During our last night of Sukkot, I asked everyone who attended to share a little about what this year meant to them spiritually. What was God really moving us to see, hear, understand, and embrace. There were a few reasons for this. In this blog I am going to present some thoughts on three concepts that are not typically talked about or discussed.
- How do repentance and intercessory prayer work together,
- What is it to be guilty, and
- What is the “unforgivable sin”?
As I ponder the relationship we have with God and the work He does in each of our lives, I thought it important to share a few thoughts, give a little encouragement, and tie together some missing pieces. For the most part, my intent is to leave each of us with a challenging concept. Where has God used the circumstance of life, other people, the Holy Spirit, our devotions, teachings, church time, or any other source of speaking into our lives to move us from a place of innocence to a place of guilt. Going one step further, how important is our response in our demonstration of love? This is a tough concept for most of us to consider. At the same time, if what I am seeing in scripture is true, it could be a concept that will change how we view ourselves and even more so, how we see (or judge) others.
In this process I am going to share some concepts that are typically not taught and as such most of us do not spend much time thinking about. I believe these concepts are foundational in our relationship with God and with others. In the end, I want each of us to ponder what areas of thought and behavior we tend to hear and respond to what we feel in our souls while also acknowledging those areas where we remain somewhat resistant to change.
As we move into the new year, let’s all challenge ourselves to really see those areas of our lives that we are more resistant and as such, typically less than proud of. Let’s take some time to step out from under the shame and accept that not meeting the righteousness of Christ is a normal human condition and that we have a God who loves us and accepts us just like we are. At the same time, let’s also come to accept that if there are patterns of thought and/or behavior that we are less than proud of, then deep down inside something stands witness to the fact that we are not meeting the righteousness that we have been called to walk out and it is time to let God transform us in those areas.
Over the past few years, I have been hearing a lot of preaching about “revival” for the church and “intercessory prayer” for the world. Most of the time, these prayers have to do with our observations of the hurt and lost souls who live amongst us and focus on asking God to change the direction of the moral decay the world seems to be transgressing. A lot of these prayers are directed at things we find unholy, immoral, and in opposition to how we understand God’s ways.
I really like how, in most the situations I have observed, the two concepts (revival and intercessory prayer) are put together because this is rightly the way it should be. According to 1 Peter 2:9, all believers should consider themselves as a part of a “royal priesthood”. As a part of a priesthood, we really should understand some foundational principles regarding what it is to be a priest, and how it is that we should go about our job. In 2 Chronicle 7:14 NASB we read “and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
In this context, I would have to believe that God’s people are aware that their land needs healing and that they, just like those mentioned above, have been calling out to Him to do so. In this scripture, He clearly tells us where the healing begins. Notice there are four things that GOD’s PEOPLE must do to move God into the position of “hearing from heaven, forgiving their sin, and healing their land”. I have to believe that this scripture was given by God during a time very similar to this, and that these directions are as relative to us today as they have always been.
If you are getting stuck on the “forgiveness of sin” not being extended until all of what God is asking for is met, I ask you to let that go and understand we are not talking about heaven and hell issues here. We are talking about God’s intervention and the answering of prayers.
Going one step further with this, we need to understand that this was a concept that was introduced from the very beginning. In Leviticus 16:6 we read that before the priests could make a sacrifice for the people, they would have to offer up a sacrifice for themselves and for their household. Then, and only then, could they offer up a sacrifice for the people and enter into the Holy of Holies. In this context, we can consider the offering up of the sacrifices as meeting the conditions God put forth above as these concepts are the proper heart attitude God called the priests into when preparing and offering the sacrifices.
Here is what I believe is happening in the spirit realm regarding these things. What I believe, is that as the world falls apart around us, we see what is blatantly obvious to us as not being of God. Our first tendency is to go to God and ask Him to fix what we see and what bothers us. What we fail to see is the sovereignty of God, and how He may be attempting to use what is obviously disturbing to us to reveal to us what we are thinking and/or doing that is sin but that we are not yet aware of as being sin. It is only through prayer and the processing of humbling ourselves that we can take what we are observing and expand it to reveal similar areas of unholiness in our own lives. Maybe our intercessory prayers should start off with a petition for God to show us if there is some aspect of our being that is supporting the immoral behaviors we are observing around us.
Does the thought of sex slavery disgust us while at the same time we have no issue with watching movies that exploit the sexuality of people for the purpose of providing profit to the big companies and pleasure to those watching? Does the thought of abortion make us sick while at the same time we see countless church going parents sacrificing the spiritual well-being of their children while they chase after wealth, power, materialism, or inappropriate entertainment? Are we allowing the social decay around us to be a mirror that reveals our inability to love those that persecute us? I could go on and on, but my job here is not to be the Holy Spirit in each of your lives.
The point is, the disfunction of the world is only one step further down the abys from where God’s people are living and God uses their sin to reveal our sin to us. In this process, if we are truly His people, we go to Him, ask Him to use their disfunction to show us ours, and get on our knees and ask Him to heal us. This is the reality of what “revival is”. To be revived we must first admit that we are dead and need Him to breathe new life into us. By definition, being dead is living apart from God. If the church is seeking revival the first steps are exactly what is outlined in 2 Chronicles 7:14 as noted above.
With all this in mind, let’s take a look at the concept of guilt and innocence. For most of us who have been brought up in the church this concept and the next might be really tough to reconcile. The problem is that we have not been taught the depths of the Old Covenant. As such, it may be a surprise to come to understand these next two concepts. But again, they are important as we find Jesus re-expressing these concepts in His teachings and knowing the source of what He is sharing is foundational to our journey with Him. Paul also writes from these same perspectives and as such, understanding these perspectives is critical to understanding Paul in context.
In John chapter 15:24 NASB we read ““If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well.” In this, the word “sin” is actually “guilt” but for some reason it is retranslated a sin. Understanding what Jesus is saying here is so foundational to our understandings of how God intervenes in our lives. Before we go to far in thinking about this concept of guilt, I need to share our third concept. That concept is the unforgivable sin of blasphemes against the Holy Spirit. We need to keep our minds clear of confusing the concepts of innocence, guilt, and ultimate unforgiveness.
Being guilty IS NOT A PLACE OF SHAME. It is NOT A PLACE OF CONDEMNATION. It is simply a state of mind. This state of mind is defined over and over again throughout Leviticus. I will use Leviticus 5:4-5 NASB as my example. These two verses come at the end of a list of things that someone might do unintentionally and then “become guilty”. This is the last in the list, “Or if a person swears thoughtlessly with his lips to do evil or to do good, in whatever matter a man may speak thoughtlessly with an oath, and it is hidden from him, and then he comes to know it, he will be guilty in one of these. ‘So, it shall be when he becomes guilty in one of these, that he shall confess that in which he has sinned."
In other words, God understands that we will sin and that there are sins that we are unaware of as well as sins that we are aware of. The fact of it being sin does not change with our awareness. However, the fact of our guilt does. When we are found guilty, we are told that we are to “confess that in which we have sinned”. This is simply the progression of our sanctification.
The way I read scripture and have grown in my understanding leads me to see things as follows:
- God works in our lives in many ways all at the same time,
- In areas where we are in innocent sin, He brings things about in such a way to help us see that sin while giving us the opportunity to judge ourselves regarding it,
- In areas where we are in guilty sin because He knows that we have already acknowledged that we are in sin we fall under His judgement. In Paul's letter to the church in Corinth he addresses this reality when they were not properly discerning the body of Christ while taking communion,
- At any point we are free to humble ourselves, seek His face, and turn from our wicked ways, and in so doing free Him up to answer our prayers.
The only exception to this is when we absolutely refuse to bend our knee, remain in rebellion, and call what is evil good and what is good evil. This would be a life dedicated to ignoring all that is going on around us and refuse to accept that God is attempting to move us beyond what we know to be sin. In Mark 3:29 NASB we read “but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”.
There are two Old Covenant references to Blaspheming the Lord. They are Leviticus 24:16 and Numbers 15:30-31. I believe that Jesus was referring to the Numbers verse because it ties the blaspheme to being cut off from the people. Here is how it reads “‘But the person who does anything defiantly, whether he is native or an alien, that one is blaspheming the LORD; and that person shall be cut off from among his people.”
Notice how blaspheme is connected to acting “defiantly”. This moves us beyond guilt and is exactly what Jesus was talking about with the Pharisees. In Luke chapter 12 Jesus is talking to a group of religious teachers and pointing out to them their hypocrisy. He is revealing to them that He knows that they know the truth and yet they continue in their rejection of who He is. Ultimately in verse 12:59 He summarizes what their afterlife experience will be like because of their blatant defiance. In Matthew 5:25-26 we have Jesus giving very similar imagery to the people as He gives his famous sermon on the mount.
The point is, God loves us, He wants to set us free, and He wants to walk us through this process of sanctification. We all have areas where we are moving faster and we have areas where we are moving slower. In the end there are areas where we are innocent and areas where we are guilty. How God intervenes in our lives is largely associated with how we respond to what has been made known to us. How He intervenes within the world is largely a result of how His people as a group are progressing through these same issues.
The questions we must ask ourselves are:
- Are there places I claim innocence where the reality is, I am truly guilty (the sin has been made known to me),
- Are there places where I am in active defiance (refusing to accept my guilt even though the evidence is substantial and convincing),
- Do I love my neighbor enough to humble myself, seek God’s face, turn from my wicked ways, so that He can heal our land?
I pray this has been a blessing to
you and that through the next days and weeks we each allow God to continue to
bring areas into our minds that we know He has been speaking into, that we as a
body hear what He is attempting to convey, and that we do what we must so that
our prayers can be heard. Amen
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