My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense -- 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
“No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.” -Karl Otto von Schonhausen Bismarck How very true the above maxim is and I submit the answers so obvious to each of us are continually questioned by Jesus Christ’s words to the Apostle Peter; “The flesh is weak; the Spirit is willing.” In the book of Mark, Christ states, “Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak. “ Mark 14:38
Interesting to note the order of His statement of truth, One truth, The Truth, and if there Is Another truth we’re contemplating than instantly ushered in is confusion. Two truths cannot exist and this is the unresolved conflict we are in constant debate. In a world of patterns and people pleasing, we are apt to please our need for acceptance and give power to people of influence and even those who hold no social prominence.
Pluralism isn’t to blame but the knavery excuse we choose to pattern our habits and hang ups on to the extent everyone else has their own foibles, faults, and multiplicity of options which justify our very own unjust and absurd patterns and problems. To accept Christ’s love for others is often easier than to swallow than the possibility that He could, in fact, love us for who and what we are even in the present. This is where ego and pride and self-consciousness, self-centeredness and our ravenously disturbing desire to compete wrongly to soothe our “Rightness Addiction” and press off from the withdrawals of possible wrongness – particularly if we know we’re wrong. The “plank” in our eye is not seen from the inside looking inward unless the Holy Spirit is in us to pluck it out. If what lies within us is nothing spiritual of the sort, it cannot be sorted. Blaming others for their fleshly faults we subtly or not so subtly assert that they change are our fleshly carnality in its most unseemly, repulsive and revolting demonstrations.
"If the Son shall set you free, you will be free indeed.” -John 8:36 The flesh is always tempted to be right, dead right. The Spirit is willing and it is always demonstrated from that which really is in a Christ Follower who has allowed what only the Holy Spirit must “work out” as it is our salvation, not our neighbor’s we win over. We must admit we need to lose everything and be willing to see it go for a testimony to be of use to another soul. Removing all “Ifs” that precede the promise of Christ setting one free is forever beckoning that the believer actually believe Christ, not merely in Christ as a folk hero or other sage with interesting things to say. What we are jealous of is Jesus Christ Himself. We don’t like to be told what to do by anyone and even if it’s for our own good temporally. To run from Christ and find other worldly wisdom to lean on so as to justify or minimize the dealing with of self is the other side of the fence we’ll straddle until God trumps our “free will” which is the very thing that He does by wooing us not with condemnation, but through love in spite of our desire to avoid the One Truth that can take the lid of the lightening bug jar.
We must see the opening and find peace by our final decision being decidedly final – Christ is God-Man and I can only stay awake for an hour to be with a someone whom I love above all else. Peter and the disciples did not do so for Christ because, perhaps, they took His repeated demonstrations of unconditional love and mercy for granted; He was familiar but He was far from being done with a lesson or two to get to only one thing – Himself! We are offended because we are defensive. There cannot be an attack by any man or woman on our personhood that ought cause us to become offended and, in due short time, defensive, with Christ or if Christ is our salvation, our only attorney, so to speak, whom pleads our case before His Father. We can only see the change in others when we’ve been freed to see the change in ourselves never done by will power or gritty determination. His Spirit is the reason we know we will be uncomfortable down here in the world and in our homes that are but feigned mansions regardless of size until we accept Heaven’s Mansions and He, Christ, who spoke of them. We must allow Him in and see that our goodness is of no concern to what His love sacrificed.
We cannot and will never do unto others so much so that we find ourselves viewing this life as unfair and our contributions bigger than that of our One God’s Son and His death for us. His death requires that we put to death self to see the horrid nature in us as revealed by God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit. There can be no real reason to judge another if filled with the fruits of the Spirit [which are grown in patience]; but to be filled up, all must move out that wants to reside in His temple and His creation. He loves us that much. Indeed, to live is for Christ; to die is gain.
"They have conquered Satan by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death" (Revelation 12:11)
No fear of death when the only source of eternal life is fully embraced. Judging goes with such abandonment. (Brian G. Jett)
Lord, help me apply this.
