live Christ – Page 4

Unwelcome

Those who love to be first bring harm to the church

Read: 3 John

I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will not welcome us. So when I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, spreading malicious nonsense about us. Not satisfied with that, he even refuses to welcome other believers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church. (3 John 1:9-10)

Reflect:

As ever, I shouldn’t be surprised at the aptness of God’s word to current events, whether on the world stage or in my own life. Substitute “Diotrephes” with “Chinese President Xi Jinping” and this passage still makes sense.

Mr Xi, like all national leaders, I suspect, loves to be first. He is not welcoming to John – that is, through John’s writings in the Bible, which the President wants to re-write. The coming of John, through his gospel, epistles and Revelation, shows the Chinese government to be full of nonsense. So Mr Xi refuses to let the Bible be sold unless it (and all Christianity in China) is adapted for socialist society:

Mr Xi had said religions could operate only if they were “Chinese in orientation” and that Beijing “must provide active guidance to religions so that they can adapt themselves to socialist society” — which experts saw as an part of an ongoing crackdown by the ruling party. (abc.net.au)

The truth is, until Jesus returns there will be people in every country who reject God’s word and refuse God’s messengers.

But what if I substitute my own name in the place of Diotrephes’s name: Do I love to be first? Do I ever reject the messengers who bring God’s truth? Do I refuse to welcome believers who come as visitors to my local church? Do I discourage others to exercise hospitality to these visitors, being overly suspicious? Do I spread gossip about other believers, whether visitors or not? Is my response to my own husband’s sermons (he is my pastor after all) sometimes unwelcoming of the message God gives him for me? Do I think I am better off if I try to do Christianity on my own, apart from a local church body?

May it not be so!

Crux:

Those who love to be first bring harm to the church.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

Make me humble, please! Help me to think of others, to be compassionate. Make me kind-hearted, generous, hospitable, welcoming. Help me to put others before myself, to be willing to serve.

I confess I all-too-frequently love to be first. I want to be first in line, first down the highway, first to lead, first to speak, first to act. I need to slow down and let others go first; let Jesus go first. I need to be willing to come in second, last, to DNF or even DNS at some things. Please forgive me.

LORD, I need to trust you more. I need to remember that it is you who establish my steps, you who make straight my paths. LORD, I need to trust you to get me where I need to be, to place me among those you want me to be with. Help me, please.

Amen.

Life

Eternal life is found in God’s Son, not in science

Read: 1 John 5:1-12

And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. (1 John 5:11-12)

Reflect:

I once heard pop-culture science journalist Karl Kruszelnicki speak to a cohort of Australian school students. It was the year 2000, the new millennium, a year of hopes, dreams and new starts, the year the Olympics came to Australia and I met and married my husband. Then a high school science and maths teacher, I was keen to hear what Kruszelnicki had to say, but I remember only one thing from his talk.

Kruszelnicki told the students that, given the speed of scientific discovery and development, he thought their generation would either be the last generation to die or the first generation to live forever.

Such a bold claim. It seemed far fetched to me then, and more so now, but it has stuck with me for 18 years. We may have discovered quarks and found evidence for bosons, identified telomeres and perfected gene splicing techniques, but still, doctors can’t bring someone back from the dead when they are even three days in the grave, like Jesus did.

I am certain that I know a far better, more reliably guaranteed route to eternal life than any scientific, medical and technological advancement. I know this method works because it has been proven, and the historical evidence for its successful occurrence is overwhelming. God has given me eternal life, and this gift of eternal life is found in his Son, Jesus Christ – the first to be raised from the dead by the Father.

If I relied on Kruszelnicki’s science to keep me alive I’d either be devastated when I die despite all science can do, or I’d be disappointed by an elongated life stretched thin at the edges, lacking the abundance and fullness of life in Jesus Christ. I put my faith in Jesus Christ and God’s gift, not in the alluring false promises of Kruszelnicki or any other scientific prophet.

Crux:

Eternal life is found in God’s Son, not in science.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

You have the words of eternal life.
You are Source and Sustainer, Sacrifice and Saviour.
You are the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End,
the everlasting One who was and is and is to come, the I AM.

I bow my head in reverential awe before you.

Science, medicine and mathematics are great, but they can’t measure you, they can’t describe you, they can’t explain you, they can’t reveal you. Only your Son, your Spirit, your Scripture can do that.

In Scripture, I see your generosity to me in sharing your life with me in your Son.

In the testimony of your Spirit, I know the truth that Jesus is the Son of God.

In your Son, I have eternal life, abundant life, that does not rely upon medicine or technology, but upon the Creator of the Universe, who does not fail.

Thank you.

Amen.

Son

God sent his only Son because only his Son could be our Saviour

Read: 1 John 4:7-21

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. (1 John 4:9)

This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. (1 John 4:13-15)

Reflect:

This Easter Sunday I rejoice once again that God sent his one and only Son, Jesus Christ, into the world. God did this as a demonstration of his love whereby he ensured that I may live through Christ. Hallelujah! What a Saviour!

I celebrate once again that I have the assurance of the Spirit within me, by which I testify, together with John, that Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is divine, an inseparable member of the Trinity, God himself, Immanuel.

Jesus was not some sleight-of-hand magician, not some Vegas-Style-hypnotist, not a circus show freak. Nor was Jesus merely a man like any other. Jesus was and is and ever will be the one and only Son of God.

God sent his only Son to us because only God could open the way to eternal life. Only God would demonstrate true love on a cross. For this end, God would love us by living with us and for us, by rising again to life.

Crux:

God sent his only Son because only his Son could be our Saviour.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

You are the Holy Creator, utterly different to your sin-stained creation. Yet you sent your Son, your very own Son, your one and only Son – essence of your essence – into the world to be our Saviour, so we may live just as he was raised to life.

This is such good news, such glorious news! Thank you.

Thank you for a Saviour who is perfect in every way, who demonstrated divinity to us, dwelling among people yet not just a person.

Thank you for a Saviour who is kind, gentle, compassionate, just, wrathful, deeply grieved by sin and its effects.

Thank you for a Saviour who knows me, sees me, hears me, cares for me and reaches out for me, walks with me.

Thank you for my Saviour, Jesus Christ, your one and only Son.

Amen.

Start

I start loving because Jesus laid down his life for me

Read: 1 John 3:10-18

For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. (1 John 3:11)

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. (1 John 3:16)

Reflect:

Jesus said to “love your neighbour” was the second most important command of God, superseded only by the command to love God. At the Last Supper, which Christians remember and celebrate tomorrow (on Maundy Thursday), Jesus told his disciples he was giving them a new command: “Love one another.” John repeats Jesus’ commands here.

But what does it mean to love? According to Jesus’ perfect example, to love means to “lay down our lives” for our brothers and sisters, our fellow believers. We must share with other Christians in need. We must love actively, truthfully. I must share generously. I must love actively, truthfully, compassionately, sacrificially.

I was telling someone today about my husband’s flight over Antarctica, which he did a year ago with a dear neighbour and friend, without me. The other person said their spouse would never let them do such a thing because they’d be too jealous. Something was even mentioned about scratching eyes out, I think. But love is not envious, nor self-seeking. I was happy to release Jeff to his exciting flight because I love him and I want him to experience joy.

In the same way, my husband loves me and is generous rather than jealous with me. In the last few weeks, Jeff has said I can fly overseas in June for two and a half weeks for the Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference. Jeff has committed to parenting our four children without me for the weeks I’ll be gone, and he’s freed up the money from our income so I could buy flights to get there. He’s suggested I visit a friend and bring her to the conference with me, and committed funds for her to join me so I won’t be alone. He’s even encouraged me to do some exciting touristy things while I’m there and helped me find the best way of doing them in keeping with my personal limitations. This is abundantly generous love. This is sacrificial love, and it springs from what Christ has done for both of us, not just from our mutual married love.

Love is generous. Love gives unreservedly. Love is happy to see the beloved rejoicing. Love shares whatever it has. May I love like this.

Crux:

I start loving because Jesus laid down his life for me.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

You are love and you have shown me true love in the generous, humble actions of your Son.

Thank you for your love, for the love of your Son, and for the love of my husband in imitation of the Son.

Please make me like Jesus. Let me learn from him how to love rightly. Make me willing to lay down my life for the good of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

Help me to be willing to give my time, my money, my attention, my skills, even my future for those who need them. Please help me to give up my aspirations that are selfish, my habits that get in the way of relationships, my hobbies that take up what you want me to give away. Make me generous with all you have given me.

May I be especially willing to give away knowledge of the gospel!

Amen.

Stop

I stop sinning because Jesus took away my sin

Read: 1 John 2:29-3:10

But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him. (1 John 3:5-6)

No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. (1 John 3:9)

Reflect:

John is blunt. Blunt, plain and clear. True Christians stop sinning.

We do not continue to sin. We do not keep on in our old sinful ways. Sin stops when a person is “born of God”. Sin stops when a person is called a child of God.

I am filled with questions.

If Christians stop sinning, why might we need a mediator and advocate in Christ (2:1)?

If I don’t think I’ve stopped sinning completely, does this mean I’m not really God’s child (3:9)?

If so, why did John assure me that “this is what we are!” (3:1)?

What does it mean to stop sinning, if “sin is lawlessness” (3:4)?

Is stopping sinning my action, my work, or is it a grace-gift of the Trinity at work in me and active for me – the Father’s love that calls me his child (3:1), Jesus removing my sin (3:5), the Spirit’s seed remaining in me (3:9)?

And how does this all fit together with Paul’s instruction to the Colossians (Colossians 3:5-10) which tells me to “put to death” that which belongs to my “earthly nature” and “put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of the Creator”?

Oi!

Crux:

I stop sinning because Jesus took away my sin.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

I confess that I am confused. I’m confused about who I am and what I do. But what I do see clearly in these verses is You: who you are and what you do.

You are the Father. You lavish your love upon me. You call me your child. I praise you!

You are Jesus Christ. You have taken away my sins. In you there is no sin. You appeared and the devil’s work (sin) was destroyed and obliterated. I worship you.

You are the Spirit. You anointed me. You seeded me with yourself so I may grow and bear spiritual fruit. You remain in me. I honour you.

LORD God Almighty, you are Father, Son and Spirit; you are Trinity.

Help me, please. Make your word, which you spoke to me through John’s epistle today, come true in me and come alive in my life. Stop my sin, LORD, I pray.

Amen.

Remain

I remain in Christ because I remember the Christian gospel

Read: 1 John 2:24-28

As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is what he promised us: eternal life. (1 John 2:24-25)

Reflect:

John gives a direct command here to his readers. He tells me I must ensure that what I “have heard from the beginning” stays in me. I am responsible.

What is this message that reached my ears? It is the gospel, the good news.

In words of one syllable, it is this: Christ died to save me from my sins so that I may be right with God.

The Big Words version: The gospel of salvation told me that the forgiveness of my sins (justification) and imparting of Christ’s righteousness (imputation) was made possible by God’s free gift (grace) to me, through my faith in the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ in my place (substitution), which turned away God’s wrath (propitiation).

So how do I ensure that this message “remains in me”?

I study and learn more about this gospel message (so I understand all those Big Words that End in SHUN). I read the Bible closely and see Christ’s death on my behalf portrayed throughout its pages. I partake in Holy Communion. I celebrate Easter, gathering with my local church body. I talk about the gospel with my husband, my children, my fellow believers, my co-workers, my friends. Through prayer, I talk about the gospel with my God.

I take responsibility for loving God with all my mind and soul as well as with all my heart and strength.

Blessedly, all this learning, remembering, celebrating, meditating and talking has a flow-on effect, according to John: it ensures that I stay in Christ and in the Father. Christ promised me eternal life, and I have it now as I remain in him.

Crux:

I remain in Christ because I remember the Christian gospel.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

May your name be praised in all the world.

You saw my horrible sin and were justly angry at me. Yet you expended your wrath not on me but on the body of your Son, Jesus Christ, as he hung crucified, bearing my sin and shame in his body.

You are just – terribly, fearfully just.
You are merciful – wonderfully, generously merciful.

You are Sovereign, Saviour and Spirit, Three in One, the Holy One.

I acknowledge you. May I always remain in you, and in so-doing enjoy eternal life.

Thank you for this eternal life which you have birthed in me through the hearing of the gospel and faith in your Son. Keep me in your Son always, eternally alive because I am eternally in him who grants me life.

May I continue to live in Christ, so I may be confident and unashamed – confident in Christ’s sacrifice and unashamed with Christ’s righteousness – before Jesus when he comes.

Amen.

Live

I live Christ in my everyday ordinary by loving other Christians

Read: 1 John 2:3-11

But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. (1 John 2:5-6)

Reflect:

To live in Christ is to live as Jesus did. This is a huge undertaking: to obey Jesus’ word and to love God completely (2:5); and to love fellow believers (2:10). So what does it look like, in my everyday ordinary, to ‘live Christ,’ as I put it in my blog tagline?

It means to obey Jesus’ word: In 1 John 1:5 I read “the message” John and the other apostles “heard form him” and have “declare[d] to you”; this message is that “God is light.” To obey Jesus’ words (in this context) thus means to “live in the light” (2:10) because “the true light is already shining” (2:8).

To live in the light is to “love [my] brother and sister” (2:10): not specifically my biological brothers and sister-in-law, but to love my fellow Christians, my local church brethren.

I live Christ in my everyday ordinary Christian life by loving other Christians; loving them “as Jesus did” (2:6). I must love others joyfully and willingly, continuously and sacrificially, according to their need and not necessarily according to their wishes.

Crux:

I live Christ in my everyday ordinary by loving other Christians.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

You are light and truth. In the person and work of your Son Jesus Christ, the true light is shining forth, a brilliant blaze of glory.

May you be forever praised, forever loved, forever obeyed. May I praise you always, love you always, obey you always.

Please help me to live in Christ by living as Jesus Christ lived. Please help me to love my fellow Christians in acts of everyday ordinary sacrifice.

Thank you for helping me, in response to yesterday’s prayer, to be up and receiving and reflecting upon and responding to your word in the quiet peace of the early morning today. May I remember throughout this day your command to love my neighbour as I love myself.

Please help me to proactively love my son who is going through an unsettled time at the moment and my friend who has asked for my assistance with transport. Please keep me from being selfish with my time and talents, my money and means today LORD.

Amen.

All

I am forgiven and cleansed because Jesus atoned for all my sins

Read: 1 John 1:8-2:2

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:1-2)

Reflect:

1 John 1:9 is the verse that converted me to Christian faith. I saw clearly for the first time (though this was certainly not the first time it had been shown to me) that Jesus Christ had done all that was required by God for the forgiveness of my sin.

I saw that I did not have to be perfectly righteous on my own; Jesus Christ was able to do all that was necessary to cleanse and purify me.

This verse showed me the glory of the gospel and – thanks be to God – I grasped this glorious gospel firmly and clung thereafter to Christ.

Now, as I go on in my everyday ordinary Christian life, I struggle with the Spirit’s help to keep from sin. But I do so in the knowledge that Jesus Christ is my heavenly lawyer; pleading my case, interceding and advocating on my behalf though his own perfect righteousness. He has atoned for all my sins.

Crux:

I am forgiven and cleansed because Jesus atoned for all my sins.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

Jesus Christ, you are the Righteous One:
perfect keeper of God’s law;
perfect fulfilment of God’s promises;
perfect sacrifice for my sins;
perfect advocate for my forgiveness.
Jesus Christ, you are faithful and just.

I confess I am a sinner. I am lazy and again today I did not get up early to converse with you, but stayed in bed and did not think upon your word until the opposite end of the day.

I am sorry. Thank you for forgiving me.

Please purify me from my unrighteousness, whereby I do not seek fellowship with you but would prefer “a little sleep, a little slumber” even though this means I spend my day in spiritual poverty. Please cleanse me of my lazy selfishness that is so short-sighted.

Please make me eager again to meet with you and meditate on your word.

Amen.

Fellowship

I have fellowship with Christ and his Church through John’s words

Read: 1 John 1:1-7

We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:3)

If we walk in the light, as he [God] is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (1 John 1:7)

Reflect:

John, together with the other apostles, was an eyewitness to Jesus Christ. John names him “Word of Life… the life… the eternal life.” John and the other apostles proclaimed what they had seen and heard, testifying about Jesus just as Jesus had predicted they would with the Spirit’s help (John 15:27).

It is through hearing/reading and believing John’s proclamation that I and other Christians have fellowship with John. We have become fellows, sharing something in common; or rather, sharing someone in common. Through John’s witness I have fellowship with God the Father and with God the Son, a truly amazing thought.

This fellowship extends to the whole church as we “walk in the light.” 1 John 1:5 tells me, “God is light” so this gracious fellowship extends to the church as we live godly lives. Yet it is not my godly life that makes me pure and sin-free; this is what the blood of Jesus, shed for me, has achieved: to cleanse me from my sin.

Crux:

I have fellowship with Christ and his Church through John’s faithful proclamation of what he saw and heard.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

It continues to amaze me that you should choose to make a way for there to be fellowship between us, for plain ordinary me to have a relationship with you, the God of the Universe. Especially on days like today, when it has been almost a week since I last spent time privately meditating on your word in a deliberate effort to deepen our relationship. You never went away from me, waiting patiently for me to open the covers of my Bible and listen again to your word. Forgive me for only meeting with you in public, with your people, and not in private, just the two of us.

Thank you for choosing me and calling me, for making a way for us to have fellowship through the incarnation of your Son and through the apostles’ faithful proclamation of the truth about what they saw and heard: Jesus Christ.

Thank you for revealing yourself: God, you are light and in you there is no darkness! Thank you for relaying this through the apostles.

LORD, You are light: truth, beauty, purity, perfection, excellence, illumination, instruction. You are wondrous in all of your ways.

May I walk in your light all my days. Thank you for the blood of Jesus, which purifies me and sanctifies me from all my sin.

Amen.

Surrender

All I am and have must be surrendered to Christ

Read: Song of Songs 8

[She] Solomon had a vineyard in Baal Hamon;
he let out his vineyard to tenants.
Each was to bring for its fruit
a thousand shekels of silver.
But my own vineyard is mine to give;
the thousand shekels are for you, Solomon,
and two hundred are for those who tend its fruit. (Songs 8:11-12)

Reflect:

Throughout Songs, the bride and groom have talked of her body figuratively as a vineyard. So as I thought about these two verses, I thought I should read them as a comparison between the taxes citizens pay and the voluntary giving over of herself to her husband which a wife does – even if that wife be a royal princess married to a king.

As well as royal brides, however, the vineyard stands in Scripture for all Israel, in the prophetic literature (Isaiah 5:7) for example.

Furthermore, Jesus expounded upon this idea in a parable of a rented vineyard (Matthew 21:33-46; Mark 12:1-12 and Luke 20:9-19). Jesus applied it not to carnal generosity but from the position of one who saw the rightful rents being refused to the landowner’s messengers, even to the point of the landowner’s son being murdered.

Jesus turned this metaphor of a rented vineyard into a parable that prophesied his own death.

The Jews didn’t want to submit to the King, so they killed him. And, through a miracle of God, the death of King Jesus made it possible for his chosen Bride (the church) to respond willingly to him.

Christians may own their own ‘vineyards’ as Christ’s gift to us, but we should – nay, must – surrender all to Christ: “In view of God’s mercy, offer yourselves as a living sacrifice,” Paul wrote in Romans 12:1.

Crux:

All I am and have must be surrendered to Christ.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

Worthy, worthy, worthy,
is the LORD God Almighty,
to receive praise and honour and glory –
may the whole earth be full of your glory!

LORD, you created everything and it was all subject to you, yet you handed authority over to Adam and Eve to care for the Garden of Eden, despite knowing they would sin.

You created the vineyard that was your people Israel and they were subject to your law, yet you allowed them to ask for Moses to be their mediator and to appoint Saul as their king, despite knowing Moses would stumble and Saul would fall.

You have granted me authority over the limited sphere of my own body, despite knowing I too would stumble and fall into sin. Wretch that I am!

Yet you have done this so I might be redeemed by your Son and granted his righteousness. You have called me to surrender all that I am and have to you. You call me to live as a sacrifice to you – wholly given over to your will and into your service.

I owe all that I am and have to you. Please allow me grace to serve you in all that I do, with all that I have: my skills and passion, my intellect and education, my heart and soul, my hands and feet, my ears and mouth. May all of me be submitted to you, my King.

Amen.