2004-07-23
Good Morning Faithful Ones,
In the last few devotions, we’ve looked at the obstacles to living a holy life that mankind encounters. And Paul’s exclamation in RO 7: 25a reveals the solution to the problem-Jesus Christ! What really needs to be seen is that obedient faith in Jesus Christ is the only solution to the problem. Dear Ones, we simply can’t solve this problem on our own. That goes right back to the heart of the Sermon on the Mount, MT 5: 3, 8, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall inherit the Kingdom…Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” This dependency on God is a spiritually and emotionally healthy dependency. It is a recognition of our limitations as humans and our utter need for the Holy Spirit taking leadership in our lives. It allows us to realize in our relationship with God that He is expecting us to do all this is possible for ourselves and that He will do the rest. That is what a true covenant relationship with God is, and that is a mutually beneficial one. God gets his purpose accomplished, which JN 6: 39-40 and EPH 1: 1-4 tell us is God’s pleasure and bringing us back to His side for eternity. We get our purpose accomplished which is to avoid second death and enjoy eternal bliss with God protected from evil.
Let’s look at more we are told about Christ being the only solution to the problems humans on their own have with living a sanctified life. RO 8: 3 gives us insight. “What the Law could not do, because human nature was weak, God did. He condemned sin in human nature by sending His own Son, Who came with a nature like man’s sinful nature, to do away with sin.” We can gain some illumination by looking into the original Greek grammar, and please don’t think I’m a scholar in this area. I had to look this up. The verb “condemned” in the original Greek is in the aorist tense, the active voice, and the indicative mood. Aorist tense means at one point in time something happened. The active voice means the subject [Christ here] performed the action of the verb [in this case- condemned]. The indicative mood is the mood of reality. Thus God is saying that He alone condemned the sin in man’s flesh and its ability to rule over a person. With this understanding, it make so much more sense to us when we read RO 6: 11, 14, “In the same way you are to think of yourselves as dead, so far as sin is concerned, but living in fellowship with God through Christ Jesus…Sin must not be your master; for you do not live under law but under God’s grace.”
I derive enormous comfort from Christ’s statement in JN 8: 34-36 further illuminating this amazing relationship that true believers have with Him. “Jesus said to them [those who believed in Him], ‘I am telling you the truth: everyone who sins is a slave of sin. A slave does not belong to a family permanently, but a son belongs there forever. If the Son set you free, then you will be really free.’” We must remember that this statement came right after He had said about His true disciples in JN 8: 31b-32, “If you obey My teaching, you are really My disciples; you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” We have two choices, to be yoked to Satan’s evil or to be yoked to Christ. There aren’t many such clear-cut dichotomies in this life, but this is one of them. If it seems hard to conceive of being “yoked” to the Son and being free at the same time, let me explain from my own experience. If you have been reading my writing for any length of time, you know that I came from a pretty dysfunctional family. I was headed for trouble with the police in my youth for doing vandalism and giving my parents quite a run for their money with my bad attitude. I was vying for attention and reacting in anger when I couldn’t get the kind of attention I wanted. There are lots of “I’s” in that description, because my whole life seemed to selfishly revolve around myself. I was a prisoner to my sin and felt there was no way out. But the God Who loves His creation so very much pulled me out of my morass by slowly and patiently giving me faith in His Son. For a Jewish girl who wanted nothing to do with practicing her faith that’s nothing short of remarkable! I often wonder what my long-deceased earthly father would think of what I am doing now. It is Jesus Christ Who released me from being a prisoner to sin, and that’s what He does for each an every person who comes to genuine, obedient faith in Him.
What makes people slaves to sin is Satan’s action on their flesh. What so many people don’t know is that faith in Christ is the key that unlocks the door to that prison of slavery to sin. They don’t realize that believers are given the same power to overcome the evil one’s dominion over their flesh as God used to raise His Son from death to life [EPH 1: 18-20]! By no means will I say that coming to faith is easy to do. It means walking away for old well-worn bad habits, often leaving the comfort of family acceptance, making huge changes that are hard to make in our lives, changing our lifestyle to one of piety, study of His word, and apostolic action, and most of all, it means changing one’s focus away from self toward the service of others. That is why Christ tells us in JN 12: 25-26, “Whoever loves his own life will lose it. Whoever hates his own life will keep it for life eternal. Whoever wants to serve Me must follow Me, so that My servant will be with Me where I am and My Father will honor anyone who serves Me.” Hard to do-yes, but remember that we are never asked to do anything by our loving Abba that He doesn’t first equip us to do.
PRAYER: O Lord, You have known about the imperfections and sinfulness of mankind from the time that Your once beloved angel in charge of worship, Lucifer, was cast down to earth with one third of the heavenly host [IS 14: 11-15; EZK 28: 15-17]. Once this serpent betrayed You by deceiving Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden [GN 3: 1-6], You knew that there would ensue a battle between him and Your human creation [GN 3: 15]. You had every reason to give up on humankind, to rid Yourself of all the trouble are causing You. You certainly have the power to destroy all of us. But instead, You chose to sacrifice Your only begotten Son, so that the salvation of those of us who would come to faith in Him would be opened [JN 3: 16]. You allowed some misery to be in our lives, so that we could come to appreciate the alternative to it that faith in the Son offers. Your example of unselfishness and that of the Son makes His death on the cross the greatest and most perfect sacrifice ever made [RO 3: 24-25; HE 10: 10]. That this was done for people who were still Your enemies is both poignant and remarkable [RO 5: 9-11]. Your patience and compassion while we struggle with the obstacles to your grace sets the example for us when we answer Your call to share our faith with others found in MT 28: 19-20 [the Great Commission]. We want nothing more than to confess our remaining sin to You, knowing that by our confession of faith in Christ and willingness to repent, we ourselves are saved to an eternal life of bliss and fellowship with You in heaven [RO 10: 10]. Our gratitude for Your constant and loving presence in our lives and for Your guidance and leadership in them is eternal. You are to be praised and thanked for all that You are and all that You do. In Christ’s holy name, we pray. Amen.
There is more to say about Christ being the only solution to mankind’s trouble living lives of holiness. That will be the subject of next week’s message. In the meanwhile, will you join me this week in prayers to our Lord, asking Him to help us discover ways to strengthen our faith and that of others? I also plan to pray that Christ will give us all more insight into why He is the only solution to our imprisonment by sin. It’s one thing to have a difficult goal to accomplish like learning to be obediently faithful to God. It’s another to know exactly how we need to do this. Our loving Abba has written the Bible as BASIC INSTRUCTION BEFORE LEAVING EARTH. The first letter in each word of that phrase spells out what this is. Between giving us the gift of the Holy Spirit, His word, prayer, our congregations and the ability to learn from the circumstances of our lives, He has blessed us beyond measure. The more mature we become in our faith, the greater will be our awareness of His constant, loving presence in our lives. Our natural selfishness will gradually recede to be replaced by the joy of serving Him through serving others. This is an experience I would wish all of us could have.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn