Marinating in Messiah for a Year–Week 2

This started yesterday late in the morning. I started getting really super hostile. From experience, I know the hostility will remain until God raises the temperature in my life to the point where I will become aware of the specific impurity being targeted, because it will become quite obvious, and I start fighting against it as His ally. Right now, in some way, I am not His ally. It isn’t on purpose–probably some grudge or defense mechanism, some wall I have up that I have lived with so long that it seems good and normal–but all the same, on some level I am harboring something unfruitful that needs to be boiled off and pruned away.

This happens every once in a while and when it does, I have to avoid people and especially social media. I have to bite my tongue and not tell people what I am thinking because my thoughts are tainted with hostility. In essence, I am not thinking clearly enough to be trusted to talk to anyone right now without maybe taking some of that aggression out on them. We have to come to a point of maturity where we realize that not every thought needs to be spoken, and most irritations should not be voiced.

Read the book of Romans yesterday and hopefully I will talk about it tomorrow. Romans is one of those “list” books where Paul reminds us of the kinds of thought sins that we are susceptible to and are the antithesis of God’s character. I like those lists, and I hate them. They make me confront my flesh. You just can’t hide from Paul, he nails us when we stop thinking about how difficult he is to understand. He (like Yeshua/Jesus) tells us that we aren’t really as awesome about keeping the commandments as we think we are by reminding us that our innermost thoughts can transgress the Law just as much as our flesh can–and far worse, because we all think things that we would never do.

Today I will just hunker down and read I Corinthians and continue with my studies in Matthew 12.

Hostility happens. The important thing is to recognize it for what it is and not use it as an excuse to do harm.

Marinating in Messiah for a Year–Day 10–Romans 10:4

For Messiah is the goal of the Torah as a means to righteousness for everyone who keeps trusting. (Ro 10:4, TLV)

How ironic that when the whole point of the Torah came down among men, it would be to tell us all that we weren’t really keeping it perfectly, and no amount of fences and legalities could ever change that. You can imagine what a relief it would have been to those who were looked down on by the Judean elites, who didn’t even trust simple, faithful farmers to properly tithe their own produce, and what an offense it was to the aforementioned elites who felt that they could keep the law perfectly–if only.

If only they built enough fences around God’s laws.

If only they explored and debated every possible situation so they would always have the right answers.

If only they brought Temple standards of purity into the homes.

But here comes this young upstart (young by my standards, thirty was pretty old in first-century Israel), telling them that unless they had their thoughts in order and unless their motives were purely driven by love and not just obedience, that they were missing the goal of Torah entirely–radically set-apart lives inside and out, which necessitated an honesty between thoughts and actions.

It wasn’t enough not to ravish or seduce a woman–you couldn’t even think about it. (Matt 5:27-28)

It wasn’t enough not to murder your brother–you couldn’t hate him, be angry at him, or slander him either. (Matt 5:21-22)

It wasn’t enough to say you are sorry to God unless you also made things right with the people you have hurt. (Matt 5:23-24 and the heart of the “twelve-step” programs)

And He went on and on telling people that they weren’t really as law-abiding as they thought they were, yet encouraging them all the same. And He knew, because He was the goal of the Torah–He was the perfection that went above and beyond words on paper into perfection of motive and perfect love. He kept the Laws of God inside and out, as they were meant to be kept, and He wasn’t just fooling Himself that He was Torah observant, as the rest of us are prone to do–He actually was the living embodiment of Torah observance in both Spirit and Truth. We can try to be blameless on the outside, but on the inside we are transgressors.

Paul is hard to read because he makes a point of reminding us of that over and over and over and over again in all his letters. He tells us to be like Messiah, like Christ. But our flesh wants to tell us that we are indeed like Christ when we do the outer things that He said weren’t enough. The most we can do is to become more and more like Christ, fighting for that goal–fighting like crazy against our flesh until the day we die. The fight never ends, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you. Anyone who tells you that they don’t struggle with anything is either not being honest or has just stopped trying to be more like Messiah because the closer we get, the farther away His character seems to be from ours. The more we mature in goodness, the better we see Him and the further away that goal appears. Good fruit breeds humility in just that manner. We really and truly have no idea how inaccessible the goal truly is, and if we think that we are close enough to it to be a perfect example, then we are very poor examples indeed.

Yeshua/Jesus is the WAY. He is the TRUTH. He is the LIFE. He is the LIGHT OF THE WORLD. He is the divine Messiah, and not just some super good dude because no human could ever live perfectly, inside and out, while subject to our same temptations.

He is the LOVE that came to earth to do what we could not. Blessed be His holy Name. This is why He deserves our worship.

Marinating in Messiah for a Year–Day 11–I Cor 3:2-3

Who was jealous? Who argued? Messiah? Or His detractors?

“So I had to treat you like babies and feed you milk. You could not take solid food, and you still cannot, because you are not yet spiritual. You are jealous and argue with each other. This proves you are not spiritual and you are acting like the people of this world.” (CEV)

I like the way this verse is rendered in this version because it really describes how we are, as opposed to how we need to behave. I think of those among the Pharisees who were nitpicking at Yeshua, and trying to shame him with their arguments (as opposed to those Pharisees who did not, like Nicodemus). Whenever Paul calls out a certain behavior as carnal, bad fruit, a work of the flesh, worldly, etc. you can bet that it is the antithesis of how Messiah acted while He walked the earth.

In fact, the more I study the Gospels, the more I see that He didn’t pick fights (and especially not in the Galilee), he ended them with very short and clever answers. They were picking fights. They were jealous. They were arguing with Him, and one answer from Him generally shut their mouths quick. They were concerned with non-spiritual issues while talking about what ought to be spiritual. They were posturing for position, trying to shore up their reputations and standing among the people, trying to best the newcomer on the scene–but we aren’t to be concerned with such things. Yeshua/Jesus on the other hand–He kept telling people, over and over again, not to spread the word about the miracles. Yeshua was not greedy for a larger audience–He had a job to do and He did it. It was everyone around him who was concerned with worldly matters–including His own disciples who were repeatedly concerned with who among them was going to be the greatest!

But we have been warned against jealousy, and against fighting with one another. And yet, that is the reality of social media religion–where we reach no one and argue with everyone. We do it in order to be right, to make the other guy look wrong, to appear to be the greatest (or appear as though we are following the greatest teacher)–we are still worldly and ought to be drinking milk and yet how we long for the solid food that we publicly prove ourselves to be unready for. We desperately need to shore up our foundations so that we can represent our King without shaming Him.

Jealousy. Arguing with one another. These things prove that we are not spiritual. Let that sink in really deep and don’t just think of how it applies to someone else.

And we do it on the Sabbath out of one side of our mouths while saying “Shabbat Shalom” out of the other side.

No jealousy. No fighting amongst one another. Remember what Yeshua said:

The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. (Matt 23:11-12, ESV)

Shabbat Shalom means Sabbath Peace–please don’t use that word like the Shiite Muslims do, as in a world conquered by force and bloodshed, and dare to call it peace. We ought to never make a mockery of God’s day of rest by making it a day of strife.

Marinating in Messiah for a Year–Day 12–Lord of the Sabbath

Sabbath is a safe haven for the believer, just as we should be a safe haven for our brothers and sisters–as well as for the lost.

“Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” Heb 12:14, ESV

It is when we live at peace with others that the way we live will cause others to truly see the Lord.

It is when we refuse to be at peace, then that is all they will see–us, and they will tragically blame it on the Lord.

Yeshua/Jesus said that He brought the sword, but He never gave us permission to use it. He divides, not us–we lack the discernment to even begin to know how. That is why we have to learn how to love as He loves. He showed us to way, by giving His own life for those who hate Him, those who had never even heard of Him and frankly didn’t even care to.

We are not to be divisive, but we are instructed on how to treat those who are perennially and unrepentantly divisive within the Body, mistaking it for holiness:

“As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him” Titus 3:10

What makes a person divisive? Demanding that everyone see what we see right now. Creating insider and outsider groups based on side beliefs that are pushed to the forefront while the Cross languishes somewhere unseen in the background.

“But what about…?”

Well, what about it? Did Messiah die so that we could cut people off over that? Really? Are we so enamored by what we see (or what we think we see) that we can really judge a person over this or that side issue for which Yeshua did not die? More importantly, do we really know what we think we know? Oftentimes we presume to be knowledgable where we are actually fools–lacking both information and wisdom yet assuming that we are guides to the blind! We assume this despite the great and overwhelming evidence that this is a universal brand of deception from which no one on this earth is immune. We are all blind. We are all fools. We are all unlearned. We allow the blind to guide us along. We listen to fools. We learn from the unlearned–and we don’t even know it because we were counting on them to teach us! We just assumed they had knowledge because they claimed to have it.

Humility is key. Perspective walks hand in hand with humility.

How glorious it would be if we all kept our mouths shut until mature enough in love that we could be trusted to speak with wisdom and discernment. It would also be wonderful if no one could speak on a subject about which they are actually unlearned. But each of us having mouths and keyboards is a severe test, one that we generally take great delight in failing–until the day that God opens our eyes and we would give our tongues and hands to take it all back. Then we call out to those who have not seen yet, but they don’t listen any more than we did–because their ears are not open and they do not have eyes to see that they do not love their neighbors, and especially those neighbors whom they cannot see at the other end of cyberspace.

We are no different than the Judean elites to whom Yeshua preached. And this is not me angry, this is me very sad.

Do we love Yeshua enough to pull back and consider whether we are the problem? And not the world around us? Not other believers? But us? Those of us who consider ourselves guides to the blind–do we hate, do we pass around gossip under the guise of news, do people hear endlessly about what we despise and nothing purely about what we love? When they hear us, do they hear about the Divine Messiah who came to save, or do they hear about someone being so angry with them that salvation seems to be entirely off the table? That the minimum requirements for salvation are for others who have their act together already, or who are more inherently worthy? Do those who listen to us feel too disgusting to lift their heads to heaven and cry out for forgiveness? Are we pushing people so far into despair that we have forgotten that the message of the Gospel is hope?

If I know about the love of God, and I personally shrink back at the posts I see that are purportedly reaching out but instead are creating a larger divide, then what about the lost? What do they see?

Probably just an elitist club that would never want them as a member until after they were perfect–and that’s exactly what I saw from certain individuals before I was saved. That it was hopeless, and that I was hopeless. Thank God for Ruthie Rayburn and for John Walton–staunch Christians who knew how to love and extend invitations that looked like a lifejacket when I was drowning. They knew how to stand against sin without ever standing against the sinner. They knew how to love me and allow the Holy Spirit to be the Holy Spirit.

Twenty years ago, God used them. He didn’t use the people I knew over the years who were stumbling blocks, even though they were zealous in their own way but also mean and contemptuous. They spoke hatefully and mockingly about people steeped in sins that many of them were born into accepting as absolutely normal. There is enough cruelty in the world, and when people are finally longing to escape, they will run towards love–if they can find it. And that’s why we need to be mature in love–for the sake of those who are on the brink, as well as for the sake of those who are still not even interested in God, but will be someday. They will need someone to run to, to tell them about the Gospel. We need to make the investment in order to be those people, and not the stumbling blocks they undoubtedly already know too many of.

Marinating in Messiah for a Year–Day 13–Matt 18:21

When someone in your life has anger issues.

Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” (Matt 18:21)

In 2017, I taught a lot about radical forgiveness and one of the most challenging and basic forms of it is what I call “immediate forgiveness.” This is required when dealing with people who have anger issues, and especially with people who suffer from any form of brain damage. Not all of us naturally deal with outbursts of anger well, even when we know the other person can’t fully control himself, and that has been a problem of mine in particular–when someone gets in my face and yells at me, I haven’t ever been able to take it for very long before yelling back. That being said, I have been able to endure it for longer and longer periods of time over the years. Being 5’1″, I learned very early on the “need” to stand my ground and fight back in the workplace. Honestly, it worked out well in some circumstances, but it really isn’t godly behavior, losing control like that, and it turned me into a mercilessly defensive person when riled up–especially by really tall men.

So, in 2017, after reading Embodying Forgiveness by Miroslav Volf, and No Future Without Forgiveness by Desmond Tutu, I came to the understanding that this immediate forgiveness, manifested in a lack of retaliation, would make it easier for the offender to repent later when they cooled down. Think about it, if someone yells at us and we yell something nasty right back, they are going to probably feel justified instead of guilty. It’s a simple truth–their response to our retaliation is to believe we had it coming in the first place. Very few people are able to see themselves as oppressors and instigators, but that is the vital purpose of producing good fruit in the face of conflict–it removes our sin from the equation and when the aggressor looks back, they are more likely to feel the kind of shame that leads to repentance. By not returning sin for sin, we enable not their sin, but their restoration to God. What they did was still wrong, and we can tell them that, but that doesn’t require tit for tat and fighting. They can throw mud, but we don’t have to get in the mud with them.

Now, before anyone says anything, forgiveness in the face of actual violence doesn’t mean there are no consequences (some of which might require a physical separation), it just means no retaliation in kind, of the same kind. I am talking instead about the more common outbursts of anger in the form of words, tantrums, acting out and such. Although, with a special needs child, physical violence might happen as well, and in that case we really can’t afford to retaliate in kind.

I can’t go into details, but last night this finally bore some really beautiful fruit in my life, when someone who has really done this to me a lot, A LOT, came to me and needed to talk and really opened up about how unjustified they are, and how they realize now that their anger spewed out at me over all these years is not deserved and how they know that the way they have perceived me has been wrong. It’s been more than a decade of me dealing with this anger and it has been very difficult, but when I held this person in my arms and they cried it out and poured out their heart towards me, it was a healing balm for us both.

God touched this person’s heart, but I removed potential stumbling blocks by (usually) dealing with them in a calm and loving manner. This person has some brain damage, totally not their fault, and yet everyone needs to learn as much self-control as they possibly can and this person has yet to reach their full potential. The last year and a half of strokes and TIA’s has made me very appreciative of how incredibly easy it is to get frustrated and lose it when the brain isn’t operating on all cylinders. I have had to learn an exponentially greater level of self-control than was ever necessary before.

In every relationship in our lives, we can make it easier or harder for people to do the right thing. If we make it harder, then we are stumbling blocks in the Kingdom, if we make it easier, then we are more like guides to the blind. Think of the kindness of God in Messiah/Christ which leads us to repentance. Think of how He enables us to come to Him and doesn’t throw up impenetrable barriers. Yeshua/Jesus did all the work that we couldn’t do ourselves, and what He can do with a genuine grief over our sins is remarkable.

Ro 2:4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

Titus 3:4-6 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior

All I could think of last night, as I held this person was how I wished I had been even more kind,more merciful, and how badly I felt for every time I allowed their behavior to push me over the edge into snapping back and/or yelling myself.

Living without regrets in personal relationships is about love, patience, peace, kindness, gentleness, and self-control in the face of people who lack those things. Who knows whether or not your good behavior might serve as the midwife for a great harvest on their part? Today’s easily triggered individual might be the great saint of tomorrow–as long as we don’t get in their way with our own bad behavior. We all need to learn how to be firm and respond in love without making bad situations worse.