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Almighty Social Justice

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1 Samuel 17, Verses 34-37: (David speaking to King Saul regarding Goliath) “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.”

David vs. Goliath is the most famous underdog story in all of history. Everyone knows it, but few grasp its vital point – God is true power and humans are hopelessly powerless without Him. Depending on what you want to believe, Goliath stood somewhere between 6 ft. 9 in. to 9 ft. 9 in. tall. Like a good fish story, his height grew in each translation. No matter the actual facts, Goliath scared the living daylights out of King Saul and the armies of Israel. For exactly 40 days (If you pay attention, God seriously likes that number), Goliath would come out in the open and make his shout out for just one of Saul’s men to come fight him. Winner take all. Nobody dared…they would fall back in fear every time. God had specifically raised up Goliath to be what he was at that very moment to eventually meet, David.

David was the lightly regarded youngest son of a family from Bethlehem. (Yes, that same Bethlehem). Three of his older brothers were all in Saul’s army, but David split his time between keeping his father’s sheep and serving Saul. His family sent him to the front lines to give food to his brothers and cheese to their commander, hoping that it would buy goodwill in keeping them safe. When he got there, he was appalled at the disrespect of Israel by Goliath and was inquiring what had been going on. They told him that any man that stood up and killed Goliath would be made very wealthy by Saul, his family would be exempt from taxes, and he’d even be given the King’s daughter in marriage. When King Saul got wind of David’s intrigue he sent for him. Young David said to the King, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.” The king must have laughed a bit looking at David and his bold claim, and said to him, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.” That’s when David put on Saul the words quoted above.

David understood what no other soul all the way up to the King, in all their armor and all their weapons, on that battlefield understood – Power comes from God and God only, and because of his faith, he possessed far greater power than Goliath could ever fathom. This is a young boy that killed lions and bears with his hands. HIS HANDS. Because he had faith that God would enable him to do so. 100 out of 100 times without God’s intervention, a human loses that fight and dies badly to the animal. David knew God was with him. Later to come would be Jesus, born in Bethlehem in the direct lineage to David, who would say to his disciples (and us), “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew 17:20

God keeps balanced scales – Always. When you read Proverbs, Psalms and throughout the Bible, you quickly pick up how important this is to God. For instance in Proverbs 11:1 from Solomon’s wisdom comes, “The Lord detests dishonest scales, but accurate weights find favor with him.” The 9th Commandment is, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” This is a major stumbling block for most of human history. Human power attempting to usurp God’s almighty power. It will always fail, but yet, God will allow human power to build up even while his suffer, because he is turning their rebellion into his balance all the while, teaching his via suffering, while laughing at the rebellious because he knows their folly is doomed. Balance of power is a very tricky thing. A scale must be perfectly weighted on both sides to keep order, so if you consider that in worldly terms, you might begin to start to understand why things are the way they are instead of how we wish them to be. Why seemingly bad things (worldly terms) happen to good people, when in fact, all of it is a measure of God’s Almighty Social Justice balancing the scales. In our viewpoint, if 10 innocent people die at the hands of 10 evil people, and the evil people remain free and seemingly victorious, then God is wrong and maybe he’s just sadistic. That is exactly what Satan whispers in the ears of many, because we are looking through lens that only see worldly dimension. Spiritually, those 10 innocent people now reside in the presence and light of God’s perfect goodness, and those free evil people are very soon doomed to an eternity of torment and suffering. Social Justice, the battle cry of today’s secular activists? It’s always been in perfect play and balance, they just can’t see past today and into what is.

Recently I watched an interview with the American man who was the lead in the 1994 nuclear weapon negations with North Korea. In the process of that interview he said something that is wisdom seldom heard these days in political and diplomatic circles. When pressed that America is the most powerful nation in the world and why don’t we just use our strength to end North Korea, he replied, “Of course we could crush North Korea, but is that the right thing to do?” There is a man that understands morality balanced with power. For my vote, he can negotiate on behalf of America any time, any place. God’s scales will always tilt back to balanced, so if power on one side goes rouge, justice on the other side will surely balance it back out. That’s a difficult concept for anyone to fully bring mental image to, but that’s exactly how this life works.

So there is David being given the go ahead by Saul to fight Goliath. He’s loading him up with armor, weapons, and even his own tunic, and David shuns it all away…”I cannot go in these because I am not used to them.” David didn’t need all of the worldly creations of war to win this seemingly impossible battle. He took his staff in his hand, chose 5 smooth stones from a stream, put them in the pouch of his bag, and with a sling in his hand he approached the giant menace.

Goliath was insulted by them sending a boy and snorted, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” He cursed David and told him to come and die. Here is what David said in retort: “You come against me with a sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”

David drilled the massive man in the forehead with a rock and he fell to the ground. Standing over him he took Goliath’s sword and removed his head. Battle over. God’s Almighty Social Justice.

One of my favorite parts of this story is verse 55…”As Saul watched David going out to meet the Philistine, he said to Abner, commander of the army, ‘Abner, whose son is that young man?’ Abner replied, ‘As surely as you live, Your Majesty, I don’t know.’ ” It makes me laugh. Can’t you just imagine that same scene in a big Hollywood blockbuster? Brad Pitt as Saul, and George Clooney as Abner, and Clooney and Pitt look at each other in shocked confusion, “Who is this guy???”

Have you ever found yourself faced with something so big, so daunting, that you lose all hope that you could ever defeat it? It could be problems in your marriage, it could be an addiction, it could be financial woes…it could be hundreds of things. Jesus Christ, your salvation, your Lord, your King, says to you, “If you just have faith as small as a mustard seed, I will give you the power to defeat anything holding you back from me.”

I have personally put that promise into action in my life. It’s as true as the sunrise. I have defeated many vices and habits that I always failed doing so with my own power, by using the power of the living Christ within me.

David is you today. Will you stand up to your Goliath?

Gary Abernathy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keeping Christ’s Perspective

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Luke 12: 49-51 – (Jesus Speaking) “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.”

One of the great misleading narratives of Christian faith in the modern world is that of a neutered, hippie-like, Jesus. I’m ok – you’re ok – let’s all go get high (on materialism, immorality – the breaking of all God’s law). This has created a superhighway of mislead believers going down a path away from the cross instead of towards it.

Jesus is the harvester sifting out (dividing) his that he calls wheat, from Satan’s, that he calls chaff. The chaff will burn in the resulting fire. That’s what he is saying in this passage of Luke’s Gospel, and he’s yearning to do it even before he’s gone to the cross and resurrected from the tomb. That is Christ’s perspective. To be fearful (mindful) of that daily is of highest importance.

When we are low, when we hurt, when we are in danger, our first instinct is to call for His help. It sure is for me. That’s a good thing and it’s exactly what we should do in those moments. Just as the psalmist David did, we do the same. But what about when we are doing well and feeling strong? Is our Christ perspective still intact? Are we praising him, mindful of his blessing, and giving credit (glory) where it belongs? This is something I’ve struggled with my entire walk with Christ. Ego and ownership of life.

In that same gospel of Luke, Jesus spells out the responsibility of those given much. (Jesus Speaking) “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”  While I am certainly not rolling like a Bill Gates, I have no room to complain about what I’ve been given in life. I’ve lived comfortable, and at the moment, God has me living very comfortable, and he has also entrusted me with some pretty large platforms. I fall smack dab in the middle of that warning from the mouth of Christ. I have failed it many times. I lose my Christ Perspective by the deception of my comfortable circumstances. Because he loves us, God will always rebuke his own when this happens, the same as we do to our children as parents. Some of those rebukes of me have been pretty harsh, but nothing compared to what he could have done. The spirit comes to me in warning, and where I once would ignore that warning and the rebuke would eventually follow, I now listen…very intently. Sometimes it takes the threat of losing everything that truly matters to us to get a person’s full attention. He has mine. My perspective is squarely on Jesus and his pitchfork. Am I to be wheat or chaff? I never was very fond of intense heat.

Where do you stand in keeping your Christ Perspective? Are you calling for his mercy and help when you are low, and are you praising when you are high, and doing his work of the sharing of your many blessings?

“When wealth is lost, nothing is lost. When health is lost, something is lost. When character is lost, all is lost.” Billy Graham

Pray for and work on building your character every single day. He is coming. Sooner than you think.

Gary Abernathy

 

 

 

 

 

The Act of Obedience

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James 1, Verses 22-25: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it – not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it – they will be blessed in what they do.”

It was June of 2015 and the sweat was pouring from my entire body. Step after step, rock after rock, the incline seemed to only get more steep the higher I climbed. The cigarettes had been sat down for a year and a half never to be touched again, but decades of them saturating my lungs had done their damage…my chest was exploding and I gasped for air. I found myself hugging one of thousands of trees surrounding me as I traversed the narrow pathway towards the summit of Mount Pisgah, NC. This mountain given that name in honor of Moses and his last view before God ended his work. The summit sits at 5,721 feet and I was a few hundred feet short of it.

It had been a very special day already by this point, and dusk was creeping slowly but ever steady. I had started this physical act of obedience towards God by hiking several miles in a mind blowing place called, Graveyard Fields. A valley of trees twisted and thrown by high winds at 5,000 feet, and a landscape that at times resembled a tropical rain forest, and in other areas, the remains of the apocalypse. In between, beauty upon beauty of God’s finest work. There has been very few moments where I have felt as alive as I did at Graveyard Fields. Next, I made my way to a place called the Devil’s Courthouse. The path to the summit was nearly as vertical as Mount Pisgah, and it took a lot of the remaining energy I had to make it. Symbolically, I viewed this as an act of ending my worldly-minded life. Mount Pisgah would be the birth of my new God-centered obedience. My adherence to the words of James quoted above. By the time I had made it back to the parking lot, a storm had come up and I had to retreat to my room at the Pisgah Inn.

It was after 6 pm, I hadn’t eaten dinner (and the Pisgah Inn has one of the best restaurants anywhere in the area), and the storm had left everything wet. I flirted with the idea of waiting until morning to conquer Mount Pisgah, but God led me out the door. Because of the weather, the parking lot was empty in what normally would have been a busy site on a late Spring day. Minus the young couple I would encounter coming back down the mountain at one point, I never saw another soul the entire event. I did however constantly feel like one of the many black bears in the area could pop out on me at any moment, and I had nowhere to run if one did. Strangely, I liked that fact, and I trusted God in how that would go. I heard some wild noises in those woods, but I never saw their sources. With a single bottle of water and adrenaline as the fuel, I made my way. Step after step, rock after rock.

As I hugged that tree and desperately attempted to catch my breath, taken from me by addiction and rebellion, I felt like there was no way I could make that last final push to the top. I was praying nearly continuous all day, and at that moment I was pleading for his help to get me there. The spirit put in my head as clear as day the words, “Jesus First, Jesus in the Middle, Jesus Last.” So I started chanting it. Loudly. If there were any bears around me, I’d like to think they were chanting it too. Every step, every agonizing switchback, every rock to scale…chanting, “Jesus First, Jesus in the Middle, Jesus Last”…as I would dig my wooden staff into the ground and push one more step. I was full of every emotion a human is capable of those last many steps. Everything was pouring out of me both physically and emotionally. Then I saw the steps to the summit.

I was spent. My body collapsed on the wooden platform found on the summit, and I lay flat on my back for a very long time just gasping and wiping the salty sweat out of my eyes…and praying. God taught me a great lesson that day that will live with me eternally. Obey. I am his and my soul he will forever hold without fail. I was at one time that man James warned of that heard the word but failed to act upon it. I believed, but I didn’t want the responsibility that came with my salvation. I ran from it. On this day, God led me to him and my spirit was transformed. I’ve changed in so many ways since that moment and the transformation continues. It’s difficult. It’s scary. It places me in uncomfortable positions when the world wants the old me and can’t find him. It’s everything I thought it would be and ran from – and I don’t regret a second of it.

Billy Graham, a man I admire and study intently, once said…”I have never known a man who received Christ and ever regretted it.” I testify to that truth. Chains really do break…setting free really does happen. Have you experienced it? He is waiting for you. Go.

Gary Abernathy