All Things but Loss

What have I given up for Christ? What have I sacrificed trying to find Him, to know Him and follow Him(Mk 10:28)

Sometimes it feels like I’ve lost a lot, albeit foolishly at times. A prestigious career, family, friends, wealth. I think I could’ve lived so much more comfortably, safely, with so much less suffering. (Mt 16:26)

But what have I actually gained? I have, indeed, found Christ. I know it. I should be comparing what I’ve lost with Who I’ve found.

Compared with Christ, when I do the math, whatever it is that I’ve lost really doesn’t add up to much; it pales in comparison. (Php 3:8-10)

Really now. Would I give up Christ for anything else? For anyone else? Not a chance! Would I give up anything I know about Him, or of Him? Would I purposely move just a tiny bit farther away from Him for anything temporal? No, I wouldn’t. Really. Nothing, absolutely nothing compares, on any level, with Christ. (He 11:24-26)

I’m so sorry I ever find in myself any resentment or regret for pursuing You; it grieves me deeply. (Ro 7:24) You’ve never required me to forsake anything good that I hadn’t already made into an idol. You’ve cared for me abundantly and faithfully all along the way, and suffering for you has been a privilege. (Php 1:29)

I can’t pursue both this world and Christ (1Jn 2:15-17); I’ve made my choice. (Mt 6:24) If I had it to do all over again, I’d choose You again, a million times over. Yes, always the same, no hesitation, none at all.

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Honor All

One of our primal lies is that human value is tied to beliefs or behavior; we tend to honor those who believe and act as we think they ought, and to dishonor those who don’t, to shame them and feel contempt for them. But God says we’re to honor everyone (1Pe 2:17), even our enemies(Mt 5:44)

This doesn’t mean we’re to like everyone, or to consider them desirable company. To honor someone is to treat them with respect and dignity, to acknowledge their value and worth. It has nothing to do with approving their beliefs or behavior.

What gives someone worth is the fact that God has made them in His image. (Ge 9:6) When we disrespect someone we’re disrespecting their Creator (Ja 3:9), their Lord, their Master. (1Co 11:3) They represent Him and are accountable to Him, not to us. (Ro 14:4)

Disagreeing with someone, thinking they’re wrong, is simply to acknowledge that they haven’t yet found the truth; God hasn’t opened their eyes to see what we see. (Ac 26:18) It doesn’t mean we’re better, or more important or valuable or worthy. We’re all beggars when it comes to either truth or goodness; we only have what we’ve been mercifully given by God. (1Co 4:7)

To puff ourselves up in our knowledge (1Co 8:1), or to feel threatened when others disagree with us, to feel dishonored when they say we’re deceived or in error, is to buy in to the enemy’s lie and to walk in darkness ourselves. It is associating human value or worth with belief or behavior when there’s no relationship between the two.

God Himself is the only One Who has the right to look down on another with disdain or contempt, to shame them, to disvalue them. (Da 12:2) When we do this it’s pride (Ps 123:4), usurping His role, pushing Him off the eternal throne and climbing upon it ourselves.

Let’s not make this mistake any longer, living in the lie; every human soul is infinitely valuable because the stamp of divinity resides upon us all. The beautiful and the plain, the learned and the ignorant, the righteous and the wicked, everyone is a brother or a sister bearing the indelible likeness of our Creator: Jehovah God Himself.

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Seek the Lord

A universal human trait, with very few exceptions, is that we don’t seek after God. (Ro 3:11) We cruise through life, salving our conscience in whatever religion we happen to be taught growing up, or maybe none at all, content to keep God at a distance. We may not even be aware that we’re doing it, spiritually asleep at the wheel, and we’re unconcerned about it.

Most people who call themselves Christians appear to me to be this way; letting Christianity happen to them, passively going along with the religious flow of their family, friends and culture, not seeking God out for themselves. (Mt 7:21-23) If they were born in another culture I think they’d as soon be Muslim, Hindu, atheist, it wouldn’t matter. They aren’t striving to enter the kingdom, seeking God Himself, to know Him and walk with Him.

I’m not the final judge, of course; we can never know another’s heart for sure, but from what I observe, God isn’t the overriding passion of most people’s lives (1Co 16:22); they aren’t delighting in Him, loving Him, obeying Him, abiding in Him, pursuing Him. Their focus is on this world, on themselves, on how to get the most out of this life. This is what God’s enemies look like; their end is destruction. (Php 3:18-19)

Having once been this way myself, I believe the only exceptions to this rule, those rare souls seeking God Himself at any cost as a manner of life, are of God’s elect, predestined, chosen by God according to His will. (Ep 1:5) Only these are His, and no other.

Seeking God and finding Him for ourselves isn’t optional; we’re each responsible for our own eternal state, no one else is. It’s the mystery of iniquity: the God of Heaven, the vast, unfathomable Treasure available to all, that no one wants (De 5:29) until He turns our hearts to seek Him. (Je 24:7) It’s never too late; now is always a good a time. (Ho 10:12) Let’s encourage each other and seek Him together.

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Strive to Enter

When Christ was asked how many people would be saved, He told us to strive to enter Heaven, that many intending to enter will be turned away. (Lk 13:23-24) The Greek is agonizomai, from which we evidently get agonize.

The way to Heaven’s narrow, obscure; very few find it. (Mt 7:13-14) God uses this word few for the eight souls, of perhaps millions, who escaped the Flood (1Pe 3:20); most won’t make it.

But for any thoughtful soul, the second death simply isn’t an option. How then are we supposed to strive to enter?

Trying harder to be good certainly won’t work; the more we grow in holiness, the more sinful and broken we find ourselves to be, like filthy rags on our best day. (Is 64:6)

The more light we get the more of our own filthiness we can see; we’ll never be worthy on our own merit. We all need infinite mercy, a Savior to be continually cleansing us from our sin. (1Jn 1:7) We need perfect righteousness (Mt 5:48); and it needs to be a free gift (Ro 6:23), because we could never earn it.

In our striving we must not be looking primarily at ourselves, but at Christ (He 12:2), and what He’s done for us (Re 1:5), laboring to ensure that we’ve entered into the eternal rest (He 4:11) He’s provided, and that our lives obediently and joyfully reflect this reality. (1Pe 1:2)

God tells us to seek Him (Is 55:6-7), to feel after Him and find Him for ourselves (Ac 17:27), to examine our souls and prove our relationship with God (2Co 13:5), to make sure we’re His. (2Pe 1:10) Are the things that accompany salvation evident in our lives? (He 6:9) Do we love Him? (1Co 8:3) Is He precious to us (1Pe 2:7)? Is God Himself our portion in life? Is He the passion of our lives? (Ps 73:25)

If we haven’t found God yet, like the merchant seeking exquisite pearls, let’s follow after Christ, seeking God until we find Him (Je 29:13), until we know that we know Him (1Jn 5:13) and are abiding in Him. (1Jn 2:28)

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A Merchant

God’s kingdom is like a merchant seeking the finest pearls, who, finding one that’s so unbelievable, so fantastic, it captivates him: he liquidates all his assets, selling everything he has so he can buy it. (Mt 13:45-46) It’s a picture of those who strive to enter the kingdom (Lk 13:24), those few who find the way (Mt 7:14), who won’t settle for less. (Mt 11:12)

What exactly have we seen in God’s Kingdom that’s so attractive, so desirable, so amazing that we can’t live without it? Have we indeed sought His kingdom first, above all else? (Mt 6:33) Searched it out for ourselves, until we are overcome by it?

A kingdom is identified by its king, and a king is known by how he governs. Finding the kingdom of God precious then is delighting in God’s revelation of Himself in His Law. Despising God’s Law is to despise God Himself; a Jesus who minimizes God’s Law is a counterfeit. (2Co 11:4) The living God writes His laws into the minds and hearts of His own. (He 8:10)

We know that we’ve found God’s kingdom when all His commands become the rejoicing of our heart (Ps 119:111), more desirable than gold (Ps 19:10), than heaps of gold and silver (Ps 119:72), as much as all the wealth we could imagine. (Ps 119:14)

If this isn’t where we find our hearts, rather than cleaving to dust, let’s be like the merchant, choosing God as our portion, stirring ourselves up (Ps 119:18) to the vast treasure awaiting us in God. (1Co 2:9) Nothing else will satisfy; we’re made to walk with God, to feed in His majesty, to behold His beauty, to joy in Him, to be completely overcome by God Himself. (1Jn 1:3) Ask and receive, seek and find, knock and it shall be opened. (Mt 7:7)

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Honor the Son

God the Father will never judge anyone; He won’t condemn the wicked. That role He’s committed to His Son. (Jn 5:22)

To judge Man properly, Christ the Son must be omniscient; He must perfectly know the heart and motive of every action ever committed by anyone, fully understanding everyone’s background, troubles and circumstances. He must know the proper degree of shame and punishment to administer for lifetime’s of sin and rebellion, and He must do this with perfect neutrality and integrity, with perfect justice, with zero bias. This requires Christ to be perfectly and fully divine.

God the Father intends for us all to respect and honor His Son in this role of Judge, in the same way and to the same degree that we honor Himself. (Jn 5:23) There should be no difference in the way we reverence the Father and His Son.

Kiss the Son (Ps 2:12); magnify Him; praise Him; rejoice in Him, serve Him with fear and rejoice with trembling. (Ps 2:11) He came once as the Lamb (Jn 1:36), but He’s coming back to judge as the Lion (Re 5:5), and He will be very, very angry with the wicked. (Re 6:15-17)

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Kiss the Son

Once we see Yeshua Messiah as fully God, equal in divinity with the Father (Php 2:6) but lower in rank and submitted to Him (1Co 11:3), we begin to see it everywhere, as in the last of Psalm 2:12: “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.”

We compare this with: “It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes.” (Ps 118:8-9), “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.” (Ps 146:3), and “Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.” (Jer 17:5-7)

We can’t have it both ways: either Christ is fully God and worthy of our implicit trust, or He’s a mere man and shouldn’t be ultimately trusted. If God says that all those who put their ultimate trust in Christ are blessed, Jesus Christ must be the omnipotent, infinite, eternal God.

Kiss the Son, acknowledge His majesty, giving Him honor, reverence and glory. (Re 5:13)

Jehovah is angry when we don’t glorify Him as God. (Ro 1:18, 20) God’s Son is just like His Father; we can either trust, serve and respect Him as Almighty God or perish from the way; He’s a consuming fire. (He 12:29)

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Sell All

When Yeshua was advising a rich young ruler on how to inherit eternal life, He said, “Sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.” (Lk 18:22) Is God’s instruction relevant to us all? Is He commanding us to be homeless and destitute? How should we interpret Him?

Firstly, observe that Yeshua owned clothing (Jn 19:23) and shoes (Mk 1:7), and His disciples owned homes (Jn 20:10), so Yeshua isn’t against having personal possessions or owning property.

Then notice the context (Lk 18:18-21): Yeshua is advising an extremely wealthy man on how to invest in eternity. In saying, in effect, “Sell it all,” He’s telling the wealthy to downsize and live modestly, to sell off the extra they don’t need in order to take care of themselves and their families, and to give to the destitute and helpless, not give away absolutely everything they own and become impoverished themselves.

Yeshua is advising us all to live for eternity, to love our neighbors as ourselves and trust God to take care of us (Mt 6:33-34), rather than amassing earthly treasures and storehouses (Mt 6:19-21); our lives and all that we have are to be dedicated to Him. (Ro 12:1)

We each have gifts from God to enable us to be Christlike in particular ways (1Co 7:7), and thus we also all have weaknesses, where we’re not so gifted. Some are more easily tempted by materialism and covetousness than others; we must all be extra careful of extremes, especially where we’re weak.  (Pr 30:8-9) God does purge love of this world from His own (1Jn 2:15-17), and He does this uniquely in each of us.

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In Your Heart

The most important of all God’s commandments (Mk 12:29-30), to love God with all our heart, soul and might (De 6:5), is immediately followed by and interconnected with a related command: “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart.” (De 6:6)

God is essentially telling us what receiving Him looks like, how we love Him: by receiving and loving His words, hiding the actual words of His precious commands in our hearts. (Ps 119:11)

His Word is our spiritual food (Je 15:16); meditating on scripture is how we nourish ourselves. (Ps 1:2-3) To do this as we ought, we must make the effort to learn the words of God; we call it memorization.

God’s words are eternal (1Pe 1:25), jewels of spiritual life (Jn 6:63), alive and powerful (He 4:12), able to quicken us (Ps 119:50); our response to them is our response to Him. (Jn 12:48) He calls Himself The Word(Jn 1:1)

We’re not only to obey Him, we’re to keep His commands (Jn 14:21), to cherish them, hold on to them, protect them, safeguard them, store them, keep them close by, delight in them. (Ro 7:22) Spiritual life’s not just about action, following the rules, it’s about our hearts, what we’re treasuring and delighting in. (Mt 6:21)

God continues with: “And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” (De 6:7The words of God’s commands are to be constantly percolating in our minds and hearts, flowing out of us to those around us. This is to be our passion, our addiction, all day long. (Ps 119:97)

This is how we take the sword, the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, and let it dwell in us (Col 3:16), abide in us. (Jn_15:7) It’s the evidence and essence of a transformed heart(He 8:10)

If God’s Word is abiding in us we can’t miss Messiah. (Jn 5:38) To succeed here is to succeed everywhere (Jos 1:8); it appears to be the key to our true, spiritual prosperity. (Ps 1:2-3)

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I Follow After

Saints are not content to stagnate in their walk with God; we’re dissatisfied in ourselves, ever aware of our imperfections (1Jn 1:8), always pushing forward, pursuing Him, following after Him to be more like Him, ever closer to Him. (Php 3:12)

Pursuing Christ means taking heed to our ways, being aware of our spiritual health and maintaining a constant goal to be more and more like Christ (1Pe 2:21), putting Him on (Ep 4:24), pretending in some further way to be like Him (1Pe 2:21), to walk as He walked. (1Jn 2:6)

It means to abide in Him (1Jn 2:28), to walk worthy of Him (Col 1:10), to walk in the light, in fellowship with Him. (1Jn 1:7)

It means to intentionally focus on the nature of Christ, rejoicing in Him, feeding in His majesty, and meditating on the precious promises which enable us to be partakers of His divine nature. (2Pe 1:4) As we behold Him He transforms us into His image, from one stage of holiness to another. (2Co 3:18) Every bit of Christ we can find, every step we take towards Him, is a treasure.

This is a journey no one else can take for us, a race we must run for ourselves; we are each accountable to God for our walk with Him; we must ponder the path and pursue Him for ourselves. Yet we must not isolate ourselves from community in our striving after Christ, for He is in our brothers and sisters, and can even reveal Himself through those outside the faith. He is above all, through all, and in us all. (Ep 4:6)

It might be frustrating if we focus too much on ourselves, trying to do this on our own. But our delight is that Christ is not only Who we pursue, but also How we pursue; He Himself is the Way we follow and the Life that quickens us to go. (Jn 14:6) He enables our pursuit as His grace reigns through righteousness in us. (Ro 5:21) When our eyes are on Jesus like they’re supposed to be (He 12:2), it’s a privilege to pursue Him.

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