exposed for what it is

Victory means—at least in part—being able to see something for what it really is. It means exposing that which is hidden or revealing a fraud.

The death of Jesus exposed the cruel powers of religion (in the Jewish system) and politics (in the Roman system) and the supernatural (in the Satanic government). We can no longer go on thinking religion is benign, for it killed an innocent man. We can no longer go on thinking government is our highest protection, for it executed an innocent man. We can no longer think of the supernatural world as ambivalent, because it destroyed an innocent man.

These powers did their worst to Christ—they were forced to, in order to finally be rid of his meddling--but in so doing, they revealed that they are not good.

The resurrection was the ultimate triumph over these powers, demonstrating that even when they were pushed to do their worst, Christ could not be outdone or outlasted.

The devil exceeded his rights in his treatment of Christ and was therefore deprived of his rights and lost his kingdom.

Satan crushed Adam because Adam sinned. Death entered the world through the sin of the first man. However, Satan tried to push death also onto a sinless man, but this was not just. The wages of sin is death; where there is no sin there ought to be no death. Satan has overextended his authority.

The devil is like a tyrant who tortures those who fall into his hands; but now he meets a king's son, whom he unjustly beats to death. This death then leads to the deliverance of others, as the king shows up with his army for revenge.

The devil is like a creditor who imprisons those who owe him; but now he imprisons someone who owes him nothing. He has exceeded his rights, and he is deprived of his dominion.

The devil found Christ to be innocent, but killed him anyway. He spilled innocent blood and took what he had no right to take. Therefore, it is fitting and right and just that the Father dethrone Satan and give his power to someone else, for he has proven himself unfit to rule.

My friend Elaine is a Wiccan. She tries to tell me earth-based mysticism isn't harmful, that it's ”white magic.” I've tried to convince her otherwise, because I know sooner or later her dabbling in the occult will be exposed for what it really is: pagan spirituality. She's messing with dark powers masquerading as good ones. Victory will come for Elaine when she finally realizes what is actually going on and runs to take shelter in the cross.

My friend Farouq has a Ph.D. in political science, and he believes socialism will ultimately prove to be the way forward for global, stable government. I've tried to tell Farouq he's relying on human agency to supply the kind of peace only Christ can offer. But he thinks I'm naive. Victory for Farouq will come when he realizes world peace will not come through strength of arms or skill in diplomacy, but only through changed hearts. And then he'll let Christ change his.

My friend Jordan is a priest in the Episcopal Church and a staunch liturgist. He thinks all Protestants have abandoned the true faith in favor of fads. Jordan wants all Christian faiths to reconcile and fall again under one unified church leadership, including Catholics (though Jordan thinks they should follow the Archbishop of Canterbury). But religion doesn't save. Not even the Christian religion. Victory for Jordan will come when he realizes that our means of following Jesus should never obfuscate actually following Jesus.

Victory comes when things are exposed for what they really are. When half-truths are revealed as lies and competing allegiances are settled and accounted for.

Victory, for you, will come as you are exposed for who you really are. And whose.

Do you belong to Christ? Have you been crucified with him? Resurrected into new life? Are you a participant in his divine nature?

Or are you still looking for victory through something else?

fisherman god

Hosea 13.14 says, “I will ransom them from hell; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be your plague; O hell, I will be your destruction.”

One of God's favorite tricks is to give evil men all they want, only to have their evil desires prove to be their undoing.

God acts like a fisherman who binds a line to his fishing rod, attaches a sharp hook, fixes on it a worm, and casts it into the water. The fish comes, sees the worm but not the hook, and bites, thinking that he has taken a good morsel; but the hook is fixed firmly in his gills, and he is caught.

That's exactly what God does in Christ. The Son becomes a man, and the Father sends him into the world where the devil finds him like a worm and swallows him whole. But it is like food he cannot digest. Christ sticks in his gills and Satan has to spit him out, and yet he can't. The devil chokes on Jesus and is taken captive in his ruin.

God's cleverness often goes unregarded, which is a shame, since it is the basis for so many great moments in modern fiction and film, just as it is in real life. It is God's cleverness that stands in the wings of the climax to the Harry Potter series—wherein Voldemort's killing spell backfires—and to the Matrix trilogy—where Agent Smith's victory becomes, also, his defeat. It was unrestrained evil that led to Irina Spalko's death in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and unrestrained evil that led to Moriarty's death in SherlockHolmes: Game of Shadows, and unrestrained evil that led to Gollum falling into Mount Doom in The Lord of the Rings.

God's great trick is to give evil men over to their sinful desires (see Romans 1.24), to be destroyed by them.

What are we to learn from this?

For starters, we ought to recognize that God's prohibitions against sinful behavior are not arbitrary. Sin destroys life. If you want to enjoy life and find fulfillment, meaning, and satisfaction, then be obedient to the God who gave you that life to enjoy in the first place.

We should also recognize that when people stand in our way and caution us against sinful behavior, they are God's means of interrupting our self-destruction. Our real worries should begin when all opposition to our selfishness ceases. That's the moment God has finally taken his hands off our lives and said, in effect, "be my guest, Moriarty."

other people

Awhile back I was feeling super frustrated. There were some folks close to me who seemed to constantly be getting in the way of my plans and my desires, whether unconsciously or consciously, intentionally or naively. It was all I could do to keep from shouting out at them in frustration, opposing them in the same way they were opposing me, or writing them off as irrelevant and useless altogether.

Suffice to say, none of those options are truly available to followers of Christ.

Having tried to reason with them (to no avail), I was left with simply tolerating them. I told myself that God was sanctifying me through their behavior, that this was the means through which he was growing me into a better human being, and that so long as I conducted myself appropriately and acted in love, God would vindicate me in the end.

Thing is, this nonsense went on for a long, long time. And I have a temper. I was really angry all the time.

But no one saw it. Or, at least, no one outside of my wife and closest friend knew I was frustrated with anything. I never lost my cool. I never raised my voice. I never said anything I'd later regret. I managed myself perfectly.

But it still sucked, and I wanted it to be over. I wanted victory, and it couldn't come fast enough. I began to despair that I would ever be rid of this ceaseless annoyance, this constant animosity.

Then one day, my friend John came to me and said, "hey man, I know what you're going through, and I know it's tough, but I want you to know you're doing really well with it. God is proud of you."

Aha!

His words gave me renewed vigor to keep on doing what I had been doing. Since I couldn't fix the problem, my best option was to suffer well. And even though I was (quite frankly) sick to death of putting up with it all, my friend's words allowed me to continue doing what I needed to do in order to see it through to the end and finish well.

Do you see?

I was longing for victory, but I already had it. I was experiencing victory in the midst of all the garbage I had to endure because the Spirit of God was, in fact, sanctifying me through those miserable moments. God's work was being done in me in the middle of it all. It wasn't pleasant, but I was growing stronger and more self-controlled every minute. But I needed my friend in order to realize it. I needed someone to come up to me and say, "good job, don't quit."

We have a responsibility to each other to congratulate and validate and authenticate a life well lived. We need to give each other kudos, especially in the suck, so we don't lose heart. Of course we're not trying to live righteously in order to impress others, but we do need the affirmation of other people from time to time to let us know our efforts aren't wasted.

God speaks to us through other people. When they see our goodness, and tell us, it's like God is telling us too.

Consequently, we need to do a better job of seeing the good in others and telling them about it, so they are encouraged too.

Speak up. No one should be the gag in the mouth of God.

win back who you are

Carmel and I recently began watching Downton Abbey. It's not my kind of show, yet I can't help but love it. The characters are fascinatingly flawed, and the plot never tips over into melodrama.

Perhaps the main foil in the show is the ladies' maid Miss O'Brian. O'Brian is bitter, resentful, and mean-spirited. She always works to harm others, sow mischief, and meddle in the affairs of everyone around her. However, toward the end of the first season, there's a moment when O'Brian walks past a mirror and sees herself just as she's in the middle of some particularly nasty business. Looking at herself square in the eyes, O'Brian softens and says "this isn't you." I won't give anything of the plot away save to clarify that O'Brian's transformation-work from wicked old bat to new creation is a long way from over, but I'd like to point out that small moment of personal victory. Because, for however brief a time, O'Brian came face to face with who she had become, and she didn't like it.

Victory means winning back who you are, truly. It means reclaiming your God-given identity in Christ. It means recovering the best possible version of yourself and cooperating with the Spirit to be that version of you all the time.

In Christ, you have a better identity, a truer one. In Christ, you're more than a conqueror. You're a child of the king, and you've been imbued with dignity and worth from the moment you were born.

Why did Christ come down from heaven? To destroy sin, overcome death, and give life to man.

And what does that mean for us? Firstly, it means realizing we are no longer bound to our sin, our ill temper, or our misdeeds. The lie of this world is that you are powerless against your addictions, your genes, your ethnicity, your heritage, and your desires. The truth is that you are not a slave. THIS IS NOT WHO YOU ARE.

Don't forget it.

victims and victors

A victor acts a certain way and a victim another. Victors enjoy their spoils. They celebrate. They laugh. They throw parties. Victims diminish into the background, shy and reclusive for fear of being hurt. A victor wants to taste victory again. A victim wants no part in any endeavor where he may not win, choosing to isolate himself and villanize others.

Christ won, and shares his victory with us, and yet we live like victims.

We must learn to live in victory, to walk in victory, to enjoy the spoils of war.

One of the simplest ways to enjoy the victory we have in Christ is to look at your life and consider all that you should be, but aren't, negatively. For example, I recently spoke to a woman whose husband had an affair and left her alone with her children. She was devastated. She told me, "I should hate him and hate [the woman he ran off with], but I don't. I can't forgive them yet, but I'm already convinced I will be able to. Maybe soon." This woman, by all rights, should have been bitter, hateful, resentful, and full of spite. She should have identified herself as a victim. But she didn't.

That's victory--to know that even though you've been hurt, you're still willing to forgive.

To find solace, even though you should be riddled with hate.

To have peace, even in the midst of life's conflicts.

Every time you should be something (bad), and you're not, that's victory.

Over the years I've come to adopt a few little formulae to help me process the work of Christ in me. They're simple really, but I find myself writing them on scraps of paper or in the margins of my Bible. Because they help.

For example, I might write: I'm _____ (happy, good, hopeful), even though I'm ______ (suffering, flawed, hurting), because Christ _____ (is with me, forgives me, promises me something better and has been proven faithful). As I brainstorm all the possible responses to these simple blank spaces, I'm amazed at how prevalent his victory actually is in me. His work is so comprehensive that the least strenuous application of my will and thoughts bring forth a fountain of true possible answers.

Another little favorite is to write: I should be ______ (fed up, crushed, violent), but I'm not. I AM _______ (patient, resilient, peaceful beyond all understanding). I think what I like most about this second option is the play on words. I AM is a common way to refer to God, harkening back to Exodus when God revealed himself to Moses. It makes sense to me that the most victorious aspects of my life are the ones where I am most like I AM.

And, of course, I’m no longer a victim. I am a victor, precisely because the victory was won by I AM.

I just need to start living like it.