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In Colossians 2:6-7, we are told that we should walk out our Christian life in just the same manner as we received salvation. In effect, what Paul is saying is that living the Christian life requires the same thing from us that salvation did.
What is that? Surrender.
The key to salvation is an act on our part to surrender ourselves to God. We no longer rely on our abilities or our worthiness to achieve salvation. We understand that it is only by His work that we are saved.
The same is true in the spiritual life. We can try to accomplish many things by our own efforts, but true success occurs when we surrender and allow God to accomplish in us what only He can do.
Too often, because we do not yet trust Him fully, we rely on our own efforts to grow spiritually. As we do, God will often show us the many areas in which we fall short of what He desires. Sadly, we may understand this revelation as a demand by the Lord that we work harder. In fact, He is trying to show us how incapable we are of true righteousness so that we will finally yield to Him and let Him work that righteousness in us.
When we do this, we are truly working out our salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that it is God who is at work in us (Philippians 2:12-13). We can also embrace our shortcomings and delight in our weakness. We have finally discovered the truth that when we are weak, He is indeed strong (2 Corinthians 12:10).
Too much of Western Christianity more closely resembles a self-help program or a how-to manual, and too little of it calls to us to fall on our knees and cry out to the Lord as our only hope. But if we are to be truly spiritual, the road involves surrender, not accomplishment.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
The Holiness of Brushing Your Teeth
One significant difference between life under the Old Covenant and life under the New Covenant is the power of sin.
In the Old Covenant, sin had the greater power. Defilement was stronger than holiness. As a result, followers of God had to avoid touching dead people; they stayed away from lepers; and they had to always be on guard to keep themselves from becoming unclean. The calling to the follower of God in that day was to avoid all evil and the defilement it caused. Holiness was something to be closely guarded.
Under the New Covenant, instead of things outside of us making us unclean, we make them holy. Paul puts it this way in Titus 1:15:
When we walk in submission and in love with Jesus, we have the ability to make whatever we do pure and holy - an acceptable act of worship in His eyes. We can even brush our teeth and our tooth brushing becomes in itself a holy activity of worship.
There is no need to go try and find great things to do for God. He is just as honored when we do little things for Him. He is not looking for the size of our results. He is looking for the devotion of our hearts. When our hearts are right, we make whatever we do in life holy and pleasing to Him.
In the Old Covenant, sin had the greater power. Defilement was stronger than holiness. As a result, followers of God had to avoid touching dead people; they stayed away from lepers; and they had to always be on guard to keep themselves from becoming unclean. The calling to the follower of God in that day was to avoid all evil and the defilement it caused. Holiness was something to be closely guarded.
Under the New Covenant, instead of things outside of us making us unclean, we make them holy. Paul puts it this way in Titus 1:15:
To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted
and do not believe, nothing is pure.
When we walk in submission and in love with Jesus, we have the ability to make whatever we do pure and holy - an acceptable act of worship in His eyes. We can even brush our teeth and our tooth brushing becomes in itself a holy activity of worship.
There is no need to go try and find great things to do for God. He is just as honored when we do little things for Him. He is not looking for the size of our results. He is looking for the devotion of our hearts. When our hearts are right, we make whatever we do in life holy and pleasing to Him.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Contradictions in God?
God is perfect. He is perfect in all of His attributes.
His mercy is perfect. His justice is perfect. His love is perfect.
But there's a problem.
How can a perfectly loving God exercise both perfect justice and perfect mercy? How can perfect justice ever forgive anything? It can't. Justice, in order to be just, must be impartial at all times and in every situation. It cannot show any mercy. To do so would be to be unjust.
But love delights in showing mercy. How, then, can a God be perfect in love, perfect in mercy and perfect in justice?
There is only one way. God, in perfect justice, must demand that there be a full and complete punishment for every act of wrong doing. Then God, in perfect love and mercy, must decide to take all the punishment He demands upon Himself and pay the price for sin by Himself.
When God chooses to do this act of atonement, His complete justice is met and His complete love and mercy are extended - and none of these aspects of who He is violates the perfection of the others.
In the cross of Christ all of God’s attributes are both summarized and displayed in their perfection – even those attributes that don’t seem like they could exist together.
No other religion can have a perfect God because no other religion has a cross.
His mercy is perfect. His justice is perfect. His love is perfect.
But there's a problem.
How can a perfectly loving God exercise both perfect justice and perfect mercy? How can perfect justice ever forgive anything? It can't. Justice, in order to be just, must be impartial at all times and in every situation. It cannot show any mercy. To do so would be to be unjust.
But love delights in showing mercy. How, then, can a God be perfect in love, perfect in mercy and perfect in justice?
There is only one way. God, in perfect justice, must demand that there be a full and complete punishment for every act of wrong doing. Then God, in perfect love and mercy, must decide to take all the punishment He demands upon Himself and pay the price for sin by Himself.
When God chooses to do this act of atonement, His complete justice is met and His complete love and mercy are extended - and none of these aspects of who He is violates the perfection of the others.
In the cross of Christ all of God’s attributes are both summarized and displayed in their perfection – even those attributes that don’t seem like they could exist together.
No other religion can have a perfect God because no other religion has a cross.
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