What You “THINK & DO” About Evil Matters (Part 2)

In my first article on this subject we were looking at how many have considered evil a battle we can’t win and often people resign themselves to just try to avoid it as best they can. This is the lie that comes from Satan to persuade us to give up before we try. I used as an illustration the Star Wars saga and the battle of what seems to be weak rebels and the mighty corrupt empire. In real life we are confronted by many forms of evil from telling simple lies to out-and-out brutality. Evil is a fact but doesn’t have to win the day. God made us with the ability to not only challenge evil but also to win over it. According to the apostle Paul that’s called a “Good Fight”. If you haven read that first article please do so before reading this second installment on this subject.

During the time of Jesus ministry, evil was in full swing. For the people of God, the Jews, they seem to be on the short end of the stick and were dominated not only by evil but it was in the rule of the Romans which had no tolerance for rebellion or the rejection of their authority. It was during this time that Jesus started his ministry with the subject of the “Good News called the Gospel. The Gospel in a nut shell was the revelation that the evil that confronts us daily can be overcome with God’s help and in fact God is not against us but for us.

The Jewish believers and mindset was God is ticked off and we better do better. It was the message of the Pharisees about obeying more rules and doing it better “before” we can experience God’s love and mercy. Jesus message in the gospel was so radically different that it took many miracles to convince just a few that his message was true. At the end of Jesus ministry, after three and a half years with even his closest friends in the twelve apostles, everyone deserted him and he dies on the cross of Calvary. You should think if God was ever fed up with humanity it was then, but instead he rose from the dead and conquered death to prove God’s true intentions and the lie that Satan had permeated with mankind that we could never overcome the evil that was not only in the world but also in our own hearts.

Jesus came to confront the evil of Satan’s lies: first that God could not be trusted and second, that he did not love us while we were broken. The apostle John opened the very heart of God that we today often take for granted.

John 3:16-18

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. [17] “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. [18] “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 

More often than not human reason concludes God does not love us because of what we are experiencing in our past or current circumstances. We develop an attitude that is almost impossible to change. So let’s consider first “What We Think” and see if there is a better way to live. What I would call “The Gospel Way” or the “Jesus Way”. Lets look at three main ideas and see how they either fit into the way we should be thinking, or not. See how you process your idea of what’s true.

Attitude – Definition (simply taken from google)

A settled way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, typically one that is reflected in a person’s behavior.

Affective component: this involves a person’s feelings / emotions about the attitude object. For example: “I am scared of spiders”. Behavioral (or conative) component: the way the attitude we have influences how we act or behave. … Cognitive component: this involves a person’s belief.

The pharisees during Jesus day could not believe what Jesus was teaching about truth and reality because they had settled to one type of interpretation of God’s word and no young rabbi was going to change their mind. Looking at today, I think we experience the same “Attitude” with a lot of Jesus teaching but instead of arguing with him we just ignore him and his word. Remember Jesus teaching about “belief” and the power it has when based on God’s word? Consider the story of the man with the demon possessed boy. He wanted the boy healed and in fact begged Jesus disciples to heal him of the demons tormenting him yet nothing happened when they prayed. Jesus comes along and assesses the problem that many of us have a hard time embracing.

Mark 9:21-24        Demon Possessed Boy & Father’s Belief

And He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. “It has often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!” And Jesus said to him, “ ‘If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, “I do believe; help my unbelief.” 

This father was confronted with his true attitude about Jesus and his ability to heal. He believed “Partly” but not fully. Why? I think the father had the same problem many of us have, including me. We confess a “Belief” but in our hearts we are not convinced. You see we have an attitude that often hinders our ability to embrace “Fully” who and what Jesus teaches. Our minds agree to some extent but our will and heart are not committed to that information. Why? Attitude. We have a blockage in our soul that stops us like a bully and says, “You Can’t Have That”, no matter what you think you believe. Look at what Google says about attitude. This is a secular writing that makes a lot of sense yet we still reject it because of our attitude from past or current experiences.

Google –A positive attitude helps you cope more easily with the daily affairs of life. It brings optimism into your life, and makes it easier to avoid worries and negative thinking. If you adopt it as a way of life, it would bring constructive changes into your life, and makes them happier, brighter and more successful.

So simply coming at things with a positive attitude can help us tackle some really difficult things not to mention the journey becomes better as well.

Let me close this portion with this idea. Your thinking makes all the difference to your journeys destination. If God has called us to become more than conquerors than we have to start dismantling what hinders our thinking to gain that victory.

Questions:

1) How is your attitude towards truth? Do you find accepting and following the words of Jesus difficult? Maybe the problem is in your attitude and not with what the word of God says. Ask the Holy Spirit to heal any attitude sickness you might have.

2) Has your past created an attitude wall that seems impossible to get over? Read stories of impossible struggle other saints have had in the word and that wall will start to grow smaller day by day.

Pastor Dale