This Is Who I Am

Thank you mom!

photo source: http://www.mother-and-child.org/?page_id=6

I am the type of person who likes everything neat and tidy. It’s not because I am some sort of neat freak but more due to time. I hate wasting time looking for something when it’s not in its proper place. I am not saying that I have achieved this wonderful place of organized paradise but it is a goal I work towards. Knowing this about me, perhaps you can understand how adding 8 puppies to my life has been an overwhelming challenge.

Puppies are neither organized nor neat. Puppies are wonderful small bundles of energized furry bombs of chaos. They chew everything, run everywhere, eat everything and never stop with the pooing and peeing. In a word they are messy. Messy, messy, messy and I am the great mess cleaner upper in our house, even though I am the one who said no to pets. That’s the negative, but there is the positive as well.

Puppies also love and admire without condition. It doesn’t matter who you are they are going to overwhelm you with their affection. It doesn’t matter if you just corrected them two minutes ago, they will be right there with their tails wagging, wanting your love. There are times I feel like I have my own fan club as they follow me around the house and outside. If I show affection to one all, the rest are there to demand equal attention, if not more. So it is often a love hate relationship and I will miss them when they are all gone.

It’s funny how everytime I find myself cleaning up the great quantities of poo left behind by my personal van club, I am reminded by the Spirit how often God has had to clean me up from my messes. As neat as I want life to be, it isn’t. Life is filled with all kinds of poo due to our mess ups, mistakes and, sometimes, blatant sins. Life is messy and we have a Father who loves us more than enough to clean us up from these messes. That’s great to know and we love him for it, but it goes beyond what is done for us.

“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” (Matthew 16:14-15)

Life is messy. Relationships are messy but we are part of the clean up crew. We are to do as it has been done for us. As we have received, we are suppose to give. Jesus said that he who has been forgiven much loves much, but he who has been forgiven little loves little. This does not mean that some people have very little that needs forgiven but instead that there are some people who refuse to recognize they have a lot that needs to be forgiven. These people do not know how to forgive because they do not seek forgiveness.

I know there are probably some messy relationships in your life right now that you would rather walk away from but would you want God to walk away from you because of your messes? If we are willing to receive forgiveness we also need to be prepared to dish it out. It doesn’t mean the relationship will improve, although it might. It will mean that you are in the right place doing the right thing, the thing that pleases our Father.

Let’s face it, we are still mess ups but our Father has made a commitment to us to see us to the end. He’s on our side and he will do everything he can to see us succeed in this race. Now he wants us to be just like that with the people he has brought into our life. It’s a messy commitment that we have to see through to the end of it. It may mean a lot of poo that has to be cleaned up but Jesus’ love will see us through that part of the relationship. Just don’t give up. Don’t expect anything back but instead see it as an investment in the Kingdom of God. Your unconditional love may help them come to a mature understanding of the love of Jesus, and that is what it is all about.

What do we want out of a relationship with Jesus? Probably some security and assurance in our life; assurance that everything is going to be okay. Love would most definitely be at the top of the list; the unconditional kind. We could throw in acceptance for who we are, forgiveness, and understanding. If we get to the heart of it we are probably looking for the perfect life, all our wants fulfilled, to be able to do our thing with God’s approval, to have all our mistakes fixed. The bottom line can probably be summed up in the word “freedom”.

What do we think God wants out of a relationship with us? I think love would be at the top of the list. After all we are told that to love God with our entire being is the greatest commandment. Obedience would also be in the top five. Jesus went on a lot about this with his disciples during his last days with them.”If you love me you will obey what I have taught.” I would think fellowship with us along with adoration and worship from us must be his desire as well. But I think the fellowship is a greater thing than we realize because Jesus spoke a lot about “oneness” with him; him being in us and us being in him.

One of the big questions I get a lot is: How do we know we are where we are suppose to be with God? The answer to this is rather simple and we find it in Galatians 5:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23)

There is a life-time of study and teaching surrounding this but let me simply say that when you are where you are suppose to be in your relationship with Jesus, the Spirit is able to produce these things in your life, not just for your benefit but for everyone who is in your sphere of influence. This is the character of Jesus and when you are one with him it is your character as well. Any disturbance in this relationship will affect this character.

There is no mystery behind what kind of relationship Jesus wants with us. In John 15 Jesus tells us that we are to him what a branch is to a vine. We are absolutely dependent on him. We are part of him, one with him, receiving everything we need from him, being nourished by him and having fruit growing on us because of what he supplies to us:

“Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” (John 15:4)

Notice the fruit again. A right relationship with Jesus produces things; it is impossible not to. We don’t produce it, the vine does through the branches and the branches only bear the fruit. That’s us, the fruit bearers. But we need to understand that our God is not an object we worship at a distance but instead he desires an intimate oneness relationship:

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (John 17:20-21)

This is made possible through the Holy Spirit (John 14:15-21) which is another life-time of study and teaching.

This oneness with Jesus is God’s great desire for us and, I believe, deep within ourselves, is our desire as well. But this oneness with Christ is disturbed when we get out of step with the Spirit. We desire something contrary to the will of God; could be a relationship, job, possessions, goals. We lose our focus and our motivation changes so what we do no longer has its purpose centered on Jesus. We begin to concentrate on ourselves, on our needs, wants and desires, making ourselves the center of our lives instead of others and God.

We know this but we are seldom honest enough with ourselves to accept the correct the Spirit brings. We know we are wrong because we start noticing the lack of fruit; our peace disappears, sleep is disturbed, our quality of love changes, our joy dries up. We see this but come up with all kinds of excuses of why things are like this, such as “I’m tired or “It’s someone else’s fault”. The fact is, we are in the wrong condition to be one with Jesus. We need to examine ourselves, look at what we are doing, and make changes to get back into the proper relationship with Jesus. After all, what good is it for a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? Jesus should be our entire focus and everything else will then fall in place. What do we want out of a relationship with Jesus?

image source: http://www.lelandbeaman.com/large-view/Tuscan/200841-1-0-16228/Painting/Oil/Allegorical.html#.T50omKtYslQ

Recently I have taken on a job to support our ministry here in Quebec. It is not the easiest place in the world to serve the Lord. It was a place that, for decades, was blanketed in a religion that played on guilt. In recent years people have thrown off these shackles, not in pursuit of Christ but instead in pursuit of self. It is a place that is plagued by false teachings, false ideologies and a terrible spirit of self destiny. This makes it difficult, but no impossible, to develop great ministries. All this to say, most ministers here need to work to support the ministry as we continue to stand strong to reflect the light of Christ in a very dark land. 

Having to work in this manner it is important for us to keep our perspective and priorities right in order not to fall into the trap of this world. After all, what good is it for a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul. In this case it is better to be a beggar on the street corner with a heart right with God than to be a rich man in his palace with an empty soul. We do know that when God was emphasizing to Israel the importance of obedience and doing what is right, he told them that he would bless the work of their hands:

When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. (Deuteronomy 24:19)

That’s just one simple verse as an example, but Deuteronomy is filled with this promise to bless the work of our hands. In Proverbs 16 we find another promise:

Commit to the LORD whatever you do,    and he will establish your plans. (Proverbs 16:3)

This is all fine and good and many Christians lean on these promises for encouragement, as they should, but Jesus brought us to a different place. He didn’t change anything, he only brought us to a deeper place where we gain a much different perspective on the matter.

First of all, our priorities have changed from seeing what we can get out of God to seeing what we can contribute to the mission in response to his love. Our perspective has changed from self to God and others:

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:31-33)

Unfortunately some people take this the wrong way and figure they can just sit back now and God will put the food on the table, which he does, but often through the blessing of the work of our hands. The difference now is that we understand the work of our hands is also meant to bless others. We don’t make our work what we rely on but instead it becomes a source of blessings to others, but this means we need to work:

We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat. And as for you, brothers and sisters, never tire of doing what is good. (2 Thessalonians 3:11-13) 

Those who are possessed of the Spirit and who are mature in the Word of God understand how God works through us to bless others. In our obedience he increases the blessings of the work of our hands so that the overflow will be a rich blessings to others. If every believer could understand this, throwing off the pattern of this world, we would discover a much different Church:

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. (Acts 2:42-45)

The place where Jesus has brought us to is that we no longer live for self but instead we live for God. We no longer work for self, we work for God. We no longer work to provide for our needs but we work to allow God to provide for the needs of others, the Church, ministries, and to be a blessing. In this God also provides richly for us. As we have received from God we must give to others as we are compelled by the love of Christ. It is no longer the mentality of what we can get out of God for ourselves but instead how we can contribute to what God is doing in the lives of others. This is the purpose of the work of our hands.

You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?(Galatians 5:7)

I blame television. No, seriously I do. They say that television reflects society but I believe that it is television that shapes society. Day after day we sit in front of this thing for hours, being bombarded by non-reality, with images, ideas and philosophies. Are we writing the shows? No, they are a few people who write from their perspective of life and it influences how we begin to see things. They are interfering in your relationship with God. Some of it is intentional and some is accidental. One of the shows that had the biggest influence on our society was called “Will and Grace”. It was a clever show, well written, funny, influential and a society changer. With time, it changed people’s attitude and homosexuality started to become an acceptable thing in our society.

Parents are very concerned about what their children watch when it comes to sex and violence but most people don’t take into consideration the ideas and philosophies that are being presented. These are even more powerful than the violence and they are playing on the minds of not only our children but on us as well. It’s not just television; movies and the internet are just as influential. We are being bombarded daily with messages that are contrary to God’s Word but we accept it as normal, letting down our defenses and mixing the philosophies of the world with God’s truth.

That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” (Galatians 5:8-9) 

Let that sit on your spiritual palate for a minute. If God is not influencing you who is and what is their motivation? Ideas stick with us. Presented enough times it becomes a truth for us. The Church is suppose to stand for God’s truth, for the God News; we are suppose to reflect the light of Jesus Christ in a dark world, but it is getting harder to see the different between the believer and non-believer.

I don’t believe for a moment that we can cut ourselves off from the world. We can’t stop the noise and bombardment of these ideas and philosophies but we can be more aware of them and more alert to their dangers. We can actually start thinking for ourselves and dispute these philosophies with the Word of God. We can equip our children with a good grounding in the Word. After watching a show or movie sit down with your children and discuss the ideas and philosophies in the show and then present God’s teaching on the matter. Start noticing for yourself, write down notes, think about what you are watching and then search God’s Word for the truth concerning what you just let into your head and heart.

I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be. (Galatians 5:10)

Yes, these people who sin and convince others to participate in that sin will pay the penalty. We are in this world for one reason, to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. That is our entire purpose. We have been told to run this race with perseverance, to go the distance with Jesus. We have work to do, but what good are we if the “salt has lost it’s saltiness”? We are not here to be entertained. We are here to serve Jesus Christ. Let’s start thinking like servants and start doing the things that please our Master. Get your eyes fixed on Jesus and fix your heart and mind on things above, not on the decaying flesh of this world. Do not let these influences to cut in on you and stop you from obeying the truth.

I would love to see people living in the freedom that Jesus died to give us. He died to give us freedom and he rose from the dead to give us life; a life that Jesus called abundant. I find it amazing how, when we are born of the Spirit into the freedom of Jesus, we turn around and allow ourselves to be shackled by other people’s idea of salvation.

I want to be clear by repeating what I said yesterday: The only source of salvation is faith in what Jesus has done for us. The scriptures are plain about this:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we^[a] have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. (Romans 5:1-2)

Justified through faith, not through anything we do. Anyone who calls on the name of Jesus will be saved. The thief on the cross beside Jesus is a clear example of that. There was no baptism, no communion, no anything else. There was only a dying, naked man on the cross expressing his faith in Jesus. To him Jesus simply said, “Today you will be with me in paradise”.

When we read Paul’s letters we see that he was dogged at every turn by the “circumcision group”. This group was made up of Christian Jews who would go in after Paul and confuse everyone by saying they could not follow Jesus without first being circumcised. This physical circumcision belonged to the old covenant and was replaced by the circumcision of the heart which happens with salvation:

No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man’s praise is not from men, but from God.(Romans 2:29)

Remember, Jesus came to bring us to a deeper place with God, beyond the surface matters and into the heart matters. These people wanted to stay on the surface of things. They wanted to add a step to salvation. For them it was circumcision that saved, a work of the flesh, which opened the door to follow Jesus. Today we don’t have such a focus on circumcision but we do have things like baptism and communion.

Wow, I just heard a lot of monitors closing. Baptism and communion are done in obedience to the Word but in and of themselves they hold no value. They are nothing more than a symbol, a testimony to the world about what has already been done for us in the Spirit. You would not believe how many people do not know this and actually believe they are not saved unless they are baptized and take communion.

I am not against either of this fantastic public testimonies about what Jesus has done for us, but I am against people using them to add a step to salvation. If a person is never baptized and never takes communion he is still well saved if he has called on the name of Jesus Christ. Let’s not complicate this and turn it into something it isn’t. Justification is by faith alone and if we are relying on other things we are in a lot of trouble.

Now I want you to hear this loud and clear because I want you to experience real freedom. Hear these words from Paul, inspired by the Spirit:

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. (Galatians 2:6)

Hear that loud and clear: The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. You will not take anything into the next stage of our life, eternal life, if it was not born of this faith. It`s great to have such strong symbolism but we must ensure that they do not interfere with the true source of salvation. Remember that snake in the desert, the foreshadowing of Christ, that the generations that followed turned into an object of worship? Some people are doing this with baptism and communion.

Everything that does not come from faith is sin. (Romans 14:23)

Now that you are free, do not allow anyone to throw you back into captivity. Keep your eyes on Jesus and only Jesus and let nothing cut in on you and rob you of the source of your salvation. Justification is by faith, alone!

Imagine a prisoner was just set free after years of captivity. He comes out into the freedom of life, able to work and earn things, able to enjoy family and friends, able to go for a walk whenever he felt like it. Now imagine that same prisoner deciding to turn his back on that freedom, to walk back into prison because he preferred it in there; he would rather be in captivity then enjoy his freedom. There are a number of people like this because the captivity is what they are familiar with whereas the freedom is too strange and uncomfortable.

This is what it is like for many of us who are in Christ Jesus. Jesus came to set us free from the longest captivity known to man. There was not only the captivity of sin but also the captivity of the law. We may think we are free but we have this terrible mindset toward captivity. We allow ourselves to remain a slave to sin even after Jesus has given us a choice. We also enjoy the captivity of the law, preferring to live by rules that we think are earning us something with God instead of accepting the freedom Jesus has given to us by God’s grace.

We accept this freedom at first but it feels so unfamiliar that we slowly go back to what we know. We rely on things that we think are earning us favor with God. It could be good deeds, reading the Bible, going to church, paying tithe, being part of the worship band, preaching on the street or even behind the pulpit. If we think these things are earning us anything then we are developing our own law to live by. These things can only be the fruit that comes from our relationship with Jesus, they cannot be the source of our salvation. Salvation is by faith or it isn’t salvation. We have freedom because it was given to us not because we earned it.

Paul stated to the Galatians:

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1)

It is good to to examine ourselves to see if we have been slipping back toward that prison life we are so familiar with. There are no church rituals, whether it is baptism or communion, there is no fruit of the Spirit, whether it is speaking in tongues or giving sight to the blind, that can save us. Only Jesus brings us the freedom of salvation and it is only received by faith. By faith I mean simply trusting that it is true and it is done:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:1-2)

Justified by faith not by works. Works is the the fruit of our salvation.

So go ahead, check yourself out. Ask God to be honest with you and to convict you of anything that you are treating as a source of salvation. Be willing to see if you have slipped back behind the prison walls of the law. It is for freedom that Jesus has set us free, so stand in that freedom and do not allow anyone or anything to take you back into captivity.

You are not an ordinary person and you have to stop seeing yourself as ordinary. If you think of yourself as ordinary then you are going to do ordinary things, speak ordinary words and have ordinary expectations. As a follower of Jesus Christ, a child of the promise, born of the Spirit, you have been called out from the ordinary and you are intended for great things in the Kingdom of God.

Apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians, explaining to them why we are so special. He used Hagar and Sarah to make his point:

For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way; but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise. (Galatians 4:22-23)

We also come from that promise. Earlier in the letter Paul had argued that the promise predated the law and was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. We too are born of this promise. Paul continues:

These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. (vv. 24-26)

This is a wonderful illustration that assumes we know the story of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar. If you don’t know it then you should read it. Basically Hagar was Sarah’s servant whom she gave to her husband to have a child because she could not have one of her own. This son was then born in slavery. Sarah eventually had a son; the son promised by God. The son born of slavery represents the law, the work of our flesh, our attempt to do things ourselves. The son born of the promise represents salvation by faith, birthed by the Spirit, our reliance on the works and promises of God.

Paul also points out something very interesting because the son born into slavery persecuted the son of the promise:

Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. At that time the son born in the ordinary way persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. But what does the Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.” Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman. (vv. 28-31)

So this is the problem we often face; we have an identity crisis. We are born of the Spirit, children of the promise but we act and think as if we are children of slavery. We are born by the grace of God and according to that grace we are free, no longer in slavery to the law, covered by the blood of Jesus. We are not covered by our human effort but by the loving act of Jesus. What we do in the way of acts of kindness is not a requirement of some law but instead is a fruit of the spirit of love that we have been given.

Stop feeling guilty, you have been freely forgiven. Stop trying to earn your way into God’s good graces, he has already brought you there by his grace. You are rich beyond your wildest dreams because you have every blessing ever promised by God. His storehouse is full and it is all for you. So start living like the rich kid that you are. Daddy has given us a job because he wants us to participate in his mission. It is not a job that earns us anything because we already have everything. It is a job that we want to have because the love of Christ compels us to participate in the family business: the salvation of the world.

Let me be straightforward here; this morning I am trying to work out the word I am bringing to my church. It’s not an easy word but one we have to hear. We have two many “types” of Christians walking around saying too many different things, shaping the Word of God according to how they want to be able to live. Too many of us can’t handle the conviction of the Word and Spirit we find in a book like Romans and instead hide out in the comfort of the psalms. We want to be in the gentle and warm embrace of Jesus while ignoring the direct assault upon our sin that we find in Jesus’ words. We want to sing the song of grace without facing the fact of why God needed to show us grace in the first place. We need to look in that mirror.

The reason I say we need to do this is because we forget where we have come from and we haven’t a clue where we are going. We have forgotten just how incredible God’s grace is and having forgotten where we have come from and having forgotten the reason for God’s grace, we have forgotten why it is important to show that grace to others. We are a bunch of Pharisees, living in privilege and condemning those without it. We judge a world enslaved by sin for living by sin, forgetting that we are the ones with the key to help set them free from their prison.

Do you remember the parable that Jesus told of the servant who had received mercy but refused to show mercy? You can read it for yourself in Matthew 18 starting at verse 23, but I will give you the short version. A king was settling accounts and found a man who owed him millions of dollars. Seeing that the man could not pay, the king was about to put him and his whole family in prison but the man begged for mercy. The king canceled his debt but then the man went out and found a friend who owed him $10 and had him thrown in jail because he couldn’t pay him back. The king heard about it and canceled the canceled debt and threw the man in jail as well. This is how we often act; we forget what was done for us as we fail to show mercy and grace to others.

So let’s remember what was done for us.

In Romans 1 we discover that God considers that everyone is without excuse. Even if people have not read the Word God has revealed himself and his glory in everything around us. There are things we do that we know are wrong without having to be told (v. 24). Every culture condemns those who steal, murder and lie. It is amazing to see how certain values are the same across various cultures and societies. God is all around us and can be seen by those who bother to look, So we are without excuse.

God does not force himself on anyone. We wanted sin so he left us to ourselves. It is like our children as they get closer to adult hood. We are there to encourage them, counsel them, guide them but if they choose to reject what we have to say and choose their own path, we are going to leave them to it, to learn from their mistakes. We hurt for them, for what we know the outcome will be, but they are responsible for their own decisions and actions. This is what it means as we read:

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. (Romans 1:24-25)

“He gave them over”; he let us decide for ourselves. He is talking about us here. This is where we have come from, it is our past:

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. (Romans 1:21-23)

This is our debt that we owed the King. This is what we could not pay for. He gave us the freedom to choose and we chose rebellion. Each of us was not without sin, without debt; we owed God big time, much more than millions of dollars. Listen:

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. (Romans 1:29-31)

This is us he is describing. This is our history, our past, our origins. It doesn’t matter which sin you identify with or even if you identify with them all, doing one is like doing them all.

This is the beauty of our God: He paid what we could not pay. He cancelled out our debt. He forgave ever offence, every act of rebellion, every depraved thought and action. We deserved death but through his own actions in Jesus Christ, he cancelled that death sentence. Knowing this then, we became great sources of forgiveness, mercy and grace, pouring out into others what we ourselves received. Right? If only.

Unfortunately many of us miss the point and think that God has done this for us because we are special. We are no more special than the druggy in the back ally. The only difference is we have accepted God’s grace and mercy and that poor man in that back ally hasn’t yet. God’s love and attention on us all is equal. So having received this grace we should become sources of grace, not condemnation:

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. (Romans 2:1)

 We are no different than any other human being on the face of this planet; we all come from the same place. The difference comes in what we have accepted from God. We have accepted his mercy and grace where others have not. We can identify with where these people are, the darkness that engulfs them, the sin that imprisons them. Patience and love should be easy things for  us, as should be grace and forgiveness. Jesus told us this:

From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. (Luke 12:48)

Much grace has been given to us so much grace is demanded from us. Instead of running away from the world we should be running to it. Not to become engaged with sin again and not to throw rocks at those who are still lost in sin, but instead to be the nurses and doctors that this world needs. We have the key to share with them that will set them free, but refusing to give them the key while throwing rocks at them is just wrong. We will have to answer for that. According to Jesus’ parable, the king will cancel our cancelled debt and we will stand alongside those we have judged to be judged ourselves.

We need to do more than apply God’s grace to ourselves and consider ourselves a cut above society. We need to live God’s grace by applying it to others so they too will understand what we have understood and receive what we have received. Our actions and attitudes cannot be a barrier to those who want to know God because if they are we will have to answer for it, and it will not go well for us. There is much more to this life than the comforts we seek. We are here as an example of God’s glory and grace so let’s start living the part.

I wonder if you have ever thought, “Why me”? Do you ever feel like all the bad stuff in this world always happens to you, that if anything is ever going to go wrong it will always happen to you? Ever look at someone who isn’t serving Jesus and who doesn’t appear to have any problems and think “That isn’t fair”? Would you be surprised if I told you that you aren’t alone?

But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; 
   I had nearly lost my foothold. 
For I envied the arrogant    when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. (Psalm 73:2-3)

It is amazing how much trouble we can find ourselves in when envy comes knocking on our door. We compare our lives with others and suddenly we have that “the grass is greener on the other side of the fence” feeling. We look at how tough things are for us even though we are doing everything right with God and we imagine that other person’s lives are perfect:

They have no struggles; 
   their bodies are healthy and strong. 
They are free from the burdens common to man;    they are not plagued by human ills. (vv. 4-5)

We really start to believe this and it begins bothering us:

This is what the wicked are like—    always carefree, they increase in wealth. (v. 12)

And because we are seeing life from this perspective a more dangerous thought starts to invade our relationships with God:

Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; 
   in vain have I washed my hands in innocence. 
All day long I have been plagued;    I have been punished every morning. (vv. 13-14)

This is crazy thinking and it happens when we start putting value on the wrong things in life. When we start seeing riches, possessions, fame, all things material of greater worth than our spirit we will end up in this position of envy. What we are envying is a pretty shallow life. It is one dimensional. As you get to know these “successful” and “famous” people you soon realize that all you see is all they have, whereas your riches are far greater even though they cannot be seen. Standing in such a place of envy is indeed a dangerous slippery slope.

We have something of far greater worth than a big house, fancy cars, nice clothes, glory and fame. We have the richness of knowing that we are loved and cherished by our Father:

Yet I am always with you; 
   you hold me by my right hand. 
You guide me with your counsel,    and afterward you will take me into glory. (vv. 23-24)

When we fix our eyes on Jesus we realize just how rich we are, how much life is better with him than without him. It is better to be a poor man in a poor house with Jesus than it is to be a rich man in a palace without him. I do not believe Jesus intends for us to be poor but you know what I mean here. We can be stripped of everything and have Jesus and we would still be richer than the richest man in this world:

Whom have I in heaven but you? 
   And earth has nothing I desire besides you. 
My flesh and my heart may fail, 
   but God is the strength of my heart 
   and my portion forever. (vv. 25-26)

And the truth about those people we may have envied is that they are far from being in an envious position. Where our riches can never be taken away from us, theirs can disappear in an instant. How many times will we see these great men of wealth destroyed over night before we realize that we are in the best position a person can be in:

Surely you place them on slippery ground; 
   you cast them down to ruin. 
How suddenly are they destroyed, 
   completely swept away by terrors! 
As a dream when one awakes, 
   so when you arise, O Lord, 
   you will despise them as fantasies. (vv. 18-20)

So let us stop dreaming about other people’s lives and live our own to God’s glory. Let us throw off the bonds of envy and celebrate what we have in Jesus. He is more than enough for us. His riches are beyond our imagination and he says they are all for us. He has given us a peace that can never be taken from us. He is always with us and he is the song of our heart. The world has nothing to offer compared to Jesus.