Quit Watering Your Crops With a Teaspoon

Too much to write about.

I don’t blog much these days. I consider that a blessing. It was a big time-suck, and it tended to add fuel to the less-productive parts of my nature. I don’t know how many people care. I still write when I feel like it.

By the way, The New York Times has just come out with a story, saying blogs are dead. Hmm…who said that several years ago? Some annoying guy who refused to drink the Kool Aid and wear the pajamas. Pardon me for patting myself on the back. Still working on that “pride” thing.

This weekend was a lot of fun. My church’s pastor is delivering a series called “Carnal Christians,” and this Sunday’s sermon was a home run.

He said he had expected to deliver a series about things like lust and greed, but God wouldn’t let him do it. Instead he talked about the relative worthlessness of works. He wasn’t saying works were unimportant. The message was that what God really wanted was to be with us and know us. When we spend time with God, it’s like a son spending time with a father (in fact, that’s what it is): the father’s nature rubs off on the son.

You may not realize what a big deal this is. My church has a tendency to overemphasize works and effort. The change is pivotal.

He told a story about his sons. When they were kids, their schools had them build little houses of popsicle sticks. It’s one of those projects schools come up with; you build your dad one of these ridiculous houses, and then he has to pretend he likes it.

He said that he bragged on the houses, but that what he really wanted from his sons was their company. He said God is the same way. You can go out and build orphanages and annoy the homeless with sermons, but if you’re not spending time with God, you’re missing the point.

I loved this, because it’s exactly what I believe. I come at it from a different viewpoint, but it amounts to the same thing.

Giving to the poor is not always right; sometimes it’s a terrible sin. Donating money to a ministry can also be wrong. Being nice to people can be wrong. These things are only pleasing to God when he tells us to do them, and that’s why he gave us the baptism of the Spirit. We build ourselves up through speaking in tongues, and the power of the Holy Spirit grows in us, and he starts giving us directions in real time. Those directions are much more useful than the comparatively vague and static directions we get from the Bible. As wonderful as the Bible is, it can’t compare to having Jesus standing next to you, telling you what to do. That’s what Spirit-filled believers are supposed to experience. Jesus is supposed to “know” us as a man knows a wife. He is supposed to mingle with us and become one with us. Obeying the general instructions of the Bible can actually be idolatry, when it contradicts what Jesus is telling us to do in the moment, through the gifts of the Spirit.

This is what the Bible means when it says the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Establishment churches hate this message. They want us to do all our own work, because Satan controls them, and he is terrified of believers who use God’s power instead of their own. He wants us out there using our carnal tools to please God. Building unwanted hospitals. Delivering meals that should never have been prepared. Saying kind words to people who need tough love.

God told the ancient Hebrews to kill babies with the sword. Old ladies. Pets. Puppies and kittens. Seriously. What if they had ignored him, mumbling, “Thou shalt not kill” and so forth? God himself told them what to do. He gave them specific directions, and those directions seem pretty awful compared to the general tenor of the scriptures. Christianity is not about being nice, even though being nice usually comports with God’s will. It’s about faith and obedience and being connected to God’s nervous system so the hand will act when the brain speaks.

Jesus said he would punish some people who did “good” works in his name. He said he would call them “lawless” and “workers of iniquity.” Why is that? It’s because he was referring to people who are carnal. They do what their peanut brains tell them to do, instead of waiting to hear from God. The Lord wants you to go to medical school, but you become a missionary. The Lord wants you to be a musician, but you become a priest and swear off normal relations with women. The Lord wants you to open a supermarket, but you take a vow of poverty and go live in a cave. You do things that SEEM good, but you only make God angry. That’s what Jesus was talking about.

When Jesus called people “lawless,” he was referring to the law the Holy Spirit writes in our hearts, not the law the Jews wrote on the skins (the outside of the flesh) of kosher animals. And “iniquity” refers to the desires that motivate us before speaking in tongues gives us the fruit of the Spirit.

To sum it up, you can devote your life to God and do all sorts of things for other people and end up a carnal Christian. Obviously, living in a godless state and devoting your time to things like fornication and drugs and greed is also carnal (if you do it willfully), but people need to wake up and realize that a carnal person who serves God inappropriately is not much better off.

The Jews tell us that “taking the Lord’s name in vain” does not refer to the blasphemous things you say when you hit your thumb with a hammer. It means doing things God never told you to do, and then claiming you did it for him. A person who gives to the poor when God is telling him to do something else, and who claims God put him up to it, is taking God’s name in vain. The “lawless” at the judgment seat are people who committed this sin. If you have the Holy Spirit’s law in your heart, and you listen to it, you won’t be one of these people.

God wants to “know” us. That means the spiritual equivalent of sex between a man and wife. He wants to inseminate us with the Holy Spirit, and he wants us to grow to be like him, just as a fetus grows to be like its father. The crucifixion was an insemination. The Holy of Holies represents the womb. The veil in the Temple represents the hymen. It tore when Jesus died. Do the math.

As a result of this conception, we can be filled with the Holy Spirit, and by speaking in tongues, we grow to be like God, in his power and his righteousness. That’s how it works. It’s not about suffering and misery and defeat, while struggling with your puny tools, which are only a little better than the ones God gave monkeys. It’s about using God’s power tools.

The New Testament often wishes us grace, mercy, and peace. We all know what mercy means. “Peace” means “shalom,” or a combination of tranquility, prosperity, and success. “Grace” means God’s power within us, which comes by grace, not by effort. It doesn’t mean the mercy granted to us in salvation. If it did, the word “mercy” wouldn’t appear next to it, because it would be superfluous. Would you wish someone “mercy, mercy, and peace”?

The message we heard this weekend was about the fruit and gifts of the Spirit, which come through grace. When God tells us what to do, via the prophecy, tongues and interpretation, the word of wisdom, and the word of knowledge (all spiritual gifts), we present ourselves to him as houses of stone, not houses made from popsicle sticks. We become projects that please him, not projects a father has to pretend to love. The things we do have lasting value, because they are done in obedience to his word; not the word printed in Bibles, but the word delivered directly to our minds.

I have been praying for this kind of thing to be taught in my church, and it’s happening. God only knows who else is praying for it. I’m happy to see it, because we hear too much about effort and self-help. I’ve seen how the Holy Spirit does miraculous things in my church, to people I know. That’s what I want. I’m not interested in secular wisdom painted up with a covering of Christianese. We should not be going to the self-help gurus for wisdom. They should be running to us.