Getting Clipped for the Cause of Christ

Suggested Reading: Acts 15:40-16:5

One of the things the apostle Paul was known for was fighting against those Jews who tried to insist that Gentile believers must be circumcised in order to really be saved. Throughout the entirety of the New Testament, Paul argued that God's grace, through a person's faith, is what saves a person.  In Galatians 6:15, Paul writes, "For both circumcision and uncircumcision mean nothing; what matters is a new creation" (HCSB). In Galatians 3:28, Paul again wrote, "There is no Jew or Geek, slave or free, male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (HCSB).  Very consistently, Paul argued that there is no need for Gentile believers to be circumcised in order to be saved, in some places going so far as to say that if a person got circumcised then grace became useless because the person was trying to earn salvation.  So, Acts 16:3 might get a little confusing because we discover that Paul "wanted Timothy to go with him, so he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, since they all knew that his father was a Greek" (HCSB).

Why would Paul, a man who argued so passionately and so consistently against the need for Gentile believers to be circumcised take a young Gentile believer and have him circumcised? Isn't that hypocritical? Doesn't Paul betray everything that he has been fighting for?

No.

You see, Paul argued against having to be circumcised in order to be saved, but Paul didn't circumcise Timothy so that Timothy could be saved. Paul circumcised Timothy so that other people could be saved. Paul wanted Timothy to travel with him in his missionary work because Timothy was a great asset to Paul. But if you are familiar with Paul's ministry, then you know that Paul's first stop in any new city was the Jewish synagogue where he would share the good news that the long awaited Messiah had finally arrived in the person of Jesus. For Timothy to minister effectively, Timothy had to be circumcised so that Timothy's uncircumcised condition would not be a hindrance to the initial Gospel message to Jewish audiences. If Paul were to bring an uncircumcised man into the synagogue and then allow him to speak to law-abiding Jews, those Jews would immediately stop listening to Paul's message because of the lack of respect Paul and Timothy were showing for Jewish tradition and law.  So, to cut off any problems before they arose, Paul had Timothy circumcised. Paul and Timothy, together, were living out Paul's missionary motto:

To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.  (1 Corinthians 9:20-22, NIV).

What about us? Sometimes, we avoid witnessing to people because the effort will require too much time. Paul regularly changed his entire way of living in to more effectively communicate the message of the Gospel. Timothy, apparently, did so as well. Meanwhile, we keep our mouths closed because the thought of sharing the Gospel makes us uncomfortable. The efforts we do make are often hampered because we don't want to take the time to translate the Gospel into an understandable format for those who have never heard.

We cannot all become heroic, world-traveling missionaries, but we can make sure that our lives do not hinder the message of the Gospel for those who are watching us. We can make sure that, when we share the Gospel, people don't immediately disqualify the message because of our own lifestyles. We can live in such a way that our lives make the Gospel message attractive rather than remove any motivation to listen.

When people look at your life, does it make the message of the Gospel more attractive, or does it reinforce the idea that the Bible is just a bunch of stories? Does your behavior and attitude give people a reason to want what you have, or do they convince people that Jesus was just some good teacher whose teachings have no real power in the lives of his followers?

Paul and Timothy were willing to do whatever it took so that their lives reinforced the Gospel message rather than distracted from it. Are we willing to do the same?

Being Grateful for Banishment

Suggested Reading: Romans 7:13-25

An odd thought struck me the other day. I had been reading through Romans where Paul, expressing his frustration with the sinful state of our lives, asked the question, Who will deliver me from this body of death? (Romans 7:24). Not long after that, I read Genesis 3, where Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and sin entered into the world.  Genesis 3:22-24 reads, The Lord God said, “Since man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take from the tree of life, eat, and live forever.”  So the Lord God sent him away from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove man out and stationed the cherubim and the flaming, whirling sword east of the garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life (HCSB).

Quite often, I have heard those verses described as God's punishment for sin. But having just read Paul in Romans, I thought about the verses a little differently. Paul seemed to view sin as something that lives in our fleshly bodies. In fact, while God's grace negates the power of sin, the death of this body seems to be the thing that finally, truly sets us free from the influence of sin. If that is the case, then banishing Adam and Eve from the garden where they could have eaten from the Tree of Life was not a punishment but an act of grace. If God had not banished them, preventing them from eating from the Tree of Life, they would have lived in their sin forever, without the benefit of death to break sin's hold on them, and their separation from God would have been eternal.  God's decision to banish them from the garden, though I'm sure it felt like a punishment, was really an act of grace.

Sometimes, we experience things that feel like punishments, the loss of a relationship, the end of a time of privilege, a downturn in our financial circumstances. And though we might be able to draw a direct line between these events and our own bad decisions, while discipline may well be involved, remember that God is not a vindictive God. God's hope is to rehabilitate us and to save us, not to beat us down because we provided an opportunity for God to punish us. And the very thing we view as a punishment may really be an act of God's grace, keeping us from something worse down the road or clearing the way for something wonderful.

Yes, God does discipline those who belong to Him, but God's discipline is redemptive in nature. When you feel like you're being punished by God, fix the appropriate part of your life and thank God for the grace you've been given. God's discipline is an act of love for the children of God. Don't be discouraged by discipline. Learn the lesson God is teaching and be grateful for God's grace.

When Bad Apples Get Off Scott Free

Suggested Reading: Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Something that drives me crazy is the ability of one bad apple to ruin it for everybody else. One football player caught cheating can forfeit a season for the rest of the team which was playing by the rules. One Senator caught in an ethics scandal can cost his party the majority and change the balance of power. One lazy student can cost his project partners a decent grade. One person abusing the system can cause everyone to lose privileges. We see it happen over and over again. When one person does something wrong, everyone suffers for it.

We all hate it when we are the victims of the bad apple. Fortunately, God doesn't seem to do things that way, at least not on a large scale. In Matthew 13, Jesus was telling a parable about a farmer who planted his crops, only to discover that an enemy had snuck in during the night and planted weeds among the crops.

“‘An enemy has done this! ’ the farmer exclaimed.

“‘Should we pull out the weeds? ’ [the workers] asked.

“‘No,’ he replied, ‘you’ll uproot the wheat if you do. Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie them into bundles, and burn them, and to put the wheat in the barn.'” (Matthew 13:28-30, NLT). 

When Jesus explains the parable, he makes it clear that the weeds are wicked people, the bad apples, but removing them would somehow be bad for the righteous, the wheat.

In life, there are certainly bad apples, people who would blow it for the rest of us if they chose. But God, for some reason, has decided that dealing with these wicked people right now would hurt us. So, God has left the wicked among us for the time being. When we see wicked people advancing and we wonder why God hasn't dealt with them yet, we must remember that God is letting the wicked remain as an act of grace for the righteous. That can be hard to wrap your mind around. But next time you see the wicked and you want to question why God has let them remain unharmed, remember that Jesus said it was for the sake of the righteous. Is it really worth the wicked getting what they deserve right now if it means the righteous will suffer?

Pitching Well to Save God's Reputation

Suggested Reading: Exodus 32:1-14

In the movie Little Big League, a twelve year old boy gets the chance to manage a major league baseball team. One of the players, a pitcher, doesn't like the idea of playing for a twelve year old and threatens his young manager with playing very poorly if he doesn't get traded off the team. The boy tells him that he will not be traded and reminds the pitcher that, when his contract is up, no one will want a pitcher who didn't pitch well. Suddenly, for the sake of his own reputation and in order to be valuable enough for someone else to sign him, he pitches extremely well. The twelve year old manager just had to remind the pitcher that his own reputation was at stake.

A similar dynamic exists at times throughout scripture with God being reminded his reputation is at stake. Perhaps the first time we see it blatantly is with Moses. God has just given Moses the law and before Moses comes down from the mountain the Israelites create a golden calf and begin worshiping it with pagan rituals. God, in his anger warns Moses that he is going to destroy the rebellious, idolatrous Israelites and start over with Moses.  But Moses tried to pacify the Lord his God. “O  Lord!” he said. “Why are you so angry with your own people whom you brought from the land of Egypt with such great power and such a strong hand? Why let the Egyptians say, ‘Their God rescued them with the evil intention of slaughtering them in the mountains and wiping them from the face of the earth’? Turn away from your fierce anger. Change your mind about this terrible disaster you have threatened against your people!" (Exodus 32:11-12, NLT). With the fate of Israel at stake, Moses reminds God that his reputation was also at stake.

Too often we lose sight of what is most important: that God is glorified so that the world is drawn to the Savior. We ask God to provide for us because we need something, because it is good for us. We ask God to move in a person's life because they need it. Those reasons are well and good. But what about the times when we don't deserve to have God intervene in our lives? What happens when the person we are praying for is openly rebellious against God? When we have no ground to stand on, we need to shift our focus back to where it always belonged in the first place: on bringing God glory. When we have failed, or are on the verge of failing, when doing so would be detrimental to God's glory, when it would be "bad" for God's reputation, when we finally realize how poorly we ourselves have handled God's reputation, we can pray for God to move for the sake of God's reputation alone.

We may not deserve for God to use us, we may not deserve for God to move in our lives, but God always deserves to be glorified. When we can shift our focus back to that truth, it should affect both our behavior and our prayers.

Cleaning Rooms by the Grace of God

Suggested Reading: Psalm 119:17-24

One of the must frustrating times for parents of young children can be room-cleaning time. When my children were young, sometimes, they would go in and clean their rooms right away and everything was great. Then there were days when I would send them to clean their rooms and what should take 15 minutes would take four hours. Or longer. Typically, when they started taking their pretty little time getting their rooms cleaned, I set a time limit. When that time limit passed, they began losing items in their room, typically beginning with the items they would miss the most. For one child that meant a portable DVD player. For the other that meant particular toys. The time limit thing was hit or miss depending on the day. Sometimes, they didn't care until I actually took the item away. Sometimes, they realized Daddy was serious and got to work. On those days when they had messed around but finally get busy I always watched for opportunities to help them meet the time limit. I didn't want to take their things away if they worked with me. So occasionally, when they were really close to getting it done but they weren't going to make it, I would go in and help them finish in time. I made sure they knew that they finished because I helped them, because I was extending grace to them.

That same dynamic can be seen in our lives as we try to live like God wants us to. The psalmist expresses it in Psalm 119:17, "Be good to your servant that I may live and obey your word." (NLT) The psalmist's prayer reminds us that our ability to do good is connected to God's grace. We can get ourselves into trouble when we begin to think that the good we do is a symptom of our own righteousness. The reality is that God's grace enables us to do good. God's grace puts us in a position to do good. God's grace moves in us to give us the desire and ability to do good. On our own, we always fall short, just like my kids who had messed around for hours instead of cleaning their rooms from the beginning. At those times when we finally want to do good, God steps in and helps us to do things we could never have accomplished without God's grace. 

Next time you do good for someone, remember that God's grace enabled you to do that good. Thank God for his grace and allow God to extend more of it to you so that you can continue to do good for others.