The Grace to Forgive, the Grace to be Made Holy

Someone sins against you terribly. You have a choice: Do you forgive or not?

At one level, the biblical answer is easy: Of course you forgive. When Peter asks Jesus if he should forgive the repetitious sin of his brother seven times, Jesus replies, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times” (Matthew 18:21-22). If someone hits you on the right cheek, you are to turn the other to him also (Matthew 5:39).

These and other Scriptures emphasize that we are not to take personal offense. We are not to become bitter. We are not to hold grudges. We are to forgive one another from the heart. Indeed, we are to put the interests of the other above our own.

Yet that last statement can lead to questions about how we respond to sin against us. If we really have the interests of our sinning brother or sister at heart, we want them to cease from this sin. Surely that is in their interests. If our attitude towards their sin enables further sin, aren’t we harming our brother or sister by that attitude?

Consider a common example, in biblical times as well as in our own: A spouse commits adultery. Is forgiveness the right response? Or does forgiveness enable further sin – “My spouse will always forgive me, so I might as well continue to fulfill my desires”?

In this case, we have a specific example in the book of Hosea. And the answer is rather complex.

God tells Hosea to marry Gomer, a promiscuous woman who will continue having affairs after their marriage. This violation of the marriage covenant pictures God’s people violating their covenant with Him.

Gomer’s adulteries eventually lead her to being sold in the slave market. Yet God tells Hosea once again:

“Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods.”…  So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver…. And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.” (From Hosea 3:1-3).

At God’s command, Hosea shows his wife great grace – buying the one who is already his, paying the price for her! This is tremendous forgiveness.

But this is not a license for her to continue in sin. Hosea is explicit: Their future relationship must be made pure; the adultery must cease. He must not respond to her sin by paying her back with his own affair; she must never return to that unfaithful life.

Just so with God and the people of Israel. God disciplines His unfaithful people (Hosea 2:5-13), eventually even destroying their country and sending them into exile. Yet all this is for redemptive purposes: He allures her, He speaks tenderly to her (Hosea 2:14), He purifies her now and forever:

I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD. (Hosea 2:19-20)

So Hosea exemplifies not only God’s forgiving love, but also His cleansing, sanctifying love. The restoration of the relationship is not an invitation to further sin; it does not enable further sin; rather, it is the opportunity for the relationship to become what God always intended marriage to be: An exclusive one-flesh relationship that in love, in grace, in mercy, and in holiness pictures His relationship with His people.

And this is what we find as part of the Bride of Christ: If we see God’s forgiveness in Christ as a license to sin without consequences, we are sorely wrong. We dishonor God. We trample on the blood of Christ (Hebrews 10:26-29). Indeed, if we persist in that attitude, we will receive no forgiveness. God does not forgive us so that we might continue in sin.

Rather, we are like Gomer: God forgives us so that we, His Bride, guilty of being adulteresses in the past, might return and seek Him, and so recognize and come to His goodness, thereby living to the praise of His glorious grace.

If that’s the relationship between God and His people – if that’s the reality behind every marriage, indeed, behind every marriage stained by adultery – how can we live out these truths, how can we picture these realities when we are sinned against?

These Scriptures lead to four clear principles – even though the outworking of the principles in specific cases is challenging:

First: Offer complete personal forgiveness. This does not downplay the severity of the sin against you; rather, this magnifies the extent of your much greater sin against God, for which He has forgiven you in Christ (Matthew 18:21-35).

Second: The sin should not remain secret, only known to the two of you. The adulteries of Gomer, the spiritual adultery of the people of Israel, are made public. How many people should know about this sin will vary from case to case. If the couple is part of a grace-oriented church that effectively practices church discipline, discussing the sin before the church body can be an important part of the healing process. But in every case, bring in wise Christians who are biblically sound and desire both your good and the glory of God – even if, especially if, the erring spouse does not want that to happen. Covering up the sin may seem to be good for the sinner, but it is that very cover-up that enables and makes more likely future sin. And that is the worst that can happen to the sinner.

Third: Work to restore unity and trust. Both have been violated terribly. Yet God has made the two one, even though we have worked to destroy that unity. Nevertheless, what God has joined together, man must not separate (Matthew 19:6). The restoration of unity and trust will take time; a period of physical separation may be part of the process of restoration. Once again, including others at this stage is necessary. Form a plan on how to go forward together with a wise Christian couple, and build in accountability for both spouses to that plan.

Finally: Christ perfects His Bride, making her holy (Ephesians 5:25-27). We see one way that happens in Hosea 2:14, where God says to His unfaithful Bride: “I will allure her … and speak tenderly to her.” Love the errant spouse. Woo him or her. Not in a grasping, needy sense – “I can’t live without you, please come back to me!” – but out of confidence in God, out of trust in His sovereign kindness, knowing you are forgiven such great sin, and knowing that He can take a heart of stone and turn it into a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26), He can grant repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth and escape from the trap of the devil (2 Timothy 2:25-26). Love – and pray for God to act.

By God’s grace, your errant spouse – and anyone who sins terribly against you – can be a living example of God’s forgiving, redeeming, perfecting love. You can be His agent in bringing that about. The pain is real. The sin is great. Justice must be done. But if you are in Christ, justice was implemented at the cross; you are forgiven a much greater sin. So forgive from the heart. And may God be pleased to work through you and other Christians to glorify His Name even through such a terrible sin.

Our Incurable Disease

You have an incurable disease. All humans do. We inherited this disease from our parents, and they from their parents – all the way back to Adam and Eve.

There is no human help for this disease. Oh, we can alleviate a few of the symptoms through discipline, through accountability, through learning more self-control – but this disease is similar to the hydra of Greek mythology. When anyone cut off one of the hydra’s heads, two more immediately grew. When you learn to control one part of your disease – say, bursts of anger – more symptoms of the disease pop up – say, pride and arrogance.

But God in His grace and mercy offers you a cure. The question is: Will you accept it?

Scripture provides us with an apt picture of the way we are prone to resist this cure through telling the story of a leper in 2 Kings 5.

In the ancient world, leprosy was incurable. Naaman, a general in a powerful army, comes down with this disease. An Israelite servant girl in his household tells his wife of a prophet in Israel who can cure the disease. So Naaman’s king writes a letter to the King of Israel, telling him to cure Naaman of his leprosy.

The Israelite king is distraught, thinking the other is looking for a pretense to go to war. But when the prophet Elisha hears of the events, he tells the king to send Naaman to him.

Naaman arrives at Elisha’s place, bearing many gifts – he is a wealthy man and thinks he can pay handsomely for this service. He is an important man, and thinks this prophet will be impressed by his presence.

But Elisha doesn’t even come out to see Naaman. He simply sends a messenger, who instructs the general to go wash in the Jordan River seven times, and he will be cured. Hear Naaman’s response:

But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, “Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage (2 Kings 5:11-12).

Naaman’s pride almost causes him to miss this grace from God. But God shows him even greater grace, as He leads Naaman’s servants to appeal to him to try this simple task the prophet gave him. He washes seven times in the Jordan – and is cured.

Just so with us. God offers us healing of our incurable disease if we only turn to Jesus and trust Him with our lives. But so often we are like Naaman: We don’t like God’s plan. We want to prove our worth through some great deed we do for God. Or we want God to perform some grand visible miracle that will call attention to us. Or we want God to cure the disease in a different way, a way that seems better to us. “Just trust Jesus? Why? Why not some other way? Why not many other ways? How simplistic!”

Like Naaman, we can turn our backs and miss God’s grace because of our pride, because of our preconceived ideas about how God should work.

But praise God that He persists in the offer of the Gospel. As in Naaman’s case, He sends others to us to say again and again, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).

Don’t despise the miracle of simple faith. Admit you are diseased. Confess that you cannot cure yourself. And throw yourself on God’s mercy offered to you through Jesus Christ.

When you, like Naaman, humble yourself before the One True God, He will save you – through the death, resurrection, and reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you will discover the love, joy, and peace you have so deeply desired.

All Good Is Because of Jesus

Listen carefully to what our Lord Jesus says:

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:37-39)

That is: If we love anyone in our family more than we love Jesus, we are dishonoring Him; we are therefore not worthy of Him. If we do not deny to ourselves whatever prevents us from following Him closely, we are dishonoring Him by implying that these activities or people or pleasures are more important, more vital for us than He is; we are therefore not worthy of Him. Indeed, Jesus goes on to say that to succeed in everything we put our mind to in this life, but to lose Him, is to lose everything, to lose the only true life, and thus to fail at what is most important; but to give up whatever is necessary to follow Him – even what we think is the way to success, to joy, to fulfillment – is to find true life, what is most fulfilling and joyful.

Note first: If Jesus said these words and was not Immanuel, God with us, God in the flesh, He was not a great teacher or even an admirable man; these are the sort of words that cult leaders say to their followers. But if He was who He claimed to be, then these words point us to our greatest joy, our greatest good.

Second: Think of what Jesus is saying about family, and about all other good things in this life:

  • Family is a great gift. We are to honor our fathers and mothers (Exodus 20:12). We are to rejoice in our children, seeing them as gifts from God (Psalm 127:3-4).
  • Fulfillment in life is a great gift (John 10:7-10).
  • Accomplishment is a great gift (Proverbs 3:5-6).
  • Riches and honor and health are all gifts (1 Chronicles 29:12).
  • The ability to work hard is a great gift (Deuteronomy 8:18).

So if all of these come from God, what is the problem with loving them?

The problem is seeing them as something other than what they are, gifts. We don’t earn them. We don’t deserve them. We don’t create them. They are granted to us by a gracious God “who makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). And He grants them to us – to all humanity – only because of Jesus.

Why only because of Jesus? Because God would have been perfectly righteous to have ended the human race with the first disobedience of Adam and Eve (Genesis 2:17). There would have been no more grace, no more gifts to men. But because He planned to crush the head of the serpent via Jesus, the descendant of the woman (Genesis 3:17), because He planned to send forth His Son in the fullness of time for the redemption and adoption of His people (Galatians 4:4-5), and because the redemption through Jesus would redound to the praise of His glorious grace (Ephesians 1:3-14), He spared them, instituted His Great Plan, and for millennia has granted undeserved gifts to all of mankind. Apart from Jesus, therefore, we have none of these gifts.

But Jesus is not only the source of all these good gifts, the reason we have any good – He Himself is far and away the greatest good.

Thus, while family is a great gift, Jesus is both the Brother par excellence (Romans 8:29) and the true Husband that every good marriage points to (Ephesians 5:25-32). While accomplishment and honor are great gifts, Jesus defines the greatest accomplishment and grants the only honor worth having (2 Timothy 4:6-8).

So, when we see Jesus for Who He is, we find that in Him we have unspeakable joy (1 Peter 1:8) – joy that is found nowhere else. Therefore, thank Him continually for His gifts – and gladly give them all up if that’s necessary to follow close to Him.

Who is to Put On God’s Armor?

Consider these well-known verses from Ephesians 6.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil (Ephesians 6:10-11).

Who is to be strong in the Lord? Who is to put on God’s armor?

Our American individualism and the English language can cause us to miss an important part of what Paul is saying here. We tend to think he is saying, “I personally am in a battle with spiritual forces. I must put on God’s armor so that I might stand.”

Surely that is true. But the Apostle is emphasizing a different point.

For Paul is writing to the church; he is using the image of the church as an army. We are all individually part of that army.

Imagine that the alarm sounds, alerting an army that enemy forces are drawing near. But only one soldier takes up his weapons and is ready to fight. What would happen? He would be destroyed, and the army would be wiped out.

Paul is sounding the alert so that the entire army of God will be ready for the opposing forces of “the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).

So try reading the passage through verse 18 as Paul wrote it, as plural commands to “you all,” and not simply to individuals. Here are a few of those commands:

  • “You all be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.”
  • “You all put on the whole armor of God, that you all may be able to stand.”
  • “You all fasten on the belt of truth and the breastplate of righteousness.”
  • “You all take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.”
  • “You all pray at all times in the Spirit.”

When we all take up our defensive armor and our offensive weapon – the Word of God – then we together will be able to stand firm against these spiritual forces.

For the war raging around us is not a set of individual encounters with the enemy. There is one big battle. And that battle is not mine or yours; the battle is the Lord’s (see 2 Chronicles 20:1-30, especially verse 15). So may we fight this fight together, holding our formation, helping each other to fasten on that belt of truth, assisting each other to wield the Word of God well, ensuring that each is helmeted rightly with salvation, encouraging each other that the breastplate of Christ’s righteousness is strong and impenetrable.  May we do this together with our brothers and sisters in Christ across this city, across this country, across this world, among all ethnicities and nationalities – and so defeat Satan’s minions as we together show God’s love and grace and mercy in the Gospel to those who have been duped and taken captive to do the Devil’s will (2 Timothy 2:26).

To Sin is to Despise God

If God were to confront you after you sin, what would He say?

Scripture tells us what God told David after his sins of adultery and murder:

I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. And I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? (2 Samuel 12:7-9)

Similarly, God could rightly say to those of us who claim to be followers of Jesus:

I delivered you out of the hand of Satan. I sent My Son to die for you. I anointed you with My Holy Spirit. I brought you into my family and gave you brothers and sisters in Christ to love you, care for you, and pray for you. I made you part of a kingdom of priests. I gave you life and breath and health and abilities and jobs and houses and food and clothing. I gave you earthly families and joys. And if this were too little, I would give to you even more – ask and you will receive! Why then have you despised My word, to do what is evil in My sight?

You see, God does not set arbitrary rules and then slap us when we violate them. He is not a cosmic killjoy looking down to see who He gets to punish today. Nor is He an uninvolved, distant enforcer who mechanically and dispassionately deals out retribution for misdeeds.

No. God is the gracious Giver who, despite our disobedience and rebellion, continues to provide all humanity with the good gifts abounding around us.  And if we claim to be in Christ, we say that He has saved us by completely unmerited grace, calling us out of darkness into His marvelous light. He makes us into a holy nation, a people for His own possession to proclaim His excellencies (1 Peter 2:9). He has adopted us into His family and made us joint heirs with Christ, promising to conform us to His likeness (Romans 8:14-17, 29). He works all things together for our good and His glory (Romans 8:28). He is an eternally loving Father to us, who knows how to give good gifts (Matthew 7:9-11) – and who knows how to discipline us for our good (Hebrews 12:7-11). Far from being arbitrary, the commands He gives us tell us how we can live in this fallen world for His glory and our joy (Deuteronomy 10:12-13).

So when we disobey, we, the creatures, are claiming to know better than He, our Creator. We are claiming that we discern our good better than He, the all-knowing One. We are claiming that we can run our lives better than He, our Designer. We are claiming that we have a better moral sense than He, the Source of all good.

And so to sin is to despise Him and His Word.

Yes, sin is a breaking of God’s rules. But it is much more.

  • It is complete foolishness, because it never leads to our greatest good.
  • It is grossly presumptuous, because it assumes we know more than God.
  • And it is a rejection of the Person of our heavenly Father, effectively spitting in His face, telling Him to get out of our lives and let us run them on our own.

Don’t despise God or His Word. Submit to Him. And find with David that His love is better than life (Psalm 63:3).

 

Do You Know Jesus?

Do you know Jesus? Listen to what John tells those of us who make such a claim:

Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked (1 John 2:4-6).

God saves us from the condemnation we deserve by Jesus’ sacrificial death in order that we might know Him, in order that we might be like Christ, in order that we might be “conformed to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29). Indeed, Jesus commands us to be like Him! For He tells us that all of the Law and the Prophets can be summarized in two commands: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…. You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (from Matthew 22:37-39).  And Jesus fulfilled these commands every minute of every day – loving God the Father, loving each person He encountered – whether He was gentle with them, as He was with the woman in Simon the Pharisee’s house(Luke 7:36-50), or He was harsh with them, as He was with the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 23). He told each person exactly what he or she most needed to hear.

Note that our obedience is the result of being saved, not the means by which we are saved. We are saved by His grace as a gift, not as a result of anything that we do, so that no one has a reason to boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).

But when God opens our eyes and for the first time we know Jesus – when we see Him as our precious Savior, as our continual intercessor, as our rightful King, as our greatest Treasure – then we want to be like Him. We see Him as the perfection of all that humans should be. We see Him as displaying completely the image of God placed in mankind in the beginning (Genesis 1:27). And we see Him, yes, as loving God and loving man – and so the love of God is perfected in Him.

In verse 5 above, John then tells us an amazing truth: When God works in us to fulfill that desire to be like Jesus, we ourselves complete/perfect the love of God. Not that there was anything lacking in God’s love apart from the existence of mankind. But God always intended His love to be displayed in millions of redeemed humanity. He gives us the privilege of living this out, of loving with His love, and thus fulfilling the purpose of mankind’s creation – displaying the image of God.

So if we claim to know Him, but hate others; if we claim to know Him, but mock and degrade others; if we claim to know Him but harass or harm others; if we claim to know Him and consider others beneath us, then, says John, we are liars. The truth is not in us. We cannot know that we are in Him if we live like that.

For to know Him is to love Him, to desire to be like Him, to love others with His love. When we love others like that, we complete His love.

In this life, we will never do this perfectly – John has just said if we say we don’t sin, we lie, and that when we sin Jesus is our advocate, our propitiation (1 John 1:10-2:2). But those who know Jesus will fight the fight to love – they will fight the fight to be like Him – for that is their great desire and joy.

So do you know Him? Don’t depend on having gone through some religious ritual, or having signed some decision card, or having an experience a long time ago you consider saving faith. Are you walking today as Jesus walked? Is God’s love being completed in your life? If yes – rejoice in Him, and love! If not – confess your sins to the One who is faithful and just to forgive you for all unrighteousness by the sacrifice of His Son – and then, know Him, love Him, follow Him, and, like Him, love others.

What is Man that You are Mindful of Him?

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? (Psalm 8:3-4)

In comparison to God’s grandeur, we are nothing. We are infinitesimal. We are little specks of dust on a spinning ball.

Yet God grants us significance. He takes of His grandeur and stamps some portion on us. So David says He crowns us with glory and honor (Psalm 8:5).

Understand: That glory and honor is from Him – it is derived; it is not intrinsic to us. We have no glory, no status apart from what God has given us.

Many of history’s greatest tragedies – such as American slavery, such as the Holocaust – have come about because one category of mankind decided another category had no such status, no such glory, no such honor – they were subhuman.  But Scripture is clear: In this age, until Jesus returns, all humans have the status of image-bearers of God, no matter who they are or what they do (Genesis 1:27). Every person you encounter has this status – whatever their ethnicity, whatever their economic status, whatever their intelligence, whatever their education level, whether they live in utero or on a deathbed.

But Scripture hints that a time is coming when that will change. After Jesus returns, after the final judgment, there will be a class of humans without glory and honor, without the image of God. This class will not be racially based, nor based on intelligence, nor based on accomplishment. Rather, this class will consist of all those who continue in rebellion against their rightful King, those who are assigned to eternal punishment “away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (2 Thessalonians 1:9). And what will it mean for people to be away from His presence? David says, “I have no good apart from You” (Psalm 16:2). James tells us “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). Thus, whatever good we have, we received from Him (1 Corinthians 4:7). Indeed, God is the source even of ability and craftsmanship (Deuteronomy 8:18, Exodus 31:3).

Imagine, then, that state: No goodness remaining; no creativity remaining; no pleasure remaining; no friendship remaining; no beauty remaining; no productive work remaining; no vocation, no fulfillment. Only pride, self-righteousness, anger, hatred, and rebellion.

To be away from the presence of God is to be without any good, without any glory, without any honor. Thus it seems that those sent away from the presence of the Lord will lose whatever remains of the image of God in them. They will then eat and devour one another for all eternity.

C.S. Lewis captures this idea in The Great Divorce. He pictures those in hell as hating each other, and thus isolating themselves more and more from each other, so that hell seems to be a huge place. But when hell is seen from the perspective of eternal realities, it is a tiny, insignificant speck.

Thus we come again to the question: “What is man that you are mindful of him?” The remains of mankind consigned to judgment – having shed all glory and honor, having lost all goodness, all ability, all creativity, and all craftsmanship – will be insignificant. God will no longer be mindful of them. But those redeemed by His grace, those credited with the righteousness of Christ, those granted significance now and forever, will shine forth with His perfected image in them for all eternity (Matthew 13:43).

In this life, no one is subhuman. All have significance. All have the vestiges of the image of God.

But we all have been granted those vestiges for a reason: To glorify Him! To display that image! So: Be astounded at the significance God grants you! Repent, and humble yourself before Him! Then join the heavenly throng, and display His character, now and forever.

Ripping Away the Old Man

Do you want God’s refining? Or would you rather just clean yourself up?

In Malachi 3, God speaks of the “messenger of the covenant”, the coming Messiah:

But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the LORD. (Malachi 3:2-3)

Fire burns. It hurts. It may seem to be destroying. But the fire wielded by God for His purposes in His people cleanses and transforms, so that they might become what He intends them to be: those who offer themselves back to Him, those who delight in Him, those who display His glory to all of creation.

C.S. Lewis gives a marvelous picture of this refining process in the third book of the Narnian Chronicles, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The central character is “a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.” He is transported magically to the land of Narnia together with his cousins, Lucy and Edmund. There they join Prince Caspian on a journey by ship to the End of the World.

After a storm leaves the ship battered and broken, the travelers drop anchor near a mountainous island. To avoid having to work, Eustace escapes inland, climbing over a ridge. He gets lost in the fog, however, and then, as the fog turns to rain, has to take refuge in a cave.  There he finds jewels and treasure of untold value – the hoard of a deceased dragon. He puts a particularly precious bracelet on his arm, and goes to sleep, imagining all the power he will have with this wealth. When he awakes, however, something has happened: “Sleeping on a dragon’s hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself.”

It takes Aslan, the Great Lion, the Son of the Emperor over the Sea, to change him back into a boy. Here is how Eustace tells the story to Edmund:

I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly toward me. . . . It came nearer and nearer.  I was terribly afraid of it.  You may think that, being a dragon, I could have knocked any lion out easily enough.  But it wasn’t that kind of fear.  I wasn’t afraid of it eating me, I was just afraid of it – if you can understand. Well, it came closer up to me and looked straight into my eyes.  And I shut my eyes tight.  But that wasn’t any good because it told me to follow it. . . .
”At last we came to the top of a mountain. . . . There was a garden – trees and fruit and everything.  In the middle of it there was a well.

I knew it was a well because you could see the water bubbling up from the bottom of it: but it was a lot bigger than most wells – like a very big, round bath with marble steps going down into it.  The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg [where the bracelet was now squeezing his transformed arm].  But the lion told me I must undress first. . . .

I was just going to say that I couldn’t undress because I hadn’t any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. . . . So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place.  And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana.  In a minute or two I just stepped out of it.  I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty.  It was a most lovely feeling.  So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.

”But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before.  Oh, that’s all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I’ll have to get out of it too.  So I scratched and tore again and this under skin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.

Well, exactly the same thing happened again.  And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off?  For I was longing to bathe my leg.  So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it.  But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

”Then the lion said. . . You will have to let me undress you.  I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now.  So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

”The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart.  And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt.  The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. . . .

“Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off – just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt – and there it was lying on the grass, only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been.  Then he caught hold of me – I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on- and threw me into the water.  It smarted like anything but only for a moment.  After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm.  And then I saw why.  I’d turn into a boy again.” . . .

Neither [Edmund nor Eustace] said anything for a while. The last bright star had vanished and though they could not see the sunrise because of the mountains on their right they knew it was going on because the sky above them and the bay before them turned the colour of roses.

[C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader” (Collier Books, 1952), 88-92.]

This is not the end of Eustace’s problems. He still may have dragonish thoughts at times. He may still appear hard and knobbly. There will be more refining. But the decisive moment has come. He is no longer a dragon. The skin is gone. Aslan has transformed him.

This is what Paul commands in Ephesians:

Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God – truly righteous and holy. (Ephesians 4:21-24 NLT)

Where are you in this process? Have you been trying to clean yourself, peeling off layers of ugly behavior, correcting faults, disciplining yourself – but not dealing with the fundamental issue of a wayward heart? Do you fundamentally love the world rather than God? Have Christ’s claws never ripped deep into you, making that fundamental change? Then turn to Him. Repent. And be made new.

Or has the fundamental change taken place in your life – you are no longer a dragon! – but lately have you been breathing fire and acting dragonish once again? This is the situation Paul addresses in Ephesians 4. Put off that old man! Put on the new man! Become what you are! This, too, is a refining; this, too, is painful; this, too, requires some ripping away by our Lord and by His Spirit.

So don’t settle for some version of a self-help gospel. God created you to display what He is like, as a purified priest. Be purified – whatever the cost.

[This is a lightly edited version of a devotion first written ten years ago while preaching through Malachi. You can listen to the sermon that prompted this devotion here.]

The Fight of Faith

The Apostle Paul tells Timothy, “Fight the good fight of faith” (1 Timothy 6:12). An important aspect of this fight is our struggle to believe God – to believe in His character, to believe His promises, to believe that He is in control, to believe that He will bring about the final culmination of all things.

Hebrews 11 gives us a litany of many characters from the Old Testament who did exactly that – who fought the fight to believe and succeeded in that fight. The author cites several we expect: Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Moses. But consider Hebrews 11:29:

By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned.

When reading the account of the Israelites by the Red Sea, I don’t come away thinking, “Wow! What great faith they had!”

Consider their reaction when they see Pharaoh’s army pursuing them:

“Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” (Exodus 14:11-12)

Now, after God brings them through the sea on dry land yet drowns the pursuing army, they believe:

Israel saw the great power that the LORD used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the LORD, and they believed in the LORD and in his servant Moses. (Exodus 14:31)

But only a few days later they grumble against Moses (and, implicitly, against God) when there is no water (Exodus 15:23-24); shortly thereafter they complain more, this time about the lack of food, once again wishing they were back in Egypt:

“Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” (Exodus 16:3)

The author of Hebrews assures us: They have faith. Exodus, on the other hand, shows us that their faith is fickle and small; perhaps it is only the size of a mustard seed. But the object of their faith is great; indeed, He is almighty. He protects them from the army. He divides the sea. He brings them through on dry land, with the water piled up on each side. Their small and fickle faith in Him is sufficient for them to walk between those mounds of water.

What about you? Does your faith, like theirs, seem fickle and small? Do you trust God one day and then act as if He has no regard for you the next? Are you frightened when you contemplate the dangers and uncertainties ahead?

Take heart from Hebrews 11:29. God’s fulfillment of His promises depends on Him, not on you. Remind yourself of Who He is, of what He has done, of what He has promised. Listen to your brothers and sisters who are there to stand alongside you in this fight of faith. Reflect on His Word day and night.

In this way, fight the good fight of faith, the fight to believe – but don’t focus on your faith. Focus on the God who is the object of your faith. And thus endure to the end – by His power – and be saved – by His mercy.

 

Remember!

Remember!

Scripture exhorts us again and again not to forgot, but to remember who God is, what He has done, what He has told us.

This Sunday we noted the command the man in dazzling apparel gives the women looking for His body:

“Remember how [Jesus] told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” (Luke 24:6b-7)

We focused on Paul’s command to Timothy in his final epistle, looking in detail at what we are to remember, and when we are to remember:

Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel (2 Timothy 2:8).

Consider then some of the many other times God commands us in Scripture not to forget, but to remember:

Exodus 3:15 “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.”

Numbers 15:38-40   “Speak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner.  And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after. So you shall remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God.

Deuteronomy 7:17-19  “If you say in your heart, ‘These nations are greater than I. How can I dispossess them?’ you shall not be afraid of them but you shall remember what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt, the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which the LORD your God brought you out. So will the LORD your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid.

Deuteronomy 8:18  You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth

Deuteronomy 9:7  Remember and do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness.

Deuteronomy 15:15  You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you

Joshua 1:13  “Remember the word that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, saying, ‘The LORD your God is providing you a place of rest and will give you this land.’”

1 Chronicles 16:11-15  Seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually! Remember the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles and the judgments he uttered, O offspring of Israel his servant, sons of Jacob, his chosen ones! He is the LORD our God; his judgments are in all the earth. Remember his covenant forever, the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations.

Nehemiah 4:14  “Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.”

Psalm 42:6  My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you.

Psalm 45:17  I will cause your name to be remembered in all generations; therefore nations will praise you forever and ever.

Psalm 63:5-7  My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips, when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night; for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.

Psalm 77:11-12   I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds.

Psalm 78:5-7  He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments;

Psalm 103:2-5  Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

Psalm 105:5  Remember the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he uttered.

Psalm 106:7   Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wondrous works; they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea.

Psalm 119:16  I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.

Psalm 119:55  I remember your name in the night, O LORD, and keep your law.

Psalm 143:5-6 I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done; I ponder the work of your hands. I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.

Proverbs 3:1-2  My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you.

Proverbs 4:3-5   When I was a son with my father, tender, the only one in the sight of my mother, he taught me and said to me, “Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments, and live.  Get wisdom; get insight; do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth.

Ecclesiastes 12:1  Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth.

Isaiah 17:10   You have forgotten the God of your salvation and have not remembered the Rock of your refuge.

Isaiah 46:9-10  “Remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.’”

Mark 8:17-21  “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened?  Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember?  When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” They said to him, “Twelve.”  “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” And they said to him, “Seven.” And he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”

John 15:20  “Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.”

John 16:4  “I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.”

Ephesians 2:11-13  Remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands– remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.  But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

2 Peter 3:1-2  In both of [my letters] I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles.

Jude 1:17  But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Revelation 3:2-3  Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.  Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent.

Ponder these statements. Let them serve to remind you of who God is, of what He has done, and what He has promised; of who we are, and what we deserve; of the Lord Jesus Christ, His sacrifice on our behalf, His resurrection, and His future return; of our right response to these great truths: To turn, to trust, and to treasure.

[All emphases are added. See also this devotion from 2013 that categorizes verses on remembering according to topic. The audio from the April 1, 2018 sermon will be available at this link soon.]