Websters Dictionary defines a paradox as a statement that is seems contradictory or opposed to common sense yet is none the less true.  Like a person who drinks coffee to help them fall asleep.  This concept seem contradictory and opposed to common sense, since coffee is a stimulant that keeps most people awake but for some people coffee does act as a sedative that helps them fall asleep.  And in a similar way the “successful” Christian life is lived by faithfully doing what is contradictory to the actions you would take in order to be successful in the world. 

Take for example the concept of how a Christian is suppose to treat his enemy.  Jesus said in Matthew 5:43-48   43“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44“But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47“If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48“Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

It is natural to “hate” someone who does you wrong but a Christian is called to “love” his enemy, forgive his enemy, pray for his enemy and even help his enemy.  A Christian prays that his enemy will see the sinfulness of his actions and repent towards God for his actions.  It is not that a Christian does not have feelings of hate or thoughts of vengeance but he denies these feelings and thoughts because he is has been forgiven by God and is a child of God.  The Christian knows His Heavenly parent see all things and judges all things fairly.  The world can not understand why you would forgive your enemy of even reach out in “love” to help your enemy because this is kind of response is a “paradox” that only makes sense in light of Godly revelation, that God is the perfect judge who will take vengeance if necessary and settle all scores fairly.  Romans 12:19 Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY,” says the Lord.  A Christian is also called to examine his own heart to see he has sinned and caused the conflict with someone else.  A Christian is called to “fess up” when he has “messed up”.  For this is God’s purpose, that every person and every action and every thought is done according to God’s or repented of and reconciled to Him through faith in Jesus Christ.  2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

Note, a Christian’s love and forgiveness toward his enemy does not mean the Christian is suppose to “forget about the offense” or trust the one who has offended him, if that person has not displayed the good works of a repentant heart.  And while a Christian is supposed to help their enemy if they need food and shelter and medical assistance, a Christian is not suppose to “aid” an enemy in the act of sinning.  It is a Christian’s responsibility to bring a person to justice if they have broken the law of the land, unless the law that is broken is in conflict with God’s word, in which case the Christian is to honor the word of God above the word of man.

Another paradox of the Christian life is that God uses humble and often weak Christians to do His great and might work.  God is able to overcome circumstances that seem impossible to the world by His supernatural Spirit.  Zechariah 4:6 Then he said to me, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel saying, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the LORD of hosts.  Many times God’s Spirit fell upon a faithful person, like Samson, which enabled them to do supernatural things that glorified God (well, that is until Samson became unfaithful, then God’s Spirit left and so did Samson’s mighty strength).  And at other times an Angle of the Lord would supernaturally delivered God’s people from their powerful enemy, like the time the Angle of the Lord killed 185,000 Assyrians one night in their camp before they could mount an attack against Jerusalem.  And the battle plan that destroyed Jericho called for priests and the Jewish people to circle the walls of the city for seven day, singing praise songs to God while blowing shofars.  You can see this battle plan for God’s people was a paradox which contradicted the normal battle plans of men, yet because of their faithfulness towards God, the Jews overcame their enemy.

And the paradox of a successful life of faith in the Old Testament is echoed in the New Testament.  Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”    The successful Christian life is not one of boasting in our own abilities and accomplishments but a life spent boasting of the accomplishments of the Lord “in us” and “through us”.  A Christian must “die to his self oriented agenda” and do the good works that Christ has prepared for him.  This is the way to truly live and have joy in life; “trust and obey for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey”.  However, doing the good works of God is contradictory to the way the world tells us to “follow our heart” and “trust our self“.  The number one song sung at funerals for those who have died without Christ is “I did it my way“.  But a successful Christ life is one where people remember the person as singing “I did it God’s way” as he lived his life by the motto “Not me but Thee“.

My pastor points out that the hardest thing to do now is “die to self and live for Christ”, loving and serving so they too will know the love of Jesus.  But in Heaven serving the Lord will be the “number one” thing everyone will desire to do, however a person’s “privilege” to serve Christ in Heaven will be based on that person’s faithful service that is given to Christ “now” while he is on earth.  Jesus came to serve others, not be served (Matthew 20:28).  And in the same way, a Christian is to follow the example of Jesus and serve others in Jesus name.

This simple truth exposes the lies of the “health and wealth” gospel, which is focused on God serving me, giving me what I want.  Yes, God gives comfort and healing to those who come to Him but the purpose of that comfort and healing is so that when you are comforted by God, you will go and comfort others, telling them about the source of your comfort (2 Corinthians 1:4).  The paradox of the Christian life is that our joy is found in serving others, not being served by others.  You can even spell it out JOY – Jesus, Others and lastly Yourself.  And this “joy of the Spirit” that is so hard to obtains because we have to “deny our sin nature” will be “easy – pesy”  in Heaven because we won’t have a sin nature.  Yet, the privilege to experience the “joy of serving Christ in Heaven” will be determined by the degree we faithfully served Christ on earth, now.

People don’t want to experience despair in life but when you are in a situation where you can see no hope in this world, thats the time when you will call out to the hope beyond this world.  When you get to the end of your rope … there’s Hope!  Despair when seen through the lens of Christian paradox is a really a blessing that introduces you to the limits of the world, the flesh and the Devil and the limitlessness of God.  Despair is a gift, that reveals life for what it really is … a place of no hope, except for the Hope of God that is found in Christ Jesus. 

Most people know the story of the birth of Jesus, when the Angels appeared to shepherds in a field declaring “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.” – Luke 2:14  But most people don’t know that the “peace among men” that the Angels declared is not a peace that is manufactured “by men” who agree to get along with one another and tolerate one another’s sin.  The peace that Christ brings is a “peace with God” that is possible through a new Spiritual birth in Jesus Christ, with whom God is well pleased.  Jesus, explains that He did not come to build a Kingdom of peace on earth at this time but He came to build the Kingdom of peace with God in Heaven!   And the “peace with God” that Christ gives to those who “enter” the Kingdom of Heaven (by grace through faith in Jesus Christ) will cause them to be “at war” with those who “remain” in the Kingdom of Earth.  

Matthew 10: 34“Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35“For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, 36and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.  37“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 38“And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. 39“He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.

This is the “paradox of peace” that the world cannot comprehend.  Jesus is saying that you must put your allegiance to God above your allegiance to your family members.  If your family members tells you they will “disassociate” you from the family if you confess a belief in Jesus, then you are to deny your family and stand with Christ.  And if you think you have life all figured out and you are in need of nothing then at death you will “loose your life” in the Lake of Fire because you have died in your sin without Christ.  But if you confess your greatest need in life is to be rid of your sinful self and born again into a new eternal life in Jesus Christ, then you have “lost your sinful life” and “found your new life in Christ”.  And I think this truth, as revealed by Jesus, is the greatest paradox that contradicts human reasoning:  Matthew 10:29 “He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.”  Moreover, the paradox of living the Christian life is the message of this web site “die2live“.

Another example of the paradox of Christian living is seen in the teaching concerning the two “types” of the Bible characters.  The first type is the natural man of sin who only sees the world by his “human reasoning” the second type is the Spiritual man, who sees the world through the eyes of God.   Adam was the first man of self and sin, while Christ is the second man of God, perfect and Spirit filled.  In the same way we are born “first” a physical man of sin sentenced to death but we can be “born-again” Spiritually in Christ as a “second” man inheriting eternal life in Christ.  The Spiritual man may seem like a “fool” to the world but the paradox is that his humble confession of belief in Christ holds more truth and power than anything he can do on his own.  

The first born man was Cain who offered a sacrifice of “his works” from his field, the second born man was Able who in obedience offered a blood sacrifice of an animal.  God is pleased by our humble obedience not our own works and reasoning.  God already has it figured out, we can’t improve on His plan or offer Him anything of value other than our worship for what He has already done.  The first born son of Abraham was Ismael, the child from the handmaid of Sarah, the second son born to Abraham was Isaac from his wife Sarah.  Isaac was the son God promised would be born even though Abraham and Sarah were far beyond child bearing years.  The first king of Israel of human statue and strength was Saul, the second born was David, a humble man after God’s own heart.

And when David as a youth is standing without any armor against the giant warrior Philistine, this my friends is a picture of a paradox.  How could David prevail, except that God was with him in the battle.  And Paul echoes the paradox of following Jesus in Philippians 1:21 “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”  You have to be born again with Christ Spirit confirming God’s word to you, to understand that dying and clinging to Christ is much better than living and clinging to this world.  And those who without Christ cling to this world because it is the only “heaven” they will ever know, while Christians cling to the hope of the resurrected Christ because this is the only “hell” they will every know.

Let me clear something up about human reasoning and the comments highly intellectual people sometime makes about Christians, calling them “fools” who believe blindly in God.  Actually, just the opposite is true because God has called us to love Him with all our heart, soul, “mind” and strength.  Christians use their mind to examine the evidence of this world and this evidence points to the reality that the world was created by an Intelligent Designer, God.  This “general” revelation agrees with the “special” revelation of God’s word, that declares God created the Heavens and the Earth (Genesis 1:1).  It is right to use your mind to honestly question God and seek the truth, for God is “the truth” (John 14:6), therefore by seeking the truth we will find God.  What is wrong, is to use your mind to “deny” the overwhelming evidence of truth in the world that proves the world was created by an Intelligent Designer, God.  Plus it is wrong to see the evidence of decay and death in the world and be apathetic towards death and have no desire to be free from it.  And it is wrong to ignore the Spiritual conviction from God upon your conscience that causes you emotional pain when you sin.  The curse that causes death and destruction in the world is man’s “sin” and the cure is a new life in Jesus Christ.  Those who put their faith in Christ will one day live with Christ in a new resurrected body that never dies and is free from sin.

The world tells people to follow their heart and focus on satisfying their selfish desires to reach the pinnacle of happiness but the Bible tells us just the opposite is true.  “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” – Jeremiah 17:9  Therefore, we must deny self and trust in Christ to find true joy and happiness.

“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” is a well-known phrase in the United States Declaration of Independence. The phrase gives three examples of the “unalienable rights” which the Declaration says have been given to all human beings by their Creator, and which governments are created to protect.

Unfortunately, our government has failed to protect the rights to “Life” of the unborn, and America is being judged by God because of this, as hearts are getting hard and love is getting cold.  And our “Liberty” is infringed upon by the mountains of debt that our government accumulates by catering to special interest and starting social programs that have no real value.  Finally, the “pursuit of Happiness” is a misleading right because “happiness” is a blessing from God that is given to those who pursue “holiness”.  In other words “happiness” cannot be directly pursued but it is a “byproduct” bestowed by God upon those who pursue “holiness”.  And this is perhaps the most amazing paradox of the Christian life that the world cannot understand.  Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.” – Matthew 16:24

Here’s a song I wrote about the “Paradox of Christ“.

Paradox-of-Christ

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