Slave

“But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 6:17-23

Being a slave to sin requires no effort. One might say it comes naturally. It’s pleasurable for the most part. It takes root almost ‘miraculously’ to the point it feels like part of your personality. A man prone to anger that becomes even violent and enjoys it will say, “it’s just the way I am”. A liar will find it so easy to embellish things that he won’t even see it as a flaw anymore, just a trait. Someone jumping from one relationship to another will say, “I just get bored easily”. I’m not sure if those are just excuses, or it simply is the proof of one’s slavery. Not so with righteousness. It doesn’t come naturally. It’s almost never the obvious choice or path. It offers absolutely no gratification to the natural man. It’s not pleasurable to your natural senses. It takes forever to take root and even then, you constantly have to tend it, or it withers and even after a lifetime of working it you still doubt that you have it.

If you’re at all a thinking person, sooner or later you must wonder, “hang on a minute! Yes, I believed. Yes, my heart is loyal to Christ. Yes, I long to do His will. If by default I become His slave, why aren’t I more righteous? I mean I’ve never pledged allegiance to sin, but when I was its slave, I obeyed it without question. Now that I’m supposedly a slave to God, why is it so hard to obey? Why, if indeed I am born from the Spirit of God the moment I bow the knee, isn’t the Spirit ‘miraculously’ making me act more righteously? Am I the only one that just fails to transform from a larva into a butterfly?”

If you’re reading this, the famous line might enter your mind “because The Holy Spirit is a gentleman.” I have no idea who came up with it, but I absolutely despise that maxim. I don’t know what people are trying to convey with it. I honestly hope they don’t imagine some 19^th century dandy. So, what are they trying to say? That The Spirit is polite? I find the opposite to be true. He’s always probing and searching even through the thoughts and intentions of my inner being without asking for permission. He’s forever revealing some hidden thing that I’d much rather never see or address, but He’s jealously claiming my every thought and feeling for my God. I would not call that polite and I don’t think politeness has anything to do with God’s way of working. What is it then if it’s not His Spirit holding back? If it’s true that “when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.” (Ephesians 1:13) then why am I not more… oh, I don’t know, godly? Why am I so very much still... me?

A possible answer might be that parts of me are still in rebellion to the new management. In that case there is no fake it until you make it, there is no compromise, there is no shortcut, there is just a complete cutting off that needs to happen. The Lord knows that even as I write that I have in mind every eye I had to pluck out and every limb I had to amputate just for the sake of having Him (Matthew 18:9). It sounds mad and I’m sure madness is a right description for it. You see, you can tolerate a little bit of sin in you that no one sees or hears about, after all it doesn’t hurt anybody, and you don’t want to become some crazy fanatical person. And you keep failing in the moment of testing and you can sit there and ask why for the millionth time, but believe me that The Lord was right when He said it, you just ruthlessly must cut it off. Completely. Uncompromisingly. Or sooner rather than later it WILL overcome you. Do not negotiate with it. “Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.” (1 Corinthians 3:18)

Another possibility is that you heard and believed the Gospel. Joy, peace, love, all of it is filling your heart. Then you fail. And fail again. It paralyzes you. “This is not working. Oh, God have mercy, this is not working!” Do not panic. Righteousness doesn’t enslave like sin. Sin easily entangles, all it takes is a thought at just the wrong moment and you’re caught. Righteousness is sown. Righteousness takes time. Righteousness must intentionally be sought after. Often, it’s in all the places you find boring to even look into. It’s hidden in all the places that you might have to dig deep to reach. But it’s the only one that has everlasting rewards. Everything else you might seek after will have an end. Either because you’ll lose interest along the way, or something else will lose interest for you and if lack of interest will not be the issue, the grave will make sure it ends all, even the memory of your fleeting passion. But righteousness is forever. By righteousness I do not mean morality, self-discipline, good deeds, although it is not less than that. No, righteousness is not good for the sake of goodness, it’s good for the sake of a Person. Not something one does to gain God’s approval, but something one does and is because they received God’s approval because of a cross and an empty tomb. “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” (Romans 3:21-22)

By “believe” I do not mean (nor did Paul who wrote Romans) a mental assent. It’s not a state of mind where you’ve reached a bunch of right conclusions about God. No. Believing is a way of life. It’s a lifelong commitment to follow through whatever He might lead, because He’s The Way back to the Father. And I want to get back to my Father!

The Spirit was given to us as a downpayment, a deposit as a guarantee (2 Corinthians 5:5) that whoever had a believing loyalty to The Son of God will also receive an inheritance with The Heir of all things (Hebrews 1:2), and that hope should take root in one’s heart that when compared to whatever sufferings we might endure in this life, it will still feel like pennies for a castle. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” (Romans 8:18)

Sounds too good to be true? Only someone that has uprooted lies from the pits of their soul only to see a harvest of truth in place knows what I’m talking about. Only someone that has torn down pillars of pride in their inner edifice knows what it’s like to see pillars of meekness that can support any offence thrown their way. Only someone that has covered over the deep, muddy wells of greed and ‘fame’ knows what it’s like to drink from the springs of living water. At first, while you’re in the process of weeding out, tearing down, covering up it seems like a tremendous loss, but God never causes needless pain, it’s always to give birth to something that you need instead of want. And only those that truly need know the difference between need and want. 

by Cristina Pop

Sowing

 

“By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” – Genesis 3:19

Often, I despair with the condition of my dust. I feel like whenever God has allotted each human’s share of ground, someone, somewhere has made a mistake. Some people seem to be made of rich soil that require hardly any work, and they just have a harvest, others seem fitted to hold in them roots so deep that trees just flourish in them. And then there’s me. Rocky ground, arid dust and filled with pebbles. What am I supposed to grow in this soil? Then I remember the land God promised to the seed of Abraham. I have wondered time and again at how God was so particular to that specific land. If you’ve lived all your life in a place like Transilvania (vampire myths aside), where everything is green, forests, mountains, rivers everywhere, fertile ground as far as the eye can see and then you land in a place like Israel, it feels like the label ‘land of milk and honey’ seems like a gross exaggeration. Everything is dusty and dry. Unless you’re in Tel-Aviv or another costal city, you might as well be on the moon. Of course, the Israelis have gotten very good at irrigation systems, and they make the best of it, but that has not always been the case.

God took them out of Egypt, the breadbasket of the ancient world, and told them they’re headed for a land of milk and honey. And Moses warned them ahead of time, “For the land that you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated it, like a garden of vegetables. But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, a land that the LORD your God cares for. The eyes of the LORD your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.” (Deuteronomy 11:10-12) A land that depends on God’s rain for its wellbeing. A land that is fruitful only at His word and hardens at His rebuke. The promised land is not fertile because of its geography or because of the quality of its soil, it’s fertile because God tends it. If you see the land in one of its unfruitful seasos, you’d have more hope for Mars than for Israel, but when God rains on it, oh make no mistake, God wasn’t exaggerating when He told Ezechiel it’s the most beautiful, glorious, of all lands (Ezechiel 20:6).

I might not be made out of the most fertile soil, I might be prone to droughts but that is only to make me more aware than most, that my wellbeing, my harvest depends on my God sending rain. There’s no use in wishing for better soil, nor cursing the one I was given. I was asked to sow in the soil I have. My job is to clear away the stones, to plow it, to sow the seed and uproot eventual weeds that might try to choke the seed. The rest is in the hands of my God. He knows when to send rain and when to withhold it. He makes things grow, not I.

“Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.” – Hosea 10:12

And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.” -- Mark 4:26-29

I was given many kinds of seed. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). “He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.” (2 Corinthians 9:10) How? Through prayer by faith. Sounds cliché? Be that as it may, it’s true. Ask, believe and wait. You can’t plant your seed, pray and after two days go uncover it and see if it’s working. Leave the seed there, watch out for weeds, pray for rain and wait on The Lord. You can take that as easily as a child and test it, or go the different route. Go buy books that teach you all about farming. Then go to seminars about the different types of compost and fertilizers. Ooh! Organic! Even better become a speaker at conferences about the chemical processes that are involved in growing seed. Study about it, become an expert on it, talk to other experts about it even if you never got your hands dirty.

 Plant the seed God gave you through His word in the soil you’ve got and trust The Lord to give you rain and growth. If you’re anything like me, you’ve watered many a seed with tears prayed in faith to God. But even that is not in vain, because “Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!” – Psalm 126:5

Just believe and don’t stop.

by Cristina Pop

Decisions, decisions

The things we tell ourselves make all the difference. In that secret place, so secret that it might even be unconscious, we all tell ourselves things. Depending on if we’re in good circumstances or bad, we program ourselves to react, act or refrain from action based on whatever we insert into our soul in the decision-making mode. That’s why I don’t have an excuse the moment I have a disproportionate response to a situation: I know it’s just a reflexion of some decision I took long ago. Maybe someone said something slightly hurtful or offensive in a moment I was partial to getting offended and right there and then, whether I realise it or not I have decided NOBODY WILL EVER TREAT ME LIKE THAT AGAIN. Of course, it wouldn’t be strong enough if pride wouldn’t be an issue. But in some twisted way, at a time in my life when I was mentally unequipped with discernment, I must have decided that the way to combat someone making me feel small and insignificant was pride. So having programmed pride in my soul instead of a soul attitude that comes from knowing that regardless or what people see or don’t see, say or don’t say, I have value, I then react with pride or sarcasm to situations I’m confronted with. Or if someone I loved said something hurtful to me at a time when I was still young enough to not yet have a fully developed sense of self, I took that as supreme truth about myself and proceeded to incorporate it into the very walls and fabric of my inner world. I mistook their words spoken in tiredness, low blood pressure, despair, depression, anger, as absolute truths about myself and used them to build myself with. It’s twisted and pathetic but true. Then Light came in this twisted, mixed-up world and began exposing things for what they really are, primitive mechanisms to explain ‘reality’ to myself. But that’s not all that Light did, it didn’t just expose my shortcomings but provided me with tools, real tools not blunted carvings I had fashioned for myself out of lies, tools like love, mercy, peace, discernment, patience, kindness, hope. Things I’ve never owned or used in their true form before. I had borrowed such tools before, but never owned them. And Light gave them to me free of charge. It took a long time to learn how to use them and I must admit I still make a blunder of it sometimes. I often try to go at a situation with patience when it doesn’t work without wisdom. Another situation I face with wisdom instead of love. Another situation needs kindness, and I use caution. I’m not a master builder yet, but I am better than I used to be.

Having at my disposal proper tools, my whole decision-making mode has changed too. Rather than wait for a storm to come and then decide how I’ll react, I try to program myself ahead of time what tools I’ll reach for in any given situation. Not because I trust my decision-making skills to guard me in case of an internal earthquake, but because I know that, in as far as it is up to me, I will not work against the Light but WITH Him. If in my good days, I decide to be loyal to The Light, in my bad days I won’t try to find comfort in darkness just because it’s the easier choice.

There is a quote I love in Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte which I think perfectly illustrates this. Jane is a very simple, ugly, poor and friendless woman that ends up working for a wealthy aristocrat. They fall in love, but he is married, and she must decide between staying true to her principles or give in. This quote is describing her struggle, “They spoke almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamoured wildly. "Oh, comply!" it said. "Think of his misery; think of his danger — look at his state when left alone; remember his headlong nature; consider the recklessness following on despair — soothe him; save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?"

Still indomitable was the reply — "I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unstained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad — as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth — so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am quite insane — quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot.”

“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” – 1Corinthians 10:13

by Cristina Pop