We have the power to judge. Except we aren’t supposed to use this power. That’s frustrating. It’s a power I’m particularly good at using so I’m a little miffed that Jesus says I can’t.

Even so,  He tells me not to judge and I’m learning it is because there is a life-giving power He wants me to walk in instead.

Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Mercy is a greater display of power and a greater manifestation of authority then judgment could ever hope to be.

But sometimes, in our unredeemed pain, we judge. We withhold mercy from others at the same time we demand to receive mercy.

Continue Reading…

It is my belief that God never really calls us away from something. Instead, He calls us to Himself.

In the case of sin, He doesn’t call me away just so I can stand in some neutral place, alone.  When He calls me away from sin, He is really calling me to Himself.

But there are times when God calls me away from something and it isn’t sin.

I’ve been called away from good things in my life; I’m happy to follow Him, but sometimes my emotions lag behind.  They camp out at the “old place”,  even if my will and energies are in the new place.  Even though this is normal, it is also dangerous:  on a tiresome day I find myself longing for the old things, the familiar things, instead of rejoicing and serving in the new.

I’m learning to keep my face facing His, instead of looking over my shoulder.  He isn’t going to forget my good work, He isn’t going to trample on my emotions, and He holds every segment of my life in His heart.

I have to remember that being “called away” is incomplete: you have never gone away from something until you’ve gone to Him. Continue Reading…

God’s holiness scorches anything unholy that tries to come near.

I can come near.

Near enough to hear Him, feel Him, sometimes smell Him. And I am not burned up. I am not rejected.

More than that:  I am chosen and welcomed.

If no unholy thing can come before the LORD … what, then, does that say about me?

It’s a little too much for me to grasp, the idea that I have been made holy in Christ.  I do not understand what He has done within me.  I look at the junk in my heart and easily see I’m in desperate need of the continuing work of sanctification.  So I come to Him with a sacrifice of apologies and I’ll-do-better’s, instead of a sacrifice of worship.

But to comprehend that, at a fundamental level, I am now holy, well …it’s a bit too much for my head or my heart.

Yet here I am.  And here He is.  And I am not destroyed.

Adam and Eve. We know the story: they did what they were not supposed to do and it sent God on a quest across generations to retrieve the heart of mankind.

They lost the Garden.  One bad choice in one tiny moment and all of humanity was whisked away from the perfect set-up.

What’s so easily missed, though, is that the Garden was incomplete.  It was perfect in terms of conditions, not state.

There was work to be done.  Adam and Eve had jobs to do:

Be fruitful and multiply:  they were to increase what they had received from God.

Fill the earth and subdue it: the Garden was never meant to stay isolated. The were to expand it. They could not be passive lest unkempt flocks and overgrowth would fill the earth instead.

Have dominion:  Adam and Eve needed to be the dominating force in their environment. They needed to discover the principles that were in motion within plants, animals, weather, and eventually people, or they would not be able to subdue or increase anything. Besides that, ever consider that Satan was already on the prowl? When God said, “have dominion”, He wasn’t being fanciful.  He was quite serious. Continue Reading…

Arthur Burk, of Sapphire Leadership Group,  has the best definition for “principle”:

“A principle is a universal, non-optional, cause-and-effect relationship”

Let’s break it down:

• Universal – it applies to everyone
• Non-optional – you don’t have a choice
• Cause-and-effect – If you do x, then y will happen.

God has put the natural and spiritual realms in motion and created principles to govern them. Some principles are obvious:

• Gravity – drop a coffee cup and it will crash to the floor.  It will never go up, sideways, or find the table on its own. Gravity (cause) has an effect: no matter who (universal) drops the coffee cup, it will (non-optional) fall to the floor.

• (If) Honor your parents and (then) it will go well with you (Eph. 6.1-3).

Others are not so obvious:  Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and their quality of life abruptly changed. The principle?  When we choose to obtain information from a source other than God, we put ourselves in a place where we have to live naturally instead of supernaturally. If we choose the world’s ways, then we are subject to its methods.

The Bible is replete with principles.  I believe He wants us to be blessed, therefore He teaches us how His world works.

I also believe it is because He wants to write His nature upon our hearts. Above all else, principles offer revelation of who He is.

• We are to encourage one another because He is Encourager.
• We are to rejoice no matter the circumstance because He is Joy.
• We are to meet one another’s needs because He is Servant.

Simply put: If Nature, governed by principles, proclaims Him,  how much more should His children manifest His nature to the world?

We learn and follow principles because we learn and follow Him. In doing so, we open the gates of blessing in our lives and in the lives of those we affect.

…I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments … that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the LORD your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers …

~ Deut. 30.15-20

It is not legalism, in case you were wondering.  Legalism says that if you violate a principle, you are in moral error.  Principles are morally neutral, in and of themselves. If you drop your coffee cup, it breaks, but not because God is angry with you.  It’s just gravity, and gravity just is.

A principle can have a moral component, however.  The Bible says a child must obey his parents.  Since this is a command, choosing to disobey becomes a sin.  All sin has the same consequence: death.  However, for the believer, sin is erased in Christ.  The moral consequence is dealt a lethal blow.

Even so, the child still has to grapple with the consequences of violating principle.  The principle is “if you obey, then it will go well for you.”  A disobedient child may not be going to hell, but they sure aren’t going to have a good day. Until she changes her attitude, she’ll have to deal with the consequences of violating principle even though the sin issue is erased.

Principles explain why you can have an immoral, but successful businessman.  If he follows financial principles, unaware that God designed them, he’ll be on the positive side of the If-Then Fence. On the other hand, you can have a believer that violates financial principles.  Although he is a worshipper, he has persistent financial trouble.

When a sinner becomes a believer, the moral effects of his sins are removed from him.  However, his life might be a bit of a wreck.  He must learn to live according to the principles of the Word so that natural consequences of low-integrity living can be displaced by the natural consequences of high-integrity living.

Principles are the fundamental elements of design. Designing a new drug depends on a thorough knowledge of the elements that form the molecules that construct that drug. To understand God’s design, we must understand the principles that gird His design.

I talk about principles often.  I hope this post helps you understand the vocabulary I use, as well as the importance of principles in our lives.

I highly recommend Arthur Burk’s teaching on Principles to you.  Click here for more details.