Why
This is the "why" behind the "what" of Revelation. God is going to "make a difference" between the holy and the wicked:
Isaiah 26:10-12 Your kindness to the wicked does not make them do good. Although others do right, the wicked keep doing wrong and take no notice of the Lord ’s majesty. O Lord , they pay no attention to your upraised fist. Show them your eagerness to defend your people. Then they will be ashamed. Let your fire consume your enemies. Lord , you will grant us peace; all we have accomplished is really from you.
There is only one kind of person that can see God:
Psalms 24:3-4 Who may climb the mountain of the Lord ? Who may stand in his holy place? Only those whose hands and hearts are pure, who do not worship idols and never tell lies.
This truth will never change. God is pure bright transcendant holiness...brighter than a million suns ablaze. God literally consumes any darkness...any shadow of unholiness. When Adam and Eve fell from their ability to be in God's physical presence, it was because they took on some measure of darkness. This began with their gazing on the "option" of darkness, then deciding to taste of darkness...then consuming of darkness...the actual eating of it.
Genesis 3:6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.
Evil is not a force in and of itself...it is the absence of good. God is the source of good. God is bright light and evil is darkness, absence of God. Darkness stands no chance in light. Therefore, in order to be in the bright holy presence of God, I need a solution to the darkness first.
I Timothy 6:14-16 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen.
Right now, many who claim the name of Jesus have no real zeal to rid their frame of darkness. A false grace message has taken root in our churches and most see running the race of increasing holiness that the writers of the New Testament were so zealous for as secondary to what it means to be a Jesus follower. Most see humanitarian works as the highest expression of being a Jesus follower, followed by a close second of "feeling loved," and lump all of the seemingly harder heart change...the transformation into a zealous holy person...as something that may or may not happen. "There is grace for that" is the popular refrain. In my observation, most people who substitute grace for obedience are generally held in prisons of doubt and fear a lot of the time. Despite all of the claims of grace, there is a severe lack of true confidence before the throne of God in anyone who avoids the hard work of becoming more holy. It is one thing to talk about the freedom of grace, and quite another to "feel freedom" when the attack of the enemy is really on. Truth stands in the time of the storm...all other arguments fall. That is what Jesus said: "you gotta do the stuff of faith if you want to stand through the storms"
Matthew 7:24-27 “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”
Taking Jesus at His word leaves no real room for a false grace message. There is no substitute for teaching and doing holiness. This is what heaven calls great. False teachers call selling books, or getting a following of people, of starting an orphanage greatness...but that is not what Jesus called great. He said if you want heaven to agree that you are great, this is the only way:
Matthew 5:18-19 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
God wants pure hearts and clean hands...period. This is because God wants to be with you...not as your invisible friend, but face to face, in all His darkness-consuming glory. Jesus is the one who makes the pure hearts and clean hands possible. Jesus paid the price so I could grow in confidence and knowledge of Him, so I could progressively get closer and closer to Him and His leadership. I reach for more obedience with my desire to be good, and He responds with the infilling of faith to transform me into good. Desire is the currency of creation. Desire buys faith, IF I will spend it on faith with my words. Faith transforms my heart. You've only got 70 or 80 years at best to tackle all this heart change stuff...you don't want to waste a minute of zealously reaching for more holiness with your words and your gaze.
So how does it all work without being legalistic? The answer is actually really simple. I stand back in the light the same way Adam and Eve fell from the light. This all starts with my gaze, then my decision to "buy" what I desire, and then my consuming of what I desire. If I want to consume more and more good, I start with gazing on its desireability and spending my desire with words.
Holiness is very desireable. It leads to great confidence in the time of attack and false accusation. Holiness actually closes legal doors of access that satan can use to invade my mind, will, and emotions. The more I grow in actual obedience to God, the less easy it is for satan to attack me with lies...for real. No matter how much I plead the Blood of Jesus, if I am actively opening doors of legal access to my mind by inviting jealousy, or greed, or hate, or gossip, or pornography into my internal or external conversations, the enemy can stay and wreak havoc on my heart until I intentionally close those doors, break my agreement with darkness, and turn my gaze back to the light.
In this simple truth, that everyone gets what they want, is the hidden disasterous theology of false grace...its got no power when you really need it to defeat the enemy. Satan doesn't believe in false grace, so it doesn't stop the attack from his end, and heaven doesn't enforce false grace, so it doesn't stop it from our end...it simply leaves the practitioner wide open to lethal attacks on their heart. This is one facet to what it means to hold to a "form of godliness, but deny its real power."
II Timothy 3:1-5 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!
The plan of Jesus is to, in one generation, use fire...tribulation...to refine the hearts of all men and women. This refining is for good and evil. If the "metal" in your heart is evil, the fire of that day will refine and purify evil, if it is holiness, the fire will refine and purify your holiness.
This is what Jesus was talking about in the parable of the wheat and the tares. Sin will mature and so will righteousness. This isn't a "church" (little c) against the world message. According to Paul, there are MANY tares in churches. In one generation the fire of "that day" is going to cause all men and women to pick their desire and mature in that decision. This is what Joel described as the "valley of decision." The fire causes the decision to come to the forefront. The pressure is already starting to cause everyone to take a side:
Joel 3:14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.
The way you overcome this time of increasing intensity is by setting your heart to wholeheartedly embrace the process of sanctification RIGHT NOW. I don't want to search for Bible verses that make me feel confident to do nothing about my disobedience. I want to search for Bible verses that cause zeal for holiness to rise up in my heart. I don't want to gaze on Jesus with dreams of being "successful" or popular, or "great" like some other teacher...I want to gaze on Jesus to fuel an active conversation with God about Him making me more like His son...a servant, taking the lowest place, resisting gossip and envy and materialism...giving secretly, praying secretly (and publicly), fasting secretly...resisting self promotion...resisting a controlling spirit...putting on self control and love and gentleness and kindness...for real! That is what Paul said, the more I look at Jesus, the more I should start to look and act like him:
II Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
The more I see what Jesus is like, the more I ask God to make me like Him, and the Spirit responds with the infilling of faith to actually walk in greater measures of submission. This is as simple as asking, seeking, and knocking. The big question is: what do I desire? What am I asking for?! What do I seek?
Isaiah 26:10-12 Your kindness to the wicked does not make them do good. Although others do right, the wicked keep doing wrong and take no notice of the Lord ’s majesty. O Lord , they pay no attention to your upraised fist. Show them your eagerness to defend your people. Then they will be ashamed. Let your fire consume your enemies. Lord , you will grant us peace; all we have accomplished is really from you.
There is only one kind of person that can see God:
Psalms 24:3-4 Who may climb the mountain of the Lord ? Who may stand in his holy place? Only those whose hands and hearts are pure, who do not worship idols and never tell lies.
This truth will never change. God is pure bright transcendant holiness...brighter than a million suns ablaze. God literally consumes any darkness...any shadow of unholiness. When Adam and Eve fell from their ability to be in God's physical presence, it was because they took on some measure of darkness. This began with their gazing on the "option" of darkness, then deciding to taste of darkness...then consuming of darkness...the actual eating of it.
Genesis 3:6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.
Evil is not a force in and of itself...it is the absence of good. God is the source of good. God is bright light and evil is darkness, absence of God. Darkness stands no chance in light. Therefore, in order to be in the bright holy presence of God, I need a solution to the darkness first.
I Timothy 6:14-16 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen.
Right now, many who claim the name of Jesus have no real zeal to rid their frame of darkness. A false grace message has taken root in our churches and most see running the race of increasing holiness that the writers of the New Testament were so zealous for as secondary to what it means to be a Jesus follower. Most see humanitarian works as the highest expression of being a Jesus follower, followed by a close second of "feeling loved," and lump all of the seemingly harder heart change...the transformation into a zealous holy person...as something that may or may not happen. "There is grace for that" is the popular refrain. In my observation, most people who substitute grace for obedience are generally held in prisons of doubt and fear a lot of the time. Despite all of the claims of grace, there is a severe lack of true confidence before the throne of God in anyone who avoids the hard work of becoming more holy. It is one thing to talk about the freedom of grace, and quite another to "feel freedom" when the attack of the enemy is really on. Truth stands in the time of the storm...all other arguments fall. That is what Jesus said: "you gotta do the stuff of faith if you want to stand through the storms"
Matthew 7:24-27 “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”
Taking Jesus at His word leaves no real room for a false grace message. There is no substitute for teaching and doing holiness. This is what heaven calls great. False teachers call selling books, or getting a following of people, of starting an orphanage greatness...but that is not what Jesus called great. He said if you want heaven to agree that you are great, this is the only way:
Matthew 5:18-19 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
God wants pure hearts and clean hands...period. This is because God wants to be with you...not as your invisible friend, but face to face, in all His darkness-consuming glory. Jesus is the one who makes the pure hearts and clean hands possible. Jesus paid the price so I could grow in confidence and knowledge of Him, so I could progressively get closer and closer to Him and His leadership. I reach for more obedience with my desire to be good, and He responds with the infilling of faith to transform me into good. Desire is the currency of creation. Desire buys faith, IF I will spend it on faith with my words. Faith transforms my heart. You've only got 70 or 80 years at best to tackle all this heart change stuff...you don't want to waste a minute of zealously reaching for more holiness with your words and your gaze.
So how does it all work without being legalistic? The answer is actually really simple. I stand back in the light the same way Adam and Eve fell from the light. This all starts with my gaze, then my decision to "buy" what I desire, and then my consuming of what I desire. If I want to consume more and more good, I start with gazing on its desireability and spending my desire with words.
Holiness is very desireable. It leads to great confidence in the time of attack and false accusation. Holiness actually closes legal doors of access that satan can use to invade my mind, will, and emotions. The more I grow in actual obedience to God, the less easy it is for satan to attack me with lies...for real. No matter how much I plead the Blood of Jesus, if I am actively opening doors of legal access to my mind by inviting jealousy, or greed, or hate, or gossip, or pornography into my internal or external conversations, the enemy can stay and wreak havoc on my heart until I intentionally close those doors, break my agreement with darkness, and turn my gaze back to the light.
In this simple truth, that everyone gets what they want, is the hidden disasterous theology of false grace...its got no power when you really need it to defeat the enemy. Satan doesn't believe in false grace, so it doesn't stop the attack from his end, and heaven doesn't enforce false grace, so it doesn't stop it from our end...it simply leaves the practitioner wide open to lethal attacks on their heart. This is one facet to what it means to hold to a "form of godliness, but deny its real power."
II Timothy 3:1-5 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!
The plan of Jesus is to, in one generation, use fire...tribulation...to refine the hearts of all men and women. This refining is for good and evil. If the "metal" in your heart is evil, the fire of that day will refine and purify evil, if it is holiness, the fire will refine and purify your holiness.
This is what Jesus was talking about in the parable of the wheat and the tares. Sin will mature and so will righteousness. This isn't a "church" (little c) against the world message. According to Paul, there are MANY tares in churches. In one generation the fire of "that day" is going to cause all men and women to pick their desire and mature in that decision. This is what Joel described as the "valley of decision." The fire causes the decision to come to the forefront. The pressure is already starting to cause everyone to take a side:
Joel 3:14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.
The way you overcome this time of increasing intensity is by setting your heart to wholeheartedly embrace the process of sanctification RIGHT NOW. I don't want to search for Bible verses that make me feel confident to do nothing about my disobedience. I want to search for Bible verses that cause zeal for holiness to rise up in my heart. I don't want to gaze on Jesus with dreams of being "successful" or popular, or "great" like some other teacher...I want to gaze on Jesus to fuel an active conversation with God about Him making me more like His son...a servant, taking the lowest place, resisting gossip and envy and materialism...giving secretly, praying secretly (and publicly), fasting secretly...resisting self promotion...resisting a controlling spirit...putting on self control and love and gentleness and kindness...for real! That is what Paul said, the more I look at Jesus, the more I should start to look and act like him:
II Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
The more I see what Jesus is like, the more I ask God to make me like Him, and the Spirit responds with the infilling of faith to actually walk in greater measures of submission. This is as simple as asking, seeking, and knocking. The big question is: what do I desire? What am I asking for?! What do I seek?
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