My last blog post (see here) was how our methods are actually Satan’s schemes. What are these schemes? They are basically distractions that keep us from seeking God, from following Jesus by the leading of the Holy Spirit. We don’t need to because we already know what to do!

We get the Christian book which makes us feel like we’re doing it God’s way because there are verses in there in a few places. Then we imitate man instead of imitating Christ. But, it’s just wisdom of the world.

That’s his scheme, to get us to follow the wisdom of this world instead of the wisdom of God. Of course, the wisdom of the world is foolishness to God (1 Cor. 3:19). And we’re foolish to follow it. We make ourselves out to be fools when we do.

Can I tell you about a couple times that I played the fool?

When I married, I wanted to be the best wife. So, I read “the book.” I did what they told me to do.

When I had kids, I wanted to be the best mom. So, I read “the book.” I did what they told me to do.

What’s the problem with following Christian advice?

It’s a BIG problem. It was IDOLATRY.

I was following after man instead of following after God.

Thankfully, the Lord pulled me out of my idolatry, though it was painful all around. He redeemed it as only He can.

Yes, there is a wisdom of this world that is outright ungodly, but the more insidious wisdom of the world is what comes from those who call themselves The Church, who call themselves by the name of Christ. They say they speak for Him.

By the way, this idea of wisdom and especially method is what kills churches, ministries, and organizations. There were also organizations like YWAM that started out by following the Holy Spirit. There’s a story in YWAM’s history about the first group that did a drama to share Christ. It was a success! Guess what EVERY SINGLE YWAM team does now? A drama! To maybe no success at all. Okay, I don’t know if every team does it, but during my fourteen years overseas as a missionary, every YWAM team that came through did a wordless drama that had no impact.

Why do they do it? It’s wisdom to share with a wordless drama since they don’t know the language. It’s a way to communicate. They’ve seen it be really effective at times. Of course, it’s all denying the leading of the Spirit and the power of God to overcome any obstacle.

You may grow your church by following man’s method of coffee bars and loud music, but you won’t grow the Body of Christ, which is your actual mission.

We need to keep our eyes on Jesus. Anytime we’re attempting to follow after another’s steps to success, we need to recognize the temptation to idolatry and refuse to follow anyone but Christ alone. We need to not be lazy and spend the time seeking Him, and we need to trust Him enough to wait on Him.

You can’t call yourself a follower of Jesus if you are living by man’s book, and not God’s.

I have told people to throw away their Christian how-to books: those books on parenting, on marriage, on leading a small group, on having a prayer ministry, on having quiet times, on being in business, on missions, any of it, all of it.

What’s the problem?

Imitating what those authors did is following man, not God.

God does something great in someone’s life or ministry and they write a book and people try to copy their success. The problem is that it wasn’t their success. It was God’s.

While we’re all hopefully on the same path of wanting to be transformed into the image of Christ, He’s working out different things in our different lives and at different times and in different ways. We don’t get to play God and decide how He’s going to do it.

And like with all sin, it comes down to that – playing God. It’s the sin of the garden and it’s what is still with us today, this wanting to be in charge, take control. Of course, if we were God, we’d know what to do and wouldn’t have to copy someone else, but we ignore that part and try to take what we see as someone else’s success and apply it to ourselves. We try to make it happen.

It won’t succeed. If you do happen to have some outward appearance of success, it isn’t real success because it’s not what God chose for you. It will likely cause trouble down the road.

I’ve known that methods are the enemy of life in Christ. Now I know why.

There’s a Greek word methodos which is found in just two verses. The word is not translated method in either, but it is a root of our word method. How is it translated? Schemes. Both verses talk about the devil’s schemes to get us.

So that we may no longer be children, tossed to and from by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

Eph. 4:14

Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

Eph. 6:11

Satan’s schemes, our methods.

Following methods means we haven’t sought God and aren’t willing to seek His ways or wait on Him. It means we can’t trust Him to pull through, so we have to make it happen ourselves. That’s what we’re really doing, even while we convince ourselves we are doing it “God’s way” by following the how-to guide with a few verses tucked in there.

You have to choose who you are going to follow. Are you going to follow man? Or are you going to submit to being led by the Spirit? Only one will lead you where you want to be heading.

Before Jonah needed delivering from the belly of the great fish, he needed deliverance from the ocean and from himself. The trial of the fish was his deliverance first. Jonah was disobeying God, a sure way leading to death. He faced death being thrown into the ocean. Being swallowed by the great fish was an act of mercy, God’s deliverance. God saved him from drowning and gave him a chance to repent and to obey God’s command to go to Nineveh.

Genesis 8 begins with, “And God remembered Noah.” He then delivers him from the ark by sending a wind to dry up the waters. Noah needed deliverance from the tool of deliverance. The ark itself was a trial. Their family spent more than a year on the boat. The trial of the ark was deliverance from the destruction of the flood.

The Israelites’ deliverance from Egypt was their trial of the wilderness.

Ruth’s trial of her husband’s death and leaving her homeland and family was her deliverance, bringing her into God’s family.

Rahab’s trial of faith, hiding the spies and lying to her countrymen, was her deliverance.

When Paul tells the Corinthians to kick the sinner out of the church, the trial is for his deliverance. When he says he’s turned “such a one over to Satan,” the tribulation is for their deliverance. It leads to repentance.  

We shouldn’t be quick to seek an end to our trials and tribulations. They are meant for our deliverance.

God is our deliverer. He delivered Jonah from the belly of the great fish. He delivered Noah from the ark. He delivered Ruth from her situation and Rahab from destruction. He is the deliverer. Running to every other means of ending our trials and tribulations means that we are missing the point entirely. It’s declaring we don’t believe God is in control, that we don’t believe God’s will is being done in our lives.

If we believed it to be God’s will, we’d submit to it and not try to get away from it, apart from humbling ourselves before God. If we don’t believe the trial to be God’s will, then we don’t believe God is all-powerful and in control. If you don’t believe He’s powerful enough to save you from today’s trouble, how can you be sure you believe He can save you from hell?

God’s tribulations are for believers. The trials and tribulations are His deliverance! Wanting to escape The Tribulation is rejecting God’s plan of deliverance for His people! 

THIS POST HAS A PART TWO

They have not harmed me, because I was found blameless before him

Daniel 6:22

In the last post, I wrote about how the church responded to the pandemic with fear instead of faith. How they didn’t know the God who saves.

Daniel knew.

No kind of harm was found on him, because he had trusted in his God.

Daniel 6:23

How could Daniel trust God? He knew Him. He knew, even as heathen King Darius did, that God is one who “delivers and rescues.” God saves. It’s who He is. When God arrives on the earth in the flesh, His name is Jesus, which means God saves. It’s who He is.

Daniel also knew that God wasn’t punishing him for something by allowing this. He knew he was blameless before God. Do you know the same?

Again, if you don’t, you don’t know the God of the Bible. You may know about Him, but you don’t know Him. His children He washes clean of their sins and clothes them in the righteousness of Christ, a perfect righteousness. And He gives them the power to overcome temptation and sin. In fact, they becomes slaves of righteousness. They have to do the right thing.

They are blameless in God’s sight by the power and goodness and mercy and grace of God. They know it and are thankful. And they approach God’s throne with confidence and are accepted and welcomed and rewarded. They are saved!

1. It is going to rain.
2. If that’s so, we should take an umbrella.
3. But if not, it wouldn’t hurt to have one with us.

1. I’ll throw you into the fiery furnace!
2. If that’s so, God will save us.
3. But if not, we still won’t worship you.

1. If you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. And who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?”
2. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king.
3. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” (Daniel 3:15-18)

I don’t know which translators first fiddled with those words to make them say in some translations, “Even if He does not.” (The NIV says it this way. You may find the words in your Bible in italics because those words aren’t really what it says; that’s why they are in italics.) How as a church did we start to believe that the three Hebrew men said, “But if God doesn’t save us, we won’t serve and worship your gods.” That doesn’t even make any logical sense. When they are a pile of ashes, they won’t serve his gods? What a laughable statement!

How did we get there? When did we stop believing our God saves?

Why did so many churches look like the world over the last year? They didn’t believe that God saves. Why are churches following the “wisdom of this world” which says you can’t go in the fire or you’ll get burned? They don’t believe that God saves.

The God of the Bible saves. The God of the Bible heals. The God of the Bible protects. The God of the Bible provides. Who is your God?

And that’s the worst part of it all. We don’t even know who He is. We don’t know the one we say is our God. Jesus didn’t die to “save” us. He died so that our relationship with God could be restored. We’re supposed to be in relationship with God. If you were walking and talking with God every day, how could you live in fear and be following the world? 

Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

John 11:32

Mary and Martha had sent for Jesus. That was their prayer, their cry for help, “Come save our brother.” God purposefully doesn’t do as they are wanting. They want Him to come and touch their brother Lazarus and heal him from his sickness.

In the meantime, Lazarus dies. This was God’s plan, His plan for a greater salvation story. Mary and Martha had planned out what God should do. Jesus should come, now, and heal.

When Lazarus died, they could have thought, “God said no.” They could have said, “It wasn’t God’s will to heal.” They could have said, “It’s was Lazarus’ time to go.” They could have said any of those things we say when things don’t go as we want, when our prayers seem to go unanswered.

While they didn’t react with any faith when Jesus shows up, at least they didn’t kick Him out and shoo Him away. They don’t reject Him. They wouldn’t have gotten their miracle at all. They do, however, feel the need to point out His shortcoming in their eyes. Jesus cries at how they don’t even know Him or their good Father.

Having God with them should have brought rejoicing in their hearts. Having God with them should have produced hope and anticipation. Having God with them should have made them realize that not all was lost. Having God with them should have had them believing anything was possible.

But it didn’t. It was like they didn’t know Him at all.

How do you respond to God being with you? Have you ever felt rejected or discouraged, like God ignored your prayers? Have you ever wanted to accuse God, like the disciples did, “Don’t you care?” If you ever did as a believer, then you were like those standing there that day weeping over Lazarus when they should have been rejoicing about the miracle that was about to happen.

Are you living like God is with you? If Jesus walked in the room right now and stood with you, wouldn’t you rejoice that God had heard your prayers? Wouldn’t you know that all hope wasn’t lost, that God was going to act on your behalf and make things all better? Well, He’s there with you now. He’s closer than just in the room with you. He’s in you.

Rejoice! God has heard your prayers! He restores all things! He’s working for your good! Never grieve like one without hope. Hope is alive in you!

In the last post I mentioned Daniel. Let’s think about him a little more. He had been captured by a foreign army. He had been taken from his home with the other exiles. He served His God faithfully, but He was taken away.

What I want you to see in Daniel’s life is that he is unfazed. He is the same no matter what. What he does is the same, no matter what. Jesus is unchanging, and His life in us in unchanging. We can move through life steady on our feet. 🙂

Daniel is noticed for God’s blessing on his life. He is chosen for special training. He gets an education. He gets to serve the king directly. He puts his service to his God first and refuses to eat the king’s food. He will eat as the Lord directs.

He fears God not man. That’s a big key. Man is fickle and trying to please him or reacting to him will throw you off course; you’d have to go this way or that trying to bend to whatever their desire or demand of the day is. Fearing God and not man, keeps our eyes set like flint towards Jesus, our prize.

Daniel is given position and power. He stays steady.

The laws of the land demand his death. He remains steady. He does what he always does. His feet don’t stray from the path. He does what he always has done because that’s what he was supposed to be doing. He prays. He’s arrested. He’s delivered.

No matter what legislation comes our way. No matter what your boss, your leaders, your communities, your colleagues demand, you stay the same. Your mission, your purpose, your truth will not have changed.

Whatever you were supposed to have been doing yesterday, you should have been doing it. You should probably be doing it today too. Whatever you are supposed to be doing today, you should be doing it. If you should be doing it, you probably should have been doing it yesterday. It doesn’t change. We serve God and Him alone and He is unchanging.

Don’t let anything pull you off your assignment, off your focus on Jesus. Love Him alone.