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Who Gets To Decide?

7/2/2015

4 Comments

 
Dear Fellow Believers,

The Supreme Court of the United States decided this week that we couldn't make a distinction between marriage and not-marriage. The justification is that if two people love each other and want to make a commitment to each other, they shouldn't be denied the "right" to make that commitment.

Many Christians are shaken and outraged by this. A surprising number are not, but many are.

This letter is to you.

When Believers decided we could cross out various parts of God's instructions and state which we were comfortable following and which we could righteously ignore, we set a long stage for us to be in the bind we're in now. We have trouble being able to distinguish right from wrong or have a leg to stand on when objecting to things like men "marrying" other men. The decision this week, based upon relentlessly emotional statements like "when two people love each other", is the logical outcome of our society's abandonment of God's principles and instructions. The shocking number of Christians supporting it while saying, "No one chooses to be born this way" is proof that we in the Body of Christ have forgotten our compass. We can't find North because we have rejected the measuring stick God gave his people. We are going the same way as the rest of the world when we were supposed to stand up and say "no!", to be a light on a hill, to not be like those whose eyes are blinded because they do not know the true Light.

I am filled with grief - not because Unbelievers do things God abhors, but because Believers are being persuaded they cannot object.

Hear me out on this.

When we decided that God's careful instructions could be parsed into categories like "Moral", "Sign" or "Ceremonial" laws and some could be dismissed, we opened ourselves to the argument of which instruction was which. It's now only a matter of opinion which we should keep and which we should ignore. One Christian keeps the Sabbath, another doesn't at all, another says it's been changed to Sunday. We have no clarity because we are using our own standards to judge God and his commandments instead of using God's words as our guide.

By taking it on ourselves to judge which of God's instructions are still valid, we have given ourselves the power to judge God. Once you give men the power to judge God, you've already made all evil things allowable. That is our sinful nature. And by discrediting God's commands, we have no recourse for objection. It's only a matter of time. When God says eating pigs is abominable to him and so is homosexuality, we are tearing down our own foundations when we say, "God's changed his mind about the pigs but not the homosexuality."

But who makes the determination that pigs are now clean but my homosexual neighbors are not?

God has not given good and evil instructions. If we find any of his instructions good, why would we then discard others?

The reason, one everyone I know including myself has used, is that some of God's commands are for us but some aren't, and if we try to keep the ones that aren't we have cursed ourselves. But it's very difficult to understand who has drawn the dividing line between the good and the cursed.

Many - including me, in my heart - have cited Paul's writings when saying it's actually evil to regard the body of God's instructions as still valid. The problem with this is that by accepting any of those instructions as good, we have invalidated this whole point and set ourselves up as the judges of God's Law. Paul himself never divides the commands into groups of what we should and shouldn't follow. He differentiates - as Jesus did - between the Laws of God and the Traditions of Men, but when he says "The Law", he never condemns part while clinging to part. If he's really speaking of God's instructions and condemning them as evil for Christians to follow, he's calling ALL of them evil. If this view of Paul is correct, then we can't say even the 10 Commandments are still valid without a lot of mind-bending roundabouts.

So do not do the easy thing, the thing I always took for granted we should do, and retreat behind Paul's difficult writings to say we can't possibly follow God's Instructions. Because if Paul said that, we're free to commit murder now. Without the whole validity of God's Instructions, there's nothing to say there's anything wrong with men "marrying" men or women "marrying" women or a father "marrying" his young daughter or a woman "marrying" her favorite horse.

Since it's ridiculous to suppose Paul really advocated murder or adultery, it's time to give up the untenable position that we in our power and wisdom can do what even the Apostles personally taught by Jesus could not: we cannot pick and choose which of God's commands are just and holy and which we may ignore.

That thought is what catapulted me out of feeling at ease with my attitude toward God and made me realize I have been content not following him with my whole heart. I realized with this one statement that I had allowed myself to choose how much of God's will I was content with.

It's not God's Instructions themselves that are the dividing line between the holy and profane in our Christian, God-fearing hearts. It's the attitude that we have the right to examine all God's words and decide which we will follow. Not which we CAN follow. Which we WILL.

If we keep giving ourselves that right, we'll increasingly find there is no evil and perversion we can truthfully object to because our only foundational reason will be, "I'm not comfortable with homosexuals marrying, but I am with eating pigs, so one is permissible but the other is a clear abomination."

That isn't a good reason. My comfort level is not something anyone else should have to change their behavior for. To demand my neighbors conduct their lives just in ways I personally approve is tyranny. It is only when a person believes in conducting their life according to the ways of our Creator and expect others to do the same that we have any moral, justifiable grounds for objecting to any disgusting behavior.

If we love what our Creator loves and despise what he despises, then we will no longer be hypocrites but will be able to firmly and consistently stand for what God defines as right. It's no longer an opinion. It's based on Truth, the Truth of God.

Until then, we can't in good conscience criticize homosexuals by saying, "that's a sin because God said so." They have every right to come back with, "God said eating shrimp is a sin too."

"Come back to me with your whole heart," God tells his people over and over. If we want to see evil beaten back, if we want to see perversion stop invading even our churches, we must repent of the arrogance we are showing toward God and accept his direction alone instead of trying to invent our own.

If we want to know our Messiah when his feet hit the ground on the Mount of Olives sometime in the perhaps-not-so-distant future, we have to be willing to give up our right of picking and choosing what we will do for the sake of our love for him.

It's still not too late.


30“And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. 31The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. 32And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls." - Joel 2:30-32
4 Comments
Mom
7/3/2015 12:59:06 am

Them there are fightin words. In theory I agree. The problem I have is that I have to go back and study and mull over what exactly God wanted His people to obey - which takes time and honesty and thought. There are things I probably do or don't do that are just part of life and it seems like really thinking as someone adopted as part of the family that our Lord made His covenant with - this might take work. Changing to keeping the "Sabbath" means swimming upstream to most of our society because Sunday is so pervasive. Ok - did that - causes conflict with our family. Not doing Christmas or eating pork (or unclean things) - causes conflict with our family. These things are important to God the Creator so we have to please Him first and still be with our family. Are these things we've weathered the only ones - probably not. So....we have to decide more and have more conflicts with our families. I feel like a hypocrite but this is what holds me back; I Am Afraid that it will be too Hard.

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Lauren
7/4/2015 10:50:15 am

I know them's fightin' words. It's the only battle I feel I can fight. I'm not going to be able to save our country. But those who love God are my countrymen and supersede physical countries.

As far as trouble with family goes, things done in humility because you desire to walk God's path should only cause strife if someone is determined to pick a fight with you. We are still called to love all our neighbors as ourselves even though we are first called to love God with all our hearts and souls and strength.

My belief has become, "what we can, do". Just as God's People were able to begin walking back to him even while in Babylon, which caused the original prophesied days of their exile to go from 390 years to 70. These things are not to save us, but to get us walking the road God laid out for his followers so that we stay on his path and don't go wandering off on our own to our grief and destruction.

It's not too hard. Contrary to our usual Christian beliefs over the past years, God's ways are not too hard for us. For what other reason are we given the Holy Spirit than to do God's will? And aren't we told "I can do ALL THINGS through Christ who strengthens me"?

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Janice
7/29/2015 04:29:15 pm

The general concepts I agree with (as Christians we are lukewarm, and God will spew us out of His mouth, we are the salt of the earth, and when we lose our saltiness we all will be destroyed), the specifics though, not so much.

Actually, it is God that has alluded to a difference between "His chosen people" and "the sheep in another fold."

Much of the Mosaic laws are prefaced with "in the land you are about to possess" indicating that: 1. There was a beginning to many of the laws--the Jewish people were to begin keeping them in a land that they had authority over. (Deut. 12:8-9 “You will no longer go your own way as you do now, everyone doing whatever he thinks is right; (for these laws don’t go into effect until you arrive in the place of rest the Lord will give to you.) 2. They were for a specific people. At times it is specifically referred to as the "land promised to their forefathers" (a specific land, a specific people.) 3. Most importantly, the ceremonial laws were to establish specifically the people of Israel as a holy people, with a holy place (the temple), that a holy God could reside. (Lev. 15:20)

It is Jesus that differentiates between the Old Covenant and the changes coming with the New Covenant:
(Deut 12:5, The Mosaic law says: "But unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come:")

And yet:
John 4: 20-24 [the woman said:] "Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship."
Jesus saith unto her, "Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."

The Old Covenant could be called a Covenant with our flesh, the New Covenant is a Covenant with our heart (our soul) and exists into eternity, as such, there are differences between the two. Primarily, that our submission isn't a keeping of rules, but is a submission of the heart. (Not that I have a problem with following the OT laws...but it needs to be done with a true understanding. In this I agree with Paul: "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days...")

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Lauren
8/1/2015 04:04:41 am

"I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. and I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd." (John 10:14-16)

It seems as if the sheep who are not in the fold are not in "another fold". They are not mentioned in a fold at all. They are lost. Jesus was speaking to his Hebrew disciples whom he seemed to regard as in the fold already. Being in another fold implies that the shepherd is caring for them in a different time and place under different guidelines. But that isn't what Jesus said.

A Specific Land: if possession of the land was the beginning and the parameter, why was the Sabbath blessed from the beginning of the world? Why was Passover and the sacrifices being celebrated out in the wilderness? Why did God promise to bless his people if they turned to him in whatever land he scattered them and began following him with their whole hearts and keeping his commandments?

Isn't there now an underlying attitude of "what SHOULD I do" rather than "what CAN I do" when it comes to things God commanded?

A Specific People (the People of Israel): why did God state over and over that the same laws were to apply to both Israel and the foreigner? What does it mean for us to be "grafted in" to the Chosen People? Why are so many commands said to last "forever"?

A Specific Time and Place with God Living Among Men: Isn't our ultimate hope for Jesus to return and for him to be the Holy King with his Holy People in a Holy Land with his Law written on their hearts?

Jesus speaks of celebrating the Passover with his disciples again after his resurrection. Why would this happen and who will take part?

Is the ceremonial law purely physical for a time that is passed? Why will the sacrifices and the Temple be in place again when Jesus is King of the Earth (Ezekiel 42)?

Have the Heavens and Earth passed away? Do we not bother to teach our neighbors about God because everyone already knows?

**It is Jesus that differentiates between the Old Covenant and the changes coming**

What does worshiping in Spirit and Truth look like?

How did Noah or Abraham worship? How could God's Law be only for a people with an established place of worship if Daniel, Shadrach, Mesach and Abednego were considered so righteous in their exile to Babylon? Or what about Ezekiel, in exile and seeing visions of a Temple and time that has not yet existed?

What does Jesus mean when he tells his followers to walk as he did? Did he walk in his Father's ways as they were meant to be walked or make up new ways?

**Primarily, that our submission isn't a keeping of rules, but is a submission of the heart.**

Hasn't it always been about the heart?

"For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." (Psalm 51:15-17)

What does Jesus mean when he says, "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love." (John 15:7)

Wasn't Jesus teaching HOW God's instructions were to be followed rather than setting of a new law?

**(Not that I have a problem with following the OT laws...but it needs to be done with a true understanding. In this I agree with Paul: "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days...")**

It comes from the heart to imitate the Gentiles Paul was speaking to, Gentiles who faced serious consequences for keeping God's instructions in these things. They would be excluded from public office or often from any work, ostracized and possibly even put to death for acting like Jews without the protection of converting to Judaism - a system of traditions which had superseded God's Laws. These Gentiles were being judged FOR keeping Sabbaths and not eating meat or wine sacrificed to idols or keeping God's holy days or reckoning time by God's calendar instead of the Roman one. Paul said it was good for them to keep these things because they were a foreshadowing of the fullness we would experience under Jesus' kingship. They were a shadow of the hope we wait for.

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    Author: Lauren

    Wife of Benjamin and mother to two wonderful little girls who are getting bigger every day.  Enjoys writing down thoughts and discussions we are having within the family and sharing them with whoever is interested in reading.

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