Tripping

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? -- Jeremiah 17:9

As you may know, the name “Jacob” means “supplanter”, i.e., “tripping up insidiously by the heel”.  Jacob went so far as to deceive (with his mother’s help – probably a whole other study) his own father in order to obtain the blessing he desired. 

There is always a danger and a snare that we risk deceiving ourselves as we attempt to obtain desired blessings from God.  To deceive God is impossible – and we realize that, for the most part.  Instead the heart hides from its intentions and refuses to accept and acknowledge its own motives and desires.  We justify our actions and do our best to make them sound noble, generous, and merciful.  All the sickness gets projected outward to those around us, the “system”, society, or even to God who is too harsh or demanding or judgmental or whatever it may be.

Jacob – and we are all Jacob – cheated his brother and fled from his justifiable anger.  But we have to wonder if Esau was all that bent on murder.  There’s no doubt that Jacob deserved a sound and solid whipping.  When the brothers meet after 20 years, Esau isn’t even concerned about that, and Jacob had found one more deceitful than himself in Laban at whose hands he had suffered. 

Often, when we deceive ourselves, we live in fear because something deep inside tells us we have acted perversely.  In fact, it could be that fear and dread are among the most common and sure signs that we have tried to fool ourselves.  If I find an area of fear in my life, I should look closely at it.  If I face it, I may find myself undeceived, as Jacob was.  It was on his way to deal with his deceptive heart that Jacob met the Angel of the Lord and wrestled with Him at ford of the Jabbok which he renamed Peniel for he had seen God face-to-face. 

As they struggled, the Lord asked a question of Jacob:  And he said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob (Genesis 32:27).  That is, he said, I am the deceptive one, the supplanter, the one who surreptitiously trips my brother from behind.  When God had the confession and the heart exposed, He could make a change:  Then he said, Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed (Genesis 32:28). 

Or, as John told us:  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).  Tell the truth.

What It's Good For

When their leaders are thrown down from a cliff, the wicked will listen to my words and find them true. — Psalm 141:6

You'd think that might be a Sarah Palin quote, or the Tea Party Platform circa 1000 BC.

Some evil is what we call "natural" evil — earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, etc. (If Bob were writing this he'd throw in Rosie O'Donnell or Helen Thomas, but I don't think I could throw either one of them very far.) Natural disasters are a function of the original satanic rebellion and the subsequent Fall of Man. Other evils originate in the human heart, which is, as Jeremiah said, "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked". Jeremiah adds that it is probably not possible for us to always know, or, perhaps better, to trust our own hearts.

Evil may come from within us, but it may also come from outside us. There is one devil. There are many spiritual entities that are opposed to God, and thus on the devil's side. Not all of our thoughts are our own. Paul speaks of "fiery darts" which the enemy launches at us. These are, primarily, thoughts. I've been told numerous times that the devil or the various members of the demonic hierarchy cannot read my mind. Possibly this is true. Possibly it is not. Shoot, sometimes I can read other people's thoughts. My dog and cats can read my thoughts on occasion. That the devil or his allies know what I am thinking or feeling does not imply that those entities are omniscient — they certainly are not. Either way, though, they have access to fire thoughts at me — thoughts and ideas that look very much like my own.

This is a very real battle. A primary tactic of the adversary is to cause us to think we are not under attack by an outside power. Sort of like Islam — hmmmm. The enemy will tell us that our problem originates within ourselves while the truth is that Christ dealt with the old nature of man on the Cross. We died with Christ, and we have been raised as new creations in Him. Over and over we are assured of this: that our lives are hid with Christ in God. Once you have started on the path with Christ, you are free of the bondage of the adamic self. The demonic allies work to reanimate the zombie-self in us because they can control it. If the enemy can get us to believe that we are still under the control of the flesh, we are hampered and at least partially defeated.

This is a little controversial. Many, if not most, Christians are oppressed by demonic spirits. They get to us. They lie and deceive, and, though we are not "possessed", we are certainly messed up.

I don't like this idea because I am inclined to take responsibility for my own bad behavior, and I am reluctant to blame anyone or anything else. In the end, of course, it is still my decision to do wrong, to say vile things or entertain perverse thoughts, to be angry, unforgiving or bitter. Nevertheless, if I were to know that this angry, violent, lustful, or ugly thought was not really my own, I would better know how to deal with it. The enemy uses these fiery darts very effectively. First, I am hit with a perverse thought, then I am told that there must be something wrong with me. After all, a real Christian would never have such a thing cross his mind.

The worst ones for me were the thoughts of worthlessness. I could battle well enough against most fleshly temptations, as I understood that, wherever they might originate, I needed to resist them. The one that got me was "you are such a disappointment". And it didn't matter to whom I was a disappointment. At one time it was to my parents, at another it was to my wife — even to myself. The thought that I never lived up to my potential could drag me down into the pit of despair where I would wallow in self-pity and, subsequently, self-indulgence because, after all, it no longer mattered.

For many years, I thought I was doing great. What I tended to forget was that I had a brother and sister in Christ who prayed for me every day. Every day. Not some days, not weekends, not Sundays in church. Those two battled on my behalf for the better part of two decades as I sailed along being blessed and prospering. Then one day, my friend fell gravely ill. His wife had to spend nearly every waking moment with him, more or less, watching him gradually deteriorate and die. A couple of weeks before he passed on, I found myself at an absolute low point and in one of the greatest crises of my life. My prayer shield was gone.

I had been coasting and now I was on my own. It took me a long time to figure out what had happened and to realize the great blessing those two had been. I'm sure my friend's widow still prays for me from time to time, but probably not with the same intensity. She is aging and has her own worries these days. I'm sure some people might think my troubles were just a coincidence, but I know better -- now.

If a Christian can be oppressed by the rulers of darkness, what of those who are still outside? How can they expect to be set free to even begin the fight? As a believer, I need to get past merely looking out for myself and start carrying the battle to the enemy on behalf of others.

Those of us who are stirred to seek God are moving into a spiritual realm where we are subject to attack by demonic entities. Those who are locked in the flatlands of materialism or negative religious traditions are more or less owned by demonic entities. Until those "rulers, ... authorities, ... world powers of darkness, ... and spiritual forces of evil" are thrown off a cliff, the unenlightened will remain unenlightened.

And while we're at it, there are some wounded warriors who could use a little help.

The Play is the Thing

We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?

Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.

Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.

This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us. – 1 John 3:16-24

Despite what we might think, our English word hypocrite is not transliterated from the ancient Greek word for socialist politician, nor is it from the related word for journalist. A hypocrite was an actor – though, admittedly, Hollywood elites do show an amazing affinity for fascist third-world dictators and warlords.

When Jesus called the Pharisees hypocrites, He was not implying merely that they said one thing and did another. He wanted His hearers to know that the Pharisees were actors, players in their own little production, pretending to be something they knew in their own hearts they were not. They spoke their lines and played their parts before the world, but their lives were another story. William Shatner was never a starship captain, and he knows that. Tom Cruise knew that he was not a Navy pilot. Sean Penn pretended to be Harvey Milk, but we know and he knows he is not a gay politician because he is married to Robin Wright was once pretended to be Princess Buttercup. Sean Penn also played a mentally challenged person in “I Am Sam” – the exception that proves the rule.

I have claimed to be a Christian for some years now, and I have also done things that are very un-Christian, even in that same time frame. My heart has not always been convinced that I am what I say I am. I have lived with self-condemnation. It is a miserable condition for a believer, and it is a condition that must be addressed. To live in that state of conflict for any length of time would surely result in insanity. John says that the remedy for condemnation is self-sacrificing love. Our actions, our deeds will reassure our hearts.

Who but God could have come up with such a counterintuitive plan for freeing us from the doubts of our heart? And it is the heart of man that is the whole problem. Jeremiah tells us that the heart of man is desperately wicked, and, he asks, who can know it? Yet God knows us perfectly. He does not need to be convinced. Our need is not to win Him over to our side. He’s already on our side, having made provision in His Son for us to be His children. Or, as Romans 8:32 says, He did not even spare His own Son, but offered Him up for us all; how will He not also with Him freely grant us everything?.

Our good actions do not secure salvation for us. They do not put God in our debt. There even seems to be something contradictory in thinking that we are “here to help others”. Isn’t everyone more or less in the same boat? Sure, some people are born with more limitations or disabilities than others, but most of us, apart from government bureaucrats, politicians, ACORN, and the SEIU, consider it undesirable to be freeloaders, dependent on someone else for our bread and NGC (non-government cheese).

The one who benefits from my doing right is most of all me because I am the one who doubts and feels alienated. I am the one who needs to be convinced and assured and confident in my standing in Christ. My obedient interactions in the horizontal translate to greater confidence and assurance in my vertical interaction. I can converse with God in complete faith that my prayers will be heard and answered for I now know that I am abiding in Christ.

I am not always going to feel “right” any more than I always feel married. If I were counseling potential brides and grooms, I’d tell them it isn’t how you feel that keeps your marriage intact, it’s what you do. If we allow our feelings to dictate our actions, we will soon find ourselves in despair. If, conversely, we do right, our feelings will follow our deeds.