The Problem with Pharisees

 

Thursday, March 24, 2022

The Lord says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life.  I will advise you and watch over you.  Do not be like a senseless horse or mule that needs a bit and bridle to keep it under control.”  Psalm 32:8-9

If you check out the Gospels of the New Testament[1] just about every interaction between Jesus and the Pharisees didn’t end pretty.  In fact, Jesus was harder on this bunch than any criminal or outcast.  Setting that track record against all the smarmy stuff that’s said or written about how Jesus was soft and acccepting to all people, we get a sense that something needs explanation.  For that, the common mule will do.  More about the mule in a moment.

Pharisees were religious lawyers.  They had the task of leading Israel to live godly lives, worshipping and serving God like the holy nation God wanted.  That meant interpreting the words of Moses in the books of the law[2] into everyday lessons for living.  What they ended up doing was taking the 10 Commandments, which were principles to be applied to decision-making, and turning them into over 600 rules to be memorized. 

The Psalmist said that was like putting a bit and bridle on a mule.  A mule is smart enough to be stubbornly-independent, wanting to go where he wants to go.  But to fulfill that for which he was created, he needs to be led.  Forcing an animal to comply to a task’s purpose may get the task done, but it makes no friends.  Nor does it make the doing of the task easier or more rewarding.

The Lord’s advice to us is to choose better than being forced into doing His bidding.  He offers us a light to see the best pathway through life, one where we can complete His will, and enjoy doing it.

The difference between mule-compliance, and man-cooperation, is what we call the Surrendered Life.  We surrender to God’s will, because He is a gracious God who would rather have our friendship and love, than a stable full of mules who have to be turned this way or that by a bit and bridle.

The problem with Pharisees and mules is it’s hard to see past the choice of our will or God’s will.  We want what we want, and often it’s what’s right in front of us.  Like Eve wanted what the serpent pointed out, we prefer to make our own decisions, rather than trust God to lead us into to a better life. 

For You Today

Humans are presented with a choice every day…my way or His way.  Pharisees and mules need bits and bridles of rules that command do it this way, not that way.  A disciple has a friend who walks with you on the best path and sticks closer than a brother[3].

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title image: Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

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[1] Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John

[2] The first five books of Holy Scripture (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy)

[3] See Proverbs 18:24

Of Camels and Last Straws

 

Tuesday, March 16, 2021

If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall.  The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience.  And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand.  When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.  1 Corinthians 10:12-13

These verses always remind me of the saying, the straw that broke the camel’s back.  It is descriptive of a final added weight which causes a mortal stumble.

The truth of a saying can certainly be found in its long use by many people, but in (too many) cases, public opinion is wishful thinking, not bedrock truth.  The truth of the camel’s poor back is relative to dynamics of physics.  There is a tipping-point at which the strength of a camel’s legs, back, and will to stand cannot support the weight of even one last straw…and he must sit down or fall down.

There is another saying, a cousin to this camel sagacity, God will never put more on you than you can bear.  You hear that in times of trouble.  It’s intended to bring some hope for a cure, solution, or help from some unknown source.  It’s intended as theological wisdom, an appeal to trust in God, the One Who knows your frame, that we are dust, and in His providential care.  But the saying fails for lack of context. 

That context is the apostle’s statement to the Corinthian believers, a group so steeped in superstition and pagan practices, they were their own worst enemies when it came to following Jesus.  Paul was telling them there was hope for their weak stand against the temptations to sexual perversion; there was an answer for their soul’s desire to serve God with pure hearts and lives.  Paul was reminding them that the choice to yield was in their power because God is stronger than any temptation the enemy can devise. 

And so there is a difference between times of trouble, when a loved one dies, or a job is lost, or health goes wanting…and times of temptation, when avarice grows, or desire beckons, or truth slips into the shadows.  The difference is in human control as opposed to surrendering to the will of God.  Jobs or health lost, or a friend dies…these are above our pay grade.  We have no choice for the weightier happenings of life and death.  For these testings we can trust God’s leading, compassion, and, sometimes, miracles.  In temptations it is a reverse setting; this is when God is trusting us to yield on the side of godliness.  Temptation is an opportunity to sin, not another straw heaped on the camel’s back. 

The prime example for our instruction and empowerment is Adam and Eve.  In the Garden of Eden THE tempter offered the opportunity of a lifetime.  The entirety of humanity on earth at that time CHOSE to take what was in front of them, despite God’s provision of choice to say “no”.  It was within Adam and Eve’s power to choose; it wasn’t some overwhelming turn of life, a straw of adversity heaped on an overburdened life.  It was their will, choosing their way, over God’s.

Therein is the rub…and it has always been thus…we can, as the Burger King commercial reminds us, have it our way, or we can do it God’s way; we just cannot have both.

For You Today

Overcoming temptation isn’t a matter of waiting for God to do something about all He’s placed on your back; God is expecting you to say “no” loudly, and clearly. God is expecting you to seek God’s way of fleeing whatever is tempting you.  Just  don’t wait until you hear ol’ Slewfoot approaching in your garden; decide now, in the light of day, that your life, your body, your heart and hands belong to God. 

If you decide that in truth now…you’ll be prepared to escape the temptations that come your way.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com    Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

Learning to Use Good Judgment

Tuesday, April 28, 2020

I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.  Romans 7:15

Leave your simple ways behind, and begin to live; learn to use good judgment.”  Proverbs 9:6

If you’ve ever had a wood splinter in your finger, you know it will nag you with a painful reminder everytime you grip something.  If you’ve ever had a paper-cut, you understand you will manage to rub it the wrong way twenty-eight times a day.  And if you’ve ever read what Paul wrote about doing stupid stuff, while failing to do smart stuff, you are well on your way to comprehending why the whole idea of wisdom is not to cram your head full of thoughts, good, bad, or trivial; it’s all about being able to live in a way that makes sense in three ways:

          1.     The ability to be in right relationship with your Creator

          2.     The pathway to being in right relationship with your Community

          3.     The pathway to being at rest…having peace within your own heart.

The apostle Paul had a hard-driving way about him; he was a Type-A that made obsessive-compulsive people look like slugs.  He had to get clobbered on the Damascus Road with a spiritual 2” x 4” to wake-up to the fact that his wisdom was nothing but a splinter of foolishness driving him into the ground. 

Paul knew this every day like a paper cut; it nagged him, but he couldn’t shake living like that.  And then he met Jesus, and things began to change.  His so-called wisdom began to show itself for what it really was, pride masquerading as being right.  He not only had to re-think his behavior, but everything about his life.  It took a long time to sink-in (about fourteen years in all ^{see Galatians 1-2}), but he finally learned how to submit his life to Godly control – and with that came wisdom for really living.

The apostle Peter had much the same problem, but with a different pedigree.  Peter was not an astute rubber of elbows with the higher-ups.  Peter was a common, uneducated fisherman.  But he occupied a big space, having been on the inner-circle with Jesus, and a chief leader of the early church.  Peter’s impetuous roller coaster life of being hero one moment, and coward the next, made him a perfect pastor.  By the time he figured out his selfish, prideful ways were destroying whatever manhood God had given him, and he was making a mess of his life and witness, Peter had grown to know how to counsel the rest of us who would come behind.  Peter had walked with Christ, denied him three times, and been forgiven; that was a taste of the divine, and Peter had learned to cling to God’s ways over his own way of crashing through life like a bull in a china shop.  Peter’s advice to us is born of his own testimony of what real living is all about:

So get rid of all evil behavior.  Be done with all deceit, hypocrisy, jealousy, and all unkind speech.  Like newborn babies, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation.  Cry out for this nourishment, now that you have had a taste of the Lord’s kindness.  1 Peter 2:1-3

For You Today

If you’ve been driven with trying to do better, do more, get more, and experience everything, you’re in a place where Peter and Paul called home.  Solomon also tried to live life on his own terms.  Maybe it’s time to heed what these wise men had to learn the hard way.  Wisdom is hard to come by, but when you give-in to God’s way, good judgment is on the way.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!V

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Title Image:  Pixabay.com      Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For another post on Proverbs 9:6 see Standing in the Sweet Spot

Using Power Wisely

[1]

Friday, February 7, 2020

If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom.  But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying.  For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom.  Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic.  For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.  But the wisdom from above is first of all pure.  It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere.  And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness. James 3:13-18[2]

No, that guy isn’t John Wayne, or Roy Rogers, or some superhero; that’s Russell a few years ago on vacation in Brevard, riding a horse for the first and only time in my life.  It’s easy to tell the difference between the superheroes and Russell; I’m the one shaking in the saddle. 

And it’s all because of Big John, my ride for that afternoon.  They had a sign that said if you’re over 210 pounds (I was, and I’m not going to tell you how far over), you couldn’t ride unless Big John was available.  Normal humans who can’t leap 28-feet in the air need a stepladder to mount the stable behemoth.  I’m smiling in the picture, but it’s a frozen in time, is this how I’m gonna die kind of smile.

Well, the afternoon turned out to be a favorite memory of mine.  Big John was well named for his size, but better named for his disposition.  This was a beast who was gentle and calm.  There was no doubt who was in charge; when Big John wanted to stop along the mountain trail to munch on some low hanging branches, well…by golly…no matter how much Russell urged us on, we stopped and munched on low hanging branches.  Big John that is; Russell had Reece’s PB cups.

Sometimes it worked the other way around.  There were a few times I wanted to stop and take a picture of the lovely mountain scenery.  Brevard has some breathtaking views of rolling, majestic sights, including lots of waterfalls.  But John had seen them so often he would just keep plodding.  Once I did what our guide had suggested when instructing this greenhorn…if John didn’t stop, to just tighten up my knee pressure on his neck and yank a bit on the reins.  And when I did it, John ignored me like a rhino with a gnat on his back.  We kept plodding...no pictures!

In the end I decided John was smarter than the one riding him.  Big John had done that trail hundreds of times in his 25 years; he knew the right way to enjoy an afternoon.  I learned a little something that day about truly vacationing as opposed to cramming leisure time with too much distraction; life in the 21^st century has enough of that.

One of the takeaways from that few hours with Big John is an understanding of keeping a focus on how to use what power you’re granted.  John could’ve flattened me if he chose.  He could have insisted on riding me, or just depositing me in a ditch.  However, he chose to use his power wisely, treating me to a wonderful afternoon ride, aesthetically pleasing and memorable.  It was a gift!

It’s almost painful to make this leap, but such are the risks of contrast and comparison – I wish some of our political leaders would learn Big John’s lesson.  Access to power doesn’t mean grabbing what you want at any cost.  Rather, like my four-footed beautiful friend taught me, it means offering the best you have to the people you serve.

For You Today

If you’re watching too much news coverage of impeachment trials and disaster, take a Big John ride…breathe! 

And then thank your heavenly Father for the view.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image:  Russell Brownworth (original photo)    Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

[2] For another post on this James 3:13-18 see Wisdom From Above

A Changed Man

[i]

Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days.  Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches.  Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches.  One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years.  When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”  “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up.  Someone else always gets there ahead of me.”  Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”  Instantly, the man was healed!  He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking!  But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, so the Jewish leaders objected.  They said to the man who was cured, “You can’t work on the Sabbath!  The law doesn’t allow you to carry that sleeping mat!”  But he replied, “The man who healed me told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”  “Who said such a thing as that?” they demanded.  The man didn’t know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd.  But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.”  Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him.  So the Jewish leaders began harassing Jesus for breaking the Sabbath rules.  John 5.1-16

When John the beloved apostle wrote this Gospel account he had a specific purpose in view.  That purpose was not to tell a story from beginning to end, but to show the meaning of that story.  It wasn’t chronology, but theology, our thoughts of God – who He is.  John wrote to help us understand that Jesus is the Lord God.  The way he does that in this incident is to re-tell the conflict Jesus had with the Jewish religious leaders over rituals and traditions.  Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath; the traditionalists in the group didn’t like the change.  They loved the system of their religion more than the God they were created to love.  We have to admit, most of us don’t like changes.  Mark Twain once said:  The only person who likes change is a wet baby.^[1]

Let’s look at a man who was in sad shape before he met Jesus.  The Lord touched him, and what changes occurred!

Jesus touched the man's WILL

This man was conditioned in his spirit to be spiritually wasted in the same way his legs were useless.  For 38 years his illness and the way people related to him had kept him in a societal bondage.  He believed God was on a first come first served accessibility.  So he had the perfect excuse for never getting better.

Jesus confronted the man…Do you want to get better?  The man played his well-rehearsed line…Man, smell the coffee…everybody else moves faster than me.  Jesus’ answer was simply…Rise up!  There was no pity or patronizing; Jesus told the man to get himself together and walk.

At that point the man had two choices – he could remain in his retreat from humanity, or he could trust the stranger with this new idea and get up. 

Christian people share the burden for leadership.  We also face, and struggle with the lame man’s temptation to opt-out of responsibility.  It is easy to pull the covers back over your head on a Monday morning.  That is the nature of our will, and God will not force us to get in the game.  He will, however, “touch” us to remind us the game is not over, and that we have a choice. 

Jesus touched that man with a face-to-face confrontation.  It isn’t the same way with us all, because we are so different:

¶ Jesus touches some with the memory of a fine Christian leader’s example of working hard, loving others and life engaged on an enthusiastic plane. 

¶ The touch might be in your Dad’s words, still ringing in your ears long after he is gone. 

¶ The Bible is a touch of Jesus; it will prick your heart and conscience. 

¶ The touch of Jesus might be in a kindness extended from a friend or foe.

¶ The touch of Jesus might be in a child’s admiration that you don’t want to destroy.

Jesus touched that man, and He is touching some of you right now.

Jesus touched the man's WItness

It is a certainty that this man told everyone who would listen what happened to him.  He had been lying on that pallet for 38 years waiting for a miracle.  Day after day he was continually reminded how his life was unending impotence. Suddenly the whole horizon unfolded before him; he had a life.  It is without doubt he became a walking billboard for Jesus.  Even when questioned by the town political/religious leaders the man was unshakeable. 

Here is a question before the house this morning.  What will make a weak/hopeless man into a fearless/tireless witness?  Perhaps the answer is found in the name of the pool, Bethesda.  In Hebrew that is the word, “Chessedh”, literally “the house of grace”.  Chessedh is the “covenant mercy” of God.  Perhaps many of us would do more with our witness for Christ if we were to keep in mind His mercy and love for us.

Jesus touched the man's Weakness

The Bible tells us this man was healed.  The verb root is “enlarged”.  The man became normal, changing, growing, and it put him right in the middle of controversy between the Healer and the critics.

What about you?  Henry Blackaby wrote about this syndrome of our weakness when it comes to being healed:

Many people have grown up attending church and hearing about God all their lives, but they do not have a personal, dynamic, growing relationship with God.[ii]

Our generation has taken many of the activities that the Bible identifies as sin and has labeled them as addictions or character flaws or the result of an abusive upbringing.  We act as if having an addiction is sufficient excuse for disobeying God's commands.  

As Christians, we are no longer helpless victims of our sin. There is no sinful habit or past hurt that is beyond the healing touch of our Lord.

Have you gone year after year without receiving spiritual healing?  God is capable of freeing you, but you may have become comfortable in your sin.  You may not want to be healed.  If you really want to receive spiritual health, God can give it today.  He wants you to ask Him.

And so, the natural question now is: 

¶ Do want nothing to change, or would you jump at the chance for new life? 

¶ Do you want what you’ve always had, or do you desire a closer walk with Him?

¶ Are you satisfied with limping, or do you want Him to make you whole? 

If you’re tired of laying on the sidelines, let Jesus touch your will, your witness, and your weakness.  You will arise, take up that pallet and walk!  

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…Amen!

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[1] Mark Twain, Leadership, Vol. 15, no. 3.

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[i] Title Images:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com.    All Scripture quoted is from The New Living Translation (unless otherwise stated) 

[ii] Henry Blackaby in “Experiencing God”