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Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying.
-Martin Luther
There is no salvation by osmosis.
We can’t bank on our spouses relationship with Jesus—and the same applies to our mom or anyone else for that matter. We may have the best pastor in our city—he can’t believe for us. God makes no provision for riding right on into heaven on someone else’s coattails. We must trust Christ for ourselves. The only coattails that can bring each one of us into right-standing with God are those of Jesus Christ and him crucified. It is the greatest miracle of all—a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ his only Son—is by far unsurpassable.
Nicodemus, the secret seeker I will call him (he did come at night to speak to Jesus after all)—came to Jesus to find out more about the spiritual teachings of Jesus. Jesus didn’t waste any time with the prestigious and religious man.
3 Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.’ (John 3:3-5, ESV)
Notice that Jesus didn’t inform him that one of his contemporaries could stand in proxy for him.
You must be born again.
The guy you sit next to at work can’t pass his relationship with God over to you like he might his sandwich he offers to share with you. Sitting in a garage won’t make you a car. Hanging out in the locker room of your favorite NFL football team won’t make you a professional football star.
The prophet Ezekiel faced a people caught up with the notion that somehow they wouldn’t personally be held accountable for their own sin. They were tossing around a saying quite regularly along the lines that suggested that sons somehow were not responsible for their own sins because of their fathers sins. God wasn’t going to have any of it any longer—he instructed Ezekiel to warn the people—”As sure as I’m the living God, you’re not going to repeat this saying in Israel any longer. Every soul—man, woman, child—belongs to me, parent and child alike. You die for your own sin, not another’s (The Message Bible).”
We will each stand by our lonesome before the judgement seat of Christ and we won’t be given the opportunity to blame our fathers for our own dis-belief when it came to Jesus Christ.
No one else can have faith in Jesus for you—you must have a personal relationship with Jesus for yourself.
Christ, however, declares here: ‘Let it be your one concern to come to Me and to have the grace to hold, to believe, and to be sure in your heart that I was sent into the world for your sake, that I carried out the will of My Father and was sacrificed for your atonement, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, and bore all punishment for you. If you believe this, do not fear. I do not want to be your judge, executioner, or jailer, but your Savior and Mediator, yes, your kind, loving Brother and good Friend. But you must abandon your work-righteousness and remain with Me in firm faith.’
– Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 23: Sermons on the Gospel of St. John: Chapters 6-8
We can have our cake and eat it too when it comes to some things. When it comes to the salvation of our souls—it’s one way or no way. You can’t cling to Jesus and to your good works. One will save you while the other will see to it that you are lost.
Jesus won’t be a part of any equation—he is the equation or he acts as the gavel. And it’s not only our good works we can’t trust—it’s the good works of any one we might assume one-ups us in the good works department (or two-ups us for that matter). For some of us to find someone else to trust in besides ourselves it might not be too tall of an order, for others, well—I hope you see the light. I realize that to say that Jesus is in a class of his own may not sit well with my friends who’d like to seat Buddha—Mohamand—Joseph Smith—or the Jonas Brothers on the same platform with Jesus. While Jesus will stoop down and wash the feet of his followers, make no mistake—Jesus doesn’t share a platform with anyone. Being politically correct never was Jesus’ strong-suit. The day is coming when Mary—Moses—Pope-whoever—and Mahatma Gandhi will all kneel before Jesus.
16 ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16, ESV)
We read that and we can think I have that down. But like the item we are looking for on the shelf and cannot see because we are almost on top of it (which just so happens to be staring us square smack-dab between the eyes)—we need only step back and look at the verse from a healthy distance to see it as it is. It might be quoted so much for a reason. The simplicity of the gospel message is so simple we feel some insatiable desire to complicate it. God said we must believe in Jesus—of course the belief that results in salvation takes on the form of more than mere agreement. I’m not going to expound on dead faith (the same kind that Satan himself has and will condemn us) or living faith (the kind that only Jesus can author and serves to save us) here in this entry—but there is a world of difference. But what I want to point out here is that God makes no provision for trusting ourselves one iota for our own salvation—or anyone else for that matter.
God doesn’t give us three curtains to pick behind when it comes to our eternal destiny. There is no secret about who or what it is that God has selected to provide rescue from the entire weight of our sin. He didn’t let his Son be crucified in some remote location for no one to see, rather—he set him on the top of a hill so all would witness. Don’t you think if God intended for us to trust anyone or anything other than Jesus for our salvation he would have told us? Jesus is the only Savior we need—all others we must detest.
And that includes every last effort on our part to save ourselves.
Jesus is the curtain, the stage, and the entire play.
There is one case of death-bed repentance recorded, that of the penitent thief, that none should despair; and only one, that none should presume.
-Augustine
Presuming we can deal with Jesus some other day is something that we do. Admit it or not—we have done it.
And we still presume that Jesus can wait.
Jesus comes and presents us with himself—plain and simple—in his majesty and splendor. He can be dramatic, but more often than not he’s almost subtle about it. Unlike us, he’s not pushy or overbearing. While we can be sure he is strong—he is gentle in his approach. And he doesn’t make us come—although, he does have his ways to help make us willing. It’s a rather stark contrast between Jesus and our other choices you know. I will confess that I deal with this daily—so if you were looking for company—you have it. If you were looking for good company—don’t push it.
You see, Jesus always calls us to follow him today rather than putting him off until a rainy day. I think we presume that following Jesus means joining the local convent or taking an oath of celibacy—and I suppose it could. But I think often times we make following Jesus—not easier—but much more complicated than it actually is.
Buechner writes in Beyond Words,
For the best to happen, the worst must stop happening—the worst we are, the worst we do. But maybe it isn’t as difficult as it sounds. It was a hardened criminal within minutes of death, after all, who said only, ‘Jesus, remember me,’ and that turned out to be enough. ‘This day you will be with me in paradise’ was the answer he just managed to hear.
The unrepentant thief missed Jesus entirely while the believing one realized the urgency in today—he knew he couldn’t presume he had tomorrow.
4 Show me, O LORD, my life’s end
and the number of my days;
let me know how fleeting is my life. (Psalm 39:4, ESV)
Teach us Lord—to presume not that our days are not somehow numbered.
Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God.
-Martin Luther
I pledge allegiance to Jesus Christ.
It’s always bothered me to pledge allegiance to a country that can neither save my soul or secure my future. While I’m an American, in no way do I consider God and country in the same ball park. Hey, I’m all for baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie—although I do prefer a nice import to a Chevrolet (go figure—I was born and raised in the Motor City).
America is the land of the free but she didn’t die an innocent death at the hands of sinners on my behalf so that I could be forgiven an ocean liner full of sins. I could be living in a poorer than poor remote third world country and Jesus would still be the Savior of mankind—America or no America.
25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple…’ (Luke 14:25-27, ESV)
Wow. Pretty tough talk there. Jesus wasn’t fooling around and after considering the rest of what he taught—you might get the idea he is delusional without a further look into what he was really saying here. What Jesus isn’t advocating or sanctioning is—hate for ones’ family (let alone anyone else). We know that by the whole of what he teaches elsewhere. Bear in mind, this is the same Jesus who taught his followers to not only love their neighbors but to love their enemies—to not only turn the other cheek but to offer your abuser the shirt off your back. He wouldn’t possibly then turn around and shoot out the other side of his mouth Oh, and while your at it—hate your families.
No—Jesus is saying nothing of the sort. What Jesus is saying is this: Nothing and no one should compete for our allegiance to him—not our jobs—not our money—not our pleasures—not our passions (such as writing or our yoga class)—not our country—not even our families.
In comparison to him—we should hate all others.
I ask you neither for health nor for sickness, for life nor for death; but that you may dispose of my health and my sickness, my life and my death, for your glory… You alone know what is expedient for me; you are the sovereign master, do with me according to your will. Give to me, or take away from me, only conform my will to yours. I know but one thing, Lord, that it is good to follow you, and bad to offend you. Apart from that, I know not what is good or bad in anything. I know not which is most profitable to me, health or sickness, wealth or poverty, nor anything else in the world. That discernment is beyond the power of men or angels, and is hidden among the secrets of your providence, which I adore, but do not seek to fathom.
-A prayer from Blaise Pascal
We are the do-it-ourselfers. We get much too much caught up in attempting to fix ourselves—Thanks God for the offer, but we’ll take it from here. If anything, when it comes to our growth in grace—our efforts to better ourselves are off the charts (as if it were possible for a terminally ill man to provide his own cure). Like any project gone bad—we only make our condition worse than it originally was at the onset when we take matters of our sanctification into our own hands.
A good friend of mine who leads a Christian men’s recovery movement is fond of putting it this way—We aren’t bad people trying to get good, we are sick people getting well. I would confer as I think the gospel message proclaims exactly the same. And while I would agree that the human body has a remarkable capacity to heal itself, I would only add that it is God who created that same human body and that he is the one behind it’s being able to recover health and wholeness in the first place. In other words—we can’t heal ourselves alone. Worse than ending in mere frustration, any attempts to do so will ultimately end in failure.
If you have ever seen a face-lift gone bad, you might understand what I am getting at.
Our self-improvement projects are doomed from the onset and only serve our own peril, mind you—how many of them are for the wrong reasons? Our personal holiness and righteousness initiatives are nothing more than religious ego trips—efforts to make others think of us as spiritual—more Christlike than we actually are. Shouldn’t we want to live lives that glorify God out of love for God rather than for the love of applause? Our insecurities and our hunger for approval and acceptance run deeper than we readily admit. We have to ask ourselves what our motive is when we become either obsessive or compulsive about our own growth in grace—and a good indicator we are out of bounds is when we find ourselves beating up others about their own lack in such matters.
Solomon wrote:
13 Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked? 14 In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him. 15 In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing. (Ecclesiastes 7:13-15, ESV)
God is making those of us who were nothing but crooked—straight. We haven’t arrived yet—we are still being changed and we still have a ways to go. We can be sort of like kids who ask on the way to the family vacation destination—Are we almost there?
Not yet—but we’ll get there soon enough.
We have God’s word on it.
In the meantime–let’s trust him to drive while we attempt to relax a little and enjoy the ride—he does know where he is taking us after all.
In moving on to another topic in our next blog I will summarize with this: Life for the Jesus-follower should be lived in the light of just what it is Jesus did on the Cross. We ought to focus less on our piddly efforts and more on the suffering of Christ Jesus—including the priceless fruits and glorious benefits afforded to us by his doing so—today and in eternity future.
God’s not giving us a face-lift—no, it’s much more than that—he is renovating our hearts, and as any skilled surgeon would have it, he’s doing the surgery.
God’s goal is not to make sure you’re happy. Life is not about your being comfortable, happy, successful and pain free. It is about becoming the man God has called you to be. Life is not about you. It’s about God. He doesn’t exist to make us happy. We exist to bring Him glory.
-Chuck Swindoll
I have never served in the U.S. Armed Forces but I am informed enough to know there is a certain code of honor to be followed when you join up. First of all you are no longer your own—you are now the property (if you will) of whatever branch you have selected, or has selected you (in the case of a draft). And secondly, there is a certain set of principles and an order of living that you are now expected to adhere to.
Despite much of today’s popular teaching and current line of thinking—the same type of thing that goes for tatooed Jarheads with a propensity to cuss a fair amount goes for those of us who would identify ourselves as the followers of Jesus. We are no longer our own and we are now called to a different way of living than the life we once lived. You could say we are no longer civilians—we now have become soldiers.
Our place in the family of God couldn’t be more secure. That’s never the issue. There’s not one single act or a series of a million deeds we could do to secure our place in the family of God. Jesus has completed that mission. However, what is always an issue is whether we are living a life of ease, selfishness, and conformity to the world—or, are we living in such a way that the pulse of our lives is to glorify God? I’m guessing, and I am going out on a limb—that we could all use some improvement. I’ll speak for myself in confessing that I am not only challenged by Swindoll’s short but stinging commentary—but his words are an occasion for me to pause for contemplation and a healthy kind of introspection.
Paul had this to say himself:
1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (Ephesians 4:1-3, ESV)
Only you can really answer Paul’s question for yourself, I can’t, your husband can’t, your boss can’t—not even your pastor can.
Are you walking in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called?
Philip Malancthon once said to his friend Martin Luther, ‘Today, Martin, you and I will discuss God’s governance of the universe,’ to which Luther replied, ‘No, Philip. Today you and I are going fishing, and we’ll leave the governance of the universe to God.’
-Mark Buchanan—The Rest of God (p. 220)
I’ve never gotten along real well with the hot-shot who seems to know exactly what the poor sap trying to beat Tiger Woods ought to do. This is typically the same guy who won’t play the terrorizing game of golf since it means getting off his rear. Maybe our would-be Tiger-killer would have an altogether different attitude if he were to go out and try and qualify for a PGA Tour Event himself. Tougher to do than to talk about.
Beating Tiger Woods on a regular basis doesn’t happen. The whole field has one goal in mind… although he was beat last weekend at the annual Master’s Tournament, and in case you missed it, he took second—even with a bum knee he had surgery on hours after the event had concluded. Big talking never does amount to much and Tiger Woods never has been much of a talker come to think of it—he lets his clubs do the talking whether he places first or second.
It’s pretenders and critics that are busy talking a good game while the Jesus-followers are quietly walking with God.
6 ’With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? 7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’ 8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:6-8, ESV)
There are more armchair quarterbacks than real ones. It’s easier to beat Tiger Woods in theory than on the course, although I’m not so sure even beating Tiger in theory can be done. When it comes to reality—fat chance. My point is this: Try being like Jesus yourself before you pass judgment on someone else who has decided to take up the occupation. Jesus was no slouch and being like Jesus isn’t the same as being like your favorite uncle. It’s easy to compare ourselves to a guy like John Daly lets say—and it may be why he’s just so popular. But Jesus—good luck. It’s impossible in your own strength to follow Jesus, and unless you’ve done it, you might want to consider reserving your criticisms until you have. It’s always the non-practicing Christian (oxymoron I realize) who has all the answers. I’m not denying that there are phonies—that’s the case with everything. And I’m not talking about the bogus television preachers in this blog. I have met a police officer or two who do not represent the majority.
I still haven’t met an armchair quarterback I like.
But it’s sure hard not to like Tiger Woods.
Give me chastity and continence, but not quite yet. ~Augustine
You could say something supernatural happens the moment we place our trust in the finished work of Jesus on his cross of shame and suffering as evidenced by our confessing we are a sinner and by our denouncing all other allegiances. And although often times it may not look like we are changing all that much to those who are much too busy inspecting our fruit (while their own spoiled bananas are rotten and rancid)—we can be sure God’s own will be a changed people. Faith without works will always be dead. Satan himself believes in Jesus and it makes him no follower.
The reality is that as Christians we do change. But the change is many times not the way we might guess or assume—it sure takes longer than we’d like—and worse yet the biggest obstacle to our changing is the person we see in the mirror every morning when we brush our teeth. I am in no way suggesting that we stay the same—because we do not—but the point I am making is an important one. If we are honest, we have to confess that we still dabble with sin—we nibble and even splurge. No matter—sin is always over-indulging. If we are really honest, we’d be willing to admit that we wallow around in it at times and privately wonder how as a Jesus-follower we could do such a thing. You can’t deal with what you don’t acknowledge. Sin hasn’t packed up his bags and left us quite yet—we may have thought he left for good when we shooed him out the door last, but he’s been merely hiding around the corner patiently waiting for a more opportune time to clear his throat and whisper sweet nothings in our ear. To believe otherwise is only to deceive ourselves and worse yet—to mislead our younger brothers and sisters in Christ.
We just get in the way sometimes. The not-so-natural but inevitable progression when we become Jesus-followers is that we begin to do away with our old ways of living and thinking. It’s not that we must be someone we are not—no—we have been given a brand new permanent identity. Challenging to say the least—and just like old habits—our old identity doesn’t die so quickly. It is the miracle after all that transpires at the very instant of our conversion which makes the absolute difference and it is this: God comes to dwell within us via the Holy Spirit who is the Third Person in the Trinity (for those who may be new to this whole idea). God himself living within us. I didn’t say we become God. Big difference.
The mark of a true follower of Jesus isn’t an unchanged heart but a changed one—and a changed heart is only seen through a changed life. I started this short blog thread titled In Process based on the premise that following Jesus is just that—a process—which according to Merriam-Webster is A natural phenomenon marked by gradual changes that lead toward a particular result.
3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. 5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:3-8, ESV)
Notice Peter—the very man who denied even knowing Jesus on the eve of his betrayal—writes if these qualities are yours and are increasing… Peter’s growth in grace didn’t end just because he stumbled again—he went on to be changed over and over again. It can seem as though it is two steps forward and one step backwards at times—if anyone knew a thing or two about gradual change, it was Peter himself. I’ve never liked the old saying Christians aren’t perfect just forgiven because it falls so grossly short in painting a picture of just who us Christians are. Cheesy little maxims never do summarize what God has really said—they might sell some bumper stickers, but that’s about it.
Christians are surely forgiven—but that’s not all they are if they are true-blue followers of the Son of God—they are changed in the process.
People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.
-D.A. Carson
Talk to a skilled sailor and they will tell you that you can’t get to a desired location by simply drifting. You need a few things in order to sail. I mean what good are sails if you don’t set them?
I have been at this occupation of following Jesus for over half my life now and if I have learned anything it is this—I am prone to wander as are my brothers and sisters in Christ. It is nothing for me to coast—settle—and even flee. God knows it. So what good does it do me to hide it or deny it? What I need to acknowledge is my need for God’s grace if I am going to get anywhere in becoming more like Jesus. Without his grace I simply drift directionless. Simply put—God’s grace is the wind that powers my sails. I don’t need to make more efforts—that has gotten me no where. What I need is God’s grace.
1 Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. 2For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, 3 how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, 4 while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. (Hebrews 2:1-4, ESV)
For as long as I can remember I have struggled with the question—How does God’s grace and my efforts to grow in Christlikeness co-exist? And what I have learned is quite simple: My findings undeniably tell me that my efforts have to be grace-driven (as Carson eludes to in the quote above).
My prayer becomes not Help me try more God—but Please give me more grace so that I can grow in Your grace.
Drifting becomes much more difficult when that happens.
…The law is divine and holy. Let the law have his glory, but yet no law, be it never so divine and holy, ought to teach me that I am justified, and shall live through it. I grant it may teach me that I ought to love God and my neighbor; also to live in chastity, soberness, patience, etc., but it ought not to show me, how I should be delivered from sin, the devil, death, and hell.
Here I must take counsel of the gospel. I must hearken to the gospel, which teacheth me, not what I ought to do, (for that is the proper office of the law,) but what Jesus Christ the Son of God hath done for me : to wit, that He suffered and died to deliver me from sin and death. The gospel willeth me to receive this, and to believe it. And this is the truth of the gospel. It is also the principal article of all Christian doctrine, wherein the knowledge of all godliness consisteth.
Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually. ~Martin Luther
Some time ago now, my pastor was sharing on the wondrous Book of Romans over the course of a couple year span and still didn’t manage to exhaust all the gems of truth throughout Paul’s ground-breaking letter. On this particular Sunday my pastor was explaining in detail the nature of our bondage to sin while at the same time making a case for the freedom from that same power of sin that faith in Jesus affords each of us the very split-second we come to a place of conversion. As he began to speak and walk around the lectern it became obvious to all of us in attendance that our pastor was sporting more than his usual striped conservative tie and white shirt under-neath his black robe he’d wear during the colder winter months. He was being followed by a rusted iron sort of thick link chain that had been attached to his ankle—as it also had been affixed to a post of some sort in the middle of the stage area. Every time he would get so far as he meandered about, he would be forced to stop. The chain—symbolically sin—was holding him back or captive and it was doing a good job in limiting him as to how far he could go.
The point became crystal clear that sin ruled and he had no freedom to go beyond it’s death hold on him.
21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:21-23, ESV)
The following week Dr. Alberta had the same chain with him. However, there was one exception—it wasn’t attached to him any longer. The chain was laying there cut off and all by it’s lonesome. He had been set free and was free to go wherever he wanted—but there was a problem. A big problem. Whenever he would get to the area where the chain had previously restricted him the week before—he’d all-of-a-sudden get caught up and find it difficult to go any further than he’d gone before he was set free—just as if the chain were still attached to his ankle. It was almost as if he had been conditioned to believe that he could only go so far. Sound familiar? It does to me. It explains a struggle I have found myself tangled up in on more occasions than I could count on of all our fingers combined.
Have you been set free from the bondage of sin?
Are you living like you remember—or are you living like you have forgotten?
Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness, I am your sin. You have taken upon yourself what is mine and given me what is yours. You have become what you were not so that I might become what I was not. ~Martin Luther
WBIR out of Knoxville, Tennessee, reported the following in June of ‘07: For almost six weeks, a Murfreesboro man forgot that he had entered the Tennessee Million Dollar Madness lottery. Rick Checchin was reminded of his tickets by his co-workers Thursday morning, checked them–and discovered he had won $1 million. The drawing was May 14th–and he said today he just went about living his life and forgot about the two tickets he had purchased in March. Checchin said that with a wife and two children, he’d have no trouble spending the money. He works for the Standard Candy Company. After taxes were deducted, he pocketed $750,000. Three other winners in the big jackpot claimed their prizes shortly after the drawing.
The guy was a lottery winner and he was unaware until someone reminded him about just who it was that he had become. How often do we do the same?
16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:16-17, ESV)
Have you forgotten just who it is you belong to? Are you a follower of Jesus? Do you need to be reminded that if you are in Christ you too are a new creation never to be the same and no longer bound to the law of sin and death?
Can you remember the last time you stood in front of the mirror and instead of looking at the latest age spot on your temple or the more defined wrinkles adorning your face—you looked yourself square in the eye and reminded yourself that you are a new creation?
When God takes someone and makes a new creation out of them he doesn’t do half the job.
In Romans 7, Paul says ‘The law is spiritual.’ What does that mean? If the law were physical, then it could be satisfied by works, but since it is spiritual, no one can satisfy it unless everything he does springs from the depths of his heart. But no one can give such a heart except the Spirit of God, who makes the person be like the law, so that he actually conceives a heartfelt longing for the law and henceforward does everything, not through fear or coercion, but from a free heart. ~Martin Luther
I got online some time ago to read my free copy of the Detroit News as I do most mornings while sipping on my cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. First it’s sports and then I’ll check out the front page. The growing story of importance here in town besides the slumping economy and ballooning unemployment rate is our beloved Detroit Tigers baseball team. They are off to a surprisingly dismal start after winter acquisitions equaling the signing Goliath and a few of his buddies. Expectations have been rising all off-season, so to begin the season 0-7 wasn’t the start many of us fans anticipated. The paper had one of those cybersurveys to chime in on today. So I did. I answered with the 27.75% who said “A little. There are some bad signs“, in response to the question: “How concerned are you about the Tigers’ inauspicious start to the 2008 season?”
Some times we feel that way is regards to our journey of faith, our disconnect with sin can seem a million miles away. Our rally-cry to beat sin sort of like Mike Tyson used to pummel his victims in the boxing ring can quickly become a whimper—the guy who was gonna whip sin into shape can suddenly find himself the whipping boy. For many us, our anti-sin-crusade came to a halt much earlier than we had announced to the world. And then we did it, we gave in to some old familiar vice.
15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ~Romans 7:15-20, ESV
Losing seven games straight is no occasion to throw in the towel on the season. Like any MLB baseball team worth the dirt on the bottom of their spikes, we can’t give up on our entire season after a 0-7 start when we have a 162 game schedule in front of us.
Oh, the Tigers won game 8 in Boston last night—154 more to go.
This life therefore is not righteousness but growth in righteousness; not health but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not what we shall be but we are growing toward it; the process is not yet finished but it is going on; this is not the end but it is the road. All does not gleam in glory but all is being purified. ~Martin Luther
My friends in Alcoholic Anonymous say without apology something to the following effect: We are a program of spiritual progress—not spiritual perfection.
But I want to be perfect today.
Some time ago I was enjoying the community within the cozy confines of men that I trusted and the topics we’d sit around and discuss were of an extremely personal nature. Hence, the group was all about authenticity and although it was a so-called Christian group of men—it was a place where you could feel safe enough to unpack your dirty laundry and be real.
If you ask me—the church should be a body of folks who use a little more of that kind of approach and a little less of the opposite sort in which we pretend to be someone we are not like we do at work—with our relatives—at the baseball diamond—and with the neighbors in our subdivision. As a matter of fact that was one of the main ideas behind our meeting in the first place—taking off our masks we are so prone to put on in the morning before we scurry out the door. The group wasn’t anything like the Promise Keepers group I was introduced to some 10 years earlier—not a knock on them so much—but the whole lot of us in our new society of men had found out in our own journeys that we collectively and individually were all the more likely to play promise-breakers than promise-keepers if we were at all honest about ourselves. And now our forum was giving us permission (if you will) to be just that, honest—actually encouraging us to do so. We could even cuss or talk about sex and not be asked to leave. Imagine that—where I came from that was an all-out license to doubt someones very salvation.
Truth be told we were just a bunch of guys in need of grace and without any help from one another we were not getting all that far in our personal walks of faith by ourselves.
We Jesus-followers are all in process—every last one of us—and it does us some good to be reminded about this truth from time to time.
2 For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3 if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. 4For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. (2 Corinthians 5:2-4, ESV)
Being further clothed—that’s about now. So much of the time we mistakenly make reference to the Cross in terms of futuristic or in the past tense with very little if any reference to the here and now—today. By failing to name our sins and admit our need for forgiveness we be-little our dependence upon the finished work Jesus did on the Cross that made grace possible in the first place. Jesus suffered and died so we could live today in the power of that reality verses having to wait until tomorrow. There is hope for me to love my enemy—to care for the unlovely—and be sober—right now. As I take a serious and deliberate inventory of my life of late I have to be truthful with myself—that is if I want the freedom that is mine to be active and appropriated. It’s embarrassing when I really get honest about how little I believe God when it comes to my private life—as if it’s my right to have one. Do I trust him enough to sweep out and replace my torn apart and broken up furniture in the rooms of my life? Will I continue to hold the keys to those rooms in the death-grip of my grimy little fist or will I turn them over to Jesus?
Our growth in righteousness is only stunted when we ignore our plight.
May the prayer of our hearts be to have some more of the not yet in the here and now by the grace of God—that we would be further clothed—and may we understand that while we have not arrived, we are in the process of getting there.
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