When the Stakes are high

An Archbishop of Canterbury once wrote that we should embrace joyfully the love and forgiveness of God at all times---and allow God’s forgiveness to change us. I picture this as a journey with a destination to God’s immense love and forgiveness. Nothing in the Bible says that this journey is comfortable, but it’s the safest one. It’s fascinating that Paul’s words are painting the same profile picture of someone in the direction towards God’s embrace. What does such person look like? I don’t mean tall or short or fair skinned. God doesn’t look at that. I mean the character of Jesus’ follower. Why should we care about Christian character in our lives? What’s at stakes here? I will tell you: If our lives are not measuring up, we should know. The word of God is the plumbline. 2 e.g., of ignoring the stakes: The writing on the wall was destined to a King obstinate in his ways. Nothing scared him: it read: You have been weighed and came up short/ didn’t measure up. He died. I also thought of people in Noah’s time who completely ignored Noah’s warnings, because they thought it was ridiculous, they didn’t care and they perished. All I am saying is that we should care seriously about the stakes in these divine messages. The stakes might be higher than we think. It’s easy for us to go through the motions with Lent’s reminder, “You are dust and to dust you shall return.” It should be in our face every day of the year, to remind us that our journey on earth is short, that our actions determine which direction we are facing: Is it towards God’s embrace (:where Jesus is my guide) or towards the self (:where I am my own god; I do whatever I want.) Paul’s words are clear: Should we continue to sin just because God’s forgiveness is unlimited? Paul says NOOO. Don’t you know that you have been baptized in Christ’s death? We should be on a journey of mortification/death of sin. I know it’s no fun, but it means putting off the old person within us. “Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” That’s getting on the journey towards God’s embrace. I have to admit that there are days… days we take the other direction, towards the pampering of the self… And the self can be a tyrant, not yielding to discipline! For example: Lately, I have been trying to fast by eating one meal a day. It’s been hard because when I am not busy, my body has a way of reminding me that I am hungry. It’s called the human condition. We all have it. We are inclined to satisfy the needs and demands of our body. Now the demands of the body can be quite unreasonable, especially when the body tells us we can't stop at the 4th cookie but at the 15th! After which the body would want 10 more! Paul teaches us that the very life of holiness is in dedicating ourselves to God each day. We need to yield to Christ: It is a living sacrifice. Whatever it is in your life that has been bothering you, you can surrender it to Christ in prayer, is it an addiction, you can surrender it to Christ everyday. When we cut from our lives service to sin, our body will thrash around in protest, craving the old life. The old life is no good for us, because in the end, it always leads to death: The stakes are high! I am sorry to have to tell you this: It’s war! It's spiritual warJesus told us that this war will cost us everything, but be encouraged because not all will be lost. Following Jesus comes with a cost: We yield to him in everything! Since his Kingdom is not of this world, we will suffer like he did. That’s why He said: “a disciple is not above the teacher… and that we should not fear anyone killing us, and can’t kill our soul but we should rather fear who can destroy both the body and soul in hell.” That last part is true and scary! The Stakes are high! The world will act like a warlord, pretending to care for you, but with no real interest in you, and when things go wrong, it blames you. We experience fear, discouragement, guilt and accusations. But Jesus said: Do not fear! you don’t need that kind of pressure/anxiety in your life, it is detrimental to your health. You were not created to carry such burden. Remember, we cannot fight darkness with darkness, we can only fight darkness with light. Again, let us examine ourselves today. Are we measuring up? The stakes are too high to ignore, yield to Christ! Amen