God judges the secrets of man…

For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.(Romans 2:12-16 ESV)

How many of you have secrets?

Skeletons in the closet?

Things you hide from everyone?

Why do we do this? I mean the one thing that is true about a dishonest or person that hides things is they have to have a really good memory. Because you have to remember every lie or thing you said to someone to remind them about it later and not spoil the lie by slipping up. You have to remember everything you have ever said to everyone. So why hide things?

We hide things because we are ashamed of them. Because they are things we believe others will judge us by. But who has the power and ability to really judge us? Only God. And God will judge the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. Whether we know the law or not we will be judged, either by the law, or apart from it, but we will be judged. And not for only what is known by other men, but everything. You see there is nothing you can do that God does not see. There is no secret you can keep from God. He already knows all of your worst secrets. He knows all of your scars and warts, and yet He still loves you…

So fling wide the closet doors and let the skeletons and secrets out, and let us all help each other live lives worthy of the Gospel!

For God shows no partiality

Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality. (Romans 2:1-11 ESV)

Hold on wait a minute. I thought we were saved by grace through faith. But here Paul tells the Romans God will render to each on of us according to our works. We will be judges by our works, and that is every little thing we do. Everything.

So we might as well give it up now because all of us are guilty. We are all guilty of being judgmental. If you are saying that you do not judge, stop for a moment and think.

Have you ever thought some girl’s skirt or shorts were too short? Or a bikini is way to small? Or some guy’s pants are too tight, or too lose and hang down way to far? You just judged them. You saw what they were wearing and it did not conform to your standards. Whether you deemed them any worse for their actions does not matter. You judged them!

Paul says we should not judge because what we judge someone for is something we are selves are guilty of. Now it may not be the exact same thin, but we are guilty of the same sin we are judging someone else for. For instance one could judge someone for being unfaithful in their marriage vow, while not having an affair but flirting with someone else. It is not the same but the sin is the same infidelity.

The underlying thing Paul is getting at. You are not perfect, so worry about yourself. Be patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality and do not judge someone else. Do not make yourself look bigger by tearing others down. Love God and neighbor and do not judge some one for sinning differently or the same way that you do!

Take care…

Furthermore, the LORD was angry with me because of you, and he swore that I should not cross the Jordan, and that I should not enter the good land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance. For I must die in this land; I must not go over the Jordan. But you shall go over and take possession of that good land. Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make a carved image, the form of anything that the LORD your God has forbidden you. For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
“When you father children and children’s children, and have grown old in the land, if you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and by doing what is evil in the sight of the LORD your God, so as to provoke him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess. You will not live long in it, but will be utterly destroyed. And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you. And there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the LORD your God and obey his voice. For the LORD your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them.
“For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether such a great thing as this has ever happened or was ever heard of. Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live? Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD is God; there is no other besides him. Out of heaven he let you hear his voice, that he might discipline you. And on earth he let you see his great fire, and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire. And because he loved your fathers and chose their offspring after them and brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power, driving out before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is this day, know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other. Therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land that the LORD your God is giving you for all time.” (Deuteronomy 4:21-40 ESV)

God is your God and He will stand beside you or behind you for all of your life! Of course that doesn’t mean He won’t be shaking his head or wagging His finger at you…

Moses here is about to send the people of God into the promised land. He has led them through the wilderness for 40 years and they are almost there! But Moses does not get to go in, because of the people according to Moses. So he can’t go in, but the people will go. And when they have lived there for a while they will become complacent. As we all do. They will take for granted all of the things they use to watch out for and defend them selves against… They will fall into the worship of idols…

So take care you do not become complacent in your life and get taken for granted by the things you use to guard your heart against… But can’t this go the other way… Jesus in the New Testament tells us that the Pharisees and Scribes are white washed tombs, they look good on the outside, but they have lost the intent of the law they so diligently keep. They did not guard their hearts against idols, because the law became their idol. So it is not as easy as keeping the law, it is about the right order of things, and knowing who you follow and why you do the things you do. It is not about doing the right things, but doing things for the right reasons…

So take care you are not hung up on the legalistic side of things, that you lose the heart of the matter…

The Easy Life…

Have you ever heard about the wonderful life of following Jesus? About how all your problems will fade away when you receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior and life will be easy going?

Don’t we all want life to be easy and our decision clear cut?

That things would be laid out in front of us in easy to make clear cut decision. That it would be black and white and it would be easy going…

The problem with this and people saying this is the way it is are feeding the world a line that they really do not need. No where in the Bible does it say that you will have an easy life once you follow Jesus. It does not say that. In fact the Bible also does not say God helps those who help themselves. Many want to say that these sayings are in the book of Hezikiah, and they might be, but that is not one of the books in the Bible, not even in the Apocrypha or the inter testimonial books.

Actually I remember Shane Claiborne saying something like, “Once I found Jesus my life got harder…” and that is actually the way I have found it to. Jesus does make your life easier in knowing that you have the creator of the universe walking with you through everything you will face, but it is not easier because all of your problems go away. Infact your adversaries will increase and the troubles you go through will probably get more and harder…

You see when you start to follow and actually follow Jesus, your friends will wonder what is going on and why you are doing the things you are doing.  They won’t understand your change in attitude and will ask you and push you to be who you were, not who you now are…

For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. (1 Peter 2:19-25 ESV)

Peter tells us that if we suffer for doing what Jesus calls us to do we are in the right and should expect this. What this tells us is that we are going to face trials for our beliefs. We will face trials because Jesus who did not sin faced trials trying to get people to understand why He was here…

So the easy life will come once Jesus returns, but until then, embrace the trials…

Reverent burning fear…

“Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children—how on the day that you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, the LORD said to me, ‘Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so.’ And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. Then the LORD spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice. And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone. And the LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and rules, that you might do them in the land that you are going over to possess. (Deuteronomy 4:9-14 ESV)

Are these the pictures that pop in your mind from the awesome description above? They are magnificent pictures… The trees in the top picture are anywhere from 50-60 feet tall and the flames are at least twice the height of the trees! Fire reaching up into the heavens!

But these pictures do not eve begin to depict the scene we would have seen if we were a part of the Israelites that gathered at the foot of the mountain to hear God speak.

The dis embodied voice that probably trembled the mountain as the fire burned and the smoke billowed…

This is the scene we are suppose to remember to help us recall the covenant that was made with us. And as parents we are suppose to help our children remember this event that they might not have been at. So that they will know the fear of the Lord and keep his commandments. So that we would fear the Lord…

Awesome power needs us to keep reverent fear. God needs to be feared not for what He will do, but what He can do. And we need to love the other, as he first loved us, not because of what we will get, but because we have a reverent fear of the Lord our God…

Evil…

Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands, holding to the tradition of the elders, and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.) And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,
“‘This people honors me with their lips,

but their heart is far from me;
in vain do they worship me,

teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”‘ (that is, given to God)— then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.” And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”
And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?”
(Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:1-23 ESV)

Have you ever wondered where evil comes from? Jesus says quite plainly that out of the heart comes evil…

So out of your heart is where evil comes from. It is not what is outside of you that defiles. It is not what goes into your body that defiles you, but what comes out. Your thoughts and actions that take you away from where you should be.

But the law and religion are not bad… Jesus does not say the purity code is bad… He doesn’t say it’s good either. It’s neither good or bad. Following the code does not save you. It does not make you a Jew or a Christian. Just as much as reading the Lutheran magazine makes you Lutheran does following the purity code make you a follower of God.

What matters is where your heart is. You can do all of the things in the right ordering the right way and if the motivation of your heart is not right it doesn’t matter.

Give God your heart…