New Life ...

The Sabbath had ended while Jesus had rested from His work of our salvation lying in the tomb.  Even in death, the precepts of the law had been maintained.  But with the Sabbath over, and the first day of the week arriving, it was time to resume His work, and go about the business of our redemption.  The darkness was now to give way to a light as bright as the noon day sun.  Angels were sent from the throne of God, angels who had SO longed to intervene to protect their Lord from making the sacrifice He made for love of us.  These angels were now given leave to go before the Roman company who had been assigned to guard the tomb of Christ and roll away the stone, breaking the Roman seal, and preparing the way of the Lord’s awakening.  There would be no resistance.  Mere mortal killing machines trained and hardened in battle, brought up to believe in the reality of gods of war, watched in unison at these beings of light moving the giant stone as if it were a pebble in front of them.  The angels they saw had no fear at all, and seemed bent on reclaiming the dead man in this tomb.  No salary was worth a fight with supernatural beings of strength they could barely comprehend.  They watched, but could not resist.  They bore witness, and knew the penalty for failure, but unlike the Jews, they were unwilling to take on the God of the universe in a dispute.

Then the Roman company from their centurion to their lowliest foot soldier saw the impossible become possible.  The dead man awoke and walked out of His tomb in front of them all.  Many were sure to have recognized Him from the proceedings that they took place in just days earlier.  Some might have woven the crown of thorns; others might have struck Him and mocked Him asking Him to prove His divinity to them.  Still others might have helped drive the nails into His hands, or put the spear through His side.  It is likely these men would have been assigned this heretofore seemingly meaningless grave guard duty, both due to the convenience of Pilate, and to the designs of our God.  For you see, these men were to bear witness to the rebirth of new life.  Their requests for proof of the divinity of Christ were to be answered, in a way they least expected.  Their witness was not designed to be punitive to them.  Christ did not emerge from His grave bent on revenge on these who stood before Him.  He did not come out with sword in hand, nor give the attending angels a command to unleash their fury upon these wicked men.  Generally in a war, this was the custom.  The Romans knew what defeat looked like.  They had seen it in the faces of their enemies.  They knew the losing side lost their lives and their freedom.  And now facing these angels, and their Lord who had returned from death itself – it was the Roman company on the losing side of this war against evil.   But death was not to be their fate.  Like us, Christ was still and only keenly interested in their redemption.  He had just paid the penalty of their sins and ours.  Now was not a time to kill a “former” enemy, but instead to reveal the power of love, and the rebirth of new life.

Each soldier present was to bear witness that death could be overcome by the power of God.  Death was slave to the love of Christ.  Death would not be the permanent condition we find ourselves in.  We can be reborn.  We can come back to life, the life of love Christ intends to give us NOW, and at the end of all things.  New life is to be His gift.  He brings it with Him as He emerges from the grave.  He does not look upon those who wounded Him with hatred, but instead with love and peace, and charity.  The gaze of His eyes, melts the hearts of men who have known only killing, hatred, and the sure knowledge of a certain violent and early death.  The most hardened among them, now see themselves and the deeds they have done in the light of Truth, and the light of His love.  They, like us, recognize the enormity of the pain they have directly caused this Lord because of the deeds we all do by intent.  They, like us, know they deserve death and the pain that precedes it.  But they, like us, see no revenge or anger or punishment in His eyes, instead they see only the most burning love and care and concern, and desire to heal, revive, and resurrect them into a new life.

 Where in any other circumstance, a failure of a mission this size, would have resulted in a mass desertion and exodus to flee for their lives.  In any other circumstance, if they had been taken by surprise by a Jewish mob and had failed at their mission, they would have faced certain death by their masters and commanders.  But not here, not now.  Instead they return to Pilate to bear witness to what they have seen.  And Pilate KNOWS they are telling the truth.  For He too has born witness of the Truth.  He now agonizes over his own role in the condemnation of the son of the only God.  He now shares their collective grief over his acquiescence to the Jewish religious leadership in condemning innocent and divine blood to a death, even if it was only short lived.  He knew before; this was wrong.  He knew before; a God stood before him.  And now 100 soldiers speak in unison and without inconsistency about the arrival of dead bearing new life into the world.  His soldiers are all accounted for; none were killed by this God upon His awakening.  The angels took no revenge.  This was unexpected.  This was different.  The testimony of the soldiers was of the love in the eyes of Christ.  There was a complete absence of hate, a complete absence of malice, a complete absence of self.  The risen God seemed only to long to ease the pain and guilt of this company of men.  Not only for their recent atrocities committed against God Himself, but for the entirety of their lives unto this point.  Christ wanted to free them from their past.  Like us, He wanted to bring the freedom that love offers, and the new life that is the hallmark of this freedom from the past.  He brings us freedom from the people who we have become.

The soldiers face no death sentence for their failure.  Pilate will take no further steps to make the priests happy and continue a war against God.  Pilate instead releases His men and looks to ponder the meaning of the response of love against all the hate he has witnessed.  The priests however, now fully realizing they have lost everything, STILL cling to their desire to maintain religious power over the people.  So they attempt to bribe the soldiers with silver and gold to keep them from talking, or if they speak, to lie and say the followers of Christ simply stole his body in the night.  But their attempts at bribery are misguided.  To admit that kind of failure would be to invite a death sentence for sure.  To wallow in the ways of death, and lies of the past, is to only embrace death.  But the Truth is liberating.  The Truth was believed by Pilate, and could not even be denied by the priests.  The Truth presented the opportunity for something new in their future.  Each of them now had reason to seek out more about this new Truth.  Each of them now wondered how their own lives might be irrevocably altered by their encounter with God.  These men would now take a story into the world and plant seeds with many that would be harvested by the power of His Holy Spirit in later days.  Rome itself would be altered.  Rome itself would be changed.  Rome itself would see love bring a new life.

John, in his gospel, was unaware of these events.  Perhaps he had been busy moving Mary, the mother of Jesus, into his home after the burial.  Perhaps he had been a while getting to the upper room to seek sanctuary from the anger of the priests and leaders.  It was not John, nor any of the others, who would first go to attend to their buried Lord.  Instead it was Mary Magdalene.  The former prostitute and now ardent disciple herself, would find no shame in seeking to attend her fallen Lord.  Mary knew that a company of rough and vile men awaited her at the grave site.  But Mary had spent a lifetime dealing with rough and vile men.  She imagined she could handle herself well enough to do what needed to be done in checking on her Lord.  But John records in his gospel in chapter 20 in verse one … “The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. [verse 2] Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.”  Notice Mary did not enter the tomb.  Instead, expecting to find a company of 100 Roman soldiers, she finds none.  Expecting to find a great stone and unbroken Roman seal upon the tomb, the stone has been moved and the seal has been broken.  She immediately assumes, the Romans must have moved Him in the early hours.  She assumes He has been stolen and who knows what they are doing to Him now.  So she runs to tell the others the bad news.

John writes out the response he and Peter had to the news of Mary beginning in verse 3 … “Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. [verse 4] So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. [verse 5] And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in.”  The adrenal glands of John kicked in to overdrive and he simply out runs Peter to get to the tomb.  But they are not so hyped up as to overcome his fears about encountering the dead, and so John stops at the door of the tomb.  That was close enough for him at the moment.  He continues in verse 6 … “Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, [verse 7] And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. [verse 8] Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed. [verse 9] For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. [verse 10] Then the disciples went away again unto their own home.”  Notice again, when Peter arrives he sees the grave clothes folded and laid nearly inside the tomb.  John now enters and confirms what Peter has found, no body, and grave clothes folded neatly.  At this point both disciples believe what Mary has said, they have taken His body, and they have no idea where He is now.  The thought of resurrection has still not entered their minds.  And they have missed the obvious clue – if the Romans had taken Him, why would they be so careful as to fold the grave clothes and leave them neatly behind?  The Romans after all, had torn his clothing into 4 parts, and threw dice for His cloak.  Romans were least of all, clean and neat.  But in any case, what was clear, was that Christ was no longer in this tomb.

Given this new turn of events, the disciples are all more depressed than ever.  Peter and John return to their homes, but Mary is so heartbroken she does not even have the energy to do that.  Instead she can move no further, she can take no more, her grief is just too much, and she slinks down to the ground, right where she is and begins to weep.  She sobs for the sadness at the separation from her Lord, the source of life and love.  This is a pain that Christ knows all too well Himself.  For upon the cross, while carrying the stain of our sins upon Him, He too was forced to be separated from His Father for the first time in the history of the universe.  That separation broke His heart and killed Him.  So Christ knows what Mary is feeling.  Despite the universal importance of His mission of our redemption, of even Mary’s redemption, He must delay His work and see to the needs of the former prostitute who lies weeping without shame upon the ground in front of His empty tomb.  So with the universe still hanging in the balance, Christ MAKES time for Mary.  Nothing is more important to Christ than the object of His love and affection, even when the needs of the many seem more important to us, the needs of the one were what His love was all about.  Were we to see it rightly, we would share His priorities and attend to the one sheep in need, with Him in this effort, not waiting for Him to return to the ninety nine.

John records in verse 11 … “But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre, [verse 12] And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. [verse 13] And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.”  Angels were first dispatched to see to the needs of Mary, and when she sees them she reveals her grief is still founded on the idea that Christ remains dead, and has simply been moved to a place she is unable to find.  Mary again is missing the obvious in front of her.  She is conversing with two angels in an empty tomb.  But her grief is clouding her judgment and her sadness is overwhelming her reason.  John continues in verse 14 … “And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. [verse 15] Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.”  She is so grief struck that she does not recognize Jesus though He is standing right in front of her.  She is so overcome with her own beliefs that even upon hearing his voice she thinks He is the gardener, not her Lord.  Sometimes when we become so certain of our scriptural understandings and beliefs in our doctrines, we too are unable to perceive the Lord when He is right in front of us.  We become so dogmatic that we miss His voice, miss the clues, miss the angels, and see only what we believe that denies us the access to the God we profess to follow.  Like Mary we are distracted and overcome by what we think.

Even now, she believes perhaps the gardener moved Christ, or at least might have some idea about where the Romans might have taken Him.  John continues in verse 16 … “Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.”  Jesus does for Mary, what He must do for ALL of us; He breaks through her stubborn thinking and calls her out by name.  He reveals Himself to her, despite what she believes, despite what she is so sure is the truth, and instead reveals the Truth of Himself to her.  He undoes her entire belief system in a single instant, and reveals to her that New Life is found only within Himself.  The entire sacrificial system and its meaning to Mary is at an end in that instant.  The debates of the Pharisees who spend a lifetime considering the meaning of a given passage of scripture pales in comparison to an instant in front of the living God.  We need not be scholars to experience Christ, in fact, it might be a detriment to think ourselves so wise in the ways of the scriptures.  Better to be Mary, overcome with sadness at the thought of separation from Christ, and as such given a personal revelation of Jesus Himself.  Jesus calls Mary out of the history of her beliefs, and instills within her the only truth that matters, Himself.  Jesus reveals to Mary and us, that salvation is found in Him alone.  He must be our leader.  He must be the cornerstone of our beliefs.  He must bring to us the new life, if new life is what we are to experience.

But then John reveals how much Jesus cares for the needs of just one woman who seeks Him with the entirety of her being.  Jesus proceeds to tell her in verse 17 … “Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. [verse 18] Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her.”  Jesus reveals to her, that He has delayed the very work of our salvation to make time to see her and comfort her.  She must not touch Him as yet, because He can carry no stain of our sin before He sees if His sacrifice was enough for our redemption with His Father.  Even though He is unsure if because of carrying our sins He may never again be fully reunited with His Father, He still pauses to see to the needs of just one aching soul.  Instead, He bids her to tell the disciples the incredibly good news of salvation and new life He brings.  He is ALIVE. 

The first gospel commission is given not to men, but to a woman, a woman who had formerly been known as the greatest of sinners, a woman who before had been possessed of demons, and known of many a lustful man.  This woman’s former life was as bad as it gets.  But not her new life.  Her new life was to begin with a direct calling and mission and message from the Son of God Himself, to His most ardent followers.  Mary was to be the first one to carry the gospel to the church itself.  Mary was to be the messenger to those who would later call themselves leaders.  Mary would minister to them.  Mary would be first to lead them.  Mary would attempt to inspire hope in them with the Truth of Jesus Christ.  Christ did not send Mary to His followers because she was a woman, but because she was there, she cared, and she ached to see Him again.  She was willing.  She was faithful.  She obeyed.  And neither did Christ discriminate against her because she was a woman.  Debate over – our sex and our past has nothing to do with our fitness to minister for Christ.  When we are called to new life – ALL can serve as He wishes.

And Mary did as Jesus asked.  She returned to the others and began to share the good news.  But the men she ministered to, held to their own stubborn beliefs.  They would not be convinced by the emotional ramblings of a woman with such a checkered past.  They instead would cling to the grief they held on to.  They would refuse to be made free by the truth of the gospel which Mary would share.  It was not that these men did not hear her testimony; it was that they refused to believe it in their own hearts.  Had they been willing to hear the message of the Lord from the vessel He had sent, there would have been no need for Christ to personally appear to confirm the truth of what Mary had relayed.  But men, then and now, are stubborn.  Men refuse to believe that a woman could be called upon by God to deliver so important a truth.  Further, even today, we believe that the misdeeds a person has engaged in disqualify them from being a vessel of messages of truth.  We associate the person with the message, instead of separating the truth of what they say from the weaknesses of their lives.  Mary was speaking the truth given to her by Christ Himself.  She could not undo what she was, but through Christ, she was called to be something else.  She delivered His message; that He was ascending to His God and their God.  He was ascending to His Father and their Father.  We were being elevated to be considered family with God Himself.  This was incredible news, both then and now, yet men would not hear it from the mouth of a woman.

100 Roman soldiers knew the truth.  Mary had heard the most incredible message from the mouth of Christ Himself.  101 people had seen the risen Lord, alive and walking among us.  The first fruits of His kingdom had given the message of His divinity throughout Jerusalem for 3 days.  The priests knew the truth.  Pilate knew the truth.  But those men who SHOULD have known the truth, and been the first to embrace it, were not convinced by the testimony of others.  They would not hear the message of the one who God had called to take them the good news.  Instead, like the Pharisees, and like us, they clung to their own understanding of scriptures, and what they had witnessed, and refused to accept the testimony of another on the topic.  They, like us, judged the messenger as unworthy, and so refused to accept the truth Christ was trying to share with them and bring them joy in the process.  They, like us, had preconceptions about the roles of women and men when it comes to the preaching and teaching of the gospel.  As such the one who was willing, and the one who was chosen, was ignored by those who thought themselves as leaders and not followers.  They chose to cling to their sadness instead.  So like He had done for Mary, Christ would now need to wipe away the preconceptions of His own followers, and reveal to them, as to us, the Truth of Himself …

 

Recovery in a Petri Dish ...

In general, surgeries are performed in a sterile environment and recovery is done under close examination and in as clean and germ-free an environment as is possible.  This is done to protect the patient from a further infection and give them every opportunity to heal properly.  But in our world, our spiritual Doctor must perform His work in us under the worst of conditions, and our recovery is too often confined to a petri dish where every risk of infection is ever present and ready to retake the lost ground our Lord gives us.  The same sins we are made free from surround us on all sides.  The same friends and family that may have inadvertently inspired us to stray remain ever present in our lives, and often do the same things and say the same words that in times past helped lead to our downfalls.  So how are we to recover without relapse?  And if relapse occurs, does it negate the idea of re-creation and reformation in the first place?

For too long many Christians have espoused the idea that only isolation away from sin will help to keep them clean from it.  The idea being that a recovering alcoholic is less likely to drink in church, than in a bar.  If one avoids going to a bar, or near a liquor store, then one may avoid drinking again, or at least stand a better chance at it.  This seems to make sense.  But what happens when overindulgence of a chemical is not the sin we discuss, what happens when lust itself is the culprit?  Under this kind of logic, one would have to avoid contact with members of the opposite sex entirely.  But even if a man prone to lust avoids contact with women who attract him, he will still encounter a barrage of images in advertising, media, and the internet that could re-stoke his former passions.  Even in the church a heart prone to lust has many objects to find itself in error with.  The only way then to deny oneself the opportunity to relapse might be to move to a cabin in the woods, drop off “the grid”, and become a self-reliant hermit.  But therein lies the problem with the isolationist approach, it is an attempt to remove the idea of relapse from the work of Christ, and place it once again in human hands.  So what then is the alternative?

Surely it makes no sense for a Christian who has been given the gift of removing a certain evil from their lives to maintain a routine that in times past was a pathway to self-destruction.  Surely we must “do” something to maintain the gift God has given us?  So what might that be?  The answer for maintaining our cure, or remaining in recovery if you will, is no different than what it was to obtain the cure in the first place.  We must remain willing to be changed, and daily ask to have our Lord continue His work within us to remove every evil from our hearts and minds.  A daily commitment to release control to God is our “part” in getting the surgery from our God, and is also our part in maintaining the cure.  No other actions on our part would ever be sufficient to keep us away from temptations.  The devil has made a career out of defeating mere mortals in the arts of temptation.  Adam and Eve were likely much more difficult prey, than you or I who suffer from 6000 years of genetic influences, and a finely tuned marketing machine from which we are unable to escape.  It is therefore no more our job to attempt to avoid relapse, than it was to attempt to avoid falling in the first place.  Our role remains one of surrender to Christ, nothing more.  We must continue to trust in His work of salvation within us.

Keep in mind that part of the cure God offers is not just the cessation of sinful actions; it is the removal of sinful desires.  When once an alcoholic, the place where they craved to drink mattered little.  In fact most chemically dependent people hide bottles or drugs in all manner of places so that it is available to them “as needed”.  Under that level of disease, avoiding a bar or liquor store was no more a cure than was going to church.  A person determined to drink, who “needs” to drink, will find a way and a time to do so no matter what other level of distractions exist.  But a person who has no desire to drink, one who finds alcohol distasteful, one whose body may even react very poorly if they do drink, is not likely to find themselves drinking in any conditions.  In short, if you don’t want it, you probably will not do it.  Where before the cure, an entire regimen of time was spent in the pursuit of a drink, after the cure this time is spent in other ways.  It is made free by the cure itself.  This is the miracle our God performs, not just the ideas of a power of self-control to restrain one’s desires, but a re-creation in the core level of what one wants.  In time, the sins we once craved lose their hold over us.  We lose the desire for them, and begin to find what we once craved now something that is entirely distasteful to us.  This is not just applied to alcoholics but to those who lust, those who perpetually lie, those who gossip, those who over-eat and are unable to change, no matter what our former weakness, the cure remains the same.

We must also remember that not all change is instant and all encompassing.  The work the Lord performs within us begins to remove evil and sins one at a time, but does not make us instantly and completely sin-free.  The work will one day reach fulfillment in us, but not by tomorrow morning.  So it is unwise to believe we have been made completely “perfect” at this moment in time.  This kind of thinking places the emphasis all too often right back on self, and inevitably leads right back to failure.  The gift of a victory over a sin, is the beginning of a pattern the Lord will develop on your behalf.  One after another after another, you will find your former interests and actions giving way to new ones, and to new ways of thinking.  Under these conditions the work of perfection is actually being accomplished within you.  But as it is, we are slowly made aware of just how diseased we were, and we remain.  The more the evil is removed from us, the more we see how deep it ran, and how all-encompassing it was as a part of who we were and still are.  It is why scripture calls for us to be willing to die to self.  As we receive victory after victory our gratitude to God grows, our worship and praise to Him for what He has done in us becomes far more genuine.  It begins to find expression not only at times of worship, but in daily opportunities to love someone else.  Those acts of loving another begin to look suspiciously like the acts of Christ in His ministry here on earth; for it is Christ who inspires them, who motivates them, and who allows us to share in them.

The sin we once engaged in, and so desired, is not removed from the world around us.  It is removed from heart within us.  When gone is our desire to sin, and in its place is a deep seated love for those who remain in sin, it is not relapse we fear anymore, it is failure to share what we have experienced in receiving the victories of God over pain.  We begin to lose our fear of temptation, and instead fear only that we are too timid to reach out to those who still suffer from what we once suffered with as well.  It is not a condemnation they will require, or threats of a punishment in hell – that is the condition they exist in today.  No, our message of effect will be an altered life, a different life, a life that is so filled with love it can now no longer be ignored or denied.  The kind of change that Christ brings to the life is indeed a light in darkness that cannot be disputed.  The former alcoholic who has no desire to drink any longer has a powerful testimony to those who think themselves in recovery.  It is not merely how many days one has been clean, but it is a fundamental re-creation of how one thinks about alcohol itself.  The man or woman who in times past knew nothing but promiscuity now finds themselves unequivocally in love and sole fidelity and devotion to their God as well as their spouse has a powerful testimony to all around them.  None need ever know the heights of their former indiscretions, but it is the renewed strength of their marriage that will inspire interest in the eyes of others.  The former pathological liar, who now finds themselves only speaking the truth couched in love, will have such a voice as the world has yet to hear.  The person who formerly was unable to control their dietary habits and now is dropping weight and becoming healthier has a diet plan of divine origin that no other fad or book could ever supplant. 

Talking about these kinds of victories in the abstract, or in the lives of those you know, is different than speaking from a passion that comes because they happened to you.  When they happen to you, your testimony becomes one of what Christ has done for YOU.  It will never be your victory.  It will always be His, done on your behalf.  Your testimony can never be about what you have conquered for you have conquered nothing, but Christ has conquered everything you needed done.  That is the message of hope you can give to others still trapped in weakness you have been freed from.  Not how you did it, for you will have no idea “how” you did it – but instead “who” did it for you.  In this case isolationism is not required for recovery.  All that is required is the genuine daily work of surrender and submission to the will of Christ.  As we allow Him greater and greater control within us we begin to lose the ideas of self, and self-reliance.  We begin to give Him the credit for the work He is doing.  We begin to develop a testimony that actually has meaning and will carry weight.  Without the cure, we have nothing much to say.  A witness of the changes in others is simply not a compelling enough reason for someone else to seek change.  But a personal testimony combined with a life that is evident of change is a hard combination to ignore.  Our witness must be lived to be effective.

The work of saving others is not something that requires a push; instead it requires a reason to find it.  Do you seek marital advice from a couple who fights more than you do, and is now seeking a divorce?  The only thing they may have to offer is what not to do.  We do not seek counsel from those we perceive to be worse off than ourselves on the topic we need help with, simply because we believe them to wise people.  If they were indeed wise, why do they not simply practice what they preach?  But when our marriage is hurting and we see a couple who has been married for many years and has a passion that can hardly be contained, a disposition of charity and giving that hardly has a rival, and a unity that only the Holy Spirit could bring between two people – those are the folks we are going to reach out to.  It does not matter if the couple who surrender to God every day thinks of themselves as formal “counselors”.  Indeed they are probably not.  For it is not the wisdom of men that enables the marriage of pure unity and love, it is Christ alone.  But it is that very message, that is just the thing our aching marriage needs to hear.  We seek it because we see the difference in their lives more so than what we find in our own.  It is how they live that inspires us to seek them out.  It is not what they say, but what we see, that makes the difference in who we seek counsel from.  This is the nature of the gospel and re-creation, and the reason the world will one day hear it so Christ can return.

Words alone will never rule the day.  Words must echo action and be substantiated within them.  When they are in harmony with each other, when the will is fully surrendered to Christ, the actions that follow are as automatic as breathing.  Our marriage does not magically improve because we wish it would, instead it improves because “how” we love our spouse is directed and altered and increased by the indwelling of Christ in us.  Even if our spouse does not share our commitment yet, they will surely notice the changes in how we love them.  Love is hard to ignore, harder still to resist.  The way we live begins to reflect the way He loves.  And it is these acts of loving others that begins to redefine us as His true servants.  No other explanation can account for the total transformation of the human heart from weakness to self-less-ness.   Instead of having our minds consumed with thoughts of fleeing our former sins, they become engaged in reaching out to those we love.  Where we have to go becomes irrelevant.  For we do not wander into bars to drink, but only as we are directed by the will of Christ to find that one lost soul who is in need.  It is not that we idly hang out in places of former weakness, nor are we there to participate in what we now find entirely abhorrent, but there is nothing and no place we would not dare to go, if a lost soul can be reached.  The lost souls will not have reason to seek counsel from those who participate with them in their weakness.  But they will have little resolve against a life they knew to be as bad as their own, that is now full of evidence of the freedom that only Christ can offer.

Christ was not found in only the palaces of the rich.  In fact He was rarely if ever found there.  Instead He was found on “the wrong side of the tracks”, in the bad neighborhoods, where the harlots, the sluts, the cheaters, the thieves, the murderers, in short where the lost were found.  Christ was not there to partake in their weakness.  He was there to offer them freedom from it.  The lost and aching souls of today will rarely be found in the pews next to you.  They do not attend church regularly.  Instead you will find them at work, at play, at places of disrepute, engaged in things you may have once thought of as “fun” and now you find only as painful.  It is there where you will encounter them, in areas of life probably not conducive to church.  It is there where they will “see” you.  They will take note of who you are and of “how” you love.  Will you genuinely care for them, or merely utter inane greetings with no care of the response?  Will you be inclined to participate in their weakness or seem to show no interest in pain, and a great relief from being freed from it?  Who you are will be evident not only in a church pew, but at work, and at play, and perhaps even in an environment that is not the best.  Why you are where you are matters to those in darkness.  To sit in a pew once a week to simply try to demonstrate your holiness offers no compelling reason for anyone else to change.  But to be there because your joy is unbridled, your testimony must find voice, to serve the needs of those who sit beside you – these are the hallmarks of an altered life, an altered heart, and a change that cannot be denied.

Where we recover will never be a perfect place, until Christ returns and remakes the world anew.  But the work of perfection in us can begin here and now, continue if the darkest of times, and find its fulfillment even before He returns, so that on that great day we are able to say … “this is He, the Lamb, who we have waited for”.  The work of perfection does not begin on that day, it reaches completion.  For those who enter the grave before they are able to see His return, they are resurrected in a state of perfection.  But for those who are still alive at His coming, the work of perfecting the character will have already reached its conclusion.  Therefore if persecution, and darkness, a world at war, and plagues that encompass the globe could not deter the Lord from finishing His work in us, why should we think our meager temptations could deter Him from starting it right now?  The freedom Christ came to offer us, was not from oppression and hardship the world is steeped in, it was from the slavery to self each of us is controlled by.  We do not require a sterile environment in which to recover, just a willingness to allow our Lord to make pure the heart within us.  We have only to become what He intends for us to become, for He will surely re-create us completely.