The Paragon

    We all know people worthy of respect, and whose example we rightly seek to follow.  "Be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises" (Hebrews 6:12).  Let us thank God for those people in our lives whose attitudes, words, and actions honor the Lord Jesus Christ, and whose footsteps help to illuminate the path Scripture calls us to tread in faith and obedience.

    We do well, however, to remember that human beings possess feet of clay that sometimes falter and even crumble along the way.  Those whom we honor most highly would quickly disappoint us if we could witness the entirety of their internal and external existence.  Human beings, including the most godly among us, dwell in tents of flesh that flap in worldly winds, and that must sometimes be restored and reset after collapsing altogether.  "All we, like sheep, have gone astray" (Isaiah 53:6).

     One has perfectly traversed the path of righteousness, amid the many challenges and temptations that confront all who seek to walk its gilded way.  "We have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15).  The Lord Jesus alone will not disappoint us as we look to His example, and even more, as we trust in His fulfillment of the promise to enable us by His indwelling presence.  "I will dwell in them and walk in them" (II Corinthians 6:16).  There is a perfect Example to whom we can and must look with complete confidence.  Christ alone provides this abiding paragon of virtue, and this abiding presence of spiritual vitality.

    We look to many for inspirations of a life consistently lived for the glory of God and the blessing of others.  We look to only one One, however, for perfection concerning such a life.  We will save ourselves much disappointment as we remember this truth, and also take much pressure off those whose example we seek to emulate.  Most importantly, we will rightly direct our faith toward the only One worthy of our complete confidence, and thereby honor the only One worthy of our complete respect...

"The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day."
(Isaiah 2:11)

    

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Weekly Memory Verse    From the end of the earth will I cry unto Thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the Rock that is higher than I.
(Psalm 61:2)
    

   

   

   

   

 

The Hatred of Love

The Special of the Day... From the Orange Moon Cafe...

     "Unto the Son He saith, Thy throne, o God, is forever and ever.  A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Thy kingdom.  Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity" (Hebrews 1:8-9).

    As the Lord Jesus Christ lived an earthly lifetime in the world He created, we can only imagine how grieved He must have been to experience His handiwork gravely damaged by the effects of sin.  "The whole world lieth in wickedness" declared the Apostle John (I John 5:19).  Little wonder then that our Savior "hated iniquity," because it so ravages those whom He loves. 

    He hates sin in your life and mine for the same reason.  Unbelief and disobedience results in the believer's inability to experience the grace of life provided through the Lord Jesus.  "To be carnally minded is death" (Romans 8:6).  As a young man whom I greatly respect once said when he was merely a boy, "Satan makes good things seem bad, and bad things seem good."  Or, in terms of our present consideration, he makes sin seem like a doorway into life rather than the gaping maw of the grave it actually opens to our wandering feet.  Indeed, we "die" every time we distrust and disobey our Lord in the sense that we embrace the iniquity that prevents our experience of Christ's indwelling life.  This is a true death because "to live is Christ" (Philippians 1:21).  Nothing else qualifies as life, as defined by the God who hates sin in direct proportion to how dearly He loves us.

    We do well to remember this Divine sensibility as we look upon a world characterized by so much pain, loss, heartache and heartbreak.  The view will affect our own sensibilities, and increasingly lead us to share our Lord's attitude toward the subtle, but monstrous cause of so much agony.  The Savior lived for more than three decades amid the spiritual, moral, relational and physical carnage.  Again, we cannot know how deeply it affected Him, except to remember that the Bible refers to the Lord Jesus as "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3).  Such a place must exist in us also, along with our Lord's hatred for the iniquity that promises life, but ravages with death.

"The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
(Romans 6:23)

"Active Minds"

    We do not have to possess brilliant minds in order to walk with God (something for which I often give thanks!).  We do, however, require active minds, as enabled by the Holy Spirit.

     "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God; bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" (II Corinthians 10:4-5).

    The Christian life involves ongoing discovery of the truth of God, and growth therein.  Thereby are we able to identity notions, perspectives, ideas, and attitudes contrary to our Lord's glory and will.  We seek to fill our minds with Scripture in order to think rightly about God, ourselves, others, and our lives.  We also read the Bible in order to empty our minds of darkness by replacing it with the Light.

    Many years ago, I worked as a bank teller.  On my first day of training, I asked about counterfeit bills.  "How will I know the genuine from the false?"  I expected my trainer to show me a collection of counterfeit money, pointing out characteristics and features for which I must keep a close and wary eye.  Instead, she simply responded, "Glen, after you have counted several hundred thousand genuine versions of legal tender, you won't have much trouble in spotting the phony bills!"

    My trainer's words proved to be true.  Knowledge of the real prepared me to identify and reject the false.  The same principle applies in our determination as believers to "walk in truth" (III John 1:4).  The more we know the character and nature of Christ, as revealed in the history of the Gospels, and the promises and commands of the epistles, the more we will readily spot thoughts and attitudes that originate with the world, the devil, and the flesh.  The process will be lifelong, and will require the active mind based upon a heart devoted to fulfilling the glory and will of God.  More importantly, the indwelling Holy Spirit continually works in us to illuminate the path of the real in order that we might avoid detours into darkness.  "When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth" (John 16:13)
  
    "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee" (Isaiah 26:3).  The life of mental and volitional activity to which God calls us may seem a daunting challenge.  If, however, peace is the blessed result of an active mind, no sacrifice is too great.  Moreover, to honor our Lord in word, attitude and deed requires first our honoring Him in thought.  Again, no sacrifice is too great if it means the fulfillment of this even more blessed result.

"The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."
(Hebrews 4:12)