13 So think clearly and exercise self-control. Look forward to the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world. 14 So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. 15 But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. 16 For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.”
17 And remember that the heavenly Father to whom you pray has no favorites. He will judge or reward you according to what you do. So you must live in reverent fear of him during your time as “foreigners in the land.” 18 For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. 19 It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. 20 God chose him as your ransom long before the world began, but he has now revealed him to you in these last days.
Our passage today begins with the word "so". So, what? So go back and look at what came just before it. Remember that yesterday we talked about this great battle in which we are fighting and how incredibly difficult and exhausting it can be here on this earth, but we know who wins in the end. WE WIN! And because of that knowledge, today's passage is going to tell us what we should do as a response to that knowledge.
"So think clearly and exercise self-control." This is the first thing we should do in response to yesterday's passage. Think clearly. 'Clearly' can also mean decidedly, according to the dictionary. Decide how you are going to live, and then do it! No where in the Bible does God praise a man for being half-hearted in anything! So, decide that you will follow God, and then do it -- think about how God has called you to live. Exercise self-control. If we have fixed our minds clearly and decidedly on Christ, we need to exercise self control. This is a choice, and it is one of the hardest choices to make in this day in age. Self-control means that you are denying yourself something that you really FEEL like you want, but you do not allow yourself to ACT in that way. This may be in our speech to people, in long trains of thought that we allow ourselves to continue thinking and dreaming about, or in the continual persuit of that one thing that we think will complete us and make us happy: food, exercise, a certain man or woman, money, status, the perfect home and children. We can never think about this too much. It's hard to keep our whims and passions in check. But if we are thinking clearly and decidedly that we want nothing more than Christ, He calls us to do it out of obedience to Him, knowing "the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world."
"So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.” Oh my gosh! He's STILL talking about self-control. Lord, why is this such a big deal to you? How can you expect me to be holy when I am sinful? We have to go back to the opposite of self-control: Self-indulgence. And with self-indulgence comes overdose, overflow, overkill, overload, overmuch, overrun, oversupply, overweight. Do any of these things sound like something that would make you say, "Oh yeah, give me some of that!"? We must remember that ultimately every command that the Lord gives us is for our benefit, for our good. Do we not know from our own life experiences that too much of a "good" thing leads to our destruction? Surely, the only thing that is Good in me is Jesus!
And remember that the heavenly Father to whom you pray has no favorites. He will judge or reward you according to what you do. So you must live in reverent fear of him during your time as “foreigners in the land.” Isn't that reassuring? God does not have favorites. Well, Moses was probably His favorite, or Abraham, or Noah? No! The Bible tells us right here that the Lord has no favorites. Remember that we are all a mixed bag -- not even the big names in the Bible were perfect people. They made mistakes, too. But they also received the consequences for their actions. And why is it that whenever we hear the word consequences, we always thing negatively? It is not a negative word -- there are many positive consequences, too. You eat less, you lose weight. You reach out to others, you have a lot of friends. Those are good consequences of good behaviors. And our God is just, so he will either judge us for the poor choices we have made and/or reward us for the holy, God-honoring choices we've made. Do you think about that very much? There are great rewards waiting for those who are obedient. Look at Psalm 19:8-11:
8 The commandments of the Lord are right,
bringing joy to the heart.
The commands of the Lord are clear,
giving insight for living.
9 Reverence for the Lord is pure,
lasting forever.
The laws of the Lord are true;
each one is fair.
10 They are more desirable than gold,
even the finest gold.
They are sweeter than honey,
even honey dripping from the comb.
11 They are a warning to your servant,
a great reward for those who obey them.
"So you must live in reverent fear of him during your time as “foreigners in the land.” For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God." Let's say that you had fallen into a life of addiction and destruction. A man saw the path down which you were headed, and he knew that in continuing down this path, you would die soon if he didn't intervene. So he sacrificed thousands of dollars of his own money to send you to a recovery center, and he walked beside you for years as you slowly began living a different life, encouraging and loving you along the way. Now, would you not want to live your life in such a way that he would not consider all of his time and money spent to have been a waste? You would want him to be proud of you, would you not? Jesus did not just spend money to save us. He spent his life! He died for us so that we could live eternally with Him! We could never re-pay him, but what can we do? Absolutely, the greatest gift we can give back to Him is our obedience.
"But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”
Don't worry about living perfectly today, just choose to make "the next right choice" one choice at a time.
You are a good teacher, Molly - you bring out thoughts and connections I had not noticed.
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