Wells without Water

2 Peter 2:17

We live in a day of pseudo intellectuality. The educational system is no longer an unbiased and wholistic examination of the past. That is to consider both thoughts and actions in the context of their milieu. Rather, there‘s a type of arrogance, that we know better and are better than they. This is because the past is not employed for honest learning, but for a dishonest agenda. So what abounds in our day is a deep emptiness of shallow conclusions. We’re in a culture which relies on the sensations of the moment to make monumental decisions on right and wrong. We idolize people who have great swelling words of fake virtue. Although they be contrary to both Christ and commonsense. Much of this worldly sentiment has crept into our churches. Pretend preachers mount not a few pulpits today. The unsuspecting come to empty wells looking for water, only to leave as thirsty as they have come. Often, the mantra today is the gospel is antiquated. We know better than Paul or Peter. We have advanced beyond the teaching of the Bible days. One commentary notes, “These men are like dried-up watering-places in the desert, which entice and mock the thirsty traveller; perhaps leading him into danger also by drawing him from places where there is water.” On another occasion Paul gives a prerequisite in order to become a bearer of truth: “If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.” Worldly wisdom and God’s wisdom are antithetical. Such a carnal one in the pulpit may be extremely deep, and yet utterly dry. 

Love is Patient

Charity suffereth long (1 Corinthians 13:4)

It is no incident that Paul places patience as the first characteristic of love. Patience must be resident in all the other characteristics of love that follow. In the original language, it means to be long-spirited. Patience is the opposite of temptation. Temptation masquerades as a shortcut to one's desire. James makes the contrast clear, 

"My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire," wanting nothing. (James 1:2-4)

Patience fights temptation by waiting on God. It does so with a settled spirit. Patience is not on the edge. The bible commands us not to be anxious and patience is not. As it pertains to love, it is a willingness to wait on God to make a difference in the person. One realization of patience is the recognition that our timing is not always God's timing. Patience is willing to wait on God's timing as opposed to trying to dictate your timing to God. In a sense, patience is to search for God in a situation. That is, to look for God's hand and work in the circumstance. Here's a spiritual reality. While you are asking God to work on somebody else, God is working on you. There are two wonderful things about patience. One is patience cannot lose. The second thing is patience always ends in an unexpected blessing. Paul helps us to understand how God works in the life of the believer. He says, 

 "And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope..." (Romans 5:3-4)

God is always working on the believer when he or she is exercising patience. One always comes out better. The patience-journey will always end in an unexpected blessing as one experiences God. Isaiah captures the reward of patience this way,

"But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." (Isaiah 40:31)

Can God Trust You with a Trial

Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him  (Job 13:15)

What does it mean to endure a trial? It means the difficulty of the situation doesn’t provoke any change of attitude and actions toward God. It is to trust His sovereignty; that is, the shepherd who leads to green pastures and beside still waters is the same one that leads through the valley of the shadow of death. We often forget that Job was recommended to Satan by God. Why? Because Job could take it. Never did Job sin or curse God. God hedged Job in and protected him when he was not ready. God never allowed more than Job could bear. Yet the day came when Job had gathered enough from God to stand a test. And in the thickness of dark and heavy affliction, what God put in Job came out, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” Can you hear Job singing the first psalm, “Like a tree planted by the rivers of water, I shall not be moved.” The fact is, Job found out that the valley of the shadow of death is as green as any pasture one will ever find. He exclaimed, having matured, “I found things too wonderful to know.” What did Job find? He found that God had given him great patience, unrealized strength, unshakable faith, but most of all he found out more about God than he’d ever known before. God trusted Job with a trial and Job trusted God through that trial.

Solas Christus

For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.  (1 Corinthians 2:2)

Somewhere, somehow, it has been lost upon many pulpits that Christianity is Jesus Christ. As the songwriter put it, “Christ is my hope, my joy, my all.” The preaching and teaching of the Gospel entrusted to the church is not a bunch of “HOW TOs.” Preaching is not psychology or motivational speaking. It is not some form of humanism. To the contrary, the only message of the church is “Follow Jesus, there no chance in getting lost.” That is always the answer to ever problem, circumstances, and trial. I know we want it to be more complex, but it’s simple, though it’s not easy. One’s heart is the hinderance. We don’t want the way of Jesus, who says love your enemies, pray for those who despitefully misuse you, turn the other cheek to insults, don’t return evil for evil, and prefer others before yourself. We want more mystical and esoteric depth that eliminates suffering like He suffered and dying like He died. However, there is but one subject matter, one message, one answer, and one focus of a righteous pulpit and His name is Jesus. The truth preaching has emptied himself of his own intellectual prowess and has filled his mind with the supernatural intellect of the mind of Christ: The GOSPEL. 

The Erroneous Demonizing of the Term “Religion”

 26 If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.  27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. (James 1:26-27)

This is why I am not a fan of pop-sayings theology and phrases, like “There is a difference between religion and relationship.” I get the intended sentiment. But such phases are often at the expense of what the Bible actually says. Somewhere in translation they become a substitute for scripture. People know the  pop-phrases better than they know the Bible. Many times the saying is defended over the Bible.

Let me start by saying, I don’t  demonize what scripture does not demonize. There is obviously, according to James, both “useful religion” vs. “vain religion” (v26) and  “pure religion” vs. “impure religion” (v27) IN REALITY. I know it is popular to despise the term “religion” and speak of it in the pejorative. I simply don’t, because the Bible does not. Furthermore, when James says to “keep one’s self unspotted from the world” that is a loaded phrase that encompasses all of the biblical Christian practices. I’m not sure what “religion” means in the pop-phrase... but I know what is meant when the Bible uses the term.  The biblical understanding and definition of true/pure religion is a biblical response to God in obedience (a relationship as it were.) The terms religion, service and worship are synonyms in the Bible. Staying biblical is staying on safe ground. James is making the very point, religion without integrity is NOT religion at all. It is a misrepresentation of God. Pure and undefiled religion is a relationship with God, manifest in the practices of 1) guarding the tongue, 2) having compassion on the poor, and 3) avoiding worldliness.

The Impeccable Jesus Christ

For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

He bore our burdens. 
He participated in our pain.
He died our death.
He paid our price. 
Isaiah poetically speaks, “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”
None of which did He merit. Yet not a selfish deed. Not one wayward thought. Not a single word of disgust. But the righteous substituted for the unrighteous. Like a lamb, He submitted His life as if He had no power to do otherwise. He died as innocent as He was born. He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God.

He Knows Me Through and Through

For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29)

What a wonderful thing to be known by God! The elders use to pray, “You know us Lord, better than we know ourselves.” His knowledge about me is greater than my comprehension will ever be in this life. God knows us through and through. He meticulously made me for a certain end: “to be conformed to the image of his Son, Jesus Christ.

Some limit foreknowledge to mere “foresight” or that God knows what will happen before it happens. But God’s foreknowledge is so much more than that. The word speaks of a determinant design. The idea is captured beautifully by David when He says, “you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” And the extent of God’s intimate innate blueprint of “whom he did foreknow” is stated in Jeremiah, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.”

Another analogy is that of a parent already knowing the things of life that his or her child will discover. He made us for a purpose, and that purpose is to be the elect of God. We’ve been set to that end. In that day, one’s knowledge of self will catch up with His knowledge as Paul says, “But then shall I know even as also I am known.”

The knowledge of who I am, and what God intended as He created me, is something I discover as I live and yet I can never discover what He has not known.  Again, the Psalmist is abundantly clear, “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Our personality, proclivities, passions, placement, etc. were all aimed by God for our redemption.