When you start to see red

I think that one of the ways the enemy manages to cause people to try desperately to earn God’s love and approval through religion… rather than realize His love and approval in relationship through Jesus… is that he fails vocabulary.

He has taken every word of the Bible and deliberately and cunningly redefined them so that when people read the Word apart from the Spirit they get a wrong impression and understanding of Who God is.

There are many… many examples.  But today I want to look at one name of God… one attribute… one facet of His character that so demonstrates His love for us that the devil has spent millennia working against what it really means.

God is…

Judge.

How can it be that this term demonstrates His love?  How can we reconcile the times in scripture that we are told to not judge… and then too judge… with God as Judge… and constantly dealing with people who are judgmental?  (More mental than judge :-) )

Don’t go to the dictionary… not in this context.  You can’t expect to fully understand the things of God from something with a copyright claimed by man.

You need to look to the Word and apply what it says to what it saying.

What the heck is an enmity any way?

“Because the carnal mind is enmity against God…” Romans 8:7

What is an enmity?

Is it an “itty-bitty” enemy?

Not quite.

The Greek word for enmity is ἐχθρός (echthra / echthros).

Elsewhere in the scriptures echtrha is translated as  enemy, enemies, enmity, hostility, hatred.

Of course, if you know me, you know I have to challenge it …. at least an itty-bitty bit.

The immediate context within the passage is the distinction between being spiritually minded and being carnally minded.  Using the word enmity to mean hatred or hostility, though, paints a picture that I think can be confusing when taken in the greater context of the scripture and our position in Christ.

In our carnal mind are we enemies of God when the scripture has declared us to be friends of God?

If when I am hungry… and eat… have I become His enemy?  If when I am cold… and cover myself… have I become His enemy?  If after giving my life to Christ… I give in to  “carnal desires”… have I undone the work of the Cross?

When God looks at His children… is it with hatred?

Calling your shots

If you have ever played a game of H-O-R-S-E you know that the shot only counts if you call it. I had one friend who could shoot the eyes out of the net.  He called every shot a “swish” before he took it and, sure enough… nothing but net.

Sure, he could just shoot and make it, which would mean that we could bank it in, or have it bobble around the rim, and as long as it went through the hoop it would count.

But he called it.

And we couldn’t argue it.

What he did is what he intended to do.

Because he said it before he did it.

“Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up….he spake of the temple of his body. When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.” John 2:19, 21-22

How’s that for a shot?  You can’t just hope that one goes through the hoop.  You can’t call it luck.

Chuck Taylor, Dr. J., Jordan, Iverson, Lebron … they had or have skill… but no one, I mean NO ONE has ever or will ever call a shot like that.

Professional Fighters

““Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.” 1 Timothy 6:12

We all know that Rocky is going to win.  We know how the story ends.

But it is what he is up against… what he goes through… what he is willing to endure… to lay on the line…

That is what makes us watch…  what makes us relate.

It is the fight that draws the attention.

Having an unanswered prayer list

“And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” John 14:13

Wouldn’t it be much easier if He had said “that will I do… on Mondays… or in one week… or immediately?”

I don’t like the Christian caveats or liturgical loopholes that make it OK to wait for prayers to be answered. And I hate when they have something to do with me.

“God must be doing something in you.”  “You aren’t ready to receive it yet.”  “There is sin in your life.”  “You can’t ask for that.”

While those things may be true… they don’t have to be.

God can give me a hold-over.  He can give me the thing I ask for until the thing He has for me arrives.  It is not outside of His ability.

And the verses in the Bible that show persistence in prayer producing results often lean too much to the idea that I can do something more or better and then I can deserve the answer… that I can earn it.

Shouldn’t asking once be enough?  Does got not hear?  Am I supposed to prove something to the One Who knows everything?

Is it that He can’t remember?

Or…