A Little Push

“13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.” (Gal 5)

So we saw how the Law was a gift.  It showed us God’s standards for holiness, the requirements of righteousness, the metric by which we can measure perfection.  Those of us on whom God has shed his grace could see where they stood on that metric and realized they needed a little push.  “A little push” along the lines of what a satellite needs to break Earth’s gravity and get into space.  We all need a little help.  “A little help” along the lines of what a blue whale would need to perform brain surgery.

We need a savior!  If holiness is the Law of Heaven, the absolute bottom line for admittance to the afterlife and death, eternal death, is the result of breaking that law then life is nothing more than a mull in the marinade!  Cuz we’re as good as barbecue when it’s done!  But praise God from whom all blessings flow, He knew it!  He came and bailed us out!  And if you imagine your bail was set at only a couple of week’s pay or at most a month, go back to Leviticus and then to Matthew 5 and start over.  “24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom 7)  Jesus will!  Jesus did!  He paid that bail.  He delivered us by dying in our place, by tasting Hell for us.  God was satisfied and so He raised Jesus back up to eternal glory and so we know we shall be raised too!  No wonder Christians are nuts!  If we truly understood all this, if we truly ate it up and took it in and processed it in all it’s beauty, all it’s deliciousness, all it’s astoundingly, mind-gobberingly ecstatic goodness we’d all walk around laughing like monkeys in a fermented banana tree.

We.  Are.  Free!

But hangovers follow nights of revelry.  Life is full of Monday mornings.  Vacations, no matter how sweet, end.  And each day we must begin again to learn how to live in a world not only indifferent to our Savior and our joy but violently opposed to them.  They have used their freedom to overthrow God.  They have set themselves up as the rulers of their own lives, madness of course, their lives wouldn’t last another minute with not just His permission and forebearance but His continued blessings.  Not the least of which is His veil of invisibility without which He would be pretty difficult to deny.  But we’re not talking about them.  We don’t choose how they live.  We choose how we live.  How then, shall we, chosen, loved and freed live?

Do we not still have the Law?  Now that it no longer holds us down and beats us with our weakness and insufficiency, we can see it for what it is: the beauty of holiness.  What better way to honor our King than through obedience?  Not to save us, for we are already saved!  No, to honor and bring glory to Him who sits on the throne!  It is no hardship either, for all the law is love!  Which in itself holds the germ of submission for the glory of another.  The Law says to do the Law, wheels within wheels.  And as we learn to love the Law which is Love, we become more like God who is Love and we enter into communion with Him!  Why would we not want to do this?!

But is it want of want?  Did we not say, before we were saved by another, who then can be saved?  Did we not ask, Who can keep the Law?  We did.  And the solution here is the same as it was before.  Another must keep the Law in our place.  God himself must honor himself through us!  “16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.  25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.” (Gal 5)  It is not we who provide the “little push” for we know we need a “little help.”  We just “walk with the Spirit.”  We do not see Him.  We do not know how much is Him and how much is us.  (Almost certainly all the former and none the latter.)  We just do, in faith that God is faithful.  “7 for we walk by faith, not by sight.” (2 Cor 5)  “7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.” (1 John 3) 

So yes, Mr. Iverson, it’s practice.  And while it won’t make us perfect, it is the road we walk to it. It is the jersey which tells the world whose team we’re on.  It is the metric by which we will be judged.  It is the fruit by which we’re known.  Much more, it is that same fruit by which they will know God.