Wednesday, October
31, 2012, 8:11 a.m. – the Lord woke me about an hour ago with the song “Living Sacrifices” playing in my mind,
and then he woke me now with this song:
Nothing but the Blood
/ Robert Lowry
What can wash away my
sin?
Nothing but the blood
of Jesus;
What can make me whole
again?
Nothing but the blood
of Jesus.
Nothing can for sin
atone,
Nothing but the blood
of Jesus;
Naught of good that I
have done,
Nothing but the blood
of Jesus.
This is all my hope
and peace,
Nothing but the blood
of Jesus;
This is all my
righteousness,
Nothing but the blood
of Jesus.
Oh! precious is the
flow
That makes me white as
snow;
No other fount I know,
Nothing but the blood
of Jesus.
Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I read James 1:19-27 (NIV 1984):
My dear brothers, take
note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to
become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God
desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so
prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
Do not merely listen
to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to
the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a
mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he
looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives
freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing
it—he will be blessed in what he does.
If anyone considers
himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives
himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as
pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress
and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
Quick to Listen
It is difficult to read this passage of scripture without
coming under conviction, even a little bit, because I think most all of us have
to consciously put this into practice on a daily basis, though I am certain
that less chatty people manage this art of being a good listener a whole lot
better, though being quiet does not necessarily equal being a good listener.
The quiet person might just have his or her mind elsewhere. Yet, we need to
make the conscious effort to ask questions and to listen to what others have to
share about their lives.
We also need to be careful not to interrupt others in order
to interject our own thoughts, but to listen quietly and attentively to what
they are saying. We need to consciously make sure we are not hearing others
talk all the while we are thinking about what we want to say, and while we are just
waiting for the opportunity to interject our thoughts. And, we need to hear
people out, even if they have an opinion different from ours, unless they are
being irreverent, crass or mean-spirited in their approach. As well, we should
never listen to just a few words someone says and then assume the meaning or
what the person is really saying. We can make wrong assumptions and then make
wrong decisions based upon those faulty assumptions.
Slow to Anger
We should not only be quick to listen and slow to speak, but
we should also be slow to become angry. Now, Ephesians 4:26-27 says: “’In your
anger do not sin’: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do
not give the devil a foothold.” So, it is possible to be angry, but to not sin
in our anger. So, how does this compute with what we read here in James 1? I
believe that anger is a God-given emotion to signal us that something is wrong
and that we need to do something about it. The emotion itself is not sinful, yet
the heart attitude behind the anger could be sinful, and the action that
follows the emotion of anger can also be sinful, though not all anger is based
in or results in sinful behavior.
For instance, we might learn about someone taking advantage
of and/or abusing a minor child, or taking advantage of someone who is innocent
and/or helpless in some way. We should feel anger, or at least we should feel
some anguish of heart at such an injustice. God hates sin. He gets angry (see
Hebrews 3:10, 17). Jesus got angry (righteous indignation) with the money
changers in the temple who had turned his Father’s house, which was supposed to
be a house of prayer, into a marketplace (see John 2:15). He used a whip to
drive them out of the temple and he overturned their tables and scattered their
coins. Jesus got angry with the Pharisees for their hypocrisy, their
self-righteousness, and for taking advantage of the people, all in the name of
God and religion, and he had some strong words of rebuke for them. He also
warned the people not to be like the Pharisees and to guard against their false
teaching. Yet, in all this, God/Jesus did not sin.
It is also possible to become angry due to selfishness,
unforgiveness, and/or a bitter root that has grown in our hearts, etc. We sometimes
get angry because things don’t go the way we think they should, or because we
have to wait in line a few extra minutes, or because someone cuts in front of
us in traffic, because we feel our rights have been violated in some way. We
get angry at the smallest of things sometimes that are so inconsequential in
relation to eternity and things of true value. Some of this is learned. Some of
it is just habit. Some of it is because we have unresolved bitterness or
unforgiveness in our hearts, but most of it is rooted in pure selfishness,
without thought for others (see James 4:1-3).
Yet, whether our anger comes from righteous indignation at
seeing injustice prevail, or our anger is rooted in bitterness and pure selfish
desire, it is still possible to sin in our anger by how we choose to respond to
this emotion, which serves to warn us that something is wrong and needs to be
changed. I believe the slowness to anger is not necessarily speaking of the
initial emotion, which we may have no control over, but the slowness is the
wisdom we choose to exercise when we feel the emotion of anger and we choose to
not react immediately but to take time to be holy, i.e. to take time before the
Lord in prayer first. In this time of prayer we should seek God’s face to see
what needs changed – our attitudes, unforgiveness, or selfishness, or perhaps
we need to take some kind of affirmative action to help those who are less
fortunate than us or to assist the disadvantaged or the helpless.
I believe, thus, that when James said that “man’s anger does
not bring about the righteous life that God desires,” that he is speaking of
anger which is a result of sinful attitudes and selfish desire, and/or anger
displayed in all kinds of fits of rage, brawling, slander, murder, revenge and
the like. When we feel the emotion of anger within us beginning to rise, we
thus need to be quick to seek God’s face, to inquire of the Lord as to why we
are feeling such anger, and then to pray for wisdom to take the appropriate
action to resolve whatever issues contributed to our feeling of anger. We
should be slow to allow ourselves to let the anger get the best of us and we
should be quick to deal with the anger before it turns to sin, or to address
whatever sinful attitudes surfaced in the process of us feeling anger.
All Moral Filth
Wow! This is a broad subject. The word “all” means
everything, nothing excluded. We may work hard at avoiding certain internet
sites, stores with obvious displays of nudity, certain magazine racks,
particular relationships, or specific locales where we might be more tempted
toward participating in immorality, yet we may be more casual about watching TV
shows, movies, or listening to certain music or playing particular video games,
thinking “no big deal.” Yet, Satan is the great deceiver and he excels in
subtle ways in which he slips immoral and suggestive material into the news,
music, movies, and TV shows, et al. We think they are not so bad, but would you
accept just a little bit of poop in your brownie?
When God says “all,” he means the whole kit and caboodle, i.e.
the whole lot of it, nothing held back. We are to throw off everything that
hinders our walks of faith and obedience to Christ, and the sin that so easily
entangles us (see Hebrews 12). We cannot afford to play with sin. This can even
include “Christian” music if the videos or the voices of the singers have a
sensual tone to them. Many “Christian” artists are even posed sensually for
their albums. This can even include “worship” services where people are dressed
sensually and are performing on stage using sensual body language and singing
in sensual tones. If it stirs you or tempts you sensually in any way, then run
from it. We need to be so wise and discerning about this! The evil that is so
prevalent is not just in the marketplace. It is everywhere, including in many
of our churches.
Do what it Says
I love Ephesians 4, because it is just so practical. If we
want to get rid of all the moral filth in our lives, we need to replace the
evil with the good; the unrighteous with the righteous, or else it will be so
easy to go right back to where we were before. We have to become someone or
something else. This is what it means to believe in Jesus. It means to die to
our old way of living for sin and self, to be transformed in heart and mind by
the power and working of the Holy Spirit in our lives in giving us new lives
(new birth) in Christ Jesus, our Lord, and we need to put on our new selves,
created to be like Christ in true righteousness and holiness (see Eph. 4:17-24).
So, if we have been taking in moral filth, even a little bit, and we want to
now get rid of it “all,” then we need to replace it with something else. The “something
else” is the word of God planted in us and lived out through us in obedience to
Jesus Christ.
It is so easy to get caught up in “having devotions,” so
that we can check that off our list for the day, or in order to ease a guilty
conscience or some kind of feeling of obligation, and yet not really connect
with God at all, because we were not really listening, and/or because we didn’t
intentionally listen with the object of obeying what we read. We just did it
because we knew we were supposed to. Some people approach church gatherings in
the same way. They go out of a feeling of obligation, habit, or out of some
sense of it making them feel good, or because it is the time they have with
their friends, yet they either don’t really listen to the word being preached
or they forget what they heard immediately as soon as they walk out the door,
so it never takes root in their lives.
We can even go to Bible college or spend hours studying
scripture or even teaching scripture and still not really listen to it attentively
to hear God speak to our hearts, or certainly not with the object of obeying
what we hear. Yet, all the church sermons, private devotions, Bible studies or
Biblical education in the world means nothing if we do not put into practice
what we hear and read. Yet, we need to make sure what we are putting into
practice is indeed the word of God and not the words (teachings) of men. It is
really pointless to go through the exercise of listening to or reading the word
if we do not follow through in obedience. The ones who are blessed by God are
those who look intently into the truths of scripture, into the person of Jesus
Christ, and into the true meaning of the gospel of Jesus Christ and our
salvation, which gives us freedom from slavery to sin; who don’t forget what
they have read or heard, but who do what God says. May we all be doers of the
word, and not listeners only!
Living Sacrifices
/ An Original Work / September 14, 2012
Based off Romans 12:1-2; 6:11-14 NIV
Oh, holy ones, I counsel
you,
In view of God’s
mercy,
To give yourselves to
God in love
As living offerings,
Pleasing to God, holy
in love.
This is your true
worship.
Do not conform to
worldly lives.
Let God transform you
today.
Then you’ll be able to
Test and approve of what
God’s will is – His
pleasing
And perfect will.
Oh, holy ones, I
counsel you –
Offer yourselves unto
God.
Oh, holy ones, I
counsel you –
Do not be conceited.
Humble yourselves
before your God.
Do not be
self-righteous.
The strength you have
to live in love
Comes from your Lord
God, so
Live your new lives in
pow’r of God.
Be changed in heart,
mind and will.
Do this because of
what
Christ did for you
when
He died on the cross
to save
The world from sin.
Oh, holy ones, I
counsel you –
Humble yourselves
before God.
Oh, holy ones, I
counsel you –
Count yourselves dead
to sin,
But be alive to God in
Christ.
Do not let sin reign
in
Your earthly lives so
you
Obey its evil desires.
Offer yourselves unto
your God
As those who’ve been
born again.
For sin shall no
longer be
Your lord and master.
Give of yourselves to
God
For righteousness.
Oh, holy ones, I
counsel you –
Be alive to God in
Christ.
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