Tag Archives: received

Free To Suffer

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FREE TO SUFFER

Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you endured in a great conflict full of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. So do not throw away your confidence. You need to persevere so that, when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised (Heb. 10: 32-36).

For the readers of this letter, this was their very real experience – persecution, insult, suffering, loss of property, and imprisonment – and all because they confessed that Jesus is Lord and faithfully followed Him. What was so criminal about that?

Once again we are faced with the reality as well that we are locked in a cosmic conflict between the forces of darkness and the God who created the universe and requires us to honour and obey Him. Strange, isn’t it, that believers in Jesus have to defend and die for the right to live honest and upright lives by being loyal to the one who set them free from the powers of darkness!

Jesus had something to say about this in the early days of training His disciples.

Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of God.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you (Matt. 5: 8-11).

Jesus made peace between God and man, and between Jew and Gentile by reconciling these alienated parties through His blood. He has entrusted the ministry of reconciliation to us.

All this is from God who reconciled us to Him though Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5: 18-19).

But in a world under the dominion of the devil, righteousness is not to be tolerated. People are not just indifferent to God; they are enemies, God-haters, no matter what religious persuasion they subscribe to. Yes, Jesus exposed and overcame the devil at the cross, but Satan still deceives those who refuse to believe in Jesus, that he is in charge of this world. He fights back to retain his hold on those who prefer to live in darkness because their hearts are wicked.

Jesus taught His disciples that persecution is a cause for celebration because it sets God’s people apart as truly being His sons and daughters. Why? Because they are evidencing the same passion for righteousness that brought persecution and suffering to the prophets. Persecution should not be a cause for apostasy. ‘Don’t run away from it,’ he urged his readers. ‘Embrace it because you are in good company. There is a reward at the end of the road far in excess of the persecution you are suffering now.’

This writer also urged his readers to take the long look at life. They were called to be imitators of their Master who did not shrink from the cross because the reward far outweighed the cost. Life is much more than the few years we spend on this present, corrupted earth and its corrupted society. How we live now is our apprenticeship for the life to come. Jesus lived every moment with His eye on the prize.

And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart (Heb. 12: 1b-3).

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.

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Just As . . . Continue

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JUST AS . . . CONTINUE

I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments. For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.

So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in Him, – rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness  (Col. 2:4-7).

There is no doubt that Paul was a hard worker! But how could he be a hard worker in prison, for example? He may not have worked hard manually, but his mind and his spirit were always busy – he had many churches and many fellow believers for whom to contend.

His one goal for which he ceaselessly strived, was to present everyone mature in Christ. He bent all his energies towards this one purpose – thinking, praying, writing and teaching – whether he knew them or not and whether he was with them or not. How many pastors and spiritual leaders have a goal like that for their people today?

Maturity was not about how successful they were or how well they coped in life as individuals, but how they functioned together in the body of Christ. They were to be one in heart and mind as they did life together in union with Jesus as their head.  They were to draw their life from Him, and live in submission to Him and in mutual submission to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Sounds like a tall order, doesn’t it? It is if it were not for the Holy Spirit in them whose role was to lead them into all truth and to reveal Christ to them as their model. The Holy Spirit provided the energy to do what was impossible for them to do without Him. He was the ‘umbilical cord’ which joined them to Jesus, and the source of power to obey Jesus as their Master and Lord.

The world around them was alienated from Christ and full of wickedness, trying to lure them back, through deception, into their old lives of rebellion against God. There was also an enemy within, their old nature, against whom they had to contend to remain faithful to Jesus in spite of its pull. And, on top of that, the devil was in league with their old nature, always there to dangle the pleasure of sin before them and never to remind them of the small print!

Paul’s answer to these powerful enemies who were always there to put stumbling blocks in their way, to trip them up or to lure them off course, was to continue as they had begun. How had they begun their new lives in Christ? By faith in Him! They trusted His word that He had forgiven their sin, and reconnected them with Him as their life source. They were no longer out of touch with God and left to navigate their own way through life.

Their way had not worked. Their own rules had landed them in fear, guilt and shame but in Christ they had been set free. They were a new creation, on a new path back to the Father, full of joy, and really living instead of existing. Now, said Paul, remain in Him, rooted, built up and strengthened in the faith.

This is where so many new believers in Christ, and even many who have been on the way for years, go wrong. Having been joined to Jesus by faith, they try to carry on on their own. They do what they think Jesus wants them to do or they ‘work’ for the Lord in order to ‘pay His back’ for His grace, instead of simply ‘remaining’ in Him.

Before Jesus left His disciples to go to the cross, He spent His final hours teaching them about the Holy Spirit. He wanted them to know, above everything else, that the Holy Spirit whom the Father would send after His passion and resurrection, would be His personal representative. He would live within them and would be the link between Him and them, providing everything they needed to live their new lives.

‘I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me, and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.’ (John 15: 5).

Paul’s work was to partner with the Holy Spirit in prayer and instruction so that his beloved fellow-believers would learn to rest in Jesus. Sounds contradictory, doesn’t it? Paul rested, but he also worked at resting in God as He worked in the lives of others in response to his teaching and his prayers. This is the paradox of Christian ministry – labouring to rest.

There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God, for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his work, just as God did from His. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience (Heb. 4: 9-11).

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.