"For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." (Psalm 103:11-12)
Pitchers and catchers have reported to Spring Training, and before we know it the competitive 2011 version of America's Greatest Pastime will be underway. I would imagine that it's safe to say that most of us know the basic rules of baseball, but I will be the first to admit that I have no clue how to score a game and also probably couldn't be considered an expert at analyzing any of baseball's detailed statistics. One statistic that I do know is important however, when judging a player's worth in the game of baseball, is batting average. How many times out of a thousand does a player get a hit? Hitting "1000," would be perfection. Today in the Bigs, if you hit in the "300's," (or 300 times out of a thousand you get on base) then you are considered an All-Star batter. From this baseball jargon comes the sarcastic slang phrase, "I'm sure batting a thousand today..." Which really means that I'm failing at everything I'm attempting today and I'm just striking out at everything I swing at today.
After looking at the Old Testament Lesson and the Epistle Lesson and the Gospel Lesson for this upcoming Sunday (Epiphany 7), I got the sense that these passages were heavy on Law and light on Gospel. Finally in the Psalm of the Day, Psalm 103, I found the gorgeous glorious guarantee of the Gospel in the verses we are considering above.
The Old Testament Lesson tells us to, "Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy." (Leviticus 19:2). After looking in the mirror it's not hard to see that our own holiness doesn't even compare to the holiness of the LORD our God - it's a swing and a miss for all of us. The Epistle Lesson speaks to the fact that our bodies are temples of the Holy spirit. (1 Corinthians 3:16-17) After looking in the mirror we might remember all the times we used, or rather misused or bodies as though they were our own - this too is a swing and a miss for us. The Gospel Lesson speaks to the fact that we should be loving not only our neighbors and those who treat us well, but also our enemies and those who don't treat us well. After taking an honest look in the mirror we might see ourselves doing things to both our enemies and our neighbors that couldn't be considered anything other than hateful - another swing and a miss. The Gospel Lesson closes with the command to, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48) and we don't even need to look in the mirror to know that we're swinging hard and missing hard on this one. When we used these passages as a mirror to see how we look, and compare that to how we should look, we will quickly realize that when it comes to what God demands of us in these passages that sarcastically speaking, "we're sure batting a thousand!" The apostle Paul realized this very same thing: "I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. What a wretched man I am!
Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:18,24,25) Because of His immeasurable love, God didn't leave us on our own to keep swinging and to keep striking out. He put in a pinch-hitter, His only Son Jesus, who actually could, and actually did literally "bat a thousand," - as he lived a perfect life for us, in our place. And then because He died on the cross and rose victorious from the grave, we are now the winners. Jesus took all our transgressions and knocked them not only out of the infield, not only out of the playing field, not only out of the park, but knocked them to infinity and beyond! Our transgressions are removed, forgiven and forgotten. When God looks at the "Jumbotron" for the replay of our at-bat, He doesn't see all of our swings and misses. “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more. (Isaiah 43:25) Jesus gives us a new uniform, as he clothes us in robes of righteousness, so that when God looks at the replay He sees us in our new uniforms ,totally right with Him, literally "batting a thousand." "I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness.." (Isaiah 61:10)
The more we look into the mirror of God's Law, the more we will see and realize how often we whiff - how often we swing and miss. The Law forces us to easily realize that when it comes to obeying God's commands that we are sarcastically speaking: "really batting a thousand." (this of course doesn't mean that we shouldn't keep swinging - God gives us the strength to hit some pitches and conquer temptations- which is a topic for another devotion)... But the more we look at the perfect play of God's Gospel, the more we will see and realize how awesome it is that the only person who could literally "bat a thousand" when it comes to following God's commands - Jesus - has hit perfectly. And through the gift of faith in Jesus, His perfect record is ours. Thanks be to God that in His immeasurable mercy and grace for us, He put in the pinch-hitter Jesus, who has knocked our transgressions so far out of the park and away from us, that they are now even out of God's sight.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
February 10, 2011
"However, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit." (1 Corinthians 2:9-10)
High school sweethearts celebrating their 30th anniversary might say to one another - "I just can't imagine my life without you."
A friend talking to a friend about another friend who was just diagnosed with a debilitating terminal illness might say - "I just can't imagine what they're going through."
A Green Bay Packer's fan talking to another Green Bay Packer's fan about Aaron Rodgers winning his first Super Bowl might say - "I just can't imagine what it would feel like to be Number 12 right now."
Usually when we say that we can't imagine something, what we are really saying is that it would be difficult to imagine, or to relate to, or to visualize, or to conceptualize. It would be difficult to imagine - but not impossible. What is absolutely impossible to imagine or to conceive on our own is the message of the Gospel and the meaning of the Gospel - "what God has prepared for those who love Him." It's more than just hard to relate to, because there is nothing to relate it to. There's nothing that our minds have thought of, there's nothing that our eyes have seen, there's nothing that our ears have heard, that can do justice as a decent comparison with the love and actions of our Savior God. The Gospel message is absolutely foreign to the senses of someone who hasn't been affected by the Spirit. To the unbeliever, the love God has is Foreign to the point of being totally incomprehensible. What God has prepared for those who love Him is alien to those who don't love Him. Without the help of the Spirit, we literally just can't imagine what God has prepared for us.
We humans lost true comprehension of God way back in Eden when sin created a great barrier between God and man. Because of sin, Adam and Eve's offspring would by nature know of God, but by nature wouldn't love God. Isn't it interesting that part of the lure that the devil used to get Eve to take the forbidden bite had to do with the desire for increased knowledge? Remember what snake told Eve? “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5) The devil told lies of diametric proportions. When Adam and Eve followed the devil, their knowledge base wasn't increased - they didn't suddenly know what God knows . One thing they did know and realize was that God is powerful - which is one reason why they hid. Our limited natural knowledge of God can imagine that God is powerful, but nothing in nature, or in our own nature that is sinful, can tell us about the Good News - nothing in nature can tell us about what God has prepared for those who love Him. "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened." (Romans 1:20-21) Adam and Eve's foolish and futile sin tainted minds and ears and eyes couldn't have seen or heard or thought up a plan to find their way again. God had to enter and intervene and reveal to them His plan, or in other words: what He had prepared for them - which was the substitute Christ, the second Adam. The same is true of the inability of our ears, eyes and minds to - on our own - hear, see, or picture what God has prepared for us.
"From hearts depraved, to evil prone, flow thoughts and deeds of sin alone;
God's image lost, the darkened soul, nor seeks nor finds its heav'nly goal.
But Christ, the second Adam, came to beat our sin and woe and shame,
to be our life, or light, our way, our only hope, our only stay." (CW 378:3,4)
Christ is our only life, our only light, our only way, our only hope, our only stay. But the only way we can find our life, light, way, hope and stay is if God the Father reveals Him to us through His Spirit. Without the Spirit we can't imagine that Jesus can do or be anything for us. All this Luther so succinctly summarized when he wrote, "I believe that I cannot by my own thinking or choosing believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel" (Third Article, Small Catechism).
"It was grace in Christ that called me, taught my darkened heart and mind,
else the world had yet enthralled me, to your heav'nly glories blind.
Now I worship none above you; for your grace alone I thirst,
knowing well that if I love you, You, O Father loved me first." (CW 380:2)
We once were Spiritually blind but now because of the Spirit's love and revelation, we see. We once were Spiritually deaf, but now because of the Spirit's love and revelation, we now are able to hear and receive the wonderful message of the Gospel. We once were Spiritually dumb, but now because of the Spirit's love and revelation, our minds have been renewed and we now know what God has prepared for us who love Him. Through faith we arrive at the point where we can't help but say, "I just can't imagine life without Him!"
And about others who are still Spiritually blind, deaf and dumb, we might wonder and we might say, "I just can't imagine how they're going through life without Him." "I just can't imagine living without knowing the cure for the terminal illness of sin." "I just can't imagine life without true comfort". "I just can't imagine life without true hope." God wants everyone to have the unimaginable knowledge of what is true - the knowledge of truth. "God our Savior wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:4) We might be tempted to ask ourselves, "if God wants all men to be saved, then why doesn't he just put the Spirit in the drinking water, or put the Spirit in the air that we all breathe, so that all men will come to the knowledge and be saved?" If we find ourselves asking this question, let's remember what the Spirit through the prophet Isaiah has revealed to us about our ideas as compared to God's ideas: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9) All we can know is what the Spirit has revealed to us, and what has been revealed is that there is a gap between humans who don't yet know God's love, and the saving effect of the love and mercy and grace that God has for them. What we also know is that we, who have come to the knowledge of the truth, are to be the gap fillers who bridge that gap - as we direct the lost to the Word and the Spirit, who works through the Word, to reveal what God has in store for those who love Him. Let's be the bridges. And then let's pray like the Apostle Paul, "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give [them] the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that [they] may know him better." (Ephesians 1:17)
Before the Spirit opens our eyes and ears and minds, we literally can't imagine what God has in store for us. But praise be to God that He has revealed it to us by His Spirit! And now we just can't imagine what life would be without Him! And we also just can't imagine what life is like for those who are without Him. And so out of love for others, and motivated by and patterned in the love He had for us, we tell others who still just can't imagine. We direct them to the Word and to the Spirit who works through the Word. We act as the bridge over the gap between the unimaginable and the unbelievably amazing, which God has prepared for those who love Him!
High school sweethearts celebrating their 30th anniversary might say to one another - "I just can't imagine my life without you."
A friend talking to a friend about another friend who was just diagnosed with a debilitating terminal illness might say - "I just can't imagine what they're going through."
A Green Bay Packer's fan talking to another Green Bay Packer's fan about Aaron Rodgers winning his first Super Bowl might say - "I just can't imagine what it would feel like to be Number 12 right now."
Usually when we say that we can't imagine something, what we are really saying is that it would be difficult to imagine, or to relate to, or to visualize, or to conceptualize. It would be difficult to imagine - but not impossible. What is absolutely impossible to imagine or to conceive on our own is the message of the Gospel and the meaning of the Gospel - "what God has prepared for those who love Him." It's more than just hard to relate to, because there is nothing to relate it to. There's nothing that our minds have thought of, there's nothing that our eyes have seen, there's nothing that our ears have heard, that can do justice as a decent comparison with the love and actions of our Savior God. The Gospel message is absolutely foreign to the senses of someone who hasn't been affected by the Spirit. To the unbeliever, the love God has is Foreign to the point of being totally incomprehensible. What God has prepared for those who love Him is alien to those who don't love Him. Without the help of the Spirit, we literally just can't imagine what God has prepared for us.
We humans lost true comprehension of God way back in Eden when sin created a great barrier between God and man. Because of sin, Adam and Eve's offspring would by nature know of God, but by nature wouldn't love God. Isn't it interesting that part of the lure that the devil used to get Eve to take the forbidden bite had to do with the desire for increased knowledge? Remember what snake told Eve? “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5) The devil told lies of diametric proportions. When Adam and Eve followed the devil, their knowledge base wasn't increased - they didn't suddenly know what God knows . One thing they did know and realize was that God is powerful - which is one reason why they hid. Our limited natural knowledge of God can imagine that God is powerful, but nothing in nature, or in our own nature that is sinful, can tell us about the Good News - nothing in nature can tell us about what God has prepared for those who love Him. "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened." (Romans 1:20-21) Adam and Eve's foolish and futile sin tainted minds and ears and eyes couldn't have seen or heard or thought up a plan to find their way again. God had to enter and intervene and reveal to them His plan, or in other words: what He had prepared for them - which was the substitute Christ, the second Adam. The same is true of the inability of our ears, eyes and minds to - on our own - hear, see, or picture what God has prepared for us.
"From hearts depraved, to evil prone, flow thoughts and deeds of sin alone;
God's image lost, the darkened soul, nor seeks nor finds its heav'nly goal.
But Christ, the second Adam, came to beat our sin and woe and shame,
to be our life, or light, our way, our only hope, our only stay." (CW 378:3,4)
Christ is our only life, our only light, our only way, our only hope, our only stay. But the only way we can find our life, light, way, hope and stay is if God the Father reveals Him to us through His Spirit. Without the Spirit we can't imagine that Jesus can do or be anything for us. All this Luther so succinctly summarized when he wrote, "I believe that I cannot by my own thinking or choosing believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel" (Third Article, Small Catechism).
"It was grace in Christ that called me, taught my darkened heart and mind,
else the world had yet enthralled me, to your heav'nly glories blind.
Now I worship none above you; for your grace alone I thirst,
knowing well that if I love you, You, O Father loved me first." (CW 380:2)
We once were Spiritually blind but now because of the Spirit's love and revelation, we see. We once were Spiritually deaf, but now because of the Spirit's love and revelation, we now are able to hear and receive the wonderful message of the Gospel. We once were Spiritually dumb, but now because of the Spirit's love and revelation, our minds have been renewed and we now know what God has prepared for us who love Him. Through faith we arrive at the point where we can't help but say, "I just can't imagine life without Him!"
And about others who are still Spiritually blind, deaf and dumb, we might wonder and we might say, "I just can't imagine how they're going through life without Him." "I just can't imagine living without knowing the cure for the terminal illness of sin." "I just can't imagine life without true comfort". "I just can't imagine life without true hope." God wants everyone to have the unimaginable knowledge of what is true - the knowledge of truth. "God our Savior wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:4) We might be tempted to ask ourselves, "if God wants all men to be saved, then why doesn't he just put the Spirit in the drinking water, or put the Spirit in the air that we all breathe, so that all men will come to the knowledge and be saved?" If we find ourselves asking this question, let's remember what the Spirit through the prophet Isaiah has revealed to us about our ideas as compared to God's ideas: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9) All we can know is what the Spirit has revealed to us, and what has been revealed is that there is a gap between humans who don't yet know God's love, and the saving effect of the love and mercy and grace that God has for them. What we also know is that we, who have come to the knowledge of the truth, are to be the gap fillers who bridge that gap - as we direct the lost to the Word and the Spirit, who works through the Word, to reveal what God has in store for those who love Him. Let's be the bridges. And then let's pray like the Apostle Paul, "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give [them] the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that [they] may know him better." (Ephesians 1:17)
Before the Spirit opens our eyes and ears and minds, we literally can't imagine what God has in store for us. But praise be to God that He has revealed it to us by His Spirit! And now we just can't imagine what life would be without Him! And we also just can't imagine what life is like for those who are without Him. And so out of love for others, and motivated by and patterned in the love He had for us, we tell others who still just can't imagine. We direct them to the Word and to the Spirit who works through the Word. We act as the bridge over the gap between the unimaginable and the unbelievably amazing, which God has prepared for those who love Him!
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