What This Country Needs

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. --Matthew 6:33

It took me a long time to ask the obvious question:  why should I seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness?  Why can’t I just do whatever I want?  Does my obedience make God feel good such that He will subsequently look after me?  Does my obedience make God love me, or love me more?  Could it be something else?  Is it possible that God knows my true need better than I do? 

God does not tell you to seek righteousness so He can love you.  He tells you to seek righteousness because He loves you. 

Righteousness is sometimes defined as the state of moral perfection required to enter heaven.  That is somewhat of a circular definition.  To be righteous, or upright before God, is to enter heaven.  The Hebrew word at the root of it all is sedeq.  This usually gets translated in the Septuagint as dikaiosynē (so I am told).  According to the New Dictionary of Theology (Wright, Ferguson, and Packer), “It thus denotes not so much the abstract idea of justice or virtue, as right standing and consequent right behaviour, within a community.”

Jesus said, “For God so loved the world …” – why not stop there?  The Lord could have just said, “We’ll call it good, and everybody is all right.”  That’s not the way it works.  Man is destroyed for the lack of righteousness -- not by God -- by the lack.  Both the libertine and the legalist miss the point Christ is making -- in His words, in His death and the shedding of His blood.  

One of Jesus’ parables is about a wedding feast to which many were invited.  The invited guests refused the invitation, so the king sent out his servants to gather in the poor, the strangers, and the homeless that the abundance might not go to waste and that the marriage would be joyously celebrated.  Since these people were not necessarily properly clothed, the king even provided for that.  He probably gave them the opportunity to bathe, and he gave them new, clean wedding garments to wear.  So the king is walking around, enjoying the great feast, making sure everybody is having a great time.  But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment.  And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. (Matthew 22:11-12) 

By this parable to which the covenant of marriage is central, Jesus shows us the covenant side of righteousness.  To be part of the covenant community is both a gift and an obligation.  If we would accept the offer of life, we must also accept the appropriate garment, of righteousness.  To enter into the covenantal relationship we must put off our old clothes and “put on Christ”. 

The deepest need of the creature is the Creator, and, possibly, because He created us, the Creator – no, I am too fearful to say He needs us; He loves us more than we can comprehend.  That is enough.  He wants the best for us which can only be ours if we can be upright before Him.  But we are broken, weak, marred vessels, wandering beggars along the roads.  He calls us who are covered in grime and the filthy rags of our unrighteousness.  He says, Come in and we will clean you up, and robe you in righteousness that you may enter.   For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.   (2 Corinthians 5:21)

We do not need better marketing, more gadgetry, faster connections, more hybrids, more tolerance for wickedness, more celebrations of decadence – not even more money, more jobs, and better politicians.  Our deepest need is for righteousness.  Ease, comfort, convenience, pleasure – these things are sought and when they are obtained, we quickly find they are not enough. 

Yet if we would simply hunger and thirst for righteousness, we would be freely, abundantly, and everlastingly filled. 

The Agreement

Agree with God, and be at peace; thereby good will come to you. -- Job 22:21

If we are made in the “image and likeness” of God, how can we know who we are without knowing Him?  How can we know Him without being willing to accept who we are?  This is not a catch we can resolve apart from God’s revelation of Himself, and such an unveiling disturbs the pride and self-sufficiency of man. 

When we see the holiness and power of the Almighty in contrast to our sin, weakness, and mortality, we are abashed and without hope that we could ever meet His standards.  Simply reading through the Sermon on the Mount is enough to leave the swiftest and most ardent pursuer of God gasping in the dust.  But this is who we are in Christ.  The Cross makes all the difference, the exchange of His life for our death, His strength for our weakness, His conquest for our defeat. 

All the Lord asks is that we agree with Him, accept His revelation – especially of Himself in Christ Jesus.  We will never find peace in this world until we acquaint ourselves with Him. 

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Dare Base

The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. — Philippians 4:5b-7

We talked about being content in what we have, yet worry and doubt may still dog us as we consider that what we have may be insufficient or may be taken from us. Even Paul's assurance that the Lord is near may not quiet our worries. We may know God watches. The question is: Will He intervene on our behalf?

There are two returns from that query. The first is what do we mean by "on our behalf"? If we think somehow that we will be exempt from trials we are setting ourselves up for disappointment. It would be akin to the recruit thinking he might somehow be exempt from PT in boot camp. It's why we are here, to be trained and equipped for the Real Adventure™.

But the second, more positive reply is simply, Yes. God dwells with us in peace, and He will maintain that peace as a fortress around the heart and the mind. The image that comes to me from this passage is of a child learning to walk and explore the world, adventurous and bold — so long as he knows his mother is near at hand. He runs back to her frequently to touch her and reassure himself that she has not left him on his own. He cannot yet begin to imagine the force that would be necessary to drag her away. Our prayers, in this context, really are a means of "touching base" with God, tagging up before we take off to do those things that are needful.

To grasp how fully God is invested in us, it is important to remember that He is in a covenant relationship with us. This new covenant is established by the Father (not by us) in the very lifeblood of the Son (Luke 22:20, 1 Corinthians 11:25, 2 Corinthians 3:6). The biblical covenant is not a light thing. When God made a covenant with Abraham (see Genesis 15), Abraham took sacrificial animals, killed them and cut them in half, laying the two halves out opposite one another. After darkness fell, Abraham saw "a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces" (v.17). In a way, it is a picture of the Incarnation, for as He passed among the dissected carcasses, He was, we might say, "in meat".

When we enter into covenant with God through Jesus, He so identifies with us that He takes on our weaknesses. He takes on my frailty and your frailty as His own. He even takes on our death upon Himself. In turn He offers us identification with Him. He takes our death; we take His life. He allows you and me to take on His strength, to live His life in His power and with His resources. He walked "in meat" so we may walk "in Spirit". If we need a clue, this is why faith is so important. We are asked, in light of all that Christ has done, to believe that it was done on our behalf to create this relationship that is both spiritual and physical, both loving and legal – you know, sort of like marriage.

As an aside, our loss of faith in the symbols and rituals of tradition are not political tragedies so much as spiritual ones. Those who reject any reality except the purely physical have no reason to cling to forms and ceremonies, though they may experience a vague sense of unease as the forms are cast aside. They attribute this unease to inculcation by society and religion, often rebelling against rituals in the name of reason. They consider rituals as artifacts of the early attempts of humans to work together in groups for the mutual good.

I see a ritual like marriage as a dramatic presentation of a spiritual truth which required a material enactment to allow it to be brought into language. The spiritual could not go immediately into words without being made concrete in some way. In the beginning was the Word, but the Word had to be made flesh in order for us to begin to understand it. Marriage is making flesh the covenant between God and His people.

Through the rent flesh of the Christ, our Father has opened the way into His presence. He invites us to come, to speak to Him about our anxieties, to touch Him and to feel His hand upon us. We can hear Him say, “I’ll be right here. Run.”