Renewed Hope

Saturday Musings   April 20, 2013

In the last 24 hours some thoughts have come to mind about some of the language we have been hearing about the suspects in the Boston Marathon and suspects in other murderous deeds.  My spirit reeled when I heard the term "evil men".  It was as if I heard the Lord say, "They committed very evil deeds."  I looked up the definition of "evil".
A dictionary definition of evil is “morally reprehensible, sinful, wicked.” The definition of evil in the Bible falls into two categories: evil against one another (murder, theft, adultery) and evil against God (unbelief, idolatry, blasphemy). From the prohibition against eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:9), to the destruction of Babylon the Great, the embodiment of evil to come (Revelation 18:2), the Bible speaks of evil.
Read more: http://www.gotquestions.org/definition-of-evil.html#ixzz2R2kWZCtf


Following false gods is called evil - Judges 2:11-12 “Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served the Baals; and they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, … they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them, and they bowed down to them; and they provoked the LORD to anger.”

http://www.letusreason.org/Biblexp146.htm


What stirred me to think of this besides the media's comments about the "evil men" ? And why did  my spirit reel? I had more questions when I heard a comment that the dead older brother suspect said to a family member when he went to get his Mercedes, after the bombing, only to find that it was not drivable yet.  That brother said something like he worried that God was unhappy with him and that he hoped that God would forgive him if what he had done didn't please God.    This young man was greatly deceived. He thought he was "pleasing God."  This broke my heart because of all the things that many of us who have declared Jesus Christ as Lord  have done  "seeking to please God" only to find out later that in Jesus Christ,  God was already pleased with us and that we had engaged in "dead works" which are not acceptable in the Lord's eyes.  

My heart went out to the older brother and the younger brother knowing that they were deceived!  Did the older brother and the younger one have a moment of clarity in the last hours in which they realized the immensity of evil that they had participated in? 

What does this mean to me? In all this  I have gained some insight into the evil in my own heart!   I am so thankful for the redemption that was accomplished by Jesus Christ at the cross and that Life which was made available to me by Holy Spirit when Jesus rose from the dead.

Concern about this same  kind of deception came to my mind when I saw the great celebration with the capture of the younger of the suspects and the spontaneous celebrations that took place in Boston and other places.  Why did my heart sink when I saw them holding up the flags and the great sense of patriotism that came forth? I heard no great rise of celebration of the power of Jesus Christ, no great thanks to God Almighty! Maybe it was there and maybe it wasn't there. 


Christians WAKE UP!!   While I know there was tons of prayer in relationship to the deaths and injuries in Boston and in Texas, to whom was the praise and thanksgiving given?  Who orchestrated the coming together of the multiple police forces in the Boston manhunt?  If it is government that gets the credit, does that not just  bring us into greater dependence upon government to meet our needs? 

I love my nation and believe that it is one of the most blessed nations still in the world. It is one of the most "free" nations in the world because of the foundation upon which this nation is built. This nation's leadership appears, it seems,  to be increasingly departing from the foundations of faith in Jesus Christ. And why not? We increasingly see those professing Jesus Christ engaging in behaviors that are contrary to the love of God in Christ Jesus.  We increasingly see Christians murdering with words those people who "serve other gods", those who engage in abortion, same sex marriage, and the leaders of government that don't act the way they are expected to act.  

 If a nation goes the way the body of Christ goes, then is it no wonder we are seeing the kind of things that are getting our attention today?  What seeds of murder, deception, sex sin have I sown into this nation?  This is one of the questions that I believe God is speaking to those who profess to be serving Jesus Christ.  Am I guilty of all those things? Of course and am I choosing to come into that place of faith and trust in Jesus Christ where His behaviours, His mindset, His feelings penetrate my mind, emotions and the choices of behaviours I make? YES and YES.

Today coming home from my Zumba workout, I heard a sermon on a religious station that said we "must not pay attention to our feelings."   Much of the error that we are in today as a nation and as a church comes from the very error that such a teaching holds.  The speaker didn't really have a good grasp on what he was talking about. He was actually talking about behaviours and choices done by the will rather than the emotions.  Much of the problem in the body of Christ and the reason so many of us fall into deception and engage in behaviours so contrary to all that Jesus Christ is, comes from the misunderstanding of the human soul. Our feelings are a part of our soul and to quit paying attention to our emotions is to be fully able to be deceived.  Our emotions are one of the aspects of our soul that God created to give us freedom.  If we are to be free to choose God, it is necessary to be aware of our feelings. It is our feelings arising up out of our emotional network that brings us into awareness into what is going on "in me."  All the awareness of my choices come from being aware of my feelings and understanding my feelings are what bring me to awareness of my choices to act. My emotions give me freedom to exercise my will. My emotions are what activate my ability to CHOOSE what behaviours to engage in. Without being in touch with my emotions I will act on some emotion that I am not even aware of. 

Deception works on the basis of such control. Stir a person to "do what is right" apart from being aware of his own emotional network, and you can manipulate a person to do whatever you want. It is the emotions that ultimately allow a person to have some sense of "right and wrong", that innate sense that God has placed in the human being that tells them to keep on doing some things and to not do something else.   Our emotions are not TRUTH. They bring us to the awareness of some sense of right and wrong, and can bring us to make the choice to "seek God", to ask for help, to renew our minds according to the Word of God.

The dead suspect appeared to realize that close to the end of his life,  that maybe his way of pleasing God didn't please God at all.  Did he have any idea of the emotional response he would have to seeing people with arms and legs blown off from the bomb he set?  Did he have any idea how he would feel after those bombs which he placed were detonated?  Most likely not!   I do not believe these two young men had any contact with their emotions, but were driven by an ideology which demands "obedience" rather than "freedom."  True freedom assumes personal responsibility for the consequences of ones personal actions.  Subscribing to ideology or theology or any other framework of "rationality" assumes one doesn't engage emotionally on a personal level.  Emotions are stirred to the framework of thinking, rather than given a place in the individuals person's life to free him to make choices based on his personal sense of morality. 

Many of us have grown up in dysfunctional family systems where one person is able to gain "devotion" from other family based on raising a sense of "higher authority" than the person's own sense of choice and freedom.  Do it because I said so!  Oops...how many of us have said that?  Do it because it is "right." (according to me and my ultimate knowledge of course!).  Each of these illustration use external control to get performance rather than encouraging individuals to assess their own value system to make their choices. I think of the drunk person at this point, who has no ability to access his feelings or determine what shape he is in because he has numbed out his emotional network. Is he, like the suspects, totally unaware of how he would feel if he drank and drove and killed someone?  Yet, how many of us would call the drunk who gets behind the wheel "evil"? And another question, how many of us have "been so evil" so to speak, to have gotten behind the wheel of a vehicle while under the influence of drugs or alcohol?

And then we wonder why the "current church" in the Western World is declining!   We can't preach Jesus without living the kind of freedom that brings back into the human race the freedom to choose to serve the God that came to earth to serve man by dying for their sins and restoring man into relationship with Him.   Christ Jesus makes me righteous, so I am free to deal with my thoughts, my feelings and my choices, and to "see" how they either come out of a desire to please God or out of the very heart and mind of God Himself. Without being in touch with my emotions (part of my soul) can Jesus  fully abide in me and come to dwell and share His feelings in my emotions?

All religion uses guilt and shame to motivate people into "performing"according to their sense of right and wrong.  Ouch...how many of us parents and church leaders have used guilt and shame to get someone to engage in behaviours that we "approved" or that pleased us?   Yet we will use all sorts of language when it comes to the suspects to call them "evil men."  Yes, like me, they did evil things. Apart from Jesus Christ, you and I or those brothers, are incapable of doing anything to "please God."  To deny that Jesus Christ made me acceptable to the Father, is to leave me open to deception and open to being motivated to evil actions.  Yes, that makes me "evil" except that God doesn't see me that way. He sees me through the blood and broken body of his Son.  

As I hear about the younger suspect being in the hospital, my heart cry is Lord, Show yourself to Him, so that if he lives or if He dies, he has an opportunity to Live in Christ Jesus even if the USA puts him to death for his crimes! Father, that might as well be me in that hospital before You were revealed to me....and maybe many times since!!  Be merciful to us O Lord!

 Meri Ford