Anyone who knows anything about sports is familiar with the phrase; "the fix is in". For the unenlightened,
this means that someone has arranged for the game, or fight, or contest to go a certain way. It usually
involves large sums of money, betting, and so forth...perhaps a poor analogy for what I want to talk about,
but in a very real sense the winner in the battle between good and evil, God and Satan, has already been
decided. In fact, it was decided before one grain of sand was created in this Universe. I'll take it one level
farther....it never was in question, so technically a "fix" isn't necessary. Let me pause at this point to clarify the errant supposition that God is capricious. One may get the impression that we're talking about a God whose motives are akin to Nero's, the Roman Emperor, who delighted in staging bloody contests for the entertainment of his citizens. Nothing could be farther from the facts of the matter that we are dealing with here. The tangle of corruption and violence that God's creatures have fallen into are not His intention, but the inevitable failure of creatures without His Righteousness. So why didn't He simply create us with His Righteousness and avoid all this mess? Because He created us free. I want that word to resound in your thoughts...FREEEEEE! This isn't an issue that we are vaguely concerned about, for we don't have the power to create squat! But for a Being with infinite power it is very much an issue! He had to decide, before He lifted a finger to create one soul, what format He would employ, and He chose freedom. I hope you're getting the point here. If God created us with His Righteousness He would have a race of perfect beings, but we would not be free in the sense that we would never have the option, the function of our own volition, to decide for or against God. Perhaps this may not seem an important distinction to you, but I assure you, it is a matter of great importance to God! The whole of angelic and human histories, to date, have been embroiled in the unfolding of this great drama. So, you may have questions, or doubts, but those can be dealt with as you peruse other sections of this site that offer the answers. Let's get back to the subject at hand. What do I mean when I say "no negatives in God's Plan"? I want to reflect back to something I just mentioned; that this conflict is waged on a spiritual plane, unseen, which has dramatic effects on the material plane, where we exist. We're dealing with two environments here, and the activities taking place on the one, eternity, determines almost every single aspect of our existence in the material world, the Cosmos Diabolicus. The problem is that the vast majority of us don't have a clue that there is any such arrangement. Most humans think (or rather...fail to think) that everything happening in our sphere of existence is a direct result of what we think and do, human invention and ingenuity, good and bad. The fact is that we are either dupes in the service of the Ruler of this world, or warriors in the service of The Almighty. The distinction between the two, the deciding factor, is knowledge! There is no middle ground, friends, no fence sitters. We either serve one or the other. I might add that a great number of faithful religious types, who think they are living an upright life, are in the dupe category. Once again, the critical issue is knowledge. Only God's Word, the Mind of Christ, equips us with the "spiritual sight" to see the reality of our situation. "While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2 Cor 4:18) Reality is the key word here. Obviously, what we see and touch, the world around us, is real, but this reality is terminal, finite, with an end in view at some future point. We occupy a temporal realm, and the unseen realm, eternity, is the ultimate reality, everlasting, indestructible. What am I saying? It comes down to a question of which realm, which reality, we accept as truth. This critical question determines how we live our lives, what forms the basis for our values and decisions. The reality we accept as truth is the basis for the criteria we live by. Let me put it another way. We are under the total sway of reality. It controls our lives in every minute detail. Very few details in life are subject to our preferences. When someone dies, they're dead. Reality. War, famine, natural disaster, disease, and a host of other circumstances are beyond our control. Reality determines the course of our lives to a large degree, not vise versa. But as Christians we have an option. There is a reality that is superior to our finite existence, the circumstances we encounter in a lifetime. If we subscribe to the higher reality, adopt it as the basis for our thoughts, then we are controlled not by the finite conditions around us, but by the greater power of eternal truth. Let's apply this perspective to our daily lives. What happens to us as a result of personal relationships, or anything else that exists in this life, is a real circumstance, but not the predominant reality. There is a "trump" card we can play, the ace trump, and that is eternal truth. For every finite circumstance there is a parallel, or co-existent eternal reality. The issue is, which will we acknowledge as the criteria for our lives? Here's the good news; There is never a negative circumstance in eternal truth! Why? Because God is the Master of eternity and there is no darkness in Him. For every adversity we encounter there is a Divine solution, and what becomes of us is determined by what we accept as true....the problem or the solution. Simple, huh? Noooooooo! Not simple! It sounds simple enough, but putting this concept into play is anything but easy. First, we encounter the problem of ignorance. Our ability to trump finite circumstances depends entirely on our knowledge of the higher reality, and we aren't born with it, we must acquire it. Second, even when we are growing in our knowledge and awareness of eternity we are still burdened by our natural state as human beings. Let me hasten to add, not the state of our soul, but our body, and all it is a part of. I know, things are getting pretty complicated, but be patient and I hope to lead you to the lucid principles involved here. Here is where Satan has a tremendous advantage, and this advantage is by Divine design, by the way (I'll explain later). We are born ignorant of everything, but as we grow we learn about the environment of this world. Much of what we learn is more "pre-programmed awareness" than knowledge. We naturally lean toward sin in some vein, and there are a plethora of what we might call "instincts" that control our thoughts, or try to. So our enemy has control of us from day one. On the other hand, we can only become aware of the higher reality of God's Kingdom if we make the conscious decision to do so, and by the time we arrive at that decision we are already deep into the routine of the cosmos. We've been brainwashed. A little at a time we learn to recognize the difference between the two environments, but just knowing about them doesn't necessarily make it easy to ignore severe problems we face in life in favor of the solutions that God's truth has provided. This ability, to trump our apparent problems with real solutions takes years of study and application of God's Word. Even when we are suffering there is a Divine answer. Sometimes we are expected to endure the pain or anguish, which doesn't appear to be a solution at all, but it is. Confidence in God's faithfulness gives us an unflappable stability in the toughest circumstances. We know He will deliver us when the time is right. We have a word for this confidence in God; Faith. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." (Heb 11:1 - 3) There is also an issue of the awareness of our destiny. Knowing that our tribulations are permitted to plague us for God's sake, our privileged to endure in His Holy Name, gives us unshakable courage to face anything this world can throw at us. You see, we have tapped the higher power of eternal truth, and it is that reality that embraces our souls, shapes our values, and provides a profound insight into the working of the world around us. Then there is the ultimate plateau, the "high ground" of the spiritual life. As we gradually replace cosmic values with those that come from Bible doctrine, we begin to master more and more difficult circumstances without getting up a sweat. We develop spiritual "muscle". There comes a point at which there are very few situations that we can't deal with, adversities that we can't trump with the higher reality, and that's when we begin to share God's happiness. This is the rarified atmosphere of the mature believer where we have a happiness that ranges from serenity in extreme troubles to hilarity in moments of leisure, our brief "vacations". This happiness can't be penetrated by anything in life, so long as we remain in fellowship (see The Filling of the Holy Spirit). This is the happiness that Jesus Christ had on the cross ("....for the happiness set before Him...."), a supernatural plateau that lifts our consciousness to a spiritual realm where the circumstances of this life can't touch us. Let me assure you, friends, this plateau does exist. "Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:" (1 Pet 1:8) The rationale that forms the foundation for the high ground is the certain knowledge that nothing in this world is a dominant reality. No power can touch us, human or otherwise, apart from God's will, and if He allows us to suffer injustice, persecution....even that is for blessing. "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, and are the called according to His predetermined plan"" (Rom 4:8) (corrected translation) |