Author: Tim Hayes

“Worry is the practice of the unfaithfulness of God.” The saying intrigues and challenges me; it helps me understand the nature of unhealthy fear. (Lk_12:32)

Hope is faith resting peacefully in God’s goodness (Ps 125:1); anxiety is doubt accusing God of unfaithfulness before the fact (Php 4:6); it’s expecting to look back on life displeased with God’s care for us. (1Pe 5:7) It’s attacking God’s character (1Jn 5:10b), and so it’s sin. (Rev 21:8)

Instinctive fear of physical danger is good, God’s gift to help us escape when we’re threatened. Concern, caring for others, desiring the best for them in difficulty, is love moving us to good. (2Co 7:12) But living in worry, anxiety, dread … this is not of God (2Ti 1:7); it’s bondage on a spectrum of distrust in God’s faithfulness. Yeshua never felt any of these things. (Ps 23:4)

When we become aware of anxiety we should repent, asking God to increase our faith (Lk_17:5) and help us trust that He is good. (Na 1:7) The fact that He’s always with us (He 13:5-6) means everything He allows in our lives is for a good reason, and ultimately for our good. (Ro 8:28)

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There are thousands of Christian denominations, replete with falsehood and error. This isn’t unreasonable, it’s inevitable: God isn’t easily found or understood, yet He holds each of us accountable to seek and find Him for ourselves. (Ac 17:27) We may neither delegate this responsibility, nor force our beliefs on others. In seeking God independently, we’re all at various stages of our journey, with unique levels of understanding. We all have some truth, and we all have some error.

Our goal in spiritual community, where we find all social classes and cultures, is simply stated: to edify one another, helping each other in our journey after God. (Ep 4:11-13) Being diverse in our ways, gifts, dispositions and wounds, we must defer to one another in matters of preference. (Ro 14:4-5) Yet our goal implies that in matters of truth we are to be seeking unity through thoughtful like-mindedness: [1] encouraging each other where we agree, [2] humbly and prayerfully challenging each other where we differ, and [3] seeking wisdom in each other as we’re searching and growing. (Ro 15:5)

Yet many walk among us who are not on this journey (Php 3:18-19), not seeking God, not seeking truth (2Th 2:10-12), false brothers who exploit the power of religion, enslaving themselves and others. (Ga 2:4) They company with us, enjoying the benefits of community, and appear so much like the rest of us (2Co 11:13-15) that we cannot always tell one from another with certainty; it’s not even our place … only God can do this perfectly.  (Mt 13:28-30)

Even so, in pursuing the goal of spiritual community, God calls us to mark out and avoid those who either [1] express willful contempt for God’s laws (Mt 18:15-17,  1Co 5:12-13) or [2] offend and divide through false doctrine. (Ro 16:17) This must be done kindly but firmly, with wisdom, not as individuals but as a body indwelt by God. (2Co 6:16)

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I’ve often pondered the saying, “It never hurts to ask!” Sometimes I think it does hurt to ask; we shouldn’t lightly impose on others, taking their time and energy for granted. When we ask for something, we should ensure that our hearts are in the right place; selfish, inconsiderate requests are never good.

But how about God? How does He react when people pray, asking Him for things? Is He always delighted when people share their desires with Him?

As in human relationships, it depends on the heart; when the upright seek His help He’s delighted (Pr 15:8), but the prayers of those willfully ignoring His commands are disgusting to Him, an abomination. (Pr 28:9)

We should pray about everything (Php 4:6), ensuring as well as we can that our hearts are always right with God, seeking to walk in the light, in obedience and truth, not presuming we’re in a good place with God simply because we pray. If we’re justifying sin in our life, we’re wasting our time. (Ps 66:18)

God’s love moves Him to be angry with all who persist in willfully ignoring His commands (Ps 7:11), sinning against Himself and others. God’s children don’t do this as a manner of life; they’re elect unto obedience.

God is kind, and often answers the prayers of His enemies, but let’s not kid ourselves or deceive others: there’s no prayer, ritual or religious expression of any kind that covers the stench of rebellion. (De 25:16)

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How do we describe beauty? What makes something beautiful or ugly? Atheists try and explain it by associating it with food or safety … I don’t think so. There’s something spiritual about beauty that defies philosophical naturalism. It’s designed into us for one reason: it’s our radar, enabling us to enjoy God.

The Psalmist desires one thing of God and pursues it: to walk in constant communion with Him, like we did in the Garden, beholding His beauty and seeking to know more and more about Him. (Ps 27:4) It’s why we’re here, what we’re made for; this must become our focus. (Php 3:10)

The beauty of the natural world is a reflection and expression of God, a shadow picture of His glory and majesty. It reminds us of the infinite beauty of God, both physical and spiritual. As our hearts drink in the natural beauty He’s made, our souls can be feeding in the majesty of the infinitude of God, worshiping Him in spirit and truth. (Jn 4:23) To enjoy the shadow and not the reality is to abuse the shadow; it’s to miss everything.

The wisdom in continually seeking a closer relationship with God is really just common sense. (Re 15:4) Just think about it: knowing there’s an infinitely powerful God who designed the entire universe … Who loves us enough to give up His Son to die in our place (Jn 3:16) … and not seeking Him out? Not wanting to know Him and walk with Him and enjoy Him? Can the Creator of beauty itself not be infinitely beautiful? If anything or anyone is worthy of being pursued and known … isn’t God?

Ask and receive; seek and find; knock and the door will open. (Mt 7:7) God wants to be found, to be enjoyed; everything about our design points to this. He’s everything we’ve ever needed or longed for, satisfying beyond comprehension. We can’t possibly imagine how beautiful, how majestic, how fantastic He is! (1Co 2:9)

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It’s dry, lifeless, our ultimate decomposition. (Ge 3:19) Who would cling to dust, grasping for it, hanging on to it? What does this mean? Why would anyone do it?

The Psalmist, aware that he’s cleaving to the dust, cries out to God for help, for life. (Ps 119:25) He evidently finds himself in distress, in an unpleasant way, admitting, or perhaps even desiring, a type of death.

Perhaps it’s a longing to escape cruelty, injustice and suffering (Job 3:20-22); perhaps it reflects a numbness, a disorientation, a lostness, an inability to relish God’s power, wisdom, beauty and life (Eph 2:1-3), a desire for this shallow, empty world, a fawning over its trinkets, illusions and titillations. (1Jn 2:15-16) Perhaps it’s nothing more than being distracted from the continual presence of God, failing to cleave to Jehovah.

As ugly as it is, whatever it is, he’s declaring his ways and state before us all exactly as he finds himself to be (Ps 119:26); in knowing God hears the honest, vulerable cry of humility there’s hope. As God enables his understanding he knows he’ll be renewed and restored to bubble over with wonder in the workings of God. (Ps 119:27)

When I find myself unable to delight in God, whether disrupted and overwhelmed by the insanity, cruelty and injustice of this world, or drawn to its emptiness and enticed by its vanity, or merely distracted from communion with God, I sense the stench of death, an old dark way from which I’m now free. I look to God to work in me (Php 2:13), waiting on Him to turn my eyes upward, to focus beyond this pale, temporal horizon, giving me His life to walk in His way. (Ps 119:37)

There’s no life without longing, and no good longing for which God Himself is not the ultimate satisfaction. (Ps 16:11)

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God speaks often of His “way,” (Pr 10:29) contrasting it with other ways. (Ps 1:6). He speaks to our orientation, our leaning, our inclinations and motivation. Pursuing Him isn’t paint by the numbers; it’s not about following rules, rituals and traditions; He calls us to a path, a direction.

We ask Him to bring us to life in His way (Ps 119:37) and show us the way of His Laws (Ps 119:33), to open our eyes so we can see, to gaze on His beauty and wisdom. (Ps 119:18) We ask Him to take the way of lying out of us (Ps 119:29), to make us understand the way of His precepts (Ps 119:27), and to go in the path of His commandments (Ps 119:35) since we’ve chosen the way of truth. (Ps 119:30)

And mysteriously, the Way is more than just a path: this one is alive! (He 10:19-20) The Way of God is a Being, a divine Person (Jn 14:6) permeating, imbued within, and embodied throughout His Law. This Way dwells in us both to will and to do according to His good pleasure (Php 2:13), living out the way in us, giving us the life we need to obey Him from the heart. (Ps 119:32) Yeshua is who we follow, yet He is also how we follow. (1Co 1:30) As we behold Him, He is the very light that enables us to see Him, and the very Life that perceives His light. (Jn 1:4)

The choices we make over time form a pattern, a way. Ponder the path; motives become choices, tiles in a mosaic displaying our nature to the universe. Ask God Himself to live out His way in us. In aligning ourselves more and more with God’s Way, Torah, Yeshua, the more our lives reflect His light and life.

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Sight: it’s amazing! Perceiving colors and shapes as our eyes translate light into our brains, presenting vision to our souls … it borders on miraculous. When sight’s lost we long for healing, but those born blind can’t know what they’re missing.

In a way, we’re all born spiritually blind (Ep 4:18), deceived (Tit 3:3), at enmity with God and His law. (Ro 8:7) We start out with a veil over hearts, obscuring the beauty of the spirit of the Law. Yet when we come into Messiah this vail is removed (2Co 3:14-16) and we cry out, “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.” (Ps 119:18) 

As God gives us sight we begin to see detail and precision and beauty in His commands (Ps 119:96) that we could not have seen before; things that looked dull and dry on the surface become glorious as we see them with new eyes; they testify of Him. As we hide His laws in our hearts, delighting in them and meditating on them (Ps 1:2), a whole new world opens up to us which we glossed over and missed in our blindness and shallowness.

To the blind, God’s commands are boring, inconvenient, confusing and repulsive. God must open our eyes (Lk 24:45) and enable us to see Him and His way in His laws. (Lk 24:27) He must equip us to translate the light of His Law (Ps 119:105) into a vision of His glory and majesty (Ro 11:33), to find the unsearchable riches of Christ. (Eph 3:8)

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Through the Fall we’ve become like God: we “know good and evil.” (Ge 3:22a) Since God doesn’t do evil, this can’t simply mean we know what it’s like to do good and evil, and since God sees this as a bad thing (Ge 3:24) it can’t mean we’ve experienced good and evil in others. It must mean that we, as if we’re God, presume the right to define good and evil for ourselves, that we claim to know what good and evil are apart from Him, that we know better than He does.

We’re constantly making moral judgments based on how we feel, without consulting God, just making it up as we go. And we instinctively respond to the moral evaluations of other mortals as if they’re divine. This is so natural we seldom even notice we’re doing it; it’s born into our nature, as natural as breathing, and it’s why we’re so wicked. Most all the evil and suffering in our world is from us doing what’s right in our own eyes.

Moral definitions are God’s business and He’s revealed them in His Law. Breaking His Law is His definition of evil (1Jn 3:4); any other definition is profound arrogance and presumption — it’s essentially climbing up into God’s throne and pushing Him off. There really isn’t a more offensive thing we can possibly do to Him; it’s Satan’s way.

We should make it our top priority to study God’s Laws and ask Him to conform our hearts and minds to His standards and ways, hiding them in our heart so that we don’t sin against Him. (Ps 119:11)  Let’s worship in truth and walk in the light, unintimidated when others make up their own moral laws. When we find ourselves making instinctive moral judgments, or reacting to those of others, let’s get in the habit of checking with God and dismissing the rest.

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