What does it look like to give all of yourself to Jesus?
Hebrews 13:5 – Let your way of life be free from the love of money, being content with what you have, for He Himself has said, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.”
DISCUSSION QUESTION: How much do you give to the Lord?
In the classic Old Testament Hebraic mindset the answer should be, “all that you have been given.” In other words, everything is the Lord’s and should be given back to Him. You have simply been entrusted to the “assets” of the kingdom for a short time. This is the circular dance of grace. (Patronage and Reciprocity: The Context of Grace in the New Testament by David A. DeSilva)
DISCUSSION QUESTION: If anyone from the group understands the dance of grace based on patronage please explain it to your group. This can be found in my book “This is the way to covenant community” on Page 161.
In our western thinking this is likely where we get the original audience’s interpretation of Biblical giving wrong… thinking that God just requires a tithe (confused with OT passages), or that there are no strings attached to Grace.
Grace is free but it also might have some strings attached. To be clear, Grace is totally free, but if you’re going to follow the Lord then you should follow the Lord with all that you are and have been given and freely give back all that you are and have been endowed with- which to some sounds like attached strings.
To most Americans the idea that God wants everything doesn’t sit very well. What would alter calls sound like if we told people the whole story before we asked them to put their hand up! It even becomes more uncomfortable as Christian Americans when you ask somebody if they love money. Nearly every American does. Christian Americans are in a little bit of a wrestling match because they want to proclaim that they don’t love money; yet the giant mortgages, lifelong debt, and working around the clock every week say otherwise. It sure looks like we all love money, and that’s actually the implication of I Timothy 6:10.
The word “love of money” is philarguros, literally, “a friend of silver.” This is a Greek verb that was used in the scriptural context to describe brothers and sisters of one body (which we like to call the church in present day language -that’s up for argument though.) Today, it would seem that money is root of more church problems and family dynamics than anything else I can think of. That’s why TOV doesn’t want much to do with it. It didn’t seem like Jesus wanted much to do with money and His version of first century “church” didn’t either. Have you ever considered the idea that Judas was the money keeper and the one-time Jesus was asked to pay for something it didn’t come from that bag, but from coins out of a fish his Father provided? What could that imply? Jesus didn’t own a church building but occasionally visited the temple which He does refer to as His father’s house.
Essentially the Hebraic way of living is that your complete life is a gift. This gift is a reciprocal dance mirroring what God has given you. Total humility, complete giving back of what you have been given, and utter devotion to your Father.
In the hands of the follower of the Way, contentment is a sign of trust in the grace and mercy of God. From the biblical point of view, the only reason a man or woman can entertain contentment is because God is good. His provision is sufficient. Greed leads away from Him and towards the love of things of the world separating us from the Love of Christ.
Is the love of money or money itself the root of evil? I don’t really think it matters… what matters is that God wants all of us to mirror all of what God has given us. And from the biblical authors mindset money had very little to do with any of that kind of thinking. It is the posture of the heart.
DISCUSSION QUESTION: How does God view your money? Does He even want it? Is the Money the World’s? But don’t we need money? Is it a “necessary evil?” of the world? How does it belong in a Jesus kingdom?
DISCUSSION QUESTION: We often say, TOV isn’t looking for a tithe. Discuss why a more Biblical perspective isn’t centered around “money or serving” but on deeper devotion of your “whole” person.
TOV ACTION NEEDS FOR YOUR DISCUSSION:
BECOME A MONTHLY “PATRON” PARTNER – Discuss how this mindset is different than a tithe
Sometimes we don’t give much to the donation boxes and it is hard to bless people when need arises. We want to bless generously. Consider gifting monthly so that we can buy people groceries, feed the hungry & homeless, and take a financial strain off a family for a season. There aren’t any tov salaries, mortgage payments or utilities to pay… all of your giving goes right to an ACTS 2 need. Together we can make a better kingdom investment. Right now We want to buy a car for another anonymous family and need $2500 that we don’t have.
We need car donations; we have a mechanic that will fix things. And we can give away these cars or sell them on the marketplace. If you know of someone selling a car ask them to donate it.
Giving: You don’t need to “make time or space” for God if all of your time, treasure and talents (sacred space) are His. In the same regard, you don’t need to consider giving a percentage of your financial resources if you are of the mindset that it is all His and you are merely the Spirit led steward of it.
Some have chosen to underwrite the few costs we have as “patron” partners. If you would like to dedicate a regular monthly amount, please do so here:
This article is a 20-minute read. The YouTube version of the discussion is at the Bottom of the page and is an 80-minute listen.
Human beings- We are the most incredibly unique, wildly powerful and intelligent beings ever created but also make some of the most awful decisions, repeatedly, on a regular basis.
The Bible is beautifully simplistic and at the same time houses unsearchable depths of God’s wisdom and goodness.
Of course, the Bible says a lot, everything we need, but there is also quite a bit that it doesn’t simply say. We know very little of what Jesus’s life was like for the better part of three decades, however through extrabiblical material such as historical research of that period, calendars, Jewish and rabbinical practices, and harmonizing the gospel narratives, we can gather much about his life that was not said in the pages of scripture. What we do know is that as soon as Jesus walked in obedience through baptism, he was led by the spirit of God into the wilderness.
Matthew 4:1. “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.”
The humanity of Jesus is certain, but often eludes us, most of us struggle to fast for one full day, let alone a 40 day and 40-night stint. Utter depletion was upon Jesus, and then came the tempting by ha-satan, and testing by God. What follows is three questions and three rebuttals. The result is Satan fleeing and spiritual beings ministering to Jesus. Although the Bible doesn’t say it, clearly there had been some equipping in Jesus’s life.
and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command His angels concerning You’; and ‘On their hands they will bear You up, so that You will not strike Your foot against a stone.’” Matthew 4:6 NASB
Ha-satan misquotes Psalm 91. Yet Jesus doesn’t correct him and simply notes that this is a test of YHWH and infers that to accept this challenge would be forbidden. The fault is in the demanding of Humans of God. God is not the captive genie of my three magical wishes. Jesus makes this clear yet so many Christians today pray in a way that is rival to what Jesus states here. We make demands of God.
“Throw yourself from the Temple” has several other eye raising implications. Some have a hard time asking God for anything personally as it seems to be at odds with really believing in the will of God and the way that God weaves everything to serve His purposes. Can we demand without the eyes to see such things? Do our demands circumvent His intentions? Sometimes in the Bible, such as with Moses we see God heeding the requests of man and altering what would seem to be His better will. But should we really ask God of that. Does asking God to be a way maker mean asking Him to come to our desires rather than posturing ourselves to simply come to His? Do we not throw ourselves from the Temple rather than throw ourselves on His mercy and sovereignty?
Regardless of where your theology lands, there is much going on behind the scenes of Jesus’s interaction with the challenger and it parallels a story in the Old Testament. Most of us know the story of the exile from slavery out of Egypt and through the Red Sea, but often what’s overlooked is also what the Israelites overlooked in the wilderness. We know that both the Israelites and Jesus had just come out of the water before heading into the wilderness. In the Bible, water often signifies chaos. In the beginning, when the spirit of God was hovering over the waters of the deep, the gives us a description of what life, before God interacts with it can look dark, uncontrolled, violent, and unpredictable. As God brings forth land, we first see the life breathing characteristic of the creator of the cosmos.
In the same way, a believers baptism signifies the reaction to an interaction with a life breathing God. They are lowered into the chaotic waters of life for the last time and are risen into a brand-new life.
The hope and promise of a new life are exactly what Israel stepped in to when they stepped out of the Red Sea. The final ascent up the shores on to free land for the first time began the echo of Psalm 136:12 with a mighty hand and outstretched arm; His love endures forever. Just like baptism, this step into their new life was simply the beginning. It was the beginning of a new way of doing things thus signifying the importance of being trained and equipped to withstand the seemingly impossible giants that stood in the way of the final journey to the promised land.
A voice is calling, “Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. Isaiah 40:3 NASB
There is one more connection between wilderness and water. In a D32 consideration, God is at war with other fallen spiritual beings and their slave masters, eventually overthrowing them with the greatest symbol of substitutionary sacrifice being Jesus as the Passover Lamb. At first glance the “horse and the rifer thrown into the sea” it would seem that the slavemasters are completely annihilated, and the earthly force is, but it would seem that the spiritual ones connected with the gods they formerly and will continue to serve will somehow find their way back into the Israelite camp. perhaps this is partially a sign of their continual grumbling and demanding that God do what they want and insisting that it is His fault that they are in such a terrible mess. Are you starting to see the connection of the fallen spiritual beings influencing humanity to make demands of God? This isn’t simply grumbling but a severe violation of the first (and greatest) commandment.
The wilderness becomes God’s classroom in obedience and allegiant devotion to God. In many ways today it still is.
The wilderness is harsh and uncontrollable. We want to live in places where we are in control, so we build cities. That is why cities in the Bible are associated with RA not TOV. We don’t like the testing and trying of the spiritual beings in our lives, so we bulldoze the wilderness and build concrete jungles instead. Unfortunately, that becomes a sign of the RA over the TOV. Humankind actually seems to have very little control and when they think they do it is typically a sign they have been manipulated by the RA of life. We feed our self-delusional fantasy that we are self-sufficient as we are duped by the aggressors.
The wilderness is God’s sacred place, what is left of the earth as He created it. When we attempt to reconstruct it in our image, we lose a connectivity to God and His sacred space. For Israel, the wilderness gave the Word of the Lord, the light and cloud they followed, the learning of grace and mercy, and unending provisions. They learned to heal and worship. They learned to trust and seek. If you have never met God in the wild and untamed placed of His sacred devotion you are likely missing what He has always desired to give to you. Perhaps when we dwell within the city limits, we need to remember to be a wilderness witness. Or maybe we just weren’t intended to live in the concrete jungle and trying to do so could actually be rival to God’s design.
We are in desperate need to be trained and equipped to withstand the seemingly impossible giants that may stand in the way of our journey through this life. If we move too quick, we can miss an important element of God’s character displayed in Matthew 4.
“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.”
The word tempted is the Greek word peirazó. to make proof of, to attempt, test, tempt, but here it is used in the negative sense, a RA sense.
James 1:2-4. My brothers and sisters] consider it nothing but joy when you fall into all sorts of trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect effect, so that you will be perfect and complete, not deficient in anything. (NET)
Conversely, in this passage, the Greek word for trials is dokimion, meaning- a testing or what is found approved. This testing, or a process or being made complete by the testing of our faith, is very good or Tov.
Both words in this form have significantly similar meanings, however the word tempted in Matthew 4 is in the negative form, or Ra (peirazō) meaning “tempt” by means of luring. This is not a character trait of God. Later in his letter, James 1:13 states “When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.” Although God will not tempt, he still can use the corrupt schemes of the evil forces as way to test our character. This again is a parallel to God seemingly handing Job over to the fallen spiritual beings (sons of God) for the testing of his character to be found worthy of righteousness and faithfulness to YHWH.
James uses a rare Greek verb, peirázō, meaning “to try, to test.” God does not test anyone with evil. It’s not simply a matter of testing. It’s a matter of attempting to persuade someone to do something evil (and, of course, God is the one who determines what is good and what is evil).
How often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert! Again and again they tempted God, and pained the Holy One of Israel. Psalm 78:40-41 NASB
Asaph uses the Hebrew verb nāsâ, which means “to put to the test, to try, to prove, to assay.” In other words, they didn’t ask God to do something wicked. They simply acted as if He weren’t God. God doesn’t test us with evil, but we often attempt to test Him, and in so doing, we engage in evil as a means of assaying Him. We disconnect while He attempts to reconnect. This is the exact opposite of what our design and destiny is.
When Israel came out of a 400 plus year stay in RA-Egypt, this nation of people needed to be taught how to do things the way of God’s kingdom. Had the Levitical law been lived out according to its intention, this nation of people would have had such profound impact, other nations would have not helped but take notice and be drawn in to such a beautiful culture. They would have renewed the earth. They were meant to grow grapes as big as their heads that their world would have travelled great distances to partake in. This is the lost “analogy” of what it meant to bear fruit. To have fruit that the entire world sought after and desired. And what could be better than that? Well a fruit that was naturally given and produced by God, it didn’t require any toil. This is the mosaic of what a gift from God was intended to be in our lives… the epitome of what it meant to bear fruit in His kingdom. We were the possessors and recipients of a bountiful harvest that required little if anything from us with enormous blessings.
A contranym is when one word can have two different meanings. Although today we don’t use the word kingdom in our everyday language, we often operate under the ruling of many kingdoms. Our nation is often viewed as a kingdom, if not the strongest kingdom of all kingdoms in the eyes of many. We tend to create our own mini kingdoms either by our nationalities, our blood lines, or even our homesteads. The time we spend investing in these areas can certainly look like worship or idolatry, but what trips us up is our tendency to build vertically (like a city). God has a kingdom which cannot be shaken regardless of our efforts to rebel against it or the attempts of the dark evil forces to lure us away from him. The way God’s kingdom operates is contrary to the ways of the world. God’s kingdom is horizontal, signifying the gift and purpose of diversity amongst all the people. No one person is better or higher in stature, but all created equal although incredibly different. There is but one king amongst a sea of brethren. God’s kingdom is built solely on the foundation of love that never ceases to bring forth life. To this day, our universe is constantly expanding. New stars are being born and galaxies discovered. If we can see through the mess of our daily lives, we can also see new life being formed each day around us. God never stops producing and expanding. This is what you and I were made to do. This is our purpose as the church. We were created by THE life source, the author and perfector of life, the well that never runs dry, but God is also aware of the effect that the kingdoms of this world can have on our nephesh. Although we don’t use the word nephesh in our daily language, contextually here it is important. Although Hebraically nephesh is defined as our soul, we often think of our soul as a separate part of the entire whole of who we are. Our nephesh is every part of who we are down to the deepest part of our composition. Our nephesh is all encompassing and when we bow down to kingdoms of this world, or in the case of the Israelites who had been under to rule of a tyrannical system for over 400 years, it takes reconstruction upon one’s nephesh to learn once again or for the first time the SOP or standard operating practices of God’s kingdom.
According to scripture, the wilderness can often produce the greatest bounty of fruit within our lives. As the kingdom of world tells us to gather from around us to store up treasures in our barns, Jesus continues to teach and to guide us to the truth that true life can only be generated from the inside out. He uses examples of that of a mustard seed. He gave them another parable:
“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest garden plant and becomes a tree, so that the wild birds] come and nest in its branches.” Matthew 13:31-33
The wilderness is what’s considered a liminal space. Liminal is translated as threshold as in the threshold of a doorway. It’s a space that is not quite outside yet not fully inside either. It’s a transition point. It’s the place where we know we are not where we used to be, but we are not yet where we are intended to go. Our tendency is to view these times in life in a negative context, however in God’s kingdom, what can only be produced through tastings in the wilderness has the potential to produce the highest dividend in our lives, yet we see it through a negative lens and put our best foot forward to get out of the spaces and seasons of life as quickly as possible. Many of us are praying for breakthrough in areas of our lives, but at the same time we are not willing to allow God to teach us what the breakthrough may look like and how to get there. These liminal spaces will force us quickly to realize how much control we still desire of our own lives and see clearly the personal kingdom we’ve created.
We know there’s much about Jesus’s life that we are unaware of, but what we do know is that directly out of baptism he was led by the spirit of God into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. At the end of this wilderness season, immediately angels came to minister to him. Matthew 4:11. This opens up the door profound displays of the goodness of God’s kingdom displayed through the life of Jesus. In fact, John said this
“Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” Yet, God has an even bigger plan for the whole of humanity operating through the Kingdom of God. Jesus is recorded saying this in John 14:12. “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”
The only pathway for us to experience this type of life, a land truly flowing with milk and honey from the core of who we are, is to be built up, equipped and empowered by God in liminal spaces. The world calls the wilderness Ra. The Israelites did too. They had everything they needed to survive and were on a journey to thrive, but still found themselves not just complaining, but being so caught up in only what they knew that they didn’t have the faith to trust God with what they don’t know.
“That night all the members of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this wilderness! Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?”
Richard Rohr calls “liminal space”—a particular spiritual position where human beings hate to be, but where the biblical God is always leading them. Many of the greatest stories are messages of stepping positiviely out of liminal space. Abraham, Joseph, David, Jonah, Ruth, Mary and so many others.
Let us not be so quick to judge the lack of faith and the desire to control of that of the Israelites. This is us, too. We have bought in to the lie that these wilderness seasons of life, surrendered to God, cannot produce far greater than what we could ask or imagine. We are all too familiar with liminal spaces. We can be in multiple wilderness seasons at the same time, or around the corner from another one. Eschatologically, we are in a liminal space. Jesus has defeated the forces of darkness and provided for us a pathway to exceptional life, but we are still waiting his return, and a culmination of all things made right. The question becomes whether we as the bride of Christ are willing to receive from this wilderness season the chiseling, purifying, and equipping that is necessary to present ourselves as a spotless bride.
“so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” Ephesians 5:27.
Maybe today, we don’t necessarily seek to create wilderness seasons or find the liminal spaces, but in humility we can begin to see the power within them. Most of us are somewhat lofty in our thinking, even if we think poorly of ourselves. We still allow the Ra to have more say over our lives and the lives of others than the Tov that God has for us. Exquisite goodness was on the other side of this forming season for the Israelites, yet they threw it all away for the slavery that was familiar to them.
We are designed in the image of God and thus we are designed to bring forth life in everything that we do, yet if we are not allowing God to do the work beginning on the inside of our minds and hearts, lasting fruit cannot be produced.
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful.
You are designed to bring forth fruit and bring it abundantly. Be the one today who considers it pure joy when you face a trial of many kinds, believing that the testing, the equipping, the chiseling, the forming by the hand of God, can produce a steadfastness within us that leads to complete wholeness and maturity, unshakable by the feeble attempts of a broken world.
Written by Dr. Will Ryan with Special Guest Paul Lazzaroni
Marriage is a covenant relationship instituted by the Lord. The term covenant in Hebrew (berith) has a literal meaning of ‘a cut where blood flows’ and is used to accurately portray the strongest of all possible relationship structures we could divinely engage in. This word and concept is one of the largest hermeneutics in scripture and is a necessary component for true revelation of the scriptures, the nature of God, and our new life in Christ Jesus and the basis for all relationships.
Written by Dr. Steve Cassell and edited by Dr. Will Ryan
When I was younger I was entangled with the ‘thug’ or ‘gang’ life because, well, I was stupid. I can almost hear the diverse reactions to that revelation among the readership… from guffaws, to eye-rolls, and possibly a few raised eyebrows of shock. Nevertheless, it is an accurate historical reality. The main compelling factor propelling me in that direction was the deep longing of my heart for a real, committed relationship. One of the first things I learned about gang life was the mantra, “Blood in, blood out”. This just simply meant that you were required to shed blood (your own in a self-sacrificial activity like gang-banging in another gang’s territory that would likely get you thrashed or even killed) or the shedding of innocent blood in an armed robbery or potentially a murder. There was no way into the gang without bloodshed. Once you were in, there was no way out without bloodshed. This mostly meant that you were going to die if you ever wanted out, but in some instances, the exiting member would be ‘allowed’ to go through a gauntlet-style beating that would usually hospitalize them and complicate their health for the remainder of their life. I know it sounds barbaric, but I was desperate for authentic relationships. Ultimately (by the enormous grace of God) I chose a different path which mostly had to do with a God-sent gift sashaying into my cosmos by the name of Kay… who is now my covenant bride. We are most definitely committed unto the blood of self-sacrifice to one another without hesitation or consideration.
Suppose you, our reader, are married or intend to enter into the sacred and divine institution of a marriage covenant at some point in the future. In that case, these words must have a powerful resonation in your soul (nephesh, psyche). I have been doing full or part-time ministry for almost thirty years and the degradation of the covenantal aspect of marriage has been nearly destroyed by our ever-darkening world and the decay of basic humanity as we are propagandized into some animalistic attitudes towards relationships and society.
When a couple is joined in Holy Matrimony the vow is something akin to:
“I swear to honor and love you;
In riches and in poverty,
In sickness and in health,
For the better or the worse,
Until death do we part,
So help me God.”
Those are not just words… they are a covenant vow unto another person sworn in the presence of and under the submission to our Great God. In actuality, in antiquity, this was a “blood in, blood out” solemn oath giving God (and the gathered witnesses) the right to punish, even unto the shedding of blood, either participant if they violate that covenant vow. God’s perfect intention in marriage was ‘blood in’ (the blood of the hymen on the wedding night) and ‘blood out’ which was the ‘until death do we part’ provision.
The first thing we, as the image-bearers of God to a broken mirror of the world, need to embrace is doing our marriages the way God says, not the way culture or our fickle emotions scream. If that is a place you dare to transverse with Doc Ryan and I, then I double-dog-dare you to read on…
Glad you are here this far!
Since you have determined to do the hard thing and stay in this message to this point, firstly I want to applaud you for being willing to be a hero (heroes do hard things) and also warn you that you will be shunned as a rarity in our modern world. But consider that God loves to use heroes and rare people to do great things.
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“You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve Him and cling to Him, and you shall swear by His name.” Deuteronomy 10:20
Throughout the Bible God uses the relationship of Marriage to give us an earthly or physical example of our relationship to God and others. You don’t have to be married to glean from this discussion. God positions himself as the forever faith pursuer, the lover that will never leave us despite our shortcomings and continual failure and perhaps even unfaithfulness. Love, compassion, grace, mercy, and forgiveness are just a snapshot of this unending example to us. The Hebrew verb for cling is davaq and is the word used for glue. The implication is longevity, reliability, and consistency in faithful commitment.
What’s important is this: a husband is to cling to his wife in the same way that we are to cling to God. There are several other verses in the Bible that portray the same analogy. In each one, God is represented by the woman, not the man; the scriptures seem to imply a reciprocal role of equality that compliments the relationship by each person’s gifts. A reciprocal circle of grace accepted and freely returned.
The example of covenant relationship is not only exhibited or modeled in the biblical marriage through scripture, but then serves in many ways as an archetype of our relationship with God and between others merging the gap between heaven and earth. We see a glimmer or foreshadow of what all relationships will be in an eschatological sense in a recreated heaven and earth to come. A return to Eden. – Will Ryan Th.D.
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Every relationship is regularly challenged by conflict. There is an undeniable truth to this statement: “Familiarity breeds contempt”. It is true in many Christians relating to their relationship with God and also true in human relationships. The time of Jesus’ life and ministry was regularly hindered by the masses of people who could not reconcile the idea of Jesus being all human and all God at the same time. The majority of people in His time rejected Him because they justified their devaluation of Him based upon His humanity.
John 8:48-53 ESV
The Jews answered him, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and he is the judge. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” The Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.’ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?”
Due to the conflict these religious hypocrites could not reconcile they all missed out on the greatest blessing, the greatest gift, and the greatest possible salvation that would give them the greatest life ever. Conflict steals away the blessings of God from one’s life. As people of the Kingdom of our God, we need to walk out a better way of dealing with ‘conflict and resolve’.
Luke 17:1 NKJV
Then He said to the disciples, “It is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they do come!
Knowing it is impossible to do life without having conflict, we should be desirous to navigate this territory supernaturally. To begin that process we first need to answer the question: “Where do conflicts come from?”
In my attempt at brevity, I am going to only give you the ‘big two’.
Pride (me first, my wants, my ways, my control)
Lack of Understanding (comprehension of your covenant partner)
Let us take up arms against the first evil monster hungry to devour us as its prey… Pride.
Pride has two main expressions. The first we are all mostly familiar with is the overt me-istic, I-centric expression that displays itself in self-aggrandizing, self-focused, self-concerned, self-serving, and narcissistic type attitudes that usually turn our guts when we are confronted with it. Sadly, our culture today has turned pride into an object of worship (by abominable parades and a month-long holiday celebrating perversity). But the scriptures and the life of Christ make it uber clear that pride is an evil foe of everything good and right.
James 4:5-10 ESV
Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.”
These statements are echoed by Peter (1 Peter 5:5-7) and quoted from the wisdom of Proverbs (3:34). The stories of narcissistic pride destroying people in the scriptures are on nearly every page from the fall of the divine couple, Adam and Eve looking for their own way into the life of God, to the fall of the divine being ‘Lucifer’ into the wretched Satan as the arch-enemy of God and man, to the mind-numbing ignorance of David’s adulterous murder account of self-gratification resulting in a dead baby and a civil war, to the sadness of Judas selling Jesus for a pittance of silver coins.
A lesser-known expression of pride has the same dangers but is a bit more subtle. This is the prideful attitude of self-debasing words, actions, or identity. A person who operates in insecurity, low self-imaging, fearful social interactions, sheepish or shy behaviors, and isolation as an introvert is equally operating in pride. There are just at the other end of the spectrum. I illustrate it this way:
PR-I-DE.
Anything that has “I” in the center is pride. Whether it takes the form of PR-omoting the “I” or in the DE-basing of “I”… both are “I” in the center. Covenant is a commitment to lay down your “I” for another as Christ exemplified. The definitive aspect of what separates covenant from contractural- or performance-based relationships is the self-sacrificial commitment. In a secular performance-based contract of marriage, the normal interaction will be, “You do this for me and I will do that for you”. That is basically a business transaction where we are ‘purchasing’ the affection or performance of our spouse. The Bible has a word for this type of faux marriage: concubine.
Proverbs 13:10a KJV
Only by pride cometh contention
Only… that is a big word. The cause of any and all contention is pride. Yikes!
When I counsel marriages in this the most normal response is, “No way!” Most folks do not think the contention in their marriage is their fault… it has to be that OTHER person. The scriptures argue that it takes two to tango, and it would behoove us to agree with the scriptures.
James 3:16 Aramaic Bible in Plain English
For where there is envy and contention there is also chaos and every evil thing.
I often refer to this as the ‘other’ 3:16 verse that is WAY less memorized. John 3:16 makes us have warm fuzzies, James 3:16 makes us angry… Jesus said the truth will make you free (John 8:32) but in my experience, before the truth liberates you it tends to make you REALLY mad. Pride is the ONLY root of ALL contention. Where there is contention there is chaos and EVERY evil thing. (Think about that for a second… EVERY evil thing… like sickness, abuse, poverty, anger, oppression, depression, sin…) Does that statement illustrate any of the areas of your marriage?
The second cause of conflict in our covenant relationships is a lack of understanding. You do not know what you do not know. When we do not understand, the natural human response is to assume, analyze, or project our own opinions into the circumstances or motives. “I know why you did that! It is because you think I am stupid!” “No… no, I do not think you are stupid… I just wanted to do something nice for you.”
One of the most precarious places we can attempt to transverse is thinking we know another person’s motives. Kay and I have established a ‘rule’ that we are not allowed to assume one another’s emotions, intentions, or motives. It has actually affected the overall culture of Beloved Church because we have adopted the statement, “That person is blankety-blank at me right now.” What we mean by that is we recognize that something is going on in their heart but we will not speculate in arrogance as to what it is exactly. It requires communication, honesty, courage to be transparent, and a relational commitment to sincerely listen to one another.
But spiritual and covenantal ‘understanding’ is much larger than just a psychologically invented, and sociologically driven ‘model’ of interpersonal communication tactics. That is worldly, and frankly, arrogant as well.
Proverbs 11:2 BSB
When pride comes, disgrace follows, but with humility comes wisdom.
The divine weapon against pride is humility. Humility is the most virtuous character that is the most shunned and avoided in all of Christianity. The more humble we engage in relationships with one another the more fruitful, intimate, and unified they will ultimately be. Humility is a necessary component to spiritually based relationships, as in marriage covenants, because without humility true communication cannot exist.
1 Corinthians 2:11 BSB For who among men knows the thoughts of man except his own spirit within him? So too, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
If you look closely at that text you will see an eternal principle being expressed: it is only by the Spirit that any one of us can understand the heart. That means our own heart as well as the heart of our covenant spouse. Humility is required to embrace a principle like that because human wisdom and psychological analysis will defiantly argue that our cognitive functions are primitive chemical processes as a derivative of whatever emotion or disposition we randomly are being controlled by. No, Beloved reader. We were created much more complex than science has the capacity to embrace. ONLY by the Spirit of God can we rightly and effectively navigate the deep waters of each other’s souls.
Proverbs 20:5 BSB
The intentions of a man’s heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out.
When the Bible declares that something is deep, you can bet your bottom dollar it is DEEP. Notice though, that the way to draw that sweet cool water that is in that deep well out is through the ‘bucket’ of understanding. There is much strength and determined effort involved with lowering a bucket on a rope into a deep well and then, hand-over-hand, lifting that heavy bucket back up for the reward of a refreshing drink. The Spirit of God is Who gives us the ability (grace) to ‘understand’ each other in an accurate way. This should convince us of the great importance of knowing each other through the Spirit and not only by the flesh (or psychologically analyzed personalities).
2 Corinthians 5:16
So from now on we regard no one according to the flesh. Although we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.
Our regard for one another needs to be of a spiritual valuation, not a carnal or natural one. This is only possible by intimacy with the Spirit where we are humbly submitted to allowing God to help us ‘understand’ our mate. This imperative to comprehend our spouse goes much further than just having a happy marriage.
1 Peter 3:7 ESV
Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.
The commitment to live with one another without contention, in humility, and submitted to the intimacy that can only come through the Spirit is necessary for our overall spiritual/soulical health beyond just our marital well-being. This verse says plainly that your prayer life will be hindered if this is not engaged in properly. You can search the scriptures and you will not find another place that declares a more direct reason for hindered prayers. That should impress upon us the needful resolve to guard our marriages voraciously, in these ways.
Doc Ryan and I are deeply invested in the covenantal realm for the body of Christ, especially in the arena of the marriage covenant. This is why we have penned this teaching together and sacrificed our time and energy to sow into your lives. We pray that your life is impacted and blessed by these words are truths to the degree that they inspire true repentance and change in whatever places your Good Father and your covenant community is shepherding you into.
EXPEDITION 44 