God’s justice

The Prayers of a Just Person

5 Comments / Encouragement / / , , ,

Most of you will be familiar with James 5:16, “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”

What springs to mind when you think of this Scripture? Doesn’t it seem that our sinlessness is a pre-condition to having an effective prayer life? But that doesn’t make any sense if the process of transforming us is a lifetime adventure.

What if it said instead, “The prayer of a just person is powerful and effective.” If so, it is no longer about how good I’ve been but whether or not my heart is united with God’s purpose to restore justice on the earth. In other words, am I just praying for myself, or are my prayers inclusive of the needs of others? Am I praying for my benefit at someone else’s expense or in an attempt to co-opt their will?

If you’re following this blog or the series of podcasts titled This Changes Everything at the God Journey, you know I’ve been drawing down a rabbit hole of biblical proportions. A newfound friend from South Africa, Tobie van der Westhuizen, sent me some of his research on how the word ‘righteousness’ does not appear in Scripture. Oh, it’s in our English translation, but he argues it’s a mistranslation. The Greek word is ‘justice’ or ‘justness.’ By focusing that word on personal piety, devotion, and discipline instead, we gutted the gospel of its purpose. God didn’t want to just declare us “righteous” in Christ but to populate the world with a company of just men and women who have been converted from the narcissism of self to the joy of others-focused loving.

Sara and I have been taking this thought for a test drive in our Bible reading together. What a difference it makes if he is right, and I am quickly becoming settled that he is. This verse from James has begun to reshape my prayer life with a different tone as I think more about his justice and purpose. Why would our prayers be more effective there? Because they wouldn’t be tainted by your personal comfort or privilege but looking out for others as well. That’s where you’ll sense his heart better and engage him inside his larger purpose for all humanity.

That’s what God’s love does when it takes residence in our hearts. By filling us with the life of God, we don’t have to draw life from other people or manipulate circumstances for our survival, but to embrace kindness, fairness, justness, and generosity. Could that be what it means when Jesus wanted to justify us? He didn’t just want to declare us righteous; he wanted to transform us and make us the kind of men and women who can influence the world through the power of love. And that’s the only way this works—we experience love, then live out of that love to others. This is where the fullness of life in Christ exists in the flow of his love to us and through us.

This Saturday, we are hosting a God Journey After-Show with Tobie so others can ask questions about this. It will stream live on The God Journey Facebook page at 11:00 am Pacific Daylight Time and be available afterward for those who want to hear it. If you’d like to participate in the Zoom room conversation, please email Wayne in advance to get the link. The room is getting pretty full, so I’m sure not everyone will get their questions in, but we can use it as a beginning.

Finally, we are nearing our goal of completing work on rescuing the orphanage we built fifteen years ago from torrential rains. In the photo at left, a government inspector checks the repairs already made and is pleased with the progress.

Thanks to all who have generously contributed to this project. We still need a few thousand more if this is on your heart. If you can help us, please see our Donation Page at Lifestream. As always, every dollar you send goes directly to Kenya. We do not take out any administration or transfer fees for Lifestream. Just designate “Kenya” in the options or email us and let us know your gift is for Kenya. You can also Venmo contributions to “@LifestreamMinistries” or mail a check to Lifestream Ministries • 1560 Newbury Rd Ste 1  •  Newbury Park, CA 91320. Or, if you prefer, we can take your donation over the phone at (805) 498-7774.

Let’s see if we can find the full amount they need.  Thank you for your consideration.

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Living Loved on Steroids

13 Comments / Behind the Scenes / /

It feels like someone walked into my office and unfurled a treasure map on my desk. “There’s gold there,” he said, waving his hand across the aged parchment.

It was more a puzzle than a map. There were no hills, rivers, or oceans but words, images, and symbols. It looked familiar, but I couldn’t see the gold.

“You’ll need the code to understand it,” he added.

“There’s a code?”

He smiled. “The word ‘righteousness’ does not appear in the Bible.”

Now I was really confused. What kind of nonsense is this? Of course, it does, and what did that have to do with the map I was now holding? Off the top of my head, I thought of a dozen verses with ‘righteousness’ in them. He watched me getting ready to raise an objection.

“What if it’s a mistranslation?”

“How could that be? It’s such a critical word to the whole Bible story?”

“Then why is it that the Greek word we use for  ‘righteousness’ not translated that way in any secular books from that time?”

“How is it translated?” I couldn’t believe it.

“Justice.”  And with that, he took the map out of my hand, turned it ninety degrees, and my eyes lit up. There it was! 

      *         *         *        *

It didn’t quite happen that way, but that’s an excellent metaphor for what happened to me a few weeks ago. I received an email from someone I didn’t know named Tobie van der Westhuizen from Bloemfontein, South Africa. He calls himself a “reclusive philosopher” but has been on a path that unveils an interpretation of the Scripture that may be more complete than traditional Protestant theology has yet seen. Here is my introduction to Tobie:

My theological world came to a standstill eight years ago because of a single sentence that captivated me and would not let me go: The word righteousness does not appear in the Bible

Whilst that may sound as crazy as saying “The word ‘God’ does not appear in the Bible,” I believe it to be true and also confirmed it over and over again during eight years of near-obsessive study and reflection on the topic. In fact, I have been so overwhelmed by this simple sentence and its implications for my life and theology that I have found it difficult to teach it to others in the way I have been teaching the Bible for four decades.

During this time I have been reminded, quite regularly, of Neil Postman’s analogy of Native Americans communicating via smoke signals but finding it impossible to discuss deep philosophy this way. “The form excludes the content,” Postman says.

His words perfectly captured my feeling that the form of theology, as we know it, is inadequate for conveying a revelation of this magnitude—in essence, a revelation of life that is as different to the theory as the romantic exploration of newlyweds is to a monk reading a dreary textbook on the physiology of the human body.

I was pretty sure I’d just gotten an email from a loose cannon on the deck of the body of Christ. But I kept reading what he had sent me, and he got into my head and heart. I couldn’t stop thinking about it and tried his premise as I read Scripture:

  • Matthew 6:33: Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things will be added to you.”
  • Matthew 5:20: For I tell you that unless your justice surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
  • Romans 1:17: For in the gospel, the justice of God is revealed—a justice that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The just will live by faith.”

Any Greek scholar will tell you that the word justice is inherent in the Greek d-k words that we translate as righteous and righteousness. And yet, in our day,  righteousness has come synonymously with personal piety, sinlessness, and morality. It turns our hearts inward when an invitation to live in his justice would impact every human interaction we have. Scripture became fuller and richer. Treating others as we want to be treated makes us part of how his kingdom reveals itself in the darkness of our world. It is still living loved, but on steroids. This is an entire flow of love, from the heart of the Father into ours and from ours to how we engage the world. 

This may very well complete what Martin Luther began in the Reformation. Yes, it is salvation by grace, but it is not primarily to resolve our eternal destiny or for us to work toward personal piety. Engaging his love transforms us so that we become outposts of justice alongside other followers in a world of selfishness. This is the kingdom come! 

You’re likely to hear a lot more about this in days to come. I’m letting you know because tomorrow, Kyle and I, along with Tobie, will begin to unpack his thoughts on the next episode of The God Journey. If you no longer listen to the podcast, you might want to return for the next few episodes. This may be the most important content we’ll share on the podcast this year. And for those who listen, we will host a God Journey After-Show on September 21, 2024, with Tobie. It will stream live on The God Journey Facebook page at 11:00 am Pacific Daylight Time and be available afterward for those who want to hear it. If you’d like to participate in the Zoom room conversation, please email Wayne in advance to get the link.

I’m so excited to share this treasure with you and give you a way to explore it yourself because this is one of those realities that is far better explored than explained.

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No Better Place to Be

7 Comments / Growing in Trust / / , , , , , ,

There’s probably not a week that goes by or a trip I take where these two questions don’t come up. This email asked them as succinctly and clearly as they’ve ever been asked. I thought some of you might also be interested in the answers. I hope that someday I’ll be able to travel somewhere and not have these questions come up. Religion has put so much fear into humanity that we miss the more critical things Scripture teaches us—that the Father behind all this is incredibly trustworthy to sort out all things with love and justice we can’t even imagine.

The message of salvation is that there is no safer place for us to be than in the palm of his hand, yielding to his desires for us.

If God loves people so much, then why does He not stop horrible things from happening to them? As for this first question, I am mostly at peace in my heart. Scriptures, the voice of the Holy Spirit, your writings and podcasts—all of these things have played a huge role in helping me understand that horrible things happen to people as a result of living in a fallen world, not because God sits by and “allows” them. In my own experience, I’ve seen what God is able to accomplish in us through these difficulties that probably would not be accomplished any other way. I still hurt for people who have experienced more pain, abuse, and heartache than I could ever imagine. But the Holy Spirit helps to direct my thoughts on these things now, even though my human ability to understand is limited.

That’s a timeless question and difficult to answer. We’re trying to put human-sized brains into a God-sized reality. There’s something about the gravity of pain in our world that draws people to him, and there’s something about free will on a planet he gave us that makes us victims of the free will of others. It is the source of evil in the world, and evil does have consequences even for innocent victims. And some people bear a disproportionate weight of that pain. We are assured that his love is bigger than anything this world can deal out to us and that he can work good out of very tragic events, until the end when the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our God! What a great day that will be when Jesus gets the last word on everyone and everything. He just hasn’t had it yet.

In the meantime, when you know others who suffer more deeply than you do, don’t seek an answer in trying to figure out if they have deserved this in some way. Instead, find a way for you to lighten their load, salve their pain, and provide for them. Handle your struggles inside his love and help others with their suffering by inviting them inside your love. That’s all we know, but it’s enough to get up today and go out and love in the world.

I’m confident enough in God’s love and character now that I don’t let it eat away at me. In fact, I’m able to hold it fearlessly before the Lord and ask Him to help me understand. But I’d still really like to hear your thoughts on it. It’s one of the things my husband says drove him to question, and ultimately walk away from, God. If God loves people so much, how can He send people to hell who have never even been given the chance to accept or reject Christ? People in remote places who’ve never heard even the name Jesus, as well as people in populated places who have experienced so much pain (abuse, neglect, etc.) that they have absolutely no frame of reference to connect with a loving God. See, when I encounter this pain, I am almost in a panic to get out there and spread the love of Jesus, so people can know how real it is. But then I become completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of people in need of this. And that’s when I’m faced with this question. There are so many people. Will Jesus make Himself known to every person somehow, in some way?

Your question is based on a number of assumptions that I am not convinced are true.

(a) God doesn’t send people to hell. He is doing everything he can to rescue people out of it. Hell is not God’s punishment; it is the culmination of sin’s destructive power. He’s the rescuer in the story, not the punisher.

(b) Who knows how many are lost to destruction, and how many turn their hearts to him in the face of death? I’ve seen and read countless stories of people turning to him at their last breath. So, we just don’t know how many he gets to redeem even at the very end.

(c) With a loving and just God, I’m sure everyone will have their chance however God makes himself known to them. I don’t think it is up to us, but at the same time letting his light shine through us to others opens a wider door for them to come to know him. So, we’re part of it, just not the whole part, or even the biggest part. I also know that sharing God with the world through our panicked fear will not win them anyway to his heart. Notice that Jesus didn’t do anything like that when he was here. He stayed in one relatively small area, sharing with those God had given him. Those at rest in his love and confident in his work are in the best place to present the Gospel to others around them.

And (d) as to the existence of hell itself, I don’t claim to have the after-life all sorted out anymore. The Scriptures on heaven and hell are some of the most difficult to interpret, and while some of them seem to contradict each other, I know that can’t be true. I believe Scripture is describing a reality too marvelous for us to understand from our limited perspective here. So we see hints of the joys of eternity and the consequences of sin’s devastation. But I wonder if heaven is really about mansions and streets of gold and if hell is a place of eternal torment for unregenerate humanity. Revelation calls it a “second death.” Could it be where the devil and his host are contained and others consumed? I don’t think Scripture is crystal clear on any of that.

What I have come to know through the Scripture is a Father wise and gracious enough that I can entrust all to him. He is so incredibly loving, so full of wisdom and righteousness, and so committed to justice that when we finally see how it all plays out, we will turn to each other and say, “Wasn’t that the most incredible way he could have done it? We’ll see he was loving and just all in a way we would never conceive. Every factor was accounted for, and he has proved himself to be the God above all Gods, abounding in lovingkindness that mercy and endures forever.”

That really is enough for me to lay all these questions and all the others I have in his hands. He is the potter after all, and we are the clay. He’s promised us enough wisdom and grace to navigate each day’s challenges, but not to answer all our fears and curiosities about the future.

The more we know him as the Father he is, the less any unanswered question will disrupt us.

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