Category: grace

You Might Be A Pharisee If ….

Just when we become proud of our own spiritual advancement we are most in danger of spiritual catastrophe!

kevingdrendel2 Comments

[29] “Woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. [30] And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have participated with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’

Matthew 23:29-30

Reading this passage in Matthew today reminded of the old bit by the comic, Jeff Foxworthy. If Jeff Foxworthy was a comic in 1st Century Judea, he might have said, “You might be a Pharisee if ____________________ (fill in the blank).”

In a similar vein, we could say, “You might be a Pharisee if you think you would not have opposed Jesus if you lived in Judea in the 1st Century.”

Of course, Jesus wasn’t being funny when he confronted the Pharisees, and this wouldn’t be a comedic schtick.

I don’t think Jesus was saying it was wrong for people to build tombs to the prophets or decorate them with flowers. Jesus was saying it was wrong to say (and think) they would have treated the prophets any differently.

The Pharisees are to us what the prophets were to the Pharisees. We may be tempted to think that we would embraced Jesus if we lived in 1st Century Judea, and would not have opposed him or called for his crucifixion if we we were in the crowd that shouted, “Crucify him!”.

But, that is no different than how the Pharisees thought and what the Pharisees claimed about the prophets that were resisted, derided, and sometimes killed by the “religious” people of their day. Jesus was clearly implying that the religious people of his day (the Pharisees), were no different than the religious people in the days of the prophets.

Can we say, then, that we are different than they?

Only if we adopt the same thinking as the Pharisees! (If I am understanding Jesus accurately.)

The Pharisees thought of themselves more highly than they should have. John came preaching repentance, for the Kingdom of God is near! But, the Pharisees didn’t repent. They didn’t think they needed to repent.

When Jesus – who was God in the flesh – came into the world, the Pharisees didn’t recognize Him or receive Him. (John 1:9-11) They did not prepare themselves for his coming by repenting, as John the Baptist exhorted. They adopted the wrong attitude about what God was doing in their time, and they didn’t hear and respond to what God God’s messenger was saying.

Pharisees say the right things, and they do the right things, but they fool themselves. What the Pharisees said and did was a façade. Their hearts were not aligned with their actions. They claimed to be experts in the Law, but Jesus called them blind guides leading blind followers. (Matt. 15:14)

Pharisees were concerned with appearances and the way people saw them. Pharisees were not as concerned with their heart attitudes. Jesus called them “white-washed tombs” that were empty inside (full of dead people’s bones and uncleanness). (Matt. 23:27-28) We need to be careful that we do become like the Pharisees.

Continue reading “You Might Be A Pharisee If ….” →

When Jesus Said, “Be Perfect as Your Heavenly Father is Perfect”, What Did He Mean?

Jesus talked about perfection in the context of love

kevingdrendelLeave a comment

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.'”

Matthew 5:43‭-‬48 NIV

Be perfect. Really? No one is perfect, except God. Right?

I am reminded of the rich young ruler who called Jesus “good teacher”. (Luke 18:18) Jesus said, “Why do you call me good? Only one is good, and that is God.” (Luke 18:19) If no one is good but God alone, no one is good. Full stop.

Look at the context. He starts with this extreme statement: “I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 5:20)

The Pharisees were probably considered pretty righteous dudes. They knew their Bibles. They devoted their lives to studying the Law and living rightly before God. If I was standing there, I am certain I would be asking myself, “What does a guy have to do?!”

Just when people like me might begin to grasp for hope of a way out, Jesus ratcheted up the standard even higher:

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.” 

Matthew 5:21-22

And higher:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.”

Matt. 5:27-30

By this time, I might have understood the point: no one measures up. If we are judged by the things we think, and not just the things we do, we are sunk! Who can be saved?!

Then Jesus adds the requirement, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect!” could it get any worse?!

Paul backs us up into the same corner using the Old Testament: “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3:23) (Proverbs 20:9 (“Who can say, ‘I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin’?”); and Ecclesiastes 7:20 (“Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins.”)

If no one is good, and we have all fallen short, then no one can be perfect either. We don’t measure up. We are all doomed! We can’t gain our way into the kingdom of God because we aren’t good enough to enter.

The good news (the Gospel) is that we don’t have to measure up. We don’t get into the kingdom of God by earning our way; God offers it to us as a gift (otherwise, we would be able to boast about it). (Eph. 2:8-9) Jesus, who was good and perfect, redeemed us by his sacrificial death!

So, if we don’t have to be perfect, or even good, to enter the kingdom of God, does it not matter what we do?

Of course it does! If we are not going to earn our way in (like an employee working for a wage), but we want accept the gift God offers to those who become righteous by faith (Rom. 5:3-5) we need to accept all that goes with that gift: we become God’s children with the intention that we become like Him. (John 1:12)

Therefore, we should take goodness and perfection seriously. We can’t simply dismiss it because God has given us the gift of salvation with the intention that we would become like Him. In the rest of this meditation, I will focus on the perfection of love, which is the “excellent way” (1 Cor. 12:31) we should seek to emulate God, the Father, as His children.

Continue reading “When Jesus Said, “Be Perfect as Your Heavenly Father is Perfect”, What Did He Mean?” →

Simple Faith, Like Enoch Who Walked with God

Most of us are more “prone to wander” than we are like Enoch, who “walked with God”.

kevingdrendelLeave a comment
Man Walking to Heavenly Kingdom

I am afraid that the title to this piece promises more than I can deliver. I don’t have it all figured out. Not even close. If I had it all figured out in my mind, I would still be an impossible gap away from waling it out.

If my mind knew all there was to be known about faith, I am not confident my heart would be sure to follow. In fact, I fear my heart would not follow. It often does not follow where my mind, limited as it is, knows it should go – wretch that I am.

I say this with no love lost for myself and no false humility (to the extent that I can muster a humility that is true).

The worship leader prayed, “You are a God of love”, and he followed with the acknowledgment, “You loved us first.” He continued, speaking to us to remind us that “God forgives is; we fall short, but His mercies are new every day”.

I humbly, gratefully, and joyfully accept these truths. If God were not such as He is, I could not live with myself. I could not forgive myself, but that God forgives me.

This morning I tuned in online to the church service from my easy chair because I tested positive for COVID on Friday. I barely left this easy chair yesterday.

I don’t do well with nothing to do – nothing to do that I want to do anyway, other than mindlessly scrolling through everything my various technological devices will offer me.

Some people are given to doom scrolling, “spending an excessive amount of time reading large quantities of negative news online”, according to Wikipedia, which can cause the mind to race, leading to burnout, and causing you to” feel uncertain, anxious, or distressed”, according to WebMD.

Ironic, isn’t it? The Internet offers conveniently a ready definition to a malady caused by excessive time spent on the Internet. I don’t need to search my mind for the right words. They are at my fingertips with the click of a mouse. I barely need to think about it!

Not that it helps at all. I can define doom scrolling, acknowledge it, understand it and still fall victim to it. Knowledge is like that. It gives us a false sense of mastery and control.

Boredom and mindlessness are a bad combination for me. I constantly desire to be intrigued, engaged, entertained, piqued, inspired … yet I am not always willing to put in the work or thoughtfulness out of which real inspiration, meaning and purpose comes. I also sometimes look for inspiration and meaning in sources that are not capable of delivering it.

Sometimes, I simply don’t want to be bored, but I am too lazy to work at not being bored. Like I said, this is a bad combination for me. It’s a real time suck. An utter waste of time. It leaves me feeling completely unfulfilled and tempted to fill that gap with shadowy pleasures.

After getting up in the morning yesterday and reading through the daily Scriptures that are mapped out for me in the bible app I use, I failed to devote my attention to God or anything meaningful for the rest of the day. I might have said a half-hearted prayer or posted half a thought here and there – nothing but a mist floating over a never-ending torrent of things to see and hear on the Internet.

The sermon this morning was on “the crisis of pleasure”. The crisis of pleasure is a crisis of faith.

It’s a crisis of focusing our primary attention on seeking the scraps we can scrounge up in a world subjected to futility, heads down, eyes focused in the dust, when God is nudging us to look up. It’s a crisis of settling for the meager samplings found in the here-and-now while ignoring Christ, the hope of glory, who offers us things we can’t even imagine.

My mind knows these things full well. I write about them often. It might even be the most common theme of my writing – letting go of the things of this world to seek first the Kingdom, living as strangers and aliens in this world that is passing away, because we long for a heavenly country.

The pleasure we seek in this world is to please the self. There is no other kind. The pleasure we long for is the pleasure God gives back to us when we please Him:

“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.“

Luke 6:38

That brings us to the sermon, which was about Enoch, a man who was commended for his faith, because he pleased God. (Heb. 11:5) Enoch was a man who “walked with God”. (Gen. 5:22, 24) Reading these passages together tells us that walking with God and pleasing Him are the same things, and they are evidence of our faith, because:

[“W]ithout faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

Heb. 11:6

Once again, we see that faith is an action word, something I have noted a few times lately. Faith is an action that involves walking!

Continue reading “Simple Faith, Like Enoch Who Walked with God” →

The Wrath of God: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

My musing today is inspired by Bethel McGrew’s thoughts on Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris and CS Lewis.

kevingdrendelLeave a comment

Esther O’Reilly…. I mean Bethel McGrew, as she is wont to be known now, writes in her Essay Preview: Missing God of Jordan Peterson’s interview with Sam Harris in which Harris prodded Peterson to commit to conclusions on his flirtation with God. Harris teased Peterson into grappling with the idea of a personal God, but Peterson characteristically sidestepped the invitation.

Jordan Peterson is far more popular, or notorious, a subject than my extraneous musings, but Peterson isn’t the focus of my thoughts today. It isn’t Sam Harris either, though I have written about him before. Rather, the trajectory of my own past flirtations with the idea of a less personal God now prods me forward.

McGrew observes in Harris’s questions that he unwittingly, if not then crassly, “makes the same point C. S. Lewis makes in his fictional Letters to Malcolm, writing on the problem with trying to depersonalize God’s anger. Lewis’s hypothetical young correspondent suggests that we might reframe our experience of this anger as ‘what inevitably happens to us if we behave inappropriately towards a reality of immense power.’ A live wire doesn’t feel angry when it shocks us, but we know we will be shocked if we brush up against it.”

Before getting to the point, I must confess that I have played with a similar analogy out of a similar desire, I suspect, to make God seem less unpopularly angry. A God who is not wont to anger (or wrath as the Bible unabashedly puts it) seems more palatable to the modern mind, and, perhaps, safer,

Only my analogy, which I have thought to be rather clever, is of two magnets. The magnet signifying God is of immense proportion, of course, compared to the little magnet the size of humans. It doesn’t matter the size of the magnets, though; if we are orientated opposite to God, we are repelled by God.

It’s science. Like the laws of nature. It has nothing to do with God being angry.

I have toyed with the same human affinity to depersonalize an angry God. I admit the temptation to subscribe to the idea that primitive, Bronze Age people are less sophisticated than us and got it wrong to think that a loving God might get angry.   

I rather like my analogy, honestly. It neatly dodges the discomfort of “the God of the Old Testament” in our collective faces. Discounting God’s wrath as primitive imagery is, perhaps, convenient, if not a dead end as I now consider.

The temptation to gloss over biblical truths is no less compelling in our time than in Lewis’s time, and, perhaps, with the same unwitting results:

“But ‘My dear Malcolm,’ Lewis writes, ‘what do you suppose you have gained by substituting the image of a live wire for that of angered majesty? You have shut us all up in despair; for the angry can forgive, and electricity can’t.’”

Brilliant!

On my analogy, a magnet cannot do other than to repel a magnet orientated with its same pole forward. Of course, a tiny magnet opposing a larger magnet can always reorient itself! Right?

Of course, analogies always break done at some point. Have you ever tried holding two magnets with their north poles facing each other? The lesser magnet tends to want to flip and go the other direction. If the magnet were a person, the “attraction” might be described as unstoppable.

But that doesn’t seem to be the way we operate in our orientation to God. We seem to have this sticky business of free will milling about within us, and a real tendency toward sin that requires us to choose God’s way over our ways (if we want to be orientated in God’s direction). We don’t naturally align with God.

It isn’t quite like science. It’s messier than we like to think of science (not that science doesn’t have its own messiness with sticky things like quantum entanglement and such). We can no more remove God’s personhood than our own from the “equation”.

I am a bit embarrassed that I have fixated on this tangent to McGrew’s point in writing about Jordan Peterson, but it’s what caught my attention and held it. It gave my a springboard for my own thoughts. I have taken her work afield, but it’s the path I am on, so I will continue.

Continue reading “The Wrath of God: Between a Rock and a Hard Place” →

The Surprising Context of the Idea that God’s Ways Are Not Our Ways, and God’s Thoughts Are Not Our Thoughts

kevingdrendel1 Comment

How many times have you heard someone say, “God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and His ways are not our ways”? Think about the context in which those words tend to be spoken….

The death of a loved one, a difficult time you are going through, plans that don’t work out, change you long for doesn’t happen, or unexpected change throws your life into chaos: these are the kinds of circumstances in which these words are often spoken.

Bad things are happening, or the good things we hope for seem never to come. That’s when someone says, “You know, God’s ways are not our ways.” The implication is that we should trust Him anyway, and that is good advice, but it’s often not very comforting in the moment.

Speaking those words in those kinds of circumstances also takes them completely out of the context in which they were spoken by the Prophet, Isaiah, whose words they are:

“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call to him while he is near. Let the wicked one abandon his way and the sinful one his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, so he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will freely forgive. 

“’For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways.’ This is the Lord’s declaration. ‘For as heaven is higher than earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.'”

Isaiah 55:6-9 CSB

Until today I had not considered these verses in the context of the previous two verses. Or in the context of the whole chapter, for that matter. In fact, Isaiah 55 begins with the words, “Come, all you who are thirsty!”[i] I encourage you to read all of Isaiah 55, which I have provided at the end of this article.

But the focus of this article is the two verses spoken right before the enigmatic words of comfort that we often hear: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways.”

These verses are spoken in the context of encouragement to seek God and return to him so that God may have compassion on you, for God freely forgives. This is the context for the statement that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and His ways are not our our ways.

The implication here is that God forgives where we are not likely to forgive. God has compassion where we fail to have compassion. God freely forgives where we have much difficulty forgiving, and He has compassion when we would not have compassion.

That God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts is often mentioned in the context of things we do not understand about life, such as the death, tragedy, catastrophe, and hopelessness. We think of the negative things that happen to us and the good things for which we hope that never seem to come about.

While it’s true that God sees things we do not see, and He has purposes that He is working out in history, throughout the earth, and even in our own loves that we do not understand, Isaiah’s statement that God’s way are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts, was not spoken in that context at all.

God’s thoughts are not our thoughts because He has compassion that we do not have and do not understand! God’s ways are not our ways because God freely forgives those who turn to Him.

Thank about that: This means that God is much more compassionate and forgiving than we understand or give him credit for.

We sometimes fixate on God’s judgment. We struggle with God’s wrath and the problem of pain and suffering in the world. In these contexts is when we heard it said that God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and His ways are higher than our ways.

God is much more compassionate and forgiving than we understand or give him credit for

The real import of these versus, however, it’s not that God is mysterious in some dark and tragic way, but that God is mysterious in a compassionate and forgiving way!

We may actually have more difficulty understanding the compassion of God, than the wrath of God sometimes. We may have more difficulty understanding the forgiveness of God than the judgment of God. We may not like the idea of God’s wrath or judgment, but we somehow grasp it in a twisted kind of way, even if only to hold it against him.

Yet, we sometimes struggle to understand His great compassion and forgiveness.

Why would God empty himself of His glory, give up His divine privileges, make Himself nothing (Phil. 2:7), and enter into His creation in the most vulnerable way? Why would He humble Himself in that way and be obedient like a servant (Phil. 2:8) to submit himself to the worst that his own creation could do to Him? Humiliating and excruciating death on a Roman cross!

And then, after all of that, the words of Christ, who was God Incarnate, spoken as he died on a Roman cross are the most mysterious thing we could ever imagine:” Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)

Continue reading “The Surprising Context of the Idea that God’s Ways Are Not Our Ways, and God’s Thoughts Are Not Our Thoughts” →