Our Lives Reveal What We Treasure Most

Our Lives Reveal What We Treasure Most

Growing up in a Christian home, we would always practice the formality of going to church on Sundays. As a family with many siblings, we all possess the ability to transform ourselves into the best and most cheerful Christians we could be on Sunday mornings and for those two hours a week that we spent in that red brick Baptist Church, we were Christians par excellence. We knew the hymns, we knew the prayers, we knew that the sacraments were definitely not sacraments, but simply ordinances. Salvation was so easy a "child could do it", and we all prayed "the prayer" for salvation as young children. We would shake hands and smile to the people we knew then we would go out from Sunday morning church service and live our lives during the rest of the week like Jesus really did not matter.

That was many years ago. Today we are all grown up and have families of our own. Yet we continue the tradition of claiming the name of Christ but living our lives as if we do not really need Him. We are certainly a self-diluted bunch, holding on to a form of godliness but denying its power (2 Tim 3:5).

Spurgeon said it like this,

"Ordinary religion is nature gilded over with a thin layer of what is thought to be grace. Sinners have polished themselves up, and brushed off the worst of the rust and the filth, and they think their old nature is as good as new. This touching-up and repairing of the old man is all very well; but it falls short of what is needed. You may wash the face and hands of Ishmael as much as you please, but you cannot make him into Isaac. You may improve nature, and the more you do so the better for certain temporary purposes; but you cannot raise it into grace. There is a distinction at the very fountain-head between the stream which rises in the bog of fallen humanity, and the river which precedes from the throne of God."

Yet our "inner experiences" and "feelings" still continue to be our final authority. Scripture and the Creeds & Confessions of church history (although not equal in authority) continue to play very little, (or even worse), no role at all in our daily lives. We have our own personal Jesus made in our image who stands ready whenever we decide that He is needed. Jesus typically is not brought into the conversation until we need some form of blessing.

John Piper Asks,

Have you ever asked why God’s forgiveness is of any value? Or what about eternal life? Have you ever asked why a person would want to have eternal life? Why should we want to live forever? These questions matter because it is possible to want forgiveness and eternal life for reasons that prove you don’t have them.....

Forgiveness is precious for one final reason: it enables you to enjoy fellowship with God. If you don’t want forgiveness for that reason, you won’t have it at all. God will not be used as currency for the purchase of idols.

We are in a spiritual battle that is played out before us each and every day. Yet we seem to be so unaware that we are held captive by the flesh and the amusements that this world has to offer. We are the walking dead, living, yet not alive. Deceived and in serious need of recovering a genuine, Biblical Christian faith. We need the Christ of Scripture to radically transform our lives and to wake us up from our self reliance. We need that crushing blow to our pride that are found in the Biblical truths known as the Doctrines of Grace. We need a full recovery of the Gospel in all it's power.

Jesus reveals in Matthew 6:19-21 that the patterns of our behavior, and the things we value and treasure most, lay bare our hearts. It is my prayer that God would cause us to genuinely value His worth, above all other things that this universe has to offer.

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3 ESV)
Posted by Truth Matters at 6:16 PM 3 comments