Monthly Archives: January 2015

Christ Suffered For You

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CHRIST SUFFERED FOR YOU

To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in His steps. ‘He committed no sin and no deceit was found in His mouth.’ When they hurled their insults at Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats. Instead, He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly. (1 Peter 2:21-23)

Slavery was an accepted part of life in those times. People were enslaved for many different reasons. Some had to sell themselves and their families when they fell on hard times. Others were enslaved through conquest. Many were the offspring of slaves who were sold off by slave owners, often as young children. There is no doubt that slavery brought terrible misery and suffering to a large part of the population. At least 40% of the Roman Empire at that time were slaves.

All slaves and their families were the property of their owners who could sell or rent them out at any time. Their lives were harsh. Slaves were often whipped, branded or cruelly mistreated. Their owners could also kill them for any reason, and would face no punishment. http://www.crystalinks.com/romeslavery.html

Although Peter was particularly addressing the slave community in the church at this point, what he taught has relevance for all God’s people. What he wrote was revolutionary. Not only was he encouraging his readers to submit to cruel treatment without resisting, but he also explained that their suffering was not just circumstantial but a calling from God! How on earth could the kind of suffering they had to endure be a calling? Had Peter somehow lost the plot? No, he was quite serious about what he wrote.

The majority of people in the world are in the grip of their ungodly nature – living for self and making their own rules. In the background is the ‘god of this world’, using his subtle influence to cause as much misery and destruction as he can. Some people even acknowledge him and willingly participate in his plan while others inadvertently carry out his evil design through the worship of false gods and the wicked ways their beliefs spawn.

There is only one way to overcome evil in the world – not by retaliating because this only contributes to more evil. Jesus revealed the answer by the way He conducted Himself throughout the ordeal of His unjust arrest, trials and crucifixion. Before He faced the cross, He came to terms with what lay ahead of Him, in the Garden of Gethsemane.

We know that a part of His mission was to be the sacrificial lamb for the sin of the world.  To be the perfect and unblemished lamb, He had to be sinless which meant far more than not committing the gross deeds we reckon as sin. To be without blemish meant that He had to be in perfect harmony with the Father in every aspect of His life – thoughts, attitudes, and motives, as well as words and actions. Everything He was and did was to reflect the Father’s nature – love and light.

Since it was the Father’s will that He die, He submitted not only to death but to the manner in which He would die, by the agony of the cross and all its implications. Day by day He submitted and obeyed the Father and in Gethsemane, where He fought His greatest inward battle, He overcame all the evil that His enemies could throw at Him by submitting to the Father’s will.

No matter what they did to Him, they could not break His will to obey the Father. He not only became our Saviour but also our example. By submitting to the worst His enemies could do to Him without resistance or retaliation, He absorbed all the evil in Himself and left them guilty and without excuse for what they had done.

‘Now,’ said Peter, ‘you do that as well.’ When we leave the judgment to the Father in the face of cruelty or injustice instead of trying to take it on our own shoulders, we know we will not have to face the music for our own sin. We also know that God will be perfectly just in the end.

Although we do not suffer the indignities of slavery, there are many occasions when we are at the receiving end of unscrupulous people, employers, lawyers, and people in places of authority. When, like Jesus, we entrust ourselves to Him who judges justly, we put them to silence and bring them to shame and force them to be accountable for what they have done.

This is how the kingdom of God functions.

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.

 

Slaves, Yet Free

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SLAVES, YET FREE

Slaves, in reverent fear of God, submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. For it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because they are conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. (1 Peter 2: 18-20)

Why did Peter expect such a huge thing of Christian slaves? Surely they had the right, as human beings, to resist harsh treatment even if they were only slaves? In God’s sight they were human beings and had every right to be treated with dignity in the same way as any free person. Yet Peter was telling them to submit to their masters even if they were ill-treated. What good would that do? Would it not reinforce their masters’ attitude that it was okay to abuse them?

It all depends on from whose perspective you look at it. From the world’s point of view it is perfectly in order to resist abuse and harsh treatment. Whether one goes on strike, joins a protest march or resorts to some form of retaliation, this is the way to go. One has to express one’s dissatisfaction in a way that hurts the employer so that he knows that his behaviour is not appreciated. Accepting to status quo without some sort of protest is considered weakness.

But let’s look at it from God’s perspective. In the end, who was the slave serving? Since everything is about God, through God and for God, doing one’s job is about serving Him.

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. (Col. 3:23-24)

Everything we do in life, the way we do it and the attitude we show towards those in authority over us in the end reveals our attitude towards God. It’s all about Him. After all, He treats us according to His own nature and never in response to our good or bad attitudes. Yes, He disciplines us when we step out of line, but not to get even with us. It’s to purify us so that we can share His holiness.

However, there is a flipside to this kind of situation. The right thing for any slave or employee is to submit to the master/employer, good or bad because it is the right thing to do. Masters are in charge and they choose the way that they will handle their staff but . . . , and here’s the crunch, they are also accountable to God for the way they treat their underlings.

Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favouritism. (Col. 3:25)

Slaves and employees are called to act like their Master, who never reacted to people the way they treated Him. He always responded out of who He was, the Son of God, not who they were – enemies. He was accountable to the Father for the right responses to people.

What a difference we could make in the world if we, as followers of Jesus, really got a hold of this principle! When we retaliate, we contribute to the chaos in the world by adding our sin to the sins of those who mistreat us. When we absorb the evil in ourselves by responding with humble submission, we put the cruel master to shame and stop the evil right there.

Paul dealt with this issue in the context of lawsuits. Corinthian believers were taking each other to heathen courts instead of settling disputes among themselves.

The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers and sisters. Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? (1 Cor, 6:7-9a)

One thing we must remember – the way an employer treats his employee is a revelation of what’s in his own heart; the way we respond is a revelation of ours! When you squeeze a lemon, lemon juice comes out! If we are truly the sons and daughters of God, we will behave like His children.

Now that is true freedom!

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.

 

Free, Yet Slaves

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FREE, YET SLAVES

Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. Show proper respect for everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honour the emperor. (1 Peter 2: 16-17)

How could Peter’s readers be both slaves and free?

Slavery in his day was universal and, for the most part, harsh and cruel. Slave-owners were the wealthy elite, and slaves their possessions to do with as they pleased according to their whims and moods. Many slaves bore the scars of severe whippings, often for no legitimate reason. Every slave longed to be free, especially those who were badly treated. Even the thought of slavery was abhorrent to them.

Yet Peter urged his readers to live as slaves of God. Even slaves who believed in Jesus experienced a new freedom in their hearts in spite of their circumstances which they treasured. Why would they want to surrender that freedom to anyone, even to God?  They knew what it felt like to be free from guilt, shame and fear. Their hearts had been freed from these inner slave-drivers through the forgiveness bought by Jesus. Slaves though they were, they would have shuddered at the thought of going back into any kind of inward bondage.

Slave-owners, on the other hand, revelled in their right to treat other human beings just as they chose with no fear of reprisals. They could be kind or cruel as they liked.  Slaves were worth nothing more than any of their other possessions. They had paid good money for them and could squeeze as much work out of them as they could before their strength finally gave out.

But this was not to be the attitude of the believer, both master and slave. That way of doing things belonged to the old life. In fact, living like that was worse slavery than the slavery of the slaves who served them. It was all a matter of the heart. To be a slave to sin was to be dead already even though they still lived. To be free meant to be released from the power of the selfish and self-destructive lives they once lived.

Real freedom does not mean living without boundaries. To the Hebrew, that would be hell. True freedom means living within God’s boundaries. Boundaries are intended to protect, not to restrict. You would not leave your garden gate open and allow your toddler to wander into a busy street. Within minutes, that child’s life would be destroyed.

We humans have the inborn capacity to destroy ourselves because we came into the world with a natural bent towards sin. Self rules from the day of our birth. Selfishness destroys because it enslaves us and drives us to take care of ourselves at the expense of others. Sin always leads to death. Selfishness is at the heart of all sin. Every time we choose ourselves above others, we sin and we drive another nail into our coffins.

What is the solution? ‘Simple,’ said Peter, ‘be God’s slave.’ You have been given the freedom to make different choices now that you have been released from the power of your old nature and given the nature of God. Your old boundaries shut God out and restricted you to self-destructive living. You could not choose to live under God’s truth because you were His enemy. You hated Him and everything He stands for. His very commandments were like a red rag to a bull.

For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. (Romans 7: 7b-8)

Through God’s mercy and the working of His Holy Spirit, you have been set free from your old nature. You have a new Master, Jesus Christ. His life in you has set you free from sin and death. But you have to put it into practice to make it effective. What does that mean? It means that you have to choose to become who you are, a slave of Jesus.

Slavery to Jesus is voluntary. You are free to choose to live your old way, but if you do, you will be enslaved by sin all over again.

Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey – whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? (Romans 6: 16)

Slavery to God is our escape route from slavery to sin and death. The amazing thing is that slavery to God is the only true freedom!

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.

 

God’s Pattern For Authority

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GOD’S PATTERN FOR AUTHORITY

Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, or to governors who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. (1 Peter 2: 13, 14)

Peter, what are you saying? Don’t you know that the emperor thinks he is God? Don’t you understand that he is killing people in cruel ways because they refuse to call him Lord? How do you expect us to honour and obey a monster like that? Shouldn’t we resist him and defy him because he is not God?

No, my dear readers, that is just where you are wrong. The Lord requires you to submit to his authority no matter what he does. But why? Why is it the right thing to do when he does such wicked and evil things?

Human authority – where does it come from? Apostle Paul explains it more clearly for us. God is the supreme authority in the universe. He rules over the earth through human deputies. He delegates authority to people to govern the earth for Him. Ideally, as He taught His people Israel, those who rule are to do it in obedience to His laws. He gave the instruction to His people in His covenant with them:

When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it and you say, ‘Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,’ be sure to appoint over you a king the Lord your God chooses. . .

When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel. (Deut. 17: 14, 15a; 18-20)

Ideally then, all authority is delegated by God and accountable to Him. Yes, even those who do not acknowledge Him are still answerable to Him because they rule for him. It follows then, that whether they are godly or ungodly, they are to be respected and obeyed since they are God’s delegated rulers.

That does not mean than everything they decree is right. They rule according to human wisdom if they do not rule according to God’s laws. Human wisdom – foolishness to God! How can God tolerate rulers who are ruthless and cruel, who make laws which harm his people, and who in the end do what is best for themselves.

First of all, bad rule is better than no rule. Without authority, a country will descend into chaos. When everyone does what is right in his own eyes, the clashed are catastrophic.

Secondly, every country gets the ruler or rulers it deserves, especially in a democracy where the people choose their representatives.

Thirdly, every ruler will give an account of what he did with the authority God gave him. He or she cannot escape, from the king or president down.

But what about those who suffer under despotic governors? Peter said, ‘Submit!’ But that’s hard. God did not say it would be easy, but it is the right thing to do because, in the end our attitude to government reflects our attitude towards God. They rule on His behalf, and by submitting to them, we are submitting to Him. That is why we are to submit ‘for the Lord’s sake.’

When his readers submitted to corrupt government and suffered under injustice, they were to show the ungodly what was right, and shut the grumblers and accusers up.

But what if rulers require or permit God’s people to do evil through their wicked laws? Peter’s contemporaries were expected to offer sacrifices to Caesar and acknowledge his claim to be God. The right thing to do would be to submit to him by submitting to the consequences of their civil disobedience.

Peter’s response to the religious leaders who tried to stop the apostles from preaching and healing in Jesus’s name was clear:

‘Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard. (Acts 4: 19, 20).

There is no place in God’s book for resistance to authority in any form, strikes, marches, protests. Jesus is our pattern – He willingly submitted to those who abused Him because, through it He brought us eternal salvation.

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.

 

Prove Them All Wrong

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PROVE THEM ALL WRONG

Dear friends, I urge you as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us. (1 Peter 2: 11, 12)

Peter spent some time encouraging his readers to understand who they were in God: elect, holy, God’s people, accepted and beloved with a great and glorious future ahead of them. However, they still had to live their lives in the real world where they were rejected, persecuted and falsely accused of doing wrong.

‘Unfortunately,’ said Peter, ‘that’s how it is! Since you are being treated as foreigners and exiles, live like that – remembering that you are not part of this present world system.’ As Paul would remind them, your citizenship is in heaven. God’s kingdom functions on different principles.

The world system is governed by the prince of this world. He has the human race under his influence – and it’s all about looking after number one first, satisfying the whims and desires of the selfish nature at the expense of others. The believer, on the other hand, has been given a new nature, the nature of God who is first and foremost, pure love.

The problem for us is that our old nature is still very much alive within us and wants to drag us in the direction of self-centred lives which leads to self-destruction. It’s war all the way; not war with the devil as we are so often erroneously taught, but civil war within. The spirit, which is infused with the Spirit of God is at war with our fleshly and nature and our sinful desires as war with God’s desires.

If so-called ‘spiritual warfare’ were against the devil, we would always be the losers and the victims of his evil power. This idea negates Jesus’s victory on the cross. Apostle John declared categorically that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3: 8b). Jesus both disarmed and overcame all the evil powers through the cross.

And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Col. 2: 15)

We do not need deliverance from the devil – Jesus has already delivered us through His death. We need discipline. Our job is to reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God and, through the Sprit, to put to death the deeds of the flesh so that we might live to God.

Jesus broke Satan’s power to lie to us. The devil wants to lead us to believe that he is Lord and in control of us. He is not! Jesus is Lord. The Holy Spirit in us leads us to the truth so that we believe what Jesus says and not what the devil says. No one can control our will. We alone have the power to choose and we have the Spirit who enables us to do what we choose.

The battle that rages is us is the battle of our desires. The sinful nature desires to indulge our fleshly appetites. The Spirit desires us to be holy, and living for God. Which one wins? The one we feed, of course. It comes down to the nitty-gritty of what we choose to indulge, the flesh or the spirit. If we indulge the flesh, we will die. We will lose our appetite for God. We will drift from Him until we are right back under the world system and on the way to self-destruction.

It’s not about going to hell when we die. It’s about living in hell now, living a life that has no boundaries, no purpose and no hope. The problem with living in hell now is that we have no appetite for God. Put us in a room full of earnest believers and we will feel uncomfortable and out of place. For a person like that it’s real hell!

What we desire we will do, and what we do we will become. The solution is simple but not easy – focus and grow your desire for God and His kingdom and the desires of the fleshly nature will lose their pull.

David wrote of the Messiah:

Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but my ears you have pierced; burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require. Then I said, ‘Here I am, I have come – it is written about me in the scroll. I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.’ (Psa. 40: 6-8)

When you choose to live like that, you will prove all your critics wrong by your godly life!

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.