Romans 2:17-24 Christ Fulfills the Law!

Romans 2:17-24  Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and boast in God; if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law;  if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of little children, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself?  You who preach against stealing, do you steal?  You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?  You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?  You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?  As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

In the above passage, Paul addresses the Jews and their religious knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors.  The Jews relied on God’s law to save them, boasting that the law revealed God’s truth to humanity.  Through the law they could understand God’s nature: his holiness, justice, and perfection.  For them, the law sketched out the profile and essence of the Creator, removing him from the darkness of the unknown into the light of their reality where they as humans existed.  By knowing these truths about God and his nature, they believed they could teach the world about this wonderful Creator who chose them as his people: For you are a people holy to the Lord your God.  The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.  (Deuteronomy 7:6)  God gave the Jews the law, his truth, in the wilderness.  However, Paul says, since you have this precious law and since you know so much about the law and claim that it is the only truth, why do you not follow the dictates of the law in your own lives.  Why are you still lawbreakers, knowing that the law condemns lawbreakers?  You who preach against stealing, do you steal?  You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?  You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?  You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?  He says, of course you claim to conform to the law, but your lives, your conversations, your attitudes reflect another story.  Your lack of adherence to his law is an affront to God, causing Gentiles to scoff at the Jewish God.  God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.  Paul believed the Jewish people were eloquent in describing the basic tenets of the law and in defending the law; however, they seemingly were unable to satisfy the law’s commandments because of their Adam nature.  The law is good; it revealed not only the nature of God, but the nature of mankind.  As surely as it paints God as good and righteous, it concomitantly paints Adam's nature as self-serving and wayward.  Paul emphatically states: the Jews are not able to fulfill God’s demands on them.  Paul understood well the contradiction between the flesh and the law, for he was a Pharisee of good standing.  He tried to fulfill every jot and tittle of the law.  Paul states: If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.  (Philippians 3:4-6)  He thought of himself as a righteous Jew, without fault in his attempts to follow the law’s dictates.  But as a Christian, Paul found in himself a spirit that ran directly counter to the law’s demands: We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.  I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.  As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.  (Romans 7:14-17)  The law is good; consequently, it highlights sin’s hold on the corrupt Adam spirit. The law’s demands reveal why mankind without Christ cannot take hold of eternal life, for the law shows the cancer within mankind.  The law condemns man to death because the law cannot remove the cancer of sin or release mankind to serve God forever.

Paul speaks mainly to Jewish people in today’s scriptures, but he also talks to the Gentile, who has developed his own laws in his conscience.  We all have laws that we follow, even though they are not scripted, written down somewhere.  We try to follow these laws judiciously; however, we often break these personal laws as often as others break the written law.  “I will never treat my wife or husband like that again.”  “I will never again get that out-of-control.”  I will never lie again.”  “I will never gossip about him again.”  “I will never again envy someone else’s goods or lifestyle.”  “ I will never complain to God again about anything.”  “I will always obey the speed limits.”  Our list can go on and on.  The laws we establish in our minds are good: they are there to govern our behavior in positive ways, pointing to a better, more loving and caring life.  When we fail because our old nature goes its own way, we condemn ourselves.  We wonder why we seem weak and helpless to implement these good laws into our lives.  As Christians, we know our failings cause other people to discount the God we claim to serve.  Rather than harvesting people for God, we sow seeds of discord and unbelief when we fail to do what we and others know is right.  And we know these failures are sin: If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.  (James 4:17)  Sometimes we even lose our children and loved ones to the world’s ways of living because of our failure to follow our own laws of how to treat people.  Laws, whether in our conscience or written in God’s Word will never free us from the Adam nature and its tendency to go its own way.  Paul found this sin abounding within himself.  He cries out in Romans 7, who can free me from this bondage?  His answer is clear: Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.  For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.  And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.  (Romans 8:1-4)

Paul tells the Jewish people that they need to put their faith in a Savior who has fulfilled the righteous requirements of the law.  He also implies to the Gentiles that they too need a Savior who is completely righteous, who never failed to obey his own laws and the Father’s will.  Jesus always did what the Father wanted him to do.  From the time He was baptized in the Jordan River, He did the works of God as the Holy Spirit directed him.  We who are in Christ are free to do the will of God, free to love and serve people.  We are free to hear the voice of God within us.  We are free indeed.  When Paul wrote to the church at Galatia because they were going back to the law, he said, It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.  (Galatians 5:1)  We are no longer condemned by the script of the law or by the laws in our minds.  They will only condemn us, not free us because when we depend upon our own abilities we will fail.  Instead, when we live according to the Spirit, the Spirit gives us life and power to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil.  Jesus has saved us; He has made us part of the family of God.  Our nature has been changed.  We love people.  We care for people.  We try to be good.  Well, how is that different from following the law?  The law keeps us focussed on our failures and away from conversing with God.  When we feel condemned, we isolate ourselves.  We tend to work on being better, but when we follow the Spirit, we know we are in the family of God, and we have fellowship with God at ALL TIMES.  We know He will strengthen our souls through Jesus Christ.  We know Jesus will always be our advocate.  He will always defend us through his blood that He shed for our redemption.  Yes, we are perfect at all times because of Jesus.  We have eternal life within us because of Jesus.  We have a life of victory because of Jesus.  Sin we might.  As Christians, we are sorrowful and will confess our sins, but we can say as Paul told Timothy, I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.  (2 Timothy 1:12)  So, we will boast in Christ, not in ourselves, not in our abilities, not in our strength.  We live not by some code, either written or spoken.  May people come to Christ through our testimony.  We live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord and by the leading of the Holy Spirit.  


 

Romans 2:12-16 Jesus, Our Righteousness!

Romans 2:12-16  All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.  For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.  (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law.  They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.  This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

All our secrets, everything about us, will be known on the day of judgment.  How will we measure up to Jesus Christ, the perfect one, the sinless one?  If we fail to live up to his perfection, we will not exist with God forever.  God will not allow anything imperfect to exist forever in his presence.  God is holy; therefore, we must be holy.  We must be like God.  Is this possible?  Are we who live in an environment of sin able to live a perfect, holy life?  The Bible clearly says all of us have sinned, none of us are perfect, and we have all chosen our own way to live, under our own authority instead of God’s authority.  At the beginning of creation, we see Adam and Eve choose their wisdom and knowledge over God’s wisdom and knowledge.  They chose not to rest in God’s blissful domain, called the Seventh Day, the sabbath.   Instead of rest, they chose to work by going to the tree of knowledge and eating of its fruit. This work on the day of the sabbath brought in the storm of sin and disobedience.  Rather than following their holy God, they became free agents, doing their own thing when it pleased them.  In today’s passage, we see what disobedience to God’s authority brings to man: harsh judgment.  Failure to obey either our own laws, embedded within our consciences, or God’s laws, written in his Word, will bring us into disfavor with the Creator.  God’s judgment is based on the perfect template of righteousness: Jesus Christ.  Jesus in the flesh fulfilled the law; He alone satisfied the laws requirement: complete obedience.  He obeyed the Father’s will at all times.  He fulfilled God’s purposes for his life.  Because He was directed by the Almighty Holy One, his life on Earth was perfect, satisfying God’s requirements of him.  We who are locked in sin cannot fully meet the requirement of the law: perfection at all times, perfect obedience to God’s will for our lives.  We fail—all have failed, no one is perfect.  As we read in Psalms and again in a little later in Paul’s letter: There is no one righteous, not even one, there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.  All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.  (Romans 3:10-12)   Consequently, mankind needs another way to God, a way that will not fail.  In the New Testament, the preaching of the gospel was known as THE WAY.  Of course, every Christian knows that the way comes through the gate of Paradise, Jesus Christ.  He is the only one who saves us from judgment outside of the law or under the law.

The requirements of the law are written on our hearts.  Humans understand that they should treat others as they would want to be treated.  Humans comprehend that love brings harmony and peace while hatred causes disruption and chaos.  Humans realize that the will of God is for them to do good and not evil, but their nature is competitive, self-seeking, not willing to be subservient to others, or to serve others before they serve themselves.  As we see when delving into history or even the activities of our present day, the behavior of human beings has caused and is causing tremendous pain in the world.  Even in our modern day, we see people so degraded by sin that they sell members of their race as commodities or treat each other in abusive ways for their own pleasure.  We know that hundreds of thousands of our fellow human beings are killed each year.  Sadly, collectively and individually our human nature reveals rapacious, destructive, and hurtful behaviors outside of Jesus Christ.  Breaking our own understanding of what is right and wrong, or what our conscience tells us, we fall into darkness.  The Bible does not lie when it states, There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  (Romans 3:22-23)  Likewise numerous Old Testament verses confirm this truth: Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins.  (Ecclesiastes 7:20)   We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each  of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.  (Isaiah 53:6)  Many other verses in the Bible emphatically verify mankind’s wayward and sinful nature.  Without the saving blood of Jesus, we who were made in God’s image turn ourselves into a threat to the very existence of mankind.  With nuclear power we can obliterate life; we can cause the earth itself to be toxic to life.  How far we have strayed from that glorious day in the beginning when God proclaimed that we who were made in his image were very good.  But God had a plan and his answer remains the same through millenniums of time, mankind needs a Savior, a Redeemer, to rescue them from the stormy seas of sin, from their self-destructive nature.  Of course, we know this is Jesus.  

All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.  Sin will be judged: sin will be counted unworthy to enter the portals of heaven’s domain.  As we have said before as Paul nails down this theme, sin is a cancer, whether it exists apart from the law or under the law.  The Bible is very clear.  People who try to justify themselves before God by their own righteousness will find themselves naked, exposed, without excuse for their wrongdoings.  All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.  (Isaiah 64:6)  God will judge every secret, every hidden thought, every activity that we did in the dark.  He knows everything about our lives.  Are there any righteous amongst us?  No not one.  Not one of us can stand before God completely justified by our own way of living on Earth.  We need a Savior.  We need an advocate before the righteous Father.  We need a high priest as an intermediary between God and ourselves.  Of course, Jesus Christ is that one.  He did miracles on Earth to prove that He was from God.  No man from the beginning of time had done such miraculous things.  He died for each of us, fully satisfying the penalty of sin for us.  We are special to God because we have been made in his image.  We are the biological specie that can hear his voice, know his love, and reciprocate by honoring him, by giving him our love and dedication.  He has given each of us a special name.  Each of us is unique, loved by him because of what He created in us.  We will be glorified: all creation will know us on the day He brings glory to us because we are his sons and daughters, bought by the blood of his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.  Because of that sacrifice, we are very special people right now on Earth.  Lift up your heads, realize you are free from the constraints of the law, either yours or the written law.  You no longer live by rules but as Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”  (Matthew 4:4)  You are free, free to be the daughters and sons of the living God without the fear and torment of the enemy.  Enter into God’s sabbath day of rest, the Seventh Day.  Adam and Eve failed: they worked on the sabbath.  You, dear friends, rest on this day.  Cease from your own efforts, know that Christ has made you free, free to live in the bountiful presence of the living God, awaiting the day when He welcomes you home.  Amen!        

Romans 2:5-11 Rest in Freedom!

Romans 2:5-11  But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.  God “will repay each person according to what they have done.”  To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.  But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.  There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.  For God does not show favoritism.

God does not judge as we judge.  We judge according to the deeds done in the flesh.  If a person seeks to do good and does good or positive things in life, we believe that person is good.  In fact, we might consider him or her without fault.  But God shows no favoritism in his judgment.  He not only looks at our good deeds and activities, He looks at the thoughts and considerations of the heart for those who persistently seek him.  Are we always doing good in our hearts?  Are our intentions positive and constructive?  Is there any waywardness from God’s goodness in our hearts?  The condition of the heart is the essential component in God’s evaluation of us.  But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.  Who is unrepentant?  There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.  (Romans 3:11)  We are unrepentant when we do not honor God’s authority and seek his will at all times.  Of course at all times is the contract breaker.  Outside of Christ, the man and woman of the flesh tends to do what is right in his or her own eyes.  If we feel someone has treated us unfairly, we strike back.  If someone’s words have hurt us, we retaliate, either actively or passively.  Of course, we could go on indefinitely, describing the reactions of the flesh in this world of conflict and trouble.  God’s will is definitely not done consistently in anyone’s life.  If we were each a blank sheet of paper with God’s will written on the paper, the story would always be good and positive, but we are not a perfect record.  There are black spots and smudges on our papers, times when we have crossed out lines or even paragraphs in our remembrances because we cannot face the reality of those events, for they were self-serving, corrupt, dangerous to others and ourselves.  No, the will of God is not recorded on our sheets of paper at all times.  Sadly, THERE IS NO ONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE remains a truism before God’s timeless, penetrating eyes.  Regardless of our culture, race or ethnic group, God looks favorably on those who attempt to do good the majority of time through his grace and mercy.  We were made to do good, not evil.  We were made to rest in God’s domain, for God is at rest.  We are to be at rest, at peace, with the world and each other.  We were not made to strive, compete, and battle with each other for a place of recognition or worth, too work by fleshly means to be good and not bad.  Pastors and teachers often remind us we are made in God’s image.  That is the truth, but God is at rest.  We are not: we are possessed with turmoil and struggle, often working every day to succeed, to protect our self-will and worth.  However, our daily existence should be in harmony with God’s purposes, comfortable with his will for us.  We need to enter that place of Sabbath rest by faith.  Our striving, our struggle, our works do not please God, but the fruit of his work in us through Jesus Christ pleases him.  There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works,  just as God did from his.  Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.  (Hebrew 4:9-11)  As Christians, we rest in God’s work.  His hand through Jesus Christ has been writing the tale of the redeemed on the pages of our lives, and those pages are completely acceptable to God.  As we follow the Lord, we will do as He commands.  When Jesus sent the disciples out to preach the Good News, the Bible says, And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following.  (Mark 16:20)  They went about doing good. 

Yes, there will be signs following a believer.  But when Jesus described the way into the kingdom of heaven to Nicodemus, He did not express how many good works he needed to earn heaven.  Jesus told him he must be born again.  Of course that idea confused Nicodemus.  He was a Pharisee whose life was based on doing good deeds, following the law of God.  What Jesus expressed to him was an anathema to his lifestyle.  Why be born again?  And how does one become born again?  How could a human and his nature be changed into a new form of being?  Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council.  He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God.  For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”  Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”  “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”  Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.  Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.  You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’  The wind blows wherever it pleases.  You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.  So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”  (John 3:1-8)  In this passage we see God the Son telling Nicodemus that there is a MUST in his life, and that MUST is that he be born again.  Of course, later Jesus tells Nicodemus that He is the gate to eternal life, to the kingdom of God: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  (John 3:16)  What then is the key to Paul’s proposition in today’s focus?  Is it that those who do mostly good in their lives shall inherit eternal life or is it as Jesus said, you must be born again?  When we look at our verses, Paul writes, But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.  If all have gone their own way and do what is right in their own eyes as the scriptures state, we fall into Paul’s description of self-seeking.  Of course, this is hard for us who believe we are rather good people.  We do not swear, we do not strike back, we are patient, caring, loving people for the most part.  How can we be judged so harshly?  We must remember that God is without sin.  He will not accept sin into his domain.  All sin must receive recompense or judgement.  No sin will enter his presence; all sin must be dealt with; no cancer of sin will be in his kingdom.  Later on in Romans, Paul tells us how to eradicate sin permanently, and that is through the cross that dealt with sin, so we might enter into fellowship with God without contaminating his presence.  Believers place our faith in Christ, and the just live by faith.

Dear friends, as you leave this breakfast table, understand that IN CHRIST you are completely free from the eternal consequences of sin.  Christ paid the price for your sins.  As we read in the Bible: So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.  (John 8:36)  However, your love for Christ should compel you to live a life free from overt sins.  Your daily life should be dedicated to Christ.  You are, as Paul and the disciples were, a bond-slave to Christ.  You no longer live for your own purposes, but for Christ’s purposes.  Your claim of being a Christian should be demonstrated by a wholesome, upright life.  Paul warned Christians to guard their freedom in Christ, not to go backwards but to move forward as soldiers of the cross: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.  (Galatians 5:1)  Christians should want Christ to be honored in every part of their lives.  We do not want to take away from God’s work in us, and we do not want to confuse or to distract others by behaving in ways that do not honor Christ.  We are eternal beings, heaven bound.  The writer of Hebrews says,  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 faith.  (Hebrews 12:1-2)  When we were raising our children, the older three often played school when they were young.  Christine, the oldest, was the teacher, and Jeff and Doug her pupils.  One day Jeff came in bemoaning the fact that he never got to be the teacher.  He had a strong argument to support his bid for change: “Don’t you think if Christine was a real Christian, she would let me teach sometimes?”  Now his logic may have brought a smile to my face, but it also made me think that our testimony does need to line up with our behaviors.  And Christine was easily persuaded to give Jeff a turn at teaching without casting blame on her witness for Christ.  Jesus is the light of the world.  We bring ourselves to Jesus, casting all our cares on him, trusting him to use us for his glory.  Today is the day of rest, in the year of the Lord’s favor.  Today is the day to completely bury yourself under the blood of Jesus.  Today is the day to celebrate your new life in him while doing good to all people.  As the children of light, let us bring that light to the whole world for God.  Your Savior lives, and you live in him for God’s purposes in glory, honor and peace.  Amen!  

Romans 2:1-4 Respect God's Kindness!

Romans 2:1-4  You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.  Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth.  So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment?  Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

In this passage, Paul refers to his previous statement about humans being given over to a depraved mind, and he enumerated several of these sinful attitudes: envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, and the like.  He also stated that those immersed in sin, gossip, slander, and hate God; they are insolent, boastful, and arrogant. They even invent ways to do evil, as we see on the internet in our present day.  All of these attitudes within humans come under the heading: they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God.  (Romans 1:28)  Most of us look at this list of destructive activity, of sin, and say that it does not describe us.  I am not a killer, a hater, a person who does not acknowledge God.   But Paul says we are not to pass judgment, for we are from the same mold as people who do these things or have done them.  We are susceptible to all sinful activity.  The Pharisees thought they were very holy and believed their righteousness exceeded that of the ordinary person.  The people believed this too and highly esteemed the Pharisees who received places of honor at celebrations or community events.  However, Jesus saw them differently: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!  You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.  In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”  (Matthew 23:27-28)  He saw the insides of the Pharisees: their thought life, self-talk, secret wishes.  People knew them from the outside, but God knew their hearts.  Paul’s list of sins describes our insides, the times we wish to do evil to other people, or to join in to activity contrary to God’s will.  Jesus says, if you lust after another person in your thoughts, you might as well have participated in this activity in reality, for God knows your mind and its imaginations.  We will all be judged on our secret thoughts, our wayward self-talk, our wicked wishes outside of Christ.  Rather than depend on God, we often saturate ourselves with anxiety and disbelief, thinking that God cannot handle our circumstances, disbelieving that all things work together for good to those who believe.  So Paul says, when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment?  Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?  God does not judge us immediately with destruction when we flee from trusting him, instead, He grants us forbearance and patience, gives us time to return to his truth.  We must always remember God is timeless.  Nothing in our lives will escape his righteous eyes.  He sees our past and our present as the same.  Only the blood of Jesus can change that.

We are always under God’s grace, but we are also under the scrutiny of God’s candlelight.  If we were to sell chicken eggs at the local market, we would put our eggs through a candling device. The outward shell of eggs causes all eggs to look similar, but by testing the egg we can see the inside.  If there are imperfections, the egg is discarded; the perfect ones are kept to sell.  Just as Ananias and Sapphira could not escape the penetrating gaze of the Holy Spirit, neither can we escape God’s knowledge about us.  Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property.  With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.  Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?  Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold?  And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal?  What made you think of doing such a thing?  You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”  When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died.  And great fear seized all who heard what had happened.  (Acts 5:1-5)  God sees all of our imperfections.  Without the covering of the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ, we stand naked before the God of Eternity with everything exposed to him.  In the Old Testament, God often speaks about his judgment on the Jewish people, sometimes depicting them as a woman whose nakedness is exposed to the heathen world.  Under God’s judgment, all will know the discrepancy between our testimonies and the realities of our existence.  All will understand our hearts: the motivations behind our actions, our willingness to exploit others, the secret longings of our sinful nature.  As the Bible says: The Lord does not look at the things people look at.  People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.  (1 Samuel 16:7)  God will not accept imperfection in his domain for imperfections are a cancer to the Kingdom of Heaven.  Faith in Jesus Christ and his works makes us new creatures.  God’s candlelight verifies us as newborn, alive in the Spirit, in the image of God’s Son.  We who trust in Christ have renewed our hearts and minds, not by good works or self-improvement, but by fixing our eyes on the one who loves us and gave his life for us: CHRIST JESUS.  Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  (Hebrews 12:1-2 NASB)  Jesus separates the fleshly man from the spiritual man by circumcising the heart with a sharp two-edged sword.  We no longer live by the energy of the flesh, but by the power of the Holy Spirit.  The old man ceases to exist in God’s eyes, but the new man becomes God’s treasure, transformed by the cross. 

SAVED BY FAITH, we are alive in Christ—a simple proposition, yet greatly profound.  Faith alone accesses the Kingdom of God through the gate Jesus Christ.  There is no other way to eternal life.  The greatest illustration of faith in our opinion is the account of the thief on the cross.  One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah?  Save yourself and us!”  But the other criminal rebuked him.  “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence?  We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve.  But this man has done nothing wrong.”  Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”  (Matthew 23:39-41)  What faith it must have taken for him to look to this man as the Son of God.  They were all in dire circumstances, dying on crosses as finite men.  Hearing Jesus’ groans of agony, the travails of the fleshly Jesus, he still believed in the divine Jesus.  Not considering his rational mind, the thief placed his faith in the power of God through Jesus Christ by saying to the other criminal: Don’t you fear God?  How many of us would have considered Jesus as the Son of God in that situation?  We probably would have been like most of the disciples, absent from the scene, fearing for our lives.  But this thief, expressed unimaginable faith by saying, remember me when you come into your kingdom.  Jesus accepted him.  The thief did not win paradise because of his good works expressed through his life.  No, he would win paradise and identification as a new creature in Christ because of simple faith in the man dying beside him.  The lowly thief had saving faith, a belief in something beyond his rational mind and his present condition.  By asking Jesus to remember him, he verified his faith in the Father God who created everything out of nothing.  He believed the Creator existed and that He lived in Jesus, reflected HIS GLORY through Jesus.  Mankind has struggled from the beginning of time:  Do we believe in God as the creator or do we believe in something our minds can understand that set creation in motion.  This faith issue is glue that causes every page of the Bible to stick together.  From ancient times to the present, man has searched for an answer to creation other than God.  His innate nature is to substitute his reasoning in place of believing in God and his authority.  That is why the Bible explicitly states man’s self-centered nature.  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him (Jesus) the iniquity of us all.  (Isaiah 53:6)  Likewise many New Testament scriptures confirm man’s delinquency: There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.  (Romans 3:11)  Given the state of sinful man and our wayward hearts, none of us should stand in judgment of another, but we should keep our hearts and minds steadfastly on the Lord.  Bless each of you as you follow Christ.