Dressed Like A Lion

"Sometimes, he's in the building, standing right where we are ... dressed like a lion."

GOD IS NOT a QR code. He’s very hands-on. In fact, He became one of us so that we could touch Him, handle Him, and walk with Him (1 John 1:1). Walking involves your feet. With every step, every foot of the path He’s laid out for us, He’s in us and upon us, never to leave us or forsake us, because that’s how He is. His blood covers us. His Spirit lives in us. He’s given us His name. My daughter has my name, and you know, she can call upon me at any time, day or night? She can rely upon me to support her and walk with her for the rest of her life. She will always have ALL OF mom. I can say the same of my heavenly Father. He’s as real, as close, as touchable as I am to her. He loves me to the highest degree, to the furthest point.

He loves all His children to this extent. The wounds on His hands and feet were just as painful to Him for you as they were for your children, as they were for that guy you don’t like, and the minister you don’t agree with. The thorns on His head were just as long and sharp in His brow as they were for that denomination or that Bible college president. You know who hates people? The devil. You know who criticizes people, condemns people? The devil. The Bible calls him the adversary. That word “adversary” means the anti-righteous. So when you said that thing about that person, you were being anti-righteous.

There’s a horrific description of the behavior of the anti-righteous in Romans 1, many behaviors which the church would agree were anti-righteous, but then it ends with those who “do not act mercifully toward other people (Romans 1:31 UDB).” Ouch. And that’s God speaking. You wash yourself in His blood then claim it’s only for you or only on your conditions and not on His. His are for whosoever. His are for the intelligent and the ignorant, the college professor and the elementary student, for the gang leader who finally sees Jesus, for the Muslim or the Hindu that turns from idols toward Him.

Romans 3:13-14 in the UDB Translation says, "What people say is foul, like the smell that comes from a grave that has been opened. By what people say, they deceive people. By what they say they injure people, just like the poison of snakes injures people. They are continually cursing others and saying cruel things.” The comparison in chapter 2 is of non-Jews to Jews, but the same words apply between cultures, skin colors, upbringings, doctrines, political parties, languages, ages, ministry callings. I could go on. Jesus for me is Jesus for you, and Jesus for you is Jesus for them.

We are supposed to look like Jesus, to sound like Jesus, who held silent in the face of mockery. We’d defend Him, we say. We wouldn’t allow men to talk that way to Him. Well, Peter said that too (Mark 8:32) and look at how He acted afterwards. Yet, three denials and some time later, Jesus asks him, “Peter, do you love me?” three times, and three times Peter acts nonplussed. What Peter didn’t do was call out Paul when he came to him to speak about the gospel. Here’s a man trained as a Pharisee speaking to a fisherman, wanting the fisherman’s approval of him going to the Gentiles, the non-Jews, and it says those in the church who heard that this man who’d murdered them now loved Jesus, rejoiced. “Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep,” became LOVE THE UNLOVELY to the point of hanging upside down, so says history.

Paul murdered Jesus, then embraced Jesus. There’s nowhere in that for criticism of each other. Nor for any excuses labeled by any other name. “Love your enemies. Do good to those that hurt you,” is pretty plain to me (Matthew 5:44). Otherwise, in different lighting it looks just like Romans 3, and smells like a foul stench. An open grave.

Have you examined their fruit? Did you see how many people have been saved by them, how many sent out to preach the gospel, how many made whole and raised from the dead? Or were you writing more QR codes to get to Jesus, hands-off altar calls that make it easy-peasy but give newbies nothing to stand on? Teach faith but leave out Jesus. I’ve heard it done. Use the right words, church-ese, that most really don’t understand. I didn’t know righteousness was authority until a couple weeks ago. Got that from a man of God in a YouTube video.

We’re chasing culture, creating entertainment, and decorating our stages when Jesus wants us to kneel at the altar and walk in forgiveness. Because, I said it this way recently, if you’re struggling to love someone then you don’t know the love of God at all. His love is so wide and high and deep, you simply can’t not love them. Even the ugly people, the hateful, bring out the mercy of God in you, and your desire is to pray for them, to make their lives better, not to point them out and tear them down. Look at Paul again, a man who was so filled with hate, he had people killed, then read his epistles and see the love of God overflowing from him. How much he wanted people to learn and grow and walk after Christ. How much he disregarded all he’d valued before. His education didn’t matter. His position as a Pharisee. Nor who he was as a Jew. In this, he was just like Jesus who knew He was the Son of God, yet laid down His life so we could stand upright and be loved by Him forever.

The pulpit is a place of Presence. It is where God sits as Savior and Lord, where the Spirit anoints us to love each other. It is a place to wash feet, to encourage, and lift up. It is not a judgment seat for men of ordination, nor a courtroom to decide which one stays and which one goes. God knows our every word before we speak it, even those in complete darkness where we think the devil roams. Sometimes, he’s in the building, standing right where we are, clothed like an angel, or dressed like a lion that we’ve mistaken for words of value, for a spotlight, for a throne. Where does it end? At repentance. That’s the answer. It is us seeing ourselves, recognizing the anti-righteous devil in us, and choosing to turn around and seek God’s face. Only then will what’s in us be like Him, and the righteousness that lifts us from the miry clay and sets us upon a rock become words of joy and gladness to all men.

And we’re never offended by anyone any longer, a promise of Scripture we ought to hang onto, pressed against our hearts.

“Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.” (Psalms 119:165)

Image by plasterbrain from Pixabay


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com