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Published: 25 February 2022

“Accept Your Humanity”

There are many different ways to manifest the likeness of Christ.  Love, gentleness, joy and patience are some of the easy ones to name.  Have you thought about how Christ-like it is to accept your humanity?  That’s what the incarnation is, the Word of God became flesh; He accepted humanity with all its limits and finite capacities.  I confess that I have tried to live beyond my capacity from time to time, and I’ve been frustrated when my limitations made me hit the wall.  While our spirit will be around forever, our current bodies are mortal.  They are subject to age, disease and fatigue.  I know people that have taken “uppers” in an attempt to transcend their human limitations.  Drugs do work—for a while.  When the crash comes, it is not pretty.  Accepting our humanity, including our eventual death is not only healthy for our body and soul, it is like Christ.  We can’t do it all.  We can’t be all things to all people.  We can only be in one place at a time.  Eventually, as Solomon wrote, “the silver cord will be severed, the golden bowl will be broken; the pitcher will be shattered at the spring, and the wheel broken at the well.”  In my stroll through the Mall on February 14, I noticed a store called “Forever 21.”  No doubt named by some humanity denying, age defying guru who will wrinkle up like the rest of us.  I thought to myself, “Good luck with that!”   Instead of clinging to what we looked like at 21 and trying to do what we did at 21, we would be a lot better off working on the part of us that will last forever—the inner life.  Jesus gave us the Spirit and the Word to develop the part of us that will last forever.  He will also give us a new body one day for our forever kind of life.  Don’t get too preoccupied with overcoming your humanity—Jesus wouldn’t approve.

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Published: 18 February 2022

“Salvation”

What comes to mind when you hear or read the word “salvation?”  If you think the word simply means being saved from hell, I have good news for you; it means that and more!  Faith in Jesus certainly does save us from hell but the word salvation has a much broader meaning than our end of life destination.  Salvation is the message of the gospel, and the message of the gospel is life!  It is sin that gets in the way of life, so sin has to be dealt with, but salvation has so much more to do with life—everyday life, than we often acknowledge.  If you are saved, it is possible you could be neglecting your salvation?  The writer of Hebrews certainly believed in that possibility.  What would it look like for a believer to neglect salvation?  For starters, it would look like contempt, anger, selfishness, hatred, animosity, fiery speech and a darkened heart.  Jesus not only wants to save us from hell, He wants to save us from all that!  Some of us remember a hymn with this line, “Heaven came down and glory filled my soul.”  Among other things that means that there are parts of Heaven we can have now—we should claim them.  This will take effort.  We will have to be like Joshua and company, we’ll have to take the land the Lord has given to us.  And, just because you once had it, doesn’t mean you can’t lose it.  I don’t mean your place in Heaven, I mean the place of Heaven in your heart.  Believers “drift away” every day.  They fail to pay attention to the resources available to them.  There are many distractions, and many disappointments that can push people to the brink.  Jesus longs to step into that mess and deliver/save the one who will trust and obey.  Take a wider look at salvation, it means more than you think.