A Faith That Works

      It's the classic faith vs. works paradox of Christianity. I've struggled with it much too. 1 Corinthians 3 is true- you can't throw that out. But 1 John 4 is true too. It is primarily about knowing and loving Jesus. When it becomes all about what good works we do for God, it reverts into Judaism, hoping to be saved by keeping the law. But if I'm just loving and knowing God and I'm not doing any good works, am I really saved?
      I mean- James 2 is there for a reason too. Well, if loving and knowing God doesn't naturally drive me to do the good works He designed for me to do all along, then yes- I'd question my salvation experience and my real level of love for God and knowledge of Him. But if I'm always doing good works because I know it's expected and not out of a heart that loves and knows God, then I become a works-based Pharisee. It's got to be both. But the order goes like this- FIRST- Jesus loves me for no reason I can understand except for just being who I am- God's creation.
       Brennan Manning once said that he believed God the Father will ask one question and one question only on Judgment Day- "Did you believe that I love you?" And I think this is why he said that. His love and grace is the foundation for everything else. It's because I believe I am known and loved by God that I put faith in His salvific work through Christ's death and Resurrection. And that love for Him naturally drives me to want to be like Him and obey Him. If Chewbacca can faithfully follow and obey Han Solo because he owes him a life debt, how much more should we do the same with Jesus to Whom we owe an eternal life debt? But Chewie is not Han's slave- he's his loyal friend who loves him fiercely and deeply first and foremost.
    That's a good model of our love relationship with King Jesus. We fall out of fellowship when we sin but the love never ends. (1 Corinthians 13) That's why we have 1 John 1:9 and that's how it is with real true friends. We forgive each other and restore the fellowship. God doesn't love us for what we can do for Him. John 15:5 says we can do nothing apart from Him anyway. Jesus also says that if we love Him, we'll obey Him.
       I know this is true in any good romantic love relationship too. When you truly love someone, you naturally want to know everything you can about them. I can think of a girl that God has blessed me with knowing that I felt this way for and still have a deep philio love for as friends even though the relationship didn't work out. And every time I see anything to do with her home country I get excited. We talked with each other for hours at a time and never got tired of it. There were always new things to learn. I loved to reference her name anywhere I could- just thinking about her made me happy. Just looking at her picture and reading her letters made me smile. I wanted to name drop her everywhere.
       The romantic eros love is representative of the desire God has for us and the desire we should have for Him. (Just read Hosea 2.) And when we love God with that kind of passion, we find ourselves not only learning about Him and knowing Him more but desiring to please and obey Him more- and eventually becoming like Him more. As in the relationship with my friend I described, I found both of us becoming like each other in some ways because we know what each of us likes and our particular emotional needs and such. This is of course exactly what happens in the covenant marriage relationship as husband and wife become one unit that works and operates together. The wondrous thing is that their individuality is not diminished but they become more themselves than ever before, much as our union with Christ, as C.S. Lewis explained it.     
      This brings us to the marriage of faith and works as we see laid out in The Bible in passages like Ephesians 2:8-10 and Philippians 2:12-13. Yes, we are saved by Grace through faith alone. However, as John Calvin said, saving faith is never alone- it naturally brings good works with it. Jesus Himself said in John 8 that we would show ourselves to be His disciples by our fruit. But if it's all about our works, why did He come down on the rich young ruler and tell him he still lacked one thing- he needed to sell all he had and give it to the poor and then follow Him? I think Jesus was trying to get him to do a heart check.
     I think the rich young ruler thought he was following God by law-keeping in itself but it wasn't because he really desired God. His reaction of leaving in sorrow proves that he loved his stuff more than God. In Matthew 13, Jesus describes salvation as someone who finds treasure buried in a field and in his joy, the man who finds it, sells all he has to buy the field and get the treasure. That is a picture if how we are to desire Jesus.
      The grace and faith that save us drive us to do the good works that God had already planned for us to do. We are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that it's God who works in us both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Thus, it's not an either-or situation, but a both-and situation. The order is always paramount though. It starts and ends with God. He draws us to Himself and saves us. He moves in our hearts to be more like Him. When we fall because we have cut off fellowship with Him, His Spirit draws us back and we repent and the fellowship resumes- but the relationship is always intact.
      My parents have often told me an approach in prayer life that is applicable here- pray as if it all depends on God and work as if it all depends on you. I believe God honours our faith and particularly when we demonstrate it by taking action. This is the great paradoxical nature of the faith and works relationship in The Bible and in our lives. It all comes down to the heart and motives.
     We can either fall into two errors, as seen in the two brothers in Jesus' parable of the lost son in Luke 15. One is openly defiant to his father and blatantly lives in sin and then finally comes to his senses and returns in repentance. Note that the Father runs faster than The Flash, Road Runner, Speedy Gonzales and Superman combined to his son as he comes down the robe. The love of the father is totally undignified as he enthusiastically embraces his most likely muddy, smelly, pig slop-covered son and showers him with hugs and kisses before he can get a word of his prepared apology out. Now, make no mistake, the son did admit he had sinned before his father and Heaven and came in humble repentance but the father's love was already there and poured out.
      Too many times we have the attitude of the elder brother who is as lost in his righteousness as the younger son was lost in his wickedness. The elder brother cites his years of service and faithfulness and complains that he never got a young goat to barbecue with his friends. The father explains that he is always with Him and all he has is his but it's fitting to celebrate this lost brother who was found; this dead son who is now alive. It seems both the younger and elder son wanted their father for his stuff- the younger forced his hand in rebellion for it but the elder thought he could earn it through righteous works. The truth is that it's freely given to all of us- it's The Father's good pleasure to give us the Kingdom! (Luke 12:32)
      We must repent of both our errors though. The younger son had to repent of his wickedness and the elder son had to repent of his righteousness. We can't earn God's love or deserve it or pay Him back for it- it's a free gift. (John 3:16-17, John 8:32-36) We are all desperately in need of it and once we've experienced it, it should so change us that we want to live a life of love to God and others in gratitude, with a heart set free to love and know others in agape love as He has known and loved us first!
     P.S. I must acknowledge Rev. Timothy Keller's excellent book "The Prodigal God" for much of the ideas about the parable of the lost son as well as Brennan Manning's incredibly awesome "The Ragamuffin Gospel" book, both of which I highly recommend reading! I have read and reread and reread the latter and cried over it numerous times. As I have said before, the most profound theologically rich Christian song I know is still "Jesus Loves Me". Rest in that Truth today. :-)

Proud Eyes (song)

It's the original sin. This came even before the fall of man. First there was the fall of Lucifer. Why did he go from an angel in God's Heaven to the being Satan, the devil of hell? Pride. The Scriptures tell us he wanted to ascend above God- he eyed the throne fit for only The Almighty and God put him in his place. And it's those proud eyes that get us every time too. We've seen it played out so many times. We do well on something and quickly become haughty about it. And it gives God sad eyes to see us think we can do things on our own without Him. And our quick downfalls bring us quickly back to Him. Keep your eyes on Him and don't let the pride of life bring you down.

"Proud Eyes" (parody of "Sad Eyes" by Robert John; copyright by Nathan Ludwick 11/26/2015)
(Proverbs 8:13, Ezekiel 28:1-19, Isaiah 14:12-21, 2 Peter 2:18-19, Jude 1:14-16, Revelation 13:5, Obadiah 1:3-8, James 4:6-10, James 4:13-17, Isaiah 2:22, Malachi 4:1, Luke 14:11, 1 Peter 5:6, Proverbs 16:5, 1 John 2:15-17, Luke 12:13-21, Philippians 2:1-11, Psalms 8, Proverbs 6:16-19, 2 Samuel 22:28, Psalms 18:27, Psalms 131:1, Proverbs 21:4, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, 1 Corinthians 8:1, 2 Timothy 3:1-5, Jeremiah 50:31-32, Daniel 3-4, Daniel 5:20, Psalms 5:5, Psalms 101:5, Psalms 119:21, Psalms 119:78, Proverbs 14:16, Proverbs 28:25, Psalms 2, Romans 1:28-32, 1 John 2:16, Proverbs 16:18)

Look right in Proverbs- review 6 things God hates
Seven abominations
Two hands blood spilling, witness who breathes lies,
Lying tongue, heart that makes plans of hate
Sows discord

(Chorus 1)
Proud eyes- Turn to 6:16
Why don't you go read those lines?
Proud eyes- you know that one's first- hey!
Then read 1:3-8 Obadiah

Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4- read there!
His pride was broken- tree upends
Isaiah 2:22- Psalms 2- How do we fare?
God hates to see us self-depend
8:13 Proverbs

(Chorus 2)
Proud eyes- Ezekiel 28
Isaiah in 14- kicked out
Proud eyes- God threw devil to the grave
Where he will have to stay in fire!

(Chorus 3)
Proud eyes- Turn to 4 in James
Why don't you go read those lines?
Proud eyes- You'll do this stuff today
Then we should actually say, "If God wills"

(Chorus 4)
Proud eyes- Turn to Psalms in 8 (Turn to Psalms in 8)
Why does God take heed or mind? (Why? Why? Why?)
Proud eyes- Philippians 2:8 (read!)
If Jesus lived humbly, so must I....

(fade)
Proud eyes- turn and live humbly....

Sacred Mountain High (Song)

It’s easy to forget sometimes that even the disciples struggled with doubts, worries and fears. Even though they had the pleasure of basking in the Sonshine on their shoulders, they still didn’t quite get it all. One day Jesus took Peter, James and John and showed that all the poems, prayers and promises they had heard about Him from The Scriptures were true. They took a camping trip to the mountains and had a real rocky mountain high- and a sacred mountain high, when they got an awesome picture of Jesus in all His splendor and glory. This is one experience that helped it all sink in for them and helped them understand just Who it was who called to them, “Follow Me.”

“Sacred Mountain High”
(Parody of “Rocky Mountain High” by John Denver)
(Matthew 16:13-20, Matthew 17:1-13, Mark 8:27-9:13, Luke 9:18-36, 2 Peter 1:12-21)
(parody copyright by Nathan Ludwick 2/19/2014)

Jesus polled His disciples- Mark 8:27^th. verse
“Tell Me, Who do they say I AM?” asked The Lord
“The Baptizer John, Elijah, and some say a prophet come again”
“What do you say?”- Pronounced Peter, “He’s Christ The Lord”

An excursion to the mountains- ‘cause Christ wants to go pray
Only goes with James and Peter and John
And the things that He had spoken that they didn’t really catch
They’ll believe at last and this will help them along

It’s called in The Bible- Transfiguration of Christ
A scene of His reigning high and glorified
Foreshadows by the bright light, the luster of His holy light
God is glorified! (all around, yo!)
Sacred mountain high (high up down in Israel)

They climbed a high, tall mountain- and left city crowds below
They saw Jesus’ clothes whiter than you can bleach
17 Matt. says His face just shone with a light just like the sun
Mark and Luke 9, friends, recount the memories

Now He talks on all He’s gonna do with Moses and Elijah
Leaving grace in every step He takes
Disciples are beside themselves to try and understand
Christ’s divinity- how more clear can it be made?

And a cloud surrounds them- rocks their world, alright?
They’re hearing Father’s voice from the sky
Talk from God says, “Listen to My beloved Son Christ”
God is glorified! (all around- whoa!)
Sacred mountain high (high up out in Israel)

Now their eyes are full of wonder but their hearts still know some fear
Bowed down fearfully- Then The Master touches them
When they pry their eyes back open now, it’s just them and Christ The Lord
Now Peter and James and John must ask

Why the law profs. say first must come Eli(jah)
Christ said he came- they didn’t recognize
And just like The Son of Man- He will suffer by their hands in time

God sent Christ to die
For desperadoes- every girl and guy
Christ’s rise obtaining us eternal life
Friend Christ now with candor and everything’s alright!
Got eternal life! (Life in Paradise- yo!)
All through Jesus Christ! (Life and Way and Truth- yo!)
God is glorified! (2 [Two] Peter 1:17 [one seventeen], yo!)
Sacred mountain high (high up out in Israel)
Sacred mountain high (high up out in Israel)
God is glorified! (on high for all time- yo!)

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