Tag Holiness

A Blogger’s Wish List

Todd R 8 Comments

I’ve been writing this blog for over 5 years, and it’s been a great experience.  As a reason for me to more fully consider thoughts I have about God, it’s been a good exercise.  Instead of making a quick note about a verse or idea, having this blog provides an outlet for thinking those things through.  As a way to share with others what I learn about God, it’s also been successful, as the number of readers continues to grow.  (Thank you to all of my readers!). However, there are a few things I wish were a lot better, and here are three examples.

I wish I could interact more with other bloggers
Between job and family responsibilities, I have very, very little time to read other blogs, much less to comment on them or engage with other bloggers.  I subscribe to a bunch of blogs but on a typical day I can only read 1-2 of these (if any).  Retirement is a long way off, but my hope is that I’m still doing this when that happens and that I’ll devote a lot more time to reading and engaging with a lot more Christian blogs.  If I’m not reading and commenting on your blog, I wish I could.

I wish I could finish at least one series I’ve started
I’m much more ambitious when it comes to wanting to write a long blog series than I’m able to finish.  In fact, I haven’t finished a single series I’ve started.  Since I want to post often, it’s a lot easier to write about what’s currently on my mind than to continue a series I’ve started.  So, a wish I have is to complete a long series of posts on one topic.  I’ve started a series on the beatitudes, the songs of ascent, Ebenezers (or instances of “but God…” in the Bible) and others, but haven’t completed any of them.  Maybe I’m supposed to focus on one-shot posts, but I’d like to be able to finish what I start!

I wish I could live up to my blog’s expectations
This will never happen in full until we reach eternity, but my last wish is that I can live up to the life I recommend and encourage on this blog.  I write a lot of “today, do this” type of posts but personally don’t often follow through.  I make a lot of statements about how to better represent Jesus in this world, but in reality, I routinely fail to live that kind of life.  Should this stop me from writing the way I do?  It shouldn’t, but I’m not unaware of the teaching of James 3:1, which says: “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.”  Everything I write on this blog (and do in life) will be judged by God, not to determine my salvation, but to reveal whether I have lived this life as one called to holiness by Christ.  Not an easy task, and this is why Paul tells us to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”[1]  This life is not ours to do with as we please, but fortunately we have a God of mercy who saves us and completes the work he began in us[2].

Fellow blog readers and writers, perfection and Christlikeness are not attainable in this world, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be our objective.

May our blogging wishes come true!

[1] Philippians 2:12b
[2] Philippians 1:6

Jesus’ Missing 30 Years

Todd R 1 Comment

The four Gospels are not biographies of Jesus, written to tell us all about His life, but they are summaries of His life designed to make the case that Jesus was truly the Son of God who died for our sins and rose again.  Unlike a biography, the Gospels skip over most of Jesus’ life, most notably the 30 years or so between Matthew 2:23 and 3:13.  In one verse He’s a toddler and in the next He’s an adult beginning His public ministry.

What happened in the meantime?  We don’t know much because the Bible doesn’t say much.  Jesus most likely worked as a carpenter[1] in Nazareth most of that time.  But, while we don’t know what He did, we get a sense of how He did it.

At the end of Matthew 3, Jesus goes to John the Baptist to be baptized, and when He comes up from the water, “the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’”[2]  In this revelation of the Trinity, the Father says He is “well pleased” with the Son, Jesus, and the Spirit confirms.

Note that the Father said He was “well pleased” before Jesus had done anything in His public ministry.  Since God knows the future, He may have been saying He was “well pleased” with Jesus’ whole life, but those there would take it to mean His life to that point.  The period of Jesus’ life that we know so little about.  What Jesus did in those 30 or so years was pleasing to God the Father.

Photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash

What does this mean for us?  Most of us don’t have a full-time ministry, but spend most of our time doing other, sometimes mundane, things.  Most, or all, of our lives are more like the 30 years missing from the Gospels than they are like Jesus’ 3 or so years of ministry.  But since the Father was pleased with the first 30 years of Jesus’ life, we also can fully please God without dedicating ourselves to a full-time ministry.  Lay people aren’t second-class citizens in the kingdom of heaven.

But also, if Jesus pleased God at all times, including His work as a carpenter, to be like Jesus we need to please the Father in not just our acts of ministry, but in all of life.  In how we do our jobs, in how we treat our family and neighbors, in how we do everything.

If we want our Lord to say to us “Well done, good and faithful servant,”[3] we must follow Colossians 3:23 – “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.”  All of our activities can please the Father, even the most mundane things.

[1] Mark 6:3
[2] Matthew 3:16b-17
[3] Matthew 25:21

God Cares About Your Pots and Pans

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The book of Zechariah, one of the “minor prophets”, contains many puzzling visions and predictions of the then-coming (and now coming-again) Messiah, Jesus.  Zechariah prophesied after the Babylonian exile and God’s purpose through him was to give hope to His people in the form of a glorious future under a perfect King.  The book ends with these verses:

“And on that day there shall be inscribed on the bells of the horses, ‘Holy to the LORD.’ And the pots in the house of the LORD shall be as the bowls before the altar.  And every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holy to the LORD of hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and take of them and boil the meat of the sacrifice in them. And there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the LORD of hosts on that day.” – Zechariah 14:20-21

Photo by Scott Umstattd on Unsplash

While this seems a very strange ending for a book about Jesus, Zechariah’s words give us an amazing expectation of what Paradise will be like.  The phrase “Holy to the LORD” references Exodus 28:36-38, where the words were inscribed on the high priest’s turban.  The idea is that only very rarely are items recognized as set aside for only Godly use.  However, Zechariah is telling us that this was only the beginning.  When the King comes again in glory, He will establish a kingdom where even the most mundane household items will put to perfect use.  There is nothing He does not care about.

And this concept is not just about bells and pots.  While the Old Testament high priest was a sign of the way back to God, eventually the way encompasses every aspect of us.  Zechariah promises us that every bit of our lives, even those we may give no thought to – our proverbial bells and pots – are to be perfected in glory.  By caring about even these common items, God is telling us He leaves nothing undone.  Nothing will be left in us that is set apart for other “gods.”

In Paradise we will be perfected, fully set apart for His glory, and His work in us has already begun.  “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” – Philippians 1:6

Dedicating Our Days to God

Todd R 1 Comment

When the Temple in Jerusalem was built under King Solomon, he dedicated it first with a lengthy prayer, followed by a massive number of sacrifices:

“King Solomon offered as a sacrifice 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. So the king and all the people dedicated the house of God.” – 2 Chronicles 7:5

There is no record of Solomon and the people considering the loss of all this livestock as a burden or an economic catastrophe.  The Bible simply records that they made the sacrifices.  In dedicating the Temple, the people were marking it as a place to be only used in the worship of their God, and in offering such a massive sacrifice they were acknowledging that they should dedicate all they have to their God as well.

What does this mean for us today?  In the middle of 1 Corinthians 6:16, Paul wrote that “we are the temple of the living God.”  Therefore, our temple – our bodies and all we have – should be dedicated to the worship of God.  We probably don’t have 22,000 oxen or 120,000 sheep to offer Him, but what do we have to offer?

In each day, there are 1,440 minutes (or 86,400 seconds).  Are we willing to sacrifice them all to God without considering it a burden?  I know I don’t, but I pray each day to get closer to the goal of complete dedication to God.  I pray each of you will grow closer to Him as well.

Amen.

Render to God

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The phrase “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” which Jesus spoke in Luke 20:25 is likely a familiar one.  I had a friend in college who worked at Little Caesar’s pizza, and he showed up at Bible study with some pizza from there one night.  We had agreed to split the cost, so when he walked in he said “render unto Caesar!”  We all got the reference and a couple of us laughed (I admit one of them was me).

The “render to Caesar” saying comes from a time where some scribes and chief priests tried to get Jesus in trouble, as they often did, trying any means necessary to condemn Him.  In this case, they first flattered Jesus, trying to catch Him off-guard, then asked Him, “Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar, or not?”  They thought if Jesus said yes, it would upset the Jews who wanted their Messiah to overthrow Rome, and that if He said no, it would upset the Romans and perhaps they would arrest Jesus as a revolutionary.  They thought they had Him trapped, but His answer quoted above was unexpected by them, yet truthful and insightful.

Often the lessons taken from this story have to do with Jesus’ ability to thwart the attempts of His enemies to catch Him in His words, or with the Christian’s obligation to pay taxes, or with something about the relationship between the Jews and Rome.  There are several good applications.

Another important application that’s key to the story, can be highlighted if we shorten the saying to “render…to God the things that are God’s.”  This last part of the quote is where Jesus subtly tells those trying to catch Him that they weren’t giving to God the things they should be.  Although they were the religious leaders of their day, they were focused on the wrong things, like their money and their resentment against the government.  Or even their obsession with arguing with Jesus.

Photo by Adi Albulescu on Unsplash

What are the things that are God’s and that we should render to Him?

Paul helps answer this in Romans 12:1, which says “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

Here Paul says that the thing we should be rendering to God is our very selves, and Jesus implied this when He said “render…to God the things that are God’s.”  This answer said to the Jews, and everyone listening, that their Messiah wasn’t only going to overthrow Rome, but He was going to overthrow all kingdoms, including those we build in our own hearts and minds.  From an eternal perspective, the many flaws of Roman rule under which the first-century Jews lived were minor inconveniences, including the paying of taxes and other, real abuses.  Jesus wants us to focus on the real challenge: what to do about mankind’s rebellion from God?  This is the real mission of the Messiah.

Luke follows the “render to Caesar” story with a question some Sadducees asked Jesus about the resurrection, also to try and catch Him saying something wrong.  The story was not put there by accident, but in the sequence, I think we see that there is in fact a resurrection, and that our resurrected selves will be much different than our current selves.  Our new selves will be able to perfectly worship God, and we will be able to fully offer our “bodies as a living sacrifice” while we can only do so imperfectly now.

In the meantime, we don’t get a free pass to do what we want because we aren’t perfected yet.  Every day and every moment, we are to “render…to God the things that are God’s” in ways the religious leaders of Jesus’ day (as well as the audience of most of the Old Testament prophets) failed to do.

In closing, I’ll quote the OT prophet Micah, who differentiated between the animal sacrifices of ancient Israel from the “living sacrifice” God requires:

“With what shall I come before the LORD,
            and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
            with calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
            with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
            the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
He has told you, O man, what is good;
            and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
            and to walk humbly with your God?”  (Micah 6:6-8)

Today, “render…to God the things that are God’s.”