Month: May 2008

Posted on

The Closest Friend

“…there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” Pr 18:24

Remember the old phrase, “Blood is thicker than water”?  The implication is that our strongest bonds in this life exist between those that come from the same natural family as we do.  For many of us, our experience doesn’t agree with that statement.  For those of us who are Christians, we shouldn’t be surprised.

The Lord warned us that one of the results of following Him would be that our foes would turn out to be individuals in our own households.  In fact, He said plainly that He came not to bring peace but a sword (Mt 10:34-36).  From the beginning, the Scripture reveals this to be the case.  If you remember, the first child ever born turned out to be a murderer and killed his own brother.  Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery.  Why the animosity?  Because his deeds were righteous and theirs were evil just as was the case with Abel and Cain (1 Jn 3:12).

We see then that human beings are flawed because of sin.  Even growing up your entire life with someone and sharing the same mother and father will not guarantee that you will have a great or even good relationship with that person.  The Lord, however, is able to fix the broken human machine, and in Him, we find friends that are far closer to us than many of our  relatives.  Relationships with blood kin have been destroyed because of our walk with Christ, but the Lord has promised to restore such losses a hundredfold in this life (Mk 10:28-30).

Don’t you find this to be the case, Christian?  Don’t you have fellow believers that love you more deeply than unbelieving family members ever did?  Thank God for such friends for they are certainly a gift from Him!  They can love us this way because He put love in their hearts.  Ultimately, we understand that our main text above declares the Lord Jesus.  As the old hymn says, “No one ever cared for me like Jesus,  there’s no other friend so kind as He.”  We have been made part of the family of God, related to fellow believers and God Himself, by the blood of the Lamb!  Let us strive to be true friends to one another, following Christ’s example: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (Jn 15:13)  “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” (Jn 13:35)

Jamie

Posted on

Our Father

“When ye pray, say, Our Father…” Luke 11:2

Wow!  Let those two words sink in for a minute…  Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, instructed every believer to address the holy, sovereign, omnipotent God as “Our Father!”  To have Him as Master would be a privilege.  To know Him as Teacher or Friend, a greater privilege still.  But to be able to call Him “Father” is beyond comprehension!  We ask in amazement along with the psalmist, “What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?” (Ps 8:4)  What right do I have to approach God as a son?  How can this be possible?  “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.”  I was adopted, and Jesus made that possible!  You know what it means to be a child of God, right?  If we’re children, then we’re “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ!” (Rom 8:17)  Isn’t the Lord gracious?!!!

From the time of conception, we are like children before our Lord.  When Jesus talked to Nicodemus about salvation, He compared it to the birth of a child.  “You must be born again.” (Jn 3:7)  The parallels don’t stop there.  We find that once a child is born, he is completely dependent on the parent for survival.  He requires constant attention and care.  If the child doesn’t feel the parent near, he will cry out until the parent comes to comfort him.  The experience is a very similar one in the new birth.  As newborn Christians, we often “feel” the Lord to be nearer, and we get very upset when we lose that sense of closeness.  But just as the child matures and doesn’t require the “visible” presence of a parent all the time, we “grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord” (2 Pet 3:18), learning to trust less in the visible evidences of God’s nearness and instead walk by faith (2 Cor 5:7) in the knowledge that He will never leave us nor forsake us (Heb 13:5).

Just like our relationships mature with our natural fathers as we grow up, so our relationship develops and matures with the Lord.  In my adolescence, my father seemed to be more of an authority figure.  I was keenly aware of his “do’s and don’ts” and of the consequences of not adhering to the rules.  As I’ve aged, however, my father has become less of a disciplinary in my life.  If I act like a child, then he may still rebuke me as you might a child, but most of our time together now is spent communing as friend with friend.  Through the same faith Abraham exhibited, we grow as individuals in our relationship with the Lord and come to be called a “friend of God.” (Jms 2:23, Jn 15:14,15)  Though we are always to be as children in some respects (like in desiring the word of God as in 1 Pet 2:2), the Lord expects us to grow up in our understanding (1 Cor 14:20) and function as mature adults in His kingdom.  Our relationship with Him will be richer and fuller as we spiritually mature, but remember, He will ever be due the honor and respect of a parent for He is our “everlasting Father.” (Is 9:6)

We considered last week the relationship that I believe to be the clearest picture of our relationship with the Lord, namely that intimate relationship between a husband and wife.  This week we will examine another relationship God uses to reveal how we relate to Him.  We are looking at “The  Parent-Child Relationship” on pg 233 of Ken Boa’s Conformed To His Image.  God has given us a wealth of instruction in His word on how to be good parents for He is our example as our heavenly Father.  Even if you don’t have children, this relationship is one worth studying for it gives you a greater sense of the faithfulness of our heavenly Father in caring for us, His spiritual children.  As a parent, such a study is crucial in understanding how to live out Prov 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

Jamie

Posted on

Love…As Christ

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church…” Eph 5:25

That’s a pretty tall order!  The verse continues on to explain what’s required to love as Christ loved: “…and gave Himself for it.”  One of the greatest difficulties in my Christian life has been in the area of understanding IN EVERY CIRCUMSTANCE what it takes to be a godly husband.  At the same time, if I had to pick one earthly relationship that has taught me the most about the Lord, without a doubt, I would say that it has been my marriage.

At one time, I foolishly thought that God had provided more explicit instructions to wives than to husbands in the Bible.  I used to be jealous over God giving women great passages like Proverbs 31 that detailed the qualities of a virtuous woman and how those qualities were to be lived out as a wife.  It always stood out in my mind that the ladies got 6 verses at the beginning of 1 Peter 3 regarding their spousal role while we guys had to be content with one verse in v. 7.  Whenever I would read the directions given to men and women in Titus 2:1-8, verses 4 and 5 seemed to be very detailed and specific in a woman’s responsibility as a wife and mother while the instruction to men was rather general and vague with nothing explicitly about my role as husband or father.

I admit that I was pretty short-sighted until God shed more light on our main text above.  I read that verse one day and God “bolded” three words in my mind: “even as Christ.”  Wow!  It hit me that the entire Bible contained specific instruction for me as a husband because the Scripture was all about Jesus (Jn 5:39)!  Now, every time I gain a fuller understanding of Christ, I get a clearer picture of what I should be as a husband.  I must confess that it’s been a humbling experience.

So, what did Christ do as my heavenly Husband (this is going to hurt guys, but if you want to be like Jesus in your marriage, I encourage you to read on)?  To name a few things, He gave up the glories of His heavenly dwelling with His Father in order to share that glory with me!  “Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.” (2 Cor 8:9)  And He didn’t bestow such grace upon those worthy of it.  His acts of love were to the undeserving.  “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” (Rom 5:6)  He didn’t decide He was going to love those that were already affectionate toward Him.  No, the only reason “we love Him [is] because He first loved us.” (1 Jn 4:19)  When He was wrongfully rejected, despised, and persecuted, how did He respond?  “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” (Lk 23:34)  Do I need to go on, guys?

Some might say, “You’re forgetting those verses about wives submitting to their husbands and husbands being the head of their wives as Christ is of the church?”  I’m not denying those verses because the Scripture is plain (1 Pet 3:1, Eph 5:23, Col 3:18, Titus 2:5) in that area, and in order for that mystical relationship between Christ and the church to be revealed in a marriage, those verses should be observed.  But, as husbands, we need to understand that the pattern of our heavenly Husband toward His bride as He walked among us was the attitude of a servant.  He confesses in Jn 13:13 that His disciples rightly called Him Lord and Master, but He makes that statement right after washing their feet to reveal that, even as their Lord, He was constantly serving their best interests.  Truly, He put Himself last, and it’s no wonder that the Father has put Him first! (Mk 9:35, Ph 2:9)

For the past several weeks, we’ve been considering the topic of “holistic spirituality” in Ken Boa’s Conformed to His Image.  The focus of that topic is to be Christ-centered in everything we do instead of living a compartmentalized life.  Our home-life is no exception to this rule and for many of us that begins with our marriage.  We’re starting chapter 17 this week where Ken discusses this concept in our day-to-day relationships beginning with the relationship between a husband and wife.  I’ve been a bit one-sided in my thoughts this week because I’m on the husband-side of that equation, but the role of both parties is important if our marriages are to fulfill their intended purpose.  It is that intended purpose that allows the married as well as the unmarried to benefit from this discussion, for as Paul writes concerning marriage in Eph 5:32, “This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.”

Jamie