Being Honest with God (15:5)

When we have such a relationship, prayer simply cannot be a trite formality, it is honest conversation about the things that matter the most to us. Above all, the conversation must be honest, or it isn’t real friendship after all. Suppose there’s a Brother Jones working near you who is irritating you to death and that night you kneel and say, “Oh Lord, do bless Brother Jones. Thou knowest how I love him.” If you listen closely you might hear God say, “That’s very sweet. But, why don’t you tell me the truth? You hate the ground he walks on. And if you would only just admit it, maybe I could begin to help you. But so long as you pretend, there is not much I can do.”

When King David was depressed, he said so:

Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable? Has his steadfast love for ever [sic] ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? . . . And I say, “It is my grief that the right hand of the Most High has changed” (Psa 77:7-10, RSV).

David said that to God in prayer. Of course, that is only the first half of the psalm. You will find at the end of the seventy-seventh Psalm how David resolved his depression (Psa 77:11-20). But if David wanted vengeance, he wouldn’t say, “Lord, thou knowest how I love Brother Isaac and I hope his crops will flourish this year,” when really David wished that the blood of Brother Isaac would flow down the street and would water the furrows of his field and the locusts would consume his crops! So David would kneel and say something like, “Lord, thou knowest my thoughts anyway, so why should I pretend?” Based on Psalm 139:1-12. Then he would continue:

O that thou wouldst slay the wicked, O God. . . . Do I not hate them that hate thee, O Lord? And do I not loathe them that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:19, 21-24, RSV).

In this passage David invited healing. He knew he needed a new heart and a right spirit, truth in the inner man. So first he presented himself honestly to God. He said, “You know all my thoughts anyway. So, why should I hide? You know how I feel. So search me and may my thoughts and the meditations and the words of my mouth be acceptable to you.”

If you should watch a loved one die, and you should cry, “Why God? Why?” would God be offended? Or would the God you know reach down and put an arm around your shoulder and say, “I understand how you feel. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t feel that way. Someday I’ll make it plain to you. I wish I could right now. But please trust Me, and trust Me enough to be willing to wait.” But, you see, we have to know God well before those emergencies arise, so that we can trust Him and pray to Him like this.

Paul assures us that the Holy Spirit will help us pray: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought. . . .” Rom 8:26, RSV. And so the Holy Spirit brings the truth about God to us. He helps us to see that truth and to be convinced about it. He helps us see the truth about ourselves, and learn how to tell that truth to our gracious heavenly Father. And then God can do good things for us. Paul even said we should pray without ceasing: “Never stop praying.” 1 Thess 5:17, Norlie. Or as Goodspeed translates it: “Never give up praying.” But if we should spend all our time on our knees, we would never get anything else done. So how can one pray without ceasing and still be effective in this life? To put it simply, prayer in its very essence is thinking toward God. It means that God is at the very center of our thoughts. Eventually it becomes a habit that God should be at the very center of all our plans, always.

When we see God face to face one day, will that be the end of prayer? Could prayer be yet another of the emergency measures that keep the channels of communication open between God and His children, until the time comes when there will be no need for emergency measures anymore? What do we mean when we sing, “Farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer?” Do we mean “Farewell, farewell, I will never talk to you again, God?” No, if prayer is conversation with a friend, then when we meet God face to face, the hour of prayer will have just begun.

Confrontation Is Part of Friendship (15:4)

Is it all right to ask questions of our God? Job certainly did. He boldly, reverently, agonized with God—to the consternation of his friends. They worried that God would smite Job down for daring to talk to the Father like this. In a way, the whole book of Job is on this subject. Note what Job says in the following excerpts:

If only my life could once again be as it was when God watched over me. God was always with me then. . . . And the friendship of God protected my home. . . . I call to you, O God, but you never answer; and when I pray, you pay no attention (Job 29:2-4; 30:20, GNB).

How that worried Job’s friends! But was God offended? No, to the contrary. God later said to the three friends, “You did not speak the truth about me, the way my servant Job did” (Job 42:7, GNB). You see, Job knew God and he honored God with those cries. But God was not talking to him just then. And Job was deeply upset, because their friendship seemed to be at an end. So what upset Job’s friends actually complimented God, and spoke well of their relationship.

Surely there are serious questions we also could ask about God. Think of the accidents that happen, sometimes to the best people among us. Did that person’s guardian angels relax their protection? Serious questions about God often arise when people are dying or seriously ill. Why is it that God sometimes does not heal his trusting friends, even though we ask Him to? I believe that God, as we know Him, might well say to us, “Trust Me. I can’t explain it to you just now. I hope that you will trust Me enough to wait for the day when I can make it plain to you. I hope you have found enough evidence and enough reason for trusting Me that much. Besides, you know I would never allow you to be tried and tested more than you are able to bear.” Paul expressed this clearly later on: “God can be depended on not to let you be tried beyond your strength” (1 Cor 10:13, Goodspeed). Or as he said in Romans: “We know that in all things God works for good with those who love him. . . .” Rom 8:28, GNB.

If we trusted God enough to really listen, then, we might hear God provoke the questions Himself. Think about how God provoked His friend Abraham as He was on His way down to Sodom and Gomorrah to consume those cities. He said, “I wouldn’t do this without first telling My friend, Abraham.” In response Abraham dared to reason with his God: “Then Abraham drew near, and said, ‘Wilt thou indeed destroy the righteous with the wicked? . . . Far be that from thee! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?’” Gen 18:23, 25, RSV. Have you ever dared to say something like that to God? Was God offended by what Abraham said? No, “Abraham was called God’s friend” (Jam 2:23, GNB).

And that’s just one of the places in the Bible where God is addressed in such a way. You may remember how God spoke to Moses, another of His friends. He essentially said, “I am sick and tired of these people [the Israelites]. Step aside and let me destroy them” (based on Exod 32:9-10). But look at how Moses responds to God:

Then the Egyptians will hear of it. . . . The nations who have heard thy fame will say, “Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land which he swore to give to them, therefore he has slain them in the wilderness” (Num 14:13, 15-16, RSV).

In this passage Moses showed his jealousy for God’s reputation. Was God offended by this? No, “The Lord would speak with Moses face-to-face, just as a man speaks with a friend” (Exod 33:11, GNB). Now, one would need to know God very well to talk to God like this. And surely Moses and Abraham knew God well. You recall how even Peter once dared to say “No” to God. In fact, he did it three times in his vision of the unclean animals (Acts 10:5-16). “There came a voice to him, `Rise, Peter; kill and eat.’ But Peter said, `No, Lord’” (Acts 10:13-14, RSV). Did God rebuke Peter for doing that? No, this is the kind of relationship that God desires to have with us, His children.

How to Converse with God (15:3)

Conversation means at least two people speaking. But how do we converse with God when we can’t see Him because of the present emergency? In this emergency situation, He does not reveal Himself visibly to us, for our sakes. This is why the Bible is called the Word of God—it is God speaking to us. If we wish to hear God speak, except in extraordinary circumstances, He speaks to us through the Bible. We speak to Him in prayer. Truly, as someone has said, “We commune with God through the study of the Scriptures.”

I certainly find prayer much more meaningful while reading the Bible. Have you ever had the experience of talking to God while reading certain parts of the Scriptures? I often find myself saying out loud, “That’s magnificent!” Who am I talking to at that moment? That’s real conversation. We read and we listen in that way. And then we talk back to God.

Going back to the imaginary fellowship room, our heavenly Father waits and we begin to speak. What language should we use? Should we look at our heavenly Father respectfully and say, “We prithee Lord that Thou wouldst bestow unctions upon us from on high?” I think He would smile sweetly and say, “Please relax, you can talk a little more plainly if you wish.” Unless of course, you are used to talking that way all the time. But did the disciples talk to God that way? Did Moses? Did Abraham? No, they all used up to date, everyday speech. They wanted to be clear. It was the language of their times.

I believe if we began to speak to God in that fellowship room, we would surely be reverent, yet we would be conversing with a friend and should use the kind of language we would use with our closest friends. Just what that should be is a personal preference. But surely we would use the best possible language to clarify our convictions, our feelings, our desires, our admirations, and our worship. The important thing is to converse with our heavenly Father as with a friend.

So what language would you use? Jesus addressed His Father as “Abba, Father” (Mark 14:36). Abba is the Aramaic word for “father.” So it is almost like saying, “Father, Father,” although it is a term of endearment. Some versions translate “Abba, Father” as “Dear Father,” the way some of us like to start our prayers. Paul urges us to do the same in Romans (8:15) and Galatians (4:6). He says that when the Spirit of Truth dwells within us, we will address the Father as “Dear Father.”

But most importantly, what would you talk about? Would you take time on such a precious occasion to say, “Thank you, God, for today’s groceries and here is my list for tomorrow, amen,” and then go on about your business? Or would you say, “Bless the missionaries as they carry the truth to the far-flung corners of the earth”? The Lord might say, “How sweet. How is it that you only think of these things when you are praying?” Of course, if you are the mother of a missionary, it would be appropriate for you to talk to God about your loved ones. But if we only think about missionaries when we talk to God, why do we talk about them and not the things we have really been thinking about all day?

You see, those well-worn phrases we think we ought to use when we pray, might seem rather empty when we are talking face to face with God. Suppose one of us left the meeting and walked with God through a garden nearby, wouldn’t it be natural to comment to God about the beauty and fragrance of a rose, and the beautiful sounds of the mockingbird? Or the lovely, lonely sound of the mourning dove? Couldn’t we tell Him how beautiful it was of Him to create things that way? Or would we simply say, “We thank thee, Lord, for the beauties of nature that surround us?” We do have such well-worn phrases to cover these things. It seems to me that if God really were our Friend, we would take time to talk about these everyday things, and to be as specific about them as we would be with other members of the family. We might even venture to ask Him about the thorns on a rose. “Did you put them there? If so, why?”

Talking with God Face to Face (15:2)

Imagine the Father appearing visibly at the front of your church, or even better, in a cozy fellowship room. A group would gather around Him there, just as the crowds did around Jesus. Suppose we could talk there freely with God the Father for a whole hour. Would it be appropriate at the end for someone among us to rise and say, “This has been such a special occasion, don’t you think we ought to close this meeting with a word of prayer?” Or would it be correct to understand that, having just been in conversation with our God as with a friend, we have been praying the whole hour long?

Or could such a conversation only be possible with Jesus the Son? Is it even thinkable that we could converse with the Father, the awesome One, as with a friend? The disciples wondered about this. They were comfortable with Jesus, and appreciated how He wanted them to regard themselves as His friends. He said this more than once. One of those places is John 15:15, RSV: “I have called you friends. . . .” Their friendship with Jesus prompted Phillip to say, “Could the Father be like you?” John 14:8. You may remember Jesus’ answer: “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. . . . Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:7, 9, NIV).

Marvelous as that is, I think much of our theology and worship fails to recognize that magnificent truth, to know the Son is to know the Father. That is why Jesus went on to say those stunning words, hardly ever incorporated into Christian theology: “There is no need for me to pray to the Father for you, for the Father loves you Himself” (based on John 16:26-27). Notice Goodspeed’s translation of the same text: “I do not promise to intercede with the Father for you, for the Father loves you himself.”

How hard it has been for God to convince us that He really is our Friend. Centuries ago, when He came to speak to the people on Mount Sinai, they were so terrified (Exod 19:16) that they said to Moses, “Don’t let God speak to us, lest we die” (Exod 20:19). But Moses stood there in the midst of all the thunder and lightning and said to the people, “There is no need to be afraid” (Exod 20:20). You see, all those centuries before Christ, Moses already understood the truth that John wrote about: “There is no fear in love; perfect love drives out all fear. So then, love has not been made perfect in anyone who is afraid, because fear has to do with punishment” (1 John 4:18, GNB).

If you were ushered right now into the presence of God, would you be afraid He might hurt you? That He might hit you? Do you trust Him with His almighty power? On the day that every one of us approaches God, the way we approach Him will reveal the kind of person we are persuaded He really is. With this series of conversations in mind, then, let’s go back with renewed courage to the imaginary fellowship room where God is waiting. Whether the One there is Father, Son, or Holy Spirit should make no difference to us. For Paul said in Romans 8 that all three are on our side, all three are our Friends.

Now as we walk into the room, we know that God is the all powerful Creator of the whole vast universe. We know that the mighty angels, sinless as they are, stand overwhelmed with awe and wonder at the majesty and glory of God. Nevertheless, if we are afraid to go in, God has failed to convince us of the truth about Himself. And Jesus has also failed to convince us, not just with His words, but with what He has demonstrated to be true when He was here: That God is infinitely powerful, but equally gracious, and there is no need to be afraid. And so, overwhelmed with awe, we venture to go inside anyway.

God is seated there and we gather around Him. What should we say? Should one of us be the first to speak? Once we have started speaking, would we talk all the time? Or would we let God speak now and then? Normally, when we pray we do all the talking, don’t we? And when we’re done, we say “Amen” and go about our business, or go to sleep. That kind of prayer would be like meeting in a room with our heavenly Father, talking to Him incessantly for several minutes, and then saying, “Amen, thank you very much,” and then leaving. It wouldn’t make sense if He were there, would it? It certainly wouldn’t be the kind of conversation one has with a friend.

Chapter Fifteen: “Talking to God as a Friend” (15:1)

If the Father were to appear visibly among us, how would we address Him? What language would we use? Would we be too afraid to speak? Would we feel constrained to mention only the most lofty themes, or would we be free to talk candidly about what He already knows is in our hearts? Would it be easier to discuss such matters with the Son? Would it be more appropriate to speak or listen? How does one listen to the voice of God?

As you can see, the purpose of this chapter is to describe what prayer is all about. As with all the topics in our conversations, the way we pray depends upon the kind of person we believe our God to be. Surely no one knew better how to talk to God than the Son of God Himself, the one we call Jesus. In the Sermon on the Mount, you recall, He gave some very clear advice as to how to pray:

When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; they love to say their prayers . . . for everyone to see them. . . . But when you pray, go into a room by yourself, shut the door, and pray to your Father who is there in the secret place. . . . In your prayers do not go babbling on like the heathen, who imagine that the more they say the more likely they are to be heard. . . . Your Father knows what your needs are before you ask him. This is how you should pray: “Our Father in heaven, thy name be hallowed; thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us the wrong we have done, as we have forgiven those who have wronged us. And do not bring us to the test, but save us from the evil one” (Matt 6:9-15, NEB).

If God already knows our needs before we ask Him, why should we take time to pray at all? That question assumes, of course, that the primary purpose of prayer is to lodge our requests with the Lord. But there are others who prefer to understand prayer as conversation with God as with a friend. It’s in the biblical record that the Son of God Himself engaged in many such conversations with His Father. We are told that “He went up into the hills by himself to pray” (Matt 14:23, RSV), often after a very busy day. “All night he continued in prayer to God” (Luke 6:12, RSV).

Have you ever prayed all night? How could Jesus pray to His Father all night long without a certain amount of repetition? Do you think Jesus babbled on like the heathen, supposing that the more He said the more likely His Father was to hear Him? That would be inconceivable, wouldn’t it? Or were His conversations with His Father so real that the night hours simply slipped away? Haven’t you had the experience of visiting with a friend of whom you are especially fond, and the hours just flew away? You see, everything depends on whether or not God is our friend. The way we pray reveals to others, and to ourselves, the kind of person we believe and understand our God to be.

Questions and Answers (14:10)

Lou: You mentioned baptism in the chapter. Would you comment on how baptism was changed from immersion to sprinkling, pouring, and a variety of other forms?

Graham: In response, let me cite a footnote in a Roman Catholic Bible translation. It says, “Admittedly, the early Christian method was immersion. However, on the authority of the Church and for convenience, it was changed.“ The sad thing is, though, that the change to sprinkling and to pouring has come with a change in the meaning. And that’s why churches can perform sprinkling and pouring on little infants who have no understanding that it represents the burial of the old nature and the rising to a newness of life. With the change of the method has come a change of the meaning, which is a loss to us. It ought to be a memorable occasion when I say, “I bury the old man, the man I used to be; I want to start all over again.“ The rich symbolism of baptism ties in with the subject of this chapter.

Lou: You’ve talked of Jesus as our example in this series of conversations about God. We’ve had several questions come in as to whether Jesus had an advantage over us. How could He be regarded as our example if He did have such an advantage? Let me refer to just one of these questions. “When Christ came to the world and took on human flesh, did He take on sinful flesh in essence or vicariously?” The kind of humanity Jesus had, I think, ties in here in an important way. Would you comment briefly on that question?

Graham: Well, I’ll cite Paul for that. He said, “Christ came in the likeness of sinful flesh to deal with sin” (based on Rom 8:3). I think the question is, can we really look to Jesus as an example of the perfection that we should have?
Was He exactly like us? There are some interesting differences. For one, He was born of the Holy Spirit. Some of us might be sixty-five before we’re born of the Holy Spirit. In that case, when we’re reborn, we’ve got sixty-five years of bad habits to fight with for the rest of our lives. Jesus, on the other hand, never acquired a bad habit. The only way you can develop a bad habit is to do something bad, which He never did. And so you say, “Well, then, He’s not an example for me.“ How low do we want Him to go? Do we want Him to wallow in the gutter as a wino, so that He can be an example as to how you can get out of the gutter? I don’t want Jesus to be more and more like me. I want to be more and more like Him. He came in human form, in the likeness of sinful flesh, using no power that is not available to us. And he showed that even little boys can be good. And that you can grow up to be good like that.
“But,” you say, “I have bad habits.”
“Look,“ He says, “I’m your Physician; I understand. I’ll be very patient. And I guarantee I’ll help you get over all of those things. Just trust Me.”
So how much more would we want Him to do before we accept Him as an example? He’s certainly enough of an example to show how we could have lived. The problem is that we didn’t. So what will He do with us now? He’s the Physician, and He knows exactly what it’s like to go through what we are going through. So you can count on Him to be patient. Are you still worried that the Father won’t be as patient as Jesus? Remember that Jesus came to show just how patient the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are. I think sometimes we run into problems when we raise the wrong questions about what He came to tell us, and what He came to show us.

Lou: One final question: “Is the healing we are talking about dependent upon perfect obedience to Christ’s teaching? Or does God’s mercy at times supersede even the doubts of those who question His divine authority?”

Graham: Oh, that’s true. I suppose we could refer to times when Jesus went places and healed everybody (Matt 4:24; 8:16; Mark 6:55-56; Luke 4:40). He went through entire villages, and when He left, nobody was sick. On one occasion He healed ten lepers, and only one came back to thank Him (Luke 17:12-19). I think on that occasion Jesus was saying that the Father is a healer, not a destroyer. Jesus often healed people whether they trusted Him or not (John 5:1-15).

Lou: That’s very comforting. What is our topic for Chapter Fifteen? How will the healing we talked about here change the way we relate to God?

Graham: That’s a very good question, because the topic of the next chapter is “Talking to God as a Friend.” What does God really want from us? Will He be satisfied with rote obedience to rules? Or does He desire genuine relationship with the free and diverse creatures He has made? How do we talk to a God we cannot see, hear or touch, but who nevertheless much prefers friends to servants? In the next chapter we will explore how our picture of God impacts the way we relate to Him, especially in the matter of prayer.

Questions and Answers (14:9)

Lou: I missed some words in this chapter that I’ve often heard associated with the subject of perfection. I didn’t hear you say that it is “Christ’s righteousness imputed“ or “the covering of Christ’s righteousness” that enables God to say, “You’re perfect.” Why didn’t you use phrases like that?

Graham: We need to be familiar with such phrases and use them at the right time. Actually those words belong to the legal model, which is an emergency model. In the legal model the righteousness of Christ is reckoned to us so that our account may look all right in the judgment. And that’s often attributed to the verse: “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned (or imputed) to him as righteousness” (Rom 4:3, RSV, alluding to Gen 15:6). The Greek word there can actually mean, “considered, recognized.”
In the trust/healing model, however, I would translate that verse: “Abraham trusted God, and God said, ‘That’s good! That’s what I want. If you trust Me, all is well.’” All God ever asked of us is trust. And Abraham trusted Him enough to become His firmest friend (Exod 33:11; 2 Chr 20:7; Isa 41:8; James 2:23). Abraham really grew up and while he remained reverent, he was not afraid of God. Look at the relationship they had. That’s the ideal. And one does not need to explain their relationship in legal terms at all.
It’s the same way with the term “covered.” The legal model suggests that if I were to stand in the presence of the Father as a sinner, He would be very angry and destructive toward me if I were not covered. So I am covered with something that keeps God from seeing the way I really am. You can see how the legal model could have a comforting message for people who are afraid of God. “Don’t worry. God can’t really see you the way you are.” That’s emergency ‘talk.
In reality, however, the Lord knows exactly the way I am. And the Devil is reminding everyone of the way I am. But in the trust-healing model, God still treats me as if I had always been as loyal as His own Son. He treats me as if I had lived as righteously as Christ. I know I haven’t and so does He. But that’s how real and generous He is. And that’s a clearer and more marvelous picture than the other. So we can use phrases like, “the covering of Christ’s righteousness” when people need them. But whenever the audience is ready for it, we should also explain the healing model. The legal language has its place, but it’s a station along the way.

Lou: In the beginning of the chapter, you talked about it not being enough just to be forgiven. But if I’m forgiven, if I know that God has forgiven every sin, what more do I need to be saved?

Graham: Just to say a person is forgiven doesn’t heal the damage done. Just to forgive a Hitler or a Kim Jong Un would not make them very desirable neighbors in the hereafter unless they have changed. But if King Manasseh can be changed (2 Chr 33:11-23), so could they. We must leave that decision in God’s hands. But if I meet one of them in the Kingdom, I wouldn’t want to know whether he has been forgiven. I would want to know if he is safe to live next door to. When Isaiah meets King Manasseh in eternity, he won’t want to know if Manasseh has been forgiven. He will want to know if Manasseh can be trusted with a sharp saw, because Manasseh ordered that Isaiah be sawn in half inside a hollow log (based on 2 Kings 21:16, Heb 11:37 and the early Christian non-biblical text Martyrdom of Isaiah 4:12 – 5:14)!
So forgiveness alone is not enough. Just because God says, “I forgive you,” does not mean I’ve been changed in any way. Remember that Jesus on the cross forgave the people who rejected and tortured Him. They didn’t even want to be forgiven. So unless we respond to God’s forgiveness, and the kindness of God leads us to repentance and to trust, that forgiveness has done us no good. In the case of the centurion at the cross, at least, Jesus’ forgiveness changed his life.

Lou: So Jesus’ prayer for those who were crucifying Him represented the heart of God, how He actually felt towards them at that moment. But God’s forgiveness meant nothing to them unless they were open to receive it.

Graham: Right. Unless we respond, it will not make us safe to save.

Lou: I want to ask the same question, but in another way. Isn’t it enough to be justified? Do I also have to be sanctified? Are you saying here that the healing/trust model really challenges that kind of separation?

Graham: Very much so. Of course the words “justification” and “sanctification” do not occur in the Bible. They are English words drawn from the Latin. That doesn’t mean they are unimportant. But the Greek word (dikaiosunē) could be more literally translated “set right” or “put right” rather than “justification.” Now if a person has been set right with God, now loves and trusts Him, and is willing to listen; don’t you think that person would also say, “What else do You want me to do, Lord?”
“I want to heal you if you will cooperate.“
“Absolutely! Just tell me, and I’ll follow.”
Back to using the terms from your question, there’s no way to be justified without sanctification following. If you’re not willing to be kept right, you obviously haven’t been set right. So being set right and kept right are all part of the same package. They belong together.

Lou: But I worry a little about this. Consider the following question from the audience: “You’ve made it so complicated. There is so much to think about: justification, sanctification, and all of this. If what really is at stake is simply trusting God, why isn’t it enough to say, ‘I’m going to have the faith of a little child? I’ll just trust God, and don’t bother me with all the rest of this?’“

Graham: Let’s not underestimate the faith of a little child. The faith of a little child implies he or she is really willing to listen. So if we truly have the faith of a little child, we will be willing to listen and to be trusting, which is why small children need protection. They are too willing to trust just about anybody. But on the good side, the faith of a little child is wonderful. My grandchildren will sit there, listen, and believe anything Grandpa says. I could misuse that trust, but I won’t do it. Nevertheless, to have them sit and look and hang onto every word is beautiful. I love it. So if we have the faith of a little child, we’re sitting there listening to God and saying, “Tell me. Tell me more. Tell me more.” There’s no way to have the faith of a little child without following along and being healed. There’s no way to avoid it.

Lou: As I remember the little children in our house, they were trusting, but they also loved to ask “Why?”

Graham: Oh, that’s part of the faith of a little child.

Questions and Answers (14:8)

Lou: You referred to Job. If I remember correctly, God called Job a perfect person. And yet when you come to the end of the book of Job, it says he repented in dust and ashes. What did he have to repent of? What does repentance mean when God has said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? A good and perfect man”? Job 1:8.

Graham: That’s right. In the hearing of the on-looking universe God said, “Here is a perfect man.” And then the perfect man says, “I repent.” I think we are more inclined to point out Job’s repentance than God’s word that he is perfect. Under the pressure of bad advice from his friends, Job finally said, “God, I’m sorry I have talked about things beyond my understanding” (Job 42:1-3). And God immediately intervened and said, “Don’t give up, Job. You have done splendidly! You have said of Me what is right. Don’t let these three theologians discourage you. In fact, pray for them. They need a lot of help to know Me the way you do“ (Job 42:7-8).
We really need to take the book of Job as a whole. God said Job was perfect.
Job in his humility said, “God, I have said a lot, and I’ve said it with a great deal of feeling. If I seem the least bit irreverent, I repent.”
Then God could have said, “A man who is covered with boils and has lost his whole family; I can understand why you cry the way you have. You did not insult Me by this. You honored Me with your confidence.”
We will explore this in more depth in the next chapter, “Talking To God As A Friend.“ Job is a marvelous example of how freely we can talk to God, and still be reverent.

Lou: Let’s come back to this matter of perfection as “healing the damage done.” Does that include restoration both physically and mentally? It reminds me of a question someone sent in: “Will you please tell me why the people of the Old Testament lived longer than the people of our day? What gave them a longer life span? Does food have anything to do with our life span today?” I think that ties in with the topic of healing all the damage that has been done by sin.

Graham: It does. I love to read about Methuselah and how long he and his fellow patriarchs lived. Up until the Flood, they all lived a long time unless they were murdered, or translated, as Enoch was (based on Genesis 4 and 5—see especially Gen 4:23 and 5:23-24). I remember the first time I went through the sixty-six. And I wrote in my margin the declining ages of the patriarchs after the flood. It’s precipitous! Their ages drop from almost a thousand down to a little over a hundred. We have lost a great deal physically. We’re pygmies compared with Adam and Eve. Fortunately, we’ve all sort of withered up together so we look relatively respectable to each other, but if Adam and Eve were to walk into the room, we’d be embarrassed, wouldn’t we?
We need both physical healing and mental healing. But in this life, although we should do the best we can with the little that we have, we’re all getting older. Not until the earth made new will all that be restored. So some people say, “Well, if I can’t be physically and mentally perfect in this life, I guess I can’t be perfect in any way.“ No, spiritual perfection, perfection of character, is held out to us. God could say of us, as He did of Job, “I could trust you even through the Time of Trouble. I know you wouldn’t let Me down.“ Perfection is not a brittle thing. It is about being mature. It actually means just plain growing up. It is unnatural not to grow up.

Lou: Does a person have to be perfect in any sense of the term in order to be saved?

Graham: One can certainly be perfect in one’s willingness to listen. That willingness begins when one is converted, and to be converted is simply to reverse one’s course. The unconverted person is stubbornly unwilling to listen. The converted person is reverently and humbly willing to listen. One couldn’t do that if one didn’t have a new heart and a right spirit (Ezek 36:26). It is the marvelous work of the Holy Spirit that brings us to the conviction of truth (John 16:8-11), that leads me to want to reverse my direction. And since it is the work of God, it is perfectly done; but I would only be a perfect baby at that stage. God doesn’t need us to focus on our performance, but if I’m cheating in my willingness to listen, there’s something seriously wrong.

Questions and Answers (14:7)

Lou: As you were talking about perfection, I heard an emphasis on the generous gift of God, His eagerness to heal us and to make us well. It makes one wonder, who would want to be imperfect or continue to be ill when all this healing is available? Why do you think there has been so much debate on this subject?

Graham: Whole books have even been written about it. I suppose there are many reasons. One is that people who claim to be perfect can be quite insufferable. It has given perfection a bad name. Another reason people might avoid the subject is that perfection involves our behavior. And talking about behavior smacks of works, our having to do something. Many people are so concerned to make salvation by faith that they can’t fit this in.

Lou: How do you avoid the tendency to think in terms of your performance, to concentrate on how well or how poorly you’re doing?

Graham: I think your question goes back to things we’ve discussed before. What is it that went wrong in the universe, and what would it mean for God to set things right? If our problem is a legal one, our primary concern is to somehow set things right legally. In that case we might be trying to please the Father and persuade Him not to punish or destroy us. If my efforts toward perfection are in order to turn away His wrath and improve my legal standing, then that’s salvation by works.
In the case of the healing model, most of us have had a moment when we’ve not been well and have had to go to the physician. And we’ve heard the physician say, “Will you do the following?“ And the most logical thing in the world is to go home and do it. I don’t feel I’m being a legalist to do that. It seems to me that if I really trust my doctor, I will be willing to do what the doctor says. The only difference is my work is in harmony with the Divine Physician. I’m not trying to please the doctor, nor am I trying to improve my legal standing with the doctor. I’m trying to do what is for my own best good. The gracious Physician is saying, “Do the following. It will produce good results.” And I go home and work hard to follow the regimen that He recommends.

Lou: So it really is a question of motivation that makes all the difference.

Graham: Very much, your motivation and the model of salvation you are working with. The legal model has obscured the model of salvation as healing, and perfection as complete healing.

Lou: The concern with perfection sometimes leads people to evaluate one another on how well they are doing.

Graham: That’s another thing that has given perfection a bad name. It is the idea that “I have my own blueprint for perfection, and I’m getting closer and closer to it. But I can tell you’re pretty far behind in comparison!” Facing such an attitude can be quite discouraging. But who is it that does not want us to understand the good news that God would like to completely heal the damage done? The devil has many versions of perfection that are a corruption of the truth and are not good news. He uses one thing to confuse one person, and another thing to confuse another.

Lou: A lot of sincere discussion has centered around the question: Does perfection mean that one never makes a mistake? We might think, “If I could just be perfect, I wouldn’t make a mistake.“

Graham: This question recalls the time we discussed the meaning of sin. Sin is not just making a mistake. Sin is rebelliousness. Sin is a stubborn unwillingness to listen. Sin is a breach of trust. Imagine in the hereafter I plant a pomegranate tree a little too close to the house, and it gets bigger and bigger in the fertile soil there.
And the Lord comes by and says, “Say, you planted it too close to the house, didn’t you?”
And I’d say, “Yes, I did. Why didn’t You stop me?”
“It’s not a problem,” He’d say, “that’s how you learn. Pomegranate trees grow rather large up here. Plant it a little farther away.”
So I would proceed to move it.

Lou: You are making a distinction between a sin and a mistake.

Graham: Yes. There’s no sin in making a mistake like that. Not unless there is a spirit of rebelliousness within you, a stubborn unwillingness to accept advice, which would mean I’m not safe to have around in eternity.

Lou: But can a perfect person sin? Not just make mistakes, but actually sin?

Graham: What you are really asking is, can a perfect person ever rebel? Look at Lucifer, the most perfect of all God’s creation. He was still free and he exercised his freedom in rebellion. Think also of Adam and Eve. They were perfect, and they rebelled. So though God heals all the damage done by sin, He does not take away our freedom. We will still be free in the hereafter.

You Become Like the God(s) You Worship (14:6)

How does one grow up like this? How does one become perfect and mature? It is very simple, we are saved, we are healed, by faith. And faith, as we’ve discussed earlier, means trust. It means love. It means admiration. And that means a willingness to listen. It is a law in this orderly universe, that we will inevitably become like the person we worship and admire. We know that from experience. We also see it corroborated and confirmed in Scripture:

Then with unveiled faces we can all behold as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord. And we become changed into His likeness, from glory to glory, through the Spirit of the Lord working in us ( 2 Cor 3:18, Norlie).

This is how the Spirit works. He brings us the truth. He brings us the picture of God. He brings us all the evidence of Scripture. We look at the picture. We like what we see, and it changes us.

The same principle works in the other direction as well: “Those who make them [idols] will be like them, and so will all who trust in them” (Psa 115:8, NIV). It is inevitable that we will become like the person or the object we worship and admire. If we regard God as arbitrary, exacting, vengeful, unforgiving, and severe, we too will become like that. History has borne out the truth of that, hasn’t it? Think of so many who have claimed to worship God, but having the devil’s picture of God, have been incredibly cruel in their treatment of other people, even as Paul was before the Damascus road.

On the other hand, we can look at God as He really is, as His Son proved Him to be, and as He is portrayed in the Scriptures. If we like and admire what we see there, if we worship the One we see there, then it is a law that we will become like Him. How absolutely essential, then, that we have a true picture of our God. The hazard of a false picture, if we prefer it, is that we will become like that. The trouble with this matter of perfection is that we tend to talk too much about perfection and not nearly enough about God. We tend to be preoccupied with our performance rather than being preoccupied with the truth about God.

Paul admits this was his error before the Damascus road. But when his picture of God changed, he became totally preoccupied with the truth, with Jesus Christ, with why Jesus had to die, and what this said about the Father. Look what it did to Paul from Damascus on, when he shifted his attention from his own performance to the good news about God. Look how he treated the problems in the city of Corinth with such incredible grace and skill. When he was through, he wrote: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ“ (1 Cor 11:1, RSV). Paul knew how it works. It is a law that we become like the one we worship and admire.

How very sad it is that God’s offer of perfect healing should be seen as a very forbidding and burdensome requirement. It is the cause of much anxiety and fear, and sometimes even the subject of heated criticism and debate. As our Physician Father, God has offered to make us completely well and to completely heal all the damage done. Our part is not to heal ourselves. Our part is to cooperate. As Jesus said to the paralytic at the pool, “Would you like to be well? Would you like to be made whole?” John 5:6. Perfection is not a command, it’s a generous offer. How could we possibly turn such an offer down?