Why do we keep talking about Ravens?
1. Because we are terrible listeners
There is a paradox of knowing the truth with our head but not feeling it is true in our hearts. This may be why Jesus most often spoke and taught using very succinct but somewhat mysterious stories. His story of the Raven is one of these examples. He knows that our attention wanders, yet we are captured by stories.
“Jesus knows that part of the human condition is that we are terrible listeners.” said Theologian and Pastor; Tim Mackie. “It’s very difficult to hear the voice of another person over our own voice going on in our own heart and mind. Listening is actually one of the most difficult things that we can do on a daily basis. To truly listen is difficult for us, and Jesus knows this. Apparently, this was part of (Jesus) motivation for using (short analogies, stories and parables) to get our attention. For Jesus these were not little helpful illustrations to help make everything clear. These (stories) actually, seem to function the opposite way. They were puzzling and inviting stories that force us to do the work of thinking and listening as we consider Jesus.”
2. Because Jesus doesn’t want us to miss his Kingdom
In the Gospel of Matthew we learn the main goal of Jesus coming to earth.
From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Matthew 4:17 KJV
His purpose was to introduce us to God’s Kingdom. Somewhere along the way, we have missed it. Our faulty understanding is that we live in the “old creation” and broken world, slugging through it throughout our life, performing as best we can, in the hope that when we die we go to heaven. Then we will be able to experience the freedom that Jesus claimed for us. This is illustrated below.
We have a problem: that’s not what Jesus said! He said “The Kingdom is at hand.” It is here. Jesus came to usher in and announce God’s Kingdom invasion of our world; God is taking back what He originally created and what we have hijacked. Now God’s Kingdom has intersected our world as illustrated below.
Jesus announced that we don’t need to live in bondage. When we discover his Kingdom is here, we can live freely in this world and God’s Kingdom simultaneously. We can discover ourselves, our true identity and experience the freedom Jesus offers us in this life…and this is what God’s Kingdom gives us access to.
The only thing that allows you to live without fear is to live in the Kingdom of God.
From the book Renovated, Jim Wilder
Yet, for so many, life’s experiences seem to have robbed us from believing this can be true. So many men struggle with unforgiveness of themselves and others as victims of circumstances too difficult to overcome. Past pain has been so deeply stuffed and unresolved that it feels like there is little hope for freedom. Many living a joyless existence, wandering and relentlessly searching for ways to kill the pain. Others, have taken a path of performance and self reliance to achieve freedom. Believing that freedom comes from our own hard work and good behavior.
The Kingdom of God is here for us to live in it. It can be our home today. God and his reign has already collided with earth and when we begin to grasp that, we can begin to see that Jesus, in his challenge to consider the Raven, is assuring us that we are in fact, already in the Kingdom of God, and therefore are safe and can place our trust fully in it.
If you are unable to see yourself living in the Kingdom of God, you will constantly be troubled by the things you either didn’t get in this life or the things you have wanted. And you will be tempted to take things that are not good for you. When that doesn’t work you will be disappointed and hurt and angry and you will probably reject yourself and others around you. You will not be able to love those that are in your presence. You will be filled with fear because you are trying to run your own kingdom.
Jim Wilder, Renovated
Embracing Powerlessness
As we studied in week one, Jesus draws attention to the Raven and says; they don’t plant, harvest, or store anything. In this sense, they are powerless. And Jesus makes the point that they are completely satisfied and cared for. To live in God’s Kingdom today, we can embrace this same sense of powerlessness. Recognizing and embracing our powerlessness “under the authority and sovereignty of God”, leads us to the true power of powerlessness. Understanding your inability to become whole through your own self effort, is a first step to wholeness and freedom.
Being powerless from the world’s perspective, feels weak, out of control and counter intuitive.
Instead of allowing ourselves to accept our powerlessness we try to compensate by working harder or trying to be perform better, pray more, go to church more, tithe more, anything to make us feel like “we are in control” or to “convince God that we are worthy”. Trying to conform our behavior to the truth is very different from being transformed by the truth. This self effort behavior actually can keep us from hearing God and receiving God’s true transformation.
What the secular world offers to fulfill our needs is completely different than how God sees it. Below is a list of things every human being needs and the corresponding resources the secular world offers compared to what God’s Kingdom offers.
| What we all need | Secular World Offers | God’s Kingdom Offers |
| Meaning | You create your own meaning | You receive meaning that suffering can’t take away |
| Satisfaction | Satisfaction is based on circumstances | Satisfaction is not based on circumstances |
| Freedom | Lack of limitations on your options | Boundaries that liberate us to be fully alive & loving |
| Identity | Identity determined by looks, actions, achievement and performance | God is my foundation and gives you powerful resources to build an identity based not on your performance |
| Hope | What I achieve and work for gives me hope | What Jesus already achieved gives you hope today and eternally |
Living in the world and God’s Kingdom simultaneously requires genuine transformation that is a work of the Holy Spirit and not accomplished by our best efforts. The Bible verse that says, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom. 12:2) is available to all believers. But this kind of transformation cannot be “achieved” by ourselves.
Some of us have simply learned to manage our condition better than others, but merely managing one’s behavior is not God’s desire for anyone, nor is controlling behavior equivalent to genuine transformation. Much of what we call spiritual behavior is really nothing that an unbeliever couldn’t do if he were to set his mind on doing it. Rather, God desires transformation that is the effortless expression of His fruit in our lives.
Ed Smith, The Essentials of TPM
When we move towards living in God’s Kingdom, we can begin to make sense of scriptures like Philippians 4:9 where Paul says “The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” Or when Paul writes from a Roman Jail; “I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.” This kind of teaching about finding peace and contentment is about experiencing true freedom. Paul was able to write about it because it is what he so richly experienced. This freedom is available to all of us when we turn to the Kingdom of God and put our confidence in Jesus. Then we can experientially learn the reality of that kind of life.
So what keeps us from experiencing this freedom?
“He (the Devil) was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
John 8:44
Given what the secular world offers to fulfill our needs and the resources that Jesus offers to fulfill our needs, scripture tells us that there are two areas the enemy (the Devil) tries to distort and lie to us so that we don’t experience freedom:
- The truth about God’s Kingdom, who God and His Son Jesus are
- The truth about who God says you are
Abuse and trauma often leaves you stripped of your self-worth and blind to how God sees you. To keep safe, you have built walls around your heart. Walls not only keep bad things out, they keep good things out. Because of the abuse or trauma, you may have a distorted image of God, that leads you to mistrust Him. You may see Him as impossible to please, manipulative, cruel, judgmental, out to get you, likely to leave you or perhaps not as all powerful as you have been led to believe.
What is a core lie based belief?
The emotional pain you experience however, is not necessarily coming from your past, or even the memory of it, but rather it is due to what you came to believe about yourself or God in the context of your life experiences. It is belief, not the memories of the events themselves that may be the root of the problem.
Many of the reasons men still agonize today is not because of the actual pain they had encountered in the past, but because they still believe the core lie-based beliefs brought forward by their trauma or abuse. Lie-based beliefs such as: “I am worthless”, “It was my fault”, “I am dirty and shameful”, “There is something wrong with me.” These current lie-based beliefs are the reason for our emotional pain.
These lie-based beliefs may “feel completely true”, but are not true. Do you often feel shame, guilty, worthless, hopeless, bad, ugly, incompetent, not successful, or unlovable. These are examples of lies that slowly steal your soul, your peace, and your identity. Unresolved lies cause you not only to forget who you are (if you ever knew), but also unknowingly makes you unable to hear what God is saying to you.
A lie-based belief is what we experientially believe to be true but isn’t.
Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it pure joy; because the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature…and complete, not lacking in anything.
James 1:2-4
What does pure mean? Not mixed with any other material, without unneeded elements, free from contamination.
So what might pure joy mean? Uncontaminated joy. Joy that doesn’t require anything the flesh needs in order to be joyful or content. Happy, great pleasure, jubilant, exhilaration, triumph, elation, glee.
It is a belief that contaminates our joy
Each of us have suffered differently in life and have embraced differing measures of deception. No one has escaped being impacted by the fallen condition of this world. Our emotions are driven by what we believe to be true. If we believe a lie, our corresponding emotional response will be based on this lie.
Our beliefs create a “lens” through which we view our past and interpret our present.
To illustrate, here is Dan’s Story
Dan was eleven. His parents were divorced, and his mom remarried. Soon after his Stepfather moved in, things changed. His new normal consisted of constantly feeling unsafe in his own home. His Stepfather was an angry, unsatisfied man and over time became verbally abusive to Dan. For example; when Dan would mow the lawn, he’d come in from outside and he would be confronted by his Stepfather yelling; “ I told you to bag the clippings you idiot! Geez you are stupid! Go out and do it again!”
Dan is now 28 and is married. It’s summer and as he’s outside mowing his lawn, he stops to pick up some branches. As the lawn mower is silenced, his wife comes out onto the deck and yells to Dan; “Hey Dan, you missed a spot.” From the deepest part of Dan’s inner-self he boils up and explodes at his wife and yells back at her; “Why don’t you do it yourself then!” He’s angry and upset, he’s hurt, he feels worthless, incapable of doing a good job…he feels like an idiot and stupid yet doesn’t know why.
Questions
- Is Dan’s explosive emotional response because of his current situation?
- Why was he likely triggered?
- What core lie-based belief(s) did Dan believe to be true in this story?
- Is Dan’s wife responsible for his response?
- What then is a core lie-based belief?
Back to Dan’s story:
As long as Dan believes in a lie, (it’s my wife’s fault or that he’s defective), his freedom will only come to him if his world changes. As long as his wife or anyone at his work or a friend stays clear from anything that could possibly trigger him, his freedom will last. Otherwise it will only last as long as the world decides to accommodate him. The truth is, there is no place of freedom for Dan as long as he holds onto his lie-based beliefs.
This is not the Kingdom God wants us to live in.
It is true, Dan interpreted his current circumstance from a lie-based belief, and his emotional state matched that belief (I feel worthless, I am stupid, I can’t do anything right, etc.) and he was driven to an inappropriate response to his wife to protect himself from feeling pain.
There is no avoiding this reality since it is a God created mental process. It is how our brains are wired to function. I will interpret each new situation from the reservoir of beliefs I hold; both truth and lies. The belief that is drawn upon in each new life experience will bring with it, its own corresponding emotion. Anxious belief feels anxious; fearful belief produces fear; shameful belief produces shame. It is really a straightforward process. In the same fashion, truth produces joy, peace, hope, confidence, and all of the fruit of the Spirit. We can try to suppress our emotions and deny what we think and feel. We can choose to “obey”, and attempt to do the right thing, but what we believe in our hearts (our core belief) will eventually find its way to the surface.
“Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place”. Psalm 51:6
Is a lie based belief always from bad things that happened to us?
Lie based beliefs come from many sources that we have experienced over a lifetime. They can come from abuse, traumas or lack of good things that we should have received but didn’t, and the corresponding beliefs about ourselves brought on by that experience.
We will be studying this in more detail in a coming week but for now, in his book Living from the heart Jesus Gave You, by Jim Wilder, he says;
“When people are traumatized, they stopped maturing in the area of their identity altered by trauma. Traumas come from two sources: bad things that should not happen and necessary, good things that did not happen.”
Renovated, Jim Wilder
So whether from bad things or lacking good things, deception and lying to us is one of the Devil’s key areas of expertise.
God sees you intimately
God sees your distorted views and will be patient and gentle with you as you replace lies with His truth. He knows what you can handle, and when you are ready to face what your beliefs are that are causing you to feel a lie as though it were true, He will be there for you with His transforming truth.
The enemy, through the abusive people in your life, have taken away your choices and pushed you into doing things you didn’t want to do. Or, didn’t give you good things (like unconditional love) that you should have received. God, however, gently invites you into a relationship with Him and entrance to His Kingdom, today!
Now refer to the Week Two Word Document Questions. Fill out your answers and print them out for our meeting on zoom.
Consider the Raven 