SIFTED IN THE SIEVE OF TRANSFORMATION

“Simon, Simon! satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat”: Notice we are under the power and keeping of God. satan must “ask for you”, before he can touch a hair on your head. This is reminiscent of the conversation satan had with God over Job, eons earlier. The “accuser of the brethren” can do little more than accuse without divine permission. Then, as now, God allows, setting the conditions and limits of satan’s attacks. Peter, the Gibraltar of faith who walked on water, would crumble into a pebble of a man this night. Satan would thresh his faith, beating it against the hard ground of life until the husk broke open exposing the small naked kernel of faith. Satan would winnow all of Peter’s chaff... but the wheat belonged to Jesus.

“But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail”: Our modern usage of “sift” is to put something through a sieve by violent agitation, straining out and isolating what is most important.  The adversity of life can “sift” us, but it cannot destroy our faith. Quite the contrary sifting purifies our faith, burning out the dross. You see, our Lord has prayed for us... and His prayers are always answered. Tests and trials of faith are transformational, preparing us for the “greater works” of Kingdom life... such as becoming “partakers of Christ … partakers of the divine nature … partakers of His holiness … partakers of the Holy Spirit”, in a word “Christlikeness.” Then we will be equipped for our work of ministry and “strengthening the brethren.”

In John’s gospel Jesus describes himself as “The True Vine” and His disciples as His “branches” who are sustained, nurtured, and bear fruit by “abiding”, continuing in unbroken union with Him. The fruit of this union is Christlikeness. In Romans Jesus is described as an olive tree whose branches, His followers, “partake of the root and fatness of the olive tree”, and are cautioned to remember that they do not support the root, but the root supports them. The fruit of this union is, again, Christlikeness. We desperately need the fatness of the root, the fullness of Christ’s character, virtues, values, and attitudes, flowing freely through us as our nature.

Transformation, being “conformed into the image (nature) of His Son (Christ)”, is a product of “life” working on the branches, much like wind causes tree branches to thicken and grow stronger in preparation for the storms which will come. The adversity and afflictions of life tests, approves, and strengthens our faith while we partake of the sustaining fatness of our Root, and replicate His nature within as fruit of our union with Him. And, this is the “Abundant Life” He promised us, partaking of His nature…

“FOR WE HAVE BECOME PARTAKERS OF CHRIST”

(Lk. 22:31-32; Job 1:8-12; Heb. 3:14, 12:10, 6:4; 2 Peter 1:4;Rom. 11:17-18, 8:29; Jn. 10:10)

“TAKE HEED LEST YOU FALL”

Whatever lofty spiritual plane we imagine we are on, remember, Adam was in Paradise when he fell. Before our increased knowledge and religious experiences make us overly self-confident, recall that Solomon wrote three books of Scripture, he actually gazed upon the glory of God, yet he fell. Yes, even in our deepest worship of the Almighty we must not forget, in long ages past, Lucifer himself was once in Heaven, pouring out praise to God. “Take Heed Lest You Fall.”

“For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end.” There are many such scriptures which point to salvation as a process with a  past, present and future aspect: We were saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved… if we hold our first newborn confidence and original assured expectation firm and unshaken to the end. For the Lord is able to keep those who want to be kept, to the end.

It is not easy to deliberately turn away from God for His love is relentless and His mercy overwhelms us with our unworthiness. Scripture warns the saints about the power of unbelief to turn a heart to evil, that we can be “hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” Repeated sin can harden our heart against God. Sin is missing God’s mark, His expectations, as defined in the Bible. And sin is simply unbelief, for if we really believed we would never deliberately sin. Hardened hearts do not fear God. That bears repeating: Hardened hearts sin without remorse or any regard to the fear of God, literally “departing from the living God.” Hardened hearts do not fear God!  

The real issue here is the direction of our hearts. We must perceive and recognize God’s ways and become progressively better, deeper and more intimately acquainted with them. And we must not let our hearts be led astray by the enticements of sin.

You see, we (saints) all sin, including yours truly. So when we sin we must ask for the forgiveness our Lord died to freely provide – recognizing His mercies are new every morning – coming boldly to His Throne of grace -- partaking of the grace which is in Christ. We must be steadfastly confident of God’s love and His willingness to forgive when we are truly repentant. We must not neglect our salvation nor repeatedly harden our hearts when God speaks, rather we must “hear His voice” and heed His commands. “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall (into sin).”

TAKE HEED: IT IS A COMMAND FROM GOD!

(Heb. 3:7-19; 1 Cor. 10:12)

TOLERABLY INTOLERANT

Tolerance (täl (ə) rəns, noun): The ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular the existence of opinions and behavior that one does not agree with or respect. Historically, to be Tolerant has meant to allow, without prohibition or hindrance, ethnic, cultural, national, and religious opinions and practices that differ from one’s own.   It has never carried the connotation of “approval,” approving of or agreeing with these opinions and practices, the forced change of one’s personal opinion from disapproval to acceptance for the sake of being considered Tolerant... never until now! Intolerance, with the prefix “in”, simply means “not tolerant.” The world’s meaning of the word Tolerance now demands acquiescence of one’s personal opinions and practices, under the guise of respecting and agreeing with the opinions and practices of others, in order to be considered Tolerant. Secular progressives use the fear of being labeled intolerant as a pry bar attempting to force acceptance of their aberrant secular opinions and practices upon Christians and non-secular institutions. Secular progressives are intolerant of the Christian faith and the Christian’s right to tolerate without agreement or respect the opinions and practices that are contrary to their beliefs. Let’s call a spade a spade: God’s truth must not be high-jacked by the world’s demand for unqualified Tolerance. The Christian life is not a popularity contest. The world hated our Savior... and should hate us... for the very beliefs that make us intolerant in the world’s eyes!

We live in a society without a moral compass in which choice is king, there are no moral absolutes, truth is one’s personal perception, and every individual is a free moral agent. We are taught to be self-reliant and independent, and that tolerance is a synonym for love. Christianity is no longer the automatic default faith, especially of our youth who prefer either no belief system or a Self composed hodge-podge of tenets taken from any source their wandering mind stumbles upon. Self’s desire and love for the pleasures of life and unrestrained Self appeasement are winning the battle for the heart and soul of man. The accelerating erosion of spiritual life will continue and increase, and the gap between what God’s moral tenets teach and what mankind chooses to believe and practice will continue to grow. Spiritual erosion will continue and escalate until the morally unthinkable becomes common place. Peace... even the earthly kind, will be increasingly difficult to find.

The lines are drawn between the progressively secular world and a God who has spoken! Tolerance and defending our right to be tolerant, often with the false stigmatism of being labeled intolerant, is not fun for those doing the tolerating, but it is necessary. As Christians we should and must stand up for our faith tenets: It is absolutely “OK” for a Christian to vocally oppose and even protest against opinions and practices that violate God’s word, to do so is to exhibit tolerance. But it is not OK to unlawfully hinder or prohibit that which is lawful. The secular progressive agenda is to institutionalize their lifestyle into law, making opinions and practices which are an abomination to God legal, and using the rule of law – with the full force of government behind it -- to force acceptance from Christian denominations and institutions. This may force the true Church, The Body of Christ, to go underground as the official structures and institutions inevitably cave to the corrupted legal system. We are, after all, living in the End Times!

But God Himself has broken into our silence; He has come down to earth Himself, and He has spoken! And nothing else is truly relevant... Nothing but God! For nothing else can save us from our Self and the powers of darkness which envelope planet earth. The age in which we live is a social cesspool, a floating mass of thoughts, opinions, maxims, speculations, impulses, desires, aims and aspirations which are contrary to God and constitute a most real and effective power, being the immoral atmosphere of which, at every moment of our lives, we inhale. Only God can save us…

GOD HIMSELF HAS SPOKEN

LIVING SACRIFICE, LORDSHIP, SANCTIFICATION, AND THE WILL OF GOD

Romans 12:1: This powerful verse commands saints to “present your bodies a living sacrifice” unto God: Submission to the Lordship of Christ is how we become a “living sacrifices.” Christians (both Jews and gentiles), are the New Covenant people of God. We do not offer animal sacrifices in a temple, for we are God’s temple. Rather we should offer our bodies – all that we are and have – daily as a living sacrifice in submission to Christ who is both our Lord and Savior. In this way we acknowledge God’s property rights for He purchased us with the precious blood of His Beloved Son. And, this is worship of the highest order!

Romans 12:2: In this verse comes the command “do not be conformed to this world”, literally stop allowing the world to conform you to its ways. Culture is a powerful thing. Saints must resist the temptation to pattern their life after the character, virtues, values and attitudes – the lifestyle and world view – of a world whose god is satan… whose purpose is our eternal destruction. Self, our fleshly carnal nature, is the real enemy and loves the world with all its trinkets and glitter. It will take a renewed mind and heart transformed by the implanted nature of Christ to force Self to relinquish control. Self’s nature and our Lord’s nature cannot coexist peacefully in our heart; one must die that the other can reign… Self must be nailed to the Cross that Christ can reign and rule in our heart.  Only in this way can we fully grasp God’s will: Test and prove by practice in our everyday life that God’s will is “good and acceptable and perfect.”

1 Thessalonians 4:3: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification.” So, what does sanctification have to do with Romans 12:1-2? Everything! Translated from the Greek hagiasmos, sanctification refers not only to the activity of the Holy Spirit in setting man apart unto salvation and transferring him into the ranks of the redeemed, but also to enabling him to be holy – even as God is holy – by conformance into the likeness (nature) of Christ: “For whom He foreknew (the saints), He also predestined to be conformed to the image (nature) of His Son, that He (Christ) might be the firstborn among many brethren.”(Rom. 8:29) Our “Oneness” with Christ must be more than a theological concept… it must become reality! The number one thing on God’s heart, His “perfect will”, is for His children to be transformed into the nature – the character, virtues, values, and attitudes -- of His Beloved Son. In a word, Christlikeness. Sanctification is God’s will... And, Romans 12:1-2 points the way…

IN A WORD, CHRISTLIKENESS

TITHES, GIVING AND THE SECOND COMMANDMENT

Tithe is from the Hebrew word maser and means “a tenth part”, a requirement of the Old Testament Law in which all Israelites were to give a tithe of everything they earned and grew. One yearly tithe (10%) went to support the Levites and the temple at Jerusalem. (Lev. 27:30-33; Num. 18:21-31) One yearly tithe (10%) went to sponsor religious festivals in Jerusalem. (Deut. 14:22-26) And one tithe (10%) paid every third year supported the local Levites, orphans, sojourners, and widows throughout Israel. (Deut. 14:27-29, 26:12-13) These were two 10% yearly tithes and one 10% tithe paid every three years for a total yearly tithe of 23 1/3%. God commanded all three tithes and used the plural, “tithes” in Neh. 12:14 and Mal. 3:8-12. But this command, like the rest of “The Law” was given to the Israelites, not New Testament saints abiding under Grace. We must remember the Apostle Paul warned that to keep any part of the Law makes one a debtor to keep the whole Law. (Gal. 5:3) And no one, except Jesus, has ever kept the whole Law! This is not the road a saint saved by Grace should ever be tempted to travel…

New Testament saints are owned by God, purchased with the precious blood of His Son, so God owns us and all that we have... not ten %, and He may require all if it at any time. He wants us to “abound in the grace of giving”, and allows us to give as we have “purposed in our heart”, loving our sacrificial giving with an attitude of cheerfulness. We are to purposefully “lay aside” our excess, that which is over and above our own needs, to meet the needs of our brethren (2 Cor. 8:1-7, 13-15; 9:6-11). This is sacrificial giving, living frugally in order to have more to share; allowing the Holy Spirit to touch our heart with the needs of others. Heart-based giving is much more difficult then rule-based giving for Self will want to set the bar pretty low and keep more for him Self. Giving is a love test of sorts, the Second Commandment in action: Do we love others to the same degree that we love our Self? Do we cheerfully give unto others as we give unto our Self? The answer is defining, measuring our love for God and our spiritual maturity.

Old Testament tithing was compulsory and earned favor and blessings with God. The Jews were prone to do the external and material while neglecting the expression of the inner qualities of the Spirit (Lk. 11:37- 42). In the New Testament tithing is neither stressed nor commanded, but saints are urged to give voluntarily (2 Cor. 9:7) without neglecting the development of spiritual qualities: “But rather give alms of such things as you have ...” (Lk. 11:41). “Such things as you have” is a word cluster translated from the Greek word enonta which means those things which are within the human heart ... spiritual qualities, the Lord here speaking of the inner man from which one should give alms... from the heart... out of love, joyously extending mercy. New covenant giving is characterized by what Paul wrote to Philemon: “That your good deed might not be by compulsion, as it were, but voluntary.” (Phile. 1; 14)

Endnote: Much of the twenty-first century church teaches tithing as a way to fund large facilities, amenities, and worldwide ministries, including upscale living for the ministry team. Not only are we prideful of our churches, many saints believe the unfounded notion that a large prosperous church indicates God’s hand of blessing on the ministry, as if getting a large number of people into a building meant something. Saints are taught that tithing guarantees prosperity, and giving to get becomes a lifestyle. Then when they hit a financial speed-bump God takes the hit for failing to keep promises He didn’t make! Sorry folks, but God never promises prosperity as an entitlement, and does, in fact, warn us repeatedly about the dangerous of riches as in the parable of The Sower where riches suffocate God’s word, and in the parable of the Rich Young Ruler where riches make it hard, if not impossible, to enter God’s Kingdom.

“GOD LOVES A CHEERFUL GIVER”

TOO PROUD TO BE BLESSED

I am juxtaposing two entirely different precepts to make a point, “tithing” and “washing the saints’ feet.” Let’s look at these two precepts:

Tithing: Tithing is mentioned 37 times in the Bible, 30 in the Old Testament and 7 in the New Testament. Tithing is an Old Testament requirement right out of the Law of Moses, with no application or substantiation under New Covenant Grace where its only New Testament mention is in reference to Judaism, not Christianity. Under the Law tithing guaranteed the financial blessings of God… Giving guaranteed prosperity. Under Grace tithing puts one in bondage to the Law… to keep the whole Law… an impossible task!

Washing the saints’ feet: Washing a saint’s feet is a New Covenant precept instituted by Jesus as an example that we should do as He had done, promising that we would be blessed if we washed one another’s feet. It takes deep commitment, brotherly love, and humility to wash another Christians’ feet, and the blessings are spiritual in nature.

Now which do you suppose God’s bratty children do??? We give 10% checking our “I’m OK” box, dragging legalism into God’s awesome Grace... Giving To Get! And we miss out on the humbling transformational experience of washing another saint’s feet... emulating our Lord and invoking His promise: “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.” We can’t even get the simplest most basic command right in our striving to prosper in a world our Lord warned us not to love. I, for one, want the spiritual blessings of God, not the accolades of man.

Follow Up Note: The Law actually required three ten percent tithes, two yearly and one every three years -- i.e., 23 1/3%.  And as for N.T. giving, God doesn’t want 10%... or 23 1/3%... He wants hearts raptured by His love that give as prompted by the Holy Spirit... giving sacrificially, even as the widow gave out of her need, depending on Him for our future provisions as we demonstrate His love to others. New Testament giving takes faith for there is no automatic reimbursement entitlement as there was under the Law of Moses!

“BLESSED ARE YOU IF YOU DO THEM”

(Jn. 13:3-17)