2013-12-13
Good Morning Dear Ones,
This week, we will begin to examine some of the obligations and blessings of being in a covenant relationship with our Savior, Jesus Christ. Our view last week of the beginnings of the history of His church revealed them to be bumpy and, at times, difficult. People were afraid, as they are today, to make a commitment to something as full of ramifications for their lives as belief in Jesus Christ. And yet, this is the only way to eternal life. JN 14: 6, “I am the way, the life, and the truth. No one goes to the Father except through Me.”
Our omniscient Lord knew that one of His original twelve disciples, Judas Iscariot, would betray Him. JN 6: 66-70, “From this time many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed Him. ‘You do not want to leave too, do you,’ Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered Him. ‘Lord to whom should we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that You are the Holy One of God.’ Then Jesus replied, ‘Have I not chosen you the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil (referring to Judas Iscariot).’” This passage leads us to a personal question: How could we leave Him? This is no easy question, because while we have the Holy Spirit to guide us and be our “conscience,” we are still quite capable of sinning. The difference is that with real faith in Christ, we have the choice not to sin-something given to us by the Atonement of our Covenant Partner- something we didn’t have beforehand [RO 3: 23; RO 6: 6, 11]. Before we came to faith, our only path was to spiritual death. Moreover, the Holy Spirit isn’t a constant part of our lives before professing genuine faith in the Lord Jesus and repenting of our sins. 1 COR 2: 14, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
This love that lasts is an outgrowth of genuine faith in Jesus Christ and is brought about by the constant presence of the Holy Spirit. The Father gives us His all, which is a mighty amazing blessing. In return, He asks us to live according to Christ’s teaching. There are numerous ways we can do that: study of His word every day [2 TIM 3: 16-17], an active prayer life [PS 86: 5, 7], discipleship –serving, helping others grow in their faith-mission work, witnessing, teaching or using talents for Kingdom work, sacrificial giving, etc. Being a part of a Christ-led congregation, encouraging small group activity, participating in the other many ways we can worship God (corporately and individually), making time for God in our daily lives, living according to God’s ethics, and placing God at the center of our lives are all ways we can express our faith in Him. In return, our dependence on Him is rewarded with inner peace, His care for us, His wise direction, and, of course, the best of all –eternal life. RO 8: 38-39 tells us that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Now, that’s real comfort to know this!
The eleven disciples of Christ who believed genuinely in Him knew these things. What a tragedy that Judas Iscariot didn’t. His lack of faith is heart-breaking and a lesson to us to value genuine belief in the Lord, the only way to go. Judas had been paid thirty pieces of silver to betray Christ. MT 27: 3-5, “When Judas who had betrayed Him saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders. ‘I have sinned,’ he said, ‘for I have betrayed innocent blood.’ ‘What is that to us?’ they replied. ‘That’s your responsibility.’ So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.” His act relieved Christ’s human covenant partners of the obligation to vanquish his enemy, for Judas had sold himself to the devil. His remorse without repentance wasn’t enough to bring him back into the fold. We must remember that Judas had been the disciple in charge of finances for the group. His sinful materialism could be seen beforehand in JN 12: 1-8, when Jesus visitedBethany the night before Passover, and Mary (the sister of Martha and Lazarus) broke an alabaster bottle of nard (expensive perfume) and poured it over Jesus, wiping His feet with her hair. It was Judas who complained that it could have been sold to raise money for the poor, never realizing the extraordinary faith and generosity Mary showed toward her Savior. It was Judas who would be kept from helping himself to money from their funds rather than using any extra money for Kingdom purposes. He was a thief, not a true disciple of Jesus.
We must understand that words reflecting a genuine covenant relationship with the Lord are words of life. Christ called Himself “The Bread of Life,” and this was no lie. The problem was to help people to understand just how important faith in Him really is. These words should be forever imprinted in our minds. JN 15: 13, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” If we think about it, Christ made the choice to obey the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane [LK 22: 42]. This was the ultimate hard choice-to take on the sins of the world, giving His life on the cross, so that people who repent and believe in Him will be saved, forgiven, and live in peace and reconciliation with God forever [JN 1: 12; JN 3: 16; RO 3: 24-25; 1 JN 1: 9]. That’s the love that lasts of our Covenant Partner! Praise be to Him!
PRAYER: O Lord, once again we come to Your mighty throne with heads bowed and hearts focused on You. You teach us sacrificial giving in a real way, a way that we should never take for granted. Your Son, Jesus, our Lord and Savior, gave His life on the cross as Innocent Blood. His blood shed and our faith in Him gives us eternal life, a life filled with challenges and blessings, a commitment that obligates us to live according to His teaching and opens us to the richest blessings anyone can have. Yes, Dearest Abba, obligations and blessings! We study our human history with Him as our Paradigm and a desire to step out of the human habit of never learning from past mistakes to learning the lessons they have for us. While we will be challenged by the work of the devil, we can rely on You to guide us through those challenges and to protect us from anything that will compromise our genuine faith in You [1 COR 10: 13]. We will feel pain, but we will mature through it. We will experience losses but will grow in our faith. The blood shed for us gives us the hope of the resurrection [RO 8: 19] and eternal life. You are the Center of our lives, and we express our love for You, praise, and thanks to You. We work to keep our eyes open, so that we will be aware of the many blessings that lead from actively obligating ourselves to You as our Covenant Partner. When we take Communion, we know the blessing of Your intimate presence. We thank and praise You for Your generosity, direction, wisdom, compassion, and kindness, in the holy/mighty name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: Belonging forever to God is so wonderful as to defy accurate description. There is nothing like it, nothing so wonderful! This author can witness to this truth in her own life. There are plenty of blessings that those who deserted Christ or rejected Him miss out on. This will be the subject of next week’s message. We are told, in PS 55: 22, “Cast your burden on the Lord, and He will sustain you; He will never permit the righteous to be defeated.” This is only one thing our Covenant Partner will do for us out of many. We must remember that covenant partners have the same enemies, and thus, they defend each other, just as David and Jonathan did long ago. God, as our Covenant Partner isn’t wanting us to be defeated. While God allows bad things to happen to good people, it is always for His purposes. In my own life, I got fired from a job long ago. I thought initially it was the end of my world. However, it was allowed for God’s purposes, a mid-course correction, because I wouldn’t be serving Him in ministry as I do now, if this hadn’t happened. We may not understand at the time why God allows such things to happen, but He is always righteous and has righteous purposes [2 TIM 2: 13]. God’s love for us is so great that His desire is to live in us through the Holy Spirit and to bring us back to Him for eternity [1 JN 4: 12; EPH 1: 4-5] For how much more could we ask? He wants to live with us in eternal and blissful fellowship. That is the heart of our Covenant Partner. Praise and thanks be to Him forever!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24: 15
© Lynn Johnson 2013. All Rights Reserved.
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