Honoring God with Our Bodies

 

"Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral." Hebrews 13:4 NIV

I grew up during the sexual revolution, so I can remember what social morality was prior and what it is now. I have lived through the evolution of morals in our country regarding sexual freedom and sexual rights. Sexual morals are very different now, with terms like "reproductive rights" and "sexual freedom" flaunted about, even within the Church.

Several things have changed our morals regarding sexual activity. One was the invention of birth control. Just even think about that phrase: birth control. Birth control, in all forms, was invented in order to circumvent the logical conclusion of having sexual relationships, i.e. the birth of another human being. Now, I’m not a proponent of families having an unbridled number of children, though that can certainly be their choice if they wish. But I think, as believers, we need to understand what guides our thinking and understanding about morality. And the purpose of creating birth control was to allow people to have sex without having to consider the consequences of their actions. That purpose is important for us to realize because that purpose has shaped how we think about sexual relationships.

The second thing that happened was Roe v. Wade. You see, it wasn’t enough to simply have medication or devices which would prevent pregnancy. The next step in birthing true sexual freedom was to allow people to stop experiencing the consequences of sexual activity at any cost, even at the cost of the life of another human being. Now, it would be dishonest not to acknowledge that abortion has existed for a very long time. But then again so has murder (since Cain and Abel). And existence doesn’t justify an action. In America, Roe v. Wade has resulted in over 50 million deaths of baby Americans with the vast majority of abortions because the mother (or family) simply didn’t want the child. There are a small percentage of cases where the medical safety of the mother was at risk, but those abortions were legal prior to Roe v. Wade. Legal abortion exists, on the whole, to allow people to have sex without having to deal with the very real fact that the purpose of sex is to create life.

The third thing that happened was media, starting with television. From the very beginning, the movers and shakers behind television, movies, and other media realized that "sex sells." More than anything else! (You only have to watch about three minutes of most commercials to realize that.) And with that, we began to become what we are today . . . a hypersexualized society. Of course, we aren’t the first society to be hypersexualized (and if the Lord tarries, we won’t be the last). During the time Hebrews was written, the secular society in which the new Church lived was hypersexualized, including legal prostitution as part of their temple. The fact is, people have been looking for ways to legitimize their desire to have unbridled sexual activities since probably the beginning of time.

In Hebrews, the Holy Spirit is adamant that sex remain solely within heterosexual marriage. If not, the spiritual (and eternal) consequences are severe: God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. The word "judge" is krino and means to separate or put asunder. In this judgement, God will separate out the adulterers and the sexually immoral for eternal punishment. It is a consequence we don’t want to experience. 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 NIV: "Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies." When we sin sexually, we defile the Temple of the Holy Spirit (ourselves). God wants us to honor Him (and ourselves) by keeping ourselves sexually pure and honoring marriage as He created it.

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Compassion As a Christian Thing

 

1 Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. ² Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. ³ Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. Hebrews 13:1-3

Christianity was never meant to be a kind of middle-class club where God promised a "chicken in every pot." That is an American thing, but not a Christian thing. Scripture, over and over again, admonishes believers to "remember" those who are suffering, those who are grieving, those who suffer lack. To love our neighbors as ourselves! If we are blessed in any way, God has blessed us in order that we might bless others, not to make us "happy," to satisfy the lusts of our own flesh.

"Remember those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering." I keep thinking about what’s going on in our country, with advocacy groups rising up, sometimes even aggressively, saying, "Hey, listen to us! Hey, what about us? We are here! We are people just like you!" It shames me that there are churches in every single community who could do something about the poverty, who could do something about the loneliness, who could do something about the injustice, and yet we very often do nothing! We are too concerned about ourselves to reach out even to those within our congregations who are suffering! We are too busy to visit, to cook a meal, to make a phone call. We are too debt-strapped to give a dollar, to pay a gas bill, to give a ride.

We have forgotten what it means to actually be Christians.

The two great commandments: Love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. There are all kinds of things within our churches and within our own lives that we could stop so that, instead, we could minister to the hurting world around us. There are ministries rising up everyday—rescue missions, recovery groups, foster children organizations, food banks. We could at least choose one and begin to invest our families into it. Will that demand a change in our lives? Of course. It may mean actually giving up something. Turning off the cable. Downsizing our phone service. Limiting a vacation. But we will be investing into lives! Into people for whom Christ died! We will begin to live lives of compassion and ministry, lives that reach out in love to our neighbors!

The Church was always meant to live compassionately, to live out Christ’s love in our local communities and around the world. If we actually began to live as we should, can you imagine the difference we would make?

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Don't Apologize. Celebrate!

 

"You have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel." Hebrews 12:22-24 NIV

It seems lately that the enemy is using a new tactic and that is one of enforced silence. Many of us in America are being told that we shouldn’t speak, that we cannot speak, that we need to listen and learn rather than say what is in our hearts. Now I’m not condemning listening. We do often talk too much and we are admonished to listen more and talk less. James 1:19 NIV: "My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry." We should listen to those around us. We should listen and be slow to form opinions. We should listen, really listen, rather than simply using a dialogue as an excuse to promote our own position or opinion.

That being said, there is something that we should say, that we should shout from the rooftops, that we should repeat over and over again: We have come to Zion! We have come to the city of the living God. We are among the thousands of joyful angels! Our names are written in heaven. Jesus has saved us!

Christianity has become something where either its outward form is being forced on others or we are, in a sense, apologizing for being Christians. Think about it. How many memes do you see that promote the fact that as Christians we are somehow less? "I’m a Jesus believer. I’m not perfect. I’m just human trying not to let the devil win." "I am an imperfect person loved by a perfect God." "Yes, I’m a Christian. Yes, I can be the biggest hypocrite ever. I backslide. I stumble. I fall. I stray onto the wrong path. But God is working in me." All of these things are true. But unfortunately, these things have become our mantra rather than our shame, our banner rather than our cross. We wear our sinfulness like it’s some kind of badge and we celebrate it in a feeble attempt to become accepted by sinful society.

Of course, we need to admit that we’re sinful. We need to daily—and more often—confess our sins to the Lord, knowing that He is faithful and just to forgive us those sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). But we need to stop apologizing that somehow the Church of God is less than perfect. We need to stop focusing on our humanity and focus on His glory! If I invited someone to my home, apologizing at every step on how dusty the corners were, how many spider webs clung to the ceilings, how discolored the tiles were, no one would want to come visit me! But if I invited someone to my home, focusing on a wonderful Guest that would also be there, the dirt wouldn’t matter nearly so much. Who would even see it in the light of the Guest?

We have a joyful message for the world. It is aptly named the "good news." We are heading for a place that is wonderful beyond description. We need to begin celebrating how wonderful, how precious, how exciting our saved lives really are. We are the children of the King! It doesn’t get any better than that. And we should shout it from the rooftops!

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

We Need Healing

 

"Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed." Hebrews 12:12 NIV

The Father knows that we can be weakened emotionally from the battles we face, from the hardships we endure, from the discipline we embrace. He knows that the bodies we live in are frail and easily prone to pain, disease, and infirmity. "We have this treasure (the glory of God) in jars of clay." (2 Corinthians 4:7 NIV). A clay jar is very fragile and easily broken as are our bodies. The Father, having created us, knows this and strengthens us with His very Spirit. He also gave us, in Hebrews, several ways that we can "strengthen" ourselves and make level paths on which to walk.

• "Make every effort to live in peace with everyone; and to be holy" (v. 14). It’s interesting that the scripture doesn’t say to make sure that our society or nation is holy or that we should tell everyone else what to do or how to live. It says "make every effort to live in peace with everyone." I think about the craziness in our country right now and how silence might be the most effective weapon we have to lead to peace. It’s so easy to get baited on social media and try to argue one’s position for or against the many issues that are being batted about. But, in the end, all that matters is that people are saved. They will be more likely to turn to the Lord if His Church is making every effort to be peaceable and to live holy lives.

• "See to it that . . . no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many" (v. 15). The best weapon against bitterness is forgiveness. When we live in a state of constant forgiveness, we refuse to allow ourselves to become bitter. We know that the people around us will let us down, will offend us, may even seek to harm us. That’s the nature of the human condition. By forgiving—as our Lord did—we take power over bitterness, not allowing it to grow and defile us.

• "See that no one is sexually immoral or godless" (v. 16). This admonition isn’t for us to police those who are unbelievers. They may or may not choose to be sexually immoral, but that’s not our concern. Our concern for the lost only and always is salvation. But the admonition for sexual purity is for those within the Church. Sex for believers is restricted to a husband and wife within marriage because the marriage bed is the example, on earth, of God’s love for us. 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 NIV says: "Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies."

By doing these three things, we create an environment where we can heal emotionally and spiritually. Everyone needs healing. When we live at peace, when we live holy, when we constantly forgive, and when we stay sexually pure, we will heal. It’s time to lay our sins, our bitterness, our anger, and our lusts at the foot of the Cross and trust our Savior to heal and strengthen us.

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Endure Hardship as Training

"Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as His children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? . . . God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in His holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." Hebrews 12:7, 10b-11 NIV

The Christian life is all about training. No one embraces salvation and becomes instantly the "perfect" Christian. There is a process of training, of discipline, that is required for us to learn how to change our desires from those of seeking pleasure to those of wanting to please God and live righteously.

Earlier in Hebrews, it stated that the solid food of God’s word "is for the mature, who by constant use, have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil" (5:14). It’s more than simply being able to tell the difference between good and evil; it’s about being willing to choose what is good at any point of decision. It’s about understanding what repentance really means and then actively living out repentance on a moment-by-moment basis in our lives.

That kind of discernment and focus requires discipline and training. We weren’t born wanting God’s will instead of our own. We were born egocentric. Our naturally tendency will always be to want what pleases us. But God, because He loves us so much, wants us to become like Christ who was willing to give up even His own life so that we might live. Our new life in Christ needs to be such that we are willing to love others sacrificially as Christ loves us. It means that we have only two focuses, only two goals: to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love others as we love ourselves. There can be no other definition of being a Christian.

Father God tells us to consider all hardship as discipline. Why? Because He has already promised that everything that happens to us, He will work for our good (Romans 8:28). Thus, all hardship, when treated as discipline, is transformed into something that draws us closer and closer to His heart. He wants for us to share in His holiness and righteousness, not only positionally through salvation, but functionally through behavior and choices that glorify Him. He wants our lives to produce "a harvest of righteousness" (right living) and the kind of peace that comes when we know that it doesn’t matter what we’re going through. He is working it for our good. When we treat hardship and pain as training, we can be confident that it will produce the kind of harvest that only God can promise.

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Let's Run the Race

 

"Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of the faith. . . . Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." Hebrews 12:1b-2a, 3.

Let us run the race.

It is easy to get tired or discouraged or even depressed. Our minds and souls are bombarded from the media on how life "ought to be" and what our "rights should be." But life is rarely as we desire or even expect. Life instead comes crashing in with all kinds of problems, detours and hindrances. The greatest difficulty in life is probably the people with whom we interact on a regular basis. That may even include close friends and family. People are, simply put, irritating. We are, as a race, self-centered, irascible, and dull in our understanding. We try to communicate with each other and find that no one seems to understand us at all. The demands on our lives go on and on, seemingly without end. Heartache, pain, and problems multiply virtually overnight. Our best laid plans go by the wayside as the problems of life appear out of nowhere.

And yet, we are commanded as believers to "run the race." How is anyone supposed to do that? It’s hard enough to simply survive the moment. How in the world are we supposed to run the race? Who’s got the energy or the motivation?

Three things we need to do: (1) Fix our eyes on Jesus. Don’t look around at our problems, troubles, or circumstances. Don’t look to the future for hope or the past for comfort. Don’t cling to relationships, career successes, or even how many hits we get on social media. Rather, fix our eyes on Jesus, completely and unwaveringly. Look to Him and Him alone. Immerse ourselves in His Word, in His presence, in His love. No one and nothing else matters because no one else can take care of the problems we face except Him.

(2) Throw off the sin that so easily entangles. We need to clean up our lives and get rid of the filth. Get rid of the filthy language, the outrageous behavior, and the lusts of the flesh that we have convinced ourselves are some kind of comfort. We need to purify ourselves and focus on living righteous and holy lives. We need to learn how to use our life’s delete button to clean up our messes and become the Christians we were intended to be.

(3) Throw off everything (else) that hinders. There are things in our lives that aren’t sin but that still hinder us from persevering in the race. We need to aggressively throw those things off and focus on running the race set before us. We need to fix our eyes on Jesus and on Him alone.

And even, in all this, it’s possible to grow weary and lose heart. In those situations, we are called to consider how Jesus persevered for us and to trust the Holy Spirit to strengthen us through the hardest times so that we will continue to run the race just as our Lord did.

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Putting Our Prayers Where Our Hearts Are

 

"Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him." Hebrews 11:6

When I was growing up, and even before that, when my parents were growing up, there seemed to be overall in American society a desire to know God. There wasn’t such a pervasive attitude of atheism (God doesn’t exist) or agnostism (it’s impossible to know if God exists). And as Christians, we were taught by our pastors and Christian leaders that people were created with a God-shaped hole in their hearts and that these people were constantly seeking to fill that hole.

I’m not sure that concept was true (it’s not taught in the Bible) and I’m not sure that it’s the right approach to witnessing. If it were, most people would be eventually compelled by their own desire to seek out churches and Christianity in an attempt to meet this heart-need. But many people don’t do that. Many unbelievers go on with their lives, outside the church, never darkening its doors.

The Church itself was commanded to go and make disciples. We weren’t told to wait within a church congregation and the unbelievers would somehow come in (even though we frequently pray that way). We have been told to go, to be among them, to interact with them, and then to make disciples. But how can that happen? If they aren’t interested at all in the things of God, they certainly won’t be interested in listening to us. How then can we even begin to approach them about their need for salvation? Paul Billheimer in Destined for the Throne proposed this:

"If [John] Wesley is correct in saying that ‘God does nothing but in answer to prayer,’ then this must include the salvation of souls. This, then, means that no soul is saved apart from intercession, and that every soul who is saved, is saved because someone—who would not give them up to Satan—prayed. God is the cause of salvation, yet our prayers are His appointed means." (pp. 64-65).

Let me pose a question: Do we actually believe (have faith) that salvation only comes from God and that Jesus is thoroughly able to save (Hebrews 7:25)? Then why are we reluctant to pray for those we want to be saved? I will tell you what I think. I think it is because we don’t actually believe that God can overcome their hardened hearts and we don’t want to be disappointed. But He has promised that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. Most of us have family members, friends, acquaintances and public figures that we would like to see saved. And most of the time, if we do anything at all, we barrage them with Facebook posts, Instagram messages, and even (if we are brave) face-to-face talk about their need for salvation. But . . . do we pray? Do we spend more than seconds here and there in intercessory prayer for them?

For many of us, nothing has worked to this point. Why not have faith in God and earnestly seek Him for their salvation? Our Father has promised to reward those who do this. Today is the day to trust the He will answer our prayers if we indeed pray!

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Love Does No Harm

"⁹ Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. ¹⁰ Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. ¹¹ Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. ¹² Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. ¹³ Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. ¹⁴ Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. ¹⁵ Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. ¹⁶ Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. ¹⁷ Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. ¹⁸ If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." Romans 12:9-18 NIV

Today, the United States will have a new President. Some people in this country are angry and afraid of this new leader and his team. Their anger and fear might even be justified. There is a growing fear that whole groups of people might now be excluded, might now be again oppressed, might now become invisible.

As Christians, our response—our responsibility—isn’t to place patriotism above our faith. Our responsibility is to love those around us, particularly those who are disenfranchised, to those who are afraid, to who are hurting. We need to begin to reach out, not worrying about whether or not we will be persecuted or harmed. We need to begin to care about individuals, not worrying about whether or not those individuals’ ideologies line up with our own political leanings. We need to bless. We need to mourn with those who mourn. We need to live in harmony with everyone, refusing to repay evil for evil. We need to live at peace with everyone.

We need to love our neighbors as ourselves (Romans 13:9). "Love does no harm to a neighbor" (Romans 13:10). We need to not harm, but rather to do good. Don’t you know that Jesus died for each and every person? Don’t you know that God’s heart is yearning for each soul, wanting to give salvation and mercy to each one?

I can tell you, from personal experience, if a person is hurt or angry or afraid, there may be no words that will comfort them. But we can love in ways that don’t harm. We can give a cup of coffee. We can share a meal. We can smile and say thank you. We can be kind and gentle and patient.

This is a day when the Church of America needs to stand up and become who she was meant to be. This is a day when the Body of Christ needs to reach out to each person and love them unconditionally.

 

Love does no harm.

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

 

 

 

And Then . . . Judgment

"‘In just a little while, He who is coming will come and will not delay.’ . . . But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved." Hebrews 10:37, 39
There is, I think, within all human beings the tendency to believe that if we ignore a truth, it will simply go away. I can remember my grandfather who refused to write a will because he was firmly convinced that, if he wrote one, he would die. His not writing it was his way of trying to assure that he wouldn’t die. Of course, one day, he finally did. Nothing will stave off death; it is a certainty of life. 

But there is more to it. Death isn’t simply a transition to another life similar to this nor is it, as some would believe, simply ceasing to exist. Death is that event which takes us out of time and places us into eternity. But before our eternal destiny is determined, we will all face the judgment of God. "People are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment" (Hebrews 9:27 NIV). The issue isn’t whether or not we will die or whether or not we will face judgment. Those two events are guaranteed facts of life for every human being. It doesn’t matter what we believe. It doesn’t matter how much we refuse to face it. At some future point, we will experience those two events.

The question then becomes what will happen at the judgment. If we have faith in the salvation of the Lord Jesus by acknowledging that we are sinners and that He has paid the penalty for our sins, then we will be saved! Saved from what? Saved from eternal damnation in hell. Saved from eternal suffering. But if we are among those who refuse to surrender to the Lord, then our judgment (and eternity) will be totally different. We will be condemned forever. The Greek word translated here "destroyed" doesn’t mean that our souls will cease to exist, but rather that our state of well-being will totally and completely cease. The Lord Jesus gave one description of hell as this: "[They] will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matthew 8:12b NIV). Teeth gnashing is the act of tightening one’s jaw so much that the teeth grind against each other and the jaw muscles twitch. It is the state of complete and absolute unending agony. And that agony will have no relief, no respite. It will continue forever.

That is hell.

As believers, if we continue to persevere in our faith, we don’t need to fear the judgment. The Lord Jesus has already stood in our place and paid the penalty for our sins. We can approach God with complete confidence (Ephesians 3:12) because of what Jesus did for us. But daily we need to continually speak out the truth of eternity to those who aren’t believers. If they refuse the Lord Jesus, their fates are horrific beyond imagination. We need to love them enough to look past their rejections and continue to tell them about how much God loves them. Because one day, we will all face the judgment.

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

The Way Can Be Hard, but the End Is Glorious

"Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you endured in a great conflict full of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised." Hebrews 10:32-36 NIV

This past summer, my husband and I traveled around the country. During the last leg of our trip, we traveled Interstate 40 through the deserts of New Mexico, Arizona, and California. In the beginning, the desert, which can have its own unique beauty, was so interesting and wonderful to see. But then the journey became more and more arduous. The landscape began to lose any hint of plants and animals and for miles there was just dirt and heat. Increasing heat. When we finally reached Needles, California, the thermometer was dancing around 120 and, frankly, it was miserable. Even when we tried to escape inside somewhere air conditioned, it was so hot. To add to everything, we were towing our damaged fifth wheel which, at every turn, threatened to fall apart underneath us. What a glorious thing it was when we turned onto our own street in California and, in two very short miles, saw our wonderful home. We had persevered and finally arrived!

As Christians, life can seem like its more enduring than rejoicing. Sometimes we face illness and pain. Sometimes we face great loss. Other times we may face great financial hardships or relationship failures. Often we are confronted with the fact that we are living out the consequences of our own choices and our regret adds to our difficulties. And even if our own lives have less suffering than those around us, we are called to come alongside those others who are facing difficulties, to "mourn with those who mourn" (Romans 12:15). In persevering through these difficulties, it can be easy to lose sight of our faith. We have a tendency to buy into the idea that a "good god" would never allow suffering in the world. (And He doesn’t. Suffering isn’t the result of His blessings, but rather always the result of our sin.)

In Hebrews, we are called to persevere through even the darkest times so that we will receive what He has promised. The light is at the end of the tunnel and that light is the light of salvation, the light of our glorious Savior Who has gone to prepare a place for us. Our Lord Jesus, the perfect Savior because He also endured suffering as a human being, has called us to have faith in His promises and to endure. He has called us to have confidence in what He has said and done, knowing that even though at this moment we don’t see the end, if we persevere, we will be richly rewarded in Heaven.

The way gets hard, even seemingly impossible. But we need to keep our eyes on the prize. The end is more glorious than we can ever imagine.

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

This Sunday . . . Church?

 

22 Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. ²³ Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful. ²⁴ And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, ²⁵ not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10:22-25 NIV

Why do you go to church? If you don’t go now, what would be the reasons that you might go? Were you, at one time, a church attender and have stopped going (for any number of reasons)?

Even during the time that Hebrews was written, there were evidently believers who embraced the habit of not gathering together with other believers. The actual Greek is even stronger in wording as it literally says "as is the custom of some." They developed a custom, or culture, of not gathering together. Even some of these early believers had determined reasons or perhaps even doctrines why meeting together wasn’t necessary. Perhaps they even felt it wasn’t prudent. I’m sure they had good explanations as to why they had come to these conclusions.

In the era of megachurches, many people have "dropped out" of church. They feel lost. They feel overlooked and forgotten. And why not, when you go to church and are simply one in a sea of faces? It’s why many larger churches encourage people to join home groups or Sunday School classes where they can get to know each other much more intimately and where each person has the opportunity to minister to others.

There was a time (it was a rather short time in my getting-longer life) when I didn’t attend church. I tried watching it through the media; I tried having "worship" at home. But something was missing. It wasn’t that I wasn’t learning about the Word. I was. It wasn’t that I couldn’t enter in the presence of the Lord. I did (and do often by myself). It was that I missed the opportunity to minister to other Christians in a regular, more intimate setting. Of course, I can speak words of encourage in various different venues (on the Internet, through phone calls, even through personal visits). But there is a closeness, an intimacy develops when you meet for worship together with the same people week after week, when you share that common experience of teaching, worship, and communion.

Look at the scripture in Hebrews again. Attending church, of course, is about worship. Of course, it is about learning from teachers and pastors. But it’s so much more than that! Coming together at church is about each believer having the opportunity to encourage others, to spur each other on toward love and good deeds. It’s doing ministry together and becoming accountable to each other. It’s about practicing being the Body of Christ.

If you haven’t been to church in a while, I would encourage you to seek the Lord about which fellowship you should join. If you are in fellowship already, I would encourage you to reach out to those around you in that fellowship. This Sunday, encourage them, pray for and with them, and spur them on to greater love and good deeds. It’s time that the Church began acting like the Church. Think about who we might become and what we might accomplish if we actually started working out what the Bible says in our lives . . . collectively!

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

    

We Desperately Need Saving!

 

"He [Jesus] is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them. . . . He sacrificed for their sins once for all when He offered Himself. . . . [Now God says,] ‘For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.’" Hebrews 7:25, 27b, 8:12 NIV

We have found a way, we think, to deal with the sinfulness in our society and within ourselves. We simply refuse to feel guilty. We brush guilt aside with pithy little sayings, even in the Church, because we don’t want to feel uncomfortable. We want to feel good about ourselves, to enjoy life, and to believe that, underneath it all, we are good people.

If that were all true, we wouldn’t need a Savior . . . and Jesus would have died for no reason!

However, we desperately need saving and we desperately need a Savior. The apostle Paul wrote to Titus (another missionary) and said: "At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved to all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another" (3:3 NIV). Amazingly, that one sentence seems to describes America this very week. Groups living in malice (wickedness that is not ashamed to break laws) and envy (wanting what others have) are attacking each other, determined not to allow someone else to even have a difference of opinion. People are hated and hate others simply because they think the other person voted for the "wrong" candidate. They are afraid of a future that has yet to appear, afraid of circumstances that may never happen. They chase after all kinds of passions (sexual lusts) and pleasures, thinking that will bring them happiness.

We desperately need saving!

The Lord Jesus is able to save completely! When we come to God through Him, He intercedes for us. He was sacrificed for our sins and, when God forgives us, our sins are remembered no more! We might remember them, but God does not! They are covered under the precious blood of the Lord Jesus.
It is well worth humbling ourselves and admitting that we need saving. It is well worth humbling ourselves and look to our Savior. It is well worth humbling ourselves and confess our sins. "He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9). If we want to find a solution to the craziness in our society, we need to look no further than our need for a savior. And on this day celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life and ministry, we need to know that Dr. King himself looked to the Savior and knew that the ultimate solution to the problems in this world was the Lord Jesus Christ: "Bound by the chains of his own sin and finiteness, man needs a Savior." (http://www.cbn.com/special/BlackHistory/ATS_MLK_Salvation.aspx)

Jesus is that Savior!

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

God Cannot Lie. Aren't You Glad?

"Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, He confirmed it with an oath. ¹⁸God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged." Hebrews 6:17-18 NIV

God cannot lie. I’m so glad! But it’s more than that. It’s not that He will not lie; it’s that He cannot lie. His very nature is such that He can never lie. He must always be absolutely and totally truthful and trustworthy. Think about that for a moment. Imagine being in a relationship where you can always and without fail believe what someone tells you and completely depend on them to do what they say they will do.

Many of you know that my husband and I have had rockiness in our marriage. Because of his addictions, I lived in the relationship for years with him where he would regularly lie, regularly be untrustworthy. And so now, even though he has been in recovery for three years, there are times when I have doubts about what he is saying or doing. I know that he can lie, so there always exists the possibility that he will lie.

We, as human beings, lie. I’ve told lies in my life. I’ve let people down. I’ve not been dependable in what I said. It’s a huge fault we have and it breaks into relationships and causes chaos and pain. But God . . . God cannot lie (also Titus 1:2). "It is impossible for God to lie." Why? Because within His very nature, God is, at the core, faithful not only to what He says, but to who He is.

"God’s attributes are not isolated traits of His character but facets of His unitary being. . . . To have a correct understanding of the attributes it is necessary that we see them all as one. We can think of them separately but they cannot be separated. . . . Thus, His immutability (His inability to change) presupposes His faithfulness. If He is unchanging, it follows that He could not be unfaithful, since that would require Him to change. . . . He is at once faithful and immutable, so all His words and acts must be and must remain faithful." (Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, ch. 15).

[Immutable: not capable of or susceptible to change]

We worship and serve a God that is big enough to deserve our worship and service. He is a God perfect enough to be trustworthy and dependable. He is a God who won’t lie to us, won’t abandon us, won’t let us down. He will always love us, always judge us fairly, always provide when we ask in His will, always be Who He is throughout time. And while He is indeed a mystery, He will always be totally good, totally without sin, totally holy.

God cannot lie. Aren’t you glad?　

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

The Blessing Named Myrtle

 

"Let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken to maturity . . . God is not unjust; He will not forget your work and the love you have shown Him as you have helped His people and continue to help them. We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, so that what you hope for may be fully realized. We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised." Hebrews 6:1a, 10-12 NIV

When I met Myrtle she was well into her late 70s or early 80s. She reminded me of my grandmother because she had strong hands and a beautiful smile. We had just been assigned as pastors to her church and Myrtle wanted to do everything she could to help us.

I asked Myrtle to sing in our new worship choir and she did reluctantly. She served on the Church Council with even more reluctance, unsure that her earthly knowledge could add even the smallest wisdom to church decisions. She was convinced that her days of teaching or leading were far behind her. But when we set a day to tackle cleaning the church kitchen (which hadn’t been cleaned in years), she was the first to arrive and dig into the chore. Her arms were elbow deep in hot, soapy water, washing every pot, pan, dish, and glass. (And no, we didn’t have an automatic dishwasher in the church). She stood on a step stool, reaching high into the backs of cabinets, scrubbing each one spotless. She was a dynamo for this task that would, for many purposes, remain invisible to those who weren’t there. But she was determined to serve the Lord in the ways she was confident she would be successful.

And she loved. She loved us as her pastors. She loved those around her. She loved everyone she met. When, for reasons quite beyond her control, we had to resign the church she wrote a long letter, apologizing that she hadn’t prayed enough, hadn’t supported us enough, hadn’t been there enough. She wanted, more than anything, to be diligent to the very end to serve the Lord and her brothers and sisters in Christ.

Her memory is always an example to me and I think about her often.

Maturity in the Lord will frequently take us into invisible tasks. "So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you" (Matthew 6:2-4).

Maturity in the Lord moves service into the "invisible" realm. No longer should we be concerned with what others see or acknowledge, but rather we love God and love others so much that we simply serve beyond what we feel is possible so that we may pour out ourselves in His service. We should never stop, never become lazy, but rather continue to look for more and more ways to love God and to love those around us, imitating those who have gone on before, so that we might inherit what has been promised.

We need to be like Myrtle.

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

It's Time for Christians to Adult

 

"You need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! ¹³ Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. ¹⁴ But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil." Hebrews 5:12b-14 NIV

The first time I heard this, it was about 25 years ago, and I have to tell you, I was absolutely astonished. One of the third graders in my class—a beautiful little girl who was totally indulged by her parents—announced to me that she had no intention of growing up. Her parents had convinced her that all the fun in life happened when you were a child and she wasn’t about to let go of having fun.

She sounded like Peter Pan.

Only Peter Pan wasn’t written as a defense of childhood; it was actually written as a tragedy, a little boy who refused to see the continuum of life as the wonderful adventure it was, and instead, wanted to simply live without responsibility (and rather wildly), spending his life doing only those things that children want to do. There’s a great sadness in the fact that many, many people today don’t want to mature, don’t want to become adults. They simply want to stay young. Why? Because, for the vast majority of them, they lived their childhoods without responsibilities and totally indulged. I have to tell you, that is the opposite of how I was raised (in a Christian home). Growing up, my sister and I had many responsibilities and very little freedom of choice. I couldn’t wait for the opportunity to become an adult so that I would have the chance to make my own decisions. I wanted adult responsibilities because I knew that being an adult was really what life was about. Childhood was simply training for that "later."

In the last decades (perhaps almost a century), as we have embraced the idea of being "just saved,"we have morphed into sadly immature Christians. It’s almost as if we believe that salvation is an "easy" button that we can push once and be done. Actually, if we are honest, I think most of us like it like that. If we don’t have to worry about improving ourselves toward righteousness, then we can stay self-indulged and surround ourselves with comfort food, comfort people, and comfort activities. We don’t have to develop the discipline to learn how to live as Christians. Why bother? We’re saved and God loves us "so much." And never mind working toward anything; if God wanted us to change, He’d change us Himself. Of course, I’m speaking sarcastically because none of this is what scripture says. In fact, this passage in Hebrews is actually a strong admonition against such attitudes. It is an admonish to grow up and become mature believers in Christ, Christian "adults," as it were. We should, by this time, be actively teaching those around us what it means to distinguish good from evil, not only through our words, but through our lives. We should be experts because, through constant use, we have trained ourselves.

Why are our churches filled with divorces, addictions, emotional problems, and unbelief? We are still very much spiritual infants. We have to immerse ourselves in books, conferences, and the like on the very basic fact that God loves us when that is totally a Christianity 101 issue! We should have moved beyond the need to know that we are loved and are training ourselves—through constant use—of the differences between good and evil. We should be daily moving toward righteousness in every fashion and in every facet of our lives. We need to stop running away from our duty as Christians and mature in the faith so that others will know that they can follow our example with the assurance that we are spiritually trustworthy.

We need to grow up.

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Recalcitrant Students

 

"We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand." Hebrews 5:11

I’m a public school teacher. In fact, I teach in an elementary school in a special education class. I have to admit that I often love my job. It’s amazing to see students’ eyes light up when they successfully learn how to do long division or can read a difficult story. When they actually succeed after working hard for many months, they are so excited! They love being successful.

But it’s not always that way. In fact, there are times when the bad days far outnumber the good days. There are the days when life has come crashing in. When their parents are getting a divorce or there’s illness in the family or they have to move again. Stressors in life make learning a burden. But there are also days when the hilarity of life is more exciting than the discipline of school. When my students come back from Disneyland or a vacation or a day on the slopes (we live in a ski resort). These are the days when learning grinds to a standstill. They would simply rather not learn because learning is work. Hard work. And, to be honest, who wouldn’t want a day off to play?

The problem is, if we take every day off, then nothing gets done. Nothing is accomplished. And if I allowed my students to treat everyday as a holiday, they would grow up not being able to read or write or do the kind of math that they will need as adults. And so, part of my job is to help them remain faithful to the tasks of school, to learn that the discipline of learning—even when it’s hard—is important to achieving in life.

As Christians, we are also called to the discipline of learning. And learning how to be a Christian—a Christ-one—is rarely easy. Our natural flesh fights us at every turn! We don’t want to learn how to be more sacrificial, to be more forgiving, to be more patient. We want our turn, our time, our ease. And, unfortunately, there come times in life when we become so focused on what we want that we begin to fade away from the discipline of becoming more like Jesus. We become more self centered and less Christ centered. And it is in times like this that our teacher, the Holy Spirit, becomes thwarted in His efforts to teach us because we simply are no longer trying to understand what He is saying. We only want to hear the easy things of scripture; we don’t want to grow and mature any more than we have. The problem is, there is no static motion as Christians. We are either moving forward, toward Christ, or we are moving backward, toward sin. We are either maturing or regressing.

The things of scripture may sometimes be difficult to understand and seem even more impossible to implement in our lives. But we have to try! And once we try, the Holy Spirit will be there to make it possible for us to actually achieve that which He is working in our lives.

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

The Perfect Savior

"Son though He was, He [Jesus] learned obedience from what He suffered ⁹and, once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him." Hebrews 5:8-9 NIV

"God has no plans for mankind [as a creation and race] outside of Jesus Christ, for it is He ‘who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption’ (1 Corinthians 1:30)." (Briscoe, The Fullness of Christ).

There is a lot of talk lately on social networking and in the media about "privilege." The idea of "privilege" (whether it be white privilege, male privilege, or another kind of privilege) is the idea that one group of people have beneficial experiences and advantages that another group of people rarely or never experience. The Lord Jesus, as God, prior to His human birth on earth, experienced God-privilege. While He had created people and knew them inside and out, what He didn’t experientially know was what it was like to live inside a human body that would experience pain, temptation, and suffering. One of the reasons that Jesus chose to become a human man, beginning with the "creation" of that man’s life as an embryo, fetus, and baby was so that He could experience exactly what it was like to live inside flesh on this earth. Thus, Jesus didn’t have to "learn" anything in the sense that there were things He didn’t know, but rather, He learned experientially about obeying God as a human being even when that obedience meant suffering and death. He went through the experience so that He could be both fully human and fully God.

That experience—of living on this earth and dying for our sins—was what made Him "perfect." Not perfect in the sense of being without fault or sin because He never sinned. But He was made the fully accomplished and completed Savior through His obedience, His willingness to die for us. His willingness to come to earth, first as a baby and later as a fully grown man, to suffer the kinds of things we suffer, and then to obey the Father’s will even to the point of dying and being rejected (temporarily) by the Father was what made Him the perfect Savior.

It is what sets Jesus apart from every other religious figure in human history. Yes, it is true that Jesus was a wise teacher and that other wise teachers have emerged from time to time. Yes, it is true that Jesus was a prophet and other prophets have emerged from time to time. But why Jesus stands apart from all other religious figures through history is that, because of His obedience to the Father to become fully human and remain fully God, He is the only perfect Savior. He can rightly say that "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6) because, through His life on earth, He became that perfect Savior.

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Open Access

"We do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet He did not sin. ¹⁶Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." (Hebrews 4:15-16 NIV)

The Lord Jesus knows what it’s like to live in this world, to be hungry and cold, to lack what you think you might need, to face an uncertain future, to have relationships fail and people abandon you, to be beaten and tortured. In fact, He also experienced something believers will never experience: He was abandoned by God as He hung on that cross (Matthew 27:46) to pay the penalty for our sins. (God will never abandon us.)

There’s no denying that this life is difficult. We can try with all our might but then life comes crashing in, ruins our best laid plans, heaps pain upon pain, and we find that we are again struggling simply to survive. When hard times and disasters occur, many lay the blame on God. And yet, we are told clearly in scripture that God isn’t the author of the awful:

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (Ephesians 6:12 NIV).

God cannot do evil because God cannot be evil. And He proved that in the way that He provided us salvation.

The Lord Jesus could have paid the price of our sin in a multitude of ways. He could have simply appeared on the earth in human form, been crucified, and gone Home. Done in 24 hours. But He didn’t do that. Instead He came to earth as an embryo, implanted into the body of a teen mother, struggling for nine months developing in the flesh, birthed, lived, and then died so that He could fully experience and empathize with the human condition. He even experienced temptation and struggle against the powers of evil . . . and overcame.

We can enter the throne room of the most High God, not because we are worthy to enter, but because the Lord Jesus Himself understands our plight and has provided access that we might receive mercy (forgiveness for our sinfulness) and find grace (God’s provision and power) to help us in our time of need (which is all the time). We have access to the resources of the universe including comfort, hope, and the power of the Holy Spirit for each and every situation in our lives.

"Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thess. 5:16-18). Why? Because the Lord Jesus is our High Priest who empathizes with us at every turn and in every way and who has provided access to God’s throne of grace. We can enter with confidence and we do so through prayer. Let’s learn how to pray continually that we might receive mercy and find grace.

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

God Judges

 

"For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. ¹³Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account" (Hebrews 4:12-13 NIV)

This morning I read a very insightful blog by Phylicia Delta (@phyliciadelta). In part, she wrote:

"If I judged Christianity by its women’s conferences, I’d be led to believe that the Bible is no more than a series of compliments from God to man. Instead, the real story is far less complimentary and far more humiliating. Jesus didn’t come to earth because we were beautiful, special, or great. He came because we were too grossly sinful to bridge the gap between ourselves and God." (http://phyliciadelta.com/christian-womens-ministry/)


The fact is, the American Church, in an effort to ignore, cover up, and literally wipe out any idea that we should fear God, is offering a message to people that is less than the best, less than what we need to hear, and, frankly, when taken as a whole, less than the truth. God loves us. Yes, that is true. But His love caused Him a terrible price. "God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8 NIV). I think perhaps our exposure to "death" through the fiction of media has dulled us to the truth of what this verse actually says . . . and means. And while we watch "death" (fictional) all the time in movies, television shows, videos, and games, as a culture we run from death as fast as we can through our medical and health practices. We know that death is awful, even when we refuse to face its reality. But it’s more than that; it’s more than just "Christ died." He died physically and spiritually in that terrible moment (Matthew 27:46). Our God, Who didn’t have to die, died for us. Suffered greatly—physically, emotionally, and spiritually—in order to pay the penalty for our sin. He died so that we could live with Him. He died to make it possible for us to be obedient to God’s laws established before the creation itself. He died in order to give us forgiveness from our sinfulness. 

All that we are unwilling to face about ourselves, God sees . . . and He still loves us. All that we have done in the darkness, in the shadows, He sees . . . and He still wants to forgive us. But there is a condition for our forgiveness, for His acceptance. We must give an account for our actions and that "account" isn’t an explanation. He will accept nothing less than either full payment for our sins or a full pardon through the death of our Savior. God is going to judge us and the only way we will avoid hell is to fully embrace the salvation offered to us through the death of our precious Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

There is an urgency in the writing of Hebrews. At least three times (3:7-8, 3:15, 4:7), the writer quotes Psalm 95:7-8: "Today, if only you would hear His voice, ‘Do not harden your hearts’" (NIV). Our response to God’s unbelievable offer of mercy and grace should be to fall on our faces, speechless before a God Who would love as He loves us. He is going to judge us. He has provided a way of escape from the horrible penalty for our sinfulness. Why will we not hear His voice today and turn to Him in repentance?

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Fix Our Thoughts on Jesus

"Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. . . . Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. . . . See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called "Today," so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end." (Hebrews 3:1, 7, 12-14 NIV).
Salvation, according to scripture, was never meant to be a one time event, but rather is a process in which we interact with the Holy Spirit to become more and more like Christ. And that interaction happens solely through the grace that God freely gives.

A lot is written about grace in the Church. It is a free gift. It is something we cannot do within ourselves. That being said, grace—charis—is also interactive: It is "the divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in the life" (Strong’s G5485). The reflection in the life. There is a God influence that comes to each believer through the Holy Spirit, but we must accept it, appropriate it, and surrender to it in order to become the person God wants us to become. We don’t lose our free will upon salvation and so we must participate in the process of sanctification.

The writer to the Hebrews wasn’t writing to the sinners outside of the Church, but rather was writing to the believers within the Church: "holy brothers and sisters." And this writing stressed that it is possible for a believer to have "a sinful unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God." That it is possible for a believer to become "hardened by sin’s deceitfulness." We are to encourage each other daily to stay the course, to continue to trust, and most importantly, continue to be obedient to God’s commands on our lives. To be obedient to the very end.

Sin can slip in so easily and so invisibly. It can come from a phrase we hear in a movie, from an offense we take up, from a single choice to be liked. Our very being is sinful and we need to distrust our own hearts, feelings, and motives because they will betray us at every turn. The apostle Paul wrote: "I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified" (1 Corinthians 9:27 NRSV). We need to submerse ourselves in the Word, surrendering our will to God in everything and turning away from our desires, feelings, and inclinations so that, in the end, we will be found still trusting and believing in His Word. We need to fix our thoughts on Jesus!

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Salvation for Our Sinfulness

 

"We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. ² For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, ³ how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard Him." (Hebrews 2:1-3 NIV)
Stuart Briscoe, in The Fullness of Christ, discusses the parable of the lost son. In his conclusion, he states:

"It is important to note that [the lost son’s] repentance was real repentance—not only did he repent of the sins that he had committed against heaven, and against his father, but he also repented of himself. . . . Real repentance is infinitely more than being sorry for what I have done, but rather recognizing and repudiating all that I am." (p. 28).

"So great a salvation." I think it is easy, and perhaps even common, for us to categorize salvation as that which forgives us of what we have done. The next logical step then, is to belittle what we have done as really not all that bad. I mean, none of us are serial killers or despot dictators or full-blown gangsters. The fact is, we have, in these last generations, been taught to esteem ourselves, to embrace ourselves, faults and all, and to glory in who we are as individuals, gifted and unique. We rarely even address the possibility that there might be an inherent flaw in who we are as persons, that something at the very core of our souls might be significantly wrong and sinful.

But that is also who we are. While we are greatly beloved by God, we are also greatly sinners. That condemnation of sin comes not from what we have done, but rather from the fundamental rebellion within our souls against God Himself. "Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight; so You are right in Your verdict and justified when You judge. Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me" (Psalm 51:4-5 NIV).

The salvation that Christ offers is "so great a salvation" because it goes much further than simply forgiving our sinful actions; it changes us at our very core. It remakes us into His own righteous and sinless image! "For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son" (Romans 8:29a). How could any of us want to turn away from being made right and true and in line with God’s holy will? And yet the scripture in Hebrews says that if we fail to pay the most careful attention to what we have heard (in His Word), we may drift away! The Greek meaning is a superlative of giving devotion of thought and effort to something. Let’s resolve today to put our focus and energies into living as we should live, allowing the Holy Spirit to redirect even our thoughts and desires so that we may fully embrace this great salvation and refuse to be even tempted to drift away.

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.