Life Lessons with Dr. Steve Schell

43 - Critical Thinkers

There are many controversial issues in which it really doesn’t matter if you or I are wrong. It would be nice to be right, but if we’re wrong there is no great price to pay. But there are a few topics in which what you or I decide is a matter of life or death. On these we must be right, or at least as right as we know how to be. On these we can’t afford to let others do our thinking for us. 

Most of us would agree that when it comes to the important questions of life we certainly do need to think for ourselves, but in practice, thinking for ourselves is much easier said than done. There are powerful tides of public opinion that rise up around us and try to carry us with them. We’re told we’re welcomed to think “independently” as much as we want, but we soon discover they meant that so long as we come up with the “right” conclusions. To be out of step with public opinion on issues that really matter can actually become quite dangerous. Independent thinkers who cross certain lines will be warned to conform, and then if they persist in charting a different course, threats will follow. In time that person is likely to be mocked, shamed, fired, relationally abandoned or even physically attacked.

So on the one hand, each of us has an obligation to ourselves to investigate the important issues carefully, so we can make an informed decision. But on the other hand, if in doing so we discover that the opinion of our surrounding culture is wrong, we put ourselves at risk. It will be dangerous to express the unpopular truth we’ve discovered. To follow our conscience, sooner or later will require courage.

42 - Thirsty

Jesus invited everyone who is thirsty to come to Him and drink, but who is thirsty—thirsty for God, that is? You might think the answer is everyone, but that’s not so. Everyone should be, but only some are. Spiritual thirst is the longing for more of God, not God’s power, not His gifts, not His blessings, not a miracle, Him. Wanting God and wanting His help aren’t the same thing. Both acknowledge that He exists. But one comes to Him to get something, and the other wants to be close to Him; one uses Him, and the other loves Him. And I don’t know what causes the difference, but it seems that it has to do with how much a person still loves this world. To some it’s an exciting place full of wonderful pleasures and opportunities. Their goal is to discover how to get more of it, and they resent anyone or anything that gets in their way. But to others the pleasures of this world have become increasingly disappointing; most of their human relationships have ended up shallow or worse, and the days and years of their lives seem to fly by. This kind of disappointment creates in them a great loneliness, and when that happens a dangerous path beckons them. 

41 - Where I Am

There are many painful things we endure in life, but I think the most painful is strife. There are forces inside us and around us that drive us apart, so we all live with the uncertainty of being abandoned, never sure who may leave us or why. That makes love a very dangerous matter. To give our hearts to someone is to risk rejection. We become vulnerable to the whims of another person, and people, being the weak creatures we are, often end up hurting us. And for that matter, we’re just as likely to hurt them. So loving anyone here on planet earth is dangerous, and as time passes the wounds we suffer cause us to grow increasingly cautious, which leaves us with fewer and fewer friends. 

I think the most wonderful gift we will receive in heaven is peace. In particular, heaven will be a safe place to love. Separation, abandonment and betrayal won’t be there. Those you love will love you back… forever. And that kind of love will fill our hearts because that’s the way we have been loved by Jesus, and we’ll be with Him forever. 

In the passage we’re reading today Jesus is talking to some of the very people who are going to kill Him, but instead of railing against the injustice they have planned, He warns them that He is ready to die, but that they aren’t. In the future they would deeply regret what they were about to do, but by then it would be too late. Thankfully, it’s not too late for us. 

40 - Avoiding Spiritual Deception

The religious world is a swamp, not an oasis. Just because people say they believe in God doesn’t make it a safe place. It’s full of confusion, deception, fraud and sometimes truth. So how does a person know which is which? Who should we allow to teach us? How do we know if what that person is saying is really from God?

The spiritual environment in the city of Jerusalem when Jesus ministered there contained all these elements. There was controversy. There were corrupt religious leaders who dominated the people. There were powerful religious traditions which had evolved over the centuries. There were rules that controlled everything, and oh, there was also truth—God-given, Spirit-revealed truth, all mixed together in a huge, confusing mess. John gives us a sample of some of the opinions people had about Jesus, and they sound just as muddled as opinions we hear about Him today (vs25-27, 31-32, 35, 40-53). 

Even though two millennia have passed since Jesus had this dialogue with religious leaders in the temple courtyard, people are still asking the same question: How do I know who is telling me the truth about God? And the answer Jesus gave them then is just as true today. We too are living in a jumble of religious opinions, and we desperately need to know how to avoid spiritual deception. Let’s go stand in that crowd and listen to Jesus. 

39 - Spiritual Jealousy

Do you know someone whose walk with God makes you jealous? Does it seem that He likes that person better than He likes you? Does He speak to them often and easily, yet when you seek Him you usually hear nothing? If so, those are symptoms of spiritual jealousy. It begins with a bit of envy, but if left unchecked grows into a deep resentment, even hatred, toward that particular person whom we believe is being blessed by God more than we are.

And I think spiritual jealousy is the root cause behind this shockingly ugly encounter between Jesus and His own brothers. They came to Him when it was time to make preparations to travel to Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths, and they pressed Him hard to attend that feast. John tells us that the situation in Judea by this time had grown so dangerous that Jesus had stopped traveling there and was ministering only in Galilee. It was no secret that the religious leaders wanted to kill Him, yet rather than try to protect Him, His brothers urged Him to put Himself in harm’s way. Why? Why did these four young men hate their older brother (half-brother) so deeply? Since it appears that their father Joseph had died sometime earlier, Jesus must have been the principle bread-winner in the family for a period of time, and He had always lived an exemplary life as their oldest brother. But none of that seems to have mattered. The brothers couldn’t deny the works of power Jesus was doing, but instead of being delighted that God was using their brother in such amazing ways, they attacked His character, accusing Him of being ambitious and self-promoting. The good news is that at least two of those four brothers would later on become disciples of Jesus, after His resurrection, but at the moment they were seething with spiritual jealousy.

38 - Loving Judas

Few people in the Bible raise more questions than Judas Iscariot. Job would be a close second. The most obvious question that arises when we think of Judas is why Jesus chose him in the first place. The Bible says Jesus spent all night praying about who were to be the twelve men who would travel with Him as His disciples. Listen: “It was at this time He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God. And when day came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also named as apostles” (Lk 6:12-13). Then Luke lists the twelve and identifies the last one as “Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor” (Lk 6:16). 

37 - Symbols and Ceremonies

It’s difficult for humans to believe in something they can’t see. Something inside each of us wants tangible proof before we believe. Things the human mind considers to be “real” are those things we perceive with our natural senses, which is why it’s a challenge for most of us to function in the spiritual realm. We’re asked to believe in Someone we can’t see, listen to a voice we can’t hear, and depend on a power that’s invisible. And that’s a challenge some find too difficult, and most of them handle the problem in one of two ways. Either they deny the spiritual world exists altogether, or they go to the other extreme and focus their worship on physical objects. The first group ignores the spiritual, the second turns it into something they can see and touch.

36 - The Most Important Truth

I personally believe John wrote his gospel between the years A.D. 65 and A.D. 70. I think John went to Ephesus to pastor the church in that city after Timothy left to assist Paul who was awaiting execution in Rome (2Ti 4:21; Heb 13:23-24). While in Ephesus John wrote this gospel, even though evidence suggests that the other three gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) had already been written. And certainly he would have known they existed and been shown them if possible, and may have even possessed a copy. But in spite of the existence of those gospels there was a growing confusion about Jesus that alarmed John. People were saying all sorts of wrong things about who He was. Some taught that He was just a man, so He should be thought of as no more than a great teacher or prophet. Others taught something that was opposite from this: They believed He was an angel (Heb 1:4-14). In other words He was a spirit-being of some sort who merely appeared to be human, but He was not really a human. And in addition to the debate about the nature of Jesus there has always been confusion over how God could have a son. So by the late A.D. 60’s there were growing groups of people who believed in a very different Jesus than the one the Apostles had taught. By that time most or all of the original twelve had died (Heb 2:3-4), most during Nero’s persecution (A.D. 64-88) and some in distant lands, so there was almost no one left with the authority to correct such distortions. I think that’s why John, who by then was probably in his late 50’s or early 60’s, gathered his own notes of Jesus’ sayings and refreshed his memory of those precious years when he walked beside Him. Then he sat down and wrote an account that emphasized the things Jesus said about Himself. The other gospels had been written earlier, in a different spiritual climate, so they had not focused on those sayings to the same degree. They focused on Jesus’ miracles and His wonderful teachings. Though frankly, everything a person needs to know about Jesus is in all the gospels. All present Him as both the divine Son of God and an incarnated man, yet somehow the statements in those gospels were being ignored by those determined to distort this truth. So John wrote his own and opened it with an absolutely clear declaration about the divine origin and human incarnation of Jesus (Jn 1:1-18). Then he went on to describe certain signs Jesus performed that fulfilled Old Testament prophesies about Him. But above all, John was careful to report exactly what Jesus said about Himself. 

35 - The Shepherd’s Promise

It’s not enough to only introduce someone to Jesus. We also have a responsibility to care for that person until he or she is strong enough to walk with Him on their own. So many obstacles and dangers confront every new believer that without proper care their new faith can be badly damaged or even extinguished. They immediately face pressures from their own flesh, temptations from the enemy, persecution from those who oppose their faith and even deception from false teachers who quickly recognize a vulnerable mind. In other words, that person is suddenly subjected to a very cruel environment which could overwhelm any one of us unless we have someone to watch out for us. A new believer needs someone to pray for them, someone to model how this walk with Jesus really works, and maybe even someone to take them in if they have been abandoned by others. If left alone, if there is no one to coach, no one to pray, no one to patiently help as they struggle to grow, what began as a beautiful birth can be lost. Their new faith which started out pure can end up so distorted it’s not a saving faith anymore. Unchecked flesh can produce so much bondage and shame that all confidence is gone; unanswered questions can allow doubt to grow until God is viewed with suspicion, not trust.

34 - The Work of God

There are people who misunderstand Paul’s teachings about works vs. faith. They interpret him to mean that humans have no part to play in their own salvation. They think the word “works” means every form of human activity. So they conclude that in order to avoid trying to earn our salvation humans must remain totally passive in the process. But Paul’s warnings about “works” were aimed at people who were trying to earn eternal life by obeying all the rules in the Bible. His point was to tell them that they must receive God’s gift of righteousness by faith because no one can live a life good enough to earn it. He was trying to stop people from attempting self-righteousness, not demand they become passive.