Monthly Archives: November 2014

Set Free To Love

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SET FREE TO LOVE

“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’. If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.” Galatians 5:13-15.

Freedom! Everybody wants to be free. But free from what? Most people think that freedom means no laws, no restraints, no boundaries, to do as they please. The problem with this kind of so-called “freedom” is that it clashes with everyone else’s freedom and creates the worst kind of chaos.

Imagine driving in a city where there are no traffic rules! Half of the motorists would be dead within the first twenty four hours. How long would it take for drivers to realise that staying alive meant giving way to the next vehicle and being courteous on the road? I live in a country were a certain group in the population thinks that traffic laws do not apply to them. As a result, the accident rate and number of road deaths is very high.

Every human being is born with an internal slave-driver far worse than any rules or regulations. It’s called selfishness. But why is selfishness so destructive? It not only clashes with everyone else’s selfishness; it also causes chaos within a person. Think of the emotional trauma another person’s selfishness causes to you – your home is invaded and your property destroyed or stolen because someone else decided that he wanted what you have. A loved one’s life is taken because a murderer chose to eliminate him or her. And so on.

Then there’s the internal destruction that selfishness does to you. You clash with a friend or a family member; both parties are angry, resentful, and bitter. You believe you are right and so does he or she. Neither will back down. A deep rift grows and you don’t communicate for months or years. How do you feel? Free? At peace? Full of love towards the other person? Humble? No way! You are clogged up with emotional baggage. You can’t sleep at night. You cannot get free of the other person. You are enslaved by your emotions.

These are all the consequences of the worst slave-driver of all. The problem is that trying to obey God’s rules without a new heart and a new nature only makes the slavery to guilt and fear worse. Jesus is the only one who has the power to set us free. He did this, first of all, by getting rid of our sin. He paid our debt so that it could be cancelled and deleted from our record. Then He gave us an insurance policy against our falling short of God’s standards. We are covered by His righteousness. When we fail, He says, “It’s okay. I’ve got you covered!”

That does not mean that we can go off and engage in “freedom” to live as we like because we are covered by the righteousness of Jesus. That would be as foolish as getting involved in as many vehicle accidents as we like because our insurance policy covers us! Collisions with other vehicles are dangerous because we can be seriously injured or killed. Our car will never be the same either. Just as an insurance policy is not a licence to have accidents, so God’s forgiveness and Jesus’ righteousness are not a licence to live as we like.

But, more than that, God changed our hearts. He gave us a new heart and a new nature and, on top of that, He gave us His Spirit – living right inside of us – so that we want to and have the power to live unselfishly.

How can we stay safe on the road? By obeying the traffic laws. How can we stay safe in the kingdom of God? By living within the boundaries of the kingdom. So Paul says, “Don’t go off and sin like crazy just because God has set you free. Use your freedom to care for other people. In this way you will stay free from your slave-drivers. Then you will be safe within the boundaries of God’s kingdom”

True freedom is not experienced by destroying one another but by loving and serving one another. You cannot serve yourself and other people. If you choose to serve yourself, watch out because you are on a downward path to destruction. If you serve others, you will be like Jesus; you will be doing the very thing that destroys the habit of selfishness, just as being generous destroys the habit of being greedy.

You cannot be both. Love, because you have been set free to love.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Say It Like It Is!

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SAY IT LIKE IT IS!

“You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. ‘A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.’ I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty.

“Brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!” Galatians 5:7-12

In a few terse sentences, Paul uses words like a slashing sword.

“Who cut in on you?” First slash: have you considered the credentials of the people who are telling you this nonsense? Who are they and what authority do they have? What relationship do they have with the truth?

The first responsibility these believers had was to check the credibility of the ones who were teaching them and what they were being taught, against the truth. At that stage they had only the Old Testament and the apostles’ teaching; no written record of the life and teachings of Jesus and the interpretation of His yoke from the apostles whom He had authorised to go and teach all nations.

Were these Juadiazers part of the Twelve? No! Were they disciples of the apostles? No! Were they authorised to go in Jesus’ name? No! In whose name were they going? In the name of the same religious leaders and their successors who crucified Jesus and persecuted the believers!  Were they proclaiming the truth? No! What was the truth? Jesus!

These men had no authority from Jesus and they did not preach Jesus. They were imposters.

Second slash: these false teachers were in danger of God’s judgment. A disciple of Jesus had no right to add to, subtract from or change the rabbi’s yoke. What was Jesus’ yoke? Himself. He was the model and the teacher of the truth about God, about Himself, about people and about God’s kingdom, all of which formed His yoke. Whatever was in line with Him was the truth because He declared that He and He alone is the way to the Father, the truth about the Father and the life outside of which everyone and everything is dead. He died and rose again to prove it.

These false teachers met none of these criteria. They were dead!

Third slash: it was the preaching of the cross that was offensive to the Jews and brought the wrath of the Jewish leaders down on the believers’ heads. They rejected the message of a crucified Messiah. He was a blasphemer and an imposter, so they crucified Him and persecuted those who followed Him. If Paul was preaching circumcision as the truth, why did the Jews hate him? Persecution was another of the evidences that he was on the right track because he identified himself with his Master who was hounded to the cross.

The false teachers were part of the persecutors. They were on the wrong side.

Fourth slash: this time Paul really hit below the belt! I wish the knife would slip and mutilate their bodies completely. If they want to draw blood, let it be their own and not that of their victims. Paul’s anger spilled over into words of deep frustration. For what purpose was the shedding of Gentiles’ blood? Jesus has already shed His blood for the sins of the whole world. What more do we need?

Implied in Paul’s outburst was the wish that these men would so disfigure themselves that they would no longer be able to reproduce the pernicious teaching that was sucking in ignorant and innocent victims just to get a following and boost their own egos.

Four mortal blows against the false teachers. Would the Galatians listen and heed Paul’s warning?

What about us? What have we added to the death of Jesus to “help” Him to make us acceptable to God, just in case He is not satisfied with what Jesus did by His life and death?

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

The Righteousness Of Faith

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THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH

“For through the Spirit we eagerly wait by faith for the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” Galatians 5:5-6.

“The Christian life,” says Paul, “operates on a completely different principle from the old system of the law.” The law makes us look within and continually evaluate ourselves on our performance. We can never be sure whether we have been obedient enough, attained the standard, and satisfied the demands of the law. We focus on what we have achieved or failed to achieve rather than on the attitudes and motives of our hearts.

We develop an attitude of self-righteous pride, like the Pharisee in the temple whose prayer was nothing more than self-congratulation and contempt for the tax collector whom he despised because he was a sell-out to Rome. Circumcision is the doorway to this way of life. It enhances self-awareness and self-satisfaction which cancels out faith in Jesus and trust in His finished work.

“The Christian life,” said Paul, “is the way of faith in the righteousness of Jesus which He gives to us as a free gift, not trust in ourselves to attain the perfection of God which He requires for us to be acceptable to Him.” It does not matter whether we are circumcised or uncircumcised, Jew or Gentile, a member of the covenant people of God or not. What matters is whether or not we have faith in the death of Jesus to forgive our sin, cleanse us from all unrighteousness and clothe us in His perfect righteousness which He gives freely to those who believe in Him.

Where does circumcision fit in? It doesn’t because new life in Jesus Christ is based on faith, not on performance. Keeping the law does not produce love. It produces pride in myself and contempt for other people who do not do what I do. Even the Law taught God’s people to treat each other with kindness and mercy and not cruelty like the Egyptians treated them when they were in slavery to them.

Everything God has done for us through Jesus is intended to bring our old selfish sin nature into submission to Him and to nurture our new nature which has been recreated in the image of God.

“Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and in all.” Colossians 3:9-11.

Paul also spoke about righteousness as something we hope for. Does that mean that, in the end it is possible that we might not receive this gift which is the only thing that makes us acceptable to God? No, because hope in the Bible has a different meaning from the hope we express in our everyday lives.

When we say that we hope that something will happen, there is an element of uncertainty because we have no foundation upon which to base our hope. “I hope it will not rain today,” we say when we need good weather for an outing to the beach, but we cannot be sure because no one can control the weather. In the Bible, our hope is based on what God has promised. He has already declared that it will happen and we put our confidence and expectation in what He has said. It is a hope until it becomes a reality. Faith in Him is the energy that makes our hope a fact.

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see,” Hebrews 11:1.

God has promised us the gift of righteousness through Christ’s death for us. We do not have to work for it. It is His gift to us now, but we will only experience the full effects of Jesus’ righteousness when He returns to restore everything to perfection. We live now in the hope of His righteousness, and on that basis we have confidence that everything He has promised will be given to us on that day.

We will always be imperfect as long as we are in this body, but God sees us in Christ as already perfected. We live now in the faith that God accepts us because we are “covered” by the righteousness of Jesus, just as we are “covered” for the repair of our vehicle in the case of an accident, or for the loss of property when something of ours is stolen, if we have an insurance policy.

We can love freely because we are not trying to impress God but living out of the confidence that we are who He says we are, His children who resemble Him because we have His Spirit in us.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.