Proverbs and Friendship

Friends are like mirrors.  In many ways, they can reveal to us who we are and show the type of person we may be, either wise or foolish, disciplined or sluggard.  Much of Scripture is concerned with friendship, perhaps nowhere more acutely as in the book of Proverbs.  Here are three particularly direct verses in regards to friendship for your consideration.

Proverbs 13:20: "He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm."

Proverbs 27:6: "Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses."

Proverbs 27:17: "As iron sharpens iron so does one man sharpen another."

These verse paint a definite mural expressing the intent of friendship, the value of friendship, and the importance of making wise friends.  Friendship should not ever be undervalued and it should be cherished for all that it is worth for a true friend is like salve for the wounded soul and joy to the heavy heart.  Let us then praise God for the joy and pleasure of friendship!

Psalm 118:24–Rejoice this Day

Psalm 118:24: "This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."

After the seemingly-unending Minnesota winter, spring has arrived (at least for now).  And on days like today that are warm and bright, days that require sunglasses and even, dare I say, a t-shirt, on these a single verse comes to mind.  Truly, days like these should be days of praise and of worship as we take joy in them.  Much more could be said but, frankly, it doesn't seem wise to waste a beautiful day like this!  Amen and may your day be filled with joy and life!

Necessity of Vulnerability and Humility in Friendship

Love cannot be had apart from humbling yourself to the point of vulnerability.  This is seen and exampled most aptly in Christ, who humbled Himself to the form of man and deigned to a death of utter humiliation in obedience to His Father's will.  All versions of human love are but shadowy analogies of the great love shown for us in Christ.

In the case of a mother and her child, this vulnerability occurs most naturally at birth and rearing when the child is cared for because of his inability and the mother likewise reveals her vulnerability in the wringing of hands and the potentially explosive responses to tantrums and the like.  Thus the son is made humble and vulnerable by his nature while the mother is rendered vulnerable by that same virtue.

Or think of lovers who, in the throes of intimacy and ecstasy, are stripped of all pretense and barrier, the utter nakedness exposing them to the deepest of humility and vulnerability, the very bedrock of love.  Is it, then, any wonder that physical affection of this is the seal and consummation of the marriage covenant?

It is because of the necessity of humility and vulnerability to love that true friendship becomes such an unusual prospect, particularly in an age wrapped in self-esteem and arms-length closeness that favors strength to vulnerability and dignity to humiliation.  But as friendship cannot be had without love and love cannot be had without a great measure of humbleness and vulnerability, it would be wise to reclaim these aspects of love so as to renew a vibrancy of friendship as well.

I can speak from a certain amount of personal experience in this arena, having found it to be true on multiple occasions that intimacy in friendship is in direct proportion to my willingness and commitment to humility and vulnerability.  Because of this, confirmed by reason and Scripture, we should relish the opportunities draw closer in love and friendship.  And praise be to God who has given us His love so that we may love!

Evaluating Self-Evaluation

On occasion it seems a good and right activity to take a sort of self-inventory. These times of self-examination usually occur during times of either extreme tumult or stagnancy, which we tend to refer to as 'moments of clarity.' But at such times as these, do we ask the right questions?

We tend to look at goals, bank accounts, or relationships as the evaluators. We weigh and consider time wasted or opportunities missed. Failures and flaws of character as well as strengths in virtue and charity are put into the mix as we attempt to garner an accurate estimation of life progress and skill. But, again, are these the right questions to ask?

The flaw in such reasoning comes not because we are ignoring that which is important. On the contrary, each of these is a vital category of life and worthy of thorough consideration; however, it seems that we are running under faulty presuppositions. After all, what is should never be used as the line for what ought. That's like using a squiggly line for a level or a dirty glass for a telescope.

It would seem that another approach is in order. For this consider the analogy of a couple lost in their car and leveling a house. While the interior of the car possesses all the requisite gauges to determine speed, range and the like, it is the incoming information that helps to direct the course. It is the information from the GPS, from the couples' eyes, etc. that inform of correct direction and sight. Or think of the plumb line or the level: it isn't the house that determines what is straight or true but. It is the level that reveals crookedness.

In the same weigh it cannot be self-examination that reveals the unevenness of a life or the deficiencies in direction; it is God and His Holy Word. Holding our lives up to the Word of God exposes both virtue and vice while it points the way of truth which is Christ. Because of this there is no better source than Gods Holy Word as the surest footing and perfect path.

Necessary Intercession

Think of a great river banked on each side with cragged cliffs and rocky caverns.  The river itself is one raging rapid after another.  In every way the river is uncrossable: too deep and too wide to swim or traverse.  Add to this that the river extends in this manner indefinitely; the is no end nor beginning.  Furthermore, only one side of the river possesses the necessary resources for crossing the waterway.

This is an analogy for the canyon that exists between God and humanity caused by the destructive, separating force of sin.  The distance between sinful humanity and the Holy Lord Almighty is so great and sin has so perversely inflicted mankind that only by an act of God could the unscalable gap be overcome.  Enter Jesus.

He is the bridge.  By His life of perfect obedience, His humiliating death upon the cross, and His resurrection to life Jesus made a way of salvation, of redemption, and of removing the great separating wall of sin.  Jesus is the intercessor, the bridge, the intermediary between God and man.  This forms the very bedrock of faith; it is the heart of the Christian message.  Let us then always praise God that He did not leave us stranded but in His rich mercy bestowed His grace upon us so that we might be restored to Him!  Amen!  Thank You, Lord!

The Soil of Suffering

It is an odd thing to think that nutrient-rich soil which yields the finest bright flowers can equally breed the most undesirable weeds if the soil is not tilled with intent.  Spiritually speaking, there is perhaps no greater and richer soil than the soil of suffering.  It is suffering, those moments or seasons of life of pain and tumult, that form either the strongest bonds of character and friendship or cause the deepest of relational caverns or personality deficiencies.

Paul writes that we "rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." Romans 5:3-5.

This is one of the unique comforts of the Christian message.  Not only can suffering be seen in light of God's glory but, even more so, suffering can be seen as serving a purpose.  Praise God!

Lord, Liar, or Lunatic

John 14:6–"Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me."

In C.S. Lewis' classic work Mere Christianity, he makes the statement that there are only three possibilites for Jesus: either He is the Lord, a liar, or a lunatic.  This phrase proposition comes to mind when I read this rather radical declaration from Jesus.

There is no getting around it.  People can talk ill of Christians and they can provide countless proofs of the Christian camp overstepping their bounds, behaving lovelessly or hypocritically; however, the situation remains: Jesus.

We cannot miss this vital point.  He is the heart of Christianity.  If you want to know what a film is about, you can watch the preview and get some critiques from trusted friends, but until you see it for yourself you have no basis for review yourself.

Jesus is it.  Coming to grips with Him is the very essence of humanity just as it is the very fullness of God.  To put it mildly, Jesus made some outlandish claims about Himself.  These claims form the basis of Christianity.  The claims can be ignored, to be sure, just as a fire alarm can be ignored until one passes out from smoke inhalation.  Yet, the wiser thing by far would be to address the proclamations, assess the evidence and come to a conclusion.

Lewis, the master that he was, arranges it so acutely.  Either Jesus is Lord, a liar, or a lunatic.  And if He is the latter two then the Christian truly is to be the most pitied and gullible wretch of humanity.  But if the former is the truth, then creation is to be reckoned by it.  In fact, if Jesus is Lord then the whole of life will be transformed by virtue of His Lordship.  This alone is enough to warrant inquiry.

Psalm 27:4–One Thing I Ask

Psalm 27:4: "One thing I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in His temple."

Desire satisfied, that is what this passage is all about; the highest of desires, to be sure.  To dwell in God's house, to gaze upon His beauty, and to inquire in His holy temple, perhaps there is no set of higher virtues.  But when you read this verse do you ask the same self-probing question that I do: "Is God worth this much to me?"

While I can honestly assert, to my discredit, that I do not always desire the things of God first and foremost, I can claim with certainty that I want to.  My prayer is to yearn for God more than I currently do, to not be satisfied with my current inclinations to His glory but to truly wish for a greater longing, a more sincere pining, and a deeper thirst for all that He is.  But there is hope!

This passage is not merely a statement, it is also a prayer, an exclamation of longing to know God and His glory more intimately, more fully.  And by the grace of God we can proclaim that He and His presence is the one thing we ask for, the one thing we seek after!

Be Still on Days like this...

Today has been one of those days.  I did not sleep much at all last night and I woke up ornery.  Work was a drag that seemed to never end and the drive home was doubled because of a closed road.  Add to that a Minnesota winter that simply does not want to stay away as it is near-blizzard conditions right now.  Like I said, it has been one of those days.

And it is times like these, when circumstance seems to pin down my spirit and snuff my fire that this simple phrase comes to mind: "Be still and know that I am God."

When it all feels broken, it seems so right to hear God say: "Don't worry, I got this."

All I can say in response is: AMEN!

Who Assesses Value? Where Does Worth Come From?

In every faction of life, there are entire careers and swaths of experts dedicated to the task of appraisal.  From serving to industry, and health to finance, perhaps there is no stream of human life that is not quantified and evaluated.  Through all of this, humans have grown accustomed to criticism and competition.  And in our ever-increasing digital world, the evaluations have become more personal while simultaneously shifting to be more anonymous.  The old adage, "every man's a critic" has perhaps never rang more clearly than in a world in which every person values his/her own voice to the discredit of every one else's.

The issue at hand, however, is one that is far deeper: the quest for value.  It is an entirely human trait to search for value, to claim value, and to extol value.  It is our fervent search for value and worth that supports nearly every realm of human life, from clothing to cars and everything in between.  And it is the person's innate, seemingly-insatiable pursuit of self-worth that has attached the current cultural moorings with many a variety of barnacles of lust, greed, pride, idolatry, and a whole host of other counterfeit human valuations.

All in all, the enigma that compels our own scouring for self-worth is one of the grave realities of life.  And we should not think that we can accept a neutrality in this arena, for there can be no surrenders whilst squatting on the field in a firefight.  Every worldview must grip this question and offer an answer.  The validity of the response is the very weight of truth.  If atheism could offer a valid answer to this question then the whole system may be tenable; yet, as it is, humanity can have no real worth if it is comprised of millennial-long chaotic genetic reproduction in the mindless and purposeless void of evolutionary processes.  Another answer must be given.

Humanity has always possessed a deeply innate sense that we are, after all, valuable.  We truly feel that our lives have actual worth.  But this worth is not an extrinsic one.  It cannot be based on what a person can do or does, who they are in a societal sense, what resources they possess and in what great measure; none of this is an accurate attestation of true value and actual worth.  If we were to hold to any of these sources of value, then it would be no wonder that we don't consider unborn babies worthy of birth and why wouldn't we euthanize other ethnicities or birth deformities for they could never ascend to satisfactory levels of comparative worth.

Clearly, this is unacceptable.  Another rubric must be used, a different source of intrinsic value must be asserted.  It is at this point that only Christianity holds sway in presenting a reasonable and thorough answer to the dilemma of human worth.  Christianity holds that every single human being is valuable.  This value is not based upon race, gender, age, culture, intellect, strength, money, clothing, or any other man-made criterion for evaluation.  Christianity asserts that every single human being is valuable solely because they are made by God Almighty Himself and that they bear His image.

This means that the mute, the dumb, the deaf, the disabled, the strong, the smart, the funny, the awkward, the shy, the gregarious, the likable, and the repellent are all worthy for they all possess an equal measure of intrinsic value by virtue of their nature: they are God's creatures, made by Him, and made in His image.  This is the only true, intrinsic, non-partial source of human value.  Any other source is but a shadowy counterfeit of the real.

It is inescapable that the individual (you and me) will have to make a decision about where his/her value arises from and will it be the same rating system used for every person or not.  For instance, I play guitar and I value that part of myself.  If I only valued other people who shared that value, then I would not value very many people.  But on the other hand, if I affirm that my value and worth comes not from myself but from the God that made me, then I will value everyone by that very same standard, that God made them too.  It stems from this fact, that all humans were created equally in the image of God, that humans are made capable of living the life that created-ness affords and desires.  Let us then never lose sight of our true nature, for in it is the source of our truth self-worth.

Amazing Grace: A Matter of Being Lost

Like most people, I have found myself lost several times in my life.  The scene is almost always the same: you travel on under the assumption that you are going one way until at some point you come to a sign or a marker informing you that you are not only not where you expect yourself to be but, even more so, you are in fact lost, meaning that you do not know where you are of the more peculiar variety.

However, up to and until the point in which you are forced to reckon with the fact that you are lost, you  can go on for miles and miles assuming that you are, in your mind, not lost.  This internal sense that you are not lost is the very reason that any verification that you are, in actuality, lost must be of an external variety, i.e. a sign, post, marker, that eerily unfamiliar Denny's, et al.

It is only as one recognizes the externally verifiable locale of being lost that the internal transition can begin.  By 'internal transition' I mean the often difficult recognition of said lostness which prompts a recalibration of route in order to become un-lost.  This involves, more than anything, a drastic alteration in previous course and trajectory.

To accomplish this task it is said that re-tracing steps is a reliable way to change one's locational status from lost to un-lost, and while this may be true, I have always found it to be the more self-deprecating and longwinded method for relocation.  After all, the shortest way to get between two points is a straight line, or a teleporter, or a magic amour.  In the case of being lost, only the first seems reasonable or even possible (still holding my breath, though).

In the end, the first step of moving from being lost to un-lost is the realization that one is, in fact, lost.  This realization, like many that come about in life, is dependent upon the humbling recognition that you  are not where you think you are; as it turns out, this is the definition of lost.  But this recognition comes at the behest of the externalities that render the individual lost.  As far as I can tell, the bedroom never looks like the kitchen so if I find myself in a bed, I can be sure that I am not in a kitchen.

All of this has been an excessive attempt at creating a metaphor, an analogy of spiritual things.  Every human being is born lost.  We walk on through the wilderness of the world lost, totally lost.  Yet the true tragedy of this disorder is that we live under the illusion that we are not lost.  But this could not be further from the truth: we are lost.  The lost-ness that so blankets our eyes and veils our steps is sin, and it is sin that has caused the great separation reckoned to mankind, removing us from the sure footing of closeness to God to put us in the utter darkness of living life lost.

Yet as any man wandering far from his trail may become found simply by recognizing that he is lost from his surroundings and what they lack, so may the spiritually lost human being also cease to be lost in a blinking moment by recognizing the sign: Jesus saves and hunts for those who are lost.  This recognition involves two interrelated components: faith and repentance.  One must both recognize that she is lost as she determines to turn in a direction towards the un-lost (repentance), just as she must trust that the new direction will be fruitful for her to become and remain un-lost (faith).

While there is, to be sure, much more to say about this, it would suffice to state that it all comes down to Jesus.  He is the signpost of truth and He is the way.  If ever we were to cease to be lost, it is Jesus that sets us on the right path and it is He that directs right steps by the steadfast faithfulness and power of His Word.  Remember, "I once was lost but now am found."  He died so as to provide a way for us to no longer be lost; this is amazing grace.  Amen.

1 Corinthians 15:20-22: Dead in Adam, Alive in Christ

1 Corinthians 15:20-22: "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.  For since death came through one man, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man.  For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive."

While this text, particularly the final phrase, is often employed as a bolster to the argument of universal salvation, at its core it is a passage dealing with the role of Christ as the true Adam.  Remember, Adam was the supreme joy of God's creation.  He was the head over all that God had made and God was very pleased.  But Adam failed.  He sinned.  And as a direct result of that sin, all of his descendents are born into sin, the direst consequence being death itself. 

However, we should remember that Adam was not merely the biological head of humanity, even more so was he the spiritual federal head, representing all of humankind in his relationship with God and, ultimately, in his disobedience. As a result, mankind has been left spiralling away from God at birth.  It would seem that each generation become steadily more sinful and more evil in their idolatrous self-exaltation.  This is death, death of the most severe kind.  But we should not lose heart for it is this very situation that Jesus came to rectify.  Christ succeeded just as Adam failed.

It is this pattern that Paul is concerned with, that through one man sin came to affect the whole human order just as through one man salvation has come to remove sin and its effects, namely death.  But this salvation has a certain prescription of reception.  It is an utter act of grace, to be sure, but it is appropriated to the sinful person through faith. 

Apart from faith in Christ that reckons the sinner alive, the sinner remains enscossed in the death of Adam.  Think of a vast ocean.  The swimmer attempting to wade through is hopeless for anything other than death by drowning.  On the other hand, if a boat comes along and the swimmer gets into the boat, then, they may be saved from their demise.  In a similar sense, we are all born in the sea of sin, wading all our lives to avoid the inevitably fatal end.  But as we enter into the boat of Christ's crucified flesh and resurrected Lordship through faith, we are saved and we are brought from death to life. 

But just as only those who are not out in the rain storm may not get wet so will those who are not in Christ through faith will not receive salvation unto everlasting life.  There is no other way, no other door to God Himself than through the gate that God Himself has made which is the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus.  Death in Adam is a spiritually stillborn life.  We are born into it, exhibit the same self-serving, lackluster faith that our forefather did.  While life in Christ is the true life that brims overfilling into eternity.  This is what the apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is telling us.  We would be wise to consider it.

Romans 10:9-10–Salvation's Bare Necessities

Romans 10:9-10: "because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.  For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved."

There is perhaps no more direct a proof text for the modus of salvation.  It is laid out simply.  Basically, it involves two inter-related steps: believing in the heart and confessing with the mouth.  The latter is predicated upon the sincerity of the former as a verbal confession of faith is useless apart from an internal reality to back it up, while a purely internal belief is unverifiable apart from a verbal confession.

These two things go hand in hand.  They cannot be separated and maintained with any sense of dignity to either.  A verbal confession, to be sure, is not only the evidence of a held belief but it is also, perhaps even more so, the first realized action of that belief.  On the other hand, the internal belief is but a seed that unless it is watered and nurtured by action will whither as any other un-actuated belief that we humans so easily believe and un-believe at will.

In the end, the story of the Bible is the story of redemption, the story of salvation from sin.  And while Jesus did offer the ultimate example of humanity in His life, His purpose of coming to this world was to die as a substitutionary atonement for sin.  We should not lose sight of that stark truth, for it forms the basis of our faith and our confession.  It is because of that truth that we can proclaim: "Jesus is Lord!"

A Truth Matter

Many of our current theological streams are concerned with particular moods or the many causes available to the modern individual.  God, Christ, and Scripture have thus been reduced to what role they may add to the respective causes, how they make us feel, or how effective they are in providing us with our innermost desires.  However, it must be asserted that any reduction of Christ to mere emotionality or to minimize Scripture to its pragmatic benefit is tantamount to idolatry and Christ-less religionism.

On the contrary to this propensity in the modern man is the real heart of Christianity: truth.  We as humans seems to have a derision to discussing truth–perhaps because we spend so much of our lives dealing with falsity but calling it truth–when it is the utmost question of Christianity: is it true?  This may seem like an odd thing to ask but it is our task as Christians to continually prompt the discussion back to Christ and back to the matter of truth, for this is our court.

Truth is the field that all Christianity plays in.  If we remove the field yet try to continue speaking of Christ, then we are as hopeless in our venture as a stock car racer without a track.  Let us then always keep our focus on the track of truth whenever we think of Christ and begin discussing Christianity.  Our home field advantage is truth and we should not ever forget it!

Presence of Evil

Yesterday, in Boston, one of the most historic sporting events was challenged.  At least two bombs went off at or near the finish line of the marathon's end, killing a young boy and injuring several others. It has been the star of the news for the past day.  It is an horrendous tragedy and it seems to stir something in us, something deep down in our cores.

Most of this life is, when it is stripped down to reality, a game of distraction.  We spend our money, our time, and our energy pretending that we are healthy, attempting to cheat death, and ignoring the evil and sin all around us.  However, there are those occasions, such as the tragic events in Boston or the Connecticut school shooting or the Colorado theatre shooting, when we are forced to face the truth: that evil does exist.

Often times this reality sparks theological tension as we reel back to ask "where is God?"  But I submit that this question itself is proof of God's existence.  If we are to recognize the external absoluteness of evil we must have an innate sense of that which is good; for you cannot have eyes to see evil if those eyes are not tuned to see the good.

This thought warrants that good is not to be considered the opposite of evil, as it were, but that evil is the utter lacking of good.  Sort of like hot is not the opposite of cold just that cold is the complete absence of the presence of heat.  But we could not know that which is cold apart from an understanding that heat exists as a reality.  Similarly, we could not begin to recognize that evil exists if we do not accept that good must be as well.

And 'good', if we could consider it a substance more than a trait of things that are good, must be an external thing that is thus possessed in some measure through the actions/thoughts done.  It must not be thought of like blue or smelly, for it is not perceived through the normal means: it is perceived spiritually.  Because of this, we should remember that the presence of evil, strangely, is a reminder at the presence of God because it is in our relationship to God that we can in any way perceive that which is good and, by extension, that which is evil.

At the final analysis, evil is an indictment of how far from the good man and creation has fallen as well as a reminder as to how great and good God truly is that we could recognize evil at all despite the wickedness of our sinful nature.  My prayers go out to the victims of this tragedy and I pray as well that it serves to turn us back to God!

Hooray! for Tax Day!

Romans 13:5-7: "Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wealth but also for the sake of conscience.  For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing.  Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed."

If you are anything like me then you are grinding your teeth just like me after reading that passage.  It is difficult to be reminded by God Himself that we should pay our taxes with deference to the governing authorities that are over us.  Add to this Jesus' statement to 'give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's."

But we should remember that in all of this, the point is that God is in control and every earthly authority acts as a shadow of our great God.  When we show reverence to the despot we show faith and praise of the highest sort to the Almighty God.  With this perspective, we can pay our tax with joyous thanksgiving with the recognition that we are, in effect, giving our tax out of love for Christ.  Let us then do this painful act with faith and praise!

Does God Love Me Just The Way I Am?

We've all heard this phrase thrown around, "well, God loves me just the way I am."  This claim is an interesting one and, although this cliched idiom has been asserted by more than a few harlots, under the current climate of diminishing love to a near-emotional reaction from its loftier senses and purposes, it warrants a critical consideration.

At the onset, it must be ascertained as to what sense this statement is being made.  If in saying "God loves me just the way I am" we are meaning God has bestowed His great loving grace upon me whilst I was still mired in my slough of sin and transgression, then by all means, this statement is not only true it is profound and powerful.

On the other hand, however, if in professing "God loves me just the way that I am" I mean to say that God accepts and is content with my current wretched state, than by no means can this be acceptable for this would be to disregard the holy and righteous character of God Himself.  He is loving.  But this comes out of the reality that we are so horribly miserable in our sin.  After all, if we were already acceptable and pleasing to Him, He would not have had to die on a cross!

The truth is that God loves us so much that He desires something more for us, He demands that we be discontent with who we are currently with the understanding that our pilgrimage presses us on to perfection.  We should not think that God would tolerate anything less for us–now that would be un-loving!

Think of the man who loves His car.  Although he loves his car no less when it is full of dirt and grime, it is that same measure of love that compels him to repair it when it is broken, scrub it when it is dirty, and to keep it properly maintained.  To say that he 'loves his car just the way it is' would be to betray the intensity of his affections for his car.

In a similar though far-greater sense, God loves us just the way we are but He is not content to leave us in our sorry states.  He purchased us at a great price–the blood of His Son–that comes with the expectation of reparation.  He does love us the way we are but, thankfully, He is not content to leave us this way!

Romans 3:22-25–All Justified by Grace, Received by Faith

Romans 3:22b-25a: "For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith."

This passage of Scripture is often used as the great equalizer to remind us that we are all on the same footing of righteousness.  It is a righteousness unearned and unmerited; it is the righteousness of God's grace of redemption through the blood of Christ.  But this passage is brimming with theology not just about how short we have all fallen in contrast to the glory of God, but even more so does this verse highlight the great merciful grace of Christ Jesus.

As a good exercise, taking each component of this verse as it is may render some rich understanding.  Consider then:

–For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,...–

–and are justified by His grace as a gift,...–

–through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,...–

–whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood,...–

–to be received by faith.

Amen.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10–He is Strong While We are Weak

2 Corinthians 12:9-10: "But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness."  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.  For when I am weak, then I am strong."

My usual procedure is to take a verse or a specific passage of Scripture and briefly explain it or relate it to current life.  However, this passage seems to speak for itself.  To be honest, this passage stopped me in my tracks today and I wanted to share it with y'all.  I pray that it speaks to you too!

The Progress of Pilgrims

John Bunyan, in his perennial classic The Pilgrim's Progress, explains the Christian life as a holy pilgrimage along a long, narrow road leading to the Celestial City.  Throughout this pilgrimage, the Christian pilgrims encounter mired bogs of disbelief, mountainous crags of fear, valleys of shadowy death, castles of doubt, and cities of vanity, all created by Satan to steal away weary pilgrims from their intended destination for eternal damnation.

Every so often, the travelers run into one of the perils of their pilgrimage and they are faced with some trial of faith.  However, without fail, as each of these trials concludes and the worn pilgrims continue on their journey, they are comforted by some sort of oasis, by which the travelers are met by other pilgrims who pull back the veil and teach the pilgrims about the reality of the world and Satan's continuall attacks.  These encounters are like salve for the pilgrims and encourage and equip them to continue on to the Celestial City.

The point is that as Christians we are traveling as pilgrims through this world, called to travel along that narrow way which is faith in Christ Jesus.  However, our travels are not without pitfalls and distractions all poised by Satan to pull us away from our King and to eternal condemnation.  Yet through all this, we must rest upon the sure promises of God made to us through Christ.  We can depend on the blessings of promise that God has given to all those who claim Jesus is Lord.  We can have confidence for this pilgrimage because we know that God has secured the way by the shed blood of His Son.

 

This is Love: 1 John 4:9-10

1 John 4:9-10: "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him.  In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

The social networks are currently abuzz over current legislative affairs with slogans like "love is love."  Love has been reduced to a subjective ordeal, removed of all its substance and weight.  In this relativistic world love has been deified while God has been reduced.  The truth, however, is that a god-less love is no more love than a water-less pool is a lake.  We must be clear that love apart from God is, in fact, not love; it is a counterfeit.

By definition, given us throughout Scripture but especially and directly here in 1 John, is a theological matter.  There is no escaping this reality.  And while this is an inescapable truth, we must also add that love is an active theological reality.  It is God's love for us that, it turns out, affects and empowers our ability to love for it is God's love shown for us in His Son that perfectly exemplifies true love.

Jesus is the utter and ultimate love.  It is His life and death that stands as the quintessence of love in the finest most profound sense.  God did through His Son what no man could due for him or herself: He redeemed us from sin and saved us unto eternal life.  Love defined is thus both self-sacrificing as well as wholly compassionate.  In other words, love is doing for another what that other could not be able to do while not expecting any sort of recompense in return; purely out of love.

Hence, when we speak of love with an eye on its highest order we should not ever remove God and what Christ has done for it is Christ who has defined love for us.  Love should not be allowed to wander Christ-less as if it is a singularly human endeavor, lest we forget that the human version is but a shadow of the eternal one.

Christ is the Radiance of the Glory of God

Hebrews 1:3: "He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power."

We live in a current cultural climate of idol makers in which gods are manufactured by cleverness and creativity without much care.  We've made gods of our minds, our egos, our heros, our villains, our athletes, our humanitarian interests, and our political agendas.  But when we hold up our manmade gods to the scrutiny of honest analysis and critique we recoil with defensiveness and vociferousness, as in recognition that our straw religions have been found out and our propensity towards the corporeal has been weighed as nothing less than idolatrous sin.

Jesus Christ is the imprint of the nature of God, the Word of God incarnate, the creating and sustaining power of God Himself.  Any item, person, place, idea, or cause, no matter the virtue involved, is but a pale shadow compared to the great radiant glory of God that is Christ Jesus.  He alone is the great imprint of God to whom we worship and to whom we praise.  It is to His image and likeness that by the Holy Spirit and through faith we are to be conformed and transformed to reflect.

This is the beautiful truth of Christianity: that our Savior is God Himself and He will Himself form us into bearers of His image which, as it were, is who we were meant to be in the first place.  Praise be to God that He has overcome our deficient flesh so that we could bear His image by becoming an image of our deficient flesh while maintaining His perfect radiance!

Last Note on Dying to Self (at least for a while...)

Over the course of the past week, much has been said about the prospect of being dead to sin in order to be made alive to Christ.  And though it has never been a profitable exercise to overfill a brimming cup with words upon words when so few would seem more effective, it is also not very fruitful to try to live to Christ while remaining stuck in the sloughs of sin, kind of like trying to skip a stone across a mired bog as if it were a lake.  For fear of this risk, one final note seems prudent.

What does it mean to die to self?

The difficulty in all of this is the obvious paradox: how can I be dead to my flesh when I am still so obviously alive in the flesh?  The answer is a matter of primacy, of ownership, of personhood, of motivation more than a matter of logistics.  To die to self means that we will no longer give ascension to the whims of our flesh and its lusting desires.

The point here is: What has the priority in your life?  If it is the impulses of the flesh and its temporal fickleness, than your flesh is still alive and is impeding on your obedience to Christ.

Think of the wheel of a car.  In this case, the car is a life.  Who is driving?  Is it hunger? Sex? Passion? Money? Power? Friends? Anything that drives a life that is not an earnestness for Christ and His glory is evidence that the flesh is the one calling the shots.  This is, in plain terms, idolatry.  We are born ingrained with idols of ourselves.  It is only as we are put to death that those idols are destroyed and we are able faithfully serve and worship God fully.

It is thus not a spiritual matter per se to speak of dying to self to be made alive in Christ.  Rather, it is a matter of Lordship: who has the power to tell you what to do?  Dying to self is the only assurance that we are made alive to Christ for only after we eschew our personal interests in faithfulness to God's interests will we actually receive our right and true motivations that we have been made for.  In this sense, dying to self is not a suggestion: it is an utter necessity for the Christ follower.

Galatians 2:20–Crucified With Christ

Galatians 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."

When reading this verse, my thought is: "What if I haven't been crucified by Christ?"  The truth is, in order for Christ to live in me, as this verse asserts, I must be brought into His crucifixion.  Unless I take part in Christ's death, I can have no business in His life.  It is by way of His death that we are given His life eternal.  In the eternal sense, you cannot have life without death.

This is the depth of the second part of this verse.  It is by faith in the Son of God that life is imparted to the believer.  But this faith is not faith in some abstract sense and it is certainly not a faith spiritualizes, as in, a faith that spiritualizes Christ without considering the historicity of His life, death, and resurrection.  No.

Faith of the right sort is a faith in the crucified Messiah, the risen Lord.  This faith forms the foundation for a life lived by faith, one that is dependent on the reliability of the Word of God and the historicity of Jesus of Nazarene.  The risen, living self is thus founded on the risen, living Lord just as the sin flesh is put to death in the crucifixion of Christ Jesus.  Amen to God that He has orchestrated such an amazing wonder as this!

Love Laid Down

1 John 3:16: By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers."

When confronting this verse my immediate thought is: "what does it mean to lay my life down?"  While this may seem an obvious answer, I am not so sure.  Perhaps it is because I only think of laying down in reference to sleep or, in the ultimate, to that final sleep of death.  So when John, empowered and influenced by the Holy Spirit, says that we should lay down our lives it must encompass a certain sobriety.

I think of a toothpaste container being emptied.  As the paste is expelled from the tube it shrinks.  The tube is squeezed and pressed and rolled up to siphon every last bit of toothpaste from the container.  When I think of laying down my life for the people I love, this is what I think of: I am the tube, my love the paste.

However, the irony of this whole ordeal is that for every bit of love that is squeezed out of me, God refills my stores with a grander, greater, truer love.  It turns out that for me to be filled with greater love, I need to rid myself of all the love I have.  Additionally, as a balloon swells to ever increasing sizes, God continually enlarges our capacity for love and to love.  This is the utter beauty of Christianity and one of its unique features among the so-called world religions.  Praise God for its truth!

2 Corinthians 5:15: Dead to Self to Live to God

2 Corinthians 5:15: "And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again."

It is an odd thought to think that we must die in order that we may live.  To think that true life comes from upon the brink of death is what nature continually confirms.  Think of the strange wonder that the soil is enriched with the biological compost of what has come and died before.  However, it is a much odder thing to think that a dead man could do anything at all other than die.  But this is exactly what Christianity asserts.

It is on the cusp of death that life is born.  In the case of eternal life, it is met through faith.  When we offer ourselves up to Christ in faith and we accept the reality that we are, in fact, already deceased, then we are able to begin life anew.  Only once the obituary of our life is written can we begin to live the life that is everlasting.  However, and this cannot be overstated, we should be warned that there is a time limit, an expiration to this opportunity to live.

When our bodies do perish we have missed the date.  No longer will we be able to be slain by faith because we have already been murdered by disbelief.  This is the rub: either we will live by faith or we will die by non-faith.  There is no middle ground, no DMZ, no neutral forking road by which we can safely choose faith in God.  We are either already dead or we will accept our dead state and seek to be made alive in Christ.

It is by God's grace through Christ that we have been made alive, but we do not live that life until we accept that we are dead in sin.  By accept that death we put sin to death in ourselves through Christ.  It is thus Christ who causes us to be made alive but He also assists us in putting sin to death utterly so that we truly can live without sin in Him.  Amen that God has done all this for us and let us never lose sight that we are alive in Him and in Him alone!

Covenant Membership: A Matter of Justification

Romans 3:28: "For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law."

This verse comes as part of the primary argument of the book of Romans, the main point being that justification is not a matter of ethnic distinction or even religious rites.  On the contrary, justification is a matter of faith, more directly, faith in Christ Jesus.  And while justification is one of the major considerations of Paul, and through Paul the Holy Spirit, it can be easily misconceived as something other than to what Paul is referring.  Because of this, a brief note about justification is in order.

For starters, justification is a dense word dealing with the legal tenders of humans, but it can be reduced to a single phrase: covenant membership.  In this way, justification means covenant covenant membership.  So, the major argument of Romans is a matter of what makes someone a member of the covenant of Christ.  In this, then, 'works of the law' refers not to works-based-righteousness; it refers to what makes someone a member of the covenant.  In other words, 'works of the law' is synonymous with circumcision and other Israelite rites.  This alludes to the juxtaposition present in this verse, arming justification by faith with justification by works of the law.

This is still so relevant to Christians today.  We often consider our faithfulness to the covenants of God as a matter of things we do or have done, as in, if I go to church and know the right Scriptures then I will prove me as a member of the covenant of Christ.  But Paul, and the Holy Spirit that inspired this passage, is saying something different altogether.  No longer is covenant membership a matter of 'works of the law' a.k.a. circumcision.  Now justification is a matter of faith alone; faith in Christ Jesus.  In this way, the covenant and its promises have been opened and made available to all those who have faith.  And as a gentile Christian all I can say is: "Amen!"

Ephesians 1:7-10: Everything According to His Plan

Ephesians 1:7-10: "In Him we have the redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of His will, according the His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unity all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth."

The above passage, while brimming with a density of theology, can be simply contracted into a single phrase: God has saved us in Christ Jesus because of His good pleasure and according to His divine plan.  To be sure, the solidity of this assertion has a heaviness that boggles both the mind and heart.  However, for today, I will simple say: "Amen!"

The Long Walk of Faith: A Matter of Practice

The long walk in the same direction that is Christianity is an endurance race, an ardent patience of struggling to step forward steadfastly and sure through the troughs and snare of life.  Throughout this arduous race our only assurance unto perseverance is faith in God Himself.  But this strength is the ultimate source of strength that can cause all of us to be ever emboldened and comforted in the journey.

But this is not to say that faith is a passive endeavor.  On the contrary, faith is always reckoned actively.  Remember: "I will show you my faith by my works."  (James 2:18).  Faith, to be sure, is as much a matter of practice as it is about ritual, and it is as much an endeavor of individual experiences as it is one of everyday exercise.  

The everyday faith is, it turns out, the strongest faith man is capable of rendering to God.  It is that faith that so wholly suffuses the person's character with the regularity of the everyday exercises.  It is explained easy enough: start your day in prayer and study, throughout the day continue seeking after God and praying, and then ending your day the same way it began.

Humility: the Bedrock of Virtue

Humility is one of the chief character traits of Christianity. It could be said that it forms the cornerstone of Christian virtue for as a bedrock it serves to support every other virtue. But humility for humility's sake would be as useful as buying new shoes when you have no feet. It the source of humility in the life of the Christian that matters: namely, God.

When we are confronted with the terrible majesty and overwhelming awesomeness of God, this is humility in its utmost.  Humility, the virtue of being humble, seeks to suffuse one's life with a sense of perspective, reckoning all others above oneself is its chief aim.  Because this is the aim of humility, the means by which this tremendous task is accomplished is one of recognition.

Seeing God in all His glory is humbling.  The truth, however, is that all humanity will see His glory in the end and the response will be either humility in faith or humiliation in cower to His awesomeness. Therefore, humility is a supreme statement to the grace of God.  It is our response of repentance and faith, having seen His glory we then respond in humble kind with utter repentance and ardent faith.  Let us then never lose sight of who God is and in so doing never usurp humility with silly pride.