The Snooze Button

Every morning I hear the same thing:  beeping, rustling of covers, the click of the snooze button, and precisely eight minutes later repeat.  It's not just one person who has fallen for the infernal snooze button, but both of my sons.  After this charade in stereo persisted for over half an hour, I walked to the hallway which connected both rooms.  I welcomed those young men into the day with a question:  "What is the purpose of your alarm clock?"  "To wake us up," one of the youths mumbled.  "If it wakes you up, why don't you get up?  Why not set the alarm for half an hour later and enjoy more unbroken sleep?  Do me and yourselves a favour.  Good morning!"  The complimentary and happy dad-dispensary of wisdom was open for business.

Now if you are one of those who love your snooze button almost as much as life itself, please do not take offense.  I have lived with people who had the bizarre obsession to press that button for over an hour every morning, and hearing the blaring tone every eight minutes became an offense to me!  But the LORD showed me a wondrous truth about this "rise and shine procrastinator," this snooze button which is the cause for me to place my alarm out of reach so I must rise out of bed to turn it off because I have a knack of pressing it without waking up fully.  Yes, it once had its hooks in me too.

It occurred to me the Holy Spirit convicts us to cause us to rise from spiritual slumber and bring us to our senses.  Conviction of sin has been the reason many people came to God at the beginning.  When first exposed to Jesus Christ I was one who was convinced of my sin, I was heading for hell, and needed the forgiveness and salvation afforded me by grace through faith in Him.  But after we have trusted in Christ, we are not instantly perfect.  We can be easily deluded and seduced by selfishness, our eyes can cease to focus resolutely on Jesus, and we fall for temptations.  And our languishing lands us in a spiritual drowsiness, a stupor from which we are only woken by the conviction of the Holy Spirit.  Alarm bells can start blaring in our minds even before we knowingly plunge into sin, but we have a way of pressing the snooze button.  Comfortable in our bed of sin, conviction is more of an irritant to be silenced rather than a practical, gracious call to upright living as God intends.

How do you treat the conviction which comes from the Holy Spirit as we read the word, hear a sermon, or as we are left alone with our thoughts?  Is conviction a "bad" feeling we try to cover with activity, self-justification, or numb with alcohol?  Or does conviction rouse us to the point we leap out of bed and go to God for cleansing and restoration so we might again walk in obedience?  A shower cleans the body and makes the groggy mind more alert, but only Jesus is able to wash us and bring us back into sweet fellowship with Him.  When the alarm sounds in your heart and mind, don't press the snooze button and go back to sleep.  Seek the LORD about the reason for the wake-up call and walk in obedience according to His Word.  God doesn't just want to wake you up, but He wants you to rise and shine for His glory.

Commit the Fight to Christ

Reading Tale of Three Kings by Gene Edwards during our discipleship course at Calvary Chapel Sydney has yielded some amazing discussions.  What impresses me greatly about David is how he responded when word came his son Absalom proclaimed himself king in Hebron.  The conspiracy was strong, and King David - the anointed of God - chose to voluntarily flee his fortified position in Jerusalem to prevent bloodshed.  He knew Absalom's ruthless nature, and he would not hesitate to kill even those of the king's house to accomplish his end.

Consider how David did not act like any other king before or since.  What king has ever fled the citadel barefoot and weeping when he had every right to stay, strengthen his defenses, and command his loyal subjects to fight for him?  When the high priest brought the Ark of the Covenant out of the Tabernacle after David, he commanded it be returned to the most holy place.  King Saul was glad to carry the Ark with him so on a whim he could inquire of the LORD, but David would entertain no such convenience.  2 Samuel 15:25-26 reads, "Then the king said to Zadok, "Carry the ark of God back into the city. If I find favor in the eyes of the LORD, He will bring me back and show me both it and His dwelling place. ²⁶ But if He says thus: 'I have no delight in you,' here I am, let Him do to me as seems good to Him."  So humble and contrite was David that he laid no claim or right to the throne.  David allowed God the possibility to remove him from the throne.  God had freely given, and David maintained God had the right (and his blessing!) to take away.

The following days revealed God was not finished with David, but would end the rebellion started by Absalom by granting David's loyal men a great victory.  Yet even when the victory was secured through the death of usurping Absalom, David did not immediately return to the throne.  He waited until the people requested his return, confirming his ordination by God to rule over all Israel.  It is shocking to see such a heart of humility in a king, and is a foreshadowing of the meekness and humility of the King of kings, Jesus Christ.  He was the King of the Jews, yet He laid down His life without resistance.  He offered His cheeks to the smiters, and gave His back to the scourge.  He bore the weight of the mockery and spitting, and Jesus did not recoil when the crown of thorns was pressed rudely into His scalp.  He bore His own cross to Calvary in His humiliation, and He presented His hands and feet to the cruel nails.  He could have insulated Himself from all pain and suffering, calling legions of angels to His aid.  But He did nothing, except commit Himself fully to His heavenly Father who loved Him and called Him to suffer.

As one anointed by the Holy Spirit, do you still fight for your rights?  Or have you learned from the example of men like David and Jesus who committed themselves to He who judges righteously?  Jesus was not passive as He went to the cross, for it was an act of a will submitted to the Father's will.  He actively sought God's favour for those ignorant souls who hated and murdered Him without cause.  Even as David was restored to his former glory, Jesus was exalted above all others as the firstfruits from the dead, raised in eternal glory.  He is both King and High Priest, having ascended to the Father and will someday return to judge the unbelieving world and rule with a rod of iron.  There are many Absaloms around, usurping the authority of the true King, but they will all be overthrown and slaughtered by the sword which comes from the mouth of the Ancient of Days.

God will fight for us, and it is not weakness to meekly commit ourselves into His hand for He delights in us.  He will do to us what seems good to Him, whose ways are grace, mercy, and truth.

A New Nature

God is able to reveal spiritual truth to us even when we aren't looking for it.  Yesterday provided a perfect example.  After being away in Israel, in my front and back yards there was a fair amount of yard work to do.  So instead of changing out of my baseball uniform after my game on Saturday, I cut grass, trimmed shrubs, and cleaned the guttering.  I also tasked my sons to do some mowing, trimming, and raking.  One of the rose bushes provided me an illustration I didn't know I needed!

Before we moved into the house, a previous tenant planted four rose bushes.  One of these bushes yields pink flowers, but a couple of big suckers had sprouted from below the graft, yielding red flowers I did not recognise.  They did not have the beauty or fragrance of roses.  I am not an avid gardener by any means, but I have been told roses are often grafted into a hearty rootstock.  This enables the plant to better survive harsh conditions.  The suckers from the rootstock yielded many flowers, but the portion over the graft only yielded two.  Cutting away the growth from below the graft will no doubt promote the health and flowering of the desired roses.

Jesus said to His followers, "I am the Vine, and you are the branches."  Spiritually speaking, all who repent and trust in Christ are grafted in to Him, and the Holy Spirit takes up residence within us.  Christians are given a new nature which is like Christ's, and for the first time the good fruit of the Holy Spirit is yielded from our lives - like those fragrant pink rose blooms.  But though we have been transformed inside, we still live in a body of flesh.  As long as our bodies remain in our fallen state, we are like a grafted rose bush which has that hearty rootstock always warring against our new nature.  If the rootstock is permitted it will rob all the nutrients from the good plant above.

Paul recognised the tension between the flesh and new nature given by Jesus Christ.  Romans 7:18-25 reads, "For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. ¹⁹ For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. ²⁰ Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. ²¹ I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. ²² For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. ²³ But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. ²⁴ O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? ²⁵ I thank God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin."

When we recognise the fruit of the old man in our lives - the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life springing up from below the graft, repentance cuts off those suckers which war against the soul.  Jesus has delivered us from this body of death, and even whilst we are alive and remain we can produce fragrant blooms above the graft God finds beautiful.  This fragrance is lovely not only to God, but to those who will receive the Gospel and be saved.  As it is written in 2 Corinthians 2:14-16, "Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. ¹⁵ For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. ¹⁶ To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things?"  Our call is to examine our hearts and lives and cut from us all which grows under the graft through repentance and allow Christ to expertly prune us so we might be more fruitful still.

The Christian life has assurances and absolutes, yet there are aspects of continual, ongoing maintenance as we embrace the process of being sanctified into the image of Christ.  The object is not to be more focused on self and our faults, but to fix our eyes upon Jesus as we seek and obey Him.  In this manner we can easily discern the red from the pink blooms above the graft, and praise God we can bear fruit which is according to His holy nature.

Forget Useless Religion

"If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless."

James 1:26

 During my recent visit to Israel, I was surrounded by countless outwardly religious people.  Muslims streamed in droves after praying on the Temple Mount, worshipers sang hymns at holy sites, and orthodox Jews read from their prayer books as they hurried along the street on foot.  "Religious" people are not difficult to spot because of their outward dress or deeds.  One point James 1:26 emphasises is unless religion provides inner transformation, it is a complete waste of time and effort.  "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks," Jesus said in Matthew 12:34.  If your religion is incapable of making you a more godly person, your religion is powerless and ridiculous.

This is what makes Christianity different from all other "religions."  Christianity is a unique belief system based upon God's Word (the Bible) because Jesus promises to make those who trust in Him new creations from within.  It is all about an inner transformation by God's grace, for He puts a new heart and Spirit within us.  Our hearts, which were once hardened by sin's deceitfulness, are made soft and exude the fruit of the Spirit:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control.  It is the indwelling Holy Spirit who enables and empowers us to bridle our tongues and to love one another as Jesus loves us.  We begin to deeply care about others, even when they say or do things which are hurtful.  We even love people we have never met.

The following verse bears this out.  James 1:27 says, "Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world."  The Law established provisions for orphans and widows, but it was incapable of making anyone lovingly care about them.  Only the transformation power of the Gospel can place this active love in hearts once marked with selfishness and pride.  Many people do pious or deeds which appear good, but Christ puts within us purity of motive with good deeds.  The world has a way of polluting people but pure, undefiled religion before God keeps a man holy and righteous by God's grace.  To enter the kingdom of heaven, we must be born again through repentance and faith in Christ.  As Paul wrote in Galatians 6:15-16:  "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation. ¹⁶ And as many as walk according to this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God."

Has your religion changed you inside?  Spiritual regeneration and transformation - real change - is only possible through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.  Stop believing in useless religion, and stop trying to change yourself.  Be changed through the Gospel, receive the Holy Spirit, and you will be changed.  Then take practical steps to live according to your new born again nature, according to the character we see in Jesus Christ.  2 Corinthians 5:17 reads, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."  If your religion is a proven waste, what have you to lose?