Eyes on Jesus – Page 14

Throne of Lies

September 15, 2013 By: Angela Parlin

The holiday movie, Elf, is a household favorite which I think gets funnier each year. I love the scene where Buddy encounters a department store Santa, who holds a young boy in his lap and asks what he would like for Christmas.

Buddy whispers loudly a number of accusations, hoping to take out the fraud, but my favorite is: “You sit on a throne of lies!”

As believers, we have a fierce enemy who sits on a throne of lies.

It’s no secret the kingdom of God is opposed. But do we really know our enemy? Do we realize just how intently he opposes us? There are other forms of opposition, but we, the kingdom of God, are often dense to how forces of darkness work around us.

Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8

It would be easy to spot if all his opposition was in-your-face obvious. But much more often, the enemy is subtle. Like the snake in the garden who spoke to Eve, he didn’t rock out demonic phrases or swallow puppy dogs whole.

He acted like a friend who was just concerned.

He wanted to make sure Eve was getting everything she deserved. So he encouraged her to take his advice because it would lead to something better than what God offered.

We know how that turned out. They had to leave the beauty of Eden, for a life of hardship. One of their own sons murdered his brother. They grew old and died. Their offspring grew steadily more murderous, and God finally wiped the whole of them out and started over again through Noah’s line.

That wasn’t all though. In all Creation, we feel the consequences. And we add to it each day.

Yesterday I sat through a seminar on human trafficking. I heard story after evil story. This back-alley wickedness is happening in our own city, and in yours.

But why? Because humankind did not obey God. We thought we had a better way. Because that roaring lion is also the father of lies (John 8:44). Because the enemy lied and Eve desired to have it all, the same way we desire to have it all.

Because this is what happens when sin is full-grown. After desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. James 1:15

Now the lie has progressed in ways that make our stomachs ache.

It started subtly. But the lie yielded devastating results. His lies are always that way, if we listen.

I’m not saying the results will always be heinous or criminal. Sometimes he offers just enough deception to keep one of God’s girls down. I wrote about how the enemy held me back with his lying whisper, You’re not good enough, in this post and this post.

Today, I just want to encourage you to know your enemy. Be aware he is after you. The Bible calls him accuser, tempter, murderer, and ruler of the kingdom of the air.

He sits on a throne of lies, trying to lead the whole world astray…

For My Good

March 25, 2013 By: Angela Parlin

Have you ever held out hands to God, and offered Him your life?

What conditions did you attach? What pieces did you stash away, hoping God would not touch?

I’ve been saying, anything Lord, I will do whatever you want.

But please, please, please don’t do this…or that.

Or I’ve been afraid to say anything, Lord. In my life, I’ve watched friends move to far-away lands to serve God and struggle hard. I’ve also watched friends love what I could never imagine loving. I’ve put arms around loved ones who mourned the loss of a baby, said goodbye to a friend, a Mama, who died far too young, listened to servants of Jesus recount suffering, and witnessed the stress of serving the poor and loving hard people.

And I’ve been afraid. I don’t want all that. My life has been easy—I mean, this life is so good, do we really want to mess that up?

We’ve had good health, we have four amazing kids, we’ve never struggled to make ends meet. We have great friends, who we love having in our home, and when younger, I would have called this house we live in a mansion. We even have family close by…rare for young families in this area. There have been difficulties, yes, but overall, my life causes me to say, Really, God? I have done nothing to deserve all this!

And that’s true, I have done nothing to deserve this. As if we all deserve to be right where we are in life. As if our missionary friends “deserve” to get sick and have unfulfilled needs and people stealing from them. As if anyone deserves to lose a child, or a Mommy. As if I deserved a good life, but my friend deserved a hard life. As if we all deserve to eat fancy recipes and shop at our favorite stores, while they deserve to wear rags and have tummies swolen with hunger.

It’s a distortion of God to think we are all just getting what we deserve. To think because we have done things right, we deserve good stuff. Or when suffering comes, it’s our payback. In our life, we try to do right, but the closer we get to Jesus, the more we see how sinful we are. You can see, from my thoughts above, what a wretched lover of self I am. I don’t want to mess up my good life, even if it means someone with little could have. Oh, yes, I’ll give to them, at least some. As long as I still have “enough”.

If we were given life based on what we deserve, my life would look entirely different and so would my hope for the future.

But this idea of offering anything to God, it still bothers me. Because of this list of things I really want, or want to keep, that I don’t want God to mess with.

All my issues with God come down to fear and trust.

Which one will I give in to? Fear of all I might lose? Fear of not having what I think I need? Fear of losing my pretend control, or trust in God for everything?

In journaling about this, I thought, my Bible says “God works all things together for my good”, yet God and I often do not agree on the meaning of good. I opened Romans 8:28, and noticed I’ve twisted it a bit, and how easy it is for us to do that with God’s Word.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him…

That word good, the good God works for, is drawing us to Him. The good is closeness to Jesus. God is not interested in working out everything in our lives so that we think it’s good, happy, easy, safe, and enjoyable. WHAT?

Instead, He takes everything He allows in our lives, everything He will allow in days to come, what seems both good and bad, and He helps us love Him more through these. His goal is not our happiness, not our safety, not our amazing quality of life. Those never were His goals. He wants us to grow in love for Him.

You and me, friend, we were made to love God. And love means to die, to die to ourselves. Why, Christians, do we act like we were made to live happy, safe, comfortable, enjoyable lives? I am not saying we should not enjoy…God is for pleasure, but even our pleasure should draw us closer to Him, and I’m afraid often, it helps us ignore Him. It keeps us distracted and away from Him.

We were made to love God, not to build great lives, and hold on.

So today, this my prayer~that I let it all go, choose trust over fear, that I lay me down, and love everything He calls me to in this life, because I love Him.

Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Me and for the gospel will save it. Mark 8: 34-35

Beginning Again With the Gospel

February 18, 2013 By: Angela Parlin

In some ways, the gospel of Jesus Christ changed everything for me.

I had sinned, and even at age four, I knew. When I learned sin was lying, unkind words, living all about ME, and following what I wanted instead of what God wanted, I knew very much who I was. I was a sinner.

I accepted the truth about Jesus, what He did for me, how I needed Him. I asked Him to forgive me, called on His name for salvation, became part of the family of God, gladly because of His grace.

But then, I moved on…to being a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N.

I never purposely moved away from the gospel, I just kept moving forward, kept going to church, kept learning, kept trying to grow, kept focusing on my goals, kept doing. It’s not that I never go back to the gospel. When I take communion or celebrate Easter, I celebrate the gospel and its power, for a few minutes, or part of a day.

But the world of my Christianity has revolved more around this: What do I need to DO? What do I need to put off, and what do I need to put on? Without knowing it, I moved from the gospel toward trying to make myself look and feel and be “like” Jesus, studying the Bible to find what to do or not do, and asking God to pretty please, make it all happen in me.

Sometimes I do get swept up in Jesus’ love, but on regular days, my walk with God is more about what He wants ME to do than what He already did.

In his book, Gospel, J.D. Greear says the church has missed the gospel, that we understand it but do not experience it. He says we have the facts correct, but we see the gospel as the entry rite to Christianity, our ticket to heaven, when it should be the “source from which everything else flows,” a whole new way to relate to God, ourselves, and others. This stops me fast, because I know, I haven’t completely grasped the gospel.

I have known, for some time, that God would ultimately be the One to create all the good in me, that I really couldn’t do any of it on my own. But wired deeply to do, I worked, I tried, I begged; I read the Bible hard, hoping for change. When life change didn’t come fast enough, I took matters into my own hands. I tried to manufacture it.

I say following Jesus is a relationship ~ not a religion…but I often live under religion’s condemnation, like a default I just keep going back to.

The whole problem with religion is, it is based on my performance. In the foreward to Gospel, Pastor/Author Tim Keller explains that religion says “I obey; therefore I am accepted by God.” But the principle of the gospel is, “I am accepted by God through Christ; therefore, I obey.” This difference is profound, and not something I had considered for long.

The last few years, I have read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, a number of times. Each time through, I am even more captivated by Jesus. At the same time, these books have sent me running to the gospel: Prodigal God (Keller), Repenting of Religion (Boyd), Jesus + Nothing = Everything (Tchividjian), and now, Gospel (Greear). Each of these has been divine intervention, God calling me out of old patterns of thought into gospel truth.

I have much to learn, but I feel the gospel sink in deeper. I am loved by the King, and I can do nothing to mess that up. In Jesus, the light comes on, and I long for His gospel, for His love, how wide and long and high and deep it is…

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms.

Ephesians 1:17-20, NIV

Is There More to Belief Than Believing?

December 27, 2012 By: Angela Parlin

I want to think every person who says they believe in God is a child of God who will be with Him in eternity. But His Word tells me this is not true, and this world only echoes that. I speak not as a judge of anyone’s heart, but as a friend who is concerned, and yes afraid, for the many who may “believe they believe”, but who simply do not know Jesus.

There is more to belief than believing.

You believe that there is one God—Good! Even the demons believe that, and shudder. (James 2:19)

The Bible says even demons believe in God, so then what does it mean to believe in Him to the extent that we possess eternal life, as in John 3:16?

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him (Jesus) shall not perish but have eternal life.

Read the entire book of John, and you will see this theme: Jesus is God—You choose belief (light / life) or unbelief (darkness / death). Early in the book, anyone who had an encounter with Jesus ran off to find their friends and family and bring them to Jesus. They felt the life He gave them so deeply, they were forever changed…and they wanted nothing more than for their loved ones to have this river of life flowing out of them as well.

Many people who saw Jesus perform miracles believed in Him, but John shows there is a difference between belief and BELIEF.

Now while He was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and believed in His name. But Jesus would not entrust Himself to them, for He knew all men…He knew what was in a man. John 2:23 -25

Just a few chapters later, Jesus teaches this same crowd of “new believers”, but His teachings were too hard for them to accept.

From this time, many of His disciples (followers) turned back and no longer followed Him. John 6:66

True belief is more than saying you believe in God. It’s more than knowing about Jesus. It’s more than being part of a church or not doing certain things and making your life look Christiany.

True belief begins with faith that Jesus came to earth as a man who was also God (This is Christmas!), that He died to pay for all our sins and unite us with God, that He did not remain in the grave but walked out, and that He went back to heaven where He prepares places for His own until He comes again.

True belief causes believers to ACT on their belief. James 2:17 says Faith by itself, if not accompanied by action, is dead. True believers read God’s Word, talk to God and listen to Him, turn from sin, commit to God completely, surrender all they are and all they want ~ to all He is and all He wants.

Belief means “to be convinced of” and “to entrust oneself to“. This is the huge difference between the belief of demons or disciples who later turn away–and real, true, life-giving BELIEF. Entrusting yourself to God is not so simple as “say this, do that, and then do these”. In fact, we cannot even do it on our own…we need His supernatural help to believe this way!

So where do you go, what do you do if you believe Jesus was God but you do not trust Him to take control of your life yet? Or if that sounds a little hokey and you’re just not sure what you want? Let me leave you with some scripture to think about, and my prayers for you here in the background.

Ask Him to help you turn to Him, to help you follow Him, to help you truly believe…

Come near to God and He will come near to you. James 4:8a

But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matthew 6:33

So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. Luke 11:9

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” John 8:12

Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord. Acts 3:19