We cannot make God any more pleased with us because we have Christ in us, our hope of glory.
—The Troubler of Israel (AKA Beth Myers, one of our small group members)
In response to the question from tonight’s Bible study, The Last Days of Jesus, “Do you think God is pleased with you?”
From Fox News:
The U.S. military transported a dozen World War II Marines to Iwo Jima on Wednesday in time for them to attend the 65th anniversary commemoration of their greatest victory — but not before some tense moments. The 12 Marines from the Greatest Generation Foundation had asked Pentagon officials to help them get to Iwo Jima after a charter plane company that had volunteered to take them to the battle site canceled unexpectedly two weeks ago, Stars & Stripes reported. But that request had not been approved or denied as of late Tuesday, less than 24 hours before Wednesday’s memorial ceremony was set to begin, and the group feared the 12 veterans would be stranded on Okinawa. Maj. Maureen Schumann, a Pentagon spokeswoman, confirmed to FoxNews.com that a C-130 transport plane was eventually dispatched to take the veterans — ranging in age from 85 to 97 — on the final leg of their journey.
This is the follow-up from the story I posted yesterday. Good for them. 🙂
From MSNBC:
HYANNIS, Mass. – A newlywed Massachusetts couple spent their wedding night in separate jail cells after police said the bride tried to run over an old flame of the groom. Police said 22-year-old Hyannis resident Marissa Ann Putignano-Keene tried Monday to run over the other woman and the woman’s son in a parking lot. The intended victim later told police that she had previously been in an intimate relationship with the groom.
Oh my. How is our brave new world of post-modernism working for us?
I wonder if these two have any kind of relationship with God? At minimum, I wonder if these two have family or friends who love them enough to encourage them to get some much needed help. The groom is a convicted sex offender and while we are called to forgive, repentance must precede our forgiveness. Based on this story, this man shows no evidence that he has repented. Neither has the bride demonstrated real solid thinking based on her behavior in this saga. We don’t know if she was aware of her husband’s past or whether he has demonstrated any fruit of repentance for her. Regardless, the anger she displayed here is not a hopeful sign for the health and future of their marriage.
In the end, these two unfortunate souls are consenting adults and are free to live their lives the way they choose. Like the rest of us, they are free to make good and bad decisions (and at first blush, getting married does not seem to qualify as the former). They are also free to reject the advise and counsel of loving friends and family, if any was (or is or will be) forthcoming.
But I have to wonder if anyone who loves them invited them to slow down and consider the commitment they were getting into. When I was in my mid 20s, I know I ignored the advice of my family and friends before my first marriage and paid a heavy price in doing so. That marriage ended in divorce after only 13 months. Even though I was stupid enough to ignore their advice (or too proud to heed it), at least I had family and friends who loved me enough to warn me to slow down, even at the risk of incurring my wrath, which they did. That’s real love. I hope this couple has someone who loves them like I had. Maybe they could tell this couple that it would be a good thing to start working on a relationship with the One who loves them and can redeem them.
O Lord and Ruler of the hosts of heaven, *
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
and of all their righteous offspring:
You made the heavens and the earth, *
with all their vast array.
All things quake with fear at your presence; *
they tremble because of your power.
But your merciful promise is beyond all measure; *
it surpasses all that our minds can fathom.
O Lord, you are full of compassion, *
long-suffering, and abounding in mercy.
You hold back your hand; *
you do not punish as we deserve.
In your great goodness, Lord,
you have promised forgiveness to sinners, *
that they may repent of their sin and be saved.
And now, O Lord, I bend the knee of my heart, *
and make my appeal, sure of your gracious goodness.
I have sinned, O Lord, I have sinned, *
and I know my wickedness only too well.
Therefore I make this prayer to you: *
Forgive me, Lord, forgive me.
Do not let me perish in my sin, *
nor condemn me to the depths of the earth.
For you, O Lord, are the God of those who repent, *
and in me you will show forth your goodness.
Unworthy as I am, you will save me,
in accordance with your great mercy, *
and I will praise you without ceasing all the days of my life.
For all the powers of heaven sing your praises, *
and yours is the glory to ages of ages. Amen.
—The Book of Common Prayer, 90-91
I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with any who claim to be fellow believers but are sexually immoral or greedy, idolaters or slanderers, drunkards or swindlers. With such persons do not even eat. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”
—1 Corinthians 5:9-12 (TNIV)
Here we see Paul instructing believers how to interact with unbelievers. Christians have gotten a bad rap, some of which is deserved, for being moralizers and self-righteous meddlers in other people’s affairs. But that, of course, is not how we are called to be. That happens because Christians too are fallen creatures and sometimes don’t get things right. That is no reason, however, to blame the Founder.
None of us likes to be “fixed,” especially when someone else is trying to fix us and shape us into their own image. Here Paul reminds believers that we are not to judge unbelievers. Again, this does not mean we are to suspend moral judgment when it comes to assessing behavior and events. But we have no right to judge or condemn people in the process of assessing their behaviors. Only God can do that. What Paul has been talking about previously in this passage (see yesterday’s reflection for context) is the need for mutual Christian accountability within the Church.
So how should believers engage with unbelievers? Christ tells us to be the salt and light of the world (Matthew 5:13-14). What does that mean? It means that we are to live lives that are worthy of Christ and that will bring honor and glory to his Name, not shame and dishonor. Woe to us as believers when the latter happens. We bring honor to Christ’s Name not by trying to fix people, but by denying ourselves, taking up our cross (putting to death our self-centeredness) and following Jesus. We let our actions speak louder than our words. Then when unbelievers see our humility, our gentle spirit, our compassion to others, especially our enemies, our charity and generosity toward all people, our kindness, our inner peace, our patience with those who are like fingernails on a chalkboard, and our joy in living life (not necessarily all at once), they may be curious as to what is our secret and ask us about it.
When believers really do deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Jesus there is something different about them because they have the Power of God living in them. There is a special quality that is noticeable. They exhibit the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-25) that observant readers noticed I described above. When folks ask us about what is our secret, then we can enter the door God has opened for us to be his salt and light of the world. We can point others to Jesus, the true Light of the world, and tell them about this relationship we enjoy with the Living God. We can invite them to have the same kind of relationship so that they too can be in on our secret.
No wise person can deny the existence of evil in this world. We are all familiar with the evil of death. Evil is a perversion of mind and spirit, swerving from the way of true virtue , which frequently overtakes the unwary. The enemy [of evil] is within us. Within us is the progenitor of our error; within us, I say, dwells our adversary. Hence, we must examine our aims, explore the habits of our minds, be watchful over our thoughts and over the desires of our hearts.
—Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, The Six Days of Creation, 1:31
This kind of stuff makes us feel badly, doesn’t it? So why should we engage reading and thinking about it? As long as we fool ourselves into thinking we are not all that bad, that we really don’t need any help in living good and purposeful lives, we will never have room in our thinking or lives for God. That’s the nature of human sin. We were created to have a relationship with God as his creatures, not his equals or to be independent from him. But we want to be his equal or at least be independent from him! We don’t have to look very far to see how life without God is working for us, do we? That is why Lent is an important, if not necessarily pleasant, season in our faith journey. It helps bring us a much-needed reality check.
On the third day, Joseph said to them, “Do this and you will live, for I fear God: If you are honest men, let one of your brothers stay here in prison, while the rest of you go and take grain back for your starving households. But you must bring your youngest brother to me, so that your words may be verified and that you may not die.” This they proceeded to do. They said to one another, “Surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life, but we would not listen; that’s why this distress has come on us.” Reuben replied, “Didn’t I tell you not to sin against the boy? But you wouldn’t listen! Now we must give an accounting for his blood.” They did not realize that Joseph could understand them, since he was using an interpreter. He turned away from them and began to weep, but then came back and spoke to them again. He had Simeon taken from them and bound before their eyes. Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain, to put each man’s silver back in his sack, and to give them provisions for their journey. After this was done for them, they loaded their grain on their donkeys and left. At the place where they stopped for the night one of them opened his sack to get feed for his donkey, and he saw his silver in the mouth of his sack. “My silver has been returned,” he said to his brothers. “Here it is in my sack.” Their hearts sank and they turned to each other trembling and said, “What is this that God has done to us?”
—Genesis 42:18-28 (TNIV)
Here is an instructive passage that smacks of real life. It reminds us that having faith in God’s good love and providence for us is sometimes, if not often, difficult. Joseph’s brothers had sold him into slavery and now were standing in front of him unawares. Joseph had demanded that they bring their youngest brother, Benjamin, to see him. But since they did not recognize Joseph, they surely would have felt caught between a rock and a hard spot since their father, Jacob, had insisted that the boy stay with him instead of traveling to Egypt. As the passage indicates, Joseph’s brothers were beginning to realize that the chickens were coming home to roost.
To make matters worse, on their way back to fetch Benjamin, the brothers discovered that the silver they used to pay for the grain Joseph had sold them was now back in their possession. They did not know that Joseph had instructed it be returned to them and so they naturally believed that they would be accused of theft. Uh oh. Today’s passage concludes with the poignant statement that “their hearts sank” and they trembled with fear. They were terrified over their fate as well as the fate of their two brothers, Benjamin and Simeon. The knowledge of the evil they had committed against Joseph clearly intensified their fear just like it does to us when we consider the evil we have committed in our lives.
What can we learn from this? Like Joseph’s brothers, we can often get consumed by the circumstances of life. Because we are finite and limited, we do not have a panoramic and complete knowledge of all that is going on around us. Neither do we know what the future holds the way God does. Consequently, we, like Joseph’s brothers, can fall into despair when the events of life sometimes beat us down. Because we don’t have the big picture of life, we must sometimes walk in darkness. We don’t like doing that, of course, because when that happens we lose control and that frightens us. I suspect that is why we enjoy “Monday morning quarterbacking” and engaging in 20-20 hindsight so much. Once we have a clearer picture of all the variables in our lives that hindsight offers us, it is easier for us to second-guess our courses of action. But, of course, that is not how real life works. We are called to live in the here and now and to work with an incomplete knowledge of people and events. We never will have the Big Picture of life’s events and people’s hearts that God has.
But this is not the end of the story. Scripture reminds us of our human condition, not to throw us into despair but to help us remember that we are creatures, not the Creator. We know this story of Joseph and his brothers will have a happy ending, just as we know that God used the evil of Joseph’s brothers selling him into slavery for good. The story of Scripture calls for us to respond to God’s wondrous love for us in faith, even (or perhaps especially) in life’s darkest moments when that love is hard or almost impossible for us to see or comprehend. Joseph’s brothers’ hearts would not have sunk nor would they have trembled in fear had they known the outcome of the story. Neither should our hearts tremble in fear when we know the ultimate outcome of the story of our life when we have faith in God’s great love for us manifested in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Faith is the key to living a life that is joyous and we can bolster our faith in a couple of ways. First, we should read Scripture to see how God’s faithfulness to his broken creatures plays itself out in history. The crowning moment occurs when we read about Jesus’ death and resurrection. In that story we are reminded that we have a God who loves us enough that he willingly took on our flesh and in Jesus Christ bore the terrible punishment for our sins so that we might have an opportunity to be reconciled to God and live with him forever. In Scripture we also read about the faith of others who can serve as good examples for us. Abraham, Joseph, the prophets, Ruth, Naomi, Mary, Peter, and Paul (among others) all had faith that is worth our attention. From them we learn that God rewards our faith, but not necessarily in ways that the world defines rewards.
Likewise, we can learn to live life together as Christ’s Body so that we can draw on each other and help each other when life goes south. God knows we need the human touch and has blessed us with Christian fellowship to help sustain us in the living of our days.
As you live your life, will you choose to live it with faith or without? If you choose the latter, you choose to go it alone and you will see sooner or later that that just doesn’t work. If you choose the former, you will not be immune from the hurts and heartaches of life, but you will discover that you have a power to help you persevere and to transcend your hurts and fears. You will have this power because your faith will allow God’s Holy Spirit to work in and through you to help you become the creature he calls you to be.
The darkness you sometimes encounter in this life may not have a happy ending, at least as the world defines happy endings, but you will be guaranteed that your life will have one. Abraham knew it. Joseph knew it. Mary knew it. Paul knew it. Peter knew it. So have countless other Christians. So can you. Choose to walk in faith. Choose to believe God loves you and knows what is best for you, despite appearances sometimes to the contrary. Scripture and the lives of countless Christian saints testify to this truth. So does God’s Spirit. May you be blessed with faith in Jesus Christ that will sustain you in the living of your days.
When people celebrate on earth, they usually provide some kind of music which adds to the pleasure of the guests. When passers-by happen to hear it, we ask them what is going on and they tell us that it’s some kind of party. Well, in God’s home there is an everlasting party because the eternally present face of God brings a joy that is never diminished.
—Augustine, Commentary on Psalm 41
The claims of beer advertisements and my own fondness for that substance not withstanding, this is a party at which I definitely want to be!
The sum of all is God. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son for it. Not that he was unable to save us in another way, but in this way it was possible to show us his abundant love abundantly, namely, by bringing us near to him by the death of his Son. And out of his great love he did not even choose to urge our freedom by compulsion, though he was able to do so. But his aim was that we should come near to him by the love of our mind.
—Isaac of Nineveh, Mystical Treatise 74
In this whole passage (Romans 4:1-5, 13-17) it seems the apostle wants to show that there are two justifications, one by works and the other by faith. He says that justification by works has its glory but only in and of itself, not before God. Justification by faith, on the other hand, has glory before God, who sees our hearts and knows those who believe in secret and those who do not believe.
—Origen, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans
Translation: Who’s your daddy?
There is, likewise, great variety in the manner and time of God’s bestowing his sanctifying grace, whereby he enables his children to give him their whole heart, which we can in no wise account for. We know not why he bestows this on some, even before they ask for it; on some, after they had sought it but a few days: And yet permits other believers to wait for it, perhaps twenty, thirty, or forty years; nay, and others, till a few hours, or even minutes, before their spirits return to [God].
—John Wesley, Sermon 69, 6:349
While the bestowing of God’s grace is mysterious to us, Wesley reminds us here of God’s sovereignty. Grace is God’s free gift to us and he gives or withholds it as he sees fit. We are not to use this as an opportunity to try to demonstrate our intellectual superiority over God by pointing out seeming inconsistencies in how he manifests his sovereign power, but rather trust that God knows best for all of us. Having this attitude is what the Bible calls “humility” and it is a prerequisite ingredient if we are ever to enjoy a proper relationship with God.