Christ makes the difference…

Today’s reading says we need to know who we really are in order to know how we ought to live. In Christ, we are God’s children, His heirs, and His friends. But there are more ID markers.

He also calls us His sheep. I’ve had sheep. They are easily frightened, follow each other and need a shepherd to keep them in green pastures! Yes, I often behave as a sheep, but am glad that He enables me to hear His voice and follow Him, my Good Shepherd.

Jesus also says of me that I will be hated by all for His name’s sake and must endure to the end.(Matthew 10:22) This means behaving with endurance, not giving up when life includes persecution.
Lest I complain or fear that possibility, Jesus suggests in a parable that He is to be “allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me.” (Matthew 20:15) I am His child and His friend, but I am also His possession. I belong to Him. Not only that, when I feel weak, useless, unable to do as He desires, He says:

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Being His child, heir, and friend sounds like good news, yet Jesus is not ‘my buddy’ for He is my Lord and Teacher, and also His disciple who must live obediently to what He teaches me:

So Jesus said to those who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, (John 8:31)

What does that look like? Abiding in Him shows up in the way I live and treat others...

By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love…. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15:9-10; 14-15)

These things are possible because Jesus lives in me. “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” (John 14:20) He changes my life because of the Holy Spirit who enables me to witness to the love and power of God…

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

And He enables the way I ought to live. While knowing who I really am is helpful, it is His life in me that enables the actions that I ought to have…

I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another. (Romans 15:14)

None of the “ought to” behaviors are up to me alone, but are the wonder of Christ using me to do His will, like a hand in a glove.

PRAY: Jesus, while the Bible does not use this metaphor, You are the hand in this glove and living as You desire me to live is all about You and Your amazing grace and power. I am so thankful that striving for excellence comes to even lazy and helpless people like me. You make the difference.

Judging Others: Right or Wrong?

  

1 Samuel 2; Psalms 15–16; Jeremiah 40; Romans 2

A few proverbs that come from the Bible have made their way into ordinary speech and are repeated without realizing that they are biblical statements. One of them is: “Pride goes before a fall.” This is often said by someone who observes another person boasting or proud of an accomplishment and they have become envious. They might say it as a put-down or hopefully a prediction.

As a Christian, I realize how this verse works in my life: “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18) It isn’t just about the results of pride but what it signifies; I have either given myself credit for something God or someone else did, or I am boasting that I am better than others. Both signify that I’ve stopped abiding in Christ and am running in my own strength. God keeps proving that my sinful self is insufficient to do His will and that when I step outside of His will, whatever I am doing will not succeed. Destruction and fall are strong words, but they are also avoidable.

That said, I’m back in Romans and startled by realizing the system of chapters and verses added to Scripture to help us find things can also be a barrier to seeing startling relationships. In this case, Romans 1 tells of the power of the Gospel and what happens to those who deny God at a very basic level: His existence and that He is worthy of honor and thanksgiving. Once a person rejects Him in those areas, they are on a slippery slope. The rest of the chapter describes the decline from failure to be thankful to “a debased mind” and “all manner of unrighteousness” and not only doing evil but “giving approval” to others who do evil.

Those thoughts end chapter 1 but here is the startling connection — chapter 2 starts with this:

“Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.” (Romans 2:1)

How easy it is for those not on that slippery slope to judge and condemn those who are! Of course these words come to mind: “We are not supposed to judge!” Yet there are two ways to look at this word. One is how it is used in this verse: “to evaluate, to form a critical opinion of something (either positive or negative) by examination or scrutiny.”

The other is to recognize sin for what it is, both in myself and others, and then do what God commands to do about it. I’m to acknowledge and confess it as sin, to God and if necessary, to others. If it is sin in others, I’m to take care that my heart is right and then do what I can to help that other person do the same. This use of “judge” is about evaluation — not to criticize but restore. Such restoration only happens when I can see or discern that it is needed.

But not to be critical. That puts me in the arena of pride. Critical judgment is a proud way of saying, “You should be like me and not doing those things.” But not only that, Romans 2:1 says that if I am judging in that way, I’m doing the same things as the person I’m judging — running my life in my own strength, relying on my sinful self for choices and actions. My actions may not be exactly the same as the person who has fallen to a debased mind, but the root of the problem is the same: I’m not right with God, not honoring God, do not have a thankful heart, and I’m not abiding in Christ. Sins big or small fall into the same pit.

A following verse says this: “Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4)

Do I not realize that if God’s kindness, forbearance and patience are to lead me to repentance, perhaps my kindness, forbearance and patience could have the same effect on the people that I tend to condemn and to speak critically about because of my pride?

APPLY: I abhor a critical spirit in others. It is time to abhor it in myself and be more like Jesus in the way I respond to those lost in sin.