Category: Band

In the book of Hebrews, there is a strange statement that compares Jesus to another guy with a strange name, Melchizedek. Here is what it says:

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.

Hebrews 6:19-20

Here, the writer of Hebrews says that Jesus gives us a hope for our soul. This hope doesn’t waver, but instead is like an anchor, holding us firmly and securely.

It says that our hope allows us behind the curtain where Jesus had gone before us. Meaning what? As Solomon dedicated the temple that he had built to the Lord, God’s presence entered and dwelt in that temple. In fact, behind a curtain was a place called the Most Holy Place, or Holy of Holies, and this is where God’s presence dwelt, in the temple, with his people. So here in Hebrews, it says that we can now enter into God’s presence, just as Jesus did!

But then there is still this strange discussion of Melchizedek. Why would the writer of Hebrews refer back to this person?

Refering back to the story

The writer says that Jesus is a priest in the line of Melchizedek. Where do we find Melchizedek? Let’s look back at the original story.

There had been several kings of various cities that had gone to war with one another. Lot, who was Abram’s nephew, had been caught up in the war because he had lived near the Jordan River near Sodom, in the area that the fighting had been happening. As a result, Lot and all of his family and possessions were taken by the kings that had won the war and were being carried off to the east where the kingdoms of the kings that had won the battle were located.

But Abram hears about it and chases down king Kedorlaomer with his 318 men and routes his armies along with those that were allied with him and brings back everything that they had taken.

The king of Sodom, grateful as he was, comes out to meet Abram in the Valley of Shaveh. Along with him comes the king of Salem, named Melchizedek.

But Melchizedek isn’t just a king. We learn that he actually is also a priest of God Most High, of Yahweh, the same God that Abram worships and serves. Melchizedek blesses Abram and gives praise to God for delivering the battle to Abram.

And what does Abram do? He gives a tenth of everything that he had gained back to Melchizedek.

So, what do we have so far in this situation?

First, we have Melchizedek as a king. He is the king of the Salem, the king of “Peace”, if you will.

Then, we have Melchizedek as a priest. He serves the one and only God.

And then we have Abram giving Melchizedek a tenth of everything that he had won in the battle. He recognizes God’s providence, protection, power, and guidance and offers a tenth to this king and priest.

Pointing to the Messiah

We can begin to see why the writer of Hebrews looks back to Melchizedek as one who represented Christ in the time of Abraham. First, kings shouldn’t be priests, and priests shouldn’t be kings. Generally speaking, kings look for justification and absolution for the actions from the priests. And beyond that, priests frequently look for legitimization for their work from the state, from the king. But one in the same? That’s pretty rare.

However, that is exactly who Jesus is. He is the King. In fact, he is the King of kings. He is the King in the Kingdom of God. The King over all kings of the earth. And he is also a priest. He has labored for us, offering a sacrifice – in fact, his own body and blood – on the “altar” of the cross for our sins.

And finally, just as Abram recognized this amazing combination as a king and a priest of the Most High God and gave a tenth of all of that he had won, we also give Christ not only a tenth of what he has given to us but in fact the entirety of our very lives. We owe him everything and he is worthy of all of us and all of the glory that he could possibly receive.

This is how Jesus is a high priest in the line of Melchizedek. Throughout the Old Testament, we see pointers toward the coming Messiah, including this unique figure of Melchizedek.

Abraham had been a man that had been obeying God. He had originally lived in the land of Ur with his father Terah with his wife Sarai. Ur was in the area of what we would today call southern Iraq. Maybe near present-day Basrah.

Terah had made a plan, along with his family, to head to Canaan, but instead they stopped short in Harran, possibly because of the water sources in the area and fertile ground that they had found.

But God spoke to Abraham, at that time named Abram, and he said that he should continue the journey on to a land that God would show him, which would be the plan that they had originally made, to go to Canaan. Canaan was still quite a ways away, especially as Abraham was moving several of his family members and his flocks, but God had promised him this land and had promised him blessing, so he decided to go along with his nephew Lot and they made it to Canaan. In fact, we see that they were able to not only make it to the land, but God appears to Abram and tells him that this is the place, here in Canaan, and we see that Abram worships God. He builds an altar and offers a sacrifice to God at that new land.

Failing the test

However, a significant test comes upon Abram. There is a famine in the land and he needs to go look for food, so he heads to Egypt. He believes that he will find food there, so he packs up his families and heads down to the south. Abram realizes that Sarai’s beauty, despite being a great blessing to him, could actually also be a liability so he tells Sarai that he wants her to lie and say that she is his sister instead of his wife.

As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live. Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.”

Genesis 12:11-13

In fact, as it turns out, Sarai was Abram’s half-sister, having been born from the same father as Abram but a different mother. So Abram was attempting to skirt around the danger that he believed was coming using a portion of the truth, but in reality, he was lying. The truth is that Sarai was his wife, and he was about to give her away to the king, the Pharaoh, of Egypt.

Abram had a choice in this situation. He could have easily said that he would go to Egypt and depend upon God to protect him. The same God that had just led him to Canaan and promised the land to him could, of course, protect Abram from the problems that he felt that would come upon him as he went to the Egyptians. But he didn’t do that. Abram instead decided to choose his own solution and give away his wife.

Consequences of sin

I can just begin to imagine the consequences of Abram’s sin. First, we see that Pharaoh rebukes Abram for what he has done. God, in his wisdom, decides to bring sickness and disease upon Pharaoh and his household. Pharaoh begins to wonder what is happening and finds out that the problem is that he has brought another man’s wife into his household to be his own wife.

Abram had an opportunity, similar to what we later see with Daniel, to announce that his protection and guidance comes from Yahweh, from the One and Only God, the One who had guided him to this area in the first place, and give glory to God for watching over him and protecting him. But instead, Abram insists on his own solution and instead prostitutes his wife for the sake of his own life and his own gain.

What is more, I am also thinking of the camel ride home after Pharaoh sends Abram and Sarai away. How silent was that ride? And how long-lasting and deep of scars were created in their relationship?

What damage was done to Sarai as a result of Abram deciding to give Sarai to Pharaoh to go and be his wife? Could it have been, instead, that Sarai would have trusted God’s plan that she would have a child with Abram, just as God had said, if only Abram had showed dependence upon God instead of showing that he didn’t trust God for his provision and protection? There isn’t any way to know for sure, but I can only begin to imagine that Sarai had significant difficulties in trusting Abram, not to mention trusting God who had brought them there, as they went forward based on what Abram had done.

Choices to make

And so we also have choices to make. Each day, we can look to our own solutions, our own ideas about how we can solve problems, or we can look to God for his solutions. God desires to make a way for us. God desires to lead, to guide, and to protect, but he also calls us to trust him. There are moments in each day where we can decide to do the right thing, according to God’s plan, or we can choose to make our own decision and go our own way. We can, instead of trusting God, trust ourselves, setting up our own plans. Let us instead be a people that look to God for his provision and for his guidance so that we can now be considered faithful and his good and faithful servants.

When God made Adam, it says that he created him from the dust of the earth and then breathed into him to give Adam life. Adam came to life because of God breathing into him.

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Genesis 2:7

I learned today that the word for “breath” in the sentence above is the word ruach, a word that, in Hebrew, seeks to imitate the sound of a breath. It is actually the same word for Spirit, which as I also learned, is the same in Greek and in Latin as it was translated from the Hebrew.

In other words, although we read that God breathed his breath into the nostrils of the man to give him life, we could also translate that as God breathing his Spirit into the man, into Adam, which gave Adam life.

Jesus – Born of the Spirit

This reminds me of a few other passages within the New Testament scriptures. A few other new beginnings.

First, when Mary would become pregnant, the angel Gabriel told her that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and she would become pregnant with Jesus. In a similar way to the Spirit of God enlivening Adam, we see also that Jesus was born without a human father, but instead from the Spirit of God.

The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.

Luke 1:35

Next, I’m reminded of when Jesus told Nicodemus that we must be born of the Spirit. He said that if we want to be able to see the Kingdom of God, we must be born of the Spirit:

Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

John 3:5-8

Again, we see a scenario where someone is born, or actually in this case, reborn, through the Spirit. They have lived in the flesh, but they must be born of the Spirit if they want to see or be part of the Kingdom of God.

And finally, after Jesus was resurrected, there was a time that he appeared to his disciples. As he was commissioning them to go, he tells the disciples that he was sent by the Father, and so now he is also sending them, the disciples, and he breathes on them telling them to receive the Holy Spirit:

Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.

John 20:21-22

Here, we see a new start as well. Jesus has been resurrected and the new start is the new life of the disciples as Jesus is sending them to tell the world what has happened. They will fully receive the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, but Jesus breathes on them the Spirit, giving them new life.

Life

The takeaway? God gives life. Only through Him can we receive life. This is what we saw with Adam who received life by God’s breath, God’s Spirit being breathed into him.

This is also what we see through Jesus as God’s Spirit came to Mary and placed Jesus within her.

This is what we see as we transition from death to life through the Spirit of God as we are reborn by the Spirit.

And this is what we see as we receive the Holy Spirit and are sent by Christ into the world to tell others of what we have seen, experienced, and understood…that they also can have new life.

Our concerns are most frequently on this life. Our thoughts are frequently here, in this place and in this time. Our prayers are most frequently focused on the problems of today.

But I’ve been struck recently by how different this is from the perspective that we see in the Scriptures, from the narrative that we see in the Bible.

I’ve written recently about Jesus being given as a ransom. He certainly wasn’t concerned about his life of today. He was living his life for the sake of others from eternity past into eternity future. He knew the stakes of his life and of the decisions that he made in that time and chose eternity over the here and now.

I wrote recently about Paul telling the Philippians to not be anxious but instead to rejoice. A very natural, human condition is to have anxiety, to be nervous about the future. To have fear and be concerned over one thing or another. And yet Paul says not to do this but instead to look beyond those things that would worry us and instead to rejoice in what God has done for us.

And in one last example, I read Paul again to say that for him to live is Christ for the world, but to die, for him, would be gain.

Who says that?

Who today takes the point of view that the Kingdom of God is more important that the world surrounding us? Who actually thinks and acts as if there is something more important going on than what is affecting us right here and right now.

This morning, I read another example. Paul tells Timothy that slaves should consider their masters worthy of full respect. I wrote recently on the issue of slavery in the Bible as it was bugging me to have not spoken of it despite the topic having come up pretty frequently, so I won’t necessarily rehash that here. Instead, the point that struck me this morning was once again the issue of the contrast between how we view our situation in the present vs. how we view our position in the Kingdom from now into eternity.

Paul tells Timothy:

All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered.

1 Timothy 6:1

Again, I ask: Who says that?

Who would ever tell slaves that they should respect their masters?

Only in the context of giving glory to God and living for the future can words like these even begin to be uttered.

I’m reminded of movies that I have seen before where one man is beating and hurting another man, but the man who is being beaten is smiling. Why? Because he knows something that the man who is beating him doesn’t. He knows that the man who is beating him is about to meet his end. Or he knows that his plan is being carried out even while he is being beaten, maybe precisely because he is being beaten. He is looking beyond his present circumstance with the knowledge of something greater that is happening. He is thinking about the rest of the story.

This is the only way that I can explain these types of statements above. To live in humility, submitting yourself to punishment? To not be anxious over situations that should clearly cause anxiety? To be willing to die, and you would consider that to actually be a good thing? That is not only living counter-culturally, but what is more, cuts against the grain of humanity. These people are living for something more, something beyond themselves today. They are living for what is yet to come. They know something that the rest of us don’t know. They know the rest of the story.

And this is how we are called to live. I remember thinking about Matthew 10 as Jesus sends his disciples out to announce the Kingdom of God to all of the towns in the area. Jesus already knew that the disciples might be beaten, mistreated, or even killed. He already knew that! And yet he sends them. In fact, you might even argue that he sent them because he knew that.

Jesus is doing it because he knows the rest of the story. He is acting in the light of eternity, not in view of today, but forever.

And this is how we are also to live. The fact that this perspective is raised over and over throughout the Scriptures is an indication of God’s desire for us to look up, to look beyond our present situation. He wants us, instead, to look to Him. To look to His glory, to live for Him, and if we can truly grasp what that means, we can start the process to understand how Jesus lived. We can start to understand how Paul would be able to say that to die is gain. And we can begin to look beyond this life.

It is difficult to see a need and, having the ability to fill the need, not fill it. But there are times, of course, when it makes more sense to not fill a need because there it is better over the longer term to have the other person do it for themselves.

We can acknowledge, of course, that there are frequently situations that prevent a person from being able to provide well for themselves, or at least as well as you might assume that they should be able to do. For example, some people don’t have a support system of family or friends around them. Others may not have the benefit of reliable transportation or communication tools. And still others may have challenges with their health that prevent them from doing what we might normally be able to do.

These circumstances each introduce new challenges, but the overall concept still largely remains the same. If it is possible for that person to provide for themselves, then they should. Otherwise, we risk introducing new problems of dependency into that person’s life. We should, of course, be generous within the church and help those in need but at the same time, we should also see need in other ways. It could be that a need could be filled by helping a person become activated in caring for themself, and therefore, even beyond providing for basic needs such as food and shelter, they also build their confidence so that they believe that they can do more, be more, than what they have been up to now.

A Timeless Problem

It seems that Paul and his leaders dealt with similar types of problems. As Paul wrote to Timothy, he points out that there are some people, most especially certain widows, who have legitimate needs, and who need to be cared for by the church. But there are others who should work, or who should be supported by their own family, or even those widows who are still young enough that they should remarry and care for their own families.

Here is the specific part of Paul’s letter to Timothy where he addresses this issue:

As for younger widows, do not put them on such a list. For when their sensual desires overcome their dedication to Christ, they want to marry. Thus they bring judgment on themselves, because they have broken their first pledge. Besides, they get into the habit of being idle and going about from house to house. And not only do they become idlers, but also busybodies who talk nonsense, saying things they ought not to. So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander.

1 Timothy 5:11-14

This may seem obvious as we read this letter. Yes, of course the younger widows should figure out how to support themselves. Yes, it makes sense that they should remarry, have children, and manage their homes. Of course they should avoid being idle or busy-bodies.

But when we are in the midst of the situation, we don’t always see these solutions. We might find it difficult to send someone away to care for themselves. We might find it easier to say Yes than to say No, in which case we may cause more and deeper problems than we have solved.

Let’s look for solutions to equip and empower the people of the church and prevent each one from falling into the habit of being idle.

There are many who claim to follow God saying that they follow God by following the rules that He has given to them. Would it be surprising to us to learn that, instead, God has set us free from the rules? Instead of expecting us to follow a set of laws, God expects us to love Him and love other people?

Yes, this is what God calls us to do. This is who we are to be.

Jesus came and fulfilled the law. He himself followed the law perfectly and yet was killed because he was perfect. In one sense, from a human perspective, you might say that he was punished in spite of his perfection, but in reality, from God’s perspective, he was punished because of his perfection. Specifically because he was perfect, God made him the perfect sacrifice for each of us.

But we should also learn something more, something important: Following the law, following the rules, doesn’t make you right before God.

Do you think that you are righteous because you haven’t eaten certain foods? Not true.

Do you think you are righteous because you have prayed at the right time every day? No, not the case.

Each of us are sinners. Each of us have sinned, so we have an important idea to understand. We are not righteous. Regardless of how much we follow individual rules, we are sinners, and because we are sinners, we stand condemned before God. God is holy and standing before him, we are unclean.

So every time we think that we are doing right because we don’t want to eat something that is unclean, or haram, or in some other way forbidden by God, remember that instead, WE are the ones that are unclean. Already we are unclean. We are dirty as we stand before God.

Following religious rules will get you nowhere, and yet that is the prevailing idea of how we can come to God. Paul refutes this as he writes to Timothy saying:

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

1 Timothy 4:1-5

Paul says that demons want to teach us that we should abstain or forbid from marriage or from certain foods, attitudes that we continue to see even today. But God made everything good. He created these things and they should not be rejected. We should receive everything from God with thanksgiving and live before him in freedom from religious rules.

Instead, we replace the rules with love. Jesus said that the commandments, the rules, are summed up and fulfilled by love. And if we are truly loving, we are already living in a way that will fulfill the rules, that will fulfill the law without ever concerning ourselves with following religious rules.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Matthew 22:37-40

Jesus calls us to freedom from religion by, instead, loving God with all that I am, and furthermore loving other people as I would love myself. I give all of myself to God in love to Him. I give myself to others to serve them as I would myself. This is love. This is how we are to live. Religions that purport to show us the way to God through a myriad of rules are useless.

I’ve probably seen too many kidnapping movies. Anytime I see this word ransom, I think of the movies that I have seen where someone has been kidnapped and taken away. There is always a tense scene where the family waits for a phone call. They wait to hear from the kidnapper to understand what it is that they want. They need to learn how much money the kidnapper wants so that their loved one will be returned.

From there, of course, the negotiator steps in and works with the kidnappers to determine the amount of money that will be paid, the way that the exchange will work, and the the logistics of how the person will be returned to their family.

In our case, though, we weren’t kidnapped. We gave ourselves willingly into slavery. We enjoyed the temporary pleasures of sin, even getting used to them despite the fact that its after-effects may be hurting us. And that continues until one day, we wake up and realize that this isn’t the life that God wanted for us. We realize that this isn’t how we should live, that we don’t have to continue this way.

Maybe that happens because of the consequences of our sin. Or maybe we realize it because someone explains to us where our sin will lead us. However it happens, we often suddenly find ourselves in a situation that is difficult to leave. We are bound to this old life, sold into a type of slavery to the sin that we have enjoyed, and become used to, including it’s consequences, over a period of time.

Paul says that Jesus came to be a ransom for us. Jesus is the payment that will set me free free from my captivity. Here is what he says:

For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time.

1 Timothy 2:5-6

Jesus willingly gave himself as a ransom for all people. All people. Past present and future, so that they can be set free and returned back to relationship with God, to their rightful place, to their rightful home.

As we are held in captivity, as we are held as slaves to sin, we need someone to come to rescue us. Just like in the movies, or even in real-life situations, when we are held in captivity, we need someone to come to rescue us. To pay for us. To set us free. And that is what Jesus has done. He himself is the payment to set us free. Blood is required as the payment for sin, and Jesus’s sinless blood is that payment. It is the ransom. He didn’t deserve punishment. He didn’t deserve to be the one to give his blood because he hadn’t sinned. But he became the ransom. He willingly gave himself to set me free.

In his letter to Timothy, Paul acknowledged that he was once a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent man, all sins for which he should have been condemned. But Paul gives thanks to God because he wasn’t condemned, but instead was shown mercy and grace.

And so the first thing that I want to note here is that we often think that we can come into relationship with God once we have “gotten right”. In other words, we come into relationship with him once we have cleaned up our lives.

However, the truth is that God has already acted, even before we even began to think that we should clean up our lives. God acted thousands of years ago, and he spoke of his plan thousands of years before that. And he made his plan somewhere in eternity past. So what does that mean? God knew what was going to happen. He knew that you were going to sin and rebel against him. He knew that Paul would be a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent man, and yet out of his grace and mercy, he came to save him anyway.

This is what Paul acknowledges as he writes to Timothy. He tells Timothy that this is a trustworthy statement:

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners —of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

1 Timothy 1:15-17

Paul says that he will be an example to others, that because he was the worst of sinners, others could also believe in Christ because if Jesus came for him, Paul, then he would have also come for other people. If Paul was the worst of sinners and yet Christ saved him, then clearly he would also be both willing and able to save others.

God gives glory to God

And yet there is a reason for Christ to do this, and we see this same reason throughout the Bible. God doesn’t only do the things that he does to please us. Yes, it does please us – very much! – that God sent Christ for us. But Jesus did not only come to save us. He came for an even bigger reason.

God receives honor and glory for what he has done. For his great mercy, his great love, his great grace, God is honored and glorified. God does the things that he does so that he will receive glory. This, in fact, is the primary reason that Christ came: that God would receive glory.

Jesus himself, in fact, said this very thing and God confirms what he says. As Jesus was preparing to go to the cross, he acknowledges the anguish that is within him and we see this interaction between he and the Father:

“Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!”

Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.”

John 12:27-28

Jesus’s anguish is connected to the fact that he has been sent to die and he knows that the time is soon coming for him to be killed. Should he ask God to save him the pain and anguish that he is about to go through? As much as he might want to do that, he says No. He won’t do that because he came for this. It is his blood that will purchase the people back for God. It is his bride that he is ransoming back from the clutches of sin and death.

But let’s note that, while all of these things are true, Jesus doesn’t say this. Instead, he says “Father, glorify your name!” And the Father says that he has glorified his name, and he will continue to glorify his name.

And that is the reason that God does what he does. He does what he does to bring glory to his name.

God did this in creation by making man and woman in his own image and telling them to multiply and fill the earth. He was bringing glory to himself by having his image fill the earth.

God did this in making a people for himself so that he would be known among all nations.

God did this by establishing a Kingdom for himself and declaring that his Kingdom would never end.

God sent Jesus to give glory to him by mercifully purchasing a people for himself even though they had rebelled against him.

And God finishes his plan by bringing glory to himself forever as his people worship him around his throne, as we see in Revelation 5 and 7.

So yes, God came for each of us. God came to save sinners, just as Paul said that he did. But let us not forget that God has done all things that he has done so that he will receive glory. This is how Jesus lived, so that the Father would receive glory, even though it meant that he must die. And now for us, we have important decisions to make each day. Will we also live to bring glory to God?

“Sharing the Gospel and making disciples should be a lifestyle, not just an event that we go to do from time to time.”

“Unfortunately, evangelism, if it is done, is frequently an event in our churches today.”

“God will give us opportunities every day if we will just pay attention to what he is doing around us.”

These are a few quotes from a conversation that I had with a friend of mine recently. We were talking about how we should conduct ourselves and look to take advantage of the opportunities that we have on a daily basis with the people that we come into contact with, even as we go about our regular lives.

I recounted to my friend something that I realized a few months ago as I had determined to go to a particular piazza to meet people there and share the Gospel. As I was on my way, I was stopped by 3 people asking how I was or asking for directions. Did I intentionally consider talking to any of these people about Christ? No, I didn’t. Why not? because I was on my way to do that in the piazza.

But why would I try to make an event out of sharing the Gospel with others in the piazza when I had people right here in front of me that I could connect with and share with them? It was because I was thinking of evangelism as an event, as something I was going out to do instead of just doing it as a normal part of my daily life. Ugh!

I was reminded of this as I read what Paul had to say this morning in Colossians 4:

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

Colossians 4:2-6

The first thing that Paul tells the Colossians to do is to pray. They should be watchful and thankful in their prayer. They should be looking for, and asking for opportunities to proclaim Christ in their daily lives, and Paul asks them to pray also that God would open opportunities for him to proclaim Christ.

It is important to note here that Paul is in chains because he has been proclaiming Christ everywhere that he has gone. And now he asks the Colossians to pray that he would be able to continue to preach and proclaim the good news of Christ, just as he should, presumably even if it means that he would remain in chains even longer.

Next, Paul tells the Colossians to be wise in the way that they connect with outsiders. In other words, nonbelievers. They should look for the opportunities to be able to proclaim Christ to them, and they should look for ways to make the most of those opportunities.

Note that Paul doesn’t tell them to be ready or some other way that we frequently say this in our churches today. He says do it. He says that they should be wise and use their conversation. They should be thinking about how they can intentionally proclaim Christ in their conversation. They have watched and prayed for God to open doors for the message to go forward. Now, they should wisely use those open doors that God has provided to be able to share with others.

When they share, they should speak with grace, but season the conversation with salt. The conversation is “flavored” with the message of Christ so that others will know him through their everyday meetings. They should be intentionally flavoring those conversations and they should be ready to give answers for their faith when the questions come up. At the least, they should be ready to speak about what God has done in their lives. And we should do the same, and what is more, we should understand the scriptures so that we can explain the message of God’s redemption for each of us through Christ, giving answers for the questions that will likely come.

This is the mandate that we all have. We must look for the opportunities to share Christ with others through our normal lives. Not as an event. Not even as something that we go to do. And probably not even something that requires additional time, but done with the people that we meet every day. We should look for opportunities that God provides because he provides them each day. May we watch and give thanks for them as we pray.

As God brought the Israelites out of Egypt and then subsequently gave him his law, that which today we call the Ten Commandments, the first two were:

1. You shall have no other gods before me.
2. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

God is serious about having any other gods, or anything representing other gods, put before him. In fact, just before giving the commandments, he told the Israelites:

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

In case you were wondering, he is the One with the power. And he is the One now speaking.

This is important. God is God and there is no other god. In fact, we find out that God is a jealous God and he will not only punish those who worship these other gods, or these other idols, but he will punish their children as well down to the fourth generation. This is no joke.

So that puts into a new light what Paul says to the Colossians:

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.

Colossians 3:5

Paul says that practicing each of these things is considered to be idolatry:

• Sexual immorality
• Impurity
• Lust
• Evil desires
• Greed

So anytime that we are practicing any of those things, it is the same as making gods and worshiping them, just as if we were fashioning idols and giving worship to them.

But how can that be? Surely these aren’t the same things, are they?

Paul says that these are idolatry because these are sins that raise up the self. It lifts me up, and takes primarily into consideration what I want.

It gives glory to the created object instead of the Creator. In the same way that someone glorifies an object that was made with human hands out of metal, wood, or stone, we also can lift up in our own eyes what was made out of flesh for our own edification and glory.

If I make another human, or even the image of another human a simple object of my sexual pleasure, if I lust after it with my eyes or my heart, I give glory to that object above God. If I greedily desire money, I am giving honor to my own desire for power or fame for my own self.

In both cases, I am exalting myself. I am making a determination of value between myself and my desires vs. God and his glory and giving a higher value to me, the created person rather than the value of God and his glory. So I set myself above him and I my worship goes to what I want, what I desire.

And consequently, that is idolatry.