Month: February 2018

“All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him.” Hebrews 4:13

God knows all things that are, have been, and will be. There are no secrets from Him. Those things that we have kept from all others are not kept from Him. This is (and should be) both convicting and comforting. Convicting because our lives are an open book and “all our iniquities are set before Him” and comforting because those same sins He sees are paid for on the cross of Jesus Christ. How wonderful it is to know that He sees all we have done and will do, yet covers those sins with Christ’s blood.

Does that mean we can do anything we want? Does eternal security mean we have eternal license to sin? As Paul said, “God forbid.” Knowing that God sees all things and knowing that He sent Christ to atone for those sins should both convict and comfort. If we don’t live lives that show comfort and conviction, we should do one of two things. First, check our hearts to see if we have truly accepted the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ on our behalf. In other words, have we stepped from death to life by believing on The Lord Jesus Christ. If not, we need to do so, “for today is the appointed time.” If we have done that, but still lead a unconvicted, uncomforted life, we need to bring our lives into alignment with Him. If we don’t, we might still have eternal life, but we will not have a peaceful life and will have to face the natural consequences of our actions. Those who accept Christ and think they can live like the devil do not understand the wonderful eminence of God. God sits beside us, seeing, hearing, and knowing all we do- we might want to live that way.

”The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” John 10:10

“For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.” Romans 5:17-19

When we are truly a believers in the Christ, we receive His gift of righteousness! Righteousness is not something we earn, but rather it’s a gift we receive when we accept Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf! We have received the gift of righteousness through Him, not because we have kept the “law” or lived a holy life. The righteousness of Christ can’t be bought with money, or earned through self-effort, or by doing “religious” works. It’s a gift! When we receive righteousness, we should live as though we possess righteousness, but unfortunately, we often get caught up in the same unrighteous behavior that traps those who do not know Christ.

Though salvation cannot be earned, we certainly can earn our falling away from the Lord by slowly accepting more and more compromising behavior into our lives. As we slowly accept more sin in our lives, it holds us back in our Christian walk. It doesn’t happen all at once, but slowly, until we find our lives very much like our lives before we met Christ.

I have often said that the Christian life is a bit like rowing upstream. If we don’t keep paddling, we will start to drift back and eventually see the same scenery we saw before our conversion. The more we see it, the more we accept it, and the more we accept it, the less apt we are to paddle at all. We remain on the waters of salvation, but we are no longer experience the newness of the Christian walk, but aimlessly drift through the same things unbelievers experience.

And all this happens slowly at first. Satan doesn’t like to see us jump into sin because that is too obvious. He likes to see us work into it, subtly. I heard a story once about how eskimos kill wolves. The eskimo covers his knife with blood, freezing it in new layers one on top of the other until it is thick with frozen blood. Then he puts fresh blood on top of the frozen layers and leaves the knife. When a wolf finds the knife, he starts licking. Eventually the sharp blade of the knife is exposed. By the time the wolf reaches the blade he does not stop licking because he is caught up in satisfying his lust for blood and does not notice that his ravenous craving is now being satisfied by his very own blood! The Eskimo will return to find the wolf lying dead in the snow.

Sin entices and seduces us in precisely the same way. We get caught up in some sort of destructive fleshly pleasure — gossip, rage, laziness, etc. Once we give in to its pleasure, our craving for it increases. As we continue to allow ourselves to indulge, it grips us all the more. And before we know it — it completely consumes us. Friendships are damaged. Marriages hurt. Testimonies spoiled. It all happens right under our noses with our own participation. Like cows that wander from the field nibbling a tuft of grass and then nibbling the next tuft of grass and then the next until they are hopelessly lost, we nibble ourselves into sin and away from the protection of God.

When we took the grandkids to the museum a couple of day ago, they watched a rattlesnake eat a mouse. First, he bit it and the mouse slowly died and then the snake swallowed it up. It was quite a lesson in the workings of nature! I heard the story of mouse which was put into the cage of a sleeping snake and it actually started covering up the snake with the wood shavings in the bottom of the cage. When the snake was all covered, the mouse probably felt relieved. The danger was gone! Guess what. It did not work. The danger was still there, it was just not noticeable. We can try to hide our actions from ourselves, but the danger is still there and will eventually get us!

We cannot blindly sin and not have it affect us. It will eventually catch up with us. There is a fable about a pig which ate all the acorns under a tree and then tried to root around for more.

A crow remarked, “You should not do this. If you lay bare the roots, the tree will wither and die.” “Let it die,” said the pig. “Who cares as long as there are acorns?” We cannot expose the roots of our righteousness to the sin of this world and expect to receive the rewards of righteousness in our life. We need to keep paddling and if we start seeing familiar scenery, we better stop and check to see if we are really paddling as we should.

“Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.” 1 Thessalonians 4:17-18

This has been a great week with the grandkids. In just two days we had lots of food, caught snakes and lizards, played baseball, tag, ridden an ATV, had a huge waterfight, read books, gone to pizza, and watched a cool Bible video. But what I have noticed is that no matter what we do, the kids are ready to do the next thing with great anticipation. We may have just come off setting up a tent, making houses for small animals, or even having milkshakes, but if they hear we are going to something else, they are ready. They are always ready.

As believers we should be the same way. One day, perhaps sooner than we realize, Jesus may return. For the believer that is a day to be anticipated. We will get to heaven in one of two ways- we will go to Him or He will come for us. According to Thessalonians if He comes for us, we will not be getting several warnings like we give the grandkids when we are going to go somewhere. We let the kids go back several times to get the shoes they forgot or the fishing pole they wanted to take or to say goodbye to someone who is not going with us. We will not have that opportunity when Jesus comes. We will just be “caught up” and be gone.

That term, “caught up” is translated from that Greek word harpazō, which means to take forcibly, to snatch, or to catch up. And that is what the Rapture will be. In 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17: “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.”  There will be no warning that allows us to go say good bye, gather our things, or even read a couple of quick verses to impress God. We will be gone.

The word “maranatha” is a Syriac expression that means: “our Lord comes.” In the early church it was used as a greeting instead of hello or goodbye. Some Christians today have a similar thing in mind when they say, “See you there (someplace here) or in the air (heading for heaven). Regardless of how we say it, we need to carry that awareness of the imminent return of the Savior with us all the time.

I have read two books on British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and they are two of the best I have read. When the expedition’s main boat was crushed by enclosing ice while headed toward the South Pole, Shackleton had to leave part of his crew on Elephant Island while he took the other half to try to reach civilization. He promised the crew that he would return. Later, when he tried to go back to rescue the crew left behind, huge icebergs blocked the way and it looked like the men would perish. But suddenly an avenue opened in the ice and Shackleton was able to get through. His men, ready and waiting, quickly scrambled aboard and no sooner had the ship cleared the island than the ice crashed together behind them. Shackleton said to his men, “It was fortunate you were all packed and ready to go!” They replied, “We never gave up hope. Whenever the sea was clear of ice, we rolled up our sleeping bags and reminded each other, ‘The boss may come today.'”

We need to be like kids anticipating the arrival of the coming event. At our house it is Nana who is the boss and the kids are excited when they know she is coming. How excited we should be when we know that the arrival of our boss, Jesus, may happen any minute. We should always be ready. We don’t want to be half-packed or carrying things we shouldn’t. It could be this afternoon, so when we see each other, let’s not say goodbye, but say “Maranatha!” See you there or in the air!