Christ In Us. Our Hope of Glory

Okay, more than halfway through the Days of Unleavened Bread and so far so good. I've yet to a plow down a donut in the office cafeteria without thinking or munch down a handful of croutons with my dinner salad. The symbol of sin has not, knowingly anyway, crossed my lips.

Although I've done well with the command not to eat, I wish I could say as much about the command we are given to eat. After all, we are commanded to take the leaven out of our dwellings on the first day. The commandment to take in of unleavened bread covers all seven (Ex. 12:15)

In some ways remembering to eat unleavened bread every day is more challenging than avoiding the leavened stuff. If I'm not careful an entire day can get by me before I realize, "Hey, I haven't eaten any unleavened bread today."

This tendency to forget such a simple command got me thinking. What if unleavened bread were all I had to eat? What if my physical life depended on it for sustenance? How much more focused would I be on getting my three square servings of unleavened bread each day?

In Galatians 2:20 Paul writes, "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

Paul is basically saying that His spiritual life is dependent on Jesus Christ living in Him. Everything he does, all that he is, is made possible by the life of Jesus living in him by faith. Paul knew that taking in of the Unleavened Bread every day of his life was critical to his spiritual survival, his spiritual salvation.

Taking in of unleavened bread each day of this Feast is a fairly basic exercise. It's pretty much just a matter of remembering to pick it up and put it in my mouth. But what does it mean to have Christ living in me? How do I, in a real sense, take Him in spiritually, every day of my life?

Just a cursory search through scripture gives some insight.

Ephesians 3:14 tells us that Christ dwells in the heart of the believer through faith; faith in His sacrifice and the promise of salvation, made possible by His resurrection. It's a promise which He has given to all who are His. So taking in of Jesus Christ means continually being reminded of and renewing our trust in His sacrifice and the work that He is doing in our lives.

I Corinthians 1 tells us that God has chosen the weak of the world that no one should give glory to themselves for what He has done. By virtue of being in Him and His life dwelling in us, He has become our righteousness, our sanctification and our redemption. So if any man glories, he should glory in the Lord. So taking in of His life each day means to daily give glory to the One who gives us life, to the One who redeems us.

Romans 8:9 - 11 tells us that Christ dwells in us through His Spirit. Our bodies are dead because of sin, but His Spirit that dwells in us gives us life. Paul goes onto say that as Christians, we are to put to death the old man and submit to power of His Spirit working in us, changing us. Taking in of Him means to not resist, but submit daily to the leading of His Spirit within us.

Philippians 2:5 - 13 tells us to let Jesus Christ's mind be in us. A mindset of humility, a mindset of a servant, willingly sacrificing for the needs of others. Taking in of Him daily means to daily put on humility, daily present ourselves as living sacrifices in service to others and to Him.

Paul goes on to say in Philippians 2: 12 - 13 "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." Taking in of the Unleavened Bread of Sincerity and Truth means to submit ourselves daily to let Him work in us both to do and to will of His good pleasure." It's recognizing that any good that is in us comes from His work in us. We submit in fear and trembling daily to let Him do that work.

Colossians 1:24 tells us that to us, His saints, has "been made known the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."

Taking in of Him each day of my life is about humbly dying to myself, my desires, my attitudes, and submitting to let Him do His work in me. It's trusting in Him by faith, understanding that it's His work in me that has made me righteous, not anything I have done. My righteousness is as filthy rags. As far as the heavens are above the earth, so far are His thoughts above my thoughts, and His ways above my ways. It is He who has made me unleavened through His awesome sacrifice, so that when the Father looks at me, He doesn't see me, He sees His Son. It's His righteousness imputed to me, His life in me, that allows me to live. And the life I now live I live through faith in the Son of God who died for me and lives in me. As long as I remain in Him and He in me, I live a life free of fear and full of hope. His life in me is my hope of glory.

In a nutshell, it's about Him, it's not about me. He gets the glory.

My response to that awesome gift is to desire to be like Him, to strive to become, in reality, what I already am in Him, each and every day of my life.

So much meaning in such a small piece of unleavened bread. Maybe it's so easy to forget to eat it during these days because there are so many other culinary delights to be had. Come to think of it, maybe that's part of the lesson. Our lives become so readily immersed in all this world has to offer that we often forget the one thing that truly gives us life. His life, living in us.

What a blessing it is our God gave us these days of Unleavened Bread to refocus our attention on Him.

Anyone for a cracker?

Passover - Antidote for Self-Reliance

In I Corinthians 11:27 we read regarding the Passover observance that many of us are soon to partake, "Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup."

Self-examination. It's a solemn exercise in which we, as members of His body, are to be engaged in preparation for taking the symbols of the Passover.

But just what are we to examine?

Paul, in II Corinthians 13, provides the answer. He writes, " Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified."

So we are to examine ourselves whether we are in the faith, whether Jesus Christ is in us.

How do we do that? What does it mean to be "in the faith?"

Gal. 3:26 tells us "For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ."

In Phil 3:9 Paul writes, "Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;"

Some key phrases jump out of these passages related to faith: "...sons of God through faith..." and "...righteousness which is from God by faith..."

So being "in the faith" refers, then, to being in a state of complete trust and dependence on the righteousness of Christ Jesus applied to me by my acceptance of his broken body and spilled blood upon the cross.

There's a key principle woven throughout all of this self-examination we are to be doing this season. It's a principle of reliance on His righteousness, not my own. In short, self-examination should draw my attention upward, not further inward.

It's simply a matter of focus.

Perhaps the greatest weakness we have as humans is self-reliance. That was the sin that got Satan cast out of God's presence; it's the reason Adam and Eve were banned from the garden and cut off from a relationship with God; and it's the reason so many of God's children become discouraged, hopeless and defeated in their Christian walks, the inevitable result of a fruitless dependence upon the self.

God gave us this season, in a sense, as a yearly booster shot, an antidote for self-reliance.

Self-examination is the syringe, if you will, that delivers that needed medicine. Self-examination should bring each of us into remembrance of our reliance, not on our own righteousness, but upon His righteousness applied to us, by our complete acceptance of His spilled blood and broken body on the cross for our sins. It's the degree to which we acknowledge our need and dependence on Him which determines whether or not we are "in the faith."

Only by having examined ourselves, having been reminded and convicted of our need for Him and complete reliance on His sacrifice, can you and I take of the symbols of this Passover in a worthy manner. Only in recognizing our need for Him do we find the antidote for self-reliance.

It's Not About the Toaster

The Days of Unleavened Bread. A toaster's day in the sun. Only during these days does a normally mundane appliance get thrust center stage in the relentless endeavor to purge out the leaven, aka, sin, from every corner of our homes.

It's a ritual re-enacted every Spring by those of us who take seriously the command to keep the annual High Sabbaths, given by our Lord in the Old Testament and observed by Him, and His Church, in the New, reminding us of His sacrifice and the covenant relationship we have entered with Him.

Our toaster is of course not the only item in our home that gets the attention of our vacuum cleaner. In our valiant effort to eradicate every vestige of the symbol of sin from our dwelling no appliance, no couch cushion, no cupboard is left untouched. But our toaster, being perhaps the greatest potential carrier of the sin virus, has typically commanded the top spot. We've fretted about it, inspecting it with the intensity of police dog sniffing for narcotics, meticulously scouring every last nook and cranny where a wayward crumb or runaway piece of crust might linger, no matter how minuscule or incinerated it might be.

In short, for a brief period every spring, our toaster became a rock star.

If our family toaster could speak it would probably tell you that the last few years in our house it's begun to suffer from an identity crisis. It just hasn't been treated like the rock star that it once was. Oh, it's gotten some attention, but its commanded nowhere near the spotlight it held back in the glory days.

Why?

Well, our family simply came to the realization that these days of Unleavened Bread, for lack of a better way of putting it, are not about the toaster.

In Colossians 1:26 - 28 we read, "...the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."

Above all things this season is to teach us is that it is His life, living within us, that is the hope we have of salvation. While Passover reminds us that we are justified by His blood, Unleavened Bread reminds us that we are saved by His life, the "Unleavened Bread of Sincerity and Truth" living within us, continually covering our sin.

There is a reason these are called the Days of Unleavened Bread rather than the Days of De-leavening. The primary focus is on the putting in, not the taking out. We take in of Jesus Christ, the Unleavened Bread of Sincerity and Truth, for seven days. In the Bible the number seven represents completion. The symbol of taking in of His life, His nature, for seven days pictures the completeness of the work He is doing in His people.

De-leavening in this context becomes, then, a symbol, not of my efforts to become sinless, but of my becoming de-leavened, sinless through the cleansing sacrifice of our Lord. I put the leaven out, not to symbolize my struggle to overcome sin, but to symbolize what He has done through His sacrifice for me.

Don't get me wrong. I am not among those who believe Christ has done it all so there is no need to obey. We do need to overcome. We do need to strive to become like our elder Brother. We do need to struggle against sin. But the season of our overcoming, of growing up in Him in all things, is more appropriately pictured after, not before, the Feast of Pentecost, picturing the giving of the Holy Spirit which helps us in that process. The period between the Spring and Fall harvests represents a time of growth. Just as the crops, having been planted in the Spring, are allowed to grow to maturity and produce their fruit, so you and I grow to spiritual maturity and produce spiritual fruit prior to the return of our Master, Jesus Christ.

These Spring Harvest festivals, Passover, Unleavened Bread and Pentecost, are awesome pictures of the love He has showered on those He has called to be the first fruits of His harvest. It is right that our focus this season be on Him, not on ourselves. He gets all the glory.

The truth is that no matter how clean I get my toaster, or anything else in my home for that matter, no matter how determined my effort to make myself spiritually clean, I fall miserably short of God's standard. My righteousness before God is as filthy rags. It's His life continuing to live in me that makes me worthy, that allows me to be in relationship with the Father. "We who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Jesus." That's the awesome lesson of these days.

Yeah, my toaster might be feeling a little more lonely this Spring but it will just have to get over it. It's not as if it's getting completely ignored, it's just not the rock star it once was. That spotlight is shining elsewhere, off of the toaster, and onto the Master.

Spiritual Over Training

"Tony, you're overtraining. You need to stop pushing so hard."

Those were the words the physical therapist said to me a couple of weeks ago. I was whining to her about the constant ache in my shoulder and the frustrating lack of progress I had made since having rotator cuff surgery.

Her words floored me. How could I be doing too much??! Everything I read about therapy warned of the danger of not stretching or exercising enough. Stories abound of people who have permanently lost mobility in their joints because they weren't diligent in doing the necessary work to regain full function. There's no way I was going to let that happen to me! I'm giving this therapy thing all I've got, and then some. No pain, no gain! I launched into my recovery like Rocky Balboa preparing for a prize fight.

My therapist proceeded to inform me of what I didn't know. Pushing too hard through therapy can actually be as detrimental to healing and growth as doing too little. Rather than ramping up my recovery, my overly aggressive regimen had actually begun to impede it. Stretching and working my shoulder too frequently and too intensely, had left the joint tissues inflamed and the muscles without adequate time to recover and grow stronger. Forcing my progress was actually setting it back.

In Galatians 6:9 we read, "And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart."

As Christians, we know we are supposed to overcome. We know we are supposed to be becoming more like Jesus Christ. And if His Spirit is in us, that desire to be like Him is burning in our hearts and minds. We desperately want to do good. We desperately want to be better servants for Him.

But the reality is, for most of us, our progress just isn't as fast or as satisfying as we'd like. When the weakness and sins we believe we have overcome reappear; when old carnal attitudes and thoughts re-enter, it's easy to lose heart. It's easy for our hearts and minds to become inflamed with frustration and discouragement. Our overly aggressive self-condemnation can cause us to overlook and under appreciate the areas of our lives where we are reaping, those areas where God has grown and changed us. By forcing unrealistic expectations on the pace of our spiritual growth, we can actually set it back.

Hebrews 12:1 tells us to "...lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith..."

In I Peter 5:6 we are exhorted to "...humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you."

How do we not grow weary, frustrated and discouraged in our Christian walk?

Well, to echo the words of my physical therapist,"Stop overtraining. Stop trying so hard."

Not that we should stop doing or stop trying altogether, but that we should lay aside some of the spiritual weight we are attempting to carry around on our own. If frustration and discouragement are overtaking us spiritually, maybe we need to step back and evaluate how much we are trying and striving and becoming frustrated in our own effort versus humbling and submitting ourselves to letting God work in us. Maybe we need to take some time to reflect on and appreciate the areas where He is giving us victory.

It is God who is the Author and Finisher of our faith. He knows our weaknesses. He knows our faults. He knows the things we need and when we need them, in order to change and grow. If we are submitting to Him, if our hearts and minds are passionate about Him and His way, we can cast our cares on Him and be confident that He will finish the work that He started within us.