June 2018

This is what the Lord says:

“Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand and my righteousness will soon be revealed.

Blessed is the one who does this—the person who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it, and keeps their hands from doing any evil.”

Let no foreigner who is bound to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.”

For this is what the Lord says:

foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord

to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it

and who hold fast to my covenant—these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer.

Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”

–Isaiah 56

In my daily devotion, I am reading the Psalms, Isaiah and Matthew together. It is beautiful. Here is what they say. The Spirit in the Psalms, the Father through Isaiah and the Christ in the Gospel all of them say this; if you say you love the Lord, if you want to be saved then you will pursue righteousness. Labels do not apply here.

I was struck by this passage in Isaiah, where God says he will save the foreigner who does right, rather than the Jew who didn’t. To the Jews, this would have been anathema, even blasphemous. As Jews, they could do what they liked, and salvation was still theirs. Yet across the entire Scripture, the triune God crushes that notion as being empty, something made up by man. God wants righteousness and obedience in our lives. I wonder if we could apply the same to Christianity today?

A girl we are discipling was looking for a flat, and she wanted to find a Christian flat share. Eventually she found one, but came to us surprised as the ‘other girl’ said she had her boyfriend around to stay quite a lot. The ‘other girl’ who was prominent in a large local church, also said, “whatever you do, don’t tell the pastor.”

A week before that, another Christian girl who had been witnessing to her unbelieving flatmate, came home to find the unbeliever sitting around with a group of believers, all on the way to getting drunk. Apparently this is the great thing about modern-day Christianity, as opposed to all that old fashioned sort; you can simply believe in Jesus, carry on living how you want, and still get to heaven. How good is that!

Christianity in the West is dying. Numbers are down, and we live in a post-modern society. In our rush to stem the flow, we have softened the Gospel, lowered the bar and differentiated the God of the Old Covenant, with the God of the New. We paint an easy faith, one with few demands. We now say that belief equates to faith, that faith is a noun not a verb and that Christ’s dying on the cross got rid of all that old ‘needing to keep the law stuff.’ In so doing, we have twisted the notion of Grace.

For one who always has an eye on disciple making, I am able to evaluate in my own life, the truth of what happens. When I am too cosy with the world, then my passion to tell others of Christ diminishes, I start talking about business, or politics or even worse. The Spirit will usually offer me a sound warning when this is happening and admonish me to correct the focus in my life. If I choose not to correct it, then the righteousness in my life – that is, my passion to do the things of the Lord rather than the things of the world, begins to slip. Eventually, as the Israelites were like in Isaiah’s day, my spiritual life is one of just going through the motions, of living a duplicitous life before God.

But, here’s the thing. God will always catch up with us for his sake and ours. He will pursue us until there is a shift, unless – unless of course, like the Israelites of old, we continue to ignore him. Then collectively, like the Israelites, our delusion becomes so great that he has to destroy things and rebuild. For the Israelites it was exile, for the church, well who can imagine. Something though, is coming.

One thing is for certain. God is going to rid us of any idea that we can proclaim his grace in our midst, while continuing to blatantly sin. He will never tolerate that. What on earth does the world think, when they see us like that? A twisted form of Grace, how abhorrent.

Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be. Your eye is like a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is unhealthy, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is! – Jesus (Matthew)

Over the past 3 years, we have been out into our neighbourhood, shamelessly sharing Jesus with whoever would listen. We’ve shared on almost a weekly basis, on the streets of our local Sydney village where during the height of summer, some 40,000 visitors from all over Sydney pour in each weekend. We have spoken to people of many different races, faiths, genders and persuasions. In amongst it all, we have spoken to many church goers as well.

At times, we have been able to spend several hours in discussion about Jesus to people who are genuinely interested in what Jesus has to offer. That in itself is reward for the effort. But on the whole, we were reflecting last night in a festival gathering, about how hard it has been. The festival gathering is for a whole group of people across Sydney who are out in their communities, trying to make disciples. Considering the prayer, the effort that goes on, really the fruit is sparse. You wouldn’t know we were out there.

At this moment in our lives, we have a few people; one, an addict, just out of detox was offered prayer and a laying on of hands by a group of believers, but rejected it. All along, he has shunned a relationship with Christ, preferring instead to ‘find peace within himself.’ Only one is ever going to free him from his addiction. Another woman, baptised and half committed to Christ keeps coming back to ‘there must be more than one God’ and in doing so misses out on the relationship Jesus offers. Her salvation is certainly not guaranteed. I could go on with literally dozens of examples.

What has happened?

We live in a society where we have received the benefits of adhering to Christian values, and having a basic Christian foundation. As a society though, we have kicked out the God who provided us with those benefits, but the residual lives on. God still ‘lives on’ at least for now, in the fabric of our society. But it won’t last, eventually God will withdraw entirely as people pursue every God but the one true God, found alone in his Son, Jesus Christ.

The church with all its glorious traditions is certainly another aspect; it refuses to break out of its four walls, change from its patently un-Biblical structure, stop worshipping money and status (as the world around it does) and go on perpetrating the lie that Jesus will save you, even if you don’t make him Lord. It is this lie, above everything else, that has caused many in our society to think that it doesn’t matter how I live, Jesus will still save me. He was after all a good bloke just like me.

The total consequence of this? We are in the glorious position of having the remnants of God’s blessing without needing any of the commitment required to diligently pursue him. That is, both church and society! My sense though, and I feel this is prophetic, is that the price we will pay as a nation for daring to test God like this, will be extortionate. We will end up with a God not of our choosing, and they will be a tyrant. For those with eyes to see, we can see the beginnings already.

Regardless, we continue on with what we are doing. We are convinced beyond all measure, this is what needs to be done. We just wish others could see, as it certainly isn’t just for us. Where are the fellow labourers in Christ? In spite of all the hardships, we can say we have never felt so fulfilled in our lives, doing what he has commanded us. We know him more than we ever have, and we sense his pleasure when we obey.

Further, as Jesus admonishes us, we must think carefully about where we store our treasure. This world is certainly fleeting and beyond this awaits – for those who are faithful, and only those who are, a treasure beyond anything you or I can imagine. What is it?

Simple, it is being with Christ and his Father in person, seeing him as even some of the angels cannot see him, listening, worshipping, laughing and being made glorious ourselves.

We won’t know ourselves such will be the change; but we must do the work that is before us here. Let us tarry, we don’t have long any of us.

Archives for June 2018

A Twisted Grace

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