Wilderness Wonderings

Wilderness Wonderings

Paul

It Is Finished

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“Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.” (Romans 6:8-9)

From death to life. The reversal of the natural order takes a supernatural effort that can only come through the grace of the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit for the glory of the Son, Jesus Christ. As a result, we can know with full assurance that because Jesus has died once for us all, He will never die again as He has defeated the very power of death.

There have been other stories of resurrection throughout Scripture. The first was the son of the widow of Zaraphath in 1 Kings 17. This was soon followed by Elisha’s raising of the Shunnamite woman’s son in 2 Kings 4 and the mugging victim that was killed and thrown into Elisha’s grave in 2 Kings 13. But these three isolated events are the only Old Testament mentions of bodily resurrection. In the New Testament, there are 7 other incidents:

  1. The widow of Nain’s son (Luke 7)
  2. Jarius’ Daughter (Mark 5)
  3. Lazarus (John 11)
  4. Many deceased “saints” or believers at the moment of Jesus’ death on Calvary (Matthew 27)
  5. Jesus Himself (all four gospels and even testified to by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15)
  6. Tabitha, or Dorcas, who died and Peter raised up. (Acts 9:40)
  7. Eutychus – who fell out of a window and was raised by Paul (Acts 20:9-10)

What is common to all of these resurrection events except for one is that the person who was resurrected later died again, this time forever. There has been suggestions made that the multitude that was raised at Jesus’ death have not died but are possibly still alive in the world today, yet in secret. I’m not sure I believe this one. I’m more inclined to believe that God took them up in a manner similar to the translation of Enoch.

But Jesus died, and was resurrected only to never die again. Forty days after His resurrection, He ascended to the Father so that ten days later on Pentacost, the Holy Spirit would descend and empower the apostles to spread the gospel to every corner of the globe. In most of the cases of resurrection, the scene is coupled with the order for the witnesses to serve the one who was resurrected.

For the widow’s son and the Shunammite woman’s son, the mothers were told to provide food to the raised child. When Jesus raised Jarius daughter, He ordered her to be fed. When Lazarus was raised, Jesus ordered the onlookers to unbind Him. As there was a group in the home with Peter as he raised Tabitha, it is reasonable to assume that he had them help her regain her strength. Paul fed Eutychus after raising Him up.

In each case, there is something to be said for being a servant to those who have freshly experienced new life. It is for this reason, that we are charged to “tend the lambs” and strengthen new believers in their faith so that they can learn to live the example of Christ so that “death no longer has dominion” over them. Yes, we will all die one day. It is the natural order of things and the natural consequence of our sinful nature.

But the supernatural consequence of a newly resurrected life in Christ is an existence that is no longer marked by death, but one destined for life eternal. It is the great spiritual paradox of our faith – that we must die to ourselves so that we might have life in Him. Only then in the end, can we echo the cry of Jesus from the cross: “It is finished!”

They mocked Him
Beat Him
Stripped Him bare
Paraded Him through the streets
Without a worldly care
His disciples cowered
As they denied His very name
Blood stained streets
Would bear His shame

They lifted Him up for the world to see
An example of what happens when you defy
The cultural and religious
The politically ambitious
That reign on high
As He cried “TETELESTAI!”

“It is FINISHED!”
The price was paid!
The debt redeemed!
As His blood was spilt
In a sight unseen

“It is FINISHED!” He cried
As the veil was torn
As He bowed His head
As He bore our scorn

“It is FINISHED!” He cried
As He hung there and died
Soldiers gambling for His clothes
What they truly did they did not know
Except His mother
As she slowly turned to go

“It is finished” she whispered
Through her tears
Remembering her baby’s years
How He grew to be a fearsome man
A faithful man
A loving man
A man for all time
Living Truth sublime

“It is finished” John breathlessly said
After running to the garden tomb
Rejoicing as he glanced
Into the empty happenstance
Seeing the King of grace
Was no longer in this fearful place

“It is finished” I will say
When I end this final race
And I look upon my Savior’s face
When His blood red wine I finally taste
And His Life bread upon my plate
I will feast with Him in glory
As we laugh and tell the story
Of how life is but a vapor
But grace brings life that is greater
And we will all stand together as one
For the glory of the Son
Who gave His blood so He could win us
And we could all cry together
“IT IS FINISHED!”

A Question of Life and Death

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“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.” (Romans 6:5-7 ESV)

The issue of sin in the life of the believer is not a question of right or wrong; it’s a question of life and death. If we establish the fact that sin, by definition, is disobedience to God, then the transformative power of grace is defined by the daily surrender (metaphorically dying to self) to the will of the Father.

Jesus said in John 10:10 that “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly.” A life that is characterized by sin and walking in the selfishness of the flesh is a life that is submitted to the thief and is marked as a dead existence. However, a life that is characterized as submitted fully to Christ, daily surrendering our will to the will of the Father through the power of the Spirit for the glory of the Son is a life that is resurrected.

We find salvation in Christ because the Holy Spirit has convicted us of our sin and as a result we come to understand that our way of living is a dead end and doesn’t work in the grand eternal scheme. We learn that like children we are enslaved to our natural appetites, desires, and carnal thinking. However, living in the Spirit is a transformative experience that begins with the renewal of the mind, transforming the heart, and working its way out in our choices, actions, attitudes, and behaviors.

Repentance is a daily renewing of the mind, recognizing that that our old life before we met Christ is now crucified and buried and left for dead behind us. Our new life in Christ is a life that is no longer a dead, burdensome existence that weighs us down, but is characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These are all the fruit of the Spirit-filled life that grow in our hearts, minds, and attitudes driving our actions forward for the sake of the Kingdom of God, not our own mini-kingdom where we make the rules on our own.

As a result, this necessitates an external standard of moral truth as opposed to a relativistic standard of truth that applies to each individual. Truth is not relative. We can all agree that murder is wrong, but on what basis? When we take away an objective, external standard of moral truth, we end up with shifting standards that result in chaos, confusion, and anarchy.

As a bondservant of Christ, we are free from the shackles and enslavement to sin that is self-destructive. The difference between being a slave and a bondservant is the ability to exercise the will. As a bondservant, it is your choice to submit to the will of the Father in your heart and mind. Aside from Christ, you are enslaved to your sin and self and all of the desires, appetites, and self-destructive behaviors that can naturally bring. Sure, by worldly standards, there are “good people” in the world. But that standard is constantly shifting with the winds of time from one month to the next, none more apparent than it is today.

However, with a standard that is solid and unchanging – a foundational rock upon which you can build your life, the life in Christ – there is peace and stability and hope. There is confidence in knowing that the standards do not change. There is confidence in knowing that we are all held accountable to the same standards. There is confidence in knowing what it takes to please the Father because His nature is unchanging.

The Grace of Repentance

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“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? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:1-4)

One of the great tragedies of the modern church is that we have allowed the humanistic philosophies of the Enlightenment to color our interpretation of God’s Word, instead of taking His word for what it is – the truth. We have abandoned truth in favor of our own morally relativistic perspective of life that disregards God’s definition of sin and have compromised our understanding of what it means to be disciple of Christ.

In fact, we have gone so far as to no longer publicly discuss the basic spiritual principle of repentance. The prevailing gospel message of the last several decades as been if we simply pray a prayer of forgiveness and get baptized, that is all we need to do in order to obtain our “fire insurance” and avoid hell. However, now we find ourselves even denying the existence of Hell. If Hell doesn’t exist, then why did Jesus even go to the cross to reconcile us to God Himself. If God is holy and just, then it necessitates the existence of an eternal punishment for those who defy His Word. The question then is “Is there salvation without repentance?”

Our salvation is not dependent upon our works. Ephesians makes this clear that we are saved through grace, not works. But repentance is the evidence of the transformation that comes from genuine salvation. Repentance comes as we are motivated out of gratitude and love for our Abba as we seek to please Him. Repentance means turning away from a harmful path to a path that is designed for our betterment. Repentance is the choice to walk in His way because we know our way was not working. If there is no transformation, there is no salvation.

Recently I was watching a few of our grandchildren at a small park on a river in Belton, Texas. We were near a pizza restaurant and there were some concrete stairs about 5 feet high going down towards the river from where we were about 200 feet away. As I was watching our grandchildren play, I noticed the youngest (17 months old) curiously taking quick steps towards the stairs going down. Fearing for her safety, I took off running as quickly as I could, but her dad saw me running, assessed the situation and took off as well and beat me to her before she could tumble down the stairs. And then he walked her back to where the rest of the family was gathered.

This is the picture of repentance and what it means to “walk in newness of life.” Left to our own devices, we were and are heading towards disaster with nothing forward but the potential danger and pain. But the Father comes along and he scoops us up to save us from our own curious devices and carries us to safety in His arms. And He brings us into a family that is there to help guide us and keep us safe from the dangers of this world.

Sometimes we may not like it. We want to scream and throw our fits and still do our own thing, but Jesus is the better way. The holy way. The grace way. He loves us enough to give us boundaries by which to live. He loves us enough to discipline us when we cross those boundaries. And He wants us to trust Him and His way.

Unity Above Diversity

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“And He came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through Him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:17-22 ESV)

Unity. It is an ideal that we all claim to aspire to. It is even embedded in the name of our country – the United States. It is a principle that is embedded into the name of various Christian denominations like the United Methodists. It is an ideal and a virtue that we champion even on our darkest of days. However, all too often, we confuse unity with uniformity.

Uniformity expects compliance into a specific mold, whereas unity accepts and celebrates our different giftings, abilities, and backgrounds for the sake of a common purpose. The apostle and great missionary Paul of Tarsus also expressed this ideal this way: “…if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant that yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” (Philippians 2:1-4 ESV)

Nowhere in Paul’s writing does he ever call for the church to be separated by superficial labels of race, ethnicity, or even denomination. In a scientific sense, the genetic differences between the different ethnic races is so infinitesimally small that it is considered “statistically insignificant.” However, in our selfish humanistic thinking we have put up a dividing wall of hostility between us on the basis of so many different superficial and insignificant levels that we have built our own temple to our humanity instead of growing “into a a holy temple in the Lord”. We have become so focused on “cultural diversity” as a higher ideal that “cultural unity” has taken a back seat by elevating pride in our individual differences.

There is one Holy Spirit that unites us to the Father through His Son Jesus Christ. One. Our purpose in this world is be united in Him to the point that we are not strangers towards one another within the body of Christ. We are all members of His household eating at His table. A household built on the example of the apostles (past) and saints (present) with Christ as the chief cornerstone upon which it is all built. The cornerstone of our devotion to Christ is what builds our structure and joins us together.

As a result, consequently, if we are divided it is because we have built a house that is not built upon the example of the unity of the apostles and saints. We have not grown organically into a holy temple in the Lord because we have trusted in our own wisdom and selfish ambitions rather than lived in humility with one another and submission to Christ first. If we are to ever to know and experience the joy of unity in the body of Christ, we must somehow return to the foundation. We must repent of abandoning our roots and building a house that does not have Christ as the cornerstone upon which everything else is built. It is the cornerstone that gives us our bearings and point of reference. It is the cornerstone that provides our stability and strengthens our resolve. And it is the cornerstone of Christ that is capable of unifying us all into one body, joined by one Spirit, serving one Lord for the advancement of One eternal united Kingdom.

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