CHRISTIAN LIVING__IS IT CHRIST IN ME OR ME?

[YOU'LL NEED YOUR SPIRIT OPEN AND YOUR MIND ON STEROIDS FOR THIS ONE.]

There is a paradox seen in the Colossians 1: 26-29 passage of scripture that a lot of Christians just don't get. That paradox is simply that on the one hand, Paul says that he [personally] CONTENDS strenuously, to present the Colossians mature in Christ. [That's a lot of work.] By using these words he is saying that he is exerting all his energy to do this. The word that he uses for CONTENDS is “agonizomai” in the Greek. We get the word AGONY or AGONIZE from it. It denotes an intense exertion of emotional and/or physical energy; an agonizing if you will. He's laboring. He's working at it. He's putting forth all this energy on behalf of the Colossians and to do the work God has for him to do. 

But on the other hand, while he is putting forth this energy to further the Kingdom and the spiritual growth of those Colossians, he says he's able to do it ONLY BECAUSE Christ is in him exerting a supernatural energy and power that is almost like the force of dynamite. [We get the word dynamite from the Greek word dunamis used here!]  Paul IS doing it and yet Paul IS NOT doing it. How paradoxical is that! 

Paul was acutely aware of this paradox as he talks of exerting all his energy knowing the ONLY reason he could do it was because Christ was dynamically working in him. Paul is sharing here the revelation of what he calls a mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but has now been revealed to God's people. It's the mystery of Christ in you, the HOPE OF GLORY. For Paul this wasn't just a nice new revelation, it wasn't just some great new information, it wasn't a theoretical, theological thing at all. It was an EXPERIENCED REALITY. 

Someone will legitimately ask,"But I thought He finished the work of Christ and we are to rest in that!" Truer words were never spoken. We DO rest in His finished work! But rest is NOT inactivity in scripture. God is ALWAYS active on our behalf [think present intercession of Christ] and we have a rest of faith that produces our activity of obedience as well. [Though His yoke is easy and His burden is light!] This is the Christ in you in reality.

"Christ in you, the hope of glory" was something that Paul just didn't think or converse about, though I'm guessing he might have done that, but it was more fundamentally a REALITY he lived in. Christ was in him, and Christ was exerting this dynamic dynamite force that was EMPOWERING him to exert effort to accomplish God's will on earth as it is in heaven. He was aware that Christ in him was moving him towards what he called under inspiration, GLORY. 

The HOPE OF GLORY was a driving force that moved him towards experiencing GLORY. What is GLORY? I read someone who said it this way, "GLORY is the MANIFESTATION of God’s kind of beautiful, other‐oriented, self-sacrificial love being put on display."  [This is sure foreign to our self-effort, is it not!] This is NOT to be experienced just when you GO TO CHURCH, but it is to be the every day living experience of every believer. So Paul was aware that Christ was IN HIM moving him in a direction where he was increasingly putting Christ on display, where he was being transformed into the likeness of Christ, where he was being used by God to help others be transformed into the likeness of Christ. Christ in him was moving him to LOVE more like Christ, SERVE more like Christ, SHARE more like Christ, to THINK more like Christ and to FEEL more like Christ. Christ was in him to put His character and HIS KINGDOM on display. 

Paul is ALSO making it clear in this passage that God is not a coercive God. God will never coerce us. God never MAKES us do anything. God wants a really personal relationship with us, which means He doesn't want a relationship with a marionette. We're NOT puppets! He wants a genuine love relationship with personal beings that CHOOSE that relationship, not one that LOOKS loving but is, in fact, only God controlling EVERYTHING with NO responsibility on the part of His followers. God isn't that way. God doesn't pull strings on puppets. 

Paul is showing that while a paradox, the Christian has to take into account the exercising of his will, effort, and choices on the part of the believer, but it is WHEN those choices are made and that effort is given that the dynamic powerful force of the Holy Spirit will be, in fact, released by faith. Paul realizes that there is his part in it; he has to trust and obey. But God's part is to both to will and to do in him, AND HE WILL. 

IT'S A PARADOX! [a statement or proposition that, sounds quite unreasonable and leads to a conclusion that seems senseless, logically unacceptable, or self-contradictory:] So Paul puts forth the energy and yet, the only reason he can do that is because Christ is empowering him to do it. The world doesn't get it but WE DO! 

So as Paul it and is saying it, his role was to trust/believe/faith that Christ IS his LIFE and STRENGTH. His role was to submit to Christ in him and to trust Christ in him. He wasn't just cranking this out on his own. He wasn’t just a Christian who needed to go to church every Sunday or he wouldn’t be able to function in life properly. There is NO inherent power in attending church. If you doubt that statement just talk to people who lose ALL their spirituality when something happens to them, a tragedy or where they really are wronged or hurt, and they revert to a mean-spirited reaction because of that circumstance. It may be that they SELDOM miss attending church, but it takes more than ATTENDING church for life to be GLORY as defined above. 

For Paul it was that Christ NOW lives in him. It was this experiential dimension of the mystery that had been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is NOW revealed to God's people so the WHOLE of their life would be different REGARDLESS of the circumstances. 

THAT'S the mystery of Christ in you and THAT'S the paradox of CHRISTIAN LIVING. Forget EITHER to our own regret. BELIEVE and BEHAVE with both in mind and the HOPE OF GLORY will be realized in our EVERY DAY LIVING!

The answer to the question found in the title of this post is__ YES!

Paul B.

HERE COME DE' JUDGE

How we view God is terribly significant. That we view God a certain way is the result of many things is a factual statement but, basically, all of our experiences of life, good and bad, lead us AWAY from a biblical view of God which I believe is the correct one.

But, unfortunately, we can even come away from scriptures with a twisted view of God if we allow human philosophies and human reason to give impetus as to how we interpret the meaning of the scriptures rather than just what the scriptures themselves say.

Take the idea of God being "Judge." [Hence, the post title made famous by comedian Flip Wilson.] God is the judge you know. The bible says so. In Psalm 9:8 the Psalmist says this.. "He will judge the world in righteousness; he will govern the peoples with justice." In Acts 17:31 it says He has appointed a day in which Jesus will judge the world in righteousness. Notice both verses speak of God being judge and connects it to His Righteousness and His desire for justice.

But when we say the word "judge" what do we usually mean? We generally mean someone who impartially views all evidence and pronounces us guilty so we can be punished or innocent so we can be set free. The key word here in our thinking is "impartially."

The reason we think this is because our Western Civilization is built on a view of law and order that is based on a legal standard that measures us and clinically [think scales] assesses our guilt or innocence to be adjudicated by that Judge who had better remain detached if he is to be fair. Our entire system of justice depends on that viewpoint of an impartial and objective judge with no stake in our case.

But the God of the bible, who is our Judge, is far from "detached" or "impartial." He doesn't think objectively with no stake in the case before Him. He's on our side and love is His character even His very nature and mercy is in His heart toward us.

It is true that you may not be fully cognizant of this as you read the Old Testament. But you will when you see the Old Testament as preparing for the New Testament and see Jesus as the full picture of who our God__ who judges__ really is. In scripture God as Judge brings justice and don't forget that biblical justice is not basically "punishment" but "SETTING THINGS RIGHT."

This is clearly seen in Isaiah 1:17 where it says... "Learn to do right! SEEK JUSTICE, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow". Notice the context of setting things as they OUGHT to be rather than the idea of punishment.

I'm not saying that punishment isn't part of the process, just that it isn't the MAJOR part as most modern Christians seem to think. Which, by the way, leads invariably to a concept that God the Father is cold, calculating, angry and, while detached from us, gleefully punishes us for our sin because He's our JUDGE. But that's our western mind at work, as I've said earlier, and NOT the declaration of the bible.

In scripture the justice that God desires is one that brings healing and restoration to broken relationships. It is His__ The God of the Old and New Testament__ seeking to relieve the pain and suffering our sin has created that is what the Cross is all about. So biblical justice is to be seen in the work of the Cross as much as biblical Love is. GOD is at work in Christ bringing justice and love together in a fashion that denies Him EVER being impartial or detached from those who have to suffer the consequences of our choices that started with Adam in the garden and continues to our own day and our own choices.

So we see that love and justice are not mutually exclusive. You don't find the God of the Old Testament as a Judge angry and wanting nothing to do with mankind and the God of the New Testament appeased. Justice and love are both the very nature of God demonstrated on the Cross. Jesus died BECAUSE He loves and desires justice. The Father planned BECAUSE He loves and desires justice. The Spirit gives life BECAUSE He loves and desire justice.

What this means is the Cross is the expression of the very heart of GOD in both justice AND love. So the Cross deals with our sin [Our missing the mark] and it's consequences which are death. [Separation in more ways than one.] Now in justice AND mercy the God who loves can lavish that love on us because the wrong has been righted to all who turn to that Cross. It is truly a work of GRACE from the heart of a GRACIOUS and LOVING God who is our judge AND Redeemer.

The Cross is to be seen as a RELATIONAL move on God's part as much as it is a judicial move. His heart for us is never removed from us even because of sin. He loves. He made a way for us to be back in a personal relationship with Him. He is just. [Makes things right.] He is God. We can trust Him and learn to love Him back all because of that Cross.

 "Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice".( Isaiah 30:18)

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting Life."

WOW. When I read back what has just been written I recognize the implications to me personally. Not just in a personal redemptive way but as way of life. In other words, if I truly reflect and reveal the God of the bible I will do so in love AND justice. Racial, gender, class, social, along with every other kind of injustice, will have my full attention.

I will NOT be overcome with a desire to punish people for wrongs done, though wrongs do have consequences even legally, but I WILL be overcome with a driving desire to make right those wrongs.

On top of that, I will be more concerned with my relationship with people and loving them than I will be their correctness in understanding any system of belief. To those people I will present the One who even used the Cross personally to gain a relationship with them and I won't forget that. Ever.

Paul B.