Integrity and Honesty

Posted on by korgrocker

“See how many enemies I have and how viciously they hate me! Protect me! Rescue my life from them! Do not let me be disgraced, for in you I take refuge. May integrity and honesty protect me, for I put my hope in you.”
Psalm 25:19-21 NLT

Integrity and honesty seem in short supply these days. As an example, what do people think of the political class in any Western country? I’m sure such words as “integrity” and “honesty” would not appear on the list of descriptive adjectives for most. David claimed that “integrity and honesty protect [him], for [he has] put [his] hope in the Lord”. He had a point, because those who behave in such ways will avoid most of the troubles that come from living in a society that is rife with lies and deceit. It says in Proverbs 10:9, “People with integrity walk safely, but those who follow crooked paths will be exposed“. From a slightly different angle, Proverbs 11:3 records, “Honesty guides good people; dishonesty destroys treacherous people“. In fact, the Book of Proverbs contains quite a few verses about integrity and honesty, and their opposites, lies and deceit. Proverbs 12:19-20, “Truthful words stand the test of time, but lies are soon exposed. Deceit fills hearts that are plotting evil; joy fills hearts that are planning peace!” The wise old sages in Israel knew all about the value of telling truth and avoiding lies.

According to “gotquestions.org”, “In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word translated “integrity” means “the condition of being without blemish, completeness, perfection, sincerity, soundness, uprightness, wholeness.” Integrity in the New Testament means “honesty and adherence to a pattern of good works””. A comprehensive, Bible-based exposé of the qualities necessary to enjoy God’s security and protection.

The best example of a person with integrity in the Bible is Jesus. As both God and man, He was without sin, totally without blemish of any kind. There was no deceit on Him at all, as we read in 1 Peter 2:21b-22, “… [Christ] is your example, and you must follow in his steps. He never sinned, nor ever deceived anyone”. We read the accounts about Jesus and find a sinless man of complete honesty and integrity. Hebrews 4:15, “This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin“. We read about the temptations of Jesus, where the devil caught Him in a time of weakness, and see how Jesus stood strong and resolute, standing on the integrity of Scripture to fend off the temptations that would have led to sin. We pilgrims, believers in Christ, are called to be like Him. We knelt at the Cross, confessing and repenting of our sins, and Jesus took them upon HImself. But here’s the wonderful thing, He then gave us His righteousness, His sinless righteousness, so that we could become His brothers and sisters, adopted children of God. How amazing is that! So we too aspire to walk in integrity and honesty, just as Jesus did. No! More than that. In faith we do walk in integrity and honesty, resisting all attempts and distractions to corrupt us and lead us into sin. Colossians 3:17, “And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father”.

Of course, it is inevitable that we will stumble and fall. We are human, and always the focus of the devil and his minions who want to lead us into sin. Sadly, we will on occasion fall for one of his scams. But we have a remedy. 1 John 1:9, “But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness”. There you have it – back on track again walking in integrity and honesty. In God’s Kingdom we are new creations. Paul wrote, “throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy” (Ephesians 4:22-24). We walk in faith towards the goal of perfection and holiness through Jesus. We will never get there in this life, I fear, but we try, in the knowledge that our loving Heavenly Father is there helping us every step of the way. One day we will be like Jesus – Paul wrote, “For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters” (Romans 8:29). Amen?

Dear God. We aspire to walk in integrity and honesty just like Jesus did. Please help us, we pray, and please forgive us when we fail. We want to become more like Jesus. In His precious name. Amen,

Excommunicated

Posted on by korgrocker

““Why, that’s very strange!” the man replied. “He healed my eyes, and yet you don’t know where he comes from? We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but he is ready to hear those who worship him and do his will. Ever since the world began, no one has been able to open the eyes of someone born blind. If this man were not from God, he couldn’t have done it.” “You were born a total sinner!” they answered. “Are you trying to teach us?” And they threw him out of the synagogue.”
John 9:30-34 NLT

The man born blind was put under a lot of pressure by the Pharisees. They kept asking him about how he had been healed in the hope that they could trip him up and satisfy their antagonistic position against Jesus, perhaps by exposing some sort of trickery or even downright lies. But Mr Blind-no-more was having none of their nonsense and he sealed his doom, as far as the Pharisees were concerned, by saying, “If this man were not from God, he couldn’t have done it.”  The Pharisees were probably not used to anyone pushing back against their judgements and after accusing him of being “a total sinner” they “threw him out of the synagogue”. 

A synagogue was, and still is in some respects, the Jewish centre of their cultural, communal and, spiritual identity, and they even had emotional attachments to it. So to be expelled from it was a big deal in Jesus’ day and it meant the individual concerned joined a group of dissenters, perhaps even with a criminal element, people who found themselves excluded from fellowship with most of their friends and neighbours. The people in Mr Blind-no-more’s community would have divided into two camps – those who perhaps sympathised with him and supported him but were afraid to say anything, and those who sided with the Pharisees and shunned the man, perhaps in the hope of receiving Pharisaical favours. But for Mr Blind-no-more, being excommunicated from the synagogue would have meant a painful social isolation just at the time when he needed support and inclusion.

The Pharisees had little in the way of sanctions that they could apply against anyone who disagreed with them, so to them the nuclear option of being thrown out of the synagogue was all they had to fall back on. In the history of the Christian church, excommunication was also practised against those who upset the church hierarchy. Jesus set the basis for church discipline in Matthew 18, with the conclusion spelled out in verse 17, “If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won’t accept the church’s decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector.” Today,  being excommunicated is not considered much of a sanction, and in my experience matters of church discipline are resolved between the person, or people, concerned and the elders, or they resign from membership. Sadly, in some denominations, some people who object to, or disagree with, certain matters of church doctrine, are more likely to be accommodated for their views, resulting in a dilution of the church’s integrity and purity. 

We pilgrims, however, have the benefit of having a personal relationship with God. We have no need to rely on a priest or synagogue leader for access to God’s throne. There is no excommunication possible for a child of God. Paul wrote in Romans 8:38-39, “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” We give God all the praise today.
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Dear Father God. We are Your children and we thank You that no-one can tear us away from You. Amen.

Our Identity

Posted on by korgrocker

“Once you had no identity as a people; now you are God’s people. Once you received no mercy; now you have received God’s mercy.”
1 Peter 2:10 NLT

‭‭Our identity is made up of our memories, feelings, experiences, and relationships, but it will also be influenced by external factors such as fashion, music, and politics. But we mustn’t also forget the spiritual influences that shape our concept of God and His ways. I was brought up in a Christian home, with parents who took me to church each Sunday. I still remember those early years with the pews and hassocks, the musty smell, the prayer book, the stained glass windows, and the wonderful hymns that still resonate with me today. In those days I had a children’s Bible full of wonderful stories – David and Goliath, the crossing of the Red Sea, Jesus feeding the five thousand and walking on water. In those primary years I also went to a Sunday afternoon Sunday School, run by an elderly couple in a Gospel Mission hall. We sung some great choruses. The teacher sometimes used flannelgraph to illustrate the stories. Precious memories, because they shaped much of what I am today.

In our societies we can look around and sometimes recognise the identities of the people we meet. Mainly, of course, by the way they dress, but also by the way they behave. But such preconceived opinions are mostly not helpful, because we can erroneously compartmentalise people into a category that turns out to be false. The old prophet Samuel fell into such a trap when he had been sent to the house of a man called Jesse to anoint one of his sons as the next king of Israel. The first son impressed him, and we read in 1 Samuel 16:6-7, “ … Samuel took one look at Eliab and thought, “Surely this is the Lord’s anointed!” But the Lord said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart””. 

‭So how would I describe my personal identity? I think we would all find that a difficult, and perhaps painful, question to answer. And one that is very personal to each one of us. To define an identity, we need something to identify with, and the obvious place to start, for pilgrims such as us, is with the Bible. God’s Word defines our identity. We are now children of God. We have just read the verse that we are “royal priests”. And we end up with an identity as a child of God that defines us, even if sometimes we fail to live up to its ideals. 

Peter started the verse today by saying that, in our pre-Christian days, we had “no identity as a people“. Any identity we claimed to have had would in fact be worthless from God’s perspective. Anything blighted by sin and wickedness is not a worthwhile identity to have. But now we have an identity as “God’s people”.

There is an extremely counter-cultural verse right at the beginning of the Bible, that defines our identities and rubbishes most of the secular ideologies around us. Genesis 1:27, “So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them“. This verse, above all others in my opinion, is life changing once its impact is accepted and taken on board. It must break His heart to see rebellious people, who reject the truth that He made them in His image. And all those people promoting a plethora of genders immediately come to grief. How can we reject the fact that God has made us? What else can we do other than repent of our sin and rebellion and embrace the Master Craftsman, who designed every cell in our bodies? 

Father God, we repent of our sin today, in the knowledge that only You have the true answer to our identity questions. Please help us, we pray. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Known and Chosen

Posted on by korgrocker

“ … I am writing to God’s chosen people who are living as foreigners in the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. God the Father knew you and chose you long ago, and his Spirit has made you holy. As a result, you have obeyed him and have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. May God give you more and more grace and peace.”
1 Peter 1:1b-2 NLT

The believers living in Turkey were to be the readers of Peter’s first epistle. And Peter highlighted several things about them. Firstly, they were a people “chosen”  by God, and the choice was made “long ago”. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes” (Ephesians 1:4). It is an amazing thought that when God created the world He could see all of time rolled out before Him and He could see who would be His chosen people in every time slot. But Peter wasn’t promoting a strange idea – the Holy Spirit had revealed it to him and the other Apostles. Of course, some people will say that it is pointless wanting to be a Christian because God has selected, has “chosen”, who He wants as His followers. If you are not one of the “chosen” ones then hard luck! Others will say that God’s choice was based on His knowledge of what the believer would choose. But either way, Peter encouraged the believers in Turkey with the thought that God knew them and chose them.

Secondly, Peter informed the Turkish believers that they were “holy” through His Spirit. They had been “cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ”. The amazing fact about Jesus’ death at Calvary was that Jesus took on board all our sins and in return gave us His righteousness, so that all believers everywhere can stand before God in holiness. The believers in the five provinces had come to Jesus in repentance, leaving the burden of their sin at the foot of His cross. As Peter pointed out, this act of repentance was through their obedience to God.

Thirdly, Peter pointed out that “God’s chosen people” were foreigners. Strange, because these people lived there in the region of the five provinces. They had most likely been born there and brought up in that society. So how could they have been “foreigners”? This is something that we believers need to realise and accept. Jesus said in John 15:18-19, “If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you”. When were chosen to be His followers, we moved citizenship from the kingdom of the world to the Kingdom of Heaven. We have a new passport. Paul wrote in Philippians 3:20, “But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Saviour”. The problem for us pilgrims is that we are keen to cling onto “dual nationality”. We like to have a foot in each camp, in each kingdom. 

Peter now moved on to give a blessing to his readers. “More and more grace and peace” he wrote. With what we know of the challenges facing the early adopters of faith in Jesus, they would need all the grace in God’s treasure chest to be able to live in peace in an antagonistic society.

Jesus commanded us to “come out of the world” because we are no longer a part of it. Of course, we have to live in our societies, work in our offices and factories, go to secular schools and colleges. But in it all we remember what is written on our passports. We have been born again into a new Kingdom, and one day we will join Jesus there. And we too will need all the “grace and peace” available to be able to survive unscathed and uncorrupted in a foreign land.

Father God. Thank You for choosing us to be Your children. Amen.

Abraham’s Children

Posted on by korgrocker

“Well then, has God failed to fulfil his promise to Israel? No, for not all who are born into the nation of Israel are truly members of God’s people! Being descendants of Abraham doesn’t make them truly Abraham’s children. For the Scriptures say, “Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted,” though Abraham had other children, too.”
Romans 9:6-7 NLT

A Muslim man I once worked with said to me one day that we were really spiritual brothers because we both worshiped the same God. But these verses in Romans 9 are clear about the distinction between Abraham’s children. The Jewish nation was descended from Isaac alone. Although Ishmael was Abraham’s son, he was not part of God’s promises. We Christians also claim to be “children of God”, but most of us aren’t descended from Isaac either. Does that mean Muslims and Christians are outside of God’s favour? No it doesn’t, because the Gospel message in the Bible is clear, that everyone has the opportunity to become members of God’s family. This is true for both the Jews and non-Jews. Remember the verse, “For God so loved the world …”? No-one is excluded from God’s grace. We are all part of the “world”. Everyone is able to kneel before the cross at Calvary in repentance for their sins, and receive forgiveness and mercy. We read in John 1:12, “But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God”. Jesus primarily came to bring His message of the Kingdom of God to His own people, the Jews. In Matthew 15:24 we read, “Then Jesus said to the woman, “I was sent only to help God’s lost sheep—the people of Israel””. However, in John 10:16 Jesus seemed to imply that He was the Shepherd of other peoples as well. We read in John 10:16, “I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock with one shepherd”. In 1 John 2:2 we read, “He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world”. 

By the way, referring back to my Muslim work colleague, his claim that we both worship the same God isn’t valid. The differences between the. two faiths is most stark with the Christian belief in the Trinity, God the Father, His Son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. The Muslim God, Allah, is a single being, and any talk of the Trinity is blasphemy to them. They consider that Jesus was a prophet, but not God.

But that is not to say that a Muslim cannot find Jesus. God Himself said through Paul in his letter to Timothy that everyone has the opportunity to be saved. We read in 1 Timothy 2:3-6, “This is good and pleases God our Saviour, who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth. For, There is one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity—the man Christ Jesus. He gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone. This is the message God gave to the world at just the right time”. 

So, sadly for my Muslim colleague, we are not spiritual brothers at all. But we pilgrims must never build a wall, keeping us separated from society around us. We are of course not of the world, but the lost and hopeless people we are in contact with, our friends and neighbours, need to hear about the love and grace of God. Unless they hear it from us, they may never hear it at all.

Dear Father. You gave us an important job to do in this lost and dying world. Please embolden us to share Your message of Good News with anyone You lead us to. In Jesus’ name, Amen.