Ransom

Part II of the series I am working on through the New Testament. If you do not already know about the series this post is a part of, click here.

What is Christ to us? We saw earlier through the book of Matthew that Christ is the Son of God, and this is the most important aspect of Him. In Mark, we find that Jesus is our Ransom. Mark 10:45 - "For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many."

This is how we are accepted into the Kingdom of God:. At first we are taken prisoner, slaves to sin, but when the Son of God comes down and ministers unto us, His Life is all that is needed to ransom us from our captivity. Are you weak, sick and tired, and trying to do it all on your own? Stop your struggle. Let the Son of God be your Perfect Ransom, and as He promised, you will find rest for your soul.

Rights

When my brother and I were children, my mother would always attempt to settle our little spats by saying, "You both have the right to be wrong." Now, in the spirit of that sort of childish conceit that is especially magnified after one has just been contending with one's younger brother, I didn't understand what she said, and didn't much care to understand. But in the past two years or so, my eyes have been in the process of being opened by our Lord, sometimes in spite of me, and other times with my whole heart in it. I see now what it means to have the right to be wrong.

In Corinthians, there is a verse in chapter 6 that goes something like this: "Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?" And that last line, why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded? has been running through my head ever since I returned from my trip to London. Why, as Christians, do we hold so tightly to our "right" to win the argument? There is but one source from which this spirit flows: self-love. But so quickly we forget that we have been freed by the precious blood of Christ from the spirit of self-love! We have the Son of God Himself, the consummate Being of self-giving Love living in our hearts, and yet we allow our unrenewed minds to persist in the pride of always having to be right.

We say to others, "Read this Gospel tract; this News will change your life," or, "Let me tell you about a man named Jesus Christ; He is the one Who can turn your life around," and yet we "Christians" ourselves, who have already experienced this life-change do not exhibit the transforming Word we so often press on others!

Living rightly will be of no effect if one cannot love and suffer oneself to be defrauded. An exemplary life is but an eyesore if one always has to be right. As it says in James, Mercy triumphs over judgment. It may be true of us that we never swear, and abstain from media with corrupt content, and always tell the truth, and be transparent about our sins, and do all the right "Christianly" things, but if we cannot handle being wrong, it is of no worth. I am not saying that the commandments themselves found in the Bible are worthless. No indeed, the commandments are there for our benefit! But they are worthless if one performs them without the ability to admit one is wrong. Because to admit being wrong is to love someone more than yourself.

Can you attain that? Can you love someone more than yourself? "Peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die," but as soon as a man crosses us and makes us look as if we are wrong, or that we are less than perfect, our pathetic human love is snuffed cold and unrighteous anger quickly takes its place. No, we cannot attain that, but we must be willing to allow Christ out of us, Who can love more than Himself. After all, He died for you and me. We are not even very good people.

"If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me," says Jesus to the young rich man who insisted he had kept all the commandments since his youth. "Come and follow me," says Jesus, but to do that, that young rich man has to not only sell possessions, but any rights and respect he had garnered in the world. And away he went, sadly. It is no different for us. To follow Christ, we must deny ourselves daily, especially our right to win the argument. Let us not turn away sadly.

Credit is due to Paster David Gibbs for inspiring me to finally post this.

Verses consulted:

1 Corinthians 6:7
Romans 6:18
Romans 12:2
1 Corinthians 13:1-3
James 2:13
Romans 5:7
Matthew 19:21

Life

If you do not already know about the series this post is a part of, click here.

I shall today start the vein of finding all the things which Jesus is to us, either through statements of the apostles in their epistles, or through statements from Jesus Himself (e. g. “I am the vine”). The first book I read with this perspective was Matthew. Now, this is a book which tries to prove that Jesus really is the Son of God through presenting the prophecies that had been coming since the Garden of Eden. To be honest, there were not a lot of statements made by anyone about who Jesus is for us, who are His church. But one certainly gets the feeling that Jesus really is the Son of God after reading Matthew. (Alright, so Jesus is the Son of God regardless of how we feel about it, but you know what I mean.) Maybe that doesn't seem like much, but being the only begotten Son of God truly is the single most important aspect of Jesus Christ. Why? Because in Him, God climbed down from Heaven to save us earthlings the only way we can be saved. 

God created the human. When the first humans ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they incurred a humanly inseparable gulf between God and man. Suddenly, because sin and self-love had entered in, man could no longer commune with God the way Adam and Eve had been used to. So our first instinct is to measure up to God's standard ourselves in order to reclaim that communion enjoyed by the first humans, correct? But we never can, because of the nature of eternal life, and eternal death. 

Eternal death is merely a separation from God. When we are separated from Him, sin is the natural outcome. But sin is not the root of eternal death. Eternal life can come only from God. Anything apart from Him is doomed to failure and death because He is the only Life in the universe. By Him all things were made, and by Him all things consist. How can life be imparted to a person by mere actions of right, when the whole man is wrong by separation from the Life? It is the syndrome of the young rich man, who insisted to our Lord that he had kept all the commandments from his youth. But it was not enough. Nothing short of complete surrender could grant him the life he sought. If we are to believe him that he had indeed kept all the commandments, he was still yet not good, because he had not surrendered and become indwelt by the only Good One of everything. 

This is why the Son of God is the most important of all the things which Jesus is to us. For no one else could impart the Life which we so earnestly desire, and can never attain on our own wrongful foundation. 

Rest

Be still and know that I am God... - Psalm 46:10

Rest is a blessed thing. I learn this every semester in school, as do my friends as they watch me lose my mind by week 12.

But what is Rest? We often think of it as eight hours of sleep per night, or sitting on the couch after a long day. And what person doesn't like this sort of rest? We are physical beings with bodies which are fragile, breakable, "fatigueable," and which need rest. Jesus said He would give us rest, if only we would come to Him. "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." But the Christian life is hard. We are called to take up our crosses and follow Christ, and often that means getting very physically tired. I am thinking of the missionaries and other ministering hands around the world, as well as our own personal lives, as we devote ourselves to know Christ more deeply every day. Every day we may not know it, but we depend solely upon God to supply our earthly, physical needs.

There is a dichotomy of needs which both define rest: the physical needs and the spiritual Need. As my professor said, some people understand their Need for a Savior who will present their case before God and justify them; while others simply want the Lord to fix their immediate, physical problems. The two thieves next to Christ on the cross exemplify this principle: the first thief sought to have the Lord get him off that cross by taunting Him, saying "Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!" The second rebuked the first, saying, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong. ... Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom."

The first thief garnered no response.

The second gained Rest, for our Lord told him, "Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

The second had caught onto the meaning of Rest. Rest is not eight hours of sleep, for the grace of God is not so insufficient as to not sustain us to get done what we need to do. Rest is the end ultimate Problem, that of mankind's damnation for what we has done. Had the first thief been freed of the cross, had he gotten his wish and been saved from the immediate situation, he would have only postponed the inevitability of his physical death, and his eternal, spiritual death. The struggle against sin and unrighteousness and damnation would have only been prolonged for the first criminal, if he had gotten his wish.

But the second thief got that which he wanted. He wanted to end the constant struggle against God, the bitter fighting against Him which must have governed most of this thief's life for him to deserve the punishment of death on a cross. He understood God is not someone to be scoffed at, but someone to be feared, and not to be trifled with.

Our Lord is not a solution, as the first thief would like, to all our temporal problems. Those will come and go; we will struggle against them for a time and then they will leave. But the ultimate Struggle, of measuring up to the standard of God, will always exist ad never be surmounted unless we fly to Jesus, who will willingly give us the Rest we so desperately need.

Come unto Me, all ye that labour against the darkness inside your spirit and are heavy laden with sin, and I will give you Rest--that ultimate, final, eternal Rest for which we were created.

May you find this Rest.

Matthew 11:28
Luke 23

Go here (you won't regret it)

Hello my few and lovely followers,

Recently I had the privilege of writing a blog post for someone else's blog on the Pursuit of Happiness--what it is, why it's a God-given right, and how to defend it. Following I have copied the post in its entirety, but do go and check out the blog itself. It's a great resource for learning more on the Declaration of Independence, American Government, the Constitution, etc.


yoco38.wordpress.com


Here's the post.

Any discussion on the pursuit of happiness is fruitless without the foundation of God, His Laws, and our duty as created beings to follow. Whether or not we actually do follow Him and His laws is a moot point, since “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23). So before I even attempt to organize this post, let it be clear that all pursuits of happiness ought to adhere to the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.”

Defining the Pursuit of Happiness. To gain a better understanding of the pursuit of happiness, we must look through our Founding Father’s eyes. The Declaration of Independence lists all sorts of infractions the King committed against his people’s liberty, which prompted the American Revolution. Therefore, in a word, the pursuit of happiness may be simply equated to “freedom.” In a sentence fragment, the pursuit of happiness is the ability to act as a free agent under the laws of God to secure one’s success or failure in any area of life. This shall be our working definition.

Justifying the Pursuit of Happiness. Up to this point, it has been often mentioned and implied that the pursuit of happiness must be regulated under the rules of God. One could make an argument that the act of rebelling against the English government did not comply to these laws, since in Romans 13, Paul tells us to submit to the authorities God has ordained. However, let each be reminded that Romans 13 refers to “rulers” as the “ministers of God.” These ministers of God are not to be a “terror to good works, but to the evil.” (v. 3). This is why the pursuit of happiness must be subject to the laws of God, but this is also why, “that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it.” (Side note: A few sentences after this clause, the Founders make it clear that all this altering and abolishing ought to be effected only after numerous infractions, and after it looks pretty clear that the government is headed for nowhere but despotism.)
A responsibility is given to these God-ordained governments, and they must use their power only for the intended responsibility, of punishing evil and protecting good. Human governments are, after all, human. Ordainment by God doesn’t make them any more immune to the temptations and failures we under their rule succumb to. They are ordained by God to sanction and enforce His perfect laws, as well as defend the rights of the law-abiding citizens from the acts of the evil-doers. They are not put here to create their own “whim”sical laws. Therefore, the pursuit of happiness still stands as a legitimate right worth fighting for under our definition.

 Defending the Pursuit of Happiness. Although they can’t be written off, the pursuit of happiness’ greatest threat is not despotic rulers enacting laws on a whim. The true threat comes from within. John Adams has already said what I want to, so I shall conclude with two excerpts from some of his letters: 


“...it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure than they have it now, They may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty. They will only exchange Tyrants and Tyrannies.” (emphasis mine)

“While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation, while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candour, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world. Because we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. Oaths in this country are as yet universally considered as sacred obligations. That which you have taken, and so solemnly repeated on that venerable ground, is an ample pledge of your sincerity and devotion to your country and its government.”

Useful links:

Romans 13
The Declaration of Independence
Quotes from John Adams

Any comments, criticisms, etc. are welcome. :)

Insight

Note: I've had this post "stewing" in my drafts folder because I felt compelled to broach this topic but unsure of how to go about it in a way that made it applicable to today's Christian society.

This still isn't a post following the Promises series, but I really wanted to share some things I've been reading with you guys.

Currer Bell, better known as Charlotte Bronte, wrote a preface to her second edition of Jane Eyre basically because the book stood very controversially against the standards of the time. I will leave you to meditate on the following.

"Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.
"These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken from truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is - I repeat it - difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them.
"The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make external show pass for sterling worth - to let white-washed walls vouch for clean shrines. It may hate him who dares to scrutinise and expose, to rase the gilding and show base metal under it, to penetrate the sepulchre and reveal charnel relics; but hat as it will, it is indebted to him."

Now perhaps this description of "Christianity", while true enough when written in its day, is rather unfitting for the more sincere outlooks of many churches today. But after all these hundreds of years after Bronte wrote this preface, we have not got past actions, which Bronte describes as appearances.
Actions do not define a man. Were that true, every single one of the elect should perish. No one shall be saved for not sinning; but everyone may be saved by the virtue of the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He sent. (John 17:3). In every single circle people's worth is still judged largely by their actions, especially in churches, where the "correction gospel" is taught so often as people try to fix their actions, instead of falling deeper in love with Christ. 1 Corinthians 6:12: "All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful unto me, but I will not be brought under the power of any."
John 14:15: "If ye love me, keep my commandments."
As my pastor down in Dallas has long said, it's a love affair. Christ liveth in me. There are Christians out there, living like the rest of the world, but eventually the Christ in them will come out. He has to, assuming the person's faith is real. Eventually they will fall deeper in love with Jesus, and their mood, their speech, their thoughts, their actions will become more and more aligned with the Christ in them.
Back in the early 19th century, people's actions did not match the state of their hearts. Back then, Bronte would expose this. Today, the situation seems to be reversed, and many Christians would focus on the symptoms, and insist that the flock read their Bible, pray every day, and in essence fix their actions. But what good does it do to read one's Bible if one does it under the compulsion of anything besides a love for Christ?  No, it's not a matter of waiting for the right "feeling" to come over one, it's a matter of people's hearts being turned to the Lord and performing these actions because they love Jesus.
Love is not a feeling. Love is a sacrifice. Love is an outworking of the state of the heart. "Faith without works is dead," but all the works in the world done for the wrong reasons will not revive one's faith. Fall more deeply in love with the Christ in you, and pray for those who haven't. Let each be governed by his own conscience, not another's; but let no man's freedom hinder his brother's faith. It is then that the actions and the heart will align themselves, and Pharisees may be altogether done away with.

Mercy

Oh Genesis 4, how hard it is to glean a promise from God out of you. I'm really sorry if this post seems a little contrived.

In Genesis 4, we see brother rise up against brother, quite literally. It's the famous chapter in which Cain kills Abel, on the account of jealousy. Then God comes into the spotlight and asks Cain where Abel is, and Cain of course denies any knowledge of his brother's whereabouts. But God doesn't need anybody to confess since He already knows everything anyway. Then we hear about Cain running off to the Land of Nod and building a city and naming it after his son Enoch. Then we go into a bit of genealogy, and from there there is not much more interesting news except that after Seth is born men begin to call upon the Lord.

Cain, after having killed his brother and then denied his knowledge, can't swallow his medicine. "And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear." v 13. And so what do you think God does? Instead of forcing it down Cain's throat, He puts a mark on Cain's forehead so no one will kill him, and sends him out to the Land of Nod, where Cain can live out the rest of his life alive without fear of someone coming and avenging Abel's blood. And God even  grants Cain a wife.

My friends, you can never get so bad as to wander beyond the reaches of the mercies of God. And if God can look out for Cain's life, Cain who killed his own brother in cold blood, how much more will your Heavenly Father forgive you if you come to Him.

P.S. These blogs will probably come out once to twice a week now. Every day was overkill, sorry. :P