Good vs. Evil

You know that age old question, "If God is so good and loving, then why is there evil in the world?" Or how about the more personal form of this question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?"

God is the Supreme Being, the highest power. He is love, as well as pure and holy. He is spirit and truth. He is infinite, everywhere, and eternal. He is just and merciful. He is all-wise and all-knowing. He is good. Below Him are all lesser things - all things spiritually and physically created by Him. But God is not evil, nor did He create evil, so where did evil come from and why doesn't God stop it? Well, put simply...

Since God is good, all things that are not good, are not God.

Well, now you are thinking something like, "that doesn't make sense, because if God is everywhere and good, then evil shouldn't exist". Good point - so let me address that. God is everywhere in the fact that He is bigger than the universe. In reletive proportions, if the individual cells that are in your body could talk, they'd say that you are everywhere. I'm not suggesting that the all created things make up God, like our cells make up our physical bodies, but you get the point of the size ratio. Likewise, are you able to focus on what each cell in your body is doing, know where it is and if it's in danger? No. But if it were a comparable analogy to God - God would be able to.

God is spirit and not physical, therefore the physical world that He created is naturally separated from Him. But evil didn't exist until God created beings with the ability to rebell against Him. Creation has free-will and the power to make things, they can choose to reject God, and they can accidentally or purposefully sin. God doesn't want robots, He wants a loving relationship with His creation out of their own free choice. God doesn't move, so when we do, think, or say something that is not God-like, we're moving away from God and doing (making) evil. Natural disasters work in the same way, because this earth can be manipulated by spiritual beings. Spiritual beings that act opposed to God's will, make evil. We make evil by doing our will or the will of spiritual enemies of God instead of doing God's will - and doing that brings on evil consequences, simply because that action isn't God-like, so it isn't good. So the answer to "Why do bad things happen to good people?" is that there is no such thing as good people - there's only careful people or careless people - every human has at one point or another sinned and fallen short of pure goodness. Some people even make sinning a hobby, addiction, or life-long profession. Most people strive to "do" good as much as possible, in order to "be" good. But only God is good - and we can line our thinking, emotions, and behavior up with God as much as we want, but that still doesn't make us good - because sin is out there, we can't continually only do good 24 / 7 / 365 / 80+ years out of our own ability - it isn't humanly possible. So created beings make bad things happen by not doing things God's way.

The real question is, "why do good things happen to bad people?" God is just, and His justice is balanced by His mercy and patience. God is always active in the world and He brings both sunshine and rain to both the good-doers and the bad-doers alike, because He loves everyone and because no one, whether they do good or bad, is good or deserves good things to happen to them. So here's when you ask,"then why go to all the effort to do what is good?" and the reply is that God has set a day of Judgment when all the people of the earth will judged according to what they have done, said, and thought while on this earth.

Now you're probably thinking, "hey - that's not fair... if we can't possibly be totally good on our own - if we are incapable of thinking, feeling, speaking and acting 100% good, 100% of the time, then how can we be judged?" Good question. The answer is that we can be judged because God sent His only Son Jesus into the world, to live a life of example for us, to experience all the pain, sorrow, and suffering of human life contains, and to lay His life down for all of humanity's sin - to pay the death penalty for it. Then, after Jesus rose from the grave and after He ascended back up to the Father's right hand in heaven, God sent His Holy Spirit to dwell in the spirits of all who simply believe in Jesus and what He had done for us. This process is salvation, and we become identified in Christ - we rest in the work He did, and take on His righteousness, and then God can come near to us. We live by the Holy Spirit inside us Who not only guides us into all truth and knowledge of Jesus, but also enables us to "become" good. This process is called sanctification, when we become so much like Jesus that we look like Him in all we are. We are given God's Word and the Holy Spirit as tools and power for us to reflect Jesus' thoughts, will, emotions, desires, speech, and actions in ourselves. We are given Jesus' eternal blood sacrifice to cover and forgive our mistakes and accidental / habitual sin while we are learning to overcome.

To the knowledge that we know of Jesus - that is what we are held accountable for. If we accept Jesus and follow Him, we will be transformed into His image - and will become good - because of Him. If we choose to deny Jesus, then all our sin is left on us to bear alone. Since a majority of the world has rejected Christ, is rejecting Christ, or will reject Christ - there will always be evil running ramped on this earth, until the day when Jesus comes back.

Why doesn't God stop evil?.... He has and is. He gave His Son to us and then the Holy Spirit so that Jesus can stay with each believer always to continue to do His work in us and through us. Believers are the agents God uses in this world to stop evil. Believers are meant to be the light of God in a dark world. If evil still is, it's because believers aren't doing thier job of growing up in Christ and cooperating with Him in His work on this earth. Those of us who have accepted Christ Jesus and are being led by the Holy Spirit have the authority in Christ to resist evil (James 4:7), pray for protection against evil (Matthew 6:13), and fight evil (Ephesians 6:11-18) - we just have to learn how, and continue in it. We need to learn to apply God's Word to our lives, not only in spiritual areas, but in all areas, so that we will see the darkness flee from us wherever we go. We need to enforce the kingdom of God on the earth so that people can be freed from evil to come to God. When we know who we are in Christ, and carry His light with us, evil will not have a place to stay near us. Some believers are so used to being victims of evil for so long, that they don't realize that they are given the Spirit of God to take back what the enemy has stolen. I personally apologize to God, and those who are not in Christ who have been around me since I've come to Christ and been growing up in Him - I'm sorry for when I have slacked off and didn't take up my role and place in Christ as I've been called to. I commit to do better!

And ultimately, God is sovereign. He is in complete control and He works out everything evil, that we who love Him go through, for our good. He allows evil on a grand scale, so that we can be refined and matured. Character, integrity, and trust in God are things taught to us through struggle, trial, and suffering. To miss out on the tragedies is less painful, but also far less rewarding - and doing so causes us to not value as much the good we are also given in life. So even though created beings make evil, God uses it for His glory and for our good! Praise God Most High! Thank You Father for seeing all that I can't, and caring enough to prepare and train me now for what's ahead in Your purpose for me!

Being Perfect vs. Perfectionism

I had a deep conversation with a great friend of mine last night that brought up some of my own weaknesses. I myself can tend to be a perfectionist - which is frustrating. The world simply isn't perfect, and human beings aren't GOD - so there's no way that they could ever be "perfect". It's a no win situation.

Humanity in general is always striving to better itself. Some individuals strive towards perfection. And God's Word instructs that we be perfect. But the simple fact that we can't see things from every angle and our bodies aren't made up of an ageless material or shaped in cookie-cutter exactness stops our endeavor short. How can we achieve perfection, or perform perfectly when life stacks imperfection on top of us at every turn? Some people simply don't strive for perfection, because they know it is an impossible task. Others try to be perfect only in the areas that show to others, and leave the inner, hidden stuff alone. Why would God's Word instruct us to become perfect, if we are unable to do so? Jesus said "... you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." in Matthew 5:48. And in the working towards perfection, is there a difference between becoming perfect and being a perfectionist? I think so. And the more I pray and study it, the more I understand the real and big difference.

By definition, a perfectionist is someone who has the inner drive to be displeased with anything that is not perfect or does not meet extremely high standards. Therefore, a perfectionist, is constantly unhappy with themselves, judges others who have not reached their level of perfection yet, gets extremely hurt and disappointed by people who make mistakes or who choose to do wrong when they are "supposed to be more perfect" than them, and seeks to control the things, people, or situations around them to conform them into a mold of perfection - getting agitated or stressed if things are not perfect. It's a character flaw and everybody's got character flaws. I'm not quite as bad as the general definition of a perfectionist describes. I admittingly control my stuff to a pretty strong degree - in a clean, organized, and displaying fashion. I feel most comfortable when I'm in a "perfect" environment. And I hold myself up to some pretty high standards... God's Word. However, it's been years since I've even given a second thought or judgment about how someone else chooses to live and act - and I HATE the idea of people controlling people, it makes my skin crawl. So, since perfectionism is a flaw, and being a spiritual perfectionist is being self-righteous (which is prideful and is both a very dangerous and deceptive attitude to have), we all need to continually weed that tendency out of who we are. God would probably be the only one Who could justly be a perfectionist, yet in many ways, He chooses not to be that way towards us.

When I think of the word "perfect" - I think of someone who makes no mistakes, is totally flawless, and excelling to the highest degree in all things; someone absolutely pure to the core. God falls into this category - and He alone! He is holy - which means, pure and set apart from unrighteousness. God's people are also called to be holy. But when God instructs us to be "perfect", the meaning of the word used is "to be finished, completed, to become fully mature; lacking nothing of moral or spiritual character". Now this definition seems a little more attainable. Being perfect is not another word for being flawless, or being infallible. Being right in God's Word means "to do well, to do good, to be fully good, to meet the Law's standards exactly". Only God is good, and we haven't the ability to be purely good at all times on our own. But through Jesus, we are viewed as a new creation... brand new creations that are righteous. And our growth process in Christ after we are born again, is lining up our behavior with who we are as a new creation. To God - our being perfect is the finished result of our conforming our thoughts, desires, words and actions to our new spiritual nature of being right in Christ. It has nothing to do with what we can acomplish or perform ourselves, only what we work with God to do inside us. It's about being unified in ourselves (and not divided or conflicted) so that we can display His beauty and holiness to others. God looks at our heart, and when we are in Christ, our Father sees us as completely innocent and righteous! He sees us as diamonds in the rough.

Since we all have junk and damage from our lives before we came to Christ, and continually from living in a corrupted world or from other believers who are infants in the Lord themselves, God gives us a growing process to refine us and mold us into the image of His Son. It's a work that He does in us, but only as we cooperate. It's called sanctification in the Bible, and it's a key aspect of our spiritual health and development. If we fight to keep the junk and damage, we will stay damaged, and trade God's awesome gifts for the junk. If we give up cooperating, we end up just as bad off, remaining distant so that our lack of faith in Him keeps Him from completing His work in us. We remain infants. It's work - like growing up naturally and going through school. But growing up to spiritual maturity is very possible - though, few believers actually think of it in those terms, nor actually achieve it. The vast majority are either on the "self-righteous" team, or on the "love the worldly ways and can get away with it because of grace" team. Both are wrong roads to take. The road in the middle (that will get us through the hard parts of school the quickest) is this:

• "... work out your salvation with reverence and serious earnestness; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." Philippians 2:12-13

• "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." James 1:2-4

• "...in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth." Ephesians 4:22-24

• "Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect." Romans 12:1-2

• "If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit." Galatians 5:7

• "He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all people, and sanctification without which no one will see the Lord." Hebrews 12:10-14

• "...discipline yourself for the purpose of reverence and holiness; for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come...for it is for this we labor and strive..." I Timothy 4:7-10

• "Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude." Colossians 2:6-7

• "By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, " I have come to know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His Word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked." I John 2:3-6

God is calling us to be perfect - to be complete and reach maturity in Christ. It doesn't mean that we won't make mistakes, but it does mean that we will make fewer mistakes, and deal with each mistake well and humbly as they come, and we will even grow from them. I want God to have His perfect work in me grow fruit, and mold me into a more accurate image of His Son daily! If I allow Him, and endure with faith and love, He will take this diamond out of the rough and hold it up so others can see His glory! His glory - because in myself, I have no glory, I'm just a lump of coal no matter how hard I try to be more. It's all for displaying God's glory to the world, so that they can all know Him through Christ Jesus - the Son of Righteousness for all!

Drummer Man

My husband is a drummer. It's a big chunk of who he is. Even though he plays guitar really well, and writes awesome songs, he's happiest when he's drumming. It's part of what God created him for - which is so great! He's got a band, Dying Man - and it's evolving into how God wants it. I'm so proud of him and love hearing him drum and seeing him play live shows. It's like a whole other personality comes out when he's on stage - but it's one of the greatest parts of who he really is.

He just got a new kit this year, but doesn't really have a place to play them at our house. This weekend - we moved the dinning room around, and set up his kit there. Doesn't he look happy?!

I thought it would be obnoxious to have his drums set up in the middle of our dinning room. I've been really dreaming about our remodeling a part of our house to set up a studio for him - maybe that will happen soon. But anyway, it was actually really fun listening to him practice this weekend and even our usually overly sensitive cat didn't seem to mind too much.

I've always envied his sure purpose in life. He (and everyone around him) knew that he was meant to be a drummer since he was a small boy. Of course, my husband is a fountain of natural talent and intelligence and has lots of different hobbies and interests (some a little out of proportion... UK basketball), not to mention having an huge heart of compassion. But he's had a distinct calling and confidence within himself to his calling to be creative through music, and to use his music as a tool to minister and give glory to God. He has the ability to do just about anything he sets his mind and will to, yet he knows the one thing that God created him for and keeps it forefront without any doubt. Myself, on the other hand - I have far less natural abilities, am just as confident in my calling to a ministry itself, but cannot pinpoint my highest life's service to God, besides loving Him with all I am and doing His will moment by moment. My heart's desire is spread over so vast an area of ministries, that I couldn't even single out my own favorite, much less God's desire for me.

Whenever I get anxious about what I'm suppose to do, my husband is SO great!!! Very supportive - I could start a business, a church, a mission, write books, teach, counsel, start a worship band,... whatever, and he'd be 100% behind me and encouraging me all the way. He always points me back to just getting prepared for "whatever" - because whenever God gives me the purpose, I won't have time to get prepared then. Makes sense. God knows me - better than anyone. My husband is made in such a way that he has to hear from God, and then he needs time to adjust to it, and then commit, and then move - patiently and methodically getting himself physically, mentally, emotionally, or financially ready before he carries it out. God tells him his instructions far in advance just enough so that he will move at His right timing. Me... not so much. I'm like a restless racehorse waiting for the start gun to fire so I can burst out of the gate with reckless abandon. Even now, my extreme impatience keeps me distracted from even getting ready. Rather, I ought to be diligent and faithful in the place where I am and focus on pleasing Him while I grow and prepare for what He has in store for me. Praise God for His patience and mercy for me, and His supreme wisdom in dealing with me. And I thank God for my great husband He's blessed me with!!

The Sign of Jonah

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, "Teacher, we want to see a sign from You." But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as "Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale", so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment, and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here."
Matthew 12:38-42

For the Christian - there is no Easter. Easter is a pagan holiday, a spring holiday in honor of the goddess Istar. There isn't even a Good Friday... Jesus was crucified on a Thursday. The closest terminology Christians have for the single most significant event in human history (that happened to fill up three days) would be "the sign of Jonah". Jesus, the promised Messiah, and Holy Son of God, was crucified on a Thursday, and at sundown that Thursday evening, Passover (which was a high sabbath) began. Friday at sundown began the weekly Sabbath, and then on Sunday morning when it was still dark out, God raised Jesus from the dead - Resurrection Sunday. All of creation revolves around Christ's death, burial, and ressurection - this three day sign of Jonah - it's all about Jesus (whether we choose to acknowledge Him or not)!

Jesus lived a sinless and perfect life, so His death on the cross was the atoning sacrifice to pay for all the sins of the world; and by His torture and abuse, He took on all the suffering of the world as well. Because of God's free gift of grace to us through the act of Christ Jesus, we receive salvation simply by our faith and confession of Him. Salvation includes forgiveness of all sin, healing, restoration, and an eternal place in the kingdom and family of God. Jesus came humbly into this world, and gave Himself up to death for us, so that we might come to Him and have life as we were all meant to. He is our Savior and Lord! Praise and thanks unending to our Father and Lord God Almighty for the gift of His Son!!

Grafted Into Israel

I just heard this amazing study on how Christians can actually trace our spiritual roots back to the Israelite tribe of Ephraim! Before Jacob (Israel) died, he blessed his sons, and just before that, he also blessed Joseph's two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, which became tribes of their own in Israel. The blessing for Ephraim included that his descendants would become a multitude of nations, greater than the descendants of his older brother, Manasseh (Genesis 48:8-20). The Hebrew meaning behind these words is that Ephraim's descendants would fill up or be made the fullness of the Gentile peoples throughout the earth. Later, after the northern tribes of Israel were exiled and carried off to other nations, God began teaching us His plan for bringing them back through the prophet Ezekiel. God instructed Ezekiel to take two sticks and label them. On one stick, Ezekiel was to write "For Judah and for the sons of Israel, his companions (or fellow worshippers)" and on the other stick, Ezekiel was to write "For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and all the house of Israel, his companions (or fellow worshippers)". Then, Ezekiel was told to put both sticks in his hand, to join them together. God said that He will bring Israel back from all the places they were scattered all over the earth and bring them together with Judah (Ezekiel 37:15-24). In one way, God was promising to bring the divided nation of Israel and Judah back together as one, but in another way, God was promising that the Gentile nations would also be brought into the nation of Israel and made as one people with them.

Of course Gentile believers already knew that in Christ, we are adopted into God's family. All who come to Jesus are one people to God, whether they are Jew or Gentile. But since Jesus came out of Judaism, we must remember that those who believe in Him are to follow after Him and the life He lived, and He lived out the Law of God perfectly. Since we are grafted into the family tree of God's people, our heritage is Judaism - the faith, not the tradition or the religion. Jesus initiated the New Covenant on the foundation of the Old, and meant for God's people to continue on after Him. What isn't corrected by the New Covenant, still remains from the Old Covenant, because Jesus didn't come to do away with the Law of God or the Word of God spoken by the prophets (Matthew 5:17).

"Christians" are not meant to be a separate faith, we are meant to be Messianic Jews or New Testament Jews - or I guess a more accurate term would be Messianic Israelites. Whatever we are called, we who believe in Jesus are all God's people who carry His name and live by His ways. The Church has gotten so far from the ways of God, and has simply stamped Jesus' name onto so many pagan practices, that it's no wonder that we look and act so much like the world and so differently from what God's Word says. When a child is adopted, they must learn the ways of that new family and abide by them. We Gentiles have lived out our Christian faith taking only bits and pieces of what we like or understand from the Old Testament and stand stubbornly in the New Testament as if it could stand on it's own without it's foundation. The "Church" was not established at Pentecost after Jesus was taken up to heaven, rather it was established at the base of Mt Sinai, when Moses brought God's Law to the people. That's when God's people became an assembly of those who worshipped God and believed His Word. And since then, through the prophets, through Jesus, and the apostles, and the Holy Spirit, and through those anointed for leadership ministry within the Body of Christ today — we have been learning the true meaning of loving and pleasing God, and loving one another and growing up in Jesus. We should be learning God's Law, and ridding ourselves of the traditions and legality made by human wisdom.

For example: we Christians in America fight for the posting of the Ten Commandments in public, yet the majority of us don't even keep the Ten Commandments... How much of the Church observes Sunday as the day of rest, rather than Saturday, which is the real Sabbath? Sunday is the first day of the week - a day originally honored by pagans to worship the sun god. We call it the Lord's Day and claim to meet together for worship on Sunday because Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday. That's all well and good, but that's not keeping the Sabbath, which is the third Commandment (Exodus 20:8-11). The real reason we observe Sunday, over the Saturday Sabbath is because tradition teaches us to do so, and it would be too inconvenient to go against the flow of what the Catholic religion and Roman rule has programmed into all of modern civilization. We replace God's Law with our own, and we do it in many ways all the time, even when we read the Truth in God's Word, and then we claim "grace" to excuse it.

Of course all who come to Jesus as their Lord and Savior through faith are saved by grace. God grants grace to cover our immaturities and ignorance, until we learn better. And by God's grace we are no longer under the laws and traditions of men, we are free from sin, ourselves, and the world, and enabled by the Holy Spirit to live according to God's Law. It ceases from being a matter of "HAVE to" and becomes a matter of "GET to" - resting in the work and righteousness of Jesus! We live by the Holy Spirit and automatically fulfill the Law of God, what God's people struggled to do and failed at before Jesus came. We need to stop perpetuating traditions in the Church and instead, learn God's Word, promote and teach it, and help bring us Gentiles back to God's ways - the ways God taught to the Israelites. They are our spiritual roots too, after all. Even if we cannot trace our DNA lineage back to the tribe of Ephraim, we certainly qualify at the very least as "fellow worshippers", and the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob (Israel), and the God of Moses, is still the same God of our Lord Jesus Christ and is our Father!

Eventually, all of God's people will no longer be different and separate branches of one tree, we will be joined together as one branch rooted in Christ Jesus! We should get to practicing God's ways now, and no longer expect Him to bend to and bless our version of living for Him.