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.

God lives in His people

Ever since reading an older book called “God’s Part and Our Part” I’ve been trying to figure this out. I’ve noticed that most preachers and Christian books stress one or the other, usually our part. This gives me the feeling of having a human hand raised with a strong and shaking finger pointed at me. It raises guilt too, for no matter how hard I try, my part seems to elude me or gets blurry.

We have moved many times and attended many churches. One year, we were in three different places and attended three different churches — with three different denominations. They had two things in common: the focus of the messages was on what God does and has done for His people, and the services were growing to the point that we had to get there early to find a place to sit.

Since then, I’ve thought that my relationship with God was not like two unequally yoked critters trying to pull a load, but more like a hand in a glove. The ideal is a completely yielded glove, but in this case, the glove has a mind of its own and resists the hand. Yet the more I trust and submit to His desire, the more I am like the hand and the more that glove looks and behaves like the Lord wants me to. The emphasis is on God's part, not mine.

What does this say about obedience? Just this: I cannot do anything apart from the ‘doing’ that my Savior wants and initiates. The glove might comfort others, or help with a project, or even write a blog, but it is really the hand that is making it move. Jesus illustrated it with this:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 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 15:1–5)

Without His hand, the glove can do nothing in the same way that a chopped off vine cannot produce fruit. Yet His hand is always there because Jesus lives in me. The worst is that I can try to function by ignoring Him, but that cannot succeed because He never leaves me. He may allow my wandering until I realize His overpowering presence. Eventually His hand will have its way because ‘doing nothing’ is a very sad and unfulfilling way to live. Like the prodigal eating pig food, I always run home, even though ‘home’ never left me.

The abiding presence of Jesus is vital to living for Him. The world, the flesh, and certainly the devil would like me to forget what He said: “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” and “I will never leave you or forsake you.” Instead of thinking He is not there, He continually reminds me that He is with me and provides all I need to live for Him.

One more lesson is this: the presence of the hand in the glove is most evident when the glove moves with it. The more I respond to Him, the more I realize His love and power. He even uses my lack of response to teach me the importance of letting Him rule my life. I’m useless without Him.

That said, I am also “in Christ” yet that does not make me the hand and Him the glove. Being ‘in Him’ requires a different description!

PRAY: Lord, Your hand is never raised shaking a stern finger at me because Your hand is part of who I am, and I am not just one of the fingers. The way I live when in harmony with You is how others see You — the hand in the glove. I realize also that I’m not a fancy glove or anything special, but…

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)