And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
Interesting. I never considered before that what you do, when you choose to sin, is present yourself (your members) TO sin – giving sin a gift, as it were. And in presenting yourself as a gift to sin, you declare that your members – you – are instruments of unrighteousness…tools to be used in unrighteous acts. When I think of it that way, it makes me shudder. It’s like when Belshazzar decided to use the holy vessels that had been taken from the temple, drinking from them at a great feast he was hosting. (Dan 5) He used these holy vessels as instruments of unrighteousness and saw the handwriting on the wall – literally – and was dead the next day. Presenting my members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness is obviously not the thing to do.
But to present myself to God as being alive from the dead! And then to present my self (my members) to Him as instruments of righteousness! Yes, this is the calling of the Christian.
It is interesting, too, the choice of words used in this verse. Yes, I take an active roll in making the presentation, in deciding whether to serve sin or God, but after that I am nothing more than an instrument either way – or at least my members (hand, tongue, mind, etc.) are nothing but instruments. As far as sin is concerned, this is horrible – slavery of the worst sort. But where God is concerned? To be an instrument in God’s hand is to be truly free! My only responsibility at that point is to do as He commands. As I do this I will automatically do what is right and my efforts will bear eternal fruit. Though the other path may be more tempting, and death to sin unappealing, nothing can compare to the glory of this!
For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin.
This last line is the key. “For he who has died has been freed from sin.” I was born a slave to sin and grew up letting it rule over me; it was the way of life I knew. Then I accepted Jesus – accepted His death as having paid the price required to buy, from sin, the slave that I was. In Him I too died; I died to the sin that had enslaved me. Even so, though freed by death and resurrected into new life, my flesh naturally wanted to go back to being a slave because the life of slavery was familiar, an easy life where sin ordered me around and all I had to do was follow its commands.
But I am free, called to walk in newness of life. I have free will, to follow the mandates of righteousness or to return to the habit patterns of the life I lived before. With every step I must choose and yes, choosing can be challenging. The body is dead to sin, but the memories were not purged. Flesh still ponders, on occasion, that sin brought a form of pleasure – forgetting that the pleasure it brought was to the old man, the man that no longer exists.
The new man is not pleased, but rather is pained by sin. There is no joy to be found in sin; there is only sorrow. The new man is alive to and pleased by righteousness and the freedom that comes from willfully choosing to serve God. I have been freed from sin. Why, then, would I ever choose to return to its chains?
“And it shall come to pass in the last days,” says God, “that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams.”
“And it shall come to pass in the last days,” says God, “that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh…”
I do know there is more to this verse. I do know, too, that in this case the proper translation is “mankind” or “people group,” rather than the “flesh” I think about when I consider my daily walk with the Lord, but…
I think perhaps it is not such an “off” thing that the word flesh is used here…for most of us ARE too fleshy to be of continual, supernatural use to God. Flesh cannot survive where the Spirit of God is, so what happens when He pours out His Spirit on me…on my flesh? My flesh dies! It is mercy that He did not pour out His Spirit on me, the baby Christian, because I was almost all flesh then. Had flesh died in that day, there would have been only a spark left alive – that spark that came with the God so newly arrived in my heart.
Today, though, I am somewhat more mature. I have not arrived, yet there is more of Him and less of me than ever before. As He pours out His Spirit on my flesh, I feel the pain of its death, yet I also rejoice in the fact that its death leaves that much more room for the One who lives within me.
So I wonder…
Is this part of the purpose of the last days’ outpouring? The Bible speaks of a dividing line – that there will become an obvious difference between the just and the unjust, and that many who have been comfortable in the church will fall away. Is it, perhaps, that He has allowed His children plenty of time to grow and pours out His Spirit to free us for that final growth spurt?
Should God, today, pour out His Spirit upon an entire congregation – every member – those who have come to worship in spirit and truth will rejoice, enduring the pain in the knowledge that more room is being made for Christ to live big inside of them. On the other hand, those who have been playing games with God – those who wish to be counted as one of His without making Him Lord – will run screaming in pain, “cleansing” their flesh of His Spirit as one would wash acid from burning skin, pampering that flesh so it can grow again.
Or so I surmise.
Assuming my conclusions are correct, what would happen next?
“…Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams.”
What a rich result of the outpouring He speaks of in the first part of this verse! Can there be a greater promise for one who is enduring such a purging as happens when He pours His Spirit out on their flesh? In the natural, when one goes through removal of flesh – say cancerous flesh – it is in hopes of at last being normal again. But this promise takes us beyond normal into… Oh…or does it?
What is “normal,” or what ought it be? What is the true standard where LIFE (God-life) is concerned? It is – would have to be according to the theologian’s Law of Beginnings – the life Adam lived before The Fall. So in pouring out His Spirit upon my flesh so that the flesh dies and His Spirit lives in me God is merely returning me to normal according to His standards!
He says He is returning for a glorious church. We know it is far from glorious now, and He needs to do a quick work if He is to bring us up to that level any time soon. But through pouring out His spirit on my flesh He can and will! He pours His Spirit out on us and a natural result of that outpouring is a greater sensitivity to Him that results in prophesies, visions and dreams, all of which are evidence that we are coming closer to that glorious state.
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I wrote the first section of this meditation years ago, and still consider it valid, but going back to “all flesh” meaning “all mankind” now brings a different thought.
One day, when Saul was hot after David’s life, God poured His Spirit out on Saul and, though he had murder in his heart, Saul began to prophesy. So it occurred to me some months back… Is the same thing happening today? How many times have we heard, in recent years, of people coming to know Jesus not as a result of a missionary’s work, but rather because Jesus visited with them in a dream or vision?
Imagine a gathering of Christian haters in which God pours His Spirit on the leader, who then begins to prophesy the Good News of Jesus Christ. How would that impact the two kingdoms-God’s and the devil’s? Is it happening today?
Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”
Some things you learn by careful study of God’s Word, but some things you learn when God draws out the Word you have hidden in your heart and shows it to you in a different light. Just as it is when you step into a room lit only by black light and certain colors start to glow, so also, when God shines His special light on Scripture, do certain words start to glow – not in a literal sense, in this case, but in a way that was every bit as exciting for me.
I could no more tell you what the sermon was about than I could tell you what I wore a year ago today, but there I was, reading along with the minister, when those final two words set off fireworks in my spirit.
“…before Abraham was born, I AM.” Jesus is speaking here, and He is speaking in the present tense!
Suddenly “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end,” showed itself to mean more than I had ever imagined. “I AM the Alpha,” God says. He IS the beginning, and at the very same time He is also the Omega, the end.
So there Jesus was – is – standing before a group of religious men, boldly declaring that He was not only standing before them in that very moment, but that He was also in both the distant past and a future yet to come. He was and is in all times at once. This is terribly hard for us to understand, but the reality of the thing is that HE IS GOD!
The flash of epiphany was instantaneous, but it actually took several days for the complete truth (or as much of it as I could handle) to percolate and really infuse itself through spirit and soul. And then, almost immediately, I had opportunity to put my faith to work with what I’d learned.
We were in the midst of a potentially terrifying battle, one we had been fighting for weeks against a seemingly heartless enemy. On this particular day, I was extraordinarily ready for the battle to be over so, as I took those dozen or so steps to the mailbox, I said, “God, You are in all times at once. That means You can right now see to it that they put a letter in the mail days ago – one I will pull out of the box right now today – saying they’re dropping this thing completely and won’t bother us again.”
And He did. Right then and there the battle was over because I had come to know yet one more aspect of my omnipotent, omnipresent, heavenly Father.
This understanding has changed my prayer life completely – and my faith life too. Praying retroactive prayers doesn’t bother me a bit, for instance. Say I get a prayer request this afternoon for an event that was to occur this morning. I don’t write it off as too late; I pray! I pray, sure in the knowledge that the same God who hears my prayers this afternoon IS there for that person this morning.
Likewise, when I send or put out a prayer request (via email, for instance), I may instantly see the answer – even though I know for a fact that no one has even seen the request yet, much less prayed. I see my answer right away because the God who is with them tomorrow, hearing their prayers about the situation, is with me in the here and now at the very same time!
16 Then Jesus called for the children and said to the disciples, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 17 I assure you, anyone who doesn’t have their kind of faith will never get into the Kingdom of God.”
Matthew, Mark and Luke all share about this event, about how Jesus rebuked His disciples for trying to keep the children away. Mark and Luke both quote Jesus’ declaration that only those who have childlike faith will enter the Kingdom of God. All good students know that when the teacher repeats himself you can be sure that the information he’s giving will be on the test. So what all was Jesus saying, that God ensured it would be repeated to catch our attention?
First, any time His disciples tried to keep people from Jesus they were rebuked. Here He rebuked them and then the event was recorded repeatedly in the Gospels.
Moral: Do not stand in the way of anyone who is trying to reach Him; He does not appreciate it (and may well make an example of you for posterity’s sake).
Then He explains that the Kingdom of God belongs to those children and others like them. We cannot enter the Kingdom of God, He says, unless we have their kind of faith. This is a powerful warning. How do we heed it?
The key, of course, lies in understanding a child’s faith. A child’s faith is, in a word, absolute. The child of a normal father – even one who is only decent, rather than outstanding as a father – tends to trust his father completely. Whatever Daddy gives him he receives with confidence that it is a good thing. When Daddy holds him, he knows the world is safe. Whatever his need, he walks convinced that Daddy will fill it. That is, after all, what daddies are for.
God wants us to trust Him in just this way. He desires…demands…our absolute confidence in Him. He wants us to come before the throne of grace as boldly as any child would run to his father’s chair. He wants us to whisper in His ear, sharing as any earthly child would, telling Him about our hopes, our dreams, our needs and concerns.
He also wants us to love as freely as a child loves, throwing our arms around his neck, climbing up into His lap, playing “I love you most” with him, and in general letting Him know that He is the most important One in our whole world.
Our tendency, in today’s culture, is to rush to grow up. He says, “Come as a child.”
10″Unless you are faithful in small matters, you won’t be faithful in large ones. If you cheat even a little, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities.
11 And if you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven?
Jesus pretty much hits on every aspect of life in these two verses, and keeps hitting on the money aspect in the verses that follow.
10″Unless you are faithful in small matters, you won’t be faithful in large ones.”
Every parent knows this to be true. Even toddlers can be given small jobs to do – small jobs that lead to bigger jobs as they prove themselves equal to the task. Parents watch their children and, as they show themselves to be diligent in their responsibilities, they receive larger responsibilities – more opportunities to shine. So also does our heavenly Father watch us as we grow and prove that we can handle responsibility.
If you cheat even a little, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities.
One can look at this sentence in many different ways. Because my most long-term experience within the church was in the music ministry, I instinctively look to this group for illustrations. Unfortunately, they’re easy to find where this topic is concerned.
I suppose it is human nature to want the spotlight for ourselves. Often it is man’s greatest desire to step into the limelight and shine there – and his second greatest desire is to get there without paying the price.
The most obvious example of this in my experience is singers’ views of being a Front Line member (one who is out front with a microphone) versus a choir member. How many people have joined their church’s choirs with one goal in mind – to use the choir as a stepping-stone into the Front Line position they covet?
It is true that most Front Line singers, at least in our church, rise out of the ranks of the choir. And they do so just as these verses imply that they must – through faithfulness in all areas. They study to learn not only how to sing in harmony, but to hear their parts without needing to be taught each song. They are diligent to allow the Holy Spirit the freedom to minister through them at all times, whether they feel like it or not. They have also committed themselves to spiritual growth and maturity, to walk worthy of the calling with which they are called long before that calling actually draws them onto the main platform.
Who does not get called to the Front Line?
The one who cannot be bothered to be faithful to the choir – rehearsals and services – had best not expect to be called. The one who cheats even a little, choosing to depend on others around him to know the parts rather than learning them himself, had best never count on attaining any step higher than the one he stands on. Even more, the one who cheats God, refusing to grow up into the mature Christian God has called him to be, will not see God giving him any responsibilities greater than those a spiritual child can handle. Man may give them to him, but God assures us that He will not, and God is the one who counts.
Finally…
[11] And if you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven?
Again, this can be looked at from many angles, but three words ring in my hears.
“tithes and offerings”
In Malachi, God speaks to a troubled people, a people who are troubled, He explains, because they have robbed Him of tithes and offerings.
God puts worldly wealth – money – into our hands. He expects us to return to Him the tithe and offerings beyond the tithe. If we prove untrustworthy in this, choosing to keep the entirety for ourselves (or even stealing from Him only part of what is His – cheating “even a little”) we cannot expect Him to trust us with the “true riches of heaven.”
“If you want to be my follower you must love me more than your own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, more than your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple. And you cannot be my disciple if you do not carry your own cross and follow me.
This is Jesus talking and He says five very strong words not once, but twice.
you cannot be my disciple
If He speaks these words to those who followed Him, how much more strongly must they ring in the ears of those of us who carry Him – in whom He has chosen to place His Spirit?
Do I love Him more than I love my own father and mother?
Do I love Him more than I love my husband and children?
Do I love Him more than I love my sisters?
Do I love Him more than I love my own life?
My instant reaction is a resounding, “Yes!” but is this an honest reaction?
As I wrote this meditation several years ago, the holiday season was fast approaching and bringing with it a conflict between our traditional family gathering and a church service. Many families set aside church at such times, but for us this was not an option. We could join our family before or after service, but not instead of service.
Yes, to this day we are active in our church and would be missed were we not there. We may have chosen not to create difficulty by being absent. We could have decided to attend services merely because we knew we would feel guilt if we stayed away. We could choose to forgo fellowship with our earthly family in favor of fellowship with God for any number of reasons. We choose God’s house over the family’s house for one reason above all others. We choose because He has called us to love Him with our entire being, to love Him better than others, and to allow no one and no thing to come between us and Him. He does, on rare occasions, tell us to do something other than come to His house (the church) for our regular services. These times really are rare, however, and for us to absent ourselves without His instruction (express permission) would be a sign that we do not love Him above all others and all else.
Having said all that, I can conclude that yes, I believe I do love Him more than my father and mother, husband and children, sisters… But what about self?
This is where it gets tough for me. In general, I love Him better than my own life – my own self. For decades, my habit has been to crucify my flesh on Sunday mornings and make it get up early when it would rather sleep in. I often bite my tongue and forgive when my flesh pointedly does not want to, simply because the One I love expects it of me. I study His Word and pray because these things are absolute necessities if I am to truly know Him – and I want to know Him. Still…
There are too many times when self/flesh wins the argument. It may be true that I still love Him better than I love my own life in those moments, but you couldn’t tell it by looking at me. I am reminded of a friend’s experience. She was out shopping with her spiritual mentor when a sales clerk messed up. My friend tore into the clerk and then huffed out the door. She apparently felt convicted almost instantly, because she turned to the older lady and muttered, “Well, I guess I wasn’t much of a witness.”
“Oh…” the more mature friend replied, “you were a witness all right.”
Her friend’s point, of course, was that, like a man in the witness’ box at a trial, we are always being watched by those who witness what we say and do. The question is, do we represent our Lord well…or badly? Is our love for God strong enough that it will overpower our love for our own lives, our own selves? Is it powerful enough to still our tongues (as He would wish) when our flesh would rather lash out and cut deeply?
Yes, I do believe I love Him better than I love my own life. I am well aware, however, that I do not always display this love as He desires, that I must continue to crucify the flesh and improve my ability to walk the walk.
And you cannot be my disciple if you do not carry your own cross and follow me.
There is a piece that makes its way around the internet on occasion; this has reminded me of it.
In the story, a man goes to God complaining that his cross is too heavy, too much of a burden to bear. God takes him to a room and gives him permission to lay down his cross and pick up a different one. Going to first one and then the next, he tries each and every cross in the room until his finds the perfect fit. Not surprisingly, the cross he carries from the room is the very same cross he carried in.
Each of us really does have our own cross to bear, and no other person’s cross will do. No matter how rough my life gets, no matter how busy, no matter how complicated, no matter how challenging or downright hard, I know one thing; God has it all planned out and knows exactly what the path ahead of me looks like. The cross I bear fits me for the path, giving me the learning experiences and tools I need to accomplish exactly what God wants me to accomplish, to reach the goals He has set for me. Were I to set aside my own cross and carry another’s cross down the road that lies before me, I would undoubtedly arrive at each turning without important things that I need, unprepared for what I faced and destined to fail.
It is not only obedience to take up our own crosses and follow Jesus; it is absolute necessity. His command to take up our own crosses and follow Him is not a command that creates a burden; it is, rather, a command that fits us for the journey and saves us from carrying burdens that were never meant to be ours.
Anyone who isn’t helping me opposes me, and anyone who isn’t working with me is actually working against me.
I like this translation. We’ve probably all heard, “He who is not for me is against me” – possibly so many times that we only give mental assent to the truth and move on. But…
This is a vital verse for those who think to sit on the fence; it makes it crystal clear that there is no fence. It is even more essential that the import of Luke 11:23 be grasped by those who religiously attend church services every Sunday morning, arrogantly thinking that in merely attending a church service they have completed their Christian responsibility. Jesus says otherwise.
“Anyone who isn’t helping me opposes me…” Can He express it more simply than this? If I think I can merely sit in my padded pew and do nothing to help Jesus expand His kingdom, if I think I can ignore the Great Commission that was given to each of us, I am in gross error. I am also in opposition to Jesus. There is no passively sitting and doing nothing; Jesus says that if we do not actively help Him, we actively oppose Him.
“…and anyone who isn’t working with me is actually working against me.” Here He speaks even more strongly and more clearly. Yes, He honestly does expect us to work. He expects us to go into all the world and preach the gospel (Mark 16:15) and, in the local church body, He expects us to be fitly joined together with everyone else, each of us doing our part to supply the needs of the body (Eph 4:16).
What work does He call us to where the church is concerned? Just as it is in the physical body, so it is in a church body – each part supplies what it is designed to offer. In my case, for nearly thirty years this meant serving in the Music Ministry…even after coming on staff full time. The next person may fit in entirely differently, serving in ways that have never occurred to me. The bottom line is that we are both working with Jesus to build up the church and expand the Kingdom of God so that He will not say of us, “They are actually working against me.”
Do not judge and criticize and condemn others, so that you may not be judged and criticized and condemned yourselves. For just as you judge and criticize and condemn others you will be judged and criticized and condemned, and in accordance with the measure you deal out to others it will be dealt out again to you.
A friend, on reading this meditation, made a comment that motivated me to slip in here and add a preface. I do not wish to imply that we are never to judge others at all; that stand would be unscriptural as the Bible clearly commands us to know those that labor among us, to judge them by their fruit, and I Cor 5:12-13 shows clearly that we are not to ignore it when church members sin.
With that clearly understood…
Many people read Matthew 7:1-2 and instantly set the verses aside, thinking, “I don’t judge people, so this doesn’t apply to me,” but is this true? I think not, for most of us. If, as I drive the freeway, another driver cuts me off and I respond by calling him a fool, I have judged him. I have also, by speaking the judgment aloud, criticized. This Scripture clearly warns me against both.
Why? Why does God warn us not to do these things? I believe it is at least in part because of the laws that say, “…whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Gal 6:7, NKJV) and “Give and it will be given to you…” (Luke 6:38, NKJV) Yes, “give and it will be given” applies to good gifts, but I believe it also applies to this.
And, too, the King James puts it simply; “Judge not lest thou be judged.” If I am judgmental where others are concerned, I am essentially begging God to be judgmental towards me. Also, I have seen from experience that he who judges often ends up committing the very same error himself. Yes, logic would say that if we see another’s actions as wrong we will not perform the same actions ourselves, but many parents will admit that they too often find themselves doing the very things they most hated for their parents to do. I believe there is a reason for this. As I see it, when I judge another and do not repent of having judged them I open a door that can lead me into doing the very same thing for which I have passed judgment. I believe this not only as a result of reading Scripture, but because I have seen it happen time and again.
I know a man who saw other male friends, Christian men, go through midlife crises and completely lose it. I’m sure he prayed for these men, but he also judged them harshly and criticized them, declaring that there was no excuse for a Christian to go through a midlife crises at all. It wasn’t too very many years before this man was deep in his own midlife crisis and, though he came out of it with his marriage and family intact, it was only by the grace of God that he did. Meanwhile, another friend was judging him harshly, as he had judged the others. In a few short years, this other man was in position to be judged for much the same thing.
I can also give an example of my own. I had a Christian friend who’d had multiple nervous breakdowns. I could not understand how a Christian could have a nervous breakdown and found myself judging her as apparently lacking in some area. Mind you, I never spoke my thoughts – never criticized; I loved her far too much for that anyway and felt badly that I had these judgmental thoughts…not that it occurred to me to repent of them.
Then I had a nervous breakdown.
I have since been able to analyze that time period and could list the things that led me into this horrible experience. It is possible that it would have happened anyway, even if I had not judged this other friend, but I’m sure that through judging her I did open the door that led to me going down the same – or at least a similar – path. God was good to me; He surrounded me with people who loved me, prayed even when they didn’t understand what was wrong, and did everything they could think of to help me down the road to recovery. I would much rather, however, have avoided that terrifying experience entirely.
I am very glad that I have a good God who occasionally reminds me, “Tammy, judge not lest thou be judged, for with the same measure…”
But seek for (aim at and strive after) first of all His kingdom and His righteousness [His way of doing and being right], and then all these things taken together will be given you besides.
But seek for (aim at and strive after)
This is no small thing. Whatever it is I’m seeking, I’m to aim carefully for my goal. Someone told me once that in the earliest archery targets there was nothing but a mark in the center of a plain field that was called ‘sin.’ If you “hit the mark” you did well, but if you fell outside the mark you were “in sin.” I don’t know if this story is true or not, but it does illustrate the importance of proper aim. The fact is that in anything we do “hitting the mark” is the only fully acceptable result.
And then there’s the word “strive.” According to Webster’s 1828 dictionary, it means, “To make efforts; to use exertions; to endeavor with earnestness; to labor hard.” This is a meaty word, one that implies the necessity of WORK on our part.
first of all
Before anything else!
His kingdom and His righteousness [His way of doing and being right]
So here is what we are to work so hard to attain.
His kingdom
His righteousness
His way of doing and being right
I’m told that one translation says we are to seek first the expansion of His kingdom and that makes sense too, considering Jesus’ command to go into the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. (Mark 16:15)
And if we do this, then…
all these things taken together will be given you besides.
“All these things” would be the things He talked about in verses 25 through 31, the things the Gentiles seek and the things that He commands us not to worry about. He is, after all, our heavenly Father who knows we need them. If we just do things His way, those other ‘things’ are automatically ours.
