Perspective

There are so many things that I could write here from so many perspectives. I have lived in 63135 zip for almost all of my life. I am a white guy. I am middle class. I am a husband and father. But, my foremost identity is a follower of Christ. As such, this is what is pressing on me in regard to this mess.

4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 

Rejoice always. That is hard. As the decision gets closer and the situation is getting more bleak by the day, it is really hard. We need grace to get to the place where we rejoice in situations like these. I am praying for that grace.

Be reasonable. This is hard too. It is hard to listen. It is hard to be heard. It is hard to articulate what I think and feel about all of these issues. I wish I were more reasonable and I wish everyone were more reasonable.

Do not be anxious. Even harder. I have been calm through this process. But when I read the headline that a decision had been reached (maybe it has and maybe this is another case of misinformation), there is a pain in my throat and shoulders and fear is in the front of brain for my city, my kids, the world we will know in a few hours, my home in Ferguson, my church, my heart.

Pray. You do not have to be an expert, just talk to God about whatever is in your heart. When you pray, try to have an element of thankfulness; this is from verse 6 above. I am not even sure what that looks like here. I wish that I did and I wish I could articulate it really well for you. But I can't.

Think about...things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, worthy of praise. I am not sure why we are told to do this aside from speculating that God is all of those things and put himself into our situations. It does us good to see that there are these sorts of things around us even in awful times.

Remember these two things:

THE LORD IS AT HAND.

YOUR HEART IS GUARDED WITH THE PEACE OF GOD. 

Please pray for these things...
1. Peace
2. The gospel to go out
3. Eternal perspective

#praythepsalms #steadfastlove

Last year I read the Psalms, one each day. I tried to focus in on one phrase to be a prayer for me for that day. I called it "Praying the Psalms". Lately, I have started this practice again. This time, I focused in on the phrase "Steadfast Love".

I have always been attracted to this phrase. It shows us 140 times in the Psalms. It captures my mind for two reasons. First, steadfast means it will not change. It is firm and unchanging. It remains. The object of the love has no bearing the love.

Secondly, it does not need to change. Steadfast love means that the giver of love does not need to change in order to completely satisfy its object. I do not have the ability to love someone steadfastly, because my love is sometime conditional and sometimes not fulfilling or satisfying to the object of my love. In short, I fail. With my church, my friends, my kids and my wife. I try to love them well, but I do fail.

To have steadfast love, is to not fail. This is the love that the Psalms talk about 140 times.

I will be continuing to Pray the Psalm using #praythepsalms and #steadfastlove. Feel free to jump in on those hashtags.

Thanks for reading.

A Journey to the Cross

This Friday April 18 is Good Friday. North Church will join with Trinity Church to once again celebrate Good Friday. This year will be considerably different.

We are calling the night "A Journey to the Cross." The idea is that we separate into a few groups and we will engage the timeline of the events that happened that night. From the Last Supper to the death of our Savior and all that happened between those events.

We will do this along different stops. You and the group you are in will move from different rooms inside Trinity Church and hear the story of the Garden of Gethsemane, the various trials Jesus endured, the beating of Jesus and Jesus' suffocation and the cross.

We hope to see you there as we engage Jesus and his journey to the cross. Trinity Church is located at 3515 Shackelford Road in  Florissant. We will begin at 6:30. Child care will be provided from children 7 and under.

Spiritual Gifts Applied

North Church is about the conclude a series of teachings on the Holy Spirit (tonight we end with teaching and discussion on Spiritual Warfare). Last week, we centered around spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts are hard to understand. The teaching in scripture is very vague. There are lots of different lists that appear in scripture. Some gifts overlap from list to list; but most appear in only one of the lists. Some are gifts for church leaders, some are gifts for all Christians. It is really confusing even for pastors to sort them out. Then, there are all the different English translations of the Bible that use different words for the same gift and that adds to the confusion.

Among all of the confusion are a few facts. First, if you have asked Jesus to save you from your sin and received his grace, then you have Spiritual Gifts. Do not think otherwise. You have them.

The second confusing thing is, what do we do with them when we have them? Well, simply put we just be. A person with the gift of faith does not have to run around looking for a place where you need to apply that gift. You simply plug into a body, seek to give yourself away and be you. Its not complicated.

Here is an example that I witnessed today. Among my wife's gifts are hospitality and service. A friend of ours posted on Facebook today about her. Find the post here. There are so many great things about this post. One is that Jen is using her gifts. She is using them by just being her and wanting to give herself away. She does not wake up and decide to serve or be warm and giving to other people. She just is Jen and the body of Christ is infused with God because of it. The world is infused with God because of it. Val Stine (The the author of the FB post) is infused with God because of it. God gives us Spiritual Gifts so that world can be infused with his goodness.

Another great part of this is a bit harder to see. I know Val Stine fairly well, but mostly on a surface level. I have not gotten a chance to to know her on a deep level. But, I am guessing she has the gift of encouragement. She infused that into me and my bride today.

You see, Jen has struggled lately with working. She feels difficulty in working because she thinks that she is less of a mom or a wife because of the demands on her time and such. But this FB post Val made was the voice of God infusing courage into my bride. My wife has more courage about working at an elementary school because of Val using her gift. The kids and teachers at the school can see the warmth, love and goodness of God because Jen serves there.

So what is the takeaway? Just go be. Just go give your life away. You are infusing God into the world and into people.

Psalm 31:24

Psalm 31:24

“Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord.”

I often communicate the different principles and precepts of the Christian faith through the analogy of fighting a war.  I find it most accurately reflects the practical function of each individual’s role in acting out the Christian life, the nature of our relationship with authority, and especially, the intensity of the struggle, both in the effort required and the danger involved in what is at stake.  It is interesting how many people I discover—Christians themselves—who disagree with or disapprove of considering the nature of the Christian walk in this light though it directly echoes the voices of the apostles who encourage us to ‘put on the whole armor of God’, to ‘prepare our minds for action’, to ‘resist the devil, who seeks whom he may devour’, and ‘to struggle against sin to the shedding of our blood’ (Eph 6:11; 1 Pet 1:13; 5:8; James 4:7; Heb 12:4).  Perhaps we do not like this analogy because it confronts us with the very real dangers of evil when all we wish to think about are the more palatable forms of love and goodness.  We relate war with violence and the gospel with peace. War has to do with death and the gospel new life.  War makes us despair, and the gospel brings hope.  But, for whatever reason we reject this analogy to instruct our faith, it all boils down to one simple reason: the idea of war calls to mind great fear.  The kind of violence we see occur in the depravity of human conflict humiliates us with its capacity to make cowards of us all.  It exploits our frailty and weakness causing us to recoil in defense of our lives, and so we would rather not think the calling of our Lord has anything to do with such a repulsive phenomenon.  But there would be no need for hope if we were not threatened with despair; no need for peace if we were not in the midst of great conflict; no need for life if we were not dying; no better life possible if we did not risk our present lives in search of the next.  In truth, this life has more to do with war than it ever did with our ideas of peace.  God says we have an enemy who wars against us.  Even worse, this enemy is compared to a powerful dragon, a roaring lion, and a slithering snake.  He commands cosmic powers and spiritual forces of evil.  He does not fight with the sword or the spear.  His weapons are subtler: lies, accusations, and temptations.  He is always searching for weakness, grasping for a foothold to find a way to destroy us, and if we are deceived we will be destroyed.  It is true there is much to fear in this world, and it is for this very reason God tells us, ‘fear not’.

            When we hear the phrase ‘fear not’, we might have the tendency to mistake it to mean we have ‘nothing to fear’. This is true in a sense, but not in the sense that what we should fear has disappeared and no longer threatens us.  It is a phrase we use when our fears have the greatest power to overcome us and give us over to despair.  It is what Moses cried when Israel stood between the Red Sea and the advancing Egyptian army.  It is what Joshua cried when the five kings of Canaan joined forces against them.  It is what Elijah said to the poor widow, who, at his command, fed him with the last of her food while the land was in perpetual drought.  We find it is not in the absence of what we fear that requires us to lay aside all conditions of it, but in the very presence of our fear that it is most important to act as though we had none.   The command to ‘fear not’ acknowledges the presence of danger by commanding us to face our fears when we most want to run from them, to stand when we would otherwise shrink.   It is why Paul exhorts us to take up the whole armor of God, not just to stand, but to stand and fight, so we may withstand the evil day.  The way to heaven is not with the current but against it, and so we must be strong and let our hearts take courage else we will shrink in the evil day and be overcome by it.  The Lord Jesus says to the seven churches in Revelation, it is to those who overcome who will not be hurt by the second death.  He will cloth in them in white garments and allow them to rule with Him, but to those who are lukewarm—who abstain from the present conflict—He will vomit from His mouth (Rev 2:7, 11; 3:5, 16).   It is to the end of strengthening our courage to overcome that the Lord Jesus bids us remember, when the evil day comes upon us, He has overcome the world.  Just because Jesus has overcome the world, however, does not make any of us unsusceptible to being overcome by evil.  If Jesus has overcome, He says it is only so that we, too, may overcome (Rev 3:21).

            To say God is our refuge, to say Jesus is our strong fortress, is a way of verbalizing the idea that our strength and protection lay with the Lord Jesus Christ much in the same way as the strength and protection of Israel lay for a time in the hand of King David.  It is a way of saying their fate is aligned with his fate, because their cause was aligned with his cause. To align one’s self with David’s cause—to take refuge in his camps—was not to allow David to fight for them (which he only did by leading them), but to fight for him in the battle he was leading them into.  Before David became king, God led him over and again into the midst of his fears, so that he learned to trust God for his deliverance.  As king—the strength and wisdom of the nation—he was able to inspire those who fought for him to do likewise as they fought with him, and the God who delivered David delivered those who followed David.  How much more, when we respond to the call of the Greater David—Jesus—can we expect to be delivered when we follow Him into battle?  Wisdom from God is not God fighting our battles for us.  Wisdom from God is faith that God is our deliverance when we fight for Him.  This is why Jesus is called wisdom from God.   Like Israel who followed David into battle because David was assured of the deliverance of God, we follow Jesus into battle because Jesus is deliverance from God.  To wait on the Lord means exactly this.  It is not a command to do nothing.  It is a military command given to an army from its leader not to move until he moves. Therefore, if Jesus is advancing into battle and compels us to follow, we either follow or defect.

Like it or not, this world is a conflict between the forces of good and evil, and if a man is not willing to fight then the spoils of heaven are not available to him.  If a man does not exist amidst some expression of this conflict, it is because he has chosen the side of evil, and his flesh—which is evil—comforts him for doing so.  A man cannot abstain from the inevitable conflict of this world, and to think so is to be deceived by the enemy or defeated by the flesh.  This is why we are exhorted, commanded by our King, to take heart—to have courage—because it takes courage to deny the flesh.  It takes courage to surrender our cravings for the indulgences of this world and its riches—the thorns that choke the seed.  It takes courage to rejoice when we are grieved by various trials and to believe the testing of our faith—the war we fight—will produce praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ who is our deliverance from so great a struggle.  It takes courage to resist the devil, not just to flee him, but to fight him.    For the sword in our hands—the word of God—is not for our intellectual amusement or rhetorical speculation, but for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and it takes courage to wield it in this manner—to rest in the defenses of the weapons God has given us for our warfare (2 Cor 10:3-5).  It takes strength to walk against the current of the world.  It takes diligence and discipline to discern between its wisdom and the wisdom of God, and it takes courage to deny its values when the world would compel us—force us—to accept them.  So let weak say I am strong, for we are strong in the Lord and the power of His might if we stand with the Lord who promises us we will not be ashamed. Be strong and let your heart take courage!

When Thomas doubted the resurrection of our Lord, Jesus showed him his hands and feet and said, “You have seen and therefore believe.  Blessed are those who have not seen and still believe.”  It takes courage to believe the word of the one whom we have not seen, that when we lay down our lives at his command, He will return to us what we have given Him.  His commands are not burdensome.  They are the relief of our burdens.  He seeks our surrender of only that which would otherwise destroy us.  But it takes courage to believe that everything we seek lay in the abandonment of all we desire—the mortification of the flesh—the slaying of the essence of self—death and violence—war.  But if the spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who lives in you.  Amen.

Job 33:3, 4

In the previous post from Hosea 6, I attempted to show precedent for the necessity of an active pursuit of righteousness, which by definition includes the progressive abandonment of sinful behavior, to legitimize the forms of our devotion to be sincere.  This, of course, does not imply a life free from failure or a character free from flaw.  Only that there is to be present in us a continual and all-consuming battle against the flesh, not only to do what is good, but to hate what is evil (Amos 5:15; Rom 12:9)—to avoid it, run from it, and to banish it from our minds and our bodies by whatever means possible (Rom 13:14).

            This being to some degree established, it is now necessary to explore the inverse expression of the argument.  Previously, I stated, ‘the desire for intimacy with God is indivisible from the desire—the continual pursuit—of righteousness’.  If we have found the expression of righteousness is necessary to legitimize the sincerity of our devotion, we must now discuss how the presence of devotion is necessary to legitimize the sincerity of our pursuit of righteousness.  Before, I stated, the ‘deeds of righteousness’ are preferential to the ‘forms of our devotion’.  This is true and not true.  It is not true to think that the deeds of righteousness are more important or can be done at the expense of our devotions.  Certainly not!  Only that the deeds of righteousness are preferential to devotion just as the apple is preferable to eat than the roots of an apple tree.  The rose is sweeter to smell than the soil from which it grows.  Righteousness is the consummation of our devotion.  Devotion, however, is so necessary to be present in us, and yet not contrived, that the whole building of Christianity crumbles—and our hope and assurance with it—if it is found to be absent.  What I write is not to judge, but so one may test one’s self to see if one is truly of the faith founded by Jesus Christ and our Father in heaven, who are One.

“My words declare the uprightness of my heart, and what my lips know they speak sincerely.  The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”

Job 33:3,4

            Early mankind being closer contemporaries of Adam than of Darwin considered the existence of God to be the unquestionable condition of the universe.  Modern man, through the deceitfulness of sin and the pride of knowledge has inverted the most basic logic of the universe—order established through chaos; something produced from nothing—so he might fool himself into thinking God does not exist.  However, in doing so, he unwittingly undermines man’s ability to perceive the very aspect of life that makes it worthwhile: goodness.  There is no more confused an individual than the one who believes goodness is possible but God is not.  For moral value is found in the intention of a volitional (free) being and not in the action such a being chooses to express an intention.   Therefore, if the world was ‘unintended’—an accident—there can be no good or evil, and life in general becomes worthless and every expression of life within the universe as expendable as it appears to be exceptional.  If a God we cannot see has become imperceptible to modern man, if we are to make an argument that He desires our devotion, we must begin with what we can see.

The evidence of a universe operated by immovable law is self-evident.  We find a physical law maintaining the boundaries of the universe, and a moral law in our conscience maintaining the boundaries of decency and virtue. In ordering the universe to be a certain way, each of these laws imply a lawgiver who, whether He exercises it or not, retains authority over us, not because we choose Him, but because our existence is dependent upon His and is a consequence of His nature.  Man can live in denial of the absolute nature of these laws, but like any ordered kingdom, to transgress the law is to call down judgment according to the law.  We see, to impose upon the moral law brings shame, and to impose upon the physical law brings death.  If, then, we see both death and shame in the world, we can surmise, not only the existence of a lawgiver, but that we have transgressed His law.  However, in searching out the moral law, we find within the virtue of justice, not only the means to punish the wicked, but also, the mercy to reform the penitent.  Therefore, if there is a lawgiver, and it is by His nature our moral law has been established, by being the absolute expression of justice, He is also the flawless arbitrator of mercy.  If it is truly the heart of a man to reform from evil, he will begin to seek what is good, and in recognizing the lawgiver through the law he has transgressed, he knows to seek good means to seek mercy from God.  Any man who seeks to love righteousness apart from submitting to God first, will find in the end it is not goodness he seeks, but some perverse version of self-indulgence.  If we find the mercy to quiet our aching souls in seeking God’s unmerited favor, it can only be in devoting ourselves to God that we remain in His favor. For by the same logic, if a just lawgiver grants mercy, it is only so we may reform to live justly.  To ask for mercy implies the desire to no longer offend, but to receive mercy does not imply we have been reformed.  If we wish to turn from evil we must learn to love righteousness, and if it is by God’s nature righteousness was established, we find we can only learn to love righteousness by learning to love God.

Moral value—righteousness—is found in the intention of an action, not the action itself.  Therefore, moral value is a product of the identity of a moral being.  In judging a man, it is impossible to know whether his actions are good or evil without knowing that man’s intentions, and it is impossible to know a man’s intention without knowing the man himself.  How much more is it impossible to comprehend the righteousness of God apart from seeking the identity of God?  Sin does not keep us from being aware of the existence of God, but only from knowing the ‘person’ of God.  By breaking His law, He has expelled us from His kingdom, and we become ignorant of righteousness by being outside the realm influenced by His goodwill.  If we are to be unbraided from evil and sin, we must re-establish a relationship with God.  Therefore, if God allows us to experience His righteousness, it is only to the end that we may know Him, and only by knowing Him, we understand what it means to be righteous.

Jesus communicates this principle as He taught in the temple at the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7).  Jesus was not a rabbi by Jewish professional standards.  Those who called Him ‘Rabbi’ did so out of reverence.  Not having been officially trained in the scriptures the Jewish leaders were amazed when He explained the Mosaic Law to the people.  When they challenged His authority, Jesus said, “My teaching is not mine, but Him who sent me.  If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.”  God had given the Israelites the law, so in seeing contemporarily relevant expressions of His virtue, they might more clearly apprehend His identity.  The Mosaic Law was a further revelation that God truly did ‘intend’ for their reformation and eventual reconciliation, and through them, the whole world.  It was a means of hope.  For those who truly loved righteousness knew it was not the knowledge of righteousness that could save them, but only if the knowledge of righteousness led them closer to the knowledge of God—the Lord of righteousness—who is mighty to save.  In obeying the law they were able to commune with God in a greater way, and in communing with God, they were able to obey the law—God’s will—in a greater way.  This is why Jesus said the only way a man can know why my teaching has authority is if it is his will to do God’s will.  A heart that truly hungers and thirsts for righteousness will come alive when met with the substance of what it hungers for, not food that perishes, but the Bread of Life.

Jesus says the very nature of righteousness is seeking the kingdom of God, because God alone is righteous (Matt 6:33; Luke 18:19).  God says to Israel who are living under the burden of sin and judgment, “…you will seek me and you will find me if you seek me with all your hearts (Jer 29:13).”  The repentance that begs forgiveness implies the desire to seek righteousness by seeking to know the God who is righteous and to make one’s self completely dependent upon the knowledge only He can reveal. If we have the knowledge that God exists, but forsake the opportunity He has given to know Him, He considers this a great affront to the mercy and grace He has given, and He will judge us apart from any works we proclaim to have done on His behalf.  Thus, Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father in heaven.  Many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’  Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you, depart from me you evil-doers!’”  We find Jesus affirming our logic, or perhaps reminding us of the true nature of the reality He has established, when He correlates the execution of God’s will—righteousness—with the knowledge of God that only comes from intimacy with God. 

            Those who truly seek God because they love righteousness know that Jesus is the perfect expression of God’s revelation by being the reconciliation that facilitates the reformation.  And, of course, this is exactly what Jesus claims when He says, “I am the Light of the World.  Those who follow me will never walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”  Notice the language Jesus uses, ‘follow me’, organically follows the logic we used (because of God’s revelation) to arrive at Jesus.  By existing, we become aware of goodness—by goodness, God—by God, sin—by sin, mercy—by mercy, the knowledge of God—by the knowledge of God, the pursuit of God, and by the pursuit of God, the Son of God, wisdom from God, who beckons us to follow Him to God.  We begin from the relatively static knowledge ‘that’ God exists to the perpetual movement forward into His presence by the grace of Jesus Christ.  If the knowledge of God does not move a man toward God to be closer with God then that man has exchanged the true God for some idol of his own imagination.  To know God is to seek Him and search for Him through the knowledge of Jesus Christ, which is not knowledge that leaves us alone or keeps us still.  Quite the opposite, Jesus brings us straight to the Father—into His very throne room.  What we ached for and hungered for is now available to us first hand and closer than ever before.  This does not slow down our search for God or our love for righteousness.  It excites it and intensifies it to an exponential degree, but only if it is God a man was looking for to begin with because it was righteousness he wanted.  If not, then the knowledge of Christ as Savior would probably not change a man’s life one bit.  So the ultimate question is this: If God is not who you are seeking, whom is it you are serving?  I finish in the same place I began in the previous post:  “I desired mercy and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

Hosea 6:6

          Being a man of a greatly flawed character, compulsively given to base lusts of the flesh in sensuality and immorality, I have wrestled with the concept of God’s all-abounding grace and my responsibility to pursue righteousness—not because I want to be good—but because it is only in goodness that we are most fluently able to commune with our Father in heaven—to know Him and to glorify Him—by reflecting His holy character back to Him with thanksgiving and praise.  In this sense, righteousness is the highest practical reality that I desire specifically because a relationship with Almighty God is the highest spiritual reality that I desire.  In my judgment, the desire for intimacy with God is indivisible from the desire, which is the continual pursuit, of righteousness.  David says in Psalm 27, “My heart says of you, ‘Seek His face!’ Your face Lord I will seek,” and yet Jesus says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.”  To divide the desire for the face of God from the desire for the righteousness of God is to invalidate either desire in us.  For, it is only by righteousness that we will be found to be in His presence, and His presence is the purpose of our righteousness.  There is no difference between the power that saves from the power that sanctifies, and it is my belief that, if we are able to lay hold of the concept, of which I will attempt to expound, we may lay hold of the power of God in a way that brings revival to our community.

“For I desired mercy and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings”

Hosea 6:6

“But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.  People will be lovers of themselves… rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.”

2 Timothy 3:1-5

            The word ‘mercy’ in Hosea 4:6 is translated from a Hebrew word that means, ‘piety’, ‘goodness’, ‘sanctity’.  These concepts, when built into our character by the power of the grace that comes only through Jesus Christ, is what the bible means when it uses the term ‘godliness’.  The Greek word translated ‘godliness’, itself, means ‘piety’.  So, when the bible speaks of ‘godliness’ it is speaking of God’s character being expressed in our own character.  And since, true godliness can only be built in us through the power of God, if godliness is found in us, it is evidence of the power of God in us.  We exercise the power of God by expressing his godly character through our character.  This is what I mean when I use the phrase, ‘the power of godliness’, which is not, itself, a phrase found in scripture, but the precedent is foundational in the teaching of scripture.

            God has designed us to function in a manner to which the power of godliness is shaped by the forms of our devotion.  For example, the ceremonial law in the Old Testament, despite its futility to keep Israel from sin, was designed to reveal, in types and shadow, the character of God, so that by using these precepts to order their lives they might be set apart from all other nations, or in a crude way, to sanctify them.  The form of devotion was meant to facilitate the power of godliness.  This has always been the formula, and it is still the formula for us in Christ, though it operates in a more profound way through devotion that is now facilitated by God’s Spirit.  Devotion is the means to bring about the practical expression of godliness.  They are both important, but one is of more preference than the other.  Meaning, the power of godliness is greater than the forms of our devotion.  This is evident, not only when Jesus cites Hosea 4:6 to explain His own actions when He defied the law of the Jewish Talmud (Dining with sinners; healing on the Sabbath), but also, in Paul’s exhortation to Christians in Rome when he says, “Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things required by the law, they are a law for themselves (Rom 2:14).”  This does not mean that the forms of devotion should be abandoned in the pursuit of godliness.  For, Jesus tells the Pharisees, “Those (lawful precepts) you ought to have done without neglecting the others (godliness)(Matt 23:23).”  What this means for us who live in the much desired grace of Jesus Christ, being free from the ceremonial law, is that the forms of our devotion are rendered empty and meaningless if they are not consummated by the deeds of godliness.  Charity is not useful to us or gloritying to God as an abstraction to be contemplated and discussed, but only if it is the principle we use to determine a life lived in the expression of self-sacrifice.  And self-sacrifice, being the practical mode by which we embrace the principle of charity, is not only service to others, but the progressive abandonment of sinful behavior.  Jesus does not heal or forgive without an exhortation to reform.  He says to the man by the Pool of Bethesda, “Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”  Likewise, He tells the adulterous woman to ‘sin no more’.  

Prayer, praise, fasting, study of the word—these are all forms of devotion.  These were meant to shape the goodness of the nature that God wants to build in us through them, and important as they may be, apart from the deeds of piety these forms were meant to facilitate (obedience can be expressed by any Christian despite maturity), the forms themselves are worthless.  The power of godliness is found in the deeds of godliness and not the forms of our devotion, because it is only the deeds that are an actual expression of faith through obedience to commands that compel us to act contrary to our natural inclinations of right and wrong.  Even prayer itself is fruitless apart from an active will to engage the desires the forms of devotion were meant to shape, because prayer is only communion with God if we are sincere in our desire to pursue God, which Jesus says is only demonstrated in our attempts to obey His commands.  We are obligated to act according to the desires we express in our prayers even if those actions continue to produce failure.  If we do not do this then our prayers are empty like sacrifice without mercy, and our praise is meaningless like burnt offerings apart from the knowledge of God.  We must not believe the lie that we cannot do what God asks of us—for God is our help.  We must stop telling ourselves that we are unable to resist temptation—for the bible says that God has given us a way out of each and every temptation we face.  The power of God is power over sin, and God says that He is always with us.  Any reasoning we give for failing to obey is a rationalization that compounds our sin by keeping us from true repentance.  The exhortation to obedience is the part of the gospel that challenges us, and, being our spiritual act of worship, it is the practical manner by which we are sanctified.  It is only in the attempt to be obedient that we apprehend the absolute necessity of the forms of devotion to help us to do so, and it is only through the effort to obey that we experience the power and the fellowship with God that we pursue in devotion.  The bible identifies the acts of piety as preferential to the forms of devotion because the acts of piety will lead to devotion through exposing our continual need for God’s help, identifying Him as the object of our purpose.  The forms of devotion will never lead to acts of piety apart from the conscious, volitional choice to step out in faith in obedience to God, which is the beginning of piety.

            The power of godliness to do what is good begins with supplication to God, is mediated by God’s word and devotion, but is only consummated by the simple choice to act in obedience even, and especially, in the face of what we are convinced we cannot do, for ‘everything is possible to those who believe’.  Faith is not only the belief that God is who He says He is—for even demons believe this and tremble—but it is the willingness to do what we would otherwise not be willing to do because, by the grace of Jesus Christ, He has made us able to do it.  We spend so much time contriving false humility by reciting the nature of our depravity that we forget that Jesus has said, “What is impossible with man is possible with God,” and so, we cease to try with all of our hearts, souls, mind, body, and strength.  When we give in to this form of deception, the power of godliness that should be ours becomes lost in the forms of our devotion (actions that require significantly less faith in their religion), and we become men who only retain the form of godliness while denying its power. This is how the precious saltiness of God, in Christ, looses its flavor and becomes trampled underfoot.

            God desires us to seek righteousness through action with the same voracity with which He desires to give it by providence.  It is only in this action that the power of God becomes differentiated from the power of man, because it is only in this that our faith in God proves more valuable than man’s faith in anything else.  The question only remains: what kind of faith do you have?