The Various Forms of "Me"

So, today, I have to go to a doctor's appointment, which gives me a tiny sense of dread.  It's just a small kernel, lingering back there in my subconscious.  I'd rather go get a doughnut or a facial, ok?  But, there it is....doctor's appointment. 

Most of us people spend an inordinate amount of time caring for (attending to) our bodies.  (Even if we overindulge them, that is a form of "attention" or "care".)  It is sort of built into us by our Creator God to want to stay alive in this crazy world for as long as possible...for some reason.  Sociologists call that "the survival instinct", I guess.

Our text today is Philippians 3:20-21 (NET) - -

20  But our citizenship is in heaven – and we also await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21  who will transform these humble bodies of ours into the likeness of his glorious body by means of that power by which he is able to subject all things to himself.

These days when I look into the mirror I see the likeness of somewhat of a stranger.  When you get to be about 21 or so, you feel like you actually look like "yourself", fully "grown".  And then, from that point on, you start to look stranger and stranger, even while feeling like the same "girl" or "boy" you used to be, in some respects.  Believe me, young readers, it's weird.  So, we devote an inordinate amount of time grooming this perishable body, this body which will one day lie on a morgue's or mortician's table, cold and dead.

Another large portion of our day is devoted to training our minds (souls)....with "mindless" (pardon the pun) entertainment, or school work, or job training, or conversation with others, etc.  Training the mind toward godliness is a more noble pursuit, because mind (soul) and spirit are so intertwined.  "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus...." (Philippians 2:5)

And, consequently, because there are only 24 hours in the day, we neglect the deepest, most true part of ourselves, the part which will live forever...somewhere: the spirit.  These days, I am in the phase of caring for my body and soul so that I can continue to nurture my spirit, by submitting it more and more to Jesus Christ.  Despite the challenges of my body aging, this is a very good phase of life in which to be.  In the time I have remaining, I want to use my resources (body and soul) to grow closer to Him and to advance His kingdom here on earth.  As Paul proclaimed in Acts 20:24 - - -

But I do not consider my life worth anything to myself, so that I may finish my task and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news of God's grace.

The thing about these two verses (Philippians 3:20-21) I love the most is not the part about our bodies being raised from the dead and transformed some day.  When I die, my soul and spirit will go immediately to be with my Lord and Savior (Ecclesiastes 12:7; 2 Corinthians 5:8; Philippians 1:23). My body is "immaterial" (Lord, I am just full of puns this morning...); in other words, it will remain "sleeping", decaying in the grave or wherever my descendants put it.  I will slough off this flesh and will never return to it in its earthly form.  My soul and spirit will one day (maybe hundreds of years from now or maybe next week) be reunited with a likeness of my earthly body; but, more importantly, on that great day, my new body will be in the likeness of Jesus' "glorified" body.  He will then unite my soul and spirit with my "glorified, heavenly" body.  No one knows when Jesus will return to earth to do this; only Father God knows that day and hour.  But, on that day, my reunited (NEW! body)-soul-spirit will be my possession for all eternity here in the "new heaven and new earth", described in Revelation 21-22.1

Here's the best part of Philippians 3:21.  Paul declares Jesus' "Godness": that Jesus is definitely God, one of the co-equal parts of the Holy Trinity.  Paul declares Him Savior, yes, but also calls Him "Kyrion" (Greek for "Lord").  Jesus used this same word to refer to God the Father, in the gospel accounts.  It will be God Jesus Himself who raises the bodies of His Bride from the dead on "that glorious day" (see song link below).  As He raises them - - - from cremation urn, from ocean floor, from moldering casket, from the dust of the earth - - - He will transform them with the same power He used to create the world, the same power Father God used to raise His Son from the dead and transform His earthly body into its glorifed, heavenly form.

Paul makes allusion to Jesus as Creator in Colossians 1:15-20, which we will study in a couple of weeks.  John referred to Jesus as "the Logos", the Word, in the beginning of his gospel.  It is indisputable that Jesus Christ is God, and that through Him all things were created, all things "consist", that is, "are held together".  He's "got the whole world in His hands", literally.  (Gives you a new twist on that little children's song, doesn't it?  Now you know it points to Colossians 1 and John 1 and Philippians 3!  :)  )

https://youtu.be/VXp6xcY5IqU

Good morning, Lord Jesus!  Thank you for another day in which to "live and move and have my being" - - - in You.  (Acts 17:28) What incomprehensible power!  That will be a glorious day, but not nearly so glorious as that day in which my spirit unites with You fully, for the first time, in Heaven.  I can only begin to imagine... May I worship You today, in Spirit and in truth.  In Jesus' name, amen.

Source:

1
http://www.gotquestions.org/what-happens-death.html 

My God Who Chases

I remember playing tag as a child.  On summer nights, at community or church gatherings, we children would burst out of the adult conclave and run with the fireflies.  How wonderful it felt to be chased, joyful screams of laughter bursting out of us when caught!

If you ever went to church as a child, you most likely heard the story of "Jonah and the Whale". You may have even worked on a coloring page about it, as this is a mainstay of children's Sunday School. On the face of things, it seems like just one more fantastical tale.  However, I believe it was chosen for inclusion in the Old Testament (Jonah 1:1 - 3:5) for the purpose of teaching us rich lessons.
Here are facts:

1.  Nineveh was a huge, rich, wicked city, the capital of the barbaric Assyrian Empire.  (Think Las Vegas, for example.)
2.  God instructed Jonah to go preach to Nineveh's inhabitants a message of repentance:  "Repent or be destroyed".
3.  Jonah refused to obey God.  Didn't like the message; wanted none of it...
4.  Jonah ran from God in an effort to escape this assignment.
5.  God chased Jonah, using a mighty storm and a huge fish for his purposes.
6.  Jonah (many believe) died in the belly of the whale.  Regardless, he was there for 3 days and 3 nights.
7.  The fish, heartily sick to its stomach, spewed Jonah out onto the seashore, alive.
8.  God re-issued the assignment to Jonah.
9.  Jonah obeyed.
10.  Nineveh repented.

That is not the end of Jonah's story, but we'll stop with the above facts for today's post.
Now, so what?  What does this have to do with Advent, after all?

Jonah was a real man, but he represents so much more!  I find myself resembling him way too much for my own liking.  Have you ever said, "No!" to God?  I have, on many occasions.  Essentially, any time we choose to act out, we are saying, "no" to God.  There are reasons we do this.  I don't need to list them here, because you know them.  Just like me, you've thought them or done them.

Imagine you are able to go back in time to Bethlehem and have the privilege of approaching the stable to kneel at the manger.  Can you picture it?  Can you see yourself?  What are you wearing? Are your clothes spotless?  Is your body clean?  Do you smell good?  At Advent, this is something we do: in our hearts, we approach the Manger, to worship the King.  And, this is good and right.  Many times, though, as we come to worship, we have manure on our shoes, and our pits stink.  There are food droppings on our chest from where we've been careless in our eating.  Our hair is tangled or our beards are nasty. There is crud under our nails.

The latter is a picture of our sin, our personal running from God.  It dirties us up so that, when we approach His presence, we are soiled, stained, ruined, in need of salvation, in desperate need of grace.

Ann Voskamp points out that repentance "is the only way to be ushered into grace."

Repentance means literally "to turn around and go in the opposite direction".  In Jonah's case, it meant to cease from running from God, then turning around and going toward Nineveh.  In our situations, it means to come to a full stop, turn around and move toward the God who chases, seeking His will in our lives.  When we move toward Him, our hands cannot bring our beloved sins with us. No, in our turning, we must lay them down and leave them behind.  Only cleansed, covered by His grace can we truly bow at His feet in worship.

Jonah not only represents us.  He also pre-figures, foreshadows Christ.  We read Jesus' own words in Matthew 12:40 - - 

"For just as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish (Greek: κήτους ) three days and three nights,

so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights."

It is because of these words of the Lord that many Bible scholars believe that Jonah drowned before being swallowed up by the great fish, and that after being dead for 3 days, God resurrected him.  I will not debate this point; I merely offer it for your consideration.

Whether at Advent or not, we often find ourselves drowning in life's stormy waters.  We cry out, "I can't handle this!"  So true.  We can't.  But God can.  No storm of life can submerge me beyond where His goodness, mercy and grace can resurrect me!

I am so glad that God chased after Jonah.  I am so glad He passionately chases after you and me.  He does so ... not only that we may carry out His perfect plans, but to rescue us, to wash and restore us, to resurrect and bring us out onto dry land.

It's right there in Psalm 23:6 (The Message) - -

Your beauty and love chase after me, every day of my life.

False gods expect us to perform, to measure up.  Our God comes down to us, in the form of a Baby, and He chases and chases and chases us.  The Hebrew word for "chase" in verse 6 is "radaph", which means "to pursue", "to hunt down".  My God, the Lover of My Soul, never gives up on me.  He chases me to repentance, pursues me with His love and grace.

Stop pursuing your image of "a better life".  Recognize that the Author of Abundant Life is pursuing you.  Stop running.  Allow yourself to be caught today.

If you have time, you will be so blessed by watching this adaptation of Francis Thompson's classic poem, "The Hound of Heaven".

Here is a link to the poem:
http://www.bartleby.com/236/239.html

And here is the wonderful video adaptation:
https://vimeo.com/89705938


Additional Sources:

Voskamp, Ann. The Greatest Gift: Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas. 

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2012/08/when-you-are-finding-it-hard-to-keep-up-chased-by-grace/

Roots, Shoots, Fruits

Good morning,

1 Corinthians 15:35-58 was written by Paul to further solidify his assertion in the previous verses that the resurrection from the dead is a certainty.  The Corinthians had many questions about this. Remember that most of them believed that Christ would return to earth during their lifetimes.  So, when many of them began to die from natural causes or to be martyred, as they all continued to age, they began to doubt other doctrinal truths.  This doubt led to their contamination by various errors.
1 Corinthians was written to correct these.

They had many questions about how it would unfold, if the resurrection from the dead was a future certainty.  The following verses were given to answer these questions.

35 But someone will say, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” 36 Fool! What you sow will not come to life unless it dies. 37 And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare seed—perhaps of wheat or something else. 38 But God gives it a body just as he planned, and to each of the seeds a body of its own. 39 All flesh is not the same: People have one flesh, animals have another, birds and fish another.40 And there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. The glory of the heavenly body is one sort and the earthly another. 41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon and another glory of the stars, for star differs from star in glory.

42 It is the same with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So also it is written, “The first man, Adam,became a living person”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 However, the spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man is from the earth, made of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 Like the one made of dust, so too are those made of dust, and like the one from heaven, so too those who are heavenly.49 And just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, let us also bear the image of the man of heaven.

50 Now this is what I am saying, brothers and sisters: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I will tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a moment, in the blinking of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 Now when this perishable puts on the imperishable, and this mortal puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will happen,

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”“

Where, O death, is your victory?  Where O death is your sting?

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! 58 So then, dear brothers and sisters, be firm. Do not be moved! Always be outstanding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

Wiersbe1 points out that "resurrection is not reconstruction", the latter being what the Corinthians anticipated.  Because the supernatural transformation from seemingly nothing into a heavenly body is difficult to understand, Paul used the analogy of a seed to illustrate.  When one plants a seed, no one expects the seed itself to rise up in its planted form from the ground.  Yet, undeniably, the roots, shoots and fruits come from the seed itself.  Similarly, our earthly bodies are like "the first Adam's" - - - the Adam of Adam and Eve, our ancestors.  But, our heavenly bodies will be like ("the second Adam) Jesus Christ's resurrected body.

What will that body be like, you ask?  We are given some hints in Scripture, telling us some of the attributes of Jesus' resurrected body.  Paul plainly states in Philippians 3:20-21 that our resurrected bodies will be like His.  We know, then, that our new bodies will be incorruptible and eternal.  (However, some believe that some of what we read about Jesus' actions after the resurrection were characteristics given only to Him.  Frankly, I find no support for such in Scripture, preferring to adopt Paul's position.) If you want to explore the given characteristics of our "forever bodies", here are some references.  I'll also include a web link in the Sources: section, where you can read about several more.

*teleportation                                     His sudden appearance on the road to Emmaus   Luke 24:13-14
                                     "I must ascend to my Father"  (spoken to Magdalene at the tomb)  John 20:17

*walk through solid matter       His walking through a locked door to appear to the 12  Jn. 20:19-26
*ability to disguise oneself                Mark 16:12, Luke 24:13

Paul concludes this chapter by telling the Corinthians to be encouraged by these truths.  Holding on to such a certainty gives us, as it gave the Corinthians, the power for victorious living, for a resplendent walk, as we work for the furtherance of our Lord's kingdom.

Father, thank you for these sneak previews of the glorious future You have planned for Your children.  Since our only earthly experience has been with a troublesome, inconvenient human body, we cannot fathom how wonderful our heavenly bodies will be.  Thank you for redeeming our souls, so that we, at the moment of our deaths, will fly into the loving arms of our Savior, to be with Him forever.  And thank you for resurrecting our bodies on that day which only You know, to unite our spirits with our forever bodies.  We may be here on that amazing day; or, we may already be with our Lord and Savior, worshipping our Triune God in Your presence.  That is not for us to know.  But, You know, O majestic Lord!  Our times and seasons are in Your hands.  With love and praise, in Jesus' name, amen.

Sources:

1  Wiersbe, Warren W. The Wiersbe Bible Commentary. 2nd ed. Colorado Springs: David C Cook, 2007. 495. Print.
2  http://devotionalnet.faithsite.com/uploads/147/95680.pdf

Of First Importance

Good morning,

In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul moves on to another heretical teaching which had invaded the Corinthian church.  This was the truth of Jesus' resurrection.  In coming to that topic, though, he makes a statement which has been often taken out of context and misinterpreted.  Let's examine verses 1-11.

 Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel that I preached to you, that you received and on which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I passed on to you as of first importance what I also received—that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, 4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as though to one born at the wrong time, he appeared to me also. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me has not been in vain. In fact, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, this is the way we preach and this is the way you believed.

NET

In the past couple of months, I have heard two preachers refer to 1 Cor. 15:3-4 as "the gospel defined".  That is ... if anyone asks you, "What is the gospel?", here is the answer:
Jesus Christ died for our sins, according to how the Old Testament prophets predicted He would.
Jesus Christ was buried.
Jesus Christ, on the 3rd day, was resurrected.  Again, this was prophesied in the Old Testament.

{Implicit in these statements by Paul was Jesus's divinity, His 2nd Personhood of the Holy Trinity. That was not a point of dispute among the Corinthians, and Paul had drilled that doctrine elsewhere. He does not stop to perseverate on that point here in this context.}

So, that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ which Paul had preached, not only when he was with the Corinthians, but to all to whom he preached.  That is the gospel which the Corinthians had received.  It is the only gospel which saves.  Corinthians were being saved, coming to know Jesus Christ; but, this would continue to occur only through the preaching of the true gospel.

Verse 2 is one that trips some believers up, because they point to it as a proof that our personal salvation is dependent upon our working hard to keep it.  That is not what Paul is saying in verse 2.  Remember that this is the same man who, under divine inspiration, penned Ephesians 2:8-9!

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

ESV

What is his meaning here in verse 2, then?  He is emphasizing that we must hold fast to the truth of the gospel as he laid it out in verses 3 and 4 because, if believers perverted the gospel, their belief would be polluted, misdirected, false, "in vain" as Paul phrases it.  They would be believing "another gospel other than the one I preached to you" (Galatians 1:8-9; 2 Cor. 11:4).

The social and historical contexts are very important to note.  Christianity was born in the midst of Roman and Greek culture.  The Greeks did not believe in the resurrection of the dead.  In fact, when Paul was preaching on Christ's resurrection at Mars Hill in Athens (see Acts 17:32), the listeners laughed at him!  This societal belief had crept in to deceive the Corinthian believers, to make them question the concept of an afterlife and a resurrection.  It is to this point that Paul writes chapter 15.

Paul emphasizes that the true gospel must be "right".  If it is not right, then nothing else matters; nothing else will be "right".   The gospel is "of first importance".  This begs the question:  why does Satan try so hard to pervert the true gospel of Jesus Christ?  Because this true gospel is the only one with the power to save.  It is the only one given by God for the redemption of mankind.  There is one way to God, and there only one (John 14:6).

In verses 5-8, Paul lists some eyewitness accounts of Jesus' resurrection:  His appearance to Peter, His appearance to the 12 disciples, His appearance to over 500 people at one time (!), His appearance to James, His appearance to the apostles, His appearance to Paul (on the road to Damascus and possibly also during Paul's 3 years of solitary, private study in Arabia - - see Galatians 1:11 through 2:21).

Then, Paul sort of "digresses" a bit to talk about his own personal testimony.  I love these verses.  In fact, they deserve a blog post all their own.  We'll meditate on them tomorrow.

Father, we see from this letter that the enemy has, from the beginning of the Church, sought to pervert Your gospel message.  The same tactics are being used today.  Help us to be wise to recognize such perversion and deception when we encounter it.  Make us watchful to reject its infiltration into our own spirits.  In Jesus' name, amen.