He Makes Crooked Paths Straight

Jesus restores and redeems – “He makes crooked paths straight”. I heard this word early the other morning as I was praying. I heard it in the context of, once again, being accused and condemned by satan for what I did or said in my ‘past life’. I know better – I have been forgiven and redeemed by the blood of Jesus shed for me on the cross. I have repented and am now a much different (and better) person than I was in that past life, thanks to the work of the Holy Spirit. But still, sometimes the enemy sneaks up on me in those early morning moments and speaks the ancient words of accusation, “You are a rotten person. Be ashamed. You are not enough!” (and notice how satan’s accusations are always general. If the Holy Spirit needs to convict me of sin, He will be specific). Satan always condemns; the Holy Spirit convicts. There is a difference — one leads to death; through repentance, the other leads to life.

Generally, I know what to speak. I say, “I come out of agreement with that spirit of condemnation or accusation. The Lord rebuke you.” But sometimes that wave of shame is so strong that I sit still for a few seconds before I go on the offensive. It was in a moment like that when the words, fully formed, appeared in my mind – “I make crooked paths straight”.

I knew they were from Scripture, but not from any passage I was studying. So, I searched. And here are three passages, out of many, that I found:

“I will bring the blind by a way they did not know; I will lead them in paths they have not known. I will make darkness light before them, and the crooked places straight. These things I will do for them, and not forsake them” (Isaiah 42: 16 NKJV).

And . . .

“I will go before you and make the crooked places straight; I will break in pieces the gates of bronze and cut the bars of iron . . . That you may know that I, the Lord, Who call you by your name, Am the God of Israel” (Isaiah 45: 2, 3 NKJV).

And . . .

“A voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all mankind will see God’s salvation’” (Luke 3: 5, 6 NIV).

In truth, the words I heard when I was praying were, “behold, I make crooked paths straight.” The Isaiah texts speak of God making crooked places straight, not crooked paths. But from the context of many of the passages I read, making the crooked straight has several meanings: 1. God makes straight the spiritual path or road I am on by removing the ‘mountains’ in my way and making the rough way smooth, just as the Luke passage above illustrates; 2. God makes the crooked places in my heart straight; and 3. He straightens out the crookedness that I have left behind in my wake as I passed through the world.. 

But back to the text. What did God mean when He spoke to me about making the crooked straight?

The Hebrew word for crooked means fraudulent, deceitful, sly, or slippery. The Greek word for crooked is skolios meaning perverse, wicked, or curved. In Greek, deceive (related to deceitful) means to go astray, to wander or roam about, to be led aside from the path of virtue, or to be led into error or sin – all good descriptions of the crooked path.  

The crooked place is a place of deceit, a perverse and wicked place. It can also be a twisted place, like the coils of a serpent. Based on the Scripture quoted above, the crooked place, the place of deceit and wickedness that the Bible refers to most often is the human heart. As Jeremiah says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17: 9 KJV).

The literal crooked path reminds me of a path or road with many meandering loops, turns, and bends. It is a path that does not go straight for a destination, but winds and twists around obstacles in its way, requiring a lot more energy to get to the destination than the straight road, like an ancient Roman road.

The crooked path is also the spiritual and emotional way or road a person is traveling through life. It is a path and a life marked by deceit, fraud, fear (a lot of fear), and wickedness. It is the path of an unfocused life – twisting and turning aside from every road block and difficulty that life places in the way of the person on that path. It is a life of powerlessness and self-deception. It is a path made by each person, according to their own beliefs, experiences, and feelings.  Many are spiritually and emotionally walking on the crooked path when they seek fulfillment in the things of the world like pleasure, wealth, and power – they will twist, turn, bend around, and expend a lot of energy, but never reach the destination, which is personal fulfillment. That reminds me of some parts of ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ by John Bunyan.

For many, the crooked path is a religious or ‘works’ path, even Christians.

The straight ‘place’ is a heart of forthrightness, humility, goodness, and honesty. It is a Kingdom heart – a heart that loves God (Mark 12: 29 – 31) and loves others before itself. It is a heart filled with humility. It is a place made by God – He will make the crooked places straight. It is a heart surrendered and submitted to God, worshiping, praising, and obeying Him. It is a transformed heart, the heart of a new creation. When God makes the crooked places straight, He forgives our sins, redeems our lives, and restores our hearts back to the condition of the human heart in the Garden of Eden before Adam and Eve’s hearts became crooked through deceit and wickedness. But we have a role to play in turning the crooked straight. Our role is “to repent and believe the Gospel”, the Gospel of the Kingdom (Mark 1: 15).

(A few thoughts about repentance. There can be no salvation apart from repentance. I have written about the critical importance of repentance in other posts (Actually, at least 10 other posts. Type ‘Repentance’ into the seach bar to find them). I am not going to write more about repentance here. But I commend an important book to you — “Repentance. The First Word of the Gospel” by Richard Owen Roberts. You will be challenged, convicted, and chastened. It puts repentance in it's proper context and perspective. It is not an easy book to read, but it might be one of the most important books you read. It can change your life and your walk with Christ.)

The straight path is also the spiritual and emotional road that the redeemed journey along, like the highway of holiness in Isaiah (Isaiah 35: 8, 9, 10 NIV, in which the ‘unclean’ are the ‘crooked’). The way can be straight, not because of my efforts and power, but because of His. Or more precisely, because of the power and authority I exercise in partnership with Him when I am in Christ. It is straight because God either removes the obstacles, like mountains (like the mountains of disease, divorce, loss, financial difficulties, addictions, etc.) along the way that causes another’s path to be crooked, or gives us the grace and power to plow right through the mountain. Jesus tells us, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt . . . you can say to this mountain throw yourself into the sea and it will be done” (Matthew 21: 21 NIV). The straight path can be straight either because the mountain is removed altogether or God leads us through the mountain and out the other side.  (God removes mountains, He makes a way through mountains, or, sometimes, He lets me remain on the mountain — the place of pain, brokenness, or some other type of suffering — for His purposes in my life. If He does this, He will always be near and He will give the strength to endure).

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3: 5, 6 NIV).

The person on the straight path is focused, eyes on what is ahead. Like Paul wrote, “Of course, my friends, I really do not think that I have already won it; the one thing I do, however, is to forget what is behind me and do my best to reach what is ahead. So, I run straight toward the goal in order to win the prize, which is God’s call through Christ Jesus to the life above” (Philippians 3: 13, 14 Good News Translation).

We enter the straight path through the narrow gate that leads to life. I believe this is the origin of the phrase, “he is on the straight and narrow”, which means he is living an honest and healthy life – in the original meaning, a ‘Godly life’. In colloquial English, the “straight and narrow” is the opposite of “crooked”, as in “he is a crook” or “he is a crooked person”. A crooked person is one who is dishonest, deceitful, and wicked. In reality, the only way a person can be on “the straight and narrow” is through the power and presence of Jesus in their life, because ‘crooked’ is the default condition for humanity. And it is sad, but true, that there are some people who don’t want to be straight – they like to live on the crooked path; they don’t want to live in the light, they prefer the darkness.

The straight path is the Kingdom path and, at the same time, Jesus is the straight path. Making our paths straight is His joy and one measure of His great love for us.  

OK. But what does all this have to do with me? What did God want me to understand when, in the middle of my battle with satan’s accusations, I heard Him say, “I make crooked paths (or places) straight?”

He was telling me that in the moment when I felt ashamed and ‘not good enough’, somewhat lonely and sad, I was being deceived – in that moment satan was trying to drag me, emotionally and spiritually so to speak, into a crooked place of condemnation. I was in the presence of real wickedness and perversion. Satan, who is wily and slippery, was trying to discourage, depress, and even defeat me.

But God intervened. God was telling me that He has gone before me, or after me – it is all the same to Him – and He has made those crooked places or paths in my past life straight. In other words, He has somehow redeemed those situations and circumstances in the past where I was deceitful, fraudulent, and even wicked. And when I believed by faith, repented, and received His forgiveness, through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, He made me a new creation. He redeemed my relationship with Him over my entire life and healed my heart. He restored the years eaten by the locust. Somehow, He made the crooked paths that I walked in the past straight as if they were never crooked in the first place. “I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more” (Hebrews 8: 12 NIV). Hallelujah! What a God!!

And not just for me. He can release the addict, for example the one addicted to pornography, food, drugs, or Facebook from the grip of the addiction, through the power of His Holy Spirit. And then He can cleanse and heal their life from the damaging and defiling effects of the addictions. He has made their crooked paths straight.

David writes of all these truths:

“Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits, who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle” (Psalm 103: 2 – 5 NIV).

On the flip side, the sins of my past life have been used by God to teach me important lessons about His grace and mercy, and how to extend compassion to others. They are all part of my story, but God has drained them of the power to condemn and accuse me.

How does Jesus set us free? By His supernatural power He opens the eyes of the blind, breaks the gates of bronze and bars of iron that imprison us in anger, shame, guilt, and sin; and He leads us out of darkness into the light. He heals our broken hearts and He seats us at His right hand in the heavenly realms, with all the powers and principalities of the dark world beneath our feet.

God hates sin! Jesus sets us free, but not ‘free’ to continue to live in and with our sin. Do you want this freedom? Then repent of your sins and sinful life. What is sinful? It is what Jesus tells us it is in His gospels. Read them, accept His words, and repent. Our ability to repent is one of His greatest gifts to us. There is no Kingdom life without repentance — being repentant..

The only weapon satan has to counter this truth is deception. His greatest fear is that you will walk in the truth, you will walk on the straight path, and he will not be able to sap your strength, divert you from your destiny in Christ, negate your Kingdom power, and make your straight path crooked.

In Acts, 13, Paul admonished a sorcerer named Elymas saying, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?” (Acts 13: 10 ESV). Mankind’s first encounter with satan in Scripture was in the Garden of Eden, where satan made the straight paths of Adam and Eve crooked by using deceit and wickedness, — with their permission. He operates the same way today. Satan makes the crooked path look ‘good’. He deceives us into believing that the crooked path is the path to fulfillment. But that is the ‘great lie’. The ‘crooked path’ is the way that leads to spiritual and emotional emptiness and death — never to fulfillment! The straight path leads to life – a life of meaning, purpose, power, and blessings – blessings for us, and through us to others.

God is telling His Kingdom men and women: “I have made your crooked paths straight; I am making your crooked paths straight; I will make your crooked paths straight. All of this – past, present, and future – is accomplished through His power and my faith and trust in Jesus Christ. Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father (in other words, no one walks on the straight path) except through me” (John 14: 6 NIV). Not my words, His. And in the American culture today, if Jesus was physically alive, and He spoke these words, and CNN got a hold of them, He would be crucified all over again.  

Jesus makes crooked hearts and paths straight. He desires to save everyone, but we must: 1) accept Him as the Lord of our life through faith in Him by grace and the power of His Holy Spirit and 2) repent of our sins.

If you are reading this post and have not accepted Jesus as Lord, and are tired of living a ‘crooked’ life, pray this prayer and then find a church where you can be cherished and led deeper into the most fulfilling life you could ever imagine:

“Jesus, I am tired to living a crooked life focused only on myself. I confess and repent of __________ (list the sins you are aware of. Ask Jesus to help you repent). Forgive me. I receive you as my Lord and my Savior. Please come into my life and make me a new creation – make my crooked paths straight.”

And let me know how Jesus shows up!

Be blessed in Jesus name,

John