Have You Died to Sin?

What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 
Romans 6:1-3

Someone asked me recently about the nature of obedience and its relationship to salvation. As I was researching the question, my mind wandered to those who take "by faith alone" to the extreme. There are those who believe that all you have to do is pray a prayer at some point and then you receive your Get Out of Hell Free card for life. They then take this idea as a license to sin, claiming all the while that in their life of sin, God's grace will still save them.

As we see in Romans 6 here, these people have been around from the beginning. Paul's response to them was this: "How can we who have died to sin still live in it?" The simple answer is that we cannot. John makes that abundantly clear:

6 No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. 8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. 10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. 1 John 3:6-10 (ESV) (emphasis mine)

The tragedy in all of this is there are people who simply don't know this or refuse to accept it. They believe that a life of a sin is compatible with a saving faith. The Bible tells us in many places that there are people who think they are saved and really are not. Matthew 7:21-23 says there will be those turned away from the very gates of heaven who believed at the time they died they had a saving faith. Jesus says He will tell these people He never knew them.

If we think hard enough, we all know people who fall into that category to varying degrees. There was a contemporary of Billy Graham named Charles Templeton. Both were evangelists in the 1940's. God undoubtedly used Mr. Templeton to save many people. Yet in the end, he died an atheist. 

On a more personal note, I had a friend and mentor in college who had been married for something like 15 years. They were a model of faith, did ministry together, and had moved hundreds of miles from home to plant a church. One day, his wife just went crazy. She turned her back on everything she believed, began having an affair, and eventually divorced her husband. 

It doesn't matter how long you think you've been walking with God or how many good things you have done in His name. None of us are exempt from the need to constantly examine our lives and ask this question: Do I look more like Jesus today than I did last week or last month or last year? Philippians 2:13 says that God gives those that are His both the desire and the ability to obey Him and do His work. If you truly belong to God, if you are truly covered by the blood of Jesus, you have died to sin, and you will be conformed to the image of Jesus (Romans 8:29). 

Let no one misunderstand what I am saying. There is absolutely nothing we can do to earn our salvation. The Bible emphatically teaches that we are saved by faith alone. But no one can be saved by a "faith" that is alone apart from the evidence of obedience. There is no such thing as a "carnal" Christian. Either your faith is changing you to look more like Jesus, or it will not save you. There is no middle ground.

Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do the things I say?

Luke 6:46

For just as the body without the spirit is dead, 

so also faith without works is dead.

James 2:26

Sent But Not Yet Received

12 “Don’t be afraid, Daniel,” he said to me, “for from the first day that you purposed to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your prayers were heard. I have come because of your prayers. 13 But the prince of the kingdom of Persia opposed me for 21 days. Daniel 10:12-13

This is an interesting verse, even for a prophecy passage. The context is that Daniel is seeking to understand a revelation he received. He fasted and prayed for three weeks trying to understand the revelation, after such time an angel appeared to him in a vision and spoke these words to him. The messenger goes on to say that he could not defeat the opposition on his own; he was detained until Michael the arch-angel showed up to provide backup. It's crazy to think about spiritual battles getting in the way of timely delivery of prayer answers.

Even so, I don't want to speculate about angels and spiritual warfare and the like. It's best not to try to read too much into such an obscure passage. I have heard some make the claim in a message on being persistent in prayer that had Daniel stopped praying on day 20, he would not have received his answer. That's a big leap from what the passage actually says, especially considering the angel said he was dispatched with an answer on day one. However, there is an interesting parallel here with a recent event in my life.

As I wrote in my last post, God told us we were moving, just not where. Well, three weeks after that post, He provided the answer, and nearly a month after that, I am writing this post from a completely different state having started a brand new job. During the time before the move, as I was coordinating things with my new team lead, I found out that though I was not offered the job by HR until December 29th, he had wanted them to tell me before Christmas. I spent the last half of Christmas week in a bit of a funk because I hadn't heard anything yet, only to find out later that my offer had been "sent but not yet received" more than a week earlier!

Again, I won't speculate on whether or not Daniel's three weeks of fasting was unnecessary, but here's the parallel I see: Daniel was making himself miserable and weak (if you've ever fasted for more than a day, you know what I mean) for days and days after his answer was already on its way. In the same way, I was making myself miserable emotionally for more than a week not knowing that I had already been chosen for my new job. But whereas Daniel's self-imposed affliction was in pursuit of understanding a God-given message, mine was nothing more than an expression of doubt and fear.

Even for those of us with the spiritual gift of faith, understanding and trusting a promise from God that is not black and white in scripture can be difficult. In hindsight, it is so very clear what God was doing, but in the midst of things, doubt can set in. Is He really leading me there? Did I really understand Him correctly? Looking back, while I don't know about Daniel's suffering, mine was certainly unnecessary.

I have no great insight to share, but I have learned that no matter how much faith you have, there's always room for more. And just like so many other characteristics of Christ-likeness, growing takes pain. You can't grow in self-control without temptation. You can't grow in patience without external frustrations. And you can't grow in faith without those situations that leave you no other choice but to hold on to God with all that is in you. Just remember that while you wait for God to come through in those situations, how you wait is just as important as how long you wait.

33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, 

and all these things will be provided for you. 

34 Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. 

Each day has enough trouble of its own. 

Matthew 6:33-34

A spirit of fearfulness

For God has not given us a spirit of fearfulness, 

but one of power, love, and sound judgment.

2 Timothy 1:7

I was on a camping trip recently learning wilderness survival skills. It's been a hobby/passion of mine for the last four years or so. There were four other guys there that I hadn't met before, and in between instructional sessions, we had a lot of down time to get to know one another. There was a lot of random conversation about typical guy stuff. But one conversation topic from one guy in particular kind of surprised me. He frequently brought up the topic of the recent Ebola infections in the US. Now, this in and of itself isn't all that surprising; Ebola is big news these days. It was his reaction to it that surprised me.

From other things he said over the weekend, I am pretty sure he is a believer. And yet, multiple times a day, he would pull out his cell phone to check the latest news on Ebola. He and his family are planning a big move sometime next year. But at one point, he said something like "If they have 10 reported cases of Ebola in Dallas, I'm packing up my family and moving them now." Another time while he was checking and relaying to us the latest news, he said in a nervous, sing-song kind of voice, "We're gonna get Ebola."

One believer is so concerned about a situation that he's ready to move his family hundreds or thousands of miles at a moment's notice. Another sits casually in front of a keyboard writing about it. What makes the difference? Do I just not understand how serious Ebola really is? Perhaps. But there is one thing I do understand that overrides any fear, concern, or anxiety about whatever way I may leave this life or face in this life while I am still here:

A man’s heart plans his way,

but the Lord determines his steps.

Proverbs 16:9

The Lord of Hosts has sworn:

As I have purposed, so it will be;

as I have planned it, so it will happen.

Isaiah 14:24

If God has ordained that I will die by Ebola, then there's nothing that I can do to alter that decree. I don't drive to Dallas, find the hospital where the infections are and bathe in the virus. But I also don't plan on moving my family hundreds of miles further away at a moment's notice. If you have read my thoughts on the Second Coming of Jesus, you understand that I believe that believers will be here to experience some pretty awful stuff before Jesus comes back. And though I had studied and started to implement several different strategies for preparing for when "all hell breaks loose," I don't do that now because I realized that I would be acting out of a spirit of fearfulness to do so.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I study and prepare for emergency survival scenarios. I do this because I am interested in acquiring the knowledge that I hope I will never have to use. But, and this is important, I am not driven by a spirit of fear in doing so. 

In whatever situation you may be currently facing or see potentially coming on the horizon, sometimes how you respond is not as important as why you respond the way you do. The guy I mentioned earlier, I don't know what his motivations are. God obviously has a different plan for his life than He does for mine, and it is not for me to judge God's servant (Romans 14:4). But one thing I do know that applies to him and me and all disciples of Jesus: 

You cannot trust God and fear the unknown at the same time.

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, 

but you received the Spirit of adoption, 

by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!”

Romans 8:15

Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow,
because tomorrow will worry about itself.
Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Matthew 6:34

Faith and Insecurity

This is kind of the other side of the coin to my last post. Maybe it should have been first, I don't know.

I have taken probably two dozen different spiritual gifts tests over the years, studied spiritual gifts extensively, and even written my own test to try and address common shortcomings I saw in the standard approach to testing. So when I took another one a couple of months ago at my new church, I wasn't expecting to be surprised by the results or really to learn anything new.

Like so many other tests, the gift of Faith was one of my top-scoring items. And like so many times before, I dismissed the finding as being the result of a common (and in my mind, erroneous) testing methodology. After all, 1 Corinthians 12:7 (ESV) says that spiritual gifts are given for "the common good", and Ephesians 4:12 says they are also for "the training of the saints in the work of ministry" and "to build up the body of Christ".

That certainly hasn't been my response when I encounter a lack of faith in someone. I haven't tried to train others to have more trust in God, apart from what I consider just general encouragement from the Word, and I would be hard pressed to demonstrate that I have used my faith for the common good or for building up the body of Christ. My most common responses to people's unbelief, sad to say, have been either frustration or dismissal. Here recently I have graduated to trusting that God will show them in time, if He intends to. That's a little better.

But three things have happened over the last couple of months that God has used to grow my understanding. One, after taking this test, I shared (and promptly dismissed) the faith result with our ministry leader who trains people in the area of spiritual gifts. I shared the same line of reasoning with him as I outlined above, and when I said that I most often respond to people's lack of faith with frustration, he very quickly responded, "That's because you have the gift of Faith." I again dismissed what he said because I "knew" better. To his credit, he didn't argue the point further. Rather, the Holy Spirit went to work on me for a while, and I have been reminded of this leader's words at least a half dozen times in the last two months.

Two, I a have friend with whom I share a common understanding of and very solid belief in the total, absolute sovereignty of God. In fact, I always just assumed that that was where my unshakable faith and trust in God came from. Naturally, I expected him to have the same. But a few weeks after that spiritual gifts test and subsequent conversation above, my friend had a crisis of faith. I won't share the details publicly, but it traumatized him a great deal, and only now, several weeks later, is God starting to bring some real healing and understanding to his heart and mind. But the entire time he was going through it, as I would share from the Word to try and encourage him, try as I might, I really couldn't even begin to understand why he was reacting the way he was. I kept thinking in the back of my mind, "There it is in black and white (and sometimes red). Why don't you just trust what God says?"

Three, and finally, my pastor shared this video with the congregation this past Sunday:

It was a powerful message for me, but for different reasons than most people, I'm sure. I welcome the chiseling, sometimes even craving it. But his portrayal of the level of insecurity, doubt, and feelings of low self-worth that most believers apparently struggle with to some degree brought me to tears. I can't imagine having to deal with even the smallest level of something like that. After church Sunday, I said to my wife, "I really have no concept of just how insecure most people are", to which she replied "No, you don't."

As I continued to replay this video in my mind and see and hear this man's anguish, in my mind I cried out to God, "Why? Why would You do this to people? How do people even get out of bed in the morning if deep down that's how they really feel?" As gently and firmly as His counterpart in the video above, God brought this word to my mind:

My grace is sufficient for them, for My power is made perfect in their weakness.
(2 Corinthians 12:9)

I am beginning to understand that my faith is a gift in *every* sense of the word. Not just that I have been rescued from sin and death, as if that weren't miraculous enough, but that I have also been spared the loneliness, fear, and self-doubt that plague so many. And to borrow a phrase from Stan Lee, I am also beginning to realize that with great faith comes great responsibility. I don't know yet what that will look like, but I trust that God will reveal it to me in His perfect timing.

God, forgive me for taking for granted the special measure of faith
You have given me. By Your Holy Spirit, teach me to harness this faith to build up
my brothers and sisters for their good, to prepare them for the work of ministry,

and most of all for bringing glory to Your Name.