Relevant To Life

How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offers himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Hebrews 9: 14

In this part of Hebrews the author is entering into a discussion of the way that the old system of sacrifices has been overtaken by the singular and ultimate sacrifice that Jesus made in His own body for us all. So, when we accept Christ we enter into the work that His body and blood did so long ago, and we also become heirs of the future glory that this same sacrifice promised. All that Christ did was carried out in fulfillment of God’s covenant with humanity. Every aspect of His sacrifice was given as an offering for the sake of the souls of all people from that day until the end of time.

Now we are called by this same Christ to enter into the fruits of His agony and death by fully embracing the victory of His resurrection. God did not send Jesus to the cross for the sole purpose of securing the eternal dwelling place of certain people. It is true that God, Himself, suffered and bled so that we would be able to enter into relationship with Him and that this relationship extends beyond life on this earth into all of time. However, that eternal relationship was not God’s primary purpose in becoming the final lamb of sacrifice.

In Christ, we are called out of a life that is dedicated and ruled over by death and by that which is lost and broken, and we are called into commitment to engaging with life for the glory of God. Thus, we are to be people who serve the will and honor the name of Christ with every breath that we breathe. Christ is alive, and in Him we also are granted the life that does not perish under the weight of sin. So, people who know the Living God are to be workers within His kingdom come to earth. We are to love others and to pursue justice; we are to set aside anger and violence and give all for the sake of peace; and in all we are to seek after knowledge and understanding of Christ’s will and make the proclamation of His gospel our primary aim in life.

If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office on those days.

Deuteronomy 19: 16, 17

If we expect that justice will prevail in our land, we need to be willing to yield its interpretation to those who know its source. God’s Law as expressed by Moses was intended to create a framework for humans to access the mind and the heart of God in the ways that we dealt with each other. The Israelites were required to transact life along in Accordance with the way that God intended for them to do it. They were to be respecters of property rights, to care about the long-term impact of their actions, and to hold life as a sacred gift to be protected and nourished. They were to be a people who occupied the land on behalf of its righteous and just King.

The details of the judicial code have changed. The way that our societies are organized is very different. Our property rights and human rights are managed by a different system than was in place in those ancient communities. Yet, the underlying truth has been altered very little by the passage of time and through our cultural development. God still holds humanity to a standard of behavior that is above any that our legal codes consider. He continues to speak a truth to our hearts and our minds that exceeds that which our governments have created. Thus the Lord calls upon people to be bound to a commitment to justice that comes from deep within our beings. We are to be lovers of humanity who are determined to live in the center of Christ’s righteous grace.

Unfortunately, there is much that is broken in our world. We live in the middle of moral decay and of ethical emptiness. I think that God wants us to do something that these ancient people of Moses’ time would have done. When things were going against God’s clear will, they frequently went before God and confessed their own participation in the sin. They turned first to God and sought out His voice so that they would know what He was calling them to do to bring about the restoration of righteousness in their land. No one is without guilt. None of us are sinless in this time of worldwide sin and godlessness. It seems that God wants us on our faces in humble submission to Him. He wants us to repent and to listen for His voice. Then He desires for us to take the actions that He calls us to without regard for ourselves. We are to pray unceasingly, to love boldly, to sacrifice all of ourselves, and to seek justice for everyone. The only justice that we can anticipate and count upon starts within our hearts and culminates in Christ.

And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.”

Acts 18: 10, 11

Paul had experience with opposition. He had faced angry mobs that were out to get his blood, and he had listened to the harsh words of rejection and ridicule. Yet, he was a stubborn and determined sort of person who was not easily driven away from his mission. But it took more than a strong will to stick it out in the major Greek city of Corinth. It took the will and the presence of the Lord, and that is exactly what Paul was promised in the vision that he saw. The truth and the reality of Christ’s promise to be with His people at all times and in all places or circumstances was Paul’s assurance, and it is also ours today.

Fear is a great disabler. I know this too well personally, for fears of many types have stopped me from doing and from saying things that would have been right, worthy, and beneficial. Fear can be one of the tools that Satan uses to silence the proclamation of the gospel and to hold back followers of Christ when He calls us into action for the kingdom. Now Paul’s guarantee that no harm would come to him was literal and specific to that place and time. Yet, there is something more to it than just the promise of physical protection as it seems that the Lord was also saying that what mattered most was safe and secure. Paul’s heart and his soul were to be surrounded and secured by God, and no forces of evil could prevail against him.

We can enter into service to Christ with this same assurance. So, we can be as bold as was Paul in speaking the truth of the gospel into the darkened world where we all live. There is safety and security to be found even in the middle of the most difficult of conversations. We can know the peace of Christ in our souls while our hearts are racing in anticipation of a discussion of our faith with the most strident of critics of Christian belief. With the confidence that Christ granted to Paul as our strength we no longer need for our national government or its might and will to be our protector in the world. We can speak out for peace, and we can embrace people who others reject or fear as the same beloved children of God who are as in need of the Father as we once were. In Christ, each of us can stop being controlled by our fears and speak Christ throughout all of our days.

Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ; may mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.

Jude 1, 2

This is a beautiful greeting. It is the sort of thing that anyone would be delighted to hear and to read. It would seem that a person would have to be in a very bad place to not want to have mercy, peace, and love granted to them in abundance; yet, this is not the beginning of a casual, calm and gentle letter. As the brother of James, the great leader of the early church, and the lesser known brother of Jesus, Himself, Jude had been around the world of people who lived in the Christian faith. After a life spent in opposition to Jesus, he had come to accept Christ as his Savior and Lord. Now he was witnessing the destructive effect of the work of leaders who had taken people away from God’s truth. These were people who brought heresies and lies into the assembly of faith. Their wisdom was that of the world, and they counseled people in a manner that lead them to engage in sinful and destructive behaviors.

Witnessing this made Jude’s blood boil, and he could not remain silent. So, he speaks out about what he knows to be God’s position on the situation at hand. We are to be on guard against allowing even the slightest taste of sinful compromise cross our lips. The church needs to protect itself from the erosion and the waste that ensues when we become entangled in battles over secular issues that are a part of a condemned world order. Yet, we must know God’s Word and stay true to it so that we, individually and together as the body, will not follow our culture in its headlong and willful rush to death in the Lord’s judgment. This is a hard course, and like Jude, we become angry and want to rise up against all that brings evil into our paths. Yet, it seems important to pay close attention to everything that Jude did say.

He certainly does warn against following people who engage in sexual immorality, are contentious with those in authority and with systems of rule, are greedy, and are out for personal gain. Jude states that these people and their behavior will destroy the beautiful unity of our worship as a body. Their presence brings about a form of destruction that is like shipwreck, and they parch the soul with the dryness of drought. Their false light leads straight to eternal darkness. However, what is remarkable to me is what Jude tells us to do about all of this. He instructs us to remain strong in our faith through Spirit led and filled prayer. We are to position ourselves in the center of the love of Jesus that saves and preserves us. We are to do these things so that we can, in turn, show mercy to those who oppose Christ, and through exhibiting His supernatural love in our world, we can bring some of them into relationship with God. This is dangerous work, for as we engage in it, we are placed in very close proximity to the deceptiveness of the sin. In this we are to remain focused on Jesus so that we can, like Him, love all people totally while hating all sin with every ounce of our being.

The LORD your God is in your midst,

a mighty one who will save;

he will rejoice over you with gladness;

he will quiet you by his love;

he will exalt over you with loud singing.

Zephaniah 3: 17

After the certainty of salvation that comes from knowing Jesus Christ, this is the most comforting thought that I can hold onto as I travel through life. Although this comment was directed to the nation of Israel, it applies equally well to Christ’s church today, and the Lord is also speaking to each of us who follow Christ. The Lord, my God, is here now and always. He has chosen to reside in the world where I live and to dwell with me, and it is Christ’s presence that changes everything. He takes a broken and dying world and makes it a place where His people can find joy and peace and be in constant relationship with our loving Father.

It is in and through this presence that God’s great love for people is clearly and continually expressed. He is with us, and He is engaged with our lives in all aspects and areas of them. The Lord is that loving parent who delights in even the simplest of actions that His child undertakes. So, when it comes to actions that reflect the character and the nature of Christ, God is especially delighted in us. For, although He is present in our world, that presence is expressed and magnified by the lives that we live out as we engage with Christ and follow His will, as we live as citizens of the Kingdom of God come to earth.

So, for me, God’s joy and celebration of the life that I live leads me to desire to worship Him; thus, the songs that my heart sings become the words that my mouth expresses. The blessings that God is pouring out on me are given to others in the world around me. I desire to live with the joy and the peace that Christ has granted me evident so that the world will see and seek after their source. As God’s great joy over souls saved and relationships established pours out of His people and into our world, we become a public testimony to the King who saves.

At one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.

Ephesians 5: 8

Light and dark, images that describe the two ends of the day and that also depict the beginning and the end of our earthly days as we are born out of the darkness into the light of the world outside of the womb and then we end our days by returning to the darkness of the grave. This same light verses dark concept reflects the conduct of life during the hours in the middle of our days and in the days of our earthly journey. Although, people are faced with many decisions that seem to be shaded in gradations of grey, in fact, all of a person’s personal morality and its ethical underpinning is founded upon beliefs that are either darkened or enlightened.

The source of all light in this world can be traced to God. He is the author of all that is just, right, loving, and merciful on earth. In the Lord’s design for this world and in its original creation, these characteristics of God were universally present. Even the darkness that was the result of the way that the earth travels in its orbit about the sun was infused with the same holiness as was the day. Yet, rebellion and sinfulness shattered that perfection and brought a counter-God force into being in all of creation. Now, as people are born into that light of the sun, we are all still darkness dwellers in our hearts and to the depths of our souls. Thus, each person starts life in conflict with the light of righteousness that is the nature of Christ.

However, that same Christ from whom we flee is actively and aggressively seeking after us and pursuing relationship with each person on this earth. The light of the Lord seeks to replace the darkness of sin and death in the hearts and the minds of all people, and as we accept Christ, His light becomes who and what we are. Although we are now true children of the light that is the character and the nature of God, the darkness that was ours from birth still attempts to assert itself into our daily journey. So Christ implores His followers to reject the darkness that attempts to enfold us, to confess the times when it shows up in our thoughts and actions, and to turn away from its hollow allure as we claim the victory over sin that is found in the glory of Christ in us.

Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;

let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!

Psalm 95: 2

There are striking similarities between our world and the way that we live and those of the Israelites in the days of Moses. Now, on the surface, that is a really strange idea for most of us as we are not living as desert dwelling nomads who are constantly in search of water and safe passage. Yet, when we look at those deeper levels of the heart and relationship with God, we are the same sort of human beings as they were. However, we enjoy one great advantage over the people that Moses was leading. We have direct and personal access to that relationship with God as we have the risen Christ as our Savior, Lord, and Confessor before the Most High God.

Thus, we are not bound to a specified place wherein we can come into the presence of God. Also, we are not required to have designated priests who are the authorized workers of sacraments and intermediaries between our Lord and ourselves. In Christ we are God’s royal priesthood, and we are the literal bearers of His presence in the person of the indwelling Holy Spirit. So, in Christ, each of us is a fully authorized worker of sacrament and exists in the unceasing presence of God. This reality is no small thing, for it means that all of the life of a follower of Christ should look like worship of the Lord. Everything that we think, say, and do is invested with celebration of the new life in Christ that we have been granted, and each of our days is a gift from God to be poured out in love upon our world.

If we accept the truth of these ideas, the life that we live will be altered and the manner in which we conduct it will be radically changed. Although life is certainly not always joyful, we can find the joy of our salvation in the presence of the Lord in and through it all. So, we can allow our hearts to sing in praise of Christ throughout all of our days, and each of those days will become a festival of worship to our King. Christ has freed His people from bondage to this world, and He sets us free to live boldly and joyfully in His continual presence. So, in His presence we can sing out our song of freedom as a gospel hymn that lifts our own spirits and shares our joy in the Lord with others.

Where shall I go from your Spirit?

Or where shall I flee from your presence?

Psalm 139: 7

There is one singularly constant presence in the entire universe, and that is God. This is a very comforting fact for many people, but it is also highly disturbing for others and fiction for some. Yet, God’s presence and involvement do not depend upon our belief or unbelief. As the author and the creator of all that is, both seen and unseen, the Lord’s handprints are found on it all. However, unlike the evidence that people leave behind us by virtue of our fingerprints or traces of our DNA, God has touched the structure and shaped the essence of all that is at the level of its most elemental component. This is true for people, animals, plants, and the earth and sky. This is also true for all that exists in the realm of the spiritual.

For me, the presence of God is the reality of my world. This is not always so easy to accept, and my thoughts and actions certainly don’t consistently demonstrate this understanding. Thus I wonder, how can I become angry to the point of thinking violence upon others when they are God’s image-bearing children? Or, where do I get the right to think in terms of superiority and inferiority in these same beloved beings? These questions are just examples of a long list of possible ones that I could pose concerning my personal lack of faith in the truth of the Lord’s total sovereignty over creation and of His unceasing engagement with and in all of it.

In truth, I am a flawed and still sinful person who has been redeemed by Christ, and my awareness of these various ways in which I am living outside of God’s will and off of His righteous path is proof of the fact of Christ’s redemptive and transformative work in me. David’s rather rhetorical questions in this psalm do have a simple answer for me too. There is nowhere and no time when I am not in the presence of my Lord. So, I cannot find myself in a situation or circumstance wherein God will not be my strength, counselor, and protector. All He asks of me is that I trust Him and have faith in the Lord’s loving care for me and for the rest of creation, for there is great comfort in God’s presence and my soul finds peace in following His will.

Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

Ephesians 6: 11

Imagine a medieval knight as he is preparing for the joust who decides that he will leave off the cuirass, the breastplate, of his suit of armor. After all, it’s a hot and humid day, he feels especially self-confident that morning, and the field of opponents doesn’t look all that frightening. Now come ahead to today and envision a soldier preparing for a day of patrol who thinks that his wit and skill will suffice to keep him safe; so, he doesn’t bother with the helmet or the body armor that he has been provided. In both instances we would say that the person on view was being foolish and was needlessly putting himself at risk.

Paul was aware of the same sorts of tendencies in the people of his days that we can see in others throughout history and that we encounter in ourselves today. We think that when we reach a certain level of skill, experience, and competency that we can do life on our own. Certainly, God’s Word and His Spirit’s leading have provided us with useful instruction and are helpful in times of crisis, but as people who have traveled some real distance with Jesus, we can take on the routine of life on our own. This sort of thinking and the approach to life that follows after it can lead us into a dangerous street that is mined with Satan’s deceptive traps and dangerous compromises.

In light of the well-documented history of human failure, of personal experience of the bad effects of leaving God’s righteous path, and the reality of Satan’s relentless drive to attack God through His people; it seems ridiculous and foolish to do anything other than what the Apostle counsels. The Lord provides His people with a perfect protective covering for us to wear through all of our days. Yet, like most aspects of our relationships with Christ, we need to decide to use what He is providing. This armor from heaven is put on and held in place through deep and intimate prayer, by diligent study of God’s Word, and in the supportive accountability of the body of Christ. Although Christ’s armor will not protect us from all of the blows and injuries that living in this world will cause, it will protect our souls and our witness so that our lives will stand as living testimony to Christ’s redeeming victory.

The end of all things is at hand; therefore, be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.

1 Peter 4: 7

Jesus took His followers to the very end and beyond. He takes everyone who lays aside the life of our births and takes on Him as Savior and Lord to the same places. When the Jews and the Romans conspired to end the life of that troublesome teacher, Jesus, they were actually conspirators by default with God in effecting His plan for the redemption of all of creation. That perfect sacrifice was the culmination of all of the times of man that had been proceeding forth after our ancestor’s rebellion against God in the garden. Now the next phase of humanity’s history had commenced.

Today we live in a world that is swirling about in ever-increasing disorder and chaos that is the result of Satan’s struggle for position and control which is compounded by the progressive break down of the fabric of creation, itself. This all ends after Christ returns and establishes God’s perfect, sinless new creation in place of all that has been and is now. Until then, we live in the reality and in the opportunity of these end days. As followers of Christ we already dwell in the kingdom of God come to earth. The air that we breathe is taken out of the atmosphere where Christ’s Spirit also dwells, and our hearts, minds, and spirits are fed from the eternal banquet of God’s Word.

So, there are certain attitudes and approaches to life that are highly valuable and helpful to us in living for God’s glory and serving His purposes. When our world is so wildly out of control in its anger, violence, self-seeking, and greed; we are to be controlled by the Spirit and by the truth of the word as it is revealed to us. This should lead to a seriousness of thought that recognizes the great importance that our witness to the Gospel of Christ holds. What we think, say, and do directly impacts the way that others view Christ, and our lives are a living testimony to Him. Central to that life of witness is prayer. This form of communion with God is something that overlays all of the days of a follower of Christ. It prepares us for the sort of clear-thinking and courageous action that these end days demand.