Philippians 1:10b-11
"Live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return. May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God."
Since the fall of man, Adam and every human being that followed, lost the capability to exercise holy reign over the whole of creation. Adam violated the holy command and every generation that followed did likewise. David and the nation of Israel continued this sinful trend. They too were unable to fully manifest God’s kingdom here on earth because of their unrepentant sin. Zerubbabel’s lackluster performance after returning to Jerusalem following the exile into Babylon proved that there always remains a spiritual problem of faithlessness to the law of God, a problem so prevalent that even God's wrath cannot cure it.
And I suppose this is why many Israelites rejected Jesus as the Messiah. His earthly mission was to inaugurate the kingdom and restore righteous dominion to Israel. And apparently his mission was also to expose and explain the problem of righteousness among men at a down to earth level. God (The Messiah) had to become man to prove the problem can be overcome if one was truly interested in fulfilling that mission. Christ’s entire life of obedience, his atoning death, resurrection, and ultimately his ascension; are the means of grace by which He has inaugurated the kingdom of God on earth and in the spiritual realms.
Human beings forfeited their right to claim citizenship in Christ's kingdom when they (we all) sold our inheritance to Satan. The serpent took ownership of our souls in Adam's temptation and sin. In order for Jesus Christ to restore that inheritance for us, he needed to defeat death and sin, and overcome the Devil’s lies, winning back our place in His holy house.
Jesus faced off against Satan in the wilderness and throughout his ministry. Before the cross there was a conversation. Satan tried to convert Jesus Christ to his cause. Jesus faced temptation as we face temptation. He faced the same challenges of hunger, deprivation, poverty, and pain. He was tempted by uncertainty, he sweat blood his pain was so great. And he faced it willingly with perfect faithfulness. You never see Jesus being a wishy-washy believer. Sure, he loses his cool and is seen turning over tables at the temple, but he's not doing it because the church didn't cater to his needs. He wasn't refusing to worship until they created a program for his particular needs. He didn't stop speaking the word of God, or obeying God's commands. He wasn't church shopping. He faced all the very same problems we face in our daily lives and church lives. And he loved his church so much that he died for them.
God the Father counts us as righteous in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21), Jesus fulfilled the demands given to Israel and to Adam. And now he is our representative of righteousness. And in that righteousness, we gain his light. His light that we reflect to the world. We are now commissioned to go share that light, proclaiming the good news of His kingdom to all nations.
This mission is called "Coram Deo", it means to live one’s entire life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, and for the glory of God. This is the life Jesus lived. When we say we desire to live Christ-like, what we're saying is we want to live Coram Deo. To live in the presence of God, knowing that everything you do, say, and think, all of it is under His authority and examination. We live Coram Deo knowing that there is no place so remote that we can escape His penetrating gaze. And we live that life, for Him, a life that is sweet smelling and filled with the fruit of our Salvation in Christ's righteousness.
As I write this devotion the autocorrect keeps trying to change the "Deo" in Coram Deo into Deodorant. And it's interesting because it's kind of right to want to do that. This Corum Deo thing is about a sweet-smelling life of faith.
2 Corinthians 2:14
"But thank God! He has made us his captives and continues to lead us along in Christ’s triumphal procession. Now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume."
Ephesians 5:2
"And we walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."
Sometimes when I'm writing I see the Ai trying to think like The Spirit, maybe The Spirit is trying to save Ai. I don't know, but I find it interesting. It seems like Ai is becoming religious, or at least reflecting it with every encounter we share.
This inaugurated holiness, this Coram Deo, is our hope of final perfection based on our confidence in God’s ability and faithfulness to bring about salvation in Jesus Christ. There is power in his name, power to bear the fruit of love in our lives. Love (agapē) is the distinctive feature of the Christian character. A character of grace. The supreme commandment of love.
Knowledge? Yes!
Insight? Yes!
Purity? Yes!
Love? Absolutely!
To live all of our life Coram Deo is to live a life of integrity. Not a life of reluctant submission. Not a life motivated out of a fear of punishment, remember God's wrath doesn't fix sin. Our lives are to be living sacrifices, a sweet-smelling faith offering in a spirit of adoration and gratitude. To not live a fragmented life mingled with the worldly ways of confusion and all its many contradictions. If a Christian is compartmentalizing his life, he has two masters, and we know what Jesus thinks about that.
Integrity is found when people live their lives blameless in a pattern of consistency, with pure motives, in the church and outside the church. It is a life in which all that is done is done before the Lord. It is a life lived by principle, not expediency. Living fruit, a righteous character produced in our lives by Jesus Christ. A life lived before and for God.
It boils down to being truthful, loving in grace, and integral in every situation, as if you're doing it with God by your side. You've got to come clean. You can't be one of the usual suspects.
Coram Deo...before the face of God.
Isaiah 5:18-19
"What sorrow for those who drag their sins behind them with ropes made of lies, who drag wickedness behind them like a cart! They even mock God and say, 'Hurry up and do something! We want to see what you can do. Let the Holy One of Israel carry out his plan, for we want to know what it is.'”
The soul believes that God is. The hearts believes that Jesus is the truth and full of grace, the heart believes that he's telling us the truth. And the Spirit through the word of God reveals the truth about grace and brings that truth both into recognition and into remembrance, making that truth clearer and more relevant for the believer. Spirit, soul, and body. By the works of these supernatural forces, faith comes to the hearer. Christianity then becomes what that hearer does with that truth and grace.
Today, there's a dichotomy of worldly ideologies surrounding the Christian church. The polarization is split between progressivism and bigotry. Neither is a good thing. Neither is a Christian worldview. The progressives starting ...
Zechariah 14:4-5
In that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley...Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him."
The Mount of Olives is east of the city across the Kidron Valley and is higher than the temple mound. Jerusalem becomes the source of living water when The Lord splits the Mount in two and a valley opens up from East to west. And a vast underground river rises up and pours out over the land towards the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean. The Dead Sea is healed and becomes a fishing resort. And Jerusalem will be raised up, elevated above her geographical surroundings.
Zechariah 14:10
"The whole land shall be turned into a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem."
And all the heavens will change. All we know about the universe will change. There will no longer be day or night. No darkness. Only the light of The Lord. One day, neither day nor night, as if ...
Zechariah 1:13
“In that day a fountain will be opened for the dynasty of David and for the people of Jerusalem, a fountain to cleanse them from all their sins and impurity."
Nothing is sacred about a moment.
Nothing is sacred about a relic.
Nothing is sacred about idols.
Zechariah 13:2
“And on that day,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “I will erase idol worship throughout the land, so that even the names of the idols will be forgotten."
A man desires God's presence he's lost. He creates an idol to make a remembrance, and that idol becomes his god.
That lost blessing?
He's forgotten it, too busy remembering his idol.
In that day, the Lord himself will do battle against the AntiChrist. His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, and a fountain will open up. A new creation. A new river will spring forth from Jerusalem and cleanse the land and its people.
Ezekiel 36:25
"I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols."
...
Matthew 1:16
"and Jacob fathered Joseph the husband of Mary, who gave birth to Jesus who is called the Messiah."
Joseph and Mary were engaged. In the Hebrew culture this was the first of three steps in the marriage process. This engagement is basically an arrangement to be married. This could have taken place very early in their lives, even as small children. Engagement was usually arranged by the parents. Espousal followed this arrangement period and lasted about a year in the case where the couple are of age. This espousal stage was considered to be marriage to a certain degree, but the couple were set apart to prepare themselves for full consummation and so they were kept apart sexually. In fact the father kept tokens of his daughter's virginity in case any questions arose later on. It was at this point that "it was discovered before they came together that she was pregnant from the Holy Spirit." (Matthew 1:18b)
Joseph was a righteous man, a Nazarene, a descendent of David. And he didn't want to disgrace Mary and open her ...
Matthew chapter 1
"This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham..."
From Abraham to the Messiah, by his seed (Abraham's), some 42 generations later, the birth of Jesus Christ (the Messiah) came to pass. Jesus' earthly father Joseph, the descendant of king David by the line of David's son Solomon, bore the genealogy of a cursed royal line because of Jeconiah. And yet Luke looks to Jesus as the son of Mary who traces her lineage from Nathan the son of king David, though Nathan is not of the kingly line, but he's also not cursed by the sin of Jeconiah. It seems that Jeconiah birthed quite a bit of trouble, I'm thinking about his grandchild Zerubbabel who was particularly problematic. Looking back to the minor prophets we've recently studied, maybe we'll recall, that Zerubbabel tried to lead a messianic movement for himself. Whether or not he did indeed try to lay claim to Messiah status is a little unclear, but he was indeed involved in the coming of Christ. Both Matthew and Luke list ...
Yesterday I wrote an article/devotion about Nostra aetate and the notion that some hold that there are many paths to God, or that all religious paths lead to the same cross of Jesus. The impetus was the Pope's recent comments about his belief in what I believe is a heretical doctrine.
Today, I want to address what's really going on here for so many in the Catholic Church and in Christian universalism in general. It's really about evangelism, or the lack thereof. Maybe you could say, if you were Methodist, it's about prevenient grace. The desire is to open doors for evangelism. I get that. I also know it only ever really opens the window, but hardly ever the door.
Why?
Why doesn't it work to convert and disciple the worshippers of other "gods" to just meet in ecumenical mingled worship?
Simple answer:
They aren't making disciples, they're making excuses.
And unfortunately this Nostra aetate universalist notion has bled out into all the many Christian communities. And the result is, evangelism and disciple making has been nearly eliminated in most Christian ...
