The Divine Inheritance

"For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish." Esther 4:14

"Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession." Psalm 2:8

“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." Matthew 6:2-4

"“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal." Matthew 6:19-20

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field." Matthew 13:44

“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate." Luke 15:22-24

"The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name." Acts 5:41

"Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory." Romans 8:17

"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:37-39

"Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
--- The Weight of Glory, by C.S. Lewis


On the first day of this month, it was announced that Osama bin Laden had been shot and killed. My response to this was to weep and pray for my brothers and sisters in radical Islam and to write a short essay expressing such sentiments as I experienced that night. The events, discussions, and works of the Spirit that followed continue to astound me weeks later, and I firmly believe that May 1st, 2011 will endure as one of the most important days of my life. Among other things, the event has encouraged me to commit myself to the spreading of the Gospel in the Muslim world, especially among the radical branches of the religion, through prayer, financial support, my writings, and perhaps even missionary work if God leads me in that direction. This is a manifestation of my sincere desire to see God glorified and His love shared with others, but it is also part of my yearning for the inheritance promised to me.

This past semester I also was led by God to read the story of His chosen people, beginning in 1 Samuel and ending in Jonah (not counting books of prophesy), and one of the most prominent themes of this grand story was inheritance. At one point, I read a commentary from the editors (if that's the right word) of my Bible on the time devoted to describing how Ahab and his wife had a man killed in order to take his property in comparison to what appeared to be much more serious crimes. At first, Ahab had tried to buy the property (a vineyard if I recall) from the man, but he had refused because it was unlawful to sell his inheritance in the Promised Land.

At an earlier point I was struck by the inheritance which David had in the abundant blessings of his reign and his bloodline, which was chosen to be the bloodline of Messiah Yeshua. This inheritance, which was God's delight to bestow upon him, did not extend merely to David but also was laid upon his disobedient descendants as the Lord promised that the lineage of David would endure. The power of this blessing can easily be seen when we compare the rules of Jeroboam and Rehoboam. In response to Solomon's wickedness, God had divided the Promised Land between Israel, ruled by Jeroboam, and Judah, ruled by Rehoboam, the son of Solomon and grandson of David. Both kings had defied God and given their kingdoms over to the worship of pagan idols (interestingly, Jeroboam had chosen to do this after he had been saved from a long and bloody war by the then-current prophet, who had told the enemy troops to stand down because it was God's will that Israel be divided) but Jeroboam's entire family was wiped out after only a few generations while Rehoboam's line continued not only to exist (there are probably descendants of David running around to this very day) but to rule Judah until the entire Promised Land was delivered over to Babylon. In fact, Rehoboam's grandson, Asa, proved to be of the same nature as David and he continued to rule Judah long into his old age whilst the kings of Israel were dropping like flies.

Next there was the inheritance of the prophets, particularly of Elijah and Elisha. Through various people, events, accounts, and books, God has been leading me to a longing for the power of the Spirit as a regular part of my experience of Him, and so when I read of the ancient prophets I did so with an understanding (though it is a vague and incomplete understanding to be sure) of the sheer glee with which Elijah, filled with the Spirit's power, outran the chariot of the king. It must have been a moment of incredible reverence and joy when Eli realized that, in a time when God seemed silent, the Lord had spoken audibly to this little boy under his care. And who could describe the cheerfulness with which Elijah ordered gallons upon gallons of water, in the midst of a drought no less, to be poured out over the Lord's sacrifice? I began my reading of First and Second Kings with the belief that those who perform miracles simply follow God's plan, but as I read of Elisha's spontaneous exercises of miraculous power it seemed to me that the Lord had invited him not simply to respond to His commands, but rather to take on the supernatural authority of the Kingdom of Heaven and become an active participant in the advance of that Kingdom. No wonder Elisha had asked for a double-dose of his mentor's spirit.

Finally, there was the love of Israel that the Jews had when they went into exile. Read through the accounts of their scatterings from and returns to the Promised Land and it will become clear with what absolute joy the Jews took up their inheritance. Before his passing, the senior Mr. Rubinstein once came to one of my classes and said that to this day the true home of every Jew is Israel and that he had seen some Jews break down into tears upon coming to the Promised Land.

Today, with the New Covenant of Messiah in place, we also have an inheritance in the Kingdom and we should respond to that news as joyfully as the ancient Jews of the Persian empire responded to the news that the Promised Land was to be given back to them. Before I was a Christian I found this idea repulsive, feeling that it was wrong to pursue love or righteousness with rewards in mind. Today, I am even more skeptical of self-centered ideas like self esteem and such, but I am also overjoyed by the inheritance promised to me by Christ. After all, is it not supreme arrogance to belittle that for which God has bled and died, even if that is one's own self? If Christ is preparing a treasure in my name, is it not sinful disobedience not to rejoice? Besides, this treasure is one in which only sanctified heart can delight.

And this is an inheritance to be chased after here and now. Our inheritance is in the Kingdom of Heaven to be sure, but while that Kingdom will never be fully realized this side of Judgment, it is nonetheless present in the mortal world.

The Inheritance of the Evangelist
Remember how I started this post? Remember how I said God has led me to dedicate myself to the spread of the Gospel to Muslims? This is where that plays in. Christ said that we are to be fishers of men and that we are to reap of a harvest we have not sown, and I for one am overjoyed at this prospect.

Islam is currently the second largest religion in the world and after Muhammad, the man it holds in greatest reverence is Isa la Messiah. It is a religion rooted in the Biblical tradition but it is also one founded upon works, with (I suspect) a declining sense of hope as the radicals fail to deliver victories and the West continues to outshine the nations that once considered it an ignorant, backwater corner of the world. According to Carl Medearis, missionary (if that is the right word) and author of Muslims, Christians, and Jesus, reports numerous occasions on which Muslims, including a member of Hezbollah, were overjoyed at the opportunity to learn about Isa from him or to receive a book of the Gospels as a gift, and J.P. Moreland claims in Kingdom Triangle that thousands of Muslims are acknowledging Isa as their lord and savior each year.

In the developing world, the Church has been growing at explosive rates. According to Moreland, there were twice as many Western Evangelicals as Nonwestern Evangelicals in 1960 and by 2000 there were four times as many Nonwestern Evangelicals as Western Evangelicals. Through the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit and the outpouring of Christ-like love, the Church has been growing in leaps and bounds in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

And this harvest is not just overseas. For over a thousand years the vast majority of the Kingdom's struggle has been not over nonbelievers, but rather over nominal Christians, the lukewarm believers. However, ever since the Enlightenment, mainstream Western culture has been drifting slowly away from Christianity. Today, American culture and academia are largely apostate and even in the Bible Belt people are getting tired of "playing church." As I recently told a fellow believer, it will not be long now before secular America stops being apostate and starts being pagan, and I am absolutely ecstatic about the harvest that will follow. Once the last vestiges of Christianity are gone, what will be left to protect the agnostics and atheists of America? Communism and fascism have both failed miserably in their promises of a secular utopia, naturalism and postmodernism are both incapable of providing even the slightest spiritual nourishment or sense of purpose or even the capacity to condemn murder as objectively wrong, and secular humanism promises a purpose to life but fails to explain how such an abstract thing could exist and has no answer to the end of all mortal things which both science and religion assure us is to come. As an ambassador of Messiah, I am eager to exemplify a life given over to the Kingdom, and as a writer I am equally eager to demolish the secular strongholds all around us.

The Inheritance of the Theologian

Read the history of western philosophy and one thing that you will find will be the constant fading and reviving of skepticism. From the ancient sophists to the postmodernists of today, our ability to see and interact with objective reality has been called into question again and again. Even Socrates, the first great enemy of skepticism, claimed that he was largely ignorant even though he believed that knowledge was somehow available. The whole of humanity is starving for the knowledge of goodness, of meaning, of God and we are in the joyous position of possessing precisely that knowledge. In fact, while this is certainly not the only way the Bible can be read, it is clear to anyone who has desired wisdom that the whole biblical story, from Genesis to Revelations, is the story of God going out of His way to deliver us that wisdom which we could never have achieved on our own!

Look at the doctrine with fresh eyes for a second. G.K. Chesteron and C.S. Lewis both remarked on the uniquity of it, on how it was right on the bullseye that any decent thinker could land an arrow near but not a single mortal mind could ever hit dead-on. Chesterton compared it with what we knew of nature, specifically the human body. We have two eyes, two hands, one symmetrical nose, two ears, two feet, and one symmetrical mouth and all of this conforms to our usual sense of logic and educated guesses but then you reach the heart and you find that there are neither two hearts nor one symmetrical heart smack dab in the center. The doctrine is just like that: it fits in perfectly with our usual good sense, except for the exceptions. It has too many simple truths to be dismissed as nonsense and far too many paradoxes to be dismissed as obvious or shallow.

Then there's that spectacular balancing act. Chesterton compared it here to the difference between the balance of an orderly, marble pillar and that of a huge, rugged boulder like those you see in Arizona which stand for centuries on stones that are probably not even a tenth of their size and which always look like they're about to topple over at any moment. A human philosophy can be home to a saint who fasts and prays and sells everything he owns, a common man, or a zealous knight willing to kill and be killed for his convictions, but it cannot house all three. Only the doctrine of the God who made all three men can find a place for all three men. Only in the teachings of Christ and His followers can I find the power to despise the sin and set every means of destruction in my power against it while still loving the sinner and pouring out every imaginable mercy and blessing upon him.

I first came to my inheritance in the Bible and the collected works of the Christian thinkers of the last two-thousand years with fear and reluctance, still holding on to the comfortable secularism of my childhood and early teens. Then I fell in love with it. In fact, having fallen in love with Christ, I seem to find myself in love with just about everything.

The Miraculous Inheritance

It's hard for me to write on this topic because I am still so unschooled on it. However, while I have never performed any healings or spoken in tongues or prophesied, I have seen God at work, seen His guiding hand, and heard (I mean this metaphorically, though I am well aware that there are others who can say it literally) Him speaking to me. And at the end of the day, hearing from God is what all miracles are really about. The important thing isn't power or a vanished tumor, but rather the opportunity to be part of an interactive relationship with God, one in which we get a direct line of communication both ways as well as a clear view of his workings in and around us.

Basically, everything that happens in a relationship takes the form of either action or communication. When we receive visions, prophecies, omens, guidance in Bible readings, words of wisdom from fellow believers, and audible or emotional messages we are receiving communications from God and when we see healings, exorcisms, sanctification (the miracle of second birth), and more unique miracles such as those of multiplication we are seeing God's actions. Both miracles of communication and action are vital to the Christian life because it is through them that we see God's perfect love and wisdom play out in our lives; more than that, we see His love respond to us. To be sure, many miracles are perfectly good things in their own right (so far as anything besides God can be good in its own right), especially gifts of prophecy and demonic deliverance for these express the authority of our Father over all earthly and infernal powers, but the main significance of miracles is that they constitute a closeness to God which all of humanity has yearned for since the Fall.

The Inheritance of the Transformed Heart

The first time I ever really desired to be humble was when I read C.S. Lewis' description of a humble man in Mere Christianity, which reads "Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call “humble” nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody.Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him.If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all." That was the first time I ever yearned to let go of my ego, to stop obsessing over myself.

That is what the promise of the transformed heart is all about, it's about letting go of all the worthless worries and values of the sinful flesh and the growth of love. It's all about the grim necrosis of pride being purged so that we can stop worrying about finding ourselves and actually be who God made us to be. It's about life and love and passion and unimaginable joy. It's about being filled to the brim with holy breath of our precious Father.