aSacredRebel

Gentiles are without excuse

¹⁸God’s wrath is being revealed from heaven against all the ungodly behavior and the injustice of human beings who silence the truth with injustice. ¹⁹This is because what is known about God should be plain to them because God made it plain to them. ²⁰Ever since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities—God’s eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, because they are understood through the things God has made. So humans are without excuse. ²¹Although they knew God, they didn’t honor God as God or thank him. Instead, their reasoning became pointless, and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²²While they were claiming to be wise, they made fools of themselves. ²³They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images that look like mortal humans: birds, animals, and reptiles. ²⁴So God abandoned them to their hearts’ desires, which led to the moral corruption of degrading their own bodies with each other. ²⁵They traded God’s truth for a lie, and they worshipped and served the creation instead of the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. (Romans 1:18-25, CEB)

We can see God all around us through everything that God has made. So we have no excuse to not know God and to follow God.

We chose to not follow and to go after our own desires rather than to follow after where God is leading us.

We traded God’s truth for a lie that we can do it better and have a better life than God could give us.

We have no excuse to not know and follow God.

So what will you do?

Put on my yoke

¹⁶“To what will I compare this generation? It is like a child sitting in the marketplaces calling out to others, ¹⁷‘We played the flute for you and you didn’t dance. We sang a funeral song and you didn’t mourn.’ ¹⁸For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’¹⁹Yet the Human One came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunk, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved to be right by her works.” ²⁰Then he began to scold the cities where he had done his greatest miracles because they didn’t change their hearts and lives. ²¹“How terrible it will be for you, Chorazin! How terrible it will be for you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles done among you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have changed their hearts and lives and put on funeral clothes and ashes a long time ago. ²²But I say to you that Tyre and Sidon will be better off on Judgment Day than you. ²³And you, Capernaum, will you be honored by being raised up to heaven? No, you will be thrown down to the place of the dead. After all, if the miracles that were done among you had been done in Sodom, it would still be here today. ²⁴But I say to you that it will be better for the land of Sodom on the Judgment Day than it will be for you.” ²⁵At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you’ve hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have shown them to babies. ²⁶Indeed, Father, this brings you happiness. ²⁷“My Father has handed all things over to me. No one knows the Son except the Father. And nobody knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wants to reveal him. ²⁸“Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves. ³⁰My yoke is easy to bear, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:16-30, CEB)

Sometimes we don’t know what we want or need. Sometimes we have to go along with what is happening even when we don’t understand it or want to.

Jesus says that we hear music but don’t dance, and then we hear a funeral song but don’t mourn. We think we want to do something but we don’t know really what we need to do.

That is where the yoke comes in. We have to go with Jesus if we have the yoke on us. We don’t have a choice not to follow and be where Jesus is.

Plus when we have the yoke on, then we can relax and let Jesus do the work.

We will go where we need to be and Jesus will care for us. The yoke isn’t a burden, it is freedom.

Be freeded by yoking to Jesus.

Happy are the eyes that see what you see

²¹At that very moment, Jesus overflowed with joy from the Holy Spirit and said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you’ve hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and shown them to babies. Indeed, Father, this brings you happiness. ²²My Father has handed all things over to me. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wants to reveal him.” ²³Turning to the disciples, he said privately, “Happy are the eyes that see what you see. ²⁴I assure you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see and hear what you hear, but they didn’t.” (Luke 10:21-24, CEB)

I praise you because you’ve hidden these things? Really shouldn’t we be praising because things have been made clear?

But sometimes we need people to be in the dark, to not understand, to have to trust.

We all need to trust God and know that we will not have all of the answers and that is simply because we do not have the ability to understand everything the way God does.

When those who think they know everything have to rely on someone else is when we truly see how much we need God.

So don’t think you can do this alone, you can’t. We all need God.

Living under the law

⁷So what are we going to say? That the Law is sin? Absolutely not! But I wouldn’t have known sin except through the Law. I wouldn’t have known the desire for what others have if the Law had not said, Don’t desire to take what others have. ⁸But sin seized the opportunity and used this commandment to produce all kinds of desires in me. Sin is dead without the Law. ⁹I used to be alive without the Law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life, ¹⁰and I died. So the commandment that was intended to give life brought death. ¹¹Sin seized the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and killed me. ¹²So the Law itself is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good. ¹³So did something good bring death to me? Absolutely not! But sin caused my death through something good so that sin would be exposed as sin. That way sin would become even more thoroughly sinful through the commandment. ¹⁴We know that the Law is spiritual, but I’m made of flesh and blood, and I’m sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵I don’t know what I’m doing, because I don’t do what I want to do. Instead, I do the thing that I hate. ¹⁶But if I’m doing the thing that I don’t want to do, I’m agreeing that the Law is right. ¹⁷But now I’m not the one doing it anymore. Instead, it’s sin that lives in me. ¹⁸I know that good doesn’t live in me—that is, in my body. The desire to do good is inside of me, but I can’t do it. ¹⁹I don’t do the good that I want to do, but I do the evil that I don’t want to do. ²⁰But if I do the very thing that I don’t want to do, then I’m not the one doing it anymore. Instead, it is sin that lives in me that is doing it. (Romans 7:7-20, CEB)

The Law is not sinful but it does make the sin that is already living in us come to light. We see how we are sinful because of the Law, but the Law can not save us. The Law will only keep us held captive.

It is not I that do the evil but the sin that lives in me and is brought to light by the knowledge of sin. I in my flesh can not do good except that God is working in and through me.

So know that sin is a part of life and the Law shows us our sin.

But trust in Jesus to live in and through you to bring you through this life to life ever after with God.

released from the law

Or do you not know, brothers and sisters (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law is lord over a person as long as he lives? ²For a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of the marriage. ³So then, if she is joined to another man while her husband is alive, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she is joined to another man, she is not an adulteress. ⁴So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you could be joined to another, to the one who was raised from the dead, to bear fruit to God. ⁵For when we were in the flesh, the sinful desires, aroused by the law, were active in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. ⁶But now we have been released from the law, because we have died to what controlled us, so that we may serve in the new life of the Spirit and not under the old written code. (Romans 7:1-6, NET)

So if you are divorced and your husband is still alive then if you are having relationships with others you are committing adultery. Only if your husband is dead. So a man can go and do whatever they want? If we read the text as it stands, yes, men are free to do as they please and women are not, yet I believe they text implies and has a deeper meaning that you are bound to the one you know in a biblical sense which is a very intimate way. In my understanding, marriage is complete when it is consummated. So when you know a person in the biblical understanding you are really married to them. And when we get hung up on the rules of things we get held down and feel the pressure of getting things right or doing things right.

So if we are released from the burden of feeling we have to do the right things all the time we will be freed to love and share grace.

Know you are freed to love and share grace.

woe to unrepentant cities

²⁰ Then Jesus began to criticize openly the cities in which he had done many of his miracles, because they did not repent. ²¹ “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. ²² But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you! ²³ And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be thrown down to Hades! For if the miracles done among you had been done in Sodom, it would have continued to this day. ²⁴ But I tell you, it will be more bearable for the region of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you!”(Matthew 11:20-24, NET)

Why do these cities not get it?

He had done miracles there but they still were not doing what they needed to do. It is like we don’t see the forest for the trees. Things from this world get in our way and we can not see what is right in front of us.

How can we stay focused on Jesus so we do not get distracted by the world and drawn away from God?

What can you do to stay focused on Jesus?

test the spirit

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world. ²By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, ³and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. And this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming; and now it is already in the world. ⁴Little children, you are from God, and have conquered them; for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. ⁵They are from the world; therefore what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them. ⁶We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us, and whoever is not from God does not listen to us. From this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. (1 John 4:1-6, NRSV)

Using this test is not that straight forward, because I have friends who are from God who would say some of the things I believe are not actually what God teaches, and I know I am from God. And yet we all confess that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of the world. So how does this work? I mean there are people who believe that those in the LGBTQ+ community are not Christians if they continue in that lifestyle, but my understanding is God loves us all as God created us. And again we all confess that Jesus is God in flesh.

We test the spirit by asking what would God do, How would God love in this space. An interesting cartoon I have seen several times is this one by nakedpastor. When we use the Bible to determine love we get it wrong.

We need to love as Jesus did, which means we do what is necessary regardless of the trouble we will get in.

Love as God loves!