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Category: pastoral theology

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Published on 11 Comments on It’s not about rules it’s about Working Hard at My Relationship With God…

It's happened three times in the last three weeks, so let me give you a composite account of the conversations...

-- [Embarrassed biting of lip] Umm... I know I should know the answer to this... And I feel really silly for bringing it up.  I realise it's, like, really basic... but it's been bugging me for ages now:  How do I Have A Relationship With God?

-- What do you mean?

-- Well I know it's not about rules.  I keep hearing that Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship.  Well, ok.  But how do I Have A Relationship With God?  It sounds so stupid that I should ask that.  I know this is Christianity 101.  It makes me wonder whether I'm even a Christian.  But when people talk about "having a relationship with God", I kinda know what they mean.  But I'm not sure I have what they're talking about.  What are they talking about?

-- To be honest, I don't really know what they're talking about.  And I wonder if they know what they're talking about.

Yes, that's really how I've been answering this question.  Really.

Which will make you wonder whether I'm even a Christian.  I mean honestly, who could possibly be against having a relationship with God??

Well I'm not against enjoying the gift of relationship with God.  But I'm dead set against definitions of Christianity that throw the spotlight on me and my relationship with God.  That might sound like a trivial difference.  Actually it's all the difference in the world.

Don't get me wrong, I know the living God - a personal God - I hear Him in His word, I speak to Him in prayer.  I enjoy fellowship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Honest, I do.  It's great.  All a wonderful gift that's mine in Jesus.  Fantastic.

But if I have to "have a relationship with God" then I'm stuffed.  Seriously.  I'm hell-fodder if 'relationship with God' is up to me.

Let's put the exact same truth in slightly different terms and you'll see what I mean:  I love the law. It describes the good life of loving God and loving neighbour.  Brilliant.  And I have performed good works which the Father has prepared in advance for me to walk in (Ephesians 2:10).  And that's been a lot of fun.  Yay law.  Yay works.  Yay.  But if I ever start talking about 'the heart of Christianity' as 'me obeying the law' then let me be accursed!  If I ever say "People get the wrong idea about Christianity, it's not about ancient rituals, it's actually all about legal obedience" - you'll instantly realize my error.  Well, it's just the same when you say "It's not about being religious, it's about Having A Relationship With God."

And you'll say - No, Glen, you've got it backwards.  Religion is about rules - yuck.  But Christianity is a totally different thing.  It's all about relationship.  It's not the same thing at all!

To which I'll say - Really?

Really??

I understand that the essence of Christianity is not my outward works (so far, so good) - but then I'm commonly told that it's about the quality of my inner devotional life towards God.  Do you see what's happened?  We've come to a different swamp, but we're still sunk.  We're still lost in 'works righteousness', it's just there's a different flavour to the 'works'.  Before it was all about outward, ritualistic hoops.  Now I'm being told it's all about inward, pietistic hoops.

Well Hallelujah!  Don't you feel the chains just falling off you?  Rejoice, you don't have to perform physical acts, only mental and spiritual ones! Is that the freedom the gospel brings?

No, it's just a different kind of slavery.  And in some ways, it's an even deeper slavery.  That's why Christians, furtively, secretly, wonder to themselves (and sometimes they wonder it aloud to visiting Christian speakers) What is this Relationship With God I keep being told to manufacture?  And why is it spoken of as liberating when all I feel is condemned by it??

Because, seriously, who on earth can have "a relationship with God"?  Where would you even begin?

Look at the person in that photo at the top. Are you like them? Can you do what they're doing?

And if you could manage it, what, precisely, would be the point of Jesus?  Do we really need "the One Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus"?  Is He actually crucial to our Christianity?  Or perhaps He just gets us in the door and then leaves us to get on with the main work of Christianity: having a relationship with God?  Is that it?

No! The priesthood of Jesus is absolutely vital to understand. And this is what I've told my questioners when they've asked. The good news is this: We, by nature, are sunk in self and sin and have no chance of a relationship with God. But Christ is our Mediator who became Man for us, who lived our life for us, died our death for us and rose again to the Father's right hand for us. He now lives to intercede for us, carrying us on His heart the way Aaron carried the sons of Israel on his (Exodus 28:29).

Jesus is the true David - the true Man after God's own heart. Now, by the Spirit, I am swept up into Him - carried on His heart while He enjoys the ultimate heart-to-heart. I am included in the true God-Man relationship - not because of any devotional aptitude or inclination on my part. It is a sheer gift of grace given freely in Jesus.

I have a relationship with God. The good news is that it's not my own relationship, which would be as fickle as my feelings. No the relationship I have with God is Christ's relationship with God.

Some don't like this way of speaking.  They think it diminishes a warm and personal walk with God. The opposite is the case. To know that I have Christ's relationship with the Father is where my personal walk begins. Secure in Jesus I can enjoy my status as a child of God. I can even join in with the Spirit's constant prayer: "Abba, Father." But none of this is a relationship I must manufacture. It's the grace in which - FACT - I now stand through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 5:1-2).

So this is what I said to my questioners. Don't look within, trying to find a relationship with God. You won't find it in you. Look to Christ - your Mediator, Advocate, Intercessor and Priest. He is your relationship with God. To the degree that you know you're on His heart, you'll feel Him in yours.

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Published on 2 Comments on Why I need a Saviour [repost]
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A little confession of mine...

I desire in all things to be effortlessly superior

Of course between effortless and superior there’s a trade-off.

Usually I favour the effortless.

I only do what’s easy or what shows me off best.

I serve myself.  Always.  Even when I’m serving you.

I’m entitled – entitled to ease, respect, acclaim, admiration, understanding.

I'm outraged when this sovereign sphere is infringed.

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I try to appear better than I am

I need to be right

I enter each conversation with a persona and an agenda

I don’t enter the conversation with me and a servant heart

I rob people of a true heart-to-heart by trying to appear cool/knowledgeable/funny/attractive

If I can’t appear cool/knowledgeable/funny/attractive I’ll withdraw

I’ll give you my talents, knowledge, anecdotes, humour.  I won’t give you me.

The ‘me’ and the persona have become difficult to disentangle anyway.

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I’m not a bit player in your story, you’re a bit player in mine.

In my story I am a noble sufferer, a heroic knight, a whimsical comic and a wise sage.

I force myself into this role.  And I will force you to play along with my fantasy.

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Your mistakes are crude, mine are complicated

Your mistakes have no excuses, mine have many excuses.  Let me list them...

Your mistakes show your true colours, mine are out of character

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If your sins are different to mine, I dismiss you as freakish

If your sins are the same as mine, my inside knowledge makes me dismiss you all the more

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I’m devastated by my sins – but only for how bad they made me look (to others and to myself)

I hate myself – but only because I think I deserve better

I’m self-deprecating – but only because it plays well

I’m shy – but only as a cover for real engagement

I’m quiet – but not listening.  Just self-absorbed.

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By the way... I desperately don’t want you to know all these things.   So I’ve got to keep you close enough to buy the persona but not close enough to see through it.  In other words, I’ve got to manipulate you.  Constantly.

I have a plethora of warm, witty, charming falsehoods to draw you in.

I have an arsenal of cold, sharp, closed quips to keep you back.

This is my complicated splendour.

Enjoy.

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Published on 3 Comments on What Jimmy Savile, Jeremy Forrest and Lance Armstrong teach us…

Three prominent stories in the news reveal the same human condition.

Jimmy Savile's molestation of minors was even recorded in his autobiography.  It's not even disguised, it's right there on the page.  He remembers an incident in the early '60s when he managed a dance hall in Leeds. Police asked him to keep a lookout for an attractive 16 year old girl who was missing.  He told the female PC if he found her, he would keep her for one night as his reward.  She did indeed turn up at his club that night and, as he writes, it was ‘agreed that I hand her over if she could stay at the dance, come home with me, and that I would promise to see her when they let her out’.

This is precisely what happened and he 'handed her over' to the police at 11:30 the next morning.  Jimmy adds, she ‘was dissuaded from bringing charges against me by her colleagues, for it was well-known that were I to go I would probably take half the station with me’.

Scores more stories like these are emerging a year after Savile's death.  People knew.  People were told.  Savile even told us.  But somehow we couldn't quite allow the truth to confront us in all its stark horror.

Today is the day Jeremy Forrest appears in Eastbourne Magistrate's Court.  The 30 year old maths teacher, who's been married for a year, ran off with a 15 year old student.  They ended up in France before the authorities caught up with them. Back in May he wrote a blog post entitled "You hit me just like heroin."  After speaking of the difficulty of an unnamed moral decisions he concludes: “At the end of the day I was satisfied that if you can look at yourself in the mirror and know that, under all the front, that you are a good person, that should have faith in your own judgment.”

As the relationship with his student grew, you can imagine the secrecy and the insanity ratcheting up in equal measure.  With no-one to break in from the outside and say "This is nuts!", they end up fleeing to France.  And then what!!?  That should have been one of a thousand questions bringing them up short.  But no.  He 'looked in the mirror', was content with what he saw and acted accordingly.

The third story is about Lance Armstrong.  The US Anti-Doping Agency has released "staggeringly voluminous supporting documents" for the decision to strip Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles.  ESPN journalist, Bonnie Ford, writes "After today, anyone who remains unconvinced simply doesn't want to know."

But what's fascinating is the admission by Ford that there would indeed be many who don't want to know.  She concludes her article saying:

Armstrong will always find a place to race and people who want to race with him, or at least come to watch. He is stubborn enough to be capable of existing indefinitely in a sort of parallel universe where he is still who he purported to be -- a purveyor of hope on wheels. And there will always be people who loved those three-week travelogues every July and don't want to give up on their longtime protagonist, either.

Sunflowers and lavender and Alpine switchbacks are far more appealing images than syringes and blood bags and a cult of personality channeled into coercion. Armstrong's legacy lies now not only in the eye of the beholder but in the willingness of that beholder to take off the blinders and see.

Here's the common thread... no-one wants to take off the blinders and see.  With Savile, for Forrest and for Armstrong's fans, we just don't want to know.  As the saying goes, there's none so blind as those who will not see.

But that's all of us, according to the bible.  "All men are liars" said Paul in Romans 3.  Calvin said this should be the first principle of Christian philosophy!  And Thomas Cranmer's anthropology was well summarized thus:

"What the heart loves, the will chooses and the mind justifies." (Ashley Null)

Our minds are brilliant at justifying what we already love.  We don't see because we don't want to see.  This is part and parcel of our human condition.

When people pretend to a dispassionate appraisal of "the cold hard facts" and pledge to follow them "wherever they lead", we can admire them.  But we also have permission to smile and shake our heads.  It's just not how we tick.

So is there an answer to our universal flight towards fantasy?

Well Paul and Calvin and Cranmer would say Yes.  The answer comes in the Word.

We need to be confronted with Truth from beyond.  We need a Voice that contradicts us - that judges us and frees us.  If it only judges us, we'll flee it indefinitely.  But in Jesus, we have a verdict that condemns us as sinners, but then raises us as justified.  It tells us - Yes, Savile really could be this evil, but still there's a way to confront it and deal with it.  No, Forrest cannot look in the mirror and see a good person, but still there is a way back from this madness.  No, Armstrong is not a hero but we don't have to divide between truth-deniers and Armstrong-haters.   

This is a problem that besets us all.  We are all, continually, involved in justification.  Either justification of ourselves or justification of our heroes and principles.  Christ alone can free us.  He brings truth and grace.  Truth to judge our lies.  And grace to raise us again on His footing.  The only answer to self-justification is Christ's.

Published on Leave a comment on Miserable Comforters

Tell me, what is more disturbing... his suffering from the hiccups or his suffering from these miserable comforters?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAXOu-RSKmg]

"Jennifer says 'Drink hot milk sprinkled with white pepper'... Hayley in Newcastle say 'Hold your breath, count to 60 really quickly and then swallow.'"

I'm just amazed at how graciously he handles it all.  I suppose he's had plenty of practice.

Ask yourself seriously, how long could you spend around Chris without offering some home-spun remedy?  Here we have professional interviewers who do a terrible job of interviewing.  They don't seem able to enter Chris's world, only to offer advice from a distance.  That's them.  But is it us too?

It all reminds me of the story of Job.  In the beginning his three friends really did mean to comfort.  And yet, because of their theology, they could not stand Job's suffering without trying to fix it.  They offer their remedies - Get righteous, Return to the Lord, Put sin away.  When Job doesn't get better they only become more agitated.  In the end, Job calls them tormentors!  That's a strong word, but when we read Job we know that the shoe fits.

How were they "tormentors"?  Very simple really.  They were friends who couldn't enter into suffering without apportioning blame and without trying to "fix it".  They didn't mean to be tormentors but they were.  They began well - for the first seven days they just sat with their suffering friend.  That week of silent solidarity was the best thing they did.  When they opened their mouth, that's when trouble began.

When Chris went on Japanese TV they instantly received over 400 suggested cures.  Thankfully they also heard from a doctor who wondered if there was a tumour.  Sure enough, an MRI scan found a benign growth on his brain stem that was triggering the hiccups. The operation to remove it not only cured his hiccups but possibly saved his life  (More here).

Here's what it makes me think.  There was one person with knowledge.  The help of the Japanese doctor actually helped.   But in the vast majority of cases "helpers" proved to be miserable comforters.  Not because they wanted to exasperate him.  But because they wanted to fix him, rather than hear him.  There's a time and a place for expert fixing.  But don't assume that you are the expert.  We need a hundred friends and one expert.  We do not need a hundred experts and no friends!

So when your friend is suffering and you don't know how to fix it, Relax.  That's not your job.  Don't be an expert.  Don't offer home-spun wisdom.  And don't be afraid that you don't have "a fix."  More often than not, a friend is more precious than a fix.

More on Miserable Comforters (from the King's English)

 

 

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Published on 1 Comment on We are not the choices we have made [repost]

Look at this guy, solitary, upright, clear view to the horizon.  In fact he seems to stand between heaven and earth.  He is the Man, surveying all before him, standing on top of the world.

And which way will he go?  It's his call.

He is the captain of his soul.  This is man at his most liberated and flourishing isn't it?  Free to do what he wants any old time.

He's living the dream.  Which is why the whole scene is shot through with romance - the sun setting idyllically on his sovereign Decision.

But this very modern view of our choices is a ridiculous idyll.  It crumbles under almost any scrutiny and yet it captures the hearts of the whole world - and so many in the church too.

I reckon this false belief in our identity as sovereign choosers is mistake number one when it comes to the issue of guidance.  The whole world seems to believe that what we choose leads to who we are.  And while-ever we believe that then our decisions will be invested with an existential importance they were never meant to carry.

Modern Christians are obsessed with the issue of guidance in a way our forebears just weren't.  To a certain degree you can explain that as a function of the greater opportunities we have today to shape our lives.  In years gone past a baker's son was a baker and that was that.  Today he might become a she and move to Thailand.  It's his/her call!

The options have certainly expanded, but it's the underlying false belief which invests those options with such weight that they become a burden.  We really think that our choices make us who we are.  We believe we have the power (in ourselves, in our choices) to be self-made men and women - rather than to receive our life and being as a gift.

But a moment's thought shows how ridiculous the sovereign chooser myth is.

I could tell you some of the story of my life by telling you the choices I’ve made.  I decided to take this job and not this job.  To move to this city at this stage.  But that tells you only a very small amount about me (but, usually, the only part of me that the world is interested in - because we're all playing the same game).

But what about the bits I didn’t decide.  For instance, my parents never decided to have me – I was an accident, as my sisters would constantly remind me.  I never decided to be born in the 20th century in the West.  I never decided to grow up in Canberra.  Would you have chosen your home town if you had the choice??  I never decided all sorts of things that have made me who I am.

And this is not to mention all the hundreds of decisions I’ve tried to make happen but they never came off.  Those failures have made me who I am too.

Didn’t John Lennon say ‘Life’s what happens to you while you’re busy making plans’?  That's a good observation.  Life is not found in our choices and plans and strategising.  It happens to us.  We receive it.  And if we simply learnt that lesson, the weight of the guidance issue would lessen significantly.

But what we really need to do is attack the problem at its source.  We need to go to the Scriptures and learn again that what we choose does not make us who we are.  Rather who we are flows out in what we choose.

Take the book of Proverbs for instance.  You might read it and get the impression it's supporting the world's wisdom.  It seems to say "Wise people act like this and it's good.  Fools act like that and it's bad."  But on closer inspection you see that the actions flow from being wise or being foolish.  There's only actually one wise Person - Wisdom.  And one foolish person - Folly.  They both consider humanity to be simple and lacking in judgement (Prov 9:4,16) yet they vie for the hearts of the masses (see Prov 1:20ff; 8:1ff; 9:1ff).  They are portrayed as women - Wisdom like the good wife, Folly like the deceitful adulteress.  And belonging to their respective houses - that's what constitutes a person wise or foolish.

Then from within those houses the wise and the foolish live out their being.  In the house of the wise you walk with the wise and feast with Wisdom.  You learn her teachings and right choices follow.

So first it's an affair of the heart as Wisdom woos you.  This constitutes a change of being and then we see a change in will, in choosing, in action.

All of which is just to stress what Luther saw as absolutely critical in his debate with Erasmus.  The moment you make the will the centre of gravity, you lose the gospel.  Our wills are bound.  We do what we want, but we can't want the right thing until the LORD sweeps us off our feet.  When He changes our hearts, then the will is liberated to act in line with our new hearts.  But to make our very identity depend on our choices is to commit a fundamental theological error.

I'll write some more on guidance, but for now let's just emphasize this basic point: we are NOT the choices we have made.  We are who we are in Christ who has wooed and won us and freed us to live in a new way.  In that new way there will be decisions to be made. But relax.  Your life and identity is not found in those plans, it's found and it's secure in Christ.

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A sermon on guidance in Proverbs.

More on freedom here.

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Published on 1 Comment on The Gift that keeps on giving [repost]

Recently my wife bought me a guitar for my birthday.  A very nice guitar.  I was grateful.  Still am.  But not so much because now I have this kind of guitar.  More because now and 'till death us do part' I have this kind of wife.  I'm grateful to have the gift.  But what really thrills me is to have the giver.

Ask a typical evangelical why Christians do good works and they'll say "Out of gratitude for what God's done."  You know the drill: He's given me heaven, the least I could do was tithe.

And apparently this is all of grace because it's a response to a gift.

But it's a quite detached response to a quite detached gift.  God gives me stuff and I am moved to give stuff back.

But isn't it more that God gives me Himself since He gives me Christ.  And all good things are in Him.  There's a lot of stuff in there.  Eternal life, wrath averted, forgiveness of sins, a spotless righteousness, a new spiritual family... lots to be grateful for.  But really what I have is Christ.  And in Him I don't simply have a lot of great stuff.  Rather what I have is this God - the God who is a Giver.

The magnitude of His gifts are not finally what call forth my grateful response.  It's the fact that I have such a Generous Giver - not simply as a Benefactor to draw upon.  But He Himself is mine.

Not only His gifts belong to me, but the Giving God belongs to me.  Therefore my response will not be payback but instead it will be my Christ continuing His generosity through me.  The Gift that keeps on giving.

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Published on 3 Comments on Acceptable Offerings

Here are stories of two saints approaching God with their offerings.

The first is narrated by a preacher, but I haven't been able to get an original source on the story.

When E. Stanley Jones was a teenager, he got into his Methodist Church midweek and wrote a list of all the things he would do for Jesus.  He took the list and laid it on the communion table as though it were an altar.  "This, my Lord Jesus, is what I will do for you."  He bowed before it.  Yet he felt no release, no sense of acceptance.  So he took the paper back and he wrote more things "I will give all my money to the poor, I will do this, I will do that for you Lord Jesus."  But, again, he felt a pregnant silence from heaven.  Then he burst into tears, took the list, screwed it up and threw it away.  He took a blank sheet of paper, laid it on the table and he said with knees knocking: "You write and I will do anything.  Whatever you write, I will do this for you."

That's one offering.

Here's another story of offering that starts out similar, yet the conclusion is very different.  It's from Horatius Bonar's Peace with God.

"I knew an awakened soul who, in the bitterness of his spirit, thus set himself to work and pray in order to get peace. He doubled the amount of his devotions, saying to himself, Surely God will give me peace. But the peace did not come. He set up family worship, saying, Surely God will give me peace. But the peace came not. At last he bethought himself of having a prayer-meeting in his house as a certain remedy. He fixed the night; called his neighbours; and prepared himself for conducting the meeting, by writing a prayer and learning it by heart. As he finished the operation of learning it, preparatory to the meeting, he threw it down on the table, saying, "Surely that will do, God will give me peace now." In that moment, a still small voice seemed to speak in his ear, saying, "No, that will not do; but Christ will do." Straightway the scales fell from his eyes, and the burden from his shoulders. Peace poured in like a river. "Christ will do," was his watchword for life."

Taste the difference.

Published on Leave a comment on Fight the good fight
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In the space of one verse Paul gives us two - if not three - phrases:

"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." (2 Timothy 4:7)

Both "fighting the good fight" and "keeping the faith" have become well-known.  If we added "staying the course" then we'd have a trifecta of famous phrases.  In a way, that's not surprising. Paul means to be memorable here.

This is the last chapter of the last letter he wrote.  Tradition has it Paul was beheaded in Rome in AD67 and here is the epitaph he chooses for himself.  He's a fighter, a runner, a perseverer.  And as he comes to the end of his life he inspires us all towards the same.

Paul is writing to his spiritual son Timothy, passing on the baton of gospel work.  Crucially, he was the last of a dying breed.  He had met with the risen Christ and been an eye-witness of His glory.  Soon there would be no-one left on earth who could say that.

So as the church's last foundational apostle, how does Paul encourage the next generation?  Chapter 2 gives a sense of his burden.

Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.  Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully. The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits. Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things.  (2 Timothy 2:1-7)

Paul knows that his eye-witness testimony will not die out with him.  In verse 2 he envisions four generations of gospel ministry.  From Paul to Timothy to Timothy's trainees to their trainees.  On and on it goes until it reaches you and me.

But, of course, it doesn't stop with us.  We too will commit this gospel message to others.  And they to others, and so on.  The saying is true: "God's grace always runs downhill."  It applies to proclamation too.  In fact grace and proclamation are almost synonyms.

From Christ's exaltation and the Pentecostal outpouring, there has been a gospel flow which has reached even us.  Now we are caught up in its movement.

As I say this, though, I might be conjuring up the wrong kind of imagery - fountains and babbling brooks and floating along.  Paul's imagery is much more robust.  How does it feel to be gripped by this gospel and pass it on?  Like a soldier, like an athlete, like a farmer.

Like a soldier - enduring, obedient, single-minded.

Like an athlete - compelled by a vision of the crown, striving to play things as they're meant to be played.

Like a farmer - patient, hard-working, but enjoying the fruits of his labour.

All of these callings involve unglamorous service, sacrifice, hard-work and perseverance.  But they also promise victory, crowns and harvests.  This is the long-termism Paul seeks to instil in Timothy.  After the exhaustion and self-sacrifice comes the prize.  And the prize is worth it.

Paul asks us to meditate on these portraits.  But only because he has been meditating on them so deeply.  As he writes his epitaph he returns to these same three visions: "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith."

He goes on...

Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.  (2 Timothy 4:8)

Here is the prize.  Just as Paul has participated in Christ's sufferings, so he will participate in His glory.  Christ's life had a shape - cross and resurrection.  The Christian life will have that same shape - suffering and glory.  And Paul is now retiring from his hard-working soldiering, running and farming.  Now he's entering into his victory, his crown, his harvest.  Truly he's being "promoted to glory!"

And perhaps we think to ourselves - that's wonderful for Paul, what about for us?

Well he says that all of us can likewise share in this glory.  And the way he phrases it is telling.  He does not say "This crown is for all who have soldiered as hard as I have."  He does not say "This victory is for all who have run as hard as I have."  He does not say "This crown is for all who have persevered as valiantly as I have."  No, the crown is for those who "love his appearing."

If we simply love Jesus.  If we simply want Him - then we will share in His glory.

It's just that those who share in His glory, will also share in His suffering.  That's not the price we pay - it's the privilege of living His life in this world.  Paul on his death bed wouldn't have it any other way.  And if we see things rightly, neither would we.

So then, as you long for Christ's appearing, as you pass on His gospel hope, meditate on your calling:

-- the soldier

-- the athlete

-- the farmer.

Anticipate the glory of Christ's return

-- the victory

-- the crown

-- the harvest.

And know that one day too, you will be able to say "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith."

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Published on 22 Comments on The law is holy, righteous and good

Grace-motivated, love-based Christian living.  Ahh, just listen to those phrases again: ... grace-motivated... love-based...

We all want to talk about a walk that's inspired by gratitude and which touches the heart.

And it is a beautiful, beautiful thing.  But just realise: it's law.  Pure unadulterated law.

The ten commandments begin with the LORD saying "You are my people, I saved you from slavery, now here's a life lived in response to my salvation."  The Israelites are God's son (Exodus 4:22).  He loves his son and so saves him out of darkness.  He then brings Israel to himself apart from any good merit on their part.  And he teaches them some house rules.  Think of the law as "family manners."  It outlines the life of the saved people.  It's a life lived out of gratitude for a gracious salvation.  And it's a life of love.  That's how Moses summarized it.  It's how Jesus summarized it (not to mention the Apostles also).  The law is grace-motivated, love-based living.

"But wait a minute," I hear you say.  "I thought the law was all about duty-driven externalism and now we are immersed in the fresh waters of the gospel.  I thought the new way was about gratitude and heart-felt devotion? Isn't that what makes it different?  Surely the old is about the will and duty and the new is about the heart and gratitude?"

Nope!

The old was about the heart and gratitude too.  The law has always been grace-motivated and heart-felt.

Oh!

So... what's the difference?

The difference is not "external versus internal."  The difference is "me versus HIM."

So then.  Dear Preacher, when you speak of the glories of our life as saved people do not imagine you have escaped legalism because now you're talking about a grace-motivated, heart-felt Christian walk.  Describing that life is quite simply "the law."  Now the law is holy, righteous and good!  It's wonderful.  Our hearts should thrill to hear of this outwardly focussed, joy-filled love of God and neighbour.  Yes, that is the good life.

But it's not my life.  It's the life of THE Son of God.  And I need Him given to me from the outside.  Given to me because I can't live out the law.  No matter how grateful I'm told to be or how heart-felt I'm supposed to feel.  I am a sinner and I need Jesus.

So, preacher, tell me of this wonderful life.  But then, when I'm despairing because I know it's not mine, tell me of Jesus.  Who lived it for me and who put my old failures to death.  Tell me He is given to me.  And leave me with gospel hope.

That is the job of the preacher

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