Tag: healthy relationships

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Kingdom Worship

Generally as Christians, we know that something that makes us different than other “religions” is the particular person that we worship. However it also seems clear to me that in scripture Jesus has a particular character. He has “ways” as Psalm 103:7 tells us. He has ways of doing things. For example, the way He speaks is tender and always filled with love and truth, and that includes when He speaks to us, His people.

Similarly we know that there are certain behaviors that are healthy in a relationship for us as humans, and there are certain behaviors that are not. What is normal for God defines what is normal and healthy for humans because we were created in His image (Eph 5:1).

I’d like to go back to the Garden of Eden for right now and understand what God’s plan for mankind was. I do agree that God knew we were going to fall into sin. However, that fact didn’t preclude Him from telling Adam and Eve exactly how to avoid falling into sin. So we see that there was a plan, but that we interrupted that plan, and that God is in the process of restoring that plan today through the work of Jesus on the Cross, which was planned ahead of time due to God knowing we’d fall.

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.’”

Genesis 2:16-18

What we know is that God told Adam he could eat from any tree in the garden…except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The way I see it is that there are three main things in the garden outside of God and man:

  1. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
  2. all the other trees
  3. almost forgot: The Tree of Life (Genesis 2:9)

God didn’t give Adam any commands regarding the Tree of Life. The first time I realized that I was struck with a very profound sense of excitement and also a sense of freedom.

God didn’t command Adam and Eve to worship Him. He also didn’t command them to eat from the Tree of Life. It seems very clear that it was not God’s intention to force them into a relationship with Himself, but rather give them a secure place to live and secure resources in order to create the space in which He would woo them into a relationship with Himself. He was very confident in Himself that He could successfully attract them into worshipping Him. Command not needed.

It’s always been God’s plan to not force people into a relationship with Himself. Many of us are pretty confused by that idea because of, namely, the 1st commandment in the 10 commandments, as well as God’s promise to send some people to hell. We will come back to the thing about hell in my next post. In this post I’d like to examine the command to worship that was absent in the Garden but is now present today.

Lets contrast two scenes of worship in the Bible. One is about God and the other is about an idol. God is righteous. The human that crafted the idol was acting overtly evil.

And God spoke all these words:
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
 You shall have no other gods before me.’

Exodus 20:1-3

This was the 1st commandment in the 10 commandments.

Next…

and Nebuchadnezzar said to them, “Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have set up?  Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good. But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?’

Daniel 3:14-15

This is from the story commonly know as Shadrack, Meshach and Abednego in Daniel 3.

There are a couple differences I want to point out about a healthy worship relationship and an unhealthy worship relationship, beyond the reality of who is being worshipped.

Firstly, God rescued Israel before He commanded them to worship Him. There was no negotiating. He simply rescued them. He did what He was going to do, and He waited for a response from Israel. His love was unconditional.

Nebuchadnezzar required that they worship His idol before He rescued them. He held a gun to their head essentially. This isn’t a healthy relationship.

Many might ask about Deuteronomy and the promises of blessing for obedience and the curses for disobedience. I’d say that God was informing Israel of the natural consequences of staying under God’s covering or not. We are free to walk out from under God’s protection, but if we do, there is a lion out there trying to find someone to eat (1 Peter 5:8). As Paul tells us in Galatians, you will reap what you sow.

Secondly, Nebuchadnezzar is talking about being rescued from himself. Making promises of murder is beyond an unhealthy relationship into crazy talk. God is talking about rescuing Israel from “Egypt, the land of slavery”. He’s not bent on killing Israel. He’s not talking about saving them from Himself.

Back in the Garden of Eden, God didn’t command Adam & Eve to worship Him, but in the 10 commandments He did and today we have that same command. Why the shift? As with the rest of the law, we have that command because we needed and need a reminder to do things that God originally intended to be natural (like not murdering) before the sin nature became a part of us. God didn’t, all of a sudden, become egotistical or abusive.

The command to worship is not coercive: God gives us the time we need (2 Peter 3:9) to decide, just like He did in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve.

If we refuse to worship Jesus, it’s the enemy that is coming to steal, kill and destroy us (John 10:10), not Jesus. Jesus came to give us life. This warning Jesus has given us about the enemy is not coercive. It’s simply a warranted warning.

God rescued Israel from Egypt, not from Himself (today He rescues us from the enemy and from sin and death, not from Himself). As God gave Israel her freedom back, He reminded her that He’s the one who rescued her, and that Egypt was not. He gave this reminder, not for His ego, but for her good. Don’t trust the person that got you into trouble. Trust the person that got you out. Don’t trust the abusive relationship.

Next post I’ll be writing about how this relationship with God provides us with salvation.

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The Relationship that Provides Us with Salvation

Many people think about going to Heaven or hell as a scenario in which God is holding a gun to our heads, coercing us to worship Him, and we just have to say the magic “Jesus” word or intellectually understand the propitiation and we will be rescued from God and His wrath. This view is categorically incorrect.

Salvation depends on one thing: a person’s response to the person of Jesus, and specifically the proposition of having Him as our lord. The idea of a “lord” isn’t something we exactly understand in the West. It’s basically the idea of Jesus being our owner or our boss forever.

Jesus’ ministry was not focused on warning people about hell. Jesus’ central message was, “Repent, because God’s Kingdom is within reach“. “Within reach” is my translation of what is commonly translated “at hand”. In this particular message, Jesus wasn’t warning people about hell. He was informing them and attempting to allure them with the promise of life in God’s Kingdom. We have a lord that doesn’t use threats but who wants to guarantee that we live in a paradise that is suitable for us personally because He loves us personally.

It is true that Jesus does acknowledge the reality of hell during His ministry. And while it was not the focus, I can see how it could be difficult for someone to not feel coerced by the reality of hell when considering whether or not to trust Jesus . I can also see how someone could find it difficult not to feel allured by the promise of life without sickness, death, or problems of any kind forever. Each person decides where their focus will lie.

Whether or not someone feels coerced, the fact is that nobody can be saved without trusting Jesus. Saying some magic words out of fear while not really trusting Jesus isn’t how you are saved, and forcing people isn’t God’s method.

God’s desire is for His peaceful Kingdom to come on Earth as it is in Heaven and to dwell here with humanity forever. If someone doesn’t trust God, it’s impossible for that person to be peacefully integrated into God’s Kingdom. They’re going to keep stealing, keep creating factions, keep looking out for #1 and keep starting unnecessary wars as long as God will let them, which won’t be forever.

This sounds kinda like works righteousness but it’s not. It doesn’t matter at all what you’ve done in the past as long as you’re willing to trust God now. And when Jesus comes back, there will be no devil, no evil, no death, no starvation. Practicing righteousness will be easy (Hebrews 2:15).

If you simply trust God, you are fit to be integrated into God’s Kingdom. You will bear fruit. When God gives you a command for how you need to act in order to maintain a peaceful lifestyle: because you trust Him you will naturally want to follow Him. You may not be perfect at it immediately, you may fall and stumble, but you will follow and keep following and keep being faithful until your training is complete (Luke 6:40).

Proverbs 24:16 is compelling. I’d like to note that all of the ESV, NASB and NIV, as well as almost all English translations translate the first personal subject in the verse as “the righteous”. It says:

“for the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity.”

Proverbs 24:16

This verse shows us that the righteous aren’t perfect. Rather, the righteous know God is worth pursuing. They trust Him. They are aiming at being like Him. They are aiming at righteousness, and when they fall short, they stand up and keep moving forward. They don’t make up their mind to permanently give up and resort to evil methods, as the wicked do. They don’t make up their mind to take care of #1 by whatever means necessary, as the wicked do. They don’t consider it a waste of time to serve God (Malachi 3:14), as the wicked do. Unlike the wicked, the righteous trust Jesus.

We see that salvation doesn’t come through anything mechanical that you can just perform. You can’t coerce God into saving you. You can’t do a dance, or say magic words or give enough money or be good enough. You have to have a genuine relationship with Him. You have to trust Him. It’s possible to perform morally to some degree without trusting God. You still aren’t getting into God’s Kingdom unless you trust Him (Romans 9:31-33).

God doesn’t form lasting relationship by forcing people or coercing people into relationship with Himself. Lasting relationship is formed through trust. If you are ready to trust God, God is already ready to trust you.

God is extraordinarily trustworthy.

Jesus died on the Cross. He literally had absolutely no legal obligation to do so. He is capable of peace. He lived, suffered and died as one of us and was at peace with all that He encountered, as much as it depended on Him. He can be trusted.

Some might say, “Well what if I am able to successfully create my own peaceful kingdom without God?” Are you willing to get to know Him? What will you do if you find Him to be trustworthy? All that’s being asked of you: trust at a basic level.

At the end of the day, it’s important to look at humanity’s history and see that there is no scientific evidence that humanity is capable of living at peace for any sort of extended amount of time or, as a whole, even for a day. At the end of the day it’s important to ask ourselves the important question: would I rather trust Jesus and have a world at peace or choose to exercise my perceived right to not trust Jesus and continue on with business as usual? Do you want a world of peace, or would you prefer a world without Jesus? To the sane, the answer to this question seems obvious.

None of us completely trusts God all of the time. We may not understand how God is working in this current evil age, and we may not like some of His choices, but at a very basic level, if you simply trust that Jesus is raised from the dead and you pledge allegiance to Him, you will be saved (Romans 10:9). Period. If God can raise the dead, He obviously has the ability to provide a lasting peace to all that want it.

You don’t have to do anything to get into God’s Kingdom except trust Him. That’s all. You do have to trust Him though. Can you really consider Jesus dying on the Cross a threat or a promise to kill someone or coercive behavior? That certainly wouldn’t be reasonable or logical. At that point it’s up to each of us to decide if trust is something we are willing to live with.

We see in 2 Peter 3:9 that God gives people all the time they need to decide whether or not they want to be in a relationship with Him, just like He did with Adam & Eve, and just like He did with the thief on the cross.