was bad behavior. They saw a guy living it up with prostitutes in Vegas and knew that he wasn’t living the With God Life. And it is to these “knowledgeable ones” that Jesus is talking to when he says this in Matthew 5
"You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
Jesus ups the anti and gives them (the people who know the right way to live) something more intense than prostitutes in Vegas. More than adultary, the cultivation of lust is equally bad. Then he goes into underlying the need to participate in mutilation for heavenly purposes. Some have used this teaching to allow them to boast in not seeing a women for years. Some have used this teaching to justify self mutilation. Some have used this teaching to hate their body, and wish it dead saying “One day I will be rid of my body and its EVIL FLESH.”
But… Just so you know Jesus wasn’t adding a more intense law to the ten commandments, he doesn’t function in rules to live by… he functioned in teaching. He wasn’t advocating not seeing women, or even mutilating yourself. BUT HE SAID IT… He was teaching in a manner that would show the people what was behind the commandment. You see the God followers at the time wanted others to participate in THEIR lifestyle. But Jesus knew that their lifestyle was empty. It was a life of good intentions but a life absent of love. He went overthetop into mutilation to show their lack of understanding about the kingdom of the heavens. He showed them. If you think all it takes is not doing the wrong thing to get into heaven, you’ve missed it. He shows this by being jacose. Say your eye or your evil arm causes you to sin. Well remove it and you will roll into heaven a bloody stump! YAY you’ve made it to heaven because you didn’t do anything wrong! GETTING INTO HEAVEN isn’t about doing the right thing, or not doing the wrong thing. Doing the right thing is a simple outflow of a life within the Kingdom. If you are loving your nieghbor you are not lusting them, nor are you diddling them with your hand. This was a jolting teaching just like it is today. He is saying to become the kind of person who lives within the kingdom of heaven, you aren’t worried about doing anything wrong lustfully because you are interested in loving your neighbor. What’s behind Thou shalt not commit adultary, is loving your nieghbor. That is life in the Kingdom of the heavens.
But some people say “I can’t help it.” I pray and I pray and I continue to “struggle with lust”
And it is in that vien that they agree with Paul who says in Romans 7
For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
There are a couple things that come into play here. Spirit, Law, Flesh, Sin
Spirit - is the unbodily personal power, the life from above, that comes from God.
Law - is the law of love, the law of loving God and Neighbor.
Sin - is living your life in a manner in which you do not love God or your neighbor.
Flesh – This is the one that people get confused about:
"Flesh," on Paul’s understanding, consists of the natural human abilities, considered in themselves and on their own, unaided by Divine assistance and direction. Flesh is not necessarily bad, and it certainly is not "fallen or sinful human nature." Which is how some bible translations interpret it. For one thing, it is not human nature, but only one part of it. For another it is not essentially sinful, fallen, or bad. It is a good creation of God, and needs only to be kept to its proper function in life before God.
In galations 4 Paul explains this by using the example of Hagar and Sarah. "the son of bondswoman (Hagar) was born according to the flesh" (Gal. 4:23)—that is, from normal human abilities. You guys understand the Birds and the bees that’s how Ishmael was born. But "the son of the freewoman" (Sarah) was born through the promise and action of God, along with her and Abraham’s normal human abilities. Spirit and flesh.
So our flesh isn’t inherantly bad. It’s a creation that when coupled with God’s spirit can make for beauty. The problem comes in when we, like Abraham, go about making it happen on our own.The "mind set on the flesh" is death paul says in romans 8, because it draws upon natural human abilities alone, not upon the gracious actions of God in our life. That is why in Galations 6 Paul says Those who invest solely in their flesh get back only "corruption" for that is the only outcome of natural human abilities on their own, dominated by their desires. To be corrupt means to be broken into pieces, to perish through internal disintegration.
And that is the main weekness of the flesh: its internal desires. When you don’t have the spirit and the law of love guiding your way, you only will hear from your desires. And they are LOUD, and twist your understanding of what is right and what is wrong. Some of your flesh desires are healthy. It’s important to eat. Important to sleep. Others are not so healthy. It’s not cool to sell your child into slavery for instance. Yet if someone is hard up for money, it has been done.
I had another friend who really messed with a lot of people because of his stated desires trumping his understanding of God’s law of love. He is a christian. Involved in a church. And has a faith very much like all of us. He also had a fantasy that if he could have two women at once, he would take it. Well the opportunity lent itself and he took it, as a result he hurt his marriage, his relationship with his friends. And now he can say he’s been with two women. YAY. And I’m sure he says today that Jesus has forgiven him. Some of his friends are not so forgiving.
And that’s how the flesh moves into internal disintegration. If we only rely on our natural human abilities, there will be a point in which our desires will be more interested in what we want than the over all good. Our flesh will be poised to do evil if necessary to fulfill what it wants. 2 women? what would you do for a million dollars? how about wanting someone dead? This is life without spirit and God’s law.
It is in this capacity that the law is contrary to the flesh. It allows us a guide for loving each other. The desire of having sex with anyone, then rubs up against God saying, hey maybe human intimacy means a little bit more than that. The desire for the person in the car in front of you to drop dead, rubs up against you doing unto him what you would have him do unto you.
I think it is here that we are running into the issue of our first hippocrite examples. We have someone saying I love Jesus. But is overrun by their desires so that their life doesn’t reflect that they love Jesus.
Again… we have to remember back to Jesus’ teaching that we are not interested in correct behavior, that is only a byproduct of what happens when someone is living within the Kingdom of God. We are interested in a whole life where love of God and neighbor is the goal. Remember…Why would we choose to lust this person if you could intend the good for them. We don’t want empty behavior. Empty behavior that is good is still empty.
One thing that I’m noticing is that our profession of love of Jesus is somehow converting us, but not moving us to truly live the life from above that Jesus promises. And as a result we love Jesus’ forgiveness because it allows us to maintain our desires as is. Thus we love Jesus for what we get out of the relationship which is a clear conscious, but realistically he is not our Lord.
Don’t get me wrong I am all about conversion. Which is us finally believing that Jesus might be who he said he is. To consider him Lord. To know him as savior and messiah. But I’m pretty sure that many of us can see where someone allowed their conversion to stay put. They profess Jesus as Lord, but in reality their love of their desires trumps their love of God. Their desires are more important than their pursuit of being a part of what God is doing. And that includes being a part of the “right” sort of crowd, called a church.
Could it be that we have allowed our conversion in christianity to stop us from understanding our actual need for transformation. Could it be that our understanding of God needing to save us has allowed us the excuse to do nothing. It is true we cannot do anything without his spirit. But if we do nothing we do that without his spirit as well. Our Flesh’s roll in our own redemption is one that has been swept under the rug. We need to move from Conversion to Transformation. This is difficult and not new.
There was a man called peter who outlines the possibility of such transformation. He shows that it is not impossible, to have our flesh aligning to its natural calling with God’s Holy spirit to create our own little Issac. At the same time, it isn’t an overnight process, it takes Jesus calling him out, his spirit failing due to his weak flesh, through failure, through dilligence, and finally through transformation into the boldness of someone who has the spirit of the easy yolk powering him.
It’s Passover and the disciples are all at a dinner with Jesus. Peter is a convert. He has said to Jesus he knows who he is. The very son of God. And he has been following this guy for quite some time. He is “in” As Heidi Klum might say. Yet his profession and his conversion doesn’t mean that embodied within his flesh is the desire to not go to jail. Embodied within his flesh is the desire to “Do Evil If Necessary.” Even though he is “IN” Very much like paul in Romans 7, there is something that is in it for himself. That he doesn’t want to do, but he do do.And Jesus sees this.
Then Jesus told them, "This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written: " 'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.' But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee." Peter replied, "Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will."
"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times."
Regardless of his own profession, and his own zeal, Jesus could see the embodied sin embedded within Peter’s flesh. Peter had a need to make HIS will come about. Jesus had nearly the same will as he prayed in the garden. Yet in his prayer, he relinquished his way, for a better way. But he went to check on the others who were sapposed to be praying with him, he caught them sleeping. He told them "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." This is not a dig, this is a matter of fact statement. They should have prayed as we will see later. Also they really did want to pray, and they really did want to stick up for Jesus. But their flesh was weak from their continued feeding of Their way. Could it be that to give into our fears, and our sin, we weaken our body. Possibly this is what doctors tell us all the time in our checkups.
But why should they pray so they don’t fall into temptation? Well… We see as Judas betrays his Lord with a kiss. The others scatter like Jesus fortold, and Peter sticks around and falls into the temptation of his flesh. He draws his sword and slices the priest’s assistant’s ear. When we don’t have the guidance that comes from prayer and the Spirit, our desires twist our view of right and wrong, into seeing what is good FOR US is right. Our flesh that is Poised to do evil, Poison’s our ability to see the bigger picture. Peter thought what was good was to defend his Lord by force. This was his spirit utilizing his weak flesh. Yet the bigger picture was that Jesus was giving his life freely. And Jesus remedies this “weak intention” by healing the ear. We can obtain guidance by watching and praying so that our intentions are guided by wisdom, and not our twisted desires.
With Peter’s tenacity, we still see his body upholding what he said. “I will not fall away!” And He follows the party. Yet every time he is confronted on his connection to Jesus, his mouth begins following his weak flesh. Denying 3 times before the dawn.
We all make mistakes. Like the bumpersticker says “Christians aren’t perfect… Just forgiven.” But for peter, this was his bottom. He used this realization of his betrayal, to not “JUST BE FORGIVEN.” But there was something more to his Lord that inspired him to be more than the Guy who will sell his friends down the river. Instead of just being that Guy. And finding forgiveness. When Jesus did raise, and Jesus did empower him with the Holy spirit. It was Peter who risked his life to witness to the truth.
His flesh met spirit and transformation occurred. The story is not new obviously.But I do want to point out is that even the demons or pre-pentecost Peter Think Jesus is the son of God. You might think that Jesus is the son of God, You might believe, and you might be baptised in his name. But you cannot rest upon your profession of a truth. If you say Jesus is Lord. Than you must think that he is Lord. You must move in transformation in order to live a With God Life. You must let Spirit meet flesh in order to live a life filled with Love of God and Neighbor. If you rest on your memory of God knowledge you will most definitely be living a life struggling with your desires which is a life of death and guilt. Instead, let your knowledge be a biblical type of “knowing” which means interactive relationship with a living God who promises the easy yolk to the one who has chosen that Jesus is Lord.
Jesus came that you might have life and have it to the full. We must make efforts to rid ourselves of weak flesh that has within it the embodied sin that paul talks about. We can no longer give ourselves license to be poised to do evil. We aren’t interested in our behavior, but are interested in loving our God. We Must make true efforts to move from simple profession, and conversion, into being transformed into the children of the light. This means that as children we have the basic nature of light: that light is our parent and has passed on to us its nature, as any parent does. The apostle John summed up the message that he and his friends had heard from Jesus as this: "God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all." (1st John 1:5)
Now, the people who have moved into the light of Christ are not perfect and do not live in a perfect world—yet. But they are remarkably different. The difference is not one of a pose they strike, either from time to time or constantly, or of things they do or don't do. They are not "performing"—though their behavior too is very different and distinctive. Where the children of light differ is primarily and most importantly on the "inside" of their life. It lies in what they are in their depths, in what they would do and could do.
The only way we can do this is through keeping the importance of this before our minds. To see the urgency behind the need to be a part of God’s Kingdom. This importance is what Jesus means by carrying our cross. Where it is primary, above even our own life. This is most important thing that we can do. To begin disciplining ourselves into christlikeness. Joining our flesh with his spirit. Putting to death our embodied sin which wields our corruptive desires. We can only do that if we see it as the mose important. And our efforts towards transformation will be void unless we desire to seek the kingdom above all our desires.
I noticed recently that there are a lot of scriptures in which Jesus was touching people to heal them. And Paul remarks that the laying on of hands in prayer is a very powerful thing. Then I realized that we do that, but it doesn’t have the same results as they had. It made me ask, is this not happening is because I haven’t made the effort to transform myself into his character. Is it because I haven’t done what peter has asked me to do in his second letter. Where he says that I need to apply all my diligence (how much dilligence does that leave out) to adding virtue to my faith, and in my virtue, I need to add interactive knowledge, and in my interactive knowledge, I need to add self-control, and in my self-control, I need to add perseverance, and in my perseverance, I need to add godliness, and in my godliness, I need to add brotherly kindness, and in my brotherly kindness, I need to add love.
Could it be that if I DID apply all dilligence to these things, that my body would function differently when it is fused with the unbodily personal power of the Holy Spirit. Would laying on of hands actually weild something?
Here’s the deal: I am so excited to Pursue God. To pursue the disciplines of the spirit, and to somehow see change in my life and in my community where I and others are no longer poised to do evil. But to do good, to do right, to do love, to function effortlessly in the law of love because we are wanting something called life in the Kingdom.
I want us to be smart and knowledgeable. But I would rather people know me and our people by the love that they put out, the reflective good that it places towards others for the influence of Good that it does. I don’t need others to ascend to a particular dogma if that dogma is laden with excuses on why we aren’t any different from anyone else.
Today I challenge you to take a look and see if you believe that the kingdom is among us? Do you believe in a risen Christ who urges you on to love and do good and empowers you to do that with living streams of refreshment welling up from inside to power your easy yolk.
Or do you just believe in a Jesus that forgives you of your sins so that you can feel guilty and the next time you do it thus asking for more foregiveness.
Forgiveness is great. But is only the first step toward the turning into the kingdom of life that Jesus has set in front of you today.
To trust Jesus is right. To follow him is right. To allow him to take your profession and conversion and move you into transformation is right. To allow your flesh to meet spirit is devine.
If this is for you… talk to God about what’s next for you. And begin the steps of transformation. I for one have decided to to make efforts so that God’s will and love becomes easy and natural for me.
Will you join me?
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