"When I see God, I'm going to ask Him about..."

I have become a confirmed “fence-sitter” about many things, and even about a number of Christian issues. AND THAT’S OK!

I have been blessed by God with an inquisitive and curious mind. I have always wanted to discover how things worked. And there’s nothing wrong with that – it’s good. But after 77 years of seeking definitive answers to every question that pops into my mind, I have arrived at a conclusion: God doesn’t require me to take definitive stands on one side of the fence or the other. I CAN sit on the fence and survey both sides of the fence on many issues.

In fact, the more I have used my mind the more I see that I am not able to jump down off the fence to land on solid ground on either side. I admit that at times I have leaned down on one side or the other hanging by my toes from the fence. But when I do, I don't touch the ground.

What are you saying, Lou? That you can be wishee-washee about everything and that is OK? That you don’t have to step forward and make decisions?

Not at all. God gave us free-choice and decision-making for a definite purpose – so that we would choose HIM. We have free-choice to choose Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord of our life. We have free-choice to continue in spiritual growth by the power of Christ within us.

But we also have free-choice to “sit on the fence” about Christian issues that don’t involve the basics of faith in God and morality.

Throughout my life, I have jumped off the fence to the ground on one side or another of many issues of life, including Christian issues. On some things, I have jumped back up to sit on the fence again; on others, I have jumped over the fence to the ground on the other side. My inquisitive mind kept me searching for the “right” position.

But the “right” position is always God’s position – and God does not always reveal His position definitively! A friend of mine used to always say, “I’m not sure and when I see God, I’m going to ask Him about it.” This is THE answer that we must give in a number of Christian inquiries, because, let’s face it, the Bible does not cover every facet of every issue.

You know what? I have learned to LOVE THE VIEW from my perch on the fence. I can see farther and better from up there than I can down on the ground on one side or the other.

Let me talk about some specific issues that I am on the fence with, and then on those issues where my free-choice from God were really meant to apply.

Universalism

Throughout most of my life, I was right down on the ground on the side that you were either saved to heaven or condemned to hell by your responses to God in this life. But some put forth a persuasive argument that all will ultimately be saved somewhere out there in the future – and they have scripture texts that certainly seem to suggest it.

How God will accomplish salvation and how many humans will make it is up to God and His plan. The Bible gives hints about it both ways but we won’t know for sure until we see and ask God about it.

I know this from the Bible: God wants us to spread the word about salvation NOW and He has persuaded me personally to accept Jesus Christ for MY salvation and Lordship. I can sit on the fence about the rest.

What Is Hell?

In my younger years, I was scared to death of “burning in hell”. I was firmly on the ground on that side of what hell was. And that certainly was a factor in the back of my mind as I came to accept Christ for salvation.

But after my new birth in Christ, my inquisitive mind discovered there are about three concepts of “hell punishment”. 1 – eternal torment by fire 2 – eternal separation from a loving God 3 – eternal annihilation.

I am on the fence here concerning what I have been saved from. But the key here is that I have chosen and jumped to the ground on the side that Jesus has saved me – a basic of faith that required me to jump to the ground and not sit on the fence.

Prophecy and The Book of Revelation

Here again, in my early years I was firmly on the ground about prophecy. It seemed like Jesus Christ was coming again to Earth in my lifetime. I put possible dates on everything. The Book of Revelation was practically all future for me.

But here in my later Christian years, I have discovered other Christian views that most if not all prophecy was fulfilled with the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70AD. This is called a “preterist” viewpoint. And believe me, they have some powerful arguments and proofs from the Bible to back it up.

Thankfully, God has allowed me to jump up and sit on the fence and survey both sides. I don’t have to ground myself on either side of the fence because, in all practicality, only God knows and it doesn’t matter definitively to me right now.

The important and basic doctrinal issue is that God has called me now, God is saving people now, Jesus Christ comes to live by a new birth in Christians now. Did Jesus come back to be with His people in 70AD, or is He coming physically at some future date? The necessary understanding is that HE IS HERE NOW LIVING IN GOD’S CHILDREN!

Where We Can’t Fence-sit

We can’t sit on the fence about our personal salvation. We must choose to jump to the ground and accept by faith that Jesus took the punishment for our sins on the Cross; that we are risen with Him to a new nature and life; that by making Him the Lord and leader of our life, we can and will grow into the lifestyle that God wants for His children.

We can’t sit on the fence about whether we choose to live our lives dependently on God or independently from Him. He has made it clear that there is only one right side of the fence and we must be grounded there.

Too many people try to make black and white issues out of things that are not definitively revealed to us by God. One of the great joys of heaven will be sitting around the throne of God getting the answers that our inquisitive minds have wondered about. There our All-knowing, All-loving Father God and Son, Jesus Christ, will also take pleasure in seeing our inquisitive minds receive some fabulous information.

We think we live in a computerized information age now – wait until then!

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Golf and Life

In my twenties, I was a golf fanatic. In fact, truth be known, I became a golf addict! I couldn’t get enough of playing golf. I tried to get out every day that I possibly could to try to improve my golf score. At night, I would replay each hole in my mind to see where I did right and where I did wrong. I would have golf dreams in my sleep of playing at championship courses. I was just plain hooked on golf!

Of course, this addiction played havoc with my family life. My wife and two very young sons suffered from lack of my attention. All the time spent on the golf course was time away from my family who needed me. I professed my love for them, but the truth was that I loved myself and my golf game more. Had it not been for my loving and patient wife, I would have blown my marriage completely.

One day (I can only explain it as a miracle of God), I saw my addiction and what it was doing to my family and to myself. I put my golf clubs away in the closet and QUIT GOLF COLD TURKEY! I did not play another round of golf for 10 YEARS!

OK. Fast forward through those 10 years. My father liked to play golf and he didn’t know about the circumstances of why I didn’t play. He asked me to play a round with him and I reluctantly agreed. As we began to tee off, he told me that he played NATO golf. I said, “What is that?” And he replied, “NATO – Not Attached To Outcome.

In other words, don’t worry about the score, just enjoy the challenge of hitting each shot as well as you can. When it goes off track, go find it and figure out the best shot you can hit from there. Let the score take care of itself and even if you don’t have a good round you still get to enjoy a walk in a beautiful park and the friendship of your partners.

Perhaps we should all learn to live each day “Not Attached To Outcome”. Wouldn’t we be truly free as God’s own children if we could do the same on our own spiritual journeys? Instead of being so focused on the outcomes WE desire, we could simply trust that regardless of the outcome, God is doing HIS work in and through us.

Now instead of wasting our time by trying to get God on our page, we can simply enjoy our fellowship with Him as He moves us to His page. And Jesus Christ living in us WILL ultimately move us to His page. And believe me, it is a lot more peaceful walking with Christ on His page than constantly trying to figure out how to get Him on yours.

What Christ has been doing in you since the day you came to know Him is to liberate you from your own agenda. He knows that your ability to live in His rest, peace and joy will not come when you get everything you want, but when you are not attached to outcomes.

Certainly He has far more to do in my life along these lines, but I feel like I can walk into most situations now with a freedom to live without catering to my agenda. I am more excited about what He might do than what I think He should do.

Yes, there are still times I would like Him to change some of my circumstances in ways that would make it easier for me. Now, however, I have a healthy suspicion that the way I would go about anything in my life and the way Christ would are probably polar opposites.

So if you find yourself denied of your most passionate expectations, just consider that Christ in you is doing something more extraordinary in you than you have yet grasped. Christ is expressing His love to you at a deeper level so that you will grow gradually, day by day, into the lifestyle of a child of God. This is NATO LIVING!

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Victory In Christ

“Do you want to continue to live in defeat? Why not claim the victory you can have in the Lord? You can live a victorious life! God wants you to live a life of prosperity and happiness.”

The “victory message” we hear proclaimed by some within Christianity is often more self-help, self-confidence, pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps hype than it is a biblically sound, Christ-centered message. Many “victory messages” preached in church or religious settings have far more in common with motivational infomercials presented by a slick promoter than they do with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Do we want to have victory? Of course we do. For that matter, if we are in Christ, do we already have the victory? Yes we do. Do we need someone other than Jesus to tell us how we can have spiritual victory if we will only follow certain spiritual “principles” or “laws”? No we don’t – we already have the victory. Jesus gave it to us.

But what if we don’t experience the kind of victory the religious salespeople are promoting? What if we are sick, suffering, in debt, or dealing with family problems and difficulties? Does that mean we don’t have victory in Christ?

When it comes to victory in Christ, let’s realize some things.
Jesus Christ won the decisive victory of all history on His Cross. Then, in His resurrection, He rose triumphantly, with His resurrected life being an eternal sign that He has triumphed over death and the grave.
When we accept Christ, trusting and surrendering to Him, God, by His grace, gives us the victory.
What is “victory in Christ” exactly? Is it a victory that allows us to “get” anything we want, any time we want? This is obviously not true.
The victory God gives to us looks different to God than the victory human beings naturally desire. Humanly, we naturally desire fleshly, external, sensory-related victory. We want to be victorious over our aches and pains, over our debts, over our family problems. That’s normal because we have human bodies. We want God – and if not God then someone who seems to authoritatively throw His name around – to assure us that we can have victory now, in the way we want it, on our terms.
Many people misunderstand the nature of the eternal kingdom of God, a kingdom God gives to all of us Christians, as His born again, transformed children. The kingdom is already here, but it is not here in its fullness. We might say that it is already, but not yet. The primary way in which the kingdom is now here is spiritual.

So WHAT IS “victory in Christ”? The answer comes in those two words “in Christ”. These two words are used throughout the New Testament to describe the state of Christians. I recommend that every time you read those two words, that you substitute this phrase: “in a living union with the indwelling Christ”. That is what “in Christ” really means. Jesus Christ comes to live right within the Christian in a Spirit to spirit union. See Galatians 2:20, Colossians 1:27, 2 Corinthians 13:5, Ephesians 3:17.

Christ will never leave or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). Never! Never! Never! We are children in God’s eternal family. THIS IS VICTORY!

We can talk all we want about human victories. They will come in some areas and they will not come in other areas. God is in control and we are not. We can’t see around the corner from what we are going through. But God sees.

I would like to suggest two corollaries to “victory in Christ” that we should ponder when we humanly doubt.
1 Corinthians 10:13 – “God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”
Romans 8:28: “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”

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