GOD DOES NOT FRUSTRATE

For this commandment which I command you this day is not too hard for you, neither is it far off....But the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.  Deut. 30:11-14, R.S.V.

My fourth-grade teacher will never know how resentful I felt at what she had explained to me.  I had just taken a standardized achievement test, and I was smarting under the awareness that many of the questions on the test were utter mysteries to me.  My teacher kindly told me that in order to measure the upper limits of even the most brilliant some questions that I wasn't even expected to answer had to be included.

After cooling down for a few hours, I decided I could forgive this calculating piece of academic frustration, in view of its purposes.  Yet the same feelings have sometimes surfaced in the years since then as I have thought about the "testing" requirements of God's law.  It has seemed manifestly unfair that God should require of me that which He knew I was unable to perform.

What is more, it has seemed even more unfair that He should then judge me so severely for failing to reach that impossible standard.  More than a scaled score on a national norm was at stake; my eternal life was on the line!  How comforting to realize that I am not the first to have struggled with these feelings, and Moses' message is as potent for us as for his hearers.  And what a wisely comforting understanding of God he brings!

God is not testing our upper limits that He might judge us; He is expanding our upper limits that we might enjoy Him.  He has no reason to frustrate us by commanding the impossible; He has every reason to transform our inner motives that we might love His commands.  His relationship to us has never been that of the distant Judge, handing down endless dictums beyond our capacity to perform.  It has been that of a nurturing Father, healing and transforming our inner motives that we might enjoy doing right.

So often we have seen victory over sin as similar to sitting on a keg of dynamite, holding down the lid and hoping that it won't blow.  We do endless battles with our unchangeable inner drives, gritting our teeth, clenching our fists, and making new resolutions "not to do that one more time."  But God's plan for us is to change what it is we really want to do.

What hope there is, then, for all of us who have struggled with the untamed mind-habits of the old life!  The victory is not preserved for those stiff-backed few who can take cold showers without gasping.  It is free to all who will let God write His law on their hearts.

EXPECTING GOOD THINGS

My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.  Ps. 62:5.

Have you ever had a time in your life when everything goes wrong?  Your friends abandon you to "pray about it."  You do.  And even more goes wrong?

Wait a minute! you think.  Wasn't prayer supposed to make things better again?

It's like going to the bank to cash a check that you know is good.  The teller hands the check back to you, saying, "I'm sorry, I cannot give you the money."  Astonished, you question, "Aren't there sufficient funds available?"  The teller smiles broadly, "Oh yes!  This account has limitless funds!"  You examine the check closely.  The date is correct, your name is there, the signature is authentic.  "I don't understand," you stammer.  "What's wrong?"

At this point the teller reassures you that there is absolutely nothing at all wrong.  "Come back tomorrow," she suggests.  But the next day brings no better results.  After a time you may be tempted to throw away the check, that is, unless you are absolutely sure that the signer meant for you to have the money and that it is available to you.  Ultimately the trustworthiness of the person who issued you the check will be the deciding factor as to whether you discard the check.

Prayer can be like having a "good check" that you just can't seem to cash.  Having made sure that everything is in order, you sometimes still find yourself without the "funds" you feel are coming to you.  God has promised us many things.  When the day arrives that these promises apparently cannot be "cashed in," you are left with one thing: who God is.

The psalmist said,"My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him."  Our good Father is leading us to green pastures.  He promises that we shall walk beside peaceful waters.  Can we trust Him when we pass through a valley as dark and death?  Through silence as impenetrable as granite?  If we are trusting more in the person of God than what we can obtain from His storehouse of blessings, we shall never lose hope.

The primary purpose of prayer is not to make things better.  It is a means by which we may improve our relationship with the Father.  In reality, what better thing is there than friendship with Him, for He is Himself all, and in all.  And having Him, we shall desire nothing else on earth! (Ps. 73:25, N.E.B.).

JESUS AND REALITY

Learn all you need to know from his initiation, which is real and no illusion.  As he taught you, then, dwell in him.  1 John 2:27, N.E.B.

Reality and illusion.  The great controversy centers so much in these two contrasting words.  Jesus says, "You will live only when you are connected with the Life-giver."  That's reality.  Satan says, "You can live apart from God, and I can sustain you."  That's an illusion.

Jesus says, "Seek me first, and I will take care of all your other needs."  That's reality.  Satan says, "Get your own needs met first, by whatever means you can, because no one else will be looking out for you."  That's an illusion.

Jesus says, "True satisfaction and pleasures are found in living for others, seeking their wholeness and happiness.  This will bring you the greatest joy."  That's reality.  Satan says, "Real satisfaction is found by plunging into whatever brings you the most intense feelings of pleasure; let other people worry about themselves."  That's an illusion.

Jesus says, "I can equip you to live--with your head held high--right in the middle of a demanding and complex world.  I'm preparing you to face reality squarely."  That's affirming reality.  Satan says, "The real world is so terrible, so overwhelming, that you can face it only when your perceptions are chemically altered, your awareness numbed through drugs, or your senses dulled through headlong flight into frivolity."  That's denying reality.

Jesus invites us to behold the world of reality--to read books about real accomplishments, to view sane perspectives of human relationships, to imagine life's realities and tranquil pleasures.  He wants our minds to become accustomed to dealing with His universe as He made it--that is, with reality.  Satan entices us to immerse our brains in silliness, lightweight banalities, artificial and hyped-up excitement, and other fantasy pictures of life.

This is why, in the end, God will win the great controversy.  Illusion cannot survive in a real universe!

WHAT IS GOD WAITING FOR?

Or do you think lightly of his wealth of kindness, of tolerance, and of patience, without recognizing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to a change of heart? Rom. 2:4, N.E.B.

We were discussing the starving children of Ethiopia.  "How can God let them suffer like that?" someone asked, his voice betraying alarm.  "Why doesn't He do something?  Why doesn't He put an end to all of this?"

"We have to see how bad sin is," another explained.  "The devil has to be given enough time to expose himself for what he is."

My question is Will seeing how bad sin is bring an end to the sin problem?  Has evidence that smoking causes lung cancer brought an end to people using cigarettes?  The second coming of Christ is not being delayed because not enough people think the devil is bad.  So what is God waiting for?

The apostle Paul wrote that God's kindness, tolerance, and patience are meant to lead us to a change of heart.  Our opinion of God can remain devastatingly wrong despite the fact that we know how bad off we are in our sinful condition.  God knows that only as we see His goodness will we begin to think differently about Him.

We need to focus on the revealed goodness of God rather than the ongoing badness of the devil.  The sin problem cannot be settled physically until it is settled mentally.  God's heart nearly ruptures with the sorrows of mankind.  But were He to continuously intervene to relieve earthly tragedy, we would have a distorted picture of what happens when we are separated from Him.

God is waiting for us to be utterly enthralled with Him.  Not emotionally hyped up but totally and intelligently satisfied with who He is.  To rescue us from this sin-infested planet prior to that would be to carry some of our misgivings about Him with us to heaven.  It would be like cutting off the flank of a cancerous cow and calling the remainder healthy even though the cancer virus was in the bloodstream.  Ultimately it would be futile to do so.  And dangerous.

God's commitment to reality is in our best interests.  The exceedingly high price He continually pays to ensure our total deliverance from the virus of sin should fill our hearts with awe.  Rather than cry out, "What is God waiting for?" let us say to one another, "What are we waiting for?"

WHAT DOES THE LAW REQUIRE?

God did this so that the righteous demands of the Law might be fully satisfied in us who live according to the Spirit, and not according to human nature.  Rom. 8:4, T.E.V.

A young man travels a great distance from home and falls in love with a delightful young woman.  In order to win her hand in marriage, he works years for an unpleasant employer--who happens also to be the girl's father.  In the end, the father pulls a classic dirty trick and switches daughters on the young man.

Not one of us today would think that what happened to Jacob was fair.  You just cannot substitute one relationship for another.  Laban may have argued that one wife was as legally proper as another, but that argument would have been wasted on Jacob.  He knew the effects in his own heart of being in love with Rachel.

I am just as unhappy with any picture of God that suggests He is satisfied with a substitute relationship.  Our Father created each one of us for a unique and personal relationship with Himself.  The central purpose in our creation can be fulfilled only as we enter into that relationship.  Would the Father be satisfied by substituting His relationship  with Jesus in place of our own, claiming that this fulfills a "legal" requirement?  Wouldn't that ignore the personhood of God and of His friends?

To be in a confident, trusting union with God, as the branch is to the vine, is the only right and proper condition of man.  This is righteousness; there can be no substitute for it, for it references to the hearts of God and man, not to a legal code.

Many people think of righteousness by faith strictly in legal terms--seeing it as God legally substituting Jesus' righteous record in place of our own, and thereby being content that the sin problem has been solved!  But we deal better with the real problem by seeing faith as that deep, trusting, submitted friendship with God, which alone is our rightful state.

God deals with us in order to end the separation rather than to deal with legal "as ifs."  His concern is with restoring relationships, not with balancing books.  No wonder Jesus was eager to present Him to us as a father rather than as a judge.  The "just requirement of the law" (Rom. 8:4, R.S.V.) is union with the Father.  Thus Jesus is the way to the Father, not a substitute for it!

LET'S HELP SHOVEL AWAY THE SNOW

Build up a highway, build it and clear the track, sweep away all that blocks my people's path.  Isa. 57:14, N.E.B.

During the night more than a foot of snow had fallen, blowing into two-and three-foot drifts.  All traffic had come to a standstill, and snow removal equipment was out in force.  The workers were reinforced by many in the community who cheerfully volunteered their help, bringing with them shovels and mugs of hot drink.  By noon the highway had been cleared enough to allow vehicle passage again.

Few things are more frustrating than not being able to get where you need to go.  Waiting for someone to arrive can be equally disconcerting.  If anything can be done to alleviate the problem, it is done--gladly and with no thought of remuneration.   There is great satisfaction in being a part of the solution.  All the more so when the solution brings you together with someone whom you desire to be with.

God built a "highway" between heaven and earth in the person of His Son.  Too often the "highway" is so cluttered with misconceptions that we are prevented from having free access to the Father.  We become "snowed in" and wearied in our journey to the kingdom.  Of one thing we can be certain: Our anxiety is more than matched by the longing of the One who awaits our coming.

God is in the process of clearing the track and sweeping away all that blocks our path.  Not only may we benefit from His actions; we may be  part of the solution.  We may bring our own "shovels' --our willingness to share what we are learning about our Father--and "mugs of hot drink"--our genuine compassion and caring involvement with other "snowbound" travelers.

For example, when we learn how reasonable and realistic God is, we become reasonable and realistic with others.  God does not expect us to float mystically over the top of this troubled life, our "faith" some sort of invisible magic carpet that will transport us to an ethereal kingdom.  His desire is that we live where the "rubber meets the road."  If our concept of God leaves us concealing sweaty palms, there is no use pretending that we are anxious to live in His presence forever.  Nor can we ever adequately "clear the way" for another.

We need "down to earth" religion.  That's where God's "snow plows" are at work!

MORAL REALITIES

Make no mistakes about this: God is not to be fooled; a man reaps what he sows.  Gal. 6:7, N.E.B.

A young boy creates such a disturbance in the classroom that his teacher sends him to the principal's office.  When his mother finds out about it, she is irate.  But not at her son!  She takes it out on the teacher.  Later, when this same son spends all of his allowance on candy and has nothing left for an offering at church, she quickly replenishes his supply of money.  "I don't want him to feel bad," she says.

In her misguided love for her son, this mother is actually teaching him to live in a fantasy world.  She is shielding him from the hard realities that reveal the facts, the cause-and-effect realities that underlie all of life on this planet.  She thinks she is keeping him from hurting by not letting him face the consequences of his choices, but in fact she is setting him up for unending hurts in the future.

Another child misbehaves seriously at home.  His mother tells him that as a result he will lose his privilege for a period of time.  After tears of repentance he begs to have his "sentence" revoked.  When Mother holds firm, he pleads, "What's the matter?  Don't you forgive me?`` She explains that of course he forgives him, but forgiveness isn't the issue.  He still needs to learn about moral realities, the sure consequences of bad choices.

Large numbers of Christians today are living the behaviors of this sinful world, yet they fully believe that because forgiveness is available, they will be exempted from all bad consequences.  They misunderstand the whole meaning of forgiveness.  They think that because the ultimate sentence of the second death has been lifted through the forgiveness provided on the cross, all consequences of bad choices are also lifted.

This widely held belief can be turned over and viewed from the other side as well.  It suggests that what is wrong with sinning is that God is resentful and hostile toward the sinner, even inflicting punishment upon him as an expression of His displeasure.  The goal of man's religion, then, is to get God to change that attitude toward the sinner, to offer "forgiveness."  When the Father says, "I forgive you," they think one is free to disobey God's law.  But our Father loves us too much to stand behind this kind of moral fiction!

THE PUNISHMENT OF GOD

But he endured the suffering that should have been ours, the pain that we should have borne.  All the while we thought that his suffering was punishment sent by God.  Isa. 53:4, T.E.V.

There Jesus was, hanging uncerimoniously upon an instrument of shame and torture, mocked by Roman guards.  Worse still, He had "entered his own realm, and his own would not receive him" (John 1:11, N.E.B.).  Then, to underscore His poverty of spirit, He cried out loudly, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"  (Matt. 27:46, N.I.V.).

As our text today states, "He endured the suffering that should have been ours, the pain that we should have borne."  However, we need not draw the wrong conclusions as to what this means.  We need not think that "his suffering was punishment sent by God."  We have the privilege of understanding that it was because of our sins" that "he was wounded" (Isa. 53:5, T.E.V.).  In simple language, we can know that He died because He took upon Himself the result of our being separated from our only source of life, God.

Friends, we need not allow the concept of a punishing deity to dominate our thinking.  Christ came to portray God as a loving Father.  And though it is true that a loving father will at times punish his children, he does this for the express purpose of teaching them reality.  The irrevocable death of the wicked is not instruction; it is the reality.  On the cross Jesus demonstrated the consequences of eternal separation from God.  To see it as punishment is to see God as actively taking the lives of unbelievers, rather than their perishing because they have rejected their Life Source.

It is a tremendously vital issue!  It has to do with the quality of our relationship with our heavenly Father.  No matter how you cut it, if you think that God will eventually kill you for not believing in Him, your posture toward Him is tainted with fear.  Remember, He is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).  The final destruction of the wicked is God's "strange act" because it is so against His will to allow any of us to reap the eternal consequences of separation from Him.

The cross is a statement of reality--of the sure outcome of sin and of God's desire that we never experience it!  May we all accept such costly evidence, and live.

SIN IS A GOD-CENTERED WORD

Any man who believes in him is not judged at all.  It is the one who will not believe who stands already condemned, because he will not believe in the character of God's only Son.  John 3:18, Phillips.


"Is it a sin to wash dishes on the Sabbath?" a young student asks.  For him sin is an act that one does in violation of an authoritative code.  Another person laments, "Oh, I am such a sinner!"  He implies that sin is somewhat like a disease in one's bones.  Still another talks  at length about the removal of his sin from the heavenly sanctuary, giving the impression that sin is similar to a block of wood, or an entry in the book, that can be moved around like so much cargo.

The interesting thing about each of these comments is that none of them make any difference to God.  Which is not surprising.  Many Christians can talk at length about sin (including how to avoid it) without ever mentioning God or Jesus Chrtist.

That's why Jesus gets right to the point in explaining just what the problem is that we sinners are facing.  He doesn't talk about people's actions, their physical condition, or their legal records in heaven.  Instead, He hinges it all on their relationship with Him.

Sin is a relationship word.  That should make sense, because its opposite, faith, is also a relationship word.  It makes little sense simply to talk about faith.  The word can't stand on its own.  It becomes accurate only when we speak of "faith in Jesus Christ" or "faith in God."

In the same way, we speak and think accurately about sin when we view it as the breaking of that faith relationship with God.  The sinner is one who is acting and thinking as though he can live apart from God.  The Bible labels his behavior as sinful.  But such behavior is simply the result of the broken relationship with God.

If Satan can get us to thinking about sin without ever thinking of it as broken relationship, then he can get us to start tinkering with our behavior without ever returning to God in total dependence and trust in Him.  And, frankly, the devil would be delighted to have us trying to stop sinning by that method.  What better delusion to keep us occupied--apart from God!

SEEKING GOD'S FACE

Thou hast said, "Seek ye my face."  My heart says to thee, "Thy face, Lord, do I seek."  Ps. 27:8, R.S.V.

In the most fundamental way, your face is you.  At the sight of it, the parking lot attendant will wave you through the gate and the teller at your bank will cash your check without asking to see your driver's license.  Can you imagine how you'd feel if one day you were arrested--because someone whom you supposedly looked like had committed a crime?  It has happened to others.  Some innocent people have spent years in prison because their face was thought to closely resemble the face of a wanted criminal.

What usually happens is that the apparent "look-alike" is picked up by the police and subsequently is "positively identified" by the victim or eyewitness to the crime.  Traumatic excitement, coupled with an intense desire for personal safety, is often an underlying factor in such procedures.  Not until the real culprit is apprehended is the ill-conceived person cleared.  Upon seeing the real criminal, the victim or eyewitness suddenly realizes that the wrong person has been sent to prison.

God calls out to us, "Seek My face!  You are mistakenly identifying Me with that criminal, the devil.  By sophistry and deceit he has convinced you that I am like him, that I am tyrannical, exacting, and full of displeasure for you.  You have been victimized by him, yet blame Me for your sorrows.  If only you will seek My face--seek to know Me as I am--you will no longer fear Me.  Cleared of the false charges against Me, I will be allowed the freedom to become your friend."

Let us answer Him, "My heart says to You, Your face, Lord, do I seek.  In my anxiety and trauma I saw You as one whose anger had been kindled against me.  I thought it was You who beat me severely with Your law.  And though Your Son came to lift me up into newness of life, I thought You were lurking in the shadows, ready to strike me down again should I not follow precisely after Him.  But I see now that this is not true.  Your face I will continually seek, so that I will never again be mistaken about who You are!"

Jesus summarized it: "This is eternal life: to know thee who alone art truly God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent" (John 17:3, N.E.B.).