February 1

A divine right, a divine purpose, and a divine standard...

I'm reading a wonderfully thought provoking book by Greg Gilbert who is on staff at Capital Hill Baptist Church in Washington D.C. The book is entitled "What is the Gospel?". I am intrigued by his explanation of sin. I have only ever thought of sin as both the wrong we shouldn't do and seemingly unavoidably commit as well as the good we ought to do and seemingly helplessly avoid. Yet Gilbert explains those as "sins" which is quite different from "sin". He suggests that the essence of sin is the rebellion of the creature against the Creator...and I am compelled to agree. The condition from which we all ultimately suffer is self-rule, self-governance, as we were created by God to exist in a state of submission to Him. And our submission to Him is not a path of deprivation but rather one that is life giving beyond human comprehension which is why we all desperately need to be saved from ourselves.

I love the New Testament reading for today because it could have been a chapter text for Gilbert, Matthew 21. In the account of the donkey we see that there is a divine ownership we must accept...the cleansing of the Temple, a divine purpose we must embrace...and the cursing of the fig tree, a divine standard with which we must compare. I especially like the fig tree because at the time Jesus cursed the tree, fruit was not in season, which seems unfair. However, Jesus is teaching us the presence of the fruit of Christian virtue in our lives is not based on others around us but rather according to Christ's example...the character of Christ in us must always be in season.

May we each consider today who sits on the throne of our hearts...

Pastor Fred

Pastor Fred