Journal # 9
For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect?.. Certainly not! Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar. (Romans 3:3-4) NKV
There are many things that can make us rebellious, some are overt, some are insidious and some are covert but the underlying theme is always rebellion and disobedience. We have held onto the tradition of men even in the Church, even as Christians. Most of it is performance based and has absolutely nothing to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Most of the false doctrine we have downloaded throughout time in our hard drive of the mind is heresy and based on the Old Covenant. Jesus came into the world to give the true gift of salvation, righteousness, remission of sin, liberty, peace, victory, protection and wholeness and all that is attached to the love of God. The word "sozo" in Greek means: preservation, deliverance and restoration. We have become out of touch with God and it is just a bunch of blatherskite or babble. It reminds me of the Pharisees back when Jesus walked the earth as a man and how these so-called religious leaders or zealots were so far removed from the people of the community. When Jesus, the quintessential man of all times came on the stage, these religious men were outraged and felt threatened by His popularity. Their hearts became darkened with hatred and homicidal rage. For three years these men plotted, schemed and planned out or premeditated how to kill Jesus. Why? All because Jesus was the representation of the love of God not some legalistic doctrine the Pharisees and Sadducees of the Sanhedrin of that time.
God in His infinite wisdom realized no one would be able to keep the 613 laws of the Old Testament. It did not matter how many bulls or goats or lambs we sacrificed for sin because it did not wipe our sin away. We would have always had to be doing something to get forgiveness for our sins. God said in His word all of our righteousness was as a filthy rag, unclean. Romans 6 stated, "that the wages of sin is death. Romans 3 stated, that there is none righteous, no not one... there is none who does good, not one,...and no fear of God before their eyes." The law was perfect because God created the laws and He is perfect but humans were imperfect and flawed and no matter what they did, all their good works profit them nothing because they needed a Savior. Jesus was the Savior and sits at the right hand of the Father, advocating and interceding for you and me. There are so many millions of people in our world who despise the gospel and who distance themselves from the living God. As a child I was the personification of some villain in a cartoon character of a rebellious nature. I did not know I was being rebellious or disobedient until I was punished for bad behavior. In retrospect I believed it was who I was and I grew believing I was just a bad girl. It seemed nothing I did was right and I acted the way others saw me, which was sad, really. As I grew and became aware of myself I knew how to differentiate good from evil. I learned what I did was shameful and I felt guilt and this created an environment for poor self-schema, beliefs I held about myself and poor self-esteem. I tried to hide myself, always staying in the shadows but God had other plans for me. Everything I did was performance based to seek approval. If I behave appropriately I will be loved and accepted etc. None of this worked. I needed Jesus and His righteousness and all the finished work He completed for me.
Rebellion leaves a stain upon us that only Christ can erase. Rebellion is as a Necrotising fasclitis, a flesh-eating disease, that eats away at the soul. It is all about posturing and bravado. It is as a clown attempting to entertain with tricks and comedy, eliciting laughter and joy but the clown himself is crying on the inside. We have our public persona and our private persona but God sees us in each one. God sent Jesus to redeem us from the stain and destruction of sin. The gospel message is quite simple that even a little child could understand. If I believe in Jesus and I surrender to God's will I am now a child of God, of course there is a process but it is a simple one. I heard a local pastor taught on the beautiful gift of grace that can erase our rebellious nature via the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who does the difficult work in chiseling out our imperfections and making us over time perfect in God's sight. For any of this to take place we must believe in the Spirit of God, our Counselor to do a good and perfect work in us. We cannot do any of it on our own. Believe me, I have tried many, many times and failed. Two things I learned from this pastor's lesson: is unbelief is related to disobedience and not so much our perceived behaviors or sins. As Christians we have submitted our lives to God and as such Jesus had paid the price once, for all our sins and behaviors, past, present and future. No, it does not give us a right to sin that will be under the law and is actually disbelief and disobedience. Hebrews 8:7, 13 stated that, "for if the first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. ....The first covenant of the Old Testament is obsolete and growing old and is ready to vanish away." It was replaced with the new covenant of grace. The other correlation is when we believe we enter into God's rest: "for we who have believed do enter that rest," Hebrews 4:3. So believing is related to obedience because of God's grace through Jesus Christ and all the finished work of Christ. The pastor went on to say, "it is a matter of believing the gospel of grace and we are to renew our minds on the gospel." Grace is a Person. That Person is the Son of God, Jesus Christ. The pastor stated, grace has already provided everything we will ever need on this side of heaven (my paraphrasing). The main ingredient is faith and the other is love. When I believe God's amazing and savage love for me there is no room or thought to contradict His Word. John 3:16 tells me how much He loved me and you, that He gave His only beloved Son, that whosoever believes in Him, will not perish but have eternal life. That is radical. That is revolutionary. God's love is unbridled and infinite. He gave me Jesus as an atoning sacrifice for my rebellious and sinful nature. Apostle Paul asked in the epistle of Romans 8:35, "who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril or sword? (37) Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. (38) For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, (39) nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord."
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