History Repeats Itself

If what is happening in Iran is any indication, history seems to be in one of her repeating moods. Today, after all, the country the Bible calls “Persia” is governed by a man who says that “Israel must be wiped off the map;” who proposes to resettle Israel’s Jewish population in Canada; who hosts conferences denying what may one day be known as the first holocaust; who boasts about a nuclear program deemed illegal by the international community, a program he promises to use only for “the development of Iran and expansion of peace in the world.” And incredibly, an oblivious world accepts Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s promises of peace while overlooking his warlike words.

The Bible tells a similar story – the story of how the great nation of Persia was nearly hijacked by a mad-man with plans to destroy all Jews, the story of a wise man who sounded the alarm when others averted their gaze and shut their ears, the story of a hero-in-the-making who wrestled with her purpose in the world and her responsibility to the future.

Amid the present rumors of war, the Book of Esther may offer a history for our time.

The Book of Esther could just as well have been called the “Book of Mordecai” – and perhaps it should have been. After all, it was Mordecai who raised Esther, watched over her like a father, counseled and challenged her, emboldened and encouraged her, interceded for her.

Mordecai took responsibility for his younger cousin, Esther, upon her parents’ death. He was morally centered and faithful to God – and stubborn when it came to right and wrong. In fact, it was Mordecai’s goodness and stubbornness that caused the drama described in Esther to unfold.

After Esther became queen of Persia, Mordecai visited the royal courtyards daily to make sure she was all right. During one of the visits, he overheard a plot to assassinate the king and dutifully reported it to Queen Esther.

Mordecai could have stayed out of it. After all, Xerxes wasn’t his king, but that didn’t matter to Mordecai. He knew right from wrong, and he did what was right.

During another visit to the gates outside the king’s courtyard, Mordecai refused to bow before a powerful royal official named Haman. “When Haman saw that Mordecai would not kneel down or pay him honor, he was enraged” - so enraged that he resolved “…to destroy all Mordecai’s people, the Jews, throughout the whole kingdom…” (Esther 3:5-6).

Driven by hate and conceit, Haman persuaded the oblivious Xerxes to issue a death sentence against Mordecai and his people. “Dispatches were sent by couriers with the order to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews.”

Mordecai did the only thing he could do – he began to intercede for his people and told Esther of Haman’s terrible plans. But she initially balked, explaining that “…for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned, the king has but one law: that the person be put to death” (Esther 4:11). Her fears were well-founded. Xerxes had deposed the previous queen simply because she didn’t respond to his summons.

Undeterred by Esther’s rationalization, Mordecai answered his wavering cousin with both reason and passion. Reminding her that she would not escape Haman’s sword and that she had a special duty because of her special place, he finally convinced her to act with powerful words: “…who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14). With that, Esther answered, “I will go to the king; if I perish, I perish.”

When Esther finally spoke to the king, her words were plain and pointed. “The adversary and enemy is this vile Haman,” she explained, courageously confronting her enemy face to face.

“Spare my people – this is my request” she declared, finally revealing her Jewish ancestry. “For I and my people have been sold the destruction and slaughter and annihilation.”

Awakened to Haman’s motives and plans, Xerxes repealed Haman’s mass-murder sentence and then issued an edict granting “Jews in every city the right to assemble and protect themselves…” (Esther 8:11).

Others have noted that God is not mentioned anywhere in the Book of Esther, yet He is everywhere in the story – in Esther’s unexpected rise to queen, in Mordecai’s timing and words, in Xerxes’ sleepless night, in the peoples’ prayers, in Haman’s undoing.

What does all this history mean to me as I absorb the daily dose of bad news from Iran? I realize that Iran has enough oil to meet its energy demands for 250 years. In other words, Iran doesn’t need nuclear power.

When taken together with Iran’s burgeoning nuclear program, Ahmadinejad’s words move from the realm of the merely appalling to the terrifying. Iran has called for the destruction of Israel for decades.

But since Iran has never possessed the one weapon that has the capacity to erase an entire nation, the threat was just a nightmare. But it is hard to imagine a nuclear-armed Ahmadinejad giving Israel any peace-options for survival.

This is where you and I can help. We can intercede in prayer for our leaders, for our world, for our friends and even for our enemies – asking God to either get us through this looming storm or to steer us around it.

Mordecai was an intercessor. He followed the example of Samuel, who “cried out to the Lord on Israel’s behalf, and the Lord answered him.” In the same way, we can ask God to transform or overcome our enemies, to protect our fragile world, to guide our leaders to do what is right and wise. Our posture should be like Lincoln’s in the midst of the Civil War. “My concern,” he explained, “is not whether God is on our side, but whether we are on God’s side.”

Of course, even it we turn to God, He may remain silent. The Bible reminds us that God moves and sometimes doesn’t move in mysterious ways.

We must remember that we live in the far fringes of understanding the One who created us. But that didn’t stop Mordecai from turning to God. His intercession and God’s intervention changed Esther’s mind and saved countless innocents.

There is no guarantee that we won’t have to endure the trial. As Jesus warned, the storm comes for both the man who builds on rock and the man who builds on sand. To be prepared for the approaching storm in Iran, the best we can do is turn to the Rock.

The grace of God in Jesus Christ is sufficient to deal with any and all situations we will ever face.

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The Law Tree

When God placed Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, He specifically told them not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. His plan was that they would ultimately live from the tree of life, which represents Jesus Christ – who IS life. Yet man chose to disobey and eat from the forbidden tree. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil could be called “the law tree” because it offered knowledge about the rules of right and wrong. When Adam ate from that tree, he instantly found himself at a place where doing right and avoiding wrong became the defining issue of life. Until that point, his behavior had always glorified God because he had walked with the Lord daily, depending entirely on Him for every detail in life. Now his focus was on his behavior, not God.

Until the fall, the only thing that mattered was that Adam and Eve were living in total dependence upon God. After their sin, the primary matter became that of doing right.

In order to better understand what it means for a person’s life to be ruled by laws, consider this illustration:
Pretend that one morning, after he had eaten from the law tree, Adam woke up because his wife, Eve, was leaning over him and kissing him gently on the cheek. “Good morning, my sweetheart,” she whispered. “I brought you breakfast in bed this morning. You seemed to be resting so well that I let you sleep late today.”

Adam opened his eyes, took one look at Eve, and snarled at her in anger, “What do you mean waking me up, woman? Couldn’t you see that I was asleep? How dare you! What have you shoved under my nose – a bowl of fruit? You’ve already caused me enough trouble with fruit! Get out of my face!” Shocked, Eve’s eyes filled with tears and she ran off to a secluded place where she could cry alone.

By mid-morning Adam was feeling guilty about how he had treated his wife. He found her and humbly approached her. “Eve, I am so sorry. It was so wrong for me to behave that way. It was simply evil! Please forgive me. I wouldn’t blame you if you left me for another…oh yeah, I forgot that there aren’t any others – well, anyway, you get the point.” Eve looked up through teary eyes as Adam continued. “Eve, I’m going to make it up to you, I promise. Tomorrow will be your special day. Listen, world! Tomorrow is Eve Day on planet Earth,” he shouted. True to his word, the next day Adam treated Eve like a queen. He pampered her all day long. That night when she went to bed, he gently leaned across her, kissed her on the cheek, and said, “Good night, my dear princess. I’m so blessed to have you as my wife.” “Oh Adam, you’re so good to me,” she cooed.

Now let’s see how much we understand about legalism and rules. There are only two questions on this test. Our answers to these questions will reveal whether we tend to see the Christian life primarily from a standpoint of law or grace. Ready?
1. Was God pleased with Adam on the first day in the story?
2. Was God pleased with Adam on the second day in the story?
The answer to both questions is NO. God was not pleased on either day. Adam’s behavior was evil on the first day and good on the second day. However, we must recognize that the law tree can be the source of good as well as evil. Although Adam’s behavior changed from one day to the next, he still had the same problem. ON BOTH DAYS HE WAS UP THE WRONG TREE!

When law rules a Christian, his focus is on improving his behavior. Yet even if he does manage to improve his behavior, what has he accomplished spiritually? Even an unsaved person can often improve his performance. Jesus didn’t give the gift of salvation merely to help us perform better. He came to earth so that He could ultimately live IN people (Galatians 2:20) and guide their lives out of the jungle growth of the law tree.

Even when a person does good, his actions may still be sin. Only those actions which are animated by the life of Jesus within us have real value.

Some Christians find it scary to think that they are totally free from a system of rules. When I first began to understand grace for the Christian, I was afraid that I might become derelict in my responsibilities as a believer. I even thought that without rules, I might begin to minimize the seriousness of sin in my own life.

I came to discover that I had found a security in my religious rules. When I kept them I felt everything was all right with me spiritually. When I sensed any sort of spiritual deficit in my life, I would mentally run down the checklist of rules to see which one I was failing. But when a person examines himself to see if he is living up to the law, he will always discover areas of inconsistency. I thought the answer was to renew my efforts to do more. Yet even when I poured my energies into keeping these self-imposed laws, I wasn’t really experiencing the life God intends.

Paul clearly asserted that we were made to die to the law so that we might be joined to Christ. What relationship does the Christian have, then, to a system of rules which govern behavior? Absolutely none! When you were saved, you were “made to die to the law through the body of Christ, that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead” (Romans 7:4).

“Don’t we need to commit ourselves to the laws of God?” a person might ask. Paul said in 1 Timothy 1:8, “…realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous man, but for those who are lawless and rebellious..” Christians are righteous people because they have the nature of Jesus Christ. Our lifestyle isn’t governed by rules, but relationship. We aren’t motivated by laws, but love! The driving force of our lives won’t be duty, but desire. We will crawl out from under the heavy weight of OUGHT TO and start living from a WANT TO motivation.

So why do many Christians live by laws? For one simple reason: it makes them look good. It’s all about appearance. They choose the bondage of rules because it seems easier than establishing a living relationship with Jesus within them.

But a ton of rules won’t provide an ounce of prevention against sin. To the contrary, rules actually impede our spiritual walk in an intimate relationship with our Savior and Lord.

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"I'm Somewhere Between Jesus and John Wayne"

The Gaither Vocal Band just released a new CD titled “Lovin’ Life”. Every one of the 13 Christian songs are great, but the one that caught my attention is “I’m somewhere between Jesus and John Wayne”.

The lyrics are as follows:

Daddy was a cowboy hard as a rock
Mama she was quiet as a prayer
Daddy’d always tell me, “Son, you gotta be tough
Mama would kiss my cheek and say, “play fair”
I did my best to make ‘em proud of me
But it’s never been an easy place to be
Somewhere between Jesus and John Wayne
A cowboy and a saint, the cross and the open range
I try to be more like you Lord,
But most days I know I ain’t
I’m somewhere between Jesus and John Wayne.
Mama’s love was tender, Daddy’s love was strong
Both of them were there to help the weak
They taught me to stand up and fight for what is right
And showed me how to turn the other cheek
Now I see there’s both of them in me
And maybe that’s the best that I can ever hope to be
[Repeat chorus]

As a Christian, we have got to understand HOW we are between Jesus and John Wayne.

Human beings are made up of three parts: spirit, soul and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23). I like to say that I AM a spirit, I HAVE a soul, and I LIVE IN a body. The spirit part of me is the “image of God” mentioned in Genesis One. It is who I am. The soul part is the intellect, emotions and the will located in the physical brain. And we all know what the body is.

When we receive salvation by accepting Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, Jesus comes to actually live right within our human spirit. And He will never leave us or forsake us.

But the soul remains the same the day after salvation as it was before. The same basic independent ideas and garbage of the world are still there and have to be gradually, on a day to day basis, changed to the ideas and ideals of Christ within us.

So, in this respect, a Christian really is between the Jesus in his spirit and the John Wayne in his soul.

But what the song doesn’t bring out is that WHEN THE FATHER LOOKS AT US, HE SEES US AS JESUS! The John Wayne soul part is being continually brought into recognition of the union with Jesus in our spirit.

John Wayne was an independent guy. He got the job done his way. And we have that same independent streak in our soul that Jesus will gradually, on a day to day basis, eliminate.

The key element of salvation is that Jesus dwelling in a union with our human spirit makes us not “between Jesus and John Wayne” but rather we ARE Jesus/John Wayne – a living union with the divine nature of God (2 Peter 1:4). The Father will eternally recognize us as such.

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We Shall All Stand In Judgment

We have all heard about the “Judgment” or the “Last Judgment” or the “Great Judgment” or the “White Throne Judgment”. The Bible talks about some kind of a judgment alright, but the specifics have always been very confusing to me and to most others that I have heard concerning it.

When is it? Who is judged? Of what are they judged? What are the penalties? These are all things that seem rather vague and, at some points, contradictory in the Bible.

I have heard many sermons over the years speaking about how we are all to stand before God in a review and judgment of all the things that we did in our human lives.

Here is how I viewed it in my religious upbringing:
I thought that God kept a big book listing everything that I did, good and bad, throughout my life and everything everybody else did also. It surely must have been some volume of a book, but God could handle that! If I died with an unrepented big or “mortal” sin, I would go straight to “hell”. If I died with an unrepented little or “venial” sin, I would go to a place called “purgatory” which was just as bad as hell but had the redeeming feature that some day I would be released from purgatory and go to “heaven”.

And if I died having repented and been forgiven of all my sins, I would go straight to “heaven”. But this idea of purgatory always seemed strange to me. It seemed like I should be either good enough for heaven or that I should deserve hell. But what was this middle-ground? And it was even more confusing because I was told that other living people could pray for me and do good works for me to get me released from purgatory sooner. I couldn’t understand how this whole system of “indulgences” or releasings worked, but I was told not to worry about it because the priests had it figured out.

But then sometime out in the future, everyone who had died was going to take part in a “Last Judgment”. Everyone! Those who had gone to be in heaven to live in the spirit realm were going to put on some kind of “bodies” and be judged. Those in purgatory likewise. And Jesus Christ was to sit on a throne and preside over this “Last Judgment”.

Now, if I was in heaven enjoying that spirit life and then was called down for a soul-searching judgment, I wouldn’t be very happy! I had “earned” heaven; now what was this about? And, if I was in hell by condemnation already, why this temporary removal from the flames just so that I could be sent there again? It all didn’t make much sense!

Just picture a giant sports stadium filled to capacity and overflowing with people. In front of you, you see the giant television replay screen. Each person, one by one, is called down to the 50 yard line with Jesus Christ on His throne in the middle of the field. Christ opens His Book and replays the good things and the sinful things that you did in your life. Everyone sees it on the big screen! In living color! How could the joy of the good things shown ever cancel out the embarrassment of the dark sins we committed?

And then we are each judged according to our “works”. No more purgatory now. It is either heaven or hell. Did the righteous works outweigh the evil works? Or did the scale tip to the evil works and send us to hell? If we had been sent to heaven at our death, could this “Last Judgment” change that and send us to hell? I couldn’t figure it out! And I was never given what I considered an understandable explanation.

Was I just weird? Or did some of you have thoughts along these lines?

Well, I struggled with this concept of judgment for many years. And then it got even more complicated. Because I discovered many places in the Bible that stated when God forgives us of our sin, HE FORGETS IT! HE SEPARATES IT AS FAR FROM US AS THE EAST IS FROM THE WEST! Well as you know, there is a North pole and a South pole. But there are no East or West poles. So what God is saying is that He casts our sin an infinite distance away from us, AND FORGETS IT! If He forgets it, then He can never bring it up against us again. Doesn’t that make sense? Then what about this Book to remind us about it later? Now I was really confused!

New Understanding

When you come to an understanding of what happens to a person at conversion (Christ comes to live IN you), and what righteousness and sin really consist of, then you begin to see what judgment is all about. Here is what my, albeit incomplete, understanding of judgment consists of now.

I believe that judgment for sin is inescapable. But I also believe that there are more judgments than people ordinarily have recognized. The average church member has the idea that there is only one judgment and that there everyone, good and bad, Christian and non-Christian, will meet and be separated like sheep and goats.

But the Bible teaches two judgments to be faced by every Christian. One is past, at our conversion and new birth, when we are judged as sinners; and one is continuously present when we are judged as sons.

1. Judged as Sinners

This judgment is past for every converted Christian. “Who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). But Jesus did that 2000 years ago and you can do nothing to add to its effectiveness except to trust in it. “There is therefore now no condemnation (sin judgment) to them who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

The sins of our past are forgotten by God, just as if they had never taken place. They have been blotted out by the blood of Christ, totally forgiven, totally gone! There is no record of them in any book, nothing to recall against us later. The punishment for our sins has been paid already by Christ. Therefore, why bring it up again?

2. Judged as Sons

Because Christ now lives in us, we have the nature of God and God accepts us as His children. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God” (1 John 3:2). He gives us the STANDING of sons. But the Father desires also that we become sons in UNDERSTANDING as well. And in order to make us so He brings us into judgment, son judgment. The prodigal son was not son-like, but he was still a son. When we are not son-like, then God judges us with physical correction (not punishment which is a legal payment for sin but correction which looks to the future improvement of the son). That is, when we do wrong, when we recognize it and condemn it in ourselves and confess it to God, that is the end of it. It is forgotten just as at conversion. For all God wants is for us to recognize our living union with Christ and forsake all evil influences. And the steady correction when we start to try to live independently drives us gradually but inevitably to the true understanding of sonship in the family of God. All of the correction by God that occurs after conversion is physical chastisement — not spiritual punishment! “Chastise” comes from a root word meaning “chaste” or “pure”. God is purifying us.

Christ has said that once He comes to live in us, He will never leave us. Our salvation is assured! Certainly we can and will occasionally slip into sin. But we will never again jump into it with both feet, wallow in it, splash around in it, linger interminably in it. It is just Satan’s spirit of independence influencing us from outside of us temporarily. We are drawn back to an awareness of Christ living in our spirit. Our sin is quickly forgiven, and FORGOTTEN, and although we have that physical chastisement to remind us of our problem, we probably understand our sonship a little better.

Read Hebrews 12:5-11. These verses describe chastisement by a loving Father who desires “... that we may share His holiness.., and that afterward we can see the result, a quiet growth in grace and character.” (Living Bible wording). These verses show both the nature and purpose of our son-judgment. But such judgment is going on here and now whenever we need it. And it is correction that is looking forward to a beneficial result, is very personal, and individually applied. While punishment is looking backward to the offense, is impersonal and automatic, and its goal is the administration of justice.

Judgment for Non-Christians

Then there is the Judgment of the Nations (Matt. 25:31-46) for non-Christians. The Bible does not really give a good explanation of what will take place at these times. Nobody knows just what this judgment will be like nor will he know until he enters it. But we ought to have a few trustworthy ideas based on the Bible about the subject and about the nature of God.
• Judgment will bring punishment.
• Judgment will be just. That is, God will remember the heredity and environment of each individual and what he was up against.
• Judgment will be graded to suit the offense. See Luke 12:42-48 about being deserving of few stripes or many stripes.
• All of God’s judgments will be purposive; they will accomplish something - Isa. 26:9.
• Judgment will destroy enmity and rebellion
- 1 Corinthians 15:25.

What about the "rewards" mentioned in some verses? Read my article about this subject here.


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"Many are called but few are chosen"?

Some Christians believe in predestination. Some feel that God has chosen certain people to be saved and certain people to be lost. They have a favorite scripture which they use. It's Matthew 22:14 - "many are called but few are chosen."

The meaning of this phrase is determined by the context of the passage that it concludes. Outside of that passage it has no meaning - it needs a passage in order to have meaning. The context at large is a group of teachings Jesus gave shortly before His arrest, crucifixion, burial and resurrection. These parables are Jesus' response to opposition and hostility that was increasingly being voiced by the religious leaders of that day. On Palm Sunday Jesus overturned the money changers tables in the temple, causing alarm for religious leaders about the repercussions Jesus' actions would have on business (Matthew 21:12-13).

The religious leaders questioned Jesus' authority (Matthew 21:23). By way of response, Jesus gave a parable of two sons (Matthew 21:28-32), one who rebelled and repented, the other who gave lip service, yet internally never agreed. Jesus said that the first son was like hated tax collectors and despised prostitutes, who started in rebellion but yet changed as a result of the gospel. Jesus equated the second son to the religious leaders, who outwardly seemed to be doing all the right things, yet inwardly, to use his expression from a few chapters later, were filled with greed and self-indulgence (Matthew 23:25). Jesus was sending a clear message - the world of religion needed to be turned on its head, just as He had turned over the money changer's tables.

Then Jesus gave the second parable, which again was a scathing indictment of religious leaders (Matthew 21:33-44). This parable was about a landowner who planted a vineyard, and carefully improved the vineyard, only to rent the vineyard to tenants when he went away on a trip. When the harvest came, the landowner sent servants to collect the harvest. The servants were treated brutally - finally the landowner sent his son, but the tenants killed the son, thinking that they could take the inheritance for themselves once the son was gone. It was a remarkable, chilling story of His own brutal beating and crucifixion, which would take place in but a few days.

The meaning of this parable? The same as the first (see Matthew 21:45). The chief priests and the Pharisees got the point; they knew that he was talking about them. They knew that they were rejecting Jesus, and they knew that they were the ones Jesus predicted as being responsible for killing Him. Their responsibility was a matter of religion. Religion causes us to reject Jesus, for religion is opposed to the idea that a relationship with Jesus, by God's grace, will supplant and replace its systems and methodologies of rules and regulations.

Then Jesus gave a third parable, which begins in Matthew 22:1, and concludes with the verse in question, "for many are invited (KJV says "called"), but few are chosen" (Matthew 22:14). This parable leaves no doubt that Jesus charged the religious leaders of that day with rejecting His kingdom, His radical new teaching of love, His grace and His peace. This parable, is about a wedding banquet. The parable proposes a wedding banquet prepared by a king for his son. Two invitations are given. The first invitation is issued to guests who refuse the invitation - who not only refuse to come but who mistreat and kill the servants who bring the invitation (hence the idea of "don't kill me - I'm only the messenger"). The first invitation went to the "respectable" people. The respectable people refused the invitation. The second invitation was sent to those who were hanging out on the "street corners" (vs. 9) -- people who were both "good and bad" (vs. 10) -- and as a result the wedding hall was filled with guests. But there's more. One of the guests was present, but was not wearing wedding clothing. He was thrown out by the king.

What's the meaning of this parable? Once again, the rejection of Jesus by religion - of that day - and of any day - is center stage. The invitation is given to the religious leaders who refuse to attend the wedding banquet, though it is given by God the Father. The larger issue is religion at large. The point is that the status quo of all religion is threatened by Jesus and His kingdom. Secondly, the parable notes that those very kinds of people most highly despised by the moral guardians, the religious leadership, those folks who were hanging out on street corners - those people filled the wedding hall. Thirdly, the parable notes that one person who actually accepted the invitation and showed up was not wearing a wedding garment and was thrown out. In those days, the host furnished the wedding garments, so the act of showing up, refusing to accept the clothing that was provided free of charge (BY GRACE) was an extreme act of disrespect. It was yet another religious innovation - another way of saying that the wedding clothing provided by God's grace was not enough, some other qualifications must be tendered in order to be properly attired. This analogy plays out in the book of Revelation, when the bride of Christ is GIVEN her wedding attire (Revelation 19:8) - contrasted with the religious imposter, the religious whore who controls and enslaves the world at large, who wears garments she has earned by plying her trade (Revelation 17:4) - things which are "abominable things" and "the filth of her adulteries."

Finally, we come to the short, terse concluding statement which, if you like, is the moral to the story. What does "many are called, few are chosen" mean in this context? It means that there is no way to be in Jesus' kingdom, no way to attend his wedding, except by honoring him, by accepting him as the very Son of God - Lord and Savior.

There is no way to even pretend to say "yes" and accept God's invitation and try to show up at His house wearing spiritual clothing we feel we have earned by the sweat of our own religious labors - we either accept the clothing God provides by His grace or we are thrown out of the banquet. We can't "get in" by attempting to "pay our own way" - there is no such thing as buying a ticket to God's kingdom of heaven through the religious brokers and ticket scalpers who stand outside hawking tickets.

What was Jesus saying at the end of this parable? He was saying that many are invited to follow Him, but few are willing to set aside their religious indoctrination, few are willing to lose their religious heritage, legacy and tradition, and accept His kingdom on His terms. There is only one way into God's kingdom. His name is Jesus. There is only one way to have Jesus. It is to accept Him on His terms, which is by God's grace. We do not deserve Jesus because we have obeyed religious formulations. We are not rewarded with Jesus because of our diligent obedience in following rules. That is the big lie of religion. We are given Jesus by God's grace, if we surrender our religion, if we absolutely, without reservation, accept Jesus.

It may help to know that the many of "many are called but few are chosen" in Greek is inclusive - it is not restrictive. Many means virtually everyone. The idea is that many - virtually everyone - are called or invited. The invitation is not only to the great, powerful, righteous, courageous and famous. The invitation is open to everyone. God is not a respecter of persons. "Few are chosen" - that is, not many are chosen on the basis of their response. The choice is ours, not God's. There is an R.S.V.P. on the invitation. God's intent is to issue an open invitation, with the proviso that acceptance of the invitation means absolute acceptance of the invitation ON HIS TERMS. That means, among other things, forgetting spiritual pride and allowing Him to pay for our entrance, to do all that is needed to be done, to provide everything - even the clothing we wear to the wedding. We are not free to "accept" the invitation and then do it our way - to add our little religious innovations, our little list of religious duties and deeds we feel will earn God's grace. We may be a part of His kingdom, we may be a part of the wedding, only on His terms.
Sadly, some people attempt to proof text this passage. They will try to turn this one verse into some kind of formula for predestination - that God chooses only a certain type of person. Some attempt to make this one verse into a legalistic formula saying, "whether or not we reach heaven depends totally upon our obedience."

This passage is about God's grace. This passage, like any properly understood biblical passage, must consider the broader context. This passage must be understood from the vantage point of Jesus Christ. Sadly, this one verse has been ripped out of its context and used to support methodologies and ideas about spiritual reality (OK - let's call them what they are - RELIGION).

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Supreme Court Guidelines - Are Your Beliefs Preferences or Convictions?

In both the United States and the world, certain events are bringing Christians and Christianity more intensely under the magnifying glass of official government scrutiny. As this scrutiny intensifies, we may have our convictions severely tested, as others have, in certain areas of religious belief.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a person’s religious convictions are protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution, but one’s religious preferences are not. Fortunately, the Supreme Court did not leave the courts without guidelines to determine whether a person has a religious preference or conviction. In a 1972 decision, the Court established the guidelines to determine a person’s convictions. Before giving those guidelines, the Court laid down two principles regarding persons who claim to hold religious beliefs.

First, the Court stated that “one cannot hold a belief unless one can somehow describe that belief.” Though the Court does not ask for eloquent testimony, it will not accept hunches, feelings or “it-seems-to-me” testimony either. The Court wants a witness to show thoughtful consideration of his beliefs.

Secondly, but more important, the Court requires that one’s beliefs must be individually and personally held. In John 8:32-44 Jesus confronted opponents who clearly had not internalized the beliefs they claimed to hold. “They answered and said to Him, ‘Abraham is our father.’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were Abraham’s children you would do the works of Abraham’”.

The Court views such people as hiding behind a title. Christ’s opponents said, “I am a son of Abraham.” Today, one would say, I am a Christian.” The Court would reply, “Fine, now tell us what that means to you.”

From these two general guidelines, the Court then established that no matter who we are or what our religious affiliation, beliefs fall into one of two categories. Beliefs are either Convictions or preferences. These terms must be defined further because in U.S. courts only convictions are protected by the Constitution. It may be surprising how the Supreme Court defines a preference.

A preference is a very strong belief. A belief can hold one with very great intensity and strength. How strong? Strong enough that one will go into full-time service of that belief. For example, one can be a minister of the gospel, a missionary or Bible study teacher in a religious school and still be operating on a preference, not a conviction.

According to the Supreme Court, a preference can be held so strongly that one will give all of his wealth to support it. A preference can be so intense a person will energetically proselytize others by going house-to-house, handing out tracts on street corners or broadcasting on radio or television – and he will still be operating only on a preference.

According to the Supreme Court, a preference is a belief that one will change under certain circumstances. Through long experience judging cases, the Court has learned that certain pressures, if brought to bear, will motivate people to change their beliefs. How would you respond to the following pressure?

1. Peer Pressure
Teens tend to be idealistic. But there are a few who resolve to be serious, “hit the books” and avoid the drugs, sex, smoking, drinking and “hanging out” that they have seen others doing. But if the “right” boy or girl appears, or if the teen is recognized by the “right” clique, his desire to be accepted by them pressures him to adjust his ideals to conform to theirs. His ideals or convictions are merely preferences.

A minister may search the Bible for truth and find something interesting that he believes and resolves to do and teach. When he tells his fellow ministers about what he has found, they may say to him, “I don’t say you’re wrong in this, but don’t you think you should tone it down a bit? Make it less offensive,, and then maybe we can cooperate with you and work on some of your objectives.” At first, he may strongly defend his belief, but little by little, as he sees the reaction of his peers, he may begin to bend. He started believing it and resolving to do it, but if he changes, his belief is a preference.

2. Family Pressure
This is perhaps the strongest pressure. When Jesus advises His disciples about counting the cost of commitment to Him, every person He mentions is a family member. “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate [or love less] his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26).

Usually no one can motivate you like a deeply loved mate. A husband may resolve to commit himself to a strong belief, but on telling his wife, she replies, “Please don’t; do you realize what this will do to us and our family?” His resolve begins to melt because he knows he will feel responsible if, because of his belief, he inflicts discomfort or pain on a loved one. His belief is only a preference.

3. Fear of Lawsuit or Financial Ruin
We are all aware of the expense and hassle of going to court. We may say, “I’m all for this, but I’m not going to get sued over it! You can’t ask me to be sued – that’s going too far! I may lose my hard-earned reputation, maybe my job and all my property because of attorney and court costs.” If this daunting pressure causes many to change their beliefs, they are not convictions.

4. Jail
You may have never really been in a jail, but they are not pleasant places. Most prisoners want to get out as quickly as they can. You are isolated from your dearest family members and friends. Additionally, the people around you (your fellow inmates) have made a living of not playing by the rules. Some are quite violent.

Would you really be willing to go to jail for your faith? Even when no one seems to understand why you would do such a thing? Would the pressure of facing jail make you change your beliefs? If so, your beliefs are preferences.

5. The Pressure of Death
This final test is obvious: to be a conviction, one must be willing to die for his belief. Even strongly held preferences have failed as convictions under the trying circumstances of facing death.

Do you see the common factor in these? What does your belief mean to YOU? What are you willing to sacrifice in exercising your belief? If you feel you should do something but have the right not to do it, it is merely a preference, according to the Supreme Court’s test. Therefore, your belief is not protected by the Constitution.

So what creates a conviction? The Court’s answer: A MAN MUST BELIEVE THAT HIS GOD REQUIRES IT OF HIM.

A belief that is God-ordered is a conviction. It is not merely a matter of resolve or dedication, but a matter of believing with all our heart that God requires it of us. The Court says that if we hold our beliefs as God-ordered, we will withstand all the above tests.

The Court says more: a conviction is not something we discover but something we purpose. It is not something we just happen to run across but something that is part of the very fiber of our personality. The Court says our convictions will be purposed as part of our way of life, beliefs that we are determined to perform and fulfill.

All these tests are guidelines for judges and lawyers to pursue in a court of law. But everyone knows that on the witness stand, after swearing or affirming to tell the truth, not everybody is honest, and that one, though not lying outright, may bend the truth.

So the Supreme Court was left with solving the dilemma of discovering how it could determine whether a person was telling the truth about his convictions. The answer was actually very simple. Though a person may be an artful liar on the witness stand, the truth can always be found in his LIFESTYLE.

The Court says, “You have no right to say you have a conviction unless we can somehow see you live that conviction with some consistency.” Testimony of beliefs without the works to prove them is invalid. This agrees with Scripture: “But someone will say, ‘You have faith, and I have works. Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.’” (James 2:18).

The Court says, “We want to see your faith in action.” A sharp attorney will ask pointed questions and our lifestyle could condemn us unless it matches our beliefs. The Court will not demand that we be perfect, but that we consistently show by our lifestyle that we are living by what we believe.

Conviction does not come because we are suddenly struck with inspiration, but it is the product of a process that involves a growing relationship with God. Knowledge gained by research or argument is of no benefit in God’s sight unless one lives by it. God wants experiential knowledge – knowledge of Him gained as the result of knowing Him, obeying Him, living life with Him as the center of our life.

It is the same in the natural world. We may know someone through the reporting of certain things about him. But we do not really know a person until we live with him. When we do that, we are convicted of certain things about him.

Supreme Court guidelines are judgments of men – but in the case of preferential beliefs or convictional beliefs, it looks to me like they must have had their Bibles out in front of them.

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Human "Beings"? - or Spirit "Beings"!

What is a “being”? We have all heard the term “human being” used so often that we don’t even think about what it means. As the little girl said to her mother working in the vegetable garden, "Mom, are we really human beans?"

We claim to be human beings, but what is a being? We don’t say “fish beings” or “vegetable beings”. The dictionary applies the adjective “being” to anything that actually exists. But when used as a noun, “being” is defined as: absolute existence of a person having essence of life.

The Bible tells us that we are composed of three parts: spirit, soul and body. And our essence or the real source of our being is our human spirit. I like to say that I AM a spirit – I HAVE a soul – and I LIVE in a body.

The soul is the intellect, emotions and will by which we learn and make choices. The soul was designed to be guided by the spirit. Our essence of being is in our spirit. We ARE spirit beings containing human souls and bodies.

What we tend to ignore is that each of us began in the “beingness” of spirit. Our spirits are uncreated. They are a portion of the Supreme Being, the Absolute Being – God the Father. Our souls and bodies were created when we came into this earthly existence, but our spirit has existed eternally because God portioned a part of Himself off to be our essence way back before the creation of the universe. “God has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4).

My beginning and yours was in Being. We were in our Father. He is the eternal spiritual Being, and we inherited Him in our beginning.

This is a great and glorious story. But there is another story that began with our human father, Adam. And this story caused us to forget the story of our spiritual being.

Every human is actually one continuous organism from Adam – we are all Adam’s seed. And Adam forgot the story of his spiritual being. He forgot that God was the spiritual part of him, the “being” part!

And when we entered this earth, we also completely forgot where we really came from! Humanity in general looks upon itself as human beings rather than spirit beings. They are too busy handling the human problems of the human family. God has to deal with them on a one on one basis to bring them to the true understanding of being.

In its humanness the whole world has forgotten what it means to BE. Shakespeare said, “To be or not to be? That is the question.” And a good question for us to ask is, “What is our “being?”
We must get back to the very beginning of each of our stories of being before the foundation of the world. We must ask the Father of Being, the absolute spiritual Being, “Where did I come from?”

What is the home of spiritual being? What is our spiritual habitat? It is eternal life! The Holy Spirit works to find us in this world as He found the prodigal in Jesus’ parable. We are told that the prodigal son “came to himself”. This is everyone’s story, - we have each been the prodigal, taken up with our humanness and ignoring our beingness. While in that state we’ve remained untaught and spiritually ignorant of the true meaning of being “in the image of God”.

As a Christian making Christ our Savior and Lord – as a spiritual being in Christ – it is our destiny to rest in and enjoy the unconditional love of our Father, who is love, joy and peace. We are destined to know the truth of BEING, that in Christ we are free from bondage to the prison of human “being”.

The story of the prodigal is the story of the human race – still wallowing in the pigpen of human “being” in a futile effort to try to improve its surroundings. In the entirety of the Bible you will find one story: it is yours and it is mine. We lost our home in the one spiritual Being, the Father of all human beings. The work of the Holy Spirit is to bring us TO THE REMEMBRANCE OF OURSELVES AS SPIRIT BEINGS, NOT HUMAN BEINGS.

This is where we, like the prodigal, “come to ourselves”, to the true spirit being within. We remember our home in the heaven of unconditional love. We put away our old concept of separation between human being and spirit being.

The Christian grows into the perfectly functioning balance between heaven within and earth without!

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