Years ago, a statement made by a pastor one Sunday morning really stood out. He said, “To the guests here, we are not a gathering of a people who have it all together. We do not live perfectly. This is the point for why we gather. To praise the one who did live perfect and through Him we are made perfect.”
This is often missed by both, those who are Christians and those who are not. It is quite easy for those who are outside the faith, to look at those in the faith, and accuse them of hypocrisy. Because we are not perfect. We sin, and Scripture confirms this very thing.
The New Testament writer Paul said, “The grace of our Lord overflowed for me with faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” 1 Tim 1:14-15
I have felt those words. Some say, “I have no regrets.” This is not me. There are actions in my past that I hate. There are things that I have done that I despise and at times still weep over them when they come to mind. Paul’s words that he was the chief of sinners were only true because I had not yet been born.
Then there is that beautiful phrase, but Christ! There is a gracious, patient and merciful love in Christ which cannot be described by words.
For you those of us who are in the faith, we are perfect. Not by our doing but because we are IN CHRIST. It is your position in Christ. He is the source of your perfection. And He is worthy of our praise.
John Denver was one music artist my sister greatly enjoyed. Our family was acquainted with someone who was in the radio business. While John was in town for a performance, this man had arranged for John to make a phone call and chat with my sister.
John Denver called, but no one was home. This was before affordable answering machines or voice mail. We only found out about the call when after some time had passed the family friend asked how the conversation had gone. That is when we realized the call had been missed.
On a few occasions through the years I have pondered this lost conversation. What would have been said? How nervous would my sister have been talking to John Denver? No one will ever know, because the conversation did not happen.
Deuteronomy 5:32 Moses warns the Hebrew people, do not turn to the right or the left of God’s word.
The key ingredient to this is knowing God’s word. The only way to know what God’s word is, is to allow God to conversate with us. He does this through Scripture.
God’s word is the only word I have encountered that I can’t read it enough. Why? Because I can read it 10 times and the 11th I will see something I missed before. Nothing else is like this. You can never wear out God’s word. Never! You will always learn. I can’t emphasize this enough.
So I say to you, God is calling you. There is no voice mail. There is no answering machine. He wants to talk to you. Please do not let it be a conversation that you miss.
Race horses are given blinders that keep them focused. They are attached to the bridle and cover the sides of their eyes. This keeps them looking straight ahead. They can’t look to the right and they can’t look to the left – the blinders keep them focused so they can run the best race. No distractions
In Deuteronomy 5 we find that Moses is giving the ten commandments a second time. That what that word Deuteronomy means, a repetition of the law. Why is Moses giving it again? Well, God’s people have been wandering for 40 years in the wilderness (desert). It had been 40 years since the first giving of the Law.
After giving this law We find in verse 32 these words “You shall be careful therefore to do as the Lord your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.”
At every waking moment of the day, there are hundreds of things competing for my attention. People, things, devices, thoughts, ads,
I find that you and me are surrounded by countless things that want our attention. I need a blinder. Something to keep me looking straight forward. What is meant by that? Think of these two things: too much and too far.
The implication here isn’t that we read and pray and listen to sermons every moment you are awake. Even Jesus did not do this. It is when we spend TOO MUCH time away and rarely or never pray. Also rarely or never read. Or, as a believer rarely attend church.
The other side of this is when we have gone too far. The temptations have turned into defeats and we go too far.
This is where blinders are good. This is the teaching of Moses, don’t turn to the right and don’t turn to the left – keep focused.
We will return to this passage on Monday and ponder it further, so please come back. Until then: Soli Deo Gloria
Joan Osborn sang a song back in the 1990’s. It did lean slightly irreverent however, it did bring up a good thought and point. She pined, what if God was one of us? Just a bum like one of us. Just a stranger on the bus trying to make his way home.
In our last time together we referenced Jesus, leaving glory, and the creator becoming the created. God was one of us. He was not a bum, but he lived the day to day life and suffered as we do but was sinless.
This longing of the Osborn song was, God does not know what it is like to exist as we do. The daily needs and sacrifices and losses.
But He does. God has always pursued His people. Think of the Tabernacle. Instructions given to Moses were precise and the location of this tabernacle, this tent, was right in the middle of the people. Not on the outskirts of town or on a mountain or city far away, but right in the middle. Literally the people of God camped around this tabernacle, this tent. God in the midst of the people.
Which is exactly what Jesus did. The tabernacle was a prefigure of Christ. When John begins his gospel, he references the Word, Jesus. Who was God in the beginning and created in the beginning. And this word, John says, became Flesh and dwelt among us.
What does this word dwelt mean? The literal translation of the word is tabernacled. He built his tent among us. Jesus in the midst of His people.
So, the reply to that old song from Joan Osborn is, God was one of us. Innocently and perfectly righteous, but God did take on human flesh and suffering.
This baby hears for the first time. Can you just image what is going through his head?
This reminds me of life for the believer. There was a time, or potentially like for me a series of moments, where the Word of God was heard. And it became LIFE. It became beautiful. God works in the life of the believer that way and takes those who are deaf and gives them hearing and His word becomes precious.
John 10:27-28 “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I will give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will ever snatch them out of my hand.”
Oh, what a beautiful set of promises and assurances.
I have not been one who follows the Royal Family in England yet there is one story that retains my attention. This is not an in-depth interest but when I see a headline I will read it. The story of which I am referring is Mr and Mrs. Prince Harry leaving the Royal family which happened a number of years ago.
When he and his wife left, they lost several things like titles, a place in the Royal Palace and they left a family with a net worth of $60 Billion.
They left this life in England to go to California and do podcasts, write a book and have occasional acting appearances, leaving behind all the financial security imaginable to be everyday working stiffs.
Think about this: They now have to make arrangements for internet service, pump gas, grocery shop, change oil in the car, arrange and plan for health and car insurance.
As a believer, did you ever consider this in terms of Jesus?
The book of Hebrews begins:
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
Jesus left infinitely more in comparison to what Harry left.
These opening words of Hebrews are deep but today consider just one thing. Jesus, very creator God, enters the fallen creation to encounter hunger, thirst and fatigue.
ALSO, for the saved, he faced death. The wages of sin is death. For those who are of the faith, He encountered this death, in our place. On our behalf. God FOR US!
Welcome to Rightly Dividing where we marry theology and Scripture. The idea is to promote loving God with all our minds. Each short session we will take Scripture and tie it to the appropriate pieces of theology (the study of God and the doctrines of God).
This first session we discuss the covenant with man. We are introduced to the covenant with man in the Garden of Eden by principle. It is not until Hosea 6:7 that we see the principle defined.
So, do the temptations that Adam and Eve faced in the Garden have any relation to the temptations that Jesus faced in the wilderness after his baptism and 40 days of fasting? Watch and see 🙂
Jesus completed, in the flesh, what Adam was unable to do.
Looking back on that one time when I lost two decades of writing. If, at some point in daily living, you struggle, like me, with accepting forgiveness, then let this be a lesson for both of us.
this writing has been read by the author
Several months ago about fifteen years of almost every word that I had written, vanished. They were lost. Gone! After hours of searching turned into days and then days of searching turned into weeks, hope waned. There were many thoughts and notions on how to retrieve those lost writings but with no positive result, I gave up.
This was no welcome defeat. Soon entered the typical stages of grief which is said with some humor but also a great deal of truth.
Mentally, I thought back to some of, what I considered, my better works. These writings can never be rewritten. This birthed sadness. In an age where seemingly everything on the internet never gets lost or deleted, some of the best of me, was lost and deleted.
Hate is a word not strong enough to describe what I think of my past sin. I despise what I was. I absolutely abhor it. There are moments that I reflect upon my past rebellion and ponder how I could ever conceive being associated with such degeneracy.
Equally, it is a constant struggle to believe that purification, justification and forgiveness was freely given to me. I can teach it. I can explain the theological truths of what is called propitiation. I love that word. Some English Bible translations have replaced propitiation because it was believed too complex of a word to be properly understood.
Propitiation means, wrath absorbing. God, being perfectly pure and holy, has a wrath against mankind. God’s righteous wrath is a topic of which many prefer not to hear. I can teach and explain how this wrath was appeased through Christ. He absorbed (propitiated) God’s wrath for believers.
Inasmuch as I can expound this thought and others as they relate to God’s saving grace, there are times where believing He can do that for ME is too difficult to accept.
I believe in God’s forgiveness. I believe in God’s grace. I believe in God’s mercy. I can’t believe it is for me. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!
Then I think on fifteen years of writings. Gone. Deleted. Where are they? There is absolutely, no trace of them. As far as the east is from the west, so far as these pages been removed from existence.
Sound familiar? If, at some point in daily living, you struggle, like me, with accepting forgiveness, then let this be a lesson for both of us.
God removes sin.
How can God remove sin? Does He just sweep it under the rug because we are all buddies now? No! He does it because, the wrath I deserved, He placed upon Christ. Ever question or ponder why Christ had to endure such extreme suffering? It is clearly because He was propitiating a holy wrath for unholy sin.
For our sake, God made Him who knew no sin, to become sin, so that IN HIM we may become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
There will be a time where I will face judgement. Anyone who is reading this, you will also. It is inescapable. Not certain exactly what I will be thinking at that time. Maybe about all those despicable things I did. How great it would be for me to report that those despicable things I hate were JUST those things I did twenty and forty years ago. Not true.
Sadly, I don’t always love my wife like Christ loved the church. I say inappropriate things. I think inappropriate things. At times I treasure inappropriate things. Oh, at times, how I weep at my constant rebellion. Will I be thinking about such things at the judgement?
Here is the reality, just as much as all my writings are gone, so IS all my sin. All if it: past, present and future. That is how the propitiation of Christ works[1].
In one sense there is great sadness over the loss of all those past writings. In another, upon great reflection, a real life lesson unfolded reminding me something I once did, can literally be gone.
As far as the east is from the west, so my sin has been removed from me[2].
