Breaking Negativity

Dr. Timothy Byler

© 2022 Timothy Byler - All rights reserved

The greatest battlefield you will ever encounter and the most valuable piece of land for which you will ever fight is the one square foot of real estate between your ears. Every battle is won or lost in the mind.

You are a spirit being just as you are a natural being. As such, there are things you battle in the flesh (I.e., that piece of cake or the doughnut that beckons you to feast upon their deliciousness). There are also battles in the spirit. Many do not know how to even recognize these battles because of the insight necessary to see them. In reality, these battles are usually connected and at some level, both are present simultaneously. Every spiritual battle will manifest itself in the physical realm - with temptation, frustration, or worse - fear. The playing field for those battles doesn’t usually stay to the physical side or the spiritual side. They tend to cross into the neutral zone - the mind.

You are a three part being, consisting of spirit, soul, and body. Your soul is your mind, your will, your intellect, and your emotion. The soul is where battles are fought and won. It is for this reason that negativity becomes one of the tools of the enemy. It is a subtle tool. It is often wielded from without. Someone says something to you to pull you down or to distract you. They criticize and judge, and do so in a way that will cause you to begin to question your own validity. While not always easily fought, that sort of attack is frontal and usually recognizable. You see it coming and the battle becomes one of “how do I keep myself from giving in to it?” You know deep down exactly what it is and yet, your mind somehow finds a way to validate it.

The best way to fight that sort of negativity is to hold to truth. You must remember what God has made clear concerning HIS belief in YOU! Yeah, I said that correctly. We know we believe in God. We don’t always remember that part of faith is in knowing how much He believes in us… 

so much so that He paid a premium to protect His investment!

When the negative things come at you, you have to remain focused. Focus on your vision, on your purpose, and even on your dream. The negativity is designed to take you off your game and to get you to second guess yourself. It will cause you to shift your footing, slip, slow your momentum, or even lose your way. 

That isn’t the biggest danger of negativity. The biggest danger of negativity is that after it comes from the outside, it starts working FROM the inside. Inside negativity justifies us. It validates us when we feel disrespected or devalued. It is perhaps the only weapon that can be used to penetrate you, make you feel rearmed, and continue to damage you, even as you work to wield it.

In Romans 12:17, Paul instructs us to “never repay anyone with evil for evil, but to respect what is right in the sight of everyone.” He goes on to tell us that “if possible - as much as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.” For a long time, my initial thought always gravitated to “Well, I tried but he isn’t making it possible!” That sort of misses the point.

Paul warns us against letting the negativity of others eat at us from the inside. Consider: if negative people around you need to come to peace before you can find YOUR peace, your peace is now subject to them. It is no longer simply dependent on God. THAT is control. That is the place where others obtain the ability to control you. And in that moment, they have not stolen the control. Rather, you have released the high ground. You let them get you.

The carnal weapon against the negativity of others is YOUR negativity. It is highly dangerous - even toxic! When you return the negativity of others with your own negativity, you relinquish your ability to be effective in the spiritual battle. You ignore your spiritual armament.  You become entrenched in a carnal battle. You will even become skilled at it and win battle after battle - never realizing that in reality, you are losing the war! 

In Matthew 16, Jesus explained this carefully. The context of His words is often missed. “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” This has been pushed specifically to how we “accomplish” in life in order to go to Heaven. But if you read through all of it, Jesus was teaching about the soul battle - the spiritual mind vs. the carnal mind. Just prior to what He said, Jesus identified the difference between seeing things spiritually and seeing things carnally. He commended Peter on his ability to see who Jesus was through spiritual eyes rather than the eyes of man, and instructed the disciples that the very foundation upon which the church would be built was that ability to see into Heaven in order to operate successfully in the Earth. A moment later, when Jesus begin to share the negative circumstances He was about to face, Peter’s defenses rose. He valiantly pledged to defend Jesus against those who would try to destroy Him but Jesus rebuked Him, saying, “Get behind Me Satan…you are not setting your mind of a God’s interests but on man’s.”

Breaking negativity starts from the inside out. 

The negativity of others will always be present. There will always be an enemy who will try to discourage you, disparage you, or destroy you. That negativity cannot stop who you are. Nor can it stop the divine purpose for which you have been appointed! YOUR willingness to pick up the weapon of negativity CAN hinder your divine purpose and stop you from being who God has designed you to be.

GUARD YOURSELF! BREAK NEGATIVITY! Limit yourself from spending time and energy with negative people. You don’t have to love them less. You may have to love them from further away. It isn’t that they will bring you down. They will feed your own toxic negativity. Second, guard yourself against being negative. Do not yield to the temptation to be negative. You are gifted with a pass to the High Road. Take it! It is a better ride. Third, draw closer to God! Praise is the best weapon against negativity. Thank God for the purpose He has written for you and for the battle that He fights on your behalf. Thank Him for the strategy to win the war, not just survive the battle.

STAY POSITIVE!

FORWARD!

New Seasons

Dr. Timothy Byler

April 13, 2022

CLEAR!!! 

Hit it again.  CLEAR!!!

It has been six years since there was even a trace of life in this blog. Life changed. It moved on and the seeming effectiveness of my efforts here had waned. Or perhaps I convinced myself of that in a fervor of ADHD boredom and simply licensed myself to move on to something new.

Much has happened in that six year window. Children married. The church we pastored went through a tremendous growth spurt. We purchased a facility to house our training center. 

And… I got hit by lightning!

A lot of things happen when you experience a lightning strike. One would think that one’s life would flash in front of their eyes. Mine did not. One second, I was standing in the backyard in the rain, wearing nothing but a worn out pair of running shorts and earnestly coaxing my dog to  respond to the call of nature. The next second, there was a CRACK! and a sound like someone was crinkling the sort of cellophane wrapper one finds enveloping a gift basket of fruit.

My next conscious moment was me, laying on the ground in a puddle of water with my dog pawing at my shoulder in an attempt to awaken me. I believe that I am safe in saying that I am the only person who’s dog “laid hands” on him and was brought back to consciousness!

That lightning strike was not the beginning of a turn for me. Rather, it was just another shot in a war declared by an enemy intent on stopping what was already birthing in me. In the months surrounding that night, we suffered some major personal losses, revamped our ministry, navigated our way through a very complex multi million dollar purchase, and did so while being thrust headlong into a world wide pandemic. 

My last blog was July 4, 2016. In August of that year, I drew a line in the sand. I made a personal decision that something had to change - completely… totally…

I told God exactly that. It has been said, 

 “If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans.” 

I am not certain He was laughing. More likely He was saying, “Well… now it begins.”

If things didn’t change, I wasn’t going to make it. In that year, it felt that everything I valued came under fire. Scripture talks about “that which can be shaken will be shaken”. It is easy to preach. It is not so easy to live through. We had been displaced from our home during that time, due to a flood caused by a failure of a fifteen dollar valve in a toilet. The week that the restoration of our home was complete, Hurricane Matthew unleashed on our South Georgia community and brought with it a tornado that picked up five of our neighbors pine trees and dropped them on our house. We recovered. We got through it. We found the daylight. And I got hit by lightning!

Not all trouble is trouble. That is a phrase offered to me by my dearest brother, Dana Gammill. It is a phrase that was frequently uttered by his legendary father, Herchell. It is the phrase that got me through. It turns out, there is more than one way to renovate a home! When we purchased this one, we loved the space. We loved the property. We DID NOT love the house. To say that it was dated was an understatement. The inside was circa 1975 with a few walls adorned with some less than interesting 1980’s era wallpaper. And… it did not have a porch.

One flood and one tornado later - and $170,000 in restoration repairs - and the home is finally… home. The renovations we never could have afforded were afforded for us - all brought on by the calamity of trouble. And, I was learning a lesson. Like Paul, when faced with a shipwreck, you can consider what it means to drown, or you can hold onto the knowledge that God actually WILL complete what He begins in you. You just have to wash up on the correct island!

All of this seemingly random musing actually has a point. If I had known on the front end what I and my family were going to face as we embraced the call to move forward, I don’t know that I would have been so eager to take the step. It is easy to talk about faith that moves mountains. It is less so when you are standing there as the mountain looms over you with a foreboding shadow. Yet, we are not called to live in the shadows. We are called to shine light into the darkness.

For some of you reading this, your last season has been a shadow season. Most of us have suffered tremendous losses. Family and friends who succumbed to a dreaded virus, positions of employment shifted or eliminated, business owners finding themselves at a loss to even find employees, the list goes on.

Psalm 30:5 teaches us that “weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.” 

The rest of what David wrote is not simply a testimony of how God will pull you through. It is also a testimony 

of how David chose to respond to the knowledge that God DOES pull us through.

Today, with this post, I activated the defibrillator. It is time, not only to hear my heartbeat, but to listen to how closely it’s rhythm aligns with the heartbeat of the Master! Sometimes the night can last six years but look up! The Sun is on the horizon!

 Dr. T

The World's Greatest Quarterbacks

Recently a friend asked, "Who is the greatest NFL football quarterback in history?" His answer brought a paradigm shift in my thinking.

His pick for all time great NFL/QB offered the following statistics:

He was the second pick of first round draft his beginning year.

His team had nine losing seasons, breaking .500 once - the only time during his career that they finished higher than 3rd in their division.

During his 13 year career, he was sacked 340 times. Members of some opposing team actually "took it easy" on him and reporters offered that he should have gone down many more times than that, but his "swiftness in the face of no protection often saved him."

His record as a starter was 35-100-3: the worst for a quarterback with at least 100 starts.

None of his teams ever won a Super Bowl or even made the playoffs.

Yet: leading his team to a 7-9 record in 1978, UPI named him Player of the Year and later, UPI and Sporting News named him All NFC.

He was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1978-79.

He had 125 touchdowns in 3,642 passes; 2,011 of which were completed for a career total of 23,911 yards. Additionally, he rushed 2,197 yards for 18 touchdowns. At his retirement, this ranked him 17th in NFL history. And, while the New Orleans Saints do not officially retire a number, they have never reissued a number 8 to another player.

If you are a football fan, by now you have figured out that the quarterback is Archie Manning.

You may be wondering, "Why would you pick a guy who ranked 17th, who never won a Super Bowl or even a playoff?"

The answer is simple.

Your success cannot always be measured by the numbers. If you have the best arm in the league, it is still only as effective as the guys catching the ball. If you have the fastest reflexes, they are still subject to those who are supposed to defend you against the guys coming to take you down.

If you execute the play flawlessly, you are still subject to the coach who established which plays are available to be run.

In short, your "stats" are in the hands of - and at the mercy of - many others around you.

However, what is in YOU is not! In spite of being on failing teams, Archie Manning still made player of the year and was chosen twice for the Pro Bowl. He had the respect of his colleagues and his fans for a job well done against insurmountable odds.

What made him the best? Legacy. What Archie Manning had inside of him that caused him to fight his good fight was passed down to two sons: Peyton and Eli Manning. Both brothers carried their father's determination, life lessons and legacy into their own NFL careers. Both sons have two Super Bowl rings each to show for it.

Without an Archie Manning, there would be no Payton nor  Eli Manning and football in the last decade would have missed a tremendous gift.

Success is not measured by stats. It is measured by what you put in - by how much you leave out on the field.

This sounds like a story about Archie Manning but in reality, it is about another of the greatest men in the world.

My Dad, Dr. Philip Byler, was an Archie Manning. When he was ordained into ministry, he was like a first round draft pick. Where most of his peers would see a couple of ministers sign and witness their ordinations, my father had about 100 men stand with him and sign his.

He was a "rising star" within his church denomination. Pioneering his first church, he worked with a mobile home company to develop and build a modular church building - a pattern that would be followed by church plants throughout the denomination for the next decade and beyond.

Dad found himself swimming in the headwaters of what would be known as the "Charismatic Movement", leading people to a deep and sincere power filled relationship with the Holy Spirit. He prayed for people and saw many miracles. His stance on healing prayer caused him to face the rejection of those who had a year before, seen him as the future. Yet, undaunted he pursued what God showed him - even at great personal cost.

He served in the wings of great men and movements. We led worship for National Leadership Conferences with leaders that later launched People of Destiny He was in the head waters of the Discipleship Movement. When some of the founding leaders of that movement crossed lines which led to abuse of power, without showing dishonor to those leaders, God allowed Dad to be a voice of reason and healing to many who had suffered damage.

Dad broke cultural barriers in the cities and communities of all of the churches he served or pioneered, settling racial and cultural tensions by choosing not to be "multi-cultural" but instead opting to lead his congregations to be "kingdom-cultural".

With the advent of the 90's revivals - the Toronto's, Brownsville's and Cornfield's - Dad's ministry saw many similar manifestations. He saw a man with no eyes see through an empty eye socket. He saw barren women find healing that allowed them to have children. He saw cancers disappear, holes in hearts sealed up, and even once in Maryland, saw a man raised from the dead during one of his Sunday services. He was doing as Jamie Buckingham used to say: "He was blooming where he was planted."

Serving near Annapolis Naval Academy and later Fort Stewart, Georgia, heh ministered to lives and families of Sailors, Marines, Coastguardsmen and later Army as they faced two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Then, there was a new movement - the New Apostolic Reformation. Dad took a manuscript he started in the 1980's - a manuscript that was a doctorate level of education from the school of hard knocks - a document that reflected on all of the lessons learned along the path of ministry orchestrated for him by God - and he turned it into a book: "The Changing Church and the Unchanging Kingdom". The year it was released, C. Peter Wagner, then President of the International Coalition of Apostles held that book up during the International Conference and stated, "This should be required reading for every person in this room. This is a textbook of what the Apostolic Movement is supposed to be." It was a powerful moment, and having lived out what was printed in that book, I was so proud of my Dad and that what he had lived and written so clearly identified with what God was doing.

On a train ride through India, a dear friend, Moses Choudarry said to me concerning my father, "He has been in the headwaters of every movement God in which has placed him. He is a forerunner and because of that, people do not understand him. He sees what they cannot yet see and as a result, they cannot relate to him. Too late do such people realize the blessing such a man is to their lives."

That is his record. Those are his stats. Through the years, many of the players he trusted let defenders through the line and he got sacked. Some of those players even did so intentionally, and relished seeing him hit the ground. Yet every time, Dad got back up, grabbed the ball and called the play. He did not build a single mega church. Yet to this day, Pastors in the cities where he "bloomed" know his name and attribute his leadership to those who served under him who now make a vast difference in their organizations. There are people alive today and some who would never have been born, except that Dad took time to minister, pray and believe with them for a miracle.

And...he produced a son and a daughter. Both of whom have gone on to continue what he placed in them. They have been graced to be among teams that can make the playoffs. As for Superbowl rings - who knows? But honestly, for those two kids - who's counting. Both have become fully embedded into what God is having them do for His kingdom and have learned from their father that you accomplish more with hour eye on the goal post than you ever will with your eye on the scoreboard!

Here's to Philip Byler - "Dr. Phil" - the greatest quarterback in God's Football Hall of Fame. Welcome to the NFL!

Archie Manning stats from Wikipedia
 © 2016 Timothy Byler - All Rights Reserved.

Birthday Thank You...Words are not Enough

As I turned 50 years old this week, I found myself overwhelmed. It wasn’t by the thought of a half-century behind me. It wasn’t the thought of what hasn’t been accomplished or dreams yet unfulfilled. I was overwhelmed by joy, and by love, and by what the future holds.

Hundreds of people connected with me this week with birthday wishes, presents or words of encouragement.  These are people to whom God has allowed me a connection; and while the individual nature of each of those relationships differ, one thing remains the same. There is love in my heart for every one of them. And, there is a great measure of thankfulness that God has graced me to have them in my life.

I am blessed with a full life. I have a beautiful family. I have parents who raised me well and who love and care for me deeply. I pastor the most amazing church on the planet – full of people who just simply amaze me. God has blessed me to have the opportunity to minister and make friends around the globe.  Life is indeed full.

But that fullness is not found in the opportunity to travel, to minister, to play concerts or to motivate others from a platform. That fullness is found in one simple word: relationship.

I am blessed for the relationships in my life. Everything for which God designed us, and in fact His creation, is surrounded in relationship. For instance, the flowers flourish because of their relationship with the bees. The ground benefits from its relationship with the ocean, which waters draw their functionality by recycling through the atmosphere to again rain down upon the earth.

Relationship is not simply important. Relationship is life! Sometimes it is fragile. Sometimes expectations fall short and even brokenness can occur. But God in His mercy continues to afford for us those relationships that heal and make us flourish. More so, He offers to us a relationship like no other- loving us unconditionally and without reservation. If we can simply grasp this, our lives our not simply preserved. They are enriched.

I have a rich life. It is rich because of my relationship with God. It is rich because of the relationship I have with my beautiful wife and my amazing kids. It is rich because of the relationship I have with others. The future is bright because it is already full. And for everyone who is there, I am grateful and full of love.

Thanks for being in my life and for making it better. Thanks for the joy of allowing me to know you in the past half century of my life. I look forward to what God will do in all of us in the years ahead.

Thanks for loving me.

Tim

Constructive Criticism...REALLY?

Constructive Criticism...REALLY?

Dr. Timothy Byler

Criticize: v. 1: to express disapproval of (someone or something) : to talk about the problems or faults of (someone or something), 2: to consider the merits and demerits of and judge accordingly, 3: to find fault with :  point out the faults of

Constructive: adj. 1: helping to develop or improve something : helpful to someone instead of upsetting and negative 2: of or relating to construction or creation 3: :  promoting improvement or development 

Oxymoron: n. :  a combination of contradictory or incongruous words (as cruel kindness); broadly :  something (as a concept) that is made up of contradictory or incongruous elements

"Can I offer you some constructive criticism?" In my younger days, I was taught to welcome that question. With a few years under my belt and with time and training developing as a life coach, that question that raises my hackles...and my suspicions.

Ask someone to define constructive criticism and they will tell you that it is "caring enough to point out what is wrong in order to help someone improve." It sounds great. What that definition fails to consider is that in most cases, "what is wrong" is subject to the opinion of the critic.

There are several things to consider. First, the person best qualified to speak into your life or future is the person who has a proven to believe in you. That person is also one who has proven to be an encourager who edifies and builds you up. That person is one who is trusted to have not only your best interests at heart, but a person that considers that your dream and vision ARE in your best interests. If you are not fulfilling your dream, your life will experience a vacuum, or even fall into mediocrity. 

True coaches, if they offer a critique, do so by invitation. They are wise enough to realize that unsolicited advice is often unwelcome advice. More importantly, it is unheeded advice. True coaches are not big on expending efforts into unproductive encounters. More importantly, true coaches realize that their advice is an investment. When you invest, you expect a return. As a coach, the insight that I offer presents two returns. One is financial remuneration, which means that the advice offered was sought. There is an arrangement and the success and fulfillment of the dream is the goal, for both the client and the coach. The second and greater return is in the satisfaction of seeing the success of the client come into fruition. I LOVE SEEING DREAMS COME TRUE! I revel in it. I celebrate it. Whether I am working with a coaching client, a person I am mentoring, or a congregant in the church where I serve as pastor, I revel in their success. I am like Hannibal on the A-Team: "I LOVE it when a plan comes together!"

In my experience, the person that asks, "Can I offer you some constructive criticism?" is about to give you half of what they just offered. And they are going to give it to you whether or not you want to hear it or not. The half you are about to receive is the criticism. The half that is missing is the constructive part. Unsolicited constructive criticism is simply...criticism. It is the voiced disapproval of someone who does not agree with what they believe is occurring in your life. The phrase "Constructive criticism" is the license for a person to complain without acknowledging that he or she is a complainer. And, while some of the criticism may be accurate, more often it does not accurately speak to the fulfillment of your dream, but rather to the dismantling of it. The criticism does not build you up. It tears you down. It does not encourage. It discourages. It seldom offers solutions, but points out perceived fallacies. And, it usually comes from people who are so myopic that everything they speak to is something that is affecting their immediate world...something that is bothering or irritating them. In short, their "helping you" is more about "helping you stop bothering them". It is about control.

Constructive criticism is an oxymoron. It is the attempted combining of contradiction. In this case, it is the declaration that a person makes that says, "I will point out what I disapprove of and what I judge to be a fault in you, so that I can build you into what I think you would be better off being." Most certainly, that argument will draw fire. That fire will probably come from a critic, who has just been "outed".  Some will parse words and point out the value of critique. But the fact remains that even if the intent is good, the practice is faulty, because in most cases, the underlying motive of the critic is skewed by the critical nature of the critic.  There advice often brings change to a behavior. But just as often, it breaks the momentum of the person they critique. It doesn't build them up. It only stops them. Therefore, it is not constructive, but destructive.

Be wise. Consider carefully not only the advice you receive, but the advisor. Be certain that such an advisor has a proven track record; not only of believing in you, but also of believing in your dream. Not everyone is qualified to speak to your dream...even if they are an expert. 

They way to tell the difference?

Look for those who build you up, who love your dream and who walk with you toward solutions. Look for those who ask and consider the full scope of your path before pointing out the obstacles and the detours. Look for those who have taken consideration the entirety of your journey rather than complaining about the construction on one section of the street.

The true coach will build you up. And if he sees an area that could use a better approach, he will not criticize. He will not offer critique. He will guide and offer alternate solutions. And, he will walk with you, not only through the muddy detour, but back to the highway of your future.

Thoughts Regarding Life By the Law

In recent days, I have had some interesting dialogue among friends regarding how we are to live, how to follow Christ and where does the "law" as defined in the Old Testememnt comes to play. 

This may be a bit lengthy, and no doubt it will become a reason to spark debate. I am not writing to enter debate. I am writing to state a truth...a truth that was established by God, was fulfilled by His son and is perfected in His children. There is no debate in which to engage.

John 13:34 states: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” 

Jesus, whom the Pharisees and keepers of the law deny, made this statement to the disciples. He was establishing that there was a new and better way being put into motion. He was about to offer Himself as the final sacrifice - something that once occurring would eliminate the need to continue the law's practice of sacrifice. To eliminate part of the law and to keep other sections is to pick and choose what part of the law will be followed. Such action would later prove in scripture to be a source of great confusion. God is not the author of confusion.

In John 9, Jesus healed a blind man. He apparantly made a mistake because He healed the man on the wrong day. It was the Sabbath. Jesus ignored the law. The Pharisees were furious! They declared that Jesus was NOT ofGod because He ignored the  law. Then, they turned their judgmental attack to the man who had the misfortune of being healed on the wrong day. They excommunicated him. Their reason: "You are a disciple of Jesus. We are disciples of Moses." They made the distinction between those who are true Christians and those who are not. Jesus bypassed the law of Moses and the follower he converted in that moment was an outcast.

The Law of Moses is the previous covenant. The Law of love is the law of Christ. His covenant supersedes the covenant.

In Matthew 5, Jesus communicated that He did not come to destroy the law. He came to fulfill it.

To fulfill: The Greek word fulfill is πληρόω  (pronounced pla-ro'-o). It means to make full, accomplish, make complete, to perfor or execute.

This is the same Jesus who healed on the Sabbath, violating the law. His next statement was that "...not one jot or tittle will pass from the law until all is fulfilled." That would include among other things animal sacrifice. At the cross, the contract of the Old Covenant was fulfilled. The contract was paid. The first indicator of the change from Old Covenant practice was immediate. The veil in the temple - the barrier between God and man - the wall for Holy of Holies, where the priests would sprinkle the blood that was offered by the law - was ripped open. It demonstrated that the Holy of Holies was no longer holding court in the temple. There was now no place to sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice of the law! The disciples of Moses had no means of fulfilling their lawful responsibilities.

But wait! The next thing Jesus said was this:

"Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:19

See. Perhaps the law is still on track. But what is missed is that He said whoever breaks the least of these shall be called the least in the kingdom. But this would mean that such a person is still connected to the Kingdom. You are either part of that Kingdom or you are not. The context of what Jesus was communicating through His entire message is ignored as these verses are 'cherry-picked" and taken out of context. He was offering "commands" or, in Greek,  (en-to-la') which is defined as an order, a precept, or a charge. Even the Strong offers that by Jewish tradition, this word infers the Mosaic law. Again, you cannot dismiss that Jesus intentionally violated that law.

He was referring to all that He had just taught. He had just offered detailed instructions or "commands" on how to fulfill the Law of Christ which is the Law of Love. It is defined in the first 15 verses of Matthew 5. It is an exposition on how to be salt and light, and how to let people  see the love of Christ.

Righteousness is not found in what you eat or in making certain that your clothes are not made of blended fabric. It is not found in making certain that animal you are about to sacrifice is truly unblemished.  That is the righteousness of Pharisees and ours is supposed to exceed that righteousness. You cannot exceed that righteousness by trying to live by that law. You have to live by a superseding covenant: a New Covenant that is addressed in the heart.

Do not murder. Yet murder begins in the tongue. The very word "murder" finds its roots in the "word of your mouth". It is the wrong judgment of those who live "less than" you live. And even if you do not actually say it, according to Jesus, are commit it of you are carrying it in your thoughts. Because those thoughts run contrary to the Law of Love.

Under the Old Covenant, I have to sell my car. The seats are made of blended materials, including the leather of unclean animals. I have to replace my wardrobe because my clothing also has blended materials. I need to stop everything at sundown on Friday until until sundown on Saturday. Or, since the Pharisees ignored that one, (after all, Jesus reminded them that if their ox fell into a ditch, they would violate the sabbath to rescue it...apparantly as long as it wasn't blind and needed healing) perhaps we can let that go. 

Under the Old Covenant I must make certain that I have appropriate housing for my slaves, which now allows me to consider that Old Covenant reality allows me to have slaves. And you can try to wordsmith this but the Old Testament minced NO WORDS about the definition of a slave. Ask ANY Jew their opinion of that sort of oppression.

I am also now heavy in my heart because after being involved in a ministry wherein we have had to deal with rape cases, if I am to fulfill the law, there are a number of women who did not disclose their rape to anyone before they married. As it became apparent that their virginity was not intact, we must now fulfill the law and kill them.

The "Law" leaves NO room for forgiveness...only atonement when the correct steps and sacrifices have been processed. 

Micah 6:6-8 was an Old Testement prophetic word that spoke of the "New Requirement" - the one that Jesus would teach in under the New Covenant.

"With what shall I come before the LORD, And bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, With calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, Ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?" Micah 6:6-8

Micah was prophesying that the Old Covenant measures were being made obsolete by God because a New Covenant was about to be established.

Consider this. Peter brought specific correction to the Christian leaders of the early church. He admonished them because they were forcing those who embraced Christ to subject themselves to the law. He told the leaders that they were wrong  to enforce the requirements of the law.

"And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them: “Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us, and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they.” Acts 15:7-11 

Paul and Barnabus followed up in this manner:

"For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell." Acts 15:28-29

No one can keep every part of the law. It is impossible. But it is NOT impossible to fulfill the Law of Christ - the Law of Love. It is the New Covenant.

150 Days

And the waters prevailed on the earth one hundred and fifty days. Genesis‬ ‭7‬:‭24‬ NKJV



150 days... That is how long the waters lasted after it quit raining. I sometimes try to imagine what it must have been like for Noah and his family. After suffering the mockery of the building of the ark, they moved out of their dwelling places to reside in a floating zoo. They have said goodbye to their neighbors families and left them for dead, after hearing them claw at the doors of the ark.

The first storm they ever experienced lasted 40 days. When it was over, they had not lost simply their homes and families, they lost the world. There was nothing but water all around. What level of despair must have entered their hearts?

150 days. That is how long it took for the waters to subside on the earth. After weathering a storm that lasted more than a month, Noah and his family lived on that ark while the waters took 150 days to go away. I can imagine the anticipation that was in the hold of that ark as the door opened at the end of 150 days. To finally be freed of this prison - to escape from the zoo - for life to get back to normal - to taste an apple or an orange or a pomegranate - to feel the grass on my bare feet and experience the warmth of the sun hasn't shines on a grassy knoll - if I were on the ark, these are the things I would be expecting to experience.

Then the door opened. Never experiencing the damage of raging floodwaters, Noah got his first glimpse of what happens to an earth that has been flooded - buried in a watery grave for 150 days.

Much of the ground is still saturated and muddy. Much of the vegetation is gone. Only the the heartiest of plants, such as the olive tree have found a quick recovery in the warmth of the sun's rays.

The carcasses of animals that have drowned are strewn about. The remnants of death are everywhere. 150 days of swirling waters have turned every edifice of man into architectural ruin.

There is no one left on the earth. Noah, his wife and children have been invited to spend the rest of their days in a perpetual family reunion. And, the family is dysfunctional. Maybe it is one reason why Noah got drunk.

Only Noah's faith in God and His promise was left. God offered a rainbow signifying that he would never again destroy the world by flood. But that did not eliminate the reality of a world currently destroyed. Noah had to hold to the promise that God would use him to recover the earth.

150 is significant. In our calendar, it represents five months. Five is the number of grace. When the floodwaters refuse to subside for 150 days, I can promise you a great measure of grace is needed to survive. When the storm is over and the waters subside, the door opens. You feel the warmth and you smell the air and you say the journey is over. And then you look out and realize the journey is just about to begin. Now you must deal with the wreckage of the storm and again begin to build.  In that moment, you realize that your 150 days was the introductory course for a different plan of life.

In looking at 150, I was reminded of the last recorded Psalm. This passage in its entirety is a direct instruction about praise offered to God. The final instruction: "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord". That was a purpose to be found in the flood. Mankind had ceased to honor God. They ceased to praise Him. God hit the reset button.

If you understand anything about David, you will know that most of his life was torn between joy and sadness.  He had great victories but they came at the price of terrible storms. He suffered acute depression. I believe he had a sense of what it was like to open the door at the end of 150 days. I find it ironic that his final psalm, The one that would later be assigned the number 150, would be one that and its entirety instructs us to put our complete focus on God. Perhaps that is how we survive the storm and it's aftermath.

150 days. As you look out, the ground is marshy. There's destruction all around. But hey, The door IS finally open.