Christ Invictus

In Judah God is known; his name is great in Israel. 

His abode has been established in Salem,

his dwelling place in Zion.

There he broke the flashing arrows,

the shield, the sword, and the weapons of war. Selah

-- Psalm 76:1-3

God is known in Judah – in praise, and He abides in Salem – peace. 

You don’t have to read any further.  

 The last few days have been hectic, calls for help from every quarter, everybody needing something right now.  It is my nature to try and please everyone.  One of the things I say most often is, “Don’t worry.  I will take care of it.”  Sometimes I can’t.  It might be because there aren’t enough hours in the day, because I’m not Ironman, or Einstein, or Jesus. 

Jesus, however, is Jesus, and His power exceeds that of any genius or superhero as the oceans exceed a raindrop carried on the breeze.  I can, on occasion, evade my enemies and solve my problems.  The hero can win the battle.  Jesus gives us peace. 

The Cross destroys all of the enemy’s weapons, and renders both the adversity and its allies powerless.  Heroes are conquerors.  We are more than conquerors through Him who loves us.  Not on some distant battlefield resplendent with banners and trumpets, not in the hazy, honeyed realm of heavenly imaginings, but right here, surrounded by challenges and difficulties, amid our pain and hurt, our anger and anguish, our suffering and our fears, we are at peace. 

In the dust and dirt and decay of everyday life, we speak the praises of God and make His presence known to our circumstances.  As we are pressed, we are at peace.  We are in the light, though thick darkness may obscure the path ahead.  As we move forward, the light goes with us.  We are not the Light, but the Light abides in us, and we in Him, and the darkness cannot overcome us.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.  We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;  persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed … (2 Corinthians 4:7-9)

Fool's Gold and Chains

 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. -- 1 Peter 2:16

How high would be the wall to imprison an eagle?

We should live as people who are free because, as we are in Christ, we are free.  The only bondage in life is sin along with its adherents and consequences, and by His Cross, Jesus set us free from both the penalty and power of sin.  

 If I had to boil down my definition of evil to its essence it would be taking the freedom of another – through intimidation, manipulation, oppression, theft, mayhem or murder.  The means, legal or otherwise, are unimportant.  Hemming someone in and denying them their rightful choices as a fellow human being is evil.  Taking what belongs to someone else by force, stealth or subterfuge is taking a part of that person’s life, robbing them of the time they invested in serving, cultivating, or creating. 

I tend to think Peter would agree with me.  He told Cornelius about Jesus by saying:  He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.  That is our mission as well:  to set people free.  We are liberators in a world of slavery.  Our weapon is truth.  Faith is our shield, and prayer is our line of communication. 

What we fight mostly, in ourselves and in those around us, is deception.  We lie to one another and very often to ourselves.  We deceive ourselves as to our true condition and attempt to convince both the world and our own hearts that we are happy in the shackles we wear.  It is why some of the saddest, most miserable people on the planet call themselves “gay”, for example. 

There is no question in my mind that people who were yet in their chains to one degree or another helped to liberate me.  Christians are usually not chained down so much as chained to -- like Jake and Elwood -- a briefcase full of blues.  I am guilty.  We can still be on a mission from God while dragging that around, but there’s really no need for it.  Jesus wasn’t shackled to a trunk, a suitcase, a briefcase, a knapsack, or a fanny-pack.  His liberty still liberates us today.

Think (Freedom).

Signals

So Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. – John 5:19

In response to a comment Rick made a couple of days ago, I said I have found that, though I theoretically believe the miraculous is possible, I don’t necessarily give it much thought on a practical basis.  Perhaps what I should have said is that I don’t depend on miracles most of the time.  Other people seem to have a different approach. 

Though I think the miraculous is really all around us, we cannot necessarily get a demonstration on demand.  Herod thought, as a ruler, he could command Jesus to perform some sign:  When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had long desired to see him, because he had heard about him, and he was hoping to see some sign done by him (Luke 23:8).  I recall this scene depicted perhaps in Jesus Christ, Superstar with Herod saying something like, “Jesus prove that you’re no fool.   Walk across my swimming pool.”  Herod was disappointed. 

A lot of us are disappointed when our loved ones aren’t healed, when evil seems to triumph, when our lives fall apart in various ways despite our fervent prayers and our professions of trust and confidence in God.  Any time there is a tragedy of any sort it seems someone demands to know where God was. 

Football season is over, and I’m glad.  We can now move on to real sports like ice-dancing.  In football, the most important man on the field is usually the quarterback, the signal caller, the field general.  While a team can have the best, most accurate passer who ever lived, if there is no one to catch the pass, or if the receivers are inept, in the wrong place, playing as if they were wearing oven mitts, all the quarterback’s efforts are for naught.  You have to have a receiver who knows what the quarterback is going to do, who goes where he is supposed to go, runs his route, gets open and catches the ball. 

That’s where God is.  He’s calling the signals.  Sometimes He calls an audible on the line of scrimmage on fourth down.  He needs somebody out here to get open, somebody to run the route and make the catch.  There is the Giver, and there is the receiver. 

Jesus said, I only do what I see My Father doing.  I do not run around down here with no purpose or direction.  I’m not out of place or running up and down the sidelines waving and yelling.  I don’t need to do that.  I have been in the huddle.  I have heard the call.  I know what I’m supposed to do, and I do it.  Miracles happen.  There is a supernatural reception. 

So, I would say, first, I’m not going to ask for a miracle based on selfish motives.  This is not about me.  God will give me what He wants me to have.  But, if I see someone who is bound up and needs to be set free, I need to get in touch with my Father.  I need to get the play.  I know already the general idea that God is Good, and He will do good for all who are oppressed by the devil (Acts 10:38).  But I need to find out how He wants to do it, what route He wants me to run. 

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)

The purpose of the miraculous is liberation – liberation from spiritual, psychological, and physical bondage, spiritual poverty and blindness.  God blesses us in many ways, but only the supernatural can set us free.

 

Finally, I may not be the intended receiver.  I may just be called on to run my pattern to set someone else up, to open up the defense. 

I’ve told this story before, but it seems applicable.  A long time ago, I used to work with convicts in a prison, and I got along with most all of them pretty well.  It was a great opportunity to witness to people both by words and actions.  I was talking to one man who wanted to study theology and the Bible, not that uncommon a thing in prison.  A lot of people become penitent in the penitentiary.  He asked me if I knew any way to get him a couple of resources, a Bible dictionary and another book or two.  I told him I knew some people who would probably help and that I would contact them.  The next day, before I could call anyone, I was in the shower.  I don’t want to say “God spoke to me”.  What happened was that I suddenly knew something that I did not know before.  I knew that someone else was going to provide my prisoner friend with all the resources he needed.  The next time I saw him, that’s what I told him. 

As you might imagine, he thought I was just trying to get out of helping him.  I understood that, but I insisted that we had to let God do it His way.  A couple of days later, the prisoner came up to me, grinning and said, “You won’t believe what just happened.”  Someone had visited the prison chapel and brought in, not only the books the man had requested, but books he would never have thought of asking for.  That person was the intended receiver.  My job was to help set things up.

If you need a miracle, or more precisely, if someone you know needs to be released from oppression and bondage, see what your Father is doing. 

But Never Everything

For whenever the Israelites planted crops, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them.  They would encamp against them and devour the produce of the land, as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel and no sheep or ox or donkey.  For they would come up with their livestock and their tents; they would come like locusts in number—both they and their camels could not be counted—so that they laid waste the land as they came in.  And Israel was brought very low because of Midian. And the people of Israel cried out for help to the Lord. – Judges 6:3-6

In the movie The Magnificent Seven, a Mexican village is raided by bandits and plundered season after season, leaving the villagers with little to sustain them.  They have no hope of prosperity or a better life for their children.  In desperation they go up on the mountainside to the house of a wise old man believing that he can give them the guidance and wisdom they need.  Do they risk the bandits’ anger by hiding food?  Do they abandon the village and try to live elsewhere?  Do they resist?  The old man tells them they must fight the bandits.  When they say they have no weapons, the old man offers them his gold watch which he keeps secreted in a bag.  He tells them to take the watch along with all the other small treasures of the villagers and travel to a border town where they are to sell the valuables so that they might be able to purchase guns and ammunition.

When those sent on the mission arrive at a town, they witness a pair of what are obviously warriors engage in an act of defiance and daring in the face of unrighteousness.  They go to one of the warriors afterward, a man named Chris – short, perhaps, for Christopher, i.e., “Christ-bearer”, or Christian.  They tell him that they trust him to help them in their mission.  He suggests that instead of buying weapons they do not know how to use, they should hire men, who, he says are cheaper than weapons. 

Like the villagers and like the Israelites of old, we often find ourselves assailed by an enemy we cannot handle.  We seem to lack the tools and the skills needed to address the spiritual assaults we face.  Perhaps we resign ourselves to living spiritually demolished and ravaged.  Perhaps we try to negotiate with an intractable foe.  Perhaps we work a little harder, try a little harder.  We think that, sooner or later, the attacks will cease.  The enemy will forget about us.  But he is implacable and relentless.  He just keeps coming back.  At some point we have to decide if we are going to try to continue to live an impoverished life accommodating our foe, or if we are going to find a way to defeat him. 

The first thing Jesus tells us to do is to count the cost.  Do not pass over this point lightly.  It is better, as Henry Hazlitt said, to make fewer resolutions and keep more of them.  Consider if you are really “all in” to destroying the enemy.  To fight, to resist oppression, to throw off the domination of thought patterns and mental strongholds and find spiritual freedom is not cheap.  It will cost us all that we have.  All the little treasures we hide away and cherish in secret must be surrendered to Christ.  When the villagers tell Chris they have sold all they have, he says, "I have been offered a lot for my work, but never everything."  Like the gunmen Chris brought to the battle, Christ does not ask us to pay what He is worth.  This is infinitely beyond our means.  He simply asks for what we have, asks us to entrust our meager wealth to Him – all of it.  He will make what we give Him more than enough, just as He did with a couple of fish and five loaves of bread in feeding a multitude.  We must go to the Spirit of Wisdom who dwells within us but apart and a little higher up.  As we seek His counsel, He will instruct us on surrendering our treasures to a Man We Can Trust. 

It is Christ Himself, the mighty warrior, who will come to aid us.  We have seen Him upon the Cross defy and defeat death, hell, and the grave.  He will come to us and break the chains of bondage and enslavement, release us from fear and captivity, empower us to face our enemies and throw them down.  There is no need to live in spiritual poverty, hopelessness, and defeat.  God intends for us to live in victory, to live lives filled with truth, power, and liberty. 

There is a danger illustrated by the movie as well.  Just at the point where there is a chance of driving away the bandits, some of the village leaders decide to surrender to them rather than fight.  They prefer the devil they know.  And we are often similarly tempted.  Even positive change is uncomfortable for us.  We decide, after struggling and not achieving immediate and complete victory, that the cost is higher than we anticipated, and we are not really willing to pay the price.  Perhaps we are not cut out to be overcomers.  Slavery may suit us better – keep us humble.  Freedom, really, can be a little scary. 

Great victories are rarely flawless.  Every battle has its setbacks and fluctuations.  Sometimes things get messy and chaotic.  We are not sure how it is going to turn out.  But that is the time to hold onto our trust in Christ and fight on.  If we slip and fall or get knocked down, we are not defeated so long as we get back up.  If the battle drags on longer than we expected, we keep going.  Liberation can take time.  Freedom is worth the fight.

Cutting the Devil Down to Size

Vindicate me, God, and defend my cause against an ungodly nation; rescue me from deceitful and unjust man. For You are the God of my refuge. Why have You rejected me? Why must I go about in sorrow because of the enemy’s oppression?

Send Your light and Your truth; let them lead me. Let them bring me to Your holy mountain, to Your dwelling place. Then I will come to the altar of God, to God, my greatest joy. I will praise You with the lyre, O God, my God.

Why am I so depressed? Why this turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I will still praise Him, my Savior and my God. – Psalm 43

Since there has been some talk of angels on One Cosmos the last few days, I suppose it started me thinking.

Like the Psalmist, I have trouble with trouble. If, like me, you believe in God, then you probably have found yourself wondering, at least momentarily, if God has rejected you. I take things personally. If something goes wrong, I blame myself first. What did I do wrong? Where did I miss it? But it isn’t always my fault. Sometimes it can’t be. So I look around for someone to blame. Maybe it’s my wife’s fault. And so I go down the list.

We are told plainly that we do not fight against mere flesh and blood enemies. The Bible has no problem saying that there is an adversary of the Divine, an accuser of the brethren. We shouldn’t use the devil as an excuse, but we should recognize his presence and resist his efforts. In The Screwtape Letters Lewis warns of the two ways to err regarding the demonic. We can become morbidly obsessed with the devil, which is clearly wrong. It is, however, equally erroneous to dismiss demonic influence entirely.

The devil is real. You can call him an archetype; you can say it is a function of the human psyche; you can call it a mind parasite. It is real, and it is an adversarial force bent on destruction. No less an authority than Jesus Christ said that the devil was a liar and the father of lies. He compared him to a thief, coming to steal, kill and destroy. In fact, Jesus spoke about the devil and demons frequently. He told us that the devil not only deceives us but even attacks us physically.

The poet and artist William Blake did not believe that the soul and the body were really separate. He thought the body was a manifestation or emanation of the soul. The philosopher Anaxagoras said, “Appearances are a glimpse of what is hidden.” What happens, what we see in the physical realm is intimately related to what goes on in the spiritual. If that is the case, it is not surprising to find a physical disease or disability result from the enemy’s attack on the soul.

When we find ourselves laboring in darkness and oppression, what should we do? First we should call out to God. Come into the light and understand that in Christ we are released from all Satan’s accusations and indictments. Jesus paid it all. While I must deal with the consequences of my sin, there is no additional redemption in me suffering for my sins. I am no more delivered because I wallow in sorrow and suffer under demonic attack than if I stand upon my salvation in Christ and fight the devil. That is the whole point of Ephesians 6 as Paul tells us to deploy the shield of faith lest we be pierced by the fiery darts of the adversary.

I may chose to endure suffering and hardship, or I may make a sacrifice to benefit another person, but I should give no ground to the devil. God has not rejected us any more than He has rejected Christ the Son. We need not “go about in sorrow because of the enemy’s oppression”. Instead, light and truth can lead us into God presence where we find genuine acceptance and joy. The writer of Psalm 43 touches on one, possibly the primary way to throw back the assault of the enemy, and fully enter God presence: praise.

To me, that has always sounded like pure cornball flakiness. Yet, the longest book in the Bible is the book of Psalms. David, called the man after God’s own heart, with all his faults, was above all a man of praise, a singer of psalms. Before Jesus went up to pray on Gethsemane on the night of His betrayal, He and the disciples sang a hymn. In heaven, the redeemed will sing a new song.

Hey, it’s worth a try.

Hallelujah!