Be Hatin'

O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent?

Who shall dwell on your holy hill?

He who walks blamelessly and does what is right

and speaks truth in his heart;

who does not slander with his tongue

and does no evil to his neighbor,

nor takes up a reproach against his friend;

in whose eyes a vile person is despised,

but who honors those who fear the LORD;

who swears to his own hurt and does not change;

who does not put out his money at interest

and does not take a bribe against the innocent.

He who does these things shall never be moved.

 -- Psalm 15:1-5

We generally think we ought to be kind and forgiving and tolerant of everyone, but are there people we may despise?  Paul warned the church at Corinth about be too accepting:  But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. (1 Corinthians 5:11)

Jesus did not despise those who were in need of the Great Physician.  He did, though, tell us that we could not follow Him unless we were willing to hate:  If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.  (Luke 14:26) 

Wait, “even his own life”?  Jude, of all people, might help us out:  And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. (Jude 22-23)

It’s the flesh that is the problem.  The old nature, my old nature is vile and to be despised.  In each one of us, even the most fallen and wicked, is the potential for the new life.  It is bond and imprisoned by the carnal mind and worldly ways of thinking.  Do we not hate and are we not right to hate those who oppress and enslave others?  We ought also to despise the self which denies liberty to the spirit. 

God Knows What He Is Doing

At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children;  yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. – Matthew 11:25-26

The ESV translation does an odd thing in verse 26.  A much more literal reading comes from the KJV:  Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight, or, even more literally, “well-pleasing in Your sight.”  It looks good to God.  Bewildering those who think they know it all and pulling back the veil for those who are relatively simple and child-like makes the Lord happy.  Of course, it is His will, and, while I would be hesitant to presume that there are things which are the will of God that are not also pleasing to Him, some might be more pleasing than others.  God is not a machine.  He loves; He has compassion.  Jesus wept over Jerusalem.  Even more, the Lord of heaven and earth wept by the grave of a friend. 

In any case, Jesus is saying, in this context, that the truth of the revelation of Christ has been concealed from the wise.  Those who sought to understand the Scriptures, the religious leaders were, on the whole, rejecting Jesus.  Conversely, He and His message were being welcomed, accepted and followed by the common people – those regarded as foolish and unworthy by the elite and the learned. 

Jesus might be seen as acknowledging some surprise at the way things are going, but He also acknowledges His own pleasure in it, as well as it being in line with the Father’s will. 

Like Jesus, we often find ourselves in situations that might be, at least on the surface, contrary, at odds with our hopes and expectations.  If the Son of God, Second Person of the Trinity, God Incarnate could say, in effect, “Well, even so.  If You want it that way, that’s the way it will be,” we ought to be able to do the same. 

That does not mean that we are mere spectators.  We are often placed in situations not just to watch what goes on, but, as God’s agents, to bring about a change and make a difference in the lives of other people.  We are all, as believers, ordained to the various ministries of encouragement, healing, serving, and imparting hope, joy and peace. 

Those who want to change the world are just changing the sets on a stage.  The world and all that is in the world is passing away.  Why waste time on something that is time-bound and bound to change anyway?  Souls are forever.  Our calling is to individuals, to our families, our friends, our communion, our neighbors.  

Like the man who asked Jesus for a definition of neighbor, we aren’t always sure how far we ought to stretch.  According to the story of the Good Samaritan, our neighbor is the person we can help.  It depends, sometimes, on our gifts, our resources, even our location.  I can’t help everybody, but I can help somebody.  And the one I can help, I am called to help.   

Add-ons

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. – 2 Peter 1:5-7

God has given us all that we need, in and through Christ.  He says that He will deliver us even from death, that we are adopted into His family, and that a new kind of life everlasting is ours.  By “standing on the promises of God”, by believing Him, we enter into a new world as new creations. 

Those of us who lived loosely or wickedly before have, in some ways, an advantage over the good people who are no less in need of making this transition.  Our burden was obviously sin.  Their burden is often “the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches” (Matthew 13:22) – responsibilities and duties.  These are not bad things in themselves necessarily, but they keep the focus on the wrong side of the ledger.  They are effects rather than causes. 

Regardless, though, of where we start from, we all start by faith and build on that.  Faith is looking toward God.  Little faith looks to the Cross for relief from the penalty of sin.  More faith looks for deliverance from the power of sin.  If the eyes of the heart are fixed on the revelation of God in Christ for all things, that is great faith. 

But even great faith is only putting us on the right road.  The journey and the destination remain.  We have entered the new world, the kingdom, but we have to grow into it.  Living virtuously becomes possible to us, but it still may not come so naturally at first.  We have to practice virtue.  We have the revelation, but it is doing God’s will that knowledge comes (John 7:17).

And so it goes.  Practicing virtue leads to knowledge.  Knowledge enables us to live a life of self-control.  We are no longer blown about by the winds of deception.  Self-control allows us to be reliable, solid citizens of the kingdom.  Our steadfast adherence to the Lord’s will gives us more of His nature which makes us more understanding, kind, and sympathetic to those around us.  Affection develops into that self-sacrificing agape love that was shown in fullness by the Son.  Then we enter into the territory of the notable saints. 

Each rung on the ladder lets us reach the next one, and we will never reach the top standing on the bottom step.  Hear the voice of the Lord calling, “Come up higher.” 

I don’t know how far up I will get.  Maybe I have a touch of acrophobia.  But what else do I have to do in this life?

The Wisdom of Living Right

For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him. -- Genesis 18:19

Genesis chapter 18 involves a theophany.  A trio of men appears near Abraham’s camp.  It is not clear initially if Abraham realizes they are from God, or if he is simply a man eager to show hospitality.  He begs them to allow him to prepare them some food.  They accept and reveal that part of their purpose is to deliver the message that a son will be born to Abraham and Sarah within the year. 

Two angels then proceed on to assess the situation in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah while the Angel of the Lord remains and ponders talking things over with Abraham.  It is almost as though the Lord seeks a human perspective on the wickedness of the cities of the Plain.  He has heard that there is much going on there which is exceedingly evil and deserving of judgment:  Then the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.”  (Genesis 18:20-21)

I don’t pretend to understand exactly how all this works, but it seems to me that prayer is a very important spiritual process.  On the one hand, I think God knows everything and is involved in everything.  Yet He seems sometimes to wait for man’s call.  Somebody must have been troubled by what was going on in Sodom.  Maybe it was Lot:  … he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard) -- 2 Peter 2:7-8.  Despite the fact that Lot remained in Sodom and had some weaknesses, he was, apparently, a decent sort of man in a very ugly place. 

People say that if God spares such-and-such, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.  It could be that no one in San Francisco or Chicago or Washington, D.C. is yet distressed enough to pray for a righting of wrongs.  It could also be that there are still enough righteous people, enough salt to preserve the wicked from destruction.  That was the argument that Abraham presented when God told him about the impending judgment.  The Lord agreed that destroying the righteous with the wicked would not be just.  He would have spared those two cities for the sake of ten good people.  He found, giving everybody the benefit of the doubt, four. 

Again, that’s all the rest of the chapter.  The point I got from verse 19 is something else.  In order for Abraham to receive what God had promised him, he had to give the proper guidance to his family.  Despite the grace and mercy of God, His intentions toward Abraham, and His divine purposes in choosing him, immorality can still wreck people’s lives.  Ignorance and indifference to God’s laws have the potential to derail intended blessings. 

The Lord had chosen one man and his line as a way of bringing salvation and redemption to the world.  He needed Abraham to establish some guidelines for his son and grandsons, great-grandsons and so on.  They needed to know how to look toward God in faith and order their lives to, in general, align with the truth. 

It is good that God loves us, that He is gracious and forgiving and that He has provided Christ as our Reconciliation.  But we cannot live contrary to spiritual truth any more than we can defy the laws of physics in the material world.  A few weeks back, I stepped on a patch of ice on my driveway while walking blithely along in slick-soled boots with my hands in my pockets.  I hit the concrete flat and hard, so hard, in fact that my sunglasses were thrown high into the air by the impact.  Gravity doesn’t care.  The laws of motion do not care.  I split the skin on the back of my head and raised a knot the size of a baseball.  I think I even had a bit of whiplash.  Fortunately, the concrete was undamaged, but it was a close thing.

If we are going to have God’s blessing in our lives, we need to do our best to live by and in harmony with His moral and spiritual laws.  Bouncing my thick head off a hard surface is painful, but not nearly as damaging as what happens when a child of God gets completely off course and shatters his or her life on the rocks and reefs of sin.  We don’t have to be perfect; we just have to keep in mind where we are going and what is important.

Lasting

[F]or the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. – Psalm 1:6

Though this is a brief psalm of only six verses, it effectively contrasts the wicked and the righteous.  Those who follow God are, like a tree by a stream, deeply rooted and enduring while the ungodly, the mockers and the scornful are little more than chaff caught up in the wind.  Their apparent movement and triumphant dancing in the air is an illusion that quickly passes away as they are left in dust, as dust.  Food for that cursed one:  The LORD God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. (Genesis 3:14)

Dust and ash will be the end of the works of many who are saved themselves, as …  each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.  If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.  If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.  (1 Corinthians 3:13-15)

Many are the saints who will have much to show for their work here on earth -- me, probably not so much.  My time, energy, and meager abilities have most often been given to those things which will not endure.  The treasures I have laid up in heaven are, I am afraid, not very impressive, if there are indeed any that exist at all.  Perhaps there will be one or two that I have helped along the way.  I might point to loyalty and standing by a friend, but that is bred in me and hardly something for which I deserve credit.  I might as well try to claim a reward for blue eyes. 

I’m expecting my works to be turned to cold, gray ash, but that’s all right.  I’ve had a good time with it, and I have no room to complain if I am in heaven at all.  As I have more in common with the wicked than the righteous, apart from the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, I would have no hope whatever. 

The only Righteous One is Jesus.  He is that Tree, that Vine planted in the well-watered place.  None of us can be more than a branch, more or less fruitful, drawing from His abundant, everlasting life all that we may produce of any eternal value.  Everything of our old nature eventually gets cut off … and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 

So it is, and so it must be.  It is wise to not get too caught up by and invested in what we do, what we have, or how we live here.  If we do our best to dwell close to the heart of the Lord perhaps there will be some small thing of which we may say it was nothing of ourselves but it was done by Him through us to His glory.  And it will last.