Living in two worlds

We all know people that we might dub ‘two-faced’ because they act different ways with different groups of people. Teens do it, most out-grow it, but this is an identity problem and one of trying to please all of the people all of the time. It does not work very well.

Christians have a similar issue. We live in this world but are citizens of the kingdom of heaven. So where do I put my feet? I have the limitations of being human with weakness, pain, emotional downers and uncertainties, hard work and the lure of selfish living. In contrast, I’m a child of God (still human 😊) but with citizenship in heaven and intimate fellowship with the King of kings and Creator of the universe.

Many Christians try to live with one foot in each world, but that does not work very well.  

I noticed it comparing two Bible study groups. One is a friendly mix of laughter, teasing, and light-hearted banter. The Bible is studied but even the more serious discussions are seldom met with serious responses. The conversation topics indicate that many who attend have one foot in the world and the other reaching for the kingdom but have not fully planted it yet.

The other study is no less friendly but the participants are there for what they can learn. They are listening to the Word and to one another with a desire to better know Christ. They have a zeal for God and consider His Word their most important resource. Their feet are solidly in the kingdom.

As Tozer says, this mix of sacred and secular is not scriptural. The Bible tells us how to live as His people while in this world:

“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, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” (Titus 2:11–14)

Paul answers the issue even more succinctly. He wrote: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31)

Tozer says this is more than pious idealism, and I totally agree. The Lord wants me to live so that everything I say or do contributes to His glory. I’m not here to draw attention to myself or play around with worldly notions.

^^^^^^^^^

Lord Jesus, I know that You are in my life as King of my affections, my motives, my will and all my heart. I want that to go beyond lip-service and platitude to be entirely true, thoroughly a reality. Show me where and how to be as deeply committed to You in this life as I will be in the life to come.

What does it mean to know God?

Last night I found out that someone I thought I knew did something that that seems totally out of character. It surprised me. I didn’t see it coming and was disappointed. Because of that eye-opener, today’s Bible reading put me on a chain of thought with questions about what it means to know someone. It begins with a most familiar verse . . .

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

 . . . which led to the question, what is eternal life? Jesus describes it this way . . .

And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (John 17:3)

 . . . which leads me to another question, what does it mean to know someone in the way Jesus describes in His prayer about knowing God?

Obviously this is not about information, like knowing a lot of facts about a famous person that I’ve never met or even seen face-to-face. Nor does it mean a shared acquaintance where I say hello and talk about the weather. Knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ does include knowing information about both and it certainly includes talking with both, but Jesus is talking about a personal knowledge, not just a list of facts. He also means more than superficial conversations. Yet knowing Him is like knowing another person in a deeper way. I know information about my family and can have light conversations with them, but I know them in a different way.

I found some definitions of what it means to know someone, and find that they also illustrate the ‘knowing’ that Jesus defined as necessary to eternal life . . .

• You only know people who actively share intimate, private information about themselves.
• You never really know someone until you fight with them and see the inner workings of their heart.
• If you are close enough to a person that you can guess what they will do, or how they will react then you could say that you know them.
• Knowing someone means you have empathy for them and understand what they are not saying or showing.
• Unless you share the same pain you truly cannot know one another. 
• Knowing a person means being intuitive about them, being united with their mind and heart.
• And from the Bible: “O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.” (Psalm 139:1–4)

Apply these ideas to knowing God and they describes a bit of what it is to be saved.

Salvation also includes forgiveness and deliverance from sin, yet it is also a deliverance from self into union with the Lord. It is also like being “in love” with someone that I know, like being thrilled with a Person who is infinitely greater than myself and caught up into a total commitment to Him. While I can verbally share and proclaim Jesus, that commitment is also a way of declaring it.

This surrender and the ‘knowing’ is without being concerned about the consequences of such a commitment to Him. In that way, it is like what God did; He gave Himself for me without any calculation of the consequences. That is, God did not say, “I will send My Son to die for her – if she will put her faith in Him.” He gave Himself for me because He loves me, not because I might love Him in return.

My surrender to God isn’t about what I will get back as a consequence. It is an expression of my love for God, a love based on His giving of Himself to me, of His abandonment to my need, a revelation in intimacy that makes knowing Him possible, and in the knowing, receiving His life – which lasts forever.

Obedience >>> Results

1 Kings 8:54–9:28, Mark 6:7–44, Proverbs 2:16–22

About three years ago I asked God to work in my heart so that I was totally yielded to Him. Little did I realize that was a dangerous request.

First He allowed the enemy to hammer at my weakest places. It took time to realize this was His way of answering my prayer. In the battle for my allegiance, I knew the Lord was changing my life, but at times I wished I had not asked for such a transformation.

Despite the challenges Solomon faced, he knew the importance of total commitment. At the end of his prayer of dedication concerning the temple, he arose and blessed the people. He reminded them that the Lord’s promises had not failed, and that He would not leave or forsake them. He would give them all they needed to walk in His ways, and they knew there was no other God like Him.

Then Solomon said, “Let your heart therefore be wholly true to the Lord our God, walking in his statutes and keeping his commandments, as at this day.” (1 Kings 8:54–61)

That also is my prayer and desire. While the battle for this focus may continue the rest of my life, I am also thankful that God keeps His promise to give me what I need to be wholly committed to Him. In his proverbs, Solomon says that if I receive God’s words, treasure His commandments, be attentive to wisdom and understanding, calling out for insight and seeking it like for hidden treasure (Proverbs 2:1–4) then He will deliver me from all sorts of temptations such as those coming from evil people or forbidden relationships. Instead, I will “walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous. For the upright will inhabit the land, and those with integrity will remain in it.” (Proverbs 2:20–21)

Obedience produces positive results, yet I cannot assume this means ‘health, wealth, and prosperity’ for Jesus was wholly obedient and it got Him crucified!

That said, Jesus did demonstrate how He wants me to live. Today I read the story of how He fed more than 5000 people. He had been teaching them and when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late. Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.”

Jesus answered, “You give them something to eat.”

They said, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?”

Jesus asked, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.”

They found out, and reported back, “Five, and two fish.”

Here is where the obedience becomes dicey. After Jesus commanded the crowd to sit down in groups on the green grass and they did so in groups of hundreds and fifties. Then He took the five loaves and the two fish, looked up to heaven and said a blessing and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. (Mark 6:35–44)

What would I have done had I been there? Five loaves and two fish for so many? Jesus must not be thinking rationally? How can so many people be fed with so little?

I feel now like I probably would have felt then. The needs around me are so great and who am I? My resources are so small, not at all equal to the task. Yet if Jesus commanded me to ‘feed them all’ would I take the small amount He gives me and whole-heartedly do what He asks, without question or protest?

The disciples did. And the people “all ate and were satisfied.” Then the disciples “took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish” showing that obedience can produce such amazing and unexpected results when Jesus is trusted to take what little is offered and do with it whatever He wants to do. Actually, it isn’t obedience that produces results; it is Jesus.

Consecration is more about heart and ears than outward appearance

Numbers 6:1–27

John 13:21–38

Psalm 7:1–17

If someone says a person is godly, I want to know what that looks like. Are they always talking about spiritual things? Carrying a Bible? Praying continually? In church five times a week? These questions came to mind today when I read these verses from the Old Testament . . .

“And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, when either a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to the Lord, he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. He shall drink no vinegar made from wine or strong drink and shall not drink any juice of grapes or eat grapes, fresh or dried. All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine, not even the seeds or the skins. All the days of his vow of separation, no razor shall touch his head. Until the time is completed for which he separates himself to the Lord, he shall be holy. He shall let the locks of hair of his head grow long. All the days that he separates himself to the Lord he shall not go near a dead body.’” (Numbers 6:1–6)

A Nazirite vow was a vow of consecration to God. In those days, it meant no wine, not even grape juice, grapes, or raisins. It meant letting your hair grow, and it meant not going near a dead body. A person who consecrated themselves would be obvious to others. That is fine, but how does it look today?

Jesus was totally consecrated to God. Obviously He was different than other people, but I’m not sure about these three characteristics. He did drink wine and He did touch a coffin and raise a dead boy to life. Scripture says nothing about His hair, but today’s reading from the New Testament tells me a little more about Him . . .

“After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit, and testified, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.’ The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke. One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus’ side, so Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So that disciple, leaning back against Jesus, said to him, ‘Lord, who is it?’ Jesus answered, ‘It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.’ So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, ‘What you are going to do, do quickly.’ Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. (John 13:21–28)

Jesus is different here in that He knew who would betray Him, and He even urged Judas to get at it. The others were clueless. From this, I perceive that total dedication to God enables deep insight into God’s plans, even a deep commitment to see His will done, regardless of the cost.

The third reading adds more. The psalmist, in this case, David, talks to God. He is consecrated to the Lord with a submissive attitude that reveals his deep trust . . .  

“O Lord my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands, if I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause, let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, and let him trample my life to the ground and lay my glory in the dust. Selah . . . The Lord judges the peoples; judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me. Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may you establish the righteous— you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God! My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart. God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day . . . If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow; he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts . . . I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High.” (Psalm 7: 3–5, 8–11, 12–13, 17)

In these words I see humility, a willingness to be corrected if wrong, ready to be judged and tested. I also see that David’s consecration to God gives him insight into God’s righteousness. Because he draws near to God in total commitment, he understands the heart of God better that he otherwise might.

Consecration could be about wearing black and driving a horse and buggy. It could be about going to the mission field, or standing on a street corner handing out tracts. It could also be about saying no to booze and haircuts, or staying away from the deadness of my old life. But whatever it is, if I do it with an outward show in mind, then I’ve got it wrong. The person who gives themselves totally to the will of God is not going to be making the plans or calling the shots, but instead will be listening and doing whatever God says . . . no matter what it is, and because in the consecration, that person has ears to hear.