Hit the target. Please God!

 Read Ephesians 5

I am the Lord your God.  Be holy because I am holy.  We read this in Leviticus. It was very much the theme of the entire book.

We see the same thought in Peter’s letters.

But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;  for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.

God has always set us apart, made us special just for him, and taken a special interest in his children.  He started with the Hebrew people but his love is for all of his children.  Be the special creation that God has designed you to be. He made a way for you to be that person in the sacrifice made by God himself.

Paul puts it this way.

Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Paul spent a good part of his letter to the church in Ephesus telling them—and us—just how much we are blessed in Christ.  Now it’s time for the how do we live part. Remember the general guidance from the previous chapter.

 I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.

In this chapter, Paul gives some specifics.  You remember that orgy you were invited to attend next weekend.  Send your regrets or just don’t go without regret.

Remember those raunchy jokes you heard at work.  Don’t repeat them.  In fact, don’t even remember them.

And this whole greed thing, it doesn’t go with your wardrobe.  It clashes with the new clothes that you are now wearing as a new creation.  Did you forget how blessed you are?  Why must we covet more and spend our lives in pursuit of that which can never really satisfy?

There is nothing wrong with having nice things and not having to check the balance in your checking account every two hours to make sure nothing bounced, but greed is an indicator that we are not seeking God, his kingdom, or his righteousness.  We cannot serve two masters.

If the things of this world have become your god—a false god for sure but one that has taken the place of the one true God—then we are not trusting the one and only God to deliver on his promises.  We are disobedient and have disdain for God.

Earlier Paul might have called this grieving the Spirit.

Enough for specifics.  Paul tells us to figure out what pleases God and do that.  Paul is preaching one body but we have our individual roles.  We have our set of gifts and talents.  Figure out what it is that God equipped you to do and do that!

It’s light and darkness.  It’s God’s way and everything else.  Live in the light.  Live God’s way.  Why these broad terms for a narrow path?

Leviticus is a laundry list of many things but it includes a whole bunch of don’ts.  Do not do this.  Do not do that.

Paul noted in his letter to the Romans that he didn’t know what sin was until the law said don’t do that. Until someone said don’t kick the cat, I didn’t even think about kicking the cat.

Paul is saying that instead of making a list of landmines to avoid, it’s better to focus on the target to be hit.  Live in the light.  Do what pleases God.  Love one another.  Help carry someone’s burden.  Speak the truth in love.

Sin—transgression—is missing the mark.  It’s missing the target.  If I had a Marine that was having trouble hitting the target, I first looked to his sight alignment and sight picture.

OK, we are not at the range, so what’s the point?  Make sure you have the things that please God in your sights.  You can’t hit the target if you keep glancing at the things in the everything else.

Focus on what pleases God. Be holy as God is holy. Live in the light as he is in the light. There is God’s way and there is everything else.  Focus on God’s way.

Where is your focus?

What is your target?

If you are adrift, asleep, or thinking of the everything else, wake up and focus on the target.  Do what pleases God.

Amen.

 

Blessed is the One who heeds Wisdom's Instruction

 Read Proverbs 29

As we draw near the end of Proverbs, we come again to where we began.  There is God’s way and there is everything else.  Consider my governing framework for this book of wisdom in the context of verse 18.

Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint;

    but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction.

That was from the NIV. Some of you my age may have learned this in the King James Version.

Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

The English Standard Version puts it this way.

Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint,

    but blessed is he who keeps the law.

When we do not receive the vision sent to us by God—in whatever form that takes for us who live in this age—we depart from the blessings of living God’s way into the minefields of the everything else.

When we don’t listen to and abide in what Dad, Abba, Father has been telling us, we are surely headed out of the land of blessings into the wasteland of peril.

I’ll take one more crack at this.  There is God’s way and there is everything else.

God’s way – Everything else

Blessings – Minefields

Wisdom – Foolishness

Righteous – Wicked

Industrious – Lazy

Obedient - Rebellious

Life – Death

God’s way – Everything else

For all of the parallel construction, positives and negatives, A-B structures, provocations that require some deep thought, metaphors and other comparative tools, Solomon brings us to the ultimate dichotomy.

There is living God’s way and there is everything else.

If we don’t look to God’s way and are blind to his revelations, we live without restraint.  We live lawlessly.  We perish.  In modern rural vernacular, that dog don’t hunt.

If we go back to the original language, we find that God’s way was delivered most often in what we call the law—the Torah.

There is much discussion whenever we use the word law or Torah, so much so that many Christians lose sight of the command to be known as disciples of Jesus by our love and substitute being known by our interpretations and self-righteousness.

Too often we strain out gnats and swallow camels in wanting people to agree with our way, instead of being known as disciples of our Lord by practicing God’s way, by living a life governed by love.

The problem is that we too often place what some would consider negative or confining attributes on the words Torah and law.  We should consider these terms in a fuller meaning, hopefully, closer to their original intent.

What is Torah?  It is direction.  It is instruction.  It is law, but it is also customs, rulings, teachings, but most of all it is God’s way.  Whether we frame it as a command, a directive, an instruction, a ruling, or guidance—it is God’s way. Commands, directives, instructions, and the like can all mean the exact same thing or vary in significant ways.  That variance is often our language mixed with our perspectives and sorted by our bias.  It is also our vulnerability to being lured into the everything else.

Understand that God revealed his way to us for our own good. We should receive, understand, and live out the instructions that God gave us.

Blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction.

He that keeps the law is happy

Blessed is he who keeps the law.

But I thought we were free from the law?  I thought Jesus was the way to heaven?  I thought the ultimate sacrifice for our sins had been made?

I thought we were saved by grace through faith?  You are!

But how will you respond to this wonderful gift?  Will you live to bring glory to God?  Will you enjoy your relationship with God?

God has revealed his way to us.  He has also revealed the everything else.  Much of this revelation came in those first 5 books of the Bible.  Much came through the prophets. Much came in the wisdom books of the Bible.  Much came in the life and teachings of Christ Jesus—the Word made flesh, and much comes from the Spirit of God that lives within us.

When we dismiss or devalue one part of God’s revelations to us, we discount his sovereignty in favor of our own and are not heeding wisdom’s instructions. 

Our atonement came in the blood of Christ Jesus—the only one to ever fulfill the law, but our response to this great love is left to us.  Will we stop resisting when God is directing our steps?

God is moving us forward to a better relationship with him.  One obstacle to that is our interpretation of this statement:  Love fulfills the Law.

Too many think that those who live by love are getting off easy.  God’s laws must be rigid and strict and compliance must be lock-step, and to some degree difficult.  Consider, instead, that God has raised—not lowered—the bar for us, at least for those who will follow him and be known as his disciples by our love.

Love fulfills the law does not abandon obedience.  It embraces it.  I know several people who can do tasks over and over again and do them well.  They are obedient and compliant and do exactly what the specifications require. The specification may be difficult, but skill comes with repetition.

Others note the specifications for individual tasks and have been given eyes to see a house or a ship or a space station.  We do not denounce those who can only see the step-by-step directions.  They are living their lives as fully as they are equipped to do.

We should also embrace those who can see the house or the ship when they read the directions.  They do not see less.  They are not less obedient. They see the designer’s passion and embrace it. They live by love and in so doing fulfill the law.

They—in many cases that is we—didn’t get off easy.  We accepted the challenge to live completely in God’s way.

If you think you are getting off easy when you say, love fulfills the law; you have not understood God’s ways.  Living by love is not joining the French Foreign Legion never to be heard of again. It’s living to the glory of God, growing in his grace, and enjoying the relationship knowing that the life you have called your own truly belongs to the one you proclaim as Lord.

The old standard for us was to love God with everything we had and love each other as much as we love ourselves.  While difficult, we sometimes obtain that second part.  Loving someone as much as we love ourselves is possible.

Now consider that Jesus gave his disciples—that includes us in this age—a new command.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

We don’t just love others as much as we love ourselves.  That would be easy in comparison to what he called us—commanded us—to do.  Love one another as much as he loved us.  He loved us to the point of giving his life for us.  Yep, that raised the bar.

Remember, all of the points of the law hang upon, rest upon, come together in the commands to love God and love one another.  Loving God and loving one another are the supporting uprights and beams of the law.

Let’s get back to the proverb.

Blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction.

He that keeps the law is happy

Blessed is he who keeps the law.

Why follow the law?  Why live a life governed by love.  Why seek to live God’s way?

As with so much that has been revealed to us in our studies, God does things that are for our own good and instructs us to do things that bless us.  They are the directions that give us hope and a future.

We do not live God’s way to obtain salvation.  God has done all that is required to save us from our sins and from death.  Jesus paid it all!

In response to this unfathomable love, we want to please God.  We want to live in his ways.  We want to do the things that bless God. We want to bring glory to his name and enjoy the relationship he has in store for us. We want to live as he designed us to live.

When we do, he blesses us even more.  We are happy.  Sin and death are no longer hanging over us.  So, what will we do?  Will we go on sinning so grace can abound even more?

BY NO MEANS!

We will live God’s way.  We will live as he instructed us, not so much in lock-step compliance—though some may find this to be the limits of their God-given abilities—but fully governed by love.  In so doing, we will be happy and blessed.

There is God’s way and there is everything else, and God’s way is love.

God’s way is love!

Blessed is he who lives by Love. To live this life given to us in the blood of Jesus, and to live it without love, is lawlessness.  It is rebellion.

God is love.  God’s way is love. His law, his prophets, his wisdom, his Word made flesh, and his Spirit that lives within us bring us to love.  Love directs our steps.

There is God’s way and there is everything else, and God’s way is love.

We can live in God’s way.  Remember that he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.  You are equipped to live God’s way.  You are equipped to live by love.

Amen.

Daytime Friends and Nighttime Lovers

 Read Proverbs 5

Anyone remember Kenny Rogers?

Daytime friends and nighttime lovers

Hoping no one else discovers

Where they go, what they do

In their secret hideaway

Solomon spoke of not getting snared by the adulteress.  It’s a trap and it can lead to death.  This would be a good spot for an analogy for the wild animal that chews its leg off because it is caught in a trap.  Get out of there.  Save what you can of yourself, even if you hop around on three legs for the rest of your life.

Better yet, don’t go in the area where the traps are set. 

Do you know how armies decide where to put minefields?  Like them or hate them, minefields are a part of modern combat and they are placed where you expect your enemy to travel.

How can you do that?  Look at the terrain.  Where are the rivers?  Where are the mountains?  Where are the areas that slow down your enemy?

Now what’s left?  Terrain that might be easier to traverse.  That’s where the minefields go.  The path that looks easy just might be mined.

It is so much easier to navigate a minefield before you get into it.  You have more options.  Once you are in a minefield every step is perilous.

But we are not talking about things that go boom.  What can it hurt now and then?  We are all human. It’s ok if nobody finds out, right?

For your ways are in full view of the Lord,

    and he examines all your paths.

The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare them;

    the cords of their sins hold them fast.

For lack of discipline they will die,

    led astray by their own great folly.

Long ago and not too far away, I delivered newspapers in Altus for a few weeks because that area did not have a manager and they were missing a few carriers.  So I am driving around Altus at zero dark thirty and there are people leaving houses at 3 am and 4 am and there is no Marine base anywhere close by to make these work hours for anyone.

Where are people going at zero dark thirty?

Daytime friends and nighttime lovers

Hoping no one else discovers

In our folly, we forget that nothing is hidden from God.  This applies to more than nighttime excursions.

God sees the heart.  Nothing is hidden from God.  Your ways are in full view of the Lord.

You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can never fool God. You can only fool yourself and cheat yourself out to the blessings of remaining in the harmonious union with the wife of your youth.

Now Solomon directs this counsel at men, but it applies to both genders.

There is God’s way and there is everything else and if you decide to venture into the everything else, don’t think it goes unnoticed by God. 

I have used this term many times over the past decades and use it now:  Front End Analysis.  Good decisions on the front end of any process make for easier problem solving later on.

Rushing into anything sets us up for catastrophe.

There is God’s way and there is everything else.  Here’s the tip of the day.  The front-end analysis has already been done for God’s way and the return on investment is continued blessing and favor.

Choose God’s way to begin with and you don’t have to chew off a leg to get out of a trap.

Amen.