You Can Keep Heaven

I've been listening to KB today. I heard a line that I could resonate with pretty soundly.

"You can keep heaven. I don't care as long as you're here."

It's not about heaven, It's about knowing Jesus. John 17:3

Here's a link to the song. I'd recommend reading the lyrics as you listen. It's so good. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kGmQtOlXtc

Living Like Christ

Living by the Law or by the Spirit?

I’m writing this blog post because I think it’s something that is practically really beneficial and also a major part of following Christ that’s often left untaught. I’ll start with the point I think most all of us are familiar with.

Galatians 2:16 Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

So by no means of our own efforts are we saved. It is impossible. Our ONLY hope to ever be united with God lies in the sacrifice made on the cross. There’s nothing we can do to earn God’s approval or repay the GIFT of grace. Rarely do I see an issue with this. We almost always accept salvation (*see footnote) as being through faith in Christ, yet I repeatedly hear illogical statements about how we ought to live after coming to faith.

Here’s what I see:

We see we aren’t perfect, recognize out Christ need for Christ, and turn to him for forgiveness. Then once we have faith we try harder to live up to the same standards that we so miserably failed to reach in the first place.

The apostle Paul saw the same thing in the early Churches:

Galatians 3:3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

If salvation is a gift and has absolutely nothing to with what we do then why do we try to live better lives now that we’re Christians? Why turn from sin as best we can and try to pray more and follow all of these commands when we know that none of things earn salvation? That’s pointless isn’t it?

The answer is of course.

But then another issue arises. What do we do with statements like this:

Hebrews 5:9 And being made perfect, [Christ] became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.

According this verse salvation belongs to those who obey Christ which brings up a really confusing idea. We’ve already established that salvation comes solely by faith in Christ and by no means obedience. Yet here we see that those who are saved obey. And we also have to take this statement as completely true. Salvation belongs to the obedient.

But how can this be true? Obedience is impossible. No one lives up. Isn’t this why we needed Christ in the first place? I think one of the best verses to explain this is John 3:36. To quote a friend, “Everyone loves to quote John 3:16, but no one wants to hear John 3:36.”

John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

I think the key to seeing this verse is to look at the two sets being compared: eternal life and belief against God’s wrath and disobedience. This verse shows that just as eternal life is the opposite of God’s wrath, so is belief the opposite of disobedience. The opposite of belief is not unbelief, but disobedience. Jesus echoes this principle with his parables (Luke 18:18-23, Matthew 25:31-45 to give two quick examples).

So now it’s really easy to become confused here and even worse fall in the pit of legalism by trying so hard and willing ourselves to be obedient. That’s not going to help though. Instead I’m going to compare a concept we should grasp with another verse to explain an alternate solution for obedience. 

Let’s start with a piece of gospel truth:

Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

As we originally said, we are saved by faith. And as we read in this letter, faith is given by God, not as a result of anything we do. We can read of the apostles asking Jesus for faith (Luke 17:5) and of a man asking Jesus to help his unbelief (Mark 9:24).

So if faith is equivalent to obedience and faith is given to us by God, then it follows that God must be able to grant us the obedience demanded in John 3:36 and Hebrews 5:9. That now seems much more reasonable for ‘what is impossible with men is possible with God. (Luke 18:27).” We can’t obey on our own, but if it’s in fact God’s doing maybe obedience is attainable. Let’s look at 2 Corinthians to see Him give us such obedience.  

2 Corinthians 3:18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

This one takes some explanation. First we all, Christians, have faces that are "unveiled". Meaning, at some point our faces were veiled and we were unable to see the Glory of God. Now, He has lifted that veil, a blindness that kept us from Him, and we are being "transformed into the same image", the image of Christ. We are made more and more like Christ as we see him more clearly and know him better. Now it says, "from one degree of glory to another". As we’ve all seen, becoming like Christ is not instantaneous, and from this verse we see it’s a process that takes place in steps as we move from one degree to another yet greater. I want to stress that becoming Christ-like is a process and takes literally a lifetime, but progress will be continually made. Lastly, this entire process comes from God, "who is the Spirit". By the Spirit’s work we are transformed to be more like Christ, not by our determination and willpower alone.

I want to clarify as best I can what exactly the Spirit does though. 

Matthew 7:17 Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.

As we learn from the teachings of Christ, the issue is not the fruit, not our actions, but the issue is a bad tree, or heart (Mark 7:15, Matthew 23:27). This claim is reasonable if thought out. Why do we sin? Because it’s what we desire. If instead we wanted to do good, we would do so. So in order to change what we do, our evil hearts must be repaired so that we actually want to do good.

Ezekiel 36:26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 

Not surprisingly, God has promised to do so for his people. He promised to give us a new living, beating heart and replace the heart of stone that bore bad fruit. And his means is the spirit. So the spirit works to develop the obedience that is often equated with faith by continuously working in our hearts to where we more and more desire Him and less and less desire the world. Now it should logically follow that we can consider obedience equivalent with having salvation, since obedience is not truly our doing, but the work of the Spirit promised to those with faith. 

Knowing that the spirit has such power for us: the power to follow Christ, the power to pray in God’s will and most importantly power to love God, I want to share one last verse.

Luke 11:13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!

Jesus says we can ask God for that spirit. I say we beg him for it.

* Since I use the term salvation repeatedly throughout, I thought it worthwhile to clarify that when I say salvation I mean being saved into an eternal presence with God and saved from duly deserved wrath.

God Has a Plan for You

God has a Plan for Your Life

We’ve all heard this, and it’s true. Anyone raised with a Christian background has probably been comforted or reassured with some form of the statement that God has a plan for his or her life.  

Psalm 139:16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.

Proverbs 16:9 The heart of man plans his way,
but the Lord establishes his steps.
 

Before the world was even created, God planned out every day we’d walk on this earth (this makes me wonder how we can call a day bad when God planned it), and he plans all the things we do. When it comes to the Bible and even the Christian culture, it’s clear that God has a plan, a path, and a life worked out for each of us. Unfortunately, I think we most often assume God’s plan for us is like the plan he had for David. We expect God to deliver us from trouble (Psalm 54:7), to meet us with rich blessings (psalm 21:3), and make our hearts glad (psalm 16:9) in a very worldly sense. We expect God to provide food, jobs, comfort, and safety. We think that’s the plan he has for us. The problem is, there’s more than one plan, and not only in the personal details.  

                Here’s a favorite “God has a plan” verse:

Romans 8:28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

So we start with a condition: for those who love God. So for everyone that loves God, all things work together for good. That’s awesome. God works all things together for good. Even if we don’t know what the plan is we know that all of its details work together for good. Immediately, that verse has numerous implications. If all things work for good, then we could assume that means God is working to make our lives better. Even if something’s hard now, it’s really to make our lives better in some way we don’t know. If we read on to verses 29 and 30 we see the promise is much better than anything we could easily imagine as good, better than safety, better than comfort, better than provision, better than a life full of good things.

Romans 8: 29-30 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. ³⁰And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

These verses reveal what the good is that all things work for. All things work together for good because God has destined those he foreknew to be conformed to the image of Christ. We are made like Christ! The great good that God planned for us from before the foundations of the earth is for us to be like Him. Also from verse 30 we see that we also get to be with God. Even if we don’t know what God’s plan for our life is, we know that all of it works to continuously make us more like Christ, and, in the end, we get to rest in God’s presence. Sounds like a good plan to me.

I like looking at Paul’s life. God had a plan for Paul. A verse in Acts sums that plan up pretty well.

Acts 9:16  For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.

If you read Paul’s letters, you’ll find that Paul’s life was full of suffering.

2 Corinthians 11:23-27 Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death.  Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.

There’s another pretty scary verse in second timothy too, but I think the picture is painted well. God’s plan for Paul’s life was carried out as He said it would be. Paul suffered, but what did God accomplish through Paul? Paul planted self-sustaining churches all over the place. He boldly went into synagogues to spread the name of Jesus in the face of sure persecution. He trained numerous disciples capable of being sent out individually to lead and start churches.  Through his life of suffering, people became more like Christ and were reconciled to God. 

We have the example of Christ first and foremost as our leader. In bringing people to God, he suffered. When large crowds came to him, he turned them away. When the crowds wanted to make him a king, he turned it down rather wishing to be rejected and crucified.  

The prophets are a really incredible example of how God’s plan is not what’s easiest for people. Ezekiel’s not even the best example, but I’ll use him because of how ridiculous his story is. In Ezekiel four, God tells Ezekiel to spend 430 days lying bound on the ground with one arm left untied so he could eat an allotted 8 ounces of bread a day. I’ll repeat that, he had to spend 430 days tied to the ground, alone, nearly starving to death. Why? Let’s ask Peter.

1 Peter 1: 12 It was revealed to them (the prophets)  that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

So the plans God had for each of the prophets was not even for the prophets’ benefit, but for the sake of later believers in Christ. Their lives, their work, their suffering, their existence was not for themselves, but it was for the sake of others. They were not given prophesies, instructions or tasks to benefit themselves, but did things so that generations later could believe in Christ. Maybe our lives aren’t always going to be about what’s best for us, but what brings others to God.

How about we look at the plan God has for Christ. Jesus came to reconcile the world to God, and Satan attempted to derail his mission. When I look at the way Jesus was tempted, I can barely help not being terrified. To tempt Jesus, Satan offered him bread when hungry, offered him rightful control and authority, and offered him protection from apparent harm (Luke 4). Satan did not attack Christ with evil. Satan fought with what we give thanks for at the dinner table and what we pray for when we go on a lake day or vacation. Satan attempted to destroy the mission of God by offering the same things we ask God for. And we can’t see Satan’s work as clearly as Christ did. I can’t help but look at our lives and think Satan’s offered us the same temptations, and we’ve fallen for them at the cost of spreading Christ’s name. We live in a place where we have an excess of food and live in prosperous ease. Maybe those are blessings of God, or maybe it’s Satan’s way of distracting us from our mission. Ezekiel 16:49 makes me think God may not be happy with the way we live our lives, and it is pretty frightening in the way it parallels our society.

Ezekiel 16:49 Behold this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.

Verse 50 says God removed them when he saw that.

I want to challenge what we expect out of life. We’re here as exiles (Hebrews 11), living as ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20) in a world we don’t belong to (1 John 4:4-5). I hope that we are a people who, rather than asking God to provide food, ask him for fruit (disciples). I wish more often we’d come to God, and rather than asking for protection, we’d submit to his wisdom and ask that our faith be tested and refined becoming more precious than gold so we can praise him (1 Peter 1:7).  I want us to look at the examples we have in God’s word of people who put loving and knowing God above food, above safety, above comfort. If those come, we praise him for it. If they don’t come, we praise him still. In the words of Job: “…Blessed be the name of the Lord” (1:21).