Tag Romans

The Battle Between Good and Evil: A Quint of Quotes

Todd R 5 Comments

Dear fellow travelers,

Here is another “Quint of Quotes” from my collection, five quotes on the theme of good vs evil:

“The majority of us begin with the bigger problems outside and forget the one inside.  A man has to learn ‘the plague of his own heart’ before his own problems can be solved” – Oswald Chambers

“I think the battle between good and evil is fought largely within the individual human heart, by the decisions that we make. It’s not like evil dresses up in black clothing and you know, they’re really ugly” – Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin

“When people do bad things in the name of religion people say religion is inherently bad; When people do bad things in the name of profit people say profit is inherently bad; When people do bad things in the name of science people say science is inherently bad; When people do bad things in the name of government people say government is inherently bad; but have you noticed that every one of these is ‘people do bad things’ but when you say people do bad things because people are inherently bad, people say you are a mean person and out of your mind.” – Anonymous internet comment

“The line separating good and evil passes, not through states, not between political parties either, but right through all human hearts.”  -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.  For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.  Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” – the apostle Paul, in Romans 7:21-25

Christians are So Unlikable

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Mahatma Gandhi is sometimes quoted as saying “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

People often think this statement is shocking and the world is expert at finding hypocrisy, as if evidence of hypocrisy determines the loser of every argument.

But what’s really shocking is “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die – but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:6-8

The first quote exalts Jesus as an admirable example that others don’t live up to. The second quote explains that the only reason we are able to exalt Him at all is that He did not abandon us. The sins of mankind, including Christians, only amplify the magnitude of Christ’s love in His sacrifice. I wouldn’t be here to write this otherwise. Christians being bad people is not news, because everyone is a sinner.

Would anyone prefer that God judge everyone who was not like Christ on their own merits? Gandhi’s quote seems to want that, without considering the true implications.

Jesus alone, crucified and risen, is the Way. There is no other plan.

May His grace overwhelm us today. We all need it and need to share it.

Job’s Forgiveness

Todd R 1 Comment

The story of Job is a fascinating, dramatic one, full of lessons for God’s people.  This post will focus on a couple of specific verses in the book, but first, some needed background: We learn at the beginning of the story that Job is a wealthy man, and also a man of impeccable character, who loves God and loves his family.  Satan accuses Job of only loving God for the good things God has given him and says that Job would curse God if these blessings were removed.  God permits Satan to torment Job to see what would happen, first killing all of his sons and daughters, and then striking him with sores covering his entire body.  Truly, Job was in agony.

Then the bulk of the book consists of a dialogue between Job and three of his friends who came to comfort him.  If you know the story, you will know that they did the opposite of comfort Job.  While we have the privilege of knowing that Job’s calamity was not the result of his sin, his friends make assumptions about why Job suffered.  They believed that because all these terrible things have happened, Job must have committed some terrible sin.  God is just, after all.  They urged Job to confess the sin or sins that brought death and sickness upon his family and him, and all the time we, the readers, know Job is innocent.  The dialogue goes on and on; I’d guess it’s about 35 chapters.

During this time, Job declares his innocence and cries out that God should hear his case and vindicate him.  Job tells his friends that they are not helping; they are no comfort to him.  They are wrong, he says repeatedly.  Yet, they don’t give up on their accusations and demand that Job confess and repent.  Imagine if you were in dire straits and this was how your friends treated you!  If it was me, I would find it very hard to forgive them.  I would find it impossible to continue being friends.  Yet that isn’t what happens.

In Job 42:7, God says to one of Job’s friends, Eliphaz: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.”  God rebukes the friends, not for lacking compassion or sympathy, but because their theology made assumptions about God and about Job that just weren’t true.  They didn’t represent God well during the long dialogue.  Job may have felt vindicated at this point in the story.  He could have said “look, God agrees with me” and wonder what punishment was coming for these “friends.”  Again, this isn’t what happens.

This is what God says next in Job 42:8, “Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.”  God wants Job to intercede with Him for his friends, who are to provide the sacrifices.  Job doesn’t hold a grudge or demand apologies or vengeance, but he offers sacrifices for them so that they can be forgiven!

If I was in Job’s place, I can’t believe that it would be that easy to forgive after what his friends put him through at a time when he really needed friends.  They only made him feel worse, and the physical and psychological wounds were still fresh.  Regardless, we get no indication that Job hesitated or forgave reluctantly, just that he did it, and that “the LORD accepted Job’s prayer.” (v 9)

In this matter, Job was foreshadowing Christ, His sacrifice, and His forgiveness, because as Paul wrote in Romans 5:7-8, “For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die – but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  Then in the second half of Colossians 3:13, Paul wrote: “as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”

God didn’t wait for us to come around and get straightened out before He died for us and forgave us; He died for people who were sinners, while they were sinners.  We weren’t even born yet, and He still died for us, knowing what we would be like – unrighteous sinners.  He also expects us to forgive as He did, and as Job did with his friends, even though it can be unnatural and hard.

Have you experienced God’s radical forgiveness?  If so, is there someone who needs your forgiveness?  Think of how hard it would have been for Job to forgive his friends, and know that forgiveness is possible in all circumstances, because God has made it possible.

“As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”

Amen.

Freeing Ourselves from the Man in the Mirror

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In Deuteronomy Moses reviews the giving of the Ten Commandments and reminds us that he didn’t just come down from the mountain with the Commandments written on tablets as we sometimes imagine, but that the “LORD spoke with you [Israel] face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire”[1]  Terrified of this manifestation of God, the people responded “we will hear and do it.”[2]

God was pleased that the people pledged their obedience, but lamented to Moses in Deuteronomy 5:29, “Oh that they had such a heart as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever!”  In this statement, our Holy, all-knowing God makes 2 points: that obeying Him is in Israel’s best interest, and also that they don’t always do it.  Not only did they not always obey Him, but they often didn’t have “such a heart” for it.  They didn’t even intend to obey Him, whether neglectfully or intentionally.  Like ancient Israel, we often hear the Ten Commandments and the rest of God’s Word and instead of saying “we will hear and do it,” we continue along our own path.

James describes a similar scenario in a New Testament context:

“For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.  For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.  But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” – James 1:23-25

Photo by Jovis Aloor on Unsplash

James compares hearing God’s law to seeing in a mirror what we really look like: we look like sinners who fall short of perfect obedience and need God’s grace.  God didn’t give us His “perfect law” to condemn us, although because we aren’t perfect His law does condemn us.  He didn’t give the law to make us feel bad, although any of us can struggle with a guilty conscience.  He gave His commands because they’re what’s best for us, and along with them He gave His Son so we could find our way back to Him.  We are blessed when we do what He wants because God gave His commands so “that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever.”  For those with faith in Christ, God’s “perfect law” is a “law of liberty” that frees us to be blessed by acting on God’s will for us.  We have liberty not to sin.

But when we spend too much time looking in the mirror at ourselves, we risk feeling condemned and guilty.  We risk seeing God’s law and our failure to keep it as the end of the story.  Therefore, we must instead focus on our God of grace, who through Christ gives us liberty and freedom from condemnation and guilt.  As Paul wrote in Romans 8:1-2, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.”

When we don’t feel we have “such a heart” as to follow God always (which is probably often), let it drive us to dwell on the character of our God, who revealed Himself to Moses as “the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness”[3]

Don’t start with the man in the mirror.  Start with Him.

“When the outlook is grim, try the uplook!” – Warren Wiersbe

[1] Deuteronomy 5:4
[2] Deuteronomy 5:27
[3] Deuteronomy 34:6b

Things God Counts

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Fellow travelers,

Are you ever so fearful or anxious about something that you lose sleep about it? Are there things out of your control that you toss and turn over? Maybe it’s so bad that you even cry. If you’re like this, you’re definitely not alone, and in fact, King David struggled with this kind of anxiety.

In Psalm 56, David laments that his enemies are constantly out to get him, and then in verse 8, David wrote about God:

“You have kept count of my tossings;
            put my tears in your bottle.
            Are they not in your book?”

What David means is that God sees all of our anxiety and every detail about how it affects us.  He counts every time we toss and turn at night.  He counts every tear you cry, and keeps track of them all, because he cares.

This realization causes David to write in verses 10 and 11:

“In God, whose word I praise,
            in the LORD, whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.
            What can man do to me?”

Prayer or any religious practice won’t always cure anxiety, but as long as we suffer, God knows and cares about it.  We can trust Him to provide for us, sometime between now and eternity.

As Paul wrote about the glory of our salvation:

“If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”[1]

Amen

[1] Romans 8:31b-32