Category Archives: Righteousness

Knowing You Know

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You’ve seen the videos of someone getting on an elevator, not realizing everyone else on it are about to play a practical joke on him?  As the doors close and they start up, everyone in on the prank casually turns around to face the back of the elevator.  The look on the face of the new guy goes from startled, to confusion and stress before he turns around, too.  He knows the door is at the front, knows that nothing good will come of turning to the back, and yet he thinks, “can all these other people be wrong?”

That’s what happens in a culture when moral standards slide.  It soon begins to feel as though you are the only one who knows which way is right.  It is helpful to remember that “what is right,” as defined by God, is a collection of manufacturer’s instructions to ensure you don’t mistreat and break the product.  Ignore those to your own sorrow.  Even if everybody else is doing so.

7 “Hear me, you who know what is right,
you people who have taken my instruction to heart:
Do not fear the reproach of mere mortals
or be terrified by their insults.
8 For the moth will eat them up like a garment;
the worm will devour them like wool.
But my righteousness will last forever,
my salvation through all generations.” Isaiah 51:7-8

Them Hypocrites

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What does Halloween have in common with hypocrisy?  Masks.  The word, hypocrite, comes from a Greek word for mask.  Halloween is better: you get candy and the masks are not as scary.

Sometimes hypocrites wear a mask with deliberate intent to deceive.  But much of the time, what looks like hypocrisy is simply someone trying to act more like a Christian.  Sadly, many churches have taught people to do that. Trouble is, people respond to hypocrisy about like they do to other dead things.  

Jesus had a better idea. Instead of trying to act like a Christian, come to Him in faith and come alive in your soul with His life.  Then, He takes care of the changes.  They flow from inside without masks.  

He said,

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.  (John 15:5)
Pay attention to that last part and put away your masks.  Make your home in Jesus and He will live in you.  But, hey, before you go, help yourself to some candy….

What Moses Also Saw

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When you promise yourself you won’t repeat (whatever wrong thing you struggle with) and then blow it – yet again – how many times will God forgive you and give you another chance?  If you are sincere, it will seem unlimited.  But is there any hope for you?  Will you ever break free of that cycle of despair?  

There is.  God showed Moses how He would ultimately fix us.  He showed Moses that He would bless the His Chosen People abundantly in the Promised Land, so long as they remained faithful to Him.  He showed Moses how they would mess that up and be banished.  This would happen again and again.  But the cool thing is how God also showed Moses what He would do to fix that cycle of hope followed by failure.  For them.  And for you.

“The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.” ( Deuteronomy 30:6)

Circumcision is a perfect metaphor, if you think about the tough exterior that forms around our sinful hearts.  The first time we deliberately sin it bothers us.  The next time?  Not so much.  And God’s plan is to remove that callous and make us responsive to His ways. He will do it so we can live!  How will He do it?  God gave another glimpse to Ezekiel:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.  (Ezkiel 36:26-27)

When God causes His Spirit to be born into a calloused heart, He lives there softening and removing that tough, unresponsive exterior. This “reborn” heart becomes responsive to God. 

Jesus promised to give new life to anyone who trusts Him, through the birth of God’s Spirit in their hearts.  Their sins are forgiven, their souls are cleansed and they receive God’s Spirit.  Ultimately, the cycle of failure is broken.  They are set free.  

Mo and Zeke saw it coming.

What Moses Saw

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Moses could see it coming; he knew they couldn’t keep it.  He had just rescued his people from slavery in Egypt.  He’d been sent to deliver them to a land where God promised to bless them. But, before they even set foot in the land, Moses knew they would eventually mess it up, turn away from God and lose evrything they had. He warned them.  You can read it for yourself in the 29th chapter of Deuteronomy.   

Moses saw it coming and it happened, just as he said, 800  years later.  The Promised Land was overrun and destroyed.  The survivors were carted off to Babylon to live in exile.

But Moses also knew:

“…and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you.  (Deuteronomy 30:2-3)
As unlikely as that would seem, it also happened, exactly as he said it would.  I am convinced God allowed that to demonstrate the tangible benefits of turning back to love and obey God “with all their hearts.”  Jesus also proclaimed this to be the most important commandment.

These days I sense a general attitude of despair and pessimism in the USA, a sense we have stumbled off in the wrong direction from which there seems to be no possible course correction.  Maybe Moses was on to something.

Who’s to Blame?

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If you get caught speeding and get a ticket, do you blame your dad?  Do you say, “He shouldn’t have let me drive that fast.”  Probably not, unless you are the neurotic sort.  And yet, you hear people commonly say, “If God is good, why does He allow such wickedness in the world?”  

They blame God for our wickedness, believing in a kind of god that does not exist.  Their idea of a good god is one who automatically makes it impossible for people to disobey his instructions.  Then when people do bad things, they blame God.  A dad who operated like that would never be considered to be good.  God, the real God, does not force obedience.  He lovingly instructs and allows us to choose.  Forced obedience is for robots, not humans.  In order to correctly assess who is to blame for the problems in this world, we have to believe in the God Who really exists.  

And how are we to know what He is like?  He is like Jesus.

And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.   (John 12:44-46)
Jesus did not force His followers to obey; He invited them to do so.  He promised them, if they did, they would discover that “the truth will make you free.”  Same thing with the real God.  

Instead of blaming God for our problems, why not try living by His instructions?

A Gift for You

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​A tree was planted in Israel in memory of my wife.  The words get blurry as I type that…  I received a notice in the mail about that wonderful gift and stood, transfixed, as I tried to imagine what sort of tree and where it was planted.  Then, who would one day find shade beneath it.  These days my mailbox is almost entirely stuffed with junk mail.  But that gift notice was a precious exception.

Here’s a gift notice for you, if you would like to have it.  It’s for everyone who follows Jesus in faith.  It’s not very long, but warrants spending a bit of time trying to imagine all the what, when and where implications.

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love.  (2 John 1:3)

Toss the envelope if you want, but hang on to the gift tag.  You’ll want to go back and reread it from time to time…

Daddy’s Shoes

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Little boy comes clomping around the corner with his tiny feet in Dad’s huge shoes.  It’s an unselfconscious act, cute, but with a profound heartbeat.  It says, “One day, I want to be just like Dad; when I get big I want to fit in his shoes.”  Same thing with girls and Mom.  
This pertains to a verse of Scripture that initially makes me recoil.

And everyone who thus hopes in him [Jesus] purifies himself as he is pure.  (1 John 3:3)

The word I most readily associate with purity is “boring.”  It reminds me of being forced as a child to wear an itchy wool suit and sit at the dinner table with my hands folded and my mouth shut. Why would I want to do that to myself now, as an adult?  Give me jeans and fire up that motorcycle…

The problem is twofold: 1) we don’t have a good understanding of what purity is, and, 2) we don’t understand the right motivation for purifying ourselves.  

Jesus modeled perfect purity but, as far as I’ve been able to determine, never wore a wool suit.  He was not One to follow pointless, restrictive rules derived from other people’s inhibitions, but lived with an easy and attractive “rightness.”  When you think purity, think about how comfortable Jesus was inside His own skin, how He effortlessly lived in harmony with God’s perfect design.

The verse that preceeds the one I quoted puts the motivation for purifying ourselves in the proper perspective.  John began his thought with these words:

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.   (1 John 3:2)

We tend to think of reluctantly struggling to be pure so God won’t be angry with us.  Instead, think about happily clomping around in Daddy’s shoes, with the childlike hope and trust that says, one day, I’ll be like Him.

Know More

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God doesn’t talk out loud to me, probably because I’m so deaf.  But when He has something to tell me, I know what it is.  After retiring from a pastorate, I asked, “What’s next, Lord?”  His answer was abrupt: “It’s time for you to get to know Jesus.”  I’d spent 22 years teaching others about Jesus, but now, God told me to get to know Him.  Humbling, that.  But recently, Randy Alcorn observed that Paul, after serving Christ for 30 years wrote in Philippians 3, he wanted to get “to know Him…” (Bible Study Magazine – September/October 2016).

There’s a big difference between knowing about Jesus and knowing Him.   A demon knew all about Jesus called Him, “Jesus, the Son of the Most High God.” But he didn’t know Him (Mark 5:7).  Jesus said not everyone who calls Him “Lord” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Why not?  Jesus said, “… I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you.”

So, when God “took me to school”  I was  grateful.  I’ve learned there is always more to knowing Jesus.  As Paul came to that realization, he wrote:

Indeed, I count everything [all his former training and credentials] as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord…    (Philippians 3:8)

And,

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.  (Philippians 3:12)

For more about how, see the previous two posts, below…

Knowing and Growing

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A child paints a face with simplicity, using a circle, black spots for eyes and one color for skin.  If that child matures and becomes an artist, she can more accurately portray that same face, using careful observation and a complex mixture of paints and pigments.  Peter describes a similar process as he writes about how to mature in our knowledge of Jesus (see “Knowing,” posted below).  The process involves a careful observation of the character of Jesus, followed by attempts to portray those same traits on the canvas our lives.  As we learn to do so more accurately and naturally, knowing Jesus becomes more fruitful.
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.  (2Peter 1:5 -8)

Instead of viewing that somewhat intimidating passage as an impossible to-do list, think of it as a pallet of colors that you will gradually learn to mix together to achieve a pleasing result.

Knowing

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Once, I met Bob Hope.  Shook his hand.  But I didn’t know him.  There is a big difference, one you want to pay attention to when it comes to Jesus.  If all you have done is meet Him, you are really missing out.

Peter wrote that through our knowledge of Him, grace and peace would be multiplied, provided in abundant and increasing measure.(2 Peter 1:2).  How would you like to have a reservoir of peace like that?  It comes through really knowing Jesus.

It gets better.  Peter continued to say:

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.  (2Peter 1:3-4)

All those astonishing gifts and promises are available to us “though our knowledge of Him“.  Take some time to reflect on that paragraph, considering how valuable they would be to you.  You may be moved to ask Jesus, “Lord, please show me how to know You better…”

Hint:  Peter gives some great advice about that in the next few verses.