Exiting wandering, entering spiritual growth…

And Joshua said, “Here is how you shall know that the living God is among you and that he will without fail drive out from before you (all your enemies). Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is passing over before you into the Jordan. Now therefore take twelve men from the tribes of Israel, from each tribe a man. And when the soles of the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off from flowing, and the waters coming down from above shall stand in one heap.” So when the people set out from their tents to pass over the Jordan with the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people, and as soon as those bearing the ark had come as far as the Jordan, and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the brink of the water (now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest), the waters coming down from above stood and rose up in a heap very far away, at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan, and those flowing down toward the Sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, were completely cut off. And the people passed over opposite Jericho. Now the priests bearing the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firmly on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan, and all Israel was passing over on dry ground until all the nation finished passing over the Jordan. (Joshua 3:10-17)

It is not likely that I would connect this event with Christian baptism, but one of my commentaries does. The link is in the details. Baptism enters believers into a covenant with God by a declaration to be dead to the world and alive to serve Him. For most, it is a turning point and a change of focus. Those who are baptized enter into a life of both blessing and warfare. At the same time, those who believe but do not take this first step seem to remain in wandering.

The commentary says baptism introduces us into new obligations and entitles us to claim the aid of God in our conflict with evil. In other words, it is the starting-point of our sanctification and this is God's work. He alone parts the waters for us to cross from the world into His kingdom. That world can drown all human effort, but declaring our faith enables us to have success in our war against our own and God’s enemies. 

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8–9)

This does not mean baptism gives us anything. This power is from Jesus Christ alone, not our actions apart from faith. Also note that before this event, the people were guided by a pillar of fire and a cloud. Now they would be guided by the Ark of the Covenant. The Law was dark and uncertain in them but faith in a coming Messiah gave light. Now our guide is the person of Jesus Christ, a “better hope.” (Hebrews 12:18-24) The humanity of Jesus reveals the One who is unseen and we can follow Him as we enter into His promises and experience His presence.

Crossing the Jordon when it was overflowing magnifies God's glory and my inability. He is like that — powerful to be with me when I need Him most. Yesterday’s sermon was one of those times. I’ve felt so inadequate in several areas and the preacher pointed to each one and to the adequacy of Jesus Christ and His powerful ability to deal with my enemies, such as fear and hopelessness. What joy to know that He knows just what I need.

The times of trouble are the times when He manifests His power. It is then that He makes His will most “plain before my face.” Both Churches and individuals are apt in their prosperity to say, “I shall never be removed.” But in adversity I run to God in humility, and He makes me a way through the deep waters. “The swellings of Jordan” abate at His presence. “The overflowings of ungodliness” are defeated by His word. When He speaks, sorrow and distress flee away. When I am grieved at life’s events, He makes “straight paths for my feet” to overcome my disappointments and despair.

Thank You, Jesus.

Becoming my best self?

Libraries and book stores have large sections of ‘self-help’ books, mostly about how to look out for me, how to make things happen, and how to be my very best self. After being a Christian for more than fifty years, and even after making many decisions to improve myself, I am totally aware that my best self is totally inadequate. 

Aside from sin (which the Bible defines as ‘going my own way’), living a self-directed life doesn’t work anyway. Most people struggle with their yearly resolutions, plus I have enough ADHD combined with a bit of autism to make focusing a challenge. I’m easily distracted, and no matter how hard I try, sticking to even a short to-do list is tough. I also crave simplicity and struggle with interruptions.

Piper says this about the biblical reality of being my best self:  

True selfhood flourishes in covenant faithfulness. By “true” I mean the self that has been created in Christ Jesus and is being transformed into his likeness. For example, Paul says in Colossians 3:9–10, “Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self.” 

He refers this to keeping promises, making resolutions, and trying to stay on track. In myself, I cannot do it. In Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit that governs that new nature, I can — but only then. My true self does not emerge or flourish in a life governed by self-gratification. It only flourishes when I have yielded to the Spirit and do what He tells me. This is true covenant keeping, a life under the guidance of God rather than life run by whatever strikes me as important.

Thinking about this today, I have several household chores, dozens of quilts either in progress or on my to-do list, plus a long list of undone stuff like hang a few pictures, purge the storage room, harvest more lettuce from my backyard planter, and go across the street for a few groceries. When I walk into my study, I see books unread and a host of other things on the go, or waiting to get to the start line. Add a touchy Achilles tendon that hampers walking and the desire to pray and exercise. Then there is that soup cooling on the counter that needs to be strained and put in the fridge, never mind the bathrooms need attention along with four loads of laundry. 

Sometimes I use a priority chart and after numbering chores, I just start at the top — and get the last one checked off — if nothing distracts me, like a phone call or a visit from a neighbor. The positive in all this is the realization that self-effort is useless. Without the Holy Spirit, I would sit in front of the TV, or read, or have a nap, or not do anything.

Is it only those with youthful energy and no attention-deficit issues that can live an orderly life without relying on God? I know age nor human inabilities are not the issue. It is always sin: “I want what I want” or “I will do it my way.” Trusting God and listening for His leading requires yielding to Him. Knowing and trusting His promises is vital. Otherwise, I’d stay in bed in the morning. I cannot live and prosper without Him. 

Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. (Psalm 37:5)

From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him. (Isaiah 64:4)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. (Proverbs 3:5–6)

Piper writes about keeping our part of the covenant we have with God, yet I know this cannot be done in my own strength. Piper does too. He says:

God is exalted in our honesty when we look to him and not to our schemes. And when God is exalted in our lives, we discover what we were created to be. No pursuit of self-enhancement without this exaltation of God will succeed. But if we humble ourselves with confidence in God’s future grace, and by this faith submit to his command for promise-keeping integrity, then he will exalt us in due time: “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:14)

 PRAY: Jesus, You are most honored when I admit I cannot, and that I need You for all things. Long lists or short, hard days or easy ones, without Your promises, no matter how hard I try, I cannot improve myself. I need You. May You be glorified today and every day. 

Truth sets us free…

Our new home is still looking as if someone turned it upside down and gave it a good shake, but there are pockets of order. Best of all, my heart is full of delight, not in the home as much as in Jesus who is helping me with my attitude. I’ve moved more than thirty times but cannot remember being this joyful in the midst of it. For this and because of what the Bible says, I’ve changed the first word and other words, plus the pronouns of this quote from today’s reading:

When the Holy Spirit revealed that Christ and God are one, He gave me the desire to never think otherwise and transformed my life. I’ve had a few times of wavering in the desire to follow Him but have never doubted who He is. Trying to run my own life has been a bigger problem but I’ve not had any doubts about the identity of Jesus Christ.

Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:16–17)

This new creation is what Jesus meant when He said: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3) and what Paul wrote:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:3–11)

This is also a matter of faith in what God has revealed. It is not about my willingness for at times I still want to do my own thing and unless I confess that as sin, there is no victory over it. Instead, God wants me to turn from listening to “the world, the flesh, and the devil” and remember this truth:

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)

Faith in the truth is the avenue to a changed life and faith is a gift: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8–9)

PRAY: Lord, You know that sometimes I want to boast in this wonderful new life, but truth says it is not my doing, but Yours — and that truth settles my heart into the acceptance of my inabilities and the joy of Your grace. Bless this day as You do with all days, and keep my focus on You, the way, the truth, and my new life.

New Priest, New Covenant, New Life!

READ Hebrews 5–8

This reading has so much in it that my devotional book gave it two days. It goes through a long explanation of how God provided another priest, not according to the way priests normally took office. This is an illustration of how Jesus became our High Priest, even without being in the linage of priests.

Then the author of Hebrews uses this to explain that if God can change the order He established for priests (like He did by sending Melchizedek to Abraham) He can also change His covenant. His OT people were given His promises depending on their obedience to His will, but they were unable to do it. Instead, they illustrate that even if sinners desire to obey God and be godly people, their human efforts always fail. We do not have in us the ability to obey, nor is salvation dependent upon a check list; it was and still is by grace through faith.

The NT uses terms like “dull of hearing” and “unskilled in the word of righteousness” to describe the immaturity of even those who have faith. They are like children. In contrast, mature Christians “have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.” (Hebrews 5:11–14)

This faith is powerful. Those who have it cannot fall away. Once anyone has “tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come” falling away would mean a need to repent and believe all over again. This happened under that former covenant with its continual sacrifices for sin, but in the new covenant, Jesus was crucified once for all time. The writer of Hebrews says that unlike the OT sacrifices, we do not crucify Jesus again and again. This attitude does not “belong to salvation” as does the “full assurance of hope” that comes to those who patiently wait on God until they obtain what He promises, just as Abraham did. (6:13–15)

These chapters tell that because God is “unchangeable” in His character, and that “it is impossible for God to lie” — then when He says something, we have good reason to “hold fast to the hope set before us” — a hope in Jesus Christ who is our High Priest, and is like Melchizedek who was “without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but . . . continues a priest forever.” (7:2–3)

The question is, if anyone could be perfect under the Levitical priesthood, there would be no need for another priest. But there was, after the order of Melchizedek, a change in the priesthood and a change in the law also. Jesus came “in the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life.” The former commandment was “set aside because of its weakness and uselessness (for the law made nothing perfect)” and “a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God.”

This better hope is Jesus, the “guarantor of a better covenant” for He does not die “but holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever.”

Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever. (7:11–28)

And this is the new covenant that God made:

I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.

This new covenant makes the first one obsolete because human effort, even sincere human effort, cannot save our souls. Only Jesus can do that, and He does it by a personal relationship with Him. Because He died for me, I live in Him. Because He lives in me, I know Him and His laws are in my heart. and by the power of the Holy Spirit, I am able to be what God wants me to be.

Sometimes I listen to the rules and try to do things in my own strength, but that is obsolete and will eventually vanish as God works to make me and all His children more and more like Jesus. This is the amazing truth of the Gospel and the reason God gave a new High Priest to intercede for sinners!

Such love! Such wonderful love!