The 260 Journey

Day 162

Today’s Reading: 2 Corinthians 13

Charles Schwab’s CEO, Walt Bettinger, opened the vault to the Schwab test he uses for potential high-level hires. He told the New York Times that we can discover a person’s character by the ways they respond during times of great pressure and distress. So before each new hire, to test out the job candidate to see how they react when things don’t go according to plan, Bettinger takes the potential employee out for a breakfast interview. What the candidate doesn’t know is that before they arrive, Bettinger asks the restaurant staff to purposefully mess up the order in exchange for a substantial tip.

His “wrong order” test helps him see how prospective hires deal with adversity. “Are they upset, are they frustrated, or are they understanding? Life is like that, and business is like that,” he said. “It’s just another way to look inside their heart rather than their head.”

In the same interview with the Times, Bettinger shared one of his own biggest failures. After spending hours studying for a final college exam, he went to class ready to figure out calculations. Instead the professor handed to each student a blank sheet of paper.

“The professor said, ‘I’ve taught you everything I can teach you about business in the last ten weeks,” Bettinger recalled. “But the most important message, the most important question, is this: What’s the name of the lady who cleans this building?”

Bettinger had no idea. He failed the exam, got a B in the class, and ruined his 4.0 average. But it taught him an important lesson on recognizing individuals “who do the real work.”

“That had a powerful impact,” he said. “Her name was Dottie, and I didn’t know Dottie. I’d seen her, but I’d never taken the time to ask her name.”

Since then, he admits he’s “tried to know every Dottie I’ve worked with.”

That failure in college became an important reminder of what truly matters in life.

Two tests that people never saw coming. The wrong-order test and the name-of-the-lady test.

We encounter a very important we-never-saw-it-coming test in today’s chapter. The apostle Paul goes all “Charles Schwab” on the church people. It’s sobering. After coming to the end of 2 Corinthians, we are almost blindsided by the “clear your desk and take out a piece of paper” announcement—which means a test is coming:

Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test? But I trust that you will realize that we ourselves do not fail the test. (2 Corinthians 13:5-6)

I hate tests. But this is one I can’t take lightly. This is not for a science or an English grade. This is about eternity. So now the big questions: How do we test ourselves? How do we ensure we don’t fail this test?

Paul tells us it’s a test to recognize if Jesus is in you. D Martyn Lloyd Jones said:

“A Christian is the result of the operation of God, nothing less, nothing else. No man can make himself a Christian; God alone makes Christians.” So how do we examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith?

Since God does the birthing, we should have His birthmarks. God gave us some birthmarks if we have been born again. Birthmarks that look like His family likeness. We find those in 1 John. The apostle John uses the phrase born of God over and over, giving us the birthmark. If we are born of God, then we have the life of God and we pass the test.

Let me give you a few of those birthmarks, which can help us on the “see if you are in the faith” test. Look at this verse from 1 John: “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God” (1 John 3:9, NIV).

Christians are not sinless, but we will sin less and less, because we are born of God. Here’s another: “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God” (1 John 4:7, NIV). A love for people comes to those born of God.

Here’s one more from 1 John: “Everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4, NIV). When you are born of God, your mind starts to renew and you don’t think about things and assess things as you used to.

Before someone is born again, the Bible says, “we are dead,” dead in trespasses and sins. The way we see if someone is not dead is to check their pulse. Is that vital organ, called the heart, showing a pulse? The heart must be beating. These passages from 1 John help us know if the heart is beating. As Soren Kierkegaard said, “It is so much easier to become a Christian when you aren’t one than to become one when you assume you already are.”

Paul’s see-if-you’re-in-the-faith test is serious and reminds us not to assume anything.

Day 161

Today’s Reading: 2 Corinthians 12

In today’s chapter we see a set of red letters, which come alive in a place that we don’t expect. Do you know what I mean when I say red letters? For those of us who grew up in the church when KJV was just about our only option of Bible translation, we know that all of Jesus’ words were in red letters to distinguish them from all other letters. We knew those red letters were all in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the very beginning of Acts. Those were the books of the Bible that covered when Jesus was on the earth. But red letters in 2 Corinthians 12?

Paul needed an answer to his prayer, and he got red letters:

Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:7-10, emphasis added)

Paul said he was given a thorn in the flesh. No one knows exactly what the thorn was. Many have speculated everything from a physical handicap of eye sight to epilepsy. But as men fight over what the thorn was, it’s easy to miss the big point of Paul’s prayer. He asked God three times to take away the thorn. And out of nowhere come red letters!

Jesus responds to Paul’s prayer to remove his thorn. His response, though, is not what Paul expected. To me it was a yes-or-no question. Jesus answered better. Jesus said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you.”

To divorce these words from their context is an unpardonable atrocity. It is one of the most touching pieces of Pauline autobiography in the New Testament. It was from the ascended, throne-sitting, righthand of God—Jesus. And it was given to a pain-racked, baffled, questioning, no-answer-to-prayer apostle. These words turned him around in an instant.

Read the beginning of what Paul said: thorn in the flesh; messenger of Satan to keep me from exalting myself; entreated the Lord three times for it to leave; nothing happened.

Then Jesus spoke—the red letters. “And He has said to me . . .” The “He” was Jesus.

And right after the red letters, the change came to Paul.

He went from “I got a thorn in the flesh, and God won’t answer my prayer about it” to “Not only can I handle the thorn, but because Jesus spoke to me, I can handle a lot more.” And Paul added to the thorn list more issues:

Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong. (verses 9-10)

One word from Jesus and Paul was able to take on five more challenges.

Jesus may not say what you want, but He always says what you need. Paul was looking for a thorn answer and received a grace supply.

Jesus did not say, “I will remove the thorn.” But He did say, “I will give you a great grace, which is better than a thorn being removed.”

Did you get that? Sufficient grace with a thorn is better than no grace without a thorn.

Day 160

Today’s Reading: 2 Corinthians 11

Click on Google.com and you’ll find a predominantly white screen with less than forty words on it. That’s it. Compare it to other search engines where the user is confronted with hundreds of words. More than 75 percent of all web searches are done on Google. They are simple, so they appeal.

As we look at today’s chapter, we find that Paul is calling us to go “Google” with our Christianity: “I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3).

I love that word simplicity. The goal of Satan is to lead you from that. Simple is in, complex is out. Paul is telling us that Satan is a complicator of things. His goal is to move you from simplicity to complexity. And the most important thing Satan wants to complicate is how to become a Christian. And yet Christianity is very Google-ish. Consider Romans 10:9, which has only twenty-six words: “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Religions want to add to the big twenty-six. Carry a briefcase, go on a mission trip, die as a martyr, cut your hair, wear this dress, don’t eat this, the list goes on and on.

Confess Jesus with your mouth and believe God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. Add anything else to those twenty-six Google-ish words and you have been led astray from simplicity, as Eve was. God makes it simple for us.

I love the name of Jesus. So simple. Maybe not to us today, but back then, definitely. It was one of the most common names of the first century. It was like someone naming their child John or Scott or Joe. God did not give Jesus some space-age name—Moonstruck, Alphaman, or Zorg. God picked a common name and then gave Jesus a job as a carpenter. A common occupation of that time. Not something as spectacular as technology director for Jerusalem. It was simply a job to build stuff like a table out of wood. He wasn’t creating things as He did in Genesis, but He was building tables like we do. God is simple, Satan is complicated.

Jesus boiled down 613 commandments to two. Why? That’s what Jesus does. He doesn’t complicate life, He uncomplicates it.

Sin complicates your life. Have sex outside the boundaries of the covenant of marriage and watch how life gets complicated for you. God is really simple. Satan complicates.

Finally, think how simple the playlist of heaven is. Today in churches around the world, think of all the songs people are singing, and all the lyrics we have to put on the screen. Now think of heaven and the angels. They are singing one song with three words: Holy, holy, holy.

Why do the angels sing the same song? Wouldn’t you think that after four millennia some angels would say, “Okay we got it. We don’t even need words on the screen any more. Holy, holy, holy. Can’t we do some Elevation or Hillsong music?” Why do they sing the same song? My simple take is that every time the angels look at Jesus, they cover their eyes when they see Him, and I think they forget the words, so that all they can say over and over is, “Holy, holy, holy.”

The closer you get to the living God, the simpler things become. God helps simplify things, and Satan complicates things.

Let’s get Google with our Christianity.

Day 159

Today’s Reading: 2 Corinthians 10

I wrote someone a prescription the other day. Don’t get nervous and don’t report me just yet. The condition the person had was deilia (day-lea).

Ever heard of it? A lot of people I talk to and counsel with face deilia and are in desperate need of a prescription. There are times I’ve even have had this condition myself.

For this person, I prescribed three things: sophronismos (you may not recognize this, but it is very powerful), dunamis, and agape.

These are not chemicals, these are Greek words.

Deilia is the Greek word for fear. Fear can be debilitating. And the Bible clearly gives the prescription for us in 2 Timothy 1:7: “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (NKJV).

We live a culture of fear today. We have names of fear for everything. Consider just a few:

Peladophobia: fear of baldness and bald people

Gamophobia: fear of marriage

Levophobia: fear of objects on the left side of the body

Aphenphosmphobia: fear of being touched

There is a phobia that has 38 letters, and it’s the fear of long words.

Euphobia: fear of hearing good news

Syngenesophobia: fear of relatives

Fear is so paralyzing to people today because there are so many things to be afraid of. Fear can make us do things that are not even sensible. In fact, fear can kill someone.

I had a person tell me one time that she and her family wanted to come to our church, but because it was located in the inner city, they were too afraid. They actually came to the church building one Sunday, and while parking, faced the fear that someone would rob them. They drove all the way there and fear made them turn around. “Was that the Lord speaking to me and protecting me?” My response was absolutely not!

God is a Father. He does not lead us by fear, because we are His children. He leads us by wisdom and by speaking to us. Fear is not a way God guides us. I gave her the 2 Timothy 1:7 prescription of fighting fear with love, power, and a sound mind.

So what does all of this have to do with 2 Corinthians 10? Here it is: we don’t fight the spiritual with the natural. If we are faced with a spiritual enemy, we need a spiritual weapon. At times I’ve been afraid of getting cancer, because my father died of it. That isn’t a fear we break with barley green, wheat grass, and essential oils. That helps, but fear is a spirit. And that spirit wants to control us. Once we are cancer free, we will face some other thing to be afraid of.

We have to fight spiritual enemies with spiritual weapons. That is today’s challenge. Listen to what the apostle Paul tells us about fighting:

Although we live in the natural realm, we don’t wage a military campaign employing human weapons, using manipulation to achieve our aims. Instead, our spiritual weapons are energized with divine power to effectively dismantle the defenses behind which people hide. We can demolish every deceptive fantasy that opposes God and break through every arrogant attitude that is raised up in defiance of the true knowledge of God. We capture, like prisoners of war, every thought and insist that it bow in obedience to the Anointed One.

(2 Corinthians 10:3-5, TPT)

So let’s go back to our fear story. Because there are other prescriptions we can give from the Bible. Remember, God has not given us a spirit of fear. Fear is a supernatural enemy and needs a supernatural prescription to fight it. So here’s another prescription. What is our weapon against the spirit of fear?

The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

(Romans 8:15-17, NIV)

This is incredible. Paul tells us that we don’t have to live in fear again—of cancer, of being robbed in the inner city, of . . . Why? Because we have been adopted by God. He’s our Father and He cares for His children.

Paul says the spirit of fear is seeking to blind us and hide the fact that we have a heavenly Father who sees us and protects us. Every time we let fear control us, then we are blinded to our adoption papers. And instead of crying, “Abba Father,” we cry to other people. We take away the relationship of God as our Father and make Him smaller in our eyes.

A plane was en route to Boston and because of bad weather, the plane was being battered around profusely. Everybody onboard was in a panic, wondering if they would even reach Boston because of such forceful turbulence. Everyone, that is, except for one lady who sat quietly knitting a sweater. One of the passengers by her noticed how calm she was, so he leaned over to her to ask her how she could be so peaceful at a time like this.

“Young man, I am on my way to visit my son in Boston, but I have another son who died and went to heaven. It doesn’t matter which one of them I visit. My Father knows which son I will see today.”

This woman realized that her Father was greater than any turbulence threatening a plane. That’s using a spiritual weapon to fight a spiritual enemy.

Day 158

Today’s Reading: 2 Corinthians 9

Some people are thermostats and some are thermometers. Thermometers just register the temperature of the room, while the thermostat controls the temperature of the room. This is not just for hot and cold but for hot and cold attitudes. The people who are thermostats try to control a room with their attitudes. If they are happy, we all get to be happy. If they are quiet and sad, no one gets to be exuberant and laugh. The thermostat just dictated how the room will be. This is both good and bad. Good with good attitudes. Bad with bad attitudes. Second Corinthians 9 is a good attitude from the Corinthian Christians. It’s so good that the apostle Paul boasts about them. Listen to what Paul says about the Corinthian thermostat:

I keep boasting to the churches of Macedonia about your passion to give, telling them that the believers of Corinth have been preparing to give for a year. Your enthusiasm is contagious—it has stirred many of them to do likewise. (2 Corinthians 9:2, TPT)

Their good contagious attitude showed itself through generosity and giving. The Corinthians' enthusiasm to give was a thermostat and started an epidemic of giving among other Christians. They seemed to follow what Sir Winston Churchill said: “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” The Corinthians not only made a life, but made a life worth emulating and imitating.

I love Paul’s phrase, Your enthusiasm is contagious. I want to be a good thermostat. I want to live a life worth imitating. I want my giving to inspire people. I want my life to inspire other people. I want my love for Jesus to inspire other people.

Do you?

Paul tells the Corinthians how wide their influence has been on other Christians. He tells them that their generosity didn’t just meet a need, but inspired people to be better. The dividends on their gift far exceeded their expectations of simply meeting a need. The result? Paul says much more happened to the church than having a need met.

So two good things happened as a result of your gifts—those in need are helped, and they overflow with thanks to God. Those you help will be glad not only because of your generous gifts to themselves and to others, but they will praise God for this proof that your deeds are as good as your doctrine. And they will pray for you with deep fervor and feeling because of the wonderful grace of God shown through you. (2 Corinthians 9:12-14, TLB)

J. L. Kraft (the head of Kraft Cheese Corporation) said this about giving to God’s work: “The only investments I have ever made which have paid constantly increasing dividends is the money I have given to the Lord.” The apostle Paul is about to tell us about those increasing dividends. Paul says your gift inspires people toward gratitude and praise. There are some times in which praise can come through an offering not just an instrument.

He also says, their gift was proof that their “deeds are as good as [their] doctrine.” That is powerful. Their generosity fleshes out what they believe. It’s one thing to say we believe a doctrine but a whole other thing to live it out. Generosity is the proof. Donald Miller says it like this: “What I believe is not what I say I believe; what I believe is what I do.”

And finally, their generosity got them on the prayer list. Verse 14 says, “They will pray for you with deep fervor and feeling because of the wonderful grace of God shown through you.” Generosity made people praise, gave them proof, and inspired them to pray.

Praise, proof, and prayer. All from a generous offering.

Why is it so hard to give away money? Why is it difficult not only to tithe but to be available to be generous when we hear of a need? It’s because Satan has found a way to block praise, proof, and prayer from coming our way by stopping generosity.

The famed psychiatrist Karl Menninger said, “Generous people are rarely mentally ill.” He’s right! They know the rewards of generosity—the rewards for them and others. As we mentioned earlier, but it’s a good reminder, Jim Eliot said it best, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

What a great gain for those generous Corinthian givers. Help us, Lord, to inspire people like that.