Treasure in Heaven

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Luke 18:18-25

 A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’”
 “All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said.
 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
 When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!  Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

This passage again brings us back to the question of what we love. What is most important in your life? What would you give up anything else for? What do you run t for comfort? for meaning in life? What do you spend most of your time and effort in?

There is no point having God second in your life. He demands and deserves first place, and we need to put him in his rightful place as Lord of our lives. When we put God second, we are really just being proud and selfish, saying we know better then him, but holding onto the hope that he will still save us and give us the benefits without us taking any of the responsibility.

The rich man in the passage claimed that he had obeyed God all his life - I don't know who that man was, perhaps he did physically obey all of God's commands. But regardless of that, Jesus wasn't first in his life. He wanted eternal life, but he also wanted wealth and luxury in this life. The question came down to if he was wiling to give up his good life here and trust Jesus that there was a better life eternally with God.

That question still resounds in the world for us today. Am I willing to be hated, to be persecuted, to lose friends, to give away what I have? Am I willing even just to be laughed at for Christ? Do I trust him that he will save, and that his salvation is far better than anything in this world? Do you trust him in that?

It's a hard question to answer, because if we've grown up as Christians it's easy to just know intellectually the right answer and give a yes to all those questions. It's easy to say "I am not ashamed of the gospel", but is that really the truth? Have you ever had to prove those words?

Perhaps what we need to do is think deeply, decide on our answers and then act. Decide to put God first and then live it - telling people the gospel, loving those who it is socially unacceptable to love, giving up wealth, health and prosperity for Christ. Maybe instead of just saying "yes Jesus, you are first in my life" we should go and show it.

In saying all this, I want to point out once more that our actions do not save us.

The only thing our actions can do is condemn us because we are all sinful. Jesus told this man to give up all his wealth to show him how sinful he was and to smash his facade of righteousness. Our problem is one of the heart, and we cannot change that. Only Jesus can.

It isn't about what we do, it's about what Jesus did. He, who is God, came to earth and lived perfectly. He suffered and died on the cross, taking the sin of his people and God's wrath for it. He paid the price in full that we would spend eternity in hell for because we can never pay it. He then rose again, proving that he had paid entirely for sin, since death is the result of sin (No sin = death cannot contain him. Rose again = proof that he has defeated sin.)

It isn't about what we do. But we are called to repent and believe, putting our faith in Jesus as the only one who can save. The consequence of that for our lives is that we will also give up sin - you can't be genuinely sorry for sin and then keep doing it. But we aren't condemned when we stuff up after that point - Jesus paid it all.

Yet the question remains: if you are a Christian, if Jesus has died for your sins and paid the ultimate sacrifice for you, how will you respond? Will you be willing to give your life as a living sacrifice for him (Romans 12)?

Are you willing to give up every benefit you have for the sake of knowing Jesus?

Helping those in need.

Romans 12:13

Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

The next part of living as sacrifices to God (Romans 12:1) involves how we show our love for fellow Christians: We need to share with those who are in need and be hospitable.

They're commands that we hear all the time, and we know we should do them, but it's easy to just shrug them off, or to think to ourselves that we're doing a good job at them already and there's no need to improve. Instead, our attitude should be that we be giving everything to God as living sacrifices. That means we should be considering these commands and not be content with where we are at - we should be striving to do better and to honour God more through them.

Paul commands us here to share with God's people - fellow Christians. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't help non-christians (There are plenty of verses about providing for the poor regardless of who they are), but we should specifically be looking to help fellow Christians who are in need. By doing that we make the gospel attractive to non-christians - they see our love for each other and that we are different from other groups, and that can cause them to ask questions and seek answers.

So what does sharing with God's people look like?

The more obvious examples are things like helping those who don't have enough money who are Christians, or giving food to those who maybe can't afford it. These are good things, and I don't think we do them enough. But the truth is that we aren't always in contact with these people. We don't alway know who they are and so we can't always help them. So what other things can we do? We should be looking around us at the needs of others and be thinking about how we can help. Maybe it's giving up some time to help out a family who is really busy at that time - maybe cooking them a meal or offering to baby sit their kids. Maybe it's as simple (and hard) as talking to someone who isn't in our social circle, or spending time with someone that others leave out. As Christians we are called to associate with the poor, the weak, those who we would usually try to stay away from to protect our own social rank. We need to love those people and care for them as much as we love our friends or family. We need to treat them as brothers or sisters in Christ.

How are we meant to know the needs of those around us? We have to love them and be involved in their lives. We need to be honest with them and seek honest answers from them. We need to be trustworthy and make those deep friendships in our churches so that we are in a position to help those people who need it and to know their needs. That takes time and effort. And it has to be selfless - with the sole purpose of trying to help them, not trying to help ourselves.

There are also the bigger applications of this: giving money or volunteering time to charities who help Christians (or non-christians) in the third world who don't have enough food to survive. Praying for persecuted Christians and writing letters to them (you can do that through Voice of the Martyrs).

There are countless applications of this command. What we need to do is be praying about how God wants to use us, and to be keeping our eyes open for when he presents opportunities.

What about being hospitable?

Being hospitable basically means opening your house to others, or providing for the needs of others. Are we willing to let people into our houses in order to help them? Are we willing to give all we have as a sacrifice to God and in service of him?

I hope they were some helpful thoughts!
God Bless,
Nat.

Putting others first

Romans 12:10

Be devoted to one another in love. Honour one another above yourselves.

Do you know a Christian who you just find so difficult to get along with? Someone who always just rubs you up the wrong way, who either intentionally or unintentionally annoys the life out of you? It probably wouldn't be hard to name a few if you've been around Christians for any length of time. But what's God's command here?

"Be devoted to one another in love"

It's such a simple instruction, yet it's so hard to do isn't it? To love others so much that you put their wellbeing above your own. To love people you find annoying that much. To be devoted not to ourselves, or to our PS3's, but to each other - to faulty, sinful, selfish humans.

Yet that's what Christ calls us to do. In fact, it's what he first demonstrated or us. The Creator of the universe, the one who deserves all glory, the perfect, holy God who reigns eternally sent his son, Jesus, int the world to live with sinners. And not only to live with us and put up with us, but to share the good news and to be the good news: He came and died on the cross in our place, taking our sin. We don't deserve that. Yet God did it for us. Not because we are good, but because he is awesome.

Yet when God tells us to do it we don't? Or we give a half-hearted attempt and try to lay the blame on someone else?

How do we show this love? Through actions. We need to honour them above ourselves. Humbly, truly and honestly put them before ourselves - even if they don't appreciate it or don't do the same for us. We need to love them and show that love not in an attempt to live well or to get attention. We need to do it for Christ, for God's glory, knowing that he sees everything and our reward is eternity with him.

Take a minute to consider honestly how your going at this. Compare your love for those people with God's love for us - there is no comparison between what he has done for us and what we do for those people. Even if we gave our lives for those people who annoy us (or even those who don't) it is still nothing compared to Christ's love for us.

We have no excuse.

Hope, Patience and Trust (Part 3).

Romans 12:12

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

In the previous two posts (Here and Here) we looked at the reason we have to rejoice in our hope, and what it means to be patient in tribulations. Both of those things involve trusting God - we need to trust that his word is true, that Jesus has saved everyone who puts their faith in him and that he will keep his promises.

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Be constant in prayer.

This command follows the similar thread: to pray to God is an expression of our trust in him. If we don't trust God then we won't pray for his help, we won't praise him for his grace and we won't be constantly turning to him with every need, fear and joy.

Why should we pray? We pray because it is us talking to God. When we read his word we are hearing God's words to us, and when we pray we are speaking to him. In doing so we are glorifying him by showing him we trust him. We are also (hopefully) being humble - realising that we cannot save ourselves and that we need his help for everything we do.

We also pray because it is God alone who can change things. James 1:5 says

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

The fact is that we cannot change our situation. We need God to change us, and we ask him for that help through prayer. As Christians it isn't our effort that changes us, it is God using our effort and working in us through the Holy Spirit to make us more like him. It's God through the Holy Spirit who initially saves us and convicts of sin (John 16:8-9, 2 Thessalonians 2:13), and it's him who changes us to make us more like him (Romans 5:5, Galatians 5:22-23). Therefore, since God is the only one who can save us and change us, we need to trust him and pray for his help.

Praying to God also shows that we have faith in him - we wouldn't pray to him if we didn't think he existed or if we didn't think he ever does anything for us. Therefore by constantly praying we would be constantly trusting in God. Constant prayer is also about praying to God about everything - everything we face, everything we enjoy, everything we fear and struggle with. God wants to hear us praying to him about these things because he loves seeing us trust in him.

But we shouldn't just pray about ourselves. God isn't our personal genie who will give us three wishes if we have enough faith. We need to pray out of trust in him, but we should also pray as a way of praising God. We should pray to thank him for all he has done and for who he is. We should pray in tribulations to help us be patient, and we should pray as part of our rejoicing in hope.

The question for us is this: how much do we pray? Does that reflect our trust in God?

I find it easy to sit down and go through a prayer list, and that is useful, although I struggle to make it genuine and it sort of becomes routine after awhile. But how much do we pray at other times? It shouldn't be a chore to pray - it should be a joy and a privilege that we use constantly.

I hope they were some helpful thoughts!
Soli deo gloria!
Nat.

Hope, Patience and Trust (Part 2).

Romans 12:12

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

In the previous post we looked at the reason for our hope and our joy, and today we'll look at the next command: Be patient in tribulation.

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Persevering in hardship. 

The greek words used here mean persevering with hope under a crushing load. In life we will face hardships - regardless of if we are Christians or not. The difference is that if we are Christians we can expect them (because God tells us we will be persecuted in 2 Timothy 3:12) and we can endure them with hope. We will suffer in this life, but we can rejoice knowing that no matter how bad things get here for us,m we have eternal life in heaven because if we have truly put our faith in Jesus we are completely forgiven.

As a result, even though we sometimes will face hardships that will tear us apart, we can trust in God's promises. What are those promises? There are many, but here are a few:

So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:10)

This verse tells us that God is with us, and so we know that whatever we go through we have a faithful saviour, king and friend who can guide us through it and is with us. We can also know that he understands - Jesus, who is God also suffered and he can empathise with us in our hardships and weaknesses (Hebrews talks about that)

In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps. (Proverbs 16:9) 

This verse shows us that God is in control. And we know from Romans 8:28 that he works everything for our ultimate good. No matter what we are suffering God is good and he will work it to bring us closer to him and make us more like him (James 1:2-4 also supports this).

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Although this verse is primarily about temptation, I think it still applies. Yes we will suffer. Yes it will sometimes get to the point of being unbearable. But God is good. He is faithful, and he will not give us more then we can bear. He won't give us so much that we have to disobey him or end it ourselves. He will always provide - trust him. It won't be easy. But it won't be impossible.

Life is tough. And God doesn't promise it will get any easier here. But he does promise to see us through this life and to bring us into his kingdom at the end.
Trust in him, he is the only one who can save us.
God Bless!
Nat.

Hope, Patience and Trust (Part 1).

Romans 12:12

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

 Here are three commands from Paul that we need to consider. They stem from his message in verses 1 and 2 - that we need to offer our bodies as living sacrifices and not conform to the world. If we are truly living for God, we should be doing these things. And they should be a joy for us!

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Rejoice in Hope.

What is our hope in and why should that make us rejoice? Our hope is the gospel, and we most certainly have reason to rejoice in it. So what is the gospel - the good news? In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1). He created it all good, and he only had one command for Adam and Eve (the first Humans). But they disobeyed it and since then all humans have been living in rebellion to God and we have also rejected him personally in our lives. We all sin (Romans 3:23) and as a result we deserve God's perfect and just wrath against sin (i.e. death and hell eternally).

Nevertheless God is also merciful and gracious. Even though we did not deserve it or even ask him for it, he sent his son Jesus (who is also God, along with God the father and God the Holy Spirit - they are all the one God) into the world as a man. Jesus lived a perfect life. He did not disobey God and therefore he is the only human who did not deserve to suffer God's wrath. But he was also God - the only one who could be perfect and who's sacrifice would be enough to pay for sin.

He came to earth and lived among us, and then was murdered by us. We rejected even God's son who came with the good news. But God knew that that would happen - in fact he planned it to happen. Jesus' death was in fact the only way we could be saved: Jesus took the sins of everyone who did, does or will put their faith in him when he died on the cross. He didn't only take that pain, but while on the cross he also took God's wrath against every sin we (Christians) deserve to suffer in hell for eternally.

He was then buried, but he rose again on the third day - he came back to life because "the wages of sin are death" (Romans 6:23), and he had completely satisfied God's just punishment for sin, so death had no power to hold him. By coming back to life he proves that he is truly the one who has saved us, and he calls everyone to put their faith in him and repent of their sin - calling us to turn back to God. Everyone who genuinely does that will be completely and entirely forgiven. More then that, we are adopted as God's children and as co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8). We can trust in all of God's promises, and we know that Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead - and since we are forgiven we will go to be with him forever, glorying in his presence in heaven eternally with no pain or mourning or tears (Revelations 21).

That is the gospel. That is what we are to hope in and rejoice about. There is nothing better! Nothing fuller! Jesus is the only one who can save and if we turn to him we are saved entirely. We don't have to fear death. We don't have to fear hardship here. We can look forward to heaven and rejoice in that hope. We can look back to Jesus and rejoice in what he has done regardless of our earthly circumstances.

We have reason to hope! God is faithful.
We have reason to rejoice! Jesus saves wretched sinners who turn to him!
In Christ,
Nat.

Keeping our enthusiasm for God

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Romans 12:11

Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervour, serving the Lord.

How do we keep our enthusiasm (or zeal) for God? How do we maintain our love for him, for his word and our love of obeying him? How do we never be lacking in our passion for serving him?

They're the type of questions I've been working through lately - it's so easy to read the bible as just an academic exercise, to obey God out of mere duty. But to do it out of love? To love doing it because it's in service of our creator and saviour - that's entirely different, and I don't entirely know how we keep doing it.

Never be lacking in zeal.

The thing about our relationship with God is that it is never static. We are always either coming closer to him or further from him in our lives. We are either trusting him or relying on something else. We are either worshipping him or another. But how do we keep our enthusiasm for God? Here are a few thoughts:

• In some senses it does come down to a choice. We need to choose to serve God and to live for him. We need to choose to obey him. Without our choice to serve God and to live entirely for him with zeal, we will not do it. So that's a good first step. But how do we facilitate that? How do we make it real and genuine?

• The second thing to do it pray. God alone can change our hearts, and he alone can make us more like him. If we want to live for him and to love him we need to ask for his help - only he can replace our hearts of stone with ones of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). We need to pray constantly and consistently for God's help. He may not seem to answer straight away. he may not answer how we want. But he always hears the prayers of his people and he always does what is for our good (Romans 8:28).

• To love God we need to know him. To do that we need to read his word. We also need to reflect on his promises and his faithfulness - all he has done for us and for his people. Most of all: reflect on Jesus and what he has done for us and how unfathomable that love is. When we consider all God has done and recognise the depths of his love it's easier to love him back and therefore to live for him.

• Serve God. As we give our lives to God and invest them in serving him and as we store up riches in heaven, our hearts will be there also. Part of that involves removing our idols from our lives - we need to consider what we put before God in our lives and remove it from that place however possible. That's hard work! But to love God first we need to get rid of everything that's in the way. (1 John 2:15-17).

When we slip away and start to find that we are lacking in zeal we can work to fix it by doing these things. John, in Revelations 2:4-5 said this:

But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first.

What are the works we did at first? Repentance and faith. We need to "confess our sins" because "he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." God will forgive us and if we genuinely turn back to him he will save us and bring us back to him. Pray, ask for his help and work at the things above!

Start now.

I hope they were helpful thoughts, fell free to comment if you have any thoughts or other ideas.
God Bless!
Nat.

"...Hate what is evil; cling to what is good."

Romans 12:9

"Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good."

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The last two commands in this passage are basically opposites of the same coin. By doing one we have to do the other. If we hate evil, we need to cling to good. I we are clinging to good, we must hate evil. (Note: I've done a post on the first command here)

Hate what is evil

We are called to hate sin. As Christians, how do we do this? i think it comes from knowing God. When we know God and all he has done for us, we will love him sincerely. As a result of knowing God we will realise both how holy and perfect he is and therefore how much he hates sin. I think hatred for sin naturally comes from genuine love for God.
So how do we develop that love for God?

• Know him better. We do that by reading his word and spending time in prayer asking for his help. We need to know who God is to be able to love him, and he has revealed who he is through his word - not through anything else at this time.
• Know what he's done in the world and for us. Know what he did through Jesus for us. We do that again by spending time in his word, and reflecting on it. Through God's works we see his character more clearly. It's easy to know that God is love, but that becomes so much clearer when we see that he (The son) came to earth as a man, suffered and died in our place.
• Obey. Our obedience to God needs to come out of our love for God, but I think by obeying with the intention of growing in love for God then we begin to develop that love. I may be wrong on that, but we most certainly are called to obey out of love, and it seems to me that we also learn to love God more as we trust him enough to obey him.

But there are also other things we need to do to hate evil. We need to get rid of sin in our lives. We need to pray for God's help to hate our sin. We all have different temptations that we fall into and different sins that we love. For me there are many, but especially pride, selfishness and idolatry in putting both myself and my friends before my love for God. 

It's hard to hate these things that we love. But we need to hate them, and through the Holy Spirit, God can change us and help us to love him more. It's only through his grace that we can do this. But we have to work at it.

Cling to what is good.

As I said before, this is the flip side of hating what is evil. As part of hating evil, we need to cling to what is good. These two things work together. As we hate evil we will naturally love what is good. As we love what is good, we must hate evil - otherwise we cannot truly be loving good. The two are opposites: evil and good cannot ever both be loved by us. They are like opposing sides of a magnet that repel one another - they cannot be forced together

So what does clinging to good look like? God is good. He is the definition of goodness. He creates the standard for what is good. Therefore clinging to good is clinging to God and relying on him. In our society we love independence. We love being ourselves and living how we want. But God calls us to submit entirely to him, to rely on him and his grace.

The only way to cling to what is good is to cling to God.

But clinging to good does look a bit more specific then just saying you're a Christian. We need to obey God if we are relying on him and trusting him. If we hate evil, we need to do good - and as I said before, goodness is God's standard. Therefore we need to obey God. 

How do we know what God wants us to do? From his word again. We need to be pending time reading and thinking about and applying the bible to our lives. Thinking about where we are disobeying God and doing it.

Our actions do not save us. They don't make us right in God's sight - we have all sinned and cannot save ourselves. Jesus came to earth and he was perfect, and it is only through faith in him that our sins can be removed (that's why he died on the cross and rose again). But if we truly love God and truly trust in him - if our faith is truly in him, we will obey his commands. We will hate what is evil (our sin, which meant we deserve hell) and cling to what is good - to our saviour and to God's perfect standard.

I hope those thoughts were helpful - feel free to post any comments or thoughts below!

God Bless!
Nat.

"Love must be sincere..."

Romans 12:9

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

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Here we have three commands. They're short and simple, but so full of depth and application if we take them on board. Today I'll just be looking at the first one.

Love must be Sincere.

The word used for love here is "agape" which means unconditional love. Love that is entirely selfless like God's love for us.

I've heard this love paralleled to the stretching out of a limb to it's fullest extent and then going further. We need to love people so much that we will go further then we think we possibly can to help them and to show that love to them. This love is meant to be the same as the love God has for us. How did he show this love?

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8)

Jesus, who is God and was with God before time began, who was there at creation (John 1) and who is perfect and holy and cannot stand sin, willingly came to earth as a man. He was born in a stable - rejected from birth - and lived among us: sinful men and women. He suffered and was murdered by us. But that was his plan - so that he could be the sacrifice for us, taking our sin and God's wrath for that sin on himself. Because Jesus was God he could pay for our sins. Because he was perfect and yet human he could take our sins on himself and be the "lamb without blemish" that we needed. On the cross Jesus suffered what every christian rightfully should have suffered for eternity in hell. Then he died and was buried. On the third day he rose again to prove that he really was God and had truly paid for our sins, and now he has gone to heaven to prepare a place for us and to intercede for us before God continually until he returns to judge and brings all his people (Christians) to heaven.

That is sincere love. It is the type of love we are commanded to have. How does that compare to you and me? I find it hard to love people enough to give up my time money and energy to hang out with them when they need company. Jesus came and gave his life for sinners who hated him - would we die for people who hated and rejected us?

Firstly we need to ask this question: Do I even love God that much? Do I love him enough that I would die for him?
If the answer is yes, then do you love him enough to live for him here and now? To share the gospel even if it means people hate you for it? To be godly even if it means missing out on the "good" things in this life?
Without his mercy and grace we cannot even love God this much. Yet we are commanded to do so, and through the Holy Spirit God can work in our lives to change us and to create this unconditional love in us. He commands us not only to love him who has done so much for us, but to also love others that much.

What about loving those who are 'unlovable'? Those we just get annoyed at? Those who we clash with whenever we're around them?
We need to love them sincerely. That's hard! This isn't easy work - God doesn't call us to an easy life. It's so hard to love people, especially those we don't already get on with. And it's even harder to love them selflessly - not wanting anything back from them and not based on anything good about them. We need to love them because God loved us, because he loves them and because he has called us to love them. And we need to work hard to be sincere and honest in that love.

How do we develop this love?

• It has to flow from our love for God. So the first step is loving Him more - knowing who he is and what he has done and praying for his help to love him more. We show our love for God through obedience to him, and we also build it through trusting him enough to obey him even when it costs us. He will enable us to do so as we trust in him, pray, read his word and start putting it into practice.
• We also need to pray for his help to love others, realising that they are just as sinful as us, and yet Jesus died for them. There's no room for pride in sincere love, there is no room for selfishness. 
• It also comes down to just doing it. It's easy to say we don't love people as much as we should. But when we realise that, we need to work immediately to change it and start loving people in our actions. As we do that we pray that God will help us through the Holy Spirit to sincerely love those people like he loved us.

What does this love look like?

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Between Christians it looks like having a genuine interest in the lives of fellow Christians. Being deeply involved with them and ready to help them however we can and whenever we can. When people are sick, we should get along side them and help them. When they're struggling we should do the same. We should be praying with them and for them, listening to them, encouraging them and sharing God's word with them lovingly. We should also be ready to lovingly rebuke them for sin and challenge them, while also being ready to be corrected ourselves for where we are falling short of God's standard.

For us and Non-Christians it primarily has to be sharing the gospel. The result of rejecting God is his wrath eternally - we all sin, and his standard is perfection. Jesus is the only one who could take our sin and God's wrath for it. Therefore, if we love these people we need to share the gospel with them - tell them that they are dead in their sins, and cannot save themselves. And tell them that God provided a way for them to be saved: He sent his one and only son into the world, so that whoever repents of their sins and puts their faith in Jesus will be forgiven. he will take their sin and they will be saved by God's limitless grace. 

We also need to share the gospel with them by living it: By loving fellow Christians and obeying God. In doing so we prove that God does in fact change lives and we should that we are different. Being salt and light involves both words and actions.

How are you going with love? Do you love God as you should? Do you love others as you should? How about those people you just really dislike? 

"Love must be Sincere"

Soli Deo Gloria!

Nat.

Being transformed by the gospel

Romans 12:2

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

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This verse is attached to the previous one in this post. Within it Paul is explaining how we should act if we are living sacrifices.

Do not conform to the Pattern of this world

The world is full of ideas, values, actions and plans, most of which are built from our sinful hearts and motives. As Christians we shouldn't just be chasing after the new trends, trying to be popular in the world. As churches we shouldn't just be introducing new and exciting things for the sake of getting people in. Some of these things may be good (we'll get to that later), but we shouldn't just do them because they work. We should do them if they fit with God's word and will. 

What are the general patterns of the world at the moment? There are many, but here are three:

• Sex whenever you want with whoever you want. That's what we're told from almost every TV show and through so many other means, and it's how most non-christians live. It isn't how God calls us to live (Hebrews 13:4, 1 Corinthians 6:18-20)
• Selfishness. I'm constantly told that it's all about me. Everything should go how I want. life should be easier for me. No, that's all selfish - but it does make us feel good an thats why its so attractive. God tells us the opposite (Philippians 2:4, Galatians 6:2)
• Science is better then religion. We're told constantly that Science is right and God is wrong. In reality, true science always lines up with the bible. Theories such as evolution are not based on face or experimental method. They're theories based on things that cannot be proven or seen today. God's word is the truth and is useful (2 Timothy 3:16)

We need to stop conforming to the values of the times we live in, and instead we need to be transformed.

Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

The word transformed "implies a radical, thorough, and universal change, both outward and inward." (Clarke). As Christians we should be completely different to those around us in how we think and act, and we should be completely different to how we used to live as non-Christians. The mind means the intellect - it is a choice to follow God and to obey him. 

How are we transformed? 

Well 2 Corinthians 5:17 says:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

If we are Christians, if we have repented of sin and have put our faith in Jesus, then we are new creations. We are changed and we are made alive in Christ instead of dead in sin. That's the start of the transformation process, but we still need to be sanctified - we're still sinful and we still have to work at weeding out sin from our lives.

We do that by knowing God's word and applying it. God's word is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16 again) and if we want to be transformed we need to take it on board. We also need to do this prayerfully, asking God for help and for the Holy Spirit to convict us of areas in our lives that we need to change.

The result is that we will be able to know God's will. His good, pleasing and perfect will. God's desire is for us to obey him - not out of legalism but out of joy and love for him because he has transformed us through Jesus. No, it won't always be easy or enjoyable, but we should find joy in trusting and submitting to God. His will is good - it is good for us and there is no evil in it. It is pleasing - it pleases God and it should please us to do it. Lastly it is perfect - God knows everything and his will is faultless. It is good to follow.

If we are Christians then we have been saved from our sins. We are no longer slaves to it. Instead we are transformed, made new creations and adopted as God's children. If we have been changed, then our lives and minds and hearts should reflect that - we should be looking to God and attached to him instead of the sin and evil in this world which we used to love.

Will you give your entire life to God for him to transform through his word?

The design of this passage is doubtless to produce a spirit that should not find pleasure in the pomp and vanity of the World; and which will regard all vain amusements and gaieties with disgust, and lead the mind to find pleasure in better things. (Barnes)

An Unfair Exchange

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Romans 12:1

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

At first glance it may seem that it's unfair for God to ask us to live our entire lives as sacrifices to him. But that's because we're not seeing things in view of his mercy. The unfairness isn't that we have to serve God - that's an honour and a rich blessing, and we should get more joy from serving God then from our sin. The unfair exchange is that Jesus, who is God, all powerful and eternally perfect, holy, pure, just, loving and merciful, the creator and sustainer of everything in existence, came and died for us. Jesus, who had been in fellowship with God the father and the Holy Spirit eternally, came to earth, took our sin and God's wrath (that we rightfully should suffer for eternity) so that we could be forgiven. Then he rose again from the dead to prove it.

We cannot fathom what it was that Jesus gave up for us. We don't deserve it. We don't deserve any part of it - we are wretched sinners who hated and rejected God by living in sin. Yet he sent Jesus to save us.

Paul is telling us that we should live as sacrifices to God In view of that mercy. In view of the infinite sacrifice God made for us. When we see how much Jesus did for us, anything we can offer can never compete. That's why we could never save ourselves. If Jesus hadn't died for us, we would still be spiritually dead, living in sin. Because he saved our lives, bringing us to life, it makes sense that we should use that life to glorify and honour him alone.

Living as a sacrifice

In the Old Testament most of the sacrifices had one of two jobs. Some were given to pay for sin - those were fulfilled by jesus on the cross since he is the ultimate sacrifice for sin. The others were given in praise of God. Without doing any extra research on it, I thin that's what Paul is getting at - we need to live our lives as sacrifices in thankfulness of what he has done and in praise of who he is.

But what does this look like?

• Putting God first. That's the first commandment, and it's the one we struggle with most. It's so easy to slip into idolatry, to put other things before God without even realising. For me it's usually fear of man or love of friends that gets in the way. The desire for approval. For others it can be money or health or a wide range of other things
• Obeying God and giving up sin. We are sinful and we desire to sin. Instead of living that way, when we are saved we need to repent and give up sin. Jesus died to rescue us from slavery in sin, it is stupid to go back to it if you've turned to him. Obeying God glorifies him because it is us being in line with his character. He is the definition of perfection, and when we obey his laws we are acting in line with who he is. Paul says we are to be "holy and pleasing to God" - that means not sinful, since sin can never please God. Holiness means separate, and if we are to be separate from sin we need to give it up completely.
• Spending time praising God. It's easy to focus all our energy on doing the right things, but what God actually cares about is our hearts. He doesn't want us to be legalistic, he wants us to genuinely love him and submit to him out of that love. So, we need to spend time just in praise of God, rejoicing in who he is and what he has done - for us, for his people throughout history, and for his general mercies. That's what true worship is - not just lip service or obeying rules. Genuine praise form the heart, and the result of that is obedience.

I don't know about what this verse sounds like in the Greek, but in English the translators have said: "offer your bodies as a living sacrifice". Notice that it goes from plural (your bodies) to singular (a living sacrifice). We need to collectively as God's church throughout the world and as his people in a certain place work together to live as sacrifices for him. We need to spend time with friends and family who love God, being honest with each other, loving and helping each other, encouraging and rebuking each other, praying and looking at God's word together. If we are "brothers and sisters", adopted as God's children then we need to act like a family - we need to be deeply concerned for each other and to look after the needs of those around us. We need to deeply love each other, even loving those who we don't get on with easily (thats hard to do!)

I came to God's word this morning feeling tired and quite unmotivated to read it. Nevertheless God is faithful and he reminded me that I need to give it all to him. Are we willing to live our entire lives as sacrifices for God? Even when we don't feel like it?

God deserves and demands our everything - are we willing to give it?