Holiness: check!
I am a "list girl."
No doubt about it. I love lists! I make lists for pretty much anything I can. I wasn't always this hard-core about list-making (though I'm pretty sure the tendency was just lying dormant inside of me). Growing up, my dad would insist my sisters and I (and mom too!) make lists. If any of us forgot something, say, when we went camping, it was always: "Well, did you make a list?" If I had made a list, I probably wouldn't have forgotten anything.
I grew up loving to write (since the time I was 9, I had at least two novels started - though I never finished any...). But I kept journals full of lists of names I loved and could use in my next novel. I had pages full of girls' names, boys' names, and last names. I've made lists of places I'd love to travel and then in a parallel column in sub-lists, the reasons why I wanted to travel to that particular place. I also love to make lists to check things off the list. When cleaning my room, I sometimes make a list of what I need to get done, and I find such satisfaction scratching something off the list. When in highschool, I got into the habit of making a list of checkpoints for finishing my homework. Now at work, I find I stay on task best when there is a comprehensive list of things I need to get done, even though the first five jobs I put down are ones I do every morning upon arriving at work. I just like to see what I've accomplished (so even if I have already done the job, I write it on the list simply to check it off).
This is where it gets complicated.
Though the Bible is full of lists (Exodus 20:1-17, Matthew 5:2-12, Romans 5:3-5, Galatians 5:22-23, Colossians 3:12-17), righteousness and holy living is not simply obtained by checking items or goals off the "list." My tendency when I read 1 Peter 1:15-16 (“but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”) is to get out the ol' legal pad and start a list of "Holy how-to." Or when I listen to Pastor John's "How to fight for joy" message, I get excited because it's in list form. I think, "Great! I just have to write down that list and I'll have joy."
Unfortunately (or not so unfortunately), lists are not what God requires of us - of me. Living in the time of the New Covenant, He doesn't put lists in the Bible as the way for us to commune with Him. If it were this way, I could get satisfaction in myself as I achieved the next task and checked it off the list. I'd have ample reason to boast. "Yup! I just got down goodness; on to faithfulness now!" In Isaiah 66:2, the LORD says He created the heavens and the earth, but He will look to the one who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at His word.
Also, in Mark 10:13-16, when Jesus brings the little kids to himself and blesses them. Does that passage seem funny to anybody? Why would the disciples be so put out with kids, particularly if nowadays, politicians like to use children somewhere in all their ad campaigns? I think it's because of the image our culture holds of them these days. They're innocent, trusting. But back in Jesus' time, they didn't have that image. They were kids, weren't worth too much until they were older. They didn't have anything to offer. And yet, Jesus didn't see it as a waste of time to hold and bless the children - even saying that to those such as children does the kingdom of God belong! Those with child-like faith. Those with nothing to offer.
So if lists are not what God requires of me to have full joy in Him and to be satisfied in Him, what exactly?
I must be broken of myself and go to Him with a humble and contrite spirit with nothing to offer from myself, desperate for Him to work in me that which is pleasing to Him. And it is only by the work of the Holy Spirit that I could be broken in my sinful state. So there is nothing that I can produce to bring me closer to God. Only, only, only because of the work Jesus did on the cross, and God sending His Spirit do I have any hope of righteousness.
But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Galatians 6:14
No doubt about it. I love lists! I make lists for pretty much anything I can. I wasn't always this hard-core about list-making (though I'm pretty sure the tendency was just lying dormant inside of me). Growing up, my dad would insist my sisters and I (and mom too!) make lists. If any of us forgot something, say, when we went camping, it was always: "Well, did you make a list?" If I had made a list, I probably wouldn't have forgotten anything.
I grew up loving to write (since the time I was 9, I had at least two novels started - though I never finished any...). But I kept journals full of lists of names I loved and could use in my next novel. I had pages full of girls' names, boys' names, and last names. I've made lists of places I'd love to travel and then in a parallel column in sub-lists, the reasons why I wanted to travel to that particular place. I also love to make lists to check things off the list. When cleaning my room, I sometimes make a list of what I need to get done, and I find such satisfaction scratching something off the list. When in highschool, I got into the habit of making a list of checkpoints for finishing my homework. Now at work, I find I stay on task best when there is a comprehensive list of things I need to get done, even though the first five jobs I put down are ones I do every morning upon arriving at work. I just like to see what I've accomplished (so even if I have already done the job, I write it on the list simply to check it off).
This is where it gets complicated.
Though the Bible is full of lists (Exodus 20:1-17, Matthew 5:2-12, Romans 5:3-5, Galatians 5:22-23, Colossians 3:12-17), righteousness and holy living is not simply obtained by checking items or goals off the "list." My tendency when I read 1 Peter 1:15-16 (“but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”) is to get out the ol' legal pad and start a list of "Holy how-to." Or when I listen to Pastor John's "How to fight for joy" message, I get excited because it's in list form. I think, "Great! I just have to write down that list and I'll have joy."
Unfortunately (or not so unfortunately), lists are not what God requires of us - of me. Living in the time of the New Covenant, He doesn't put lists in the Bible as the way for us to commune with Him. If it were this way, I could get satisfaction in myself as I achieved the next task and checked it off the list. I'd have ample reason to boast. "Yup! I just got down goodness; on to faithfulness now!" In Isaiah 66:2, the LORD says He created the heavens and the earth, but He will look to the one who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at His word.
Also, in Mark 10:13-16, when Jesus brings the little kids to himself and blesses them. Does that passage seem funny to anybody? Why would the disciples be so put out with kids, particularly if nowadays, politicians like to use children somewhere in all their ad campaigns? I think it's because of the image our culture holds of them these days. They're innocent, trusting. But back in Jesus' time, they didn't have that image. They were kids, weren't worth too much until they were older. They didn't have anything to offer. And yet, Jesus didn't see it as a waste of time to hold and bless the children - even saying that to those such as children does the kingdom of God belong! Those with child-like faith. Those with nothing to offer.
So if lists are not what God requires of me to have full joy in Him and to be satisfied in Him, what exactly?
I must be broken of myself and go to Him with a humble and contrite spirit with nothing to offer from myself, desperate for Him to work in me that which is pleasing to Him. And it is only by the work of the Holy Spirit that I could be broken in my sinful state. So there is nothing that I can produce to bring me closer to God. Only, only, only because of the work Jesus did on the cross, and God sending His Spirit do I have any hope of righteousness.
But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Galatians 6:14
posted by Jennifer at 10:37 AM
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