Who Will It Be?

“Now, therefore, fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.  If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” ~Joshua 24:14-15

We are in a battle.  We are being warred over and we are, like it or not, to be engaged in the war.  But in order to do that, we have to choose a side.

As Christians, we owe our loyalty to Christ.  But the question is whether that is merely a philosophical loyalty or a loyalty proclaimed by our actions.  You see, I once heard someone say that if the devil can’t have our soul, he will try to steal our witness. 

“Be of sober spirit, be on the alert.  Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” ~1 Peter 5:8

Who do your actions say you are serving?  God?  Yourself?  The devil?

“…for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.” ~2 Peter 2:19

It is your choice.  But here’s what God has to say:

“For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.  Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.  Therefore, DO NOT LET SIN REIGN in your mortal body that you obey its lusts, and DO NOT GO ON PRESENTING the members of YOUR BODY AS INSTRUMENTS OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.  For sin shall not be master over you…” ~Romans 6:10-14

Now, it’s easy to give philosophical assent to something.  To mentally subscribe to a cause, yet live in a way that shows that our loyalty, in all practicality, lies elsewhere.

So I ask you: where do your actions say your loyalty lies?  Do they show a complete loyalty to Christ or to your own desires or habits?

Yes, habits.  A habit can be a master.  Remember, you are a slave, giving your loyalty, to whatever you allow to overcome you.  And habits are perhaps the most dangerous of potential masters because we serve them unconsciously.

In terms of the devil’s strategies, doing his best to blind us to sinful habits seems to be effective.  As long as we are serving something other than Christ, he is happy.  As Christians, we are called to be God’s bondservants.  But living in bondage to a sinful habit makes us slaves to sin once again.

What is to be done?

“Submit therefore to God.  Resist the devil and he will flee from you.  Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.  Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double minded.” ~James 4:7-8

Resist.  I wish it was easier.  Resistance is hard, partly because it is on-going.  It’s not a “do-it-once-and-be-done” kind of thing.  But the first step in resistance is to realize that there is someone and something that needs to be resisted.  We need to take a close look at our own lives and see where we are living with misplaced loyalty, what, besides Christ, we are serving.  It might be conscious sin or it might be unconscious habits. 

The next step is to make a choice.  These other loyalties need to go.  Make a conscious choice to serve God in whatever area of life you find is enslaved to sin.  As the Israelites started a new life in Canaan, Joshua issued a challenge.  The people had recently left an official bondage and slavery in Egypt.  Now they faced a new issue. Another potential slavery.  Joshua realized this.  He told them they had to choose who they would serve – God or the false gods of the nations around them.

Now, even when we aren’t fully serving Christ, we don’t usually think of ourselves as serving the gods of the people around us.  But think about it.  If the people around you, who have not declared an allegiance to Christ, are serving their own sinful desires and habits and are putting those things first in their lives, those things have, in a sense become their gods.  And if you are serving those same things, you are essentially serving the gods of the people around you.

So I issue Joshua’s challenge to you:  Choose today who you will serve.  Your choices are the God who sacrificed Himself to redeem you or, if you aren’t willing to fully become His servant, the sinful desires and habits of those around you.

You will serve someone.  Now who will it be?

“…for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.” ~2 Peter 2:19

“Be of sober spirit, be on the alert.  Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.  But resist him, firm in your faith…” ~1 Peter 5:8-9a

Waiting... Waiting... Waiting...

I’ve had a sort of feeling that nature isn’t the – bother!  How to put it into words? – the perfect, composed, beautiful, unrestrained thing it ought to be.  That even the most bright of summers; the most gorgeous, wondrous, snowy white winters; the most hopeful, young springs; and the most beautiful falls; it’s not quite right.  Something is missing – not as it should be.  The quiet, twilights; sparkling stars; crisp, shining, silvery frosts; bold blue skies; quiet nights; all seem haunting, somehow.  Haunting – as if, even in all the radiant beauty, there’s some ghost of something that could have been - or should have been.

Surely the fallen nature of the universe has something to do with it – it’s really the cause of it.  But that’s not it entirely.  If that was the whole story, there should be an air of finality about it.  But there isn’t.  If anything, there is a hush, as of waiting.

And I’ve finally put my finger on the reason.  I don’t know why I never saw it before – it’s been staring me in the face for years.  It’s in Romans:

“For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.  For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.  For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.  And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.  For in this hope we were saved.  Now hope that is seen is not hope.  For who hopes for what he sees?  But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it in patience.” ~Romans 8:19-25 (ESV)

Creation is a ghost of what it was – and what it will be.  That is why it sometimes seems so haunting.  The hush is one of longing anticipation.  And I share in that anticipation because the reason for it is within me as well.  Hope.

In clear crisp mornings, the sun peeps over the horizon and there is a whisper of hope in the wind – a hope that all will yet be right with the world, a promise of things to come.

It’s nice to know the reasons why.

~M.

The Face in the Mirror

[Just as a side-note, I wanted to clarify a statement in my previous post.  When I said, "I must write," I did not mean I am/was being forced to do so.  I meant that I just have to do it - like a horse has to neigh and a zebra has to have stripes.  It's part of who I am. :) ]
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“But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.  For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.  But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man shall be blessed in what he does.” ~ James 1:22-25

The great wonder of Christianity is that, in giving up ourselves to Christ, we become something infinitely better than what we were before.  God asks us for ourselves and gives us Himself.  He asks for the sinful person and offers His holiness in return.

Why He would want our sinful selves is beyond me.  Ephesians 2 says that you and I were, “dead in [our] trespasses and sins, in which [we] formerly walked according to the course of this world…”  (Ephesian 2:1-2a)  One, we were dead.  Dead things are nasty, rotting, and stinking.  Two, we weren’t just dead, we were dead in sin, the antithesis of the holiness of God.  Three, we walked according to the ways of the world – and friendship with the world, James 4 says, is enmity toward God.  Dead, living in complete opposition to God’s nature, and at war with Him.  And He offered His righteousness in return for our deadness and sin and surrender.  Why?  I don’t know.  But He did.

When we looked in a spiritual mirror before surrendering ourselves to Him, we saw corruption and evil.  That was the face in the mirror.  But with our surrender, we were given a new face – the face of Christ.  2 Corinthians puts it like this: “Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold new things have come.”

But the difficulty is this: We looked into the mirror for so long, seeing corruption, that this new man is unfamiliar and remembering his characteristics is difficult.  It isn’t as if we can memorize a physical description.  He isn’t physical.  In that sense, we are the same.  How, then, does one see this new creature, this new face?

James 1 says we are to look into God’s perfect law of liberty.  Why?  The Law of liberty is the reflection of God’s nature.  In looking at this law we see God’s attributes.  And “all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” (Galatians 3:27)  Christ’s righteousness is given to us and His righteousness can be seen in the perfect Word and ways of God.

We are told to look into a mirror and memorize our new selves, so that we will remember who we are since we were given a new face, based in the nature and character of God.  What better place to find what our new nature is to be than in the very thoughts and actions of God, whose righteousness we have been given?

You have a new face.  In place of your dead sinfulness, Jesus gave you His perfect face.  But you must live by that new face and the only way to do that is by learning what that new face is like.  In the perfect word of God we see a reflection of His face.  When we look into it – wonder of wonders – by grace, the face of Christ looks back at us.  Oh that we may live in a manner worthy of that face!

~M.

I Must Write

I must write.

And if I must write, I may as well write something that will encourage and challenge someone else.  Hence, the purpose of this blog.

But just as a side-note, when I say, "I must write," I don't mean I am/was being forced to write.  I mean that I just have to write - like a horse has to neigh and a zebra has to have stripes.  It's part of who I am.

If you read my previous blog, The Great Adventure, you may be wondering at the duplicate name.  It's not that I'm trying to be unimaginative.  Instead, the phrase "the great adventure" encapsulates much of my outlook on life.  I named my first blog The Great Adventure because I believed that life was one grand adventure.  I still believe that.  And so this blog is also called The Great Adventure.

If I'm going to be entirely honest, I have to tell you that the phrase "the great adventure" didn't originate with me.  It is the title of one of my favorite songs of all time, The Great Adventure, by Steven Curtis Chapman.  It has been one of my life theme songs since I first heard it, six or seven years ago:

Saddle up your horses!

(Verse 1)
Started out this morning in the usual way
Chasing thoughts inside my head
Of all I had to do today
Another time around the circle
Try to make it better than the last

I opened up my Bible
And I read about me
Said I'd been a prisoner
And God's grace had set me free
And somewhere between the pages
It hit me like a lightning bolt
I saw a big frontier in from of me
And I heard somebody say, "Let's go!"

(CHORUS)
Saddle up your horses
We've got a trail to blaze
Through the wild blue yonder
Of God's amazing grace
Let's follow our Leader
Into the glorious unknown
This is life like no other
This is the great adventure

(Verse 2)
Come on get ready
For the ride of your life
Gonna leave long-faced religion
In a cloud of dust behind
And discover all the new horizons
Just waiting to be explored
This is what we were created for

(Bridge)
We'll travel over
Over mountains so high
We'll go through valleys below
Still through it all
We'll find that
This is the greatest journey
That the human heart will ever see
The love of God will take us far
Beyond our wildest dreams

Yeah... oh saddle up your horses... come on get ready to ride

(Words and music by Steven Curtis Chapman and Geoff Moore)

It is my hope that, in reading my thoughts on this great adventure of life, you will be encouraged and challenged to love life and to take it by the horns, living a life fully abandoned to Jesus Christ.

~M.