It's A Good Thing the New Birth Is A Work of God's Spirit

See the writer's link to this picture
 and an accompanying note on depression
at the end of this devotional.

A soul is brought to the new birth and faith in Jesus Christ by the will and working of the Holy Spirit; but the process He uses is scary. He uses people like us! People who not only fail to uphold the biblical stress on the need for mercy, but who also seem incapable of distinguishing a desire for mercy from a desire for something which has nothing to do with mercy.

Yes, God can point a person to repentance by way of a "felt need" (see my note at the end of this devotional). Jesus did it a lot. But it does not stop there. Desiring God to solve a problem can be nothing more than subcontracting Him to serve our own kingdom agenda. For the sake of the unsaved soul, when we present the Gospel, we must understand this difference.

However, sloppiness with regard to mercy is not the only thing which threatens to lead to an empty or crippled faith. As Bunyan exposed the importance of conviction, he also described the danger of legalism.

Enter Mr. Worldly Wiseman - a spiritual abortionist who offers a way to avoid the stigma of the cross and the need for mercy. His counsel? Climb Mount Morality and learn from Mr. Legalist how to achieve moral success in a less embarrassing way.

Legalism is snake oil. It may satisfy the self-righteous, but it makes the burden heavier to one who grieves over embedded moral failure. To load a person with unbiblical steps, prohibitions and practices to be strictly performed (or avoided) in order to gain God's favor by self effort is a distraction and an invitation to disobedience. It distracts the mercy seeker from the Holy Spirit's grace-centered application of Christ to the soul, and it sets him on the path toward being a man-pleaser instead of a God-pleaser motivated by that atmosphere of mercy and grace in Jesus. The result is a self-righteous church member, an unmotivated churchgoer, a disillusioned and depressed "failure", or a bitter critic of Christianity.

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Photo Link - The photo accompanying this devotional is taken from a "Mental Health Association" website in the United Kingdom. The site provides helpful observations of the character of one of the most prominent "felt needs" issues today - depression. I reference this both to give credit for the photograph and to provide a resource for observations. I am not offering a blanket recommendation for its "solutions." The Christian must be especially alert in dealing with depression because we can mistake it for guilt when, instead, it can be triggered by a host of other external factors internally misapprehended. Care must be given to keep in mind the difference between wrong thought patterns which batter someone personally and the need for mercy from God which we all share because of our rebellion against our Creator and His design. A depressed person may be content with relief and a new, positive outlook on life, and yet remain lost in  his relationship with God. On the other hand, once a depressed person has found mercy through faith in Christ, he needs coaching (paraklesis) to bring thought patterns into that atmosphere of grace which accompanies mercy. I cannot recommend highly enough Robert Kellemen's books, Soul Physicians and Spiritual Friends, for insights into that coaching process. 

MERCY? NO WAY!

Full Photo may be Found at
The Break Guide to Tsunamis

Grace is not appealing when linked with mercy. 

• Free? Sure. 
• Undeserved? Well, okay. 
• Calling for an admission of guilt before a holy God? No way! 

This high handed rejection of mercy puts man in a dilemma. 

First - man despises admission of his need. In Eden, after shifting blame to his wife, Adam remained silent in response to God's rebuke. Cain, when confronted for his act of murder, scorned any plea for mercy, claimed victim-hood and complained about the severity of his sentence.

Second - man grudgingly acknowledges being at the mercy of the elements. Through history God has used the elements to confront man with his need for mercy. The first overt demonstration of that wrath was the catastrophe of Noah’s day. The objection of philosophical science to the model of a global flood has, at its base, the exposure of needed mercy. No, tsunamis are not the revealed outpouring of God’s wrath; but they do remind us that wrath one day will be out-poured. 

Finally - although man raises his fist against any need of mercy from God, he will claim for himself the power to withhold mercy from his fellow man. This, too, is the way of Cain who wrongly confronted Abel, unjustly overpowered him and mercilessly bullied him to death. Scripture's frequent warnings against anger, wrath and malice expose man's desire to browbeat others with his own personal demands for justice. 

If we want grace, we must seek mercy. If we acknowledge our need for mercy, it ought to have an impact on our relationships to God and man. This is the point Paul made in Romans 12:1-2. In Jesus' parable of two debtors he identified mercilessness as the unjust use of muscle or authority against another by a person who has forgotten his own need of mercy in the face of deserved judgment.  

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Sola Misericordia

This photo may be found at large on line.
Here is where I located it.

The first generations of the Church specified three assumptions which would be quickly forgotten. Those assumptions were:

• Sola Scriptura – By Scripture Alone can we know God and the way of salvation.
• Sola Gratia – By Grace Alone is that salvation given.
• Sola Fide – By Faith Alone is that salvation received.

In the days of the Reformation two more assumptions were codified since they had ceased to be assumptions.

• Solas Cristus – By Christ Alone is that salvation provided.
• Soli Deo Gloria – To the Glory of God alone is that salvation accomplished.

In these days we need another:

SOLA MISERICORDIA

By Mercy Alone is that salvation provided. 

Fundamental / Evangelical Christianity may stand guilty of an unauthorized generosity which has obscured the biblical assumption of the emphatic need for mercy.

We are cool with grace in terms of receiving good stuff like love and a wonderful plan for our lives. We don’t even mind forgiveness when understood as a let-bygones-be-bygones dismissal that removes our obligation. Our “christian” culture has become comfortable with the notion that, since God is a God of love, he has actually put himself in our debt. He owes us grace and forgiveness. To receive these gifts is a favor to him. In fact, we can negotiate the terms and demand that he satisfy us with some apologies of his own. However, insert the biblical urgency of the desperate need for mercy and our enthusiasm begins to unravel; and that’s good.

If stitches have been missed in the knitting of the fabric of the Gospel in our hearts, unraveling is necessary. The absence of the biblical emphasis on mercy is a critical omission. Fail to correct that stitch and the whole piece will one day be cast aside with an ominous, “Depart from me. I never knew you.”

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Why We Want Grace to Be a Package

There is no doubt the New Testament delivers a robust message of grace. There is also no doubt the New Testament warns against packaging grace in a message of entitlement. This mistake begins with a misunderstanding of the angelic message to the shepherds – “Peace on earth, good will toward men.” It reaches its most aberrant distortion in the twin questions, “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” and “Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” Thus, many churches promote grace as a harbor for imagined carnal spirituality. After all, that is what the customer wants; and he wants it so he can feel shrewd in getting a good deal or offended when the contents of the package do not fulfill his expectations.

Many Christians have forgotten or do not want to remember, in our consumer culture, the foundation on which the truth of grace is built. Grace is neither a product nor a package. It has nothing to do with the entitlement one claims when he has bought a commodity. It is, instead, the result of one of the most scorned of God's offered gifts. When that gift is presented, grace will predictably be rejected or distorted; or it will become an atmosphere of exuberant praise and an incentive to purity in those who receive it.

That most scorned of God's gifts is – mercy.

In his allegory, The Holy War, John Bunyan described the counsel of Diabolus to citizens of the fallen city of Mansoul.

My shield is unbelief, or calling into question…all the sayings that speak of the judgment that Shaddai has appointed for wicked men…. If he speaks of mercy, care not for it….

Another part…of my…armor is a… prayerless spirit that scorns to cry for mercy, let the danger be ever so great.

Note: This quote from The Holy War is found near the end of Chapter Three. If you find Bunyan's seventeenth century English difficult you might especially enjoy Ethel Barrett's paraphrase in text or recorded narrative. 

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Grief-and-Gossip Fodder

To pull the most from the story of my early encounter with the look of a worthy walk (or the lack thereof), let me explain that in those days even men on road crews had a certain respect for a child and his family. Yes, they themselves could and did say the kind of things I said that morning, but they understood that their role as an adult demanded self control in the presence of a youngster. As for me, I had, in that moment of profundity, spoken in a way which made them think less of me and which surprised them with regard to the family which was raising me. 

It may help to know that mine was a dysfunctional family in comparison to the standards of the day. I had been the only kid in my elementary classes who came from a broken home. My mother suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. For the most part, her parents were responsible for me when she was disabled in an episode or confined to a hospital. Home was often not a happy place. However, it was a place where I was cared for and cared about. It was a place where a lot of attention was given to provide me with a childhood even though, as one aunt said, I had to grow up too soon. 

It was this home I dishonored in my self-gratifying outburst. I had not lost my place in it. There would still be another Christmas. But I realized without words that what I said would have added to my grandmother's tears if she found out, and my grandfather would grieve, and his work crew (and probably their wives) had something “juicy” to talk about.

It is that sensitivity to grieving God and giving others gossip fodder which is at the heart of a worthy walk.  

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I'll Never Forget the Look On His Face

If we understand that the call to walk worthy of the Lord is not about measuring up to his standard of righteousness but expressing in our life the worth of what Jesus did to measure up for us; then it is reasonable to ask about what this looks like. 

Let me tell you a story.

One of my many embarrassing memories goes back to my childhood. I lived with my mother’s parents. My grandfather was the head of a State Highway crew. When summer road work included mowing alongside the road he would put me on the team. With him driving the tractor, I would ride the “mowing machine” –  hoisting and lowering the cutter bar with a rope. This was quite an honor for a twelve-year-old and it felt good to sit among the men with my own dinner pail.

However, it did not sit well at the Superintendent’s office and I was summarily dismissed from my duties. Embarrassed, I climbed into the truck for the long and “unfair” ride home. On the way the road worker who drove the truck pulled over to talk with a crewman a little farther up the highway. As the man approached the truck, not knowing what had happened, he smiled at me and said something like, “Hey, is our chief mower quitting early today?”


That did it. I let loose with choice words to make my disapproval known. I did not have as expansive a vocabulary of profanity back then. There was no social media where professing Christians could sharpen my skill. Nevertheless, today’s rage enthusiasts would have been proud of me. However, the roadman and the driver were not; and neither am I.  The surprised and sad expression on the man’s face lingers to this day. So does the quiet trip the rest of the way home. 

Ponder that episode and let's talk about the look of a worthy walk.

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The Worthy Walk - A Logical Response

When the New Testament talks about walking worthy of our God, it has in mind something other than being worthy of his standard of righteousness and justice. That had to be achieved for us by Jesus who was made to be sin for us that we might be made righteous in him. The worthy walk has to do with an appropriate response to Jesus and what he did. This introduces a new weight standard on the scales. That new standard is grace, and here we are vulnerable to a serious miscalculation. 

The paradigm of many voices in twenty-first century “Christianity” seems to unfold like this. 

Grace is about freedom.

Freedom is about no rules.

The absence of rules cancels sin.

Calling something “sin” is judgmental.

Being judgmental is a sin because it encroaches on my freedom.

When something encroaches on my freedom I am authorized to be both judgmental and ungracious,

Because Grace is about freedom.

The problem with the paradigm is that grace is not about freedom. Grace is about being redeemed from the penalty of our treason, made legal citizens of God’s kingdom, adopted into God’s family and given a role to play in God’s cause. It is the work of Jesus Christ through his death, burial, resurrection and ascension.  

Sadly, the hymn “Amazing Grace” does not identify this grace. It does not explain in what way I was a wretch, what being lost entailed and what being found looked like. It does not tell me why I was afraid or, specifically, what about grace relieved that fear.

A worthy walk weighs our works on the scale of gratitude, faith, and surrender which should be our logical response to the “amazingness” of grace. When this is thought through we understand we can turn our freedoms into an unworthy walk.

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Worthiness - An Impossible Assignment

I would like to address a word in the New Testament used only a few times but encompassing everything in it. That word is “worthy.” It is a balance term calling to mind a set of scales with a fixed weight on one tray serving as a standard and something to be weighed by it in the other tray. 

With regard to our relationship with God, there are two categories where worthiness comes into play. In this devotional let me focus on the first. It has to do with weighing in alongside the standard of God’s righteousness and justice, and the result is not pretty. 

God’s righteousness demands holiness and we are featherweights in that department. Indeed, we have nothing to put on the scale. Having followed Adam’s lead in seeking to be our own god, anything we may try to put on the scale is weighing rocks against gold. Sin permeates all we think and do, corrupting our righteousness and exposing us to the demand of God's justice; and God’s justice knows only one penalty for such treason. It does not call for living a good life, performing acts of penance or even “becoming a Christian.” It calls for death – the conscious death of eternal separation from God. 

There is no way we can stand alone on the scale of God’s righteousness and justice. Indeed, we must be able to step off the scale and seek one who can stand in our place: a Sin Bearer who can pay the debt, and an Advocate who can present his righteousness in our place. Thus, the first category of worthiness is not a matter of our walking worthy of the Lord. It is a matter of committing ourselves into the care of Jesus who will not let the Day of Judgment carry out the death sentence against us.

This leaves us to wonder about the second category.

Next: The Worthy Walk - A Logical Response

The Elephant Behind the Freedomist Pulpit

A pulpit is only as good as what is behind it. In the case of freedomists, what is there is an elephant; and the presence of this particular elephant among the promoters of the gospel of liberated indulgence should not be excused, especially if they know it is there and justify its presence.

This elephant is bitterness. Biblically, we find it in the account of Cain and, from the New Testament, we can argue that it is the catalyst for anger, wrath, malice and other absolutely forbidden luxuries of the wounded soul. It is not a badge of godly passion.

Many souls have experienced serious and dark crises, including abuse far more significant than a childhood spent without dancing, movies and the like; but bitterness turns real or imagined victimized people into targets. They become, like Pinocchio, vulnerable to a new breed of predatory control. Peter described the predators as those who promote a personal agenda of promiscuousness with a sales pitch for “freedom" to souls who feel a burden of bondage. 

Bitterness rises when one strays from grace. Far from being a demonstration of righteous indignation, it is a dark and defiling contaminant. To be on guard for such straying means taking ownership of one’s own capacity for bitterness and being ready to help others who are being harassed by it. It is serious. An embittered soul can malign many good and grace-driven people in his vendetta against legalistic injustice.

The freedomist must face the elephant and determine if he has become a voice which indulges gracelessness in the name of grace; but the legalist must look to his own heart as well. Churches are full of sullen members harboring bitterness toward God because he has not honored their self righteousness by giving them the good kids, good health, and good success they think they deserve.

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The Mother of All Self-Denial Mandates

Of all the Bible’s clearly stated and repeated mandates calling for self control and self denial, there is one jarring statement which makes legalists drool and freedomists froth. The Elizabethan text, with which I was trained, puts it this way:

Abstain from all appearance of evil.

Probably that verse more than any other was the Shire of spiritual list-making and the Mordor of pre-freedomist list-haters.[1] (Scroll to the very bottom of the page for the footnote.)

Abstain (apechomai) is used six times in the New Testament and means to personally hold yourself back from something. The other five uses are significant. Four of them specifically command that we abstain from fornication and from fleshly lusts. The other identifies commands to abstain from foods and the like (extra-biblical list stuff) as the game plan indicative of seductive spirits (which I understand in the context to be control mongers).

The significant term is appearance. In my youth this was understood as having some close or distant link with evil. Thus, card playing could be linked with gambling and therefore, it should not be done. Or, potentially it could lead to gambling. The word (eidos) does not speak of linkage but it may speak of potentiality. It has to do with something recognizable as when the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in the form of a dove, or when Jesus’ outward form was altered on the Mount of Transfiguration. It comes from a root word which means to know or recognize something for what it is. In terms of linkage, therefore, one may deny that card playing has a clearly recognized character of evil; one may quibble about a Michelangelo nude sculpture; but one is being disingenuous to deny the character of evil in explicit pictures of fornication. Here and with regard to potentiality the freedomist will balk and draw continuums to dredge up “exceptions” and thus deny the obvious.


> A personal note: If you find things posted on this blog to be helpful or, at least, thought provoking, may I please encourage you to "share" the site with your followers? It is my personal desire that God might find me useful in the lives of others, even those whom I will never meet this side of the grave. < 

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[1] Forgive me! I felt compelled to include that analogy for my many “Lord of the Rings” enthusiasts.

A Second Reason for Portraying Fundamentalism Darkly

A second reason for the freedomist portrayal of the fundamentalist era as dark and dismal has to do with self justification.

Even though legalism goes above and beyond the call of Scripture, making extra-biblical lists for a believer’s walk with Christ, the fundamentalist era did a good job establishing in our thinking the real existence of serious biblical mandates. Those mandates seem to be getting lost in today’s hue and cry over legalistic injustice and abuse.

For instance, there is the mandate to develop our salvation to its full potential, with fear and trembling even though we enjoy a non-fear relationship with God because of Jesus’ justifying work.

In that same atmosphere of love and acceptance we are still to maintain a fear of God which is behind all of the mandates to absolutely put off certain things and replace them with others.

Those mandates seem difficult to swallow in a freedomist mindset where the Gospel appears to be about indulging in things I discovered I can enjoy as a Christian. Scripture is clear, while God has freed me to eat pork chops, he has not commissioned me to go into all the world and make pork connoisseurs of all nations. 

Freedomists do not seem to gather that, and interpretation of Scripture by a self-justifying method of accommodation serves their purpose. Since God had to talk down to primitive people, accommodation tells us, he said things according to their perceptions rather than reality. He couldn’t do any better at the time. Today, however, since freedomists have discovered the sun doesn’t “rise,” they conclude they are able to re-accommodate all of Scripture to their enlightened realism. To do so with regard to sunrise is one thing. To do so with regard to moral truth and biblically affirmed and reaffirmed statements is to skydive without a parachute.

   

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You and Brunhilde at The Dead Salamander

[The fourth of six vignettes in the publication The Withered Grape which describe picture scenes in navigating self denial and self control through the seas of legalism and freedomism.] 

Orlando stood at the counter. You hoped he would join you at your table by the window. Then you saw her - Brunhilde Smythe.

Worse! She saw you!

Her eyebrows popped up. She tapped on the glass and motioned for you to meet her outside.

“Really,” she says as you approach. “This is very disappointing. I heard you had been seen here, but I hoped it wasn’t true.”

You open your mouth. She continues, “There are people who look up to you; and for you to be seen in a place like this creates confusion.”

No one contradicts Mrs. Smythe. That’s why you are surprised at the sound of your own voice.

“As a matter of fact, Ma’am, Jesus confused folks about where he hung out, too.”

Undaunted, she presses on. “Jesus is Jesus.”

“True, but Jesus told a lot of us not-Jesus folks to follow him. Seems like he would have said something about making real-life contact with sinners being an exception? And, I have friends from church and we watch out for each other.”

“I’ll overlook your rudeness,” she sniffed. “You’re young, after all."

“You will not overlook it. You never overlook anything that doesn’t fit into your picture of the way things should be. And you're only forty-something. Mr. Reynolds is sixty-two and he's a deacon and he encourages me to..."

She sniffs. “I tell things the way they are."

“No, ma’am. You tell things the way you think they are. That isn’t always the same thing.”

Her head goes back. She looks down her nose. “I see being here has already taught you to be disrespectful.”

“Reading my Bible has taught me not to bow to something that’s not true just because somebody tries to bully me. I’m sorry you don’t approve of my being here, but, honestly, when I open my Bible every morning I don’t ask God to show me your will for my life.” 

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Contextual Self Denial

These articles have to do with self control and the pivotal issue around which self control itself rotates. That pivotal issue is this: there are options which must be rejected. They are desirable to our own personal kingdom and in conflict with God’s kingdom. This rejection is called “self denial.”

As our focus shifts from matters of absolute self denial to the category which I call “contextual” self-denial, let me put what we have said and what we are about to say this way:

Self denial is not a “step”toward being “spiritual.” Neither is it a self-congratulatory promotion of our will. It is an outgrowth of two spiritual realities which exist in the heart of those taught by God’s Spirit to trust Christ. First, it is an outgrowth of worship. Matters of absolute self denial have especially to do with Jesus’ reiteration of the Law’s command to love God exclusively. 
  

Second, love for God, by its very nature, produces a desire to show his love to our neighbor generally and our brother and sister in the faith specifically. I say love for our neighbor generally and love for our brother in Christ specifically because there is a difference. Or there should be. Actually, it seems as though twenty-first century, western Christianity has reversed the distinction. The community of faith, in some quarters, seems to be much more loving toward those whom they want to win to Christ than toward those who have prayed the prayer. This absence of self control and its core of love-generated self-denial among professing believers seems to be a withered grape in the cluster of the Spirit's fruit. If this is the case, it casts serious doubt on the authenticity of our professed worship in spirit and in truth. It is an irony, and neither the freedomist nor the legalist has a corner on it.

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