I cannot tell you how many sermons I have sat through where Matthew 7:18-20 was used to scare the life out of people. The message usually goes like this: “A good tree bears good fruit… so if your life doesn’t look demonstrably changed every single second, you might be a bad tree.”

Pastors use this to demand “proof” of salvation through works. Instead of providing assurance and comfort, I would walk away drowning in doubts. “How much fruit am I supposed to bear?” “If I still struggle with sin, am I a bad tree?” “Is God becoming a lumberjack, waiting to cut me down because my fruit isn’t ‘good enough’?”

The “Bait and Switch” Gospel

Unfortunately, many believers hear about God’s love at first—that eternal life is a gift. But then, the Gospel gets replaced by sermons about “doing more” and “obeying as proof.” The finished work of Christ is pushed to the background, and suddenly, the road is narrow and hard, you need to “surrender all,” and “do your part.”

This is “Do Your Part” theology, and it forces Christians to live in constant fear. We end up putting ourselves back under the Law, striving for something Christ has already accomplished. We start judging our status with God based on our performance, and inevitably, we start doing the same to others. We become like the Pharisee in the corner, judging sinners for their behaviors instead of sitting at the table and sharing a meal with them as Jesus did.

Examining the Message, Not the Behavior

But here is the irony: That cold, judgmental attitude is actually the “bad fruit” of a Law-based message.

When Jesus talks about trees and fruit in Matthew 7, He is talking about false teachers, not your surface behaviors. In verse 15, He says, “Beware of false prophets…” Jesus isn’t telling you to obsessively examine your own fruit; He is telling you to examine the teachings you are sitting under.

Ask yourself: What is the fruit of the message you are hearing?

• Does it make you look at yourself, your obedience, or an extreme focus on spiritual gifts?

• Does it take your eyes off the finished work of Christ and put the burden of salvation back on your shoulders?

• Does it produce fear, lack of assurance, and condemnation?

Or… does the message produce life, joy, rest, and peace?

Out of the Abundance of the Heart

In Matthew 12, Jesus connects trees and fruit directly to words: “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” A Grace-filled heart speaks life, hope, and assurance. A Law-filled heart speaks accusation, pressure, and threat. Words expose which covenant a person is living under—the Old Covenant of demand, or the New Covenant of supply.

Rest in the Root

My friend, if you have believed the Gospel—that Christ died for you, was buried, and rose again—you are forgiven and completely saved. Period.

I had a friend ask me if he was still saved because he wasn’t “experiencing rest.” I told him: “Go back to the Root, which is Christ, and get your eyes off your fruit.”

Fruit can be subjective. It changes with the seasons of our lives. But Christ’s truth is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Whether you “feel” saved today or not, the Truth is still the Truth. Stop staring at your branches. Behold His unconditional, one-way love for you, and watch as His truth bears the fruit that only He can give.

A Prayer of Rest

Lord, I thank You that my security is not found in the quality of my fruit, but in the perfection of my Root—Jesus Christ. I confess that I have often tried  judging my branches and living in fear of the axe.  Today, I step out from under the heavy burden of “doing my part” and I step into the rest of Your finished work. Renew my mind with the whisper of Your Grace. Let Your love be the soil I grow in, so that any fruit in my life is simply an overflow of Your goodness and not the result of my striving. Amen.

Imagine, you are standing in a courtroom, guilty on every charge.  You know the sentence is going to be a lengthy amount of time in prison.  So you hear the verdict, the judge announces “paid in full.”  The entire record is stamped acquitted and then shredded.  Yet, instead of being grateful and living like a free man you keep trying to argue with the judge, “But I still feel guilty, please let me work this off.”  But the judge gently reminds you of the final verdict and that this case is closed, and will never be reopened. So, you go home and begin to start your new life but just in case, you sign up for some community service work and clock in about forty hours a week.  You report to the local precinct all of your hours working at the shelter.  The officer looks at you bewildered because you are not required to do anything but every week you keep walking with a limp thinking you’re still carrying that ankle bracelet that really isn’t there.  But isn’t that sometimes how we as believers live our lives?  Instead of just accepting the final verdict that we are truly free and fully forgiven we live our lives as if this is partially true.  Yes God did His part but we still have to do our part.  We tend to sometimes view God more like our parole officer checking on us to see if we are truly sorry for what we’ve done by working off our sentence.  But Hebrews 10:12-14 tells us a different story.  “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God…For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”  The cross was not a partial payment; it was a finished work.  Jesus did not cover some of your sins and leave the rest for you to manage; He dealt with all of them-past, present, and future-in one decisive act.  This means you never again approach God as a debtor, only as a child.  You never come to Him trying to get clean; you come because you have been cleansed.  You do not move in and out of fellowship every time you fail; you live in a permanent state of reconciliation because of Christ.  When you sin, you are not re-crucifying Christ or stepping outside of His blood; you are forgetting who you already are in Him.  The answer is not to climb back into God’s favor, but to remember that you never left it. 

Today, instead of examining yourself to see how badly you’ve failed, look at Jesus to see how perfectly He succeeded. Your standing with God is not measured by how focused your prayers were this week, how pure your thoughts have been, how strong your spiritual disciplines feel.  Your standing is measured only by the perfection of Jesus’s sacrifice and His unchanging righteousness credited to you.  You are not “on probation” with God; you are sealed, embraced, and delighted in. 

Let your heart exhale.  The pressure to make yourself acceptable is over.  Put down your legal defense and walk out of the courtroom free.  

Prayer 

Lord Jesus,

Thank you that your cross was enough for all my sin, for all my life.  Thank you that I stand before the Father not in my performance but in your perfection.  Teach my heart to rest in Your finished work, to see myself as You see me-clean, loved, righteous, and secure.  Let this grace reshape my desires and my choices, not because I fear losing You, but because I am sure I never will. 

Amen

Hebrews 6:1

“Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God.”

“Sometimes I feel like an idiot.  But I am an idiot, so it kinda works out.”  Ring a bell?  It’s a quote from a slapstick comedy back in the nineties called Billy Madison.  Adam Sandler played a grown man in his late twenties who had never finished passing his primary education.  In order to inherit his father’s chain of hotels, he had to prove it to his father he was mature enough by going back to elementary school.  The movie became a classic comedy hit and put Adam Sandler on the map as he played a goofy immature man child.  Just the thought of seeing a grown man sitting in a desk built for a five year old just would make anyone laugh.  I have never seen the movie nor am I endorsing anyone to see it.  However,  I bring up the movie because I think it’s a perfect visual of how Christians today do the same thing.  We discover the new covenant truths of Jesus but instead of embracing them we go back to old covenant ways of living and instead look like a bunch of Billy Madisons playing doge ball with a bunch of five year old kids at school recess.    

The Hebrew Christian Jews were doing the same thing.   They received and believed the gospel, they were enlightened, tasted the heavenly gift and were partakers of the Holy Spirit, tasted the good word of God(Jesus),  Hebrews 4:4-5.   However, the author of Hebrews was exhorting them to not go back to the old ways of being made right with God.  For He says in Hebrews 4:6, “and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance.”  Basically, he was telling them it was impossible for them to get saved again, get forgiven again, be made right with God again by going back to Old Covenant ways of doing things.  Stop sacrificing bulls and goats, you are already forgiven and made right with God because of Christ’s one time only sacrifice, Hebrews 10:10.   He’s basically telling them, you’re an adult, you got a job, you drive a car, you own a house, you have kids, stop packing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into your Star Wars lunch box that you had when you were five and quit going back to kindergarten learning how to read and write your name again.  It’s not going to get you anywhere and do you any good!  And of course they were agricultural people so he compares these Christians to two different lands, Hebrews 4: 7-8.  The land that produces thorns and thistles, that is a Christian that is trying to go back to elementary school to earn God’s love and favor and that is never going to produce life or be useful.  But a Christian who presses on to maturity by resting in the finished work of Jesus and who lives by faith not dependent on their own works to earn favor, blessings or anything from the Lord, that person will be a piece of land that will bear much fruit. 

Today as Christians we can go back to the law to old covenant thinking.  No, we don’t sacrifice our pets, but instead we who know we are saved by grace turn sanctification into a work.  It’s something we have to do to become when all that is doing is putting us back in grade school stuck on our ABC’s and 123’s.  Yes, read your Bible, pray and fast if you want but don’t do those things to try and be made right with God or get Him to like you more or bless you.  You do those things to remind you that you already are good with God, holy, acceptable and pleasing and fully blessed because “by his will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus once and for all”, Hebrews 10:10.  It is finished, Christ did the work, now live from that place of being sanctified and already blessed, Ephesians 1:3.  Don’t fall back, with man it is impossible but with God all things are possible. 

So, the next time you’re tempted to go back to school to prove to your heavenly father you deserve your inheritance, just remember you got your degree.  Jesus did all the work, passed the test, got the P.H.D, received the diploma and put your name on it.  Your inheritance is free because He paid the price with His blood.  Now leave kindergarten ways behind, stop trying to work to prove your saved, keep your salvation, stay in fellowship with God, and try to earn his blessings by your good behavior.  All of that is our way of sacrificing bulls and goats and it’s impossible to grow spiritually with a bull and goat mentality.  Sadly, most Christians set aside their maturity for elementary stuff.  Instead of teaching, they are the ones being taught.  Thinking we are getting somewhere, we end up stuck on the ABC’s, The BIG TEN of MOSES.   Forgetting that we graduated through grace, we sit in our classrooms anyway.  We strive to be the first to be noticed, as we raise our hands up high to answer the questions.  “If only the teacher would pick me, I’m pretty good, I know the answers”, we tell ourselves.  And on and on we go, thinking we are all that as we recite our flash cards about the different types of colors there are over and over, “Red, Blue, Yellow!”  Maybe just maybe we think I might get that gold sticker after all.                             

Have you ever heard it in the church today, to give it all up for God because after all He gave it all up for you?  Or have you ever sang songs like “I surrender all”? Recently, I heard a worship song with the lyrics, “I am going to make it my one endeavor to match His surrender”.  What are we talking about?  How can we even fathom thinking about giving our all to God?  I understand where it’s coming from and I know that people mean well in their intentions. Many believers are trusting in Jesus for their salvation but their focus on works and surrendering all to Jesus can cause more harm to themselves and the body of Christ.  Instead of trying to make it our endeavor to match Christ’s surrender, we need to make it our endeavor to rest in Christ’s surrender.  Big difference.  One view puts the focus on you and you being a daily sacrifice by your efforts and the other puts the focus on Christ and all He’s done for you and His efforts. One of the reasons many falsely believe we need to pay God back with our lives or preach that we should sacrifice our lives through our works and give our all to Him, is found in Romans 12:1-2, NASB. It says, “Therefore I urge you, brethren by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is , that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”  These verses typically are used to encourage believers that in view of God’s mercies, everything Paul has talked about, the good news of the gospel and His amazing grace, being saved by faith and not by the law and so forth, we are now to go out and respond by getting to work for God. Since you believe the good news about your salvation, now let’s get busy and give Him all you got even if it means to sacrifice your whole life to the mission of God.  After all, since you really are saved this is what you will be doing they will say.  Some will say, it is to prove we are really Christians and some will even go so far as to scare you into thinking you lost your salvation if you don’t continually present yourself as a sacrifice for Jesus through your works.  It is also sometimes preached that renewing your mind is to get you to do more stuff for God.  It’s reading and studying the Bible more, memorizing verses, fasting food, keeping your church attendance up, signing up for a bunch of church ministries, going on that mission trip Haiti.  We are told as well, that not being conformed to the pattern of this world is about not doing naughty things.  Let’s avoid those worldly things you might enjoy, like dancing, listening to secular music, or watching too much Netflix or ungodly movies. Lets sacrifice it all for the heavenly rewards of doing more work for Jesus.  Now hear me out, I am not saying that we should go out and sin it up, nor am I suggesting that the more we view God’s mercy that it won’t compel us to have hearts that want to serve God and others. I’m also not suggesting God doesn’t want us to do do good works at all.  But what I am saying is that this passage is not encouraging the believer to go out and get busy for God, in fact it is rather a call to believe the gospel and just rest in your new identity.  It is a call for those that have believed the gospel, to see themselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus and to do it daily.  Presenting ourselves before God as a living sacrifice is simply to come to an agreement or confess that Jesus is Lord and Savior and that you can do nothing to get right with God. You can bring nothing of value of yourself to the altar for God.  All we do is lay dead on the altar of the cross and recognize our new life in Him.  See now that your holiness, and being pleasing to God and finding your acceptance is not from your sacrifice to Him but from the blood of Jesus and His sacrifice for us.  Paul is giving us a picture of one who believes the gospel, showing us that we are gifts to God the Father, holy and pleasing to God not because we gave up our all to Him, but simply because we are resting on the altar of the cross.  We know that we can do nothing to be pleasing and holy and acceptable to Him it is only through Christ’s blood that sanctifies us.  When Jesus was on earth he blasted the Pharisees for boasting in their gifts they were bringing to be sacrificed on the altar.  In Matthew 23:19, he says, “For which is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift?”  They were boasting in their gifts, their works, Jesus was reminding them the altar was what sanctified their gift not in the gift itself.  In other words, it’s the blood of the spotless animal on the altar that made the gift acceptable to God.  It was the aroma of the fattened part of the flesh of the animal that made it an acceptable fragrance to the nostrils of the Lord.  In the same way, Paul is painting a picture of us being the gift on the altar sanctified by His blood.  In view of everything the gospel does for us, believe who you are in the finished work of Christ.  Lay down on the altar of the cross, it is His blood that makes you holy, it is His broken flesh that is the sweet aroma that makes Him like you!  It has nothing to do with your works and you giving it your all for Him. It has everything to do with Him giving His all for you and you just resting in the gospel truth that when He died, you died, and when He rose to new life, so did you.  Galatians 2:20, “For I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me and the life I now live I live by faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.”  This is all Paul is saying.  He is saying that in view of the mercies of God, believe the gospel and see yourself as holy and acceptable in the finished work of Christ.  Then he tells us to not be conformed to the pattern of this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. This is a call for the believer to renew ones mind in the gospel truths of the great exchange.  Your old nature died and your new life in Christ arose and all because of the finished work of Christ.  You are a living sacrifice because you just responded in believing it is true.  The pattern of this world that we are not to conform to, is a reference to how one is generally accepted by this world.  The world says, you are never enough, not beautiful enough, not successful enough, do this and we will accept you, act a certain way and if you are not performing to our standards then we are going to reject you.  The religious world says the same thing.  For God to love you more, you got to do more, give it your all, surrender everything, do those daily disciplines to stay in God’s fellowship.  Work harder, try harder, fly straight, prove it by your works that you are really saved or haven’t lost your salvation.  All this does is tamper down the gospel and bring you into bondage.  Instead, we need to renew our minds in the freeing truth that we are unconditionally loved and already complete in Christ.   The simplicity of the gospel, is just believing and receiving, religion is do more to become, maybe He will love you.  When we daily remember that our righteousness is His righteousness and we can do nothing, but rest in His love, then His life which is ours will manifest more and more in our lives!  Then we will be able to prove the will of God.  What is the will of God?  To show others in particular, Christians that they too are completely loved.  In the context here in Romans we read all throughout this chapter, it is to love and serve others in the body of Christ.  It is to take the truths of God loving us so much because of His finished works and letting His life manifest in us to serve and build up the body of Christ!  It is a way of reminding one another, who have believed in Jesus, that we are all living sacrifices because of what He has done!  It is allowing God to prove again and again how much we are truly loved and accepted by God!  But in order to do that, in order to serve and love one another we must renew our minds in the finished work of Christ’s love for us.  We must believe that we are first loved and accepted, that we are righteous and good with God and renew our minds in this truth over and over until naturally we will find ourselves doing the will of God and loving others. 

So, the next time you hear the term give it your all for God because He gave His all for you, or make it your endeavor to match his surrender, don’t try to waste your efforts doing that, you will only burn yourself out on the treadmill of religious performance.  Instead, do what Paul says, and lay down on the altar of the cross, renew your mind in the truth that He gave it all for you, killed your old man and deposited all of Him in you instead.  All you have to do is strive to rest in the finished work of Christ and let His life flow out of you as you bask in His love.  Real living is not trying to surrender it all for Jesus, but simply resting in the gospel truths that He surrendered it all for you.

1 John 2:15-17

Do not love the world nor the things in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.  The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.

Have you ever read a passage like this one and started to freak out about whether you were loving the things of the world too much that maybe the love of the Father wasn’t in you?  I used to.  I used to read this and start soul searching, am I watching too many rated R movies, do I need to cut back on listening to secular music, maybe I need to go on a food fast or skip the sports and talk radio?  Maybe I’m not reading the Bible enough and reading too many fiction books and enjoying the pleasures of this earth too much, working too hard on my business?  Oh woe is me!  I never questioned my salvation but just questioned whether I was still in His fellowship or not.  Some read these passages and would question their salvation or others salvation, they call it the litmus test of whether you really are a Christian.  But remember Jesus said “Come to me and I will give you rest.”  If you are reading the scripture and a verse doesn’t give you rest to your soul but a restlessness and you find your eyes on you and what you have to do to perform, prove or keep your salvation or fellowship with God, then you are reading it wrong.  Context is key and sometimes as in the case of John’s writings he is not so on the nose, so you can’t take everything he says simply and plainly. His language is very ambiguous, “The Word was with God and the Word was God.”  For example John’s view of commandments is not what you would think, if you just read it plainly.  He is not talking about the law of Moses, or rules to live by but a living commandment who is Jesus kept in our hearts through the Spirit, 1 John 2:8, “On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you.”  The commandment is to believe the Gospel and love one another, 1 John 3:23, “This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us.”  When we believe in His love for us and not make it about our love for Him, the second command is not a burden or a work because it is an identity truth.  His love lives in us and we become love because that is who He is.  1 John 4:16,”God is love…” and then in the next verse, we read, “because as He is, so also are we in this world.”  By receiving His love by simply believing in Jesus’s love for us, we are identified now as children of LOVE.  It is not by our behavior but by our birth and now it’s in our spiritual DNA that we are lovers of God and lovers of one another.  We now can love God and others not trying to achieve His love but we love through and from His love which is already secured and already dwelling in our hearts. So there is no condition if we fail to love well or not, but when we rest in His love for us we will manifest His love because we know we are perfectly and always will be unconditionally loved forever.  “Love as I have love you”, is different from the Mosaic law to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Before it was a command to try and be on good terms with God but now it is a command within us kept by the Spirit when we believe the Gospel.  Non-believers can love those as themselves, that’s easy to do.  You can love someone with similar interests to you and that also likes the same things you like but this love is AGAPE, and it is only possible if you have AGAPE living already in your heart by faith in Jesus.  It is also true that in the context of John’s letter that to love one another is also referring to recognizing other believers who share the same testimony of trusting in the forgiveness of the shedding of the blood of Jesus on the cross.  We are told not to love in the way of Cain,  1 John 3:11-12. Cain slew his brother Abel because his deeds were righteous. Cain offered a sacrifice of works, the fruits from the ground and Abel saw himself as a sinner, received forgiveness through the bloodshed of an animal sacrifice. Cain did not recognize his sin, did not recognize his brother or his need for forgiveness and killed his brother. So loving your brother in the context here is to not hate and despise someone on the sole basis that they believe in Jesus.  That’s what the antichrists were doing that had infiltrated the church whom John was writing about. So, it is the same idea when we come to the words “Loving the world”.  It is in the way of Cain.  To love the world is to be like Cain who fled from the presence of God and built a life of cities, a system of life like an orphan having to fend for himself apart from God, Genesis 4.  The world has many aspects but the one in particular that John is referring to is the religious world.  This is the same self righteous world like the Pharisees that hated Jesus and hates us today, John 15:17-25.  We are as believers to be careful not to be seduced by the world into building our lives, our identity apart from trusting in the Father’s love for us.  So loving the world here is not am I drinking too much beer, smoking, cussing, doing chew and dating girls that do, it is simply saying don’t build your righteousness, your identity apart from trusting in Jesus and His sacrifice for you.  Don’t be like Cain and deny you are a sinner and hate those that believe in Jesus and build your identity through your own strength, your own merits, your own sacrifice of fruits from the works of your own hard labor. That ground which is your flesh is cursed. Instead, recognize your sin and need for a Savior and be like Abel who offered a sacrifice and received forgiveness from the blood shed of an animal, all foreshadowing the perfect lamb of God who was the ultimate sacrifice for us all.  So if you love the world that way, boasting in your own righteousness, then the love of the Father cannot and is not in you.  We do the will of God and live forever.  What is the will of God? John 6:40, “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” If you make this verse about your bad moral behaviors that sometimes as a Christian we fall into either every once and awhile or habitually, then you will have no assurance if you are right with God.  There is no Christian who has all their behaviors lined up perfectly. But our identity in Christ is sinless, perfect and complete and that is how He sees us. Well, what about those verses that say, children of the devil practice sinning, and children of God practice righteousness?  Again even with those words, John is not talking about your behavior because how do you know you are practicing enough righteous behavior or are sinning less enough to be good with God?  No, this is about believing in Jesus as well. The sin that the children of the devil practice is the sin that leads to death, not a sin the believer can commit.  We can commit sin as John says we can but never that sin that leads to eternal death because we believe in Jesus, 1 John 5:16-17.  We practice truth or practice righteousness because we simply believe not in our righteousness but in His and therefore we are righteous as he is righteous.   Remember, John tells us it’s obvious, 1 John 3:10, “By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious.”  So put to bed any doubts you have! If you have put your faith in the blood, in Christ’s love for you not your love for him, and you don’t hate Christians and wish they would die because they believe in Jesus, then rest in your identity in Christ.  Remember, it’s obvious, you don’t love the world as Cain, you keep the commands, you practice righteousness, you have the Father’s love in you, you have overcome the world because you have been born of Him!  1 John 5:4, “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world and this is the victory that has overcome the world-our faith.” It’s through faith in the finished work of Jesus and as you now live out the Christian life don’t let the World influence you and steal your crown, Revelation 3:11.  This is not your salvation you can lose but John is talking about not letting your joy and confidence get stolen by the philosophies of deceitful men.  Don’t forget who you already are because of His finished work on the cross.   Don’t let the World influence you to think you’re not enough and that there is something you still have to do to fend for yourself. Loving the world even the religious world will always produce anxiety because for the world to love you back you have to always perform.  Listen to the world cry out, “What have you done for me lately?  “Are you practicing enough righteousness?”  “Faith without works is dead”,  “there is too much talk of Grace in the church, we need to balance it out with more of God’s fear.”  Yes, all of that I have heard and that’s not the Heavenly Father’s voice, that’s the voice of Cain and unfortunately it’s coming from behind the pulpits in the church today!!! We may not take the way of Cain as far as our justification is concerned but in our Christian walk we can still be influenced and therefore live out miserable joyless lives on the treadmill of religious performance getting nowhere.  But receiving the Father’s love means it’s finished, Christ satisfied the requirements, now walk out your identity in Him as one who is unconditionally loved, and live through and from His love. Never do you have to fear am I good enough because perfect love casts out all fear of judgement, 1 John 4:18.  If Christ’s work was good enough for the Father then it should be good enough for me too, 1 John 2:2.   No, you are not an orphan having to perform to be accepted going from family to family but as John would say, we are “little children”,  forever beloved in the Father who has built His home in us.  We just need to remind ourselves daily that our home is also in Him.     

Recently, a video popped up on my YouTube thread.  It was one of those Hollywood award shows, the Golden Globes.  One of the actresses who won for best actress in a motion picture walked up to the podium and began to give her acceptance speech.  Her voice wasn’t the same for she was battling a cold but she began her speech anyway.  The speech was more of a political tirade from a leftist point of view and of course they panned to the admiring audience clapping and hanging on every word with agreement to every point she made.  I started to roll my eyes, and felt complete disdain for these rich elitists who I thought were so out of touch with the real world, completely bonkers in la la land. In my mind I started building walls to protect myself from her words penetrating the borders into my heart.  I was just about ready to scroll down and look at another video on my thread but it was then I heard the Spirit’s quiet voice whisper to me.  It was just a random thought that came into my head.  The words were those of compassion, like a mother who feels for her sick child, “Ah, she has a cold, Tom.  Pray for her healing.”  Then something clicked within me and I began to look beyond all the words of her speech, the political mumbo jumbo that I disagreed with and I saw her through a different lens.  I began to see her in the light of the cross. I saw something we both had in common.  We both are deeply loved by a merciful God who chose to die for us, to rescue us from sin and death and forgive us!  Now of course she has to one day receive that forgiveness by faith but that doesn’t change the fact that when He sees her, He looks upon her with deep fondness and out of this world love.  I know that sounds crazy, to pray for her cold but that is our God! He just saw that she had a cold and no matter what she was saying, all He thought about was wanting her to feel better.  I started feeling for her too and all I wanted in that moment was to make her a chicken noodle soup and give it to her.  God is love.  He is not some cranky old white guy wearing his red MAGA (Make America Great Again) cap just looking forward to when we mess up so he could say to us, “You’re fired!”.  He’s the merchant who sells everything He has to enter into the darkness of our ocean just to seek us, the pearl of great price! Matthew 13:45-46. He’s the woman who loses a coin, but lights a lamp, searches and sweeps carefully till she finds it.  Luke 15:8-10.  We are that coin of great worth and value! God is love, AGAPE!  Unconditional love, that’s who He is and always has been and will be and that’s how God sees us.  He doesn’t get hung up so easily like we do on behaviors and political agendas, He doesn’t side with evil but He paid the price on the cross to deal with evil and provides you and me and all of humanity, even the worst of it, the opportunity to encounter this gift of grace.  He wants to dwell with us and He doesn’t care what lengths He has to go to get to us.

In John 4:29, we read about the woman at the well, “Come see a man who told me all that I ever did.  Can this be the Christ?”  Here a Samaritan woman is telling her family and friends to come meet Jesus.  Why was she so excited about the fact that He told her everything she ever did?  After all it wasn’t real flattering, what Jesus said of her.  He pointed out that she had five husbands and the one she was with was not her husband.  Some like to point out that Jesus was condemning and pointing out her flaws, “Repent or else”.  I don’t think so, she wouldn’t of been so thrilled to bring everyone to meet him.  No, she knew her status, she was a woman, she was looked down upon, on the bottom of the totem pole of society.  She also was a Samaritan and was hated by the Jews, was labeled a half breed, pagan and unclean.  Last of all she was a lawbreaker, an adulteress, sexually promiscuous.  The disciples when they saw Jesus with her, couldn’t believe it.  I could hear the disdain in their voices, “Why are you talking to HER?”, verse 27.  But with Jesus all of that didn’t matter.  Instead of avoiding Samaria, like most self righteous Jews did in those days, He chose to pass through her town and came to where she was at.  He told her all that she had done, not to judge her or make her feel bad, but because He wanted her to know that even her sinful lifestyle wasn’t going to stop Him from loving her.  He sat down with her and looked beyond the cultural stigma, didn’t get hung up on her sin, and He engaged with Her, He looked past the flesh and saw her value through the eyes of the Spirit, John 4:23-24.  This is why she was so overjoyed.  She could not believe that a Jewish man claiming to be the Messiah would actually sit down and serve her a drink, not the other way around. How could this be? 

I am convinced that the more I see myself wrapped up in His unconditional love for me and the more I marvel at the wonders of the cross, the more it changes not only how I see myself but how I see others.  I no longer see them in the flesh but in the spirit.  My prayer is that we the Church would be a people who know we are fully loved by God, our Papa, and that we would be willing to sit with the sinner, not quick to scold them.  They don’t need to be told what we are against, just how much Christ is for them.  But we won’t do this unless we know like the Samaritan Woman figured out that we are fully accepted! This is not by our performance or service but simply by His grace. Ephesians 1:6 (NKJ) tells us “To the praise of His glorious grace, by which he has made us accepted in the Beloved.”  Yes, the gospel is an invitation to accept Jesus but it’s more than that, it’s the stunning announcement that He accepts you first! And just like the Samaritan woman, may we rest in the fullness of this truth that we just want to tell everyone else to come and meet this Jesus that knows everything about me, my hiccups, my messes, my dark skeletons and yet sits with me and offers me living water!  Let’s venture out with Jesus, putting on Christ, our scuba gear of love, and dive deep into the darkness of the ocean floor, seeking clams to draw out pearls of great price, all for the simple delight of Papa!

1 Corinthians 5:16 (The Message)

Most of us are familiar with the children’s tale about a little girl from a farm in Kansas who gets whisked away by a tornado to another world; an imaginary world of yellow brick roads, a wise wizard, talking animals, flying monkeys, good fairies, munchkins and wicked witches.  Yes, the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz has been one of those timeless classics that continue to entertain kids of all ages. Even the song, “Somewhere over the Rainbow”, is etched in our memories, a song of longing for hope, encouraging listeners to keep dreaming and believing in a better future.  Of course, Dorothy, the little girl in the story realizes in the end of the movie that what she longed for: acceptance, love and family was not over the Rainbow, like some magical place called Oz, it was always where she belonged, her farm in Kansas.  After all, there is no “place like home”.  

Sometimes as Christians we too need a reminder that the things we long for, our acceptance, love, godliness, our home, we already have it.  It’s found in Christ.  For most of us let’s face it, when we first accept Christ as our Savior, we become “Somewhere over the Rainbow” Christians.  We sing of better days, long for what will be in the sweet bye and bye, we strive to be right with God, we hope and pray for what we think we don’t have like patience, love, godliness and we spend most days dreaming for a home away from home, anticipating our mansion up in the sky.  Yes it is true we don’t have the perfectly spiritual bodies yet and there will one day be a new heaven and earth and that is something to look forward to but we have so much we’ve been given now!  We don’t have to be chasing after rainbows when all along everything we need is right inside of us.  You don’t have to wait till you die, in fact you already have died.  The Bible says that we have been crucified with Christ, Galatians 2:20.  Romans 6:3-7 tells us, we died to the sinful nature when Christ died, we were baptized or immersed in His death, buried and rose again with Him through the Holy Spirit.  When He died the Old nature died too and we were given new life.  2 Peter tells us, “His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.  By these he has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desires.”  Do you see it?  He has given us, past tense it’s already done.  What has He given us?  His divine nature!  Christian, your nature is not changing little by little, you are changed!  Then in verses 5-7, Peter exhorts us, “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness, with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self control with endurance, endurance, with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.”  Most of us read that and see the words effort, we see the words, supplement or in some translations, it says to add to your faith and then we go back into “Somewhere over the Rainbow” Christians following the yellow brick road of doing more, reading our Bibles, praying harder trying to sin less to avoid the flying monkeys and the Wicked Witch.  We seek God like He’s some far away Wizard and somewhere along the way if we prove ourselves worthy by our diligence, He will give us a medal, a badge for our courage, and ruby slippers for our feet.  The truth is we are to make every effort but it’s not to produce the virtues, it’s the same way we received faith, not by works but by grace.  We make every effort to know Christ and make every effort to remind ourselves, renew our minds that we have been given everything required and needed for life and godliness!  It’s already been given to us!  Make every effort not to work for it but to rest in the fact that just like faith is a gift, we have also been supplied with all the other virtues, the fruit of the Spirit.  It comes with our new nature and the only way for us to know this is to believe his promises that this is already true of us!  All Dorothy had to do to get home, was not to click her heels but to wake up from her dream and see she never left to begin with, and everything she longed for was there all along.  And that is true for us too!  Stop skipping along the yellow brick road of trying to overcome in your own effort the lions, tigers and bears of this life, and just remind yourself, that in Christ you have everything inside of you already.  You don’t have to wait till you die, you already have died and now Christ who is your life, dwells in you and everything that is in Him is now in you.  The many rooms that He said He was building was not some mansion, some pie in the sky, it was You! Wake up from your dreaming and into the reality that you are now His abode and He is your abode and together, “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home”.    

Throughout my education years, I have experienced great amazing teachers and I have had my share of not so great teachers.  I remember when I was in seventh grade, my French class teacher would hand out worksheets for us to do, and then sit behind his desk and read a book all the while yelling at us from time to time for being too loud.  Kids would be burning pencils, throwing spit wads, he would do nothing about it, just warn us to stop it and then he’d go back to handing out more worksheets.  I could tell he was more concerned about the chatter because he couldn’t concentrate on his book rather than concerned about us learning something.  He just wanted to get through his day, so all one had to do was just put up and shut up and try to do your worksheet and he’d give you an A.  Maybe it was because we were a special education French class, that he looked down at us like we were a joke and treated us like we were punchlines.  Who knows, but you could tell he had no desire to be there and neither did we the students.  Other teachers I had, would just bore you to death with long lectures, there was very little interaction, just a head mouthing “blah, blah, blah.”  And of course you had those communist dictators, the ones that if you just looked at them wrong, would send you to the principal office or let’s face it, if they could, they would send you off to the gallows, ordering “off with your head!”.  You know, those lousy, miserable souls that just made you want to join a rebellion with other students, march down the school halls, and shout the war cry made famous from Pink Floyd, “Hey teachers, leave those kids alone!” But every once and awhile there would be someone like a refreshing wind on a hot summer day, that would blow on us as a cool breeze, a wind of inspiration.  A teacher, who didn’t need to demand our respect because he or she treated you with respect.  They didn’t talk down to you but saw you as a person, as someone who had worth, potential and encouraged you rather than give you a beat down if you got it wrong or asked a dumb question.  I remember one of my favorite teachers was my math professor, Mr. Connors.   I hated math, it was my least favorite subject, I didn’t do very well but he always worked with me, never made me feel stupid and helped me so that I could be my best.  I remember one time before he came into our classroom, one of the students got up and on the chalkboard, drew a picture of the map of Canada as a sad face with tear drops and wrote the words “steroids”.  I was living and going to school in Canada at this time and this was a reference to the 1988 Olympics, when track star, Ben Johnson who was representing Canada, won the gold medal and broke the world record for fastest man ever.  He then later tested for steroids and the gold medal and world record was quickly taken away.  All of Canada was embarrassed and mourned that day.  Mr. Connors, when he came in, saw the drawing on the chalkboard. I’ll never forget, instead of erasing it or yelling at the person who drew it, he spent the whole hour talking about it.  He asked us how we felt.  He listened to us vent our frustrations and let out our anger and sadness.  There was never any mention of math that day nor was there any homework.  He didn’t care about math, it could wait another day, he cared about us and it showed.  That moment really impacted me.  It made me want to be my best for him.  He even got together with another math teacher and planned a way for us to take our final exams at a local campground.   Afterwards we spent the beginning of our summer vacation, sleeping in cabins, canoeing, swimming and hiking.  He was an awesome teacher and he is forever in my heart because he cared for me not as a student but as a person, as if I was his own kid.

As Christians, we too can find ourselves under two teachers.  Meet Professor Law.  He is strict, He never smiles, He is about following his rules his way.  He always points out our shortcomings, tells us what we need to do in order to become, and when He grades our papers, if we get one question wrong, he fails us and then sends us to the principal’s office to be punished.  He demands perfection and nothing else matters.  Yes, this is where most Christians often think they have to attend class in order for God to be pleased with them and give them their diploma.  But they forget that they don’t have to take his class anymore.  Jesus, who was born under the law, came and took our test for us.  He got the A and all we need to do is sign our names on the test under his.  By faith we passed the test of perfection, we have our diploma.  We were the kids in the group project that did nothing but got the A cause the other kid, Jesus, did all the work.  The Bible tells us that when we believe in Christ, we are now dead to the law.  Not just the ceremonial law but all of it, including the ten commandments. Romans 7:4,6, tells us, “So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead…But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.”   We are now enrolled in another program taught by Professor Grace.  He smiles, He says we are already perfect, we are already blessed, loved, forgiven, and have everything we need for life and godliness.  “Just be yourselves”, he encourages us.  “Don’t try harder, just be who you are, perfectly loved!” 

Christian, if you find yourself trying to study and make good grades so that God doesn’t expel you from the program, stop it, leave your books, and shout,  “Hey, Law leave God’s kids alone!” His classroom was never really meant for you to stay there, but to point out your need for a better tutor.  You’ve already got a free hall pass, just make your way down to Professor Grace’s classroom.  Where is it?  The Spirit will lead you, it’s just on the other side of the cross.

Galatians 3:23-24 NKJ

But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed.  Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.  

Titus 2:11-12

The grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people.  It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.

When John F. Kennedy was president of the United States, there is a famous photograph of him inside the Oval Office.  He is sitting behind the Resolute desk working, looking over his papers and below him, under the Resolute desk is seated on the floor, none other than his son, John F. Kennedy Junior.  He was just a toddler at the time but what an amazing photo.  Here you have the most powerful man in the world at the time, in an office that to get to it, you would have to go through so much clearance and security.  As you know, not just anyone can enter the office, only those who are of utmost importance, government officials and world leaders not to mention the rich and famous who have influenced our lives today as we know it.   A room where top secret conversations and plans are carried out, a room which represents the American presidency and the power and responsibilities that come with it.  To some it is considered a sacred ground in Washington.  Yet, here was this toddler playing on the floor under the President’s desk.  Why?  Did he do anything special, was he a world leader, did he have to go through security, did he accomplish some great feat, do something incredible to help out humanity, achieve world peace?  No, he didn’t do anything.  He was simply J.F.K.’s kid! As believers we too have been given access into a room much more sacred than any man made Oval office.  We have been given access to the holiest of holies, the ever present throne room of God’s grace.  Was it because of anything we did, or anything we can achieve, or do in the future?  Nope, it is all because of this one truth.  We are his kids!  When Jesus died on the cross, he said, “It is finished”.  When we believe on Jesus and in the finished redemptive work on the cross for the salvation of our lives, we are born again into the family of God, John 1:12.  This gives us now access into the grace in which we now stand, Romans 5:2.  And we can rejoice in this truth.  We are no longer under the law and its demands on our lives.  We are under grace where sin and death has no control over us, Romans 6:14.  Grace says it is finished, we are children of God, we have been blessed in the heavenly places (Ephesians 1:3), we are seated with Christ (Ephesians 2:6), we are in the light and no longer in darkness(Colossians 1:13-14), we are sons of the most living God(Romans 8:15-16)!  So, why do we live like we need special access to the Oval Office?  Why do we approach God as if we are mere men?  Strangers, thinking we have to try harder, or do a list of things to obtain special clearance and status just to enter into His presence?  Did you know that when you first trusted in Christ the Bible says we have been crucified with Christ(Galatians 2:20), we have been given a new nature(2 Corinthians 5:17)?  We are family now, no longer strangers or aliens but citizens, belonging to the household of God(Ephesians 2:13-19).  We can now enter into the throne room of grace with boldness because we have been brought near by the blood(Hebrews 4:16, Ephesians 2:13).  We now have access to all the blessings that come with being a kid in the White House of Christ!  We are included in His presence and now have the privilege to participate in the King’s business in which we have no business to begin with.  So dwell on this truth and be thankful.  When false teachers, the enemy, your old mind wants you to go through security first, do this, give up that, to get to your daddy, you just get out your birth certificate.  You are His kid, now go take your place where you rightfully belong, under the Resolute desk of His grace.   

When I was about sixteen, I remember sitting in study hall in the library trying to focus on my homework.  As I looked up from my books, I tried to focus my attention on a poster from across the room and to my surprise I couldn’t make out the words.  It looked a little blurry to me.  I resisted at first and thought it’s probably because I’m tired.  I would rub my eyes, tell myself it’s nothing, try to sleep it off, but it still wouldn’t get better.  I found myself the next day not being able to read the chalkboard from the back of the classroom.  Finally, I came to terms with myself and knew something was wrong and I needed to get my eyes fixed.  I sought help and after visiting the doctor, he confirmed what I suspected all along, I was near sighted.  Shortly afterwards, I finally got my first pair of glasses and it was such a relief to function normally again. Still to this day, I use my glasses for driving at night, watching television or for reading things at a distance.  Without them I wouldn’t be able to have perfect vision.  I was thinking about this the other day, when it comes to our spiritual eyes, a lot of times we don’t want to admit we have eyesight problems. Some of us as Christians, we take off our glasses given to us by God and instead of seeing ourselves, people, circumstances, and even our Heavenly Father through the lenses of faith, we tend to take them off and look at life in our natural eyes.  We would rather spend our energy squinting, trying to interpret what we see through our own blurry vision. But all that ends up doing is leading us down a path stumbling like a blind person in the dark.  Remember the song, I was blind but now I see? God’s intention after saving us was never to prescribe us glasses so that we would take them off again.  There’s a lot of Christians who are nearsighted, forgotten they have been forgiven from their sins.  No it’s time to take the blinders off and put on the glasses of faith.  You see the glasses are the gospel truths of who we are in Christ and faith is the lens by which we see ourselves and how we see God the Father.  Jesus says if you have seen me you have seen the Father.  How many pictures have you seen in cathedrals, or history books, where Jesus is smiling or laughing?  I haven’t seen one, in fact I have seen many where he is serious, not smiling, somber, even mad.  This unfortunately is the image of how man over the centuries has seen the Father.  A hard taskmaster ready to get out his whip and beat you.  But that’s not the Father at all, that’s religion.  He’s the good shepherd, He laid down His life for His enemies, He’s the one who came to wash our feet, eat and drink with sinners and tax collectors in their homes.  He is the one who said to the prostitute I don’t condemn you and to a thief and swindler up on a tree, He looked directly at Zacchaeus and said I see you, I am coming to your house today.  You see our image of the Father is how we are going to view people.  Those in the natural eyes of religion look at the woman who poured perfume on Jesus’s feet and say to her, “that perfume could’ve been sold to the poor”, instead of seeing the beautiful meaning behind her actions through the eyes of Jesus.  Paul said he never looked at people from the flesh but by the new man.  That’s how Christ saw Paul.  That’s why he was able to view people from a heavenly perspective and call them saints and temples even though their experience was fleshly.  Paul’s vision of God had changed him.  On the road to Damascus Paul wanted to kill Christians because he had a blurred view of who the Father really was but when He finally saw Him in the form of Christ, he saw His grace and his unconditional love and his response was “Lord what do I do?”  When we allow ourselves again to put on the glasses of the gospel truths of who the Father is and how much we are loved by Him and how much we have in Christ, it will change our lives in how we look at others, ourselves, our situations good or bad.  Paul had learned the secret of contentment in His situations and to him he could see that no matter what, to live is Christ to die is gain. When you see others do you see them as the Father sees them or do you see them in your flesh, your self righteousness?  When your circumstances tell you that you lack, do you see God as abandoning you or still for you? It’s time for the church to get their eyes checked.  There’s a hurting world that needs to know and see this love of Christ but we are too busy complaining, judging others, obeying rules, cleaning our glasses, confessing our sins over and over thinking if we just rub our eyes a little bit more than maybe our focus would be clear as a bell!  But all along we just have to put on the glasses of the Gospel!   See again child of God!  See who you really are, see who the Father really is, see your neighbor for the first time, your enemy in a different light. See potential in people, see your trial as an opportunity.  Are you looking for God, don’t look up, look down.  He’s right there all along, right before you on His knees, with eyes of love and a smile as big as any, holding a rag ready to wash your feet. 

First Corinthians, 5:16

From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh.  Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.

Ephesians 1:18

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.