Life's Final Exam

Socrates famously said that “The unexamined life is not worth living.” I don’t know about you, but self-examination is difficult for me and often painful. Without being maudlin or, hopefully, self-centered, when I examine life, it is so much easier to point my finger at others and act the know-it-all critic of what I see “out there.”

Some of my friends seem to be walking a roof ledge of despair. Too many people are examining their lives and coming dreadfully close to a personal death wish. They’ve weighed their own existence and found it wanting. As I reflect on my own, I find an optimism and sense of purpose that makes their despair seem all the more tragic.

Coming face to face with my sins and foibles and weaknesses and follies, I sometimes stand astonished that a good God would permit such a poor, vile creature like me to go on living, enjoying His blessings, taking up room in His creation. My lustful thoughts, my thoughtless words and mannerisms, my indulgent life-style, my wastefulness and laziness, my ignorance and apathy...my carefully guarded secrets that, if known, would cause even my closest loved ones to despise and pity me...these dark blots on my character haunt me and cause me to tremble.

But.

The supreme irony of my life is that Someone infinitely more just and fair and knowledgeable than I has examined my life, has passed sentence on me, and has transferred all the guilt of all my crimes onto the record of His only begotten Son. Jesus paid the penalty for each and every sin when He suffered on the cross two thousand years ago!

We should examine ourselves. We need to be honest and thorough. We are called to see ourselves the way we truly are. Those who claim they look back on their lives with “no regrets” are, in my opinion, either lying or deluded. I may not have been abused physically as so many have, but I have suffered abuse on an emotional level, and I confess that I’ve submitted others to various kinds of abuse in my thoughts and with my words. None of us has treated God or others with the selfless love our supreme Lover and Lawgiver demands from us.

When I reach my most honest level of self-examination, I must admit that I’m not qualified to pass final judgment, even on myself. Another Voice gives me daily assurance that I am not my own. I belong to the One whom I have believed. Jesus Christ the God-man, who now sits on the throne of Heaven, has all authority to command all things and all people, including me.

And because I’m His, ruled by Christ, taught by Him, examined by Him, rebuked and corrected by Him, directed and empowered by Him, given life and health and purpose by Him, promised eternal forgiveness and paradise by Him...

Because of those realities, self-examination can only send me to my knees in supplication, confession, adoration and praise. Never to despair.

(518 words)

"Kinds" of Christianity?

Probably no other person in history has been so variously discussed and interpreted as has Jesus Christ. And with good reason.

Jesus’ arrival on the stage of human history changed the world’s calendar for all time (B.C. to A.D.), producing radical changes in religion, philosophy, law, art, politics, ethics...the list is endless.

Curious observers may see all this and be contented with plain historical facts and journalistic analyses of Christ’s life and its affects on civilization...

But surely it is much more crucial for me to consider WHY Jesus came.

Of course, to those who believe He was no more than a great man, that would be a meaningless question. If Jesus was a mere human being, his coming into our world was no more a volitional act on his part than the conception and delivery of any other male baby.

But, the New Testament (as well as the prophecies of the Old) clearly present Jesus Christ as MORE than a man. In truth, the reason so many things changed so drastically as a result of His coming, is that Jesus is “God in the flesh.” Christians the world over have accepted this as a settled article of their faith for millenia.

So, WHY did God decide to take on flesh--a human nature--and come into our world two thousand years ago? We need not guess at the answers. All we need to do is read our Bible.

People were lost.

We were created by the God and King of the universe, and had rebelled against Him, denied His word, rejected His love, scoffed at His laws. Because of His just and holy nature, God hates our sin and must judge and punish the sinner.

People were lost, but God loved us anyway and came to save the lost!

Mankind needed a Savior: a Prophet to deliver the truth from God we needed to hear, a Priest to make perfect atonement for our sin, a King to lead, defend and rule over us both in this life and the life to come. JESUS is that Savior!

So...are there OTHER “kinds” of Christianity?

Is there a “kind” of Christianity that says that God is NOT angry at our sin, and would never sentence any sinner to eternal punishment? A kind that sees no real need for a sin-bearing Savior on a blood-soaked cross? A kind that compromises the word and warnings of a holy Lawgiver by suggesting an “unconditional,” man-pleasing love that makes God more acceptable and reasonable? A kind of Christianity that sees Jesus as just a good example who encourages some divine spark in all of us?

For these “kinds” of Christianity, the coming of Jesus Christ, at least, for the reasons the Bible gives, would have been unnecessary...even tragic and ridiculous.

You, friend, are free to believe any “kind” of Christianity you please; thankfully, we all still share that right.

As for me, I choose to believe my Bible, the words of Jesus, the promises and warnings of God, and the historic testimony of Christ’s beloved church.

Because once I was lost...and thanks to Jesus, I’ve been found!

Timetables

“Life is just a game...at the end, the one with the most toys is the winner!”

Such homespun philosophies become the stuff of clever bumper stickers, but I don’t seriously believe that most people think in such fatalistic terms. Deep down in even the most calloused human heart, there is much more of a hunger for significance and a confidence that life and death are so much more than a game--some kind of cosmic joke.

But, to be sure, there are episodes in every life--many of them prolonged and agonizing--that make it appear confusing, tragic and disillusioning. The Bible certainly reflects this. Read the Old Testament books of Job and Ecclesiastes if you doubt that!

For millenia, all men, including all men of God, have wrestled with the troubling questions involving life and death:

- Why do the righteous often suffer while the wicked prosper and outlive them?
- What is the purpose behind the deaths of infants and the promising young people who are taken?
- If God is all-powerful, why doesn’t He deal with the wicked before they unleash their evil?
- Is it really necessary for natural disasters to occur throughout our fallen world?

In a way, it’s understandable that avowed atheists throw such challenges in Christians’ faces, because, in all honesty, we believers also struggle with those kinds of conundrums. We believe in a God of mercy and love, yet we behold tragedy again and again, bred in the cauldron of this sin-sick world. And we can’t help but wonder from time to time, “Where is God in all of that?”

Simon Peter, former fisherman, Jesus’ right-hand man, fierce, fiery preacher of the early book of Acts--Peter sat in a dark, dank prison cell, chained between two soldiers, scheduled to be beheaded the following day. King Herod had very recently executed James, another of Jesus’ close friends, to the great delight of the enemies of Christ. Now, it was Peter’s turn to be martyred. Or so Herod thought.

But Acts 12 goes on to tell of Peter’s miraculous release from that prison. You see, in God’s timetable, Peter had a lot more ministry ahead of him. Actually, as we read at the end of that chapter, it was almost time for Herod to become worm-food, rather than the Apostle he had thrown in prison.

James’s death...Peter’s rescue...both for the glory of God.

James and Peter were both strong pillars of Christ’s early church. Persecution had driven most of the believers away from the church’s birthplace: Jerusalem. Where Jesus died and was buried and rose again--where the Holy Spirit had descended and thousands had heard the Messiah’s message in their own miraculously given languages. James and Peter both remained where the opposition was hottest. They knew the dangers, the murderous threats. Yet they stayed to teach and encourage the Jerusalem believers.

Herod beheaded James...and because that pleased the Jews, he planned to do the same to Peter. Now the enemies of Christ’s church had the civil government on their side, with the combined might of the Roman empire behind it and them.

James was dead...Peter was next in line...the little church gathered to pray the night before the execution. The little prayer meeting lengthened far into the night...

Then, there came a knock at the door. Keep on praying, brothers and sisters, Rhoda will run and see who it is at this late hour.

Rhoda...who was it?...Who?? Peter??? Rhoda, you’re out of your mind!

But it was Peter. The believers were “astonished.” But God’s timetable always runs “on time.” It was time for James to graduate to glory. Perhaps that was the sacrifice necessary to encourage the church to pray earnestly for Peter’s release? It was time for Peter to be rescued for future ministry. Perhaps to reward the church for its earnest prayer and convince them of its power to move the arm of the Almighty!

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.”

We can look at the world of life, death, delight and tragedy in two very different ways: Some, like Herod, look at events as only things that he has the power to manipulate and react to with his own limited wisdom. Others, like the tiny Jerusalem church, see events as under the sovereign control of an all-wise, all-powerful God who decrees from all eternity that those events will serve His own glory and His people’s best good.

When those events trouble and provoke us to doubt, isn’t it only because we are failing to take our wise Father’s timetable into account? Eternity is in our hearts. Let’s keep remembering that everything is--or will be--beautiful in its own time.

Because God has made it that way.