Every day is Thanksgiving . . .

Last night my gratitude journal begged to be used again, so I wrote about a page of things for which I am grateful. Sometimes I blame my lack of thankfulness on having high standards, but always wanting more is often more like greed and certainly sinful complaining — for in so many words I am whining that God isn’t doing His job the way I want Him to do it.

This morning, I read how the Old Testament people of God performed their animal sacrifices, but God said to them:

“If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” (Psalm 50:12–15)

God’s sacrificial system pointed ahead to the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world, but until then, they declared their faith with substitutes. At least they were supposed to, but their religion deteriorated into ritual. Instead of coming to God with grateful hearts, they performed their sacrifices without being thankful.

The New Testament explains the importance of thankfulness . . .

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” (Romans 1:18–23)

Even though everyone can see from creation that God exists, many suppress that truth and do not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him. After that, their moral lives slide into idolatry and other sins.

If anyone in my family stops being thankful for the good things in their lives, I become anxious for them, yet I also need to be concerned if my heart slides into that same rumble and grumble. When it does, I also need a tune-up. In the beginning, saying thanks after a round of complaining seems like a sacrifice. It means I’m giving up whatever I think should be happening and trusting God rather than making demands. However, my heart soon warms, and I am truly joyful that God has blessed me. His goodness includes deep peace and an abundance in life that I certainly do not deserve.

I kept reading and found this condemnation. It is against those who do not believe in the Lord, and again makes me realize the pitfall of being thankless, and the importance of having a sincere and thankful heart:

“But to the wicked God says: ‘What right have you to recite my statutes or take my covenant on your lips? For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you. If you see a thief, you are pleased with him, and you keep company with adulterers. You give your mouth free rein for evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother’s son. These things you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you. Mark this, then, you who forget God, lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver!’” (Psalm 50:16–22)

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Lord Jesus, I am so grateful that You have blessed me with the privilege of knowing Your Word, being part of Your covenant, and having the wonder of forgiveness and grace that changes my sinful life into a life that pleases You. Forgive me for sliding away from gratitude and cleanse my heart so I will always be a thankful person.

Only the Savior can save me . . .

Most of my Christian life has been characterized by a lot of self-effort. I could call it a regime of spiritual disciplines, yet in my heart I know it more as my efforts to establish my own righteousness — even though I knew that was impossible.

There were clues along the way. I remember the first time a sin stumped me. I was yelling at my children and determined to stop, but I could not. All efforts failed. I’d confessed each incident but that had not stopped the incidents. Finally, I said to God, “You are my Savior. please save me from this.” Within a week or two, the habit was gone — without any effort on my part. God simply changed my attitude and I quit yelling.

However, I’d not yet figured out fully that this was the way to live as a child of God. Many years and many lessons eventually convinced me that 1 John 1:9 was the key verse for spiritual growth: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

This morning I will attend a study at our church. The guidebook we are using has become increasingly a “do it yourself” manual. Of course, it advises to rely on God, but the author has not yet discovered what I know for certainty — I cannot even rely on God. He is the Savior and I need Him continually to save me from my continual tendency to ‘do it myself’ rather that run to Him in humble confession.

The other part of this lifetime of walking with Jesus is learning that the righteousness that I seek will never happen by my efforts. God saved me by calling that what it is (sin) and instead put all of it and every other sin I have done and will do on Jesus. Then He put the righteousness of Christ on me. I’ve sometimes called this “the great exchange” yet it has taken me years to realize how deeply ingrained is that desire to establish my own righteousness.

It won’t happen. I cannot do it. God had to take me into a very difficult situation before finally getting it through my head and heart that the only righteousness that is mine is that of His Son . . . and this is a free gift. I cannot earn it; there is absolutely no need to work for it, and it will never happen by my efforts anyway.

The Bible compares the sin of Adam with the saving work of Jesus Christ. Death because of sin reigned from Adam to Moses, even though our sin is not exactly like his, nor is His free gift of life exactly like the sin. Many die through that one man’s sin, yet many more experience the grace of God and God’s free gift through the grace that is in Jesus Christ. One sin brought condemnation, but God’s free gift brought justification.

Because of one man’s sin, death reigned but those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness will reign in life through one man — Jesus Christ. One sin led to condemnation for all, but one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. Again, one man’s disobedience made sinners of us all, yet by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:14–21)

“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:18–21)

This last line is the “great exchange” — the act of God that makes me His child. God made Christ to be sin for me, charging Jesus with my sin. Jesus became responsible to the law for my failure to keep it and the penalty of sin was exacted from him. He died under God’s wrath for it, for me.

The most amazing, difficult to grasp reality is that God imputed the righteousness of Christ to me, and to all who believe. I am righteous in the sight of God and have received the reward of perfect righteousness: eternal life. Again, my sin was given to Jesus, and His righteousness was given to me. This is substitution and an unalterable fact, the good news of the Gospel. I knew it, but it took me years to know it.

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Jesus, this business of creating a ‘rule of life’ or doing a whole mess of spiritual disciplines to put myself in a place of grace where You can transform me strikes me now as an exercise that only serves to make me more aware that my self-effort does not work. It is not part of walking by faith. Forgive me for being so slow to learn. Right now, all I want to do is rest in You, keep short accounts, and let You do the work of transforming me into Your image.

Do you need an Advocate?

An advocate is a person who publicly supports or recommends a particular cause or policy for someone else. The dictionary example says, "He was an untiring advocate of economic reform."

The Bible example says our Advocate is “Jesus Christ the righteous.”

Our holy and just God does not charge His believing children with sin, because Christ has completely satisfied the justice of God for us. He advocates or pleads the merits of his righteousness and blood for us in heaven, “ever-living to intercede for us.”

I’ve read novels where a person in authority takes on the responsibility of being an advocate for someone accused of a crime. The advocate is convinced that person is innocent and goes to bat for them, usually to stand up for them in court and to find the true guilty person. The story sometimes takes a twist when the accused person turns out to be guilty. He did the crime and his actions prove that the advocate is wasting his time and energy.

Not so with Jesus. He lives forever to go to bat for sinners. We are not innocent but guilty, yet His efforts to save us do not depend on our behavior, good or bad.

“He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:10–12)

Instead, He took our sin and guilt so that we can be forgiven. Those who believe in Christ are set free from the law of sin and death because our Advocate died in our place, satisfying the wrath of God and releasing us from the penalty we deserve.

But what about the sin I commit after putting my faith in Jesus Christ? The world expects me to live a holy and Christlike life (even though they often persecute people who do), and when I fail, they dismiss me as a fake or a fraud. They want to see results, proof that my Advocate has not wasted His time and energy in making me His child.

God is not messing around, picking people to be saved and then leaving us in a sinful state. He gives new hearts, new lives. Jesus Christ, by His Spirit, lives in me. His presence makes a difference. I am charged by God to cooperate with His transforming work. Yet God knows my tendency to fail. He moved John to write:

“My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says, ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” (1 John 2:1–6)

The difference between a mere profession of faith and an actual possession of faith is that the Advocate has not wasted His time. The guilty persons are made new and their lives are changed. Our problem with sin has been given a solution. We who believe are no longer are held captive to sin. We can cooperate with God and choose otherwise.

Those who have this new life prove it, especially to ourselves. Knowing we are the children of God motivates us to live in a new and godly way, empowered by the Spirit of God. We trust our Advocate with any sin we commit, but we also trust Him to perfect Himself in us as He supports our cause — or more accurately, He supports His cause in us. His goal is that I become like Him!

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 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. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” (1 John 3:1–3)

The world does not know Jesus, which is the biggest reason they look for perfection in Christians — but persecute us when we live holy lives. They did that to Jesus who was sinless. We are not sinless, but as we cooperate with our Advocate to purify ourselves and become like Him, we are marked as God’s children, and as targets.

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Jesus, what a wonder to know Your love. Every day I fight that old nature that desires to rebel against You, and every day You remind me that You are my Savior. I am rescued from sin and death and in You, I already have victory. That hope continues to motivate and encourage me to cooperate with what You started and will finish in my life. As for persecution, I trust You with that also.