LIFE AMONG THE THORN BUSHES

Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record the sower parable which, if taken together, paints a complete picture of the different heart responses to the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Of the four heart-soil types presented, the one most representative of the body of Christ today is the thorny-soil-heart. Now I know the answer that gets the smile, the buzzer and the prize behind door number four is the good-soil-heart, but this simply is not true.  Just look around at all the “western cultural Christians”; in fact, maybe we should look at our own heart. The four characteristics of Thornbushers as documented in the gospels all deal with the allure of the world: 1) The desire for riches. 2) The desire for worldly pleasures. 3) The desire for non-spiritual things. 4) The preoccupation with the cares of this life. Life in the thorn bushes divides our mind, distracts us from God’s purposes, makes us vulnerable to temptation and sin, and, ultimately, chokes out the living word leaving us worried, unstable, and anxious. Thorn cluttered hearts have good intentions but they are deceived, thinking they can concurrently abide in Christ and abide in the world... the very thing He died to save us from. If we think of love for God as a canoe and love for the world as a canoe and then try to float the river of life with one foot in each canoe... well, you get the picture.

Our spiritual quest begins in the thorn bushes of life in this world, where the desire for pleasure, riches, "other” earth bound things, and the cares of this life -- worry about our stuff -- will, if left unchallenged,  slowly “strangle the divine seed birthed within. Thornland… the world, is suppose to be a pilgrimage into transformation by way of jungle warfare: Diligent study of God's word fuels the Spirit's work within, equipping us for spiritual battle, and setting in place the foundational cornerstone of our faith walk – transformation into Christlikeness. Our pilgrimage is not out of Thornland for we are to be “in” the world but not “of” the world. Our pilgrimage is into Christlikeness where we learn to live overcoming lives among the thorns.  But some of us have given up our pilgrimage. We no longer are seeking a city not made with human hands. We have become enthralled with lovers less wild. Failing to study to show ourselves approved – failing to submit our Self to the Lordship of Jesus – failing to drag Self to the Cross – failing to be conformed into the nature of Christ, we have become property owners in Thornland, and built our homes there. Though we still profess our Christian faith we do not possess our Savior’s nature, looking much more like Thornland than like Jesus... wearing His lapel pin without emulating His lifestyle...

EndNote: The Sower Parable says the thorns of our desires for the things of this life choke the word of God. “Choke” here is to literally choke by suffocation and is Luke’s word for suffocation by drowning. The thought here is of a fragile new spiritual creation being suffocated to death, drowning in a sea of competing carnal interests... the thorns of our desires for the world. The thorny hearted are addicts with hearts and minds set on the enticements of life in this fallen world. This worldly mind-set effectively neutralizes... suffocates, the renewing of the mind on things above which is so essential to ongoing spiritual transformation. We literally strangle the voice of God! The thorny heart’s mantra cry, “Your Best Life Now”, is most prevalent in the church today, contradicting and ignoring the Father’s eternal plan for “Your Best Life Later.” Thornbushers foster much more than demonic “toe-holds” allowing strongholds -- fortified fortresses of thoughts -- to rise mystically within the spirit realm of their hearts, becoming slaves to the very things they yielded to and providing doors of ready on-going access to the world’s temptations. “Do not love the word or the things in the world” is a command in the present imperative, indicating continuous action will be required to defeat our Self’s desires for the world... the alternative is drowning...

WEARING HIS LAPEL PIN...
WITHOUT EMULATING HIS LIFESTYLE...

LIVE IN ME, AND I WILL LIVE IN YOU

We may not always sense the presence of the ever present God who has promised never ever to leave or forsake His children... but He is present. We experience God’s presence through our emotions... our feelings, which also respond to life’s circumstances, coloring in the feelings we place on events. Most of the time God’s presence is in the background of our consciousness, an abiding peace and contentment... sort of a fearless “OKness” that we get so accustom to we fail to consciously recognize it. Like our wedding ring, glasses, or a mole on our arm we often fail to consciously recognize God’s presence... for He is always present! There are times when God’s presence moves into the forefront... foreground, of our consciousness... times of worship when we are deliberately focused on His presence... times when His pursuit of our heart bursts into our conscious thought, but much of the time we attend to life unaware of God’s breath on our neck… His arms surrounding us….

A sixteenth century “Christian” coined the phrase “The dark night of the soul” referring to the experience of God removing His presence from an individual. One can only surmise how it would feel to suddenly lose God’s moral compass, lose His peace and the joy of our blessed hope in Him, the heavens becoming brass, our spiritual senses dull... our love and affection for God gone blank... fellowship, worship, study, prayer of no interest. I question whether this is the experience of a person in covenant relationship with the God who simply won’t leave His children... and thus the “quotes” around “Christian” as the person who coined this phrase. The dark night of the soul may very well be of the soul’s own making, and, therefore, a volitional act rather than a divine imposition... wholly preventable by human choice. We must remember God has promised to draw near to those who draw near to Him, and to be found by those who diligently seek Him – even to reward God seekers!. David prayed that God would not remove His presence, constantly seeking the face of God... living in a state of worship. The Apostle Paul made it his determined purpose to “know Him” – the Greek here denoting intimate relationship -- placing intimacy with Jesus as the singular driving need of earth-life... counting the “things” of life as dung. Brother Lawrence practiced the presence of God during the mundane things of life, looking for opportunities to engage God... making Christ the center of everything in his life. Jesus said it best, as captured by the Amplified Bible:  “Dwell in Me, and I will dwell in you. Live in Me, and I will live in you.” If that sounds like a conditional promise of His presence... it is! Perhaps if we modeled our pursuit of God after the words of Jesus and these godly men, God’s “background” presence would become a “foreground” reality...

DWELL IN ME, AND I WILL DWELL IN YOU

LUST OF THE FLESH… LUST OF THE EYES… THE PRIDE OF LIFE…

The world beguiles, and the devil tempts, but it is the flesh that wants and wants and wants. When Jesus said “he (i.e., the devil) has nothing in Me”, He was saying the devil and the devil’s world system has nothing He wants or desires. After Jesus’ forty-day temptation in the wilderness, at a time when He was weak and vulnerable, satan tempted Him through three broad categories of human wants: 1) He endured physical temptation – the Lust of the Flesh for physical appetites. 2) He endured material temptation – the Lust of the Eyes for material wealth and prosperity. 3) And, He endured emotional temptation – the Pride of Life for power, position, and prominence. Notice that Eve struggled with these same three wants, failing miserably to control her desires and casting all of mankind into the malignancy of the fall. Notice her words relative to the forbidden fruit: “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food (i.e., Lust of the Flesh), that it was pleasant to the eyes (i.e., Lust of the Eyes), and a tree desirable to make one wise (i.e., Pride of Life), she took of its fruit and ate.”

Human wants must be evaluated and understood within a world view that honors the supremacy of Jesus and His teachings over all else. In light of this, Jesus’ desire for bread was perfectly normal, just not at satan’s price. Satan’s offer of the kingdoms of the world fell on deaf ears finding no associated desire in our Savior’s heart.  Jesus had already taught that the desire for riches and pleasures and the things of this life would choke out… suffocate, His words in hearts captivated by these wrong and foolish desires (i.e., The Sower Parable). And Christ repeatedly warned how difficult, if not impossible, it is for the wealthy to enter the Kingdom of God. Satan’s desire for a demonstration of the power and privilege of Sonship by jumping off a pinnacle was really a temptation to sin against God: Our Servant Master’s humble heart was free from any prideful need to prove His position of prominence and power in the Godhead.  

All human “wants” will fall into one of these three categories, thus the scriptures state that Jesus, in His three-pronged temptation, was tempted in all ways the same as we are -- through the same areas of human weakness and vulnerability -- and yet without sin. It is the human “wants” that make the world’s produce alluring and desirable, thereby giving power to the devil’s temptations... the battle is won or lost with our “wants.” The enemy is the “wants” we allow to permeate our heart, causing us to crave the things of the world and making us susceptible to satan’s temptations. The real enemy is Self… our carnal nature -- what the Apostle Paul called our Old Man -- the fleshly nature that never stops wanting. We were born a “Wanter” with a nature set on things below… the loves of this life. Through our rebirth into God’s Kingdom we are, for the first time, freed from enslavement to Self’s desires – freed to choose. This is the freedom to choose submission to the Lordship of Christ over Self-rule. The freedom to put Self to death daily – “I am crucified with Christ” – that the implanted Christlife might burst forth within. When Christ comes alive within, His nature will permeate our mind setting it on things above. We will overcome satan’s temptations when our “wanter” is aligned with God’s heart and we can say with Jesus “he (i.e., the devil) has nothing in Me.”

“HE (i.e., the devil) HAS NOTHING IN ME”

THE SON SAID IT, THE FATHER COMMANDED IT, AND THE SPIRIT WILL EXECUTE IT...

The Holy Spirit’s job is to manifest Christ in us: To change our natural virtues, our natural traits, qualities, and characteristics, from our Self-nature of the seed of Adam to His Divine-nature of the seed of Jesus. The Spirit is a master craftsman, not a cobbler. He never just patches up our natural virtues with a little bit of Christ sprinkled here and there. “You shall be perfect”: There is no ambiguity about our need for spiritual maturity… no wiggle room here! The Son said it, the Father commanded it, and the Spirit will execute it... in willing hearts. Our natural virtues can never come close to the virtues demanded by the Godhead: Our Self-serving love is not even a cheap imitation of God’s self-sacrificing agape love, yet we cling to our natural virtues -- Self loving itself -- all the while proclaiming Christ is our Lord. But, Jesus knows what is in the heart of man... God knows our hearts! So, we must learn to draw our nature from the reservoir of the resurrection life of our Savior, to bring every part of our nature into harmony with the implanted Christ-Life... to put on Christ. Woven within this “learning” are death, submission, and renewal, the processes of spiritual transformation. These are not painless processes, but so very rewarding for Self-willed stubborn folks who seem hell-bent on misplacing their love on trinkets of wood, hay, and stubble. Remember, our Self-nature is programmed to love the world, the same world we are commanded not to love -- the same world predestined to burn! Be thankful for God’s patience... and determination, therein lies our Blessed Hope...

Author’s Note: As with most of the thoughts I share, this “song” is for me. I am traveling the road of Transformation at a snail’s pace, catching fleeting glimpses of what could be... should be... if I could just climb up on my cross and spread wide my arms. Don’t pray causally for God to reveal His heart to you, for we cannot see His heart without seeing our own, and recognizing just how far short of His transforming glory we have fallen. While I am most concerned about an experience... signs, wonders, miracles -- the felt presence of God -- God is whispering “Son, I need to talk to you about your heart.” The greatest sign of spiritual maturity... of pleasing God, is not spiritual giftings, ministries, or signs following. It is Love, Joy, Peace... the Fruit of the Spirit, offered in a cobbler of obedience, passion, and sacrifice. God’s presence is drawn to Godliness like metal to a magnet -- abiding where His nature is strongest -- but... Christlikeness is my weak suit. Like I said, this song is for me...  but if the shoe fits...

THIS SONG IS FOR ME