Fair Trade? Balanced Love?

S

(Romans 8:32) He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously [freely] give us all things?

O

Here, God reveals the perfection of His goodness. By deciding to "not spare," we see the wealth behind His giving: "I will not offer anything that cost me nothing" (1 Chronicles 21:24). From the double possessive ("His own son"), we see the deep love bond between Father and Son: like Isaac being bound by cords of love (as demonstrated by His submission, obedience, and trust), his rope cords were redundant (Genesis 22:9). From the double negative followed by the absolute positive ("did not spare" and "gave Him up"), we begin to see the very personal price the Trinity paid for this gift. Finally, from the simple words "for us all" we barely begin to glimpse the Father's and Son's unselfishness, their distinct but identical desires to risk all things so someone might accept their grace.

A (Personal)

I find myself trying to project my selfishness onto God. How foolish of me to protect my distrust of His love. That's why the Holy Spirit presses me to contrast these two divine gifts: on one side of the scale is Jesus, my Savior, who freely chose to die for me (Romans 5:8) and whom the Father freely gave up for me. On the other side is "all things." My natural greed starts salivating over the prospects of what "all things" might include on this side of the scale. However, "all things" is eternally secondary to Christ. It's whatever I need in order for me to gain in my relationship with Him. It includes tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, swords, death, demons, or literally anything else (Romans 8:35-39) ... and it's worth the price! It's my unfair gain.

A (Psychological)

Differentiation is that process by which people maintain their separate identities while simultaneously remaining connected in relationship, belonging, and unity. It's a description of the relationship within the Godhead, and from that we see what healthy human relationships look like. Jack and Judith Balswick describe this component of strong, healthy families: each member of the family is differentiated. Together, they have a degree of mutuality and involvement that is supportive but not intrusive. In contrast, disengaged families are incohesive and rarely engage or contribute meaningfully to each other's lives. The opposite dysfunction (again, in contrast to the Trinity) is enmeshment where the lives of family members are hopelessly entwined, with no member having a separate identity apart from the family. From the bond within the Trinity, we find a major description of healthy love: it is empowerment, it is to serve and be served, and it is to give selflessly for the fulfillment of the other without degrading or diminishing one's own power or identity. What the world doesn't understand, but what the Holy Spirit reveals, is that such selflessness, such love, is infinitely powerful yet positive ... it's pure goodness. That is the nature of God's love.

P

Savior, my goal is to know You--to know Your love that keeps me bound to You, to know Your peace that surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7), and to know the power of Your resurrection even though that knowledge might come through suffering as much as it comes through blessing (Philippians 3:8-11). Thank You that, as my Lord, You won't allow anything to separate me from Your love (Romans 8:39). I don't understand what You get from this, but I'm very grateful!

Happy New Year!

Scripture

(Romans 8:26,27) Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Observation

The Spirit helps us pray--He doesn't do our praying for us or without us: He won't intercede for us with His deep groanings unless we let Him use our voices and hearts. We groan inwardly, too (verse 23), as we long to fully experience the completeness of God's redemptive plans for us. Therefore, our longings and desires are the Spirit's gift to help us overcome the pains caused of our moral and relational growth (verse 17), the futility of our misguided flights for freedom (verses 20-21), the urges of our still unredeemed flesh (verse 23), and the weakness of our impoverished thinking (verse 26). With the Holy Spirit giving both strength, voice, and sound to our heart's longings, our imaginations are no longer inbred by our circumstances and our hopes no longer paralyzed by our sight. We can actually pray, now, because the Holy Spirit imparted within us His own longings and groanings, and we get to voice them together.

Application (Personal)

Instead of hiding or withholding myself, I yield my whole being to the Holy Spirit. In Him, I find courage to explore my dreams and desires instead of suffocating them because of prior failures. In His strength, I trust that God's visions for me are not too good to be true. Again, the truths that Paul describes in this chapter are filling me with fresh, ecstatic hopes ... and even the very dullness of my mind, my slowness in apprehending these concepts, gives me hope in the certainty of better things afoot as I move deeper into the fullness of God's love.

Application (Psychological)

Our longings, dreams, and desires are an untapped psychological resource. That's odd to say in light of Freud's and Jung's explorations of dreams. That's odd to say in light of the influence of Solution-Focused Therapy with its focus on problem solving to meet personal goals and dreams. It's odd to say in light of addiction counselors working to define the payoff that addicts hope to gain from their addictive behaviors. This psychological commonality points to the greater truths that the Holy Spirit expressed here. Far more deeply than clinicians or anyone have capacity to express, we long for the existential fulfillment of God's will being done on earth as it is in heaven. As helpful as our psychological models and interventions are, they serve us best by pointing us to Christ.

Prayer

Lord, how wonderful it is to imagine--to finally realize--that You buried Your good plans for me deep within my own longings. Those things that seemed too good to hope for have their source in You. Amazing. No wonder creation longs for the redemption of our bodies. No wonder we groan as we eagerly await the revelation of Your completed works in our lives. Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

Shock and Awe

S
(Romans 8:19) For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing [literally, uncovering or unveiling] of the children of God ...

O
There is perhaps no greater contrast, no wider continuum in all creation than that gap between who we currently are--hidden by all of our conflicts with our sin nature--and who we are once God reveals (uncovers) us apart from our besetting sins. In the context of these verses, the Holy Spirit (through Paul) reveals that our true selves are mostly hidden under a veil. So, if our better deeds and thoughts fail to fully disclose the image of God's goodness, how much more must our deliberate sins fall short of and hide God's glory (Romans 3:23; 6:23)?

A (Personal)
What a mystery it is that God would love us so! Knowing then that I don't fully appreciate my or others' goodnesses, I should remember, too, that our virtues are also hidden from a world that "loves darkness more than light" (John 1:1-18; 3:16-21). Nonetheless, that is not a sufficient reason for being cowardly covert about sharing the Gospel with others. The Day is coming when all will be uncovered: all corruption will be swept away. In that Day, I anticipate that we'll once again look into the mirror of God's Word, but really "see" ourselves for the first time. With shock and delightful awe we'll each ask, "Lord, is it I?"

A (Psychological)
Self Actualization was Alfred Adler's term for the goal of our psychological maturation as we (if we) progress from an initial state of inferiority to a psychologically mature or "superior" state. Epston and White created within their Narrative Therapy the notion of deconstructing the dominant, destructive stories that define our lives for the sake of reconstructing better, more healthy personal narratives. In fact, behind many therapeutic models lies the assumption that we can change, improve, be done with the behaviors, beliefs, and emotions that impair our psychological perspective and relational responses. We seem hardwired for hoping to become the best we can be. Psychology seems driven to codify these goals and then pave a universal path towards that perfect identity. It's a drive that's as old as families and societies. The unique advantage in the Trinitarian model--Christianity--is the divine incarnation that transcends both worlds and carries us hopeless, resistant ones onto goals beyond what we could discover by ourselves with our propensity for continually falling short of God's glory.

P
Savior, thank You for Your Word. You were right in calling it the Perfect Law of Liberty (James 1:24,25). I see myself more clearly as I learn more of who You really are. I know that here on this side of Heaven my vision remains weak at best--as though I were viewing You through a film-covered window (1 Corinthians 13:12). But thankfully, day by day and obedience by obedience, my eyesight improves in degrees that were unimaginable before I trusted You (Proverbs 4:18-23; Revelation 3:17-22). And as I see You more clearly, I see myself more clearly, too. I can't wait to see--to fully see--what You had in mind.

Heirs of Glory ... and Suffering

S

(Romans 8:17) And if children, then heirs--heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.

O

Being a joint heir with Christ is incomprehensible--what benefit might God gain by claiming us as His inheritance. What glory could He get from that (Deuteronomy 4:20; 1 Peter 2:9,10; Psalms 16:5; 28:9; 33:12, etc.)? Being glorified with Christ promises something delightful, satisfying, and good beyond our capacity to comprehend (8:18). And our hope for that experience is contingent on being an heir of God. Our hope for being an heir of God is contingent on being a fellow heir with Christ, which includes sharing His sufferings with Him. Thankfully, glory is the culmination of the humble beginning of suffering with Christ, and that glory is good enough to compensate for life's sufferings. Incomprehensible.

Again, our access to all this glory, to all these resources, pivots on our decision of whether to be led by God's Spirit instead of being controlled by our flesh (i.e., our selfish ambitions). It's a wholly unnatural decision (verses 1-16). Why? Being Spirit-led leads inevitably through seasons of suffering. Why suffering? Because of the Spirit's integrity and goodness. We live in a broken, backwards-thinking world. If we're going to be "in Christ" by becoming increasingly Christ-minded and Christ-hearted, then we'll also experience in increasing measure His profound losses, griefs, deprivation, abandonment, scorn, and sacrifice as He loves sinners. We get to share the experience of love being violated. It comes through our shared "contradictions of sinners" (Hebrews 12:13) as well as seasons of our own personal temptations (Luke 4:13).

A (Personal)

I learned that becoming an uncompromising agent of [Christ's] love is a life of suffering, and I'm trusting that God will figure out how to get glory from it. Just as Christ was led by the Spirit, I too get to give of myself to "ungrateful" people, to sacrifice my own comforts and conveniences for the sake of creating relationship with others who are suffocating from their own darkness. But my suffering isn't usually that grandiose or self-gratifying. Sometimes I'm just a selfish butt, and I need to admit it, then take humble and brave steps reconcile with the people I've offended ... and to do that in a way that isn't obfuscated by my defensive counter-accusations (e.g., "I did that because you ..."). Paul described that willingness to be corrected by Love; he called it self-crucifixion (Galatians 5:24; Colossians 3:5). It hurts. It's not as glamorous as persecution, but it's more fruitful.

A (Psychological)

If it's not been coined yet, I'd like to explore this chapter as the central revelation of "Trinitarian Psychology," a distinct psychological, therapeutic model. The relationships that the members of the Godhead share have long been a model for family and marital relationships. Although, God is holy, incorruptible, and perfect, His relationship with sinful people serves us as a good model for us. Balswick and Balswick (The Family, 2007; pp. 20-34) built on the concept of God's covenantal nature and proposed four sequential but nonlinear stages: (1) Covenant (to love and be loved), (2) Grace (to forgive and be forgiven), (3) Empowering (to serve and be served), and (4) Intimacy (to know and be known). In accordance with these schema, they suggest that familial relationships will be either "dynamic and maturing or stagnant and dying." In any family system, someone needs to initiate reconciliation. God provides this by initiating His unilateral, unconditional, eternally valid covenant of love for us. However, that isn't enough. God is our inheritance, as we are His. To experience that relational reality, we must respond positively to His love. In other words, if we are led by His Spirit, well share His life (with a season of suffering, but for an eternity of glory).

P

Redeemer, You've given me a new life that is safely hidden in You. Thank You. Help me remember that the pain of being honest with You--the pain of being healed--is infinitely better and more comforting than the pain of hiding from You and being left to my own devises. There is no better peace, no greater comfort than setting my mind on the things of heaven so that Your will may be done here on earth--in my heart--as is done naturally in heaven.

Finally Together!

S

(Romans 8:16) The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

O

His witness, how do we recognize it? In the previous verse, He reveals that. From deep within us, He excites us to exclaim to God: "Father!" He knows and is always reminding us in ways that excite the hope, the insight, the dream, the desire that God is good: He is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and (by no means) clearing the guilty (Exodus 34:6-7). When our spirits respond to acknowledge that, we--according to these verses--are speaking in perfect harmony with the Holy Spirit (Galatians 4:16).

A (Psychological)

Consider the possibility of God's Holy Spirit dwelling in people. This is not schizophrenia--delusions, hallucinations (visual or auditory), disorganized speech and behavior, paranoia, and the absence of good behaviors, specifically the absence of appropriate emotions (affective flattening), poverty of speech (alogia), and decisiveness ability to have or to achieve basic goals (avolition). No, the presence and freedom of the Holy Spirit--the witness of His presence--is quite the opposite. It correlates with mental health and is evidenced by logical thinking, healthy emotions, and positive relationships (Romans 8:14-17; James 1:2-8; 2 Timothy 1:6-7; 1 Peter 3:8-16).

Consider, also, how different history (and our lives) would have been if Mary had abused or neglected Jesus. Yet that abuse of the Holy Spirit (based on the revelation of God's trinitarian relationship) is exactly what we are advised to not do: Don't quench--suffocate--Him (1 Thessalonians 5:19). Do strengthen and equip Him (1 Peter 1:13, 10-25). Don't neglect Him (1 Peter 4:7-11). As much as counselors and therapists have learned to strictly value confidentiality, we're also mandated to speak out, to voice our private concerns when we believe vulnerable people (minors, elderly, or handicapped people) have been abused, and recognizing signs of abuse is part of our training. The answer to our spiritual abuse of the Holy Spirit is to speak up, to voice with Him the things that need to be corrected in us as well as the eternal truths of God's goodness.

A (Personal)

This revelation of God as my Father--no, more than the revelation, it's in my responsive and intentional cry to Him--that I find the evidence that I'm His child. Unfortunately, many supposedly spiritual advisers advocate the reverse order: discover first that you're "god's child" (however god is defined), then you'll find your spiritual family. That's an endless, fruitless, uncertain pursuit. Once my eyes were opened, I saw that I fit perfectly into the "continuum of sonship" that He described in Luke 10. In my unrepentant, undiscerning, unredeemed state, I fluctuated between being the the wayward, independent prodigal son on some days and the foolishly self-reliant, slavishly distant elder son on other days. Even now, my constancy and hope isn't found in the fickleness of my character, but in the steadfastness of His goodness. I see my identity accurately to the extent that I correct my perception of God, my heavenly Father.

P
Heavenly Father--Dad--thank You for first loving me and revealing Your goodness to me. My search for identity was endlessly confused, uncertain, and fruitless until I abandoned my fight against You. I'm so glad You proved Your long-suffering patience and mercy towards You. I'm so glad Your Holy Spirit awakened my emotions, convictions, desires, and testimony ... enough to cry out to You and discover whom You see me as being. What hope! What a relief! What encouragement! Thanks, Dad.

Condemned ... Thankfully

S

(Romans 8:3) For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and [as a sacrifice] for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh.

O

Paul continues to personify law, sin, and our flesh to help us see--by pretending these things have a life and will of their own--how darkened our own life and will are. Flesh is weak because seeks whatever brings it pleasure and avoids whatever causes pain or threatens its survival (Romans 5-6,) Law is weak, too. Like a Mafian mobster, it makes demands without concern for its victim's ability to satisfy those demands. Being caught between the Law's moral demands and Sin's apparent relief, Flesh colludes with Sin and mistakes God as its enemy, itself (Flesh) as another victim, and Sin as the savior. This perpetual cycle only increases our alienation from God, reality, ourselves, and our community.

A (Personal)

God solved this problem by condemning sin, and Paul points to three dimensions of that condemnation. First, God's Son obeyed His Father and became flesh; and while clothed in humanity, He (unlike any of us) unveiled the beauty and attraction of a perfect life--a life fully surrendered and holy. That glory exposes my anti-Christ behaviors and attitudes, and I see them as rightly condemned. Second, God's Son became the only perfect sacrifice for sin. His blood atoned for all of sin's wrongfulness; therefore, sin's presence in me is no longer justified. Because sin's false promises have been exposed and condemned, I no longer have to maintain an intimate, dependent relationship with it. Because God condemned sin, it is worthless and obsolete to me (not that it ever held any true value). Third, when God's Son came, He came "in power according to the Spirit of holiness by His resurrection from the dead" (Romans 1:4). This means that as I continue to walk with Him in the power of His Holy Spirit, I no longer have to rely on my own strength. He gives me power to do right, to be moral and loving. He condemned my sin by carrying it to His cross and to His grave. The same resurrection power that freed Him from the condemnation from my sin is now resident in me to free me from all the frustrations of my sin, my flesh, and my own imperfect struggles to keep the demands of the law. Through my love for Christ (instead of fear), His Spirit empowers me to become Christ-like, something I could never do by myself.

A (Psychological)

If Paul had said this in a clinical setting, he would seem to have violated numerous ethical codes. He appears to have been imposing his perspective on others, placing his views in a superior hierarchical position. Such language is (by definition) justifiable only when God, with absolute knowledge and care, is speaking. And, of course, as a Christ-follower, I believe Paul was writing by the influence of the Holy Spirit and was indeed speaking as Christ's agent.

Corey, Corey, and Callanan (Issues and Ethics in the Helping Professions, 2007, pp. 75,76) warn against value imposition, and they define it as "counselors directly attempting to influence a client to adopt their own values, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors... actively or passively.... [But] it is now generally recognized that the therapeutic endeavor is a value-laden process and that all clinicians, to some degree, communicate their values to clients.... The challenge for therapists is to recognize when their values clash with a client's values to the extent that they are not able to function effectively. Merely having a conflict of values does not necessarily require a referral; it is possible to work through such conflicts successfully. In fact, we think of a referral as a last resort."

Ethical codes for counselors don't proscribe counselors from having their own political, spiritual, or any other category of value. However, they do require honest treatment of those values (p. 72): "When therapists expose their values, it is important that they clearly label them as their own. Then values can be discussed in an open and noncoercive way, which can assist clients in their exploration of their own values and the behavior that stems from these values."

What are the implications that counselors may take from Paul's letter? First, Paul wasn't acting as a counselor or therapist, he was an evangelist revealing a theological truth. These are distinct roles. Nonetheless, when values need clarifying, Paul's writing demonstrates honest clarity. Second, therapists are probably right in having an aversion to strong words like condemnation and sin. In many conversations, these theological terms can create virtually impassable therapeutic chasms, and the Holy Spirit doesn't force people to address them. The Holy Spirit, like a good therapist, unfortunately allows people to choose their own paths, even to their detriment and destruction. That takes respect for people far beyond what ethical codes dare. Only when a person is willing to look honestly at their core issues and values can their healing process move forward. To encourage that honesty, "God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh." He entered our world so we could see His demonstration of "unconditional positive regard" and a better option than the behaviors and attitudes that God, whose name is Love, kindly condemned (I John 3:4-10; 4:7-8). The greatest work a therapist could do for clients is to introduce them to Jesus Christ.

P

Savior, thank You for condemning sin! I could never thank You enough. Otherwise, I would have never seen it for what it is. I wouldn't have been able to separate myself from its pimp-like deception. Thank You for condemning it so I could become separate from it and released from its power and condemnation.

Life!

Scripture

(Romans 8:1,2) For there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.

Observation

"Law" generally has two meanings: the expressed will of a ruler to organize obedience (e.g., curfews) or the discovered patterns of similar, repetitious facts (e.g., gravity). Regarding sin, both definitions apply. Paul personified sin and death as tyrants whose patterned processes consistently lead to death. Alexander Maclaren wrote: "Paul had found that, by an inexorable iron sequence, sin worked in himself the true death of the soul, in separation from God, in the extinction of good and noble capacities, in the atrophying of all that was best in himself, in the death of joy and peace." He, with an eloquent paradox, called it a law, though its characteristic is lawless transgression of the true law of humanity. Humans were created to experience a different life, and we crave something better. Maclaren, describing our mad obedience to sin's iron sway, noted its similarity to a fatal dance: Sin invites us with dazzling promises, then Death, at the other end of the dance, throws off its mask and slays (Proverbs 9:13-18).

In contrast, only the law of a life that abides in and is continually influenced by life with Christ Jesus has the capacity to overcome the evil attractions of a sinful soul. Nothing short of God's Spirit--the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead (Romans 8:11)--can emancipate us from the passions and desires that traps us under sin and brings death to our souls. But life in Christ Jesus, by the Holy Spirit's own definition and claim, is mightier and is attractive enough to neutralise and even deaden our existing, sinful passions.

Application (Personal)

I yield myself to Christ Jesus with the intent of abiding constantly with Him. I respect who He is, which means including Him prayerfully in my thoughts and decisions, arranging my plans to correspond with what I understand to be pleasing to Him. It means deliberately delighting in the safety and comfort of His loving presence. In other words, I live life to the fullest, most noble, and joyful extent possible. How then, could anything less tempt me when my focus is on Christ?

Application (Psychological)

Life in Christ provides freedom to discern and then choose health instead of remaining enslaved to our natural and destructive behaviors and thought processes (despite our intentions often being good). Here, Paul (by the Holy Spirit) warns us of condemnation, but is he referring to eternal damnation or merely the consequences of remaining stuck under the iron rule of sin and death ... or both? Whether it's denial or delusion, we've long understood that we tend to be blind to our own self-destructive patterns, and probably our response to this warning is a good example of this. What is my gut reaction to it? Even though the possibility spiritual condemnation is entirely outside of mere psychology's capacity to empirically determine, we would be wise to not err by reframing the evidence so we can more happily dismiss Christ.

My experience and my observations have given me sufficient evidence to make some conclusions (or at least some working hypotheses) about this. The act of honestly acknowledging Christ through a direct spiritual exchange with Him starts the powerful chain reaction that Paul described as Life in Christ. An example of such an exchange would be telling Jesus: "I am going to believe You that You exist and that You reward those who diligently seek You." That act marks a beginning, a turning point, a bona fide transference of identity that is gradually more clearly discovered as one continues this sharing of life with Christ. Most significant, psychologically, I think, is a foundational shift of one's will. Instead of being off-centered and constantly struggling to become stable, the "pattern" of life in Christ establishes within us a restful, therefore, energizing true center for our souls. Today's psychological fascination--mindfulness--offers concepts that sometimes mimic this psychological stability.

Prayer

Lord, I've experienced condemnation, feeling outside and unworthy. Thank You for revealing that Heaven's gate remains eternally open (even though some people choose to remain eternally outside). Thank You for giving me the experience of life in You. There is no comparison. You have become my stability, my rest, my energy, my strength, my hope... and just as You said, in that freedom is life, and life abundant. Thank You!

Forging True Love

S

(Romans 6:17) But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have now become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.

O

Forget doctrine as we've learned it. This "form of teaching" (didache) Paul described (also translated "doctrine") isn't the frighteningly dry stuff that first comes to mind. First, it's a mold such as what liquid metal is poured into to cast a coin, a tool, a sword, or a statue. Second, it's a commonly understood standard against which people can measure compliance or competence--a yardstick or a scale. Third, and specifically how Paul used it, didache was the teaching style Jesus used. Instead of teaching intellectual systems of philosophy, Jesus did things that demonstrated love. He went to the cross. He gave Himself. He laid His life down. He rose again and ascended on high... and He punctuated His deeds with simple, clarifying explanations. That is the original form of doctrine.

A (Personal)

I want to "become obedient from my heart to this form of teaching, which has been entrusted to me just as Jesus entrusted it to His first disciples." The Gospel they preached was essentially the facts of what God the Father, His son, and the Holy Spirit did for us and has been doing in us. The disciples punctuated these facts with their own acts of obedience with accompanying simple explanations. Powerful. Convincing. Memorable. Much easier to understand and follow and love than a system of abstract, hard-to-apply rules and principles. Much easier to adapt into any culture or individual circumstance. The catch is that it requires, therefore, much more heart-hearing obedience and personal relationship with King Jesus.

A (Psychological)

Are systems of logic and ethics and theology necessary? Sure, they still serve a limited purpose when people fail to be obedient to the relational doctrine Paul described to the Romans. That's why psychiatrists and psychologists (as well as other mental heath workers, pastors, etc.) have found it necessary to band together and agree to abide by strict codes of ethics. It became obviously necessary by observing the too-frequent, gross fallibilities of people who should have known--and done--better. Otherwise smart people misused their power and influence to exploit vulnerable people for their inappropriate personal benefits. The old Hebrew prophets knew that was unfortunately a common trait of leaders (Ezekiel 34). The more we find ourselves disappointed by people (including ourselves) failing to live up to ethical codes, whichever ones they might be, the more appealing the Good News of Jesus Christ appears in contrast.

P

Jesus, You are indeed the perfect template for my soul, but You're much more than merely a perfect intellectual system. The Gospel--the Good News of who You are and what You've done--is a perfectly complete motive for change. Only by knowing You as my sacrifice and my Savior do I find enough heat of passion to melt my hard heart. Continue, Lord, to soften my heart so I become increasingly pliable to Your Spirit and redeemable into Your likeness.

Inevitable Rules

S

(Romans 5:21) So that, as sin reigned unto death, so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

O

Bad news for indecisive people: both sin and grace are personified as warring kings fighting over souls, and we inevitably choose only one as our liege--only one wins our allegiance. Sin establishes his own laws with which to rule and dominate us, and more importantly, to deliver us to Hell instead of Heaven. That king wins our hearts by our deliberate default. When we receive the amnesty that Grace offers us, Grace then begins establishing different rules in our hearts--Jesus Christ's. Under His lordship, Grace delivers us from Sin's dominion of death and frees us to choose life instead.

A (Personal)

When I submit to Jesus Christ, Grace not only teaches and equips me, but also prepares for me a crown of righteousness (2 Timothy 4:6-8). As thrilling as that is, I have a nagging personal difficulty: it is one thing to offer myself to Jesus, my new Lord, it is another to rid myself of the bogus rules that I believed when I was loyal to my previous king, Sin. Old relational rules promised security but produced fear. They promised satisfaction, but produced anxiety. They promised relationship but produced isolation. Rules offered by Grace are different in that they really do produce security, satisfaction, and relationship. Grace has taught me new rules, such as: "Realize that with your new, redeemed nature you are loved, lovable, and loving" and "Trust that God that He has good plans for you, plans to give you a hope and a future" and "Seek God's kingdom first and all these things will be added in as well." I'm learning that these rules are in fact reliable!

A (Psychological)

Minuchin and Fishman (Family Therapy Techniques, 1981, p. 71) said, "Patients come to therapy because reality, as they have constructed it, is unworkable." Indeed, the identification of personal rules and belief systems are core features of the most successful psychological models, not just Minuchin's systemic model. The cognitive restructuring interventions that Ellis and Beck promoted are dependent on patients identifying their faulty thinking patterns--their own faulty rules for reality that need to be challenged and reconstructed. In his work with addicts, Michael Dye requires his clients to also identify the survival vows they created and imposed on themselves: "I'll never trust [a man, or a woman] again" or "I'll never allow myself to have an intimate or committed relationship with anyone." In contrast, Biblical principles, if applied with ever-increasing correction and insight from the Holy Spirit, within the education of private relationship with Christ as well as humble, loving interactions with people, can produce the new, healthy "rules" that Paul inferred in this analogy and that psychological models tend to mimic.

P

Thank You, My Lord, for teaching me how far reaching and deeply embedded Sin's rules have been in my life. David learned that even though some moral transgressions might not be illegal, all neglect of the relationship You offer or the love You require are sins primarily against You (Psalm 51). So many things I do and believe seem profitable and logical at the time, but aren't necessarily so, and I admit that I need to find my rest in Your Word. You perfectly discern my thoughts and the intentions of my heart (Hebrews 4:11-13). I prefer Your kingdom of Grace, and long to go deeper into Your dominion.

No Innocent Harm

Scripture

(Romans 5:6-8) For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die--but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Observation

It is pointless to argue that many people choose to die for others. Paul was not writing of a parent's sacrificial, life-risking love for their children, a husband's risks for his wife, a police officer's for the community, or a soldier's for national security. He certainly wasn't referring to the safety-defying attitudes that mercenaries, treasure hunters, sociopaths, and thieves nurture within themselves. He was acknowledging the rarity of a person being so righteous (rigidly law abiding) that a good (benevolent and kind) person would die in the righteous person's place--which sounds rare if only because of the absurdity of such a situation.

But far more absurd would be a good person deliberately dying so a bad person--someone who had been opposing that goodness--could continue to plague the community. Righteousness, by definition, opposes evil. Goodness, likewise, hates to hurt others. So, at the point of Jesus being impaled to the cross, when He prayed, "Father, forgive them--they don't realize what they're doing," God's holy righteousness and His unblemished goodness would have remained unblemished if He'd chosen to return the torture and annihilate all humanity. Either Righteousness or Goodness should have stopped the crucifixion, but Love chose absurdity. Still being rigidly righteous, He chose instead to absorb all unrighteousness on Himself, to pay for it; thereby, creating the opportunity for sinners to be forgiven and healed.

Application (Psychological)

Any harm against innocent people should appall and anger us. Fyodor Dostoevsky (like Shakespeare and so many others who preceded modern psychology) observed the human psyche and wrote for us with disrupting insight. He lived in a culture that argued for the occasional suitability and greater good of innocent people suffering miserable lives or even worse deaths (it's suitable as long as someone else is the sufferer). Class privilege is built on that premise, but for it to be established, it must first thrive in individual hearts.

Trying to jolt our consciences and ethical alarms awake, Dostoevsky wrote The Brothers Karamazov. To demonstrate that even one innocent person's death isn't justifiable for the common good, he described (near the end of the chapter called Rebellion) the horror of an innocent eight-year-old boy who was chased and killed by hounds. "If the suffering of little children is needed to complete the sum total of suffering required to pay for [eternal harmony]," he concluded, "I don't want that." Righteous and good people should be shocked by that absurdity of requiring others to suffer on their behalf. This is why Jesus' death has to be honestly absurd to us: He should not have died for us, which in turn makes His love even more appalling and inviting. And only God--not any of us--could fulfill that task of dying an innocent, substitutionary death for others. It never was, nor will it ever be appropriate for us to consider that sort of death ourselves (which is a huge relief).

Application (Personal)

Surprisingly then, Paul later advised the Romans to duplicate Jesus' all-giving, sacrificial love back toward God: "I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, with is your spiritual (reasonable) worship" (12:1). When I first became a believer, in my youthful optimism and physical safety, I gladly offered myself to the Lord for any life-risking service He might deem beneficial. Privately, I considered martyrdom to be a profitable escape from life's or ministry's miseries. What I didn't appreciate was that, in God's mercy, He called me to be a living martyr (the Greek meaning of Paul's words). My demonstration of living righteously with long-suffering kindness towards others is the highest form of voluntary self-sacrifice. Sure, Paul agreed that dying would be much easier, but living for Christ--loving Christ--is far better (Philippians 1-3).

Prayer

Lord, I pray that my love might abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment so that You may liberate my life to be a living demonstration of what is excellent, pure, and blameless. Would You fill me, Lord, with the fruit of Your righteousness so I might bring glory and praise to You? (Philippians 1:9-11).

Hope's Eternal Source

Scripture

(Romans 5:5) ... and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Observation

These three clauses excavate through all layers of human experience. Shame describes the all-too-familiar results of humanity's best efforts, and hope is that awareness of fearful probabilities while still holding to a yearning for better results. Here, Paul tunnels backwards to trace the source of this hope that never fails. He uncovers each effect, each consequence, to discover its originating cause, the only irreducible cause of all effects: God is love. Isaiah predicted this gift that God's Holy Spirit would bring us: "They that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined" (Isaiah 9:2).

Application (Personal)

Paul invited the Ephesian Christians: "Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?" (Acts 19:2). Later, he wrote to these same people, inviting them to continuously be filled with the Holy Spirit who constantly reveals God's love in every situation so we might have constant hope that springs to life as the Holy Spirit pours God's love into our hearts (Ephesians 5:1,2, 18). How amazing! At any time I can have unfailing hope as I let the Holy Spirit refill my heart with this awareness of God's love.

Application (Psychological)

Herein lies the difference between constricted psychological principles that deny God and a holistic psychology that views psychology as a part of God's creation. I contend that nothing else produces such substantive hope as effectively as the Holy Spirit's revelation of God's love for us individually and specifically. Interestingly, to the extent that as psychological interventions and values mimic and are consistent with biblical principles, they are effective (e.g., community, honesty, compassion, hope). These are principles have been constant through biblical revelation, though not fully disclosed until Jesus Christ (which, I believe, corrects the misrepresentation of God's revelation as described in the November/December 2009 issue of Psychotherapy Networker, pp. 73-74). To know reality of God's love, as Paul said, one receive it by faith--one must actually taste it to understand it (Psalm 34:8).

Prayer

Lord, thank You for giving Your Holy Spirit so that I, too, might walk in Your love. Your love really does fill me with hope ... and I've never been disappointed by either Your love or Your hope. I admit that sometimes I find Your love to be strong almost to the point of being scary. Your love sent You to the cross. Savior, I want to continue with You in Your love, no matter what it might cost me.

Beautiful Arrogance: Disdaining the Pain

Scripture
(Romans 5:2-4) ... And we rejoice [literally, its meaning includes boast] in the hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice [boast] in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope....

Observation
Trapped and crushed at the bottom of all human experience is suffering--and no human has a pass to escape that sort of experience. From this universally dreaded low is also a universally accessible route of escape. This Scripture describes a sequence of perceptual shifts that--for the person who decides to travel that route--will unblock an ability to defiantly, arrogantly, mock the pain. Despite the temporary, present pain, people with this hope in Christ can confidently expect to someday stand triumphant with Christ above and apart from that suffering--and even in the midst of suffering His people can rightfully take that posture of boasting.

Application (Personal)

How can I know my present pain has purpose or value? How can I trust that it will produce that strength of endurance and beauty of Christ-like character within my own personality? Paul's paragraph explains: If I want immovable rejoicing, I must have steadfast hope in God's glory (5:2b); if I want that hope, I must have access to His grace (5:2a); if I want that grace, I must have peace with God (5:1b); if I want that peace, I must be justified by having my guilt and condemnation removed (5:1a); if I want that removed, Jesus Christ must remove it; and finally, if I want to experience the removal of that from my life, I must have faith in Him (5:1a).

Application (Psychological)

I agree with Paul that apart from the revelation of Jesus Christ there is no intellectual system that is comprehensive or psychologically-sociologically satisfactory (albeit that is my language, not his). Yet without any references to this biblical perspective, Barbara Fredrickson, a psychologist who researches resiliency and positivity, wrote of hope in a way that is consistent with this Christian experience (Positivity, 2009, pp. 117-119): "Because negative emotions narrow your range of vision, a downward spiral cuts a dark and lonely path that insulates you further and further from the healing touch of community. Upward spirals are altogether different. Because positive emotions expand your range of vision, upward spirals ... clear your path, your mind and heart become more fully open to connect with caring others....

As I see it, there are two basic responses to hardship. Despair or hope. In despair, you multiply your negativity. Your fear and uncertainty can turn into stress. Your stress can morph into hopeless sadness, which in turn can breed shame. Worse than this mushrooming negativity, despair smothers and snuffs out all forms of positivity. With positivity extinguished, all possibilities for genuine connection with others are lost. Despair opens the gate to a downward spiral that may well lead you to rock bottom. Hope different. It's not a mirror reflection of despair. Your hope, in fact, acknowledges negativity with clear eyes. More important though, your hope kindles further positivity within you. Even more subtle shades of hope can be a springboard for you to feel love, gratitude, inspiration, and more.... So hope opens the gate to an upward spiral that empowers you to bounce back from hardship and emerge even stronger and more resourceful than before."

Prayer

Lord, I am so thankful that the plot of my life has had relatively little suffering when I compare my troubles with what others have experienced. I can't explain or justify it, but I'm still glad. Nonetheless, I ask You to make me increasingly more faithful, steadfast, hopeful, merciful, and patient--and these qualities seem forged best in difficult circumstances. I can't boast in my ability to manage pain, but I can boast in Your unfailing love as I ask this of You.

Taking a Stable Stance

S

(Romans 5:2) Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we hope in the glory of God.

O

First, grace is something--a place, a wide and spacious place--that we can enter into. It's a place for us to permanently live because it's God's presence ... and He welcomes us there. Outside of God's grace, life is very different and sadly too familiar. Second, until we cross that threshold of physical death and get our new bodies in Heaven, our ability to dwell with God in His grace is dependent on us taking a particular stance. To remain in His presence, we need to stand up and resist the a noisy deceptions and crazy doubts that mock our privilege of living in God's grace.

A (Personal)
Why would I enter God's throne of grace with merely a pocket-size faith when I have both access and permission the haul off much more mercy and grace than that ... more than a fleet's worth? My faith in God's love and His faithfulness permits me to approach Him and to stand with great boldness and to ask for His grace with great confidence (Hebrews 4:16; 12:12,28).

A (Psychological)
One of the essential components of a good assessment of people in crisis (whether the person is a survivor of a natural disaster, a criminal assault, or a relational breakdown) is an inquiry about the person's resources--does he or she have a good support system of family members or a reliable network of healthy friends, for example. This Scripture gives evidence of a profound resource for people, better than a person with a financial crisis being given legitimate access to Gates' or Clintons' financial empires. The incalculable difference is the perfection of God's wisdom, power, and love that is as constantly good as it is constantly available.

P
Lord, when the hurricanes line up to assault my faith (and these storms have familiar names--Fear, Shame, Accusation, Unemployment, Cancer, Incompetence, Tiredness, Boredom), remind me, please, to stand erect with my shoulders, chin, and eyes defiantly free of sin. I choose to remain humbly receptive to Your love. Help me remember that my preferred, permanent address is in Your throne room of grace. I'm going to stubbornly stay there so I can watch Your glory.

Axis for Organizing Peace and Security

S

(Romans 5:1) Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

O

Previously, Paul argued that all humanity was engaged in willful resistance against God, war against our Creator, the lover of our souls. Here, we see something far more--infinitely more--disturbing: God's angry resistance against us! It's too frightening to grasp. Our bellicose nature, our belligerent behaviors justified His own warfare against us. Our positioning God as our enemy has put humanity into a not very bright condition and an even worse future. But Jesus Christ--Himself--is our peace, having broken the wall of hostility between us and God, having reconciled us back to God through the cross. The war is over. We have peace (Ephesians 2:11-22; Romans 5:6-11).

A (Psychological)

Clinicians Prochaska and Norcross acknowledge their double bind of not expecting to find "absolute truth" in psychotherapy despite impressive advances in knowledge while on the other hand simultaneously holding a contrary need for a guiding theory or system of psychotherapy that "delimits the amount of relevant information, organizes that information, and integrates it all into a coherent body of knowledge that prioritizes our conceptualization and directs our treatment" (Systems of Psychotherapy, 2003, pp. 5,6). Similarly, on a universal human level, Daniel Siegel (Developing Mind, 1999, p 67-72) defined attachment as our brain's need to learn how to organize and respond to the input it receives: "attachment is an inborn system in the brain that evolves in ways that influence and organize motivational, emotional, and memory processes. [It organizes it] with respect to significant caregiving figures. This process of attachment to significant caregivers helps immature brains establish an interpersonal relationship that helps the immature brain use the mature functions of the parent's brain to organize its own processes." Attachments are ultimately seen as secure or insecure, from that, the brain defines the world a safe or unsafe. This "faith" of perception affects the literal development of the physical brain just as it organizes how it perceives and interacts with people and the world.

Through Jesus Christ, we have opportunity for forming a secure attachment to the ultimate caregiver. As we attach to Him (abide in Him), the Holy Spirit helps our brains reorganize our perceptions, aligning them with reality ("ultimate truth"). In the context of Paul's statement to the Romans, our world is insecure and unsafe because of its opposition to God. Through faith in Christ, because of His cross having reconciled us with God, we are justified before Him. We can now have a safe attachment to Him, and with that "abiding" our brains can be healed. The proof is us now living peacefully because of the mutual love between God and people.

A (Personal)

I've experienced the pain of having an enemy. Thankfully, Jesus showed me life beyond those dark designs. As painful as that experience was, it demonstrated how utterly inconceivably terrifying life would be for me if God were my enemy. In our world, with its abundant forms of warfare, both internal and relational, peace is a much sought but rarely secured treasure. But God ... God Himself arranged for us to have true and abiding peace. Even when we were warring against Him, He demonstrated His love and commitment to us by sending His own beloved Son to the cross so we could be reconciled. Having obtained that peace, all other conflicts are trivial and easily remedied.

P

Beloved Savior, because You justified me by Your cross, I get to spend this day in peace. Because You provided for my peace at such a great personal cost, I hold on to it tightly and I resist letting it slip away through this day's deceptive worries, distractions, and deceptions. I choose instead to enjoy Your peace, and I love it!

Axis of Fatherhood

S

(Romans 3:21-24) But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law ... the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction ...

O

Paul, guided by the Holy Spirit, made it clear that all people have the same need for Jesus Christ--there is no distinction between people in this regard. For centuries, Jewish lovers of God had mistakenly erected walls between their "us" and "you" (non-Jews). These Jewish Christians did not use stone, turf, or timber like Hadrian used when building the great Roman wall across northern England. No, they contended that only Jews were God's people, regardless of whether they believed in Christ. In this letter to Romans, Paul argued for a different wall: it was the wall of sin that put all humans outside of God's embrace, but Jesus' cross tore down that barrier (Ephesians 2). Anyone, therefore, who "embraces" God's Son, Jesus, gains unhindered access to Jesus' Father, Jewish or not.

A (Psychological)

Miroslav Volf, in his book Exclusion and Embrace (1996, pp. 156-165), sketches a phenomenology of embrace, which he conceived by studying Jesus' story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15). Paralleling the wall metaphor that Paul used with the Ephesians and here with the Romans, Volf gives us insight into into God's common love for all people. Both sons in the prodigal story shattered their relationships by "un-sonning" themselves and "un-fathering" their father. The prodigal's departure from home wasn't an act of separation required for the formation of a distinct identity; it was an act of exclusion (like his brother's) of pulling out of relationship and subsequent responsibilities--creating a spacial and moral wall even more distancing than a stone wall.

Paradoxically, by pushing others out, the prodigal found himself away from himself and the elder brother found himself estranged (by his own doing) from his father. Both sons defined their identities along moral axis: worthy or unworthy, good or bad. The Father kept redefining their identities along relational lines: lost or found, dead (broken relationship with me) or alive (restored relationship). Although the father rejected the misrepresentations of his heart, he didn't deny the damaging effects of his sons' behaviors and views. He kept reconfiguring the home order without destroying it so they could maintain it as an order of embrace rather than exclusion. He refused to make moral rules the final authority regulating exclusion and embrace. His behavior was governed by one fundamental, unchanging rule: relationship has priority over all rules. Because of the cross, Heaven's gate is eternally open (Revelation 21:25).

A (Personal)

Do I see my "good works" merely as God's assignments for me as though I were a solitary laborer isolated from others? Instead, do I see my primary task as being in relationship with my Savior and my Heavenly Father? That changes everything! If I am Christ's ambassador (2 Corinthians 5), I'll see relationships in a whole new light, a whole new priority.

P

O Lord, help me to reorder my world along relational lines. Help me to see myself and others from Your loving, relational perspective where every relationship is valuable, every soul is linked to mine and is worthy the price of reconciliation.

Ouch! Thank You!

S

(Romans 3:19-26) Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by the works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and Prophets bear witness to it--the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in His Divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. It was to show His righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of one who has faith in Jesus.

O

Paul lumped into one category called "Law" all the Law and Prophets (i.e., Hebrew slang for what we now call the Old Testament). All God's Word, he said, was law that therefore defines our duty toward Him and relationship with Him, and it is a gracious gift. Without it, we wouldn't see the discrepancies between the motives that drive our conduct and the life-giving alternate motives and conduct that God designed for us to be guided by. However, as good as this law is, it doesn't solve our crises of regularly falling short of God's glory. It enlightened us, but that light increased our painful darkness because we still remained stuck with our guilt: some days we get up on the wrong side of the bed and sometimes we gripe or gossip or choose selfishness. And we learned from God's law that even this misconduct was called sin.

Our sin plus God's love for us explains the cross. Because God is just, He wouldn't ignore the appropriate judgment for our sins (Psalm 99:8)--both justice and mercy require judgment's full vengeance for all sin. Through the cross, God justified His forbearance for all evil anyone had done before the cross. In God's eternal present, the cross reveals the gold standard of righteousness (Galatians 2:20). In the eternal future, the justifies God's unending forbearance of everyone who trusts Jesus' blood as the price of redemption (Romans 3:25).

A (Personal)

My conscience colluded with the Holy Spirit to help me admit that I've not only failed God's law with my conduct, but even more seriously, as the Gospels revealed, my motives (my will and heart) had to be right, too (even when my outward goodness hid my bad attitude from people). Paul, by the Holy Spirit, revealed that I share that same condition with all humanity. Thankfully, God's law also revealed that by faith, I can receive God's gift of forgiving grace all because of Jesus' cross. Praise God: the reach of God's grace exceeds the reach of sin's contamination--it reached even to me!

A (Psychological)

Unfortunately, pain is impossible to remove from just about every aspect of sin, the cross, failure, redemption, or even love. Edwin Friedman, in his book Generation to Generation (pp. 47-51), provides great insight into the necessity of pain as a tool for growth: "If one family member can successfully increase his or her threshold for another's pain, the other's own threshold will also increase, thus expanding his or her range of functioning.... The more that family members are motivated to achieve goals, the less their pain will bother them; [however], where family members are too quick to spare another pain, the resulting dependency tends to make the other's threshold fall. In addition, he or she will become addicted to having pain relieved through someone else's functioning.... Those who focus only on comfort, on relieving pain, or on filling another's need, tend to forget that another's need may be not to have their needs fulfilled."

Here's where Friedman collaborates with the Holy Spirit's process: the Holy Spirit lovingly reveals to us the painful truths of our misconduct and our lost condition without God. The more honesty we learn to tolerate, the more options we discover that keep us from stumbling in darkness. Friedman continues: "The problem is that we cannot make another family member responsible by trying to make him or her responsible. The very act of trying to make others responsible preempts their own responsibility.... There is, however, a way to be our brother's keeper, to manifest responsibility for a fellow human being without getting stuck in a triangle between that person and his or her failure to be responsible. It is called "challenge," but it requires one to nonanxiously tolerate pain, and sometimes even to stimulate pain, thus forcing the other to increase his or her threshold.... Sticking someone with the pain of responsibility for his or her own destiny is far more "sobering" that giving the person black coffee after [getting drunk]." Is my threshold for truth large enough to invite the Words of the only one who could correctly say of Himself, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by Me" (John 14:6).

P

Lord, I encounter people fairly often who shock and sadden me by their resistance to even the concept that they might be wrong. I see foolishly stubborn people, perhaps because it's easier to see it in others than in myself. Help me to never get between another person and their necessary pain. Help me to discern, too, when I am to be their necessary comforter and Your hands in delivering them from their pain. It's just too difficult for me to discern--I need a miracle, and let it begin with the miracle of me being wholly honest with You.

Paul: The Message Carrier

S

(Romans 1:16, 17) I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith."

O

Who was this messenger? Paul, a seemingly powerless, vagabond Jew, a supposed criminal on death row chasing his final court appeal, wrote these sentences (which summarize his entire epistle). Ironically, he addressed these Latins in Greek to explain the life of Jesus of Nazareth, who had taught primarily in Aramaic--in this circuitous path of languages is an easily lost hint about the universality of this message. So, knowing the power of his message, Paul arranged his travel plans so he could take his presentation to Rome's imperial, terrifying throne of judgment. He knew he carried the indestructible idea that, in time, would pulverize all earthly kingdoms and establish an unshakable kingdom of true eternal glory. David's slingshot against Goliath and Luke Skywalker's longshot against the Imperial Starfleet are child stories in comparison.

How apparently arrogant this Jewish prisoner was to make this claim. Yet history has so far proved him right. Paul's life culminated in a Roman execution, but where would history have flowed without his lifework? While the Roman Empire collapsed under the barbarian sweeps of Franks, Goths, Visigoths, and Vandals, Europe--the West--would have risen only as high as the Vikings and Mongols had it not been for the power of Paul's message. There would not have been Bach or Beethoven, no Newton or Pascal, no Washington or Lincoln. The East would be equally unrecognizable because without Mohammad marrying a Christian as one of his wives, his "pro-Jesus, anti-Christ" cult could not have formed. Paul was right: the Gospel he proclaimed turned out to be more powerful, more influential, more enduring, more beautiful than either the idea or the institution of Rome (or any subsequent kingdoms, institutions, or religions).

Who were the Romans? It's not likely that we, today, can comprehend what Rome meant to people living in that chapter of history. Paul knew their power, and rather than allow it to intimidate or appall him, it quickened his step and desire to go to Rome. He anticipated the shame that Rome would level against him in defense of itself. Alexander Maclaren wrote: "What proud contempt would have curled their lips if they had been told that the travel-stained prisoner, trudging wearily up the Appian Way, had the mightiest thing in the world entrusted to his care. Romans did not believe much in ideas. Their notion of power was sharp swords and the iron yokes on the necks of subject peoples. But the history of Christianity, whatever else it has been, has been the history of the supremacy and the revolutionary force of ideas. Thought is mightier than all visible forces. Thought dissolves and reconstructs. Empires and institutions melt before it ... and the hillock of Calvary is higher than the Palatine with its regal homes and the Capitoline with its temples: 'I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God for salvation.' "

What was this message, this good-news Gospel? It was not that Jesus died, was buried, and was then raised from the dead. Even with the shock of Jesus' resurrection, that message would have perished in foolishness, vanity, weakness, deception, and shame. The Gospel that Paul outlined to the Romans he also summarized in his first letter to the Corinthians (chapter 15). Jesus did not merely die; He died in accordance with the Scriptures. He was not merely buried and resurrected, but he rose from death in accordance with Scriptures. In the context of God's revealed plan from the beginning of His creation, we see an entirely different reality behind Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection.

Borrowing again from Maclaren's summary, we see how Paul explained the Gospel to the Romans: it included (1) the universality of sin; (2) the awful burden of guilt; (3) the tremendous outlook of penalty; (4) the impossibility of people rescuing themselves or of (5) living righteously; (6) the incarnation, life, and death of Jesus Christ as the sacrifice for the sins of the world; (7) the hand of faith grasping the offered blessing; (8) the indwelling in the believing souls of the Divine Spirit; (9) the consequent admission of believers into a life of adoption, power, peace, victory, and glory; and (10) the child-like place in the love of the Father from which nothing can separate. Negatively, salvation is the removal and sweeping away of all evil, both physical and moral. Positively, it's the inclusion of all good for every part of our composite nature--every good that we can receive and that God can bestow. And that is the task the Gospel sets for itself. For that to be accomplished, something more than man's power is essential. Only God can "trammel up" the consequences of my sins and prevent them from scourging me. Only God can bestow upon my death a new life that shall grow up into a complete righteousness and beauty that is related to His own. This Gospel is so much more than we realize!

A (Personal)

The direction that the current on which the Gospel river flowed is curious. It traveled to the Jew first, then it seemed to have forked to the Greeks and to the Romans. Using a different metaphor, the Jews would be the parents and the Greeks and Romans the offspring of this Jewish message. This is not unlike Jesus' parable of the Faithful Father, the Prodigal Son, and the Heartless, Perfectionist Elder Brother (Luke 15).

The elder brother created a false sense of safety by worshiping perfect order and uncompromising duty. Like Rome's, his was the worship of human power that sustained itself, that proved and justified itself by punishing the weak and the guilty. This path led to destructive power and rage, and unfortunately I've traveled that path before. To the Roman as with the elder brother, the Good News was the refreshing honesty of acknowledging that, "even though I'll never be good enough, God's grace is still available."

The prodigal brother created a false sense of satisfaction by chasing fantasies of sensual and selfish pleasures. Like the Greeks, he worshiped the endless chase of ideas, beauty, and perfected dreams. Toss rules aside! Abandon even the pretense of doing right. Perfectionism is too hard of work! Instead, explore the possibilities of absolute freedom. This path led to destructive destitution and despair, and I've traveled that path, too. The Good News to the Greeks as well as to prodigals is that Christ has a baptism for us that surpasses our private ambitions.

The Faithful Father was Jesus' description of His Heavenly Father. This "family of origin" was what both sons were fleeing from. Historically, the Greeks and Romans viewed the Hebrews as embarrassing vagabonds, weak and irrelevant. Scripturally, this family--those who have been adopted through Christ into God's family--would be the only branch of the human family tree that would survive God's judgment. The Father gave both sons freedom to choose their destinies, and interestingly, if the brothers in this parable were to reconcile--one with his love for righteousness and the other with his passion for freedom and untethered beauty--then both would have discovered the joys of living within God's kingdom.

How often I forget that my best dreams and ambitions can find their fulfillment only in seeking first God's kingdom and His righteousness? My pursuit of my own destiny--my own path apart from my Heavenly Father's will for me--leads only to the futilities found in God's "I told you so's."

A (Psychological)

Paul challenged Rome's intimidations and power plays by refusing to be shamed by them. I believe shame is universal, and psychologists have been studying shame, analyzing it, hoping to find its psychological and sociological cure. Shaw, Medes, and others have wisely distinguished shame from guilt and embarrassment: with embarrassment being essentially a social blunder that gets publicly exposed; guilt being a more technical distinction of having done a wrong or failed to do a right deed, one is either guilty or not guilty of that; and shame being an internal dislike, repulsion, or even rejection of self, more for what one is rather than for what one might have done or not done. Shame is more toxic and destructive, and seems to get most clinical attention.

Shame and guilt, too, seem to be the roots of addiction. Similar to sufferers of covert depression, addicts try to outrun their shame by chasing cures that promise to separate them from their unwanted and seemingly intolerable thoughts, feelings, and memories.

As helpful as these insights about shame have proven to be, I suggest that this might be a mistaken focus after all. Beneath shame, like a steaming volcanic spring that perpetually defies frosts and winter snows, shame is perpetually fueled by an inner realization of a deeper, darker reality--guilt. I can't be good enough. I can't atone for my wrong-doings. I can't make right all the wrongs that I have done. I can't keep myself from slipping back into wrong or destructive behaviors. I don't have what it takes, so I must run faster to hide from that shame and fear of guilt.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ severs the root of guilt. The Gospel alone is ultimately sufficient for eradicating the paralyzing shame of guilt. The Gospel doesn't sever guilt by cognitive restructuring or creative reframes. It doesn't provide insight about different goals or motives--although each of these might be part of the healing process. The Gospel, instead, provides a tangible, kinetic intervention from God: He personally atoned for each of our wrongs by dying on the cross, and His resurrection invites us into a vibrant new life that is constructed on a fault-free foundation.

Without helping people to be free of justified guilt, we can't really address shame. In relational and civic schemes, we can help people resolve minor infractions of guilt, but apart from Christ, we cannot help people with the merged guilt and shame for our dark, human propensities. Only the blood of the cross can eradicate the effectiveness of our sin nature (Hebrews 9, 10) and answer our deepest longings.

P

Lord, thank You for revealing Your righteousness. It is my power for salvation and my freedom from being ashamed. By faith I see it, I receive it, and I live by it. I revel in the relief of Your love. Thank You!

The Good Debt

S

(Romans 1:14,15) I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians [non-Greeks], both to the wise and the foolish [unwise]--hence my eagerness to preach the Gospel to you also who are in Rome (NRSV).

O

Paul rocks. Who else could have slingshot this truth between my eyes? What did he owe everyone?To the extent that it was possible for him (12:18), he owed everyone the preaching of the Gospel. Why? (1) Because he viewed us all as members of the same family: the word humanity was coined to acknowledge our common Heavenly Father and our common elder brother, Jesus Christ. (2) Because of the message of the cross provides universal salvation. (3) Because of the reality that all believers have access to all-sufficient grace. (4) Because Paul, like each of us, contributed to humanity's suffering in ways that he (we) couldn't recompense or pay restitution.

A (Personal)

Do I act like a debtor or a creditor? Do I think I owe others any obligation or do I think the world owes me? Does God see me as my brother and sister's keeper despite my denial or avoidance of that reality? Do I hold others responsible for bailing me out? The lifestyle of indebtedness is moral reality, while expecting service or even benefit from others is apparently an idiot's fantasy.

A (Psychological)

The people who work in domestic violence, whether with the abusers or victims, as well as the people who contend for gender and social justice have warned of the abuses of power and control. The mindset that seeks power over others or being "one up" on others (rather than seeking shared power and mutual service) has been statistically linked with abuse--obviously. We tend to divide people into haves or have nots, wise or unwise, ethnic insiders or outsiders, rich or poor, served or servants, included or excluded, worthy or unworthy. Whether a cultural victor or victim, both groups still tend to say of the other, "you owe me!" Paul turned that upside down, saying, "Regardless of what group you identify yourself with or even me with, I owe you the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ." Paul points us to a radical new social structure.

P

Lord, until I realized the Truth of what Paul wrote, I thought I was fairly righteous, fairly clean morally. Now I see how far I have yet to go. But I'm not shrinking back! No, I'm pressing deeper. Help me grasp both my indebtedness as well as the riches of Your salvation and grace that You have asked me to share with others who are still in need.