REFLECTION 2: ARE YOU AT WIT'S END ABOUT GOD'S NATURE?  THEN IT'S TIME TO CROSS THE RED SEA!

"For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ."  John 1:17

Before Moses miraculously led the Israelites through the Red Sea, they came to what appeared to be a hopeless dead end.  This place was called Land's End.  The reason is obvious. There was no place left to go to escape the pursuing Egyptians, at least according to natural thinking.

The apparent choices were to either die by the sword or die by drowning.  Or perhaps Pharaoh might allow them to return to slavery if they begged his forgiveness.  Regardless, Moses appeared to have led the Jews to a bitter end.  But then God inserted a way up, out and through natural limitations and human understanding.

The sea of limitations parted as the God of all possibility appeared.  GOD DELIVERED THEM FROM ENSLAVEMENT TO THEIR NATURAL UNDERSTANDING BY OPENING UP A NEW WAY OF THINKING AND TRUSTING IN GOD. This new way called FAITH sees God as always being heroically available to help and bless His children. NEVER does this faith-God abandon His children to evil.  He neither brings evil or allows it. This God saves to the uttermost. 

 

Many people today have come to Land's End, or more accurately Wit's End, when it comes to understanding the nature of God.  They want to believe God is all love and all good.  But wrathful, awful and fearful accusations about God's nature chase and torment their image of God like Egyptian chariots on the attack. 

Many who truly want to believe God is good end up shrugging their shoulders and surrendering at Land's End.  They look back over their shoulders and see the oncoming accusations about God's wrath, God's vengeance, God's killing sprees through war/death/plague/famine/nature, and, lastly, God's eternal hatred and bloodthirsty revenge on all who reject Him. They have no answers to these accusations even though they know they should. How can a God of love--these frustrated men ask--kill, afflict, torture or destroy men, women, children and nations?  Even if God is not the one always dealing out these painful disasters, how can He sit idly by and allow it to be done by others?

Pharaoh is yelling at us from behind with his proposed answers. "Your God is both loving and harsh-- you never know which.  He does not save-- not always. He does not forgive--not always. He may heal a person occasionally but that is only because He puts sickness on people to begin with in order to teach them a lesson. Feel free to believe in your God.  Just know that He does both good and evil, heals and afflicts, saves and destroys, and both loves and hates you.  Put your hands out and let me put my chains back on you. You will return to Egypt as my slave.  You can believe in your bipolar God all you want. He is back and forth, up and down, and completely unpredictable and unknowable.  You will never know if He cares about your slavery or not--- not for sure.  Serve Him all you want, as long as you remain my slave. At least with me, you will always know where I stand." 

Beloved, have you followed an idea which burns in your heart about God's goodness?  Have you tried to escape Pharaoh's mentality which dumps evil in the lap of God?  Have you gagged at the idea of an angry God who hates, kills, and destroys?  Have you heard a burning bush speak deep within you that there is a land of promise waiting for you to discover which will explain and reveal God's perfect goodness to you? Do you know that there is just something terribly wrong with the way God's nature is being taught today?  If so, you must turn a deaf ear to Pharaoh.  Reject his slavery.  Never shrug your shoulders.  Never surrender. 

Look to the Red Sea.  It represents the blood and life of Jesus Christ.  God divides the water of His blood into two walls so that you can walk through it on solid ground leaving Pharaoh's lies behind.  One wall of His blood represents grace while the other wall represents truth.  Walk between these walls and you will find the Promised Land of His goodness.  All questions here will be answered and all lies will be exposed.  You will know and fully embrace the true nature and essence of God. 

As we make this journey keep one thing in mind.  It is always the blood and life of Jesus which unfurls the true nature of God.  Jesus is the undistorted goodness of God.  He is also the perfect the antidote and cure to every form of evil that exists.  In Him, all evil is disallowed and nullified, but ONLY in and through Him.

Why evil still appears to flourish and prevail is not because of any lack in Jesus to provide victory over it.  Rather, evil exists because of our individual and corporate neglect in discovering and manifesting God's true nature.  The very fact that most Christians believe that there is a dark side to God which somehow uses evil in His plan, is itself the very lie that allows evil to prosper and remain unchallenged, unchecked and unconquered. We keep the God-given cure for evil corked and zipped up in our pockets.

We don't have a solution problem.  We have an application problem. Jesus IS the solution to all evil.  BUT the blood of Jesus must be actually APPLIED to extinguish the evil. Just as the Israelites had to apply the blood of the Passover lamb over their doors to effectively rebuke away the death angel from entering, so must we apply the blood of Jesus to extinguish all evil we encounter. Our faith applies God's blood-grace and blood-truth over the doors of our minds and hearts.

The problem is that we have largely failed to diligently and fervently apply His saving blood to the evils we encounter.  I obviously am not talking about some mechanical and external ritual of verbally pleading the blood of Jesus all the day long.  Rather, pleading the blood is nothing more than God-Gazing-- of steadfastly viewing all situations through the grace and truth revealed only in Jesus Christ.  It is a CONSCIOUS APPREHENSION that we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16) to guide and tame our thoughts and feelings with the twin dynamos of grace and truth.

Apprehension without grace and truth allows wrath, condemnation and fear to fill the vacuum of our minds.  I know when I fell into a personal sin last year, good things stopped occurring to me. I stopped hearing the gentle and powerful promptings of God in my heart. I stopped hearing the answers to divine mysteries-- the newness and nearness of God's wisdom all just stopped OCCURRING to my mind and heart. What did start occurring to me were thoughts of shame, anger and hatred. It is the most bitterness I have ever felt. 

But one day Jesus helped me. His grace and truth OCCURRED to me at a specific date and time and allowed me to soften toward those whom I hated so.  I had not experienced the Lord's forgiveness over my own sin because I had harbored hate toward others.   I knew conceptually that the Lord had already forgiven my sin, but I was not willing to extend that same grace to others. For this reason, I was not able to experience the Lord's loving touch of assurance that He had forgiven me. 

I know my unforgiveness sounds like obvious error, and it was, but I couldn't see it until I was staring at the Lord on this particular day.  I knew I was in torment.  I asked Him in prayer to deliver me from darkness within and without.  Within 24 hours, my own unforgiveness started OCCURRING to me as the cause of all my problems.  Then tenderness and forgiveness started flooding my thoughts toward those I had previously hated.  I started viewing life again through the lenses of grace and truth.  So many wonderful things just started occurring to me.  The floodgates of love and forgiveness were open wide.

I had truly been at Land's End with no way of escape.  Pharaoh was chasing me down with hate and bitter slavery in store for me.  Then God called me to look away from Pharaoh and gaze through the blood of Jesus and forgive myself and others, no matter the sin or perceived offense. He told me to journey through the blood of Jesus and be clean again.  The seas then parted and I crossed over on dry land.  Beloved, may we ALWAYS lock onto the grace and truth of God and see it come to full manifestation until every person, place, and thing is reconciled to God.

Beloved, are you ready to cross over into a new and better understanding of God's perfect goodness? Let's make this journey together as fellow heirs of His limitless grace.  The Promised Land is waiting for us.  New and wondrous things are starting to OCCUR to us right now!