203 Personal Deliverance Final
By John Reiswig
CHAPTER THREE:
GOVERNING FROM HEAVEN.
Relationship with the
Rules
"All that
the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will
certainly not cast out.”
This
course was “transformative” to my life as a believer, so I suppose the title of
the course, “Personal Revival” is a suitable name as to its functionality. When
I purchased the book, “Culture of Honor,” by Danny Silk, my first thought was
“cool cover.” My second thought was “cool beans” when I read what church the
author was from, Bethel Church, Redding, California. Our worship team uses a
LOT of songs from “Jesus Culture” and I am familiar with Bill Johnson from
watching God TV, so I was excited to read about this “culture of honor.” I
simply had no idea what lie ahead but the Holy Spirit obviously did.
Deciding
which chapter or chapters to write on was a dilemma to say the least. It was
like choosing which flavor Sonic Blast to get, there are no losers in the
decision, only different levels of delicious. I suppose delicious in ice cream
versus the flavors of “Culture of Honor:” challenging, confronting,
enlightening, encouraging, stripping, correcting, and reconstructing, among
others, could be considered paradoxical but the book leaves you feeling
empowered and encouraged all the while changing how you think about everything
you learned in church before reading it. So the decision was made on the basis
of where the course and the book had the most effect on my own personal
revival. This will be a very personal final examination to say the least!
I
didn’t know it before reading “Culture of Honor” but I have had an intimate,
strong relationship with the rules for most of my Christian life. I evaluated
my relationship with God, as well as others’ relationship with God, based upon adherence
to, or the breaking of, the rules. It is not that I used a different measuring
rod for myself as I did on others. I was most hard on myself, so as a result,
others received the same punishment as I did because “I was obeying the rules.”
Let me clarify, I was exacting this punishment on fellow believers and not the
lost. The lost were not in the game but once they entered the game, I cast my
gaze down toward them as well. I had appointed myself God’s referee. I have yet
to find that “gift” in the scriptures because it doesn’t exist, thankfully. My
choice, Chapter 3 of “Culture of Honor,” “Governing from Heaven” disrobed me of
my referee uniform. Praise the Lord!
As
God’s referee, I had made myself heaven’s gate-keeper. Of course, this is a
title with no authority but tremendous ability to harm others. "All that
the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will
certainly not cast out.”
As
the scripture reference from John points out, those who come to Jesus are sent
to him by the Father. They are sent to him just as they are, no cleanup
required, and Jesus accepts them. The eyes of the self-appointed referee are
attuned to the dirt of others; we referees cast out all the time. “YOU – ARE –
OUT – OF - HERE!” What the culture of honor says is “You are welcome here.”
“This whole chapter
strikes at the heart of the Accuser. But first, I have to give you a little
warning because I am going to offend you for a few moments. I’m going to mess
with your entire paradigm of justice. I’m going to take it out, laugh at it,
tickle it, and then I’m going to kick it down the stairs. Okay? You’re going to
have to chase it down the stairs if you want it back.”
If
this were a Facebook post, it might be followed by lol, jk, or the emoticon ;o).
I was not laughing because the first two chapters had done enough to my
paradigm of Christianity to know that the author was not laughing out loud, kidding,
or giving me a little wink. I have come to grips with the condition of my
heart, as described above, and I have repented, so I can read this paragraph
with some ease now. At the time, I realized that the way I had contributed to
the culture of “punish the rule breaker” was absolutely the work of Satan or
the Accuser and I was Satan’s referee, and not God’s. “Ouch!”
As
a child, I grew up in a house of plenteous intelligence mixed with sardonic
senses of humor, especially among the siblings. As a result, the standards for
achievement were very high and, unfortunately, the environment had an
atmosphere of ridicule ready to burst forth when failure to meet the standards
occurred. Every family member showed signs of coping mechanisms from the
battles. Some brushed the attacks aside, some run away in anger but everyone
enjoyed the repartee until it got too close to home. As you can imagine, these
personalities set loose on an unsuspecting population could be quite explosive.
So we associated with like-minded people who enjoyed the sword play of the
mouth. My wife and her family were caught by surprise by the family dynamic: we
were always correcting, always jabbing, always on our games. We could be
hilarious and very hurtful all in the same sentence. Doesn’t sound like heaven,
does it? I am thinking of a place that starts with an “H” but it is not heaven…
The story of the child who receives an “F” grade struck hard at who I was as a
child. The method of correction for an “F” in our house was definitely one of
punishment. Encouragement was not there because achievement was expected. This
is not an unusual method of correction for persons from my generation, so it is
not surprising we had it but it affected the way we dealt with failure in
ourselves and others.
Being
the youngest of five children, with my nearest sibling four years my elder, I
was the one who ran from the ridicule. Now, this behavior often reveals itself
in my relationships, my efforts at work, any place where I am making myself
vulnerable, a powder keg is under the surface with a fuse in the hole, waiting
to be lit by my failure. Eventually, because I could not run away as an adult,
I developed other flight strategies: excuses, blaming, and quitting, be it quitting
literally or inside of me. Understanding this about me is where my personal
revival has begun. I can see the effects of a lack of encouragement in my own
life, so I have begun the process of developing an environment of encouragement
around me. My pastor, Eddie Summers, calls this, “Changing your atmosphere.”
“The
way we parent our children when they make mistakes reflects most clearly what
we believe about human failure, particularly sin.”
I
might add that the way one is parented most clearly shapes the way one views
human failure or sin, as well as the way we treat those who have failed or
sinned. Chapter three talks about being afraid of sin and afraid of mistakes
and that this makes us crazy around sin. With my flight response learned as a
child, I would as an adult, isolate myself from the “sinner” under the guise of
“touch not the unclean thing.” “I cannot believe that he/she is doing that!”
would be my thought and, of course, the referee that I was, I would throw them
out of my game. Now that the sinner is gone, I am “safe.” Yet in this condition,
without realizing it, I found myself in abject disobedience to the scripture’s
command to love my brother or sister.
WE
ARE UNPUNISHABLE!
What?
I have been a believer all my life and I recoiled at this statement. Then the
Holy Spirit reminded me that Jesus took the punishment for my sin. Glory to
God, the lights are coming on! “Sin does not need to be punished. It does not
need to be controlled. It’s not a powerful force. It’s just that we don’t
believe it. It’s easy to preach stuff. It’s another deal living it!”
The truth in this statement is absolute. I could have taken a test on the
theory behind the “Culture of Honor” and cited scripture to back it up but I
wasn’t living it because I had never experienced it. My view of God was that he
is the punisher of those that diligently seek him but fail on a continuous
basis. Oops! After reading this book, I can see that God has been saying to me
my entire life, “THAT IS NOT ME! I love you! I paid the price! Get a grip! Sit
in my lap! Let’s reason together!” This is so freeing. As the old Gaither song
says, “We are free to love each other, we are loved.”
Torn
Between Two Covenants, Feeling Like A Fool
The
Fork in The Road: learning to live in the grace of God and not the Law. “What’s
going on? Who has deceived you? Who has allowed you to completely alter your
belief system? Then he (Paul) diagnoses the problem: ‘You’re trying to practice
two covenants. You’re trying to live in two camps.”
I
have understood for a long time that we are saved by grace, through faith. But
as a referee, or as others may say, one with the spirit of a Pharisee, I was
living under the Law. You cannot give that which you have not received or have
in your possession. I had understood about grace but I had not fully appropriated
the reality of it for my
self.
Recently,
the Lord has “coincidentally” brought me to places where grace is understood
and more importantly, grace is practiced. One of these places is Grace Assembly
of God, in Bakersfield, CA. His instructions for me when I started attending
Grace were as follows: “Shut up, watch, listen and learn.” If you know me, this
is nearly impossible for me to do. But
in obedience, not only have I begun to understand the grace of God more fully,
I have started appropriating grace in my own life and with grace in me, I am
able to let it be an outflow from my life to others. I am losing my fear of
sin. If we fear something we give it power. If we lose the fear of sin, the
power of sin is removed from us!
The
second place I am learning about the grace of God is Summit Bible College. I
have been touched by Summit’s instructors’ relationship with God. The education
I am receiving is valuable but the experience of the supernatural touch of the
Holy Spirit is life-changing. One can really feel the love of God at Summit.
In conclusion, as I have stated earlier, I
have had in the past a relationship with the rules. The primary place that this
rule relationship has revealed itself is with God. My relationship with God has
been very familiar to me and according to the author it is familiar for good
reason.
“If you don’t know God, He’ll
look a lot like you. You’ll make him up, and you’ll be a rock star in that
relationship. When we don’t know who God is because we don’t know His love and
how His love works, we get scared and turn Him and our relationship with Him
into what we already know.”
Can one be saved for forty-five years and not really know God? Yes, apparently
so. Job said it this way:
“Then Job answered the
LORD and said, "I know that You can do all things, And that no purpose of
Yours can be thwarted. Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?'
"Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, Things too wonderful
for me, which I did not know." 'Hear, now, and I will speak; I will ask
You, and You instruct me.' "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear;
But now my eye sees You; Therefore I retract, And I repent in dust and
ashes."
Job thought he
knew God and God called Job blameless in his generation but he had as yet not
“seen” God. When we truly see God, we can accept His love, forgiveness and his
grace. When we do this we can lead others into this love. In this love, resides
the “Culture of Honor.” How will I apply this to my life? God has already begun
the work in me and I can see the results in every aspect of my relationship
with Him and with other people. Praise the Lord!
BIBLIOGRAPHY
New American Standard Bible [Book]. - La Habra,
CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1977.
Silk Danny Culture of Honor: Sustaining A Supernatural
Environment [Book]. - Shippensburg, PA : Destiny Image Publishers,
2009.
