Month: September 2023

The Father Seeketh

As Jesus teaches us about the Father, He reveals a Seeker of worshippers: God’s looking for those who worship Him in spirit and in truth (Jn 4:23-24); true worship is about relationship, loving and enjoying God Himself, not religious form or ritual.

However, this isn’t the same as indulging our emotional impulses; seducing spirits imitate the Holy Spirit and draw careless, uninformed worshippers away. If we aren’t focused on and enjoying Father God as He has revealed Himself, we’re wandering astray, off on our own path (Is 53:6), chasing idols. (1Co 12:2)

So, we should carefully heed Christ’s observation that most worship is ignorant: “Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.” (Jn 4:22) Unless we know God from a Hebraic perspective our worship is in error, misguided; Jesus and His followers worship in truth because they have a Torah-based mindset. The Jews are the conduit of God’s offer of salvation to the world; through the Tanach God has revealed Who He is, what He is like and how to have a relationship with Himself. (Lk 16:29) We can only worship in spirit and in truth from such a perspective. (Ps 119:7, Is 8:20)

Christ is telling us that if we aren’t cherishing Jehovah God of the Hebrews, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and what He has shown us about Himself in Torah, we aren’t worshipping God at all, but an idol of our own imagination. (Ro 1:21) In other words, if we aren’t meditating in the Old Testament to comprehend Divinity and how to walk with Him, if we’re getting our theology elsewhere, we’re not even in the ballpark — we’ve no idea what we’re doing.

This is the basic problem with Christian theology: in rejecting the Torah-based foundation it takes the New Testament out of context; it’s a new religion, invented well after the Apostolic era, built on the sand. (Mt 7:26-27) The Jesus offered to the world through Christianity, who abolished Torah, isn’t the Christ of Scripture (Mt 5:17-19), and the various Christianized versions of the everlasting Gospel — inasmuch as they are not grounded in Torah, are false. (2Co 11:4) It’s an elaborate counterfeit (2Co 11:13-15), and to the degree souls are inoculated with this deception the harder they are to reach.

The people of God, who are the Israel of God (Ga 6:16), understand the basics about God as revealed in Torah: Jehovah God is holy, pure light; in Him is no darkness at all. (1Jn 1:5) He is a consuming fire (He 12:29) and will trample underfoot all who err from His commandments. (Ps 119:118) It is a fearful thing to fall into His hands. (He 10:31)

Claiming to know Jehovah God without keeping His commands is lying to ourselves. (1Jn 2:4) There’s no reconciliation with God apart from obedience (Ac 5:32); God doesn’t save us to sin as we please (Ep 2:10), He writes His Laws into our hearts (He 8:10) and conforms us to the image of His Son. (Ro 8:29)

God’s followers obey Him (1Jn 3:7-8), and we do so in love — love for God and others. (10) We obey in faith, knowing God is good, faithful and true, no matter what. God works in us to live like this (Php 2:13), to serve Him with reverence and godly fear, by grace. (He 12:28)

God is seeking worshippers … who know Him as He is: Almighty Jehovah God, laying down His life to justify us (1Jn 3:16), giving us new hearts to love and pursue Him (saving us) (Ez 36:26), requiring perfect obedience of us (Mt 5:48), showing us mercy as we try imperfectly to obey (Ex 20:6) and enabling us to obey Him more and more in spirit and truth (sanctifying us). (1Co 1:30-31)

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A Sound Mind

Cognitive Bias is a systematic error in thinking which affects how we process information, distorting our perception and causing us to act irrationally. This bias is rooted in incorrect beliefs about ourselves, others and/or the world which cause us to want Reality to be different than it actually is, hindering our ability to rightly engage the world. This corruption in our minds makes us vulnerable to even more deception, causing more irrational behavior.

To the degree we’re free of Cognitive Bias, the healthier our mind is, the freer we are to think, reason and make good decisions. A sound mind honestly and (therefore more) accurately perceives the world and responds more rationally, coherently, consistently.

The challenge here is that we’re all limited and incomplete in our understanding (1Co 8:2); we’re unable to focus on everything we perceive all at once, and our world is also extremely complex, very difficult to interpret optimally. So, God has ingeniously designed our minds to focus our attention on what’s important, to categorize and generalize our perceptions based on past experience in order to simplify this complexity. We learn to develop mental shortcuts based on what we already know to help us efficiently process new information and make important decisions in real time — otherwise we couldn’t function well. This is God’s design, and might look like Cognitive Bias, but it’s different.

Cognitive Bias is when our internal agenda, what we want Reality to be like, causes us to deal dishonestly with the facts, to apply different rules of evaluation, different standards depending on the situation, in order to protect our own distorted version of Reality. It reflects a fundamentally dishonest worldview, a tendency to love deception rather than the truth. (Jn 3:19)

Cognitive Bias is the root cause of a reprobate mind (Ro 1:28), a corrupt mind (2Ti 3:8), a carnal mind (Ro 8:7); it’s a condition we build into ourselves over time which cripples our ability to understand and obey the truth.

The danger in Cognitive Bias is that what we believe about our world impacts what we can actually perceive about it; believing lies distorts our perception so we can no longer even see the truth. When we neglect to align ourselves with the Reality in front of us, we blind ourselves; this is self-deception, the worst kind of deception. (Ja 1:22) Yet it’s how we all start out (Ti 3:3), and it’s the natural state of most everyone we know. The masses of humanity are unaware, deluded, passively content in the darkness, thoughtlessly traveling the wide road to destruction. (Mt 7:13-14)

A sound mind isn’t actually very common; it’s the precious gift of God. (2Ti 1:7)

To deliver ourselves from Cognitive Bias and develop a sounder, healthier mind, while working within the limitations of our current mental framework, we must determine to love the truth and pursue it at all costs. (Pr 23:23) We must acknowledge that we very likely still have biases which cause us to react irrationally and be on the lookout for them, even inviting others to point out any hint of inconsistency in our behavior. This is the path to freedom. (Jn 8:32)

The key is to start paying attention (Ps 119:9), training ourselves to notice and carefully observe more of what is going on around us, and also within us, and train more of our focus on that part of Reality which appears anomalous, contrary to our world view, opposing our beliefs and presuppositions — our bias. We must be on the lookout for signs that we’re misinterpreting Reality.

When we notice an irrational response, a desire to believe a certain way which appears to be inconsistent with Reality, reactions which don’t align with the facts in front of us, we must ask God for repentance, to open our eyes to see and believe the truth, and deliver ourselves from the snare of deception. (2Ti 2:25-26)

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Be Ye Separate

God tells us we’re to separate ourselves from the world (1Co 6:17-18), to not be unequally yoked with unbelievers (16) and to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them (Ep 5:11), yet we find Christ eating and drinking with sinners, and being very friendly with them. (Lk 17:34) God gives sunshine, rain and health to His enemies, effectively enabling them to continue in sin (Mt 5:45), and He tells us to love them and seek their good. (44)

It’s relatively easy to look down our nose at other sinners and separate from them in a spirit of pride and self-righteousness, but this isn’t Love. Yet it’s also unloving to encourage anyone to continue in sin. Where do we draw the line?

There’s a difference between treating sinners with respect and kindness and explicitly promoting perversion. There’s a difference between doing business with someone who self-identifies with sin and encouraging them to continue in their sin. There’s a difference between enabling a person to sin by helping them in non-sinful ways and actually participating with them in practicing their sin.

And there’s a difference between offering a gentle rebuke to a fellow truth-seeker (2Ti 2:24-25) and casting our pearls before swine. (Mt 7:6, Pr 9:7) Often, a godly example is sufficient reproof. (Mt 5:16)

How good does a person, organization or government need to be before we engage with them? What types of flaws, indiscretions or iniquities are acceptable before we withdraw and separate ourselves, or even rebuke and resist?

Rome was about as evil and corrupt as any nation, requiring its subjects to worship Ceasar as god, yet John the Baptist, in preparing the way for Messiah, didn’t advise publicans to stop collecting taxes for Rome (Lk 3:12-13) or soldiers to stop serving Ceasar. (14) Not only did he not resist Rome, he encouraged those who were providing a legitimate service on behalf of Rome to continue to do so with integrity.

Perhaps the rule of Love will help us clarify (Ro 13:10): how do we want others to handle this matter of separation? Do we appreciate fellow citizens standing up for godly principles and resisting those who are actively defrauding and harming others, when they are in a position to do so effectively and legally? Yes, we generally do.

Does it annoy us when the self-righteous get to meddling in the affairs of others they think are in sin, calling them out and harassing them, when they’re not deliberately harming anyone? Generally, yes.

When it’s within our power to prevent open injustice, to defend the vulnerable and the weak, and we don’t … we certainly are to blame (Pr 24:11-12, Ja 4:17), but we also must be careful not to suffer as a busybody in other men’s matters. (1Pe 4:15)

Every situation is different; we need wisdom, humility and love in each circumstance. God be merciful to us and lead us in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. (Ps 23:3)

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