Obeying the Gospel

OPPORTUNITY TO SEEK GOD (NOVEMBER 16)

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"For this reason every one of your faithful followers should pray to you while there is a window of opportunity" (Psalm 32:6 NET).

GOD GRANTS US THE TIME TO SEEK HIM, BUT THE SPAN OF THAT TIME IS NOT UNLIMITED. Eventually, our time in this world comes to an end; after that, there will be nothing left but the rendering of God’s judgment on the way we responded to His salvation. “Just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Hebrews 9:27,28).

In Hebrews 3:13, the writer encouraged his fellow Christians with these words: “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” There are many reasons to do what is right in a timely way and not postpone it, but one of the most practical reasons is that waiting to obey God always puts us in danger of being hardened by our sin. The longer we delay, the more our conscience becomes callous. For all practical purposes, our window of opportunity begins to close on the day when we start telling those who try to help us to mind their own business.

Just days before His death, Jesus stood outside Jerusalem, surveying the city: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate” (Matthew 23:37,38). To be lost, then, is a double tragedy. It is to have separated ourselves from God by our sins and then to have refused the salvation which He tried to offer us.

If we are cut off from God, standing under the penalty of eternal death which He has justly decreed, we need to obey the gospel of Christ. But, to use an old idiom, we need to “strike while the iron is hot.” If we fail to use the opportunity which His grace has provided, the word “regret” will crush us with horrible force. There is no love more painful than a love that dies untold. So tell Jesus Christ that you love Him. Tell Him today — by your obedience.

"You cannot repent too soon because you do not know how soon it may be too late" (Sir Thomas Fuller).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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THE CHURCH IN SPLENDOR (NOVEMBER 15)

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". . . so that [Christ] might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish" (Ephesians 5:27).

IT IS INTRIGUING TO THINK OF CHRIST “PRESENTING THE CHURCH TO HIMSELF.” The basic image is that of a bride being presented to her bridegroom (as in 2 Corinthians 11:2; Revelation 21:2), but here Christ is pictured as presenting His own bride to Himself. Christ gave Himself up for His bride, in the words of Richmond Lattimore’s translation, “so as to set the church next to himself in glory, with no spot or wrinkle or anything of the sort upon her, but to be holy and without flaw.” Or as Ronald Knox renders it, “[Christ] would summon it into his own presence, the Church in all its beauty, no stain, no wrinkle, no such disfigurement.” The idea is that if the church is at any time to be a bride worthy of the Lord’s own purity, He Himself will have made her so.

In the ESV, “splendor” is the word used to describe the Lord’s bride, the church. Other possible translations would be “glory” or “radiance.” These are words that all refer, in their literal sense, to things that shine brightly, but we often use words like “glory” to mean “majestic beauty” (American Heritage Dictionary). And that phrase — majestic beauty — wouldn’t be a bad way to characterize the church which Christ died to cleanse and set apart for Himself.

The object of Christ’s sacrifice was a bride “without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” This object will be fully realized in heaven, but even now those who have been washed from their sins in baptism (Acts 22:16; Ephesians 5:26) are in a process leading to that goal: “beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). For after all, Jesus Christ is the key to the church’s splendor, both now and in eternity. The bride’s beauty is that of her Bridegroom.

"The enemies of Christ are triumphant, Christianity is a failure, they say, and the church of God herself looks on in pain at the shortcomings in her midst. But lo, at length from the very heart of the shadows appears the majestic figure of Jesus, his countenance is as the sun shining in his strength, around those wounds in brow and side and hands and feet -- those wounds which shelter countless thousands of broken hearts — are healing rays" (Oswald Chambers).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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

THE POWER (AND BEAUTY) OF COMMITMENT (NOVEMBER 14)

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"But Ruth said, 'Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you'" (Ruth 1:16,17).

THERE IS NOT IN THE SCRIPTURES A MORE BEAUTIFUL EXPRESSION OF FAITHFUL “FOLLOWERSHIP” THAN THE WORDS OF RUTH TO HER MOTHER-IN-LAW, NAOMI. Not knowing what the future might hold, she pledged to stay with Naomi and help her — no matter what might happen. And while this is a touching statement of the faithfulness of one human being to another, it reminds us of the even greater power and beauty of our commitment to God.

For one thing, Ruth’s commitment did not depend on whether it would be easy to keep. And just as Ruth’s commitment to Naomi was unconditional, our commitment to God needs to be so. We will surely fail in our discipleship to Christ if we’re not willing to bind ourselves with a do-or-die pledge of faithfulness.

All of the serious commitments in life are costly. They rarely end up being kept if we’re not willing to make significant sacrifices. Jesus had sacrifice in mind when He said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). What that cross will require of us, we don’t know. What we do know is that heaven will be worth more than anything it may cost us in this world (Mark 10:28-31).

It is obvious that Ruth loved Naomi very dearly — and her pledge to follow Naomi was motivated by a love that showed up in faithful action rather than mere feelings. In the end, it is only love for God that will hold us steady as we make life’s hard choices.

Most of us (or at least many of us) will do what is right in the big tests of life, especially if the test is public and other people are watching to see what we will do. But it may be that the truly “big” tests of life are the “little” ones, the many daily decisions that call for us to remember our promises to the Lord and faithfully do the best we can do. Over the long haul, that is how godly character comes into being. And that is how, if we are followers of Jesus Christ, most of the good is done that we hope to do in our lives.

"Faithfulness in little things is a big thing" (John Chrysostom).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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

THE GOSPEL IS TRUE, BUT WE MUST PAY ATTENTION (NOVEMBER 13)

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". . . how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will" (Hebrews 2:3,4).

THE RESULTS OF THE SURVEY STRUCK ME. In a recent poll, people in Western Europe who have abandoned religion after being raised in a religious home were asked why they became unreligious. The most frequent reason, cited by 68% of those surveyed, was that they just “gradually drifted away from religion.”

In the New Testament, the Letter to the Hebrews was written to a group of Christians whose commitment was wavering. In 2:3,4, there is a reminder of the strong foundation on which the gospel of Christ rests. Whether we are Christians or we’re just considering Christianity, we would do well to ponder these points:

DECLARED AT FIRST BY THE LORD. Jesus preached, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:14,15). But Jesus said not only that the “good news” had come to pass, but that, in fact, He was the good news. “Come to me,” He said, “and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

ATTESTED TO US BY THOSE WHO HEARD. The apostles were eyewitnesses. They had been with Jesus for three years, hearing everything He said, and they had seen Him after His resurrection. Even under threat of persecution, they could not remain silent: “We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).

GOD ALSO BORE WITNESS. Paul said that he had performed the “signs of a true apostle” (2 Corinthians 12:12). So the witness of the apostles to the gospel’s truth was further backed up by the miracles they could perform. These miracles provided a final, conclusive proof, one in which God Himself was saying, “This message is true.”

Shall we neglect such a great salvation and simply drift away from it? The evidence that the gospel is true has never changed since the days of Jesus and the founding of His church. Our circumstances may have altered. Our emotions may have fluctuated. But here is one thing that has not changed: the powerful three-fold witness to the truth that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

"If you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have been reasoned out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?" (C. S. Lewis).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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

NO CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT CORRECTABILITY (NOVEMBER 12)

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"They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks the truth" (Amos 5:10).

THE PROPHETS SENT BY GOD TO CALL FOR REPENTANCE IN ISRAEL DID NOT ALWAYS FIND A RECEPTIVE AUDIENCE. Israel, desperately in need of a radical return to God, often rejected the pleas of the prophets for a change of heart. Apparently this was characteristic of the attitude of many of them about correction in general. Even when it came to listening to the daily wisdom of their elders in the community, they were incorrigible. “They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks the truth.”

In the New Testament, we hear Jesus lamenting the fact that Jerusalem had for so long rejected those sent by God to call them back from their sin, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37).

But what about you and me? Are we innocent of this error? Honestly, can any of us say that we’ve listened any more openly when confronted with the need for change at the deepest level? Israel’s tendency to “abhor him who speaks the truth” is, unfortunately, a human tendency. Every one of us resists being reproved.

And if the Hebrew prophets were hard to hear, the gospel of Jesus Christ is hard also — for the very same reason. It requires enough honesty to admit that our fellowship with God is broken: unless we change direction and seek God’s forgiveness on His terms, we will remain alienated from Him forever. Frankly, not many people are “correctable” enough to listen as humbly as the Bereans did in Acts 17:11: “they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.”

Wisdom is a curious thing in that it hurts us before it helps us. Although its benefits are enjoyable, wisdom usually requires some painful adjustments at first — starting with the admission that our present situation is not all right. And so it is with the gospel of Christ. It promises eternal salvation, but only to those bold enough to leave behind their current state. It’s a journey that many will not make because it is far too uncomfortable and costly.

"Wisdom is a good purchase though we pay dearly for it" (Old Proverb).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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

DON’T LIMP! DECIDE! (NOVEMBER 11)

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"And Elijah came near to all the people and said, 'How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.' And the people did not answer him a word" (1 Kings 18:21).

ELIJAH DID NOT PULL ANY PUNCHES. Challenging the people to choose between the worship of God and the worship of Baal, he mocked their wishy-washy attitude: “How long will you go limping between two different opinions?” Or as the ERV so colorfully paraphrases it: “You must decide what you are going to do. How long will you keep jumping from one side to the other?”

In this book, we’ve been discussing the importance of obeying the gospel of Christ — both the “how” and the “why” of that obedience. I hope I’ve made it clear that the commitment to follow Christ is not one to be entered into lightly. The question of whether the gospel is true is extremely — indeed, eternally — important and should be considered carefully. But sooner or later, a decision has to be made. If you’ve seen that the gospel is true, and you know what the New Testament teaches about how to obey it, the question is unavoidable: What do you choose to do? You can’t waver between obeying the gospel and rejecting it any more than Israel could waver between God and Baal. You must decide.

When we’re faced with momentous decisions, we sometimes think we have decided when, in reality, we have not. Often, we think we’ve decided when all we’ve done is congratulate ourselves on knowing what we should do, thinking, “I’ll do it as soon as a good opportunity presents itself.” In an age that worships feelings (substituting feelings for thinking and even for action), we suppose that we’ve made a choice simply because we feel a certain way. But ponder this statement by Eric Greitens, with which I agree: “Remember that deciding is not doing, and wanting is not choosing. Transformation will take place not because of what you decide you want, but because of what you choose to do.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said, “It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them.” The weak vacillate and procrastinate. But the people of strong character decide. And they know that backing away is always the wrong decision.

"Not to decide is to decide" (Harvey Cox).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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

THE SAMARITAN SYNDROME (NOVEMBER 10)

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"So these nations feared the Lord and also served their carved images. Their children did likewise, and their children's children -- as their fathers did, so they do to this day" (2 Kings 17:41).

THE PEOPLE DESCRIBED IN THIS TEXT ARE THOSE WHOSE DESCENDANTS WERE KNOWN IN THE NEW TESTAMENT PERIOD AS THE SAMARITANS. Descendants of intermarriage between Israelites and the foreigners imported by the Assyrians in 722 BC into Samaria, the central section of Israel, the Samaritans practiced a religion that was a mixture of elements from Judaism and the religions of the lands from which the foreigners had come.

Today, we might say the approach of the Samaritans to the worship of God was eclectic (“combining elements from a variety of sources”). A religious historian might call it syncretism (“reconciliation or fusion of differing systems of belief”).

By whatever name it might be called, however, it was a dishonor to God and a clear violation of the covenant He had made with Israel at Sinai: “The Lord made a covenant with them and commanded them, ‘You shall not fear other gods or bow yourselves to them or serve them or sacrifice to them . . . you shall not forget the covenant that I have made with you. You shall not fear other gods’” (2 Kings 17:35-38). It might have been expected that the polytheists imported into Israel would incorporate the God of Israel into their pantheon of deities, but for the Israelites to reciprocate by adding the practices of these nations into their worship of God was the very kind of idolatry they had been warned against for centuries. Before they even crossed the Jordan, Moses had said, “If your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish” (Deuteronomy 30:17,18).

But what bearing does this have on our study of obeying the gospel of Christ? Just this: Jesus calls on us to make a radical choice. The choice Israel needed to make was a prefiguring of the greater choice that confronts us today. The very worst decision we can make is to try to have every possibility at once. It is no more possible to serve two masters now (Matthew 6:24) than it was in Samaria ages ago.

"Progress always consists in taking one or another of two alternatives, abandoning the attempt to combine them" (Albert Schweitzer).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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A DECISION ONLY WE CAN MAKE (NOVEMBER 9)

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"'Return to me . . . and I will return to you,' says the Lord of hosts" (Zechariah 1:3).

THE MESSAGE PREACHED BY THE PROPHETS WAS THE MESSAGE OF REPENTANCE. Despite their blessings, Israel had frequently strayed from God, and they needed to turn back. This was not a popular message. Nobody ever likes to be told that they have departed from God, but in Israel’s case, this would have been especially true. Given the privileges of their role in God’s plan to save the world, there would have been many who presumed that Israel’s unique relationship with God guaranteed that His favor was automatically theirs. So when the prophets called upon the Jews to return to God, many in the audience might have said, “What in the world are you talking about? We’ve never left God.”

Yet Israel did need to return to God. The preaching of the prophets was desperately needed (even if it was not wanted). And today, we need to hear God’s appeal no less: “Return to me . . . and I will return to you.” It does no good to suppose that (a) we have such a privileged status before God, or (b) we are such good people, there could never be a breach between us and God. Both John the Baptist and Jesus preached, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:1,2; 4:17), Peter preached repentance on Pentecost (Acts 2:38), and Jesus even called upon several of the congregations in Asia to repent (Revelation 2:5; etc.). And not only is there a universal need for repentance; there is a universal possibility of repentance. The fact that it is commanded presumes that it is possible for us to do it. While there is still breath in our lungs, none of us is a hopeless case. We are never so distant from God that, by His grace, the trip back home can’t be made.

As long as we sojourn in this world, God will never give up on us. He will always, always, always be calling us to come back home, just as He called Israel through Zechariah. Since God gave us a free will, the decision to return is one that only we can make, but we shouldn’t underestimate the desire with which He longs for us to make that choice. He loves us more than we can imagine, and He will pursue us down all the hard pathways of life, persistently pleading, “Return to me . . . and I will return to you.”

"I strayed, and yet I remembered you. I heard your voice behind me, telling me to return" (Augustine of Hippo).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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TAKE MY YOKE UPON YOU (NOVEMBER 8)

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"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30).

THE INVITATION OF JESUS IS AN INVITATION TO THE WEARY. The satisfied may find Him “interesting,” if even that, but those who recognize the toll that sin has taken upon them are desperate for relief. Poor in spirit, mourning for their sins, and hungering and thirsting for righteousness (Matthew 5:3-6), they long to hear more of what He meant when He said, “I will give you rest.”

It may seem odd that what Jesus offers to the weary is a yoke. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.” But He knows the nature of our problem. We have worn ourselves out running away from reality and refusing to accept the rule of our Creator. Rebellion is, after all, an extremely exhausting enterprise, and we have found it to be so (despite the lie we were told by the tempter, who said that disobedience would be the way to real “life”). So what we need is not the “freedom” of more lawlessness; we need to return to the will of God and find our rest therein. In comparison to the yoke of the enemy, the yoke that Jesus offers is easy. It requires nothing but what contributes to our true and lasting good.

Jesus’ invitation is to learn from Him. The rest and refreshment He wants to give us can only be ours if we learn to think differently. Untruth must be replaced by truth. Dysfunctional concepts must be replaced by healthy ones. In short, we must learn a new “mind” (Philippians 2:5). “Do not be conformed to this world,” Paul wrote, “but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2).

The truth will liberate us from what has enslaved us (John 8:32), but only if we submit to it — not just intellectually but in our deeds. Submission is hard, at least at first, since old habits die hard. But if rejecting the King’s rule is what killed us in the first place, we should not expect peace of mind if we won’t relearn the laws of obedience.

"It is not in understanding a set of doctrines, not in outward comprehension of the scheme of salvation, that rest and peace are to be found, but in taking up, in all lowliness and meekness, the yoke of the Lord Jesus Christ" (Frederick William Robertson).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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HASTENING THE COMING (NOVEMBER 7)

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". . . waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!" (2 Peter 3:12).

THE APOSTLE PETER SPEAKS IN THIS PASSAGE OF SOMETHING THAT PEOPLE TODAY DON’T THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN, IF THEY THINK ABOUT IT AT ALL. The “day of God” is coming, he says, and it will be a day when the present universe will come to an end. Having been created by God, it will be brought to its conclusion by Him.

We don’t know (and it’s wrong to try to predict) when this cataclysm will occur. Peter said it will arrive unexpectedly: “the day of the Lord will come like a thief” (v.10). But it would be foolish to be lulled into complacency. The past is not always the key to the future — one-of-a-kind events do take place, as the people in Noah’s day found out. Those today who say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation” (v.4) are dangerously forgetting that God always keeps His promises, the long passage of time notwithstanding. “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness” (v.9).

But for the faithful in Christ, the coming of this day is not to be dreaded. In his first letter, Peter had spoken of the “living hope” that has been made possible (1 Peter 1:3). Because of Christ’s resurrection, those who have responded obediently to His gospel have “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (vv.4,5). In this great hope, he said, “you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials” (v.6).

So, as Peter teaches us, we should be “waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God.” Paul said that “the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God” (1 Thessalonians 4:16). Oh, to hear the glorious, triumphant sound of that trumpet! May we hear it much sooner rather than later!

There’s a great day coming,
A great day coming,
There’s a great day coming by and by.
(Will L. Thompson)

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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