“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”
A few years ago I was diagnosed with a disorder that includes with it regular intervals of diplopia. If you’ve not heard that word before, it is the medical term for double vision.
The graphic above gives you a pretty good idea of what that looks like. Needless to say, when that is happening, reading is a pretty tough slog. After all, we are designed to only be able to focus on one thing at a time.
This second image depicts how that works. You can focus on the woman’s hands, but not on her face. And if you were to focus on her face, her hands would be blurry.
But make no mistake, this is how God designed us. We are meant to be people of single focus. One of the lies of our age which eds up fragmenting, exhausting and frustrating us is the lie that we should all be multi-taskers. I don’t think that’s a good thing.
So it is I note from our text today 2 quick things:
1 – We cannot focus on the news of the day, regardless of the outlet, and do what our text calls us to at the some time. One or the other will have to be blurry. And it is up to you and me to make the choice. Continually. What will we give our hearts and minds space and time to focus on? And if is network, internet, print, radio podcast or whatever platform “news”, if that is what we focus on, be sure that whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, excellent and worthy of praise – will be blurry, out of focus, and growing less and less distinct in the soul.
2 – What a privilege we Believers have to live lives with souls fed from the Fountain of life. That when we are drinking from the rivers of living water, we lose our thirst for the polluted streams of this fallen world and age. Think for a moment how peace, joy, confidence, love, compassion and steadfastness in heart and mind spring from training ourselves to “think about these things” that the Apostle Paul says we have learned, received and even seen lived out in the saints. i.e. what it means to guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
If you are a person of little peace today – filled with the dread of everything your news outlet pours into you – stop and focus on something else. “Think about these things.” Set your mind on the person, finished work and promises of Christ.
You can only truly focus on one thing at a time. What will it be today?
“My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart.”
I so love coming back to this passage in my regular reading. I love being reminded to “keep” this commandment – to not let “steadfast love and faithfulness” be forsaken.
The idea here may be, to be sure to be a loving and faithful person as the Father’s commandments lead us. But some posit too to think of it in terms of resting in the love and faithfulness of our God. The one who rests content here, who lavishes in knowing these graces are poured out upon them, will live a life far different than those languishing in the hopelessness that captures so many. It is a pre-echo of “keep yourselves in the love of God.”
It is a call to never let the wonder, the mystery, and glory, the reality of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness toward you ever escape your consciousness.
When we imagine His love to be vacillating or indistinct – or when we doubt the absolute certainty of His commitment to see all of His promises to come to pass – faith suffers its most devastating blows.
We MUST see our God as constitutionally incapable of any of the defects of human love. In the darkest of hours, He cannot love you any more, nor can He love you any less. See Him as ontologically unable to fail to keep His word, or to break His promises. He does not merely carry out His promises faithfully, He IS faithful. This is the One with whom we have to do. This is our God. Loving and faithful beyond anything the human mind can imagine. This is the One in whom we place our trust.
Know for yourself Believer, and remind yourself often, of the steadfast love of the Lord, and of His faithfulness. That He cannot fail. And in that, you will become one of steadfast love and faithfulness yourself.
This belongs to all who are in Christ. And it is a treasure we begin to enjoy even here and now – part of the “down-payment” of the Holy Spirit that is ours.
Pr 30:12 There are those who are clean in their own eyes but are not washed of their filth.
A number of years ago, I had the privilege of spending a couple of days interacting with Jerry Bridges. If you’re not familiar with his books, you are missing something indeed. Titles like “Respectable Sins”, The Pursuit of Holiness” and “The Joy of Fearing God” are as close as you can get to Puritan reflections on the Christian life by a modern author. A profoundly humble, sweet and studious man, he impacted me (and countless others) powerfully through his writing and preaching ministry.
Dr. Bridges (he didn’t like being addressed that way because his doctorate was honorary – but I cannot speak in lesser terms out of respect) was invested in campus ministry all of his life. Well into his 80’s when he came to speak for us, he had a great heart for youth. Discussing that in a drive to a speaking engagement, I asked him what had been the biggest challenge in evangelizing collegians over the years – and he didn’t hesitate in his response: He said that people no longer have any concept of themselves as sinners in need of a sin-bearer.
In the words of our text, they are clean in their own eyes, while at the same time, not washed of their filth.
Indeed, as the popular preaching of God’s Word in our generation (at least in American Evangelicalism) has become increasingly fixated on a Gospel of the American dream – “Come to Jesus so He can make life what it ought to be” – and at that, the kind of life even those are far removed from Christ as can be, would want too. The preaching of Jesus has become the religious equivalent of Hamburger Helper. Jesus will give you more money, a prettier wife, a more attentive husband, a faster path to career objectives, healing from every discomfort and above all – will demand absolutely nothing of you. Just pray the prayer and MAGIC!
What is missing? No conviction of sin. No sense of being the enemy of God as one seeks to live life only for themselves without a moment’s concern for who made them and for what purposes. Errant at times? Sure. After all, no one’s perfect. Broken? Yeah, but in ways therapy can fix easier and faster than reconciliation to God. But sinful in the sense of truly guilty and deserving of Hell before an ineffably holy God? Nope. I just need Jesus to add the right spices to life to make my macaroni and ground beef a savory dish. All of which, de-gospels the Gospel. Makes the substitutionary death of Jesus on the Cross a mere emblem of some kind of odd love, but not the taking of my guilt and shame upon Himself so that I might be cleansed from cosmic rebellion and made a new creature – acceptable to God because of Him.
The preaching of the Cross necessarily fixes upon Christ dying in the sinner’s place, because apart from it, we stand guilty, condemned and justly on our way to an eternal Hell.
Beloved, we dare not lie to ourselves so as to be clean in our own eyes – or we cannot be saved. Because in the final analysis, the thing we need to be “saved” from, is the just wrath of God upon us for our sin. And until we are washed from our filth in the blood of the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the World”, we remain under that wrath – on death row, awaiting the carrying out of the execution order.
Those who set themselves to continue in rebellion against the right of God to exercise His supremacy over their lives – by refusing the salvation and Lordship found in Jesus Christ alone – will perish in an eternity of judgement. That is what the Bible teaches.
But to those who own their guilt and sin, and who flee to Christ for forgiveness – there is cleansing, reconciliation to The Father the transforming Spirit to restore Christ’s image in them – eternal life!
Where you stand this very hour in regard to either condition, has its stated and inevitable consequence.
Unbeliever – won’t you come to Him today? This is the truly good news of the Gospel – there is forgiveness of sins in Jesus.
Christian – won’t you glory in your king who has become to us: Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification and Redemption? (1 Co. 1:30).
Proverbs 29:1 “He who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck, will suddenly be broken beyond healing.”
The Father is patient, and does not chasten without warnings and reproofs. But when those warnings and reproofs are repeatedly rejected, He does finally move. In those times, His action is swift, and decisive. Better to hear these rebukes and learn, to confess and repent. To take whatever measures we need to. For when He is forced to act like this, we seldom emerge without permanent damage. Proverbs 28:14
Now the stiffening of the neck in the face of reproof most ordinarily manifests itself in 3 things.
1 – The Word. The Word warns, warns, and warns again. And it never warns without also giving counsel on the better course, and God’s indwelling Spirit grants both power to pursue that course, and repeated inward promptings to walk in the path of righteousness. This is why some fail to make searching the Word a part of their necessary and daily spiritual life.
2 – Preaching. This also is often why we fail to be sure we sit under the solid and consistent exposition of God’s Word; Why Church is treated as optional. We would rather have our ears tickled than be consistently confronted with truth which would challenge us and call us to repent of sin.
3 – True Fellowship. And it is often why we withdraw from relationships where we might need to manifest the character of Christ in the face of difficult people and circumstances. We don’t want to put up with them and risk being hurt. And we don’t want to be exposed regarding faults and failures – let alone un-Biblical attitudes, decisions and practices.
How far is too far when testing the patience of God? No one knows. That is the point. Some take God’s patience as a sign He is simply pleased with them as is. Others think it simply impossible to provoke Him. The wise man knows “the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience…is meant to lead you to repentance” (Rom. 2:4).
So what has God been dealing with you about, that you continue to put off? Don’t wait until it is too late.
Heavenly Father, grant me a repentant heart. Grant US repentant hearts. Nothing is so wicked as confessing our sin and seeking forgiveness, but not turning from it. It is how every form of idolatry works – just go through the ritual, but no real change is expected or needed. Father, I want my heart to hate the sin that is in me as you do – and love your holiness as you do. I want to want other things – to have sinful things appear as wicked, heinous and as repulsive as they really are; and to see and be attracted to the beauty of holiness as you really are. I plead with you Father – do not leave me as I am. I am so easily fooled and deceived by my own sin. Let me truly walk in the love, light and wisdom that is ours in Christ. Grant me your gift of true repentance from my sins.
In the first place, this no doubt refers to oneself. If we conceal our transgressions from ourselves, or seek to deny their real sinfulness or egregiousness, then we will seldom confess or forsake them. We must be honest with ourselves. Alas, we want to fool ourselves – to think better of ourselves than we really are. We do not want to own the depths of our sinfulness. This, oddly enough is true even of Christians. We, who once we have been justified have the freedom to search our darkest depths without fear of condemnation would still rather turn a blind eye and be gentle with ourselves and our sin. We though, in Christ, can at last afford to be brutally honest and absolutely ruthless with our sin. For it is in bringing our sins into the full light of day, first to ourselves, and then to our merciful and gracious God, that in confession we find the means to forsake them.
So…Been to confession lately? Go. There is little that so erodes the sweet intimacy of Christ’s Spirit with our own souls as that of carrying around the weight of unconfessed sins upon our shoulders. Nor am I alluding to great and heinous sins, but that myriad of “little things” that grows imperceptibly into a mountain of guilt and pain.
As Biblical Protestants, we know full well that Christ is our great intercessor, and that we need no other man to fill that role. We are fully aware that we can come to the Father directly and without some invented intermediary. Yet I wonder how lax many of us become in the need for a consistent audience before God where we fail not to pour out the cache of sins and transgressions that we have tried to hide from our own eyes as well as from His? If God’s Word has ceased to speak to you; if the Spirit of God seems so distant and your own heart grown cold and unmoved – it just may be that you have forgotten to come and make your confession of failure before Him, that nothing might hinder His nearness. The truth is, He is never far away, but our sin can cloud the reality of His loving presence.
Beyond the obvious benefit of the clearing of the conscience and the relieving of the guilt designed to bring us back to the Cross, the confession of our sins regularly, fully, and graphically, prevents us from falling into false pride and a pretended self righteousness. It is a great preventative against an imagined spiritual superiority. No man who deals with his own sins before the throne of God candidly, thoroughly and regularly finds it easy to persecute others for theirs. In fact, it is almost certain that one has lost all touch with his own sinfulness when he takes up stones to punish other sinners personally. So it is that
Galatians 6:1 admonishes “Brethren, even if a man is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, lest you too be tempted.” Such gentleness issues from familiarity with and brokenness over your own sin first. Then you may be of use in recovering others. Until then, you will imagine yourself both judge, jury and all too often – executioner.
But there is a word in our text which draws us off to see a peculiar blessing attached to such confession that quite exceeds any guilty man’s hope. It is in that very last expression – “compassion” – for the ESV’s “mercy” contains compassion in it.
I don’t know about you, but compassion is not what comes to my mind first when I think of the way that God deals with me concerning the sins I bring before Him. It is one thing to say that in coming, the Believer might be pleased to know that he will find forgiveness with God on behalf of Christ. Thoughts of confession usually find us running back to
1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” And that, rightly so. But our familiarity with the way men forgive can find us thinking that God’s forgiveness is a grudging one. Yes, we find mercy, but is there not a need to placate Him somehow as well? we wonder. Then, we might even venture to think beyond the mercy which withholds the punishment that is our due, and have faith to believe that He might even show us grace – unmerited favor – beyond mere mercy on Christ’s behalf as well. How the soul rejoices to be able take such comfort in those hours of grief for sin. But the Psalmist’s word here transcends grace and mercy both, and would have us fix upon a promise of compassion. It is one thing to hope for mercy, another to believe for grace, but what divine love is this, that when we sin in our filth against so holy a God as ours is – we come to expect compassion too? Oh is not His love for us beyond our finding out!
Beloved, this is one of those divine mysteries that fills the soul genuine wonder. Here is God’s Word to His people. So great is the change wrought in us by saving grace, that grief over sin – true grief for the commission of it, not for being caught in it – though not another human being know it, is a signal mark of regeneration. And it is to this that God our Father then comes and does not only forgive, does not only continue His blessing upon us, but in fact soothes the troubled conscience by His Spirit and the Word that we might be recovered from the very soul wounds we have inflicted upon ourselves. How can such a thing be? When He should rail against us in His just wrath – yet for Christ’s sake, He actually ministers unto us in the tenderest of compassions, that our sin might not swallow us up. Christian, if you would know mercy, if you would fully comprehend grace, then you must know that the Father’s forgiveness is not some grudging half dismissal still awaiting our ability to salve His holy anger and restore ourselves to Him. He has compassion on the pain we suffer for our own sins, and ministers to us according to the depths of His divine love.
This, is past understanding. Let not another moment go by, where you are carrying about the load of unconfessed sin upon your back. Call to Him. Come to Him. Confess it all, turn from it all back to His loving arms, be free of it all, and know the compassion of His great love for you in Christ.
Addendum: The secrecy of sin is its power to bind. What is forced underground, hides and cannot be easily rooted out. The Writer here reminds us that breaking this secrecy is essential to “prospering” – which is nothing else than gaining victory over the motions of indwelling sin. Now the issue of “confession” raises questions about whom we might confess to, and under what circumstances. And it would seem that this is not a simple matter. Some things simply cannot profit others and thus are not fit for public consumption. In fact, too much said about shameful things to large, unprepared audiences can cause much positive harm. And it may be wise to look at this in terms of layers.
The very first layer is that confession must begin with SELF. Our God requires truth in the inward parts (
Ps. 51:6). We must be absolutely honest with ourselves about our sin – facing it head on for what it really is, neither excusing nor soft-soaping it (nuancing our own conceptions by thinking of our own sin in therapeutic terms and without horror, disgust and the need to find freedom), not accommodating it or giving up on its need to be mastered. If we do not begin here, no true progress can be made. Here in fact, we may well appeal to God’s Spirit to open our eyes to our own sin and its depths – lest we rely only upon our own deceptive hearts. We WILL try to fool ourselves.
Psalm 139:23(ESV) Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!
The next layer is confession to God. If we cannot speak openly, truthfully, brutally to Him about our sins, then there is no help to be had. For it is only by walking in the Spirit that we can be prevented from gratifying the lusts of the flesh (
Gal. 5:16Whether or not a 3rd layer of confession to another Christian confidant or several, would seem to be dictated upon whether or not the first two have been utilized fully – and have dealt with the problem. If not, other measures are required. Appropriate brothers and/or sisters need to be brought into the situation to lend encouragement, accountability, advice, prayer and other support.
). If we cannot honestly and fully enlist His help, there is no other source of help to be had.
It is my considered opinion however that failure to truly live in the first two, is most often what requires the implementation of the 3rd. Unless of course the sin is one against another, then, by all mean it needs to be confessed to them as absolutely essential.
But let us not forget the second aspect noted here – it is not mere confession, or confession alone that God desires, but the commitment to also forsake the sin that brings us there.
Just this week I heard a recent convert talk of how being raised in Catholicism, their view was: you sin, you go to confession, you do your penance, and then you go live as please again until you come to confession again. Actually turning from sin is not in the equation. Sin, confess, sin some some more. No problem. And I fear that was is codified in Romanism may in fact be implicit in the thinking of many who would claim to be genuinely born again. As though repentance and the continual turning away from the sin that brings you to confession, is not an essential element – but it is. The text reads: he who confesses AND forsakes their transgressions will obtain mercy and compassion. Those who only want forgiveness and do not seek God for a repentant heart and mind, and resolve in themselves to forsake their sin by His power – fail to obtain the mercy they thought following the ritual would obtain. Confession without repentance is merely an admission of guilt. It means little.
Heavenly Father, give me a heart that detects and acknowledges my sin fully and quickly. May there be nothing between us on any level. May my heart be open and honest before you, looking to you and depending upon you till at last, by your grace, those areas which at present remain untamed and defiant of Christ’s Lordship, are brought to their knees before you.
Prov. 27:1 “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.”
At the risk of being ever so predictable and pedestrian, 2023 is almost upon us, and as American Culture has it, some will be thinking about the proverbial “New Year’s Resolutions.”
But as our text reminds us today, no matter how well intentioned – planning the good things you are hoping to do tomorrow, in the new year – is subject to the unknowns of life. We do not know what a day may bring. All can change in a heartbeat. So boasting, even in our imaginations of what we think we’ll accomplish in the new year is simply too fanciful to be useful.
In fact, a much bigger question looms with the flip of the calendar.
Think with me for a minute. Such “boasting” as the text refers to is not limited to the promise of great exploits yet to be done- or how great you will be someday, but it is couched in the unspoken backdrop of putting off till tomorrow things which ought to be our business today. And nowhere is this more true and important than in spiritual matters.
We do not hold tomorrow. God cannot be served in the “what if”. We must seize the hours we have while we have them. All else is a vain boast against a future we do not possess.
Pray NOW.
Know His Word NOW.
Love others NOW.
Seek Christ NOW.
Walk with Christ TODAY.
Mortify the deeds of the flesh NOW.
Bless other NOW, with what you have and CAN do, not waiting until you have the hope of doing or having more.
Neither you nor I know what a day may bring.
Can the New Year’s Resolutions, and stop today and be about the things that make for your growth in Christ – NOW.
Proverbs 26:16 “The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly.”
Biblically, the word “sluggard” universally applies to one who is slow, lazy, idle, inactive.
It doesn’t imply they are stupid or ignorant or even unlearned. But having elevated their own reason above everything else, they never think any more deeply than their own opinions. They have a view on everything. A worldview that comprehends everything – and they never think beyond it – but squeeze everything else into that box.
The fact is, these are often very bright people – though probably not so bright as they would like you to believe, or as bright as THEY think they are. But there is always about them something of the smell that they have the inside track, and most everyone else really doesn’t get it. They know everyone else’s motives, and how everyone else should decide and act in their particular circumstances. Arm-chair quarterbacks who have never ever been on the gridiron, but can castigate the real players without end. They are certain they perceive what everyone misses constantly. But in truth, though vigorous in their opinions, they are woefully lazy thinkers – for they never reason beyond their own opinions.
As vs. 16 says: Sluggards are wiser in their own eyes than 7 men who can answer sensibly. Once they’ve made up their minds on anything – that is as far as it will ever go. No matter what.
Father, deliver me from this sin. The very word sluggard refers to the indolent and lazy. And while I may be industrious in many other things, let not my heart and mind grow lazy in self-deception – that somehow, my unconsidered thoughts and opinions, which have in reality NOT been examined very deeply – roll off my tongue like the fountain of wisdom I imagine myself to be. Teach me your ways, your thoughts, your understanding. Don’t give me up to my own narrow perceptions, perspectives and pontifications. Keep me forever diligent in seeking, finding out and pursuing the Wisdom you have placed in your Word, and incarnated in Christ. Let me see all through the lens of your eternal plans and purposes, and not that of my own conceptions.
Proverbs 23:1-8 “When you sit down to eat with a ruler, observe carefully what is before you, and put a knife to your throat if you are given to appetite. Do not desire his delicacies, for they are deceptive food. Do not toil to acquire wealth; be discerning enough to desist. When your eyes light on it, it is gone, for suddenly it sprouts wings, flying like an eagle toward heaven. Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy; do not desire his delicacies, for he is like one who is inwardly calculating. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, but his heart is not with you. You will vomit up the morsels that you have eaten, and waste your pleasant words.”
Vss. 1-8 function here as a unit. And there is so very much to be gleaned here.
The idea in vss. 6-8, which informs the whole unit, is that people often have hidden agendas. Benjamin Franklin called them “axes to grind”. He recounted an experience from his youth when a man approached him, flattering him on how well he was sharpening some farming implements. Then the man asked if he could be so honored as to have such skill applied to getting his own axe sharpened. The flattered youth took the task on due to the flattery. And the man returned several more times until Franklin caught on to what was really happening. The flattery was offered, simply because a man had “an axe to grind.” When such offer you something, they do so not with an eye to actually bless you – though they may even rationalize it in their own minds as such – but rather to achieve some end of their own. This is the meaning of “their heart is not with you”. Not every gift, is one. Many are bribes and tools of manipulation. Beware. If not, the supposed blessing will come back upon you in a most unpleasant way. You’ll receive nothing from it when all is said and done.
Now there is a pointed application here to the promises of those seeking power – politicians in vss. 1-4. Make no mistake, few indeed are those who serve elected office in our present governmental system who have altruistic motives behind the campaign promises they make.
The Hebrew here will admit both – observe carefully “what” is before you, and “who” is before you. And indeed, there is no need to choose – for both needs be considered. What are they promising, and what is the character of the one promising.
Promises of easy money, safer streets, social safety nets, or expanded gun rights, and even religious freedoms. When you enter the voting booth, put a knife to your throat if you are hungry for what they have promised you as a delicacy to your appetite – however good your appetite may be. Look not to their promises or even their agendas – look to their character as much as it can be discerned. Wild, extravagant campaign promises are deceptive food indeed. They cannot be evaluated on the surface. If they are not tied to a man or woman of proven character – you will come to regret it in the end, even if at first, it appears to satisfy what you hunger for.
There is application here to those who seek the affections of others who are emotionally unavailable. To “conquer” one who is cold or indifferent, to finally get them to give you their love or affection, will prove to be but a short-lived victory. You will feel so special at having received what they seem to withhold from everyone else, but it is a ruse. Their heart is not really with you. Sooner or later that imagined affection will become exceedingly bitter. You will have wasted your affection on one who can never truly return it.
Nowhere is this more painfully experienced than when you receive accolades in front of someone who is stingy for human praise. You will find the daggers of envy most sharp and barbed.
Father God – give us your wisdom. Keep us from making our decisions based only upon what we see on the outside, what pleases us, tickles our ears or appeals to our dearest appetites. Teach us to consider all through the lens of your Word, and its diagnosis of the fallen human heart. And let us have the agenda of what pleases you most, over and above what may even seem to accord with our perception of what might be a short-term gain. Like the drunkard at the end of this chapter, keep us from indulging in the immediate pleasure of the wine when it is red in the cup, without considering what it will mean when we are in the hold of its stupor, and in the aftermath when we awake – with wounds we never even perceived to have been inflicted.
In the movie The Princess Bride, the character Vizzini exclaims “inconceivable” every time something goes against his expectations – even though it may be the most logical outcome. So it is after another such outburst, Inigo Montoya claps back with: “You keep using that word; I don’t think it means what you think it means.”
The framers of the Declaration of Independence began that august document with the words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” But I doubt they imagined equality the way this text holds it forth.
Prov. 22:2 “The rich and the poor meet together; the Lord is the Maker of them all.”
There is no VIP line at the gates of Heaven. No courtesy extended the rich above the poor. No special treatment for those who imagine themselves above the rest in any way. No place for personal aggrandizement.
All Believers are humble rescues by the nail scarred hands of the Savior who alone receives the glory. In fact, there is nothing mythical like the “self-made man.” The Lord is the maker of them all.
Who and whatever you are; who or whatever you may be; whatever station in life or rank among men you hold, remember this – you did not make yourself – you were made. And you were made by the very same hand as every other human being. You belong to your Creator. You were made for His purposes. He made you with the unique qualities which are yours. Take no pride that you differ from another in these things. Be humbled. For one day, each of us will stand before our Maker – to give an account of how we lived: For the purpose for which we were made? Or as renegades after our own liking? And there will be no boasting in that hour. Only those who more fully did what they should, according to the purpose of the Master – and those who did not. How have you lived your life? For Him, or imagining you were your own?
All are creatures, but God.
All must be sustained, but God.
All must die, but God.
All are sinners, but God.
All need redemption, but God.
All are lost apart from His loving and sovereign intervention, but God.
All stand to be judged, but God.
None then, are essentially above any other.
Let our external circumstances be what they may – in these, we are all equal. And in more.
Where then is pride?
How is it we look down our noses at any other human being?
How is it our hearts do not melt for those still lost, when none-the-more deserving, we have received Christ by pure grace?
Where then is prejudice?
Who dares discount or exalt any other person in deference to another?
Whence comes the exercise of my personal “rights” at the expense of any other?
Where then is preeminence?
Why is my subjective opinion so important?
Why are my personal preferences binding on others?
We will all stand before Him.
We will not be judged in comparison to one another – but to Christ.
Tremble.
What glory then in the Gospel.
And what fear if we have neglected so great a salvation.
Kindness and Righteousness – a bit like Tuna Fish Ice Cream?
Proverbs 21:21 (ESV) Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find life, righteousness, and honor.
The pursuit of righteousness AND kindness together, form a strange juxtaposition to many. And this on at least two counts: a. When kindness is confused with weakness or spinelessness. b. When the pursuit of righteousness is confused with militant brusqueness – as thought that implies strength.
In God’s ways, the pursuit of righteousness and kindness are to be wedded together; alloyed, neither one neglected. One thinks of Eph. 4:15 “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,” Truth MUST be spoken at all costs. But it also must be spoken lovingly – at all costs. Denigration and bluster add nothing to truth. In fact, they hinder its reception (Prov. 16:21 “The wise of heart is called discerning, and sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness.” Prov. 16:23 “The heart of the wise makes his speech judicious and adds persuasiveness to his lips.”)
Righteousness sought apart from kindness will result in hardness, legalism, intractability, and frustrated anger with self and others.
Kindness without the pursuit of righteousness and truth, will result in unclear speech and compromise.
Demonizing those who differ from us does nothing positive. Burying the truth of God’s Word does even more harm. It is those who seek after righteousness in themselves and in others in kindness, that will find life, true righteousness, and honor from our Christ and King.
Neither God’s standard for living, nor His Spirit’s kindness can be safely neglected.
Father, never let me separate the two. Never let me think that there is a true righteousness apart from kindness, nor that kindness is an excuse to compromise in righteousness. How I fail at this so often.
ResponsiveReiding 