Obeying the Gospel

IF OUR CONCEPT OF GOD IS WRONG (MAY 16)

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"Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen" (Romans 1:24,25).

IF WE THOUGHT THAT “THEOLOGY” WAS AN INTELLECTUAL PURSUIT WITH NO PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCE, WE WOULD BE WRONG. Our theology is our view of God (His existence, His nature, His purposes, His will), and our ideas about God, whether true or false, are more powerful than any of our other ideas. What we think of our Creator is the main determinant of our character and our conduct.

We don’t use the word “idolatry” much anymore, but it is still a concept that needs to be considered. To worship an idol is to worship a god that does not exist. If a person bowed down before a physical object (perhaps one that he himself had made) and called it God, he would be engaging in idolatry. But if we conceive of God in ways that are false, even if it’s only in our minds, we are worshiping not God but an idol, created by our imagination. And that kind of idolatry is still very much a problem in the world.

In the text above, Paul spoke of certain ones who “exchanged the truth about God for a lie.” Tragically, our ignorance of God is often this very kind of willful ignorance, as the apostle indicated a few verses later when he said that “since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done” (v.28). In the final analysis, the person may not have been wrong who said that sin consists of having a wrong idea about God and deliberately acting as if that idea were true.

So out of all the subjects we think about, we should be the most careful when we are thinking about God. False notions about God will derail even the best of our thinking on other subjects, including morality and our treatment of other human beings. And most important of all, if we view God wrongly, we are going to have wrong beliefs about the reality of sin and the question of our fellowship with God. The gospel will mean little to us if our beliefs about God are such that we see no need for what Christ made possible at the cross. We need to be careful about our “theology.”

"The wrong concept of God leads to the wrong concept of sin, self, and salvation" (Richard Owen Roberts).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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A RANSOM FOR ALL (MAY 15)

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"For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time" (1 Timothy 2:5,6).

BETWEEN GOD AND MANKIND THERE IS A GREAT SEPARATION. We are cut off from our Creator by our sins. And this alienation is a problem we can’t solve by our own wisdom or human effort.

MEDIATOR. Paul states that Jesus Christ is able to serve as a “mediator” between God and us. This does not mean that Jesus serves as an arbiter to work out a compromise between God’s position and ours. It means that He is a “go-between” enabling God to have a relationship with us that would be impossible otherwise.

RANSOM. Jesus makes possible our reconciliation with God because he “gave himself as a ransom for all.” In other words, He paid the price for us to be released from our condemnation, dying in our place and thereby atoning for our sins. So God is now able to forgive us without violating the integrity of His own law. As Paul wrote to the Romans, God is able at once to be both “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:26).

On one occasion, John the Baptist saw Jesus and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Freely and voluntarily, He “gave himself” as our ransom. In 1 Peter 2:24, Peter put it this way: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”

But notice in our beginning text what Paul said about Jesus. Just as there is one God, there is only one mediator between God and men. Without Him, our sins will kill us. And this is exactly what Jesus said: “I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins” (John 8:24).

In this life, we can improve ourselves a little bit, but we can’t save ourselves from sin. We may be able to elevate ourselves, but we can’t grasp eternal life. And even when we come to Christ, we can’t have the life He offers except by dying with Him in baptism and accepting the kind of life He has for us in the here and now.

"The death of Jesus is the only entrance into the life he lived. We cannot get into his life by admiring him, or by saying what a beautiful life his was, so pure and holy. To dwell only on his life would drive us to despair. We enter into his life by means of his death" (Oswald Chambers).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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KNOWING GOD, ETERNAL LIFE (MAY 14)

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"And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John 17:3).

IT IS FASCINATING TO CONTEMPLATE WHAT IT MUST HAVE BEEN LIKE FOR ADAM AND EVE TO KNOW GOD. Prior to their tragic decision to rebel against His will, they would have had a perfect relationship with their Creator: knowing Him, revering Him, and loving Him. But once that relationship was broken, the knowledge of God would have become an increasingly distant memory.

In John’s record of Jesus’ prayer on the night of His betrayal, we hear the Son of God praying: “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him” (John 17:1,2). And then we have this remarkable statement: “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (v.3).

To “know” God means more than knowing about God. The devil has a good bit of information concerning God, but that doesn’t mean he knows God. And it means more than having feelings of closeness to God, for many people feel that way, even quite passionately, while still being outside of Christ and lost in their sins.

One thing is for sure: there is no knowing God apart from the knowledge of Him made possible by Jesus Christ. In Jesus alone is the truth about God made accessible to mankind (John 14:6). But God cannot be known apart from the Scriptures, even if we seek Him through Jesus Christ. The Scriptures contain the only objective information we have about Jesus’ revelation of the Father.

Obeying the gospel, then, we begin to partake more and more of God’s true nature, anticipating the time when we will meet Him face to face (Revelation 22:4). In Christ, we have what might be considered a foretaste of eternal life — or a down payment on it (Ephesians 1:14) — but the fullness of that life is something that will be ours only in eternity (Titus 1:2; 1 Peter 1:3,4). When it is finally ours, however, it won’t be eternal just in duration — it will be a quality of life no one has ever known before except Jesus, the Son of God, who will graciously share with us the life He has always had.

"[Christianity] is a revelation of the true way of living, the way to know God, the way to live life of eternal quality" (J. B. Phillips).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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DON’T WE REMEMBER WHAT WE SAW? (MAY 13)

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"O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified" (Galatians 3:1).

THERE IS NOTHING THE HUMAN MIND IS NOT CAPABLE OF FORGETTING, EVEN THE THINGS WE NEED TO REMEMBER THE MOST. Sometimes surprisingly quickly, we get to the point where even the most vivid experiences no longer have any impact. So when the Galatian Christians began to waver in their faith, Paul was amazed. “It was before your eyes,” he said, “that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.” Paul himself had preached the cross to them, and they had understood what Jesus’ death meant. How could they now be drifting away from what they knew?

The problem the Galatians had is one most of us are familiar with: we forget things we need to remember. The truths that should keep us faithful to God slip away from our conscious awareness.

Yet the problem goes deeper than mere forgetfulness. All of us “know” that Jesus died for our sins — but in too many cases, the significance of what we know hasn’t really sunk in. The devil is perfectly content for us to “remember” Christ’s death as long as it never dawns on us what the implications of that event really are.

Even worse, however, we don’t see the personal significance of the cross. We may, on some level, grasp that Jesus’ crucifixion was a monumental event in human history, but rarely does that truth come home to us individually. Do I see that Jesus bled and died for MY sins? Do I understand the personal consequences of really believing that?

Clearly, we need to take two steps. First, what we know of the cross must be constantly deepened. If we don’t understand what happened at the cross more deeply today than we did last year, our love for God is probably not growing and we may be headed in the same direction as the Galatians. But second, what we know must constantly be refreshed. The Lord’s Supper each first day of the week is a public memorial that Christians share, but we need to ponder the cross in our private devotions as well. Every day of the week is not too often to remember what Jesus suffered and feel anew the full, shattering impact of His death. We must make up our minds that having seen Jesus crucified for our own sins, we will not forget what we saw.

O my Savior, make me see
How dearly thou has paid for me.
(Richard Crenshaw)

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

For more information, visit http://AreYouaChristian.com

SOUL HEALTH (MAY 12)

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"Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul" (3 John 2).

IN JOHN’S PRAYER FOR GAIUS, HIS BROTHER IN CHRIST, THERE IS AN INTERESTING ORDER OF PRIORITIES. Whereas most people would think first about a friend’s physical state and then also hope they were doing well spiritually, John prays that “you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul.” In other words, John knew that Gaius was doing well spiritually, and that was the main priority. If he was also healthy physically, that would be a nice extra.

There is such a thing as “soul health,” and it is a much more important issue than most people acknowledge. In these days of emphasis on holistic health and wellness, many people do pay attention to “spirit” and “mind,” but in the New Testament, the health of the soul goes a good bit deeper than peace of mind, tranquility, emotional balance, and a sense of oneness with the universe. If the gospel of Christ is true, we are not in good spiritual health if we are not in a right relationship with the God who created us — and that requires the objective, actual forgiveness of our sins through obedience to the message of salvation in Christ.

The evidence of a right relationship with God is not to be found in our feelings but in the text of the Scriptures. If there is consistency between our commitment to Christ and what the New Testament teaches must be true for us to have eternal life, then our soul is in good health. The hope — and therefore the joy — we have is based on the objective promise of God in the Scriptures, and not on the feelings of peace generated by meditation or mindfulness.

This is not to say that the neurological and psychological kinds of tranquility that come from meditation are of no use at all. They can be extremely helpful in many ways — and this writer is a devoted practitioner of mindfulness. But tranquility should not be confused with rightness of relationship to God. And if, not having been saved from our sins by the gospel of Christ, we do not enjoy justification with God, all the tranquility and wellness we might have achieved by worldly means will come to a screeching halt when we die. Bodily health, including emotional serenity, is well enough. But of far greater import is how well our souls are faring.

"Body:  not a home but an inn — and that only briefly" (Seneca).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

For more information, visit http://AreYouaChristian.com

RESPONDING RIGHTLY TO GRACE (MAY 11)

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"But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me" (1 Corinthians 15:10).

OBEDIENCE TO THE GOSPEL IS A RESPONSE. We do not initiate the process; God does. Whatever we do, we do in response to what His love has done to make our salvation possible. And surely, God wants our response to be wholehearted. That is, each of the three components of our hearts should respond rightly to the gospel.

INTELLECT. Sin resulted from Satan lying to Adam and Eve about the character of God (Genesis 3:1-6), and ever since then, untruth has been at the root of mankind’s broken relationship with God. The gospel wants to put truth back in its proper place, and if our intention is to respond to God rightly, we’re going to have to study, learn God’s truth, and conform our intellects to that truth.

EMOTION. This part of the gospel is emphasized nowadays, almost exclusively, but even in our emotional response to God we are sometimes dangerously imbalanced. God created us with a very wide range of emotions, all of which are healthy. As we see in the Psalms, we are to respond to God with all of our emotions — not just the warm and fuzzy ones, which most people like the best.

WILL. In its most basic sense, sin is the rebellion of our will against God (1 John 3:4). The gospel proposes not only to forgive our past disobedience but to transform us back into persons who submit to the will of their Creator. So there can be no rightful response to God’s grace without obedience. As Jesus said, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46).

There are, in fact, many ways our response to God might be less than wholehearted, but most of these come down to one thing: a response that is merely passive rather than active. In other words, we do not really respond to the gospel; we are content just to bask in the glow of thinking about how gracious God is. But that was not the response of the apostle Paul, and we need to ponder his words frequently: “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”

"Those things, good Lord, that we pray for, give us also the grace to labor for" (Anonymous).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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THE SCRIPTURES (MAY 10)

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". . . just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures" (2 Peter 3:15,16).

IN THIS TEXT, PETER, WHO WAS ONE OF THE APOSTLES OF CHRIST, ALLUDES TO THE LETTERS WRITTEN BY PAUL, ANOTHER ONE OF THE APOSTLES. As a Jew, Peter makes an astonishing claim. He classifies the letters of Paul as a part of the “Scriptures,” a Jewish expression referring to the documents accepted as having originated in the mind of God. Peter would have known the Pentateuch, the Hebrew prophets, and certain other books to have been inspired by God; but he also recognized Paul’s writings as a part of this canon, the authoritative collection of books that, taken together, constitute God’s written word to the human race.

Just the other day, I happened to be reading in Deuteronomy where Moses was anticipating the day when Israel would have a king. The king would need to be, above all else, a godly man, faithful in his adherence to God’s teaching. But being a godly man would depend on his attention to the writings that contained that teaching. These writings could not be neglected. “He shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law . . . it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them . . . so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel” (Deuteronomy 17:18-20).

We have to stretch our minds to accept that there could be books written in human language that ultimately came from God’s own spirit (2 Peter 1:21), but that is exactly the claim made for “the Scriptures.” Yes, human writers were involved. They were the agents through whom God brought these books into the world, but somehow, the writings are from God Himself. If we “twist” them, as Peter puts it, we do so to our “own destruction.” The Scriptures are given to us by God’s grace. They can make us “wise for salvation” (2 Timothy 3:15) — but since they are a communication from our Creator, we dare not bandy them about carelessly.

"The Bible is a supernatural book" (A. W. Tozer).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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LISTEN TO HIM (MAY 9)

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"And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, 'This is my beloved Son; listen to him'" (Mark 9:7).

WHEN GOD SPEAKS, WE OUGHT TO LISTEN. Other people may say things we have little interest in, but surely, when the Creator of the universe is addressing us, as He does today through the Scriptures, the least we can do is sit up and take notice.

It was an extraordinary claim when Jesus said that His teaching was authoritative because He was God in the flesh (Matthew 11:27; 28:18; John 5:18-27; 8:28; etc.). This was not merely the claim of a prophet, a human being whom God was using as a spokesman; this was an assertion of equality with God and ultimate authority, a status far greater than Moses or Elijah ever had. “And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus . . . And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, ‘This is my beloved Son; listen to him’” (Mark 9:2-4,7).

It is sobering to realize that our destiny depends on how we listen to God’s Son. Jesus pointed to the problem of those who have heard but not obeyed when He said, “If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day” (John 12:47,48). In the end, it will be a painful recollection if we have to remember that we closed our ears to the words that could have saved us.

These days, it would be a rare person anywhere in the world who has not “heard” the gospel. Printed Bibles are everywhere, and digital copies of the Scriptures are even more universal. So for most of us, the main question is what we’ve done with what we’ve heard, however much or little that may be. Or perhaps we could put it another way: the question is not whether we’ve heard; it’s whether we’ve listened. We’ve heard enough truth to save the whole world. But are we paying attention? Is the truth sinking in?

"Hearin’ is one thing and listenin’ is another" (William Frend De Morgan).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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THE SPACIOUS FIRMAMENT ON HIGH (MAY 8)

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"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world" (Psalm 19:1-4).

THE HEAVENS DECLARE THE GLORY OF GOD. So said David, a man who would have pondered the sky on many occasions, especially in the days of his youth as a shepherd. Every part of the world is full of wonder, obviously, but there is something special about the sky. We need to admire it more — and think more deeply about why it is that the sky moves our hearts as it does.

The heavens do not just declare the existence of God (although that is a point of immense importance in itself); it is His “glory” that is proclaimed. The word “glory” literally means “brightness” or “splendor,” but I want to propose an idea. When we are speaking of God, might we not think of glory as the joining of beauty and power? I think so, and I suspect that the blending of these two is why God’s creation has such an undeniable impact on us.

There are those who are not much moved by beauty. For them, power is of more interest. And then, there are those for whom beauty has more appeal than power. But whoever you are, I predict that in the presence of something equally beautiful and powerful, your heart would melt. If you don’t shut it down, your heart will tell you the truth: the heavens declare the glory of God. God is real.

I used to doubt it, but I doubt it no more. Even though, for me, the “days of trouble” have come (Ecclesiastes 12:1 NIV), my heart has been ravished with Beauty and Power. The Beauty is too powerful, and the Power too beautiful, to resist. The truth is not only true; it is a glorious, magnificent reality. And when I shall have been mended and made whole by the God who became Man, I will thrill to the joy of being a part of His rescued people, forever.

The Spacious Firmament on high,
With all the blue Ethereal Sky,
And spangled Heav'ns, a Shining Frame,
Their great Original proclaim:
Th’ unwearied Sun, from day to day,
Does his Creator's Pow'r display,
And publishes to every Land
The Work of an Almighty Hand.
(Joseph Addison)

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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THE HAND THAT MADE US IS DIVINE (MAY 7)

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"For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made" (Romans 1:19,20).

HAVE YOU EVER HEARD THE EXPRESSION “PREPONDERANCE OF THE EVIDENCE”? It’s a cumbersome string of words, I’ll grant you, but it contains a useful idea. The preponderance of the evidence means “the greater weight of evidence.” Disputed questions are (or should be) settled in this way. When all the evidence has been heard and all the arguments made, on which side does the evidence weigh more heavily? In which direction do the scales tip?

The existence of God is a disputed question, to say the least. And it seems that disbelief is the “trending” position right now. Yet the evidence has not changed; it is what it has always been. And no matter what the social, cultural, and political pressures may be, our task also remains unchanged. We must decide whether the evidence is heavier on the side of belief or disbelief.

Now, it is one thing to sit safely in Starbucks and debate the existence of God. But what if your life depended on it? Suppose you were going to be asked whether God exists, an envelope would be opened revealing the truth of the matter (“May I have the envelope, please?”), and if your answer was wrong, you would be taken outside and shot to death. What would you do? You would ignore the opinion polls and hang your hopes on whichever position had the greater evidence. With your life on the line, you would disregard even your own prejudices. Only one thing would matter: the actual evidence.

Paul argued that God’s “eternal power and divine nature” are clearly seen “in the things that have been made.” Many have agreed, including Joseph Addison, who was no fool when he wrote, “The Hand that made us is Divine.” It is reason (based on thoughtful observation and not childish simplicity) that urges this conclusion.

What though, in solemn Silence, all
Move round the dark terrestrial Ball?
What tho’ nor real Voice nor Sound
Amid their radiant Orbs be found?
In Reason’s Ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious Voice,
For ever singing, as they shine,
The Hand that made us is Divine.
(Joseph Addison)

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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