No debt to pay

I use a popular software to keep track of my income and spending. Without an accountant’s mind, this helps me with accuracy and the simple reality that if spending exceeds income, the numbers turn red.

The New Testament uses accounting language in a few places. For instance, I’m to consider myself dead to sin and alive to God. That means putting my old life in the debit column and my new life in the credit column. These two verses hint at the same idea:

“But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:22–23)

However, the way we keep track of money is not quite the same. It only gives a visual picture of what is gone and what is now ours. Tozer puts it this way: Counting is not the language of poetry or sentiment but of cold, unerring calculation. It adds up the columns thus: sorrow, temptation, difficulty, opposition, depression, desertion, danger, discouragement . . . but at the bottom of the column God’s presence, God’s will, God’s joy, God’s promise, God’s recompense.

A sinful life fills the death column. The gift of God fills the life column. Yet as Tozer says, no Christian can boast about what they gave up to become a follower of Jesus Christ. Anything I had, or was, or possessed is nothing compared to what the Lord has called me to, has gifted me in the column called life.

Some Christians have trouble speaking of their old life, as if they have lost or forsaken a good thing for a better thing. How can that be? How can we not realize the wonder of salvation, the wonder of knowing Almighty God and walking with Him? How can anything be compared to fellowship with Him and His family? I would be a fool to lament the loss of all things to gain Christ. Paul wrote the same idea:

“If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:4–11)

Paul went from a life of religious zeal to living in the power of Christ. For those who God calls, this reality is mind-blowing, an adventure beyond human imagination. Even without a calling like Paul’s, the humblest believer enjoys the blessings of grace, forgiveness and peace that cannot be compared with the best that this world has to offer.

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Jesus, I am so thankful for my salvation, for the wonder of those assets You have written into my ‘credit’ column, and the grace for those debits You have cleared from my record. I owe God nothing for You have paid it all. Considering anything as loss is in reality a bill no longer outstanding. You have paid all my debts and I have been set free.

Life Goals

My high school teacher advised me to make a choice. He knew that I had many interests and God-given abilities. He said, “You need to decide if you want to know a lot about one thing and very little about everything else — or to know a little bit about everything and be an expert in nothing.”

Throughout life, I’ve wavered. I wanted to know a lot about everything — an unattainable goal. So also is the goal to know a great deal about one thing, although this is the choice of many. Being interested in much has scattered my attention and left me with that ‘pillar to post’ sense of never being able to focus on anything.

However, God has finally got it through my head that skills, interests, fields of endeavor, careers, and so on will not last. I painted only to find that even artists live in a cut-throat realm. I’ve taken many other routes and found them to be distractions rather than a way that meant something.

Initially the Bible pointed me in the right direction with verses like these, yet it has taken years to get in step with the choice God had for me . . .

“Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.” (Genesis 5:23–24)

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” (Romans 8:28–29)

“I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:14)

Enoch had the goal. He walked with God, not contrary to God, not his own way, not the way others thought he should go. The verses from Genesis indicate that his walk went from earth to eternity without death being a big deal. He was already hand in hand with God.

As a new Christian, God blessed me with the goal from Romans; be like Jesus. Let all things carve and shape me to that end. However, my activities seemed separate from that choice. Did I want to be an artist? A writer? So many routes I could take. Where do I focus? It took a long time to realize that I’d already been given the focus. Occupations, career choices, etc. were incidental.

The third passage, Philippians 3:14, seemed too vague. What does “the prize of the upward call” mean? Will I know when I have it? Yet this is it, something more purposeful than any other decision, choice, occupation. Seek His face. Determine to reflect it. become more like Jesus. make that the primary goal of life and everything else falls into place. First is first. Second, third, fourth are not really the issue. Delight in God and He helps me sort it out. Trying to sort it out without putting Him on the throne of my heart is futile.

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Jesus, You are the prize. Seeking You is the main thing, the only thing that lasts forever. The rest of it is fluff, temporary, prone to fire, rot and rust or to be stolen. Nothing else matters. Only You are worthy. Only You are eternal.

Dealing with sin . . .

Hiding and covering them up are useless ways to deal with my sin. These tactics give me headaches, knots in my stomach and the reputation of being a hypocrite. It is very opposite to the heart of God. He has a better plan.

“O you who love the Lord, hate evil! He preserves the lives of his saints; he delivers them from the hand of the wicked. Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart. Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous, and give thanks to his holy name!” (Psalm 97:10–12)

Dealing with sin is about loving God. On a human level, if my hubby asked me to have supper ready for 6:00 so he could get to a 7 o’clock meeting, and I totally ignored him, what does that say about my love for him? If my children are sick or in trouble and I went shopping rather than going to their aid, what does that demonstrate?

Loving God begins a new way of life. One of the changes is a total shift in my opinion of evil. While it drags at my pant legs like an annoying stray dog, hating evil means not stooping to pet it, not feeding it, not thinking it is attractive. While a swift kick cannot rid me of sin like it might discourage that stray, God gives the solution, from both the Old Testament and the New.

“Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.” (Proverbs 28:13)

“If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (1 John 1:6–10)

Clearly any hiding or concealment does not fool God. This tactic usually does not fool others either. The solution is confessing or ‘saying the same thing’ as God says about sin. Nor can I deny it lest I fall into self-deception and lies.

The promise of God is forgiveness. It requires confession, but it also requires the blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus died to pay my penalty for sin. God does not forgive in an arbitrary way but only on the basis that Jesus has satisfied His wrath and taken upon Himself God’s righteous judgment of sin. This is important. Hatred of sin begins with God. He knows what it does to us; it separates us from Him and that is not what He wants. It also destroys our lives.

Today, Tozer writes about persecution. Sometimes we are opposed because of a godly life, yet the opposition may come because of an obnoxious personality or other traits that irritate people. Tozer points at Christians who hide their unpleasant traits behind verses of Scripture. He also mentions that a believer might live without doing what we might call the “biggies” like murder or adultery, but can be guilty of greed, self-righteousness, or other ‘socially acceptable’ behaviors. That believer might even be unaware of this, nevertheless, those sins will turn others off to God even more than more visible sins.

For me, this is important. I’ve said that God begins pruning with a large axe, then uses pruning shears, and finally goes at me with a small scalpel. His hatred of sin is there only because of His love for me, His desire that I am blessed and become all that He created me to be.

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Jesus, You know the sins I need to confess before I know them. You are so gracious to expose them to me at the right time so that I will hate and confess them. I realize this is a life-long process, but with each confession comes forgiveness and cleansing. I also am lighter, can see more clearly, have greater energy for the things that matter and am able to drink more deeply from the water of life. You are such a great blessing. Thank You from the depths of my heart.