33 Christianity Has a Price Tag
A glance at the title of this article might cause some to dismiss anything I might say from here on in and move on. Or some would agree with the initial premise that yes it was costly in the sense that it demanded the life of Jesus Christ to pay a debt for all our sins, all of which Jesus gave Himself freely on the cross in our place. Some may even venture to say that there is more to it than only Jesus giving His life, Jesus did say that if we wanted to be His disciples we would have to take up the cross, deny ourselves and follow Him, and scripturally that is correct.( Mathew 16:24)
Dietrich Bonheoffer in his book entitled “The Cost of Discipleship” is quoted as saying “when God calls a man He calls Him to come and die”. We are not accustomed to such stark statements that knock the wind out of us and maybe our own theology as well. In a nation such as Canada or the United States where we continue to enjoy the many freedoms that are inherent and guaranteed to us as citizens born or otherwise. Our choices have been for the most part simple enough in regards to life, liberty, education, and employment and yes religious as well. Our opportunities are endless in the pursuit of goals and dreams with some vision and encouragement we can certainly go a long way. You might say we been given a lot of ‘space’ to live out our personal lives in these free nations and thank God for it.
This brings me to the realization; with a mindset and lifestyle that has known such an autonomous freedom and then to be told that I should lay down my life to follow Christ in order to be His disciple challenges everything in me. The events and relationships of the past have moulded me to the person I am at this point and time. What I have become before meeting Jesus Christ and even after will perpetually confront me with this truth of whose will am I really following down here anyway.
I believe our human nature would be quite happy to have had a single defined moment in the past where we surrendered ourselves and yes of course, genuinely to the Lordship of Christ and left it at that. Subsequently free to move on about our own pursuits, ambitions and what have you. Our newly found life in Christ began to blossom and unfold opening up new dimensions of relationship with God never heard of (at least we never heard of before), our life took on a beauty and freshness that we all longed for as we formerly chased after the wind looking for an essence and purpose which we have currently found in Christ alone. We were younger and head over heels in love with God, what a season that was and how we wish at times we could return to the simplicity of that season of love with God. I suppose in some way it could be compared or similar to a memorable time frame in our lives when things seemed ideal, perfect, a window of time without a care in the world.
With any stage in life things change, we may not want them to, we may have been enjoying our early childhood days in the Lord so much that maturity and growing up was not only unwelcome but in our minds not a first rate idea.
One of the beginning signs that God is bringing us into another stage of development (Ones that I experienced as well as others I know)is when the prayers that we fervently prayed as new believers just don’t seem to get answered as frequently or as quickly and sometimes not at all as before. Which begins an inward search and evaluation which is not a bad idea but the issue was God was trying to get our attention. Simultaneously our crisp awareness of His Presence and the relationship we enjoyed seemed to be more distant which again caused us concern and so we began another internal inventory.
These were the beginning stages as God’s ‘mother heart’ and His nurturing ways were transitioning us from wee little ones for the next phase, where we were then handed over to the Father for rearing and maturing. Add to that an internal awareness that not everything inside our new Christian life was ‘honky dory’. It was as if God was beginning to shed a spotlight on our personality and character issues that needed more than just a minor adjustment. Some have earmarked this transition phase as a crisis that left a deep impression.
In Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, chapter two, verse7, Paul describes how they, Paul, Silvanus and Timothy “proved to be gentle among you as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children”. What a picture of leadership that was instilled in them by none other than God Himself who tenderly cares for each one of us as a nursing mother cares for her own children. Babies who need to be tenderly loved and caressed similar to new believers having all their needs met, without a care in the world oblivious to everything else except their own needs, just as it should be with babies and children.
In the next few verses you see a progression as Paul goes on to say (my rendering)how hard they worked night and day for these new believers as they laboured to teach and instruct them exhorting them in the ways of God and also being careful not to be a burden to them. We read in verse 11 and 12 that Paul and the leadership implored each one of them as a Father would his own children to walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you. You notice that Paul went from the nurturing aspects of a mother to the admonition to walk and not crawl typical of a child being raised in the love and instruction of his father. Another example is found in Galatians that again reinforces the idea that until Christ is formed in us we remain as babes not having been reared to maturity. In the case of the Galatians church they were led off course by those who would bring them back in bondage by following the law.
“My children with whom I am again in labour until Christ is formed in you.” (Gal.4:19) The childlike aspects were that they were so easily swayed from the bedrock teachings of the work of the cross they had been taught earlier. Now Paul was again in the process of labour, taking great pains in establishing in them the truth and freedom which Christ had wrought for them and it was all theirs by grace alone. Paul sums it all up beautifully in Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live , but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and delivered Himself up for me.”This is the key to abundant life and freedom; the cross must be worked into every area of our lives bringing death to our self life which will in turn cause a godly life to germinate in its place by means of God’s Holy Spirit.
I hope that I’m not drawing this out too far, so I’ll get to the point, the Christian life has a price tag but it is not a onetime paid in full arrangement, it is an ongoing exchange not of money but of life. Initially Jesus Christ gives His life for us as a ransom for us all. For those of us who have recognized our sinful condition and responded to God free gift we did so by surrendering our own lives to Christ. We are all O.K. up to here, but that is only partly it, like I said earlier we wish it were a onetime deal of surrender. It is at this juncture many pull back or one completely falls away. You see we think death to self is only about denying me certain things like chocolate or resisting another piece of pie and certainly this could play a small part in the bigger picture here.
The cross that Jesus calls us to pick up in order to follow Him is not made up of some official set of rules and regulations. The cross is a matter of simple obedience. So often like the children of Israel or the Galatians church for that matter, we would rather have a rule book to follow, we all would prefer to follow rules as they are clear cut, black and white and it gives us all a sense of having accomplished something for God which proudly reveals our zeal and dedication for God. Having performed the good deed we feel free to walk away rejoicing about our grand accomplishments only to become entangled in sins or iniquities led by our darker impulses or by other areas of our unconquered self serving conduct that we were not willing to relinquish to God initially, so now instead of freedom we are again in bondage of a different sort.
The core of the issue then and now comes down to a personal relationship. God was never interested in our outward acts of piety or following rules to the letter where people’s hearts are not in it. Performing external displays of service only caused people to become prideful and thus lose sight of their true spiritual condition and their desperate need for Him. God the Father wants to bring His children into full maturity by addressing the ‘intent s’ of their own hearts. Laws and rules are like an outward cloak that looks great but tend to mask the true condition of our hearts and its corruptions. Paul’s cry to the Galatians Church was ‘stay free in the freedom Christ has secured for you do not go back under a yolk of rules or laws or be led away into your own carnal desires to be enslaved by them once again.( Galatians chapter 5)
For all of us, human, weak, frail and many times struggling as believers, God is not expecting us to decipher some secret Da vinci Code or interpret some obscure message in the stars; all He wants from us is that our hearts be bowed low before Him in a place of rest and a willingness to obey. The truth being said, for God to get us there God has taken us through some hard places to break us of our strong wills and temperaments and to finally be able to not only speak into our lives but also reveal His glorious Presence.
It is not in vain friends that we have allowed God to put His restraining yolk over our shoulders, there may have been a time that we envied those who seemed liberated to pursue their own ends and freedoms. However, as time as gone on to decades there is a security in Christ and an internal witness that we are not illegitimate children( Hebrews 12) no, by the grace and mercy of God we were able to stay the course, although at times in tears and isolation. A small price to pay in the bigger picture
The disciplines and training of an earthly father carry a price tag of submission and adherence to his instruction which at the moment are not always appreciated. In time however they will produce in the child wisdom and knowledge for life’s hard road ahead. How much more should we be willing to pay the price of embracing the cross God puts before us in areas of suffering, adversity, misunderstanding and whatever else God deems necessary for our eternal instruction into righteousness and life refraining from complaining or fainting.
Eternal life is a free gift and we will never be able to earn it, we just receive it by faith through grace, this is the threshold by which we enter, however if we want to be changed into the likeness of Christ and eventually grow up into fully mature sons and daughters then God calls us to take up our cross of pushing away selfish and self serving ways and mindsets and embrace a righteous spirit led lifestyle that runs so contrary to our own. To the degree that we deny self and die is to the degree that we are filled with the true character of His nature.( Romans chapter 8)
What seldom gets mentioned and maybe only because we fail to see it in our trying circumstances is as Christ puts that yoke of conformity unto our shoulders He Himself is ‘harnessed in’ next to us, shoulder to shoulder, step with step. There is a nearness to Christ in trials I believe that far exceeds the average carefree lifestyle that as Christians we all seem to desire at the cost of bypassing some very intimate moment on the Calvary road where few allow themselves to be led.
Lord please help me to stop my bitter complaining in the way You are leading me, let me come to that place of rest where I am at this moment and with each step I take from here on in bearing this yolk. Help me to shift my gaze away from the road and toil before me unto Your glorious beauty and majesty, help me to take this cross of mine to its assigned place in my life. Amen
33 Christianity Has a Price Tag
A glance at the title of this article might cause some to dismiss anything I might say from here on in and move on. Or some would agree with the initial premise that yes it was costly in the sense that it demanded the life of Jesus Christ to pay a debt for all our sins, all of which Jesus gave Himself freely on the cross in our place. Some may even venture to say that there is more to it than only Jesus giving His life, Jesus did say that if we wanted to be His disciples we would have to take up the cross, deny ourselves and follow Him, and scripturally that is correct.( Mathew 16:24)
Dietrich Bonheoffer in his book entitled “The Cost of Discipleship” is quoted as saying “when God calls a man He calls Him to come and die”. We are not accustomed to such stark statements that knock the wind out of us and maybe our own theology as well. In a nation such as Canada or the United States where we continue to enjoy the many freedoms that are inherent and guaranteed to us as citizens born or otherwise. Our choices have been for the most part simple enough in regards to life, liberty, education, and employment and yes religious as well. Our opportunities are endless in the pursuit of goals and dreams with some vision and encouragement we can certainly go a long way. You might say we been given a lot of ‘space’ to live out our personal lives in these free nations and thank God for it.
This brings me to the realization; with a mindset and lifestyle that has known such an autonomous freedom and then to be told that I should lay down my life to follow Christ in order to be His disciple challenges everything in me. The events and relationships of the past have moulded me to the person I am at this point and time. What I have become before meeting Jesus Christ and even after will perpetually confront me with this truth of whose will am I really following down here anyway.
I believe our human nature would be quite happy to have had a single defined moment in the past where we surrendered ourselves and yes of course, genuinely to the Lordship of Christ and left it at that. Subsequently free to move on about our own pursuits, ambitions and what have you. Our newly found life in Christ began to blossom and unfold opening up new dimensions of relationship with God never heard of (at least we never heard of before), our life took on a beauty and freshness that we all longed for as we formerly chased after the wind looking for an essence and purpose which we have currently found in Christ alone. We were younger and head over heels in love with God, what a season that was and how we wish at times we could return to the simplicity of that season of love with God. I suppose in some way it could be compared or similar to a memorable time frame in our lives when things seemed ideal, perfect, a window of time without a care in the world.
With any stage in life things change, we may not want them to, we may have been enjoying our early childhood days in the Lord so much that maturity and growing up was not only unwelcome but in our minds not a first rate idea.
One of the beginning signs that God is bringing us into another stage of development (Ones that I experienced as well as others I know)is when the prayers that we fervently prayed as new believers just don’t seem to get answered as frequently or as quickly and sometimes not at all as before. Which begins an inward search and evaluation which is not a bad idea but the issue was God was trying to get our attention. Simultaneously our crisp awareness of His Presence and the relationship we enjoyed seemed to be more distant which again caused us concern and so we began another internal inventory.
These were the beginning stages as God’s ‘mother heart’ and His nurturing ways were transitioning us from wee little ones for the next phase, where we were then handed over to the Father for rearing and maturing. Add to that an internal awareness that not everything inside our new Christian life was ‘honky dory’. It was as if God was beginning to shed a spotlight on our personality and character issues that needed more than just a minor adjustment. Some have earmarked this transition phase as a crisis that left a deep impression.
In Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, chapter two, verse7, Paul describes how they, Paul, Silvanus and Timothy “proved to be gentle among you as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children”. What a picture of leadership that was instilled in them by none other than God Himself who tenderly cares for each one of us as a nursing mother cares for her own children. Babies who need to be tenderly loved and caressed similar to new believers having all their needs met, without a care in the world oblivious to everything else except their own needs, just as it should be with babies and children.
In the next few verses you see a progression as Paul goes on to say (my rendering)how hard they worked night and day for these new believers as they laboured to teach and instruct them exhorting them in the ways of God and also being careful not to be a burden to them. We read in verse 11 and 12 that Paul and the leadership implored each one of them as a Father would his own children to walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you. You notice that Paul went from the nurturing aspects of a mother to the admonition to walk and not crawl typical of a child being raised in the love and instruction of his father. Another example is found in Galatians that again reinforces the idea that until Christ is formed in us we remain as babes not having been reared to maturity. In the case of the Galatians church they were led off course by those who would bring them back in bondage by following the law.
“My children with whom I am again in labour until Christ is formed in you.” (Gal.4:19) The childlike aspects were that they were so easily swayed from the bedrock teachings of the work of the cross they had been taught earlier. Now Paul was again in the process of labour, taking great pains in establishing in them the truth and freedom which Christ had wrought for them and it was all theirs by grace alone. Paul sums it all up beautifully in Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live , but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and delivered Himself up for me.”This is the key to abundant life and freedom; the cross must be worked into every area of our lives bringing death to our self life which will in turn cause a godly life to germinate in its place by means of God’s Holy Spirit.
I hope that I’m not drawing this out too far, so I’ll get to the point, the Christian life has a price tag but it is not a onetime paid in full arrangement, it is an ongoing exchange not of money but of life. Initially Jesus Christ gives His life for us as a ransom for us all. For those of us who have recognized our sinful condition and responded to God free gift we did so by surrendering our own lives to Christ. We are all O.K. up to here, but that is only partly it, like I said earlier we wish it were a onetime deal of surrender. It is at this juncture many pull back or one completely falls away. You see we think death to self is only about denying me certain things like chocolate or resisting another piece of pie and certainly this could play a small part in the bigger picture here.
The cross that Jesus calls us to pick up in order to follow Him is not made up of some official set of rules and regulations. The cross is a matter of simple obedience. So often like the children of Israel or the Galatians church for that matter, we would rather have a rule book to follow, we all would prefer to follow rules as they are clear cut, black and white and it gives us all a sense of having accomplished something for God which proudly reveals our zeal and dedication for God. Having performed the good deed we feel free to walk away rejoicing about our grand accomplishments only to become entangled in sins or iniquities led by our darker impulses or by other areas of our unconquered self serving conduct that we were not willing to relinquish to God initially, so now instead of freedom we are again in bondage of a different sort.
The core of the issue then and now comes down to a personal relationship. God was never interested in our outward acts of piety or following rules to the letter where people’s hearts are not in it. Performing external displays of service only caused people to become prideful and thus lose sight of their true spiritual condition and their desperate need for Him. God the Father wants to bring His children into full maturity by addressing the ‘intent s’ of their own hearts. Laws and rules are like an outward cloak that looks great but tend to mask the true condition of our hearts and its corruptions. Paul’s cry to the Galatians Church was ‘stay free in the freedom Christ has secured for you do not go back under a yolk of rules or laws or be led away into your own carnal desires to be enslaved by them once again.( Galatians chapter 5)
For all of us, human, weak, frail and many times struggling as believers, God is not expecting us to decipher some secret Da vinci Code or interpret some obscure message in the stars; all He wants from us is that our hearts be bowed low before Him in a place of rest and a willingness to obey. The truth being said, for God to get us there God has taken us through some hard places to break us of our strong wills and temperaments and to finally be able to not only speak into our lives but also reveal His glorious Presence.
It is not in vain friends that we have allowed God to put His restraining yolk over our shoulders, there may have been a time that we envied those who seemed liberated to pursue their own ends and freedoms. However, as time as gone on to decades there is a security in Christ and an internal witness that we are not illegitimate children( Hebrews 12) no, by the grace and mercy of God we were able to stay the course, although at times in tears and isolation. A small price to pay in the bigger picture
The disciplines and training of an earthly father carry a price tag of submission and adherence to his instruction which at the moment are not always appreciated. In time however they will produce in the child wisdom and knowledge for life’s hard road ahead. How much more should we be willing to pay the price of embracing the cross God puts before us in areas of suffering, adversity, misunderstanding and whatever else God deems necessary for our eternal instruction into righteousness and life refraining from complaining or fainting.
Eternal life is a free gift and we will never be able to earn it, we just receive it by faith through grace, this is the threshold by which we enter, however if we want to be changed into the likeness of Christ and eventually grow up into fully mature sons and daughters then God calls us to take up our cross of pushing away selfish and self serving ways and mindsets and embrace a righteous spirit led lifestyle that runs so contrary to our own. To the degree that we deny self and die is to the degree that we are filled with the true character of His nature.( Romans chapter 8)
What seldom gets mentioned and maybe only because we fail to see it in our trying circumstances is as Christ puts that yoke of conformity unto our shoulders He Himself is ‘harnessed in’ next to us, shoulder to shoulder, step with step. There is a nearness to Christ in trials I believe that far exceeds the average carefree lifestyle that as Christians we all seem to desire at the cost of bypassing some very intimate moment on the Calvary road where few allow themselves to be led.
Lord please help me to stop my bitter complaining in the way You are leading me, let me come to that place of rest where I am at this moment and with each step I take from here on in bearing this yolk. Help me to shift my gaze away from the road and toil before me unto Your glorious beauty and majesty, help me to take this cross of mine to its assigned place in my life. Amen
33 Christianity Has a Price Tag
A glance at the title of this article might cause some to dismiss anything I might say from here on in and move on. Or some would agree with the initial premise that yes it was costly in the sense that it demanded the life of Jesus Christ to pay a debt for all our sins, all of which Jesus gave Himself freely on the cross in our place. Some may even venture to say that there is more to it than only Jesus giving His life, Jesus did say that if we wanted to be His disciples we would have to take up the cross, deny ourselves and follow Him, and scripturally that is correct.( Mathew 16:24)
Dietrich Bonheoffer in his book entitled “The Cost of Discipleship” is quoted as saying “when God calls a man He calls Him to come and die”. We are not accustomed to such stark statements that knock the wind out of us and maybe our own theology as well. In a nation such as Canada or the United States where we continue to enjoy the many freedoms that are inherent and guaranteed to us as citizens born or otherwise. Our choices have been for the most part simple enough in regards to life, liberty, education, and employment and yes religious as well. Our opportunities are endless in the pursuit of goals and dreams with some vision and encouragement we can certainly go a long way. You might say we been given a lot of ‘space’ to live out our personal lives in these free nations and thank God for it.
This brings me to the realization; with a mindset and lifestyle that has known such an autonomous freedom and then to be told that I should lay down my life to follow Christ in order to be His disciple challenges everything in me. The events and relationships of the past have moulded me to the person I am at this point and time. What I have become before meeting Jesus Christ and even after will perpetually confront me with this truth of whose will am I really following down here anyway.
I believe our human nature would be quite happy to have had a single defined moment in the past where we surrendered ourselves and yes of course, genuinely to the Lordship of Christ and left it at that. Subsequently free to move on about our own pursuits, ambitions and what have you. Our newly found life in Christ began to blossom and unfold opening up new dimensions of relationship with God never heard of (at least we never heard of before), our life took on a beauty and freshness that we all longed for as we formerly chased after the wind looking for an essence and purpose which we have currently found in Christ alone. We were younger and head over heels in love with God, what a season that was and how we wish at times we could return to the simplicity of that season of love with God. I suppose in some way it could be compared or similar to a memorable time frame in our lives when things seemed ideal, perfect, a window of time without a care in the world.
With any stage in life things change, we may not want them to, we may have been enjoying our early childhood days in the Lord so much that maturity and growing up was not only unwelcome but in our minds not a first rate idea.
One of the beginning signs that God is bringing us into another stage of development (Ones that I experienced as well as others I know)is when the prayers that we fervently prayed as new believers just don’t seem to get answered as frequently or as quickly and sometimes not at all as before. Which begins an inward search and evaluation which is not a bad idea but the issue was God was trying to get our attention. Simultaneously our crisp awareness of His Presence and the relationship we enjoyed seemed to be more distant which again caused us concern and so we began another internal inventory.
These were the beginning stages as God’s ‘mother heart’ and His nurturing ways were transitioning us from wee little ones for the next phase, where we were then handed over to the Father for rearing and maturing. Add to that an internal awareness that not everything inside our new Christian life was ‘honky dory’. It was as if God was beginning to shed a spotlight on our personality and character issues that needed more than just a minor adjustment. Some have earmarked this transition phase as a crisis that left a deep impression.
In Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, chapter two, verse7, Paul describes how they, Paul, Silvanus and Timothy “proved to be gentle among you as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children”. What a picture of leadership that was instilled in them by none other than God Himself who tenderly cares for each one of us as a nursing mother cares for her own children. Babies who need to be tenderly loved and caressed similar to new believers having all their needs met, without a care in the world oblivious to everything else except their own needs, just as it should be with babies and children.
In the next few verses you see a progression as Paul goes on to say (my rendering)how hard they worked night and day for these new believers as they laboured to teach and instruct them exhorting them in the ways of God and also being careful not to be a burden to them. We read in verse 11 and 12 that Paul and the leadership implored each one of them as a Father would his own children to walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you. You notice that Paul went from the nurturing aspects of a mother to the admonition to walk and not crawl typical of a child being raised in the love and instruction of his father. Another example is found in Galatians that again reinforces the idea that until Christ is formed in us we remain as babes not having been reared to maturity. In the case of the Galatians church they were led off course by those who would bring them back in bondage by following the law.
“My children with whom I am again in labour until Christ is formed in you.” (Gal.4:19) The childlike aspects were that they were so easily swayed from the bedrock teachings of the work of the cross they had been taught earlier. Now Paul was again in the process of labour, taking great pains in establishing in them the truth and freedom which Christ had wrought for them and it was all theirs by grace alone. Paul sums it all up beautifully in Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live , but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and delivered Himself up for me.”This is the key to abundant life and freedom; the cross must be worked into every area of our lives bringing death to our self life which will in turn cause a godly life to germinate in its place by means of God’s Holy Spirit.
I hope that I’m not drawing this out too far, so I’ll get to the point, the Christian life has a price tag but it is not a onetime paid in full arrangement, it is an ongoing exchange not of money but of life. Initially Jesus Christ gives His life for us as a ransom for us all. For those of us who have recognized our sinful condition and responded to God free gift we did so by surrendering our own lives to Christ. We are all O.K. up to here, but that is only partly it, like I said earlier we wish it were a onetime deal of surrender. It is at this juncture many pull back or one completely falls away. You see we think death to self is only about denying me certain things like chocolate or resisting another piece of pie and certainly this could play a small part in the bigger picture here.
The cross that Jesus calls us to pick up in order to follow Him is not made up of some official set of rules and regulations. The cross is a matter of simple obedience. So often like the children of Israel or the Galatians church for that matter, we would rather have a rule book to follow, we all would prefer to follow rules as they are clear cut, black and white and it gives us all a sense of having accomplished something for God which proudly reveals our zeal and dedication for God. Having performed the good deed we feel free to walk away rejoicing about our grand accomplishments only to become entangled in sins or iniquities led by our darker impulses or by other areas of our unconquered self serving conduct that we were not willing to relinquish to God initially, so now instead of freedom we are again in bondage of a different sort.
The core of the issue then and now comes down to a personal relationship. God was never interested in our outward acts of piety or following rules to the letter where people’s hearts are not in it. Performing external displays of service only caused people to become prideful and thus lose sight of their true spiritual condition and their desperate need for Him. God the Father wants to bring His children into full maturity by addressing the ‘intent s’ of their own hearts. Laws and rules are like an outward cloak that looks great but tend to mask the true condition of our hearts and its corruptions. Paul’s cry to the Galatians Church was ‘stay free in the freedom Christ has secured for you do not go back under a yolk of rules or laws or be led away into your own carnal desires to be enslaved by them once again.( Galatians chapter 5)
For all of us, human, weak, frail and many times struggling as believers, God is not expecting us to decipher some secret Da vinci Code or interpret some obscure message in the stars; all He wants from us is that our hearts be bowed low before Him in a place of rest and a willingness to obey. The truth being said, for God to get us there God has taken us through some hard places to break us of our strong wills and temperaments and to finally be able to not only speak into our lives but also reveal His glorious Presence.
It is not in vain friends that we have allowed God to put His restraining yolk over our shoulders, there may have been a time that we envied those who seemed liberated to pursue their own ends and freedoms. However, as time as gone on to decades there is a security in Christ and an internal witness that we are not illegitimate children( Hebrews 12) no, by the grace and mercy of God we were able to stay the course, although at times in tears and isolation. A small price to pay in the bigger picture
The disciplines and training of an earthly father carry a price tag of submission and adherence to his instruction which at the moment are not always appreciated. In time however they will produce in the child wisdom and knowledge for life’s hard road ahead. How much more should we be willing to pay the price of embracing the cross God puts before us in areas of suffering, adversity, misunderstanding and whatever else God deems necessary for our eternal instruction into righteousness and life refraining from complaining or fainting.
Eternal life is a free gift and we will never be able to earn it, we just receive it by faith through grace, this is the threshold by which we enter, however if we want to be changed into the likeness of Christ and eventually grow up into fully mature sons and daughters then God calls us to take up our cross of pushing away selfish and self serving ways and mindsets and embrace a righteous spirit led lifestyle that runs so contrary to our own. To the degree that we deny self and die is to the degree that we are filled with the true character of His nature.( Romans chapter 8)
What seldom gets mentioned and maybe only because we fail to see it in our trying circumstances is as Christ puts that yoke of conformity unto our shoulders He Himself is ‘harnessed in’ next to us, shoulder to shoulder, step with step. There is a nearness to Christ in trials I believe that far exceeds the average carefree lifestyle that as Christians we all seem to desire at the cost of bypassing some very intimate moment on the Calvary road where few allow themselves to be led.
Lord please help me to stop my bitter complaining in the way You are leading me, let me come to that place of rest where I am at this moment and with each step I take from here on in bearing this yolk. Help me to shift my gaze away from the road and toil before me unto Your glorious beauty and majesty, help me to take this cross of mine to its assigned place in my life. Amen
33 Christianity Has a Price Tag
A glance at the title of this article might cause some to dismiss anything I might say from here on in and move on. Or some would agree with the initial premise that yes it was costly in the sense that it demanded the life of Jesus Christ to pay a debt for all our sins, all of which Jesus gave Himself freely on the cross in our place. Some may even venture to say that there is more to it than only Jesus giving His life, Jesus did say that if we wanted to be His disciples we would have to take up the cross, deny ourselves and follow Him, and scripturally that is correct.( Mathew 16:24)
Dietrich Bonheoffer in his book entitled “The Cost of Discipleship” is quoted as saying “when God calls a man He calls Him to come and die”. We are not accustomed to such stark statements that knock the wind out of us and maybe our own theology as well. In a nation such as Canada or the United States where we continue to enjoy the many freedoms that are inherent and guaranteed to us as citizens born or otherwise. Our choices have been for the most part simple enough in regards to life, liberty, education, and employment and yes religious as well. Our opportunities are endless in the pursuit of goals and dreams with some vision and encouragement we can certainly go a long way. You might say we been given a lot of ‘space’ to live out our personal lives in these free nations and thank God for it.
This brings me to the realization; with a mindset and lifestyle that has known such an autonomous freedom and then to be told that I should lay down my life to follow Christ in order to be His disciple challenges everything in me. The events and relationships of the past have moulded me to the person I am at this point and time. What I have become before meeting Jesus Christ and even after will perpetually confront me with this truth of whose will am I really following down here anyway.
I believe our human nature would be quite happy to have had a single defined moment in the past where we surrendered ourselves and yes of course, genuinely to the Lordship of Christ and left it at that. Subsequently free to move on about our own pursuits, ambitions and what have you. Our newly found life in Christ began to blossom and unfold opening up new dimensions of relationship with God never heard of (at least we never heard of before), our life took on a beauty and freshness that we all longed for as we formerly chased after the wind looking for an essence and purpose which we have currently found in Christ alone. We were younger and head over heels in love with God, what a season that was and how we wish at times we could return to the simplicity of that season of love with God. I suppose in some way it could be compared or similar to a memorable time frame in our lives when things seemed ideal, perfect, a window of time without a care in the world.
With any stage in life things change, we may not want them to, we may have been enjoying our early childhood days in the Lord so much that maturity and growing up was not only unwelcome but in our minds not a first rate idea.
One of the beginning signs that God is bringing us into another stage of development (Ones that I experienced as well as others I know)is when the prayers that we fervently prayed as new believers just don’t seem to get answered as frequently or as quickly and sometimes not at all as before. Which begins an inward search and evaluation which is not a bad idea but the issue was God was trying to get our attention. Simultaneously our crisp awareness of His Presence and the relationship we enjoyed seemed to be more distant which again caused us concern and so we began another internal inventory.
These were the beginning stages as God’s ‘mother heart’ and His nurturing ways were transitioning us from wee little ones for the next phase, where we were then handed over to the Father for rearing and maturing. Add to that an internal awareness that not everything inside our new Christian life was ‘honky dory’. It was as if God was beginning to shed a spotlight on our personality and character issues that needed more than just a minor adjustment. Some have earmarked this transition phase as a crisis that left a deep impression.
In Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, chapter two, verse7, Paul describes how they, Paul, Silvanus and Timothy “proved to be gentle among you as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children”. What a picture of leadership that was instilled in them by none other than God Himself who tenderly cares for each one of us as a nursing mother cares for her own children. Babies who need to be tenderly loved and caressed similar to new believers having all their needs met, without a care in the world oblivious to everything else except their own needs, just as it should be with babies and children.
In the next few verses you see a progression as Paul goes on to say (my rendering)how hard they worked night and day for these new believers as they laboured to teach and instruct them exhorting them in the ways of God and also being careful not to be a burden to them. We read in verse 11 and 12 that Paul and the leadership implored each one of them as a Father would his own children to walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you. You notice that Paul went from the nurturing aspects of a mother to the admonition to walk and not crawl typical of a child being raised in the love and instruction of his father. Another example is found in Galatians that again reinforces the idea that until Christ is formed in us we remain as babes not having been reared to maturity. In the case of the Galatians church they were led off course by those who would bring them back in bondage by following the law.
“My children with whom I am again in labour until Christ is formed in you.” (Gal.4:19) The childlike aspects were that they were so easily swayed from the bedrock teachings of the work of the cross they had been taught earlier. Now Paul was again in the process of labour, taking great pains in establishing in them the truth and freedom which Christ had wrought for them and it was all theirs by grace alone. Paul sums it all up beautifully in Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live , but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and delivered Himself up for me.”This is the key to abundant life and freedom; the cross must be worked into every area of our lives bringing death to our self life which will in turn cause a godly life to germinate in its place by means of God’s Holy Spirit.
I hope that I’m not drawing this out too far, so I’ll get to the point, the Christian life has a price tag but it is not a onetime paid in full arrangement, it is an ongoing exchange not of money but of life. Initially Jesus Christ gives His life for us as a ransom for us all. For those of us who have recognized our sinful condition and responded to God free gift we did so by surrendering our own lives to Christ. We are all O.K. up to here, but that is only partly it, like I said earlier we wish it were a onetime deal of surrender. It is at this juncture many pull back or one completely falls away. You see we think death to self is only about denying me certain things like chocolate or resisting another piece of pie and certainly this could play a small part in the bigger picture here.
The cross that Jesus calls us to pick up in order to follow Him is not made up of some official set of rules and regulations. The cross is a matter of simple obedience. So often like the children of Israel or the Galatians church for that matter, we would rather have a rule book to follow, we all would prefer to follow rules as they are clear cut, black and white and it gives us all a sense of having accomplished something for God which proudly reveals our zeal and dedication for God. Having performed the good deed we feel free to walk away rejoicing about our grand accomplishments only to become entangled in sins or iniquities led by our darker impulses or by other areas of our unconquered self serving conduct that we were not willing to relinquish to God initially, so now instead of freedom we are again in bondage of a different sort.
The core of the issue then and now comes down to a personal relationship. God was never interested in our outward acts of piety or following rules to the letter where people’s hearts are not in it. Performing external displays of service only caused people to become prideful and thus lose sight of their true spiritual condition and their desperate need for Him. God the Father wants to bring His children into full maturity by addressing the ‘intent s’ of their own hearts. Laws and rules are like an outward cloak that looks great but tend to mask the true condition of our hearts and its corruptions. Paul’s cry to the Galatians Church was ‘stay free in the freedom Christ has secured for you do not go back under a yolk of rules or laws or be led away into your own carnal desires to be enslaved by them once again.( Galatians chapter 5)
For all of us, human, weak, frail and many times struggling as believers, God is not expecting us to decipher some secret Da vinci Code or interpret some obscure message in the stars; all He wants from us is that our hearts be bowed low before Him in a place of rest and a willingness to obey. The truth being said, for God to get us there God has taken us through some hard places to break us of our strong wills and temperaments and to finally be able to not only speak into our lives but also reveal His glorious Presence.
It is not in vain friends that we have allowed God to put His restraining yolk over our shoulders, there may have been a time that we envied those who seemed liberated to pursue their own ends and freedoms. However, as time as gone on to decades there is a security in Christ and an internal witness that we are not illegitimate children( Hebrews 12) no, by the grace and mercy of God we were able to stay the course, although at times in tears and isolation. A small price to pay in the bigger picture
The disciplines and training of an earthly father carry a price tag of submission and adherence to his instruction which at the moment are not always appreciated. In time however they will produce in the child wisdom and knowledge for life’s hard road ahead. How much more should we be willing to pay the price of embracing the cross God puts before us in areas of suffering, adversity, misunderstanding and whatever else God deems necessary for our eternal instruction into righteousness and life refraining from complaining or fainting.
Eternal life is a free gift and we will never be able to earn it, we just receive it by faith through grace, this is the threshold by which we enter, however if we want to be changed into the likeness of Christ and eventually grow up into fully mature sons and daughters then God calls us to take up our cross of pushing away selfish and self serving ways and mindsets and embrace a righteous spirit led lifestyle that runs so contrary to our own. To the degree that we deny self and die is to the degree that we are filled with the true character of His nature.( Romans chapter 8)
What seldom gets mentioned and maybe only because we fail to see it in our trying circumstances is as Christ puts that yoke of conformity unto our shoulders He Himself is ‘harnessed in’ next to us, shoulder to shoulder, step with step. There is a nearness to Christ in trials I believe that far exceeds the average carefree lifestyle that as Christians we all seem to desire at the cost of bypassing some very intimate moment on the Calvary road where few allow themselves to be led.
Lord please help me to stop my bitter complaining in the way You are leading me, let me come to that place of rest where I am at this moment and with each step I take from here on in bearing this yolk. Help me to shift my gaze away from the road and toil before me unto Your glorious beauty and majesty, help me to take this cross of mine to its assigned place in my life. Amen
33 Christianity Has a Price Tag
A glance at the title of this article might cause some to dismiss anything I might say from here on in and move on. Or some would agree with the initial premise that yes it was costly in the sense that it demanded the life of Jesus Christ to pay a debt for all our sins, all of which Jesus gave Himself freely on the cross in our place. Some may even venture to say that there is more to it than only Jesus giving His life, Jesus did say that if we wanted to be His disciples we would have to take up the cross, deny ourselves and follow Him, and scripturally that is correct.( Mathew 16:24)
Dietrich Bonheoffer in his book entitled “The Cost of Discipleship” is quoted as saying “when God calls a man He calls Him to come and die”. We are not accustomed to such stark statements that knock the wind out of us and maybe our own theology as well. In a nation such as Canada or the United States where we continue to enjoy the many freedoms that are inherent and guaranteed to us as citizens born or otherwise. Our choices have been for the most part simple enough in regards to life, liberty, education, and employment and yes religious as well. Our opportunities are endless in the pursuit of goals and dreams with some vision and encouragement we can certainly go a long way. You might say we been given a lot of ‘space’ to live out our personal lives in these free nations and thank God for it.
This brings me to the realization; with a mindset and lifestyle that has known such an autonomous freedom and then to be told that I should lay down my life to follow Christ in order to be His disciple challenges everything in me. The events and relationships of the past have moulded me to the person I am at this point and time. What I have become before meeting Jesus Christ and even after will perpetually confront me with this truth of whose will am I really following down here anyway.
I believe our human nature would be quite happy to have had a single defined moment in the past where we surrendered ourselves and yes of course, genuinely to the Lordship of Christ and left it at that. Subsequently free to move on about our own pursuits, ambitions and what have you. Our newly found life in Christ began to blossom and unfold opening up new dimensions of relationship with God never heard of (at least we never heard of before), our life took on a beauty and freshness that we all longed for as we formerly chased after the wind looking for an essence and purpose which we have currently found in Christ alone. We were younger and head over heels in love with God, what a season that was and how we wish at times we could return to the simplicity of that season of love with God. I suppose in some way it could be compared or similar to a memorable time frame in our lives when things seemed ideal, perfect, a window of time without a care in the world.
With any stage in life things change, we may not want them to, we may have been enjoying our early childhood days in the Lord so much that maturity and growing up was not only unwelcome but in our minds not a first rate idea.
One of the beginning signs that God is bringing us into another stage of development (Ones that I experienced as well as others I know)is when the prayers that we fervently prayed as new believers just don’t seem to get answered as frequently or as quickly and sometimes not at all as before. Which begins an inward search and evaluation which is not a bad idea but the issue was God was trying to get our attention. Simultaneously our crisp awareness of His Presence and the relationship we enjoyed seemed to be more distant which again caused us concern and so we began another internal inventory.
These were the beginning stages as God’s ‘mother heart’ and His nurturing ways were transitioning us from wee little ones for the next phase, where we were then handed over to the Father for rearing and maturing. Add to that an internal awareness that not everything inside our new Christian life was ‘honky dory’. It was as if God was beginning to shed a spotlight on our personality and character issues that needed more than just a minor adjustment. Some have earmarked this transition phase as a crisis that left a deep impression.
In Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, chapter two, verse7, Paul describes how they, Paul, Silvanus and Timothy “proved to be gentle among you as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children”. What a picture of leadership that was instilled in them by none other than God Himself who tenderly cares for each one of us as a nursing mother cares for her own children. Babies who need to be tenderly loved and caressed similar to new believers having all their needs met, without a care in the world oblivious to everything else except their own needs, just as it should be with babies and children.
In the next few verses you see a progression as Paul goes on to say (my rendering)how hard they worked night and day for these new believers as they laboured to teach and instruct them exhorting them in the ways of God and also being careful not to be a burden to them. We read in verse 11 and 12 that Paul and the leadership implored each one of them as a Father would his own children to walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you. You notice that Paul went from the nurturing aspects of a mother to the admonition to walk and not crawl typical of a child being raised in the love and instruction of his father. Another example is found in Galatians that again reinforces the idea that until Christ is formed in us we remain as babes not having been reared to maturity. In the case of the Galatians church they were led off course by those who would bring them back in bondage by following the law.
“My children with whom I am again in labour until Christ is formed in you.” (Gal.4:19) The childlike aspects were that they were so easily swayed from the bedrock teachings of the work of the cross they had been taught earlier. Now Paul was again in the process of labour, taking great pains in establishing in them the truth and freedom which Christ had wrought for them and it was all theirs by grace alone. Paul sums it all up beautifully in Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live , but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and delivered Himself up for me.”This is the key to abundant life and freedom; the cross must be worked into every area of our lives bringing death to our self life which will in turn cause a godly life to germinate in its place by means of God’s Holy Spirit.
I hope that I’m not drawing this out too far, so I’ll get to the point, the Christian life has a price tag but it is not a onetime paid in full arrangement, it is an ongoing exchange not of money but of life. Initially Jesus Christ gives His life for us as a ransom for us all. For those of us who have recognized our sinful condition and responded to God free gift we did so by surrendering our own lives to Christ. We are all O.K. up to here, but that is only partly it, like I said earlier we wish it were a onetime deal of surrender. It is at this juncture many pull back or one completely falls away. You see we think death to self is only about denying me certain things like chocolate or resisting another piece of pie and certainly this could play a small part in the bigger picture here.
The cross that Jesus calls us to pick up in order to follow Him is not made up of some official set of rules and regulations. The cross is a matter of simple obedience. So often like the children of Israel or the Galatians church for that matter, we would rather have a rule book to follow, we all would prefer to follow rules as they are clear cut, black and white and it gives us all a sense of having accomplished something for God which proudly reveals our zeal and dedication for God. Having performed the good deed we feel free to walk away rejoicing about our grand accomplishments only to become entangled in sins or iniquities led by our darker impulses or by other areas of our unconquered self serving conduct that we were not willing to relinquish to God initially, so now instead of freedom we are again in bondage of a different sort.
The core of the issue then and now comes down to a personal relationship. God was never interested in our outward acts of piety or following rules to the letter where people’s hearts are not in it. Performing external displays of service only caused people to become prideful and thus lose sight of their true spiritual condition and their desperate need for Him. God the Father wants to bring His children into full maturity by addressing the ‘intent s’ of their own hearts. Laws and rules are like an outward cloak that looks great but tend to mask the true condition of our hearts and its corruptions. Paul’s cry to the Galatians Church was ‘stay free in the freedom Christ has secured for you do not go back under a yolk of rules or laws or be led away into your own carnal desires to be enslaved by them once again.( Galatians chapter 5)
For all of us, human, weak, frail and many times struggling as believers, God is not expecting us to decipher some secret Da vinci Code or interpret some obscure message in the stars; all He wants from us is that our hearts be bowed low before Him in a place of rest and a willingness to obey. The truth being said, for God to get us there God has taken us through some hard places to break us of our strong wills and temperaments and to finally be able to not only speak into our lives but also reveal His glorious Presence.
It is not in vain friends that we have allowed God to put His restraining yolk over our shoulders, there may have been a time that we envied those who seemed liberated to pursue their own ends and freedoms. However, as time as gone on to decades there is a security in Christ and an internal witness that we are not illegitimate children( Hebrews 12) no, by the grace and mercy of God we were able to stay the course, although at times in tears and isolation. A small price to pay in the bigger picture
The disciplines and training of an earthly father carry a price tag of submission and adherence to his instruction which at the moment are not always appreciated. In time however they will produce in the child wisdom and knowledge for life’s hard road ahead. How much more should we be willing to pay the price of embracing the cross God puts before us in areas of suffering, adversity, misunderstanding and whatever else God deems necessary for our eternal instruction into righteousness and life refraining from complaining or fainting.
Eternal life is a free gift and we will never be able to earn it, we just receive it by faith through grace, this is the threshold by which we enter, however if we want to be changed into the likeness of Christ and eventually grow up into fully mature sons and daughters then God calls us to take up our cross of pushing away selfish and self serving ways and mindsets and embrace a righteous spirit led lifestyle that runs so contrary to our own. To the degree that we deny self and die is to the degree that we are filled with the true character of His nature.( Romans chapter 8)
What seldom gets mentioned and maybe only because we fail to see it in our trying circumstances is as Christ puts that yoke of conformity unto our shoulders He Himself is ‘harnessed in’ next to us, shoulder to shoulder, step with step. There is a nearness to Christ in trials I believe that far exceeds the average carefree lifestyle that as Christians we all seem to desire at the cost of bypassing some very intimate moment on the Calvary road where few allow themselves to be led.
Lord please help me to stop my bitter complaining in the way You are leading me, let me come to that place of rest where I am at this moment and with each step I take from here on in bearing this yolk. Help me to shift my gaze away from the road and toil before me unto Your glorious beauty and majesty, help me to take this cross of mine to its assigned place in my life. Amen
33 Christianity Has a Price Tag
A glance at the title of this article might cause some to dismiss anything I might say from here on in and move on. Or some would agree with the initial premise that yes it was costly in the sense that it demanded the life of Jesus Christ to pay a debt for all our sins, all of which Jesus gave Himself freely on the cross in our place. Some may even venture to say that there is more to it than only Jesus giving His life, Jesus did say that if we wanted to be His disciples we would have to take up the cross, deny ourselves and follow Him, and scripturally that is correct.( Mathew 16:24)
Dietrich Bonheoffer in his book entitled “The Cost of Discipleship” is quoted as saying “when God calls a man He calls Him to come and die”. We are not accustomed to such stark statements that knock the wind out of us and maybe our own theology as well. In a nation such as Canada or the United States where we continue to enjoy the many freedoms that are inherent and guaranteed to us as citizens born or otherwise. Our choices have been for the most part simple enough in regards to life, liberty, education, and employment and yes religious as well. Our opportunities are endless in the pursuit of goals and dreams with some vision and encouragement we can certainly go a long way. You might say we been given a lot of ‘space’ to live out our personal lives in these free nations and thank God for it.
This brings me to the realization; with a mindset and lifestyle that has known such an autonomous freedom and then to be told that I should lay down my life to follow Christ in order to be His disciple challenges everything in me. The events and relationships of the past have moulded me to the person I am at this point and time. What I have become before meeting Jesus Christ and even after will perpetually confront me with this truth of whose will am I really following down here anyway.
I believe our human nature would be quite happy to have had a single defined moment in the past where we surrendered ourselves and yes of course, genuinely to the Lordship of Christ and left it at that. Subsequently free to move on about our own pursuits, ambitions and what have you. Our newly found life in Christ began to blossom and unfold opening up new dimensions of relationship with God never heard of (at least we never heard of before), our life took on a beauty and freshness that we all longed for as we formerly chased after the wind looking for an essence and purpose which we have currently found in Christ alone. We were younger and head over heels in love with God, what a season that was and how we wish at times we could return to the simplicity of that season of love with God. I suppose in some way it could be compared or similar to a memorable time frame in our lives when things seemed ideal, perfect, a window of time without a care in the world.
With any stage in life things change, we may not want them to, we may have been enjoying our early childhood days in the Lord so much that maturity and growing up was not only unwelcome but in our minds not a first rate idea.
One of the beginning signs that God is bringing us into another stage of development (Ones that I experienced as well as others I know)is when the prayers that we fervently prayed as new believers just don’t seem to get answered as frequently or as quickly and sometimes not at all as before. Which begins an inward search and evaluation which is not a bad idea but the issue was God was trying to get our attention. Simultaneously our crisp awareness of His Presence and the relationship we enjoyed seemed to be more distant which again caused us concern and so we began another internal inventory.
These were the beginning stages as God’s ‘mother heart’ and His nurturing ways were transitioning us from wee little ones for the next phase, where we were then handed over to the Father for rearing and maturing. Add to that an internal awareness that not everything inside our new Christian life was ‘honky dory’. It was as if God was beginning to shed a spotlight on our personality and character issues that needed more than just a minor adjustment. Some have earmarked this transition phase as a crisis that left a deep impression.
In Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, chapter two, verse7, Paul describes how they, Paul, Silvanus and Timothy “proved to be gentle among you as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children”. What a picture of leadership that was instilled in them by none other than God Himself who tenderly cares for each one of us as a nursing mother cares for her own children. Babies who need to be tenderly loved and caressed similar to new believers having all their needs met, without a care in the world oblivious to everything else except their own needs, just as it should be with babies and children.
In the next few verses you see a progression as Paul goes on to say (my rendering)how hard they worked night and day for these new believers as they laboured to teach and instruct them exhorting them in the ways of God and also being careful not to be a burden to them. We read in verse 11 and 12 that Paul and the leadership implored each one of them as a Father would his own children to walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you. You notice that Paul went from the nurturing aspects of a mother to the admonition to walk and not crawl typical of a child being raised in the love and instruction of his father. Another example is found in Galatians that again reinforces the idea that until Christ is formed in us we remain as babes not having been reared to maturity. In the case of the Galatians church they were led off course by those who would bring them back in bondage by following the law.
“My children with whom I am again in labour until Christ is formed in you.” (Gal.4:19) The childlike aspects were that they were so easily swayed from the bedrock teachings of the work of the cross they had been taught earlier. Now Paul was again in the process of labour, taking great pains in establishing in them the truth and freedom which Christ had wrought for them and it was all theirs by grace alone. Paul sums it all up beautifully in Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live , but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and delivered Himself up for me.”This is the key to abundant life and freedom; the cross must be worked into every area of our lives bringing death to our self life which will in turn cause a godly life to germinate in its place by means of God’s Holy Spirit.
I hope that I’m not drawing this out too far, so I’ll get to the point, the Christian life has a price tag but it is not a onetime paid in full arrangement, it is an ongoing exchange not of money but of life. Initially Jesus Christ gives His life for us as a ransom for us all. For those of us who have recognized our sinful condition and responded to God free gift we did so by surrendering our own lives to Christ. We are all O.K. up to here, but that is only partly it, like I said earlier we wish it were a onetime deal of surrender. It is at this juncture many pull back or one completely falls away. You see we think death to self is only about denying me certain things like chocolate or resisting another piece of pie and certainly this could play a small part in the bigger picture here.
The cross that Jesus calls us to pick up in order to follow Him is not made up of some official set of rules and regulations. The cross is a matter of simple obedience. So often like the children of Israel or the Galatians church for that matter, we would rather have a rule book to follow, we all would prefer to follow rules as they are clear cut, black and white and it gives us all a sense of having accomplished something for God which proudly reveals our zeal and dedication for God. Having performed the good deed we feel free to walk away rejoicing about our grand accomplishments only to become entangled in sins or iniquities led by our darker impulses or by other areas of our unconquered self serving conduct that we were not willing to relinquish to God initially, so now instead of freedom we are again in bondage of a different sort.
The core of the issue then and now comes down to a personal relationship. God was never interested in our outward acts of piety or following rules to the letter where people’s hearts are not in it. Performing external displays of service only caused people to become prideful and thus lose sight of their true spiritual condition and their desperate need for Him. God the Father wants to bring His children into full maturity by addressing the ‘intent s’ of their own hearts. Laws and rules are like an outward cloak that looks great but tend to mask the true condition of our hearts and its corruptions. Paul’s cry to the Galatians Church was ‘stay free in the freedom Christ has secured for you do not go back under a yolk of rules or laws or be led away into your own carnal desires to be enslaved by them once again.( Galatians chapter 5)
For all of us, human, weak, frail and many times struggling as believers, God is not expecting us to decipher some secret Da vinci Code or interpret some obscure message in the stars; all He wants from us is that our hearts be bowed low before Him in a place of rest and a willingness to obey. The truth being said, for God to get us there God has taken us through some hard places to break us of our strong wills and temperaments and to finally be able to not only speak into our lives but also reveal His glorious Presence.
It is not in vain friends that we have allowed God to put His restraining yolk over our shoulders, there may have been a time that we envied those who seemed liberated to pursue their own ends and freedoms. However, as time as gone on to decades there is a security in Christ and an internal witness that we are not illegitimate children( Hebrews 12) no, by the grace and mercy of God we were able to stay the course, although at times in tears and isolation. A small price to pay in the bigger picture
The disciplines and training of an earthly father carry a price tag of submission and adherence to his instruction which at the moment are not always appreciated. In time however they will produce in the child wisdom and knowledge for life’s hard road ahead. How much more should we be willing to pay the price of embracing the cross God puts before us in areas of suffering, adversity, misunderstanding and whatever else God deems necessary for our eternal instruction into righteousness and life refraining from complaining or fainting.
Eternal life is a free gift and we will never be able to earn it, we just receive it by faith through grace, this is the threshold by which we enter, however if we want to be changed into the likeness of Christ and eventually grow up into fully mature sons and daughters then God calls us to take up our cross of pushing away selfish and self serving ways and mindsets and embrace a righteous spirit led lifestyle that runs so contrary to our own. To the degree that we deny self and die is to the degree that we are filled with the true character of His nature.( Romans chapter 8)
What seldom gets mentioned and maybe only because we fail to see it in our trying circumstances is as Christ puts that yoke of conformity unto our shoulders He Himself is ‘harnessed in’ next to us, shoulder to shoulder, step with step. There is a nearness to Christ in trials I believe that far exceeds the average carefree lifestyle that as Christians we all seem to desire at the cost of bypassing some very intimate moment on the Calvary road where few allow themselves to be led.
Lord please help me to stop my bitter complaining in the way You are leading me, let me come to that place of rest where I am at this moment and with each step I take from here on in bearing this yolk. Help me to shift my gaze away from the road and toil before me unto Your glorious beauty and majesty, help me to take this cross of mine to its assigned place in my life. Amen
33 Christianity Has a Price Tag
A glance at the title of this article might cause some to dismiss anything I might say from here on in and move on. Or some would agree with the initial premise that yes it was costly in the sense that it demanded the life of Jesus Christ to pay a debt for all our sins, all of which Jesus gave Himself freely on the cross in our place. Some may even venture to say that there is more to it than only Jesus giving His life, Jesus did say that if we wanted to be His disciples we would have to take up the cross, deny ourselves and follow Him, and scripturally that is correct.( Mathew 16:24)
Dietrich Bonheoffer in his book entitled “The Cost of Discipleship” is quoted as saying “when God calls a man He calls Him to come and die”. We are not accustomed to such stark statements that knock the wind out of us and maybe our own theology as well. In a nation such as Canada or the United States where we continue to enjoy the many freedoms that are inherent and guaranteed to us as citizens born or otherwise. Our choices have been for the most part simple enough in regards to life, liberty, education, and employment and yes religious as well. Our opportunities are endless in the pursuit of goals and dreams with some vision and encouragement we can certainly go a long way. You might say we been given a lot of ‘space’ to live out our personal lives in these free nations and thank God for it.
This brings me to the realization; with a mindset and lifestyle that has known such an autonomous freedom and then to be told that I should lay down my life to follow Christ in order to be His disciple challenges everything in me. The events and relationships of the past have moulded me to the person I am at this point and time. What I have become before meeting Jesus Christ and even after will perpetually confront me with this truth of whose will am I really following down here anyway.
I believe our human nature would be quite happy to have had a single defined moment in the past where we surrendered ourselves and yes of course, genuinely to the Lordship of Christ and left it at that. Subsequently free to move on about our own pursuits, ambitions and what have you. Our newly found life in Christ began to blossom and unfold opening up new dimensions of relationship with God never heard of (at least we never heard of before), our life took on a beauty and freshness that we all longed for as we formerly chased after the wind looking for an essence and purpose which we have currently found in Christ alone. We were younger and head over heels in love with God, what a season that was and how we wish at times we could return to the simplicity of that season of love with God. I suppose in some way it could be compared or similar to a memorable time frame in our lives when things seemed ideal, perfect, a window of time without a care in the world.
With any stage in life things change, we may not want them to, we may have been enjoying our early childhood days in the Lord so much that maturity and growing up was not only unwelcome but in our minds not a first rate idea.
One of the beginning signs that God is bringing us into another stage of development (Ones that I experienced as well as others I know)is when the prayers that we fervently prayed as new believers just don’t seem to get answered as frequently or as quickly and sometimes not at all as before. Which begins an inward search and evaluation which is not a bad idea but the issue was God was trying to get our attention. Simultaneously our crisp awareness of His Presence and the relationship we enjoyed seemed to be more distant which again caused us concern and so we began another internal inventory.
These were the beginning stages as God’s ‘mother heart’ and His nurturing ways were transitioning us from wee little ones for the next phase, where we were then handed over to the Father for rearing and maturing. Add to that an internal awareness that not everything inside our new Christian life was ‘honky dory’. It was as if God was beginning to shed a spotlight on our personality and character issues that needed more than just a minor adjustment. Some have earmarked this transition phase as a crisis that left a deep impression.
In Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, chapter two, verse7, Paul describes how they, Paul, Silvanus and Timothy “proved to be gentle among you as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children”. What a picture of leadership that was instilled in them by none other than God Himself who tenderly cares for each one of us as a nursing mother cares for her own children. Babies who need to be tenderly loved and caressed similar to new believers having all their needs met, without a care in the world oblivious to everything else except their own needs, just as it should be with babies and children.
In the next few verses you see a progression as Paul goes on to say (my rendering)how hard they worked night and day for these new believers as they laboured to teach and instruct them exhorting them in the ways of God and also being careful not to be a burden to them. We read in verse 11 and 12 that Paul and the leadership implored each one of them as a Father would his own children to walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you. You notice that Paul went from the nurturing aspects of a mother to the admonition to walk and not crawl typical of a child being raised in the love and instruction of his father. Another example is found in Galatians that again reinforces the idea that until Christ is formed in us we remain as babes not having been reared to maturity. In the case of the Galatians church they were led off course by those who would bring them back in bondage by following the law.
“My children with whom I am again in labour until Christ is formed in you.” (Gal.4:19) The childlike aspects were that they were so easily swayed from the bedrock teachings of the work of the cross they had been taught earlier. Now Paul was again in the process of labour, taking great pains in establishing in them the truth and freedom which Christ had wrought for them and it was all theirs by grace alone. Paul sums it all up beautifully in Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live , but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and delivered Himself up for me.”This is the key to abundant life and freedom; the cross must be worked into every area of our lives bringing death to our self life which will in turn cause a godly life to germinate in its place by means of God’s Holy Spirit.
I hope that I’m not drawing this out too far, so I’ll get to the point, the Christian life has a price tag but it is not a onetime paid in full arrangement, it is an ongoing exchange not of money but of life. Initially Jesus Christ gives His life for us as a ransom for us all. For those of us who have recognized our sinful condition and responded to God free gift we did so by surrendering our own lives to Christ. We are all O.K. up to here, but that is only partly it, like I said earlier we wish it were a onetime deal of surrender. It is at this juncture many pull back or one completely falls away. You see we think death to self is only about denying me certain things like chocolate or resisting another piece of pie and certainly this could play a small part in the bigger picture here.
The cross that Jesus calls us to pick up in order to follow Him is not made up of some official set of rules and regulations. The cross is a matter of simple obedience. So often like the children of Israel or the Galatians church for that matter, we would rather have a rule book to follow, we all would prefer to follow rules as they are clear cut, black and white and it gives us all a sense of having accomplished something for God which proudly reveals our zeal and dedication for God. Having performed the good deed we feel free to walk away rejoicing about our grand accomplishments only to become entangled in sins or iniquities led by our darker impulses or by other areas of our unconquered self serving conduct that we were not willing to relinquish to God initially, so now instead of freedom we are again in bondage of a different sort.
The core of the issue then and now comes down to a personal relationship. God was never interested in our outward acts of piety or following rules to the letter where people’s hearts are not in it. Performing external displays of service only caused people to become prideful and thus lose sight of their true spiritual condition and their desperate need for Him. God the Father wants to bring His children into full maturity by addressing the ‘intent s’ of their own hearts. Laws and rules are like an outward cloak that looks great but tend to mask the true condition of our hearts and its corruptions. Paul’s cry to the Galatians Church was ‘stay free in the freedom Christ has secured for you do not go back under a yolk of rules or laws or be led away into your own carnal desires to be enslaved by them once again.( Galatians chapter 5)
For all of us, human, weak, frail and many times struggling as believers, God is not expecting us to decipher some secret Da vinci Code or interpret some obscure message in the stars; all He wants from us is that our hearts be bowed low before Him in a place of rest and a willingness to obey. The truth being said, for God to get us there God has taken us through some hard places to break us of our strong wills and temperaments and to finally be able to not only speak into our lives but also reveal His glorious Presence.
It is not in vain friends that we have allowed God to put His restraining yolk over our shoulders, there may have been a time that we envied those who seemed liberated to pursue their own ends and freedoms. However, as time as gone on to decades there is a security in Christ and an internal witness that we are not illegitimate children( Hebrews 12) no, by the grace and mercy of God we were able to stay the course, although at times in tears and isolation. A small price to pay in the bigger picture
The disciplines and training of an earthly father carry a price tag of submission and adherence to his instruction which at the moment are not always appreciated. In time however they will produce in the child wisdom and knowledge for life’s hard road ahead. How much more should we be willing to pay the price of embracing the cross God puts before us in areas of suffering, adversity, misunderstanding and whatever else God deems necessary for our eternal instruction into righteousness and life refraining from complaining or fainting.
Eternal life is a free gift and we will never be able to earn it, we just receive it by faith through grace, this is the threshold by which we enter, however if we want to be changed into the likeness of Christ and eventually grow up into fully mature sons and daughters then God calls us to take up our cross of pushing away selfish and self serving ways and mindsets and embrace a righteous spirit led lifestyle that runs so contrary to our own. To the degree that we deny self and die is to the degree that we are filled with the true character of His nature.( Romans chapter 8)
What seldom gets mentioned and maybe only because we fail to see it in our trying circumstances is as Christ puts that yoke of conformity unto our shoulders He Himself is ‘harnessed in’ next to us, shoulder to shoulder, step with step. There is a nearness to Christ in trials I believe that far exceeds the average carefree lifestyle that as Christians we all seem to desire at the cost of bypassing some very intimate moment on the Calvary road where few allow themselves to be led.
Lord please help me to stop my bitter complaining in the way You are leading me, let me come to that place of rest where I am at this moment and with each step I take from here on in bearing this yolk. Help me to shift my gaze away from the road and toil before me unto Your glorious beauty and majesty, help me to take this cross of mine to its assigned place in my life. Amen
33 Christianity Has a Price Tag
A glance at the title of this article might cause some to dismiss anything I might say from here on in and move on. Or some would agree with the initial premise that yes it was costly in the sense that it demanded the life of Jesus Christ to pay a debt for all our sins, all of which Jesus gave Himself freely on the cross in our place. Some may even venture to say that there is more to it than only Jesus giving His life, Jesus did say that if we wanted to be His disciples we would have to take up the cross, deny ourselves and follow Him, and scripturally that is correct.( Mathew 16:24)
Dietrich Bonheoffer in his book entitled “The Cost of Discipleship” is quoted as saying “when God calls a man He calls Him to come and die”. We are not accustomed to such stark statements that knock the wind out of us and maybe our own theology as well. In a nation such as Canada or the United States where we continue to enjoy the many freedoms that are inherent and guaranteed to us as citizens born or otherwise. Our choices have been for the most part simple enough in regards to life, liberty, education, and employment and yes religious as well. Our opportunities are endless in the pursuit of goals and dreams with some vision and encouragement we can certainly go a long way. You might say we been given a lot of ‘space’ to live out our personal lives in these free nations and thank God for it.
This brings me to the realization; with a mindset and lifestyle that has known such an autonomous freedom and then to be told that I should lay down my life to follow Christ in order to be His disciple challenges everything in me. The events and relationships of the past have moulded me to the person I am at this point and time. What I have become before meeting Jesus Christ and even after will perpetually confront me with this truth of whose will am I really following down here anyway.
I believe our human nature would be quite happy to have had a single defined moment in the past where we surrendered ourselves and yes of course, genuinely to the Lordship of Christ and left it at that. Subsequently free to move on about our own pursuits, ambitions and what have you. Our newly found life in Christ began to blossom and unfold opening up new dimensions of relationship with God never heard of (at least we never heard of before), our life took on a beauty and freshness that we all longed for as we formerly chased after the wind looking for an essence and purpose which we have currently found in Christ alone. We were younger and head over heels in love with God, what a season that was and how we wish at times we could return to the simplicity of that season of love with God. I suppose in some way it could be compared or similar to a memorable time frame in our lives when things seemed ideal, perfect, a window of time without a care in the world.
With any stage in life things change, we may not want them to, we may have been enjoying our early childhood days in the Lord so much that maturity and growing up was not only unwelcome but in our minds not a first rate idea.
One of the beginning signs that God is bringing us into another stage of development (Ones that I experienced as well as others I know)is when the prayers that we fervently prayed as new believers just don’t seem to get answered as frequently or as quickly and sometimes not at all as before. Which begins an inward search and evaluation which is not a bad idea but the issue was God was trying to get our attention. Simultaneously our crisp awareness of His Presence and the relationship we enjoyed seemed to be more distant which again caused us concern and so we began another internal inventory.
These were the beginning stages as God’s ‘mother heart’ and His nurturing ways were transitioning us from wee little ones for the next phase, where we were then handed over to the Father for rearing and maturing. Add to that an internal awareness that not everything inside our new Christian life was ‘honky dory’. It was as if God was beginning to shed a spotlight on our personality and character issues that needed more than just a minor adjustment. Some have earmarked this transition phase as a crisis that left a deep impression.
In Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, chapter two, verse7, Paul describes how they, Paul, Silvanus and Timothy “proved to be gentle among you as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children”. What a picture of leadership that was instilled in them by none other than God Himself who tenderly cares for each one of us as a nursing mother cares for her own children. Babies who need to be tenderly loved and caressed similar to new believers having all their needs met, without a care in the world oblivious to everything else except their own needs, just as it should be with babies and children.
In the next few verses you see a progression as Paul goes on to say (my rendering)how hard they worked night and day for these new believers as they laboured to teach and instruct them exhorting them in the ways of God and also being careful not to be a burden to them. We read in verse 11 and 12 that Paul and the leadership implored each one of them as a Father would his own children to walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you. You notice that Paul went from the nurturing aspects of a mother to the admonition to walk and not crawl typical of a child being raised in the love and instruction of his father. Another example is found in Galatians that again reinforces the idea that until Christ is formed in us we remain as babes not having been reared to maturity. In the case of the Galatians church they were led off course by those who would bring them back in bondage by following the law.
“My children with whom I am again in labour until Christ is formed in you.” (Gal.4:19) The childlike aspects were that they were so easily swayed from the bedrock teachings of the work of the cross they had been taught earlier. Now Paul was again in the process of labour, taking great pains in establishing in them the truth and freedom which Christ had wrought for them and it was all theirs by grace alone. Paul sums it all up beautifully in Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live , but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and delivered Himself up for me.”This is the key to abundant life and freedom; the cross must be worked into every area of our lives bringing death to our self life which will in turn cause a godly life to germinate in its place by means of God’s Holy Spirit.
I hope that I’m not drawing this out too far, so I’ll get to the point, the Christian life has a price tag but it is not a onetime paid in full arrangement, it is an ongoing exchange not of money but of life. Initially Jesus Christ gives His life for us as a ransom for us all. For those of us who have recognized our sinful condition and responded to God free gift we did so by surrendering our own lives to Christ. We are all O.K. up to here, but that is only partly it, like I said earlier we wish it were a onetime deal of surrender. It is at this juncture many pull back or one completely falls away. You see we think death to self is only about denying me certain things like chocolate or resisting another piece of pie and certainly this could play a small part in the bigger picture here.
The cross that Jesus calls us to pick up in order to follow Him is not made up of some official set of rules and regulations. The cross is a matter of simple obedience. So often like the children of Israel or the Galatians church for that matter, we would rather have a rule book to follow, we all would prefer to follow rules as they are clear cut, black and white and it gives us all a sense of having accomplished something for God which proudly reveals our zeal and dedication for God. Having performed the good deed we feel free to walk away rejoicing about our grand accomplishments only to become entangled in sins or iniquities led by our darker impulses or by other areas of our unconquered self serving conduct that we were not willing to relinquish to God initially, so now instead of freedom we are again in bondage of a different sort.
The core of the issue then and now comes down to a personal relationship. God was never interested in our outward acts of piety or following rules to the letter where people’s hearts are not in it. Performing external displays of service only caused people to become prideful and thus lose sight of their true spiritual condition and their desperate need for Him. God the Father wants to bring His children into full maturity by addressing the ‘intent s’ of their own hearts. Laws and rules are like an outward cloak that looks great but tend to mask the true condition of our hearts and its corruptions. Paul’s cry to the Galatians Church was ‘stay free in the freedom Christ has secured for you do not go back under a yolk of rules or laws or be led away into your own carnal desires to be enslaved by them once again.( Galatians chapter 5)
For all of us, human, weak, frail and many times struggling as believers, God is not expecting us to decipher some secret Da vinci Code or interpret some obscure message in the stars; all He wants from us is that our hearts be bowed low before Him in a place of rest and a willingness to obey. The truth being said, for God to get us there God has taken us through some hard places to break us of our strong wills and temperaments and to finally be able to not only speak into our lives but also reveal His glorious Presence.
It is not in vain friends that we have allowed God to put His restraining yolk over our shoulders, there may have been a time that we envied those who seemed liberated to pursue their own ends and freedoms. However, as time as gone on to decades there is a security in Christ and an internal witness that we are not illegitimate children( Hebrews 12) no, by the grace and mercy of God we were able to stay the course, although at times in tears and isolation. A small price to pay in the bigger picture
The disciplines and training of an earthly father carry a price tag of submission and adherence to his instruction which at the moment are not always appreciated. In time however they will produce in the child wisdom and knowledge for life’s hard road ahead. How much more should we be willing to pay the price of embracing the cross God puts before us in areas of suffering, adversity, misunderstanding and whatever else God deems necessary for our eternal instruction into righteousness and life refraining from complaining or fainting.
Eternal life is a free gift and we will never be able to earn it, we just receive it by faith through grace, this is the threshold by which we enter, however if we want to be changed into the likeness of Christ and eventually grow up into fully mature sons and daughters then God calls us to take up our cross of pushing away selfish and self serving ways and mindsets and embrace a righteous spirit led lifestyle that runs so contrary to our own. To the degree that we deny self and die is to the degree that we are filled with the true character of His nature.( Romans chapter 8)
What seldom gets mentioned and maybe only because we fail to see it in our trying circumstances is as Christ puts that yoke of conformity unto our shoulders He Himself is ‘harnessed in’ next to us, shoulder to shoulder, step with step. There is a nearness to Christ in trials I believe that far exceeds the average carefree lifestyle that as Christians we all seem to desire at the cost of bypassing some very intimate moment on the Calvary road where few allow themselves to be led.
Lord please help me to stop my bitter complaining in the way You are leading me, let me come to that place of rest where I am at this moment and with each step I take from here on in bearing this yolk. Help me to shift my gaze away from the road and toil before me unto Your glorious beauty and majesty, help me to take this cross of mine to its assigned place in my life. Amen
33 Christianity Has a Price Tag
A glance at the title of this article might cause some to dismiss anything I might say from here on in and move on. Or some would agree with the initial premise that yes it was costly in the sense that it demanded the life of Jesus Christ to pay a debt for all our sins, all of which Jesus gave Himself freely on the cross in our place. Some may even venture to say that there is more to it than only Jesus giving His life, Jesus did say that if we wanted to be His disciples we would have to take up the cross, deny ourselves and follow Him, and scripturally that is correct.( Mathew 16:24)
Dietrich Bonheoffer in his book entitled “The Cost of Discipleship” is quoted as saying “when God calls a man He calls Him to come and die”. We are not accustomed to such stark statements that knock the wind out of us and maybe our own theology as well. In a nation such as Canada or the United States where we continue to enjoy the many freedoms that are inherent and guaranteed to us as citizens born or otherwise. Our choices have been for the most part simple enough in regards to life, liberty, education, and employment and yes religious as well. Our opportunities are endless in the pursuit of goals and dreams with some vision and encouragement we can certainly go a long way. You might say we been given a lot of ‘space’ to live out our personal lives in these free nations and thank God for it.
This brings me to the realization; with a mindset and lifestyle that has known such an autonomous freedom and then to be told that I should lay down my life to follow Christ in order to be His disciple challenges everything in me. The events and relationships of the past have moulded me to the person I am at this point and time. What I have become before meeting Jesus Christ and even after will perpetually confront me with this truth of whose will am I really following down here anyway.
I believe our human nature would be quite happy to have had a single defined moment in the past where we surrendered ourselves and yes of course, genuinely to the Lordship of Christ and left it at that. Subsequently free to move on about our own pursuits, ambitions and what have you. Our newly found life in Christ began to blossom and unfold opening up new dimensions of relationship with God never heard of (at least we never heard of before), our life took on a beauty and freshness that we all longed for as we formerly chased after the wind looking for an essence and purpose which we have currently found in Christ alone. We were younger and head over heels in love with God, what a season that was and how we wish at times we could return to the simplicity of that season of love with God. I suppose in some way it could be compared or similar to a memorable time frame in our lives when things seemed ideal, perfect, a window of time without a care in the world.
With any stage in life things change, we may not want them to, we may have been enjoying our early childhood days in the Lord so much that maturity and growing up was not only unwelcome but in our minds not a first rate idea.
One of the beginning signs that God is bringing us into another stage of development (Ones that I experienced as well as others I know)is when the prayers that we fervently prayed as new believers just don’t seem to get answered as frequently or as quickly and sometimes not at all as before. Which begins an inward search and evaluation which is not a bad idea but the issue was God was trying to get our attention. Simultaneously our crisp awareness of His Presence and the relationship we enjoyed seemed to be more distant which again caused us concern and so we began another internal inventory.
These were the beginning stages as God’s ‘mother heart’ and His nurturing ways were transitioning us from wee little ones for the next phase, where we were then handed over to the Father for rearing and maturing. Add to that an internal awareness that not everything inside our new Christian life was ‘honky dory’. It was as if God was beginning to shed a spotlight on our personality and character issues that needed more than just a minor adjustment. Some have earmarked this transition phase as a crisis that left a deep impression.
In Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, chapter two, verse7, Paul describes how they, Paul, Silvanus and Timothy “proved to be gentle among you as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children”. What a picture of leadership that was instilled in them by none other than God Himself who tenderly cares for each one of us as a nursing mother cares for her own children. Babies who need to be tenderly loved and caressed similar to new believers having all their needs met, without a care in the world oblivious to everything else except their own needs, just as it should be with babies and children.
In the next few verses you see a progression as Paul goes on to say (my rendering)how hard they worked night and day for these new believers as they laboured to teach and instruct them exhorting them in the ways of God and also being careful not to be a burden to them. We read in verse 11 and 12 that Paul and the leadership implored each one of them as a Father would his own children to walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you. You notice that Paul went from the nurturing aspects of a mother to the admonition to walk and not crawl typical of a child being raised in the love and instruction of his father. Another example is found in Galatians that again reinforces the idea that until Christ is formed in us we remain as babes not having been reared to maturity. In the case of the Galatians church they were led off course by those who would bring them back in bondage by following the law.
“My children with whom I am again in labour until Christ is formed in you.” (Gal.4:19) The childlike aspects were that they were so easily swayed from the bedrock teachings of the work of the cross they had been taught earlier. Now Paul was again in the process of labour, taking great pains in establishing in them the truth and freedom which Christ had wrought for them and it was all theirs by grace alone. Paul sums it all up beautifully in Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live , but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and delivered Himself up for me.”This is the key to abundant life and freedom; the cross must be worked into every area of our lives bringing death to our self life which will in turn cause a godly life to germinate in its place by means of God’s Holy Spirit.
I hope that I’m not drawing this out too far, so I’ll get to the point, the Christian life has a price tag but it is not a onetime paid in full arrangement, it is an ongoing exchange not of money but of life. Initially Jesus Christ gives His life for us as a ransom for us all. For those of us who have recognized our sinful condition and responded to God free gift we did so by surrendering our own lives to Christ. We are all O.K. up to here, but that is only partly it, like I said earlier we wish it were a onetime deal of surrender. It is at this juncture many pull back or one completely falls away. You see we think death to self is only about denying me certain things like chocolate or resisting another piece of pie and certainly this could play a small part in the bigger picture here.
The cross that Jesus calls us to pick up in order to follow Him is not made up of some official set of rules and regulations. The cross is a matter of simple obedience. So often like the children of Israel or the Galatians church for that matter, we would rather have a rule book to follow, we all would prefer to follow rules as they are clear cut, black and white and it gives us all a sense of having accomplished something for God which proudly reveals our zeal and dedication for God. Having performed the good deed we feel free to walk away rejoicing about our grand accomplishments only to become entangled in sins or iniquities led by our darker impulses or by other areas of our unconquered self serving conduct that we were not willing to relinquish to God initially, so now instead of freedom we are again in bondage of a different sort.
The core of the issue then and now comes down to a personal relationship. God was never interested in our outward acts of piety or following rules to the letter where people’s hearts are not in it. Performing external displays of service only caused people to become prideful and thus lose sight of their true spiritual condition and their desperate need for Him. God the Father wants to bring His children into full maturity by addressing the ‘intent s’ of their own hearts. Laws and rules are like an outward cloak that looks great but tend to mask the true condition of our hearts and its corruptions. Paul’s cry to the Galatians Church was ‘stay free in the freedom Christ has secured for you do not go back under a yolk of rules or laws or be led away into your own carnal desires to be enslaved by them once again.( Galatians chapter 5)
For all of us, human, weak, frail and many times struggling as believers, God is not expecting us to decipher some secret Da vinci Code or interpret some obscure message in the stars; all He wants from us is that our hearts be bowed low before Him in a place of rest and a willingness to obey. The truth being said, for God to get us there God has taken us through some hard places to break us of our strong wills and temperaments and to finally be able to not only speak into our lives but also reveal His glorious Presence.
It is not in vain friends that we have allowed God to put His restraining yolk over our shoulders, there may have been a time that we envied those who seemed liberated to pursue their own ends and freedoms. However, as time as gone on to decades there is a security in Christ and an internal witness that we are not illegitimate children( Hebrews 12) no, by the grace and mercy of God we were able to stay the course, although at times in tears and isolation. A small price to pay in the bigger picture
The disciplines and training of an earthly father carry a price tag of submission and adherence to his instruction which at the moment are not always appreciated. In time however they will produce in the child wisdom and knowledge for life’s hard road ahead. How much more should we be willing to pay the price of embracing the cross God puts before us in areas of suffering, adversity, misunderstanding and whatever else God deems necessary for our eternal instruction into righteousness and life refraining from complaining or fainting.
Eternal life is a free gift and we will never be able to earn it, we just receive it by faith through grace, this is the threshold by which we enter, however if we want to be changed into the likeness of Christ and eventually grow up into fully mature sons and daughters then God calls us to take up our cross of pushing away selfish and self serving ways and mindsets and embrace a righteous spirit led lifestyle that runs so contrary to our own. To the degree that we deny self and die is to the degree that we are filled with the true character of His nature.( Romans chapter 8)
What seldom gets mentioned and maybe only because we fail to see it in our trying circumstances is as Christ puts that yoke of conformity unto our shoulders He Himself is ‘harnessed in’ next to us, shoulder to shoulder, step with step. There is a nearness to Christ in trials I believe that far exceeds the average carefree lifestyle that as Christians we all seem to desire at the cost of bypassing some very intimate moment on the Calvary road where few allow themselves to be led.
Lord please help me to stop my bitter complaining in the way You are leading me, let me come to that place of rest where I am at this moment and with each step I take from here on in bearing this yolk. Help me to shift my gaze away from the road and toil before me unto Your glorious beauty and majesty, help me to take this cross of mine to its assigned place in my life. Amen
33 Christianity Has a Price Tag
A glance at the title of this article might cause some to dismiss anything I might say from here on in and move on. Or some would agree with the initial premise that yes it was costly in the sense that it demanded the life of Jesus Christ to pay a debt for all our sins, all of which Jesus gave Himself freely on the cross in our place. Some may even venture to say that there is more to it than only Jesus giving His life, Jesus did say that if we wanted to be His disciples we would have to take up the cross, deny ourselves and follow Him, and scripturally that is correct.( Mathew 16:24)
Dietrich Bonheoffer in his book entitled “The Cost of Discipleship” is quoted as saying “when God calls a man He calls Him to come and die”. We are not accustomed to such stark statements that knock the wind out of us and maybe our own theology as well. In a nation such as Canada or the United States where we continue to enjoy the many freedoms that are inherent and guaranteed to us as citizens born or otherwise. Our choices have been for the most part simple enough in regards to life, liberty, education, and employment and yes religious as well. Our opportunities are endless in the pursuit of goals and dreams with some vision and encouragement we can certainly go a long way. You might say we been given a lot of ‘space’ to live out our personal lives in these free nations and thank God for it.
This brings me to the realization; with a mindset and lifestyle that has known such an autonomous freedom and then to be told that I should lay down my life to follow Christ in order to be His disciple challenges everything in me. The events and relationships of the past have moulded me to the person I am at this point and time. What I have become before meeting Jesus Christ and even after will perpetually confront me with this truth of whose will am I really following down here anyway.
I believe our human nature would be quite happy to have had a single defined moment in the past where we surrendered ourselves and yes of course, genuinely to the Lordship of Christ and left it at that. Subsequently free to move on about our own pursuits, ambitions and what have you. Our newly found life in Christ began to blossom and unfold opening up new dimensions of relationship with God never heard of (at least we never heard of before), our life took on a beauty and freshness that we all longed for as we formerly chased after the wind looking for an essence and purpose which we have currently found in Christ alone. We were younger and head over heels in love with God, what a season that was and how we wish at times we could return to the simplicity of that season of love with God. I suppose in some way it could be compared or similar to a memorable time frame in our lives when things seemed ideal, perfect, a window of time without a care in the world.
With any stage in life things change, we may not want them to, we may have been enjoying our early childhood days in the Lord so much that maturity and growing up was not only unwelcome but in our minds not a first rate idea.
One of the beginning signs that God is bringing us into another stage of development (Ones that I experienced as well as others I know)is when the prayers that we fervently prayed as new believers just don’t seem to get answered as frequently or as quickly and sometimes not at all as before. Which begins an inward search and evaluation which is not a bad idea but the issue was God was trying to get our attention. Simultaneously our crisp awareness of His Presence and the relationship we enjoyed seemed to be more distant which again caused us concern and so we began another internal inventory.
These were the beginning stages as God’s ‘mother heart’ and His nurturing ways were transitioning us from wee little ones for the next phase, where we were then handed over to the Father for rearing and maturing. Add to that an internal awareness that not everything inside our new Christian life was ‘honky dory’. It was as if God was beginning to shed a spotlight on our personality and character issues that needed more than just a minor adjustment. Some have earmarked this transition phase as a crisis that left a deep impression.
In Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, chapter two, verse7, Paul describes how they, Paul, Silvanus and Timothy “proved to be gentle among you as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children”. What a picture of leadership that was instilled in them by none other than God Himself who tenderly cares for each one of us as a nursing mother cares for her own children. Babies who need to be tenderly loved and caressed similar to new believers having all their needs met, without a care in the world oblivious to everything else except their own needs, just as it should be with babies and children.
In the next few verses you see a progression as Paul goes on to say (my rendering)how hard they worked night and day for these new believers as they laboured to teach and instruct them exhorting them in the ways of God and also being careful not to be a burden to them. We read in verse 11 and 12 that Paul and the leadership implored each one of them as a Father would his own children to walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you. You notice that Paul went from the nurturing aspects of a mother to the admonition to walk and not crawl typical of a child being raised in the love and instruction of his father. Another example is found in Galatians that again reinforces the idea that until Christ is formed in us we remain as babes not having been reared to maturity. In the case of the Galatians church they were led off course by those who would bring them back in bondage by following the law.
“My children with whom I am again in labour until Christ is formed in you.” (Gal.4:19) The childlike aspects were that they were so easily swayed from the bedrock teachings of the work of the cross they had been taught earlier. Now Paul was again in the process of labour, taking great pains in establishing in them the truth and freedom which Christ had wrought for them and it was all theirs by grace alone. Paul sums it all up beautifully in Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live , but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and delivered Himself up for me.”This is the key to abundant life and freedom; the cross must be worked into every area of our lives bringing death to our self life which will in turn cause a godly life to germinate in its place by means of God’s Holy Spirit.
I hope that I’m not drawing this out too far, so I’ll get to the point, the Christian life has a price tag but it is not a onetime paid in full arrangement, it is an ongoing exchange not of money but of life. Initially Jesus Christ gives His life for us as a ransom for us all. For those of us who have recognized our sinful condition and responded to God free gift we did so by surrendering our own lives to Christ. We are all O.K. up to here, but that is only partly it, like I said earlier we wish it were a onetime deal of surrender. It is at this juncture many pull back or one completely falls away. You see we think death to self is only about denying me certain things like chocolate or resisting another piece of pie and certainly this could play a small part in the bigger picture here.
The cross that Jesus calls us to pick up in order to follow Him is not made up of some official set of rules and regulations. The cross is a matter of simple obedience. So often like the children of Israel or the Galatians church for that matter, we would rather have a rule book to follow, we all would prefer to follow rules as they are clear cut, black and white and it gives us all a sense of having accomplished something for God which proudly reveals our zeal and dedication for God. Having performed the good deed we feel free to walk away rejoicing about our grand accomplishments only to become entangled in sins or iniquities led by our darker impulses or by other areas of our unconquered self serving conduct that we were not willing to relinquish to God initially, so now instead of freedom we are again in bondage of a different sort.
The core of the issue then and now comes down to a personal relationship. God was never interested in our outward acts of piety or following rules to the letter where people’s hearts are not in it. Performing external displays of service only caused people to become prideful and thus lose sight of their true spiritual condition and their desperate need for Him. God the Father wants to bring His children into full maturity by addressing the ‘intent s’ of their own hearts. Laws and rules are like an outward cloak that looks great but tend to mask the true condition of our hearts and its corruptions. Paul’s cry to the Galatians Church was ‘stay free in the freedom Christ has secured for you do not go back under a yolk of rules or laws or be led away into your own carnal desires to be enslaved by them once again.( Galatians chapter 5)
For all of us, human, weak, frail and many times struggling as believers, God is not expecting us to decipher some secret Da vinci Code or interpret some obscure message in the stars; all He wants from us is that our hearts be bowed low before Him in a place of rest and a willingness to obey. The truth being said, for God to get us there God has taken us through some hard places to break us of our strong wills and temperaments and to finally be able to not only speak into our lives but also reveal His glorious Presence.
It is not in vain friends that we have allowed God to put His restraining yolk over our shoulders, there may have been a time that we envied those who seemed liberated to pursue their own ends and freedoms. However, as time as gone on to decades there is a security in Christ and an internal witness that we are not illegitimate children( Hebrews 12) no, by the grace and mercy of God we were able to stay the course, although at times in tears and isolation. A small price to pay in the bigger picture
The disciplines and training of an earthly father carry a price tag of submission and adherence to his instruction which at the moment are not always appreciated. In time however they will produce in the child wisdom and knowledge for life’s hard road ahead. How much more should we be willing to pay the price of embracing the cross God puts before us in areas of suffering, adversity, misunderstanding and whatever else God deems necessary for our eternal instruction into righteousness and life refraining from complaining or fainting.
Eternal life is a free gift and we will never be able to earn it, we just receive it by faith through grace, this is the threshold by which we enter, however if we want to be changed into the likeness of Christ and eventually grow up into fully mature sons and daughters then God calls us to take up our cross of pushing away selfish and self serving ways and mindsets and embrace a righteous spirit led lifestyle that runs so contrary to our own. To the degree that we deny self and die is to the degree that we are filled with the true character of His nature.( Romans chapter 8)
What seldom gets mentioned and maybe only because we fail to see it in our trying circumstances is as Christ puts that yoke of conformity unto our shoulders He Himself is ‘harnessed in’ next to us, shoulder to shoulder, step with step. There is a nearness to Christ in trials I believe that far exceeds the average carefree lifestyle that as Christians we all seem to desire at the cost of bypassing some very intimate moment on the Calvary road where few allow themselves to be led.
Lord please help me to stop my bitter complaining in the way You are leading me, let me come to that place of rest where I am at this moment and with each step I take from here on in bearing this yolk. Help me to shift my gaze away from the road and toil before me unto Your glorious beauty and majesty, help me to take this cross of mine to its assigned place in my life. Amen
33 Christianity Has a Price Tag
A glance at the title of this article might cause some to dismiss anything I might say from here on in and move on. Or some would agree with the initial premise that yes it was costly in the sense that it demanded the life of Jesus Christ to pay a debt for all our sins, all of which Jesus gave Himself freely on the cross in our place. Some may even venture to say that there is more to it than only Jesus giving His life, Jesus did say that if we wanted to be His disciples we would have to take up the cross, deny ourselves and follow Him, and scripturally that is correct.( Mathew 16:24)
Dietrich Bonheoffer in his book entitled “The Cost of Discipleship” is quoted as saying “when God calls a man He calls Him to come and die”. We are not accustomed to such stark statements that knock the wind out of us and maybe our own theology as well. In a nation such as Canada or the United States where we continue to enjoy the many freedoms that are inherent and guaranteed to us as citizens born or otherwise. Our choices have been for the most part simple enough in regards to life, liberty, education, and employment and yes religious as well. Our opportunities are endless in the pursuit of goals and dreams with some vision and encouragement we can certainly go a long way. You might say we been given a lot of ‘space’ to live out our personal lives in these free nations and thank God for it.
This brings me to the realization; with a mindset and lifestyle that has known such an autonomous freedom and then to be told that I should lay down my life to follow Christ in order to be His disciple challenges everything in me. The events and relationships of the past have moulded me to the person I am at this point and time. What I have become before meeting Jesus Christ and even after will perpetually confront me with this truth of whose will am I really following down here anyway.
I believe our human nature would be quite happy to have had a single defined moment in the past where we surrendered ourselves and yes of course, genuinely to the Lordship of Christ and left it at that. Subsequently free to move on about our own pursuits, ambitions and what have you. Our newly found life in Christ began to blossom and unfold opening up new dimensions of relationship with God never heard of (at least we never heard of before), our life took on a beauty and freshness that we all longed for as we formerly chased after the wind looking for an essence and purpose which we have currently found in Christ alone. We were younger and head over heels in love with God, what a season that was and how we wish at times we could return to the simplicity of that season of love with God. I suppose in some way it could be compared or similar to a memorable time frame in our lives when things seemed ideal, perfect, a window of time without a care in the world.
With any stage in life things change, we may not want them to, we may have been enjoying our early childhood days in the Lord so much that maturity and growing up was not only unwelcome but in our minds not a first rate idea.
One of the beginning signs that God is bringing us into another stage of development (Ones that I experienced as well as others I know)is when the prayers that we fervently prayed as new believers just don’t seem to get answered as frequently or as quickly and sometimes not at all as before. Which begins an inward search and evaluation which is not a bad idea but the issue was God was trying to get our attention. Simultaneously our crisp awareness of His Presence and the relationship we enjoyed seemed to be more distant which again caused us concern and so we began another internal inventory.
These were the beginning stages as God’s ‘mother heart’ and His nurturing ways were transitioning us from wee little ones for the next phase, where we were then handed over to the Father for rearing and maturing. Add to that an internal awareness that not everything inside our new Christian life was ‘honky dory’. It was as if God was beginning to shed a spotlight on our personality and character issues that needed more than just a minor adjustment. Some have earmarked this transition phase as a crisis that left a deep impression.
In Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, chapter two, verse7, Paul describes how they, Paul, Silvanus and Timothy “proved to be gentle among you as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children”. What a picture of leadership that was instilled in them by none other than God Himself who tenderly cares for each one of us as a nursing mother cares for her own children. Babies who need to be tenderly loved and caressed similar to new believers having all their needs met, without a care in the world oblivious to everything else except their own needs, just as it should be with babies and children.
In the next few verses you see a progression as Paul goes on to say (my rendering)how hard they worked night and day for these new believers as they laboured to teach and instruct them exhorting them in the ways of God and also being careful not to be a burden to them. We read in verse 11 and 12 that Paul and the leadership implored each one of them as a Father would his own children to walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you. You notice that Paul went from the nurturing aspects of a mother to the admonition to walk and not crawl typical of a child being raised in the love and instruction of his father. Another example is found in Galatians that again reinforces the idea that until Christ is formed in us we remain as babes not having been reared to maturity. In the case of the Galatians church they were led off course by those who would bring them back in bondage by following the law.
“My children with whom I am again in labour until Christ is formed in you.” (Gal.4:19) The childlike aspects were that they were so easily swayed from the bedrock teachings of the work of the cross they had been taught earlier. Now Paul was again in the process of labour, taking great pains in establishing in them the truth and freedom which Christ had wrought for them and it was all theirs by grace alone. Paul sums it all up beautifully in Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live , but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and delivered Himself up for me.”This is the key to abundant life and freedom; the cross must be worked into every area of our lives bringing death to our self life which will in turn cause a godly life to germinate in its place by means of God’s Holy Spirit.
I hope that I’m not drawing this out too far, so I’ll get to the point, the Christian life has a price tag but it is not a onetime paid in full arrangement, it is an ongoing exchange not of money but of life. Initially Jesus Christ gives His life for us as a ransom for us all. For those of us who have recognized our sinful condition and responded to God free gift we did so by surrendering our own lives to Christ. We are all O.K. up to here, but that is only partly it, like I said earlier we wish it were a onetime deal of surrender. It is at this juncture many pull back or one completely falls away. You see we think death to self is only about denying me certain things like chocolate or resisting another piece of pie and certainly this could play a small part in the bigger picture here.
The cross that Jesus calls us to pick up in order to follow Him is not made up of some official set of rules and regulations. The cross is a matter of simple obedience. So often like the children of Israel or the Galatians church for that matter, we would rather have a rule book to follow, we all would prefer to follow rules as they are clear cut, black and white and it gives us all a sense of having accomplished something for God which proudly reveals our zeal and dedication for God. Having performed the good deed we feel free to walk away rejoicing about our grand accomplishments only to become entangled in sins or iniquities led by our darker impulses or by other areas of our unconquered self serving conduct that we were not willing to relinquish to God initially, so now instead of freedom we are again in bondage of a different sort.
The core of the issue then and now comes down to a personal relationship. God was never interested in our outward acts of piety or following rules to the letter where people’s hearts are not in it. Performing external displays of service only caused people to become prideful and thus lose sight of their true spiritual condition and their desperate need for Him. God the Father wants to bring His children into full maturity by addressing the ‘intent s’ of their own hearts. Laws and rules are like an outward cloak that looks great but tend to mask the true condition of our hearts and its corruptions. Paul’s cry to the Galatians Church was ‘stay free in the freedom Christ has secured for you do not go back under a yolk of rules or laws or be led away into your own carnal desires to be enslaved by them once again.( Galatians chapter 5)
For all of us, human, weak, frail and many times struggling as believers, God is not expecting us to decipher some secret Da vinci Code or interpret some obscure message in the stars; all He wants from us is that our hearts be bowed low before Him in a place of rest and a willingness to obey. The truth being said, for God to get us there God has taken us through some hard places to break us of our strong wills and temperaments and to finally be able to not only speak into our lives but also reveal His glorious Presence.
It is not in vain friends that we have allowed God to put His restraining yolk over our shoulders, there may have been a time that we envied those who seemed liberated to pursue their own ends and freedoms. However, as time as gone on to decades there is a security in Christ and an internal witness that we are not illegitimate children( Hebrews 12) no, by the grace and mercy of God we were able to stay the course, although at times in tears and isolation. A small price to pay in the bigger picture
The disciplines and training of an earthly father carry a price tag of submission and adherence to his instruction which at the moment are not always appreciated. In time however they will produce in the child wisdom and knowledge for life’s hard road ahead. How much more should we be willing to pay the price of embracing the cross God puts before us in areas of suffering, adversity, misunderstanding and whatever else God deems necessary for our eternal instruction into righteousness and life refraining from complaining or fainting.
Eternal life is a free gift and we will never be able to earn it, we just receive it by faith through grace, this is the threshold by which we enter, however if we want to be changed into the likeness of Christ and eventually grow up into fully mature sons and daughters then God calls us to take up our cross of pushing away selfish and self serving ways and mindsets and embrace a righteous spirit led lifestyle that runs so contrary to our own. To the degree that we deny self and die is to the degree that we are filled with the true character of His nature.( Romans chapter 8)
What seldom gets mentioned and maybe only because we fail to see it in our trying circumstances is as Christ puts that yoke of conformity unto our shoulders He Himself is ‘harnessed in’ next to us, shoulder to shoulder, step with step. There is a nearness to Christ in trials I believe that far exceeds the average carefree lifestyle that as Christians we all seem to desire at the cost of bypassing some very intimate moment on the Calvary road where few allow themselves to be led.
Lord please help me to stop my bitter complaining in the way You are leading me, let me come to that place of rest where I am at this moment and with each step I take from here on in bearing this yolk. Help me to shift my gaze away from the road and toil before me unto Your glorious beauty and majesty, help me to take this cross of mine to its assigned place in my life. Amen
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