Faith Equation without God Variable (Edited by ChatGPT)

  

There is a Hollywood movie named “The Negotiator” about a successful police negotiator. Yet, in his house his baby girl has a dispute with her stepmother (his wife), and he finds it hard to negotiate with his baby girl, who is angry at her stepmother. Then he talks to himself in surprise, “I can negotiate with the worst criminals, but not with my daughter?” and the girl responds to him, “It is because there is no SWAT ready to attack at home.” So, it is a simple fact that the equation of police negotiation is absurd when it is without the SWAT variable. Without SWAT force, police negotiation is a boring joke or foolishness.

 

In faith, God is the core variable of any equation. What is funny is the way we think and live often is based on equations that exclude God. When prophet Jeremiah stood in front of the temple and declared to the people that they should not say “God’s temple, God’s temple,” but that they should repent, it is foolishness without God in the equation. When the SWAT team known as God is added to the equation, however, it is negotiation with criminals.

 

Without God, life is the fight of thesis (new idea) against antithesis (resistance to change) with the purpose of getting some synthesis (compromise). That is why politicians say politics is the art of what is possible. But God is not the God of what is possible but of what is right, and what is right is always possible in the hand of God.

 

Now imagine what heaven is doing in this world. What is the Heavenly Father doing beyond management of all creation? What is the Lord Jesus doing beyond keeping all intact? What is the Holy Spirit doing beyond giving us the peace of God? What is the army of God doing besides obeying God — fighting devils with swords of fire like Star Wars? The devil cannot fight God directly but only indirectly through us. God can destroy the devil but does not want to lose us. So they — the devil and God — are fighting for the heart and mind of both the faithful and the faithless.

 

Devils, in a chaotic manner but with one spirit, are misleading people from God and the way of God toward the way of the world, the flesh, and the devil. The kingdom of heaven is guiding the faithful and even the world toward light, toward God. Now can you have any equation of faith without the variable of God and another variable of the devil? Otherwise, it is foolishness.

 

Whatever you do, remember the devil will come to hijack it, and whatever you do therefore must be devil-proof. When Rome was established as the center of Christian faith under the rule of a “Christian” emperor, it offered safety and security to the faithful and a unifying religion for the sinful emperor. That is why a sinful and worthless emperor stood as head of the faithful. It was not right, but it was very practical. The art of what is possible is this abomination.

 

This system developed into a complex hierarchy of church administration, which seemed productive at the start but was not devil-proof. It was overtaken by the devil, and it created dead religions that corrupted the faith. This road to hell started with good intention, but it ignored the variable of God and the variable of the devil, and it harvested decay as a result.

 

Jesus accused the Pharisees that they sat in the chair of Moses but did not know God nor serve God. They created a system of administration to run the religion of the people and even to fight apostasy, but they did not know God. Why? Because God was not in their equation, and as a result the devil infused himself as their informal father. That is why Jesus told them that the devil was their father, not God; because if they belonged to God, they would know God when they saw Him in Jesus.

 

I have seen some NAR, Word of Faith, Prosperity Gospel, politically connected lost souls, and other foolish faithful flexing their muscles and declaring that now their theological opponents will sink into the pit of hell. But we have to ask: does God approve it? If God says so, who can oppose Him? If God disapproves, however, who can fight Him? That is why the lonely Jeremiah stood as a victorious prophet while all false prophets faded away into the pit of hell — and that happened in his lifetime. This was not what was possible by human standards but what was just by the standard of God. Faith is not the art of what is possible, but of what is justified in the sight of God.

 

So the question we have to ask is not how many voices support or oppose your faith, but whether God is with you. Look at yourself and ask: do you live by the word of God, for God? If you are on the right path, you (one) multiplied by God (infinitive) is a significant majority and you have veto power in all things, and heaven will enforce it — and that is with the might of heaven.

 

You are a government of heaven, and you have the authority of heaven. If your will is the will of God, and if what you do enforces the will of God, God will enforce your will, because what you will is what God wills. After all, heaven is here to enforce the will of the Heavenly Father. Remember, you are a ruler from the kingdom of heaven on this earth and a priestly people by the blood of the Lord — as long as your will is what is willed by God, because the purpose of God is to make His will done on earth as it is in heaven.

 

This does not mean, however, that your life will be a life of joy, honor, respect, and prosperity. Jesus said if everyone speaks well of you, be worried, because they did the same for false prophets. If the devil and the people of God both seem to like you, you are on the wrong side. What is natural is that if you belong to God, the children of God may misunderstand you, but the devil will hate you. So they will persecute you, but be joyful, because you are counted in the league of giants. You — the worthless — are counted among the prophets of God, and the hatred of the devil is your certificate of commendation. That is why Jesus said jump in joy and be glad, because God is justifying you and the devil is certifying it.

 

That is why our equation of faith must have God and the devil in the equation. Are we justified in the sight of God? If we are justified in the sight of God, why do we expect anything else from the devil? Do we expect the devil to honor us? We are the smell of his eternal damnation. When he sees us, he sees Jesus in us, and he sees that his judgment is certain. How do we expect him to act otherwise?

 

But we should also remember that nobody is mightier than God. Not a single bird will fall to the ground without the will of the Heavenly Father; even our hair is counted. Nothing will happen unless God wills it. The devil did crucify Jesus, but it was only because God willed it, and finally it was for the glory of God, the salvation of souls, and the honor of the Lord Jesus. All things at last will work for good, because the will of God toward us is good, not evil.

 

We may die on the cross, we may die in prison, we may be stoned by crowds, we may be boiled in oil, or we may die in peace in old age with a life of prosperity and fulfillment of the flesh, as God wills it. But the question is: are we doing the will of God? Is God with us? Do we have the right weight? Do we justify the just and condemn the unjust? Or do we speak and live in hypocrisy? Are we justified in the sight of God? Do we live the holiness of the Lord, and are we growing into the image of the Lord in life and word?

 

Jesus said there are two kinds of people: wise and foolish. A wise man, before building his house, digs deep and finds the foundation rock, which is the teaching and life of the Lord Jesus Christ, and builds his house on it. This man listens to the Lord and follows Him in his life, because he lives by the commandments of God. Then the wind comes, and the rain follows; they strike the house, but since it is built on the rock that Jesus is, it stands firm. Yet the foolish man builds his house on sand — the way of the world, the flesh, and the devil — and when the challenge comes, its collapse is catastrophic. A house built on sand is easy to build but will not stand firm. Building on rock is costly, but it is wise.

 

So the two variables in this equation are God, who is the foundation Rock, and the devil, who is the wind and rain that tempt us toward destruction. Can we ask for a world without wind, storm, and hurricane? Can we ask this fallen world to be without the devil? So why do we cry so much about mosquito bites? The reason the devil is not fighting us is because we are not attacking him, and we are often lost and on his side. If we were marching hard forward in our attack on the devil, worse would happen, because the reason the devil hunted Jesus and Paul is that he smelled his eternal damnation in them — something he does not sense in us. The mosquito bite is painful because we have grown lazy in this environment of disobedience.

 

So the problem is not the devil, because the devil has to be the devil. The problem is knowing whether God is okay with us. The devil is easy, but if God, who protects us, is against us, that is another story. The question we have to ask is: are we justified in the sight of God? Are we faithful who live in the bosom of God, or hypocritical Pharisees who appear holy but are unmarked graveyards of the devil?

 

One thing I commonly observe in many faithful is that God is not in the equation of their mind. When they do things and say things, what is in their mind is what is possible, not what is the will of God. That is why our faith starts to imitate politics and political dirty tricks, not Jesus. We think about what is possible, not what is approved by God, and as a result God is not in our equation.

 

But those who wait on God and depend on God will rise up without limit like eagles. The Red Sea is not a problem — it will split. The dry desert is not a problem, because dry rock will give water. Isolation in the desert is not a problem, because God can feed them meat for months; His hand is never short. Mighty people will disappear because God is in the equation. The wise will say, “Without God, we are nothing,” and Moses was wise. The foolish will ask, “Where is the onion, the meat, the garlic, and the land of milk and honey?” But God sent them to the desert so they would learn that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God, so they would learn to boast in nothing but God, just as David did.

 

Those who did not know God but knew the art of what is possible reasoned, “If people go to Jerusalem to worship God, I will lose my kingdom, so I will give them two calves to worship,” and they harvested damnation after losing everything in the hand of God. God is not the God of what is possible, but the God of what is holy.

 

What is needed in the sight of God is not the political tricks of the Herodians or the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, but obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. So may God give us the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of understanding, the spirit of knowledge, the spirit of obedience to God, the spirit of might, and the spirit of counsel — or simply the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is the Spirit of the Morning Star. May God circumcise our hearts to mold us into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

If we were obedient, our faith would be mightier with Jesus in heaven rather than Him being confined with us. If we were obedient, Jesus would be everywhere rather than in one location at a time. He would be like lightning that shines in the east and is seen in the west. The problem is the fog that we are is too dark; even Jesus, who is in us, is nowhere to be seen.

 

Our problem is not winning Egypt or the gods of Egypt (the devils), but the Egypt inside us. There is nothing scary out there, but the disobedience inside us. What is scary is the Egypt inside us. God can destroy any Egypt for us; the problem is the Egypt inside us. So rather than crying about the sea and the army of Egypt chasing us, let us remove Egypt from inside us, and let us circumcise our hearts in the image of the Lord. Amen.