The body and the blood
The temptation to so many of us when we try to approach God is to think that because God has been dealing with us -- because He has been taking steps to bring us into something more of Himself and has been teaching us deeper lessons of the Cross -- He has thereby set before us new standards, and that only by attaining to these can we have a clear conscience before Him. No! A clear conscience is never based upon our attainment; it can only be based on the work of the Lord Jesus in the shedding of His Blood.
I may be mistaken, but I feel very strongly that some of us are thinking in terms such as these: `Today I have been a little more careful; today I have been doing a little better; this morning I have been reading the Word of God in a warmer way, so today I can pray better!' Or again, `Today I have had a little difficulty with the family; I began the day feeling very gloomy and moody; I am not feeling too bright now; it seems that there must be something wrong; therefore I cannot approach God.'
What, after all, is your basis of approach to God? Do you come to Him on the uncertain ground of your feeling, the feeling that you may have achieved something for God today? Or is your approach based on something far more secure, namely, the fact that the Blood has been shed, and that God looks on that Blood and is satisfied?
Watchman Nee, A Normal Christian Life
The two most common words in America are "busy" and "tired". We blandish them about in pride. We wear these badges with an obligatory cast of resignation and a sigh. Our membership in the club depends on our immersion in the headlong pace of events beyond our control and the consequent fatigue which results from stepping on the treadmill -- a treadmill set on "sprint". Ian Anderson said it well in "Locomotive Breath":
In the shuffling madness
of the locomotive breath,
runs the all time loser,
headlong to his death.
He feels the piston scraping
steam breaking on his brow
old Charlie stole the handle and the
train won't stop going
no way to slow down.
He sees his children jumping off
at stations one by one.
His woman and his best friend
in bed and having fun.
Crawling down the corridor
on his hands and knees
old Charlie stole the handle and
the train won't stop going
no way to slow down.
He hears the silence howling
catches angels as they fall.
And the all time winner
has got him by the balls.
He picks up Gideons Bible
open at page one
old Charlie stole the handle and
the train won't stop going
no way to slow down.
An indifferent God runs the locomotive of our useless and meaningless life, and Gideon's Bible does not hold any answers, because there are none. Our only hope lies in understanding that hope means nothing. Just keep moving. Just stay busy. Just stay alive as long as you can. The winners live a life with more pleasures than pains, and die in a sweet dream in a beautiful log home in the mountains. If you want to fantasize about eternity, that's fine, just don't bother me with your inability to accept things as they are.
The losers, which means most of us, live lives punctuated with misery and filled with contention, and die from cancer in a nursing home, avoided by our friends and family who are too busy and too tired to endure our pain.
The object of the game is to take control of the locomotive, to select the track with the most scenic view, and to ignore the final destination. This is the secular view of life, and evidence to the contrary, most secular people believe that they control the locomotive, or reject the comparison altogether.
A believer in Christ should look at the world differently. So why do we behave in the same way as any other passenger in the shuffling madness of the locomotive breath? Why do Christians fill their lives with so much activity as they run headlong to their deaths? It is because we make the same mistake that the Pharisees made 2000 years ago. They believed that their salvation could be earned, and that their relationship with God was based on their own merit, rather than on God's perfect grace. So it makes no difference whether you worship the secular meritocracy or the meritocracy of the Christian church. Whether you compare yourself to your neighbor, or whether you calculate your merit based on obedience to the Law and Christian service, it is still the same principle at work in your life.
Jesus said to seek first the kingdom of God. Does this mean that we get our ticket punched and then live our lives no differently than those who have no hope in eternity? Jesus does not offer His blood to drink and His body to eat so that we may conform to social pressure.
When a believer dies young, why do we mourn? Is it because we will miss him? Or is it because we have bought the secular belief that his life was cut short before he could achieve, or accomplish, or succeed, or fulfill temporal things? Or do we mourn for ourselves because we are reminded of the destination of the locomotive, and for a brief time, we must look at the broken tressle and the chasm beyond.
For the unbeliever and the believer, the cause of the shuffling madness is the same. We want to cram as much life into our span of years as we possibly can. We want to fill our pots of experience to overflowing. There is no time or inclination for reflection, because reflection leads to a consideration of ultimate reality ... not a good thing in this busy life. We can understand an unbeliever attempting to walk on water by running as fast as he can, but what about the believer? In the context of eternity, it doesn't really make sense to live life as if there is no tomorrow, because we believe in eternal life with endless tomorrows.
God's peace begins with acceptance but consummates with conviction. We must not only profess and believe intellectually that the blood of Christ truly accomplishes our redemption but we must also allow the body of Christ to replace our own. Redemption must lead to transformation. As long as we believe in the merit of our own actions, we will be unable to know the peace of God. How can we be at peace with God when we try to outperform His infinite sacrifice with our own efforts?
I say these things knowing that I don't have peace most of the time. I know where to find peace, but the thorn in my life is the very doubt which I hate. I am caught in Paul's dilemma, the war between the flesh and the spirit, but the mortal flesh holds sway. The doubt I live with every day is not a black despair, but rather an instinctive reaction to the demands of the world. My dilemma is being in the world but not fully embracing that I am not of the world. Just as the Elves of Middle Earth were enchanted by it, so we all are enchanted by the strange mixture of God's Creation and the corruption wrought by Satan. We want more of it because we experience it directly.
But consider whether the secular dream of utopia is any less fantastic than the Christian faith in eternal paradise. Knowing what we know about human nature and the evil of which we are quite capable, how can we be hopeful of a humanistic paradise on earth? If there is no divine transformation of creation, then there is no hope at all, only a magnification of both good and ill. Likewise, if there is no divine transformation of the self, then the corruption of the self remains. How can we find any hope in self perfection knowing what we know about our imperfect nature?
A secularist laughs at the faithful, but his laughter is hollow with irony, for he has put his true faith in himself, transient and corrupt. If faith in Christ is a fool's hope, then at worst it is an honest faith rather than a contradiction.
I may be mistaken, but I feel very strongly that some of us are thinking in terms such as these: `Today I have been a little more careful; today I have been doing a little better; this morning I have been reading the Word of God in a warmer way, so today I can pray better!' Or again, `Today I have had a little difficulty with the family; I began the day feeling very gloomy and moody; I am not feeling too bright now; it seems that there must be something wrong; therefore I cannot approach God.'
What, after all, is your basis of approach to God? Do you come to Him on the uncertain ground of your feeling, the feeling that you may have achieved something for God today? Or is your approach based on something far more secure, namely, the fact that the Blood has been shed, and that God looks on that Blood and is satisfied?
Watchman Nee, A Normal Christian Life
The two most common words in America are "busy" and "tired". We blandish them about in pride. We wear these badges with an obligatory cast of resignation and a sigh. Our membership in the club depends on our immersion in the headlong pace of events beyond our control and the consequent fatigue which results from stepping on the treadmill -- a treadmill set on "sprint". Ian Anderson said it well in "Locomotive Breath":
In the shuffling madness
of the locomotive breath,
runs the all time loser,
headlong to his death.
He feels the piston scraping
steam breaking on his brow
old Charlie stole the handle and the
train won't stop going
no way to slow down.
He sees his children jumping off
at stations one by one.
His woman and his best friend
in bed and having fun.
Crawling down the corridor
on his hands and knees
old Charlie stole the handle and
the train won't stop going
no way to slow down.
He hears the silence howling
catches angels as they fall.
And the all time winner
has got him by the balls.
He picks up Gideons Bible
open at page one
old Charlie stole the handle and
the train won't stop going
no way to slow down.
An indifferent God runs the locomotive of our useless and meaningless life, and Gideon's Bible does not hold any answers, because there are none. Our only hope lies in understanding that hope means nothing. Just keep moving. Just stay busy. Just stay alive as long as you can. The winners live a life with more pleasures than pains, and die in a sweet dream in a beautiful log home in the mountains. If you want to fantasize about eternity, that's fine, just don't bother me with your inability to accept things as they are.
The losers, which means most of us, live lives punctuated with misery and filled with contention, and die from cancer in a nursing home, avoided by our friends and family who are too busy and too tired to endure our pain.
The object of the game is to take control of the locomotive, to select the track with the most scenic view, and to ignore the final destination. This is the secular view of life, and evidence to the contrary, most secular people believe that they control the locomotive, or reject the comparison altogether.
A believer in Christ should look at the world differently. So why do we behave in the same way as any other passenger in the shuffling madness of the locomotive breath? Why do Christians fill their lives with so much activity as they run headlong to their deaths? It is because we make the same mistake that the Pharisees made 2000 years ago. They believed that their salvation could be earned, and that their relationship with God was based on their own merit, rather than on God's perfect grace. So it makes no difference whether you worship the secular meritocracy or the meritocracy of the Christian church. Whether you compare yourself to your neighbor, or whether you calculate your merit based on obedience to the Law and Christian service, it is still the same principle at work in your life.
Jesus said to seek first the kingdom of God. Does this mean that we get our ticket punched and then live our lives no differently than those who have no hope in eternity? Jesus does not offer His blood to drink and His body to eat so that we may conform to social pressure.
When a believer dies young, why do we mourn? Is it because we will miss him? Or is it because we have bought the secular belief that his life was cut short before he could achieve, or accomplish, or succeed, or fulfill temporal things? Or do we mourn for ourselves because we are reminded of the destination of the locomotive, and for a brief time, we must look at the broken tressle and the chasm beyond.
For the unbeliever and the believer, the cause of the shuffling madness is the same. We want to cram as much life into our span of years as we possibly can. We want to fill our pots of experience to overflowing. There is no time or inclination for reflection, because reflection leads to a consideration of ultimate reality ... not a good thing in this busy life. We can understand an unbeliever attempting to walk on water by running as fast as he can, but what about the believer? In the context of eternity, it doesn't really make sense to live life as if there is no tomorrow, because we believe in eternal life with endless tomorrows.
God's peace begins with acceptance but consummates with conviction. We must not only profess and believe intellectually that the blood of Christ truly accomplishes our redemption but we must also allow the body of Christ to replace our own. Redemption must lead to transformation. As long as we believe in the merit of our own actions, we will be unable to know the peace of God. How can we be at peace with God when we try to outperform His infinite sacrifice with our own efforts?
I say these things knowing that I don't have peace most of the time. I know where to find peace, but the thorn in my life is the very doubt which I hate. I am caught in Paul's dilemma, the war between the flesh and the spirit, but the mortal flesh holds sway. The doubt I live with every day is not a black despair, but rather an instinctive reaction to the demands of the world. My dilemma is being in the world but not fully embracing that I am not of the world. Just as the Elves of Middle Earth were enchanted by it, so we all are enchanted by the strange mixture of God's Creation and the corruption wrought by Satan. We want more of it because we experience it directly.
But consider whether the secular dream of utopia is any less fantastic than the Christian faith in eternal paradise. Knowing what we know about human nature and the evil of which we are quite capable, how can we be hopeful of a humanistic paradise on earth? If there is no divine transformation of creation, then there is no hope at all, only a magnification of both good and ill. Likewise, if there is no divine transformation of the self, then the corruption of the self remains. How can we find any hope in self perfection knowing what we know about our imperfect nature?
A secularist laughs at the faithful, but his laughter is hollow with irony, for he has put his true faith in himself, transient and corrupt. If faith in Christ is a fool's hope, then at worst it is an honest faith rather than a contradiction.
posted by moleses | 5:46 AM
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