Eternal Redemption

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

Hebrews 9: 11, 12

 

Over the years of our existence upon this earth, people have done many things that have been intended to win God’s favor and to secure our places in His presence. Some of this effort was even a part of what God dictated to us to do, and much of it has been made up by various ones of us out of our own creativity or by virtue of some other motivation. Most of us still engage in activities and in personal rituals that we think will improve our status or position in God’s eyes. We attempt to avoid the deep soul-level commitment to Christ and the personal surrender to Him that is God’s real requirement and we attempt to do works that will demonstrate our goodness to the world and thus do the same in God’s view of us. When we think and act like this, we are engaging in human futility as we attempt to do for ourselves something that Christ has already fully accomplished for us.

 

As we are in Christ, so we are also in God’s favor. When we submit our lives to Christ’s authority and thus to His direction and will, we are living out our lives in the center of God’s righteousness and are walking in His holy path. There is no need for purification prior to this journey, for Christ has accomplished those sacrifices for us. Also, we do not have need for ritual cleansing as a result of our contact with the world, for Christ’s blood provides a permanent form of such restorative touch. It does not wear off, become tainted by the world, or grow less effective over time. Christ grants His people the gift of a continuous and unending, thus an eternal, covering of right standing before the absolute holiness of God. As we have given ourselves to Christ, so our state as people who are dead in our sins is transformed into one in which we are granted spiritual life for the balance of our days on this earth and a place in the presence of the Lord for all of eternity to come.

 

All of this is a small part of what Jesus accomplished by and through His obedience to the Father in giving up Himself to be sacrificed on the cross. We have been redeemed from our rightful places as eternally condemned beings, and we have been granted the extraordinary gift of place and position in God’s kingdom come into our world while we are also provided with assurance of a future of dwelling for eternity with Christ in Heaven. There is both freedom and responsibility in all of this. We are free from the need to frequently and regularly be going before God to seek His forgiveness for our sins so that we can engage in serving Him and in order to remain secure in our eternal status. Yet, we are now obligated to obediently serve Christ and to follow His righteous way of thinking, speaking, and acting; so, the gift of life comes with a holy and a heavenly purpose for our lives attached to it. All of the days of our lives and each of the actions and interactions that are contained within them are to be dedicated and carried out as servants of Christ. Thus, each of our lives can serve as a blessing to our world that is given in the name of Christ, our perfect High Priest and Savior.

 

Consider Jesus!

Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful to all God’s house.

Hebrews 3: 1, 2

 

What does it mean, to consider Jesus? When something or someone is given consideration, they are looked at closely, regarded seriously, and valued for what or who they truly are. This is a part of what we are being asked to do here, and it seems to me that this is something that we don’t do nearly enough of in the normal course of life, either. I fear that I don’t take the time that I should to really look at Jesus, for this means that I am taking my eyes off of the many other things that attract or that draw them in. When I stop to reflect upon what I put time into and grant my attention to, there are many lesser objects that gain substantial amounts of both my time and my focused thought and emotional investment. How much of that personal capital could have been invested in knowing Christ better and in listening for His will and way of living to be imparted to me?

 

Moses is given here as an example of a person who was able to filter out the noise of his world and who thus kept his eyes upon the Lord when others turned disastrously away. Now Moses was far from a perfect person. He had his own times of doubt and certainly did not always lead well. Yet, he did remain true to the Lord’s calling for his life, and he was a faithful servant of the Lord’s will. He continued to step out in faith in front of the people that he was to lead, and Moses did continuously point them toward God and into the direction that He was taking them. This was true even hen that direction was hard and the end goal of a new home was not so easy to see. Jesus is like Moses in His faithfulness to God’s will and direction, and yet, Jesus is far greater than Moses in that He never doubted or faltered in His execution of the Lord’s desires for Him.

 

We are never directed by God to focus our attention or our worship upon Moses, for he is nothing more than an example of another human who followed God. Instead, we are directed to look upon Jesus and to worship Christ as our true Lord and the Savior of our souls. He is the one who takes us out of the wilderness of our sinful and lost states and brings us into the eternal presence of God in a state of redeemed holiness that reflects Christ’s own glory. This is the one person who has walked upon this earth who is worthy of this sort of deep and continuous consideration. Jesus is our example of absolute faithfulness to God, and He is also our true and courageous guide through the troubles, trials, and distractions of our days and into the glory of service to God and to His Kingdom. So, when I place priorities on my calendar for this day, let me choose to fill the page with, “Consider Jesus!”

 

Driven Out!

He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

Genesis 3: 24

 

God is the one who actually created the status of nomadic traveler, of sojourner, of refugee. He sent Eve and Adam out of the place that He had designed, fabricated, and established for them to dwell in peace and in close communion with Him, and the Lord then expelled them in a moment of frustration and of anger. Or was that really how it went down? God was certainly hurt and frustrated by the way that these people who were so close to Him had rapidly gone off on their own and rebelled against His rather simple and very clear instructions. But, if God knows all, did He not already understand that this was to happen? God’s anger is terrible as has been depicted and demonstrated on many occasions in history, and this scene in Eden does not look anything like that sort of anger being poured out onto these people. Rather, what God does here looks more like love and care than does it appear to be motivated by some darker emotion.

 

God’s real intent and desire in sending them out of the garden and into the harsh environment of the world was redemptive in intent and in nature. Inside of Eden they were living and operating in an environment that was guarded, safe in all ways, and that contained the means for achieving eternity by direct personal action. That is, by eating the fruit of the tree of life. To the east of the garden, the part of the world where they were sent, everything was different. Inside of the garden they were required to work, and this effort was promised to bring forth bounty and to always be rewarding as everything there was done for the sake of God’s kingdom on earth. On the east side, they would also need to work, but the results were far less certain. The sweat of their brows would provide for what they needed to survive most of the time, but their efforts would also see failure, and their spirits would know frustration and pain.

 

The hardships and the challenges that came to Eve and Adam and to all of their descendants was not a form of punishment that God placed upon them. Instead, it was the direct result of their desire to be the ones who were calling all of the shots, to be in control, and to determine the direction that they would go and the means of getting there. They wanted to be like God. What they didn’t realize was that this authority and power carried with it great and terrible responsibility. So, they were sent by God out into the world to experience the weight of that responsibility on their own, and we, as their descendants, also experience what it means to make our way in the eastern regions without God. However, the Lord doesn’t leave us on our own without the ability to come back to Him and into the love, care, and protection of His presence in our lives. Christ runs after our refugee hearts, and He gives Himself in exchange for our souls. As we repent and return to the God of our creation, Christ brings us back into God’s Kingdom and grants us the heart-deep peace of that eternal garden as our new and lasting home.

 

A Joyous Sentence

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

Jude 24, 25

 

We have all seen what it is like in a courtroom. This may be true from real life experience or these impressions might have come to us through television or film. There is one word that generally does not describe the scene in that place, and that word is joy. The exception to this is probably when the verdict is pronounced, and then. sometimes joy or joyous describes the prevailing party. This verse depicts a different sort of courtroom where the outcome, the verdict, carries a much more significant weight than does the one that can be handed out in any human court of law. In God’s court, each of us is held accountable for the life that we lived, for the righteous conduct of our days, and to the decisions that we made in regards to our relationship with the judge, God Himself.

 

Frankly, no one passes the test of the high standard of righteousness that God sets for us. Every one of us fails as no one is worthy of being in the presence of the pure and holy being that is the Lord. However, this same pure, holy and righteous God does not want to be separated from us. He designed and created each person on this earth with the desire and intent of enjoying a relationship with us that would continue into the infinite. So, God came into our world in the person of Jesus. He brought to us an answer to our guilt as Jesus took upon His absolutely blameless and innocent self the punishment that we deserve. With our guilty verdict proclaimed upon Christ, God allowed our death sentence to be carried out upon Himself so that when we appear before the seat of judgement after our days in this world are completed, the verdict that we will hear is innocent, and we are set free to enjoy the eternal presence of the Lord as we dwell in His glorious realm.

 

Although living for eternity in God’s presence is an extraordinary outcome to the highly flawed and blameworthy lives that we all live, it is not all that Christ grants to us through His sacrificial acceptance of our verdict of shameful guilt. In Christ, we are set free from a form of slavery that oppresses the soul and so subjects the heart and mind to its bondage. Christ redeems us from that life-long captivity, from that pre-sentence incarceration, so that we can live out our days breathing the free air of God’s Kingdom on earth where our lives are given great purpose and meaning as we are called by Christ to serve His redemptive mission. It is Christ’s grace that makes us, sinful and disobedient as we may be, suitable for this service. He pours out His righteousness upon us, and so, we are found to be blameless, and God joyously pronounces us to be fit for service to Him.

 

Stewards of Mysteries

This is how one should regard us, s servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.

1 Corinthians 4: 1

 

By definition, a steward is a person who takes care of things, who manages them and who keeps order. Stewardship is the process of maintaining this well-thought out and orderly operation. Paul thinks of himself in this manner. He sees his calling and that of others who, like him, are following Christ by entering into the lives of others as they bring the truth of God’s Word and the direction of His Spirit to the forefront in all aspects of life and of living as being to stewardship. As they work in service to Christ and His Gospel, they strive to restore the order in this world that was lost in our sinful departure from God’s righteous path. We ate the fruit, but instead of God-like wisdom, we obtained a godless capacity to wreak havoc and bring about unceasing chaos. As we attempt to control everything ourselves, life seems to proceed as if we have covered our fragile world with grease and our hands with rubber mittens.

 

We fumble our way through it all and break precious things along the path that we travel. Mostly, we pour out ungodly or other-god oriented views of how this world should be managed as if they were a new and a more informed gospel. We say that we value order and seek after peace, but the fact is, we do not truly desire either. Order and peace are foundational qualities that God designed into the form of life that He created for this world to enjoy. These are aspects of that creation intent and execution that we turned over and tossed out in our rejection of God’s authority over us, and that have been lost in the world that we have claimed as our own. Yet, God does not leave things that He loves in disarray and confusion. Jesus came, and He pronounced the renewed presence of God’s kingdom of peace. Christ brings that peace into our lives as He restores us to the unceasing relationship with our Creator that was ours to enjoy in God’s plan for this world.

 

The possibility of living in a state of deep-seated peace with God and of dwelling inside of the orderliness of His vision for the universe is one of the great mysteries of the Kingdom of God. The evidence that we see around us does not support the existence of this peace and order, but the testimony of God’s people tells of its reality. This is why Paul understood the vital importance of the role of steward of these great mysteries of life in Christ. He presented them to the people that he met and to us in his letters. God’s Word does the same with the entire narrative of God’s vision, intent, and execution of redemption and restoration for all who will come to Him. So, like Paul, we too are servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of this faith that leads to a life. This is a life that stands apart from this world, and so, it joins in the chorus of testimony, along with Paul and all who have come before us, to these great mysteries of peace and order, of life in Christ.

 

What We Eat

Blessed is the man

who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,

nor stands in the way of sinners,

nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

but his delight is in the law of the LORD,

and on his law he meditates day and night.

Psalm 1: 1, 2

 

The proverbial phrase, “You are what you eat,” has been around for a long time. It has been adopted and adapted into the title for books, lectures, television programs, songs, and other forms of popular expression. I think that its wide-spread use is an indication of the fact that there is truth contained in these words, for it may not be literally and absolutely accurate but it does convey a sense of functional reality. What we put into ourselves does directly and significantly effect how we live and even, to some extent, who we are. The author of this psalm is talking about something more important and considerably greater in its life-altering capacity than any of the meat or vegetables that we might encounter. He is speaking about the consumption of truth, righteousness, and all the rest of what is entailed in truly knowing God.

 

We all face this same choice. We can listen to the voice of God or we can select other ones to fill our minds and hearts. In fact, we will hear a wide range of input as we go about life, and we will all be subjected to good ideas and to poor ones in this process. Not everything that is said in the name of God will be true and useful, either. However, all of God’s Word is true, everything contained within it is holy, and the counsel of the Holy Spirit is unquestionably reliable. So, even when the words come from within the context of the church or out of the mouths of people who share a profession of faith, there needs to be a form of testing of the validity and the value of those ideas and concepts. That testing always involves holding the idea or direction up to the template of God’s Holy Word of truth, allowing His Spirit to reveal the application of that truth, and then in evaluating all of this prayerfully within the fellowship of trusted fellow followers of Christ.

 

The Lord has provided His followers with a truly marvelous banquet feast of truth, and the life that we are given by ingesting it is remarkable as it makes all of the difference in the joy and the peace that we will know in our journey through our days. Yet, at times we still decide to dine at the table of the unwise or, even worse, we fill ourselves up on the deadly counsel of those who stand in opposition to God and to His righteous way. In these times, Christ’s invitation to turn to Him, to repent, and to take a seat at His table of grace, love, and life remains open for us. The Lord invites each of us to come, sit in His presence, and be filled to overflowing with the law that brings life and by its hope and promise of eternity. This is a place where we are granted the opportunity to meditate deeply upon Christ, to be filled with His presence, and to prosper and grow stronger for this day of service to God’s kingdom.

 

 

 

Preparation for Today

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 1: 13

 

Regardless of whether we are prepared or not, action will come our way. It might be physical in its nature or it could just engage the mind; yet, it will be there. This world is like that. There are forces at work in it that cannot be stopped and that will not be silenced. Some of them are determined to upset us and to send our journeys off track. They are subversive when it comes to following God’s will and desire for the lives of His people. Other action causing agents are more benign in their intent, but they are still disruptive when we are ill prepared for their presence.

 

The best that we can do to handle it all is to enter into God’s wise counsel and set the focus of our hearts and minds on Him. This sort of preparation doesn’t just happen; rather, it comes about because we have purposed and planned to be made ready for whatever comes our way. The Holy Spirit within us does the real work of this preparedness as we yield ourselves to His will and meditate upon God’s Word. Through this process of purposeful surrender our minds and our hearts enter into the sort of peace and calm that allows for them to function with the clarity and the confidence that Christ desires to grant to us. This is how we gain the foundation that is needed to walk through this world upright and balanced.

 

This equilibrium that was established by preparation for the day is maintained by keeping the focus of the eyes of our heart on Christ, Himself, as we go out into the storm. Every day in Christ is one in which we travel forward with the hope of eternity in our hearts and with the grace that we know with certainty will restore all that is broken and lost in this world to its creation glory upon our minds. Thus, the forces that bring about today’s action are tamed and brought under the control of the Spirit. It is in this manner that we become people who engage with it all for the sake of God’s kingdom and who provide the support and the peace of the Savior to others in their times of turmoil and trial.

 

Relentless Pursute

What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountain and go in search of the one that went astray?

Matthew 18: 12

 

As He tells this story, Jesus is sharing the Father’s heart and His own. For in the greater sense of things Jesus was doing this very thing. He was on a dangerous journey that was going to bring back many of the lost among God’s sheep. His days upon earth were focused on sharing in actions and by His words of truth God’s redemptive desire and plan for creation. Then, that plan was fully launched as Jesus gave Himself as the sacrifice that would pay all of our sin-debt, and this was followed by the glorious victory over death by which God demonstrated His sovereignty over every force and power that was present in this world and beyond it.

 

In all of this, Christ has demonstrated His authority and power to accomplish what God desires by way of rescue of the lost and restoration of these wandering sheep to the eternal fold of His kingdom. So, the answer to all of the needs that my soul has is Jesus, and the same is true for every other person on the earth. Each of us is born with a heart that is lost in its wandering and is in need of finding its way home. All people have a desire to know God; yet, most of us have no real idea about who that god is or where to find him. Thus, we travel the treacherous paths of this world until we recognize our Savior in the presence of the great soul-seeker, Christ.

 

We may be one short step away from the precipice or our minds might be shrouded in the shadows of a deep valley when the voice of redemption penetrates our hearing. That day may seem to be bright and full of promise; yet, the heart is needy and starved for love as we encounter the One whose love gives all to enter into relationship with us. There is no place that is too remote for Christ to discover His people, and there are no circumstances too desperate or despicable for Christ to enter in and to provide forgiveness and restoration. He brings home everyone who accepts Him, and He does this over and over again throughout all the hours of each day. In the entire universe Christ is the singular relentless seeker after the lost, as I have answered His call to me, I pray that my life would reflect this same unceasing desire to bring others home to God’s redemptive kingdom.

 

Ruled by Christ

And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Ephesians 1: 22, 23

 

The Father has given Christ complete authority over all of this earth and over everything that dwells upon it. There is nothing and no one that resides outside of Christ’s area of rule and reign, and not one aspect of what is happening in the world lies beyond His care and concern either. God does not exercise His authority over creation for the sake of His own power and He does not rule over all of this in order to gain position and rank; so, in granting Christ the right to hold direct authority over this world, God has conveyed the same sort of modality of dominion to Him. That is, Christ is King over the entire world, but His primary purposes in exercising that authority are oriented toward building relationships with people, transforming us into righteous beings, and in reconciling the brokenness of creation with the holiness of God.

 

These are attitudes and actions that come forth out of love, mercy, and grace rather than from power, control, and guilt. Although Christ presents this entire world with the hard truth of our fallenness and the shame that sin creates within us, He also provides each of us with the way back into the glory of God’s design intent for our souls, hearts, and bodies. In and through Christ we can be redeemed, and in Him, we are established as new creation on this earth and as newly alive before the presence of God, even God in all of His holiness. These are the acts of a loving Lord. This is the action that a God who cares about His Creation above all else takes in order to overcome that same creation’s rebellion and disobediently destructive bent. For reasons that seem to defy logic we are all born with a rogue spirit when it comes to following God, Christ seeks after each of us in order to grant to us the opportunity to enter into the light of reason through acceptance of His benevolent rule in and over our lives. We are granted the right and the lifelong opportunity to make that choice.

 

This choosing of Christ is a once and an ongoing thing. People are asked by God to make a decision to surrender our old lives to the rule and the reign of Christ, and He takes hold of us in a manner that imprints eternity into the deepest structure of our being. Yet, that is not the end of the process of transformative change that Christ works on and within each of His people. We seldom go easily into this new heavenly orientation for our lives, for each of us carries along with us on this new Christ led and directed road all that we were and everything that we have developed to form our concepts of who and what we are. Not all of this is negative from the perspective of righteousness and holiness, either. Christ takes who we are and molds us and shapes us into people who can use what God has given to us for the sake of God’s Kingdom and toward the spreading of the glory of His name. In Christ, we become the full expression of the wonderful creation that God, Himself, designed each of us to be. Through Christ as our Lord we all together form into one entity, His church, which is intended by God to be the focal point of love, grace, and righteous truth on the earth.

 

Straying Sheep

For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

1 Peter 2: 25

 

Most people don’t like to admit that this is our own description, but it is. Every single one of us, all of the people who exist on this earth, wander away from God and so from His righteousness. In fact it often looks as if there is some form of opposite polarity at work in our worlds so that the direction that people go is clearly and stridently away from that of God. The old expression that says that someone “seems to be working at” doing whatever it is that is negative or destructive applies to times in almost everyone’s life in response to Godly living. We wander off by ourselves, and we find ample company for traveling the dark path of sin. Some of these journeys involve epic proportions of waste and loss, while others are short duration afternoon strolls through a place that just seemed to be appealing on that day.

 

Jesus secured the means for our return to the place where life is found on His cross of sacrifice. Christ set out the path that we would need to follow in order to return from any and from all of our wanderings, and He also provides the door to dwelling inside of the Kingdom of the Lord that opens to everyone who will submit and turn to Christ. This journey of return to the place of security and prosperity for our souls that was the dwelling place that God designed for people to reside within in His Creation work is exclusive and it is restrictive, but it is also the only place on earth where true freedom is known. The exclusivity exists because many if not most people will not accept Christ’s gift of grace and offer of salvation, and God desires for people to surrender ourselves and the direction of our lives fully to Him in His fullness of existence. God’s Kingdom on earth and in eternity is restrictive because God limits admittance to people who desire to dwell in relationship with Him. We must want to be there and to enter into the active process of knowing God and of being known by Him.

 

Yet, God works aggressively to overcome our objections to that surrender, and He has done so from the beginning of time. It is a part of the amazing, miraculous, and mystical nature of God that He seeks after and pursues everyone on this earth with some form of His Gospel message of love, redemption, and restoration of relationship with our Creator. Left to our own purposes and devices, everyone does wander away from God. Many of us do it to varying degrees on a daily basis. Still, Christ calls us back to Him, and He takes us in despite the messiness of our appearance or the harshness of the rebuke that we may have thrown at His truth. Christ’s grace is abundant and overcomes all of our attempts at unrighteous thought and action. He accepts our repentance from our wandering ways with ready forgiveness and with full engagement in the transformation of our hearts and minds into people who more fully reflect and indicate the righteous nature that is Christ’s character. As sheep we all do wander, and as our Shepherd and Caretaker of our souls, Christ works continually to bring us home again.