THE PATTERN OF THE CROSS – Part 2 of 2

“So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know Him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to Himself through Christ.”  (2 Corinthians 5:16-18 NLT)

This upside-down pattern of the cross so contradicts the thinking and practice of the world that it creates an “alternate kingdom,” an alternate reality, a counterculture among those who have been transformed by it. In this peaceable kingdom there is a reversal of the values of the world with regard to power, recognition, status, and wealth. In this new counterculture, Christians look at money as something to give away. They look at power as something to use strictly for service. Racial and class superiority, accrual of money and power at the expense of others, yearning for popularity and recognition, these normal marks of human life, are the opposite of the mindset of those who have understood and experienced the Cross. Christ creates a whole new order of life. Those who are shaped by the great reversal of the Cross no longer need self-justification through money, status, career, or pride of race and class. So the Cross creates a counterculture in which sex, money, and power cease to control us and are used in life-giving and community-building rather than destructive ways. 

-- Timothy Keller (1950-2023) in “The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism”  

#6422

“HE GETS US”

I’m used to commercials for beer and pickup trucks during football games. Another product has entered the advertising lineup: Jesus. The tagline is, “He gets us.” Jesus invited everyone to His table, we are told. Jesus was misunderstood. Jesus could handle disagreement. Jesus was a refugee. None of these claims is untrue on its face. The problem here is what these commercials leave out…

Misunderstood by his family, accused of demonic sorcery, betrayed by one of His closest followers, hung upon a Roman cross…. Yes, Jesus gets us all right. He gets that we are sinful, willful creatures bent on our own destruction. He gets that, left to our own devices, we will rebel against our created nature and, hence, against God. He gets us, and He loves us anyway. That is why He came to save us…

To reach people for Christ is a noble task, but who is this Christ? Most will agree that He was a wise teacher, a friend to sinners, a misunderstood prophet, a refugee. But He is also God-made-flesh, the embodiment of perfect humanity, the bearer of new life, and, yes, a judge. He gets us. After all, He became one of us, though not for free hugs and vague sentimentality, but to save us. Sin and death abound. The devil is loose in the land. What Western culture needs is not another bearer of its common values with a bit of religious window dressing, but a savior.

“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.”  (Ephesians 1:7 NIV)

-- Excerpted from an article entitled “He Gets Us” by David F. Watson, Lead Editor of Firebrand Online Magazine

#6194

FINISHING THE RACE - Part 1

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.”  (2 Timothy 4:7-8 NKJV)

It has been estimated that 25 percent of all marathon runners never finish any given race. It’s such a grueling test of strength and will that just to cross the finish line is a great achievement.

Many people find their lives are the same type of grueling test. And with the rapid pace of society, its changing values, and increased pressure and stress, many drop out of the race. The Christian life is much like a marathon. There are many who finish poorly or not at all…

In his final days the apostle Paul wrote from a prison in Rome: “I have finished the race.” From the time he began the race until the end of his days, he was faithful -- not ashamed of Christ but testifying boldly for Him. We need to follow his example and be finishers in the race that is set before us. 

-- Adapted from Ken Radke in “The Race Set Before Us”

#5225

PAIN CAN PUT LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE

Affliction is particularly effective in helping us reevaluate our priorities.  When Thomas Chalmers became pastor of the church at Kilmany, Scotland in 1803, he was a young man of twenty-three with little real interest in religion.  He had taken the parish primarily so that he could also teach mathematics and astronomy.

As time went by, Chalmers neglected sermon preparation and the care of his people.  The church went into steady and precipitous decline.  After several years he was stricken with a serious illness.  For four months he was unable to leave his sick room, and for almost a year he did not preach.  Slowly he came to realize that his view of Christianity as simply an ethical system was not sufficient to see him through this valley of the shadow of death.  There in the lonely place of his illness he faced himself and the shallowness of his beliefs, until he experienced a dramatic religious conversion.

In the years that followed, Chalmers became the most powerful preacher in Scotland.  And with it, he came to have a compelling social conscience.  The finest pulpits in Scotland were available to him, but he also chose to minister to the poorest of the population in special services on a tanner's second story.  A century later Lord Roseberry said of him, "An illness lifted him into a higher sphere, and he soared aloft."  Illness can do that to us, because it helps us get our values in order.

-- J. Ellsworth Kalas in “If Experience Is Such a Good Teacher Why Do I Keep Repeating the Course?”


#4261

VALUES OUT OF SORTS

A prankster broke into a hardware store. He didn’t steal anything, but he did switch price tags throughout the store.  The store manager knew something was wrong when a customer stepped up to the cash-register with a claw hammer and it rang up for $199.95. The customer’s jaw dropped and asked: “What’s this hammer made of, Platinum?” An employee noticed that a big screen TV was priced at $14.95. Many items for sale had their values out of sorts.


We need to be careful that we don’t get values in our life switched and create a chaos of price tags for things we value most. The Apostle Paul made it clear what we should value most:  "The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I’m tearing up and throwing out with the trash -- along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant -- dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by Him… I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally."  (Philippians 3:7-8,10 The Message)


--  Ray Ellis in a sermon entitled "I'd Rather Have Jesus"




#3793

RELYING ON THE SPIRIT

We live in an age where "Christian leaders" can quite simply be created with the help of wealth and technology. Men and women, in the name of Christ, are wielding great influence over the lives of hundreds of thousands of believers.

And yet their own lives may be in moral shambles.

A true Christian leader is one whose public moral influence is simply an extension of a deeply nurtured and mature innermost private life in Christ.

The rapid pace of modern society often forces us to react on the spot out of who we already are. To meet those demands we must rely on the much deeper resource of the Spirit. How we are guided becomes a reflection of our core values.

We need a fresh call to the holiness and integrity of the Christian way.

-- Gordon Aeschliman in Leadership in the 21st Century

 
#2851

ETERNAL VALUES

The prominent thrust of the Christian faith is to lead us to build our lives around eternal values, and to teach us not to attach ourselves to things that are perishable.

-- The Rev. Thomas L. Butts

 
#2835