Believers Armed and Dangerous

Phil 2:1-2  So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, ² complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

Many Christians believe we all need to think exactly alike.  We need to believe the same, act the same, and worship the same.  But, that’s not what Scripture says.  We are to be of one accord, one community, the church.  We can disagree on non-essentials.

As most of you know, I talk with JWs and ex-JWs fairly regularly.  They consider denominations as warring factions within the church.  Sadly, we the church, have given them that impression.  They ask why there need to be so many of what they call “divisions” in the church.

The answer, of course, is that people tend to join with others of like mind.  Denominations don’t disagree on basic doctrines like the Trinity, bodily resurrection of Christ, deity of Christ, or salvation by grace alone.  If they did, they wouldn’t be considered a part of the church.  Denominations disagree on peripheral issues like the mode of baptism, what day of the week to meet, and form of church government.

I had a friend tell me he would never street witness with a charismatic as though that area of his belief disqualified him as a Christian.  As hard as it is to believe, there are only two qualifications for being a Christian and they are found in Romans 10:9-10

⁹ because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

We’re not saved because we belong to the EV Free Church or the Church of the Nazarene.  We’re saved by grace through faith and that faith comes from acknowledging Jesus as Lord and that God raised Him from the dead.

Sure we have differences, but those differences are not the hills we necessarily want to die on.  A quote that has been attributed to everyone from Martin Luther to Billy Graham says, “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials liberty; but in all things charity.”  I think that’s a good maxim to live by.

The discussion of our differences is as old as the Church itself.  It’s the heart behind our discussions that is significant.  If we just want to argue to prove we’re right about a minor point of doctrine or belief, we’re approaching the discussion wrongly should end it.  If we think the other person would benefit from the discussion or that we might, we should continue on so long as it stays civil and loving. 

Public discussions are another issue.  I often listen to public debates between Christians and some representatives of a cult or other world religion.  There’s nothing wrong with those so long as the Christian, again, acts in a loving way.  But, if Christians angrily discuss some minor point of doctrine it makes the Christians look petty to the non-believers.  Debates of any sort which generate heat with very little light should be avoided.

Why is this important?

Heated discussions over minor issues damage the unity Paul spoke of in Phil. 2.  We get angry with a brother or sister over our disagreement which hurts Christ, our relationship with that brother or sister and erodes our own walks.

I’m not saying we should never stand up for the faith.  I’m not even saying we should shy away from discussions of minor issues.  But, if you find yourself or the person you’re speaking with getting upset, it’s time to end the discussion.

Dr. Walter Martin used to say “If two people think exactly alike, one of them isn’t thinking.”  I think he’s right.  If we all agree on everything it would be a world of boredom and a world without learning.  We learn best when challenged.

So, we should pick the hills we want to die on.  We should look out for the personal interest of the non-believer and even our brother as much as our own:  Phil. 2:4  ⁴ Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Ours is a reasonable faith which can and should be examined and discussed in order for us to grow.  It is when we become intolerant of the minor differences we have with others that we border on legalism and pride.  Let’s join hands with our brothers and sisters in Christ to seek unity of the body.

Psalm 145:3:  Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.

It seems no matter how much faith some of us have God still surprises us. 

Just how great is our Lord?  Pastor Chuck Smith used to say, “if you can get past the first verse of the Bible, the rest is easy,” and he was right.  The God who created all that exists through just a spoken word is greater than any of us will ever need.

Yet, we worry whether God can take care of some issue we’re facing whether great or small.    We worry about things from a desperately ill friend to whether we’ll be late for work.  Hopefully, some of what I say here will help with that.

First I’d like to address the fact God is infinite.  I’ve discussed infinity here before, so I’ll give the short definition.  Infinity is a number so large nothing can be added to it to make it larger.  We really can’t wrap our heads around that, but it’s true.  Think of the number of atoms in the universe.  Scientists estimate there are 3,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.  That’s a pretty big number, but it’s not infinity.  In fact, if the oceans were to represent an infinite number (and it can’t, of course, since it has limits) the number of atoms listed above would be smaller than a grain of sand.  That is a limited description, but we can get a sort of feel from it.

God is not just infinite in space – He is everywhere.  He’s infinite in every attribute He has.  He’s infinite in power, in knowledge, in presence.  Most of all, though, God is infinite in love.  In fact, everything He does is the result of His love for God is love (1 John 4:8).

So, as finite humans we constantly sell God short.  Being infinite in power means it was no more difficult for Him to create the entire universe than it would be to heal a friend of a cold.  God does have limits, though.  He is limited by those restrictions He has placed on Himself.  How God acts in our lives to some degree depends on our faith:

Matt. 13:58: ⁵⁸ And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.

He also limits His actions to allow for our freewill.  God wants all to be saved but all are not saved because they choose to refuse God’s gift:

1 Tim. 2:1-4  First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, ² for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. ³ This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, ⁴ who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Other than the restrictions God has laid upon Himself and His nature – He can’t sin, for instance – there is nothing He cannot do.

Why is this important?

Some of us have friends and relatives who have been struck by this virus.  We see people around us dying and worry our loved one might die as well.  We plead to God to heal them, to deliver them from this affliction.  “Certainly God would want my friend to live and glorify Him.”

Certainly, God has the power to heal our friend, but God’s ways aren’t our ways.  He doesn’t act as we wish Him to. In Isa. 55:8-9, God says this:

⁸ For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

As Christians, it is always a good practice to place our issues in God’s hands and yield to His will just as Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego did with King Nebuchadnezzar.  They had refused to worship his golden image, so he threatened to throw them into the fiery furnace.  Notice their response:

Daniel 3:16-18:  ¹⁶ Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. ¹⁷ If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. ¹⁸ But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

They had no doubt God could rescue them if it was His will. But, they recognized He might not. This should be our response in times of need as well.  Our God is greater than the trial.  He may not deliver us from the torment we’re facing in the way we want, but He will deliver us.  We mustn’t underestimate God.

Genesis 2:18  Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

The word “helper” here is someone who works alongside of the man, someone who man needs because he could not perform the tasks on his own.  It speaks of help that is given, not required.  The Psalmist uses this word of God as “Helper” in Psalm 20:2; May he send you help from the sanctuary and give you support from Zion!

There are a lot of passages of Scripture that show the husband and wife are equal in all ways but rank in the home.  Rank has nothing to do with the equality of the nature of husband and wife.  In fact, Jesus was subject to Mary and Joseph.  As His earthly parents, they held a higher rank in the home:

Luke 2:51  And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart.

In fact, the Christian husband is told to treat his wife as an equal showing her honor.  :

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

Peter treats the submission of the Christian wife as a sign to the non-believing husband: 

1 Peter 3:1  Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives,

While again and again, the Christian husband is told to love his wife, the Christian wife would do well to show respect and appreciation for her husband

Ephesians 5:33  However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

While wives need to know they are loved, husbands need even more to know their wife respects them.  We need to know our wives see us doing the job God has called us to do and respect us for doing it.  God hasn’t just given the man spiritual headship of the family, He has given man the drive to be that head and to do it well.  So, it is part of the Christian wife’s job to show her respect for the husband and the job he’s doing.

Why is this important?

There are Christian men and women in the church even today who do not understand the roles of husband and wife in the Christian family.  The Christian husband and wife must know how God’s design for the Christian marriage works and their places in that design.

The Christian marriage, as we’ve seen, is much like the church in how it is organized.  The church is the bride of Christ.  As His bride, we look to Him as the head.  That is our choice.  We volunteer to take the role of submission to Christ.  Refusing to submit to Christ damages our relationship with Him.

In the family, the woman voluntarily takes a submissive role to the husband, but as we saw last week, it is only in the final decisions on family matters after the husband and wife have discussed the issue at length.  Only when the two come to an impasse does the wife need to yield to the husband’s decision.

The Christian family design is not one of employer-employee but a partnership where one partner takes on the role as the tiebreaker.

There is so much more than I can include in a short blog post in being a godly wife.  I recommend you look into this further on your own.

Marriages break up most often because the spouses do not take marriage seriously or look into the roles each is to fulfill in their relationship.  Accepting those roles will help prevent many marriage issues.

I know I turn to Phil. 2:5-8 quite a bit, but it tells us so much about Jesus’ character and how we are to act as God’s children:

⁵ Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷ but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

We see here the relationship of the Son and the Father as an example of how we are to be as Christians.  We are to humbly assume the roles God has placed us in.  While Jesus and the Father were still equal in nature, Jesus voluntarily took on a submissive role.  This is a wonderful picture of what we see in 1 Cor. 11:3 that the Head of Christ is God.  We also see both how our relationships as husbands should be to Him and to our wives:

But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.

We see from Phil. 2:8 that Jesus voluntarily humbled Himself, placing Himself under the Father’s authority.  We see this acted out in the garden.  Jesus spoke with the Father about how the payment for our sins was to be made.  Jesus yielded to the Father’s will.

I think that’s a good example of how the headship works in marriage.  The husband has the authority to make decisions regarding the family.  Our wives have voluntarily placed themselves under that authority because God says they should.  But, with authority comes responsibility.  Like the Father speaking to Jesus in the garden, the intelligent husband listens to his wife.  God doesn’t make decisions, so this isn’t a perfect analogy, but it does show how we are to act as Christian husbands.

I think this sheds some light on the “elephant in the room:”

Eph. 5:22-23 ²² Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.

Yes, the husband is the head of the wife but as Christ is the head over the husband.  Do we want to be under Jesus’ thumb, or do we want to work with Him as friends?  Jesus is love incarnate.  All His actions are made with love as should ours as husbands be.  The passage in Ephesians continues:

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, ²⁶ that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷ so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

Our job as husbands is to love our wives and do all we can to support them in their Christian walks.  A woman needs love.  They need to be told often we love them.  They are God’s treasure, and we are stewards of the purity and wealth of wisdom God has placed in them.  We fail them so often I often think women only marry men because there isn’t an alternative.

Why is this important?

I was standing in line at the grocery stores with a bouquet of flowers I had bought for my wife.  A little girl and her mother were ahead of me inline when the little girl pointed to me and said, “Look Mommy.  He did something bad.”  The mother chuckled.  I knelt down to the little girl and said, “Sweetheart, if you meet a man some day you want to marry and he doesn’t treat you like the gift from God that you are, look for someone else.”

That’s the responsibility of Christian husbands.  Our wives are gifts from God.  We must treat them as such and love them as such.  The world and the Lord are watching.

Prov 31:10 ¹⁰   An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.

Father, Spirit, Cup

Last week my blog was about the sacrifice Jesus went through to provide the offer of salvation for us.  But, He wasn’t the only one to suffer.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.  But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed (Isa. 53:4-5)

God is triune.  The torture of Jesus I described last week did not go unfelt by the Father and the Holy Spirit.  The three Persons knew man could not be saved by the Law.  Man didn’t know it – and many still don’t – but we needed to be shown we couldn’t reach holiness on our own.  This was done by the legalistic structure of the Old Testament times.

It was only after we were shown this that God put into action His plan:

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ² For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. ³ For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴ in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Rom. 8:1-4)

The old method, the Law was replaced on the cross by a new Law, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

This was all been prepared for us since before the foundation of the world (Matt. 25:34)

So, there was a plan upon which all three Persons of the Godhead agreed.  The First Person of the trinity was to take the lead while the Second Person was to submit to the Father’s will as a son does to his father:

For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you?”  Or again, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son”?  (Heb 1:5)

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  (Phil. 2:8)

The torture felt by the Father and Holy Spirit upon the death of Jesus was more infinitely horrific.   The God who is love personified sent His own Son to suffer a torturous lingering death and in doing so, to pay the price for our sins.

Those of us who are parents know the pain of punishing our children in order to acheive a greater purpose.  We often say “This will hurt me more than it hurts you,” and we’re right.  It does.

Now consider how much pain the Father and Holy Spirit felt to watch the Son carry the sins of the world on His shoulders, then turn away from Him in His greatest need, having then to exercise their wrath upon Him, then watch Him die.  We can never adequately describe the horror felt by the Father and the Spirit.

Why is this important?

In the last two verses of the book of Jude, there is a short doxology, a spontaneous expression of praise to God.  It goes like this:

²⁴ Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, ²⁵ to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

This is why it was all done.  God, Father; Son; and Holy Spirit; wanted the result.  God wanted to present us before the presence of His glory, the very presence of God in heaven, and He will be ecstatic that we will be standing before Him.  For this all three Persons of the godhead suffered greatly.

That’s how much God loves you.

Usually, when Christians speak of “the cup” we’re talking about the communion cup.  I’d like to look at another cup, though, the cup Jesus spoke of in the Garden (Matt. 26:39):

And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”

I have always just believed He was speaking of the torturous death He was about to face, the scourging and crucifixion, but now I think there’s more to it. 

I’m not sure Jesus was terrified of crucifixion. The Bible seems to tell us He wasnt.  Look at Mark 10:32-34:

³² And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. And taking the twelve again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, ³³ saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. ³⁴ And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.”

Here, Jesus and His disciples are on their way to Jerusalem just before Passion Week.  According to the passage, Jesus was fully aware of what was in store for Him.  But, note in verse 32 Jesus is ahead of the disciples.  He’s not timidly heading for the crucifixion He will face.  He’s not hanging back.  He was going to Jerusalem ahead of everyone else to pay the price for you and me. 

In Hebrews 12:2, we’re told Jesus faced the cross because of the joy that was set before Him. That joy was the result of the sacrifice He offered for our salvation.  So, I don’t think a Roman scourging and crucifixion were all that Jesus was speaking of when He speaks of the cup in the garden.

During that same conversation in Mark chapter 10, Jesus tells the disciples they will share in the cup He will drink from:

³⁹ And they said to him, “We are able.” And Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized,

I believe this cup and baptism speak of His execution, of a martyr’s death.  But, I believe there is something else in the cup that was only for Jesus Himself, the wrath of God.  In the Old Testament, God’s cup is often a cup of wrath (Isa 51:17)

The effect of God’s wrath can be widespread, even universal (Jer. 25:15 and 51:7).  So, that wrath is for all sin universally.

Why do I think God’s wrath is involved?  Hab. 1:13a, speaking of God, says, You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong. God cannot look upon evil.

So, in Mark 10, if Jesus is speaking of the cup He is about to drink – and it seems He is – then the portion of the cup the disciples would share is what He just described to them, a martyr’s death.  I believe Jesus had a deeper more dreadful portion He needed to face, the breaking of His relationship with the Father.

In the Garden, we’re told Jesus asked for the cup to be taken from Him if possible.  He then told the Father His will should be done.  It is then that Jesus sweats “great drops of blood”(Luke 22:44).  This is a rare condition called hematidrosis and is caused by incredible stress. 

On the cross, Jesus says “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46).  When Jesus took on the sins of the world, past, present, and future, the Father had to turn away from Him and execute His wrath on Jesus.  He couldn’t look upon sin, and His response to sin is His wrath. Jesus had never felt separation from the Father before. It was excruciating.

Speaking about this, the Billy Graham organization says this:  “But in reality His words point to something far different. They point to the fact that when Jesus died on the cross, all our sins—without exception—were transferred to Him. He was without sin, for He was God in human flesh. But as He died all our sins were placed on Him, and He became the final and complete sacrifice for our sins. And in that moment He was banished from the presence of God, for sin cannot exist in God’s presence. His cry speaks of this truth; He endured the separation from God that you and I deserve.” (https://billygraham.org/story/did-god-abandon-jesus-on-the-cross-billy-graham-answers/)

In an earlier blog post I talked about the fact that God isn’t just loving, He is love personified.  God is love (1 John 4:8).  So, as with all God’s attributes, God’s love is infinite, Jesus’ love for the Father was and is infinite as well.

Think of the person who you love most.  Now think of how you would feel if that person not only turned from you, deserted you, but also brought their wrath fully upon you.  In an infinitely greater sense, that is what Jesus felt on the cross, the desertion and fury of God the Father upon Jesus Who carried the sins of us all.

I believe that is the cup Jesus wanted to be removed, desertion of the Father from their close relationship and facing the Father’s anger due to the sin Jesus assumed on our behalf.  This was the greater sacrifice.

Why is this important?

I’ve tried to convey how much God loves us by showing how much Jesus, God the Son, sacrificed for you and for me.  It wasn’t just taking on the form  of a man when He was previously in the form of God.  It isn’t even His physical sacrifice for our sins.  It is the fact the Father turned from the Son and brought His wrath to bear on the Sin Bearer.

While this wasn’t the purpose of Jesus’ sacrifice, it was the greater Personal consequence of taking our sins upon Himself, and He did it willingly.

That’s how much God loves you.

In philosophy, there is a term: “a priori assumptions.”  An a priori assumption is a very basic belief we hold usually without empirical evidence.  These are beliefs we use as filters to view the world.

I am a retired photographer, so I’ll use a photographic example.  In photography we have a No. 25 filter.  It is a deep red filter.  It’s so red that it filters out all other colors.

A priori assumptions are like my No. 25 filter.  They filter out the things that don’t match the filter’s standard.  Atheists have an atheist filter.  They view the world through the a priori assumption there is no God.  As such, when we speak to them about God, their filter springs into action and tells them we must be wrong.  What we’re saying doesn’t make sense because it doesn’t make it through their filter.

We have the same issue with cults.  There are Mormon filters, Christian Science filters, and Jehovah’s Witness filters.  There are also Muslim filters, Hindu filters, etc.  When I tell a Jehovah’s Witness Jesus is God, they think, “That can’t be true.  My filter, my a priori assumption, doesn’t match that idea.”  And, so it’s rejected.

We Christians are no different.  We have a Christian filter.  We look at the world through the Bible and see sinful acts.  We look at drunkenness, drugs, adultery, and so on, and see those as sins.  Sin in our own lives, though, clouds that filter.  It makes it harder to see the temptations we face as sinful.  It makes it easier to yield our will to them, so we need to keep our filter clean.  We need to confess our sins daily.

At this point, it would be good to talk a little about what truth is.  Truth is whatever corresponds to reality.  This is called the Correspondence Theory of Truth.  There are others.  Another is called the Coherence Theory of Truth.  It says that something is true only if it matches, coheres to, what we already accept as true.  Believe it or not, this is how we’ve arrived at most of what we think is true.

We believe Donald Trump was elected President of the United States in 2016 because we were told by someone, usually several people that we trust, so we believe it as true.  Most of us didn’t experience it firsthand.  We heard it from someone we trusted and it matched what we already believed.

Many of our a priori assumptions are from hearsay.  That JW I spoke of earlier, she believed I was wrong when I said Jesus was God because someone she trusted told her so, the Watchtower Organization.  Because she trusts them, she turns over her worldview, her filtering, to them.

This sounds foolish, but we all do this.  I believe the Bible is true.  I’ve examined it, checked it out historically, internally, and externally.  I am convinced it is true and base my worldview on it.  Now, the Bible is my filter through which I view the world.  When I run into others who disagree, I believe they’re wrong because they disagree with what I  believe to be true.  Still, what I believe came mostly from someone else: historians, theologians, apologists, philosophers. 

There are other evidences I rely on such as my personal relationship with Christ, my experiencing His presence, and our interaction, but others claim they’ve had the same experience.

Along with this, God has a filter as well.  He has a “Jesus” filter He uses when He looks at His children.  Though we may have sin in our lives, though we are unworthy of standing in His presence, the Father holds up His filter and sees only Jesus when He looks at us.  Jesus has cleansed us of all sin.  We are perfect in the Father’s eyes, through His filter.

Why is this important?

Why I think this is something we need to understand as Christians is we experience the filters of others standing in the way of their accepting Christ.

You cannot often logically argue a person out of a position they have come to illogically.  In other words, when we talk with an atheist, a cultist, or someone of another religion, we are telling them things that simply cannot pass through their filter.

What can pass through their filter is the Holy Spirit.  We can plant an idea and water that idea, but it is God who can overcome the rejection of that idea: 

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. ⁷ So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.  (1 Cor 3:6-7)

Psalm 30:12 You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;

you have loosed my sackcloth

and clothed me with gladness,

¹²      that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.

O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!

When I was a kid, the last thing my mother would say before I left to attend a birthday party, stayed over at a friend’s, or if I had received a gift was “Don’t forget to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’”  I needed to show appreciation, gratitude to those favoring me with something special.

Gratitude is expressed all over the Bible.  In the New Testament the word translated as gratitude is eucharistia from which we get our English word Eucharist and means praise, thanksgiving, and gratitude.  Communion, the Eucharist, is a remembrance of the sacrifice Christ made for us and to remind us to be grateful for that sacrifice.

Author and radio talk show host, Dennis Prager, has rightly said “All happy people are grateful. Ungrateful people cannot be happy. We tend to think that being unhappy leads people to complain, but it’s truer to say that complaining leads to people becoming unhappy.”

Much of the unhappiness we see in our country today is caused by a lack of gratitude.  We’re not thankful for what we have.  We think it’s the norm to have two cars, a house, TV, electricity, running water, work.  We should be thankful for all of this.  Who should we thank?  Ah!  There’s the rub.  If we have no God, we have No One to thank for all that we have.  So, gratitude goes unexpressed.  We then start to believe we are responsible for what we have.

But, can we actually think deep down that we deserve any of what we have.  People in third world countries love their families no less.  They often work harder than we do, yet they don’t have the things we do.  Why not?  They’re often more deserving.  On top of that, very often, they are happier than we are.  So, if their happiness doesn’t come from things, things must not bring happiness.

God tells us to be thankful for what He has supplied for us.  That thankfulness, that gratitude, is what makes people happy.

God expects us to act the same way my mother expected me to act, to be grateful.  We’re His children.  Before I knew Him, I used to ask myself “Who does God think He is that we should praise Him for eternity?”  It seemed like a pretty boring eternity to stand before God and thank Him until the end of time.  I feel differently now.

You’ve probably seen in some past blog posts that I’ve been tracking down God’s actions in my life, how I came to meet my wife, how I came to know Him, why we moved to Arizona, and so forth.  The more I track down His actions, the more grateful I am to Him for what He’s done.  I recommend this as a good exercise for us all.

I think an appreciative  heart should be the natural state of Christians.  We should be grateful for all God has done for us.  Our Christian walk along with the joy it brings is enough to be eternally thankful for, but on top of that, we have eternal life with Him.

Why is this important?

As Christians, especially American Christians, we become too involved in the things we have or want more than the in Giver of all things.  Paul and Mary give us good examples of how we should act in times of trial.

2 Timothy 4:18  ¹⁸ The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Luke 1:46-49f  ⁴⁶ And Mary said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,

⁴⁷         and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

⁴⁸     for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.

For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

⁴⁹     for he who is mighty has done great things for me,

and holy is his name.

These people don’t seem unhappy at all.  Their joy is in the Lord, and one source of that joy is in the gratitude and thanks they show to the Giver of all good things.  So, if life isn’t treating you fairly, if you can’t seem to pay the bills, or you’re just down in the dumps, remember some of the very last words Paul penned were praises in the certainty he was about to be executed.  Mary, and unmarried pregnant young woman subject to scorn, praised God joyfully.  Want a day filled with joy?  Start praising God and thanking Him for all He has done and promises to do.  Things will start looking up.

Christian hope is a central point of our faith.  But, what exactly is hope?  Hope for the Christian is not the sort of hope we had as children at Christmas.  We hoped for a doll or a toy truck.  The hope for the Christian is the expectation of a certainty.  We await the fulfillment of God’s promises.

It’s interesting that the Greek word for hope is only used as a noun or verb in the New Testament.  It is never used to describe something else, “Hopeful,” “Hoping,” etc.  Hope is something in itself for the Christian.

So, just what is the Christian hope?  Our hope is both present and future.  Our Christian walk should display an attitude of hope, of a certainty that Christ will come back for His own, that we are the children of a king and should act according to His commands.  It is the Holy Spirit within us Who does this for us.

Cullman, in his book Christ and Time, says “Thus Christian hope has both already and not-yet dimensions.”  Our hope of Christ’s return produces a holy life in its expectation.  We live a life of godliness because we know our Savior will either take us home or will come for us.  With that in mind, the Christian joyfully walks the narrow path.

Paul describes this duality of hope like this:

Titus 2:11-13  For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,”

So, our hope in Christ’s return and for the salvation of others teaches us, trains us, to resist temptations and live a godly life.

“But,” as the TV salespeople say, “there’s more.”  Our hope is not limited to a godly life here on earth.  Our hope is in the certainty of eternal life with Christ in His dwelling place, heaven.  The better we understand God, Who He is and the sort of Being He is, the more we can understand the sort of place in which a pure, holy, and loving God would dwell.  And, He is going to share that place fully with us.

John 14:1-2   “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. ² In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. ⁴ And you know the way to where I am going.”

Our hope as Christians is not simply in Christ’s return but also in the certainty of living eternally with Him in His kingdom.

Why is this important?

The Christian life is not a sort of club membership.  We don’t gather together to exchange recipes or book recommendations.  The Christian life is one of dedication to the One who provides our hope.  He is there to comfort us when we hurt, uplift us when we fall, strengthen us in our weakness.  In this way, He confirms the reality of our hope.  He is here with us showing us we will soon be there with Him.

1 Cor. 15:19-22  “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”