Personal Matters

This picture (It shows a stork with a frog half way down its neck, the frog however has both hands outstretched choking the stork) which sits behind my desk reminds me of fits of rage in my early life when I would grab an adversary by the neck and start to choke them. This wasn’t so surprising; my father was quite proud of his years as a street fighter and taught me boxing skills from a very early age. Until he became chronically ill, a condition he fought fiercely to the last, dad was someone who instilled fear. The broader family environment reinforced various antagonistic values; intense conflict was viewed as a normal part of life. Even today a nearly infallible source tells me that I am a very combative person to live with. My sin is however no more serious than the prevailing Christian disposition to want to minimise conflict by any available means. Such timidity at times approaches cowardice. Neither my aggression nor the pacifism of others is Christlike; for both derive from a ‘ME’ driven by fear to preserve itself. My own strong convictions about conflict have eventually led to a radical revision of my understanding of the cross.

Survival

The frog versus stork image is so powerful because it is a parable of personal survival at all costs. It perfectly illustrates Jesus’ warning, “whoever would save his life will lose it” (Matt 16:25). Instead of working aggressively with the Lord against sin, the flesh and the devil we struggle to live and prosper on our own terms. Apart from grace, we constantly seek to assert our wills against the will of God surrounding us in creation, providence and promise (Ps 19:1-3; Acts 14:17; Rom 1:20). In the cause of seeking daily to “save our own lives” we wickedly reinterpret moral and spiritual reality for our own personal advantage (Matt 16:25; Rom 1:18).

The “Its All About Me” attitude which increasingly pervades our narcissistic society is not the evolution of a new ‘ME’, but simply the manifestation of who we truly are once the cloak of Christianity has been thrown off. At the heart of the problems of our culture is a self-centred spirituality that preaches a tranquilised God stripped of all of his conflicts with humanity. Any return to the picture of an “angry God” of earlier ages is impossible, but Jesus images for us the stark truth that there can be no spiritual growth without godly conflict.

The Conflicts of Christ

The first recorded message of Jesus was, ““The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”” (Mark 1:15 ESV) The command to repent represents a conflict between God’s ruling will and our own self-will, yielding to the Lord’s forceful presence is the only way of salvation. It was preaching like this that led to several violent attempts on Jesus life (Luke 4:29; John 10:31).

Jesus’ hostility to all evil led to a 40 day life and death struggle with Satan in the wilderness (Luke 4:2). The casting out of demons, the healing of disease and the rebuking of false teachers (Matt 12:28; 23:1-36) were never civil affairs but force filled signs that the kingdom of God must come violently (Matt 11:12). The light of life only ever prevailed over the darkness of evil through conflict (John 1:4-5). As he was filled with the Spirit to attack the strongholds of wickedness Jesus sensed the overwhelming goodness of his Father’s works (Matt 12:29; Acts 10:38). Whilst never delighting in conflict for its own sake, Christ was fully aware that the bringing in of the new creation required a clash of kingdoms that must climax at the cross (Col 1:13-14; 2:15). Christ’s death is an event so profound that I find myself radically revising my understanding.

My prophetic teaching on the cross has always centred on Jesus’ experience of dereliction, ““why have you forsaken me?””(Mark 15:34). This is the dreadful sensation of the lonely and alienating struggle for the survival of our own souls against the full weight of evil without the presence of a Father. I believe this every fallen human being resonates with this fearful dimension of the cross. There is however another dimension of the cross, outside this moment of Christ’s dereliction, that we seem to have missed.

Jesus’ suffering for the Father is the climax of the conflict of God’s kingdom against the world, the flesh and the devil (Heb 2:14-15; 1 John 3:8).  Even in the midst of the agonies of crucifixion the soul of the Saviour is penetrated by a sense of the eternal goodness of God (Luke 11:13; Heb 9:14). The triumph of God over all evil makes itself known to the heart of Jesus even when darkness seems to prevail. As the resurrected and glorified Lord he now seeks to manifest this same presence to us in the midst of our daily conflicts for his kingdom.

Kingdom Conflict

The Christian life involves constant conflict; the flesh opposes the Spirit, ungodly forces entice us to embrace the values of this world and we are faced with Satanic harassment (Gal 5:17; Rev 12:17). The prophetic voice which speaks up against injustice will always be opposed (2 Tim 3:12).  Only the goodness of the divine presence empowering us in the conflicts of God’s kingdom can preserve us from tiredness, spiritual depression, insecure aggression or cowardice. In prayer recently I saw something clearly from the Lord that helps put all this in perspective.

Jesus was next to the Father contending vigorously against all evil for the holiness of his Bride. This was a call for a mighty release of the ministry of the Word in all its confronting power (Eph 5:25-27; Rev 19:7-8)[1]. To be engaged in such kingdom conflict is a gift that the Bridegroom has given us all. First however we come face to face with a level of spiritual conflict that is the most difficult of all.

Not only does Christ contend for his Bride, he contends against! Jesus says to his disobedient churches, “repent…If not, I will come against you… and remove your lampstand….with the sword of my mouth….I will strike her children dead…and….I will spit you out of my mouth” (Revelation 2:5; 16; 23; 3:3; 16). The Lord will do whatever he takes to beautify his people i.e. to beautify ‘ME’ (Isa 60:7-13).

It is hardly surprising then that I found myself praying to the Lord recently something that I have never prayed before, “Testify against me….Spirit of the Lamb testify AGAINST my wisdom, my will, my mind, my self-centred emotions…” It is only in this way can the ‘ME’ whose highest thought is its own survival be put to death. Testify AGAINST ‘ME’ is a heart cry submitted to God for Christ’s sake in the midst of the conflict which the kingdom of God wages against all evil until the End. I can testify that such a cry imparts a sense of lasting goodness that makes all such painful conflicts worthwhile.

Conclusion

“Never ever give up!” is the superficially appealing message of the poster behind my desk, an image that is actually an enemy of the cross (Phil 3:18). We are not fear-filled frogs, but disciples whose call is not survival but to live and die with Christ (2 Cor 4:10). The Lord commands us to put to death all our own fear driven survival mechanisms, whether aggressive or fainthearted (Rom 8:13). It is only as we yield to the death and resurrected life of the indwelling Jesus can we experience the radiating goodness of God penetrating our hearts in even the most painful of conflict situations (Col 3:16). To grow into such a kingdom presence goes against all our natural instincts of self preservation; it requires a leap of faith to trust that if we ask the Lord to be the Master of all the clashes of life he will be faithful to deliver us. The final deliverance is not from evil men and angels, but from a ‘ME’ who in its own strength can never ever give up!