Not So Doomsday Prophet

The world of Harry Potter has its unforgivable curses, and the world of the Church has its unforgivable sins. But whereas the former are clearly defined in Potter's world, the latter is sort of randomly guessed at or mandated in ours. Because the Bible doesn't seem clear on this, we have seldom been clear on it. Most of us fear (secretly or openly) that we might (or even have) committed this sin. Perhaps you feel I have committed it by reading the Potter books!

But before we really get into what this sin might be, let's back up to how we deal with sin in general. Apart from that mystery sin behind Door Number Three, which other sins are forgiven?

Actually, all of them.

"Say what? Blasphemy! Why, my sister Esmeralda once..."

Nope. Just ask Peter.

"OK. Yo, Pete! Which sins did Jesus die for?" (smirks, thinking of Esmeralda...)

"...Christ died for sins once for all..." (I Pet 3/18a, NIV)

"I think that means he died once for all of us."

Indeed. For every man Jack (or woman Jane). No restrictions. For Adam and Eve. For Abel. For Cain. For Jezebel. For Elisha. For David. For Goliath. For Hitler. For Bush. For Obama. For the Taliban. For you. For me. For Esmeralda...

But just as there is no limit on the whom, there is no limit on the what. "For sins." Not for "some sins". Not for "all sins but that one sin which someone's sister Esmeralda shall commit two millenia in the future". For "sins". For all sins.

Some of us say that, but somewhere deep down inside (and maybe right on the surface) we really think, "He died for all my sins up to the point I met him, but I'm not so sure about the ones since, or at least some of them." But I haven't personally met anyone, or run across evidence of anyone, who hasn't sinned at least once after they got into a relationship with God. "No, not one."

So we have to expand our definition of forgiven sins to include not only our sins BC, but our sins AD. And more than that, we have to include every sin we ever will commit, right up til the moment we die.

Now that's forgiveness. That's freedom. So many of us live in bondage to unforgiveness, even though we're already forgiven!

But it's even crazier than that. What about those who don't know God?

The good news (though from a broken perspective, some Christians hear it as bad news) is that if he died once for all, and forgave all sins, that includes every last sin of Jezebel, Goliath, Hitler and Esmeralda.

"But but but!!!!"

OK, all but one. The unforgivable sin. (Thought I'd forgotten that one, hadn't you?) So if God forgives all these sins, everyone goes to Heaven?

I wish there were a way that could work, but there's still that one sin, the one we started out talking about:

Jesus said, as recorded in Matthew 12/30-31, "Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven..." (NIV) What does the Holy Spirit do? He tells us who Jesus is. There's a clue in the first part, too-- this has something to do with how we deal with Jesus. (And lest we forget, The Father is the Son is the Spirit-- one God, remember?)

So if Jesus died to forgive our sins, the only thing that really makes sense here is this: if we die having rejected Jesus, then we have blasphemed (behaved irreverently) toward the Holy Spirit and the message the Spirit brings. So the only truly unforgivable sin is to die having rejected God. If you are reading this, you probably haven't died, so you probably haven't committed the unforgivable sin.

If Jesus is your Lord, your lover, your friend, your brother, you're golden. You don't have to worry. If he's not, you still don't have to worry... if you move into that relationship. Since you don't know from one instant to the next whether you'll be alive, waiting til later isn't your best option. If you aren't there, or aren't sure, now is the perfect time to fix that.

"But isn't that dangerous thinking?" Or, "Hey, wait! That means I can sin all I want!" Not quite. Paul addressed this in Romans 6: "Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life."

Would sin love for us to dive back in? Sure. But that's your old, dead self calling. Why would you listen to a corpse? If you screw up, ask forgiveness and move on (this is what Jesus meant by having your feet washed vs taking a bath, which happens when you first move into a relationship with him). There are people who see this as a loophole in the law, thinking they can have their cake and eat it, too. I'll leave it up to God to sort them out, but such people appear to me to be far more concerned about rules than relationship. Jesus took care of the rules so we could have relationship. But if we're really in that relationship, really loved by and loving God, we want to please him, not abuse or mock him or... blaspheme him.

So, I don't care what you did before you met Jesus. I don't care what you did after you met Jesus. I don't care what you've done if you haven't met Jesus. You're forgiven. Accept it. Embrace it. Embrace him. Problem solved.

Whose Voice?

Writers often try to emulate other writers, either their favorite authors or the current best selling authors. It almost never works very well. Why? Any author worth reading (and some not worth reading) has his own voice, her own style. Whether it's J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling. C.S. Lewis, Tom Clancy, Danielle Steel, Gilbert Morris, or William P. Young, they are popular because they write like themselves, not someone else.

This is true in life as well. We've all run across wannabes and posers, and it's kind of embarrassing, right? I mean, when we see some kid trying to be just like the most popular kid in school, or trying to look, act and talk like their favorite star, do we see them as the person they're copying, or as someone sad, who wants to be what they can never be, who doesn't know who they are?

God made each of us unique. When he made us, it was just like in Genesis, he said, "Yeah! Look at this! Cool!" He didn't say, "Aw, crap. Maybe I should throw this one away? Nah, I'll keep it for laughs." You have to get comfortable with that, or you really won't be content, much less happy. So start by learning who you are. Accept who you are. Then embrace who you are. God loves you; you need to learn to.

After you have embraced it just in terms of being yourself, think about it for all you do-- especially ministry.

It's bizarre to see someone copying some other preacher's, teacher's, or revivalist's mannerisms. I've seen this many times, and the results vary from absurd to hysterical to boring to tragic.


For years I hated the fact that I was weird, I didn't fit in. God didn't use me in any of the normal ways. So one day I finally couldn't take it any longer, and asked God why the heck I couldn't be normal. He said he made me weird on purpose. Whoa. First amazement, then... freedom! But there's more. It's not a passive weirdness but an active one. Not "It's OK to be you, Miles, weird as that seems sometimes" but "I made you who I did ON PURPOSE, and it's exciting, cool, groovy, whatever you want to call it, and being who you are is what will make a difference to the world and the people you love. If you will just be who I made you to be, you can reach people nobody else can." Yow!

Jesus kept doing things differently. Look at how he healed blind eyes-- he touched them, he spoke to them, he put spit and mud in them, etc. Why? I'm certain at least one major reason was to keep the focus on the power of God rather than the mechanism. If Jesus's miracles weren't clones of each other, why should his followers be? And yest so often, we want to find the magic formula so we can duplicate it and control it.

In the same vein, don't try to make another person a clone of you or anyone else. Don't insist they meet your expectations. God is far more interested in relationship than rules, and we should be, too. Just as we don't demand someone wear their hair the way we do or wear certain brands of clothes, don't judge someone based on whether they agree with you on issues such as dating versus courting, whether they have tattoos, speaking in tongues, or if and when the tribulation is coming.

"...work out your own (not anyone else's -ed) salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." (Phil 2/12b-13, NKJV)

[When I started attending church again after God got my attention back, well-meaning Christians decided to clean me up. Steve Taylor's song "I Want to be a Clone" off the album of the same name was my first revelation that I didn't have to go there ( http://www.sockheaven.net/discography/taylor/clone/02.html ).]

None Good but the Father... And You

(Alternate title: "Jesus never said you suck.")

Why do we put ourselves down? Why do we think it's spiritual to put ourselves down? Why does the Church teach us to do this?

It seems to be based at least greatly on one passage (OK, three, but they're the same story related in three, different Gospels). A man, often known as the "rich, young ruler" prefaced a question to Jesus by addressing him as "Good teacher". (Jn 10/17)

Jesus prefaced his reply in Jn 10/18 with, "Why do you call me good? There is none good but the Father" (KJV) or "No one is good--except God alone" (NIV)

See? Easy! We all suck.

Well, that's one way to read this. But think about all the other things God the Father and God the Son said about us-- not just about the unfallen Adam and Eve. Not just about Mary. Not just about the disciples (the 12, the 70, the 120, the 500, etc.) You and me.

We are made in the image of God. (Gen. 1/26)

He has given us His glory! (Jn 17/26)

So how does that fit in with Jesus saying "You all suck."

(Waiting... waiting... waiting...)

Can't make it fit, can you?

I guess we could sorta, kinda say, "None of us is as good as God, so compared to him we suck." I suppose. But there really wasn't any reason for Jesus to interject anything like that at this point in the conversation. Plus, Jesus would be saying, "We all suck. You, me, everybody but the Father."

That just doesn't fit.

Just before this, the Pharisees had been testing Jesus, harassing him, trying to trip him up so they could bring charges against him. One of the charges they were perpetually trying to stick him with was blasphemy-- equating himself with God.

I believe this was simply a case of Jesus saying, "Hey! Do you realize what you just said? Yes, I am one with the Father!" That's it. Was he reminding the man addressing him? The Pharisees? The crowd? The disciples? My guess is all of the above. But it really doesn't matter. The point is that the commonly accepted explanation doesn't really fit, whereas this one ties in with Jesus' teachings, and indeed with other things his Father-- our Father, our Daddy-- has said all along.

If the Father is good, so is his only begotten son. If we are one with Jesus the way he and his father are one (Jn 17/21), if He lives in us (Jn 17/23), then we are good as well, purified by his blood and his presence in us.

Does this mean we are incapable of sinning? Sadly, no. But it means that our new nature, the new man or woman, is the polar opposite of the old, sinful nature. It's the new Adam, the new Eve (Rom 5, esp. 18-19). We can choose to be believe the lie that we are bad, and therefore have a propensity to sin, in which case we will almost certainly live a life of defeat (for which there is no Biblical case), or we can choose to believe the truth that we are good through Christ, with a propensity to become like God, in which case we will find it easier to move from glory to glory (II Cor 3/18).

I'll take the truth, every time.

Biblical Zombies

Today's burning question(s):

"Are zombies real? Are they in the Bible? Help!"

Gather round, children, and Daddy Miles will tell you a zombie story with a happy ending, so you can all sleep like babies tonight. Happy, uneaten babies, unafraid of stupid zombies.

Of course zombies are real. The living dead? You bet. St. Paul talked about them in Rom 7, asking who would free him from "this body of death". If that's not a clear zombie reference, then you need more Ed Wood movies in your life.

So, if the old you is your own personal zombie, lumbering around trying to eat your moral brain, causing you to sin and become your old zombie self's other evil twin, what can you do about it?

Most of us us are taught to flee from it (dooming us to the life of a fugitive, grasping a a bite or two of food as we run frantically through the church on Sunday, never really making much difference except than as laughing stock for those who have no use for God or his people) or to resist. But resistance is for the enemy (the doo doo head, see previous blog on Satan). Zombie aren't even alive. Why do we fear them? What are their weapons?

A zombie mainly has two weapons-- fear and lies (the same as doo doo head). In both cases, their opposite is the only weapon you need, the equivalent of a head shot with a twelve guage, depleted uranium slug.

Truth destroys lies.

Love conquers fear.

As I noted in the "Satan is a weenie" blog, Love and Truth of these are part of the very essence of God. We are made in God's image, and if we accept Christ, we accept that image. We are remade into it. Further, we have his Holy Spirit. If we have the living God in us, who else need we fear?

Certainly not ourselves. Especially our old, dead selves. Let that body rot. Fill in the grave, put up a cross as a tombstone, and walk away.

Jesus came to set us free. Not to make us feel bad about ourselves. Not to make us hate ourselves, fear ourselves, or any of that garbage.

Go read John 17, or at least the last part. Wait, I'll read that part to you. Close your eyes and listen...

"My prayer is not for [the disciples] alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

"Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

"Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."

(Jn 17/20-26, NIV, emphasis mine)

I had always focused on the results parts of this passage, unity and others getting saved. But all the results are predicated on something key that we typically miss, having been prejudiced by our (mis?)understanding of Paul's writings. We know the Holy Spirit is in us. But according to this prayer-- the last thing Jesus is recorded as praying before his betrayal and arrest-- we also find that:

+ we are one not only with each other, but we are one with Daddy God and Jesus;
+ Daddy God loves us the same as He loves Jesus;
+ we have the glory of the Father and Jesus in us;
+ his love, and indeed Jesus, lives in us!

We've been taught to fear the old man or woman, the one that died when we received Christ. But the reality is, the dead fear God and his family. So just be you, the you that God made, and let the zombies run away screaming like little girl zombies, whatever that sounds like.

Who Measures the Rulers?

``It seems a difficult requirement. But then we are reminded that the responsibility is not due to the worthiness of the officials themselves, or even to the fairness or wisdom of their rules - it is for the Lord's sake that we submit ourselves. It would be so much easier if I actually respected the officials, but hey, it is what it is.'' --Cindy Howard

This immediately struck a chord, helping coalesce thoughts around the issue I've had for some time.

I find myself conflicted. Paul clearly defined what rulers are there for, and far too many of ours are either at odds with that or (in some cases) in outright rebellion. And yet I believe in honor. How do we honor the individual without bowing down to the idol? How do we honor the office when it's current use is so polluted?

There is no way to resolve that conflict once and for all, because each and every one of those people are different, individuals made in God's image as surely as you and I.

I have lived in that place of rebellion, that seat of self, so I know too well how easy it is to turn away from God. I just didn't happen to be in authority over hundreds or thousands (local offices) or millions (state offices) or hundreds of millions (national offices) of people.

I can but live moment by moment in grace, trusting God for what that looks like at the current instant in time.

Lord, help us all. Deliver us from self.