The Great Scam

(excerpts included from Desperate Dependency by J. Kirk & Melanie D. Lewis)

GOD ASSIGNED JOB the job of demonstrating desperate dependency amid plenty and loss. Our lives are driven by the desire to be successful, and many viewed the life of Job as being a grand success with his ten children, leadership positions, and vast possessions. But when Job was stripped of the people, positions, and possessions, his friends and neighbors would have been hard pressed to label him as a success while he sat on the ash heap mourning his unspeakable losses.

“All right, you may test him,” the LORD said to Satan. “Do whatever you want with everything he possesses, but don’t harm him physically.” So Satan left the LORD’s presence.

One day when Job’s sons and daughters were feasting at the oldest brother’s house, a messenger arrived at Job’s home with this news: “Your oxen were plowing, with the donkeys feeding beside them, when the Sabeans raided us. They stole all the animals and killed all the farmhands. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”

While he was still speaking, another messenger arrived with this news: “The fire of God has fallen from heaven and burned up your sheep and all the shepherds. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”

While he was still speaking, a third messenger arrived with this news: “Three bands of Chaldean raiders have stolen your camels and killed your servants. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”

While he was still speaking, another messenger arrived with this news: “Your sons and daughters were feasting in their oldest brother’s home. Suddenly, a powerful wind swept in from the wilderness and hit the house on all sides. The house collapsed, and all your children are dead. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.” (Job 1:12–19 NLT)

At this point in the story, every fiber of our being stands in judgment against God, casting dispersion on His name. “If You love me, why would You allow this to happen?” Hardly can God be understood while being weighed in the balance of our pain. Yet, God in His love uses suffering as a platform to convey the depths of His sovereignty. God will save us. God will sustain us. God will promote our best interest. But His ways are beyond our comprehension.

One of the first challenges we face in the Christian growth process is resolving the incongruence between what is true of God versus how we believe those truths about Him should be experienced.

We believe God cares for and loves us, so how should these realities manifest within our lives? These notions are synthesized into expectations that we place upon God. Preconceived notions develop, setting us up to be frustrated. We judge that God has not acted in accordance to our interpretation of His attributes, and we respond with disappointment. Frustration sets in: “I want God to do what I think He should do!” and “I believe I have the right to think this way because His attributes, after all, give me permission to feel as I do.”

It is difficult to admit when our beliefs are shaken and we are soon overwhelmed with questions: “Can anyone really know how God works?” “Can anyone really expect anything from God?” Frustration morphs into a sense of alienation. Perhaps God simply is not pleased with me, or maybe He does not like me.

The spiritual communion prior to the unmet expectations has now become lost to the spiritual commotion of the deeper, darker assumptions that grow like mold in the damp shadowed recesses of the soul. Distorted views of God burst forth from the spores only to be inhaled by a gasping spirit.

Feeling mistreated is the logical conclusion that many a child of God has come to over and over again. “Why will God not treat me as He has the others whom He has blessed?” “What does God want from me?” “Maybe I will never please Him. Maybe I should just give up?” “Trying is just too hard.”

Job’s dire situation produced desperate dependency upon God and facilitated communion with God in response to his loss and suffering. Job had already given everything to God, so it was not without his permission that God followed through to use Job as He desired.

Job stood up and tore his robe in grief. Then he shaved his head and fell to the ground to worship. He said,

“I came naked from my mother’s womb,
      and I will be naked when I leave.
The LORD gave me what I had,
      and the LORD has taken it away.
Praise the name of the LORD!”

In all of this, Job did not sin by blaming God. (Job 1:20–22 NLT)

Job assumed God’s sovereign involvement in the course of life that he could not control. In Job’s mind God’s presence was not only acknowledged in his suffering, but His will was ascribed to it. In response to his bereavement, Job asserted a benediction of blessing to the Lord. In the midst of his tragedy, Job worshipped while submitting to God’s sovereign right to rule over his person, positions, and possessions.

When one believes that faith has become a set up for failure, than that one seeks to remedy the conflict by giving up on faith. With “I’ll show God” animosity one chooses to stop trusting, as if to punish God. The reality is this—-we have just been scammed by the wiles of the devil.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (Eph. 6:10-12 ESV)

The moral character of God held Job constant even though his mortal condition was completely in chaos. Overwhelmed by his limitations, he could only find comfort in total self-abandonment through trust. Delimited by his dependency, Job had no other choice but to interpret the nature of his anguish through the moral attributes of a holy, righteous, just, and good God who is full of truth. All of Job’s philosophical ponderings, including his frustration and confusion, were delineated by his dependence on God, making him more desperate than ever. In Job’s agony his dilemma was to understand life’s new normal consistently with the truth about God.

Insight Journal:
How would your life challenges look if you first viewed them as having come to you through God's truth, justice, righteousness, goodness, holiness, and love?

Relevant Relationship

I [Melanie] have been reading Success and the Christian: The Cost and Criteria of Spiritual Maturity by A. W. Tozer and James L. Snyder. Although we have never read this work before, it is very interesting to see the many elaborations that are similar to those we have written in Desperate Dependency: Finding Christ Relevant to Every Area of Life. From chapter 5 of this work (The Deeper Life), I gleaned these comments:

A Christian is not one who has been baptized, necessarily, though a Christian is likely to be baptized. A Christian is not one who receives Communion, though a Christian may receive Communion, and if he’s been properly taught, he will. But that is not a Christian necessarily. A Christian is not one who has been born into a Christian home, though the chances are more likely that he will be a Christian if he has a good Christian background. A Christian is not one who has memorized the New Testament, or is a great lover of Christian music, or who goes to hear the Apollo Club sing the Messiah every year. A Christian may do all of those things and I think it might be fine if he did; but that doesn’t make one a Christian. A Christian is one who sustains a right relationship to Jesus Christ.

Christians enjoy a kind of union with Jesus Christ. Everybody sustains some relationship to Jesus Christ; just the same as everybody in America sustains some relation to Krushchev [former leader of the Soviet Union]. My personal relation is one of active hostility so far as can be possible within a Christian framework. We can’t hate people, but we can hate everything they stand for, and I want it known that I do. But everybody has a relationship to everybody else, and everybody has a relation to Jesus Christ. The relation he sustains may be one of adoring faith and love; it may be one of admiration; it may be one of hostility; it may be one of complete carelessness; but it is an attitude of some sort. A relationship of some sort exists between every human being and Jesus Christ; that is, every human being that ever heard of Jesus Christ. But a Christian is one who sustains a right and proper relation, a biblical relation, to Jesus Christ. (p. 67-68)

Tozer and Snyder offer these insight regarding “Freedom from Earthly Loves.”

What do I mean by earthly love? I mean any love out of the will of God, any love that we would not allow God to take away. If you have anything in this world or anybody in this world that you would not let God take away from you, then you don’t love Him as you should and you don’t know anything about the deeper life in experience. For the Spirit-filled Christian life means that I am delivered from earthly loves to a point where there is no love that I would not allow Jesus Christ to take away—be it money, reputation, my home, my friends, my family or whatever it may be. The love of Jesus Christ has come in and swallowed up all other loves and sanctified them, purified them, made them holy and put them in their right relationship to that all-consuming love of God so that they’re secondary and never primary.

I want to ask you this question: Is there anything or anyone on Earth that you love so much that you’d fight God if He wanted to take him? Then you are not where you should be and you might as well face up to it and not pretend to be something you’re not. Complete freedom means that I want the will of God only. And if it is the will of God for me to have these things, then I love them for His sake, but I love them with a tentative and relative love and not an all-poured-out love that makes me a slave. It means that I love nothing outside the will of God and that I love only what and who He wills that I should love. Then you can love everybody. (p. 78-79)

If you love anything enough that there’s any question about whether God can have it or not, you know nothing about the deeper life; you are a slave to that love whatever it is. If we’ve been freed from every earthly love, then we have no unsatisfied longings and we have no wishes and no dreams. (p. 81)

Freedom from earthly fears means that I choose the will of God now and forever; it is my treasure, my whole attitude. The only fear I have is to fear to get out of the will of God. Outside of the will of God, there’s nothing I want, and in the will of God there’s nothing I fear, for God has sworn to keep me in His will. If I’m out of His will, that is another matter. But if I’m in His will, He’s sworn to keep me.

And He’s able to do it, He’s wise enough to know how to do it and He’s kind enough to want to do it. So really there’s nothing to fear. (p. 82)

So I don’t say that the deeper life—the Spirit-filled life—means that you won’t be normal. If lightning strikes near you, you’ll jump. And if somebody comes at you with a needle, you’ll shrink—you are human. But that is one thing; it is quite another thing to walk around chained by human fears—chained by the fear of death or the fear of sickness or the fear of poverty or the fear of friends or the fear of enemies. God never means that His children should thus be afraid. (p. 84)

How desperately dependent are you on Christ?

[excerpts taken from Success and the Christian: The Cost and Criteria of Spiritual Maturity by A. W. Tozer and James L. Snyder, (Camp Hill, PA.: WingSpread, 1994). (Tozer died in 1963.)]

Jesus Calling

Hello?... Hello?... Who is this?... Jesus?...

Is it difficult to comprehend that the Creator of the Universe desires a relationship with you? He not only desires a relationship, He desires an intimate relationship. He desires a relationship in which He is your all in all, your everything, the reason you get up in the morning, the motivation of your life, the beat of your heart, your breath. But still we struggle to find Christ relevant to every area of life. We take our desires and ascribe them to His desires, instead of taking His desires and making them our desires.

I was blessed to receive the devotional book, Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence by Sarah Young, as a Christmas gift. Daily I am reminded that Jesus does indeed call to us and woo us into an intimate relationship with him.

Here is a year’s worth of daily readings from Young’s journals to bring you closer to Christ and move your time with Him from a monologue to a dialogue. Each day is written as if Jesus Himself were speaking to you. Because He is. Do you hear Him calling?

Sarah Young writes in her introduction:

The Bible is, of course, the only inerrant Word of God; my writings must be consistent with that unchanging standard. I have written them from Jesus’ point of view; i.e., the first person singular (I, Me, Mine) always refers to Christ. “You” refers to you, the reader, so the perspective is that of Jesus speaking to you.

Here is Sarah Young’s devotional for May 14th.

I AM A MIGHTY GOD. Nothing is too difficult for Me. I have chosen to use weak ones like you to accomplish My purposes. Your weakness is designed to open you up to My Power. Therefore, do not fear your limitations or measure the day’s demands against your strength. What I require of you is to stay connected to Me, living in trusting dependence on My limitless resources. When you face unexpected demands, there is no need to panic. Remember that I am with you. Talk with Me, and listen while I talk you through each challenging situation.

I am not a carless God. When I allow difficulties to come into your life, I equip you fully to handle them. Relax in My Presence, trusting in My strength.

Luke 1:37 (NASB)
“For nothing will be impossible with God.”

2 Corinthians 12:9–10 (NIV)
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence by Sarah Young is an excellent resource as you live in desperate dependency and finding Christ relevant to every area of your life.

Do you hear Him calling to you?

The Art of Influence

Why do you want to be a leader? What type of influence do you desire to exert? Influence that makes you look good? Influence that makes you feel good? Influence that benefits the lives of others? Or are you seeking to provide influence that is reflective of God's guidance? On the other side, whose influence do you want to follow?

Instead of being motivated by selfish ambition or vanity, each of you should, in humility, be moved to treat one another as more important than yourself. Each of you should be concerned not only about your own interests, but about the interests of others as well. You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had, who though he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave, by looking like other men, and by sharing in human nature. He humbled himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross! (Phil. 2:3-8 NET)

Check your motives. Motivation makes all the difference between being a healthy leader or an unhealthy leader, the difference between being a godly leader or an ungodly leader. No influence exerted on another from a self-centered orientation can be healthy or godly, for the intent is always exploitive. Leadership derived from the reservoir of self will only yield a pathological influence on others, ultimately depriving them of intimacy with God as they are depleted by the industry of a self-centered agenda.

Will you be honest enough to examine your heart on this matter? Unfortunately, those who do not challenge their soul’s tendency to usurp God’s will for leadership have a propensity to counterfeit all that is godly for the pursuit of their own purposes. The shackles of the sensual amusements of the world, the flesh, and the devil draw us through the lust of our hearts and the vanity of our lives and bind us in strongholds.

"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world." (1 John 2:15-16 ESV)

Leadership that is filled with our plans is devoid of His plan. When we live independently from God we search for a substitute as our validating source. Without a desperate dependency on Him we establish a counterfeit connection with people, positions, and possessions in our pursuit for validation. We extract love from illicit relationships to prove that we are lovable, to establish our significance, and to enable us to feel secure. But in actuality we suffer loss because people, positions, and possessions are incapable of fulfilling us. Ultimately we are left unfulfilled, dissatisfied, and incomplete as the result of pursuing God substitutes. The delusional sense of satisfaction that stimulates and sedates eventually fades and we are left wanting more. In our vain attempts we explore other counterfeits that may promise temporary contentment, but only provide mutually satisfying exploitation and manipulation to empower our identity.

When we look to people, positions, and possessions to empower love, significance, and security in our lives, our counterfeit gods enable us to feel complete and contented for a time. But it is the compulsion of any of us to become reliant on whomever we reverence. And when what we reverence becomes the defining entity in our lives, our god, we live in service to what will ultimately disappoint.

Jesus said, “If you want to be my disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26 NLT). It is a bewildering truth as well as paradoxically necessary, that others be hated that we may love Jesus with a pure and undivided heart, in order that we may have the ability to love, serve, and lead others with a pure and undivided loyalty to God.

The God place of our souls is designed for Jesus. Boundaries should be built around this sacred place to assure that none other but Christ resides there. It should be guarded by our fear of God with our appropriate view of God serving as the sentinel. The highest of all that is lofty should be ascribed to Jesus so that He attracts in full our hearts, minds, and souls, capturing our strength with the truth of His glory and virtue. Then Jesus becomes central because He is preeminent. We come to see Him in truth, as He actually is—Lord, Savior, lover of our souls, champion of our hearts. It is here that each one of us will be vested with the sacred trust given by the Spirit of God to lead in the path to intimacy with Christ and to lead others by the excellence of His good pleasure.

The New Testament: An Expanded Translation by Kenneth Wuest presents The Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20 with its mandates from this perspective:

Now, the eleven disciples went on their way to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And having seen Him, they worshipped Him, prostrating themselves on the ground before Him. But some doubted. And Jesus, having come, spoke to them, saying, There was given to me all authority in heaven and upon earth. Having gone on your way therefore, teach all the nations, making them your pupils, baptizing them into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to be attending to carefully, holding firmly to, and observing all, whatever things I enjoined upon you. And behold, as for myself, with you I am all the days until the consummation of the age.

Insight Journal
What is your motive for wanting to serve and lead?
Do you yearn for personal significance or God’s glory?

(some excerpts included from Desperate Dependency by J. Kirk & Melanie D. Lewis)