Developing Godly Character Pt 7: Rejoicing with those who rejoice

You might think this would be the easiest part of “loving your neighbor” (Lev 19:18) to follow, and if you thought that, you would very much be wrong for a great many people — including myself.

Two weeks ago, I covered the flip side of the Romans 12:15 “weeping with those who weep,” taking advantage of the death of Robin Williams and many of the distressing rebukes I saw leveled at those who were saddened at his passing. In a nutshell, it is not for us to judge the grief of another person, not ours to degrade their sorrow or cause them to feel guilty for it, but to simply mourn with them. It is an application of the commandment that requires we be selfless, and oftentimes one that means we shut our mouths for a while. It can be an extraordinarily difficult way to show love to someone.

Just as difficult is the directive to rejoice with those who rejoice, because we are very selfish people, by and large. I am utterly amazed at those people who are able to rejoice with others, even in the midst of their own tragedies. But until we are able to rejoice on the inside and on the outside, it really only amounts to politeness. Here’s the reality —

When you are barren, it feels like a knife in your heart when you find out your friend is pregnant again.

When you are single and alone, it’s hard to listen to tales of your friend’s exciting new romance.

When your child is in a wheelchair, it’s hard to listen to your friend go on and on about Johnny’s football scholarship.

When your child has an IQ of 79, it’s hard seeing all those honor roll stickers.

When you’re hungry, it’s hard listening to people who are well fed talk about the feast they had last night.

You get the picture.

And yet — we want for everyone to have those blessings. We don’t want for people to be barren, alone, disabled, hungry, thirsty or homeless. So really what holds us back from our rejoicing is our ingratitude for our portion. We have our own wonderful things in life that we rejoice about, and we want people to rejoice with us and often don’t even see the disconnect. We rejoice about what we have and weep about what we do not have — and then instead of rejoicing and weeping appropriately with others, we rejoice about what they are rejoicing about if we have it too, and only weep about what they are weeping about if we can relate.

What does this mean? It means that the weeping and rejoicing become an extension of ourselves instead of an extension of Messiah within us. Does Messiah rejoice over new life, does He rejoice when people are healthy, well fed, safe and sheltered? Doesn’t He mourn when we lack what is good? To faithfully walk out His character requires a heart change, and a pause to take effect before we act — “does the sadness and resentment I feel reflect the heart of my King, or simply my own flesh?” Is God offended that my friend has a large, healthy, happy family with food on the table? Of course not, and so I know that attitude must come from within myself, from a place of evil and not good.

You see, sometimes we simply exist in emotion without properly examining that emotion. I am barren. I do not want anyone to be barren. It grieves my heart when someone knows that pain. The flip side of that should logically be that I am thrilled when someone is fertile. But emotions are not logical, and will never come into alignment with the will and Spirit of God until we challenge them and force them to conform. I must constantly remind myself that if I say that I hate barrenness and infertility, and yet hate it when a friend is fertile, then I am a liar in the deepest sense. Not to mention a hypocrite!

It is resentment, pure and simple, which gets in the way of rejoicing with my King over the blessings He has bestowed on others, as well as ingratitude for the many things He has given to me. And it is a good thing to know that.

It is also a good thing to be deprived of the desires of our heart. I was contemplating this morning, how terrible it would be to have everything I have ever desired, because then the evil within me would exist in secret — poisoning myself and others. There would be nothing to drive it to the surface where I could see it, and I would live a life of smug self-righteousness, believing that my blessings were the result of my deservedness instead of His grace. I have seen people who have absolutely everything, who have never faced serious challenges, and I am incredibly grateful not to be among them. Because someday I am going to be able to weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice, and it’s going to be real. I won’t have to fake it, and I will know that I am changed more into the image of my King.

Developing Godly Character Pt 6: Passing the Division Test

So, back in 2006, YHVH told me something I have never forgotten, even if I have not understood it.

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“Do not suffer to be divided from anyone on the basis of anything other than Christ and Him crucified.”

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Now, I thought that simply meant that whether I liked it or not, I was bound to all other believers in Yeshua the Messiah. But that wasn’t what He said. I know because this week He has been telling me exactly what He meant —

“Don’t you dare think you have the right to be divisive. Messiah is divisive, you don’t get to be, you don’t have the right to presumptuously divide the Body based on what you do and do not like, do and do not agree with.”

I had this dream a few days ago, and it really upset me. I had a test in my hand, and on it were long division problems that I knew were complicated, and I didn’t want to do them, and I in fact refused to do them. Well, I woke up quite upset and asked a friend — how can I pass a test that I refuse to take? I could have done all that division, why didn’t I just take the test? I love math tests!

Her response, “Sounds to me like you aren’t willing to be divisive.”

Oh. A pun. I was so determine to see the dream as an indictment of myself that I missed the pun, which is one of my first rules for interpreting dreams — look for puns and plays on words. Yes, it was a test, and I recognized that the situation was complicated and I refused to be divisive. It was after that, that the Word from YHVH came back to me and I finally understood it.

You see, there will be division in the Body, and people will divide from me based on this or that thing — and that’s on them. They might decide they disapprove of my saying Yehovah instead of Yahuah or Yahweh, and they might divide themselves from me even if only in their hearts, They might disapprove of my keeping the first sliver calendar, and they might divide from me, even if only in their heart. They might come up with reasons why they figure I do it and then judge me based on those reasons. And that’s on them. That is their choice, to be divisive. They may never say anything, but even if they put up an internal wall against me based on these issues, they have acted divisively.

Did you know that the second day of Creation was the only day where nothing was called good? On that day, only division happened. At the heart of any division problem is the denominator, which is not the number that is divided, but the number which divides. It has the same root word as the word “denomination” and it is not unique to Christianity. Judaism and the Messianic movement also have many denominations. Sadly, I have found that these denominations result because we do not want to focus on the major issues, but instead get hung up on the minors – generally the things we can’t prove, things that are either mentioned only once or eluded to or which are not based on scripture at all.

And that is the very heart of division at the personal level. If I want you to agree with me more than I want to find out how to agree with God, then that is simply a form of idolatry. Perhaps we could strive to humbly look at people and say, “I wonder why they believe that?” instead of “How can they believe that!” They believe because they believe — and as my dream said, it’s complicated.

I have spent too many years being wrong on things now to waste my time dividing over issues I may not fully understand. We have all been desperately wrong about so much, and we will always be wrong about things.

Matt 10:34 – 36 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.

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So we should not suffer to be divided from anyone based on anything other than Messiah, and Him crucified. Let Him create His own divisions. He brought the sword, and on that night in the garden, Messiah showed us what happens when we wield our own swords without waiting for His permission — He ends up having to fix the mess we create.
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Luke 22:49-51 When they which were about him saw what would follow, they said unto him, Lord, shall we smite with the sword? And one of them smote the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear. And Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye thus far. And he touched his ear, and healed him.

Division will come to us, it doesn’t need our invitation. There will always be plenty of people who bring it to the table — who say, “You can’t worship with us if you believe or say such and such.” And that’s fine, they brought the division, and we honor that division by acknowledging it and separating ourselves from them. But we are not to cause it ourselves.

Titus 3:9-11 But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain. A man that is an heretick (aihretikos, meaning schismatic, divisive) after the first and second admonition reject; Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.

At the end of the age, the wheat will be separated from the tares and the sheep from the goats, by Yeshua. Until then, we are to avoid divisive people and by definition, refuse to be divisive ourselves over this or that pet doctrine. Rejecting a divisive person is not causing division, it is quite simply acknowledging and protecting ourselves from the sin of it.

Developing Godly Character Pt 5: The Virtue of Doubt

The importance of being Thomas.

Doubt is a virtue. That is difficult for anyone to swallow who has grown up singing The Hymn of Joy lyric “drive the dark of doubt away” and has listened to countless slurs against one of my favorite apostles — Thomas. You know, the one they call “doubting Thomas.” But when I teach about Thomas, I don’t teach about doubt, I teach about trust and the importance of knowing exactly who it is you are following.

It seems that assuming the worst of Thomas has become established church doctrine, but this was a man who was chosen by Yeshua (Jesus) to be a disciple. This was a man who willingly walked into a situation he knew might mean death when Yeshua went to raise Lazarus even though there were men waiting and scheming to kill Him, and he encouraged the other disciples to follow Him to Bethany too.

John 11:16 Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellow disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.

And yet, we are told not to be like Thomas, we are told not to doubt, not to question. But what are the reasons we are told not to doubt and not to question? Moses told us to doubt. In Deuteronomy 13, he said that even if a person says things that come to pass, and even if they perform signs and wonders but they depart from the Word of God in telling people to worship contrary to it, that they are not to be believed. That is a commandment to doubt even when faced with the evidence of signs and miracles!

Yeshua spent chapter 24 of Matthew telling His disciples to doubt, because false prophets and false messiahs would rise up. Paul warned of false teachers and false doctrines. The prophets warned of false priests and false teachings. Throughout the scriptures we are actively taught to doubt for one important reason — to make sure that we are following the correct Messiah, the correct God. The scriptures exist to teach us His character (and by extension, what our character should be) — what God approves of and does not approve of, what we are to believe and what we are not to believe, what to put our faith in and what not to pt our faith in, what to run towards and what to run from. Scriptures tell us what to doubt, which is why it is vitally important that we do not downplay any portion of scripture. The Word is eternal, and the LORD, YHVH does not change (Mal 3:6). He was, is and is coming (Rev 1:8). He is the same today, yesterday and forever (Heb 13:8).

Thomas had undoubtedly learned the Torah (Genesis-Deuteronomy) growing up in the synagogue each Sabbath, as well as the Prophets. From Moses he knew the dangers of following a false prophet, a false Messiah. Thomas had also been taught Torah and the prophets by Yeshua, day after day, as they ministered to the Jews. He knew Yeshua, he knew His voice, he knew His teachings. He knew the sound of His footsteps, and very possibly the sound of His snoring. He knew what Yeshua sounded like when He laughed and when He cried and when He was angry. Thomas was there when Yeshua said this

Matthew 24:26 So if they say to you, ‘Behold, He is in the wilderness,’ do not go out, or, ‘Behold, He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe them

So when the other disciples came to him saying, “We have seen the LORD,” don’t you think Thomas remembered what Yeshua Himself had warned? Was it not simply obedience to doubt when people started telling him exactly what he had been warned they would tell him? In light of that, his pronouncement of “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe,” is not to be taken as a lack of faith, but instead as an indication that this disciple who had walked and talked and eaten and suffered with Messiah for so long was not willing to risk believing and following anyone except Yeshua!

Thomas knew Yeshua, and once we truly come to know Him, we are not so willing to follow anyone else. We doubt, we question, we push and strive to find out if it is really and truly Yeshua we are following — instead of simply believing and therefore following our Pastor, our denomination, the “Church Fathers,” or our favorite Christian author. We cannot afford to make the mistake of following after mere men, because we were afraid to doubt. In the garden Eve doubted. She should have doubted the snake, but instead she doubted what God had said to Adam. Doubt in its proper context is life. Unfortunately, snakes will always try and get us to doubt all the things we should not doubt so that we won’t doubt the things we should. And sadly, not all snakes know that they are snakes. Therefore we must never be afraid to doubt, to test everything so that we can hold on to what is holy (I Thess 5:21). Test what is being preached, test the doctrines, test the traditions. Yeshua is the Living Word of God, and therefore He is the Living embodiment of every single Word of scripture — to follow Him we must follow the Word, we must know it. Those who do not desire to know the Word even though they have ready access to it, do not really desire to know Him.

But Thomas knew the Word of God, and he was only willing to believe and follow that Word. Thomas knew intimately the character of Yeshua and Thomas knew he could not afford to follow anyone but Yeshua.

So we have heard Preachers slur Thomas in an attempt to get us to shut up and accept what they teach. But what did our Master say in response to Thomas’ doubts?

John 20:27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless (apistos), but believing (pistos). 28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.

Thomas was not rebuked, nor was Thomas called faithless (I hate it when KJV takes the negative of the same greek word and makes an entirely different word out of it) — he was simply invited to do something that would remove his disbelief. The other disciples had already believed because they saw and verified, and now Thomas was rewarded for his doubts. Rewarded? Yes, I can think of no other word to describe the privilege of touching our Master’s hand and side. Would you not ask a thousand questions if at the end it meant you could touch Messiah? If it meant that you could know the intimacy of that depth of relationship?

Thomas was given that gift because he was not willing to follow and believe anyone except Yeshua — not even his closest companions. Thomas had his eyes set on the things of God and not on men. He remembered the warning of his Master and followed it even when it meant doubting his fellow disciples.

Thomas passed the test, and as a reward — he touched Yeshua. And when we strive and battle and question in order to make sure we are following the correct Messiah — that touches Yeshua too.

Relational Sanity: Wisdom in Restoration

True restoration in relationships cannot come without an honest appraisal of what that relationship truly is.

Oftentimes, when there has been an matter of betrayal or disloyalty, there is a push by people on the outskirts of the issue towards “full reconciliation and restoration” but I believe that something important needs to take place first.

I believe that before there can be a restoration, before reconciliation (meaning “friendly relations”) is truly possible, one needs to take a good hard look at the relationship and see it for what it is because sometimes we really do not have much of a relationship at all and when we go back in to it, we have to go back in realizing that.

The restoration of a casual relationship is going to be entirely different than the restoration of a familial or marital relationship. If I am friends with someone who I give my all to, and they repeatedly show me that they have absolutely no regard for me, then I may need to restore the actual, shallow relationship, and not the one I wish existed. And there is nothing wrong with identifying the shallow relationships in our lives — in fact, doing so protects us from bitterness and anger. After all, we cannot force someone to feel more for us than they do, and we don’t really have a right to. We also cannot force them to be loyal, or kind, or to do what is right. We cannot keep them from betraying us, or slandering us, or sinning against us — only love can do that and we have no control over whether or not someone loves us.

So restore the relationship as it exists, not the fairy-tale one. If a generally wonderful person screws up, and is genuinely repentant, then that is a case for restoring them to where they were. But if we are simply ignoring the fact that we are in a non-existent relationship (meaning no exchange, no mutual give and take), then restoring that relationship to our fairy tale idea is not restoration, but instead elevation. And there is nothing I can think of in scripture telling us to pretend that there is more to a relationship than there is.

There are people in this world that are impossible to have genuine relationships with — gossips, slanderers, bullies, people who are quick to assume the worst, people who refuse to take responsibility for their own actions, adulterers, etc. And it is okay to recognize that without feeling guilty about it. It’s okay to say, “I forgive you and I see that we really don’t have a relationship here. I thought we did, but looking back I see no evidence of a real relationship and so I am not going to pretend. I wish you well, but we have no basis for intimacy.”

We do not owe a relationship to those who do not have a relationship with us. That’s how the Body of Messiah gets into trouble, with dead-end relationships that require not just forgiveness but compromise. And the compromise is always at the expense of the person who is on the giving end. It’s the cheap grace version of restoration — hyper-restoration, if you will. But hyper-restoration is dishonest, and we cannot afford to be dishonest in our relationships, we have to see them for what they are.

Now, are we to be long-suffering with those who are actively escaping sin and trying and fail and are genuine in their repentance? Of course, that is grace in action, that is true grace. But there can be no true fellowship between two people when one of them has absolutely no desire for relational accountability, no desire to see themselves as wrong, only a desire to justify themselves and take from whoever will give.

So, when there has been a breach, look at the relationship carefully. Forgive the person. Look at the other person carefully. Ask the Father to show you the reality of the relationship. Then carefully restore the person to THAT relationship, the real one. In this way, you can deal with them as they are and not as you wish they were, with no illusions and no unrealistic expectations.

Forgiveness means seeing who a person is and not holding it against them. Restoration means recognizing exactly who they are and having the appropriate level of relationship in light of that.

Look at it this way — you have a piece of solid oak furniture, and even if it gets dented and stripped of its finish in some places, it’s still oak and can be restored. But if it’s just particleboard, you have to recognize that it is particleboard and hope, but not expect, that the particleboard will want to be oak and start doing the work to swap out its own parts. The relationship you can have with a piece of oak furniture is not the same as the relationship you can have with particleboard, and that’s a fact. And it’s okay to recognize it. It’s not okay to keep depending on the particleboard to respond like oak and then be bitter when it fails.

Developing Godly Character Pt 4 – Embracing the test, accepting the results

Remember school? Yeah, unfortunately so do I!

Tests came in two kinds, announced and unannounced. The announced were dreaded, yet because we could see them coming in advance we could either choose to prepare for it or ignore it. The unannounced, well, hopefully we were prepared and if not we would find out.

Life in Messiah is much the same. He is our Teacher, our Rabbi, our High Priest, and it is our job to listen to Him, to learn from Him by following Him, reading His Word and obeying it. It is our job to cooperate with Him, to walk with Him in His ways. His tests rarely come down to having Bible verses memorized, unfortunately, because then it would all be fairly academic and straightforward when the tests came. His tests are of a more eternal quality, boiling down to character issues, and specifically about revealing where it is lacking in maturity and producing bad fruit. Those are the tests for which we cannot study at the last minute — if we aren’t living in such a way as to pass it, in complete surrender to becoming conformed to His character, then we are not going to even have a chance of passing His pop quizzes.

Some pop quizzes are there to shock us and show us how far we’ve come.

“Wow, I remember how I used to react in that sort of situation!”

Some pop quizzes are there to alert us that our problem areas are being neglected.

“Won’t I ever change? UGH!”

Some pop quizzes are a mixture.

“Okay, I did better that time, it took me a lot longer than usual before I screwed up.”

Some pop quizzes are there so we can find out how we will react to entirely new situations.

“What? What just happened? I don’t even know what hit me! What the heck was I even supposed to do?”

But all pop quizzes have one thing in common — they are all preparing us for the big tests later, and they will prepare us, if we recognize them for that they are and if we embrace the testing process. Making excuses for the results is a common mistake. If we blow the test, we need to face it and repent and learn in a manner which sends us forward. Sulking and denial will not help, blaming the test will not help, blaming the people used in the test is fultile — we will simply keep failing the test until we die or change, and at the expense of those around us and whatever fruit God prepared us to produce ahead of time. When we refuse to accept the results, the whole Kingdom suffers loss and so does the world around us. Note that I didn’t say that the Kingdom and the world suffers when we fail the occasional test, but instead when we refuse to accept the results. Why is that?

The other night, after coming through a very intense three day test where I did exceptionally well, until the very end — God shared something amazing with me.

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“You are going to get it wrong before you can get it right,”

And in that simple statement I saw that my failure at the end was not a disaster or a condemnation so much as it was a “heads up.” The test showed me how far He had brought me, and that I had cause for thanksgiving and rejoicing. I had a reason to see that promises made a long time ago had been faithfully kept. And in His mercy, His test was designed to show me what I still tend to do when I am under stress — even though I didn’t do any of the other things I used to do. I had been given valuable information, information I could kick myself over, or information I could be thrilled to possess,

I call it “enemy intelligence” — what I learned about myself. “Enemy Intelligence” is spy-jargon for classified information about your enemy. My way of doing things, in the flesh, is my enemy, and my enemy likes to hide from me. I will share what happened with you briefly so that I can put real concepts behind what I am saying.

Saturday night, before the end of the Sabbath, I thought it was my idea to start a 3 day fast in order to pray for some ladies who were going through some tough circumstances. Sunday morning, I got up and spread out my new topsoil and put down grass seed. Within an hour it was pouring down torrential rain for the first time in a month and it started to wash away in areas. In the past would get angry and resentful and start complaining, but because of the changes I started to submit to back in June when He gave me notice, not only was I not complaining, but He was also able to eliminate anger and resentment as well (at least compared to how I was before). So I watched as a deep gully was cut through my new topsoil and I just started laughing. I mean, why get angry, why complain, what on earth would it do anyway? Might as well just thank Him that the rest of the yard was being watered. So I did and since I could not do any more work outside, I got to enjoy my day. That was, until people started acting weird. And over the course of the next three days, I had these weird situations pop up that were entirely out of my control, but I did not handle them the way I used to handle them.

Then of course there were my 13 year old twin boys, who decided on one of the mornings to just push each others buttons and I did erupt suddenly, although I was able to shut it down quickly, but not before taking some Excedrin on a stomach that had been empty for 2 1/2 days, poisoning me. Add to that the death of a young friend, and on the last day I did something that showed me exactly what YHVH had wanted me to see in the first place. In the final hours of my test, I went backwards to the initial behavior He had warned me about in early June, I started complaining and it was a few hours before I realized it and stopped. Now, I only griped to a few friends, but what the entire test was about was revealing how I react under stress, and how much stress I can take before I buckle beneath the pressure — especially when my normal avenues of blowing off steam have been removed from me.

The test was there to reveal my flesh, to show me how far I have come and to show me what I still need to work on. And I had a choice to be irritated at that “enemy intelligence” revealed during those three surprise days of testing, or to use it to gain a victory later. I choose victory, because if I don’t, then the test was just there to torture me. End result: I know that many of my bad behaviors are rooted in not having healthy habits for dealing with stress. I had been blaming them on this or that character flaw, but they were all really rooted in stress. I wouldn’t have known that without the test. Now instead of having five problems to attack, I only have one. Vaulable intelligence indeed!

Now back in June, when I was given my warning in the midst of a dream, I really had been given fore-warning that a test was coming. In fact, every time He points out a behavior, know that a test is coming. And oftentimes, we don’t know how to address the problems He brings to our attention — but He does, so we have to ask Him to start making those changes and we have to promise to cooperate as much as possible. And a really good start is whenever we fall into those problem areas, we need to stop and submit ourselves by saying, “Okay God, what are You trying to teach me here, what do You want me to learn from this?”

Testing is only punitive if we refuse to learn from it. Unfortunately, modern education has done us a disservice in the area of testing. If we fail, we either have to repeat everything or we move on ahead anyway. But with God’s tests, we only repeat what we got wrong until we get it right and He is not content to just move us forward anyway. The steps are important, or He would not keep testing us. We must be determined not to allow failures to crush us, but to allow them to serve as guideposts towards progress.

We have to get it wrong before we can get it right, otherwise we will become prideful and what need would we have of God at all? Of course we are not born with His character! Nor do we have it when we call on Yeshua (Jesus) to be our Master. Nor does a diploma from Divinity School impart it. You know, He has to show us, step by step, that we don’t have His character and we should not be offended by that. When He does show us, we should not despair but instead be excited, because it means that He is calling us closer to Him, closer to being conformed to His character.

Failing a test is a challenge, showing us that we are not perfectly walking that narrow path. Imagine each failure as a necessary step towards the right direction.

“No, a step to your right, that’s it, much closer. Try not to step over there again, keep your eye out. Now try that, doesn’t that make it easier to follow Me?”