Making the Cut

I love springtime. I live in Florida now having moved down from northern Illinois and I can say that springtime here is quite different from what I was used to up north. In the cold climates springtime represents a release from the cold and darkness of winter. And in the Chicago area, winter usually produced at least a few days of below-zero weather. I remember those times late at night in the middle of a blizzard, hoping that the wind and ice didn’t cause a power outage. When that happened you could really be in trouble. No lights, no furnace, water in your pipes freezing AND EXPANDING! It was not good. Down in south Florida, on the other hand, cold winter weather might produce a night where the temperature dropped to 35 degrees; which seems really cold when you’re used to the lowest temperatures in the middle fifties during the day, and even that wasn’t normal. It’s shirtsleeve weather most winter days down here. What is nice about winter here is that the uncomfortable heat of summer is diminished for a time; no 100-degree days. This means that when springtime comes around you have to come to terms with the approaching “heat” of summer. You know it’s going to get hot again and you’re not necessarily looking forward to it.

That ties into what I was saying in the last post regarding “The Fear of God.” Where we stand with the Lord, and how we understand Him, affects the way we anticipate His actions. Some may not fear Him at all because they don’t think He exists at all. The existence of Lord—Father and Son—is regarded as a hoax, an old-wives tale; a tradition that can’t be supported by any “significant” evidence. They don’t know Him and don’t believe that He exists to be known. Instead they look at human life as a naturally occurring phenomenon. On the other hand, people might come to the conclusion that understanding our existence isn’t knowable for whatever reason and they don’t want to bother trying to comprehend it! They just live life as they see fit and don’t fret about the whys and reasons for it. For those of us who actually believe in a “knowable” God what’s anticipated at the end life varies depending on how we understand the Lord and how we’re informed by our “fear” of God. And our “fear” of God varies depending on how we comprehend Him. How much, and in what way, is the temperature going to change at the end of this winter of life? Are we looking forward to it or are we dreading it? Or don’t we care enough to consider it at all?

The Christian perspective on the coming of the Lord is certainly influenced by our “fear” of God but as I suggested in my previous post, our fear of Him can—perhaps should—be tempered by our love for Him. He hasn’t called us to be obedient slaves whose lives are in His hands, subject to His whims. God is love and the love He exhibits toward us, and the love that He solicits from us is the substance of His relationship with us as sons and daughters. The Apostle Paul addressed this in His letter to the Romans.

            There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. (Romans 8:1-17)

Such a relationship does involve both fear and love. The difference between the fear that informs our relationship with God and the fear that may inform our relationship with our earthly father is that our God is substantially good; earthly fathers are sinners who are inconsistent in their love for us. And they don’t always know what is best for us; in the worst case they may not even care. We, the ones who populate the Church, come to the Lord from a variety of settings; some of us are informed by the truth, many are not. When we have a fear of God that is based on a proper understanding of the Lord, then our fear is the product of a balanced understanding of our God as both holy and loving. Our belief and faith in Christ Jesus redefines our relationship with the Lord! Our focus on pleasing the Lord is not the product of being petrified of Him, although He is awesome, our focus is on pleasing the Father because He loves us and we love Him. People who don’t “know” the Lord may still believe that He exists, and in an effort to stay on His good-side they do things that they think will please Him: like attending Church or contributing to a charity. But it’s likely that their fear of God, when they do acknowledge it, is a fear of His condemnation. Bitterness lurks in our souls when we don’t know Him very well and yet, grudgingly, believe that He exists.

Such a position lacks assurance and is precarious to maintain; we don’t know the Lord well enough to be comfortable with Him. And this may cause us to wonder if we’ll “make the cut?” That’s not what the Gospel is offering as we can see from the above excerpt from Paul’s letter. It’s a lengthy document that addresses a range of concerns; and one that gets to the crux of our faith in the Christ. In it we’re not called to follow His rules; we’re called to know Him and to order our lives in a manner that reflects our relationship with Him. We don’t need to follow His lead because we’re petrified of Him; we’re called to obey Him because He loves us and has made a way for us to enter into a relationship with Him. That relationship is defined as a relationship between a father and his children. Assurance isn’t obtained by following the rules or engaging a protocol; it’s obtained through the Holy Spirit. His Spirit “bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” We inherit salvation through our Savior and assure our relationship via His Holy Spirit. We may not talk about this much unless our Church is essentially Pentecostal and focuses on the evidential gifts of tongues and prophecy. But what I hear Paul saying in Romans is that the Holy Spirit bears witness to our relationship with the Lord as children: sons and daughters. Something that is fundamentally more important than the supernatural displays because our understanding of ourselves as children of God provides the basis for everything else pertaining to that relationship. The Lord is our Father and He focuses on us in that regard. He wants what is best for us as any good father would, but He doesn’t shy away from dispensing discipline even if it involves inflicting pain.

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons (and daughters) For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:7-11)

What should result from this discipline is a healthy fear of God, rather than a dread of Him. Our goal shouldn’t be to avoid pain at all costs, searching for a way to appease Him so that we can continue to pursue our own interests. Our goal should be to know the Lord and to follow His lead because we know He loves us and has provided “everything pertaining to life and godliness.” (2 Peter 1:2-3) By doing that we can be assured that we’ll “make the cut.”

Thank you Lord! Your “lovingkindness (really) is better than life.”