Psalm 25

To You, Yahweh, I lift up my soul.

O my God, I trust in You;

Let me not be ashamed;

Let not my enemies triumph over me.

Indeed, let no one who waits on You be ashamed;

Let those be ashamed who deal treacherously without cause.

Show me Your ways, Yahweh;

Teach me Your paths.

Lead me in Your truth and teach me,

For You are the God of my salvation;

On You I wait all the day.

Remember, Yahweh, Your tender mercies and Your lovingkindnesses,

For they are from of old.

Do not remember the sins of my youth,

nor my transgressions;

According to Your mercy remember me,

For Your goodness' sake, Yahweh.

Good and upright is Yahweh;

Therefore He teaches sinners in the way.

The humble He guides in justice,

and the humble He teaches His way.

All the paths of Yahweh are mercy and truth,

To such as kept His covenant and His testimonies.

For Your name's sake, Yahweh,

Pardon my iniquity, for it is great.

Who is the man that fears Yahweh?

Him shall He teach in the way He chooses.

He himself shall dwell in prosperity,

And his descendants shall inherit the earth.

The secret of Yahweh is with those who fear him,

And He will show them His covenant.

My eyes are ever toward Yahweh,

For He shall pluck my feet out of the net.

Turn Yourself to me, and have mercy on me,

For I am desolate and afflicted.

The troubles of my heart have enlarged;

Bring me out of my distresses!

Look on my affliction and my pain,

And forgive all my sins.

Consider my enemies, for they are many;

And they hate me with cruel hatred.

Keep my soul, and deliver me;

Let me not be ashamed, for I put my trust in You.

Let integrity and uprightness preserve me,

For I wait for You.

Redeem Israel, O God,

Out of all their troubles!

The Most Controversial Thing I've Ever Written...I Think.

So I'm all about not being judgmental. That's great.

But I tend to think about being a fruit inspector more than I think about being a judge, and here's why:

I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner- not even to eat with such a person. For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges. Therefore "put away from yourselves the evil person."

1 Corinthians 5:9-13

I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Galatians 5:16-26

Now that those two passages have been put out there, lets follow the current theme of wolves and put this one out there too. This one's from the Son of Man Himself, Jesus:

"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them. Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'"

Matthew 7:15-23

Disclaimer (because I know I'm gonna need it...): I'm not advocating salvation by works by saying this. If you know me, you know that's one of the last things I would ever do, right on up there with cauterizing an open wound with lye. Salvation is by grace alone, and not through works.

THAT BEING SAID, does that mean we should sin more that grace should abound more? Nope. That's Paul, too. Let's break this down.

In the first passage I threw out there from Corinthians, Paul talks about judgment WITHIN the brotherhood of believers; he speaks pretty bluntly, too. See, the Church at Corinth was basically the church gone wild. They'd lost their minds. Here's how crazy it got: a man in the Corinthian church was sleeping with his father's wife. Check out 1 Corinthians 5:1. Paul said in that verse that this act was so out of control that even the gentiles were shocked by it. What shocked Paul even more, as seen in verse 2, is that the church there wasn't saddened by it at all. What Paul is trying to get across in the later part of this chapter is that judging, or discernment, has its place. Why should we judge outside the church? They are still enslaved to the flesh; they shouldn't be expected to act any different. Those are the people we're supposed to be going to and showing the love of Christ, so we should know what's present in their flesh and expect it to be there. But professing believers are a different story. If you profess Christ and profess to know Him, your life should show evidence. Just because you claim the name of Jesus and do wondrous things doesn't really mean that you know Him...see Matthew 7:15-23. How did Jesus say the wolves would come? In sheep's clothing! The wolf doesn't show up advertising its wolf-ness. It wants to blend in. It wants to have "fellowship" with the sheep, but its purpose for being there is different. It wants to steal the benefits of friends and fun and dating prospects, kill the healthy Christian relationships and familial love, and destroy the hope that God wants to give a community through that fellowship of believers.

We've put a lot of stigma on that word...judgment. Judging is automatically written off as an evil thing. Judging really means, in this case, nothing more than to ascertain or discern something. So if that's what it means, what are we ascertaining/discerning? In light of the passage from Matthew, we'd be discerning whether or not we're dealing with a good tree or a bad tree, a sheep or a wolf. So how do we tell? Paul gave us a few things to look for: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Notice it doesn't say mission trips, camp counselorships, being a person who prays on Wednesday nights, being a person who doesn't make out with their boy/girlfriend during lock-ins, being a person who doesn't show his or her pride from being a good little legalist. The fruits of the Spirit are all conditions of the heart that come from being around the Person Jesus Christ, not from doing things. It's completely possible to be a person who prays on Wednesday night just because they are envious of the good reputation someone else gets from doing it. It's possible to have an outburst of wrath because somebody interprets a passage of the Bible different from you. Do I need to even mention how our boy/girlfriends can become idols to us? What kind of fruit are you showing?

The important thing here is keeping your relationship with Jesus first. If you love Jesus, you will love His family, which consists of your brothers and sisters. Sin hurts them! Judge and discern whether or not the actions in your life are good, beneficial fruits. Make war on the sin in your life, not because God won't love you if you don't. Do it out of love for Him and for your brothers and sisters in Him. We should want to be holy because He is holy. We should want to have no tolerance for tolerating sin. God doesn't tolerate it. He died to pay for it...is that winking at it or ignoring it? If we do ignore the way we live, we can hurt our brothers and sisters. Check out some stuff from Proverbs:

A perverse man sows strife, and a whisperer separates the best of friends. 16:28
A violent man entices his neighbor, and leads him in a way that is not good. 16:29
The north wind brings forth rain, and a backbiting tongue an angry countenance. 25:23
Where there is no wood, the fire goes out;
and where there is no talebearer, strife ceases. 25:20
As charcoal is to burning coals, and wood to fire, so is a contentious man to kindle strife. 25:21

And I'll throw this question out here really quick too, just as much for me to think about as for anyone who reads this. If this angers you, if you're quick to say don't judge, what is your reason for that?

Luke 12:2-3

Psalm 146

Psalm 146

Praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD, O my soul!
While I live I will praise the LORD;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.

Do not put your trust in princes,
Nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help.
His spirit departs, he returns to his earth;
In that very day his plans perish.

Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help,
whose hope is in the LORD his God,
who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps truth forever,
who executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry.
The LORD gives freedom to the prisoners.

The LORD opens the eyes of the blind;
The LORD raises those who are bowed down;
The LORD loves the righteous.
The LORD watches over the strangers;
He relieves the fatherless and the widow;
But the way of the wicked He turns upside down.

The LORD shall reign forever-
Your God, O Zion, to all generations.

Praise the LORD!

Concordances are funny things, you know? If you've ever used one you know that they can be really useful. I was walking around this morning, and started thinking about freedom in Christ. It was all kind of downhill from there:

Freedom in Christ -> Freedom from what? = Sin -> How does Sin bind us? -> Guilt

And at guilt, it gets kind of complicated. See, here's the way it works. Before we had Jesus and His forgiveness, we were basically dead men and women walking. We were already condemned to Hell and were basically dangling by the thread of life hanging over the flames (thanks, Jonathan Edwards). That's basically exactly what it says in John 3:18b: "but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." Thankfully that's not the only half of that verse. The first half, John 3:18a, tells us what happens after Jesus yanks us out of that position: "He who believes in Him is not condemned." Simple enough, huh? Condemned vs. Innocent. Eternally, we have nothing to fear because the victory is already His.

But I doubt that there's a human being who knows Jesus on the planet that hasn't felt like sometimes, there are still chains. We know Jesus has forgiven us, right? So why do we feel this way?

I think we do it to ourselves.

Don't take this the wrong way; sin still has consequences. If you break a brother in Christ's trust, you can go to him and ask forgiveness, and he should give it to you. That's the Christlike thing to do. But that doesn't mean that he's going to trust you again. And depending on what happened, it may not even be right to expect him to without a long process of earning it again. Sin does have consequences. I'm just saying that I think sometimes we execute the sentence of those consequences on ourselves.

Maybe the consequences to certain sins are more of the same. Take idolatry for example. Devote enough of yourself to an idol, and if that idol gets taken away (which is in fact a MERCY of God) it feels like part of you gets taken away with it. At this point you have two choices: you can either return to the forgiveness, grace, and mercy of Jesus, or you can mourn the loss of the idol that was eating you alive. You can become fruitful again, or you can render yourself useless in terms of being usable by and teachable to God. If you choose the first choice, there may still be consequences, but God can help you deal with them and make a recovery. I would even venture to say the consequences may be far less if you take this route. If you take the second route though, the consequences tend to increase. In the idolatry example, this may take the shape of being mopey and lazy. Heck, I've been there. I skipped two days of classes last semester in what I now see as the mourning of the loss of an idol. This may, in the case of some people, result in idol substitution. Instead of returning to the love of Jesus, the person will cut down another tree and carve another idol for himself. We lock ourselves in this prison of sin, going back to the things that should repulse us, like a dog returning to his vomit.

The reason I say concordances are funny is that when I looked in the concordance in the back of my bible under the heading "freedom," I expected to find a lot of new testament verses. Instead, I found one section- in the old testament, no less: Psalm 146. Jesus brings freedom to the prisoners. If we put our trust in some other thing, like a person, then we're going to be disappointed. It doesn't matter how wise this person may be, this person will die. And when they die, their plans amount to nothing. Their wisdom amounts to nothing. Their followers will die just as they did. Jesus opens our eyes, heals our wounds, and though our bodies may die, He grants us eternal life and the promise of new bodies one day: bodies that will not age, decay, or get sick. Jesus wants good things for you, but if you lock yourself in the chains that you forge yourself, you won't be able to enjoy any of it.

Symptoms vs. Disease

A couple of days ago, I was sitting at home thinking about AIDS.

I know how random that is, but think about it for a second. It's a crazy disease. You know why we haven't figured out how to cure it yet? It's because it mutates, the same reason we can't cure the common cold. These two diseases, with completely different outcomes, are invincible for the same reason. See, one minute, the virus looks one way, is shaped one way. The next, it's completely different. This keeps any of our drugs from working.

Once somebody is infected with AIDS, currently there isn't much we can do for them. We can provide them with antiretrovirals that slow it down, but we don't really have a cure. We can mask the symptoms, but we can't kill the disease. Eventually the virus catches up to everything we do to hide it, and the victim dies.

I've been thinking that sin is kind of the same way. Look at this parable that Jesus told:

Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men: extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.' And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

Luke 18:9-14

It seems to me that this man, the Pharisee, was a victim of sin-mutation. This Pharisee was a fallen man, which means he had in his heart the urge to live unjustly, just like Romans 8:7-8 says: "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God." This man also kept his nose in the law 24/7, and actually did a pretty good job keeping it by the sound of this parable. His problem was that his sin mutated. It changed from extortion, injustice, and adultery into pride, and pride is a dangerous thing. I think pride is probably the reason that we can't be justified by the law...those who follow the law can't possibly be sinless because they'll be proud they keep the law (or at least that they think they do). So what does it matter if you don't drink, don't steal, and don't sleep around if you're a proud person? Congratulations, you're moral but you commit the same sin that got Satan thrown out of Heaven: Pride. That's not really progress.

This Pharisee had things mixed up. He was treating the symptoms and not the disease. He failed to recognize that his actions stemmed from his condition. He didn't really understand what the word "righteous" meant. Being righteous, being justified, being holy...none of those come from what you do.

If you're an unbeliever and you seek to please God by living a certain way, you're wasting your time. All righteousness was and is lived through Jesus. Righteousness and Holiness are a Person, and Justification is given through that Person alone. That person is Jesus. By yourself, you have no power to live right. You have no power to change your nature. God is the only one who has the power to do that. If you try and weed the sin out of your life by any other means, you're on track to be drowning in pride. You're treating the symptoms, but not the disease. Eventually it will catch up to your patch job and it will kill you.

If you're a believer and you're concerned about the sin in your life that you keep coming back to, maybe you're trying to deal with it the wrong way. We all have our things that we struggle with. If you grit your teeth and fight tooth and nail against this sin that keeps yanking you back, you're going to lose. Attacking the sin in your life isn't really the way to deal with it, at least not directly. Let me ask you this question, and answer honestly to yourself: are there people in your life that you act differently around, for better or worse? Maybe a friend, maybe a youth pastor? We all do it, whether or not we want to admit it. If certain people are in the room, who we are shifts. We tend to take on the attributes, mannerisms, and tendencies of those around us.

Now, following that train of thought, does Jesus sin? No. Has He ever or will He ever sin? No. Does He love you and want good for you? Yes. So why not hang around Him?

The cure for the sin in your life isn't taking your computer away if you're a porn addict. It isn't pouring out your bottle collection if you're an alcoholic. The cure for your sin is Jesus. The more time you spend with Him, the more you'll look like Him and act like Him. Jesus said "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance" (Mark 2:17). I don't necessarily know all of the underlying problems in your life, all of the ins and outs of who you are. Jesus does. For some people, certain things may be necessary. For others, not so much. Let Jesus do those things through you, because He knows you better than you do anyway.

Stop trying to treat the symptoms, and let the Physician heal the disease.