Do the Right Thing

What motivates new covenant believers to do the right thing?  That is, without the fear of the Law, what causes us to walk the straight and narrow?  What motivates us to fly right?  Can the same grace that secured our initial salvation also inform our actions?  Is grace just a theological concept or does it also empower us to righteous living?

Grace and godly living go hand-in-hand.  “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus; who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a people of His own possession, zealous for good deeds” (Titus 2:11-14).

Somehow, God’s grace not only paid the penalty for our sin, but “in the present age” is “redeeming us from every lawless deed”.  That is, His grace is currently setting us free from sin’s power and instead of leaving us to practice lawlessness is actually making us “zealous for good deeds”.  God’s grace is instructing us in godly living.

Part of God’s grace in reaching out to us is the fact that God has given us all kinds of motivation to do the right thing in His Word.  God has not left us with instructions to obey “because I told you to”.  Instead, God, in His gracious interaction with His children, has given us many, many words of encouragement and admonition as to why we should obey Him.  It is a picture of God’s grace that we are not left in the dark regarding what obedience looks like or why we should do it.

When our children were very young, I used to think when we faced various discipline challenges that this would be much easier when they can speak in clear sentences, string thoughts together, and we can reason and discuss what is happening here.  Was I in for a surprise.  The discipline actually became harder when they learned how to debate and argue and ask why and logically explain why their upcoming discipline was not warranted.  I still remember one of them wanting to discuss the benefits of grounding instead of what was about to happen and I couldn’t figure out when they had even heard the term at such a young age.

But God is not put off by our “why?”.  He welcomes our inquiry.  By His grace, as a tender Father encouraging His children, He has given us explanation and positive motivation to obey Him.  Over the next several weeks, we will look at some of the high motives for action given in the Bible.  These are not only for our own encouragement, but are excellent Scriptures to teach your children as motivation for doing the right thing.

An Update from Fanning the Flames

Greetings from Jay and Rhonda,

Just a quick update about some new features at jaylehman.com  We have been working for the last few weeks on a “topical archive” for the website.  This archive is now up and running and joins the monthly archive in the right-hand column of the home page.  It is an archive of our posts by subject matter and we trust it will be a useful launching point for finding posts about Faith, Family, The Kingdom of God, etc.  The subject “Walking in the New Nature” is the most extensive as it tries to capture all we have written on what the provisions of the new covenant look like in practice.

We have also added a search query at the top of the right-hand column that allows the user to search for any word or string of words in our 218 posts.  For example, if you type in “new covenant” it will return about half our posts.

I also want to say thank you for your participation in this endeavor.  I started this weblog with about 30 posts in my head, but your questions and God’s continual prompting have kept it going long past its original idea.  And our continuing goal is always to fan the flames of your supernatural life in Christ.  With that in mind, our next series is about what motivates new covenant believers to do the right thing.  I invite you to join us.

Gratefully yours,

Jay and Rhonda

Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People? A Wrap-up

(9 of 9 in a series on “Why do bad things happen to good people?”)

Over the past several weeks, we have explored three broad reasons that bad things happen to good people.  First, the law of consequence says that even good people make mistakes and bad outcomes often follow bad choices.

Second, God has each of us on a training program that often includes some pain.  What I have tried to emphasize from Hebrews chapter 12 is the view that God’s discipline is never random, capricious, or mean.  If God disciplines us as a good father would (an analogy used in Hebrews 12), then I think we can expect his discipline to be understandable and a clear path to “our good and His holiness”.  If we carry Christ as our New Testament picture of God, we can rest assured that God’s training program will not be unknowable but rather can be understood through the character and work of Jesus Christ.

Third, we have a dark enemy.  I don’t think we recognize and teach enough the evil power in the universe who seeks to do us harm.  God is not the author of evil.  Don’t blame God for the evil in this world.  The author of evil is Satan himself, and he is an active and powerful enemy.  But Satan is a defeated enemy and we have the weapons of prayer and faith to overcome him and his schemes.

Now any time we answer an age-old question with three short points, there is always a danger of minimizing the complexity of this question.  Our goal has not been to just give pat answers and there may always be some mystery surrounding the bad things that happen to us.  But there are biblical answers and we have endeavored to explore these biblical answers over the past eight posts as thoroughly as this medium allows.  And while these answers may not take away all of the mystery, I believe God gives them to us to strengthen our faith.  And faith is one of our primary weapons against the evil forces that threaten us.

Remember, according to II Corinthians 4, it is Satan’s desire to hide the fact that under the new covenant, “the knowledge of the glory of God is shining in the face of Christ” (II Cor 4:6).  It is God’s desire to demonstrate his glory in the face of Christ.  So when the tide of evil is rising, either personally or in the world around us, keep looking to Jesus, “Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend.”

The Power of the Resurrection

Happy Resurrection Day to you and yours!

As much as we celebrate the power of the cross, we mustn’t neglect the power of the resurrection.  Many have died on a cross – though only one as the Son of God – but the spectacular coming-back-to-life is the experience of Jesus alone.  God the Father confirmed the power and sufficiency of Christ’s death to forgive sin and His identity as God’s Son, the sinless One, by raising Jesus from the dead (Rom 1:1-4).  The resurrection sealed the deal and confirmed our salvation won at the cross.  “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy had caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (I Pet 1:3).

In Philippians chapter 3, the apostle Paul writes, “Not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Phil 3:9-11).

In one verse, Paul takes the power of the cross; “the fellowship of His sufferings” and “being conformed to His death” and puts it together with the power of the resurrection in his desire to know Christ in His fullness.  Paul follows a similar pattern in Romans chapter 6, “As Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.  For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection” (Rom 6:4-5).

To walk in newness of life.  Somehow we have landed on my favorite word in the New Testament; the word new.  Nothing goes together better than the words “new” and “resurrection”.  We were raised with Christ to experience all the “new” that He has promised His children.  So on this Resurrection Sunday, take a minute to thank the resurrecting Father for both the privilege and responsibility, and might I add the godly desire, to walk in the power of the resurrection.

The Power of the Cross

Blessed Good Friday to you and yours!

In Luke 9:23, Jesus warns His would-be disciples, “And [Jesus] was saying to them all, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.’ ”  The concept, taken from this verse, of “bearing one’s cross” is a prevalent theme in the literature of Christian discipleship.  We often take the term to mean putting up with some physical infirmity, dealing with a challenging relationship, or some other difficult situation.  But to Jesus’ first century audience, the meaning of “bearing one’s cross” cut much deeper and was explicitly vivid.  Being 2000 years removed from the cross as an instrument of execution has so softened the intensity of this phrase for us that we almost miss its potency.

It was not uncommon in Jesus’ day for a convicted criminal to literally “bear his own cross,” carrying the crossbeam of his cross through the streets to the place of execution.  Jesus Himself suffered this fate.  When Jesus spoke these words, this literal “cross-carrying” was what his hearers visualized.  The equation of “cross equals death, not difficulty” was common in their experience.

I believe we can take at least three applications from Jesus’ command to take up our cross.  The most direct is this:  as a disciple of Jesus we must be prepared for physical death that may result.  This was not only the outcome for some of His listeners that day (nearly all of the apostles), but continues to be the experience of Christ followers in many places.  That Jesus had this in mind is clear from the verse that follows.  “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it” (Lk 9:24).

Application two is hinted at in the preceding phrase of verse 23, “He must deny himself.”  Similar to the cross representing physical death is the idea that the cross represents death to self, death to selfish ambition, death to your own hopes, dreams, and plans, even death to relationships that hinder one’s discipleship loyalty (Lk 14:26).  The word “daily” following the command also fits this application as it suggests this death is a continuous and ongoing aspect of discipleship.  Taking up our cross in this sense helps us defeat our last enemy:  ourselves and our selfish ambition.  Our desires and agenda are now subservient to the call of Christ.

Application three moves beyond this specific verse to look at the over-arching message of the New Testament.  When we take up the cross, we are not only embracing its death-to-self message, we are also embracing its power.  We generally ascribe the “power of the cross” to the one time event of our justification.  We rightfully acknowledge that Christ’s death on the cross was powerful and sufficient to deliver us from the penalty of sin.  But could the power of the cross also be our ongoing experience?  The answer is a resounding “Yes!”  And for the past few years, the emphasis of this weblog has been the practical ramifications of how Christ’s work on the cross crucified our sin nature, ushered in everything new about who we are, and empowers us to “put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (Eph 4:24).

On this Good Friday remembrance, may I encourage you to take a minute to thank our Savior not only for His one time gift of redemption but also for your new identity in Christ, your new nature, your new heart, and the ongoing presence of His Holy Spirit.  In these gifts we experience the power of the cross every day.