Learning from Balaam (and avoiding the easy jokes), part IV

So here we go with Balaam, one more time...

In the first part, I talked about how it is possible to know who God is and still worship him wrong. In Balaam's case, he knew enough about God that God spoke directly to him, and he also knew that he would not be able to do or say anything other than what God told him to say. But just because he knew God, that didn't mean that he worshiped God. Balaam tried - three times - to go directly against the Will of God, even after God specifically told Balaam what His Will was.

In the second part, I talked about how we can fall into a trap sometimes where we focus so much on the Word of God that we neglect the Will of God. A comprehensive knowledge of the Bible is a wonderful thing for a Christian to have, and there are all sorts of benefits to studying the Word with other Christians as well as on your own. The Bible is here for a reason - but that reason is to give us a guide to God, not to be God. The Bible is our primary source for understanding on who God is and what He has to say to us, but it is not our only source, nor the ultimate source, for knowing who God wants us to be. God is the ultimate source for that. The Bible is filled with the wisdom of centuries' worth of people who hungered after God's righteousness. But a lot of that wisdom is very clearly saying that we have the opportunity to develop an intimate, open, personal relationship with God Himself, a relationship through which He speaks TO US through the Holy Spirit. In the drive to understand the Scriptures, it is important that we don't forget what the Scriptures are actually about. The same Holy Spirit that led everyone from Moses to Jeremiah to Matthew to Paul to John to write their portions of what we have now collected as the Holy Bible is the same Holy Spirit that is eagerly hoping to speak to each of us today.

And that's what the third part was all about: how the workings of the Spirit will produce changes in your life beyond those which you can produce in yourself. The circumcision of the heart does not come from knowing the Bible from cover to cover. It comes from opening up to the presence of God's Holy Spirit. That presence is very powerful and very real, but it is still up to us to decide to let that Spirit work in our lives.

There's one last little thing I want to look at from the story of Balaam that ties it all together.

Then Balak said to Balaam, "Neither curse them at all nor bless them at all!"

Balaam answered, "Did I not tell you I must do whatever the LORD says?"

Then Balak said to Balaam, "Come, let me take you to another place. Perhaps it will please God to let you curse them for me from there."

And Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, overlooking the wasteland.

Balaam said, "Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me." Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

Now when Balaam saw that it pleased the LORD to bless Israel, he did not resort to sorcery as at other times, but turned his face toward the desert.

- Numbers 23:25-24:1 (emphasis added)

What does that sorcery part mean? What was Balaam trying to do?

Balaam offered sacrifices to God - seven rams and seven bulls each of the three times, on seven separate altars - in an effort to receive a favor from God in the form of a curse on Israel, but God instead blessed Israel through Balaam's mouth each time.

So it seems obvious to me that God rejected Balaam's sacrifices. Not because they were improper sacrifices, but because the motivation behind the sacrifice - defying the directly spoken Will of God - was contrary to what God desired.

And that's what I want to talk about.

Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, "This man is the divine power known as the Great Power." They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his magic. But when they believed Philip as he preached the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw. When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money and said, "Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit."

Peter answered: "May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin."

Then Simon answered, "Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me."

- Acts 8:9-24

Simon knew that God is powerful. He had witnessed Philip working miracles through the power of the Holy Spirit. Simon knew that the Holy Spirit was being given to the Christians in Samaria, and - being one of those Christians - he wanted to be a part of that power. But his understanding of sorcery rubbed off on his understanding of God.

Simon, like Balaam, had fallen into a trap of believing that the power of God was a commodity to be used, something to be controlled, a force that could be turned to his advantage, bringing him wealth, power, and notoriety before men.

Peter sets Simon straight, rebuking him for trying to buy the power of God for his own use. Simon wasn't wrong to want the Holy Spirit. And really, I don't think he was wrong for wanting to spread the Holy Spirit. Notice again that he asks Peter and John to give him the Holy Spirit so that he could also spread the Holy Spirit himself in the same way that they did.

But that's where the flaw comes into his thinking - he wants power, even though it is a good and Holy power, for his own ends.

Balaam's entire existence was centered around using the power of God to further his own ends. And apparently it worked sometimes! In Numbers 22:6, Balak says of Balaam, "I know that those you bless are blessed, and those you curse are cursed." Balaam apparently had some kind of working relationship with God... But it was a relationship based on Balaam's short-sighted desire to use God's power for his own personal gain instead of a desire to let God's power be used in him to further God's own agenda.

At the root of that thinking is the idea that God can be bought off. The idea - common to Balaam and Simon - is that by performing certain rituals, by acting a certain way, by going through certain motions, they could get God to do them a favor. They thought they could put God in their pocket. This flawed view of how God works was shared by Jephthah, as well.

Bad news is... It didn't stop with Balaam, Jephthah, or Simon.

It's actually still around today.

Let's say you're at work (or school or whatever) and the day is over. You head outside, keys in hand, you get to your car, open it up, sit down, and just before you start it up, you realize that there's someone sitting in the passenger seat...

And it's that cranky lady from the DMV.

The one who failed you for your license test.

Twice.

She's already got a scowl on her face. The pencil is sharp and the clipboard is ready to take her incessant abuses as she marks every little failure for your drive home.

You start the car. You hear a slight "Hmph." She furiously scribbles a note and marks a big X somewhere on the top of the form.

That's when you remember to put your seatbelt on. Searching for some vague clue of approval in her face, you realize there is none to be had, and you put the car into gear.

As you come to the four-way stop in the parking lot (it's a big parking lot, OK?), the car to your right stops just a half-second before you do. As you sit there, waiting for the other car to go, you realize that its driver is applying make-up, talking on the phone, flossing, and steering with her knees all at once. After a minute passes, you finally decide to just go ahead and go through the stop sign. This is met with another quiet grunt of disapproval from Ms. Crankietta McCrabbybritches riding shotgun over there, who once again scribbles furiously.

This process continues as you begin your drive home. Reaching down to turn up the stereo? Scribble-grunt-scribble. Driving with one hand on the steering wheel? Grunt-scribble-scribble. Going 47 in a 45? Scribble-scribble-grunt-scribble-grunt-scoff-scribble.

By the time you're actually on the main road back to the house, you're so unnerved, you're so shaken, you're so paranoid about every little thing you do being met with the horrid disapproval of the horrid woman sitting next to you. You're sweating bullets, but you don't DARE take your hands from 10 and 2 to adjust the A/C. You're so fixed on the speedometer that you're distracted from the road, which of course leads to all sorts of sharp turns and slam-on-the-brakes stops at red lights.

It becomes the most miserable driving experience of your entire life, and it takes you twice as long as usual to get home - not because you're being forced to obey the law, but because you're so focused on nothing BUT obeying the law that you actually forget where you're going and how to get there. And when you DO get home, she hands you a list a mile long of all of your infractions, major and minor, moving and parking, down to the last detail - like using your turn signal at 998 feet from the turn instead of the full 1,000. She tells you that it is because - and only because - she's in a good mood that you actually passed and get to keep your license. If she had chosen to actually be fair in judging you, you'd be taking the bus everywhere you went for the rest of your life.

Far too many people view their relationship with God like the relationship with that DMV lady. It's as if God is constantly looking down on us, grunting His disapproval and jotting down notes for every little mistake we make, champing at the bit to tell us how badly we messed up once we finally get Home. They're convinced that God looks at us all and sees how badly we're all messing up, and it's only because of the mysterious force of God's Grace that we're even allowed to keep on living, much less eventually enter Heaven. And that trickles down into how those people see others. They wouldn't dare dream of judging anyone, for as they very well know, the Bible says, "Judge not lest ye be judged." But even in their not-judging, they're still pretty sure that everybody at that liberal church up the road is going to hell, and they know for a FACT that the long-haired guy walking down the road on Sunday morning with a lit cigarette in his lips is going to hell.

That mindset comes from the same stock as Balaam's belief that if he made the right sacrifices, he could get God to go against His own Will. It shares the same root as Jephthah's belief that if he paid God off in lip service and sacrifices, then God owed him one. It's the same fault that Simon had in thinking that if he gave somebody else the right stuff, then God would give him what he wanted.

There's this idea that if we go to the right church and read the right Bible and have the right friends and pray the right prayers and wear the right clothes and have the right haircut and say the right words and do the right whatever it is you want to do, then God will do you a big favor and let you into Heaven. But the only way that'll work is if you go to the EXACT right church and read the EXACT right Bible and have the EXACT right friends and do everything else EXACTLY right.

What that idea misses is that it's still just going through the motions. And when you're focused on the motions instead of the destination, you are bound to get lost.

In our walk with God, we are not meant to be focused on the path itself - we are meant to be focused on God.

And when we are truly focused on God, we realize that Christianity is not something we can do. Christianity is what we have to be.

If I were to put paint to a canvas, I would only produce an unmitigated disaster. I am not an artist.

My sister? People seriously pay solid cash money for her paintings. She is an artist. It's what she does because it's who she is. She can't stop. She doesn't know any other way to live. She didn't take classes to become an artist - she took classes to become a more skilled and refined artist. She didn't decide to be an artist - she decided to focus exclusively on art because it already took up so much of her life to begin with.

I am getting to a point where I don't know how to be anything else but a Christian, and that's because I finally stopped trying to do the right Christian thing and instead focused on being the right Christian man. My nature defines my actions, and my nature is defined by the Holy Spirit that lives in me, by the redemption I have found in Jesus Christ, and by the complete renewal of everything that makes me who I am by God Almighty.

I've learned a lot from Balaam. I've learned that I've got to be sure that I'm not just saying that God leads my life, but that I am actually putting my will aside to allow God to replace my will with His.

I've learned that I've got to let God's Holy Spirit work in me in such a way that when I read God's Word, I actually understand what He's saying to me, not just what I want Him to say to me. God's Will is my ultimate goal - God's Word is another step in getting me there.

I've learned that when I actually do get everything in me out of the way, God can do some pretty amazing stuff through me. I can take NO credit for any of the things He does - I was only tangentially involved at best.

And I've learned that it's not about what I do. It's not about what you do. It's not about what they do.

It's about who we are.

You can't do church.

You have to be church.

Go, then.

Be church.