Suffering!

This can’t be right, we think. Either there is no God or God is mad at me. He can’t be with me or this wouldn’t be happening.


Timothy Keller writes eloquently of suffering. His gentle perspective helps me to make sense of the things my mind refuses to understand. Here is an excerpt from his sermon "Christian Hope and Suffering."

Suffering: The Servant of Our Joy

Timothy Keller

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

2 Corinthians 4:16-17

We live in a unique culture. Every other society before ours has been more reconciled to the reality that life is full of sorrow. If you read the journals of people who lived before us, it is obvious they understood this, and that they were not surprised by suffering. We are the first culture to be surprised by suffering. When Paul writes to the people of his day, “We do not lose heart, though outwardly we are wasting away,” he speaks of suffering as a given.


Greek scholars will tell you Paul was not just talking about the body as wasting away, but about life in this visible world. He was saying that everything in this world is wearing away. Everything is steadily, irreversibly falling apart.


Our bodies are wearing away. Our hearts are like wind-up clocks with a finite number of clicks that are clicking away. Our physical appearance and attractiveness are wearing away, and we can’t stop it. Our relationships are wearing away. Get a group of friends around you, and time and circumstance will eventually pull you apart. Our families are wearing away, dying off one at a time. Our skills are wearing away. You can’t stay on top of your game forever. Everything is like a wave on the sand. You can’t pin it down; it starts to recede from you.


Paul writes about “wasting away” to a group of people who have suggested that he can’t be trusted, that God is obviously not with him. One reason Paul can’t be trusted they suggest, is that he has experienced an inordinate number of tragedies and difficulties. And, in fact, Paul makes a list of them in 2 Corinthians 11:24-28.


The people in Corinth were saying, How can God be with a man when all that stuff happens to him? Surely when God’s with you he protects you. When God is with you, you prosper. I’ve been traveling the Mediterranean all my life and I’ve never been shipwrecked, and this guy has been shipwrecked three times?


It’s similar to the thinking of Job’s friends had about Job’s suffering. Job’s friends said If God is with you, this wouldn’t happen. God can’t be with you. If he was, he’d protect you.


And we ask ourselves the same thing, don’t we, when one thing after another goes wrong, when we’ve reached the bottom and find out there’s lower to go?


This can’t be right, we think. Either there is no God or God is mad at me. He can’t be with me or this wouldn’t be happening.


How does Paul respond to this premise? Paul doesn’t just say God is with him. He goes further. He says that the suffering and hardship he has experienced is not a denial of the gospel, but a confirmation of the gospel.


He writes, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; we always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you” (2 Cor. 4:8-12).


Paul is saying that the way of the gospel is death leading to resurrection, weakness resulting in triumphant exaltation. Paul is saying that the way the gospel works in Jesus’ life is the way it is working in his life. He’s saying that just as Jesus’ suffering and death led to greater life, he is finding that the same thing is happening in his life. “My deaths seem to lead to greater life,” he’s saying.


The suffering he experiences because he is trying to minister lead to greater life in other people’s lives, as they hear the gospel and experience spiritual life.


And this doesn’t just happen in the lives of people in professional ministry. I know a number of people—doctors and lawyers and the like, who, rather than stepping onto the ladder of professional and financial upward mobility, have decided to serve under-served people. They’ve given their lives to working with the poor in places off the beaten path. And when a person does that, they fall out of the structure of their profession. They kind of go off the radar, and find they can’t advance. But they also find that their career death produces greater life.


When we suffer for doing the right thing, when we choose to live unselfishly, we find that our “death” leads to greater life for those around us.


But is it not only people around us who experience greater life when we suffer. In Romans 5:3-5 Paul says, “We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perservance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”


Now what is he saying there? He’s saying, “My suffering not only leads to greater life in those around me, but in me.”


It’s like what happens to an acorn. Do you know how much power there is in an acorn? An entire huge tree can come out of a small little acorn. And out of that tree can come innumerable other trees. One acorn has the power to fill a continent with wood.


But only if it dies. Only if it “falls to the ground and dies” (John 12:24) is that enormous power released.


Every human soul in the image of God has infinitely more life potential than an acorn. Every soul as the capacity for compassion, beauty, greatness, composure, and character—but it will not be released until there is a death, the death that comes through suffering and trials.


Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it cannot bear life. Suffering leads to life, but that seed has to fall to the ground.


What God said to Jesus and to Paul, and what he says to us is, “My power always comes to perfection through weakness. My power can only explode into your life through your weakness.”


Death in us will work life in us and in others around us. That’s our hope.

A God of Judgment Can't be a God of Love

Reading a book called "The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism," by Timothy Keller. It is a mind-waker-upper (if there is such a phrase). An excerpt grabbed my tired mind as I was laying in bed reading and kept such hold on my thoughts that I had to get up and write it.

A God of Judgment Can't be a God of Love. "I always start my response by pointing out that all loving persons are sometimes filled with wrath, not just despite of but because of their love. If you love a person and you see someone ruining them—even they themselves—you get angry. As Becky Pippert puts it in her book Hope Has Its Reasons:


'Think how we feel when we see someone we love ravaged by unwise actions or relationships. Do we respond with benign tolerance as we might toward strangers? Far from it.…Anger isn’t the opposite of love. Hate is, and the final form of hate is indifference.…God’s wrath is not a cranky explosion, but his settled opposition to the cancer …which is eating out the insides of the human race he loves with his whole being.'"

Under the subtitle "A Loving God Would Not Allow Hell," He writes:

"A common image of hell in the Bible is that of fire. Fire disintegrates. Even in this life we can see the kind of soul disintegration that self-centeredness creates. We know how selfishness and self-absorption leads to piercing bitterness, nauseating envy, paralyzing anxiety, paranoid thoughts, and the mental denials and distortions that accompany them. Now ask the question: 'What if when we die we don’t end, but spiritually our life extends into eternity?' Hell, then, is the trajectory of a soul, living a self-absorbed, self-centered life, going on and on forever.…What is astonishing [referencing Luke 16:24-31, Lazarus and the rich man], is that though their statuses have been reversed, the rich man seems to be blind to what has happened. He still expects Lazarus to be his servant and treats him as his water boy. He does not ask to get out of hell, yet strongly implies that God never gave him and his family enough information about the afterlife. Commentators have noted the astonishing amount of denial, blame-shifting, and spiritual blindness in this soul in hell. They have also noted that the rich man, unlike Lazarus, is never given a personal name. He is only called a “Rich Man,” strongly hinting that since he had built his identity on his wealth rather than on God, once he lost his wealth he lost his sense of a self.


"In short, hell is simply one’s freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory into infinity. We see this process “writ small” in addiction to drugs, alcohol, gambling, and pornography. First, there is disintegration, because as time goes on you need more and more of the addictive substance to get an equal kick, which leads to less and less satisfaction. Second, there is the isolation, as increasingly you blame others and circumstances in order to justify your behavior. “No one understands! Everyone is against me!” is muttered in greater and greater self-pity and self-absorption. When we build our lives on anything but God, that thing—though a good thing—becomes an enslaving addiction, something we have to have to be happy. Personal disintegration happens on a broader scale. In eternity, this disintegration goes on forever. There is increasing isolation, denial, delusion, and self-absorption. When you lose all humility you are out of touch with reality. No one ever asks to leave hell. The very idea of heaven seems to them a sham."

SUMMER!

August 22, 2010: Sitting on my deck

A humid, balmy, late afternoon with ever so slight a breeze to brush past damp skin and hair. Clouds pinkish underneath and the cicada drowning out the noise from the street below. In the distance the sounds of a street basketball game—thump, thump, boys voices shouting, thump, thump. Air conditioners on the houses below cycling on and off in a chorus of hums.


Summer! How I love summer.

LESSONS FROM SAILING

Years ago I was fortunate to experience the wonder of sailing. My brother-in-law was a master sailor, having sailed in Americas Cup, Southern Ocean Circuit and English Channel regattas. He worked for a crusty boat builder in Rye, New York and from time to time we were to experience the privilege of taking out a sailing vessel for a test run. We sailed on everything from small blue jays to 47 foot yawls. I fondly remember one outing with a couple who had sailed over from Australia. True sailors these, and the accents—“Coming about mate” (also known as "tacking"), or “Man the helm mate,” certainly enhanced the romance of the experience.




I recall especially one weekend outing on a 47 foot yawl named Caroline, newly decked out in teak and holly, with new bright work in the galley. She was magnificent, all wood hull and streamlined. We met before sunset at the boatyard and I watched, always amazed, as my husband and brother-in-law worked almost as a choreographed dance, adjusting rigging, and the multitudes of details required before setting sail. As we motored out of the boatyard, into the open water, there was a magic moment when the motor shut down and the only sound was a buoy off in the distance gently clanging a melancholy melody. I moved to the bow of the boat, clear to the end and sat as the sun set and the motion of the sea rocked me back and forth. The solitude was breathtaking.


Suddenly, the crew of two set the sails and in a swift motion, the 60 foot high mast became alive with dancing white canvas and as the wind caught the canvas it cracked and lifted the vessel up and away like a kite barely touching water on the tops of the swells. There is nothing like it in all the world.


The following day my brother-in-law began instructing me in navigation. I wasn't a believer at that time, but the lessons seemed to have embedded themselves into my memory to be retrieved later, when I would very much need them. He stood behind me at the helm as I steered and talked seaman language which I did not understand—tacking, leeward, windward, etc., (most of which I can't remember), but when I asked him how to know, in that vast ocean, which direction to steer, he showed me a tiny light on the horizon—a distant light on shore—which he had found when setting the course of our trip, and he said that I must keep my eyes on that light, focusing only on that and steering only towards the light. He had set the course by compass, as it matched that light. He then left me alone as I attempted to steer the vessel. The light bobbed in the distance, barely visible and at times it seemed to disappear altogether. When the light disappeared, I looked at the compass and could see that even though I could not see the light, I could tell that we were still on course and then the light would reappear and I felt safe again.


Tacking involved swiftly changing the direction of the sails from one side of the craft to the other, throwing the boom across the boat to the other side and you ducked or you were thrown off the boat. And then, you must find the light again, because the wind has shifted, but you must stay the course.


Keeping eyes fixed on the light. When the light disappears, check the compass to make sure you are still on course. When the wind shifts, duck and stay the course.


Isaiah 26:3 tells us that "He will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is fixed on Him because he trusts in Him." Keeping your eyes on the light equals perfect peace. Keeping your eyes fixed on the water, or the boat, or anything else means you lose your peace.


When the light seems to have gone behind a swell, check the compass—the Word of God—to regain your bearings and to remind you that you are on course even during the storm—even when it feels like your whole life just turned upside down.


When the wind shifts, hunker down because things are going to shift and everything will seem confused for a time. But the light never moves and the compass is always accurate. Those things are absolute. Even in a squall which rises suddenly from seemingly nowhere, tossing you to and fro, those things are absolute.


I loved sailing. It seemed to put everything into perspective.

Shekinah

Shekinah (Shawkanaw) Hebrew root “Shakan” = to reside or permanently stay; abide, continue; dwell; have habitation, inhabit, lay, place, (cause to) remain, rest, set (up).




In a recent article in Zion’s Fire, by Kevin Howard, I was riveted as I read about the Shekinah glory as it is described in Scripture. I have read similar things before, but this time a fresh revelation of it seemed to penetrate my Spirit (dividing between the “soul” and the “spirit” as described in Hebrews 4:12).


I believe for many of us who are followers of Jesus, this longing for Heaven is being felt more keenly in the midst of a world turning rapidly toward evil. It may be my age. With much of my life behind me, this thing called “eternity” which is engraved upon my heart, is becoming more pronounced. But I hear this same longing in those much younger than I. I believe we are nearing that time and as Hebrews 10:25 tells us, we must not forsake the assembling of ourselves together to encourage and edify one another “especially as the day draws near.” That last line is not just tagged on—it carries great weight. We need each other. Please hear this: We Need Each Other! We are fellow sojourners in a foreign land and we are coming to a time when we will find comfort and support in our fellow sojourners.


This passage of scripture, using the original Greek meanings of the words may read more like:


“Let us not leave behind in some place, desert or forsake the complete collection of the body of Christ—meeting for worship and gathering together for the purpose of calling near, inviting, invoking, beseeching, comforting, intreating and praying for each other, and more and more as the period of the age of judgment is approaching.”


As this picture of bedraggled saints clinging to one another as darkness approached, was painted vividly before my eyes, I was drawn deeper into a place of holy awe as the image of the Shekinah began to sketch itself out onto a canvas before me. Artists begin a canvas with a rough sketch and then paint in areas in patches of color, leaving the details for last. On this canvas, the sketches that God painted through the writings of Old Testament prophets and poets and through the little "pictures" of Himself through events and people, were but line drawings of what was to come. Perhaps it is time we gaze at the painting again to see what fresh insights He has for us “as the day draws near.”


King David passionately exclaimed , “Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house and the place where thine honour (His glory) dwelleth” (Ps. 26:8). He was referring to the holy Temple, the place of God’s glory. The Temple stands alone. God’s glory sanctified the Temple, made it holy, and set it apart from all other buildings in history.


The meaning in Hebrew of the word “glory” is Kavod. It is related to the Hebrew word which means “Heavy.” The word is used hundreds of times in Scripture. His glory is His weight. It is everything about Him which impresses His creatures, and gives Him influence and honor with them. The Bible commands us to glorify or give glory to God. The psalmist equated this to worship, “Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness” (Ps. 29:2). When used as a verb, glorify means "to assign weight to something. To give honor, respect or praise or to recount what impresses a person." Glorifying God is the very heart of worship. It is telling God what is weighty and impressive about Him and why He is so worthy of devotion and praise. “The word ‘worship’ has lost its clarity, but the word from the Old English was ‘worthship.’ Some would define worship in man-centered terms; whether they sensed God speak, felt a heightened sense of emotion, or utilized a certain music style or posture. But Biblical worship by definition always focuses on God’s worthiness. This is Biblical worship. The Westminister Confession of Faith states: “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” Man was created to glorify God.”


Throughout the Scriptures, God manifested His glory in the form of fire, described as a glory-fire column of both fire and smoke. As fire, it radiated light. As a dense cloud of smoke, it was dark and billowed with movement. God was in both." Thus, in times when I have experienced the radiant light of Jesus, felt His presence and heard from Him, I have been in that column of light; glory-fire. However, and more importantly, when I have experienced a time of dark billowing smoke, not hearing from Him, not feeling His presence, and feeling He was not hearing me, I was still in the presence of the glory fire, the column of smoke—it just looked and felt different, but the light and the dark are the same to Him. (If you don’t believe me, check out Ps. 18:11 “He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies”; Ps 88:6 “Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps”; Ps 88:18 “Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness”; Ps 97:2 “Clouds and darkness are round about him: righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne”; Ps 139:12 “Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.”).


Darkness and light are both alike to Him. He is in both. God is in this. He is in the good times, the times of blessing and refreshing; and He is in the times of shadow and storm.


“The glory of the Lord blazed with fire. Its fire was enfolding, drawing tightly back into itself instead of fanning out. This swirling, fiery cloud flashed with interior bursts of lightning. It was surrounded by a brilliant halo of light which lit up the sky.” Ezekiel saw God’s glory approaching and saw more of its terrifying detail with winged beings, “lightning and fire flashing between them above a bed of red-hot coals and the light source at the cloud’s core—the Lord, in the form of both man and fire, sitting on a stunning sapphire-blue throne, brilliant light emanating from Him and a bright rainbow encircling His throne.” Ezekiel fell to the ground at the sight. “Shakah”, the true meaning of worship—“fall face down.”


"The glory-fire was a living person. It was more than elemental fire or smoke. The glory-fire was divine in nature. The glory-fire was a separate person of the Godhead. The glory-fire was the visible sign of God’s presence.


“The meaning of the glory-fire was so evident that post-biblical rabbis simply called it the Shekinah (dwelling) glory. That is, the Shekinah glory indicated the dwelling of God’s presence in their midst. Shekinah is derived from the root verb “shakan” (to dwell, abide, rest upon) and is related to the Hebrew word for Tabernacle (mishkan), dwelling place. Literally, the Dwelling Glory (Shekinah) dwelt (shakan) in the Dwelling Place (mishkan) or Tabernacle. The Shekinah always signified the dwelling of God’s presence. The Targum Onkelos, an ancient Aramaic translation of the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses, substituted the word Shekinah everywhere the term ‘my name’ occurred in Scripture.


“In Numbers 6, God gave Aaron and his sons a benediction by which they were to bless Israel. In this blessing, He alluded to His Shekinah glory: ‘The Lord bless you and keep you: The Lord cause His face to shine upon you’ (Numbers 6:24-25). This shining of God’s face is seen elsewhere in Scripture as well. 'Presence' and 'Face' are the same word in the Hebrew (panim). To be in one’s presence is to be before his face. The Shekinah glory was God’s face upon Israel.”


The Shekinah was manifested at the birth of Messiah in the announcement to the Shepherds and the star of the wisemen. The star was the Shekinah, not some alignment of planets—it moved and led them as they traveled. The Shekinah was seen in the transfiguration as Jesus changed in appearance so that He radiated as the sun. God spoke from a bright cloud (the Shekinah) at the same time. The meaning of this was not lost on the Gospel writers; John wrote “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt (tabernacled) among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). After His resurrection, as He overlooked the Temple from the Mount of Olives, a “cloud received Him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9). The cloud was the Shekinah.


Ten days after Jesus ascended in the Shekinah, after He had instructed the disciples to go back to Jerusalem and “wait,” the Shekinah fell upon them in tongues of fire. It not only fell on them, it entered into them. The New Covenant, promised—sketched out upon the canvas as a rough sketch to Ezekiel and Jeremiah and others--that one day through the indwelling of His Spirit, God would put His law “in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts” so that a future generation would be indwelt and empowered for righteousness by the Spirit of the Living God dwelling within them. The Shekinah—the Glory Fire—the Tabernacle—would now be in us.


Does this not bring to life Colossians 1:26-27 “… the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in [in=fixed position in place, time or state] you, the hope of glory.”


The Shekinah is in me. He is in me in a fixed position in place, time and state and I am in Him in the very same way. There is no separation between us. Romans 8:38-39 are true—there is nothing that can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus—not even I myself can separate Him from me or me from Him.


The painting was near completion, all the drawings, sketches and color samplings ended up to be the Shekinah hanging on a cross—but the real completion—the unveiling of the finished product—was the Shekinah bursting out in that light energy from the depths of hell and then descending upon a bedraggled group of frightened believers who had no idea what was to become of them, but who obediently sat waiting as their Messiah had instructed. The Shekinah fell onto them and entered into them, coming in waves and waves of radiant flashing, fiery light to a “fixed position in place, time and state.”


What is our response to such things? Christ, the Shekinah of Old Testament mystery, dwelling in me! I fall face down in worship. I give up my right to have things my way in this temporal place on this fallen planet. I volunteer to walk in the Heavenly places in Christ Jesus agreeing with His will for my life and my plans and my future (even the areas of ministry and service I thought He had called me into). I agree to “abide in Him and He in me” (John 15:4). That is all, really: To worship who he really is; to agree with Him and surrender; and to abide in Him.


Really! That is the Life. He is the Life. His Life is in me. His “glory-fire” is in me. His glory-fire will shine out and emanate from within me.


Imagine that, meditate on it and most of all—believe it! And then remember Hebrews 10:25 and realize the connection between this little bedraggled band of Christians huddled together as the world grows dark and the original little band of Christians huddled together in that upper room waiting for something they knew not and remember, that the same Shekinah glory that entered into them is now in us. Jesus had “breathed” on them and given them the Holy Spirit before He ascended into Heaven. They had the Holy Spirit. Now they were going to be transformed from the inside out by the indwelling Shekinah, the glory-fire of the Holy Spirit. Our instructions are the same:


Ro 8:25 But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.


Ga 5:5 For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.


Joh 15:1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.


Jas 5:7 Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.


Wait.

"IN THE LAST DAYS PEOPLE WILL . . "

IN THE LAST DAYS PEOPLE WILL …




Beth Moore does it again. Using one of my favorite verses, 2 Cor. 10:5, she emphasizes that we have divine power (are “mighty through God” according to the NKJV), to demolish strongholds. The weapons we are fighting with are not carnal, or natural, they are supernatural. Why do we need supernatural weapons? Because we fight a supernatural, other-worldly, evil, enemy. Our weapons are divinely powerful for this fight. We are Mighty Through God to tear down the strongholds of the enemy.


Again, in 2 Tim. 3:1-5, Beth cuts through the “prophecy-info fatigue” (my description), of the subject of the last days and presents 2 Tim. 3 in an entirely new light. “In the last days, people will …” “Other prophecies refer to natural disasters in the last days. This verse refers to people.” This verse defines the times as ‘terrible’ and will be a social phenomena rather than natural or environmental. We will fear people more than the natural disasters because of the condition of the people during this time.


“Seventeen characteristics fall between two profoundly purposeful bookends. ‘People will be lovers of themselves…rather than lovers of God.’ Bookends. Lovers of self means ‘friends of self;’ lovers of God means ‘friends of God.’


“It is the great war between the great I AM and the little ‘i am.’”


Have you noticed the frequency of the “i” in almost every item on the market? i-pod, i-pad, i-phone, i-touch, etc. etc. The little “i am” is everywhere it seems. What I wrote in yesterday’s blog about the real battle—between my glory and God’s glory—is evident in these verses.


Beth dissects the words found in 2 Tim. 3:1-5:


“Abusive—a word in Greek that especially emphasizes speech.” The growing phenomena of abusive speech. I know for a fact that abusive speech is a product of the baby-boomer generation because my Dad was constantly dismayed at the movies from the 60s on because they portrayed the military of the WWII years as using foul language, such as had become the norm in the 60s. He said they didn’t talk like that when he was in the war. Imagine, going through the horrors of WWII and not hearing that kind of abusive speech, at least not having every sentence peppered with the “f-bomb”. Yet today, it is a second language, you can’t escape it. You hear it wherever you go and it has become an acceptable norm. But it wasn’t always so. This phenemona began in the cultural revolution of the 1960s. I can attest to it; I was there.


“Without Love (Greek astorgoi)—hard-hearted toward kindred.” This phrase is referring to a specific type of love—that of love toward family; family love. This, according to the passage is something that will intensify as the return of Christ draws close. The abortion tragedy shows itself in this second generation since the Roe v Wade ruling. Children are subconsciously conditioned now to believe that their lives were worth very little if their parent could have opted to kill them before they were born. Life has lost its value because of the abortion tragedy. People feel less valued, so they value others less. This passage of scripture defines a lack of even the normal compassion linking families together.


“Unforgiving—irreconcilable … without treaty. To the degree that we are selfish and self-centered we will be unforgiving. The bigger we are to ourselves, the more unforgiving we will be.” I believe that if I could name one core stronghold that holds more Christians in bondage than any other thing it would be unforgiveness. In discipleship of Christian women, it is almost always necessary to work through the process of Godly forgiveness before any other issues can be dealt with and healed. Unforgiveness not only holds the unforgiving person in terrible bondage, it holds the unforgiven person in bondage. Until the ties that connect them are severed, both suffer in the “above-the-line” and in the “temporal” realm.


“Slanderous—diabolos—accusatory (see also Titus 2:3). When we slander people, we are doing the devil’s work”, for he is the accuser of the brethren. When we accuse and criticize others, we are co-workers with Satan himself. The same word is used in Titus 2:3 when referring to the older women teaching the younger women. They are not to be slanderous, which could also translate “she-devil.”


“Brutal—untamed. Translated from the Greek which implies animal life. Base, natural instincts, loveless sex, lack of manners, rude.


“Treacherous—traitors, ready to betray their friends. Selfish people are betrayers of friendships.” When they have got what they need from a friendship and their needs are no longer being met by you, they will leave you behind without any regret. Combine this with being “hard-hearted toward kindred” and you have the recipe for most of the break-ups of marriages. Add in “without treaty” and you can see why it has become so easy for the “treaty” or “covenant” of marriage vows to be so easily broken in today’s culture. It wasn’t always so. This is a “last days” phenomena, which also began in our culture during the 60s revolution.


“Conceited—swollen with self-importance” Beth paints this in descriptive language “A Big, Bloated ME.” When we are driven by “ME,” we are bloated, swollen.


“Interestingly, 11 out of 18 vices begin with something in Greek called an ‘alpha-privation,’ an ‘a’ at the beginning of a word corresponding with our English ‘un’” It is the “un” of everything we were designed by God to do and be. Unloving, unforgiving, un-humane, un-loyal, etc.


People will argue that these things have always been around, that nothing which we see happening today is any different than any other time period in history. Yet, speaking as one who was growing up in the 1950s and early 1960s, I can say with absolute certainty, that the world I live in today is not the same as the world I lived in then. I seemed to have been aware, even at the time when I was 17 years old in 1967, that something terribly wrong was happening. There was a sense for many of us that a cultural shift had taken place. All of the norms and more`s were changing before our eyes. I recall how slowly and progressively, young people who had never used the “F” word, were trying it out, embarrassed and awkward at first, but gradually it became a part of their vocabulary.


So, it seems that, as I have always believed, since the 1960s and specifically since the 1967 six-day war for Jerusalem (since Israel is God’s time-clock for prophetic happenings), the last of the “last days” may be upon us and if this is true, then this generation, this peculiar description of culture gone wrong listed in the 2 Tim. 3:1-5 passage, is evidence of this.


But, we are “Mighty through God” Write that on the tablet of your heart—it is the truth that will get you through these times.

That I May Know You

"You are my witnesses," declares the LORD, "and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me” (Is. 43:10).

“The best grapes are those which have been held in a delicate balance between life and death. Stress produces the best wine.” (Wells)

“The true test of faith is not how much we believed for and received from God, but by how long we have waited while receiving nothing.” (Wells)

Beth Moore lists five benefits of our covenant relationship with God based on the book of Isaiah: 1) To know God and believe Him; 2) To glorify God; 3) To find satisfaction in God; 4) To experience God’s peace; 5) To enjoy God’s presence.


“Any benefit missing in our individual lives for any length of time is an indicator of a stronghold, an area of defeat.” (Moore)


“The first benefit of our covenant relationship with God is to know God and believe Him. Isaiah states the primary purpose of a witness: ‘Let them bring in their witnesses to prove they were right, so that others may hear and say, ‘"It is true."’


“We are never more beautiful portrayals of mortals who know and believe God than when others can look at our lives, hear our testimonies, and say ‘It is true.’” (Moore)


Beth asks in the workbook that we list someone who helped authenticate some part of God’s Word as a witness to us. I thought long and hard and was surprised to realize that those who have helped authenticate some part of God’s word as a witness to me were those who had suffered yet still believed God. There is a quality about this that haunts my mind, the radiant faces of those who have suffered loss, sometimes loss after loss, yet because they “knew their God” they believed Him and waited patiently for Him. They allowed the cruel irons to become a part of them and the pain became their healing; the pain burned off the dross of the self-life. (Speaking of Joseph, the psalmist writes, "His feet they hurt with fetters; he was laid in iron" (KJV). The Greek translation of this verse renders a different view of this Scripture: "Joseph’s soul entered into iron—entered, whole and entire in its resolve to obey God, into the cruel torture.") Those who have embraced having their souls enter into the iron, radiate the face of Jesus in their countenance. They know Him. They don’t love Him because of what He may do for them. They love Him because they know Him.


“. . . that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death. . .” (Phil. 3:10 NKJV).


I emphasize “that I may know Him” and “the fellowship of His sufferings” in this verse because most of us desire with all of our heart, mind and strength to know the “power of His resurrection.” We desire to see Him operate in powerful and miraculous ways—we want to prove to the world how powerful our God is and we mistakenly believe this is accomplished by demonstrations of the power of His resurrection; “Look! Look what God has done. He paid my bills. He got me this amazing job. He healed my child. He helped me to become a success in my business!”


Yet, it is really the two bookends of this verse that have all the power for life. Bookend number one, chief and foremost “that I may know Him.”


When I came back to Him after wandering away for eight years, bitter over a failed marriage and lots of unanswered prayers, that was my only request of Him. "I have to Know You! I don’t want to know about other’s experiences of You. I don’t want to hear another sermon about You. I don’t want to read another book about You. I have to know YOU.”


He sat me down, handed me only the Bible and said to me, “You will find me here.”


And I began to read. I sat for three years, only reading His word. I read it through new eyes, not eyes desiring to find arguments for my case or to back up my theology and doctrines or even to find comfort and guidance. I read it with His eyes. I saw Him. I saw Him giving and giving and giving to His chosen people; loving them and pleading with them to see Him, to believe Him, to remember the things He had done for them in the past, to love Him back! Yet they only could look at their present circumstances and murmur and complain that He wasn’t doing anything for them now.


Still, He loved them.


I saw myself maybe for the first time as I read. I saw that I was one of them. I was a murmurer and complainer. And then I saw the most marvelous and amazing truth—a truth that transformed me. I saw that He still loved me. He loved me not because of my goodness, but because He is love and I am not. I saw my true self and at the ripe age of 40 years old, I repented in dust and ashes for the first time in my life because of His love, not because of His discipline. “…the goodness of God leads you to repentance” (Rom. 2:4b) I cried out to Him “Oh God, I don’t love You. I have wanted You to love me, but I have never loved You. My heart is small and hard—I am asking one thing of You now—enlarge this heart of mine to become a heart of love for You and only You.”


And, I fell in love with Him. Isaiah 26:9 and Ps. 63: 1-7 became my life verses and remain so to this day as day by day I ran into His great arms and told Him everything as soon as I got up in the morning. He began to read the Word to me, so that I would see what He really wanted me to see and understand; reading it became the joy of my life. Isaiah 26: 9 and Ps. 63:1-7 became my prayer to Him. All other prayers, supplications and petitions fell under this one single request “That I may know You!”


If we are honest with Him, our prayers will sound something like this: “Lord, please fix my circumstances. Lord, use me powerfully. Direct me in obvious ways today. Make me successful Lord, so that I can glorify You.”


Listen carefully to Jesus in these verses, meditate on them. Ask Him to conform you into this, no matter the cost, make this your one desire and only prayer in life.

“With my soul I have desired You in the night, Yes, by my spirit within me I will seek You early” (Isaiah 26:9)

“O GOD, You are my God; early will I seek You; my inner self thirsts for You, my flesh longs and is faint for You, in a dry and weary land where no water is; so I have looked upon You in the sanctuary, to see Your power and Your glory. Because Your loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You. So will I bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your Name. My whole being shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatnesss; and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips, when I remember You upon my bed, and meditate on You in the night watches. For You have been my help, and in the shadow of Your wings will I rejoice. My whole being follows hard after You and clings closely to You; Your right hand upholds me” (Ps. 63:1-8 AMP).