The Subtle Saboteurs.

What do all these have in common?  Beginning with weariness {of body or soul}, disappointment, worry, discontentment, or just a general malaise of unhappiness.  They are subtle saboteurs, not bold and blatant sins, and therefore much harder to identify as culprits in a crisis.  But they all carry the same insidious effect, like a toxin slowly creeping into the soul, doing its damage... whether you know it or not.  Like trace amounts of arsenic in our water, like the mercury in your fillings.

Weariness threatens our spiritual well-being because when you’re worn out— physically, mentally, or emotionally— you’re more easily taken out.  In fact, I believe this is one of the enemy’s greatest deceptions in our post-modern world, a world where ‘busyness’ rules as the order of the day.  The pace, the pace, the pace at which we live, the unbalanced rush of one event after another, day after day, year after year, does an enormous amount of damage to our hearts.  And to our ability to discern the Truth from the Lie, reality from rhetoric, to navigate the wild winds and waters of relationships, to love people well, generously and graciously.  You may laugh and shake your head and go on about your business after reading this, and that’s certainly your right, but one of the most profound hindrances to intimacy with Jesus today is a lack of sleep.  Yeah, you read that right: a lack of sleep, a worn out body and a weary soul.

The very fact that some of you are dismissing what I just said shows just how deeply this Lie is embedded in our succeed-at-all-costs culture {even at the expense of our health, our family, and quite possibly our sanity!}.  The enemy has gained great ground with this generation of believers by a simple premise: “Keep ‘em runnin’.  Keep ‘em on the move, on the go, a non-stop barrage of entertaining options, hyper-stimulus, and media messaging.  I’ll wear ‘em out ...and then I’ll take ‘em out.”  Because he knows, he knows too well, that when you’re weary in body and soul and unwilling to turn to Jesus for desperately needed rest, you are easy pickings, my friend.  It’s almost laughable how easy.

Disappointment so easily becomes despair, worry flows into fear, discontentment blossoms into outrage at how Abba could ever allow this to happen to me!, and unhappiness threatens to become full-blown depression.  You tracking here?  And for some reason, maybe the same root of arrogance which keeps us blind to all the other ways we fail to “guard our hearts,” we don’t seem to be able to recognize, or maybe we just don’t want to, the deadly debilitation of these subtle saboteurs.  Long term exposure equals spiritual enervation, a weakness wearing down our resistance, a draining of divine energy and vitality, the Resurrection Life of our Lord ebbing away, only to be replaced by ...nothing.

The solution beforehand {before subtlety becomes sin} is simple, so simple you may be tempted to overlook it.  Don’t.  The solution is to ‘stand and fight,’ to reclaim whatever ground is lost to the enemy, by calling on the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ as your own.  By praying in the forgiveness of the Cross, the Life and Power of the Resurrection, and the authority of the Ascension.  The solution afterwards {after these enemies have had their way with us} is also simple: to repent.  To take this a step beyond confession and ask the Spirit of God to literally change our immediate outlook, fill us with His fruit, and humble us before the Master’s Throne if necessary.  Anything to break the grip of spiritual malaise, anything to restore energy and vitality!

In the words of the wisest king yet to sit on the throne of Israel, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the Wellspring of Life,” meaning watch over it “with all diligence, for from it flow the Springs of Life” {Prov. 4:23 NAS}.  Because if you won’t fight for the health of your own heart, if you won’t fight for the Freedom and Life which are your birthrights as Sons and Daughters of God... who will? 


Ric Webb
Shepherd
Heart's Journey Community

www.hjcommunity.org

C.S. Lewis On Hell and How to Get There.

In Lewis’s brilliant philosophical look at the problem of pain, as seen from a Scriptural worldview and experienced by each and every one of us, he tackles the issue of Hell and those who choose it as a final destination.  “The pain which alone could rouse the bad man to a knowledge that all was not well, might also lead to a final and unrepented rebellion.  ...Man has freewill and ...all gifts to him are therefore two-edged.  From these premises it follows directly that the Divine labour to redeem the world cannot be certain of succeeding as regards every individual soul.  Some will not be redeemed.”

The doctrine of human freedom, to choose or not to choose {which is, in itself, a choice}, “has the full support of Scripture,” writes Lewis, “and specifically of our Lord’s own words; it has always been held by Christendom; and it has the support of reason.  If a game is played, it must be possible to lose it.  If the happiness of a creature lies in self-surrender, no one can make that surrender but himself... and he may refuse.  I would pay any price to be able to say truthfully ‘All will be saved.’  But my reason retorts ‘Without their will, or with it?’  If I say ‘Without their will’ I at once perceive a contradiction.  How can the supreme voluntary act of self-surrender be involuntary?  If I say ‘With their will,’ my reason replies ‘How if they will not give in?’....

This doctrine is one of the chief grounds on which Christianity is attacked as barbarous, and the goodness of God impugned.  ...The problem is not simply that of a God who consigns some of His creatures to final ruin.  ...Christianity, true, as always, to the complexity of the real, presents us with something knottier and more ambiguous-- a God so full of mercy He becomes man and dies by torture to avert that final ruin from His creatures, and who yet, where that heroic remedy fails, seems unwilling... to arrest the ruin by an act of mere power.  I said glibly a moment ago I would pay ‘any price’ to remove this doctrine.  I lied.  I could not pay one thousandth part of the price that God has already paid to remove the fact.  And here is the real problem: so much mercy, yet still there is Hell.”  So much mercy indeed, and yet Hell awaits.  As we’ve often said: Grace always precedes judgment... but when grace is ultimately spurned, judgment will inevitably come!

Of those ‘Lost and Loving It’ {my term}, Lewis say’s, “The demand that God should forgive such a man while he remains what he is, is based on a confusion between condoning and forgiving.  To condone an evil is simply to ignore it, to treat it as if it were good.  But forgiveness needs to be accepted as well as offered if it is to be complete: and a man who admits no guilt can accept no forgiveness....

In the long run the answer to all those who object to the Doctrine of Hell, is itself a question: ‘What are you asking God to do?’  To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help?  But He has done so, on Calvary.  To forgive them?  They will not be forgiven.  To leave them alone?  Alas, I am afraid that is what He does.”  Eternally.  “They enjoy the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved: just as the blessed, forever submitting to obedience, become through all Eternity more and more free.”

Reminders of the Fall {Solving the Sin-Problem}}

Uuuuggghhh....  “What’s that smell?” was the first question to pop into my head when I walked into the kitchen of our building a few minutes ago.  Apparently, there is a skunk spraying wildly somewhere in the vicinity or else lying, within a quarter mile radius, somewhere on Stagecoach with a tire track down his back.  Whew... pungent is the word; stout would be another.

As I went to grab a bite a few minutes ago {of dinner, not of skunk}, my second thought was, “Hhmmm ...smells like sin.  That smell is a result of the Curse.”  How so?  Well, a skunk’s {or ‘stinking spotted weasel,’ whichever you prefer} spray is his defense mechanism, right?  It’s powerful enough to keep bears, wolves, dogs, wolverines, even pastors away.  But in a world of Edenic idylls, where all creatures are content to eat fruits, vegetables, herbs and nuts, to gnaw the grass beneath their feet and not shred with tooth and claw the furry friend beside them, who needs defense mechanisms?  Why would a skunk have his spray, why would any animal have any mechanism for defense if no defense was needed, if no predator prowled the grounds of the Garden?

So, this smell, this horrid, foul, nostril-burning smell is a reminder of the Fall {Gen. 3}.  A reminder of the sin of self-will, and in a sense of self-worship, an act of rebellion borne in the souls of those who had never known anything but complete and utter obedience, submission and surrender to the Sovereign of their souls.  And now... wreck, ruin, chaos, the Golden Ship which once sailed us on the Seas of Life going down, down, down.  With this single act of a creature choosing itself over its Creator, sin burst forth like lightning from the sky.  And with sin came death trailing in its wake, for this was Abba’s warning from the very beginning {Gen. 2:16-17}.

And so the sin problem continued millennia after millennia, generation after generation, until at the precise moment in Time God sent His Savior in the form of His Son to redeem us from the slave market in which we were bound.  To set us free forevermore.  And the sin-problem was settled, so that what is for us a monumental hurdle, an incessant source of shame, a goad of guilt, a heaviness weighing upon any honest heart, is no problem for God.  The hurdle has been removed, the last barrier between fallen, sinful man and holy, loving God has been broken!  As the Apostle wrote to the Galatians, “But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under Law, to redeem those under Law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.  ...So you are no longer a slave, but a son [or ‘daughter,’ as the case may be]; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir,” 4:4-5 and 7.

What I love about this brief section is it goes right to the heart of our redemption.  It’s not just to solve the ‘sin-problem,’ it’s not just to reconcile a fallen Creation to its unfallen Creator, it is to make us Sons and Daughters of the Most High God!  To reforge His likeness within us.  Do you see it, can you see what Paul is getting at?  You are no longer a slave... you are now a Son, you are now a Daughter; you are a Child of the King {and don’t ever forget it!}, with the “full rights,” resources, and responsibilities which come with this.  This belongs to you-- yes, you.  A treasured place at the King’s Table, a sacred Home in the Savior’s heart, a personal Presence in “the Spirit of His Son” who cries out from within you, “Abba, Father” {Gal. 4:6}.  This is our Eternal Identity; this is who we truly are.  You are a Child of God in whom Jesus dwells, and you live in the Kingdom of your Father.

So, lift your heads, my friends, square your shoulders, look the Storms of a broken world right in the eye... and stand your ground.  You have nothing more to fear, nothing but the failure of faith, not anymore.  Your soul is safe, your soul is secure, your soul is soundly kept in the Arms of your Abba.


Ric Webb
Shepherd
Heart's Journey Community

www.hjcommunity.org