The 260 Journey

Day 156

Today’s Reading: 2 Corinthians 7

A man wrote to the IRS, “I haven’t been able to sleep because last year on my income tax report, I deliberately misrepresented my income. I am enclosing a check for $150, if I still can’t sleep, I’ll send you the rest.”

If we are going to repent of dishonesty and do the right thing then let’s do it all the way—not like this fellow in his IRS letter. Today’s chapter reminds us what real repentance is. In A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, Eugene Peterson wrote, “Repentance is not an emotion. It is not feeling sorry for your sins. It is a decision.” True repentance is not just feeling bad about what we have done, it’s about getting it fixed. Repentance is best defined by a little girl who said: “It’s to be sorry enough to quit.”

The word repentance is so important because it means a change of mind, a 180-degree turn from something. It carries the idea that you are heading one way, a change comes, and you turn around and head in the right direction.

The problem has been that God’s people have been doing 360s most of their Christian lives. Remember what a 360 is? As a teen you go in the parking lot with your month-old driver’s license and step on the gas with the steering wheel turned. And your car goes around in circles, burning rubber. There is movement but no forward movement.

False repentance is a life of 360s. We need to break the cycle. We are good at the sorry part, it’s the quitting part that comes hard and comes with a price. I think victory over sin has been far from some of us because we have misdefined repentance. We have put crying and feeling horrible in the definition. The apostle Paul seems to define repentance a different way. Listen to his profound words on repentance in 2 Corinthians 7:9-11:

I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.

He lists seven things that describe repentance. None of them include feeling bad or tears; they’re all about 180 decisions:

Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. (2 Corinthians 7:10-11, NIV)

Paul says true repentance has earnestness, eagerness to clear yourself, indignation, an alarm, longing, concern, and readiness for justice to be done. These are all important things to stop the 360s so we can have 180s. Paul says when it is real repentance, certain attitudes attach to your feeling badly. The IRS letter guy felt a $150 bad but not enough bad to do what’s right.

Paul says when we repent, we pull out of the 360 by indignation, hating what we have done. Hating the sin that got us there. Longing to make things right, that’s the readiness of justice. The willingness to do whatever it takes to make it right with the IRS, our spouse, our children, whomever. In fake repentance, we just want to say, “I said I’m sorry. Can’t we just move on?” In real repentance, we say, “Tell me what I have to do to win over your heart and trust again?”

Paul says it produces an alarm in us. It’s a wake-up call of the sin in us that is longing to be in control. The King James Version uses the phrase, what carefulness. Real repentance makes us careful not to put ourselves, our marriages, our families in any compromising position that could take us into a 360 spin.

In I Surrender, Patrick Morley writes that the church’s integrity problem is in the misconception “that we can add Christ to our lives, but not subtract sin. It is a change in belief without a change in behavior. . . . It is revival without reformation, without repentance.”

When we remove repentance from our Christian life, we add 360 cycles. Let me remind you of someone who has been in a 360 spin for a long time. Her name is Lucy.

Several years ago, the Peanuts comic strip had Lucy and Charlie Brown practicing football. Lucy would hold the ball for Charlie’s placekicking, and then Charlie would try to kick the ball. Every time Lucy held the ball, Charlie kicked with all his might. At the precise point of no return, Lucy would pick up the ball, and Charlie’s momentum, unchecked by the ball, which was no longer in place, would cause him to fall flat on his back.

This comic strip opened with Lucy holding the ball, but Charlie Brown refusing to kick. Lucy begged him to kick the ball. But Charlie Brown said, “Every time I try to kick the ball, you remove it and I fall on my back.”

They went back and forth for the longest time, and finally Lucy broke down in tears and admitted, “Charlie Brown, I have been so terrible to you over the years, picking up the football like I have. I have played so many cruel tricks on you, but I’ve seen the error of my ways! I’ve seen the hurt look in your eyes when I’ve deceived you. I’ve been wrong, so wrong. Won’t you give a poor penitent girl another chance?”

Charlie Brown was moved by her display of grief. “Of course, I’ll give you another chance.” He stepped back as she held the ball, and he ran with all his might toward it. At the last moment, Lucy picked up the ball, and Charlie Brown fell flat on his back. Lucy’s last words were, “Recognizing your faults and actually changing your ways are two different things, Charlie Brown!”

Wow! The Peanuts gang is telling us exactly what 2 Corinthians 7 is telling us. I hope Lucy gets out of the 360.

Day 155

Today’s Reading: 2 Corinthians 6

In today’s chapter, Paul introduces us to a very important word, yoke. Listen to what Paul warns about it:

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. (2 Corinthians 6:14-16, TNIV)

This principle was familiar in this agricultural culture. Listen to what the Old Testament said about a yoke: “You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together” (Deuteronomy 22:10).

A yoke is a crossbar with two U-shaped pieces that encircle the necks of a pair of work animals that force them to work together as a team. It was essential to put together in it two of the same animals in size and species, like two oxen or two donkeys. You could not yoke two different animals like an ox and a donkey, because they were not like-minded and had different strengths. Both animals had to be the same so they could drive forward as one.

In today’s passage, Paul switches to putting different things inside the yoke—the believer and the unbeliever, because this is important for a successful future. Another way to define a yoke is it means to be stuck together for the journey. You are in a relationship through a device that says you can’t go where you want any longer.

Paul warns against being yoked with an unbeliever, someone who has not made Jesus Christ the Lord of their life. What kind of relationship could Paul be referring to? I believe this is true in dating and marriage. Yoked together has the idea of a long-term relationship, one that can’t be easily exited from—it can be in business, marriage, investment, partnerships. And Paul is warning us that to be unequally yoked with someone who does not let the Word of God have the final say in their life is a train wreck waiting to happen.

Paul adds four questions to this argument:

What do you have in common?

What harmony can there be?

Is there any agreement between you?

What kind of fellowship?

These are the four key words of being yoked to the unbeliever.

Let’s be practical for a moment. Remember we are dealing with believers in Jesus and unbelievers getting stuck in a long-term relationship, which cannot be terminated easily. In a dating relationship, the believer wants to wait to have sex in the context of marriage, while the unbeliever does not see a reason to wait. In a business deal, the believer may have ethical standards based on doing things with honesty and integrity, whereas an unbeliever sees the bottom line as the reason for doing something regardless of what they have to do to make money. In a marriage, how does a believer and an unbeliever raise their children? There is a conflict of values.

Paul is in no way saying we aren’t to have contact with people who don’t believe in Jesus. He is speaking specifically to the yoke—to a relationship in which you are stuck together, going somewhere together, but you have two different types of species in the yoke—one who says, “Jesus is Lord,” while the other says, “I am in charge of me.”

We live with people who don’t believe in the resurrected Jesus, go to school with them, see them at our children’s events, sit with them at football games. Those are not yokes. Having lunch, getting ice cream, doing dinner with a couple who are not Christians—that isn’t a yoke.

When I do things with unbelievers, I am not thinking fellowship, I am thinking ministry. I am thinking I want them to know about the greatest Person in the universe who loves them so much. It may take some time to introduce Jesus, but when the focus is ministry and not fellowship, then I look for opportunities. It’s about distinguishing between fellowship and ministry.

My job with unbelievers is not to be yoked with unbelievers, but I want to find a way to get them ready for heaven. As J. C. Ryle said, “The highest form of selfishness is that of the man who is content to go to heaven alone.” Let’s take a bunch of people with us today. But until they become believers, let’s not yoke ourselves with them.

Day 154

Today’s Reading: 2 Corinthians 5

One of the pieces of advice I give to expecting fathers is about the moment they leave the hospital with their first child. I tell them that while they’re still in the hospital, their baby will have around-the-clock care from professionals. Nurses and doctors will watch over that newborn, changing their diaper, and meeting every need. They are always just a button away from coming into the wife’s room. The moment the new parents step outside that hospital door, they’re on their own. It’s scary. And the place it starts is in the car. They put that little bundle of joy in the car seat for the first time and start driving. But Dad’s driving is now controlled by what’s in the backseat.

When my wife, Cindy, and I took our firstborn home from the hospital, I drove in a place that I had never been before—the slow lane. The speed limit was fifty-five but I have to tell you, I don’t think I ever hit that speed. All because I was being controlled by someone else, my newborn son.

The apostle Paul tells us the same thing about his life. He is a man under another person’s control: “For the love of Christ controls us” (2 Corinthians 5:14).

Why does Paul preach? His answer is that the love of Christ makes him do it. Paul is a helpless man. Paul is not deciding to do anything on his own. He cannot help himself.

Paul says that the “love of Christ controls us;” not “love for Christ” but Christ’s love for us. This is an important distinction. It should be our priority that we understand the love of God. Why does temptation and fear and lust often control us? Because we do not understand the love of Christ. To have a revelation of His love for us is to be controlled by that love. When we realize how much Christ loves us, something in that revelation says there is nothing greater that is in charge of our actions.

The word control is an important word. The King James Version uses the word constraineth.

I have a set of commentaries in my library that have always been helpful in interpreting words. Since the New Testament was written in Greek, it’s profitable that we occasionally expand on a word. Control is an important word for us to unpack. William Barclay’s New Testament commentary does this brilliantly. He says that the word control, which Paul uses in this verse, was used in four different ways in the first century when Paul decided to use it.

First, it was an instrument that pushed on the side of an animal to keep it from moving so the farmer could administer medication. It controlled the animal from moving away from something that would make it healthier.

Second, it forced a ship to stay straight as it was sailing through a narrow channel. If the ship was to go off course just a little it could be devastating. The control of that steering wheel kept the vessel straight ahead, because straight meant safety. It was keeping on course.

Third, it meant to be so completely occupied with business that the person has no time for anything extracurricular. Their life and schedule was controlled by their commitment to their job.

Fourth, it was a word used for a prisoner who was in the control of the prison. It meant their schedule was dictated, their meals arranged, and their future determined and under the prison’s control.

To Paul being controlled by the love of Christ means . . . keeping still to receive medicine for health; being kept from diverting off course; being so preoccupied with his job that very little else interests him; being a prisoner, in which his life is dictated by Christ’s schedule not his own. That’s how strong “control” is to Paul.

To put all of those definitions together, I think the New English Bible captures verse 14 well: “Christ’s love leaves us no choice.”

When Hudson Taylor, the man responsible for taking the gospel to China, interviewed candidates for the mission field, he would always ask about their motivations for service. One person told him, “I want to [be a foreign missionary] because Christ has commanded us to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” Another said, “I want to go because millions are perishing without Christ.”

After Taylor listened to the men give a number of different answers, he said, “All of these motives, however good, will fail you in times of testings, trials, tribulations, and possible death. There is but one motive that will sustain you in trial and testing; namely, the love of Christ.”

That’s what controlled Paul—the love of Christ.

Day 153

Today’s Reading: 2 Corinthians 4

Today’s chapter challenges us to remember that what’s on the inside determines our responses and reactions to outside forces. Listen to Paul’s outside issues that he has been facing: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9).

Wow! There is a lot of outside stuff trying to take out Paul. There is affliction, perplexities, persecution, and people attempting to strike him down. I like the way The Living Bible paraphrases it:

"We are pressed on every side by troubles, but not crushed and broken. We are perplexed because we don’t know why things happen as they do, but we don’t give up and quit. We are hunted down, but God never abandons us. We get knocked down, but we get up again and keep going."

Based on these outside forces, Paul needs a miracle to stay alive. Pastor Rick Joyner once said, “Most Christians long to see miracles, but they don’t want to be put in a position where they will need one.”

How in the world can Paul survive this? How can the apostle live through verses 8 and 9? He can face 8 and 9 because of verse 7: “We are like common clay jars that carry this glorious treasure within, so that the extraordinary overflow of power will be seen as God’s, not ours” (TPT).

We have a silly container housing an awesome treasure. God is in us! The Holy Spirit dwelling in us is the treasure. Never mistake packaging as the treasure. We are the clay pot, the Styrofoam cup, the brown paper bag with something of infinite value in us.

We contain it but we are not it. We are not the source, just the delivery system. Because of the treasure, no matter what we face, the treasure on the inside makes it possible to handle whatever happens on the outside.

Whenever there is something valuable, we put it in a museum behind indestructible glass in a beautiful building. But when God has a treasure, where does He put it? He puts it in a common clay jar, because it isn’t about the jar but about the treasure in the jar.

If you didn’t do this in high-school science class, you can Youtube it. If you take a paper cup and put it over a hot flame, what happens? The cup burns up. But (and here is where it gets really cool and very much 2 Corinthians 4:7-ish) if you put water in a paper cup and put it over the same fire, the cup will not burn. Did you get that? The cup with the water in it does not burn up. Why? Because what is in the cup changes the dynamics of the cup.

Scientifically speaking, the water can only reach a temperature of 212 degrees Fahrenheit before it turns to steam. Since the water is in constant contact with the paper cup, the paper cannot get any hotter than 212 degrees. However, in order for the cup itself to burn, it must reach a kindling point, which happens to be higher than 212 degrees. The water maintains the temperature of the paper at a constant 212.

Or to make it really simple, the contents of the cup (the water) take on the heat and protect the outer cup from the heat. The treasure within disperses the heat.

When I am perplexed when I don’t know how to decide or when I have been embarrassed, I may think I am out of resources, but I’m not out of God. All the verses say “not.” Why is the not in these verses? All because we have a treasure in this earthen vessel.

We must never confuse the contents and the container. It is not that our vessel is some indestructible vessel; it is the treasure that changes our dynamic. We can’t make it in life without that treasure in us. The outside forces win.

What’s on the inside determines the power of the outside elements, and if God is on the inside, then “if God is ‘in me,’ then nothing can be against me.”

Day 152

Today’s Reading: 2 Corinthians 3

Today’s chapter is so important because it is a challenge for the church and how we are supposed to look. As we keep attending church every Sunday, going to small groups, listening to preaching, what is the end game? Where is all of this heading? What’s the win? Maybe a better question is, “How do I know I am winning and on the right track?” In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul give us “the win”:

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

When you read the entire chapter, Paul recounts the story of Moses from thousands of years ago and what would happen to him every time he went on the mountain and talked with God. His countenance would change and radiate after being in God’s presence, and everyone saw it. But after some time away from the presence of God, the brightness would fade. Paul then explains that this new covenant brings something very special that the old covenant didn’t: change without the fading.

Paul is giving us the win. Let’s unpack this concept.

There are two really important thoughts here. First, there are the words, But we all with unveiled faces. This is huge. When Moses came down from the mountain, Moses’ face would shine from talking with God and he would put a veil over his face. Here is where the problem lies: some think he put on the veil because his face was so shiny and people couldn’t look at it. But that doesn’t seem to be the reason according to verse 13: “And [we] are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not look intently at the end of what was fading away.”

He would put the veil on his face to cover the fading not to cover the brightness. This distinction is important. It seems he wanted the children of Israel to think more was there than what really was. The veil was not to protect them from the brightness but to try to impress them that it was still there. The veil was to impress not to protect.

This is where Paul drops the new covenant bomb. He tells us that we all have unveiled faces. He’s saying, don’t try to hide behind something as if you’ve got something going on when you don’t. We have to be real to be changed. Stop pretending to be shiny when you are not. Then God can do something that lasts.

That’s the next part: “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (verse 18). Like Moses speaking to God and being changed, as we behold the glory of the Lord, it happens to us. What is the glory of the Lord?

Hebrews 1:3 says that Jesus is the glory of the Lord. And as we see Jesus, we are being transformed into the same image. The more we see Jesus in His Word, in His people, in His church . . . change is happening to us. Beholding is transforming. And the transforming is into the same image. That means we start looking like Jesus in our ways, attitudes, and actions.

That’s the difference between Moses and us. We don’t need a veil to hide fading, because it’s a transformation that has lasting effect.

Our end goal, our win is not to look like our church, our denomination, or our pastor. It is to look like Jesus. Anything else fades and we need to pull out the veil. And each day we see Jesus, we become more like Him.