2016-01-08
Good Morning Dear Ones,
HE 10: 1, “ The law is only a shadow of the good things that are to come-not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.” This verse harks back to GA 3: 11, which is saying that the law won’t justify a person or bring him salvation or eternal forgiveness. Many times the Bible cites HB 2: 4, RO 1: 17, and RO 3: 28, “The righteous shall live by faith.” Instead, GA 3: 24 illuminates the relationship of law to grace. “So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we mighty be justified by faith.” Our wise God always waits until the time is perfect to produce the maximum effect, maximum goodness, due to the love in His heart. We might not understand God’s timing, but we see it’s wisdom often only in hindsight. So what is our reality? That’s the question that gets right to the heart of God’s great mystery, the one that is finally revealed in Jesus Christ and our faith in Him. The word of God in its fullness reveals “the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery which is Christ in you, the hope of glory,” COL 2: 25b-27. Yes, only repentance of one’s sins and faith in Jesus Christ can bring eternal forgiveness, salvation, and justification [1 JN 1:9, JN 3: 16; RO 4: 3]. The law alone cannot do these things. For the true believer, one who is faithfully obedient to God, Jesus Christ is his reality.
1 COR 5: 6-8, “Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast. The bread of sincerity and truth.” Yeast represents sin. The goal of good behavior has been set, and the means to achieving that goal has been revealed. One can see from this how past animal sacrifices wouldn’t bring us to our reality, but the sacrifice of one Man, Jesus Christ, makes salvation possible [HE 10: 4-7; RO 3: 24-25]. We must say, “Here I am-it is written about me in the scroll –I have come to do Your will, O God” [IS 6: 8b; HE 10: 7]. As we approach the throne of God for direction, we must put this question to Him, not “I want to do such and such, please make it possible.” It’s a whole different way of thinking; it’s service to His will, not our own (unless it is the same as His).
The question properly raised is: For Whom do we live? It’s answered in 2 COR 5: 14-17, “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all, and therefore all died. An He died for all that those who live should no longer for themselves but for Him Who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we have regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in union with Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone; the new has come.” This is a whole new way of thinking, a new way of not only looking at our relationships with others, but as viewing what is right in our own thoughts and behavior. If my own experience is any instruction, the things we need and others dear to us fall into place when we think in this extraordinarily Christ-like and unselfish way. They too are served well in this “transformation by the renewal of our mind” [RO 12: 2]. And, we can’t think this way without Him! [JN 15: 5].
For 15 years, I was serving God by writing prayer requests and distributing them to a team of prayer warriors in our congregation. It was a wonderful and satisfying task in the beginning when we only had 2500 members, but as time went on our congregation swelled to 4400 members. Along with that growth, my task began to eat up other parts of my life and to cause me to feel burned out. God must have understood that, and I let Him and my husband know how overwhelmed I was feeling. Peter’s a whiz at working with computers, and he found a wonderful program for churches called “Prayer Engine.” We let our church’s webmaster see this program, and this man fitted it to meet our congregation’s needs. Today, no one has to write prayer requests, because people can post their own requests on our “prayer wall.” It’s easy to visit our church’s home page and access the prayer wall, add Scripture to the prayers, and pray for them. Sharing our own requests is easy too. This presented me with a block of time missing in my life for those 15 years! In view of what I’ve written above, I prayerfully asked the Lord to direct how I might fill that new-found time. His answer was to direct me to a ministry already underway in our church, where a group of women knit and crochet prayer shawls, hats, and other items for people in crises. In addition, I got enough time to fulfill a life-long desire to study Hebrew. Today, I enjoy both these pursuits and do so in the Lord’s name with deep thanks to Him. When we do His will, wonderful things happen, and people are often led to discover talents they didn’t know they had or have a chance to use talents they already know about. The best part is that God listens to our prayers and answers them [PS 116: 1].
PRAYER: O Lord, You are a valiant Covenant Partner, One Who can lead even spiritually mature people to further growth. We must humble ourselves and remember to pray for Your direction. You alone have the wisdom and ability to direct us to ways of deeper understanding of the blessings You bestow upon us. The greatest blessing of all is the Atonement Your Son, the Lord Jesus, made on the cross for us. He gave us a chance to be eternally forgiven for our sins, to continue to mature in our faith, and to be deemed acceptable to You. Without Him, these things wouldn’t have been possible. If we will come to You, as Isaiah did, and say, “Here am I. Send me!,” You will be pleased. You will never lead us into something that is harmful to us or that encourages us to sin. That is because You love each of us with a love that is so profound that we can’t fully comprehend it. You wanted us to eventually return to You, which is why You and Your Son have both let us know that goal in Your mission statements [JN 6: 39-40; EPH 1: 4-5]. We stand deeply grateful with heads bowed in reverence to You, for the love You have for us and for sacrificing Your Son on the cross. Therefore, we live our lives for Him, and we offer up ourselves as living sacrifices, Your human covenant partners, ready to serve You in ways You will for us. We acknowledge that if we obey Your commands faithfully, Your purposes for our lives will be fulfilled. We further acknowledge that the light of Your love will lead us to do Kingdom-building work. We stand ready to do Your will in the way and at the time You make it known to us. We offer You praise and thanks in the holy/mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: As this “Light Pierces Darkness” segment of the “Our Covenant” series continues, we will look at Christ as the Mediator. We will see why a Mediator was needed and about how our own sinfulness must be handled before God. I feel it’s a privilege to be a believer in Jesus Christ. In the course of my work with In Search of Shalom answering seeker’s questions about Christ and other spiritual issues, I sometimes come in contact with Atheists and non-believers in other belief systems, who come across as not very happy and peaceful people. Some of them are downright boiling cauldrons of hate. Others are less unhappy but are very curious about this faith which causes people to completely change their way of thinking and looking at life’s challenges, a faith that eventually leads to inner peacefulness. Being patient with a hateful person isn’t easy and can be draining emotionally. But one never knows when having that patience and remaining calm in the face of this roiling anger can have a beneficial effect. Although not often, it has happened that one who began his secured chat with me has calmed down and really thought about my answers, or should I more properly say, the Holy Spirit’s answers through me. On other chats God has given me the opportunity to witness to my faith and/or gotten me to think about an issue I hadn’t visited before. Why mention all of this? It is because God leads us to things that not only serve His purposes but also foster maturation in the faith. We have to let go and let God be in the driver’s seat. Because we begin our thinking lives thinking only about our own issues. Thinking in eternal terms, as God teaches, is learned behavior-- the behavior of a heart open to the Holy Spirit, which makes God’s agenda predominate over our own. One can think of falling backward into the hands of God, in which trust of Him must be given. Our greatest blessing is that our Covenant Partner is always there to catch us! Praise and thanks be to Him!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24: 15
© Lynn Johnson 2015. All Rights Reserved.
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