Facts, Faith, Emotions

This past month has brought out emotions I didn’t know I had. Our granddaughter’s fall and getting her home to more surgeries is a long story and many days filled with anxiety, but also with joy. Other events and news have made it clear that emotions should be at the caboose end of my train, but that is easier said than done. 

This morning takes me into the first three chapters of Romans, and so much of what God says affects my emotions. Sorrow, frustration, pity, anger, and also joy. This passage alone fills my heart with head-shaking sorrow. 

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, (Romans 1:18–22)

As I read, I know that apart from the grace of God and His goodness to me, I would be among the fools who suppress the truth and reject Him and His Son.

Another emotion hits with that thought, and then swings again with this description of the horror of what I would experience if God had given me up to my sinfulness:

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. (Romans 1:28–32)

If that would not be bad enough, add the result of rejecting His goodness:

Or 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? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. (Romans 2:4–5)

Even as a Christian, at any point in my life with Christ I could harden my heart because some sin or other is so appealing that I don’t want to give it up. Without the promise of God to finish what He started in my redemption, thoughts of where I would be without Him produce more emotions, both great sorrow yet great joy because Jesus died for my sin.

The Bible is clear: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” (Romans 3:9–12) and the human way of trying to solve this is to be a “good person” yet that does not do it:

For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. . . . for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (Romans 3:20-23)

Do all these emotions simply happen because I’m older and losing my stoic self-control? I don’t think so. I am getting older, but also thinking much about the Lord and all that He has done for me. And thinking much less about the non-vital, non-eternal stuff of this life. These chapters in Romans speak of far more serious matters.

Besides all that, I just learned of the death of a friend. She is gone from this life, leaving a legacy but not herself. God’s good news has a range of joyful thoughts, yet her death puts deep valleys among the peaks. Today, I’m thankful for this diagram:

PRAY: Lord, it was good to know and spend time with Lezley, but I don’t know if she is now with you for eternity. That lack of assurance adds another set of emotions. Faith in You helps level me, but grief and other feelings urge me to make sure I listen and obey when You tell me to share You with others. Yet I’m not to let feelings be my taskmaster, just You, the truth that You represent, and the faith that You so graciously have granted me.

To Live is Christ — by faith from start to finish

Today’s devotional reading puts together two verses, one from the Old Testament and one from the New. They are about the character of God in relation to His dealings with His people.

And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor relent. For He is not a man, that He should relent. (1 Samuel 15:29). . . . For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. (Romans 11:29)

Israel had forsaken God, but he promised that He would not forsake them. He assured them that He did not lie, nor would He change His mind about His intentions for them. Paul repeats this in the New Testament. When God says He will do something, He does it. He keeps His Word.

Knowing that God is like this is a comfort for me and an anchor for my soul. God is the one thing that never changes. He is reliable when all else is unpredictable. Because of that, I trust Him with my life.

Besides giving me a solid hope and another reason for my faith, there is at least one other way to apply these verses. It is related to God’s goal for me. He calls me to be transformed into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. Because Jesus is “the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person”(Hebrews 1:3), then this transformation mean that God wants me to be like Him. That includes being someone who does not lie, who keeps her word and does what I say I will do.

Being like God is an incredible goal. This is different from the new-age idea that we are gods. Rather it is about being transformed into what God intended when He created people in His image. That first sin by the first people marred the image and that propensity to sin has been passed down to every member of the human race.

God, in mercy, has provided a way to reverse this. Redemption through faith in Jesus Christ and the power of God to recreate means that anyone can have their sin forgiven and their life restored, once again reflecting the image of their Creator. But I know I cannot do this myself, although Scripture is full of commands to imitate God.

Along with those commands, God gives the invitation to come to Him for restoration. Because I have done that, He gives assurance of new life, and hope because He lives in me. Because of Him I can do as He asks. Galatians 2:20 says,

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Rules, commands, high values, good morals, strong convictions and so on are all good things, but being like God is not about my efforts to be good. Verse 21 adds, “I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.” (Galatians 2:21)

The Bible is clear that I am saved by grace through faith, not by good works such as keeping rules and laws, or by self-effort. However, grace is not abandoned after that new life begins. I also continue to live my Christian life by grace through faith. Galatians 3:3 asks, “Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?” and 3:11 adds, “That no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for ‘the just shall live by faith.’”

Sometimes I’m tempted to slide into trying to do it myself. Foolishly abandoning faith, I get hung up with efforts to be “good” and keep the rules. One of my favorite passages reminds me that this is folly and there is only one way to be like God. It says, “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.” (Colossians 2:6)

The higher moral traditions of men teach integrity and reliability, but they forget the part about sin and about human nature that so easily reverts to self-effort. I know that apart from Christ and His cleansing power, it is impossible to please God. If I want to be a person of my word, have integrity and be 100% reliable, then I must be a person who is like God.