“…He who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone; nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away…”- Galatians 1:15-17

When God took away Paul’s physical vision, his spiritual eyes opened. Like when you close your eyes to strengthen your sense of smell, or turn down your radio so you don’t miss the street sign, He removed one sense to make the other stronger. It is only when God saw fit to reveal Jesus to Paul that he understood his predestined purpose. Paul didn’t make it happen. He was literally blindsided.

Being called by grace before you were even born means that only grace can make the mistakes of your past, present, and future no match for the purpose you were created to fulfill. If you think you are unfit, you are more right than ever. You are unfit, that’s the beauty of complete reliance on the God who creates, calls, equips. It removes reliance on self and that’s a scary beautiful place to be.

Paul responded in a personal way and it’s something that I think we should take note of. God speaks to us all the time. He nudges us in directions that may be a 180 turn from the direction in which you were once confident. What people usually do is consult others in this new revelation or direction and too often, the people we are consulting with don’t get it. In order to not rock the boat, we stay quiet and ignore our call. But, Paul didn’t consult with the people around him. He didn’t even try to find the others who were already where he was called to go.

I have caught myself reading scripture and negatively wishing that ‘so and so’ would read that. Then I have a catch in my spirit that would tell me: “My Word is my message to you.”

I am the one who needs that message. When I stop reading with an agenda, I find Him waiting for me to listen.

People can read scripture, hear from God, and then reject it because it’s not something that their religious influences would agree with. They read and balance what they hear against other human beings.

His Word is a message to you. He doesn’t grow groups to grow people. He grows people and the groups are inevitable. It doesn’t matter what your friends think. You are in a relationship with God, the rest are just passing through. You have to trust God enough to lead you in ways that your spirit will understand even when your finite mind cannot.

Don’t bring the thoughts of other people in the room with you when you’re spending time with Him. He’s talking to you. It’s time to take a break from the world and listen.

God has already determined to what extent and what part you will be used to play in His plan. He has called you to do and be something that it impossible under your own strength and if you ask people around you, they may not see the potential that God does. We rarely do. Humans are competitive, they’re political, and they don’t like to put faith in the unknown. They bank on certainty and call it ‘faith’. That’s not faith. If you’re too concerned about what people will think, if they’ll approve, or if they’ll support you, then it is less likely that you will follow the call.

People are in our lives for seasons and it’s good. But, when it’s time for you to move on you will see these relationships weaken and you may not know why. People can hold you back or they can encourage you, but if you’re waiting for approval, then you’ll be waiting much longer under the strain of the call, making yourself unnecessarily stressed and fidgety. I’m telling you this because if you don’t understand what is happening, then you’ll question your relationship with God and your spiritual life to the point of sucking all the life out of it.

When God reveals the bigger picture to you, you will not be able to rest until you act on it. The lack of rest feels like you’re doing something wrong because what is happening right now is no longer what you are supposed to be a part of. This isn’t a negative thing to beat yourself up about. It’s an amazing thing because you’re now ready for the next phase in your journey. Don’t bother counting your losses. Don’t worry about attending the funeral of what is over, just pack up and get moving.

Plato had a story about a cave that he used to illustrate his theory of existence. In his book ‘Republic’ he invites readers to imagine a “cave in which some prisoners are bound so that they can look only at the wall in front of them. Behind them is a fire whose light casts shadows of various objects on the wall in front of the prisoners. Because the prisoners cannot see the objects themselves, they regard the shadows they see as true reality. One of the prisoners eventually escapes from the cave and, in light of the sun, sees real objects for the first time, becoming aware of the big difference between them and the shadow images he had always taken for reality.”

The cave “represents the world we see and experience with our senses”, and the world of sunlight represents another realm that Plato called, the realm of Forms. The prisoners represent ordinary people, who, “in taking the sensible world to be the real world, are condemned to darkness, error ignorance, and illusion.” The escaped prisoner is the one who has seen the “light, truth, beauty, knowledge, and true reality.”

If he returns to the cave to tell the prisoners how things really are, “they will think his brain has been addled. “This difficulty is sometimes faced by those who have seen the truth and decide to tell others about it.”

I’m telling you this story because it hits close to home. There are two different realities. They have been referred to as ‘flesh and spirit’, ‘the world’s way and God’s way’, ‘worldly and spiritual’, ‘temporal and eternal’, etc…

Jesus references His Father’s ‘Kingdom’ when He’s teaching. He also remarks at His use of language that the listeners can understand instead of using ‘plain language’ that will go over their heads.

“I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father.” -Jesus in John 16:25

When He did use plain language, it got him in trouble. He tells His followers that if they talk about His Kingdom, the way it works, and the real truth, then they’ll be hated, too.

“If you lived on the world’s terms, the world would love you as one of its own. But since I picked you to live on God’s terms and no longer on the world’s terms, the world is going to hate you. …They are going to do all these things to you because of the way they treated me, because they don’t know the One who sent me. If I hadn’t come and told them all this in plain language, it wouldn’t be so bad. As it is, they have no excuse.” -Jesus in John 15:19, 21-22 MSG

He tells analogies (parables) and says “The Kingdom is like….” in an effort to get people to use the shadows to get a hint of the reality. (see Matthew 13, 20, and Luke 13 to study more.)

1 Corinthians 13 uses plain language in reference to what I’m talking about. Look at this:

“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” -1 Corinthians 13:12

There are two separate realities that you continually have to choose between. The Bible speaks to people in both realms of awareness. There is an eternal language, for those who can hear  it, and there is a temporal language for those who are still finding their bearings. Many senseless arguments erupt between people who are more fluent in ‘eternal’ and people who are more fluent in ‘temporal’. It’s senseless because one group is talking about ‘x’ and the other is talking about ‘y’. We need mediators so that people can understand each other better and actually get somewhere. More often than not, they would realize they believe the same thing. Instead, they’re much like allies with bags over their heads. They fight the wrong people.

It would be helpful to categorize things into their appropriate realms. The spiritual realm is the greatest because it never dies. Consider what belongs there and out of those things, what is the greatest? The Bible is clear about what we should be concerning ourselves with and it says that love is the greatest. What falls in line after that?  For example, where do the personal rules you follow regarding practice fit? Where does your treatment of others fit? They’re in two different realms. One is more important than the other.

Spend your time on the things that exist in the eternal world, or as you’re used to hearing it: ‘Walk in the spirit.” You have to take inventory of your treasures and start sorting them so that you spend your time on what matters and shelf the things that don’t.

What are some things that you could categorize?…

You believe in a God of love so intense that it demands justice. You think there is no justice big enough for what you did because people still have to walk in the life sentence you gave them with your mistakes. The rain isn’t strong enough to penetrate the outside and wash you on the inside. But, still, you’re out there hoping that your skin will open up and just let you drown.

God is a God of love and it’s a love so intense that it demands justice. There is no mistake in that belief. It’s just that you have forgotten Jesus. Was that not enough? Justice fell on Him so that you could come back inside.

God is not afraid of getting wet. He leaves the windows open so that maybe you’ll wash in with the rain you’re trying to drown in.

The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture. -Romans 8:34-35 MSG

They all wonder what is going to happen to them.

What they don’t understand is it’s not about what someone will do to them. It’s about what they’ll do. It’s the moment when you see yourself at your worst, are clear about your fault, and are completely hopeless.

The question that comes next: “Do I have to sin to really see God?” But, that’s only dating the false assumption that they don’t sin.

If you think that you are without sin or have the ability to be strong enough to avoid it, then you do not know God. It is impossible to receive a gift if you think you don’t need it. Grace is not yours if you spend your life running from it.

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? -Romans 6:1

If that is what you took from this, then you’re not getting it.

By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? -Romans 6:2

Grace is not yours if you spend your life running from it. That means that you can live the most pristine moral life and still not have a relationship with God. Squeaky cups and dirty guts. The best wine could be poured into your glass and come out with rehydrated bits of yesterday’s gross.

You can hear the best delivered truths and your preconceived agenda twists the meaning right out of them.

Those who have been saved by grace in the moment of complete terror and spiritual despair know that their salvation cannot be messed with. They know this because it came to them at their worst. They’re not living in fear, they’re living their new life knowing that sin can never, ever destroy them.

What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? -Romans 6:15

From the moment the Gospel has been preached, the same questions come up. They still come up. Nobody is saying anything new, it’s just that the more explicit the message, the more intense the challenge to the pious. People fight the Gospel like they’re fighting for their life. It’s just that they’re fighting for a life they’re supposed to die to.

Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? -Romans 6:16

You’re obeying sin when you’re living in fear of it. That’s how you become a slave to sin.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. -Romans 6:20

Sin is a micromanaging slave owner welding a whip of guilt and threats of condemnation. The overweight bully picks on you because a sense of entitlement demands that everyone else satisfies him while he gorges himself on making you feel like you’re nothing but a failure.

You know you have to be righteous, nobody lied to you regarding that, but if you actually think you have the ability to satisfy the demand, then you are a slave under a master who will never tell you that the war is over and freedom has been won.

It’s time to abandon your little slave shack of faith and run. Yeah, your oppressor will come after you, but by the time you get a chance to glance over your shoulder, you’ll be able to see him swallowed up by the Sea of Truth.

Even better? If sin believes you’re dead, then he no longer has the power to kill you and won’t come looking for you.

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. -Romans 6:3-4

No amount of reasoning can take what Jesus did away from you.  Grace wins every single time.

How often have you had to hide the unfinished edges of your attempt to make something good out of your life with lies and fake smiles? Do you not know that what you hope for is actually real and it’s not your responsibility to think it up, get it started, or to maintain it?

But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. -Romans 6:21

It doesn’t matter how dressed up you can get. You can’t blur out the fact that inside your heart you know that you haven’t had a good meal in a long time and you’re starving. Maybe you shouldn’t sit at the table full of spiritual anorexics. They’ve lied to themselves for so long, solid truth makes them sick.

Sin is a master who cannot be satisfied. No matter how good you are, you know you’re not good enough and it makes you die a little inside. That’s the other side of why the ‘wages of sin is death’.

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. -Romans 6:22-23

But, I was a mess. Life was calling me forward and I didn’t want to go. Grace was unknown territory for me and I didn’t know the rules. I needed the rules, they made me feel safe, but I had broken them all and I was a shattered cast-out who was going to live though it.

I knew a lot about church and churchiness and what you’re supposed to do when you’re hurting. You’re supposed to praise God in the pain, for what-I didn’t know-…, but I really wanted to do something right.

My house sits up on a hill and my back deck faces the sky where all of my sins were carried out. It faces the sky that blankets all the people who I hurt. I looked at the all knowing sky, who could see everything, and I thought about God. I thought about my failure. I thought about the unknown future for all of us and I winced.

“God,” I prayed, “thank you for rebuilding me.”

I knew He was rebuilding me. I didn’t know what my new life would look like or how He was going to redeem my pathetic mess, but I still acknowledged and said it out loud.

When God talks to me, it’s a voice that seems to come from within, but I know it’s not my voice. It’s an interjected thought that is received exactly the way a spoken word would be received. God spoke up immediately…

“Serena, I removed you.”

The thought struck me as odd and foreign. His voice always quickens my heart. He uses few words and they’re profound enough to keep speaking when the words stop. I didn’t have to think about it for long because I understood it. It took me a bit to accept it, but I understood it.

Removed.

Removed from relationships. Removed from my religious community. Removed from my old life. Removed from my old comfort. Removed from my old safety…. I was removed and set down in a space of faith or die.

This stole the shame and guilt of ruining something I didn’t know how to fix. This truth gave it new meaning and purpose. My failure tangled with grace and I really didn’t know which way was up.

I once was a dried up piece of dirt until somebody planted a seed of faith. The seed took and the rains soaked me and washed me. I grew into a green sprout, drinking the sun and digging in deeper with my roots. I grew taller and stronger, even though I was surrounded by weeds. Weeds of twisted faith and oppression surrounded me and stunted my growth. Then I was ripped up and sent through a sieve. My hard covering was torn from me and I was naked and exposed. Scared to death until the Field Master’s hands scooped me up and called me a seed. The cycle of life and death continues and I morph with the will of the Field Owner.

Removed.

He removed me and replanted me and sang over me. The same voice that commanded the expanse of space to divide, and the water to fill the earth, and the land to divide the water, and the birds to fly, and the beasts to roam, and the body of Adam to live is the same voice that commanded my life to take a new form. The breath of His words filled my dead spaces and commanded me to, “Grow.”

It’s God’s grace that gives me life. It’s His choosing that gives me purpose. I am not my own and I know this because I’ve seen too much. I know better. I don’t do everything right. I stumble around with the best and worst, but I know what my purpose is. I know that my life is not my own. I was saved for a purpose and continue to try to live that out. Every breath I breathe is a gift. Every smile, every laugh, every lazy night with my family and good meal from my oven is a gift.

I was knocked down and torn to pieces by my failure. I was on the wrong track and I didn’t know it until I was blinded and disoriented. Then the voice of Jesus spoke grace into me and gave me a new purpose.

‘But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’ -Acts 26:15-18

If you are like I was, lost and torn to pieces by your own failure, then consider this message. You are not abandoned or cast out. You are loved. You are being rebuilt. And maybe, you too, have been removed. Removed ‘from your people’ and from the others. You’re a traveler in a foreign land and you have a message. Give in to grace. Fall in to forgiveness. Consider the purpose. The sun will rise and dissipate this dark night that scares and torments you. I have seen the sunrise. I have felt the warmth of new life on my face and I am here to tell you that it’s real.

“I have a friend to whom I go for Christian advice and lately she is going through something with her family and I don’t think she’s acting very ‘Christian’. It’s really bothering me. What should I do or say to her?”

When someone asks questions like this, my first thought is usually, “What version of ‘Christian’ are you comparing her to?”

I think that people need someone to look up to. They need someone who won’t let them down. The problem with that is that people will always let you down.

We can’t set people up that way. We put them on pedestals and are frustrated when they can’t balance that high.

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. -Romans 7:15

People do the best they can and fight within themselves when they don’t measure up to their own standards. It’s suffocating to have to measure up to the foreign standards of others, too. It’s a fight of survival that has you completely focused on pleasing people and leaves no room for relying on the grace of Jesus to give them rest at night.

If people are honest in their relationship with you, then you will see the places that are imperfect. A good friend walks through the journey with them with enough grace to soften the blow of being a human. If you’re not a good friend, but only there for what you can get out of the relationship, then you will be a constant source of graceless judgment for them. You will never find a human being that can maintain the level of need that you are searching to fill. No human can do what only God can do.

Too often people will supplement their relationship with God with a relationship with a most-of-the-time Godly person. People will cling to pastors, pastors wives, or other recognized leaders and suck the life out of them as though these people were the Well of Living Water. Your church leaders are people. They cannot sustain you in the way that you need them to. You are pulling water out of a well that runs dry, gets contaminated, or loses the ability to pour out.

If you are getting your ‘food and drink’ from God, then you won’t be so desperate when people fail to measure up to your standards.

My heart breaks for people who are under the constant critical eye of the people they are trying to serve. If they want to maintain some distance so they can walk through their own bumpy life without the perpetual approving or disapproving comments from others, then they have to put on an Oscar winning performance every time they walk out in public. They’re in a no-win situation because people can tell that they’re holding back. The constant smile, constant positive attitude… it feels like a disillusioned, one-dimensional facade because, a lot of the time, it is.

This is why it’s hard to talk about your failures or questions in your church community. You can’t have perfect people and real people at the same time. Do you want a show or do you want a safe place to be vulnerable?

The people who would rather have a show are the most vocal and sometimes have the most influence. Grace and real life create too many questions and, for a place that is supposed to be the standard and have all the answers, that doesn’t go over very well.

This is the real battle. While all the people are fighting amongst themselves, the safe places are robbed of truth and rendered useless to people who are spiritually dying. It is not people that you’re up against. The people are distractions while the real attack is against faith. Nobody is fighting for the truth when they’re all fighting each other over practice.

The only truth worth fighting for is the Gospel of Jesus before Fear gets his hands on it. It’s the only truth because it’s the only thing that is finished. Everything else is in process and doesn’t look like it should.

Take your eyes off of people, they’re a mess at their best. Cynicism makes you twice as blind.

It’s a crazy revelation to bleed the grace of Christ as though being abhorred was a requirement. The tongue that speaks of forgiveness is the same tongue that pulled in the lip of forbidden in the kiss of sin. The contrast is a testament and a challenge. The contrast reveals the false. If false your god, then that’s all you see.

Let the mouth of the sinner sing and ignore the screams accusing heresy.

The truth will not be muffled. Every good thing that is lost, let it be lost. If you don’t sing, the rocks will. Are you not smarter than a rock? Blood cries out from the ground. Why won’t you?

“Where truth is, the lie must flee; or, if it abideth, there must be a stern conflict, for the truth cannot and will not lower its standard, and the lie must be trodden under foot.” -Charles Spurgeon

She was telling her story. He saved her, He forgave her, and she was amazed. She knew how it sounded and she knew she had witnesses. But her witnesses denied what they saw for the sake of the punishment and she was alone. They called out to Him, “Rebuke her, Father.”

‘And he answered and said unto them, “I tell you that, if [she] should hold [her] peace, the stones would immediately cry out.’ -Jesus in Luke 19:40 KJV

“As long as I have breath to lift my voice…the rocks shall not cry out in my place.”

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ”Abba! Father!” -Romans 8:15

You’re a butterfly in the rain. The furious flutter to be is reduced to trying to survive the journey through the rain to get home. All the while the depth is tugging on you. “Come home.”

You’re here in the struggle, trying to make three stretch to five and to make Not Yet expand to content. “I’m trying.”

Fear is the dictator of your peace.

You want to get it right, but you don’t know how. ‘Don’t do that and don’t do this.’ A whole life of not doing what you’re not supposed to do. A slave.

You’re not an indentured servant, slaving to earn your freedom.

Jesus came to free you from weight on your wings.

…and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. -Hebrews 2:15

The weight is the law and you can’t earn your way. Trying is proof that you have not learned your lesson.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. -1 John 4:18

Perfected in love is a process brought on by your own failure. Don’t you see it? Failure has been repurposed. Don’t you know what it feels like to be rescued? Jesus tends to the fire starter while He lets the house burn to the ground.

‘Perfected in love’, means that you have nothing to fear. No punishment is awaiting your pathetic attempts. The bill collector isn’t calling to harass you, He’s calling to let you know that the debt has been satisfied. Stop avoiding Him. Stop living to ‘not sin’ and start living in freedom.

Freedom from fear. Perfected in love.

You think you can only answer when you have the payment. But, in that world, the debt accumulates interest and you’re getting further and further away from being able to answer. Don’t you know? You’ve been set free from that world.

Righteousness does not come from sweat. Righteousness comes from faith in Jesus.

Stop running. Nobody is chasing you.

Circumstances and reasons only mean everything to you right now because they’re all you have. When you finally do, in action, what you’ve already done in thought, you’ll see them for what they are. You’ll see them as cheap bribes and you’ll hate yourself for being so easy.

You only have excuses because you have alternate choices. The fact that you have alternate choices is proof that you are being seduced by someone more sinister than the forbidden fruit dangled in front of you. The evil seduction goes deeper than the seduction of flesh.

Grace doesn’t give you permission to hang yourself. No one can tell you what to do. I’m not offering noose wrapping lessons. I’m not your Holy Spirit. I can offer you truth when you really want the truth, but I will not offer you an excuse.

You need to struggle. You need to make your own choices and go through your own journey. The only thing I can offer you is the advice to be honest. Maybe if you’re honest, you’ll get what you think you want. Maybe if you’re honest, you can deal with reality and stop running to your escape. Honesty breaks the locks and smashes the windows. It gets the attention where the attention needs to be. Honesty is the rock thrown through the mirage so that everyone can see what is fake and what is real.

When you’re in the middle of the stupor that comes before the jump, good advice isn’t really heard. Your spiritual location can be recognized by the questions you ask and the parts of your story that you’re focused on. You are a human being doing the best you can with your situation. Grace doesn’t give you permission to be selfish.

You won’t be able to handle the hell of having to forgive yourself. If you care about your relationship with God at all, your sin will destroy you. I’m not talking about socially, though that is inevitable. I’m talking about the fact that you will not be the same person that you are even now. That fact will surprise you, so I think you should know it ahead of time. You don’t know who the ‘new’ you will be.

If someone told you to do the right thing, the flesh part of you would reject it. If someone told you to go ahead with the wrong thing, your spirit would reject it. No one can tell you what to do.

Be honest. Be honest with yourself and with God. You can’t change your heart. You can’t make yourself do the right thing and reject the wrong thing. But you can be honest. Let things play out in honesty. The truth may be destructive, but the lies are infinitely more destructive.

Evil seduces. It sounds justified. But, I promise you that you will recognize its voice when all of hell is berating you and screaming at you from the inside out. More terrifying than that? You will think that it’s God. You will believe with all of your heart that He won’t take you back.

That is the lick of deception. Hell’s goal is not to get you to sin. That’s already accomplished. Hell’s goal is to get you to believe you belong there. That’s the fight of faith.

You may not understand exactly what I’m saying, but if you jump this cliff, know that you will see things in full clarity. That means that your justifications will make you feel mocked. You won’t be able to go backward in time to lock your doors and everybody will blame you because you wore your morals too short.

If this happens, please don’t let your faith in God’s grace fail. It sounds counterproductive for me to say it now because that’s one of the things evil is saying to you, too. Deception mixes truth with lies because it makes them sound more convincing. It will be hard for you to recognize the truth in the aftermath of your sin. The truth is: Grace wins.

The fact that you will doubt God’s love and forgiveness should scare the hell out if you. Because hell is separation from God, doubting His forgiveness is the appetizer. Dessert comes first in this meal.

You have more mistakes and pain in front of you no matter which path you choose. You would know exactly what to do and have the strength to do it if there wasn’t more to come. I know that sounds ominous and it’s because it is.

No matter what, you’re going to make it. Remember that when you’re lost in the woods and can’t find your shoes.

Keep fighting back, even if you feel like you’re losing.

I use the same parts of my brain when I’m studying theology as I do when I’m studying math. It’s details and terminology and it’s all based on a strong foundation that keeps building and building. The similarities between math and theology are interesting to me.

It’s 2 am and my brain is still buzzing from three days of studying, so I’m writing. If I were to start talking about systems of algebraic equations and posted a set to have you solve, you’d only be able to solve them if you knew the basics. Once you know the basics, you can run everything through the system with ease. However, if you don’t know the basics, then it’s all foreign language. Nothing makes sense.

Theology is like that. Sometimes I jump right into the middle of a concept and it makes no sense to some people because they don’t have the basics down.

The key to understanding Algebra is to know the order of operations. The further you get into it, the more there is to discover, but it never deviates from the system. There is only one answer and if you mess something up along the way, you’re off track for the rest of it.

It’s the same with theology. Words can trip you up and not understanding the order of operations can trip you up. The key to understanding the scriptures is to know the order of operations.

Last week I spent over three hours on an equation. I got all of the steps right and 99% of my answers were correct, but I continually came up with the wrong answer and it was making me crazy. After a late night phone call to a friend, I realized that I wasn’t dividing fractions right. I could get these complex systems, remember every single detail in the proper order, but I forgot something I should have learned in 6th grade. As educated as I was, not knowing a tiny basic detail made every perfectly executed step after it completely wrong.

That fact is a direct parallel to the spiritual mirror:

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love. -1 Corinthians 13:1-3 MSG

You can get everything right. Follow the system, pay attention to every detail, and you can still come up with the wrong answer. Understanding the scriptures has everything to do with your faith in redemption. It’s a faith in God’s sovereign grace.

The problems that usually arise for people are the details. If you know too much about a person’s sin, it will be harder for you to believe in grace without hesitation or stipulation. It’s harder for you to forgive. Everything you do after that will be wrong.

You can fight your anger and your pride, but you do it with your own will. When you really forgive, you’ll still be haunted by your anger and pride, but your faith in the power of the grace of Jesus will empower you. All of your internal fighting will be laced with grace. The only way to be able to really forgive is through your faith in the sovereignty of God and His love.

You can get all of the steps right, but if you do not love, then you do not have not understood the most basic concept and everythig else is a mess of noise.

The practical application calls you to consider a situation where you are either focused on the circumstances or your focused on a God who promises that nothing happens outside His will. If it’s happening, He’s in on it and He has a plan for it. You not going to get anything unless you can get the basics of who you’re dealing with and how He affects everything.