Barton Jahn's Blog - Posts Tagged "faith"
We Cannot Do It All
We cannot have everything we want, simply because as a practical matter we cannot do everything we want. Time and physical reality forces us to exclude and make choices.
We cannot both live in the county and in the city, travel the world and go to college, find time to read all of the books we want to read and lead an active social life, become expert in two or more sports, pursue a happy marriage, have children and a family life, serve on the local school board, volunteer for weekend charity social work, spend as much time with old friends as we used to before marriage and children, write books, and be active in social media, all at the same time.
Life is not only about what we do, but also about what we choose not to do. Some things have to be cut out.
It has been said that a sculptor creates a masterpiece in marble by the pieces that are chipped away. The finished marble statue is created by the material that has been removed from the rough-hewn block of stone marble. There is a final outcome envisioned within the artistic eye of the sculptor, but the actual carving process to reach the end-product involves the chipping away of the excess, waste material.
The cross of Christ element in all of the biblical narrative stories of faith is unique to all religions, philosophies, and worldviews.
As Abraham walks from the city of Haran towards Canaan, with each step he takes Abraham’s personal plans for worldly conventional normalcy are being replaced by the higher plans of God, beyond anything Abraham could imagine.
The fact that the Master Sculptor was chipping away the worldly normative life-plan of Abraham, the father of faith, over 5,000 years ago is massive evidence for the divine composition of this opening journey of faith narrative in the Bible.
You cannot be Abraham and be anything else at the same time. A focused life excludes other things.
No humanistic writer would ever invent the concept of chipping out the marble from the block of conventional worldly normalcy to replace it with a risky, God-led journey of faith containing the cross as its central theme.
Understanding the fact that a biblical-quality journey of faith excludes our own way is critical for today’s disciple of Jesus Christ.
We cannot both live in the county and in the city, travel the world and go to college, find time to read all of the books we want to read and lead an active social life, become expert in two or more sports, pursue a happy marriage, have children and a family life, serve on the local school board, volunteer for weekend charity social work, spend as much time with old friends as we used to before marriage and children, write books, and be active in social media, all at the same time.
Life is not only about what we do, but also about what we choose not to do. Some things have to be cut out.
It has been said that a sculptor creates a masterpiece in marble by the pieces that are chipped away. The finished marble statue is created by the material that has been removed from the rough-hewn block of stone marble. There is a final outcome envisioned within the artistic eye of the sculptor, but the actual carving process to reach the end-product involves the chipping away of the excess, waste material.
The cross of Christ element in all of the biblical narrative stories of faith is unique to all religions, philosophies, and worldviews.
As Abraham walks from the city of Haran towards Canaan, with each step he takes Abraham’s personal plans for worldly conventional normalcy are being replaced by the higher plans of God, beyond anything Abraham could imagine.
The fact that the Master Sculptor was chipping away the worldly normative life-plan of Abraham, the father of faith, over 5,000 years ago is massive evidence for the divine composition of this opening journey of faith narrative in the Bible.
You cannot be Abraham and be anything else at the same time. A focused life excludes other things.
No humanistic writer would ever invent the concept of chipping out the marble from the block of conventional worldly normalcy to replace it with a risky, God-led journey of faith containing the cross as its central theme.
Understanding the fact that a biblical-quality journey of faith excludes our own way is critical for today’s disciple of Jesus Christ.
The Cost of Following Jesus
In Luke 22:33 Peter says to Jesus: “Lord, I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death.” Jesus then famously answers: “I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, before that thou shall thrice deny that thou knowest me” (Lk. 22:34).
But in addition Jesus could have answered Peter: “You will not in the long-term forsake me…but it will cost you something…it will cost you giving up doing things your way.”
Instead of prison and death for Peter at that time…the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were about to engineer the greatest event in all of human history…maybe the greatest in all of eternity…the Passover Lamb of God sacrifice for the redemption of sinners willing to repent…that would procure for believers eternal life and liberation from the bondage to sin…far above any plans of Peter to protect Jesus from physical harm…no matter how commendable Peter’s intentions might be.
The higher plans of God simply displaced and swept away the contrary thinking of Peter regarding the humanly unacceptable disclosure of Jesus to the disciples that he would soon be arrested and killed…incomprehensible to Peter at the time…but clearly understood by Peter after his fall in the courtyard of Caiaphas, the crucifixion and resurrection, and Peter’s personal interview with the risen Christ.
God’s ways truly are higher than our ways (Isa. 55:8-9)…which is an affirmation within the life-scripts of the people of faith within scripture that the Bible has a divine origin…which as a spiritual reality cannot be duplicated as a counterfeit. Because the ways of God reside at the top-end of the vertical graph-line spectrum of goodness and light…the top part of absolute goodness and brilliant pure light that God exclusively owns…no humanistic writer could or would invent the huge gap between Peter’s lack of understanding that fateful night in the courtyard of Caiaphas…and God’s plans for the salvation for mankind.
On the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-16)…Jesus in essence says to Paul: “Yes, I will lead you into the all-truth of John 16:13 beyond what you could have imagined…but it will cost you something…it will cost giving up doing things your way.”
This is the narrow gate that the multitudes walk past and miss on their way to the destruction of unbelief and self-sovereignty.
This is the cross of Christ that people living within worldly conventional normalcy and thinking cannot see in the narrative stories of faith in the Bible.
This is another of the compelling arguments for the divine origin of the Bible.
But in addition Jesus could have answered Peter: “You will not in the long-term forsake me…but it will cost you something…it will cost you giving up doing things your way.”
Instead of prison and death for Peter at that time…the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were about to engineer the greatest event in all of human history…maybe the greatest in all of eternity…the Passover Lamb of God sacrifice for the redemption of sinners willing to repent…that would procure for believers eternal life and liberation from the bondage to sin…far above any plans of Peter to protect Jesus from physical harm…no matter how commendable Peter’s intentions might be.
The higher plans of God simply displaced and swept away the contrary thinking of Peter regarding the humanly unacceptable disclosure of Jesus to the disciples that he would soon be arrested and killed…incomprehensible to Peter at the time…but clearly understood by Peter after his fall in the courtyard of Caiaphas, the crucifixion and resurrection, and Peter’s personal interview with the risen Christ.
God’s ways truly are higher than our ways (Isa. 55:8-9)…which is an affirmation within the life-scripts of the people of faith within scripture that the Bible has a divine origin…which as a spiritual reality cannot be duplicated as a counterfeit. Because the ways of God reside at the top-end of the vertical graph-line spectrum of goodness and light…the top part of absolute goodness and brilliant pure light that God exclusively owns…no humanistic writer could or would invent the huge gap between Peter’s lack of understanding that fateful night in the courtyard of Caiaphas…and God’s plans for the salvation for mankind.
On the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-16)…Jesus in essence says to Paul: “Yes, I will lead you into the all-truth of John 16:13 beyond what you could have imagined…but it will cost you something…it will cost giving up doing things your way.”
This is the narrow gate that the multitudes walk past and miss on their way to the destruction of unbelief and self-sovereignty.
This is the cross of Christ that people living within worldly conventional normalcy and thinking cannot see in the narrative stories of faith in the Bible.
This is another of the compelling arguments for the divine origin of the Bible.
David
“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” (2 Cor. 4:17)
From The Second Half of the Cross
The Pharisees, Sadducees, lawyers, and scribes of Jesus day were no longer the spiritual children of Abraham, because they held on to their self-will instead of submitting it to God. Like people of our own culture, they were afraid of the uncertainty of relinquishing their hold over the destiny of their lives into the trust of God’s care. Instead these Jerusalem leaders created their own form of religion based upon rules, regulations, and the performance of self-works rituals that replaced the living but more risky faith of submitting their lives to God.
We see this pattern throughout history in all man-invented, perfunctory religious experience. People will do almost anything to avoid having to give up their self-will to God, because deep down inside they are afraid. People are afraid to take the risk that God’s way might actually be better, because of the element of uncertainty of what God might do with their lives.
There is security in staying with what we know, rather than venturing out into a perilous journey of faith with Jesus Christ into the unknown. There is a sense of security in not letting go of the power we have over our own lives. This is the case, even when the recipient of this letting go of the power of self-sovereignty…Jesus Christ our Creator God…will lovingly re-direct this self-same power back down towards us in a more intelligently designed and beneficially purposed adventure-of-faith life-plan.
This is why many people have to reach the bottom depths of failure and suffering, to have nothing left to lose and nowhere else to go, before they will turn to God for His help. Sadly, Jesus Christ is often the last resort when He should be the first and most sensible beginning option in discovering our true purpose in life. That many people stubbornly hang on to their own self-in-control natures, to the ruin of themselves and often those around them, is one of the central, core problems with the human race.
David has to face Goliath in a life-and-death struggle at the beginning of David’s career, not because God sets up these types of contests for His own enjoyment, but because we must learn real faith and trust in God to see us through challenges when failure and falsification of God’s character are live possibilities. In a biblical quality journey of faith we sometimes barely make it through the tightest of choreographed and integrated circumstances because this is one way amongst several ways that God uses to authenticate His direct participation in our lives.
Miraculous or near-miraculous deliverance through supernaturally choreographed events is one tool in God’s tool-kit to separate His ways above worldly conventional normalcy. We see this repeated throughout the narrative stories of the Bible for an eternally valid reason. Without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6) because without a context of circumstances requiring committed faith in the face of discouraging appearances, God cannot reveal to us His very real presence in our lives in stark contrast to the subjective, humanistically generated false experience of self-works “religion.”
The story of David’s anointing by Samuel, and his calling, exploits, and tribulations in route to the kingship of Israel is not a man-invented myth because the component of the active participation of God in David’s story in beyond the reach of the creative imagination and invention of human writers. An adventure of faith like David’s is unique to the Bible.
David can write the 23rd Psalm because he actually followed God through the valley of the shadow of death. David learned first-hand that he did not have to fear evil, when God was with him.
Five of the most important words ever recorded in all of literature are: “for thou art with me” (Psalms 23:4). The contrast between the God-composed life of David, living on the knife’s edge of danger in faith and trust in God, and the self-led life in pursuit of security and self-preservation that will not venture out into the risky territory of faith in God, could not be greater.
The reward for David’s faith and trust is that he became Israel’s greatest king and fulfilled the purpose of his life (Psalms 139:14-18), and in doing so he came to personally know his Creator God.
From The Second Half of the Cross
The Pharisees, Sadducees, lawyers, and scribes of Jesus day were no longer the spiritual children of Abraham, because they held on to their self-will instead of submitting it to God. Like people of our own culture, they were afraid of the uncertainty of relinquishing their hold over the destiny of their lives into the trust of God’s care. Instead these Jerusalem leaders created their own form of religion based upon rules, regulations, and the performance of self-works rituals that replaced the living but more risky faith of submitting their lives to God.
We see this pattern throughout history in all man-invented, perfunctory religious experience. People will do almost anything to avoid having to give up their self-will to God, because deep down inside they are afraid. People are afraid to take the risk that God’s way might actually be better, because of the element of uncertainty of what God might do with their lives.
There is security in staying with what we know, rather than venturing out into a perilous journey of faith with Jesus Christ into the unknown. There is a sense of security in not letting go of the power we have over our own lives. This is the case, even when the recipient of this letting go of the power of self-sovereignty…Jesus Christ our Creator God…will lovingly re-direct this self-same power back down towards us in a more intelligently designed and beneficially purposed adventure-of-faith life-plan.
This is why many people have to reach the bottom depths of failure and suffering, to have nothing left to lose and nowhere else to go, before they will turn to God for His help. Sadly, Jesus Christ is often the last resort when He should be the first and most sensible beginning option in discovering our true purpose in life. That many people stubbornly hang on to their own self-in-control natures, to the ruin of themselves and often those around them, is one of the central, core problems with the human race.
David has to face Goliath in a life-and-death struggle at the beginning of David’s career, not because God sets up these types of contests for His own enjoyment, but because we must learn real faith and trust in God to see us through challenges when failure and falsification of God’s character are live possibilities. In a biblical quality journey of faith we sometimes barely make it through the tightest of choreographed and integrated circumstances because this is one way amongst several ways that God uses to authenticate His direct participation in our lives.
Miraculous or near-miraculous deliverance through supernaturally choreographed events is one tool in God’s tool-kit to separate His ways above worldly conventional normalcy. We see this repeated throughout the narrative stories of the Bible for an eternally valid reason. Without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6) because without a context of circumstances requiring committed faith in the face of discouraging appearances, God cannot reveal to us His very real presence in our lives in stark contrast to the subjective, humanistically generated false experience of self-works “religion.”
The story of David’s anointing by Samuel, and his calling, exploits, and tribulations in route to the kingship of Israel is not a man-invented myth because the component of the active participation of God in David’s story in beyond the reach of the creative imagination and invention of human writers. An adventure of faith like David’s is unique to the Bible.
David can write the 23rd Psalm because he actually followed God through the valley of the shadow of death. David learned first-hand that he did not have to fear evil, when God was with him.
Five of the most important words ever recorded in all of literature are: “for thou art with me” (Psalms 23:4). The contrast between the God-composed life of David, living on the knife’s edge of danger in faith and trust in God, and the self-led life in pursuit of security and self-preservation that will not venture out into the risky territory of faith in God, could not be greater.
The reward for David’s faith and trust is that he became Israel’s greatest king and fulfilled the purpose of his life (Psalms 139:14-18), and in doing so he came to personally know his Creator God.
Purpose and the Cross
The best example to illustrate the perfection of the purposes of God is the life-script of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. What is seamlessly perfect about the divinely composed life-plan of Jesus is that it is absolutely unselfish. Jesus is not leisurely sailing the Mediterranean Sea with people waiting upon Him to satisfy His every need. Everything that Jesus does is for us. Even though the suffering of the cross adds a new perspective to God’s reality that He never experienced before (Hebrews 5:7-9), there is no redemptive value for Jesus Christ on the cross, because Jesus does not need redemption from sin. Jesus is the perfect Lamb of God sacrifice for the sins of the world. The sacrifice on the cross is for us.
What is astounding is that God is so brilliantly creative that He can compose a life-script for the perfect Son of God Jesus Christ, which actually contains an element of challenging difficulty. God knew that we would have difficulty with the second half of the cross that requires our self-in-charge nature to be set aside so that God can effectively work with us. Jesus says in Luke 12:50 “But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how I am straightened till it be accomplished!” (KJV), not because, like us, Jesus is in need of character growth through adversity. Jesus is already divinely perfect.
In Luke 22:44, it is recorded that Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane went back a second time to “pray more earnestly.” This is beyond our comprehension. We would normally assume that everything Jesus did, especially prayer, was perfect the first time. In Luke 22:42 Jesus prays “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done.” How can God be so brilliantly creative to be able to write into the earthly experience of the divine Son of God Jesus, the element of difficult challenge which is totally foreign to the perfect nature of God, just so He could tell us He personally understands our own difficulty in picking up our cross in order to follow God? Even within the absolute perfection of the ways and purposes of God, the life-script of Jesus manages to contain God-challenging elements of difficulty written-in for our future consolation and encouragement. This touches me at the capacity of my intellect and the depth of my heart.
It is the precise and intricate ways and purposes of God that enlists our own in-built facility for purpose, which can be integrated by God into any set of current life circumstances and events. Whether we are a heart surgeon, congresswoman, appellate court judge, school teacher, auto mechanic, pastor of a small-town church, writer of Christian books, or housewife raising children, God can overlay and integrate His higher ways and purposes into our lives if we will surrender and yield our self-wills to Him in faith and trust. The deliverance and salvation of God within the challenges of life, expressed so beautifully throughout the Psalms, takes place within the plans of God, and not our own. Innate purpose translates into reality at the highest most glorious level when orchestrated and directed within the framework of a God-composed journey of faith.
Sometimes purpose and worldly conventional normalcy do not mix. Sometimes we cannot have both the risk-filled pursuit of truth and the security of conventional normalcy simultaneously within the dynamics of this broken world. Jesus, the Lamb-of-God sacrifice for the sins of the world can only die and be resurrected if His generation rejects and crucifies Him. Only God can knit together a meaningful and purposeful tapestry of the commendable aspects of the Protestant work ethic with the worldly incomprehensible, biblical journey of faith through the cross of Calvary.
All of the people of faith in the Bible gave up some measure of worldly conventional normalcy in following God’s life-script for them. This separates out and elevates the quality of purpose and meaning into a higher zone that only God can orchestrate. This highlights the wisdom of God in the area of purpose, and like the scriptural example of God composing a life-script for Jesus that contained challenging difficulty for our consolation, it reveals an imaginative creativity that is at the edge of perfection regarding brilliantly directed purpose. If even our hardships work an eternal glory in us that we cannot fully understand in the present moment, orchestrated, managed, and moderated by a loving and brilliantly wise God at the limits of perfection, this should bolster our faith and confidence when outward appearances seem close to hopeless.
The narrative stories of faith in the Bible tell us that God knows precisely what He is doing, dovetailed perfectly with the type and measure of purpose He has placed within us. Laws, rules, precepts, psalms of praise and encouragement, prophetic warnings, and historical events all occupy their place in the revelation of God to man. But the biblical narrative stories of faith demonstrate in action the will and ways of God within life-events to reveal His craftsmanship in the management of our journeys of faith and discovery.
What is astounding is that God is so brilliantly creative that He can compose a life-script for the perfect Son of God Jesus Christ, which actually contains an element of challenging difficulty. God knew that we would have difficulty with the second half of the cross that requires our self-in-charge nature to be set aside so that God can effectively work with us. Jesus says in Luke 12:50 “But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how I am straightened till it be accomplished!” (KJV), not because, like us, Jesus is in need of character growth through adversity. Jesus is already divinely perfect.
In Luke 22:44, it is recorded that Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane went back a second time to “pray more earnestly.” This is beyond our comprehension. We would normally assume that everything Jesus did, especially prayer, was perfect the first time. In Luke 22:42 Jesus prays “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done.” How can God be so brilliantly creative to be able to write into the earthly experience of the divine Son of God Jesus, the element of difficult challenge which is totally foreign to the perfect nature of God, just so He could tell us He personally understands our own difficulty in picking up our cross in order to follow God? Even within the absolute perfection of the ways and purposes of God, the life-script of Jesus manages to contain God-challenging elements of difficulty written-in for our future consolation and encouragement. This touches me at the capacity of my intellect and the depth of my heart.
It is the precise and intricate ways and purposes of God that enlists our own in-built facility for purpose, which can be integrated by God into any set of current life circumstances and events. Whether we are a heart surgeon, congresswoman, appellate court judge, school teacher, auto mechanic, pastor of a small-town church, writer of Christian books, or housewife raising children, God can overlay and integrate His higher ways and purposes into our lives if we will surrender and yield our self-wills to Him in faith and trust. The deliverance and salvation of God within the challenges of life, expressed so beautifully throughout the Psalms, takes place within the plans of God, and not our own. Innate purpose translates into reality at the highest most glorious level when orchestrated and directed within the framework of a God-composed journey of faith.
Sometimes purpose and worldly conventional normalcy do not mix. Sometimes we cannot have both the risk-filled pursuit of truth and the security of conventional normalcy simultaneously within the dynamics of this broken world. Jesus, the Lamb-of-God sacrifice for the sins of the world can only die and be resurrected if His generation rejects and crucifies Him. Only God can knit together a meaningful and purposeful tapestry of the commendable aspects of the Protestant work ethic with the worldly incomprehensible, biblical journey of faith through the cross of Calvary.
All of the people of faith in the Bible gave up some measure of worldly conventional normalcy in following God’s life-script for them. This separates out and elevates the quality of purpose and meaning into a higher zone that only God can orchestrate. This highlights the wisdom of God in the area of purpose, and like the scriptural example of God composing a life-script for Jesus that contained challenging difficulty for our consolation, it reveals an imaginative creativity that is at the edge of perfection regarding brilliantly directed purpose. If even our hardships work an eternal glory in us that we cannot fully understand in the present moment, orchestrated, managed, and moderated by a loving and brilliantly wise God at the limits of perfection, this should bolster our faith and confidence when outward appearances seem close to hopeless.
The narrative stories of faith in the Bible tell us that God knows precisely what He is doing, dovetailed perfectly with the type and measure of purpose He has placed within us. Laws, rules, precepts, psalms of praise and encouragement, prophetic warnings, and historical events all occupy their place in the revelation of God to man. But the biblical narrative stories of faith demonstrate in action the will and ways of God within life-events to reveal His craftsmanship in the management of our journeys of faith and discovery.
In This Book
From God Didn’t Create Robots: Commonsense Christian Apologetics
In this book, I attempt to add some commonsense Christian apologetic arguments into the ongoing debate. Some such topics are:
First, is there a persuasive rationale to explain the humility of Jesus…above and outside of the standard and perfectly valid explanation that this is simply part of the divine character of God?
Is there an ingenious, underlying theme within the humility of Jesus that transcends far above the imagination of human literary invention…and at the same time serves as inspiration for Christians?
Does the humility component of the life-script of Jesus Christ surgically divide out and expose the negative aspect of rebellious self-sovereignty…resulting in the totally unjustified rejection and non-valuing of the Son of God Jesus…in a way that forever separates out the moral downside of: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6)…as demonstrated clearly through the cross of Christ at Calvary (Jn. 15:18-25)?
Second, how would anyone other than God compose a life-script for a perfect person Jesus Christ that gets Him to the cross? Is this idea far too original and innovative…as to fall clearly outside of human literary imagination…and therefore be divine in its origin?
What faulty, highlighted aspects of the human character would be accurately identified in this divine life-script composition…that would infuriate worldly conventional thinking to such a degree in first-century Israel…that would get a perfect person Jesus all the way to the cross…and not to mere house arrest, exile, or censure?
Third, how could anyone other than God compose a life-script complex enough for Jesus Christ the Son of God…that results in His broken heart on the cross (blood and water coming out of His pierced side…a modern medical description of a ruptured heart…John 19:34)?
How do you break the heart of God…as humanistically invented literary fiction…without at the same time violating the very thing that worldly conventional normalcy and thinking detests the most…that wants to sweep under the rug and ignore at all cost…the acknowledging of the existence of human sin and self-centeredness… heartbreakingly absorbed as a mass of evil and human wrongdoing…by Jesus on the cross as the Passover Lamb of God sacrifice for sin?
Fourth, where does the delicate balance of belief and unbelief come from? Why isn’t this balance overwhelmed in favor of one direction or the other?
Fifth, what explains the odd existence of the two main contrasting worldviews…self-sovereignty and God-sovereignty…for human beings alone?
This dichotomy clearly does not originate from nature. Lions display only one lifestyle habit…there are not two different competing approaches to being a lion. The same goes for every living creature in nature. For every living creature each lifestyle habit is distinctly unique…but uniform throughout that creature type…for lions, cheetahs, leopards, tigers, elephants, giraffes, alligators, and zebras, for example.
Yet humans have two optional worldviews to freely choose from…self-sovereignty or God-sovereignty…both radically different in the course and purpose of our lives. The complexity of the differences that divide these two worldviews is far beyond any plausible explanation of their origin by way of the naturalistic, gradual trial-and-error evolution of material particles and energy as asserted in the theoretical framework of Darwinism.
In this book, I attempt to add some commonsense Christian apologetic arguments into the ongoing debate. Some such topics are:
First, is there a persuasive rationale to explain the humility of Jesus…above and outside of the standard and perfectly valid explanation that this is simply part of the divine character of God?
Is there an ingenious, underlying theme within the humility of Jesus that transcends far above the imagination of human literary invention…and at the same time serves as inspiration for Christians?
Does the humility component of the life-script of Jesus Christ surgically divide out and expose the negative aspect of rebellious self-sovereignty…resulting in the totally unjustified rejection and non-valuing of the Son of God Jesus…in a way that forever separates out the moral downside of: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6)…as demonstrated clearly through the cross of Christ at Calvary (Jn. 15:18-25)?
Second, how would anyone other than God compose a life-script for a perfect person Jesus Christ that gets Him to the cross? Is this idea far too original and innovative…as to fall clearly outside of human literary imagination…and therefore be divine in its origin?
What faulty, highlighted aspects of the human character would be accurately identified in this divine life-script composition…that would infuriate worldly conventional thinking to such a degree in first-century Israel…that would get a perfect person Jesus all the way to the cross…and not to mere house arrest, exile, or censure?
Third, how could anyone other than God compose a life-script complex enough for Jesus Christ the Son of God…that results in His broken heart on the cross (blood and water coming out of His pierced side…a modern medical description of a ruptured heart…John 19:34)?
How do you break the heart of God…as humanistically invented literary fiction…without at the same time violating the very thing that worldly conventional normalcy and thinking detests the most…that wants to sweep under the rug and ignore at all cost…the acknowledging of the existence of human sin and self-centeredness… heartbreakingly absorbed as a mass of evil and human wrongdoing…by Jesus on the cross as the Passover Lamb of God sacrifice for sin?
Fourth, where does the delicate balance of belief and unbelief come from? Why isn’t this balance overwhelmed in favor of one direction or the other?
Fifth, what explains the odd existence of the two main contrasting worldviews…self-sovereignty and God-sovereignty…for human beings alone?
This dichotomy clearly does not originate from nature. Lions display only one lifestyle habit…there are not two different competing approaches to being a lion. The same goes for every living creature in nature. For every living creature each lifestyle habit is distinctly unique…but uniform throughout that creature type…for lions, cheetahs, leopards, tigers, elephants, giraffes, alligators, and zebras, for example.
Yet humans have two optional worldviews to freely choose from…self-sovereignty or God-sovereignty…both radically different in the course and purpose of our lives. The complexity of the differences that divide these two worldviews is far beyond any plausible explanation of their origin by way of the naturalistic, gradual trial-and-error evolution of material particles and energy as asserted in the theoretical framework of Darwinism.
Proof does not Produce Biblical-Quality Faith
From God Didn’t Create Robots: Commonsense Christian Apologetics
Coming back to my discussion with the agnostic/atheist man insisting on objective, visual, foolproof evidence for the existence of God and the truth of Christianity…for Christians the answer to this issue is both easy and difficult.
If Jesus a few days after the resurrection walked down the middle of main street and right into the temple in Jerusalem…then like doubting Thomas all of the common people along with the Pharisees, Sadducees, lawyers, and scribes could examine His wounds and observe His resurrected new body…and accept as proof that Jesus is the promised Messiah and the Son of God.
But accepting the visual evidence…producing absolute knowledge like two plus two equals four…or the existence of the noonday sun…accepting the evidence that Jesus is the divine Son of God is not the same as being willing to follow Him.
The Pharisees and scribes would have looked at the resurrected Jesus…talked with Him…examined His healed wounds…and then said: “Great…good for you…nothing has changed in our minds as a result of this newest miracle of yours…we still choose not to follow you…we will continue to go our own way”
For some unscrupulous and dishonest merchants selling their wares in the town marketplace…two-plus-two does not equal four…but five…a practice of “deceitful weights” denounced in the Old Testament in Proverbs and by the prophet Micah (Prov. 20:23; Mic. 6:11).
Having a system of standard, empirical weights does not prevent the willful and determined abandonment of integrity through the misuse of deceitful weights…a successful yet dishonest practice designed to work around…to circumvent…to ignore the real facts (standard weights) in business transactions.
Absolute knowledge by visual, empirical observation does not address the basic problem…does not displace, remove, or shift the mindset of self-sovereignty…over into God-sovereignty.
Jesus walking into the temple in Jerusalem after His resurrection…offering absolute proof of His divinity in physically rising from the dead…surprisingly does not change the inner man…does not equate to everyone freely choosing to make Him Lord and Master of their lives.
After the resurrection…revealing Himself to the Pharisees and scribes would not have produced biblical faith…defined as willingly allowing God to displace our ways with His higher ways…as ancient in Jewish history as the calling of Abraham to leave Haran and go to Canaan…as basic to Judaism as it gets…and fundamental to the Christian concept of picking up our cross to follow Jesus.
Choosing to follow God…by purposeful, intentionally creative design…will always be a free-will, take-it-or-leave-it option…in first-century Jerusalem, in the present-day, and for all eternity in heaven.
This is the remarkably sublime beauty of the free-will, free-thinking, moral reasoning, non-robots that God created humans to be…with or without absolute, visual, foolproof evidence of His existence (Jn. 20:29).
The spiritual mystery of autonomous rebellion is therefore one of the key moral issues under examination in this life and this broken world.
A person does not have to be a scholar to see in the Bible and to experience first-hand…that God initially takes people having hidden potential…yet at the start of their calling are broken, lost, and aimless in life (Mt. 9:10-13)…and through the divinely supportive respect and acceptance over time of salvation, redemption, and the life-altering insertion of a God-composed adventure of faith…aided and energized by the Holy Spirit…turns them into something vastly better than they could have previously imagined.
This is one of the main themes of the Bible. Some people will accept God’s lead and follow Him into their destinies…others will push God away and follow their own course.
This in itself should be a telling argument against the random-chance naturalism of self-sovereign worldly conventional thinking…by virtue of the sheer inexplicability of the origin of the concept of biblical faith and its persistent longevity.
Naturalism, if true should produce one monotonous, homogeneous human mindset…belief or unbelief…one lifestyle habit per creature type…like the rest of the living world.
This should tell us…that as human beings…we are different (Gen. 1:26-27).
The complexity of the information content, the innovative originality of the main concepts, and the utter crash and collision with worldly conventional normalcy and thinking…makes a compelling commonsense apologetic case in itself for the divine origin of the journeys of faith recorded in the Bible…above and beyond humanistic literary invention.
Coming back to my discussion with the agnostic/atheist man insisting on objective, visual, foolproof evidence for the existence of God and the truth of Christianity…for Christians the answer to this issue is both easy and difficult.
If Jesus a few days after the resurrection walked down the middle of main street and right into the temple in Jerusalem…then like doubting Thomas all of the common people along with the Pharisees, Sadducees, lawyers, and scribes could examine His wounds and observe His resurrected new body…and accept as proof that Jesus is the promised Messiah and the Son of God.
But accepting the visual evidence…producing absolute knowledge like two plus two equals four…or the existence of the noonday sun…accepting the evidence that Jesus is the divine Son of God is not the same as being willing to follow Him.
The Pharisees and scribes would have looked at the resurrected Jesus…talked with Him…examined His healed wounds…and then said: “Great…good for you…nothing has changed in our minds as a result of this newest miracle of yours…we still choose not to follow you…we will continue to go our own way”
For some unscrupulous and dishonest merchants selling their wares in the town marketplace…two-plus-two does not equal four…but five…a practice of “deceitful weights” denounced in the Old Testament in Proverbs and by the prophet Micah (Prov. 20:23; Mic. 6:11).
Having a system of standard, empirical weights does not prevent the willful and determined abandonment of integrity through the misuse of deceitful weights…a successful yet dishonest practice designed to work around…to circumvent…to ignore the real facts (standard weights) in business transactions.
Absolute knowledge by visual, empirical observation does not address the basic problem…does not displace, remove, or shift the mindset of self-sovereignty…over into God-sovereignty.
Jesus walking into the temple in Jerusalem after His resurrection…offering absolute proof of His divinity in physically rising from the dead…surprisingly does not change the inner man…does not equate to everyone freely choosing to make Him Lord and Master of their lives.
After the resurrection…revealing Himself to the Pharisees and scribes would not have produced biblical faith…defined as willingly allowing God to displace our ways with His higher ways…as ancient in Jewish history as the calling of Abraham to leave Haran and go to Canaan…as basic to Judaism as it gets…and fundamental to the Christian concept of picking up our cross to follow Jesus.
Choosing to follow God…by purposeful, intentionally creative design…will always be a free-will, take-it-or-leave-it option…in first-century Jerusalem, in the present-day, and for all eternity in heaven.
This is the remarkably sublime beauty of the free-will, free-thinking, moral reasoning, non-robots that God created humans to be…with or without absolute, visual, foolproof evidence of His existence (Jn. 20:29).
The spiritual mystery of autonomous rebellion is therefore one of the key moral issues under examination in this life and this broken world.
A person does not have to be a scholar to see in the Bible and to experience first-hand…that God initially takes people having hidden potential…yet at the start of their calling are broken, lost, and aimless in life (Mt. 9:10-13)…and through the divinely supportive respect and acceptance over time of salvation, redemption, and the life-altering insertion of a God-composed adventure of faith…aided and energized by the Holy Spirit…turns them into something vastly better than they could have previously imagined.
This is one of the main themes of the Bible. Some people will accept God’s lead and follow Him into their destinies…others will push God away and follow their own course.
This in itself should be a telling argument against the random-chance naturalism of self-sovereign worldly conventional thinking…by virtue of the sheer inexplicability of the origin of the concept of biblical faith and its persistent longevity.
Naturalism, if true should produce one monotonous, homogeneous human mindset…belief or unbelief…one lifestyle habit per creature type…like the rest of the living world.
This should tell us…that as human beings…we are different (Gen. 1:26-27).
The complexity of the information content, the innovative originality of the main concepts, and the utter crash and collision with worldly conventional normalcy and thinking…makes a compelling commonsense apologetic case in itself for the divine origin of the journeys of faith recorded in the Bible…above and beyond humanistic literary invention.
God does Things His Way for our Benefit...Part 1
From God Didn’t Create Robots: Commonsense Christian Apologetics
If we are looking for convincing evidence to differentiate the biblical narrative stories of faith…from worldly conventional normalcy and thinking…to make the case that these biblical life-scripts could not be the product of human literary invention…another telling argument in this direction is the diametric opposites of our ways versus God’s ways as depicted in the biblical narrative stories of faith.
Anyone who follows the biblical God deep enough into their adventure of faith eventually runs experientially into the jarring realization, at some point in time, that we want to do things…even the big things like the fulfillment of the supernatural promises of God in our lives…our way.
This is one of the fundamental aspects of the Bible that creates a clearly delineated fork-in-the-road…a radical departure…away from worldly conventional normalcy and thinking.
This is an aspect in our Christian discipleship that takes us on a unique journey far from conventional thinking and norms.
Abraham naturally has his own ideas about how he will become the father of descendants as numerous as the stars in the night sky…and his ideas do not include waiting 25 years for the birth of Isaac…the son of promise.
This important piece of information God left out of the initial calling of Abraham…for the best and highest reason imaginable…to set up the unique context for biblical faith…to actualize.
According to contemporary Christian jargon…doing something our way outside of the council or participation of God…is popularly called an “Ishmael”…doomed to failure.
Abraham and Sarah trying to help-out God in fulfilling God’s plans and promise…by bringing Hagar into the picture and thus producing Ishmael…actually goes against-the-grain of the best and highest outcome in this Abraham storyline…in at least two ways.
First, the main goal…the outcome that the life-script of Abraham hones-in on…is not the start of a large family-life according to worldly expectations and aspirations…but rather for Abraham to become the “father of faith”…of biblical faith that by commonsense definition requires elements of patience, trust, and faith.
But faith and trust in who and in what? Not in himself…not in his plans…not in his ideas…not in self-realization and self-reliance. This is the dividing point…the departure…away from worldly conventional normalcy and thinking…that is unique to the Bible.
Certainly the God-composed life-script for Abraham and Sarah could have had Sarah becoming pregnant soon after their arrival in Canaan…with several children following thereafter…producing a conventionally normal family life…in which it could be said of Abraham and Sarah: “and they lived happily forever after.”
But this is not the life-script for Abraham and Sarah. Normal marital relations are not working. The promised descendants…as numerous as the stars in the night sky…are nowhere in sight.
This is where the second main theme of the story comes into play. In a God-composed journey of faith life-script…God writes into the plotline of events and circumstances a dependence upon Himself…that has an outcome…a goal…that requires supernatural intervention…every time throughout the Bible.
This is the point where our ways and God’s ways divide. This is where self-sovereignty separates from God-sovereignty. This is where the biblical narrative stories of faith depart from worldly conventional normalcy and thinking.
This is one of the compelling reasons why the biblical narrative stories of faith could not possibly come from human literary invention.
Bluntly stated…we want the promises of God to be fulfilled in our lives…our way according to worldly conventionality…and they can’t be if they are to have any eternal value.
This rude and shocking reality is not only for our eternal benefit…but also for the benefit of others as God works out His plans through us to unselfishly minister to other people…as in the case of Abraham and Sarah…to produce physical and spiritual descendants…in fact as precisely promised by God…as numerous as the stars in the night sky.
Abraham and Sarah simply cannot produce Isaac…by themselves…according to conventional norms and thinking…on their own. This is by purposeful design. Like it or not, they need help from God.
A journey of faith composed by God will have this difficult and frustrating element…downright annoying at times according to our horizontally conventional thinking…of dependence upon God…involving some goal or outcome beyond our reach…usually beyond our initial imagination as we begin our faith journey…that requires God-sovereignty rather than self-sovereignty…to actualize and bring these outcomes into empirical reality.
If we are looking for convincing evidence to differentiate the biblical narrative stories of faith…from worldly conventional normalcy and thinking…to make the case that these biblical life-scripts could not be the product of human literary invention…another telling argument in this direction is the diametric opposites of our ways versus God’s ways as depicted in the biblical narrative stories of faith.
Anyone who follows the biblical God deep enough into their adventure of faith eventually runs experientially into the jarring realization, at some point in time, that we want to do things…even the big things like the fulfillment of the supernatural promises of God in our lives…our way.
This is one of the fundamental aspects of the Bible that creates a clearly delineated fork-in-the-road…a radical departure…away from worldly conventional normalcy and thinking.
This is an aspect in our Christian discipleship that takes us on a unique journey far from conventional thinking and norms.
Abraham naturally has his own ideas about how he will become the father of descendants as numerous as the stars in the night sky…and his ideas do not include waiting 25 years for the birth of Isaac…the son of promise.
This important piece of information God left out of the initial calling of Abraham…for the best and highest reason imaginable…to set up the unique context for biblical faith…to actualize.
According to contemporary Christian jargon…doing something our way outside of the council or participation of God…is popularly called an “Ishmael”…doomed to failure.
Abraham and Sarah trying to help-out God in fulfilling God’s plans and promise…by bringing Hagar into the picture and thus producing Ishmael…actually goes against-the-grain of the best and highest outcome in this Abraham storyline…in at least two ways.
First, the main goal…the outcome that the life-script of Abraham hones-in on…is not the start of a large family-life according to worldly expectations and aspirations…but rather for Abraham to become the “father of faith”…of biblical faith that by commonsense definition requires elements of patience, trust, and faith.
But faith and trust in who and in what? Not in himself…not in his plans…not in his ideas…not in self-realization and self-reliance. This is the dividing point…the departure…away from worldly conventional normalcy and thinking…that is unique to the Bible.
Certainly the God-composed life-script for Abraham and Sarah could have had Sarah becoming pregnant soon after their arrival in Canaan…with several children following thereafter…producing a conventionally normal family life…in which it could be said of Abraham and Sarah: “and they lived happily forever after.”
But this is not the life-script for Abraham and Sarah. Normal marital relations are not working. The promised descendants…as numerous as the stars in the night sky…are nowhere in sight.
This is where the second main theme of the story comes into play. In a God-composed journey of faith life-script…God writes into the plotline of events and circumstances a dependence upon Himself…that has an outcome…a goal…that requires supernatural intervention…every time throughout the Bible.
This is the point where our ways and God’s ways divide. This is where self-sovereignty separates from God-sovereignty. This is where the biblical narrative stories of faith depart from worldly conventional normalcy and thinking.
This is one of the compelling reasons why the biblical narrative stories of faith could not possibly come from human literary invention.
Bluntly stated…we want the promises of God to be fulfilled in our lives…our way according to worldly conventionality…and they can’t be if they are to have any eternal value.
This rude and shocking reality is not only for our eternal benefit…but also for the benefit of others as God works out His plans through us to unselfishly minister to other people…as in the case of Abraham and Sarah…to produce physical and spiritual descendants…in fact as precisely promised by God…as numerous as the stars in the night sky.
Abraham and Sarah simply cannot produce Isaac…by themselves…according to conventional norms and thinking…on their own. This is by purposeful design. Like it or not, they need help from God.
A journey of faith composed by God will have this difficult and frustrating element…downright annoying at times according to our horizontally conventional thinking…of dependence upon God…involving some goal or outcome beyond our reach…usually beyond our initial imagination as we begin our faith journey…that requires God-sovereignty rather than self-sovereignty…to actualize and bring these outcomes into empirical reality.
The Benefit of the Doubt
From God Didn’t Create Robots: Commonsense Christian Apologetics
As a near-to-last point in this opening introduction…if we have a conflict or an issue with some colleague at work…and we discuss this with a friend who thinks well of us…that friend will give us the supportive benefit of the doubt upon hearing the details.
But a person who is a friend, yet who may not think as highly of us, may automatically take the side of the other person in the dispute…upon hearing the details…and begin to question our handling of the situation…in a knee-jerk, critical fashion…not giving us the benefit of the doubt…thereby exposing their true lower opinion of us.
The biblical narrative stories of faith are filled with people giving God the benefit of the doubt in their adventures of faith.
Every positive person of faith in the Bible has a personal relationship with God that has the universal element of giving God the benefit of the doubt…even amidst difficult and challenging events, and the negatively trending direction of outward appearances.
Biblical characters that immediately come to mind in this regard are Abraham going to Canaan (Heb. 11:8), Joseph in Pharaoh’s prison desperately holding on to the promise of his two earlier dreams received years before in Canaan (Gen. 37:7, 9), and Moses at the burning bush (Ex. 3:11, 4:20).
Jeremiah has a continual, ongoing dialogue with God about the stubborn unbelief of the Jerusalem leaders. Elijah complains bitterly to God about the overwhelming pushback and resistance he is encountering in his calling as a prophet in apostate Israel under the rule of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel.
Other notable people who gave God the benefit of the doubt through difficult challenges are Joshua, Samuel, Job, Ruth, Hannah, Esther and Mordecai, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and all of the minor prophets…to name only a few in the Old Testament.
The Psalms in the Old Testament are filled with people having a personal relationship and dialogue with God…giving God the benefit of the doubt to come through for them in the middle of challenging difficulties.
David’s famous 23rd Psalm is all about giving God the benefit of the doubt.
People of faith in the New Testament actually spent face-time in person with Jesus the Son of God (Jn. 1:14)…and gave Him the benefit of the doubt amidst pushback and resistance to His message and ministry…pushback of deadly intensity (Jn. 11:8, 16).
This idea of the people of faith giving God the benefit of the doubt during the course of their journeys of faith…giving to God the value and worth that putting trust and faith in another person entails…has enormous commonsense, apologetic value as an argument for the existence of God and the truth of the Bible.
This has apologetic value by virtue of its existence as evidence of genuine relationships…very subtle yet solid evidence that holds water because the benefit of the doubt is there…integrally and inseparably embedded within the events and circumstances of the storyline scripts. This evidence would not exist at all in the storylines…if it was not in fact a true indication of the real connection of personal relationships between people and the living God.
This subtle element is baked into every biblical adventure of faith…and cannot be homogenized out without damaging the storylines.
This component of giving God the benefit of the doubt is a powerful clue that these relationships…these stories of faith…are real.
A moral concept as subtle yet as powerful as this could not be the product of collusion on the part of the 40 different authors spanning 1,500 years in the writing of the Bible…universally giving God the benefit of the doubt from Genesis through Revelation…from beginning to end…without the slightest hint of progressive evolution or creative development in the portrayal of biblical faith…as would be expected with a humanistic origin.
The life-stories of Abraham through Paul in the Bible…all depicting biblical faith having this common ingredient of giving God the benefit of the doubt…as religious fiction invented by human writers inspired out of the narrow realm of worldly conventional normalcy and thinking alone…as an explanation for their origin…is again nonsensical.
Like the massive infusion of creative information that entered into the natural world to form the complex living creatures during the Cambrian Explosion of 530 million years ago…inexplicable as a materialistic or naturalistic event…the correct answer to the question of the origin of the biblical narrative stories of faith is that they are a divine creation of God.
The complex and functionally coherent information that enters into the human experience…suddenly and instantly in the form of a God-composed adventure of faith…starting with Abraham…is the action of an independent agent God…providing commonsense apologetic evidence for both His existence…and for the truth of the Bible.
No one can write a fictional novel or short story without revealing something of themselves in the storyline.
In the biblical narrative stories of faith…God not only reveals His divine authorship through His supernatural participation in the storylines in a way that is outside of worldly conventional normalcy and thinking…by introducing the way of the cross…but also exposes something of Himself in revealing His intention to introduce Himself to the people of faith in each biblical storyline…and in the process reveal something of Himself to us today…through the context of life-scripts designed to create the incredible opportunity to exercise the benefit of the doubt in the living God.
Mechanical robots cannot fathom the concept of respect. Neither can robots plumb the depths of giving someone the supportive benefit of the doubt of placing faith, trust, and dignity in another person…extending the gift of value, worth, and validation to that person.
Our non-robotic, analytical capacity for moral reasoning and free-will choice…wrapped within our physical living bodies having all of the marvelous abilities and talents we possess…may be the single-most, top-tier apologetic evidence for the existence of God…easily accessible to commonsense contemplation.
As a near-to-last point in this opening introduction…if we have a conflict or an issue with some colleague at work…and we discuss this with a friend who thinks well of us…that friend will give us the supportive benefit of the doubt upon hearing the details.
But a person who is a friend, yet who may not think as highly of us, may automatically take the side of the other person in the dispute…upon hearing the details…and begin to question our handling of the situation…in a knee-jerk, critical fashion…not giving us the benefit of the doubt…thereby exposing their true lower opinion of us.
The biblical narrative stories of faith are filled with people giving God the benefit of the doubt in their adventures of faith.
Every positive person of faith in the Bible has a personal relationship with God that has the universal element of giving God the benefit of the doubt…even amidst difficult and challenging events, and the negatively trending direction of outward appearances.
Biblical characters that immediately come to mind in this regard are Abraham going to Canaan (Heb. 11:8), Joseph in Pharaoh’s prison desperately holding on to the promise of his two earlier dreams received years before in Canaan (Gen. 37:7, 9), and Moses at the burning bush (Ex. 3:11, 4:20).
Jeremiah has a continual, ongoing dialogue with God about the stubborn unbelief of the Jerusalem leaders. Elijah complains bitterly to God about the overwhelming pushback and resistance he is encountering in his calling as a prophet in apostate Israel under the rule of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel.
Other notable people who gave God the benefit of the doubt through difficult challenges are Joshua, Samuel, Job, Ruth, Hannah, Esther and Mordecai, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and all of the minor prophets…to name only a few in the Old Testament.
The Psalms in the Old Testament are filled with people having a personal relationship and dialogue with God…giving God the benefit of the doubt to come through for them in the middle of challenging difficulties.
David’s famous 23rd Psalm is all about giving God the benefit of the doubt.
People of faith in the New Testament actually spent face-time in person with Jesus the Son of God (Jn. 1:14)…and gave Him the benefit of the doubt amidst pushback and resistance to His message and ministry…pushback of deadly intensity (Jn. 11:8, 16).
This idea of the people of faith giving God the benefit of the doubt during the course of their journeys of faith…giving to God the value and worth that putting trust and faith in another person entails…has enormous commonsense, apologetic value as an argument for the existence of God and the truth of the Bible.
This has apologetic value by virtue of its existence as evidence of genuine relationships…very subtle yet solid evidence that holds water because the benefit of the doubt is there…integrally and inseparably embedded within the events and circumstances of the storyline scripts. This evidence would not exist at all in the storylines…if it was not in fact a true indication of the real connection of personal relationships between people and the living God.
This subtle element is baked into every biblical adventure of faith…and cannot be homogenized out without damaging the storylines.
This component of giving God the benefit of the doubt is a powerful clue that these relationships…these stories of faith…are real.
A moral concept as subtle yet as powerful as this could not be the product of collusion on the part of the 40 different authors spanning 1,500 years in the writing of the Bible…universally giving God the benefit of the doubt from Genesis through Revelation…from beginning to end…without the slightest hint of progressive evolution or creative development in the portrayal of biblical faith…as would be expected with a humanistic origin.
The life-stories of Abraham through Paul in the Bible…all depicting biblical faith having this common ingredient of giving God the benefit of the doubt…as religious fiction invented by human writers inspired out of the narrow realm of worldly conventional normalcy and thinking alone…as an explanation for their origin…is again nonsensical.
Like the massive infusion of creative information that entered into the natural world to form the complex living creatures during the Cambrian Explosion of 530 million years ago…inexplicable as a materialistic or naturalistic event…the correct answer to the question of the origin of the biblical narrative stories of faith is that they are a divine creation of God.
The complex and functionally coherent information that enters into the human experience…suddenly and instantly in the form of a God-composed adventure of faith…starting with Abraham…is the action of an independent agent God…providing commonsense apologetic evidence for both His existence…and for the truth of the Bible.
No one can write a fictional novel or short story without revealing something of themselves in the storyline.
In the biblical narrative stories of faith…God not only reveals His divine authorship through His supernatural participation in the storylines in a way that is outside of worldly conventional normalcy and thinking…by introducing the way of the cross…but also exposes something of Himself in revealing His intention to introduce Himself to the people of faith in each biblical storyline…and in the process reveal something of Himself to us today…through the context of life-scripts designed to create the incredible opportunity to exercise the benefit of the doubt in the living God.
Mechanical robots cannot fathom the concept of respect. Neither can robots plumb the depths of giving someone the supportive benefit of the doubt of placing faith, trust, and dignity in another person…extending the gift of value, worth, and validation to that person.
Our non-robotic, analytical capacity for moral reasoning and free-will choice…wrapped within our physical living bodies having all of the marvelous abilities and talents we possess…may be the single-most, top-tier apologetic evidence for the existence of God…easily accessible to commonsense contemplation.
As Big as Anything in History
As I read the biblical narrative stories of faith in both the Old and New Testaments…I see basically two things happening in terms of journey of faith life-scripts, direction in the lives of Christians, eternal purpose and meaning, and God speaking to us.
The first is the calling of people like Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Samuel, David, Ezra, Nehemiah, Peter, and Paul…who had major promises of God…or very clear missions, goals, or final outcomes to aim for…given to them by God as guidance and hope-filled inspiration at the very beginning of their difficult and challenging journeys of faith.
We naturally tend to write-off these spectacular callings as if they only apply to the superstars of the Bible…too far above our experience to be a viable pattern to apply to our own lives…on a much lesser scale.
Becoming the “father of faith,” becoming the governor of Egypt, liberating the Israelite slaves from Egypt, conquering militarily the Promised Land, becoming king in Israel, rebuilding the walls and the temple in Jerusalem, and becoming the premier Christian evangelists to the Greco-Roman world in the first-century…these are things that seem too big for most of us…and therefore the concept of the displacement of our ways by God’s higher ways in conformity to the cross of Christ…and the gap that is created in a God-composed adventure of faith life-script having a humanistically unattainable goal according to the definition of faith described so brilliantly in Hebrews 11:1…can both be lost in the magnitude and grandeur of the callings of the storylines of these biblical characters.
These displacement and gap elements in the biblical narrative stories of faith could hypothetically seem to raise the bar…the standard…too high for the average Jew in Old Testament times…and the Christian (Jewish Christian or Gentile) in New Testament times.
The recognition of the displacement of our ways with God’s higher ways and thoughts…and the gap in a journey of faith that separates what we can do from what we cannot do…setting up the context for genuine biblical faith to actualize…this could potentially cause an anticipation and expectation problem for many Christians who are faithfully following God and going about their normal Christian practices of prayer, reading and studying the Bible, being active in fellowship with other Christians, and sharing their faith with others…simply because God has not spoken directly to them regarding a specific calling upfront like the examples of the major biblical characters listed above.
But the second thing that I see that is happening in the Bible…probably more often…is that God also works unseen in people’s lives who are trying to be faithful and do the right things…even though God does not at first reveal directly to them…by speaking to them in the Spirit…a major promise, missions, or goal upfront at the very beginning of their journey of faith.
This second type of biblical character can see God’s hand at work over time in hindsight…part-way through their journey of faith…or looking backwards after it has finished and all the dust has settled.
Examples of this type of experience with God…in the biblical narrative stories of faith…might include Ruth, Hannah, Esther and Mordecai, the three Hebrew young men in the fiery furnace of King Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel, and the ten apostles other than Peter and Judas Iscariot.
Ruth is interesting in this regard…in that she does not even know that by marrying Boaz, she has become part of the royal line that produces the future King David in direct line to Jesus Christ the Son of God…born far ahead in the future in the first-century A.D. How could God…in this case…reveal more information to Ruth in-the-moment…without possibly jeopardizing giving away the future plans of God for mankind in the kingship of David and the royal line leading to Jesus the Son of God and eternal King in heaven?
In fact, I think that every positive biblical character did not have a full and complete understanding of the unique and critical role they played in the unfolding saga of God’s eternal plans and destiny for mankind.
It is safe to say that there is not a single person on the planet today that has a complete macro and micro grasp of the higher ways and thoughts of God.
The point I want to make here…as has been repeated many times throughout this book…is that as Abraham gets his calling from God to go from the city of Haran to the Promised Land of Canaan…with each step that Abraham takes God is displacing whatever normative plans Abraham might have otherwise had back in Haran…with a new life-script beyond anything Abraham could or would have dreamed up…beyond anything Abraham could self-compose, contrive, or self-orchestrate.
This worldly unconventional element of displacement of our ways with God’s higher ways…illustrated in the biblical narrative stories of faith according to the two general patterns described above…contained within God-composed journey of faith life-scripts starting with the detailed and highly specific life-story calling of Abraham and continuing throughout the Bible all the way through to the New Testament first-century…down to our current “church age”…is in my view as big as anything else in the history of mankind.
This is as big as the discovery by Copernicus that the earth revolves around the Sun, or Einstein’s theory of general relativity, or the discovery of Edwin Hubble of the Big Bang expansion of the universe, or the discovery of antibiotic medicines to combat disease, or our discovery and understanding of DNA…the “language of life.”
This biblical concept is as big as the American Declaration of Independence…the American Constitution…the Emancipation Proclamation abolishing slavery…the women’s suffrage movement…and the victory over despotic tyranny during World War II.
This biblical concept of the displacement of our ways with God’s ways…and the gap we see in genuine biblical faith between what we can do and what we cannot do on our own…integral and fundamental to a journey of faith following Jehovah in the Old Testament and Jesus Christ in the New Testament…is as big as the discovery by Martin Luther that “the just shall live by faith” rather than works-salvation through pilgrimages, relics, and indulgences…and the monumental realization that common people should have access to the Bible translated into their own languages…that started the Protestant Reformation.
The concept that the living God…the brilliant Creator of the universe…can play a pivotal role…indeed take the lead in crafting and shaping a journey of faith for each one of us…that bears the stamp of divine imagination and innovative creativity in being 100 percent contrary to the opposite worldview of pursuing…on our own…our self-validation and acceptance according to worldly conventional normalcy and thinking…entirely outside of the zone of human literary invention…how can this eternally valuable and applicable biblical concept not be as large or larger than any other concept or event in the history of mankind?
1 John 2:17 reads: “And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.”
The first is the calling of people like Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Samuel, David, Ezra, Nehemiah, Peter, and Paul…who had major promises of God…or very clear missions, goals, or final outcomes to aim for…given to them by God as guidance and hope-filled inspiration at the very beginning of their difficult and challenging journeys of faith.
We naturally tend to write-off these spectacular callings as if they only apply to the superstars of the Bible…too far above our experience to be a viable pattern to apply to our own lives…on a much lesser scale.
Becoming the “father of faith,” becoming the governor of Egypt, liberating the Israelite slaves from Egypt, conquering militarily the Promised Land, becoming king in Israel, rebuilding the walls and the temple in Jerusalem, and becoming the premier Christian evangelists to the Greco-Roman world in the first-century…these are things that seem too big for most of us…and therefore the concept of the displacement of our ways by God’s higher ways in conformity to the cross of Christ…and the gap that is created in a God-composed adventure of faith life-script having a humanistically unattainable goal according to the definition of faith described so brilliantly in Hebrews 11:1…can both be lost in the magnitude and grandeur of the callings of the storylines of these biblical characters.
These displacement and gap elements in the biblical narrative stories of faith could hypothetically seem to raise the bar…the standard…too high for the average Jew in Old Testament times…and the Christian (Jewish Christian or Gentile) in New Testament times.
The recognition of the displacement of our ways with God’s higher ways and thoughts…and the gap in a journey of faith that separates what we can do from what we cannot do…setting up the context for genuine biblical faith to actualize…this could potentially cause an anticipation and expectation problem for many Christians who are faithfully following God and going about their normal Christian practices of prayer, reading and studying the Bible, being active in fellowship with other Christians, and sharing their faith with others…simply because God has not spoken directly to them regarding a specific calling upfront like the examples of the major biblical characters listed above.
But the second thing that I see that is happening in the Bible…probably more often…is that God also works unseen in people’s lives who are trying to be faithful and do the right things…even though God does not at first reveal directly to them…by speaking to them in the Spirit…a major promise, missions, or goal upfront at the very beginning of their journey of faith.
This second type of biblical character can see God’s hand at work over time in hindsight…part-way through their journey of faith…or looking backwards after it has finished and all the dust has settled.
Examples of this type of experience with God…in the biblical narrative stories of faith…might include Ruth, Hannah, Esther and Mordecai, the three Hebrew young men in the fiery furnace of King Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel, and the ten apostles other than Peter and Judas Iscariot.
Ruth is interesting in this regard…in that she does not even know that by marrying Boaz, she has become part of the royal line that produces the future King David in direct line to Jesus Christ the Son of God…born far ahead in the future in the first-century A.D. How could God…in this case…reveal more information to Ruth in-the-moment…without possibly jeopardizing giving away the future plans of God for mankind in the kingship of David and the royal line leading to Jesus the Son of God and eternal King in heaven?
In fact, I think that every positive biblical character did not have a full and complete understanding of the unique and critical role they played in the unfolding saga of God’s eternal plans and destiny for mankind.
It is safe to say that there is not a single person on the planet today that has a complete macro and micro grasp of the higher ways and thoughts of God.
The point I want to make here…as has been repeated many times throughout this book…is that as Abraham gets his calling from God to go from the city of Haran to the Promised Land of Canaan…with each step that Abraham takes God is displacing whatever normative plans Abraham might have otherwise had back in Haran…with a new life-script beyond anything Abraham could or would have dreamed up…beyond anything Abraham could self-compose, contrive, or self-orchestrate.
This worldly unconventional element of displacement of our ways with God’s higher ways…illustrated in the biblical narrative stories of faith according to the two general patterns described above…contained within God-composed journey of faith life-scripts starting with the detailed and highly specific life-story calling of Abraham and continuing throughout the Bible all the way through to the New Testament first-century…down to our current “church age”…is in my view as big as anything else in the history of mankind.
This is as big as the discovery by Copernicus that the earth revolves around the Sun, or Einstein’s theory of general relativity, or the discovery of Edwin Hubble of the Big Bang expansion of the universe, or the discovery of antibiotic medicines to combat disease, or our discovery and understanding of DNA…the “language of life.”
This biblical concept is as big as the American Declaration of Independence…the American Constitution…the Emancipation Proclamation abolishing slavery…the women’s suffrage movement…and the victory over despotic tyranny during World War II.
This biblical concept of the displacement of our ways with God’s ways…and the gap we see in genuine biblical faith between what we can do and what we cannot do on our own…integral and fundamental to a journey of faith following Jehovah in the Old Testament and Jesus Christ in the New Testament…is as big as the discovery by Martin Luther that “the just shall live by faith” rather than works-salvation through pilgrimages, relics, and indulgences…and the monumental realization that common people should have access to the Bible translated into their own languages…that started the Protestant Reformation.
The concept that the living God…the brilliant Creator of the universe…can play a pivotal role…indeed take the lead in crafting and shaping a journey of faith for each one of us…that bears the stamp of divine imagination and innovative creativity in being 100 percent contrary to the opposite worldview of pursuing…on our own…our self-validation and acceptance according to worldly conventional normalcy and thinking…entirely outside of the zone of human literary invention…how can this eternally valuable and applicable biblical concept not be as large or larger than any other concept or event in the history of mankind?
1 John 2:17 reads: “And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.”
Pushing Power Downward
From The Second Half of the Cross
The tragic irony in all of this, on a truly galactic scale, is that God does not mind sharing power. God is not only willing, but anxious to impart spiritual power to human beings (Lk. 9:1-2). It is God who created us with the capacity for abstract thought, logical reasoning, and moral judgment.
A walk of faith through a life-script of varied situations and circumstances, carefully designed and orchestrated by God, is a guided apprenticeship in the right use of personal freedom and power. The examples of the people of faith in the Bible are a demonstration of God’s enlightened management approach of pushing power downward into the lives of His faithful servants.
The management approach of pushing power downward, as a method of training, is an extraordinary trait to find within the character of God. The God who created our universe is an unequaled perfectionist. In our human experience, one of the most difficult things for a perfectionist to do is to delegate. Yet God works in partnership with Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Deborah, Gideon, David, Esther, Daniel, Peter, Paul, and others through unique and unusual story-lines in the Bible in order to give them the opportunity to experience the right use of power under direct apprenticeship to God.
God composes creatively different life-scripts, calls people by His Spirit, and orchestrates adventures of faith so that people can grow and stretch into the potentially Christ-like people that God intended us to be when He created us. The fact that God enlists people into all sorts of varied enterprises in the Bible, which He could undoubtedly do infinitely better solely by Himself, tells us there is a profound purpose behind God joining Himself with us along a walk of faith through life.
The writing of the Bible is a clear example of this concept of God pushing power downward. The Bible has nearly 40 different authors, writing over a span of 1,500 years. These writers were prophets, kings, shepherds, fishermen, a physician, and other common people with varied backgrounds. They wrote from different geographical locations, about different challenges and circumstances, and through the lens of different cultural settings. The fact that these men produced a consistent and cohesive message has enormously persuasive apologetic value in arguing for the divine inspiration of the Bible.
But it also demonstrates God’s willingness and ability to spiritually joint-venture with people to produce something as lofty as Holy Scripture. Jesus says in Matthew 5:18 that the scriptures are so precise that not one jot or one tittle (Hebrew punctuation marks) shall pass from the Law until all be fulfilled. Jesus says in John 10:35 that the scriptures cannot be broken.
That God can and would enlist human participation in the writing of the inspired word of God called the Bible, which mirrors accurately in written words the actual living expression of the Word of God embodied in Jesus of Nazareth, tells us plainly of God’s intention and ability to push power downward effectively into the hearts and minds of faithful men and women of God.
The fact that God created us with this “in-His-image” capacity is the clearest evidence of His loving desire to interact with us on the elevated plane of being able to responsibly, thoughtfully, and rightly use power.
At the outer limits of divine perfection self-centeredness goes away. One stereotype in the business world is of the manager who keeps information to themselves. In any organization knowledge is power. But the servant-leader approach informs, trains, and empowers others. The servant-leader creates business reports and sends out memos with the aim to share information.
The servant-leader approach is a management philosophy of proactive thoughtfulness intended to liberate subordinates from complete dependence upon the all-informed and all-knowing manager.
The servant-leader, who manages to get people involved in the goals of the enterprise through personal participation in decision-making through shared leadership based upon trust, when done wisely usually creates highly motivated, enthusiastic, and committed workers. The servant-leader approach is the exact opposite of the autocrat who keeps all of the information and knowledge, and therefore the power to themselves.
Lucifer wants to live out his dream of being god at the expense of others. Lucifer’s approach is egocentric and requires the sacrifice of others to achieve his goals. By contrast God wants to fulfill His will and way by enabling others to actualize their created potential through free-will participation, a personal relationship, and wise and prudent delegation of authority. God’s approach is based upon unselfish divine love that will sacrifice Himself on the cross for the benefit and well-being of others.
The Bible set into words, and the journeys-of-faith callings portrayed therein, are the epitome of perfect unselfishness pushing power downward. The incarnation of Jesus Christ is this expression in living form. The gift of the Holy Spirit leading and guiding us into all truth from within our born-again spirits is at the height of well-intentioned thoughtfulness in the deepest moral sense.
A God-composed biblical journey of faith is an individual one-on-one training mission. God’s program is to set-up the circumstances unique to each one of our lives, whereby we can learn through first-hand experience to reach the point in wisdom that we knowingly and willingly choose the right, the noble, and the commendable course of conduct as a natural response of our improving Christ-like characters.
God wants us to grow into mature sons and daughters of light, who can react in partnership with His Spirit to every situation in this fallen world environment with the quality of character that will produce joy and peace for ourselves, for others, and for God, now and for all eternity.
Lucifer’s classically deceptive temptation in the Garden, that people apart from God could become “as gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5), was of the most destructive and diabolical nature. Lucifer had nothing to offer that was genuine on its own merits. Lucifer saw the good thing that God had intended for mankind, seized the opportunity, and actually stole God’s idea, corrupting it for his own purposes.
By preemptively stealing God’s creative idea of a journey of faith, before God could establish a solid relationship with Adam and Eve, Lucifer effectively short-circuited the beneficial intentions of God’s program.
By replacing God with “self” in the spiritual equation, Lucifer created a counterfeit “journey of self” to match his own fallen attitude of self-worship, that is completely out-of-sync with the original plan of God for mankind.
This is why the temptation in the Garden was a deception and a lie, rather than a commendably viable alternative approach to life. Lucifer stole and corrupted God’s idea of a joint-venture walk of faith with Him, making it into an autonomous and solitary “walk of self,” because Lucifer does not have a better plan of his own other than rebellious revolt fueled by pride-filled ambition. In reality there is no alternate plan for life in all of existence.
The “walk of self” is merely a lower, fallen, corrupted version of the higher walk-of-faith fellowship that God created us with the capacity to enjoy. The current, worldly conventional modern-day version of a “walk of self” displaces the walk of faith that God designed for us as the vehicle whereby we could get to know Him.
By getting the human race to depart from God through his upside-down deception of making rebellion as autonomous individuals appear as if it was commendably liberating, Lucifer effectively erased the apprenticeship training program that God had planned for us. By going-it-on-our-own apart from the Holy Spirit, we shortchange ourselves from the character lessons that would enable us to happily and responsibly exercise our God-given capacity to learn to use power rightly for the good of ourselves and others.
Lucifer wanted power for its own sake, without being accountable to God or anyone other than himself. By getting mankind to join his rebellion against God, Lucifer has instilled this same lust for power within the character of fallen mankind. This explains why there is so much push-back against the gospel message of repentance, spiritual rebirth, and surrendering our will and way to God.
Being broken upon the living Stone that is Christ (Mt. 21:44) means giving up power. But what is so sadly deceptive about sin, is that in willingly giving up self-sovereignty, the Spirit-led Christian is really only transferring power over to Jesus Christ, who intended all along to give back this self-same power to us, repackaged in a beneficially crafted individual journey of faith.
This ingenious creation of a walk of faith is a divinely guided set of life circumstances, originally designed to enable us to learn to use the power of our individual gifts and abilities properly.
The irony is that it is Jesus Christ who created mankind with the express capacity to be able to use spiritual power rightly and correctly. Sitting upon the throne of our lives in spiritual rebellion frustrates the loving intention of God to fulfill our created purpose.
The tragic irony in all of this, on a truly galactic scale, is that God does not mind sharing power. God is not only willing, but anxious to impart spiritual power to human beings (Lk. 9:1-2). It is God who created us with the capacity for abstract thought, logical reasoning, and moral judgment.
A walk of faith through a life-script of varied situations and circumstances, carefully designed and orchestrated by God, is a guided apprenticeship in the right use of personal freedom and power. The examples of the people of faith in the Bible are a demonstration of God’s enlightened management approach of pushing power downward into the lives of His faithful servants.
The management approach of pushing power downward, as a method of training, is an extraordinary trait to find within the character of God. The God who created our universe is an unequaled perfectionist. In our human experience, one of the most difficult things for a perfectionist to do is to delegate. Yet God works in partnership with Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Deborah, Gideon, David, Esther, Daniel, Peter, Paul, and others through unique and unusual story-lines in the Bible in order to give them the opportunity to experience the right use of power under direct apprenticeship to God.
God composes creatively different life-scripts, calls people by His Spirit, and orchestrates adventures of faith so that people can grow and stretch into the potentially Christ-like people that God intended us to be when He created us. The fact that God enlists people into all sorts of varied enterprises in the Bible, which He could undoubtedly do infinitely better solely by Himself, tells us there is a profound purpose behind God joining Himself with us along a walk of faith through life.
The writing of the Bible is a clear example of this concept of God pushing power downward. The Bible has nearly 40 different authors, writing over a span of 1,500 years. These writers were prophets, kings, shepherds, fishermen, a physician, and other common people with varied backgrounds. They wrote from different geographical locations, about different challenges and circumstances, and through the lens of different cultural settings. The fact that these men produced a consistent and cohesive message has enormously persuasive apologetic value in arguing for the divine inspiration of the Bible.
But it also demonstrates God’s willingness and ability to spiritually joint-venture with people to produce something as lofty as Holy Scripture. Jesus says in Matthew 5:18 that the scriptures are so precise that not one jot or one tittle (Hebrew punctuation marks) shall pass from the Law until all be fulfilled. Jesus says in John 10:35 that the scriptures cannot be broken.
That God can and would enlist human participation in the writing of the inspired word of God called the Bible, which mirrors accurately in written words the actual living expression of the Word of God embodied in Jesus of Nazareth, tells us plainly of God’s intention and ability to push power downward effectively into the hearts and minds of faithful men and women of God.
The fact that God created us with this “in-His-image” capacity is the clearest evidence of His loving desire to interact with us on the elevated plane of being able to responsibly, thoughtfully, and rightly use power.
At the outer limits of divine perfection self-centeredness goes away. One stereotype in the business world is of the manager who keeps information to themselves. In any organization knowledge is power. But the servant-leader approach informs, trains, and empowers others. The servant-leader creates business reports and sends out memos with the aim to share information.
The servant-leader approach is a management philosophy of proactive thoughtfulness intended to liberate subordinates from complete dependence upon the all-informed and all-knowing manager.
The servant-leader, who manages to get people involved in the goals of the enterprise through personal participation in decision-making through shared leadership based upon trust, when done wisely usually creates highly motivated, enthusiastic, and committed workers. The servant-leader approach is the exact opposite of the autocrat who keeps all of the information and knowledge, and therefore the power to themselves.
Lucifer wants to live out his dream of being god at the expense of others. Lucifer’s approach is egocentric and requires the sacrifice of others to achieve his goals. By contrast God wants to fulfill His will and way by enabling others to actualize their created potential through free-will participation, a personal relationship, and wise and prudent delegation of authority. God’s approach is based upon unselfish divine love that will sacrifice Himself on the cross for the benefit and well-being of others.
The Bible set into words, and the journeys-of-faith callings portrayed therein, are the epitome of perfect unselfishness pushing power downward. The incarnation of Jesus Christ is this expression in living form. The gift of the Holy Spirit leading and guiding us into all truth from within our born-again spirits is at the height of well-intentioned thoughtfulness in the deepest moral sense.
A God-composed biblical journey of faith is an individual one-on-one training mission. God’s program is to set-up the circumstances unique to each one of our lives, whereby we can learn through first-hand experience to reach the point in wisdom that we knowingly and willingly choose the right, the noble, and the commendable course of conduct as a natural response of our improving Christ-like characters.
God wants us to grow into mature sons and daughters of light, who can react in partnership with His Spirit to every situation in this fallen world environment with the quality of character that will produce joy and peace for ourselves, for others, and for God, now and for all eternity.
Lucifer’s classically deceptive temptation in the Garden, that people apart from God could become “as gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5), was of the most destructive and diabolical nature. Lucifer had nothing to offer that was genuine on its own merits. Lucifer saw the good thing that God had intended for mankind, seized the opportunity, and actually stole God’s idea, corrupting it for his own purposes.
By preemptively stealing God’s creative idea of a journey of faith, before God could establish a solid relationship with Adam and Eve, Lucifer effectively short-circuited the beneficial intentions of God’s program.
By replacing God with “self” in the spiritual equation, Lucifer created a counterfeit “journey of self” to match his own fallen attitude of self-worship, that is completely out-of-sync with the original plan of God for mankind.
This is why the temptation in the Garden was a deception and a lie, rather than a commendably viable alternative approach to life. Lucifer stole and corrupted God’s idea of a joint-venture walk of faith with Him, making it into an autonomous and solitary “walk of self,” because Lucifer does not have a better plan of his own other than rebellious revolt fueled by pride-filled ambition. In reality there is no alternate plan for life in all of existence.
The “walk of self” is merely a lower, fallen, corrupted version of the higher walk-of-faith fellowship that God created us with the capacity to enjoy. The current, worldly conventional modern-day version of a “walk of self” displaces the walk of faith that God designed for us as the vehicle whereby we could get to know Him.
By getting the human race to depart from God through his upside-down deception of making rebellion as autonomous individuals appear as if it was commendably liberating, Lucifer effectively erased the apprenticeship training program that God had planned for us. By going-it-on-our-own apart from the Holy Spirit, we shortchange ourselves from the character lessons that would enable us to happily and responsibly exercise our God-given capacity to learn to use power rightly for the good of ourselves and others.
Lucifer wanted power for its own sake, without being accountable to God or anyone other than himself. By getting mankind to join his rebellion against God, Lucifer has instilled this same lust for power within the character of fallen mankind. This explains why there is so much push-back against the gospel message of repentance, spiritual rebirth, and surrendering our will and way to God.
Being broken upon the living Stone that is Christ (Mt. 21:44) means giving up power. But what is so sadly deceptive about sin, is that in willingly giving up self-sovereignty, the Spirit-led Christian is really only transferring power over to Jesus Christ, who intended all along to give back this self-same power to us, repackaged in a beneficially crafted individual journey of faith.
This ingenious creation of a walk of faith is a divinely guided set of life circumstances, originally designed to enable us to learn to use the power of our individual gifts and abilities properly.
The irony is that it is Jesus Christ who created mankind with the express capacity to be able to use spiritual power rightly and correctly. Sitting upon the throne of our lives in spiritual rebellion frustrates the loving intention of God to fulfill our created purpose.
