The Two Fates

     "That ye may be blameless and pure, the sons of God, without fault, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world [alt: as stars in the universe]." Philippians 2:15

     We are stars shed from the blood of the sun, the sparks of a greater flame that is infinite and glorious, sending us flying upward into the pitch black sky of night. We are in constant rebellion against the dark: we will not conform to its shades and secret sins. Like a new caretaker purchases a rotting old building and begins by replacing a bulb in a dark alleyway: the roaches flee and the caretaker begins his repairs. So we too, having been purchased by God through His blood and pain and having our old deformities set right, we shine in the dark places as our master sets to fix the whole.

     God did not call people to merely escape from Hell; He has called us to bear the fruits of His fire. Read Galatians 5:22-23. There are the fruits of the Spirit; there is the result of being one with the consuming fire. If you have not these things, then you are still a dead ember lying lifeless on the ash heap of the world. A fire is coming for you and your kind, but you will not survive it.

     Hence are our two fates: to burn or to burn. To be filled up by the fiery Spirit of God like an overfilled cup or to be drowned in an infinite ocean of His fiery wrath. To the burning Love or the burning Wrath you must flee. The choice is yours; the results are eternal.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

"That also is a mystery..."

"So there was a division among the people because of Him." John 7:43

John 7:2 through 10:21 chronicles the events surrounding Jesus' visit to the temple at Jerusalem during the Feast of Tabernacles. Many notable events occur, containing several reoccurring themes. John 7:43, however, captures one of the most interesting themes, a theme whose implications are highly important.
It is an error to claim that Jesus was an enigma to only one group of people. The truth of the Gospels (esp. John) is that Jesus was an enigma to everyone. Of course, the Pharisees did not get Him, but neither did His family, or His disciples, or the Jews, or the Gentiles, or the woman caught in adultery, or the man born blind. From the highest rungs of political and religious power, to the lowest dregs of societal outcasts, the theme was the same: Jesus astounded and confounded; and all the while (esp. John 7:2-10:21), Jesus continued to hammer another theme essential to the former: (1) I am of God; (2) anyone who is of God gets me; (3) if you don't get me, then you are not of God. Even that bit of logic escaped them (John 8).
Perhaps these two intrinsically linked themes (Jesus' enigma caused by being from God) is what Paul was trying to express by the whole "conform/transform" dichotomy (Rom. 12:2). Jesus seemed to express the same thing in John 15:19: "If ye were of the world, the world would love its own; but because ye are not of the world (because I have chosen you out of the world), therefore the world hateth you." The author of Hebrews shares the same sentiment with their image of "strangers and pilgrims on the earth" (Heb. 11:13-14), and John adds his own voice when he said, "We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth us not" (I John 4:6a). There seems to be an assumption in Scripture that those who are "of God" through Christ are necessarily a strange bird to everyone else. Some Rubicon has been crossed. Our relation to the world and its people has changed, and it will not and cannot be the same ever again; for we are no longer of this world (John 17:16).
Hence comes the frustrating tension of the "in the world but not of it" scenario, and the battles lines over this issue are drawn deep. Factions vary, but most can be safely grouped into two camps. One camp (we shall call them "Relevantists") claims (quite truthfully) that people are weary of an impersonal and sloganeering Christianity, detached from their lives and concerns; the truths of God must matter to them (who they are and where they are) before they will accept them. This particular camp condemns their opponents of being too aloof and "hands-off". Their favorite words of commendation are "real," "relevant," and "authentic"; their favorite words of condemnation are "Pharisaical," "fake," and "disingenuous". Meanwhile, the other camp (we shall call them "Sanctificationists") claims (again, quite truthfully) that we are clearly called to "be holy" as God "is holy," and to be bound up in the trappings and garb of the world will corrupt us and subsequently ruin our evangelism; the world needs and seeks holiness, and if we do not emit holiness then we have nothing to offer them. This particular camp condemns their opponents of being too down-and-dirty and "hands-on". Their favorite words of commendation are "godliness," "holiness," and "holy"; their favorite words of condemnation are "worldly," "fleshly," and "carnal".
Both sides equally claim that their way is the "Christ-like" way and that the other's way will (and is) sabotage and destroy the Christian mission. The rest of us are caught in the middle of these two trends, pulled by each side's truths and repelled by their errors. We do feel the necessity of relevance and honesty, yet feel that our Relevantist brothers and sisters are a bit too comfortable with the world. Likewise, we do feel the necessity of holiness and separation, yet feel that our Sanctificationist brothers and sisters are a bit too disconnected with the world. Thus, the frustrating tension continues without a resolution.
Oh, and guess what? Jesus does not help us on this point. He is still confounding, especially since both Relevantists and Sanctificationists quote Him to prove (and quite clearly prove) their respective cases! Jesus ate with sinners; He also met with Nicodemus. He argued against the unbelief of the Pharisees and the common folk, and thus committed Himself to no one. He told the woman at the well, a Samaritan and enemy, strange thoughts and astounding knowledge; and she believed, and He welcomed her. Yet this same Jesus told a rich young ruler, a man eager and ready to follow Him, strange thoughts and astounding knowledge; but the man went away, and Jesus did not go after Him. His enemies were divided over Him, but so where His own disciples. The self-righteous could not understand Him, but neither did the broken and downcast. Neither Relevantists and Sanctificationists nor any other group can claim Jesus as solely theirs. It is as if He belongs to no one but Himself. He is untouchable, as if the understood arrangement is "He does not belong to you; you belong to Him."
It seems to me (an admittedly unlearned man of faith and the Faith) that all of the movements and groups that try to make Jesus their "example" (a better word would be "mascot") are merely committing the unintentionally yet rather serious error of trying to completely rationalize and categorize what is inherently mysterious. The life of a Christian is the life of Christ, and the life of Christ is the life of God; and the life of God--that triune dance, that sovereign power so great that it can allow for free agents and yet cause no injury to its omnipotence, that love and wrath burning and boiling to their uttermost side by side, that immutable yet jealous zeal, the life of God--is inherently mysterious. It is with that life that we are made one in Christ (John 17:20-23). Why, then, do we act like we should make sense?
Madeleine L'Engle quoted some Cardinal (I forget his name) as saying that we are to live in such a way that our lives would make no sense if there was no God. I think that about perfectly sums it up. Jesus frustrated the logic and sensibilities of everyone, and the end result was either (1) they collapsed with their logic, or (2) their logic collapsed and they could finally see the truth (Matt. 21:42-44). Are we not called to be made into the same image? We are the living mysteries: we touch and yet are untouchable; so very real and yet so unreal. We frustrate and confound, yet none can turn away. Something within us burns with a fervent heat and living light, something that equally appalls and attracts. That something is not our charm and honesty, our righteousness and godliness; it is the life of the living God, surging through us like electricity through a conduit. At least, that is how it should be. For now, most of us (if not all of us) are tangled up in our own misconceptions and subsequent inconsistencies and inadequacies, faithfully missing the point and the mark. Yet God's grace fills up the crack of our imperfects, and makes (and is making) us what we ought to be. That also is a mystery, a great and beautiful one; let us leave it at that.

-Jon Vowell

Holy Life, Holy War

"I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. O when wilt Thou come unto me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes. I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me." Ps. 101:2-3

"Ye that love the Lord, hate evil...." Ps. 97:10a

"Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good." Rom. 12:9b

The "holy life" (as some call it) is simple on paper but difficult in practice. On paper, we are to love and cleave to the good, while we are to hate and reject the bad. In practice, however, this simple formula is always a war. Of course, before salvation, the struggle was impossible to win thanks to the inward law of sin and death (Rom.7:18-25); after salvation, the Spirit of God sets us free from that law (Rom. 8:1-2): Sin still has its pull, but we no longer have to obey it.
It is that continual and ever-present "pull," however, that drives us insane. Though set free from necessary sinfulness, we still find ourselves fighting against a lingering deadness of the body (Rom. 8:10), i.e., the appetites*. Fortunately, such a fight is ours for the winning in the moment because of Christ (Rom. 8:11) and God (Phil. 2:13). Whereas once our mind agreed with God (Rom. 7:25) but our spirit was dead and therefore could not enforce the mind's desire upon the appetites (i.e., the flesh), now we have (through Christ's atonement) the Spirit of God, who quickens our bodies (Rom. 8:10-11) and enables us to be holy as He is holy (I Peter 1:16).
There is a reason Christ described salvation as a new birth (John 3:3): it is not mere forgiveness only, but also a re-creation (II Cor. 5:17). A new life has been born in us (I Cor. 6:19), a life that can live the life of God (for it is the life of God), the only life worthy of Heaven. Our meriting eternal life and communion with God is based upon the work, life, power, and presence of someone other than ourselves. That is the key distinction between Christianity and the religions of the world: complete and utter dependence on the divine. We cannot save ourselves; only God can.

-Jon Vowell

*I say "appetites" for two reasons: (1) So as to avoid any hint of Gnosticism. I do not believe that the physical body is evil because it is physical. I believe that the physical body is fallen, and thus subject to the corruption of Sin and Death. When that corruption is removed, the body will remain: glorified, yet still physical. (2) So as to explain the "pull" of Sin. This has been a troublesome spot for me. If the "old man" and "the flesh" (which I take to be the same thing) are removed by Christ (Rom. 6:6; 8:1, 9), what then within me is drawn by Sin's "pull"? If I am free from the old life and its corruptions, what then is the motive power in me to sin? I take Rom. 8:10-11 to signify that there is still a part of us that is dead, i.e., the body. Since the mind already agreed with God (Rom. 7:25) and our spirit is now the Spirit of God, "the body" cannot be our mind or spirit. Therefore, it must be the physical body with its fallen appetites. This is what I take it to mean until a smarter head than I corrects me.

Damnable Ignorance

"Know ye that the Lord, He is God; it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture." Ps. 100:3

"But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? For all things come of Thee, and of Thine own hand have we given Thee." I Chr. 29:14

Humility, joy, love, and every other aspect of Christ-likeness comes from a resolute focusing of our heart and mind on the fact of our necessary dependence. "The Son can do nothing of Himself," Jesus said to the Jews, "except what He seeth the Father do" (John 5:19). Such is the nature of true Christ-likeness: a state of utter acknowledgment and living in the reality of one's dependence on God.
What person can truly claim to have "arrived" by their own strengths? Many do make such a claim, but it is all noisome hubris. Their strengths are God's strengths, for He is their Creator and thus has given them those strengths. Likewise, which of His children can truly claim to be their own man/woman? Sadly, many do, and they boast of their strengths "as if [they] had not received it" (I Cor. 4:7). It is God, and not ourselves, who "makes" us in every way; we are His and not our own. To claim otherwise is nothing but pride and Sin, the parents of such damnable ignorance, for many are cast into Hell thinking that they can live and move and have their being apart from God.

-Jon Vowell

The Mysterious and the Good

"Clouds and darkness are round about Him.... Light is sown for the righteous...." Ps. 97:2a, 11a

"Course He isn't safe. But He is good." -C.S. Lewis

There are two things that we must never forget about God: His mysteriousness and His goodness. We are most forgetful of and frustrated by the former. We gladly seek the comforts of God only to find that resting in His secret place means dwelling in a shadow (Ps.91:1) and darkness (Ps. 18:11). God is light, and in Him dwells no darkness (I John 1:5), but darkness is where He dwells; not it in Him, but rather He in it. Thus, His ways are mysterious (Is. 55:8, 9; Rom. 11:33) and His light inaccessible (I Tim. 6:16). We often flounder at this: we would much rather have a God that we could easily categorize and thus easily predict. However, one of God's favorite past times is frustrating our assumptions, and He will continue to do so until we trust in His mystery.
God's goodness is more palatable than His mystery, but only after we water it down to the point of banality. We do acknowledge the light that He graciously sows for us, whether it be His word for guidance (Ps.119:105) or His Son for salvation (John 1:4); yet we do not seem to connect that we are given light because the world is dark, a darkness filled with terrors and terrified people. The light we are given is for our survival and the salvation of others. We are not on a sun-drenched vacation; we are pilgrims in an unholy land. God's goodness (which He freely gives because He is good) is not to be bottled up and horded, but broken and spilled out unto all. God is good, and good to us; but if we are to be like Him (I Peter 1:16), then we cannot keep that goodness, that light, to ourselves. Like our Father in Heaven has done for us, we too must spread the light as far as we can fling it.

-Jon Vowell

Final Justice (or, Apocalypse Please)

"The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth [God's] vengeance; He shall wash His feet in the blood of the wicked, so that a man shall say, 'Verily there is a reward for the righteous; verily He is a God that judgeth the earth." Ps. 58:10, 11

It is a lie that justice sometimes doesn't prevail. Humanity's well-intended yet feeble attempts at justice may sometimes fail, but Justice will always prevail, even if it seems postponed for the time being. There is a God who judges the earth, who will judge the living and the dead. There is no escaping this God (Rom. 14:12), nor this judgment (Heb. 9:27). It will be a terror for the wicked and a joy for the righteous.
It will also be a revelation for everyone. "A man shall say" that justice is real, and that there is a God who is just. Many today try to poison our minds with the notion that God is somehow unjust. A day is coming, however, when every mouth will be silenced, and every knee shall bow, and every heart will understand and be without excuse at the unveiling of God's final judgment. There really is a reward for those who do good or evil; all of the wronged rights and unrighted wrongs are not in vain, nor are they the end. The end is the great and terrible day of the Lord, when all shall be well. That day is coming, and every believer that hopes in that day sanctifies themselves further towards the likeness of God (I John 3:2-3); for despair darkens the soul, and we must not despair. The world is dark enough as it is, and our hope, faith, and love are to flow forth and make us shine with the holy light of God like stars in the night.

-Jon Vowell

Now and Forever

"What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee. [...] For Thou hast delivered my soul from death; wilt not Thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?" Ps. 56:3, 13

It is called the life of faith for a reason. Salvation is a unique and extraordinary moment, but what about all the moments afterwards? You trust that Christ will stand with you at the judgment seat; do you trust that He is standing with you while you seat in your seat right now? You believe that God has delivered your soul from death; do you believe that He will deliver your feet from falling? You believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and have been saved (Acts 16:31); do you now believe that He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it (Phil. 1:6)? If we are honest with ourselves, we would say that we very much believe the formers and very much doubt the latters on a day-to-day basis.
We are subjective beings. We experience circumstances and people in ways that (in some sense) are unique unto ourselves. However, that does not mean that our subjectivity is always right; more often than not, it is flat-out wrong. We often respond to situations in ways that are contradictory to what is real: we doubt when we should believe, we worry when we should trust, we hate when we should love, love when we should hate, grieve when we should be joyful, sing when we should mourn, etc. God has revealed to us what is real, and our subjective selves must be bound to His objective revelations, so that we may not be tossed about by our unreliable human emotions and wisdom.

-Jon Vowell

Another Paradox

"Let the Lord be magnified, who hath pleasure in the prosperity of His servant." Ps. 35:27b

"If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." Luke 9:23

"...to die is gain." Phil. 1:21

It is common is Christianity today to not connect sacrifice with the goodness of God. Actually, I dare say that we do not connect it to God at all. We are quite certain that it merely involves us: our misery, our suffering, our loss. Thus, sacrifice today is degraded to an occasion for self-pity, which is just another term for pride. Such an outcome is a result of a lack of faith, viz., a lack of accounting for God in the midst of circumstances. If we add Him into the equation and reconcile our thinking with the fact that we "deny" all in order to gain God, then pride is ruled out as sacrifice becomes another occasion to give Him glory. Sacrifice is commanded, not so that we can lose, but so we can gain.
No one teaches this anymore, even in the truest of churches. Sacrifice comes off like some sort of caveat, a disclaimer pointing you to the fine-print that lets you know the deal is too good to be true. Conversely, Christ made sacrifice the focal point of His identity, viz., the loss of all for the will of the Father. In Christ, God suffered loss (Phil. 2:6-7) so that He may gain us (Eph. 2:14-17), and glory was found in such an act (Phil. 2:9-11). Likewise, we too are called to godliness, to God-likeness, to Christ-likeness. We are called to lay down our miserable, broken lives so that we may be made in the image of Christ (II Cor. 3:18), the very image of God. We are called to lose so that we might gain God, and all that He is.

-Jon Vowell

The Only Remedy

"Ye are they that forsake the Lord...therefore I will number you for the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter, because when I called, you did not answer, [and] when I spoke, ye did not hear, but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not.... Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered, nor come to mind; but be ye glad and rejoice forever in that which I create, for behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy." Isaiah 65:11, 12, 17, 18

Desolation and glory are not mere abstract principle; they are a part of rugged reality. All the moral motions within men, whether they know God or not (Romans 2:14, 15), cry out in testimony against us. We know (beyond all contentless academic posturing) that there is a right and a wrong, and that those who do evil will be punished, and those who do good will receive reward. Desolation on the wicked (vs. 1-7, 11-16) and glory to the faithful (vs. 8-10, 13-16) are two immutable facts not only of Christian philosophy but also rugged reality, as real and as practical as the ground beneath our feet.
As I have said before many times, desolation is the only pathway to glory, not only in individual lives (as in justification and sanctification) but also in universal existence. In order for the creation to be restored to the glory it was created for, it will mean the desolation of all that is not-God; that is one of the great facts of the book of Revelation. Dies irae is not an arbitrary assignment; it is a necessary remedy, the only remedy. In order to bring out the finest gold, all the dross must be removed; and the deeper the dross is, the hotter the fires must be.
It is the heritage of humanity to know that true happiness and joy is only possible with the destruction and desolation of all evil things. Those who decry God's wrath against the wicked are neither enlightened nor wise; they are fools who deny core elements of the very reality that they claim to be a part of. If the wicked perish with wickedness, so much the worse for the wicked. We should indeed pity them, but we have lost all of our sense if we demand that God end all of our miseries and then turn right round and condemn Him for doing so.

"We are cured, wounded,
Made whole or destroyed,
And destined only
For fire or Fire..."
-Jon Vowell

Purely Purged II: Here Comes the Pain

"In measure, when [Israel] shooteth forth [like a plant], Thou wilt [contended] with it: He [removes it by] His rough wind in the day of the east wind. By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged..." Isaiah 27:8, 9a (Rev. Marg.)

Perhaps we forget that purging is painful. There are parts of you that are not of God, parts of you that are still dead; ideas, habits, and perspectives that must go. There are ways that seemed right unto us, ideas that seemed the norm. God's Spirit enters in, however, and reveals that such ways and ideas are not a part of Him and must go. Change brings pain; Christ has given us the power to change, but it will be a war between our flesh and the inner man.
Look back at the week you had: Was it rough? Were you troubled? Did you feel hammered on all sides? Now that it is over, are you exhausted and yet relieved? Now ask yourself: What did you learn? What has changed in your mind about things? Where have your perspectives and ways altered? The "rough stuff" of our lives is part of the anvil and hammer that God uses to purge out our imperfections.
"...this is all the fruits to take away sin..." This is how we know that we have been purged: that which once held sway in our lives is no more; that which held our focus away from God is gone; that which was a manifestation of our own will has been lost (Isaiah 27:9b). Drawing closer to God always means a purging of everything that is not of Him.

"Take this dead body and
Beat it with Your Life
Until it is in the Image
Of your Living Son..."
-Jon Vowell

An Unheeded Secret

"The way of the just is uprightness: Thou, most upright, dost weigh [i.e., make level] the path of the just." Isaiah 26:7

We are "the just" in that we are both to do justly (Micah 6:8) and are justified (Romans 5:9). The way of the just, the "walk and talk" required of the just, is marked by outstanding moral character. Such a character is not in man, however, nor is there the strength in man to attain it.

"Thou, most upright, dost [make level] the path of the just." (Rev. marg.) It is God and God alone that is completely upright, He alone that is the fullness of outstanding moral character; and it is He that levels our path out so that we can walk upright as He walks upright. That is the great unheeded secret of Christianity (one of many): God gives us salvation, i.e., the Life of Christ in us. Then He commands us to walk as Christ walks, to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." (Philippians 2:12b) The secret that we miss is that to work out what God worked in is beyond our meagre strength. It is God's strength that gets it done, God's strength through Christ that can do all things (Philippians 4:13), God that levels our path so we can walk upright, "it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." (Philippians 2:13) The life of the Son of God in you is both the thing to be worked out and that which works it out. It is paradoxically the tools and the finished product.

"The path of the just is a s the shining light..." (Proverbs 4:18a) The just see clearly in order to walk uprightly, not by some light of their own, but by the life that is the light of men (John 1:4). Christ's life is in us for us to both be and use.

"By your strength

I both live

And stand..."

The Hand that Smites II

"And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again [depend] upon [Assyria]; but shall [depend] upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth." Isaiah 10:20

This is to be the result of the smiting of God: a solemn return to sole dependency on God. Israel once looked to Assyria for help. Now they will go back to the true source of all help: the Holy One of Israel.

Too many of us think that God smacks us upside the head because He wants us to fix something we did wrong. You have no such power in you to fix anything. God smacks you upside the head so that He can fix you. The true problem is not what you did wrong, but what went wrong inside you that led to the wrong that you did. When He smites, return to Him so that He may correct you. Let all else go, including your desire to fix it yourself.

The devil would have you turn to self-pity. God smacks you and you collapse into a quivering pile of wimp jelly, constantly blubbering something about how "wrong" you are, or "bad," or "sinful," or whatever. You are completely on the wrong track. Self-pity is self-focused, and therefore it is a form of pride. God does not want to hear how wrong you are. He knows how wrong you are; that's why He smacked you in the first place! He wants you to return so He can fix what's wrong.

The prodigal son had a speech prepared upon his return, but his father would not let him finish it (Luke 15:17-24). Job answered God by confessing his sinfulness, but God was not satisfied with that answer (Job 40:1-7). Repentance is not stating what you've done; that is confession, which is step one. Repentance is step two, and it is simply returning to God. May His blessing and smiting draw us closer to Him.

The Hand that Smites

"For the people turneth not unto Him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the Lord of hosts." Isaiah 9:13

God is not being malicious when He smites. He is not a sadist (Lamentations 3:32, 33). He finds no delight in causing affliction. Affliction is a necessary evil. It is always meant as an attention-getter, meant to make us turn around and seek God in the matter. If He smacks you on the back of the head, like any good father would do to a misbehaving child, He does not want you to wilt like a dead flower and whimper like a quivering puddle of spinelessness. His smiting is to smack you back to reality so that you, with all the power and honor of a child of God, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and say as Samuel said, "Here am I, Lord."

How quickly we fade like chaff in the wind under the hand that smites. It should not be. Through Christ we come from hardier stock, i.e., the bloodline of God Himself. There is no whine or whimper in a child of God, only the rousing of yourself up by the power of the new man within to seek the Lord while He may be found.

"There is no possibility of lying like a limp jellyfish on God's providence," says Oswald Chambers. God's smiting is meant to rouse you to seek Him, not shatter you into whining pieces of self-pity. There is no backbone in Christendom anymore: we do not really believe that all things are working for our good, including the smiting of God.

Leave It Alone

"And all the people...that say in the pride and [arrogance] of heart, 'The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycamores are cut down, but we will changes them into cedars.' Therefore the Lord shall set up adversaries...against [the people]..."

Isaiah 9:9-11

This is the inverse of the marriage petition: "What God has torn asunder, let no man join together." There are parts of us that must go, elements in our lives that may not be necessarily bad, just not God's best. There are things in your life just now that God wants to raze to the ground so He can rebuild with something better. It may be a habit, a ministry, a relationship, or whatever; it may even be something good and noble from the human standpoint. Whatever it is, God wants to take it away and give you something better. He wants to exchange your tin for silver.

However, we stand in God's way and cry, "No! I must have this! I cannot bear to let it go!" You must if you are to have God's best. We try and rebuild what God is tearing down, and we find ourselves fighting against God. If we resist, God will not force us; but we will have sacrificed the best for the good.

God does not expect us to bring calamity and poverty on ourselves and go live in a cave. What He does expect is for us to trust Him so much and hold everything else so loosely that when He rearranges your life for your good there will be no pain, no frustration, no despair, only the sweet joy of seeing your Father intimately working in your life.

If you try and rebuild, do not be surprised if you face divinely appointed adversity that lets you know that what has been torn down must stay torn down. May our fingers grasp only to God, and may all else be shadows.

Curve Balls

"Behold, the hour cometh...that ye shall be scattered." John 16:32

"After we have been perfectly related to God in sanctification, our faith has to be worked out in actualities."
-Oswald Chambers

The disciples had a severe case of "Israel Complex." No matter what they went through, how many miracles they saw, or how close they grew towards Jesus and God, they never seemed to get it right. There was always some element left unsettled, some part of them that was slanted fully towards self. They had no faith when the storm on the sea came, they could not cast out demons, they squabbled amongst themselves for superiority, and Jesus' words constantly disturbed them. Each time they learned their lesson, circumstances revealed a new flaw and they fell out again. Jesus, however, reveals to them an odd encouragement: he knows they will fall again. "Ye shall be scattered." It is inevitable; the circumstances that reveal their flaws are meant to be.
The way God chastises His children is what I call curve balls: a set of unexpected circumstances or unexpected elements in circumstances that hit you right where you were not looking and reveal a weak spot. They always reveal to you areas where you still need work. No matter how far we've come or how well we feel we know or trust, God will always send a curve ball that points out where you are off beat, where the rhythm of your will is not fully in tune with God's, where your faith is, as Chambers put it, "real, but not grounded." Curve balls are God's way of grounding our faith until it is unshakable.
We live only in the ideal (viz., God's blessings); we would much rather stay on the mountain top where God's presence and love are so real that faith almost seems unnecessary. It takes God's curve balls to ground our faith, to knock it off of the glorious heights down to the actualities and hum-drum of real life where faith is truly strengthened. The mountain tops add to your faith; the valleys are where it is strengthened, where God's hammer of affliction and mediocrity smashes away all dross and tin.
Curve balls are never a rebuke. Rebukes come when you have willfully submitted yourself to the slavery of death through sin. Curve balls are God's way of growing you up. Circumstances come, and you think you have all the angles worked out: "No matter what happens, Father, I will trust you." Then the one thing you were not counting on, your one blind spot, hits you upside the head, and the immediate reaction is to slide into despair: "Missed it again!" Never slide into despair. God's curve balls are not rebukes, they are the fires that harden the steel of your faith. Faith is never grounded, established, made unshakable unless it is confronted with a real crisis, and the crisis will always be something you did not intended or plan for. Thank God for the curve balls: they are signs of His presence and workings in your life.
"Spiritual grit is what we need," said Chambers, and it is true. The curve ball comes and we fall apart, thinking that we have "failed." There are no failures or successes in curve balls; only weathering or wilting. God, like the good Father He is, will make circumstances such that you will either fall away into despair and devilish self-pity; or grit your teeth, hang on, and bank fully on the character of God until your childish faith becomes "child-like," i.e., fully grounded on God and completely unshakable.

The Great Physician

"Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and convert, and be healed. Then [Isaiah] said, Lord, how long? And He answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate..." Isaiah 6:10, 11

When Isaiah cried that he was a man of "unclean lips," God immediately met his need (Is. 6:6, 7). Then when Isaiah cried that he was in the midst of people of unclean lips, God immediately...brings desolation? abandonment?
Why does God not come and heal? Is God cruel? No, it is because there are some things that do not need healing; they need removal. Scars need healing; a tumor needs to be removed.
We are seeing here the two sides to the Great Physician: "...I wound, and I heal..." (Deuteronomy 32:39). Sometimes God will gently soothe our wounds with the balm of Gilead. Other times He does the wounding; He cuts right through us so He can hack away at what's killing us. Whether He wounds or heals, however, it all works for our good.
There was a part of Israel that did not need healing, people that were the source of corruption and deadness; that part needed to be "wasted," "desolate," "removed," and "forsaken" (Is. 6:11, 12). We forget that a physician not only prescribes and administers medicine, but also performs surgery, which is a type of wounding. So it is the same with the Great Physician. Sometimes, God's healing comes in the wounding. Remember, the greatest healing came from the greatest wounding (Isaiah 53:5).
"But yet in [Israel] shall be a tenth, and it shall return...as an oak, whose stump remains when it is cut down: so the holy seed shall be the stump thereof." (Isaiah 6:13) Sometimes there must be a pruning of the branches; other times, the whole tree must be cut down so it can start over. In addition, even the pruning is not guaranteed to be pleasant: either it is done by the gentle hands of the gardener or by a storm that tears the dead branches loose. Likewise, sometimes the only true healing is the wounding that cuts out the deadness so what is alive can grow again.
As the Great Physician, God will heal your wounds and get the deadness out. Isaiah's lips needed only to be covered ("purge" in verse 7 means to "cover" or "atone"); the people needed the desolation that gets the deadness out. God has no qualms with getting His hands dirty, whether it be in regards to you or in regards to others.
"And He said, Go, and tell this people..." (Is. 6:9). God may want to use you to get the deadness out of others as well as use you to heal. When it comes to being used by God to wound, or if we are seeing someone being wounded by God, we must not become what Oswald Chambers called "amateur providences," i.e., we suddenly think we have a higher moral sense than God and we cry, "They shall not suffer!" They must if they are to be whole.
How many times have we stood in the way of God's healing for us (and others) because we refuse to partake in the wounding that brings the healing?

Purely Purged

"The silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water..." Isaiah 1:22

"Purity" is a fine Christianish term that usually gets delegated by the prudes of the faith solely to the sexual realm and beaten until it is a dead horse and then beaten some more.
Purity is much more than moral conscience in the sexual realm. Purity means a complete absence of contamination; every part is solely ONE way. There is no mixture.
As Christians, every part of us (body, soul, spirit; morally, psychologically, socially, emotionally, relationally; reason, will, appetites; etc.) is to be completely ONE way, set on one track: a Spirit born, Christ filled, child of God. Every aspect of our lives must conform to this one way:

• "Spirit born," i.e., no longer a member of the races of this world, we are born into a new race, a spiritual race, a living race, and this dead world with its dead ways no longer hold any meaning for us.
• "Christ filled," i.e., we have a new disposition in us, a new nature, one that conforms to things higher and greater than ourselves or this world, to a Will higher and greater than ourselves or this world, and our will can now be aligned with that great and higher Will.
• "Child of God," i.e., we have a new heritage, a new legacy. Our old one has past away, and we are set free from the things that kept us bogged down in hopelessness and shame, because we are now the children of freedom (see Galatians 4:31-5:1), and we are kept free while our will is aligned with our Father's Will.

"I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross..." (Isaiah 1:25) Contamination comes when our will steps away from alignment with the great and higher Will. By our own volition, we sell ourselves into the old bondage (see John 8:34 & Romans 6:15-18), and God will NOT let you stay there. Are you in need of a purge? Repentance will bring you back to the Purger, and purging back to freedom.