05/13/2018
Do you read your Bible, and say a prayer every morning then walk out of your home feeling faithful, only to close the door behind you as you pick up the mantle of a worldly citizen once more and repeat the same sins as yesterday? Well friends, reading, and hearing, the Word of God is wonderful, but is nothing without the doing. It is a mental exercise in futility... vapor.
“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.”
James 1:22-24 ESV
I love to watch documentaries on television about faraway places. It excites me to learn about the various different cultures and see wonderful new sights, but seeing them on a screen in a show that depicts the experiences of someone else is not living them. I am participating in someone else’s reality... in my own life it is pure fantasy.
Many of these travel shows have nothing to do with wandering the world; some, like a series called “Tennessee Crossroads” on Public Television in my hometown of Nashville, tell of interesting places, people, and sights that are close to home. Yet, even so, I might get inspired and fascinated by watching this weekly broadcast, only to turn off the television and in a few minutes find that my mind is back in my everyday life... none of the amazement of those places having taken up residence in me... just another show. This is reading the Bible, and praying, without acting them out; without actually visiting Heaven, God, Jesus Christ, and living there among them. We are not changed people until we do those things, and go personally to those righteous places every day in our lives.
There are many reasons why we do this, and I have read about a few of them, but one that I feel is the most pervasive is our feeling of futility as we try to become righteous and pure, but are told day after day, and Sunday after Sunday, how sin is inevitable... it places all of our hope in forgiveness, and removes all but God’s grace by forgiveness from the equation. It ignores Christ’s grace that allows us to obey.
“Another cause of this delusion is the pervasive doctrine that we are incapable of doing any good. The grace of Christ that can enable us to obey, keep us from sinning, and make us a holy people is rarely embraced.” - Andrew Murray
Why would we even try if we are doomed to failure, and in the end it is only grace, and forgiveness that must save us... right? Well, if that way of thinking was all there was then the Word of God, and the life of Jesus, could have been cut much, much, shorter. Instead we are told throughout the Bible how to live... to become righteous, holy, and perfect in our actions. Forgiveness is a valuable part of what we need as we continue to perfect ourselves. This is not to be confused with our redemption from sin by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; which is about His grace. Our daily forgiveness involves our confession, remorse, trying to perfect ourselves, and gaining forgiveness as we get better at righteousness.
“You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Matthew 5:48 ESV
Faithful perfection isn’t futility... it is a goal. This is something we should do every day when we leave our home. It is about taking heaven with us into the world of sin, and using God’s Word, and our faith in Jesus, to shield us against temptation and sinfulness. Living in this way is so different from watching a documentary on television and then turning the television off to find that we have instantly returned to our mundane world... unchanged, unaffected by any real-life experiences.
Likewise, I have had a couple of surgeries in my life, but I can tell you that before each one of them I found the best surgeon to perform the operation! I wanted someone who had successfully performed many of them... not someone who had read a book, or watched a YouTube video and thought they might be able to do this now! If we are reading the Bible, but never practicing what we have read then we too could call ourselves Christian surgeons... without ever having performed an operation.
Yes, being a Christian is faith, believing in God, and Jesus Christ, but is also about doing those things they have taught us to do. It is about loving, obedience, and striving to live our lives in perfection. Are you going to fail along the way? Yes! Will you be forgiven if you are penitent? Yes! But you are expected to come away from that forgiveness with the Words of Jesus ringing in your ears... “go and sin no more.”
“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”
Romans 6:1-2 ESV
Prayer:
Father, thank you for your Word, and for the grace we have received through your Son Jesus Christ. Thank you for your forgiveness when we stumble, but more-so for your instruction in how to live without sin. I receive assurance of my success from your Word, just as I receive the promise of forgiveness. Help me Father to live more perfectly each day, and to need your forgiveness less and less as my days unfold. Show me the way I must go, that I might travel the good and narrow road, and cross the narrow bridge that traverses sin in this world. Lift me when I stumble Father, and encourage me to proceed on. Open the gates of heaven to me, and let me enter from time to time as I pray so that when I exit my prayer closet a bit of its dust will be on me... to remind me of the perfection that is my destination. Bring me into your presence Holy Father, and don’t let me be satisfied with knowing you from afar, or by reading, and word of mouth, alone. Beckon me to come so that I might be where you are, and praise you with the angels. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you my God!
Rich Forbes