Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Lenten Devotional – Day 24

Q. 36. What are the benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification?

A. The benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification are: assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and perseverance therein to the end.

“For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Rom. 14:17)

“There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for the long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness.” -Eugene Peterson

  A parishioner complained about the pastor's constant harping on the theme of drawing nigh unto God. She confessed that I don't want to get close to God. I just want to get over in a corner and sneak into heaven quietly. I don't want to be a saint. I just don't want to go to hell.

progressive-sanctification  I cannot believe what I'm hearing! I exclaimed.

  I can explain it easily, she said calmly. When I started the ninth grade I set my heart on finishing high school with straight C's. And I did. You see, if you fail you have to repeat, and I wanted out. But if you start making A's people begin to expect things of you.

  It's exactly like that with God, she continued. If you're too bad you'll go to hell, and I don't want that. But if you're too good, he'll send you to India, and I don't want that either.

  Rutland provides a marvelous commentary of how his parishioner is not an isolated story, but part of a pattern of belief that reaches out to choke the lives of millions of sincere, but sincerely confused Christians. Quite apart from the obvious theology of works, her theory of C-class Christianity betrayed a pathetically distorted understanding of the character and nature of God. Her confusion, far more serious than the merely epidural misjudgment of 'how God acts,' sprang from her twisted concept of 'who God is.' - Mark Rutland's The Finger of God: Reuniting Power and Holiness in the Church (Wilmore, KY: Bristol Books, 1988), 16-17.

  Good works and obedience to God’s law are part of our response to justification, adoption and sanctification. They emerge as a response of gratitude to the salvation and redemption we experience in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

  We live in a society which wants and some ways demands instant results. We don’t want to wait, we dislike things which require patience, we want it all now, but it can’t be ours in an instant. Discipleship requires following Jesus for as long as it takes and gaining the benefits of justification, adoption and sanctification can take a long time. However long it takes, it is worth it and the benefits revealed to us will be “assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and perseverance therein to the end.” Disciples of Christ who achieve these benefits discover a rejoicing which fills the soul and brings the full expression of joy in their lives. The goal is not to get into heaven, the goal is to do the will of God by taking into our lives the full benefits of God’s saving act in Jesus Christ.

  The Holy Spirit is “God among us and within us.” The ways and works of the Spirit are mysterious. They cannot be prescribed or predicted. We never know the ways by which God’s Spirit may guide and direct us.

  Reformed faith has emphasized that all Christians have a calling or vocation to serve God in Christ and that we may do so in and through the lives we live and the particular types of work we do. Our personal callings exist as ways by which we serve God and serve the common good. No one vocation is invested with any more “worth” in God’s sight than another.

  The shape our justification, adoption and sanctification takes in our lives varies from disciple to disciple. God calls each of us along different paths, with different companions, and different vocations in which to serve. As I have stated before, God lead me to work with individuals with addictions so I could understand God’s world and my discipleship in ways which I might not have appreciated without this experience. Our way will not be easy. We will continually need God’s forgiving grace. Remembering always, we are not alone in this journey, Jesus shares his yoke with us and we have other disciples who will support, encourage and teach us along this journey.

  Joy is our portion in his fellowship. Joy goes with confidence and creativity. It is his joy, and that is not a small joy or a repressed “joy.” It is a robust joy, with ample amounts of laughter and outright hilarity in it. For nothing less than joy can sustain us in the kingdom of God.

  Most basically, Jesus means joy. If we are truly filled with this joy, it should be on the brink of bubbling and gurgling out of us each day. A father asked a child why she liked her Sunday school teacher so much. She answered, "Because her eyes twinkle like she's laughing inside all the time." Jesus as our joy keeps the corners of our mouths perpetually turning up. Keep smiling!

Today’s Lectionary Readings
Morning Psalm: 128, 146
Evening Psalm: 13, 33
Jeremiah 17:19-27
Romans 7:13-25
John 6:16-27

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