Of Light, Lawyers, and Legalese

As I have sat in courtrooms numerous times in the last number of years, I have been dully depressed by the legal maneuvering to try and reduce or mitigate the penalties for those who are guilty, or even to try and throw out the guilt of a party, simply because the prosecution had made a slight mistake in the process of convicting them.  I realize that in this world of earthly laws, and no accountability to God’s moral standards, these “checks and balances” are needed to prevent abuse of authority, but I question what role they play in the Christian’s walk

In Jesus day, they had the same problem.  Some people felt that if you swore by the gold of the temple, you had to keep your word and tell the truth.  But if you only swore by the temple itself, then you had “legal wiggle room” to fudge your testimony.  Jesus strictly condemned this, and says clearly, let your ‘yes’ mean yes, and your ‘no’ mean no!  And then he adds this phrase in Matthew 5:36 “for whatever is more than these, comes from the evil one.”  There is within the unredeemed heart of mankind that will try to manipulate the facts to avoid pain, or to gain pleasure.  The father of that is the devil and that is what he used to deceive Eve in the garden.  Nothing of what Satan said there was completely untrue, and yet it left them with the impression that God was unjust and withholding something good from them.  We know now looking back, that it was God’s goodness that had placed that restriction there, but by manipulating the facts a little, Satan was able to replace their trust in God with doubt and unbelief.

As followers of Christ, we are called to be light in the world.  We are not to engage in the false pretenses that are used to manipulate things to our advantage.  Our walk is to be above reproach.  By being open, transparent, and without guile, we become the light that shines into the darkness.  Jesus says that there will be two responses to the light in John 3.  Either you will come to the light so that your deeds (actions, words, motives) can be examined and shown to be done in truth, or you will cringe from the light and move further away, hating that which reveals the mistakes you have made or the wickedness of your own heart.  It’s called protection.  We feel threatened by the truth and rather than coming to the light so that we can be free, we use guile, anger, legal wrangling, or even deceit to try and protect ourselves from the convicting presence of light.  There is an old Chinese proverb that says;

“Real gold fears no fire”. 

It basically means that if we are truly doing what is right, then we have no need to fear light coming and examining our hearts and actions.

This will be tested when something happens that threatens us and we have something to lose, not when everything is going smoothly, and we are secure.  This is probably what concerns me the most about what is happening to Christian Aid Ministries right now.  This one man’s sin, among the thousands that work for CAM, should not have the power to bring this vital ministry to it’s knees.  The fact that several men in leadership knew some of the sins, mistakenly dealt very lightly with them, provided very little accountability, and didn’t follow up properly to alarms raised since then, is appalling and horrifying, but again, something that could be dealt with in an open and honest manner.  But when we, the church of God, start to use the world’s tools of lawyers, legal posturing, and guile to try and shade the truth enough to “protect our resources as good stewards of God”, we have departed from His ways and become ripe for His judgement. 

We cannot expect Him to bless our casting of shadows where He wants there to be light. 

What is legal in man’s laws, does not mean it is God’s way and I appeal to the board of CAM to be open and speak as a member of the kingdom of God, not in the filtered lawyering of this world’s methods.   You will never succeed in quenching the purifying fires that God starts with the maneuverings of man, but only in a broken openness, acceptance of responsibility, will you be able to stem this destruction that the devil is taking such delight in.  If it is truly God's ministry and God's money, then the only way to "protect" it, is to walk in His ways. 

Please brothers, the world is watching!  Walk as children of light!