A Change of Status

Looking for treasure in the Bible is like looking for a needle in a stack of needles.

Looking for treasure in the Bible is like looking for sand on a beach, it's like looking for diamonds in a diamond mind. You only fail to see treasure, life giving, heart warming treasure in the Bible if you're failing to look. It's everywhere.

Some of these treasures are big and obvious. Romans 8 and Isaiah 53 for example. Some are smaller diamonds, but when you hold them up to the light, they take your breath away. Colossians 3:1-2 falls into this latter category.

Colossians 3:1-2 tells us our status has changed. It's graduation time in schools in North Carolina, so status change is something we see happening all around us. The seniors that walked across a stage in their cap and gown this week can't come back when the new school, year starts. Their status has changed, they need to go somewhere else. The new seniors can't take 11th grade classes, their status has changed. Life is different.

I recently applied for and was given a Green Card. This literal green piece of plastic changes my status. When Rachel and I showed up at customs and immigration on Friday, we got to stand in the same line. I presented my Green Card, and the customs officer barely even looked at me. I still had to be finger printed and photographed, and tell him how long i'd been out of the country but that was it. No secondary inspection, no long wait in line, no proving, to the nth degree, that everything i said about myself was true. I'd done all that, my Green Card had changed my status from visitor to resident.

Something fundamental happens when you graduate, and when you get a Green Card, and something fundamental happens when you're saved. Your status changes. You're now seated next to the Father in Christ, you're seating in the Heavenly realm in Christ. We've been raised with Him, and we are, in Him, where He is.

Salvation is not a small thing. It's a total change. It's not just a 'decision,' it's a change in location. And it has to be done. High school seniors can't just want to graduate, they have to follow the requirements, and so do we. By faith in Jesus, we are joined to Him, and seated with Him.

And with a change in status comes a change in responsibility. I challenged my sunday school class this weekend not to fall in love with summer, but to use summer to fall more in love with Jesus. Summer is a signpost, it's not the beach. It's a picture, it's not the reality, it's the mailman, not the wife. So set your minds on the things that are above, and love the reality.

Loving summer, or any good gift, more than Christ, is as backwards as a high school senior going back to grade school, or a Green Card holder standing in the visitors line. It doesn't make any sense, it's a mind not set on reality.

Let's set our minds on what's real, true and beautiful. On Christ, and our changed status in Him.

What Provo is Teaching Me (I)

This will probably come in two parts, one more 'theological' and one more personal. Or, this post will mutate into the sort of thing you give up on half way through...

For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:21

We arrived back from Provo yesterday evening. Five days had flown by, and we came home with mixed feelings. I always want those sort of trips to be longer, i always leave feeling more burdened by what we didn't do that pleased with what we did. But we a lot for three days.

I shared with you before we left that Provo is overwhelmingly Mormon. In fact, soon Provo will be the only city in the world with two Mormon Temples. The Provo/Orem metropolitan area is literally bursting at the seems with Mormons. It's like the Bible belt on culty steroids. What is Mormonism, basically? From my far less than expert point of view, it seems that Mormonism can be summed up as a system whereby man aims to gain reward by pleasing God. This has some positive side effects. There's a great volunteer spirit in Provo, it's clean and public places are well looked after. We spent a morning picking up litter and weeding a popular running and biking trail, and didn't pick up a single fast food wrapper or beer can. But the (eternal) negatives obviously far outweigh the (temporal) positives.

I defined Mormonism as a system for man to please God. That doesn't sound like a bad thing does it? Evangelicals want to please God, no? I want, very much to please God today in my marriage and ministry. So what's the big deal? Well the big deal, Christianity is about what Jesus has done to please God, not what we must do to please God.

2 Corinthians 5:21 spells this out in slow motion. For our sake, that means, God did something for your benefit and mine that we couldn't do by ourselves. What did He do? He made Jesus to be sin. He counted to Jesus' account all the sins that we've committed today, and yesterday, and forever. And this was a big deal, because Jesus had never sinned. He is the spotless lamb, He is the true Israelite who has the law written on His heart. He is the High Priest in Melchizedek's order, He is the eternal Son of God. And His Father out all our sins on Him.

Why? What benefit does that give us? So that...we might become the righteousness of God. In the glorious economy of God the Father, He looks at you and me, and sees Jesus perfect righteousness. He doesn't see my sin, or your sin, His face doesn't flicker with anger as we approach Him, His mind doesn't weigh up whether or not our prayers deserve a hearing. We become the righteousness of God.  We approached our Father clothed in our blessed brother's robe, that we might receive a blessing from Him.

I missed out a part though. We don't become this righteousness by works. This righteousness comes in Him. In Him might be two of the most important words in the Bible. In Him, you and I are righteous. Not because we have pleased the Father, but because Jesus has. In Him, we have hope, not because we are worthy of merit, but because Jesus is. In Him, in Him, in Him!

Baptism doesn't save, vicarious baptism doesn't move relatives from Hell to Heaven. It's all in Him. We work out our salvation with fear and trembling, because we are in Him. We've been given precious treasure in pots of clay, not so that we can paint the outside of our pots but to show the surpassing power belongs to God! Not us! Not to us, only to Him.

Are you in Him? Are you connected by faith alone to Christ alone? Don't please your Father to earn His smile today, He smiles on you because of Christ, and this frees us to labour joyfully for His glory.