Living Virtuously - Taming the Desire for Revenge

"You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. (Matthew 5:39-41, ESV)

For many people, applying Jesus’s teachings in the Sermon on the Mount are just plain difficult. Christians may be able to repeat the Beatitudes, but few can remember exactly what the Sermon on the Mount teaches. Yet, if I understand the gospel at all, I believe that this is the very heart of Jesus’s message and it is imperative for Christians to live according to these teachings. We know that the Spirit is given to us to recreate us into really spiritual men and women, living in a world of darkness and evil. The Spirit is God and the Scripture plainly teaches, “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” ( Philippians 2:13, ESV) We can only know what kind of person He wants us to be by looking again and again at the Sermon on the Mount. There is the essence of spiritual living in one sermon.
It would seem that one of the more difficult teachings is overcoming the desire to seek revenge or giving “tit for tat.” When we have been wronged, often totally uncalled for on our part, we would really like to lash out at the person who injured us. And we are even devious in the ways in which we express that desire. “Lord, please forgive the guy who smashed my car in the parking lot today. Please do something to bring him down so he knows that he is full of sin and hurting others.” We pray like that. No real forgiveness on our part, but rather a real desire for God to strike that person back. Oh, yes, we want the perpetrator to become a Christian and we really hope God will bring some terrible calamity on him so that he will wake up and turn to God. Notice, though, that we really want that terrible whatever to come upon that person!
Jesus said to turn the other cheek. When we read that, we are thinking of someone walking up to us, hitting us across the face and then, as really good Christians, we will just turn our cheek and let them hit the other, too. But that isn’t really the way things happen, is it?
Week before last, I was walking my dogs down the alley behind our house, as I do every morning, when we were attacked by a Pit Bull mixed dog belonging to one of the neighbors. We have been attacked before, but no injuries happened. The dog is kept behind a steel fence, but when the owner backs his car out, he opens the gate and doesn’t bother to put the dog in the garage temporarily or on a chain or whatever. So we have been attacked, not once but several times. This time, though, he bit deep into the shoulder of my Lab, leaving a deep puncture wound. I took her to the vet and spent almost 400 dollars for blood tests, an overnight stay in the hospital, a minor surgery to put in a drain, etc., and antibiotics. I called Animal Control, which I have done in the past after my wife and daughter were chased by the animal, and lodged a complaint. I took my bill to the door of the house, not once but three times, but both the people from Animal Control and I have had the same response; no one comes to the door. This leaves me with a feeling of anger, that the owner will not take responsibility for his own actions. My unspiritual self wants the bill paid, especially just before the holidays.
But what would Jesus tell me to do? I think He would tell me to drop it, to suffer loss. Going the extra mile is to be defrauded of time. To turn the other cheek is to suffer personal injury, whether physically or mentally. If we buy into pop psychology as dished out on television, we could convince ourselves that it is for the other person’s own good to make them pay, to make them be responsible. Human rights are not the same as Christian rights. The Christian has the right to suffer loss, to suffer harm, to return good behavior for evil behavior. These are the rights we should staunchly defend as Christians.
That we live in an age of increasing irresponsibility is a given. Nations are irresponsible, politicians are irresponsible, parents are irresponsible and on and on goes the list. By turning the other cheek, we show the greater responsibility. I have been in situations where I was wrongly accused and you probably have, too. Let us promise to turn the other cheek, thereby disarming the power of Satan. We must believe that it is Satan who is the real adversary, the one who wants the power. He wants us to seek revenge, to give the other person “what’s coming to him.” We serve the Risen Jesus and help to disarm Satan by living like Jesus, turning the other cheek. How can we read the trial scene, when Jesus did not even open His mouth to defend Himself and think that we should be any different? To live our lives bathed in His blood, life incarnadine means to deal decisively with our desire for revenge, to get even, to make things right in our eyes. That is the sermon that this world desperately needs to hear and every Christian should be preaching it, every day.

Living Virtuously - Herod and the Pharisees

“Now they had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. And he cautioned them, saying, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” (Mark 8:14-15, ESV)

As we discuss the true Christian life, one that is lived bathed in the blood of Jesus, we are reminded by Christ Himself to separate ourselves from the worldly influences of two different groups: the politicians and the morally self-righteous legalists. The Herodians, or followers of Herod, represented the political aspirations of Jesus’s time, while the Pharisees represented the morally self-righteous legalistic religionists. I say religionists because the Pharisees seem to have lost their love of God in favor of a slave like mental attitude toward the Scriptures.
Both of these extremes are very visible in our world today. It would seem that many Christians believe that our western democratic form of government is the only viable government for the promotion of Christianity. Many years ago I heard a man pray, “Thank you Lord for the United States of America which made Christianity possible.” I don’t doubt the man’s sincere belief in God but I am perplexed that someone would believe that a democratic form of government was necessary in order for Christianity to thrive. Please don't misunderstand me: I love the democratic form of government and I served my country during the Viet Nam conflict. I deeply respect the political institutions in the United States and Canada, to mention a couple.
In Jesus’s time, a Roman emperor ruled the known world, the Jews had the upper hand in local politics and Christians were the extreme minority. While the book of Acts is thrilling, considering three thousand converts on the Day of Pentecost to the point where the numbers were multiplying, nevertheless, Jews and pagans outnumbered Christians. Despite the overwhelming odds, the apostles were emboldened to preach the good news to any and every group or person who would listen. Paul did some of his best work from inside a jail cell. But following the warnings of Jesus, Christians worked hard to steer clear of the negative influences of politics or the extremes of the religious establishment.
How does this play out in the twenty-first century? Every time the ACLU presents a lawsuit against prayer or some Christian observation, be it Christmas or whatnot, e-mails start circulating rapidly around the world, asking people to not only read the note, but to affirm that this is true and to pass it on or reap the consequences. One hoax alleging that Madeline Murray O’Hare is working to get religious broadcasting off the airwaves still circulates, years after her death. Many Christians truly believe that unless the United States is preserved as they understand it, the nation is doomed to godlessness and the churches will all die out, around the world.
During the Biafran War in Nigeria several decades ago, the non-Christian Nigerians did their best to annihilate the Biafran tribe which was largely Christian. However, during the entire war, the number of Christians among the Biafrans doubled, even though their community was incarcerated and murdered regularly.
Much of the hype coming out about the direction of the nation of the United States is fomented by Pharisaical religionists. One such a person has on occasion suggested the assassination of leaders of other countries to preserve the United States. Beware the leaven of the Pharisees is the admonition given by our Lord. We can get carried away with politics thinking we are fighting to preserve the Christian faith when in fact we are playing into the hands of the real enemy, Satan.
Christians need to be informed, they need to be people who trust in God before trusting in man. I don’t watch the news much anymore, especially since 9/11. I find that it doesn’t inspire me, it doesn’t fill me with good, it fills me with worry and concern about matters that God can deal with better than I. The New Testament writers Peter and Paul had a profound respect for governmental leaders, even though they suffered at the hands of some of these brutes. Their teaching? Pray. Pray for the emperor, pray for those who have the power. We should be a people who pray for the president and the congress men and women. We should pray for our local leaders. Ask yourself a question: if you are a Republican, did you pray for President Clinton during his presidency, especially during his impeachment hearings? If you are a Democrat, did you pray for Mr. Nixon during Watergate or do you pray for Mr. Bush during these times of war in Iraq? Most of us cannot answer in the affirmative. I know I didn’t pray for Mr. Clinton as I should have. I haven’t prayed for Mr. Bush as I should. I also need to pray for Mr. Harper here in Canada and those local leaders who help me to live in peace in this country. Living life incarnadine means to live it in the world, but not of the world. We should never let politics divide brother and sister in the church, we should never think that politics will save us. It won’t. Only Jesus Christ can do that. And last I checked, He’s still very much alive and still very much involved in our current history. Let’s dare to live our lives bathed in his blood, life incarnadine.

The Christian and His Money

"You shall keep the Feast of Booths seven days, when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress. You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns.” ( Deuteronomy 16:13-14, ESV)
“When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just." ( Luke 14:12-14, ESV)
Many years ago my father-in-law told me of a family in the congregation where he was preaching who took the injunction set out above by Jesus and literally applied it to their lives. For some time it was their custom on Friday nights to make a dinner and invite people they knew would not be able to return the favor and invite this couple to dinner.
The Christian is called by Christ Jesus to live a life that reflects the very nature of God Himself in the day-to-day business of serving others. Too often we see people who readily give of their means to erect buildings or to pay for programs that will give them a return, usually in words of praise or plaques on the sides of buildings. When we do that, we have already received our reward and should expect nothing further for that particular effort when we enter Paradise.
When God gave Moses the commands and laws, there were specific laws in regards to worship other than the weekly Sabbath. Three times a year all of the males were to present themselves before the Lord at the places God designated for worship. The Feast of Booths was a celebration of harvest, but more than that. In pagan religions, various gods were honored for sending the harvest. In the Israelite community, God was to be honored for giving the people the bounty of the land, but it was also a celebration of the reward for the labor of their hands. The striking thing about this festival was that it was to be celebrated by sharing with those who had little or nothing, the Levites (they did not receive an area of land for their tribe), the widows and orphans and even the sojourners, those who did not own any of that area or who were perhaps, non-Israelite believers in the One God.
We may readily put money into the collection plate on Sunday, we may back the programs of the church, but are we willing to actually share our abundance with those who have less? And here, let’s not just think of the many tear jerking commercials on TV that promote this charity or that, but how about actually inviting the poor in our communities to sit with us at our tables, to eat our food and to use our fine China and crystal. Are we willing to part with our hard-earned money to help the truly desperate, the downtrodden, those whose lives are far less fortunate than ours?
Some believe that Christianity is on the way down, perhaps on the way out. But if we really lived our lives incarnadine, the blood color of Jesus, the Jesus who willing gave everything for us, then true Christianity would be so visible to others that the message of Christ would scream across the land.

Paying the Price for Moral Integrity

And after a time his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, "Lie with me." But he refused and said to his master's wife, "Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except yourself, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her. (Genesis 39:7-10, ESV)
Moral integrity is certainly one of the things most noticeably missing in the political leadership of many countries around the world. But it is not just the political leaders who seem to lack good moral sense; leaders in business, medicine and other professions, education, and sadly enough, even in our churches, often wander when tempted. That this has become a blight on the social landscape seems to be mostly ignored by those who should be quick to point to our God-given commands that call for purity in our lives.
But this isn’t anything new. The temptation to be unfaithful to a wife or husband or to take advantage of others by tempting them to break their vows to their mates and to God is accepted as part of our society. Have you heard a good sermon lately about how we should conduct our lives in regards to sexual morals? Or rather, haven't you heard sermons about how we shouldn’t do some things in worship? Have your heard lessons about giving to the Lord, from your pocketbook, but no lessons from the Lord about how you should honor the Lord with your body by keeping it pure, by keeping your marriage bed “undefiled,” as the writer of Hebrews puts it? In our age, even some school teachers, men and women, those wonderful people we entrust our children to for so many hours every day, every week, for the greater part of the year, are caught defiling children, the innocent young who will be the leaders of our society tomorrow. Pornography is so rampant, partly as a result of the internet, that even pubescent children are addicted to it, not realizing that they will be sexual cripples as adults, unable to build lasting, loving relationships with the opposite sex. But sadly enough, there is no real outrage or indignation on the part of the populace as a whole. No outcry for a stop to the insanity of pornography that hides under the guise of freedom of speech has been heard from the people. No demand for strict punishment of those who prey on the innocent children has been called for. People have become numb to what sexual immorality is doing to our lives, to our nations.
Joseph should be the role model for every Christian man or woman. Here was a handsome young man, sold into slavery by his brothers, who finds himself managing a man’s home, with everything under his control except the man’s wife. And she, seeing how handsome and viral he is, tries daily to tempt Joseph to sleep with her. But Joseph is a man of high moral standards. Joseph believes that to betray his master by sleeping with his wife would be sin against God. He calls it a “great wickedness.” Not a momentary moral lapse. Not something that “goes with the territory.” Now, Potiphar’s wife would probably have accused Joseph of rape had he slept with her; this was truly a “lose-lose” situation. Nevertheless, because Joseph holds to his high moral standards, he refuses to succumb to the pleasures of the moment and he pays for it dearly. For this one little thing, rebuffing his master's wife's advances, Joseph languishes in prison for years, spending more time in prison for this stand against sin than many rapists spend for their violent offences. Think about it.
In I Corinthians, we are told that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (I Corinthians 6:18-20, ESV)
We will never see the church of Jesus Christ really attract sinners until we take a stand against every sort of sexual immorality that is known to man. And we will never live our lives “incarnadine,” blood colored, until we are willing to pay the high price for living up to the standards that God has set for us. Jesus held to the high standards and so did Joseph. It’s time to get over milk sop Christianity and begin living our faith with a true sense of dying to self. Only then will we begin to have a faith that moves mountains.

Adding to Your Faith

“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (II Peter 1:13-18, ESV)

The above scripture has to be one of the most exciting in the entire Bible. Just think of it, God has invited us to become partakers of the divine nature. That means He wants us to become like Him. When we feel small and insignificant, we need to remember that God loves us so much that He invites us to be with Him forever with a nature like His. In another place, God speaks through the apostle Paul to tell us that “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved-- and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:4-7, ESV) This means that in Christ, we are sitting next to God in the heavenly places. This has to excite us. No other religion, no other god offers the kind of rewards that our God offers us. And I’ll bet you thought that being a Christian was just about being forgiven and that one day we get to go to heaven. Of course, those are the promises, too. But if you think that the Christian life is one of dreariness and hardship, holding on for dear life and then, if we are lucky, a trip to heaven, you need to rethink what God is calling you to be. Holy. Godly. Divine. Sitting next to Him. Not only in the future, right now!

In the second letter of Peter, the writer starts off with a list of “adds.” Isn’t it interesting, though, that he doesn’t go straight to the knowledge part? Before you become that Bible scholar that you think you should be, you need to hang out in the virtue area. We live in an age that is anything but virtuous. Those of us living in democratic countries have watched as what used to be called privileges have now become rights; we have seen law with virtue replaced with scorn for the law and nothing resembling real virtue. No longer is the criminal on trial, but the law is on trial. No lawyer has met a law that he didn’t despise and no criminal that he didn’t believe he could get off the hook with a bargain here or a deal there. Justice? The word is unknown to most victims of crime.

When you read the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament, much of it appears like a court trial. God has brought suit against His people. He tells them in the 58th chapter that while they are going through all of the motions of religion, the fasting, the praying, the bowing, they are really practicing deceit before God. They think that by all of their religiosity they will be heard. But what does God say? “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?” (Isaiah 58: 6-7, ESV) Virtue. Godliness. Holiness. Humility. Kindness. When we work toward being a virtuous person, God sees it. He gives us everything concerned with life and godliness. And the result? In Isaiah, He said He would hear their prayers. “Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer. . .” (Isaiah 58:9, ESV) I hear people say, “I prayed and prayed and nothing happened.” Really? Could it possibly be that you are asking for yourself and not practicing the things that God calls the virtues? Are you tired of being a Christian because you spend your time trying to be religious rather than living to be like Jesus?
More on this next time. If we really want to be walking as people covered in the blood of Jesus, “incarnadine,” we need to remember that we have been called to die to self and live to Christ. Only then will others bask in the glow of the wonderful, powerful blood of Jesus.

Mustard Seed Faith

He said to them, "Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you." (Mat 17:20, ESV)
When considering faith, most people compare their own faith with the faith of others, whether Biblical characters or godly people they have read about or even someone they know. Often we hear people say, “She must have had a strong faith to continue like that, even when things were so terribly bad,” or, “I just don’t know how he did it. I would have given up long ago. Where did he get his faith?”
For the Christian, the “where” is really the “who.” The man whose son was demon-possessed had faith, but that faith was not in Jesus’s disciples as much as it was in Jesus himself. Even then, he had his doubts. When Jesus challenged his faith, the man acknowledged his doubts and asked for a greater faith. Only by focusing our lives on the Christ of the pages of the New Testament and not on the Christ of Hollywood or of the popular media can we expect to have a stronger faith. Once the father realized his faith must be in the Teacher who stood before him, he realized the weakness of his own faith, but desperately wanted to believe. Jesus has a way of evoking faith if a person will truly look at Jesus as God Incarnate, God in the flesh.
Animals and children have a sense of trust that puts many adults to shame. I grew up on a small farm and my family raised geese, goats, cows, pigs, chickens, sheep and had a horse for a time, as well as a pet skunk. All of the animals had one thing in common - they trusted us to give them their food and water and to take care of them when they became sick. The family cow was with us for ten years, until I went off to college. We had a well that supplied our water and the pump was a windmill, very eco-friendly. When the wind blew, the windmill would turn, pulling the water up from 137 feet below the surface of the earth, cool and delicious, even on the hottest of days. Then the pump would continue to push this refreshing liquid several hundred feet up the incline of the hillside we lived on, to fill a large wooden reservoir that could hold 500 gallons. Usually the wind blew daily over those dry, dusty hills, filling the tank with water until it overflowed, watering the desert-like hillside and giving life to trees that had been planted by the birds of the air, including a palm tree. On occasion, though, someone would forget to turn off a tap somewhere, draining the tank and leaving the family and the animals without water. And sometimes the wind would not refill that tank for several days. Once we went without for ten long days. In that event, we would pull a trailer with a 60 gallon tank to a neighbor’s house where we could fill the small tank and take it home for drinking water and water for the animals.
The point of all of this is: the animals never worried about where the water came from, nor whether or not there was any water to be had. Their trust was fully in those responsible for caring for them - us.
And that’s the way it should be with our faith walk with God. We should never question or worry about where He will get the things that we need. He has always taken care of us and always will. Once we have a trust like that of a small child for his mother or an animal for its owner, we will really begin to be those who learn how to live our lives “incarnadine,” bathed in the blood of Jesus so that those around us will be filled with a sense of the presence of Jesus. A spirit-filled life is a life of strong faith. Jesus was able to do everything well because He knew who He was and He knew who His Father was. When we know those things, we will see our faith soar. We will learn to wait on the Lord and see His great and wonderful way of caring for us and others. We will truly learn what the scripture means when it says, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:28-31, ESV) Let's look for people who are interested in learning to fly.

Lord, Give Me Faith

One of the biggest problems for anyone coming to Christ is the problem of faith. How do I get it? What is it really like? What can I expect to happen in my life if I have faith? Is it a matter of how much faith I have or is it a matter of the quality of my faith? Remember the man who came to Jesus to ask why the disciples couldn’t cast out the demon that left the man’s son mute? He asked Jesus if He could do anything to help. Jesus replied, "If you can! All things are possible for one who believes." (Mark 9:23, ESV) The man in desperation cried out and said, "I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24, ESV) I think that is the feeling of most of us in life. I believe. Lord, help the part of me that has trouble believing! How is it possible to have a stronger faith, a deeper faith, a faith that cannot be shaken, no matter what may come in life?
The man with the son that Jesus cured believed in One God. Every good Jewish person could quote what Moses had written in Deuteronomy, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” (Deuteronomy 6:4, ESV) For New Testament Christians, to believe that God is One and that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit seems pretty common. Even when we meet a severe crisis in life, most of us are still able to say that we believe in God and that His will, His purpose for our lives, will be done. We can look back at some pretty rough places in life and see where God has helped us, has given us the strength to go on, even done some pretty remarkable things in our lives.
But what about the long periods of silence, when it seems God isn’t listening to my prayers, when the problem that I am faced with just doesn’t resolve itself, when even year after agonizing year, I just seem stuck in a rut. No solutions, no miracles, no quick response. In the story above, I wonder how long the father had watched helplessly as his son suffered from the demon, the demon who made his son mute, who threw him in the fire or the water, trying to kill the boy? Surely that father prayed and asked God for deliverance for his son. When we read the pages of the Old Testament, we find men and women who prayed for long periods of time before they heard an answer from God. Think of Hannah who prayed long and hard for a son, who suffered the abuse of ridicule because she couldn’t have a child, and who was even accused of being drunk when she went up to the house of the Lord and continued to pray. “Hannah was speaking in her heart; only her lips moved, and her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli took her to be a drunken woman.”(I Samuel 1:13, ESV) We are even told that Hannah wept bitterly because of her plight.
Or what about the times when we just know that God has given us a great victory, especially when we have helped others, only to be followed by personal hardship. Elijah was just such a person. After praying that it wouldn’t rain on the earth and seeing God withhold rain for three years, after a great victory over the prophets of Baal, after praying and waiting on the Lord and seeing God send rain again, even after being filled with God’s spirit and outrunning Ahab, who was riding in a chariot, Elijah heard that Jezebel wanted him dead, so he ran away and wanted to die. He gave up. God had to show Elijah that He doesn’t always operate in the spectacular. Much of the time God is in the whisper of a breeze, gently urging us on, knowing that we will come through with a stronger faith than we had before, and then be able to serve Him again. (I Kings 19:1-14)
Next post I would like to take this subject a bit further, to look into some aspects of faith that can help us to grow in Christ, to have a faith that really can’t be shaken. Once we establish the importance of such a faith, we can then look at some things that are to be added to that faith.

Life Incarnadine

Yesterday, as I was walking home after my workout, I noticed how beautiful the sun was as it was moving toward the western horizon. The shade of the sun on the trees and the grass gave a very warm and peaceful feeling inside, making you think you still had a lot of evening left when in fact, you knew that it would be getting dark in a couple of hours. It was thrilling to see the trees, the houses, even the roads, bathed in the soft glow of sunlight that comes before sunset.
The soft glow of that sun is the same soft glow that is given through the blood of the Son, Jesus Christ. When life is bathed in the blood of Jesus, there is a sense of well being, of peacefulness, and added to that, a sense that there is still more to be done and a little more time in which to do it. The theme of this blog is: Life Incarnadine. The word, “incarnadine,” has a dictionary definition of “flesh colored; blood red.” That’s the way the Christian life is to be lived, bathed in the blood of Jesus. It carries with it the desire to give all that we have, our very life blood, to extend the glow to those around us, to cause our eyes to look up to the eternal God who is the Giver of life, to walk in Him every day of our lives.
I chose this as the title for this blog because I know many Christians who wonder if they are really getting all they should out of their faith, out of their Christian life. Many who attend church every time the doors are open still feel that something is missing, that what they read in the pages of the Bible seems so different than the life they are currently living. Many years ago a famous cigarette company used a phrase to sell their product: “Come up, come all the way up .” I think that is what Jesus cries out to the Jews who had a real heart to know God, but were so busy trying to fulfill all of the demands of the law that they never quite got the whole picture. Jesus knew that even the Sadducees, the Jewish sect that accepted only the five books of Moses and who didn’t believe in resurrection or angels, were looking for life when He said, “ You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. (John 5:39, 40. ESV). So even while criticizing them for their unbelief, Jesus points out a very common problem for anyone who would have more life than he or she now enjoys, that is, we think that we can find what we are looking for by merely going through the motions of religion without looking to the very One who is life, who is love, who is peace, joy and gentleness. Some even think that when Jesus talks about giving life in John 10:10 (“ The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”) that He is talking exclusively about eternal life, never realizing that God’s intention for His children was a full life here and now.
As subsequent postings will reveal, the purpose of this blog is to help us open our eyes to living our lives, not just committed to doing our best, but intensely saturated in the blood of Jesus to the point where we “get it.” One of the purposes of the church, in fact a function of the church, is to insure that every Christian “gets it.” This is why God gave the gifts of apostles and other spiritual leaders to the church. “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.” (Ephesians 4:11-14, ESV) Think about it. God wants to build us up to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. He wants us filled up to the point where we not merely follow Jesus, but start to resemble Him. Only living our lives, bathed in His blood, will we begin to understand what it means to truly be Christ like. We question ourselves, “Can I do it? Can I really be like Christ?” If the answer is no, close this site and go do something else, don’t read your Bible, and by all means, don’t bother to pray for a Christ-like spirit. On the other hand, just think how thrilling it would be to have someone mistake you for Jesus! Or say to you that you are a real Christian! Paul, the apostle, said that the mystery hidden from the ages was “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27) It is a mystery, it is a hope, it is Christ so filling you that you have a deep-seated hope in glory, glory that only the Father can give.
I hope you will join me from time to time, as we look at some aspects of living our lives “incarnadine.” Blood red. Flesh colored. Looking like Jesus, especially when he was beaten and bleeding, dying for us. That is where the real victory for Christians lies. We cannot expect our churches to grow or people to come to Christ if they cannot see the body of Christ living as He did. I hope to cover practical aspects of our Christian living as well as spiritual insights, for both are tightly woven together when lived in a Life Incarnadine.