But, What About Sin? #JesusStuff

I hope you were intrigued enough by my pose, “Gospel of Glory v Gospel of Grace” to come back. And, if you did not read that one yet, I hope you are intrigued enough by this post that your will go back and read it. I am convinced that this disparity of the gospel of glory and the gospel of grace is the number one thing that derails followers of Jesus from living the full and joyous life Jesus offers us.

The gospel of glory, in short, is the teaching that while we may be justified before God by grace, we still must actively pursue making ourselves holy so that God will be pleased with us. We relegate eternal salvation or “justification” into the realm of grace, but remain convinced that Jesus stops there and insists that we make something beautiful out of this reborn life by our own efforts – that we must glorify ourselves. We acknowledge that we cannot succeed on our own in this and so we see the Holy Spirit as our power boost when we start lagging behind. Ultimately, though, we believe we must predominantly rely on our efforts and that the Holy Spirit will only step in to help if we are helping ourselves first.

RUBBISH! But, I will let you read that last post to see why I say that. Instead, I want to tackle the primary objection many of you will have to my radical notion that it is grace that is entirely responsible for our sanctification as well as our justification – that God takes hold of us and entirely transforms and completes His own good work on us, in us, and  through us. That objection is that if you embrace my supposition, then why would you need to fight against sin in your life? Why not just indulge with abandon if there is no difference in how God feels about me when I sin or when I abstain? I will answer this.

There is one verse I want you to have resonate in your mind about this though I would love for you to read through all of Romans. If you do this, the last part of Romans, if you dissect if from the first nine or ten chapters, will seem to counsel against what I am saying here. I encourage you, though, when you are tempted to read it that way, to go back to those first several chapters and remember that the entire book of Romans is consistent front to back. By the way, James needs to be read in the same way – not as a checklist of how to behave Christian, but as a diagnostic to see if you were brought to actual faith by the Holy Spirit in the first place (James is written to the 12 tribes: to believers and non-believers alike).

The one verse to meditate on contains the very last words of Jesus before His death on the cross:

Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit. John 19:30

Then entire work of Christ for you is finished. Every sin that He paid for through this surrendered victory was a future sin of yours. Every sin of yours, past, present, and future is covered. Romans 8:1 confirms that no sin of those of us in Christ Jesus condemns us. Our sin, then, does not impact God’s posture or His pleasure towards us who are His followers. If then, I can sin and God is still just as pleased with me as if I had not sinned; if I cannot disappoint God or create a barrier between He and me, why do I resist sin?

Sin does have an impact. It hinders my love for others and it hinders my love back towards God; my sin impedes my experiencing love towards other people and it impedes my experiencing love back towards my Father. And, we crave to be more and more like our Father. A defining characteristic of Abba, Father, is that He loves others. We desire, then, to love others. We desire to touch other’s lives the way Father touches us. Sin blocks this characteristic of God coming to fruition in us.

The way that Tullian Tchividjian (grandson of Billy Graham), who inspired most of my thoughts on this subject, described this is by thinking of the relationship with God as a vertical relationship and our relationship with other people as a horizontal relationship. Sin has no impact on the vertical relationship once it exists, for all that is needed for that relationship “is finished”. Sin, though, breaks the horizontal relationships we have with others.

I do not need to argue this – just take a moment and consider your own sin and how it affects your relationships. Even those private sins such as pornography: Jesus does not flee from you in revulsion when you indulge, but I guarantee you experience intolerance towards your loved ones (anger and increased frustration) when you partake. Even those innocuous sins such as doing good acts in the hopes of being noticed by other people (yes, that is a sin) harm our relationships. Consider the last time you believed your efforts were not given their due from someone who matters to you. It created a tiny hard spot on your heart towards that person, did it not?

So, we are radically put in a right relationship with Jesus and kept in right standing by Jesus and transformed ever more into whom Father meant for us to be by Jesus SO THAT we are free to love others unencumbered. To love others in that way, we reject sin and choose to obey Jesus’ lead.

It is finished!

 

Resurrection Life

I had the pure joy of serving in the prayer tent with @amyandclear and her team last weekend at Creation Festival North East. I bore witness to and experienced the gift of participating directly with nine people who received Jesus as their Lord and Savior. I saw them pass from death to life; saw them enter into adoption as children of God and begin a resurrection life. I am not given to a lot of sentiment and highly emotional reactions, but I am still in awe of what I experienced there a week ago.

I have been enamored recently with John 8 and I believe it has much to say, especially to brand new followers of Jesus. As always, the passage as a whole speaks much truth that is lost when one picks out specific verses, so please go and read it all. And, I am now going to break my own rule and pick out specific verses.

“Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” So they were saying to Him, “Who are You?” Jesus said to them, “What have I been saying to you from the beginning?…. When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He….” As He spoke these things, many came to believe in Him.

Jesus makes it so incredibly simple to receive His salvation. It truly boggles our mind; we are astounded by this simplicity. We only must believe. The Greek word for this belief means to be persuaded something is true and to have confidence in that truth. So, we pass from death to life; we enter into the resurrection life with Jesus when we decide something crucial to be true and place confidence in it.

What is the crucial thing we must believe about Jesus to be saved? We know, from James 2:19 that it is insufficient to simply have correct doctrinal knowledge of God and Jesus. So, what is it? Jesus tells us plainly enough. He rebukes those who finally begin to ask, “who are you?” It seems, at first glance, that He even sidesteps the question. No, He tells them exactly who He is. God has been telling us about Him from the very beginning of creation. All the Law and the Prophets pointed to Him. This “from the beginning” He refers to is not just the beginning of that particular conversation; Jesus is saying, in essence, “Look, you are experts who have studied about me in the Torah your whole lives. You already have the answer to this. Think!”

How can I be sure that was His meaning? Because then he references lifting up the “Son of Man.” The prophet Daniel had a vision of Him hundreds of years before and named Him “Son of Man”. Daniel 7:13. Jesus’ entire audience understood instantly that the title “Son of Man” meant the Messiah – the Savior – whom Daniel had seen coming before God the Father and receiving dominion over all. The understand the “Son of Man” was God’s chosen and eternal King them and all the earth who would deliver them all out of death and destruction. See Daniel 7.

Those nine people I met up in Pennsylvania. They came to believe in a real and present savior and not just a set of facts about a historical Jesus. The believed that Jesus could and would save them personally from dying in their sins. They put their confidence into a real person who came to earth as an actual son of man, and though living sinless His entire life, paid the redemption price for each of them upon the cross to be raised again as their King.

And now that Jay, Jacob, Hannah, Nicole, Lauren, Katy, Taylor, Keane, and dear sweet Anna made that decision, they are in His hand. He acted upon their belief and adopted them. He acted upon their belief and resurrected them. And now that they are in His hand, none – not even they, themselves can cause Him to release them. Isaiah 43:13.

But, they also entered a war zone, and Satan can still try to dissuade them from walking confidently in the resurrected life that they have. And that is my next post.

Why pray?

As I said previously, I am fascinated by all things prayer. My last post was about the “how” of praying. This post focuses on the “why” of praying. I suspect the majority of people fall into two broad categories when it comes to why they pray: those who pray because that is what they are supposed to do and those who pray because they want to maneuver God into giving them something. Of these two groups, I am definitely more concerned about those who pray out of habit or out of a “have to” mindset. Because, there is nothing inherently wrong with praying to get some specific outcome from God. In fact, according to the verse I quoted last week, Philippians 4:6, making requests is indeed a way to pray authorized and encouraged by the Bible.

However, I believe that on the range of priorities given to ways of praying, making requests of God is the predominant way people pray when it should be the least. How many prayer chains and prayer meetings always seem made up of specific requests for this and that. In fact, we Christians have developed a short-hand for common prayer requests. Consider, for example, the request for “travel mercies”. Most everyone knows that is a request for prayer that one gets from point A to point B (and back) without mishap. But, it could mean just about anything: no leg cramps, no butt fatigue, no speeding tickets, no delays in the airport, no obnoxiously loud kids behind you on the bus, etc. Seriously? Why is that our prayer when a trip is coming up.

What if, instead, we pray for a wild adventure on the trip that takes us through snares and scares so that our faith is grown and we lean like never before on Jesus? Now that is a prayer! Oh, but the list of aches, pains, irritations, inconveniences, and bellyaching whining prayers are nearly as infinite as God Himself. I should know, I have prayed a fair portion of them myself. Let us end the yammering attempts to manipulate the Creator of the universe. Well, rather than end them, let us drop such grousing down to the bottom of the prayer list and focus on the prayers that are meant to be top priority.

I turn to the Bible to teach me the proper priority of prayer; of why we pray:

This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 1 John 5:14

You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. James 4:3

“Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.” Matthew 6:9-10

We have here verses from three different authors: the Apostle John, the Apostle Matthew, and James the brother of Jesus. All three heard directly from Jesus about prayer. All three of these verses elucidate the key to why we pray. While most of our prayers attempt to move God, the preeminent reason why we pray is for God to move us. John tells us that our prayers should be in accord with the Father’s will. We learn His broad will from scripture and His specific will from prayer. James confronts the very thing I spent most of this post pointing out: that we pray for our inconveniences to go and good stuff to come – our pleasures.

Matthew, in sharing Jesus’ actual words, highlights that the very first priority in prayer is to come before God – to address Him with reverence so that our heart is in the right posture. The second priority in prayer is to seek God’s will. How often do we diligently seek God’s will first and foremost in our prayers? And, if we do, how often is it just bare lip-service; a rote formula we are used to spitting out. If we kept the priorities straight like Jesus shows us, I am confident we would have far fewer requests.

Why pray? We pray to apprehend the Father’s will. We pray to grow intimately acquainted with how the Father sees and feels about us. We pray to be moved – drawn away from the old desires of the world that lead to death into life (Romans 8:6). We pray to conform to the mind of Christ (see 1 Cor. 2:16).

When we pray with this desire to know the Father’s will, then the request part of our prayer will change dramatically. You see, part of the Father’s will for us is to go through “various trials” that our faith may be proven (1 Peter 1:6-7). Why then would we ask for those trials to simply disappear? Instead, we would ask for our faith to be emboldened and our eyes opened to how God is showing up.

This is not to say that we should never seek to move God with our prayers. I am certain that our Father often is waiting to move in a particular way until we join Him and care enough to cry out for that movement of God. And, there are many examples of the prayers of man changing the Father’s mind on a particular course of action: Abraham comes to mind pleading for Sodom and Gomorrah; Hezekiah’s boon of fifteen extra years of life also stands out; and if one reads the book of Amos, that prophet convinced God to twice change His mind. So, it is entirely legitimate and worthy to pray for God to move in a different way, but seek first His will. Seek first to understand His heart, and to some extent, His mind on things.

These three posts on prayer have merely been a prelude. I hope to have drawn you into deeper consideration of prayer and how you approach prayer. There is so much more I could say about it. For example, to be effective in prayer, one must have forgiven all those whom he or she has held a grudge against (Mark 11:25). Also, one must be seeking to live an increasingly holy life by confessing and turning from sin is also essential to effective prayer (James 5:16). However, I am compelled to next go deeper into this idea of intimacy with Jesus through prayer; coming to know His heart and share its beat. I believe that some are called to identify with and even embrace the sorrow of Christ for those far from Him through prayer. And, that is where I plan to go next. I hope some will join me.

Belief Of versus Belief In

A conversation with a friend prompted me to down these lines after a particular phrase in a verse seized my attention. This phrase has held me captivated for days. In my experience, that happens when the Holy Spirit has something deeper to reveal in me. The phrase is “to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man”. The verses in which this phrase appears are packed full and I hope to spend some time on them.

Ephesians 3:14-19 “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.” *

I want to take a look at where we all must start and that is with saving faith. I have tried to break down what saving faith looks like, but like most God things, it defies human categorization. I have some ideas that are helpful to me and hopefully to some other folks as well.

Nearly everyone is familiar with this most concise verse on saving faith:

John 3:16 “”For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

But, juxtaposed to that are these verses that are nearly as universally recognized:

James 2:18-19 “But someone may well say, ‘You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.'”

Many consider these words of God through James to indicate that mere belief that Jesus is the Son of God is insufficient for salvation and I currently agree with that perspective. So, what does it mean to have belief in Jesus that saves us. This is absolutely essential to grapple with because unless one has the belief necessary for Christ to dwell in one’s heart, they cannot go on to live in the Spirit of power that comes from His Spirit strengthening the inner person.

In looking at my own story of faith, I can recognize certain stages of belief that I experienced and I suspect others will relate to them. I would like to put these forward for consideration noting that I am not a trained theologian or scholar:

• Inquiring belief – that state of faith where I have not received Jesus as Lord and Savior, but where I am open the possibility that all this Jesus stuff is true. Many refer to people at this stage as a “seeker”.
• Acknowledging belief – I am now convinced that Jesus existed historically. I can even acknowledge that He worked miracles, was born of a virgin birth, spoke to God and even that He was the Son of God. I can even believe that His death and resurrection are accurately described events that really occurred. But, I think this is the belief that James speaks of and rejects as being insufficient as the same things that demons believe. This could be called a ‘belief OF God’ rather than a ‘belief IN God’. The belief is externally focused, intellectual, but It does not sink into the heart level (“heart” being the essential core of a person). I suppose there could be some brief and even intense emotion with getting to this point, but that would all fade pretty quickly.
• Acquiring belief – I now believe beyond historical events and I apprehend that those events occurred for me. I not only acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God who died on the cross and raised again from the dead, but I receive the truth that these events carry profound spiritual significance for me personally; that Jesus’ shed blood cleansed me of all my sin and that when He arose from the dead He so that I could live eternally seated with Him in Heaven. This, I consider to be saving faith. It is internally focused and personal. There may or may not be strong emotions attached, but it does touch one beyond mere intellectual recognition and makes an indelible and memorable imprint on the heart.
• Embracing belief – Now I am moving beyond my salvation into walking with Jesus in a life of power and victory. I draw the reality of Jesus into my identity as I invite Him to transform every aspect of my life and being into who I was originally designed to be. I experience the fruits of the spirit growing in my life as I see sin patterns crucified and eradicated. I am not just passively receiving salvation; I am an active participant with God in carrying out His plans for the Kingdom. I am not only speaking to God, but hearing from Him and living out what I hear in obedience.
• Immersing belief – I may not stay in this position for long or as consistently as I like, but I know of no reason I cannot do so except that I have known no one who has stayed perpetually in this place. Here I am so synchronized and yielded to God that I experience oneness in such a way that I do not even have to speak to God and hear from Him, I simply know. This is like a dance where He leads and I respond with subtle touches. This is immersion in the Holy Spirit.

Please do not consider this some kind of spiritual hierarchy that one must work towards or earn. It has nothing at all to do with the reality of God’s love for each of His children. There is no earning or working for these as if they are Christian merit badges. That is the way of the Pharisees and leads only to destruction. Rather, let it be a guide of hope; a useful tool to take stock of your spiritual life. If you are not experiencing the spirit of power strengthening you from Jesus taking up residence within your heart, and you want to, these thoughts from my experience can hopefully help you unlock the answers as to why this power is lacking. Have you actually received Jesus as Lord and Savior or is He simply a historical fact to far removed from you to matter? If you have received Him, have you let you belief remain stagnant rather than asking for and confidently expecting greater and greater faith? Have you stopped short of embracing the relationship that He wants to engage you in?  Spend some time just asking Jesus to give you truth about this and expect Him to answer.