We do not have to teach or learn how to love ourselves. How much
do we care, defend, love, like, protect, cover, and attend ourselves? No doubt
we all do naturally and automatically. Just watch how defiantly children defend
themselves when asked who’s fault in the middle of fight among them. It is the
age of I, me, and myself. The trend is obviously to insist all my rights and
get them right now. Self-promoting, self-serving, and self-seeking cause clash,
bloodbath and even death. Hate, killing, revenge, anger, hurting are norms in
our cities and countries. Even in the church, exclusiveness, cliques, factions,
divisions, dissensions, quarrels are rampant and prevailing as reported in the
church of Corinth even in the first century. “I appeal to you, brothers and
sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one
another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you
be perfectly united in mind and thought.” (1 Corinthians 1:10) That is how
exactly the world operates. But not in Christ because he is a way out of
self-loving bondage and dungeon in Adam. James, a half brother of Jesus Christ
calls the fallen nature of humanity ‘favoritism’ and ‘judgment’ in his letter
to the church of Christ Jesus the Lord.
“My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord
Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting
wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also
comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and
say, ‘Here’s a good seat for you,’ but say to the poor man, ‘You stand there’
or ‘Sit on the floor by my feet,’ have you not discriminated among yourselves
and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has
not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith
and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have
dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not
the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are
blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong? If you really keep the
royal law found in Scripture, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing
right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as
lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point
is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, ‘You shall not commit
adultery,’ also said, ‘You shall not murder.’ If you do not commit adultery but
do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker. Speak and act as those who are
going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without
mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over
judgment.” (James 2:1-13)
How can we escape from being the victim of favoritism and
judgment? It is impossible for us to avoid in nature. We have been born to be
fallen and lost in darkness and confusion because all is born in Adam. “…for
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) God know!
So, he sent his Son out of faithful love and just compassion that whosoever
believes in him shall not perish in the condemnation of favoritism and judgment
but have eternal life, a freed and true life in Christ. The royal and perfect
law requires holiness and glory in all aspects of our lives, externally,
internally, and spiritually. No one can meet the cruel and painful requirements
of the law. God know! There is one who can meet them all in perfection and
wholeness. He is Jesus Christ our Lord who has met the death requirement of the
law on the cross with his blood. In love, he shed his blood and offered his
body as the atoning sacrifice in the heavenly temple. He was ashamed, crushed,
afflicted, forsaken, suffered, humiliated, nailed, pierced like a criminal. He died
in our place as Prophet Isaiah foretold some seven hundred years before Christ
was crucified.
“Surely he
took up our pain
and bore our
suffering,
yet we
considered him punished by God,
stricken by
him, and afflicted.
But he was
pierced for our transgressions,
he was
crushed for our iniquities;
the
punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:4-5)
Jesus says that he did not come to abolish the law but
fulfill it. That is how he has fulfilled the law. And that is how we can escape
from the darkness and confusion of favoritism and judgement. The Scripture
says, “Be holy for I am holy.” (Leviticus 20:26) The law demands to love God
and our neighbor as ourselves. No one can meet the law, so all sin and die, as
the Scripture says, ‘the power of sin is the law.’ (1 Corinthians 15:56) Jesus
gave his disciples the new commandment which is the same as the old commandment
except this phrase, ‘as I have loved you.’ “A new command I give you: Love one
another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone
will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35) Now
we can love one another by means of Christ Jesus who lives and indwells in us. That
is the good news. “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” We cannot love even our
husbands, wives, or children all the time as God loves. We are born to be bigoted,
prejudiced, favored, and judgmental. No help in the world can change the curse.
Education cannot, nor wealth, nor academic achievements, nor power in office,
nor protest. But when we come to the place where we cannot keep the law though
we wanted to do it, saying “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from
this body that is subject to death?” like Paul, a genuine and all powerful help
arrives right at the moment. “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus
Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in
my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” (Romans 7:25)
The royal law says that we can escape from being the victim
of favoritism and judgment and enter into freedom and mercy, not because we can
on our own means but we have been made so in Christ who has met the cruel and
uncompromising demands of the law of God. Those who are born of God cannot sin but
obey the perfect law. Apostle Paul answers, “What shall we say, then? Shall we
go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have
died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (Romans 6:1-2) Apostle John
says so bluntly, “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s
seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of
God.” (1 John 3:9) But it is not an automatic process even after born again. It
requires a prerequisite step to obey the law. It is to put our old self to
death. How can it be? Jesus says to disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple
must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34) That
is it. Denying ourselves and taking up our cross. Why is it so painfully
required? Because there is nothing in us to depend on and nothing to contribute
for credit in the eyes of God. No man can serve two masters—God and Mammon,
says the Lord Jesus. To follow him we must put off our old self who died to sin
with Christ. What does it mean in practice? It means to admit the fact that we
do not have anything in us to claim our rights in any circumstance where the
world entices and seduces us to assert the self-righteousness, passing judgment
on others. So, God disciplines us to be rooted and established on the faith of
Jesus Christ. Life on earth is a testbed whether we have truly been born of
God. It is a continual process of difficulties and sufferings one after
another. When stressed and pressured by whatever reasons, it is the exam time
to see and learn how to handle our lives. It is an opportunity to be revealed
of the truth and be molded to be more and more like our Lord Jesus Christ. When
we put off our old self, we are able to be put on the new self, the image of
Jesus Christ which is what we really are in him. We cannot be angrily hateful
and righteous at the same time.
It is the way to escape from the enslavement of favoritism
and judgment and enter into freedom and mercy in Christ. Freedom comes only
when we are completely selfless. We instantly and completely become off guard
when we see a baby who is so fragile and helpless that we cannot but loving and
caring selflessly. Being selfless means death. For example, when driving,
without any doubt we start the engine, believing that it would run and go
wherever we intend to go. There is no strenuous effort involved to try to run
the car at all. If so, it will be impossible to drive. What is happening? We are
indeed free to start the car because we are not aware of ourselves involved in
starting and running the engine. Just start and drive! There is no I in the
whole course of running the engine while going somewhere. Another example is
electricity. To turn on the light, simply turn the switch on. To turn the light
off, turn it off. It is simple. There is no I in making the electricity. Just
turn it on and off. But the process behind the scene is so complicated and
complex that the electricity plant, hundreds of miles of cables, uncountable
number of poles, regenerators are built to service the electricity to home and
business. We selflessly without even thinking of the complex systems turn the
switch on.
That is how we live in Christ under the new covenant. We have
graciously and mercifully been made righteous through the faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ, so we have confidence to approach and stand in boldness before the
holy and glorious throne of God. That confidence is not from us but from Christ
Jesus whom God sent. “Such confidence we have through Christ before God. Not
that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our
competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new
covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the
Spirit gives life.” (2 Corinthians 3:4-6) Nothing coming from us, everything
coming from God. God has indeed made us free and no one and nothing can rob our
freedom in Christ (John 8:36). We have been made free from being the victim of
the favoritism and judgment on others, so we exercise God’s mercy selflessly. That
is what our Lord Jesus Christ has loved us first while we were still sinners.
“Who, being
in very nature God,
did not
consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather,
he made himself nothing
by taking
the very nature of a servant,
being made
in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled
himself
by becoming
obedient to death—
even death
on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him
the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow,
in heaven
and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus
Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:6-11)
June 10, 2017
© 2015-2017 David
Lee Ministries – All Rights Reserved.
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