Christianity – Page 2 – Free Spirit Seed Company

They Know

“And behold, they [demons] cried out, “What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?””
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭8‬:‭29‬ ‭ESV‬‬

They know there is a set hour for their judgment, and that Jesus personally will carry that out. He will give them every last ounce of what they deserve. They aren’t in denial about it.

I eagerly await the day he says, “That is enough,” and they afflict us humans no more. We will never be tempted to fear, to hate, to resent, or to be prideful again. No more oppression. No sowing discord between people. No more lies. There’s light at the end of the tunnel. The last demonic deception will come and go, and that will be that.

He will unleash his wrath and torment those who tormented us.

These verses are not about the judgment of devils, but I think they’re still true about them.

Jesus is a Warrior. “The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name.”
‭‭Exodus‬ ‭15‬:‭3‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭10‬:‭31‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“Vengeance is mine, and recompense, [says the LORD] …For the Lord will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants…”
‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭32‬:‭35‬-‭36‬ ‭ESV‬‬

There is hope at the end of all our suffering because of Jesus (if we have a personal relationship with him now)! Pain will end. Peace will never end.

As the hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” celebrates:

The Prince of Darkness grim,
We tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure,
For lo! his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers, [the name of JESUS!]
No thanks to them, abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours
Through Him who with us sideth:
Let goods and kindred go,
This mortal life also;
The body they may kill:
God’s truth abideth still,
His Kingdom is forever.

The Grass on Your Shoe

Next time you walk into your house with a piece of grass on your shoe, think about this scripture. Then maybe upgrade the way you think about your enemies (physical, political, etc.).

“Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass [tan wisps on your shoe that degrade into dust] and wither like the green herb.”
‭‭Psalm‬ ‭37‬:‭1‬-‭2‬ ‭ESV

Maybe fear, anger, or bitterness are not the best response. If we saw them how God does, we would ‘fret not’ because they are already fading like dead, brown grass.

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More Important than Loving God?

First off, you probably already know how Jesus summarized the most important commands for humans. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 22:37-40

So love God and love each other. What could possibly be more fundamental? Maybe: whatever empowers and motivates us to obey those commands. That, I think, is God’s love toward us.

“We love because he first loved us.”
1 John 4:19

You can be nice to anyone out of sheer will power, at least for a few minutes. But that is not why we treat our good friends well. We’re kind to our closest friends because it just flows out of us naturally. We don’t have to ‘try.’ In fact, we may even be nicer to other people when we’re around that friend because that’s just the effect they have on us.

Similarly, the more time you spend meditating or thinking about the love of God for you personally, the more you will find love spontaneously coming out of you toward God and others. Knowing he loves us makes love flow out of us naturally.

The only thing more important than receiving God’s love for us is Who He Is in himself. He, of course, is Love. “God is love,” I John 4:8.

This is good news for those of us who feel undeserving, because it recalibrates everything. Do you see it? Where is the focus when we think, “How could God love me? I don’t deserve it. I’ve done all these bad things?” Yeah, that’s what we say we are looking at ourselves. Which is why this verse is so great. When we look away from self to Father, we go, “Oh, now I get it. He doesn’t love me because of me. He loves me because of him.” Like when people say, “Well, that’s just the way I am.” And God is saying, “I am loving because that’s just the way I am.”

The very most important thing is Who God Is.

So, the more time and effort we invest into finding out what his personality is like, what makes him tick, the better we’ll understand why he has so much affection for us.

And the more we realize how deeply we are loved, the more it naturally transforms us into loving people. It takes less and less effort (although it still takes effort) and becomes more second nature. And that makes it a zillion times easier to love God and others.

When talking about God as our Father, sometimes I think of my dad — who happens to be a very good one — and I think how God is similar to him. But the other day somebody upgraded my thinking.

God was a Father before my dad was, right? So it’s probably more accurate to say it the other way around. My dad is a tiny bit like God is, rather than God resembles my dad.

Both statements are true, of course. My point is not to split hairs, only to say everything good we experience, if we get right down to it, originated inside God himself.

For example, the Bible says, “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.” Romans 11:36. That would include trustworthiness and generosity for example. Humans didn’t invent those.

So if your best friend can be trusted and likes to give and share a lot, it’s kind of like God is saying, “I put this person in your life to show you a bit about what I’m really like.”

Or if somebody is merciful, he is saying, “Here is a little glimpse of what it’s like to be around me.”

All the good and delightful things we experience are peeks into what Father’s character is like. Each displays part of his nature that he’s invited us to dive deeper into. It’s all to draw us into closer communion with him.

Grief, I’m thinking, also shows a bit about what goes on in his heart. If he made us like him — “in his image” the Bible says in Genesis 1:26 — everything about us (except sin) would probably reflect part of who he is. Creativity … engineering … anger when people mess with your kids … writing poetry … jealousy if your spouse is cheating … laughter … love for great music. And grief.

I’m getting a little deep here, but I think grief is another way God is giving us a view into how he feels.

“Jesus wept.”
John 11:35

“And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.”
Genesis 6:6

“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God“
‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭4‬:‭30‬a

He’s letting us experience what he experiences.

How do you think he felt the day his Son died?

Loss is not necessarily good. But the ability to grieve over it is.

And the experience of grief is something God felt before we did. If knowing his heart is important for us, this is probably another way he is letting us ‘in,’ making us a little more like him. He felt all that we feel, and he felt it first.

We can say, “Jesus, I am completely devastated. I feel like my heart has been ripped out of my chest and crushed into pulp.” And he can say, “Yep. Me, too. Been there.”

That, of course, isn’t the whole story.

He is also the Party God. He invented succulent food, warm friendship, perfect sunny weather, children, lovers, laughter and comedy. When we enjoy any wholesome pleasure, he is again letting us feel what he experiences. Plus, if we consider what the Bible promises us in the next life (consider reading Heaven by Randy Alcorn), the real parties haven’t even started yet.

Suggestions on Finding God’s Will

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Romans 12:1-2

Clues I see here include…

We must present our bodies as living sacrifices to God. That at least means living in a way that is holy and which God finds acceptable.
What drives us to do that is “the mercies of God.” (Why did he appeal specifically to God’s mercies to motivate us for holy living?)
We must have our minds renewed in a way that brings transformation.
We must not be conformed to this world.

None of those things are ends in themselves. They are means to an end, and that is knowing our Father intimately. Then it’ll be easier to discern his will.

It is very similar to someone asking you what your best friend wants for their birthday. You might say, “A Golden Doodle puppy,” or, “Anything strawberry flavored,” or, “Tickets to see this band play in London.” If they asked how you knew, you’d probably just say, “Because I know them. We spend a lot of time together.”

In our case, we are the ones wanting to know what God wants. And the way we can understand what he wants is by really getting to know him, by spending lots of time together.

The Hymn about Ink

Could we with ink the ocean fill

You go to the beach. Instead of water washing up on the sand, it’s black ink. Ships sail past in the distance, on top of it.

And were the skies of parchment made

You go outside in the morning to sip your coffee. There are no clouds, no sky blue, no orange sun. It’s a giant piece of paper so big it takes jets several minutes to fly across it, from the horizon on one side, all the way to the top of the sky, and all the way down the other horizon.

Were every stalk on earth a quill

Every single blade of grass in your yard (have you ever counted how many are in one square foot?), every stalk of corn in Kansas, every tree trunk in any forest — all of them are quills people write with.

And every man a scribe by trade

All 7.6 billion of us writing furiously, nonstop. Picture everyone in a packed soccer stadium with a pen and a bunch of paper all writing simultaneously.

To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry

Nor could the scroll contain the whole

Though stretched from sky to sky.

“The Love of God”

by Frederick M. Lehman

Conquering Fear

When we figure out why Jesus had no fear, we will start becoming like him in this respect.

So, why was he fearless?

It may be tempting to retort, “Because he was God,” which really means (at least when I say it), “That’s not a realistic goal for me.”

If we consider, however, less intimidating aspirations for the Christian, it would seem fearlessness falls among them.

Take the fruit of the Spirit, for example (Galatians 5:22-23), which includes love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith. Fear and peace cannot coexist. Nor fear with joy, nor faith.

So fear needs to go. It has to go.

What made Jesus fearless?

40 Ways Jesus Is Like Me, and Maybe You, #1.

He got stinky.

‘That disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea. The other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards. When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.”

John 21:7,9-10,12

This earthiness is one of my favorite things about him. The Bible does not directly say he was stinky, but I think it’s there.

Various smells would dominate such a scene. Fish. Campfire smoke. Bread. The sea at morning has a certain air about it.

Other odors are likely, too. The men will smell like men usually do after working the night shift on their boat with, I presume, no deodorant. The fishing vessel probably smelled ‘fresh.’

Picture God the Son frying up a hot breakfast for his buddies. That is incredible in and of itself.

Jesus was the one who invited these stinky men to come and get it.

Apparently, he was comfortable with odors and the people they cling to. If not, would Peter have “thrown himself into the sea” to swim to God the Son because it was faster than rowing the last hundred yards? What is it about Jesus that made Peter do that??

Envision the scene when Peter emerges onto the beach. He would have been sopping wet from the swim. His hair is oily.

In a few minutes, Jesus is about to reconcile with his friend, Peter, who denied Jesus at the time in his life when he most needed a close friend to stay with him. Three times. I know how I would feel if I were in Peter’s shoes.

How would I react if I had done that to my best friend, then he cooked me breakfast after work and fully restored our friendship?

Here is what I bet did not happen. They probably did not just wave at each other.

The Bible does not say Jesus hugged him, but there may have been big, huge, massive bearhug between these two men. If it were me instead of Peter, I would bawl my eyes out and cling to him for at least two or three minutes.

Why the smell factor is important to me is what it indicates about Jesus’ attitude toward other humans. A king sitting high on his throne evokes a certain feeling. That king playing in the dirt with his little child is the same person, but the setting tells you so much about his character, about his heart. That is why it matters to me that he had horrendous body odor sometimes.

It means nothing about me is repulsive to him.