The Lessons of “SaltSister”

“SaltSister” is at a crossroads, friends. After more than four years I have weighed its accomplishments, the things it might yet accomplish, the cost in personal time, and whether the good done herein has been enough to justify the blog’s existence. With all that said, something tells me the blog accomplished whatever it was meant to accomplish in the grand scheme of things.

A part of me doesn’t ever want this blog to go away. Another part of me needs to be free to focus on other things. All I ever wanted to be was a writer–I sure never expected to take on the whole kingdom of God in a blog.

I have had many different jobs over the years to support my habit of doing what I liked–learning, creating, and writing. I could have worked my way up through a normal chain of publications (which is nearly what I did), but one day after a college instructor assured me that I had chosen the right field in feature journalism, I realized I was bored. The world had nothing to say that had not been said before.  I wanted to know what was on the backside of the universe. Before long I was in pursuit of a life rather than a career, and I’m happy to say that I found what I sought. 

While this blog may not have attracted a wide circle of polished writers (something that would have delighted my soul), it has surely attracted some deeply spiritual thinkers. Abhorrent to me was the thought of a life spent in public relations making the mediocre sound great or writing a weekly column about nothing and finding, at the end of it all, that I never said anything worth saying. Even worse was the thought that I might end up with nothing but the same empty, open hole in my heart that I started with. I devoted my time to asking the questions that no one else seemed to be asking. Those who responded with sincere probes have made me a better thinker and writer.

Herein I will share a few lessons that benefited me from the years of writing this blog.

“God is Just”

I recently gained a revelation of what I had only heard before–that ”God is just”. If I never find satisfaction in anything else, let it be this:

Justice and judgment [are] the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face. (Psalm 89:14)

It is hard to picture how God can be both just and merciful. My mother used to say  that we don’t want God’s justice; we want His mercy. Like so many, she saw justice and mercy as antithetical to one another. However, they are not.

To be sure, we are told that we deserve God’s wrath and therefore, we wouldn’t want His justice. This is undoubtedly true while we are in a state of unforgiveness, and therefore we ask Him for mercy. We deserve justice (in this case, wrath), but we ask for mercy because we cannot deliver ourselves from our sorry state.  Once we repent, it would be unjust of God not to give us mercy, for it was He who paid the price for our freedom. It would be unjust to Himself not to receive the benefits that He paid for.

Because the world contains so much evil, God’s justice, even when it involves wrath, is merciful. It stops the wholesale destruction of that which is innocent, pure, beautiful, and right. Justice is a mercy to victims of evil. By the same token, God’s mercy is also just for the repentant, no matter how evil they have been. After all, they are no less trapped in their fallenness than the rest of us though they may strike us as more evil.

Why Some Believe But Others Do Not

Is it not a mystery, though, why some believe  and repent but others do not? One day I was thinking of all the people I’ve known who told me why they believe or don’t believe in God and His Son Jesus Christ–and suddenly I realized they had the same reasons but with two different conclusions!  It was then I knew that what becomes of us has nothing to do with our circumstances of life, fortune, or misfortune. Our reasons arise from ourselves–not from our circumstances. From that moment, I knew how just God truly is.

I used to think that if I had prayed enough for so-and-so, they surely would have repented long ago. Or perhaps if I had been filled more with the Spirit of Christ, things would have been different. I would have been a better witness for God. When I realized that ”God is just”, it stopped the endless questioning of my methods, my motives, and the sufficiency of my dedication. There is no essential difference in the reasons given as to why some believe and others don’t. This is more evidence that the rain really does fall on the just and the unjust. All persons have a sovereign will. It belongs to themselves–not to God, nor to the person who presents the Gospel, and not to those who get blamed for giving God a bad name.

Here is a sampling of reasons for why some don’t believe in God or Christ:

1. There is unbelievable suffering in the world.

2. Science has new, improved answers.

3. God cannot be seen.

4. Someone abused them as children.

5. There was no one to present the Gospel.

Here are some reasons people give for believing:

1. There is unbelievable suffering in the world.

2. Science has new, improved answers.

3. God cannot be seen.

4. Someone abused them as children.

5. There was no one to present the Gospel.

Wait! We are all familiar with the first list, but why does it sound so much like the second? What about when all those first reasons are stood on their heads? What about the person who cries out to God and finds Him because of personal suffering? What about the one who receives an answer that science either can’t explain or for whom science’s new, improved answers are simply not enough? What about the one who “feels” the God he cannot see and determines to find Him? What about the one from a home where all the siblings were horribly abused, who alone escapes the vicious cycle of abuse? (Don’t laugh, this has really happened.) What about those ready to receive the Gospel before anyone was there to tell the story of Jesus? Why do they believe what they have not yet heard and others who have heard over and over do not?

That’s when I realized the difference was not in the conditions, experiences, or presentations of a story, but in the hearers themselves. Those who seek the Lord with all the heart will find Him. We already know which we are somewhere within and we carry our judgment within ourselves.

For it is written, [As] I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.
So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.
(Rom. 14:11-12)

Do you see? We will not have to wait while God’s henchmen dredge up some convoluted case against us (that is Satan’s job anyway). Our own hearts will judge clearly on the side of God when the books are opened. We will see ourselves as we truly are. God’s providential will has been carried out daily since the world was set in place, and ours has always been the free choice to enter into that Providence or not.

The “Real Church”

Along the course of writing this blog, I also searched out many, many avenues concerning “fellowship” and the “real church”.  I found that many groups have maintained certain beautiful jewels of the faith through the centuries, but in the end I did not join any of them. Nor did I start a house church, which would have been the next logical step, given where I started. I have seen nothing new coming out of that sector–mostly they seem like the same old evangelical groups they left  or the strange, cultish groups that run swiftly after apostasies.

Perhaps the most important thing I gleaned about “church” and “gatherings” is that Jesus did not promise that if we gathered in groups He would meet us there. What He said is, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them (Mat. 18:20).” He said this without qualification as to intentionality of meeting.

They are two or three believers gathered unto Him [See Gen. 49:10b], not unto the meeting, the “church home”, the ministry, the Great Commission, the service to the poor… They are gathered unto Him. They are not seeking Him because they got together; they are together because they are seeking Him.

I thought once that if I could find the right-minded group of people to get together with, surely God would show up. Instead I found that if I pray, He will bring the one or two I need to walk with. There is no condition that these one or two continue together for ten years or for ten minutes. All I know is that He seems to give me one or two at the right moment. If you begin as “one”, it only takes one more to have “two gathered in His name”. If you have two, a third gives you a stronger witness when there is a matter to be taken up with God.

If “gathering together unto Him” takes place in a company of 15 neighbors who love to gather intentionally, so be it. But what if it’s not the same for all? I put the prayer ahead of the gathering and it seems to have stopped the crazy winds of doctrine that used to blow through my house.

Sadly, doctrines of demons so easily pervert entire house churches internationally. House churches, particularly the Chinese house church, have been held up to me as superior to anything going on in the Western World. A closer look has made me reject the idea of one-model-fits-all in the world of how-to-meet.

I have not found one national group of house churches to be superior to another because of intense suffering in the land. I find that all lands and peoples have different trials–some trials come from prosperity just as they do from adversity! If truth be told, I have found arrogance among all the streams of house church, including those one would expect to be humbled by suffering. But would you believe–some are lifted up and proud of their suffering? The same tendency to excess runs everywhere. All individuals and groups have their own challenges and not another’s; all must overcome in their own circumstances.

 End-Time Prophecies

Here is another area where a little light has brought in much freedom. The other night someone sent me to one of those sites where the presenter has “followed end-time prophecies for 40 years”. I grew up in evangelical circles where such things were discussed regularly and some became completely captivated trying to figure out how the last days unfold.

When someone has poured over scriptures, legends, and rumors all tying end-time prophecies together, it’s extremely difficult to make heads or tails of the mind of God any more. I ran across such a person who said his mission was to warn people of the 100 million super soldier giants (nephilim) who will be released upon the earth again. I couldn’t help wondering what we are supposed to be “warned” about if there’s nothing we can do about it anyway? I never heard a solution offered. And besides–whether it’s army tanks, nuclear fallout, or mass murder–dead is dead. Will we be any deader at the hands of nephilim than if we die alone in our little beds of some quiet disease?

Many months ago, a very sincere reader sent me several disks about conspiracy theories involving the World Trade Center and the Freemasons. The information is seductive and fascinating. I have no doubt many of the things purported therein are true. I am positive that the Illuminati is real, the Grand Orient Lodge is real, some Freemasons are the Devil, and that Washington, D.C.’s streets and buildings were modeled after some secret fraternal symbols. But all of that will lead absolutely nowhere.

For those who want to “take this country back”, that will seem like very important data to have on hand, but it’s not. The fact is, the national identity has been buoyed up by a religious and political mythology of incompatible elements all along. The Pilgrims weren’t founding a great nation; they were founding a colony. Most newcomers to America were nominal Christians at least, but the real founder of the American economic system was the East India Trading Co., that New World Order enterprise that almost succeeded in keeping the colonies strapped as the slaves of the British Empire (but which succeeded in getting its tentacles into the new American system instead and corrupting it beyond all belief).

What are we to make of this–? That there is a vast conspiracy or that there is no conspiracy whatsoever? The truth lies elsewhere, I believe. There are many conspiracies of various sizes throughout the world, and none has ever had such forethought as to deliberately and knowingly create an anti-Christ system for the purpose of meeting Jesus Christ in a showdown at Armageddon. Many elements of the anti-Christ system actually began with the best of intentions. But whether intentional or haphazard, the ultimate exaltation of mankind’s interests and comfort in place of God’s position of judgment has always resulted in a world at odds with its Creator. It would not take a mass conspiracy to reach the zenith of “Mankind as God” or “666″, which we are now seeing. All it takes is individual evil or individual humanized “good” in place of God and it all plays into the same hand. The outcome doesn’t require a conspiracy of megaproportions. By nature, everything based on Mankind as the ultimate arbiter of what is good and desirable, pits itself against all that is God.

Therefore, ignore these conspiracy interests, which take an inordinate amount of time away from the pursuit of God’s interests. They are distractions designed to make you miss the mark. Those who lead others with their knowledge of conspiracy theories and end-time prophecies operate out of their darkened natural mind. They will miss the speaking of the Lord to His people.

A Better Way

With that said, let me direct you to a better way of approaching those things that are spiritually understood. A friend sent me to T. Austin-Sparks’ series on “Discipleship in the School of Christ“. For some weeks I had been hovering around the teachings of Austin-Sparks, certain I was looking for something but with no idea what. (Are we just dense at certain times?) When I went to the link, I realized I had found exactly what had been weighing on my heart for weeks. Austin-Sparks describes what it means to learn of Christ–that Christ is the substance of everything we receive from Him whether it be an inward realization or a an outward manifestation of power. I believe that Austin-Sparks was absolutely on the mark  in this complete apprehension of Christ.

This is something I have felt and could not put into words. I knew that I knew that I knew that I was onto something–that God could ultimately be trusted with the outcome of my life if I would let go of all controls. It was as if I were being invited to jump into a stream of life with both feet and never again worry about the details–whether I had “fellowship” or not, whether I was in a “house church” or a “gathering”, whether I had all the nuts and bolts screwed down. I knew I could trust this Christ!

Of course, there are always the nay-sayers who say, “You might get ‘off’!” But tell me how anyone could get “off” in the hands of Christ! The problem is that the nay-sayers have been “off” for 2000 years because they have captured the entire operation into the hands of humans under the banner of “accountability” — an anti-Christ notion — if ever there was one — that God needs humans to keep His things on track.

A Time to Decrease

I tried so hard these past four years to ask the hard questions and to share the things I thought were so exciting. One day I wondered what I was doing any more. If a person truly grasps some of the deeper things in “SaltSister”, there is every reason to question whether they even need me to write it down. If they can grasp the best things therein, they can grasp better things by going directly to the Source, which is Christ Himself.

I struggled with whether I had any business continuing the blog. What is to be gained thereby? Shall we preserve certain, pet teachings for posterity? However true they may be, they are not understood properly by the intellect. We then have a case of trying to teach spiritual things to people’s minds. Better yet, the writings may serve as a second witness for things that God is already doing in someone. This is the one learning to “buy oil” from Christ directly. The second witness may be for the purpose of giving them confidence that what they are buying from Him is real oil. 

Therefore, I suppose I should not regret writing “SaltSister”, though it often left me feeling more exposed than I liked. It has served its purpose as the “second witness”. I wonder what will happen after this? Perhaps ”SaltSister” will be around longer than anyone knows. Maybe its lessons will continue to unfold in silence while I go about the business of picking up life as a regular person. God knows. But we are traveling this road together, right?