The issue of control

I have always struggled with the thought of who is ultimately in control.

Is God in control or am I?

If God is in control, then God is the author of suffering. If i’m fully in control of my life then God is absent and I’m left to my own devices. On top of this, if i'm suffering (while being in control) then i'm a masochist. Hopeless and abandoned. Both of these are scary thoughts.

Another option is that its a case of “sort of” 50/50. God helps out now and again. I’m partly in control and God is partly in control. but his too is problematic. This still means that God authors suffering by not helping out the other 50% of the time. This can also paint him as cruel.

What if it's that God helps out and answers prayers only when i’m a good boy? And if something bad happens while I’m a good boy then there must have been some hidden ‘sin’ in my life. Or God is using suffering to teach me a lesson. But this goes diametrically against the gospel.

I think the answer is much simpler. 

Who is in control? It’s not either or, its both and. It’s no longer the case that God is over there and I’m over here;  I make some decisions and God makes some. The man upstairs who helps out now and again when he feels like it and the victims of the hard life down below. 

Its that there is no longer any separation between me and God. (John 17) Our natural minds like to think in “binary terms” either / or, In / out, Yes / No. But beyond our minds lies our spirits...

Isn’t this what the gospel reveals? God becomes man. The infinite embodies the temporal. The all powerful dressed up in the frail. The God-man. And all of us were adopted into that divine family. We are no longer mere humans but “new creations”, "co-airs" with Christ. 

To the extent that I realise this truth my life will get a radical upgrade.

I can then no longer blame God (or myself) but realise that in the same way that I’m a “co-air” with Christ, I’m also a co-creator. A creator has the ability to decide and create. To call things out of thin air into existence. 

Life and troubles happen, yes, but as one in union with Christ, life and death does not have the final say.

If our starting point is separation from God then we end up broken and bitter. Blaming a distant Deity for its failures, But if our starting point is union with God then we are forced to discover who we truly are. 

The Contract God vs the Covenant God

The contract God says: I will do this for you IF you do this for me. If you don't keep your part, neither will I.

The covenant God says: I will keep my part, even though you do not. (This is the nature of a covenant)

The contract God is all about the legality of your relationship whilst the covenant God is all about His love for you. (Even if you don't love him back)

The contract God is never pleased and is waiting for you to fail, while the covenant God is not affected by your mistakes.

A contract can be broken (with consequences from the offending party's side), this covenant not.

For those who do not know - a double sided covenant was made between God and the representative of the human race - Jesus. This covenant was made without our approval or adherence to it while fully representing us in every way. Jesus became the mediator of this new covenant on behalf of the human race. A covenant of unbroken relationship, perfect in love.

This covenant was not made with me or with you, it was crafted between God and the Son of God (who represents me and you). My faith did not and does not make the covenant happen, rather I participate by faith in this already existing graceful covenant.

I cannot break it, seeing that it was not made with me, but...I can be miss out and be misled by not knowing what I am already apart of... I can focus on myself and beat myself up for failing of become prideful of my accomplishments before God -all for nothing...

No... It's all about God crafting an unbreakable covenant on my behalf, apart from my performance, fully including and representing me, leading me ever deeper into resting in the finality, beauty and perfection of a done deal.

Slow down and stop

Sometimes I find it difficult to slow down and stop. Its like everyone, including myself are chasing after something. What that might be differs for everyone, and mostly I don't really know why and what I'm chasing.

It's as if the atmosphere I find myself in compels me to join the hordes in the elusive race, or else face the embarrassment and rejection of being left behind, and lesser off.

While I was driving up from Cape Town to Jeffrey's bay - a 7 hour drive on the last day of a long weekend, I could not help but notice the sheer intensity of the oncoming traffic back into Cape Town. The Pimped out SUV's with bicycles, luggage and cool cat sunglasses all speeding past me like a Mexican bull stampede trying to get back to whatever they were busy with before giving it a chill over the long weekend.

I notice all these things because I myself am part of the stampede sometimes. But this day I wasn't.

We give it our 100% when in the office and part of the work force, but when its holiday time, we speed there in an attempt to wind down for a few days - trying to live a little, and then speed back to our normal lives. We have to speed, because if we miss out on the rat race, if we are not prepared enough when Monday comes, we might slack down and screw up here and there and miss out on our pay-check and the next big holiday.

I can probably judge a little because I have a great Job that allows me to work remotely - and stay out of the physical rat race when I feel like it, so maybe I judge a little unfairly. But that should not stop me from judging, for in doing so I judge myself if I may ever fall into the situation where all I have is the rat race.

In any case, after being in the rat race for 2 months, I came back to the easy coastal life and realised how hard it is for me to slow down. The more I started to slow down, the more depressed I became. Why? Well it's because I have emotional baggage because of a relationship that got screwed up a few months before getting back into the rat race.

I could not really face it, for facing it meant a lot of pain and tears. So its easier just to speed up again and chase the next thing to get whatever I'm feeling and thinking deep-down out of the way until it vanishes.

Been there done that. It doesn't work. Somewhere it will pitch up again and bite you hard in the ass. Or the next big thing you chase might also fail, and to cope with that failure you might just push harder for the next thing - until the whole skyscraper comes crashing down vertically in one big spell of dust of destruction. No thanks.

So slowing down is difficult sometimes because we have to deal with whatever we are trying not to face, and its difficult. Really difficult. Sometimes too difficult.

On the other hand, I have seen that life happens in the NOW. The more we put if off, the more we miss out on real life and postpone our own happiness to tomorrow, next month, or when I can afford that house, have that wife or that goal.

If the means with which you reached your goal was with persistent putting off the now, then maintaining the goal, or reaching the next goal will also be by the same means - putting off the now. In the end the lifespan of the goals are exponentially shorter than the putting off of life.

The only way to truly be satisfied and content is to slow down and stop. And while you're at it, face your inner demons with tears and pain - then reap the rewards of constant fulfilment in the now, rather than chasing stuff we blindly think will be better than we have right now.

Like I said, I'm judging widely, its not one shoe fits all theology here, but I know that the just of what I'm saying is true, I have experienced it in my own life.

So for me, its back to facing myself, my loneliness,  emptiness, regrets and fears. And once I've faced them I know they will come up empty, because they are only a byproduct of chasing imaginary carrots anyway.

In the midst of suffering

We can't choose circumstances. Sometimes we can, but other times we realize that we can't. It might sound elementary, but as a Christian, we sometimes expect everything to turn out wonderful and great, and if it doesn't then we surely should be able, by the grace of God to get our of that situation. Jesus paid the price for us to escape didn't he?

If we do not find a way out, then it means we do not have enough faith or strength (which is already provided by Jesus on the cross) for us to overcome the situation, right?

The other way of looking at it -suffering, that is,  is to see that it is God causing the suffering... That he somehow has a hand in it and does not liberate us from it for some or the other reason. We might then conclude that God is trying to teach us something.

I have found that both of theses and neither of these provide the right answer, nor do any of these reasonings provide me with peace or rest in my heart.

It seems that suffering is inevitable in this life, we have to accept it. The reason for why that is so, is not as important as what we do with the suffering we are experiencing. The worst thing you and I can do is to try fight against it without accepting it and first and praising God in the midst of it. Let me explain:

The more I find myself trying to escape my suffering, the less joy and peace I have. It decreases in direct correlation with the amount of effort I put into trying to reduce it. But once I realized that I can have the same joy in the suffering as what I have in the wonderful times, that changes everything. Now it is no longer a battle trying to get free, but to see that the escape is right here.

If I am in this situation, and I have tried to get out, and cannot get out, then God is aware that I am here, that I can't escape and He is ok with my circumstances. He knows where I am and knows I cannot get out, and doesn't expect me to either...

Think of Paul being captured and being put in a deep dark dungeon. He knows he can do nothing to escape. He probably asked God a few times to set him free, but after a while He gave up on asking and accepted it and instead reverted to Praising God. Praising God has the equivalent satisfaction as being set free, perhaps even more so. So Paul, could in the dungeon, still praise God and enter into his lovingkindness despite the external circumstances. The external circumstances will take care of themselves. God is still there and fully able to release you at the blink of an eye, but we need to see that the release is to stop looking to the outside of our cage and to look to the inside where God is standing right beside us.

The more we focus on "trying" to get free, the more we will miss the joy that has always been right here. If we think we can only have peace, prosperity and freedom when everything is going great, we will only find it in the great going times, what a shame. We miss out on the fact that we can have it all the time. Perhaps God is gracious in allowing suffering to make us let go of trying to find joy and freedom in fleeting places and point us to the eternal, never-ending well of his loving spirit.

The key for me is letting go of trying to change things and circumstances. I do not have control over it, and neither am I supposed to. Once this is realized, I am free to find peace in suffering and know that God is right here and is inviting me into his glorious presence right now and right here.

The "Right" Interpretation

There are more than 33000 different Christian denominations. Each with their own specific interpretation of the bible and of what the truth is. This has obviously caused major splits in Christianity and divided and alienated many people, not to mention scar the image of Christianity.

Even as I grew in the faith, many contrasting  viewpoints were presented by different people, some I accepted and some I rejected and others and completely withstood and would fight against.

A while ago I came across a post where believers were arguing and discussing two opposing views on the cross. The one group were holding the view of penal substitution and the others were against that. Penal substitution is basically the doctrine where we believe that Jesus was punished by God for our sins, in a legal sense to get us off the hook. God had to punish someone for our sins, and in a sense required “blood” to be spilled to release forgiveness. And so Jesus took our place and was punished by God in our stead.

The other viewpoint is that it was not God that required blood to be spilled, but us as humanity. That the cross of Jesus was not God punishing Jesus on our behalf but rather Jesus going into the depths of our own sin, sickness, death and condemnation and taking it upon himself on our behalf. No punishment from God intended or needed.

While both of these points of view have merits and scriptural support, which one is right? The idea of penal substitution is a belief that has come a long way through history. A few centuries ago where justice and punishment for crimes were deeply ingrained into the consciousness of people, this idea would have made a lot of sense, would have been understood well and would set many people free from a sin consciousness. The idea of Jesus taking our death and sin upon himself without the punishment of God, would not have been understood or received as well by that same group of people, but would be much better received by people who did not have a background of liberation through justice per se.

I believe that the time of the law under Moses was a necessary pre-cursor to the cross. God had to meet sinful humanity where they were at, at a primitive spiritual understanding of the divine, and slowly walk with them through the ages of the law, and so doing, progressively reveal Himself to them until the fullness of Christ. The lamb of God was in fact slain before the foundation of the world but was only revealed at the right time…

What I’m trying to say is that what if the truth is both relative and absolute? What if God works with humanity’s understanding, albeit incomplete and obscured by our own sinfulness and blindness, to make the light of his love and ultimate truth still shine forth in a specific place and time in our lives? So what if both viewpoints earlier mentioned are correct. They are correct in the sense that God succeeded in liberating us from bondages through those doctrines. God hits a straight shot with a crooked club. He meets us were we are at and desires to liberate us from that which binds and blinds us at any cost! If you were liberated by the doctrine of penal substitution, wonderful! If you were liberated and given more freedom towards God by the other viewpoint, wonderful and hallelujah!

At the end of the day, God’s truth is not about which doctrine or interpretation of the scripture is the absolute correct one, but God’s truth is rather the unveiling of Himself as the personal liberator and as pure love and as The Truth. That is why 2 seeming opposing doctrines, both of which have their liberating qualities can both be true and bring us to this greater truth. The problem arises where we isolate our viewpoint or “smaller truth” and start to oppose everything that does not hold to that which liberated us, while not understanding that those you are opposing were liberated by their doctrine.

We have to see that truth is not a doctrine but a connection the giver of life himself, Jesus Christ. He himself is the final and authoritative Word of God. We must realise that doctrines taught to us, received by us unto liberation are not the final truth and will bring us step by step closer to the Word Himself. So after diving deep into the limited freedom that our doctrine has provided us with, we have to stand back and see that this journey doesn’t stop with an idea or a doctrine. The liberation doesn’t stop with one belief or understanding, our doctrines and we ourselves have to evolve and adapt as God progressively leads us to a better understanding of Himself through the Holy Spirit and scripture.

What if God deliberately included seeming contradictory points of view to capture the attention of as many possible, on both sides of the fence? (I am not referring here to selfish or deliberate evil interpretations.) What if we can also say of God, “I became all things to all men so that I might win some” as Paul said? God is love and desires to liberate us and show His love to us at the place and understanding we are at. Let’s fully receive what the Holy Spirit reveals in His time, while not holding too tightly, defending or opposing doctrines and ideas. Let us rather see them as stepping stones given in their time and place by God, to liberate us and bring us into a more spacious understanding of His nature with each new revelation.

The Journey

As we as Christians continue in our walk with God we go through certain trials and tribulations. All Christians who seek God will inevitably go through times of testing, twisting and refining. At the end of the day, we want to be like Christ. As Paul said : “I will not continue to labour until Christ is formed in you”. Paul’s passion and heart was to see the Christ that is already within you and I come out to the surface.

But how does this process work, how do we grow and go from glory to glory? Many on this path have deviated much from the path, many have completely left the path because of disappointment, unanswered prayer or expectations not being fulfilled. Where are you in this journey of Christ-likeness?

Before we begin the expression of this journey, we have to clearly show and see what the objective of God is. At the end of the day, It’s God working in us, not we working something in ourselves… We have to make this distinction. As many of us begin this journey with God, we have the wrong ideas and expectations of where we are supposed to end up - this just ensures for some more setbacks and struggles. If you are one of those who have left the path, or have wondered off and are reading this, you are much closer than you think!

To put it simply, the process of this journey is death. Death of what cannot inherit the Kingdom of God and consequently life to that which can. My self-righteousness cannot express God, my stubbornness and pride cannot either - it has to die and make place for Christ to live his life through me. It’s not just my bad or sinful traits that have to die, but the whole of ME! Andre has to make place for Christ! In the end the angels won’t sing, “Worthy is the Lamb and Andre”, they only worship the perfectly slain and righteousness lamb of God. 

At the end of the day, my perceptions of God has to die, my expectations have to die, my sinful desires have to die, my self-righteousness and pride has has to die… Alas, the whole of “ME” has to die to make place for the christ-man that is already born again in me.

Don’t stop reading now, there is good news! The whole mystery and glorious truth of the gospel is that when Christ died, YOU already died with Him! And when he was resurrected, you were already resurrected with Him! The process of dying is the process of recognising what is already dead, and recognising what is at life now!

Many Christians set out to crucify themselves, their own sinful nature… But imagine yourself on a cross. With your right hand you can hit one nail in each foot and probably with much luck hit in the nail on your left hand. But you cannot smack the nail into your own right hand… No, we cannot crucify ourselves, if we were able to, What did Jesus die for? Just as an example for us? No, Christ died FOR, in place or AS you and I. That is why Paul says in 2 Cor 5 that when one died for all, all died.

You see, the process is not killing yourself, but the end result is realising that you have been killed already and that there is a glory-man and woman already on the inside of me that does not have it’s own goodness, its own righteousness, its own holiness or its own glory and power but that this glory man and woman on the inside of me and you is a partaker of the nature of God. The new you and I has and shares the very same nature of God…

The process is one of discovery. A process of discovering our true nature and so doing discover our false and sinful nature. I can only realise I have been prideful if I have spent time with a truly humble person. In the same way I can only let go and cling to the christ-man in me once the holy spirit reveals the christ-man to me through the gospel.

The process is wonderful, and carries with it an easy, liberating yoke but our own stubbornness, pride, ideas and expectations will cause us much hurt the more we cling to them.

May we realise that the dead and fleshly “ME” cannot share in the glory and the nature of God, because it is incapable of doing so, and at the same time may we realise that Christ has already crucified that sinful state and at the same time made me a partaker of his divine glory as a brand new creation.

The process is not hard, long and laborious. No, if you think it is supposed to be that, then you are trying to do what Christ has already done for you. The freedom and the good news of the Gospel is an announcement that Christ has taken the process of death upon himself and included you and I in the package. We are recipients of his death and resurrection, no effort on my part involved but to see and trust in the work of God through Jesus and in me.

The Gospel in Job

The gospel can be found everywhere in the old testament and not only in the new testament. As I was reading the book of Job the other day - one of the best literature pieces in the bible, and some are of the opinion one of the oldest books in the Bible, I came across the good news of Jesus - the Gospel!

Job was a righteous man and was abundantly blessed, and Job and his friends believed that righteousness = blessings. The more righteous you are, the more you will be blessed. So when disaster struck Job, his first reaction was - I am a righteous man, why is this happening to me?

His friends argued that he must have done something wrong for God to punish him like this, while Job continued to defend himself. The majority of the book of Job is about this - Job defending his righteousness while not understanding why the bad stuff is happening, while his friends trying to show his unrighteousness. Both of them are assuming that righteousness = blessings and unrighteousness = curses. Does God play by those rules? In the old testament He indeed did as we are shown in Deuteronomy 28 and 29 - Your actions or obedience will determine your blessings or your curses. But this was for a specific purpose - to familiarise humanity very well with our own inability to earn through our own righteousness…

But here God takes a different approach to show Job that his own righteousness has nothing to do with why God is blessing or cursing him.

At the end of Job, God squashes Job’s pride with His majesty and Job’s self-righteousness is shown for what it is. Job answers : 

“I know that You can do everything, And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You. You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Listen, please, and let me speak; You said, ‘I will question you, and you shall answer Me.’ “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes.” Job 42 : 2-6 

At this point Job realised that God does whatever he wants and that God is not bound by man’s righteousness or lack of it. God is God and he gives because he is Good and not because man is good. 

This is the gospel in essence. The gospel magnifies the goodness of God in spite of and not because of man’s goodness. God’s heart has always been from the very beginning to bring us out from the yoke of slavery (our own righteousness) and put us under the light and easy yoke of Christ’s own righteousness!

May you and I let go of our own righteousness, stop defending it or fighting for it, or try to measure God's approval of us by it, may we rather embrace the righteousness of Jesus Christ!