#41 THE DOING OF LOVING: KINDNESS

     One of the most effective tools we have in “winning the world for Christ” is kindness. Most people recognize the good feelings that being kind brings both to the doer and the receiver–how many of us have enjoyed participating in “random acts of kindness?” Just imagine what the world would look like if we lived lives of kindness day in and day out. But, the power of kindness goes beyond just helping people in tangible ways and feeling good about it. Kindness is the direct antidote to the inner anger (sometimes raging anger) some of us deal with as we walk through this world.

     Paul gave an excellent description of love in I Corinthians 13:4-8 and began with the words “Love is patient, love is kind…” My concordance defines the adjective “kind” with the words “to be useful, beneficial,” so, as far as God is concerned, one of the main purposes of our lives is to be useful and beneficial to our neighbors. Wow! You know, Christ told us that we are not to judge others (Matthew 7:1-5), but that we are to love them (Mark 12:28-31). I wonder what would happen if we took him seriously and changed our approach to sharing the gospel from speaking words against things to being kind to everyone.  Also, if we want to truly be useful and beneficial to others, one of the best things we can do is to pray God’s blessings upon them. Just imagine.

     Rage is a huge problem in our world today. It seems like the more stuff we have, the more opportunities we have to be angry. Just look at a typical day and count all the opportunities we have to get riled up about someone or something. If we’re not careful, even the smallest of upsets can lead us to the point of anger. More than ever, Colossians 3:8 is practical advice for today, “But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth.” One way of looking at this advice is that we kick anger and its cohorts out and replace them with kindness.

     Going on, another aspect of kindness is generosity. Many times, we equate being generous with giving money to people, but this quality goes much deeper than finances. A kind person first is generous in attitude before any actions ever take place. To live a life of consistent kindness demands discipline in thought, speech, and actions. In other words, kindness takes a lot of conversation with God and a lot of self-talk. Of course, like most everything else, the generosity of kindness takes practice–practice of freely smiling at people, of saying pleasant things to people, and of acting to help people whenever we have opportunity.

     I think sometimes we equate kindness with being wimpy–we’re often warned not to let people walk all over us. But, kindness is not for cowards. Kindness is one of the most aggressive forces in our world today. In fact, every time we’re kind when circumstances tell us to retaliate, we are sticking it to the kingdom of evil. By returning good for evil, we are proving our relationship with God. Listen to what Luke 6:35-36 says, “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” Christ said it loud and clear–God’s sons are kind! Here is something we can hold onto, a rubric of sorts. We can look at our own thoughts, words, and actions and evaluate them. If we have a hard time being kind, we can always run to God for knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. He is ready and willing to help us overcome and to help us be kind.

     So far, we’ve been discussing exhibiting kindness to those around us, but we should also consider being kind to ourselves. When Christ was talking about the two greatest laws, he said we should love our neighbors as ourselves. In today’s world with all of its noise about how we are failing in so many ways and about how we can improve ourselves, sometimes we can be tempted to beat up on ourselves. Paul had experiences with being tempted to beat up on himself–he described how he felt during those times in Romans 7. The gist of his complaint is found in verses 15 and 24, “For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate….Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” The spiritual giant of the New Testament Church was having a real problem within himself. Seriously, this circumstance in his life could have caused him to give up on himself and on God, but it didn’t. Listen to what he wrote two verses later in Romans 8:1, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Paul found his answer–he needed to stop beating himself up! God did not condemn him for being human, so he shouldn’t either.

     We are all human beings with both strengths and weaknesses. Sure, we all have different combinations of the strengths and weakness, but underneath all the different outworkings, we are all the same. One of the reasons Christ went to the cross was to make the way for God to help us overcome everything that stands in the way of the life that only He can give. We should never look at ourselves as being any better than or any worse than anyone else. If we have problems being kind to ourselves, God is ready and willing to help us see ourselves as He sees us–we are His beloved children.

     This post wraps up our discussions about the doings of the sons of God. While we haven’t covered every possible aspect of our walk as sons of God, the doings of believing, praying, and loving can give us a foundation to build our lives with God. We are also heading to the end of the posts that will be included in my proposed book. The next topic we are going to discuss is the return of Christ. I don’t think we can fully understand God’s absolute love without looking at what still needs to be accomplished before the kingdom of evil is totally demolished. So, I would like to leave you with a concept to think about before next week’s post. I know many people think that the return of Christ will entail overwhelming destruction and loss–they believe our world will end as we know it. What if the return of Christ means that the kingdom of evil loses every bit of power that Satan and his cohorts have exerted over the human race? What if the return of Christ signifies the full manifestation of God’s absolute love which is perfect, complete, and real? What if we all will breathe a huge sigh of relief…

     All scriptures are from the NASB. As always, please feel free to comment–just be respectful!

 

     ©2009-2010 by Patricia Zell. All rights reserved.

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patriciazell, May 9th 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in THE "DOINGS" OF A SON OF GOD

#27 BECOMING A SON OF GOD: INTRODUCTION

     What does it mean to be a son of God (includes both men and women)? Throughout the Christian world, there are practically as many versions of believers in Christ as there are denominations. And that’s okay to a certain extent; after all (using an analogy), there are practically as many versions of cars as there are drivers. However, underneath the surface, all cars share the same basic underlying structures–they have  frames, engines, transmissions, braking systems, etc. Likewise, no matter who a believer is or where he or she comes from, all sons of God share the same basic underlying structure. Understanding this framework and understanding the process of becoming a son of God will go a long way in enabling us to work as our Father’s adult business partners (another analogy). So, over my next several posts, we are going to discuss becoming sons of God. However, before we begin that discussion, I want to talk a little bit about the Bible and more specifically, about the New Testament.

     As Christ’s death on the cross changed the world, a whole new understanding of God and His absolute love began to infiltrate the human race. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Bible where we see a definitive change of tone between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Let me use a couple of conspicuous examples to illustrate. One of the wisest  men ever to rule the Hebrew nation was Solomon, David and Bathsheba’s second son. This man served God with all of his heart, yet as he looked at life in general, his words were “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2, NASB). In other words, after everything he had gained and after all the wisdom he had acquired, he ran into the dividing wall. Listen to what else he wrote in the first chapter of Ecclesiastes, “That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun” (verse 9, NASB). There was nothing new–everything was the same-old same-old! And, the rest of Ecclesiastes was written in the same depressed tone with Solomon ending with this, “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person” (Ecclesiastes 12:13, NASB). After all the blessings he had received, the only understanding of God that he had was that people needed to fear God–Solomon had no concept of the absolute love of God, none whatsoever.

     Now, let’s take a look at a couple of New Testament writers. Paul, in II Corinthians 5:17 (NASB), goes way beyond what Solomon understood with these words, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” Contrary to what Solomon believed, there is something new under the sun. And, then John changed the very conclusion that Solomon reached–fear God and keep His commandments–to this, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear…We love because He first loved us…And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also” (I John 4:18, 19, 21, NASB). Yes, indeed, Christ obliterated the dividing wall!

    While the New Testament writers found new knowledge and new understandings from God, they and their fellow believers were facing new and more insidious threats from Satan and his cohorts. Intense persecution arose as Satan tried to destroy every visage of Christ’s victory over him. With the gospel producing new believers by the thousands and with threats and violence surrounding them, the New Testament authors tried to bring stability in the midst of chaos by writing letters to the people they had ministered to. As they wrote, they focused not only on explaining the new knowledge and understandings of God’s absolute love, but also on the specific circumstances their converts were facing at the time. 

     As we read through the New Testament, we need to keep a couple of things in mind. First, the writers were writing letters, not books of the Bible. They had no idea that what they were writing would be read 2000 years later. Along the same line of thought, each of these writers did not have access to what the other New Testament writers were writing. In other words, Paul didn’t have John’s letters who didn’t have Peter’s. Also, despite the notion that every word of the Bible is absolutely “true,” the New Testament writers did not get everything right. For example, Paul, Peter, and John all believed that Christ was going to return in their lifetime (Hebrews 1:2, I Peter 4:7, I John 2:18). When we look at the limited world they lived in, we can understand why they felt that way. The New Testament writers had no idea that the world was as big as it is–the scope of their world was bounded by the Mediterranean Sea. They had no way of knowing that when Christ said “God so loved the world..,” he also meant the people who lived thousands of miles away from Israel. Even more important, the tremendous pressure of the persecution they were under certainly made these writers feel like Christ was going to return quickly. But, he did not.

     So, as we delve into the process of becoming a son of God, we’re going to look at what the New Testament authors wrote through the lens of the entire Bible (which we are blessed to have) and of what we have discovered about our world (overwhelming information) in the intervening years since the New Testament days. In a sense, we are going to transpose the knowledge and understanding of these writers into the new key of today’s world. By drawing on all of these resources, we will discover the power of becoming a son of God, and the power to overcome the kingdom of evil as His sons.

     As always, feel free to comment–just keep it respectful!

     ©2009-2010 by Patricia Zell. All rights reserved.

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patriciazell, January 18th 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in BECOMING A SON OF GOD

#26 UNDERSTANDING CHRIST: OUTCOMES OF THE CROSS

     When we look at the cross, our tendency is to focus on the price Christ paid for the forgiveness of our sin. While forgiveness was an important result of the crucifixion, it was not the only outcome. The cross changed the whole context of our world–it was the beginning of a new covenant which, when fully implemented, will completely destroy the kingdom of evil. Understanding the fullness of just what Christ accomplished is important mainly because we have a job to do here in our world.

     First, let’s look at the outcomes of the cross for Christ himself. While he was ministering with his disciples, he mentioned several times that he was going to be killed and that he would be raised from the dead on the third day (example–Matthew 17:23). Christ knew, going into the crucifixion, that his death was going to be temporary. As Hebrews 12:2 tells us, Christ endured the shame of the cross for the joy that was set before him. Let me repeat that, Christ gave his life temporarily because of the joy that was set before him. After doing the most difficult thing any human being has or will ever be asked to do–knowingly letting go of his oneness with God–Christ received joy. What were the results that brought Christ joy? First, the knowledge that he singlehandedly destroyed Satan’s power to keep the human race from cleaving to God. Second, his reunion with his Father and the re-establishment of their oneness. Third, his position on the right hand of God, a position that Satan had coveted before he chose to let go of God. Fourth, the right to give gifts to human beings to enable them to overcome the kingdom of evil (Ephesians 4:8). And, finally, the promise that his enemies would be put under his feet (I Corinthians 15:25). So, the outcomes of the cross for Christ can be summed up in one word–joy!

     Next, let’s consider the outcomes of the cross for Satan and his kingdom. In I Corinthians 2:7-8, Paul stated that if the princes of this world (indicating the kingdom of evil) had known the plan that God and Christ had worked out, they would not have crucified Christ. Satan and his kingdom had no idea of what was going on behind the scenes of the crucifixion. At the moment that they were rejoicing because they thought they had thwarted the power of God’s love by crucifying His son, the foundation of their reign on earth was knocked out from under them. When Christ became sin and sin died along with Christ, they suffered a major defeat–no longer was there a wall between God and the human race. The only “advantage” they had  left was the fact that each individual still had a choice between life and death (Deuteronomy 30: 15-20). Satan had to put another plan into motion; as long as he and his minions could convince people that the wall was still there,  that there were too many obstacles between them and God,  that God didn’t care about them, or  that God didn’t even exist, he still stood a good chance of wiping the human race off the face of the earth. So,after Christ was resurrected, Satan immediately began to sow seeds of deceit in order to blunt the power of Christ’s death (Matthew 28:11-15).

     Finally, let’s think about the outcomes of the cross for the human race. For this part of our discussion, I’m going to distinguish between the people that had died before the cross and those who have come after the cross. Matthew 27:52-53 tells us that as Christ died, not only was the veil of the temple ripped in two from top to bottom, but also the graves were open and many bodies of the saints arose to appear to many people after Christ’s resurrection. Remember a couple of posts ago when I explained that the dividing wall between God and the human race extended into death and that Paradise was “next” to Hades? Well, when Christ obliterated the dividing wall through his death and then was resurrected, Paradise moved to the third heaven (II Corinthians 12:2-4). That move was what Paul called “leading captivity captive” (Ephesians 4:8). So, those who had served God until their deaths were finally reunited with Him.

     Now, as far as those people who have come after the cross are concerned, Christ’s death on the cross has given the human race the right and the way to overcome the kingdom of evil. Now, a valid question arises–if Christ destroyed Satan’s power, then why is evil abounding in our world and why have believers continued to die? The simple answer is that Satan has succeeded in nurturing deception in our world and that we believers have not known how to turn the potential energy of Christ’s death into kinetic energy that will bring the fullness of the new covenant to pass.  In other words, after 2000 years of Satan’s lies, we still have not fully accessed the knowledge, understanding, and wisdom that we need from God to put Christ’s enemies under his feet and to defeat the last enemy of all–death (I Corinthians 15:24-26). That is about to change!

     In the next series of posts, we are going to discuss the process of becoming sons of God (which includes men and women).  As Romans 8:19 (NASB) states, “For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.” This revealing of the sons of God will facilitate the complete obliteration of Satan and his kingdom of evil. And this can come none too soon!

     As always, please feel free to comment and be respectful.

     ©2009-2010 by Patricia Zell. All rights reserved.

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patriciazell, January 10th 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Jesus Christ