Grace Ain't "Pickin' Cotton"!
I was born and raised in Missouri. I am basically a “city boy” but I have spent time visiting rural areas.
When I was just a boy, I visited a cotton farm in the southern Missouri boot-heel region. The owner was a friend of the family and he told us about the labor involved in producing cotton.
In the spring, you had to “chop cotton” which involved starting at the beginning of a row of small cotton plants and making your way to the end of the row, chopping weeds away from the cotton plants so their growth would not be inhibited.
Then, in the fall, after a long, hot summer, it was time to “pick cotton”. Again, you started at the beginning of a row, and with a canvas sack across your shoulders, slowly made your way down the row removing cotton balls from the plants.
Mechanized cotton pickers existed at the time, but they were a luxury, and they were for the big farms. These fields were comparatively small, so the cotton pickers were human – family members, as well as hired hands who were paid according to the weight of cotton picked. We all know that those fluffy little balls of cotton are extremely light. It takes a lot of cotton balls for the scale to even begin to register. Being paid by the weight of cotton you pick is a hard way to earn a living! I learned at that early age that I didn’t want to chop and pick cotton for a living.
As with any work we humans do, it is based on doing something that would make the person for whom you are toiling happy – happy enough to reward you with your pay. No matter how old, mature and experienced we become in life, this general model of working in order to gain the good will of another (and to be rewarded) remains our common denominator by which to judge a relationship. Whether the relationship is one of employment, friendship or romance, we humans operate on the principle that hard work is necessary to gain favor. On the human level, there’s nothing wrong with this principle.
But one of the primary misunderstandings we have of God comes from trying to use this principle in our relationship with God.
Many of Jesus’ parables centered on agricultural activity (but I still can’t find one about cotton pickers!). Matthew chapters 20 and 21 contain two parables about farm workers.
Matthew 20 talks about what seems to be an inequity in pay for workers where no regard whatsoever was given to the amount of time worked or energy expended. They were all given the same pay. The workers who felt they deserved more than the others then made a huge mistake. They insisted the employer (representing God) give them what they were worth. They wanted what they deserved. They wanted their rights. They demanded justice.
The lesson? We are all so completely indebted to God that there is no way in this world we can ever pick enough grapes (or cotton) to pay our way. We would be smart if we simply forgot the whole business of demanding our rights and instead gratefully thanked God for His grace and mercy.
In the next chapter 21 of Matthew, Jesus gives another parable about farm renters. The landowner gives the tenants the responsibility of dressing and keeping the vineyard. But when the landowner sends his representatives to collect the rent, the renters reject them. The owner finally senses his own Son, but the renters kill the Son. The renters have lived on the beautiful vineyard for so long that they now seem to believe that the vineyard is theirs – and that all of the produce belongs to them.
The lesson? We humans are very independent. We are happy to occupy (as long as we don’t actually admit that we are indebted to God) his vineyard and enjoy the produce, but we are reluctant and sometimes even refuse, to admit that God owns us.
Humanly, we like the idea of getting what we deserve – of not being obligated to anyone – of paying our own way. We don’t want to take handouts from anyone, including God. The idea of making our own way appeals to us because we can control our work and effort (at least we kid ourselves, thinking we can).
As Christians, we must be committed to surrendering and remaining surrendered to God, and not allow ourselves to think that we no longer need God’s love and grace. But the word “surrender” makes us nervous. It sounds like a word for losers – people who can’t cut it. It sounds like giving up. And that’s exactly what it means, theologically. God wants us to accept His grace, surrender all notions of doing things our way and allow Him to do for us what we can never do for ourselves.
I never did pick any cotton, and I probably would have starved to death if I had to make a living that way. I once thought that I could build enough spiritual character, do enough right things and eventually be good enough, so that one day God would weigh all the spiritual cotton I had picked and say to me on the basis of my hard work, “Lou, you have earned your way into my kingdom. Welcome. I love you because you have worked so hard.”
By God’s grace, I now know (and I pray you do as well) that it is absolutely futile to try to have a relationship with God on the basis of my deeds. The only relationship that God wants with me – the only relationship that will last – is built on the cross of Christ and God’s amazing grace.
The name on the front of my church is “GRACE CHURCH” and not “GOD’S COTTON PICKIN’ CHURCH”!
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Become As Children
One day Jesus’ disciples asked Him, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (Matthew 18:1). As Jesus often did, He did not answer the precise question, but instead raised a deeper issue behind the question. The disciples simply assumed that they were part of the kingdom, and all that remained to be decided was who was going to be the greatest (who would get the most), who would be most honored and respected.
Jesus called their attention to a young child, and then He told the disciples, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). The word “change” means to turn or repent, and it is in the passive voice. It could easily be understood as “unless you are changed, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” So Jesus said, in effect, “forget the argument about who will be the greatest, let’s talk about being there in the first place.”
The message of the gospel is consistent, unchanging, always insisting that humans can do nothing to earn God’s favor. We cannot earn salvation. We can do nothing to influence God to love us more. We cannot change our spiritual status any more than we can add a single hour to our lives (Matthew 6:27). We do not qualify for God’s kingdom, for as Paul tells us, “…giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light” (Colossians 1:12).
We are not active parties in the circumstances of our human birth. We don’t choose our parents or our gene pool. We don’t choose when and where we will be born. We are born. Further, when we are born we are poor and destitute, in need of everything. We don’t birth ourselves physically any more than we bring about, through our efforts, our spiritual rebirth.
When God transforms us and re-births us, from above, from heaven, because of Jesus and by His grace, we come into His kingdom naked and helpless. We don’t arrive in the kingdom of God with an accumulate treasure chest of good deeds we are ready to plunk down before God so He will be so impressed. When Jesus called for us to be changed and become like a little child, and when He said that we must be spiritually reborn to inherit God’s kingdom, He was not calling for a return to the virtue and values of childhood and childish thinking. He teaching was far more spiritually significant and meaningful.
Think of what Jesus’ original audience to whom He spoke these words must have thought. No one in first-century Palestine idealized childhood. Childhood was hard, often bitter, a time of powerlessness. Children were exploited and even abandoned throughout the Roman Empire. They were victimized, just as much or more, than they are now. And yet, within all of that, the message of the vulnerability we have, in Christ, comes through loud and clear. Jesus told us that we would enter the kingdom of God only by being reborn, only by God changing us, only by God’s grace. He was teaching us about a second birth, not “from below” (not from our human values and virtues) but “from above” – a radical new birth that transforms us into God’s own dear children.
Belief in Jesus does not take us back to childish, immature behavior, but it does transcend so much of what our culture tries to teach us about success.
OUR RADICAL NEW BIRTH, TRANSFORMING US INTO GOD’S VERY OWN CHILDREN, TRANSCENDS THE POWER-GRABBING, SUCCESS-ACHIEVING PYRAMIDS AND HIERARCHIES OF BECOMING THE VERY THING THE DISCIPLES WANTED TO BE – “THE GREATEST.”
The kingdom of God tells us that those who would be greatest among us would be like the youngest (Luke 22:26) and the greatest will be your servant (Matthew 23:11).
Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? That would be Jesus, for no one has ever or will ever humble themselves and serve others as Jesus has and does.
Who will be the greatest in the kingdom? That’s not the question. The question is –WHO IS IN THE KINGDOM, AND BY WHAT RIGHT ARE THEY THERE? The citizens of the kingdom are those who have chosen to accept Jesus as Savior and to make Him the Lord of their lives. This involves a dependence similar to a little child who follows the directions of his parents accepting the fact that they know more than he does. Compared to Jesus, we are all immature children.[Back to Home]
Take a Tip from Columbo
Have you ever taken a verbal beating when trying to talk about Jesus? If so, try this simple approach to stop challengers mid-punch and make them take a close look at their gloves. It’s called the Columbo tactic.
Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo was the 1970s bumbling TV detective whose re-runs continue to this day. As I watched one of his programs the other night, I realized that his crime-solving success was based on a simple inquiry: “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
The key to this strategy is to shift the burden of proof to the other person by asking carefully selected questions. It can even be played out Columbo style - halting, head-scratching, and apparently harmless.
The Columbo tactic is most powerful when you have a goal in mind. If you see some weakness in another’s view, instead of plainly pointing out the error, you expose it by asking a question in a disarming way.
Though there are literally hundreds of ways to do this, the Columbo tactic offers tremendous advantages. For one, it’s interactive, inviting the other person to participate in dialogue. It’s good to use to spread the word about Jesus because no preaching is involved. This approach allows you to make good headway in presenting and defending your view without actually stating your whole case. More importantly, a carefully placed question shifts the burden of proof to the other person where it may belong.
Christians tend to listen politely or else to take the burden on themselves to refute every fantasy a skeptic can spin out of thin air. Why let challengers off so easily, though, when they’re the ones making the claim? It isn’t your job to disprove his fairy tale. It is his job to demonstrate why anyone should take his ideas seriously.
Remember, the one making the claim shoulders the burden of proof. For far too long, skeptics have contrived fanciful challenges, then sat back and watched Christians squirm. If someone tells the story, it’s his job to defend it, not your job to refute it.
Three Key Questions
Sometimes when you are not sure how to proceed, it is good to ask open-ended questions. The most effective open-ended question I've found is some variation of “How do you know?” There is a three-step formula along this line that can keep the dialogue going with even the most belligerent antagonists.
The first step is asking a clarification question: “What do you mean by that?” This question accomplishes several things. First, it immediately engages the challenger in an interactive way. Second, it’s friendly because you’re expressed a real interest in knowing more about the other’s view. Third, it forces him to think carefully - maybe for the first time - about exactly what he believes. Fourth, it gives you valuable information about the roots of the person’s thinking. So pay careful attention to the response.
Here’s the second question: “How did you come to that conclusion?” This is a gentler variation of “Where did you get your facts?” Though it’s similar in content, it has a kinder tone, assuming the critic has not just made an unsubstantiated claim, but has actually done some thinking.
The additional data puts you in a better position to assess and respond to the person’s view. You now know what he thinks, and you also know how he thinks giving you valuable information on how to proceed if you choose to.
I say, “If you choose to” because you may detect that it’s not the time to move forward, nor are you automatically obliged to. Depending on your personality you’ll face the temptation to be over-eager or under-eager. Remember, you don’t always have to hit a home run. Sometimes just getting on base will do, and the first two questions accomplish that.
If you do proceed, your third question suggests an alternative. Ask, “Have you ever considered...” and then finish the sentence in an appropriate way. Offer an option that gently challenges the person’s beliefs, possibly exploiting a weakness you uncovered in the answers to your first two questions.
Christians don’t have to be experts in everything. In fact, God can use believers effectively despite a lack of knowledge if we learn to ask good questions.
You might be surprised to find that many critics aren’t prepared to defend their “faith”, or lack of it, when asked some basic questions.
As Lt. Columbo demonstrated so well - making the TV series so popular for so long - asking the right question frequently settles the case.
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Identity Is Critical
In today’s world we are taught that what we do determines who we are. If you tell a lie, you are a liar. If you steal something, you are a thief. But the Bible teaches something different. According to the Bible, who we are determines what we do! Who our father is, the life that we have in us, our nature, determines our identity, which produces our behavior.
I can hear you now saying, “What is he talking about? Is he saying we don’t have the freedom to make choices? We have no options on our behavior?”
Bear with me as I explain.
They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham~ children, you would do the works of Abraham” (John 8:39). The religious Jews thought that Abraham was their father, and thus their perceived identity was as children of Abraham. Jesus, however, makes it clear that our true identity comes from a lineage that began way before Abraham. He told the “sons of Abraham,” You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will [want to] do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and did not abide in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own [resources], for he is a liar and the father of it” (John 8:44).
Listen closely. If you are a person who WANTS to lie, it is because it is your nature to lie, which you received from your father, Satan. Telling the lie does not make you a liar. Being a liar by nature makes you WANT to lie. “You do the deeds of your father” (John 8:41).
A key to understanding the Christian life is knowing that since Christ is now our life within us, God is our Father. Therefore we have His nature and WANT to do His works because Christ is our identity.
THE BORN AGAIN BELIEVER DOES NOT WANT TO LIE FOR IT IS NOT HIS NATURE. Because Christ now lives in us, as us, and through us (Galatians 2:20), it is not we who WANT to sin. Paul explained, “Now if I do that which I don’t WANT to do, it is no more I that do it, but sin working in me” (Romans 7:20).
Do you get it? Unbelievers — those before a new birth in union with Christ — lie, steal, or sin in general because it is their nature and they WANT to do it.
Believers — those born again in Christ — still can lie, steal, or sin in general, but because of their new nature in God, they don’t really WANT to do it.
It is critical that we Christians determine our identity by the source of our life, and not by the deeds that we sometimes do. Doing wrong does not make you a sinner any more that doing right makes you a saint.
All that is required for salvation and new birth is belief. Christians are corrected by God (not punished because Christ received our punishment on the Cross). Certainly we still sin at times. BUT IT IS NOT BECAUSE WE WANT TO. Our new nature does not permit us to WANT to. When we slip and sin, we really don’t WANT to, but our human weakness succumbs to temptation. Our divine Father understands and uses the circumstance and all of its fallout to draw us closer to dependence on God’s strength through Christ and not our own.
What about choice and responsibility? Man is not a robot with no free expression of himself as a person. It is precisely the opposite. It is no paradox when freedom must make its choices and the free will then loves to be controlled by its choice. We still do what we WANT to do. There is no need to force a person’s will. All the deity within need do is to attract and captivate our “want”, and then we will love to act in harmony with him. People often ask, How can we conceive of God changing a person’s will if he is free? The answer is: GOD CHANGES OUR “WANT”, AND THE HUMAN WILL GROWS TO FOLLOW. Once God has captured our “wants” by drawing us back to Himself through Christ, then it is He in us who “wills and does of His good pleasure” (and it is always good!), and it is we who naturally, gladly freely work it out because we WANT to (Phil. 2:13-14).
It is because many Christian children of God still look back and see their pre-conversion days as simply themselves influenced by Satan, and doing their evil deeds, that much of the difficulty of the Christian life comes. When it is recognized that they were actually children of the devil and he was living his own lifestyle through them — he being the real sinner by nature — it is only then that true growth in the lifestyle of God can take place.
We are not battling two natures within us. In fact the container self does not HAVE a nature. God is instilling in our union with Him the WANTS of His NATURE. Christ will never leave us or forsake the process of directing our
WANTS.
Yes, identity is the key to life. All human beings are vessels containing a nature — the nature of Satan before becoming a believer in Jesus Christ, and the nature of God after a new birth in union with Christ. God’s salvation for us is receiving a new identity, a new nature in union with Christ. IDENTITY IS CRITICAL.[Back to Home]
Family Conflict
An interesting narrative appears in the book of Luke that gives us some valuable insight into the family of Jesus. It states that Mary and Joseph went to Jerusalem to observe the custom of the Passover feast, and when they had completed their visit they traveled about a day’s journey toward home before discovering Jesus had been left behind. They turned and went back to Jerusalem to look for Him, and it took three days to find Him. Jesus was sitting among the teachers where He was asking questions about the things of God and also providing answers. It goes on to say that everyone who heard Him were amazed at His understanding as He was only 12 years old (Luke 2:41-47).
Upon finding Jesus, Mary asked Him why He had done this to them. Jesus answered back, “Don’t you know that I must be about my Father’s business?” (Luke 2:48-49).
Then comes Luke 2:50, a verse which, to me, can be very hard to understand:
AND THEY DID NOT UNDERSTAND THAT WHICH HE SPOKE TO THEM!
Now think about that for a moment. Here were Mary and Joseph who were recipients of a spectacular miracle from God just twelve years earlier concerning the birth of the Son of God. No one forgets an awesome miracle like that! What is this? Is it early Alzheimer’s disease hitting both Mary and Joseph? How could it be that they didn’t understand that Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus? Had Mary forgotten how the Holy Spirit came upon her and the seed of God was placed in her womb? Had Joseph forgotten how he was going to put Mary away privately (dissolve the betrothal) because she was pregnant?
MARY AND JOSEPH HAD EVIDENTLY FORGOTTEN ALL THAT THEY RECEIVED FROM GOD OR THEY WOULD HAVE UNDERSTOOD WHAT JESUS WAS SAYING IN VERSE 49.
Was this just forgetting on their part or was there more to it than that? Was God beginning to harden the hearts of Jesus’ whole family for God’s own purposes?
Let’s look further into Jesus’ family. Jesus had siblings born to Joseph and Mary after His own birth consisting of four half-brothers and at least two half—sisters. “Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Judah, and Simon? And aren’t His sisters here with us? And they were offended at Him” (Mark 6:3).
At the time this statement was made, Jesus was at least 30 years of age. He had been out ministering and returned to His home town of Nazareth. He started teaching in the synagogue, and those who heard Him were astonished at His wisdom and the mighty works done by His hands (Mark 6:2). BUT HIS FAMILY WAS EMBARRASSED BY HIM AND BECAME OFFENDED, AND THEY LITERALLY RESENTED HIM.
These brothers and sisters could not believe that Jesus was the Son of God because something stood in their way.
Had Mary and Joseph never told any of their other children about the miracle of their firstborn son, Jesus? When questions arose in the family about how “good” Jesus was compared to the natural tendencies of the other brothers and sisters, weren’t Mary and Joseph virtually forced to tell them about the miracle birth?
I believe that it is highly possible that the siblings knew about Jesus but were blinded at this time to forget His real origins. He received no credit from His siblings for any of His teaching, even though they were amazed at His teaching and at the healings He performed.
Jesus then made this statement, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and among his own kin, and in his own house” (Mark 6:4). Who were the kin of His own house? They were His four half-brothers and His two (or more) half-sisters. His family definitely didn’t like Jesus and were ashamed of Him. They showed Him no honor.
“And when His friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on Him; for they said, ‘He is beside Himself” (Mark 3:21). The word “friends” isn’t found in the Greek text but rather the King James margin says, “kinsmen”. This text most likely is referring to His family. Verse 31 indicates “His brethren and His mother” are the ones alluded to in verse 21. Was Jesus’ family out to take Him by force, get possession of Him or take Him away against His will? They said, “He [Jesus] is beside Himself!” Did they think Jesus was out of His mind, in an unhealthy state of excitement bordering on insanity? Did the family of Jesus literally think He had gone crazy and needed to be put away? It seems so.
John chapter 7 brings out another illustration of family conflict. “After these things Jesus walked in Galilee - for He wouldn’t walk in Jewry [Judea] because the Jews sought to kill Him. Now the Jews feast of tabernacles was at hand. His brethren [family] therefore said to Him, ‘Depart from here and go into Judea, [!!!] that your disciples also may see the works that You do” (7:1-3).
What is happening here? Were His brothers baiting Him to go to His death? His brothers seemed to beg Him to do His teaching in the open so He could show Himself to the world of antagonistic Jews. Did they want to further expose Him to danger as these Jews had a mind set against Him (John 7:4)? Now why would anyone, especially family, advise Him to go to Judea when His life was in danger there? The only answer seems to be: they wanted Him dead!
“For neither did His brethren [family] believe in Him” (John 7:5). Was this their motive in wanting Jesus dead?
This article may seem shocking to some. I have always believed that the family of Jesus were just neutral in their acceptance of Jesus and His teachings. But on close examination of these text, there seems to be more to it than just neutrality but rather actual antagonism to the point of total rejection - and even harsh, judgmental condemnation.
Did God actually harden the hearts of Mary, Joseph, James, Joses, Judah, Simon, and Jesus’ sisters for a purpose? God hardened the Egyptian pharaoh’s heart for a definite purpose in the time of Moses and the Exodus.
Perhaps the prophecy of Isaiah 53:3 -that Jesus would be unesteemed, despised and rejected of men - had to be a TOTAL rejection, even from His mother, father, brothers and sisters.
After the crucifixion, except for His mother Mary at the foot of the cross and James, the Lord’s brother, who became the leader of the Jerusalem church (Gal. 1:19), we hear nothing more about Jesus’ family members. If what I have written here is accurate, then I believe that their blindness was lifted by the crucifixion; they saw the sin of their rejecting the Son of God, and THEY ALL REPENTED AND JOINED THE THREE THOUSAND CONVERTS ON THE DAY OF THE FIRST PENTECOST.[Back to Home]
