Bringing Down a Super-Villain's Defenses

Suggested Reading: Revelation 2:12-17

In Superman II,  three super-powered villains from Krypton come to earth to take revenge on their jailer by killing their jailer’s son, Superman. After several battles where neither Superman nor the villains can gain the advantage, Superman lures them to his Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic. Playing on Lex Luthor’s greed and tendency for betrayal, he tricks the villains into turning on a machine that will eliminate their powers while Superman himself is protected within a crystal vault.  Superman knew that in order to win, he had to eliminate the villains' advantage.

When Israel was wondering through the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land, they wanted to pass through the land of Midian. Balak, the king of Midian, tried to hire a prophet named Balaam to curse Israel so that he could wipe them out, but each time, Balaam’s attempt to curse the Israelites turned into a blessing.  The Israelites were protected by God and, seemingly, there was no way to curse them or defeat them.  Not long after that, however, according to Jewish tradition, Balaam found a way to remove Israel’s singular advantage of God’s blessing. This new tactic is summarized in Revelation 2:14 as the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to place a stumbling block in front of the Israelites: to eat meat sacrificed to idols and to commit sexual immorality (HCSB).  Balaam knew that Israel could never be defeated by Midian so long as they were under God’s blessing so, according to Jewish tradition, he encouraged Balak to send in some seductive women who would encourage the Israelites to engage in idolatry and sexual immorality, breaking God’s laws and removing God's blessing from them so that they could be defeated.

Like the Israelites, we also have an Enemy who roams about like a roaring lion, seeking to devour us. Our Enemy also knows that we can never be defeated as long as God’s blessing rests on our lives, so he seeks to remove that blessing by tempting us into sin and into lifestyles that will separate us from the blessing of God. Our Enemy knows that if we remove ourselves from God’s protective blessings that we can be rendered ineffective and begin living defeated lives. Satan doesn’t always come at us head on, trying to mow us over. On the contrary, the Enemy tempts us to remove ourselves from God’s blessing, to give up our singular advantage.

Choosing to continue in a lifestyle of sin is not harmless. Rather, continuing in sin sets us up for failure and defeat, playing right into the Enemy’s hands. Choosing to sin and allowing sin to have a foothold in our lives amounts to stepping out from under the impenetrable shield of God’s blessing. By doing so, we give up our singular advantage and make ourselves vulnerable to the Enemy’s attacks. Why would we do that to ourselves?

Intentionally engaging in sinful behavior makes us vulnerable to the Enemy’s attacks. Recognize temptation for what it is: an attempt by your Enemy to bring down your defenses.

Praying Like We're Terrorizing Psychiatric Patients

Suggested Reading: Philippians 4:4-9

In the Superman prequel series Smallville, Lois Lane discovered that Clark Kent was a super-powered hero long before he finally told her. At one point, Clark was facing a very difficult decision and Lois wanted to help but didn't know how. In natural Lois style, she barged into her therapist's office, traumatized the patient waiting for a session and then proceeded to share the dilemma with the amused and confused therapist. Finally, before the therapist had a chance to say anything, Lois thought of a solution, thanked the doctor for the advice (which she never had a chance to give) and then marched off to carry out her newly created plan. The scene has actually been repeated on a number of shows: Patient walks in with a desperate problem, talks so quickly the therapist never gets in a word, then rushes out, having come up with their own solution to their problems and feeling much better.

One of the interesting things about this dynamic is that it is also common to prayer. Philippians 4:6-7 reads, "Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus" (NLT). Paul urges us, tell God what you need and then thank God for what he's done already and you will have peace. Much of the reason for that peace is the process of turning your problems over to God and then thinking about all the ways God has already dealt with your problems. When we force ourselves to remember how God has intervened in the past, it helps us to trust God in the here and now. The effect is even more profound when we are thinking about God's provision in God's presence by directly thanking him for it.

I'm not a big fan of most scripted prayers, but I do believe in being intentional with our prayers. One of the best things we can do, especially when we are worried, is to turn our concerns over to God and then to thank him for all the things God has done. By doing so we remind ourselves that God really is watching out for us, that God really does have the power to answer our prayers, and we ground ourselves in the reality of God's loving care for us. When we're grounded in God's loving care, it is really hard for us to worry about anything.

Are You Superman's Evil Alter Ego?

Suggested Reading: Ezekiel 20:21-26

A number of years ago, DC Comics decided to explore the possibilities that existed if Superman had been found by more sinister individuals than the salt of the earth Jonathan and Martha Kent. The resulting character in this alternate universe was Ultraman. Ultraman had all of Superman's natural gifts, but none of his character and thus he took the very same tools that Superman had used to save people and used them to hurt people for his own personal gain. The natural gifts were the same but Ultraman had twisted them into something cruel and evil.

In Ezekiel 20:25-26, God spoke to the prophet about his chosen people, saying, "I gave them over to worthless decrees and regulations that would not lead to life. I let them pollute themselves with the very gifts I had given them…" (NLT).  God had given his people the gift of the law. This gift was intended to lead them to life, to show them how to live in a covenantal relationship of trust with God. But instead, they had taken that gift and twisted it into something that gave them an excuse for behaving badly. Rather than following the laws that said, "Don't oppress the poor," or  "Don't commit adultery," and utilizing the sacrificial system as a way to bridge the gap between themselves and their Creator, they indulged themselves and then used the sacrifices as a point system to let them do whatever they wanted. 

God has given each of us gifts. To all of us who believe God has given us the gift of freedom, which Paul urged us not to use as an excuse to indulge our sinful natures. To some of us God has given the gift of intelligence, to some empathy, to some material blessings, and all of us have the potential of twisting those gifts into something disgusting. We can take intelligence and use it to talk ourselves out of what we know to be true. We can employ our empathy to  understand the plight of someone who has wandered into sin and begin accepting sin rather then employing empathy to gently restore the sinner. We can take material blessings and then place our trust in our own deceptive self-sufficiency rather then depending on God.

What gift has God given you? How could it be twisted into something corrupt? Make certain that you use your gift as God intended and never allow something good to be twisted into something less. 

Superman, Lazarus, and Skepticism

Suggested Reading: John 11:30-48

I remember an old episode of Lois and Clark: the New Adventures of Superman where Lois dragged Clark to see a new magician perform. The entire way there Clark was trying to convince Lois that magic wasn't real, that it was all illusion and slight of hand. He wasn't really interested in going. But once he was there watching the show, and he couldn't figure out the magician's secret, even using his x-ray vision and super speedy eyes, suddenly Clark wanted to know what was going on. When he didn't understand it, Clark was driven to figure out how it worked.

In what must have seemed an act of magic, Jesus had raised Mary's brother, Lazarus, from the dead. One minute Lazarus had been wrapped in grave clothes, laying inside a tomb. The next minute he was stumbling out of the mouth of the grave as people began unwrapping him. When all of the people who had come to mourn with Mary saw this miracle take place, they had a variety of reactions. John 11:45-46 tells us, "Many of the people who were with Mary believed in Jesus when they saw this happen. But some went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done" (NLT). Why did some go to the Pharisees?  Because the Pharisees were supposed to be the religious authorities of the day. If anyone could make sense of Jesus' actions, if anyone could explain to them how Jesus had done the impossible, the Pharisee should be able to. Some of these people who watched Lazarus's resurrection weren't sure what to make of it. So they put their healthy dose of skepticism to work for them and they went looking for answers.

Skepticism is not a bad thing. Skepticism can keep us from getting duped by con artists. As long as our skepticism drives us deeper in our search for the truth, it can be a healthy tool in our belt to help us navigate the waters of life. We get into trouble when we use our skepticism as an excuse to just not believe.

What have you been skeptical about lately? Did you try to discover the truth or did you use your skepticism as an excuse to just dismiss it? If you dismissed it, let's hope it wasn't important.

Spinning the World in Reverse to Save Us

Suggested Reading: Ephesians 2:1-10

When I think of Superman: the Motion Picture, I think of the scene where Superman has saved the day, stopping Lex Luther's missiles, preventing a small town from flooding, keeping California from falling into the ocean, where he has saved everybody but Lois Lane. I picture Superman pulling her car from the earth where it had been swallowed by an earthquake and then laying her lifeless body on the ground. I think of him screaming at the top of his lungs in anguish and then flying so fast he goes back in time to save her. The desperation on Superman's face is what I picture because, even though he saved everybody else, he needed to save Lois because he loved her. And so Superman reversed the course of time (infamously, spinning the Earth backwards on its axis) so that he could save a single woman because of his great love for her.

Ephesians 2 relates what life was like for us before and after God saved us and tells us how and why God did.  It tells us that God saved us "because of his great love for us" (Ephesians 2:4, NIV). While God is good and wants everybody to be saved, God also experiences the same kind of desperation that we need to be saved. God doesn't just want to save us. God loves us and wants to make certain that we are saved. God loves us to the extent that God was willing to reverse the power of death to do it.

How often do you stop and think about God's great love for us? How often do you take the time to remember that God wanted you to be saved so much that God sacrificed his own Son. God didn't save you (or isn't going to save you) just because that is what God does. God acted to save you because God loves you more than you are humanly capable of loving God back. God loves you enough that the extreme torment that Jesus endured on our behalf was worth the cost.

As you live today, remember all that Jesus endured was motivated by God's great love for you. And as you look at the people around you, remember God's great love for them, too. 

Let's All Be Superheroes

Suggested Reading: Matthew 14:22-33

My son is a massive superhero junky. It doesn't really matter which superhero - Superman, Batman, Thor, DareDevil, Spiderman. He loves pretty much all of them and would prefer to have every movie or television show ever made about every one of them. But he is really not that different from most every other guy I know. Almost all of us want to be some superhero or another. So it's really not that surprising that most Christians want to be like Peter.

Now Peter was a loud mouth who didn't know what he was saying most of the time that Jesus was around but he had moments of brilliance. There was the time that Jesus asked the disciples who they thought he was and Peter boldly declared, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16:16). But the time when most of us look at Peter and wish we could be him, even just for a moment, is found in Matthew 14.

Jesus had sent the disciples across the lake so he could be alone to pray. They were still crossing the lake in the middle of the night when Jesus came walking across the waves. The disciples freaked out thinking he was a ghost (which is only natural considering that normal people can't walk on water). When Jesus declared himself to them, Peter, rational thinker that he was, said, "Lord, if it is you, call me to come out to you on the water" (Matthew 14:28).

Ok.  What? Peter was crazy.  The other disciples, the ones hunkering down and cowering in fear, were the rational ones in this instance. People can't walk on water. Peter was the crazy one for believing anyone could walk on the water, much less thinking he could do it too. But Peter remembered something that we often forget: when God is involved, nothing is impossible. So Peter got to do something that none of the rest of us normally get to do. Peter got to walk on water like some superhero.

There are times when God calls us to do something that seems crazy, that seems impossible. When that moment comes, we can either take a chance, knowing that God is great enough to make up for whatever ability we don't have or we can hunker down and cower in fear, always wondering what it would have been like to walk on water. 

When your moment comes, what will you decide? Will you be bound by what is natural and possible? Or will you be crazy and step out on the water, trusting that Jesus will catch you if you fall? I don't know about you, but I want to be a little crazy.