Our Need for Hardships

We often wonder why God hasn’t been blessing us more, at least in the way that we want to be blessed. Well, perhaps the “blessing” is bad for us. Perhaps we can’t handle it. A recent article looked at what has happened to those who have had the “blessing” of hitting the Lotto:

• Callie Rogers blew a 2003 U.K. lottery jackpot of $3 million on shopping, cocaine, friends and breast augmentation and told reporters two years ago she was working as a maid. William "Bud" Post squandered his 1988 Pennsylvania prize of more than $16 million on houses, vehicles and bad businesses before going bankrupt and serving time for firing a shotgun at a bill collector before his death in 2006.

• Are these outcomes rare? A recent study of Florida lottery winners suggests no. Economists at the University of Kentucky, University of Pittsburgh and Vanderbilt University wanted to answer a public policy question: What happens when individuals in financial trouble are given large lump sums? So they collected data from nearly 35,000 winners of up to $150,000 in Florida's Fantasy 5 lottery from 1993 to 2002, and cross-referenced this information with state bankruptcy records.

• Their findings, published last fall in The Review of Economics and Statistics, show that a big lottery score does little to reduce the likelihood of bankruptcy. More than 1,900 winners went bankrupt within five years. That number implies that 1% of Florida lottery players (winners and losers) go bankrupt in any given year, about double the rate for the broader population during the study period.

Before we point the accusing finger at God, perhaps it might be more realistic to humbly  reassess our indictments. Perhaps God knows better what we need than we do. This had even been the case for the Apostle Paul. He often prayed that God would remove an undisclosed physical ailment. However, Paul later learned that what he had regarded as a “curse” was really a blessing:

·        To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. (2 Cor. 12:7)

We tend to become conceited when things are going too well for us. This was even the case with Paul. But by the grace of God, he learned his lesson:

·        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. (2 Cor. 12:10)

We too must learn to rejoice in our hardships. They too are part of God’s grace, however painful they may be.

   

   

Kissing Cousins: We and the Octopus

If macro-evolution is a fact, then we should find the precursors for our organs within our alleged ancestry, related species, and not in totally unrelated ones. If instead, the species of the various phyla reflect the hand of an intelligent Designer, we might instead find these traits spread out among the various living things as unconnected patterns in a patchwork quilt.

Instead, we find common traits and organs within unrelated phyla. Interestingly, evolutionists have a term for this commonly found un-associated mosaic of traits - "convergent evolution." Paleobiologist and evolutionist, Simon Conway Morris, reflects on one example:

·        The idea is this: that convergence – the tendency of very different organisms to evolve similar solutions to biological problems – is not just part of evolution, but a driving force. To say this is an unconventional view would be something of an understatement. To start with an example of convergence (itself an astonishing phenomenon), take the “camera eye” – an eye comprising a lens suspended between two fluid-filled chambers, and the kind of eye which you are using to read this feature…If you go to the octopus and, if you’re not too squeamish, dissect it, you’ll find that it has a camera eye which is remarkably similar to our own. And yet we know that the octopus belongs to an invertebrate group called the cephalopod mollusks, evolutionarily very distant indeed from the chordates to which we belong. Cambridge Alumni Magazine (#65 Lent, p. 32)

·        The common ancient ancestor of mollusks and chordates could not possibly have possessed a camera eye, so quite clearly they have evolved independently. The solution has been arrived at by completely different routes.

How is it that we and the Octopus share the same eye? Convergent evolution! How does this explain the existence of this strange relatedness? It doesn’t – not at all! It merely suggests that there must be some undiscovered force that causes nature to replicate itself in entirely different species on many occasions – a “driving force” that directs mindless evolutionary processes to find the identical adaptive solutions. Sounds like design to me!

Morris concludes that the evidences of “convergent evolution” require a radical rewriting of evolution. However, he doesn’t see an intelligent Designer as a necessary ingredient. Nevertheless, he clandestinely offers an alternative "designer" - a "driving force."

Bad Things and Good People

Do bad things happen to good people? For the vast majority of people, the answer would be “yes!” And because of this, many reject the Judeo-Christian God. To restate the problem – If God is all good and powerful, there can be no possible reason for Him to allow holocausts and tsunamis.

This is certainly the way that Job had thought. He was most righteous among humanity. He had done everything that he was supposed to do, and yet the worst of tragedies befell him. He, therefore, concluded that God was unjust and consequently, didn’t deserve worship:

• "As surely as God lives, who has denied me justice, the Almighty, who has made me taste bitterness of soul.” (Job 27:2)

• “All was well with me, but he shattered me; he seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has made me his target; his archers surround me. Without pity, he pierces my kidneys and spills my gall on the ground. Again and again he bursts upon me; he rushes at me like a warrior…yet my hands have been free of violence and my prayer is pure.” (Job 16:12-17)

However, Job’s assessment changed after an encounter with God. God asked Job a series of questions, and Job couldn’t answer one of them. Finally, Job got the point. He was in no position to judge God:

• "I am unworthy - how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer--twice, but I will say no more."  (Job 40:4-5)

• “You asked, 'Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?' Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know…My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes." (Job 42:3-6)

Perhaps we too need to reassess our indictments against God? Perhaps, like Job, we lack the facts necessary to charge that God is unjust. However, this doesn’t mean that we can’t make moral judgments. But we have to bear in mind that certain judgments might be too difficult for us.

The Christian philosopher, Alvin Plantinga, has made an important distinction regarding the question of “bad things.” If we are sent into a pup tent to see if there is an elephant inside, we can be very confident of our answer. However, if we are instead sent into the same tent and asked if there is a microscopic spider-mite inside, our judgment should be very uncertain. Similarly, Job learned that the judgments that he had been issuing were as uncertain as spider-mites.

We tend to talk glibly about both “bad things” and “good people,” but do we really know enough about these things to indict God? While we might know enough about bad things to not choose to vacation in North Korea, we might not know enough to insist that we know better than God how to run our lives. In fact, we are told that we don’t even know what to pray for:

• We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. [27] And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. (Romans 8:26-27)

Likewise, this was God’s complaint against Job:

• "Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2

We don’t have to be a Bible-enthusiast to see that our judgment is very limited in this area. Surveys show that, while people who win the Lotto had been convinced that the money would change their lives for the better, more often than not, the money destroyed them.

Also, a recent survey revealed that when successful people get the things that they were certain were good, they become less moral and altruistic. Perhaps we don’t know what’s good for us!

So often we see how people who endure great tragedies learn so much through them and become more other-centered. Likewise, tragedy teaches us to treasure the relationships that we now have but sometimes take for granted. Consequently, I enjoy walking through cemeteries and reading the inscriptions on the tombstones. These too remind me to treasure what I have.

Suffering can serve as soul-medicine. Scripture teaches us that it’s a token of God’s love (Hebrews 12:11), an opportunity to become more Christ-like (2 Cor. 4:7-11) and a builder of character (Romans 5:3-5). The prophetic Elihu explained to Job that God used suffering to bring people to repentance and the knowledge of the truth (Job 33:13-28).

Perhaps we can’t see the big picture? Perhaps we don’t even know what are “bad things?” And perhaps we don’t even know who are the “good people?” Job was the best of people, but he finally repented of his ways:

• "I am unworthy how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. (Job 40:4)

 The New King James Version translates “unworthy” as “vile.” If Job had been vile, what does this say about the rest of us? Perhaps we aren’t the good people we think we are. A truckload of psychological surveys all affirm that we are self deluded about our goodness. Abcnews.go.com (11/9/05; Self-images Often Erroneously Inflated) reports:

·             “In one study of nearly a million high school seniors, 70 percent said they had “above average leadership skills, but only 2 percent felt their leadership skills were below average.” Another study found that 94 percent of college professors think they do above average work. And in another study, ‘when doctors diagnosed their patients as having pneumonia, predictions made with 88 percent confidence turned out to be right only 20 percent of the time.’”

Psychologist Shelley Taylor adds,

·             “Normal people exaggerate how competent and well liked they are. Depressed people do not. Normal people remember their past behavior with a rosy glow. Depressed people are more even-handed…On virtually every point on which normal people show enhanced self-regard, illusions of control, and unrealistic visions of the future, depressed people fail to show the same biases.” (Positive Illusions, p.214)

However, once the psychological torment leaves, self-delusion returns.  Taylor confesses,

·             “When depressed people are no longer depressed, they show the same self-enhancing biases and illusions as non-depressed people.” (p.223)

Perhaps we don’t know much about “good people?” And perhaps we need some “bad things?” More importantly, we might want to reassess our rejection of God.

   

Can God Do All Things?

Sophists are people who deceptively used logic to derive illogical conclusions. They’d often do this to stump and confuse their opponents. We have no shortage of sophists today. Here’s a popular piece of sophistry:

• If God can do anything, can he create a mountain so large that he can’t move it?

The “logic” goes like this: If God can’t create such a mountain, then He can’t do anything. If He can create such a mountain that He can’t move, then, here too, He can’t do anything. Conclusion: He can’t do anything!

At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be any way out of this conundrum. However, there are many of these “logical” conundrums. Take this statement: “I always lie.” If this statement is true, then it refutes itself. If the liar “always lies,” then this statement is also a lie. If this person doesn’t “always lie,” then this statement remains a lie. Consequently, it’s always a lie and can never be true.

Nevertheless, it is logically possible that some people always do lie. And so why can’t the liar ever coherently state that he always lie? Well, he can by rephrasing the statement: “I used to always lie!”

Perhaps the sophist’s challenge against God must also be rephrased so that it makes some logical sense. In fact, the Bible itself would require some rephrasing of the sophist’s challenge. This is because Scripture is clear that, while God can do anything, He can’t do it in any way. He too is bound – by His Word, His promises, His character, and perhaps even by logic. This means that there are certain things that He can’t or won’t do:

• When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. (James 1:13-14)

Nevertheless, our God can do all things but these will be done in His way. You can trust Him entirely!

   

The Perfectibility of Humanity, Marxism and Psychoanalysis

During a panel discussion exploring the relationship between Marxism and psychoanalysis, one panelist explained that, for many Marxist psychoanalysts, Marxism provided the necessary optimism that humanity could change. In fact, Marxism had to believe in the perfectibility of humanity! Without this belief, they would have absolutely no rationale to pursue their bloody utopian ideal that cost the lives of 100 million, according to some estimates.

The panelist went on to explain that both psychoanalysis and Marxism deny that we share a basic ego defect that precludes meaningful change. While Marxists believe that we are the product of society, and society is the product of the means of production – and so just change the means of production and humanity is changed – the psychoanalyst believes that when knowledge and insight are changed, humanity is changed.

These observations highlight how a very basic difference in worldviews can effect everything else that we believe. If we believe that humanity is basically good and perfectible, this belief exerts a profound effect upon our politics and the way we view life in general. This is the logic behind promoting the “Arab Spring.” If we can just eliminate those repressive regimes, these Muslim nations will find new life – a virtual spring of luxuriant new growth.

This worldview plays itself out in many different areas. At the Socrates Café at the Ethical Culture Society, conversation usually centers on dealing with the ills of the world and what can be done about them - having the right government, the right laws, or just the right understanding. Mankind is basically good. If we can only come to understand that we all will benefit if we just work together to do the right thing, we will live in peace and harmony. This, of course, will require the reeducation of the mentally backward – that means us.

I protested:

• Sometimes we might benefit more by doing the wrong thing. If we tell a little white lie to protect the boss, we might get the raise or promotion we’ve been seeking. If we don’t, we’ll miss out. I therefore don’t think that these pragmatic solutions will work.

According to the others, I was ignorant, and so I added:

• Besides, you can’t build a better world on sand. You are moral relativists – you believe that there are no higher God-given standards. For the moral relativist, morality is just a matter of how you think and feel when you get out of bed. What reason, then, do you have for doing the right thing? Consequently, the spread of moral relativism is strongly associated with the spread of crime. As a Christian, it is a delight for me to honor my God by doing the good.

The response was thunderous:

• You have no reason to suggest that we don’t have our own basis for moral thinking.

I agreed with them:

• Truly, the law is written on the hearts of all of us. We are wired for moral truth, and I’m therefore glad that you know the truth. However, you do not have an adequate logical rationale to do the truth, if it’s just a matter of our feelings – the product of chance evolution.

One participant shook his head, “You have a very low view of humanity.” Another began to attack the Christian faith:

• Your religion is fear-based. If you don’t do what your God wants, he’ll condemn you to hell. What type of God is that!

I responded that serving my God was the greatest joy in my life. However, later I thought of a better answer:

• I can certainly see why you’d call Christianity fear-based. Anyone on the outside should experience fear. In fact, this would be a very healthy response, like feeling fear when standing at the edge of a tall building. Besides, your assertion seems to suggest that if there is a Creator, He has no right to judge His creation. But do you have a basis for this assertion?

Once again, this worldview is based upon the belief that humanity is basically good and therefore couldn’t possibly deserve eternal punishment. We’re just too good for that type of thing. The only reason that Hitler had not done what was right was either because he wasn’t raised properly or hadn’t received the right understanding – both of which weren’t his fault. In fact, there can be no real fault, because if we have received all of the benefits of a proper environment, we would naturally be good and loving. Therefore, subjecting Hitler to eternal consequences would show a gross lack of understanding on the part of God.

Interestingly, this “understanding” is mere philosophy/religion. It rests upon nothing any more substantial than cultural bias. In fact, all of the evidence tends to prove the very opposite thing – the more our needs are satisfied, the less we are concerned about moral living. While absolute power corrupts absolutely, absolute satisfaction with ourselves also corrupts.

Ironically, what might look like a high view of humanity might not be so. A high view of humanity:

• Regards us as moral agents who are fully culpable for the things that we do. We’re not merely the result of formative processes. This idea is demeaning.

• Does not regard us as the result of a mindless process – an accident, the product of a bloody process of the-survival-of-the-fittest. Instead, we are created in the image of God and now we grow into His likeness “to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephes. 4:24). Consequently, our lives are infused with meaning and purpose.

• Does not regard us as just another animal, valued for its usefulness alone, to be discarded when we outgrow our social value. If our value comes from the fact that we are basically good people and are perfectible, what will happen to our value when it’s found that we are not perfectible? Likewise, our rights should not depend upon any social equation or a temporary concession made out of expediency. Instead, our rights come from the fact that we are beloved by our unchanging Creator, who assigns great penalties to those who victimize other humans.

Furthermore, if we derive our sense of value by thinking that we are good or perfectible, we are then coerced to go to great lengths to defend this source of value by denying whatever data that suggests otherwise. How can we possibly face the extent of our selfishness and nastiness when our value as a person depends upon seeing ourselves as good?

How then can we face the truth about ourselves and still live at piece with ourselves? While some need to attach themselves to a utopian ideal to derive their sense of self-importance, we can attach ourselves to a God who will always be there for us:

·        For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

It is only this kind of love that can give us the optimism we require.

Genocide, Moderate Islam and Western Silence

The gunman, with reported ties to al Qaeda, and suspected of killing seven people, including three children at a Jewish school, has seemingly confessed to the shootings. Understandably,

·        Dalil Boubakeur at the main mosque in Paris told Europe 1 radio that no one should link the Toulouse events and the Muslim religion, which is "99 percent peaceful, responsible, non-violent and well-integrated into the country".

This assertion raises several questions:

1. Are "99 percent peaceful, responsible, non-violent?”
2. If this is so, why are religious minorities in all Islamic nations either persecuted and/or diminished by Shariah law?
3. If Islam is a peaceful religion, why is the Islamic world so prone to violence and coercive attempts to impose Shariah?
4. Why aren’t there any examples of Islam coexisting as equals with religious minorities?

Sadly, the French assassin seems to be just one of many instances of Islamic terror. Muslim-turned-atheist, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, reports:

• Christians are being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion. It is a rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm…In recent years the violent oppression of Christian minorities has become the norm in Muslim-majority nations stretching from West Africa and the Middle East to South Asia and Oceania. In some countries it is governments and their agents that have burned churches and imprisoned parishioners. In others, rebel groups and vigilantes have taken matters into their own hands, murdering Christians and driving them from regions where their roots go back centuries.

• But a fair-minded assessment of recent events and trends leads to the conclusion that the scale and severity of Islamophobia pales in comparison with the bloody Christophobia currently coursing through Muslim-majority nations from one end of the globe to the other. The conspiracy of silence surrounding this violent expression of religious intolerance has to stop. Nothing less than the fate of Christianity—and ultimately of all religious minorities—in the Islamic world is at stake.

• As Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, pointed out in an interview with Newsweek, Christian minorities in many majority-Muslim nations have “lost the protection of their societies.” This is especially so in countries with growing radical Islamist (Salafist) movements. In those nations, vigilantes often feel they can act with impunity—and government inaction often proves them right. The old idea of the Ottoman Turks—that non-Muslims in Muslim societies deserve protection (albeit as second-class citizens)—has all but vanished from wide swaths of the Islamic world, and increasingly the result is bloodshed and oppression.

As an example of what Christians are facing in Islamic territories, the latest issue of World Magazine (March 10) cites the 12 northern provinces of Nigeria, under Sharia law since 2000. Boko Haram, the terror organization, meaning “Western Education is Sinful,” intends to drive Christians out of the north and to impose Sharia on all of Nigeria:

• Christians throughout the Sharia states in the north faced post-election [April 2011] violence. In the Kaduna state [alone], Muslims destroyed 409 churches and pover 2,000 homes, killing 137. In Gombe state, they destroyed 39 churches and 74 homes, killing 20. (54)

• In a Jan. 25 video on YouTube, Boko Haram leader Imam Abubakar Shekau took responsibility for the Jan. 20 attacks and said: “I am not against anyone, but if Allah asks me to kill someone, I will kill him and I will enjoy killing him like I am killing a chicken”…A Boko Haram posting from late last year says…nine…Christian denominations in the north, “must be bombed and leveled.” It also cites eight pastors, most Muslim converts to Christianity, as targets “to be eliminated.” (52)

In light of the fact that the 12 northern districts are already under Sharia and Christians have been made to submit to Sharia, it is hard to understand why the terror would continue. Already:

• In those 12 states authorities prohibit Christians from holding office, discriminate against them in property and business activities, and subject them to Islamic law. Some districts in Kano state have Christian majorities, but district governments are run under the state’s Sharia system. That makes Christians subject to the Islamic court system and requires students to take Islamic courses.

Nevertheless, since the imposition of Sharia in 2000,

• Over 13,000 mostly Christian Nigerians have been killed in religious-related violence, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom…”Boko Haram is not doing anything new,” said Peter Akinola, the retired archbishop of the Anglican Church of Nigeria. “More than terror attacks, this is part of an ongoing attempt to Islamize Nigeria. This country began as a democracy, but now in my own country I cannot live freely.” (52-53)

If world domination is the goal of Islam, perhaps we will soon be saying the same in the West. Even now, those who are doing ministry among the Muslims are facing intimidation and threats of violence. Consequently, if there are peace-loving Muslims who believe in a world where all religions can live at peace in equality, they need to speak up in a meaningful way. It is not enough to merely say, “Well, these terrorists aren’t really Muslim,” especially in light of the Islamic doctrine of “Taquiyya” which authorizes Muslims to lie to the non-believer on behalf of Islam. (See www.koranqa.com, fatwa 59879, where the Muslim can only have contempt for the non-believer). Therefore, we can’t help wondering if the claim to be peace-loving is merely a ploy.

We have not seen where peace-loving Muslims confront the extremists to insist that Sharia should allow religious freedom. Nor have we seen the Mainstream Western Media

confront those committing the atrocities done in the name of Islam. Mark Lipdo, director of the Stefanos Foundation, claims that,

• “They have misrepresented violence as a clash when it was an outright attack from the Muslim minority.” Lipdo himself was on hand in 2010 when Muslim gangs raided three predominantly Christian villages near Jos on March 7, slaughtering hundreds of mostly women, children, and the elderly.

Lipdo claims that the Western media – they derived their information from Muslim sources - has wrongly reported that the various attacks were in reprisal for the killing of 150 Muslims. However, none of the media outlets were “able to provide eyewitness accounts of the attacks that killed 150 Muslims.” Instead, Lipdo reports:

• “We were there when the whole conflict started. We saw the Muslim military commander release people caught carrying out the attacks with their weapons”…Local media reported police on the scene who did nothing to stop the Muslim attackers.” (56)

One victim had commented to the Daily Champion, “As they were killing and burning our homes, they were chanting, ‘Allahu Akbar,’ meaning ‘God is great.’” If this isn’t the real Islam, then the moderates have to publicly reclaim their religion, especially if we are to take them seriously. Likewise, the media, as well as the Western nations, have a responsibility to bring genocide to light. However:

• The reporting slant shows up in the U.S. policy, as well. The 2011 report of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom describes “sectarian violence” in Nigeria driven by “religiously motivated actions” without ever saying that the overwhelming number of deaths involve Christians. (56)

If we are really concerned about peace and deeply troubled by genocide, then we have to speak up and shed light on the evil. If we fail to do this, then our silence speaks in favor of approval.

Christian Growth and Maturity and the Spiritual Disciplines

Today, many are talking about the spiritual disciplines as a means to spiritual growth. This past Sunday, one very accomplished teacher claimed that as we deny ourselves and devote ourselves to fasting or to other forms of bodily discipline, we grow spiritually and are better attuned to God and, consequently, better able to love others.

Although I certainly share this goal, I began to think about a number of verses that seemed to suggest otherwise:

·        The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth… Rather, train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. (1 Tim. 4:1-8)

Paul seems to contrast the abstention from food (or only certain food) along with physical training – whether fasting, yoga, or controlling our alpha or beta waves – with “godliness,” insisting on the surpassing value of the latter. Paul goes even further to insist that abstaining from food doesn’t bring us any closer to God:

   

·        But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do. (1 Cor. 8:8)

It seems that there are certain things that open the channel to God, but eating or not eating doesn’t seem to be one of them. Paul also insisted that the severe “treatment of the body” failed to restrain sin:

·        "Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!"? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. (Col. 2:21-23)

Although it’s commonly believed that subjugation of normal bodily impulses produces spirituality, Scripture doesn’t support this idea. But do such disciplines produce humility? Not according to Paul, who calls such “regulations” a “false humility.” Perhaps they fail because they are merely superficialities, failing to go deep enough to address the real issue:

·        The gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper. They are only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings--external regulations applying until the time of the new order. (Hebrews 9:9-10)

Clearly, fasting and ceremonial rituals failed to penetrate to the place where real change had to take place – the conscience. Perhaps the present-day emphasis on spiritual disciplines represents a return to the ineffectual Mosaic rituals? I tried to respond to the teacher as gently as I could:

·        Perhaps fasting does produce some sense of humility and receptiveness towards God. When I fast, I think about food more than ever – not God! But it’s not the discipline that humbles me but what I learn about myself through the discipline – that I am fleshly and need my Savior to help me every moment of my life.

However, he insisted that those more advanced in self-denial and the discipline of fasting have been able to achieve a greater level of spirituality. But was there any Scriptural support for such a claim? I therefore began to reexamine the many verses about fasting.

Although it seems that there is much Scriptural evidence that God responds to repentant and humbled people – and this is often manifested through fasting, sackcloth, and self-denial - I could find no verses that indicated that these disciplines were the means to spiritual growth. For example, the wicked King Ahab repented with fasting, and God had mercy upon him:

·        When Ahab heard these words, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and fasted. He lay in sackcloth and went around meekly. Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite: "Have you noticed how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself, I will not bring this disaster in his day, but I will bring it on his house in the days of his son." (1 Kings 21:27-29)

For Ahab, fasting was not a self-transformational spiritual discipline, but as a humble plea to God for His mercy. We see the same thing with the King of Nineveh:

·        On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned." The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh: "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish." When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened. (Jonah 3:4-10; also Neh. 9:1-2; Psalm 35:13; 2 Sam. 12:15-23; Joel 1:14; 2:12)

The King of Nineveh and his subjects didn’t fast as a means of self-improvement but as an act of self-abasement before an angry God. Fasting also had to be the expression of a repentant heart. If it merely had been regarded as a spiritual discipline, God would have regarded it as hypocritical. God scorned mere ritual apart from true repentance:

·        For day after day they [Israel] seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God.  They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them. “Why have we fasted,” they say, “and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?” Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high… Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? (Isaiah 58:2-6)

Although Israel had put on a good show of humility, they weren’t truly humble. Had they been, they would have been amenable to the commands of God to treat others with love. Their fasting was therefore self-serving, hypocritical and worthless.

We find the same teaching in the New Testament. Jesus taught about two people who entered the Jerusalem Temple. One was a religious leader, proficient in the discipline of fasting. He boasted, “I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get” (Luke 18:12). However, this Pharisee left the Temple without being forgiven.

Likewise, Jesus castigated those who did not fast for the right reasons (Mat. 6:16-18). Fasting for self enhancement wasn’t a fast unto God, as it should have been! The Pharisees even challenged Jesus to explain why He and His followers didn’t fast, while those of John and the Pharisees did fast. He explained to them that new wine must be preserved in new wineskins (Luke 5:30-39); the New Covenant required a new form or packaging - rejoicing.

Interestingly, nowhere in the New Testament is fasting ever commanded. We find the closest facsimile to a command in Jesus’ instructions about casting out a certain kind of demon:

·        He replied, "This kind [of demon] can come out only by prayer." (Mark 9:29; NIV)

However, the King James Version – it’s based upon later Greek texts – reads “by prayer and fasting.” However, our modern English translations omit “fasting.” Nevertheless, the Book of Acts does mention fasting (Acts 13:2; 14:23), but never is it associated with the idea of spiritual improvement. If these disciplines were critical to spiritual maturity, it is surprising that they are not explicitly mentioned as such.

Likewise, it seems that other forms of self-denial are beneficial only when the denial of certain pleasures creates room to obey the more important things - the things of God. I’ve already mentioned Paul’s hesitation about self-denial for its own benefits. Paul inveighed against the possible benefits of food and bodily comfort depravation (1 Tim. 4:1-8; 1 Cor. 8:8; Col. 2:21-23). The Book of Hebrews casts doubt upon the benefit of mere rituals (Heb. 9-9-10; However, rituals can be helpful as aids to reinforce the truth.)

Instead, the Christian life is all about denying our own agenda in favor of affirming God’s agenda. We deny our wants in favor of obedience to His wants. Ultimately, I think that this is the intended meaning of Biblical fasting and sackcloth and can be summarized in this proclamation: “God, I want to fulfill your desires not mine!” We have to be willing to die to our agenda and to live to His:

·        Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)

We are not simply called upon to deny ourselves apart from devoting ourselves to a greater ideal. We deny ourselves in order to follow Him! Self-denial is not a virtue in itself. Instead, we might deny ourselves a meal to give it to someone else!

Well, if we don’t grow through these spiritual disciplines, how do we grow and mature as Christians? Although I admit that we can benefit by abstaining from certain foods and drink – and recovering from alcohol addiction is a great benefit – I don’t think that these successes qualify as spiritual growth. Instead, Scripture identifies the source of spiritual growth as God Himself (although we also rely upon His grace to deal with alcoholism):

·        Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. (James 1:17)

·        For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not? (1 Cor. 4:7)

Consequently, it is God who should be given the thanks for all spiritual growth, even for our hard work:

·        But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them--yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. (1 Cor. 15:10)

However, this raises two separate questions: “What role do we play in our maturity and what are the means of growth?” First of all, we need to be clear that we cannot do anything without Him. We cannot grow spiritual, even in the slightest way, without Him (John 3:19-20; 6:44; 1 Cr. 2:14). It wasn’t that Paul’s hard work was irrelevant. Instead, Paul recognized that whatever good he had achieved resulted from the fact that God was working through him. Jesus said as much in referring to us as helpless sheep. He also taught:

·        Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:4-5)

The fact that we can do absolutely nothing of any real worth without Him is the uniform message of Scripture. This was certainly Paul’s confession:

·        Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. (2 Cor. 3:5)

Scripture is clear that God is the source of spiritual growth:

·        For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephes. 2:10)

·        Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philip.1:6)

·        From whom [God] the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow. (Col. 2:19)

If this is all true, then our proper posture before our God must be one of humility. In fact, this is the posture He commands and requires for our transformation. Jesus had warned:

·        "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Luke 18:14)

The Pharisee had sought to enhance himself through his various practices and therefore left the Temple alienated from God. Meanwhile, the man who knew and confessed that he was a rank sinner in need of mercy was “exalted.”

Life must start with dying; the way up is the road down. Humility must precede any real spiritual transformation:

·        Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:6-7; James 4:6)

How does humility work? By humbling ourselves, we confess our sins; we clothe ourselves in prayer because we’ve come to realize that we can’t trust in ourselves; we devote ourselves to His Word because we have come to see that our own thinking and judgment has so failed us; we obey Him because our own pursuits have led us into the killing fields. And so humility is the soil from which grows those vines – trust, prayer, Bible-meditation, and obedience - that connect us to the roots.

However, we too have a role. The Spirit applies His transformative medicine alongside of our trust, prayer, Bible-meditation, and obedience. Although Paul claimed that those under his ministry had been transformed into an epistle of Christ, he gave credit to the Spirit:

·        You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. (2 Cor. 3:3)

While we are the product of the ministry of the Word, even more so are we a product of the Spirit applying the Word to our heart. Paul went on to explain that the Jewish nation also had the Scriptures, but it wasn’t profitable for them because they had a veil over their heart, preventing the truth from penetrating. However, now that the Spirit has removed our hard outer barrier, we have been freed to see the truth and to become transformed by it:

·        Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 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. (2 Cor. 3:17-18)

Paul later showed that “beholding…the glory of the Lord” is the same thing as beholding the truths about God (2 Cor. 4:4-6). Transformation occurs when the Spirit applies the truths of God to our heart, as Jesus inferred:

·        "If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:31-32)

Similarly, the Bible teaches that we are nourished by the truth (1 Tim. 4:6; Rom. 12:2) – it’s our growth food (1 Peter 2:2; Heb 5:12-14). It is Scripture that keeps us anchored, confident and secure (Eph. 4:14).

   

Of course, we need to ask:

·        You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. (James 4:2-3)

We also need to obey, to be faithful with what we have already received:

·        In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. (Hebrews 5:12-14)

If we don’t use it, we loose it! However, if we do use it, we grow in discernment and wisdom.

Scripture says a lot of things about spiritual growth. However, it says little to nothing about growth associated with fasting or other forms of self-denial. Although these practices aren’t unbiblical, they should be performed with a Biblical understanding.

One last thought – we should never regard our self-denial or sacrifices as earning anything from God. It’s all about God’s grace and our trusting Him for it. When we believe that we have earned something from Him, we deny that our blessings are strictly a matter of grace.

I hope to send the teacher a copy of this response. Please pray that he receives it well.