April 9, 2019

Many warriors and police officer struggle with guilt for taking someone’s life.  Mr. Tony, a WW2 Naval warrior for the USA, passed away 10 days ago at the age of 98. He on some impressive ships in the Pacific. He never told his family what he did, but his family found out that He was a gunner.

Mr. Tony had told me he “felt” God couldn’t forgive him – but He was wrong!  He struggled with guilt, shame, and self-condemnation for what he had to do in the war. Mr. Tony wasn’t alone.  

Thou Shalt Not Murder or Kill?  What about Military, Law Enforcement, and Self-defense?

It was a dark night in April 2008 when Bill called me. I had only spoken to him once since the last time I saw him about 9 years prior.  Bill was an army sniper in Vietnam. He saw lots of action, the kind Hollywood celebrates and wows young men, the kind of action that fuels Rambo type movies, but also the kind of action that causes an older reflective man to wake up in cold sweats. I met Bill in the first church where I was pastor in the late 90’s.

Strangely enough I met Richard, another unrelated Vietnam war army sniper about 5 years previously. He saw the same kind of action. The kind of action that plays on a man’s nerves years later.

I am grateful I knew both these men and that they allowed me into their “brotherhood.” Men who went to war, rarely if ever talk to those who didn’t go about the things they did.

Strangely enough, they had the same question, how can I be forgiven for taking another man’s life?

The question is still alive and well with our military today, police officers who have to kill in the line of work, prison executioners, and even home owners who while protecting themselves or their family have to take the life of someone else.

What is a man or woman to do when the stark cold reality hits that they took a person’s life from them. They have entered into the realm of eternity and have made the appointment with their Maker as the Bible says “And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment,” (Hebrews 9:27).  The one who had to take their life in self-defense, military call of duty, or law enforcement is now facing guilt, shame, and an overwhelming sense of a need for forgiveness.

Three Things

What is this person to do?  I want you to consider these things that will help you overcome these haunting memories.

First, you need to understand God’s perspective.

What you did, did not surprise God.  He knows it, saw it, and could have stopped it.  Why didn’t He? I don’t know.  That is part of getting God’s perspective. God never said “Thou Shalt Not Kill.”  He did say “You shall not MURDER.” (Exodus 20:13).  Some older translations (ASV, AV, KJV, RSV) wrongly translate this passage as “Thou Shalt Not Kill.”  The Hebrew word used is the one for murder – taking one’s life without just cause. These two concepts, “Killing” and “Murder,  are worlds apart. The Bible is replete with examples of God giving governments to carry out capital punishment, to make war, and for individuals to protect themselves and their families. (see Genesis 9:5-6, Romans 13:1-7).  If God’s Word said that you cannot kill and then God tells the nation of Israel to make war on a certain nation, or for them to kill someone who murdered someone else – wouldn’t that make God kinda schizophrenic?  God would be telling us not to do one thing and then telling us it was OK another time.  That is not the character of God.

If your government gave you responsibility and charge to fight for your city, state, or country – they have the greater responsible. I am not talking about blaming everything you do on the government and saying that you were “just following orders” like the Nazi’s did. There is such thing as a just war.

Second, Receive God’s Forgiveness.

If you were justified in your actions, then that doesn’t mean you will not have feelings of guilt and remorse. If you were not justified in your actions, you will still have feelings of guilt, shame, and remorse. The fog of a “politically correct” war can even lead to cloudy judgments and self-scrutinization that were never intended for the warrior.

God never intended you to live under a cloud of guilt, shame, and condemnation. This is the reason God the Father sent God the Son, Jesus to reveal His love toward us, then be the sacrifice for our sins upon the cross.

Jesus, God the Son, took the punishment for ALL of your sins.

All means everything – even “Thou Shalt Not Murder.”

When you place your faith in Jesus as the Lord of your life (Leader/Master/Boss), and trust in His death as the PAYMENT, the punishment for your sins – He forgives you completely.  You are totally and completely forgiven. There is nothing else you need to do for forgiveness. There is no future punishment for your wrong actions – Jesus took all of the punishment, guilt, and shame – for you.

Jesus’ death on the cross was an exchange for the punishment, guilt, shame, and condemnation we all deserve for all of our sins – no matter how “big” or “small.”  He took it all upon Himself so we could have total and complete forgiveness!

If you haven’t received His forgiveness, then there are two real requirements:

Requirement #1:  Place your faith in Jesus’ death as total payment for your sins, and that He proved what He did was acceptable to God by being resurrected from the grave.  Tell Jesus this in your own words and ask Him to forgive you of all your sins.

Requirement #2:  Surrender the leadership of your life. Surrender being the boss of your life to Jesus and allow Him to be the Lord (boss/master) of your life.  Tell Jesus you want Him to be the Lord of your life and you are surrendering control of your life to Him.

Thank Him for the new life He has given you!

Welcome! You are now in the Christ Follower family if you prayed and connected with Jesus in these two areas.

Third.  Walk in God’s Forgiveness of You.

Haven’t you heard or said, “Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to forgive yourself”?  We don’t really have a problem forgiving ourselves. The real problem is truly believing God has forgiven us completely.

If you have received God’s Forgiveness – you are forgiven completely.

• Stop condemning yourself – God has removed all condemnation from you to Jesus.
• Stop guilting yourself – God took all of your guilt and placed it upon Jesus.
• Stop shaming yourself – All of the same you deserved was placed upon Jesus.

Why Jesus?  Because He could handle it all, even the punishment for our sins, death. He handled it like God would then He arose from the dead, like God, because He is God!

We couldn’t handle our guilt, shame, and condemnation we deserved, but God could and did, like a good-good Father.

You may have been taught something different about God’s forgiveness, but this is what the Bible teaches from cover-to-cover. We can sit down and look at passage after passage for hours looking at God’s amazing love and forgiveness through Jesus only. 

If you were acting justly in self defense, law enforcement, or military orders then walk in the fact that you did nothing wrong. It was horrible and a terrible thing, but not wrong. However if you really feel you did something wrong, then ask God to forgive you. The fog of war, especially the “politically correct” fog of war is something warriors were never meant to experience.

Other things to consider in helping you to heal through this process:

• Walk in God’s Grace toward you. He loves you and you are highly favored by God.
• Pray for those families that were affected by the incident or directives.
• Forgive anyone who you may have caused you trouble in this. Don’t become a casualty of bitterness.
• Don’t be a victim. Be an empowered survivor! You went through something terrible and God is going to help you through the valley.
• Get in a Bible teaching church. There are many churches that are really good, but find one that will help you understand the Bible better each time you go.
• Walk in faith! God is going to carry you through this!

Your friend

Bill Stevens

“And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.” Romans 12:1 (NLT)

God wants us to live life to the fullest, but the only way we can experience and live this life is by pursuing a lifestyle of authentic worship. In Biblical times they would sacrifice animals, their own lambs, but there wasn’t anything really personal about it. Then God made it really personal- real – raw amazingly authentic, by sending His only Son to be executed as a sacrifice for each of our individual sins, our personal rebellion. Real – authentic love for us.

So what should our response be?  Authentic, real, raw, loving worship to God?  What does this look like?

1..  Authentic worship begins an overflow of gratitude for what God has done for you. Gratitude is our core motivation for real spiritual success. It is our deepens, most sincere, most real self. Gratitude shows who you really are more than anything else. What are you thankful for? What should you be slowing down and savoring in gratitude?  Are you taking anything Christ has done for you for granted? Slow down and spend a little more time in gratitude to God each day. Thank Him moment by moment.

2… Authentic worship involves surrendering ownership of yourself. As a kid I would hear, “Stick em up!” in the cartoons and someone would inevitably give up and raise their hands in the air, in surrender. This is why many raise their hands as they sing in worship. It is vulnerable and a sign of surrender. Daily, this is to be expressed by surrendering your will to Christ. Yielding does not come naturally to the human spirit. We are made tenacious and ferocious in the pursuit of our own will. The human condition is that people rebel against God continually, but authentic worship for the Christ Follower is a daily acknowledgement of personal surrender to Christ Jesus as the King of your life.

3..  Authentic worship is presenting your most sacred to God.  No, not your iPhone, keys to your car or house, the tv remote, but your body. “Give your bodies” to God. There is nothing more sacred than your body. We clean, cover, and care for them daily. But there is nothing more inclusive about us than the term, “body”, which includes our entire being, mind, will, emotions, and our physique which carries all of these around to places they should be or should not be. Authentic worship is surrendering every area of your body, mind, will, emotions, etc. to god as the owner and the One deserving of our honor.

Assess yourself. How would you think God would be pleased with how and what you are doing with your body? Thoughts or secret thought life? Emotions – are they out of bounds with anger, greed, rage, fear, and anxiety?  Is your will and decisions leading or pushing you away from God?

4.. Authentic worship is focused only on what God thinks, not others.

Inevitably the thought of our bodies leads us to comparisons over weight, looks, shape, style, and fitness level. God looks at your heart. I find it very hypocritical for the self-righteous guy who doesn’t drink but eats a gallon of ice cream each evening, but he doesn’t have a problem judging others because they drink some. Jesus actually taught us to judge ourselves, not others.

You don’t have to live for the approval of others. We are living for an Audience of One, His approval alone. No one can give you a list of what you should and should not do with your body to perfectly please God

5..  Authentic worship is a pleasing sacrifice to God. Your surrender of yourself and devoting your entirety to honor God is more pleasing than anything else you could offer God. No sacrifice of money, material goods, or even the blood of an animal can compare to a person yielding their life daily to follow Christ.

The problem with these “living sacrifices” is that they tend to get up off the altar and wander off. Maybe you have listened to the voice of your will, not God, and wandered off from Him. Come back today. He is ready to authentically forgive the person who is real with Him about their struggles. He understands. He is ready to receive your authentic worship as you choose to honor Him daily.

Father, I confess my life has not been fully honoring You. I chose today, now, to yield my life afresh to You. Thank You for Your forgiveness, grace, and mercy to me. Help me as I seek to honor you in all things today. Amen.

One of the greatest things people struggle with most is overcoming guilt, shame, and condemnation feelings for things they actually did wrong, but Jesus came to deliver you from this completely.

Bill Stevens

“¹ So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. ² And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. ³ The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. ⁴ He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.” Romans 8:1–4 (NLT)

Read this passage again. Slowly read verse 1, “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” How do I get to this place of guilt free, shame free, and not condemned living?

1.. Understand what laws in the Bible were not capable of doing:

God gave two kinds of laws, moral code laws like the Ten Commandments and sacrificial laws where they would sacrifice lambs and other animals to remove the guilt of their sin. But there was a problem, not with the law, but with jacked up people and our broken desires. These laws are not capable of giving you life, eternal life, forgiving you, bringing you peace and reconciliation with God, changing your wrong desires, and removing the guilt, shame, and condemnation hanging over your life. They could not clear your guilty conscience nor are they capable of making you a good person either. No matter how hard you try to keep these on your own, you will end up more guilty, full of shame, and under a cloud of condemnation. They could never rescue you from your desires gone wrong and the path of death to where they lead.

2.. So what were the purpose of these laws?

These laws were to point out that impersonal laws are not capable of making you a good person. They could never reach into your heart and change your desires.

These laws pointed out that sin (rebellion against God’s ways) was serious, real serious, but even the blood of a lamb, goal, or a bull could not remove the hostility between humanity and God. People still said, “I want my own way, I don’t want God to be in charge of my life.”

3.. God’s solution to the problem: Himself.

Read verse 3 very slowly and carefully. Look what God did to solve this problem.  God sent His own Son, Christ Jesus. The God who spoke the world into existence became a human. Jesus is God in human flesh. He came to do what the law could not do.

• He came to forgive fully and remove condemnation, guilt, and shame.
• He came to give life, not sentence you to death.
• He came to change you and help you become a new person, unlike the law which just stood there with its finger pointed at you telling you how bad you are.
• He came to reconcile you to God the Father by making peace with humanity and God Himself.

How did Jesus do this?

God the Father sacrificed His own Son, the worst execution in history. Christ not only died for us but God  poured out all of His wrath and judgment upon His Son. Jesus took all the punishment for all the sins of the world. In doing so, Christ lived a perfect life and became the perfect sinless sacrifice for our sins. He fulfilled the law so you wouldn’t be shackled with religious rules, but be filled with life because you have a personal relationship with Christ. He made a way for you to have this life if you would place your faith in His death as the only hope of removal of your guilt, your shame, and your condemnation. No matter what you have done, His blood sacrifice will wash away your sins, but only if you come to Him and ask Him.

Father, thank you for the sacrifice of Jesus. I receive by faith His sacrifice as the payment for my guilt, shame, and condemnation. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for taking all this from me. Help my feelings to catch up with my faith.  Thank you for forgiveness and for forgiving me. Amen.

Five Reasons You Might Feel Far from God

Everyone at times feels like they are far from God. There are some real reasons you might feel far from God and some false reasons you might feel far from God.

“Therefore say to them, Thus declares the Lord of hosts: Return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts.”  Zechariah 1:3

Bill Stevens

1 . Physical problems. Your health can play dangerous games with your emotions. I was in my early 30’s and thinking I was far from God and God was against everything I was doing – and I was a pastor. I broke down crying in the yard trying to fix a simple belt on my lawnmower, because a 5 minute job became a 2 hour job. These kinds of things had been going on for months. It was not a spiritual attack, or that I had left God, or God had left me. I was diagnosed with hypo-thyroidism (low) which affects your mood, energy, concentration, and a whole host of other things. Once I got on my thyroid meds, it was like a “miracle” – God was there, I felt better, and things were not confused. Sometimes you simply need you need a checkup to see what your bloodwork says. Everything is not a spiritual problem.

2.  Relying on Feelings too much: Emotions are a great servant, but a terrible master. Feelings can and will deceive you. Everyone has had a bad feeling about something only to be overwhelmingly proven wrong. So, if you listen to your fickle emotions as the guide of your life, then you will be tossed around like a pool floatie in a hurricane. You will never have stability. Relying on the truth is your best option no matter how you feel. Here is the truth. Jesus said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5). So, walk by faith in the truth of God’s word, not in the fickleness of your feelings.

3.  Dry Season: We all have dry seasons where we feel disconnected and empty, but these are temporary. You are doing the right things, believing the right things, walking by faith, yet you are spiritually attacked and wondering where the presence of God is. Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness for 40 days to fast – and He faced the same dry season that we all face. But just like Him, stand strong, and when you come out the presence and power of God will be with you in new and unusual ways! Expect it!

4.  You have wandered away. Ok, so we had to get to this one. Yes, you know God personally but you have slowly stopped seeking Him. Maybe you felt disillusioned by some hard things you have gone through. Maybe you wandered off into some sinful habits that have slowly eaten away at your time with God and you have kept those things stuffed, and not confessed. Maybe this has taken you into some very bad areas.  God still loves you, cares for you, and understands. He knows your weaknesses, knows everything you have done, and still unconditionally loves you! No conditions. Just turn to Him, ask Him to forgive you, and help you out of that muddy ditch you are stuck in, and He will come quickly to your help! That’s Grace! That’s God, our gracious and merciful loving Heavenly Father! That’s Jesus! Return to Him and He will return to you.

5.  You have never become close to God to begin with. This is a possibility. I went through 11 years thinking I had a personal relationship with Christ only to be awakened to the fact that I never felt close to God because I had never been close to Him. Turn to Christ Jesus today, place your faith in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for your sins, allow Him to be the Lord (leader/boss/master) of your life, and receive the free gift of eternal life. Pray something like this… “Dear God, you are the only God and Jesus is the only way to you, please forgive me of my sins, I trust in Jesus’ death as the payment for my sins, I want to follow Him, I want you to be the Lord (leader) of my life, I surrender my heart to you. Please save me.” The Bible promises that whoever calls upon Christ to become Lord of their lives will have eternal life and be amazingly close to God.  (See Roman 10:9-13)

Thank you, Father, that no matter how I feel, you are still near me, and you are as close as the name of Jesus! Help me to call out to Jesus when I feel far from You. Help me to stay close to you each day. Amen.