Tag Archives: freeloaders

Futile Faith

Christian Life, , ,

FUTILE FAITH

“A bystander said, ‘Master, will only a few be saved?’ He said, ‘Whether few or many is none of your business. Put your mind on your life with God. The way to life – to God – is vigorous and requires your total attention…'” Luke 13:22-24 (The Message).

Jesus consistently refused to pander to mere curiosity-seekers. His response to this man’s question seems rather rude until we understand what He was saying from His perspective. What would be the point of His self-sacrificial mission to earth if all it produced was people who gathered useless information to satisfy their desire to know about God and not to know God?

Jesus did not come to earth and lay down His life to gather around Him a crowd of freeloaders who have no interest in the meaning and purpose of life in the kingdom of God. There is a tendency today of ‘accepting Jesus’ as an escape route from hell and a solution to all our problems rather than a commitment to the life-time invitation to become who we are, sons and daughters of the living God.

The life we have been given is an apprenticeship for the life to come. What we do with it now will determine what God does with us in the hereafter. He gives us the choice and then works with us according to the choices we have made. This is not a joy-ride to heaven. It is vigorous and requires our total attention. The Apostle Paul reiterated Jesus’ sentiments in Philippians 2:12b, 13 – “…Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose.”

Jesus was constantly referring people back to a consideration of their own lives before God. Those who reported the cruelty of Pilate who murdered worshippers in the sanctuary, were warned they that would suffer a similar fate if they did not repent. If we have any involvement with Jesus of Nazareth, it can only be a personal and lifetime commitment to Him as our Master and Lord.

There is a world of difference between the present-day gospel message which is essentially saying, “Come to Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins so that you can go to heaven when you die,” and the message of the apostles who declared, “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ,” Acts 2:38 (NIV).

The good news of the kingdom of God was never intended to be an escape route from earth. It is a promise of hope and the renewal of a corrupted earth and a mandate for those who recognise and bow to the Lordship of Jesus, to bring heaven to earth. By living out the life of Jesus in the power of His Spirit here on earth, His Father’s benevolent and gracious rule can be extended through His people wherever they are.

God’s promise is that every knee will bow to this Jesus whom He has elevated to the highest place and given a name above every name. Even those who refuse to acknowledge Him now will bow, including His arch-enemy, the devil, and that will be their admission of defeat and their self-inflicted removal from the presence of God forever.

So, once again, Jesus says to every reader, ‘Be warned. You choose….”

Don’t Assume

Christian Life, , ,

DON’T ASSUME

“A lot of you are going to assume that you’ll sit down to God’s salvation banquet just because you’ve been hanging around the neighbourhood all your lives. Well, one day you’re going to be banging on the door, wanting to get in, but you’ll find the door locked and the Master saying, ‘Sorry, you’re not on my guest list.'” Luke 13:25 (The Message).

What a solemn warning! Jesus left us in no doubt about what happens to curiosity-seekers and freeloaders. His invitation is into an intimate marriage relationship with Him in order to impregnate our spirits with His word. His passion is to re-establish the oneness that Adam’s rebellion disrupted at the Fall.

God’s word is the energy that created the universe – “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of His mouth” Psalm 33:6 NIV) – and keeps it in perfect running order – “…sustaining all things by His powerful word…” Hebrews 1:3b (NIV) – and the seed which is sown into human hearts, germinates and grows to produce the full harvest of God’s character in us – “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” 1 Peter 1:23 (NIV).

Sometimes the gospel is presented as though Jesus were either offering a cop-out for those who are finding life tough, recruiting others for a cause or calling us into a quick-buck business association with Him in order to line our pockets with His ‘blessings’! (What happened to His ‘deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me’?) This is our modern-day humanistic corruption of His intention.

Like a many-faceted diamond, God calls us into a many-faceted relationship with Himself. Jesus consistently presented and portrayed God as our ‘Abba’, the tender Father who passionately loves us, carried out a daring plan to rescue us and lavishly pours out His grace and favour on His children.

Jesus Himself is our Rabbi, calling us to follow, learn, imitate and obey Him; our Bridegroom who has gone to prepare the bridal chamber for the day He returns to pick us up (rapture us) and carry us over the threshold into the realm where we shall be perfected in oneness with Him forever; and our King, to be honoured as our Lord and Master in a union which reproduces His likeness in us.

The Holy Spirit, the third person in this Trinity of unique ‘God-ness’, is the gentle ‘mother’ who nurtures and fashions these embryonic Father/child and Bridegroom/bride relationships into full bloom through a lifetime of teaching, guiding, correcting and encouraging.

It’s no wonder, then, that Jesus warned about assuming that, because we have lived in the ‘neighbourhood’ of His activities all our lives, we are automatically included on His ‘guest list’. Knowing about Him and knowing Him are poles apart. This ‘knowing’ of which He speaks is the ‘knowing’ of intimacy between a husband and wife which reproduces a child out of that union. A lifetime of ‘knowing’ Him begins with a personal surrender of heart to Him as a bride pledging her life to her bridegroom, and continues with a lifetime of growing intimacy that transforms her from an independent individual into a blended oneness with Him.

It takes more than going to church, reading the Bible or doing ‘good works’ to forge a relationship with the living God. It’s about fellowship with Him, starting with cleaning the slate by receiving the full benefits of His forgiveness, cleaning our cupboards of the all our skeletons and starting a new life in a new realm with a new heart and a new energy to do life His way.

And it’s our choice…