Christian Philosophy: Everyone Has a Philosophy. It's The Lens Through Which They View The World and Make Decisions. (12 page)

Jesus said that John the Baptist was the greatest of those born of women, but “…he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Matthew 11:11). Our born-again spirits make us greater than any of the Old Testament prophets. Greater than men like Moses, who spent 40 days and nights in the presence of God, and when he returned to the Israelites his face was radiating the glory of God; like Abraham, who believed God and became the father of faith; like Elijah, who called down fire from heaven and never died but was taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire; like Joshua, who led God’s people into the Promised Land; and like David, who was a man after God’s own heart. We have access to a greater revelation of God’s true nature than any of those men had.

Scripture says the Old Covenant, written and engraved in stone, led to death—but it was also glorious. When Moses presented the Law to the people of Israel, they couldn’t bear to look at him because of the brightness of God’s glory that was reflected in his face. The old way was glorious, but what we have is much more glorious. Under the New Covenant, the Holy Spirit gives us life forever, which is infinitely better than the death that came through the Law (2 Corinthians 3:6-11).

The revelation we have of God’s love should cause us to trust Him. We shouldn’t be susceptible to the lies of the devil in the same way that Adam and Eve were. Satan was able to slander God’s character because Adam and Eve didn’t really know God, but we
do
know Him. God has proven His love for us. The apostle Paul wrote,

He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

Romans 8:32

Once we truly understand the extent of God’s love for us, demonstrated through the sacrifice of Jesus, we won’t doubt His desire to freely give us all things. Jesus has completely redeemed us, and a full revelation of that truth will naturally lead you to believe how much God desires to bless you financially, heal you physically, and give you all that you need. The greater your revelation of God’s love, the more successful you will be at resisting the attacks of the enemy.

From what I can see, most Christians do not have an intimate relationship with the Lord. They know God from a distance, through the things they have heard from their pastor or someone else, but they don’t know God for themselves. Before I understood that God loves me because His nature is love, and not because I am lovely, I was always trying to do things to earn God’s favor. When I was doing good, I felt close to God, but when I was falling short—which was most of the time—I didn’t feel close to Him. All I could see was my own unworthiness. But once I got a revelation of how much God loves me, independent of my actions, everything that was holding me back from relationship with Him disappeared.

One of the greatest truths of Christianity is that your relationship with God is the key to everything. It’s the key to having joy, peace, and abundance. It’s the way to experiencing victory in life. Yet most believers aren’t taking advantage of this amazing gift of relationship that is available to us.

After my encounter with God on March 23, 1968, I intuitively knew that God loved me, completely separate from what I deserved, and it lit a fire under me to pursue relationship with Him even further. But even though I knew God loved me, I didn’t understand His love. I made a total commitment to God that day, but it took years for me to understand how a holy God could love me. I had spent my entire life trying to make myself righteous and acceptable to God, and I just couldn’t get my mind around the fact that God’s love and acceptance had nothing to do with my own efforts.

I was raised in a legalistic, works-oriented, religious system. My father died when I was twelve years old, and my church told me God killed him because it was His will for my father to die. I was taught that God put sickness, disease, poverty, and depression on us as punishments to make us better people. I was told that the more you suffer, the holier you become. All of those ideas are absolutely false, but I didn’t know any better back then. After my encounter with God’s love, I was totally committed to God, but I had a wrong understanding of what God might do to make my relationship with Him deepen. It can be dangerous to be a living sacrifice—being totally submitted to the will of God—when you don’t know what God’s will includes! This is another reason why it’s important to renew your mind (Romans 12:1-2).

I won’t go into all of the details, but a few years after I made myself a living sacrifice, a traveling preacher came to my church and prophesied over me that God was going to put me into a coma. He told me that I was going to get sick and enter a vegetative state for years. He droned on and on about how God was going to use sickness to break me, but I would emerge as strong as the apostle Paul after I came through it. I was ready to submit to what he said was God’s will for me. Satan had me on the ropes. I was ready to accept whatever God wanted for me. But then the devil went too far. The so-called prophet told me that after I emerged from the coma, God was going to make me abstain from reading the Word for eight years.

I didn’t know much, but I had a relationship with God and I knew He would never tell me not to read His Word. As soon as the preacher said that, I knew it was all a lie. I stood up, renounced everything he had spoken over me, and walked away. I believe that if I would have submitted to that false prophecy, I would have entered into a coma and died.

God doesn’t use sickness to make people better; the devil uses sickness to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). Scripture tells us to submit to God and resist the devil, and the devil will flee (James 4:7). But if we submit to the attacks of the enemy and fail to resist evil, then the devil won’t flee. I was able to resist the lies that were being spoken over me because I knew God. I had experienced the Word of God coming alive, God had spoken to me through it, and I knew He wouldn’t take that away from me.

As New Covenant believers, we are able to understand the depths of God’s love better than anyone did prior to the resurrection of Christ Jesus. Adam and Eve fell for Satan’s temptation because they didn’t know God well enough to realize that Satan was lying to them. If they had known God better, they would have recognized that He would never withhold good from them. Knowing God helps keep us from being deceived and from having our faith in God undermined by misunderstandings or wrong teaching.

I’ve been married to my wife Jamie since 1972. A lot of people may know Jamie, but I know her intimately. If someone were to tell me a story about Jamie that is totally inconsistent with her personality, I would know it wasn’t true because I know the kinds of things she would say and do. When you know someone well, it keeps you from being deceived by gossip or slander. But when you only know someone casually, you are more likely to believe the things you hear about them simply because you don’t have any firsthand knowledge to judge by. The same is true of your relationship with God.

This analogy breaks down a little because people aren’t perfect, and sometimes they do things that are inconsistent with their normal behavior, but with God there are no exceptions. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). God says, “For I am the LORD, I change not” (Malachi 3:6). God is always the same. He doesn’t make us righteous by grace one day, and then judge us by our performance the next. So when religion tries to claim that God doesn’t want to heal every person, or that He puts sickness on people to teach them a lesson, we can know that those ideas are inconsistent with His nature. Jesus was the perfect representation of God (John 14:7, 9; Hebrews 1:3), and He went around doing good and healing
all
who were oppressed by the devil (Acts 10:38). We can know God’s true nature because He reveals it to us in His Word.

People tend to think it would be great to have the same relationship with God that Old Testament kings and prophets had—like Adam and Eve, who walked with God in the cool of the evening; or Moses who went up on a mountain and spent 40 days in the presence of God. Those were awesome privileges to be sure, but the revelation of God’s true nature that has been given to us in Scripture is better than the revelation they had. We can actually know God better than they did. We can even know God better than the apostles knew Him prior to Jesus’ resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

It’s important for us to base our philosophy on the revelation of Jesus Christ and His grace, and not upon the traditions or ideas of men. Probably the most damaging tradition that is circulating in the body of Christ is the idea that nothing can happen unless God wills it to happen. That is a wrong philosophy, and it causes a lot of unnecessary pain. It isn’t God’s will for some babies to be born with deformities. God doesn’t desire war, rape, or violence. God isn’t behind any of the evil that we see in this world. Scripture says that God cannot be tempted with evil, and He doesn’t tempt us with evil either (James 1:13). If you think God is sovereignly determining everything that happens in life, then you’re going to be susceptible to bitterness and doubt toward Him. You’ll either be mad at Him for making such a terrible mess of the world, or you’ll lack confidence in Him for being unwilling to prevent it.

But God doesn’t control everything. He gave us control, but mankind is too busy cooperating with the devil to fix what’s wrong. God is all-powerful, but He has chosen to work through us (Ephesians 3:20). God’s will doesn’t automatically come to pass. We have to cooperate with Him. If it was purely up to God, then everything on earth would be done the way it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10); there wouldn’t be any sickness, crime, or sorrow. If God was controlling everything, our world wouldn’t be in the mess it’s in.

Anyone who is upset with God has a wrong philosophy. They have been influenced by religion or other false doctrines that have misrepresented the Lord. One of the largest television networks in the United States is run by a man whose sister died when they were both very young. The church he attended told him it was God’s will for her to die, and he decided that he didn’t want anything to do with a God who would kill his sister. A wrong philosophy turned him against God, and he used his media influence to attack the Judeo-Christian ethic in the United States. I understand why he feels the way he does, but he has a wrong impression of God.

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

John 10:10

God doesn’t kill anybody—it’s the devil who takes lives. God comes to give us life in abundance. The Greek word used for life here is
zoe,
which means life that is active, vigorous, devoted to God, and blessed.
²⁴
God is a good God! The Word also says,

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

James 1:17

The simplest Christian theology is that if something is good, then it comes from God; if it’s bad, then it’s from the devil. God is not the cause of the tragedy in our lives. He doesn’t take away our loved ones or cause disabilities, and He doesn’t control and predetermine everything in life.
²⁵
One reason for this is that God doesn’t want to interfere with our free will, because doing so would cut off our only path to salvation. Another reason is that He has given us authority over the attacks of the enemy, and He won’t just step in and do things for us automatically. God uses people, so we need to cooperate with Him to allow His goodness and power to flow through us. Everything we need is already in our born-again spirits. When we cooperate with Him, His power flows from our spirits into our bodies and lives, bringing healing and victory.

God is your best friend—whether you recognize it or not. God is for you; He wants you to live a life full of joy and peace. Some people are afraid to seek God wholeheartedly because they think He might ask them to do something that would make them miserable, like move to the most remote corner of the globe and live under primitive conditions. They are afraid God will suck all of the joy out of their lives, but He won’t. God would never do something to hurt you—just the opposite. Once you start delighting in God, you will find that the desires of your heart are God’s desires also (Psalm 37:4-5). So if God leads you to go minister in a remote area, it’s because you will fall in love with the people and love your work. God will always give you the grace to do what He calls you to do.

A life with God is an abundant, joyful life. The reason so many people are struggling today is that they don’t really know the goodness of God. You can’t base your relationship with God on what other people say, or their encounters with God. You have to know Him for yourself. God desires relationship with you, and relationship with God is the solution to any and every problem you might encounter.

We often emphasize the importance of seeking God, but the truth is that God is seeking us more than we have ever sought Him. All you have to do is slow down a little and make a half turn toward God, and He will come into your life in a big way. You can know God personally—by intimate relationship—beyond mere knowledge
about
Him. Once you know God for yourself, you won’t fall for the devil’s schemes. The enemy wants you to believe that life would be better if you had a bigger house, a nicer car, or a different spouse, but happiness is really found in relationship with the Lord.