With the Merciful

With the merciful you show yourself merciful; with the blameless man you show yourself blameless; with the purified you show yourself pure; and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous. – Psalm 18:25-26

To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.  They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work. – Titus 1:15-16

Ben commented yesterday about how certain groups of Christians condemn specific things as worldly.  People can be pretty selective:  rock music is bad but country music might be all right.  Being seen at a movie theater is bad, but you can watch old movies on television.  I knew people who, at one time, would not drink soda out of a can because beer came in cans, and they wanted to “avoid even the appearance of evil”.  Drinking alcohol at all has always been renounced in the churches I normally attend, though, as far as I can tell, only drunkenness is considered sinful – primarily, as Paul points out (Ephesians 5:18), because it is a form of debauchery, compromising health and sound judgment and contributing to other immoral acts.  In contrast to alcohol, the sin of gluttony is winked at by most Baptists and Pentecostals.  It is not uncommon for an old boy with a 50-inch waist, Type II diabetes, and out-of-control blood pressure to be asking for prayer.  He just can’t understand why the Lord won’t heal him.  Amazingly, he managed to beat anorexia on his own. 

It seems to me, as somewhat confirmed by the verses quoted above, that God deals with us according to our intentions as well as our actions, our mindset and attitudes as well as our abstentions.  It almost has the ring of karma.  If we are deceitful, God’s dealings with us will seem deceptive.  If we are ourselves adherents of the filthy and false, we will come to think that everyone is a hypocrite and a pervert. 

I sometimes say that I am cynical and a natural-born skeptic.  I was born in Missouri because God thought I might have a better chance of fitting in here.  I do indeed tend to suspect that most people are talking and dealing to their own advantage and self-interest and are not necessarily concerned first and foremost with being fair to me in a financial exchange.  I don’t go to a car dealer with the expectation that the salesman is actually going to trade with me at a price below the dealer’s net cost.     

On the other hand, when people talk about the purity of their lives and how closely they adhere to their standard of righteousness, provided I don’t see evidence contrary to their assertions, I give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they are better people than I am. 

The truth is that about the best I can do in the merciful, blameless, and pure area is to be humble, quick to own up to my errors and acknowledge my faults.  I understand that any time I am tempted to blame God or find fault with Him, it is likely to be over something that is inconsistent in my own life.  I know some people talk about how they have to “forgive” God.  I don’t usually have a lot of trouble with that, though I have been known to argue with Him. 

There is a righteousness that has been given to me, but it is not my own.  There is purity and integrity in me, though not in my old nature:  [D]o you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?

Settling My Own Problems

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.  And such were some of you.  But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. --  1 Corinthians 6:9-11

This looks like it is turning out to be our theme for the week.

Being a libertarian, I like to let people mind their own business.  As John Wayne, in the character of John Bernard Books put it in The Shootist:   I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people and I expect the same from them.

What a person wants to do, so long as he or she is not harming or taking advantage of anyone else, is between that person and the Lord.  The kingdom of God is made up of all kinds of former sinners.  Being a former sinner is rather like being a former single person who is now married or a former civilian who is now in the military.  We have entered into a contract or covenant that controls in a new way what we do and how we have to think.  So, as former sinners, we have entered into the fellowship of the saints, being, by the Spirit, in covenant through Christ.  Our outlook and our behavior will be no longer the same. 

We also appreciate another Duke quote, this time through character Tom Doniphon from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance:  Out here a man settles his own problems.  We might add, “By the grace of God through faith”, but otherwise, what good is a man or woman who refuses to face up to the difficulties at hand?  Assuredly -- except possibly for the fictional John Ford cowboy, we all need others to lend a hand from time to time; no one can stand alone against evil. 

Yet, alone, we must peer into our hearts:  Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!  

There is a traitor in our midst, one who cannot be trusted, who must be locked down and guarded.  Release the old man from confinement, and he will jump your claim, poison the waterhole, bushwhack and back-shoot you.  He will swear his allegiance and tell you how much you need his help, but all your valiant efforts, good intentions and best-laid plans will come to naught so long as he is involved. 

Thus, if we see someone who claims to be a Christian yet remains in thrall to the old Adamic nature, we are right to question that one’s sincerity or understanding, or both.  Some of the items in Paul’s list may cut a little close to some of us.  We know our weaknesses, where we are most likely to stumble and fall, but we also know the way out of our temptations and even our failures.  The Apostle John puts it like this:  If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  In here a man settles his own problems:  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 

The mistake the people in Corinth were making was to suggest that what they were doing and how they were living was unrelated to their “state”.  We cannot claim that sin doesn’t count or that, because we are the ones doing it, it is not sin.  No exemptions:  If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

To stand together with our brothers and sisters against evil in the world, we must first stand with Christ alone against the evil in our hearts.