When Data leads to Sin

 We live in a data driven world.   We are collecting and recording more data than we ever have in all of history thanks to technology.   Data is a very power tool when used correctly.  It can be very helpful, and can help you personally or your business to improve greatly.  Now, there are some common misuses uses of data like stealing a person's  identity, or tracking people without their true consent.   While I think that is sinful, that is not what I want to focus on today.   

Despite the amount of data we have today, data has always been around and gathered in different ways.  There is an example in the Bible in 2 Samuel 24, and also recorded in 1 Chronicles 21 about David taking a census to gather data on how big his army was.  The result was that this census was a sin that David admitted to after it had been committed, but it does not describe what exactly the sin is.   There are 2 common theories, both of which are pitfalls for us to watch out for today.   

The 1st Theory is that David was filled with pride and he wanted to feed even more into that pride by boasting great numbers for his army.   "look at me, and how powerful my kingdom is!"   We don't really know if this is right, but I think this the most likely theory as this seems to have happened towards the end of David's reign and my perception was the fighting was slowing down as Solomon takes over for a peaceful reign.  When data is used to point at how great "we" are, that is a case when data leads to sin.

The 2nd theory is that David wanted to know how big his Army was to determine what he was capable of doing with it.  Based on what I said above about the 1st theory, this seems less likely in this particular scenario.  However, I think this type of sinful use of data is a bigger problem for us today.  We need to understand that data is amoral, just as guns, or money is amoral.  It is neither good nor bad, it is how it is used by the individual or business that determines if it is righteous or sinful.   

Let's play with theory #2 a bit, but lets put David into the present culture.  He wants to know how many troops he has so he can make an informed decision about a military move he is considering making.  No one for a second would think there is anything wrong with this approach today, in fact it would be expected that the census be taken along with many other data points.

This is how we operate in normal life today.  So much so that for David NOT to gather the data would be considered sinful to our culture.  He would be labeled a reckless leader, irresponsible, and not fit to hold the position of king if he didn't gather and analyze the data. So, if  we so blindly go down the path of data analysis without a second thought for every decision we make, is it possible that the use of our data is sinful and we don't even realize it?  What would God be upset about, and what are we not considering today as use data to make almost every decision? 

It's easy to see where God would have a problem with running a completely data driven life if we look at other stories in the Bible.  There are so many stories I can't even begin to scratch the surface of them in this blog, but lets take a look at a few of them real quick.   Noah.  The data did not support putting effort into building an Ark.  Good thing he didn't listen to the data.   When Israelites were first going to enter the promised land, the spy's went and gathered data about the land and the military forces their.  The data showed that the land was great, but the people were too strong for the Israelites to defeat.  It just didn't look good on paper (or maybe a stone tablet).  So they didn't go in when they should have.  To bad, they listened to the data...   When the Israelites went into the promised land a generation later, they marched around Jericho 1 time per day for 6 days, and then 7 times on the 7th day, and the walls came down and captured the city!   This was not a "data driven" military decision!

So, what is the message here?  Well, I think the message is, if we are not careful data becomes a false idol.  It replaces God's leading in our lives, and limits what we can do.  It takes away our faith that God can do anything despite the circumstances or the data.  It leads us to believe that we are all knowing with the data that we have.   Our culture has lifted data to a position it should not be in.  Data might be all the atheist has to lean on for guidance, but lets not let that limit Christian leadership and decision making.  Let's put data in its rightful spot!       

Standing your ground when others retreat

 Was reading 2 Samuel 23 this morning.  The second half of the chapter talks about David's Mighty Men.   These guys didn't mess around and it is encouraging to read about men of courage!   I have read an entire book on Beniah, one of the men mentioned in this chapter several years ago called "In a pit with a lion on a snowy day"  by Mark Batterson.   That is a great account of courage and masculinity at its finest, but it is not the part of the chapter that stuck out to me today.   

Today I read about Eleazar, who in a battle with the Philistines stood his ground.   When the Philistines attacked the Israelites retreated, but the Bible says that Eleazar stood his ground.    So, if you picture this you see that the enemy is coming at you, which is frightening enough, but then you look to your right and your left and you see your fellow Israelites running away.   

Eleazar had a choice to make.   The natural thing to do would be to retreat with the rest of the Israelites, but something inside of him caused him to make a different choice.  As I said before the Bible records that Eleazar stood his ground.    You might think Eleazar just wanted to die an honorable death, but it appears he had no intention of dying!    Eleazar seems to have killed all of Philistines on his own!   It says to fought so long his hand was frozen to the sword, as in he was gripping that sword so hard, for so long his joints kind of locked up and he couldn't loosen his grip.    It doesn't say how many he killed but the context of the story seems pretty clear that the odds were not in his favor!  We need more men like Eleazar today.   

It was not "wise" for him to stay and fight.  We have lots of wise sayings and philosophies that lead us to peace and safety.  The phrase "live to fight another day" is one of them.  Good thing Eleazar didn't follow that one.  I'm certainly not  throwing wisdom out the door, but I think we need a little less wisdom and little more bravery.  Or maybe it is better said, a little less wisdom that is self centered and all about avoiding any risk.    

Eleazar defied the odds, and that is what makes him great.   Something inside of us loves a story like this.  It is inspiring!   As of this writing I don't see this physical battle scenario unfolding in my life.  But you never know.  What I do see though is a culture war, where Gods ways are under attack.  So much so, that I much our society retreating as the ways of the enemy are main stream now.   Do we retreat?  Do we just go with the flow?  Or do we stand our ground like Eleazar?  God is looking for Eleazars to not be shaken.  To stand their ground.  To stand for what is right and not be intimidated by what seems to be a battle we are not going to win.   The odds are always on your side when you are aligned with God.  Stand strong!  

Maintaining Personal Peace in Chaotic Times

 It is easy to find peace in peaceful times.  When our environment has order in it, it naturally produces peace in us.   It is great when that happens.  (kind of)   Jordan Petersen says that order is "when we set out to do something, we do it, and the result is what we expected"  That makes a lot of sense.  Order=Peace. The challenge comes when we try to maintain peace when our culture is chaotic.  In our post-Christian culture the world is increasingly chaotic.  

So, how did we get here?  What I think happens is throughout peaceful/orderly times we get lazy and look to the environment/society to sustain order and peace.  The problem is that we begin to think peace comes from the culture, and we put our faith and trust in the culture.  It is a mistake to put faith in a human culture.  Even a good one.  But even worse than that is expecting to continually receive peace from a society without putting anything into it. that is very foolish.   It would be like planting a field the 1st year and not planting it ever again and expecting to reap a continual harvest.  When we stop sowing seed, and stop pulling weeds it is not going to end well.   The culture soon becomes more weeds than crops.  There are no Christian freebies handed out by society today.  And even though this change did not happen overnight, every person comes to a point of  realization where it hits them that they can't go with the flow of society any longer.  It can be a rude awakening!   

We have been riding on an innertube in the lazy river of what was a Christian culture.   Everything was flowing just fine, but over time it slowed down and eventually started flowing backwards.  

Physically speaking over the last couple of years I have been intentional about staying in shape and looking for ways to make sure I am capable if strength, endurance, and survival skills are required.  The thing is, none of these things are required right now, so it seems like a waste of time to many people because our technology world takes care of everything for us.  We are terribly dependent on technology.   We are slave to it if we don't have an option to survive without it.  But.. that may be a blog for another day.  However, this physical example parallels exactly what we should have been doing spiritually/morally/ethically within our society instead of just floating along.  The society we were dependent on has turned on us and does not serve Christians well any longer.   

So, now we are floating in the lazy river that is now flowing the wrong way,  So, what do we do when we can't ride the innertube around the lazy river of a Christian culture?   We need to ditch the innertube and start swimming against the flow of the culture.   Sadly, many won't commit to that.  It is to hard and they are not conditioned to do that kind of work.  Many were born in the lazy river and have no idea what it means or how to even start to swim upstream.

Spiritually speaking, it is chaos right now in the culture.  Things are not happening as we would expect them to.  When we are in chaos we go into a survival mode.  survival mode is a struggle to establish some basic level of personal order.  in a physical scenario, you need food, water, shelter, and an area that is protected.  While it is tempting to just go off grid and go live in the woods or the mountains somewhere, that isn't our calling.  So, what does it look like to meet those survival needs spiritually establish order/peace without dis-engaging entirely from the culture?    

We have to establish ourselves on something secure and stable.  Something orderly.  For Christians that is the word of God.   The culture used to be aligned with the word of God, so we jumped in the lazy river and the culture became our source and our comfort and what we were guided by.  Again, we should not have made that mistake, but we did.  Now, we now need to independently establish/reestablish that foundation in God's word.  That, with a vibrant relationship with the living God, provides firm footing for us even when the waters are rushing against us.   What does that look like?    It looks like Steven in the book of Acts before he is murdered for opposing the culture.   He finds bliss in a vision of Jesus sitting at the right hand of the father.  The fear, the intimidation, the pressure to back down had no effect.  There was something greater than any threat this world could dish out to him.  It also looks like Paul and Silas in prison singing joyful songs and worshiping God in the most miserable of circumstances.   Both of these examples were NOT going with the flow of the culture.  They found peace outside of the culture and in the hope provided by Jesus Christ.  (where our peace should have been the whole time)     

In all things the culture throws at us, we must view them through the lens of the Bible.  Does it flow against the word of God?  We must look past the surface of what is presented and have discernment to see what is happening underneath, to be able to judge what is truly happening.   Not everything that happens is evil, but sadly we can no longer can we trust institutions are just going to do what is right.  

So, maintaining personal peace and order in our lives through the truth of the living word of God is right where we need to be.  It pulls us out of the matrix that our culture has had us in.   Yes, we need to swim upstream, we need to reverse the flow, but we will not be able to do this without maintaining our foundation, and our personal peace found only in Jesus.  It will take a supernatural peace that passes all understanding for us to endure this fight against the evil one.  We will be victorious!   

Stepping into Greatness

Change is hard.   I like change most of the time, but it is still hard.  I spent pretty much most of 2012 working on changing the only one I can change.  Me.   I would listen to ideas and try to comprehend.  At first the ideas would go way over my head.  After listening again, I would kind of get it, then I would get it, but not know how to apply it.   Then I would apply it, but it would be awkward like the first time you ride a bike.   Then you start to get a good handle on it.   Next thing you know what you thought you were getting good at in reality was just level 1 out of 1000 on the scale of greatness.  :)   Its frustrating and motivating all at the same time.  I love that humbling moment, and I think God enjoys it to.  I feel like I have it figured out then he opens up a new revelation.  A new perspective and it changes everything.  I am thankful for those that God puts in my life to show me those things. 

I need to be working harder to try to stay uninvolved from the things that can steal time from the things I need to be focused on.  There are always a million things that need done, but I believe that God only gives us just enough things to fill our day.  Chances are if I don't have enough time in the day to do what I need to do, then I am doing some things I shouldn't be doing.  The enemy is great at providing those distractions.  He doesn't just provide evil distractions either.  He provides nice things to do.  Ways that you can help people and ways that you can do many other wonderful things.  We have to be listening closely to Holy Spirt to know what is right.  If we settle for good, we can never be great.   Stepping into "greatness" means stepping away from "good".  Greatness never seems to stay in one spot either.  If we get a hold of it and think we can stop we are kidding ourselves.  What is great today is good tomorrow and worthless the next.   I just want to keep moving forward and striving for greatness in all of the areas of life.   David could have been satisfied with killing Goliath, and not become a great king.  What would this world be if Jesus wasn't willing to go to the cross, but instead just kept doing good things for the people he came in contact with?   I'm praying for vision to see past good into great!  

Stepping Out Of The Past But Not Forgetting It

I read in Ezekiel this morning. It shows great symbolism in how God saved Israel and raised her into a beautiful queen. God rescued her. She was abandoned as a newborn. Still covered in blood from her birth, no one even bothered to clean her up. God found her and cared for her, and adorned her with precious gifts and jewels. What was left on the ground as worthless was transformed by God into royalty; into someone who was priceless. If only the story ended there...

All of the love and the blessing they received was out of the relationship they had with God. They turned from God and worshiped idols, and commit terrible sins. Worse sins than Sodom. With great blessing comes great responsibility. We must be able to manage the freedom, power, and relationship that God gives us. A huge part of that is remembering what God has done for us and where he has brought us from.

-Ezekiel 16:22 2 In all your detestable practices and your prostitution you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, kicking about in your blood.

Israel forgot who loved them when they were nothing, and forgotten by the rest of the world. They forgot the one that brought them to the place of prosperity. People deal with blessing in different ways. Some people in their walk with God choose to stay in the state they were when God found them. They refuse to seek or accept anything good from God. Their life is lived barley getting by. They have no authority, no power, and no blessing other than the gift of eternal life. Others step out of the old life and into the new, but never learn responsibility. They take the blessings, and don't know how to handle them. Like the person who has been poor there whole life and then wins the lottery. They spend every penny and don't plan for the future. Soon they are more poor than before they won the lottery. They get so caught up in the the here and now that they have forgotten where they came from. This is what happened to Israel. I was taught when I was little, to work for things, because then you will appreciate them more. And there is definitely some truth to that. While we do contend for things in prayer, we always get far more than we have earned. It's called grace, and living in a world of grace requires great maturity.

We are responsible for the way we manage the resources that God gives us. No blessing is greater than the blessing of relationship with the creator. This relationship must continually be cultivated and poured into. Not just so God stays happy, and not so we can get what we want. Here is the deal... God is all powerful - all knowing - and is everywhere at the same time. pretty impressive huh? What I think is more impressive is how he completes us. Everywhere that we fall short in our own abilities is where there is a piece of God that can fit into your life and make it whole. And that is not just a spot here or a couple spots over there. Its everywhere. It is how it was always supposed to be! It is unnatural for us not to have God. He is not an add-on to your life. He is the critical part in the core of your being. He is a perfect fit, and when we are together a new world is before us, with rules that are different than the world we came from. It is realm where anything is possible. It is a place where dreams are not only dreamed, but fullfilled. It is our job to explore and learn and enjoy, but never forgetting where we came from or how we got where we are. Stay aware of your past, but don't live in it!

The Joy of Repentance

1 Samuel 15:22 22 But Samuel replied: "Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.

This verse came to my mind last night during Bible study, and I think as we study repentance it is important. I think this is pretty easy to understand. God delights more in our obedience than he does in our sacrifice/repentance. However, something happens when we don't live up to that standard. It is almost like we would rather fake the obedience thing and not repent for our sin. Yes, obedience is better than sin, but sin with repentance is much better than sin with fake obedience! There is a bitter sweet joy that comes with repentance. But lets think about why repentance is bitter and hard to do, and also why it is sweet and an amazing thing to do. It is bitter and hard to do only for our flesh. It is painful for our pride and our ego. It is sweet and joyful, because our spirit comes alive again in the area where it was cut off from God. God immediately comes and breaths life over us where sin had separated us from God. Repentance is the first righteous thing that we can do in response to our sin. Certainly God would rather we not sin and not have to repent, but should we fall short his delight is in our repentance. It is the enemies plan not only cause us to sin, but to put such shame and condemnation on us that we don't feel like we can go to God and get this straightened out. The enemy knows that causing sin is only half of the battle after what Jesus has done for us. After sin he continues to bring an unhealthy guilt, with bombardments of accusations. He tears us down to the point where we do not feel worthy to go to God, or we are scared of God. I really feel that this lie needs to be exposed. We can always go to God. His response to our sin when we approach him in humble repentance is always to love - heal - and restore. So there is joy in repentance, and we should be quick and eager to repent should we fall short in our obedience to him. Have a great day!

Living only for God

I seem to find it difficult to keep my focus where it should be. It's sorta like a spiritual ADD or something I guess. He opens a door for me, and I go for it. I start out good, working for God and good things happen. But I become so passionate about it that it consumes me, and instead of my eyes being on God and his purposes, I have focused my eyes on the task at hand. Eventually I identify myself so closely to the task at hand that I cannot seperate the two. I become the task and the task becomes God. I feel like a leach that sucks the glory out of what God is doing sometimes. Not that I openingly say "this is becuase of me", but there is something inside of me that says it is. We have to be so careful! I don't think God's desire is for us to have no joy or have no satisfaction in serving him. It seems to be such a fine line sometimes though. First of all, we need to remember that we don't have to earn our salvation, we don't have to do good things to make it to heaven. From a human standpoint, I think I have worked my whole life to impress people, and I feel like I have to do that with God too, and that is not the case. But I want God to be proud of me you know...? "Well done my good and faithful servant"... That's what I want to hear. To me that verse translated says, "I'm proud of you". So naturally, I want to help my cause so that I can hear that. but there I go again, back to works to try to earn my place. I get that God loves us, and that love is unconditional, but something inside wants me to do more to earn more. Being competitive does not help this situation at all... It seems to be the satisfaction and success of what I do that motivates me to work so hard. I need a perspective change. The love I have for God needs to be my motivation. Doing work to get something back is not God's kind of love. His love is selfless. I suppose we need that we are so spirtually wealthy, that we don't have to do anything, because we have all that we could ever want, but we still work just because we love God. And in addition to this, I probably love God for what he has done for me. that's probably not right either. I mean, he has certainly done enough to earn my love, but should it be like that...? I dont' think so. I think my task is to look at God for who he is, and get to know his person, not his works. I need to fall in love with God on a new level. hmm... interesting... Didn't see this blog ending up this way. lol Thanks God ;)