wordofgod

Sunday, July 21, 2024

7 Essential Things to Know about the Holiness of God

A lot of people think, “I’m not perfect, but I’m a pretty good person. God will let me into heaven.” This kind of thinking reminds me of the Esurance commercial where the woman says, “That’s not how it works; that’s not how any of this works!”

According to the Bible, getting into heaven by our own good deeds is “not how it works.” God is holy, which means that he is pure goodness, and he made human beings to be in a loving relationship with him. Because of the fall of man in the garden of Eden, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).

Learning what it means that God is holy helps us to understand why the only way we can come to the Father is through Jesus. Here are seven essential things every person needs to know about the holiness of God:

1. God is different from his creation.

While humans have certain attributes that image their Creator, they are different kinds of beings than God. For starters, humans are created beings (finite), while God is spirit (infinite)—he has no beginning and no end:

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Rev. 1:8)

In his classic book The Holiness of God, theologian R. C. Sproul writes,

When the Bible calls God holy, it means primarily that God is transcendentally separate. He is so far above and beyond us that He seems almost totally foreign to us. To be holy is to be ‘other,’ to be different in a special way” (p. 38). “And one called to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!’” (Isa. 6:3)

2. God must uphold all his attributes.

Because he is spirit, God is always purely all of his attributes in complete perfection and unity. It is impossible for God to allow his mercy to override his justice. His holiness never conflicts with his love.

God must be true to all his attributes, because to do otherwise would be to deny his own self. As theologian Michael Horton so aptly states in his book The Christian Faith, ‘God would not be God if he did not possess all his attributes in the simplicity and perfection of his essence” (p. 229).

3. God’s holiness reveals our utter sinfulness.

We think God won’t mind a few sins here and there. The problem with this thinking is that we don’t get it. We don’t get how holy God is, and we don’t get how sinful we are. Isaiah understood it when he saw a vision of the Lord in his glory. He cried out,

And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isa. 6:5)

Isaiah saw his own sinfulness. He saw his total inadequacy to stand before God. He understood that he needed to be cleansed so he would not be destroyed by God’s utter goodness and purity.

We find another such example in the Gospel of Luke. When Peter witnessed the miracle of the great catch of fish:

But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” (Luke 5:8)

And when we get it—when we realize that there is nothing about us that is untouched by our depraved nature and how impossible it is for us to stand in righteousness before God on our own merits—this is when we must run to the foot of the cross and cling to Christ, our only hope.

4. We must be pure in heart to see our holy God.

The Psalmist writes about his longing to see the beatific vision—to see God in all his perfections in his dwelling place:

One thing have I asked of the Lord,

    that will I seek after:

that I may dwell in the house of the Lord

    all the days of my life,

to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord

    and to inquire in his temple. (Ps. 27:4)

According to Sproul, “Right now it is impossible for us to see God in His pure essence. Before that can ever happen, we must be purified” (The Holiness of God, p. 23). And without this purification, we cannot have eternal fellowship with God:

Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. (Eccles. 7:20)

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matt. 5:8)

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. (Rom. 5:12)

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:7-8)

5. God must judge sin and uphold justice and righteousness.

In this world we cry out against injustice. We are outraged over incidences where people hurt others and don’t bear the consequences of their wrongdoing. How much more is this the case when God sees his righteous law violated? He cannot look the other way. In order to uphold his attributes of holiness, righteousness, and justice, God must judge and punish sin (Num. 14:18; Nah. 1:3).

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. (Rom. 1:18)

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. (Rom. 2:5)

Because God is holy, he must uphold his law and pour out his wrath against all evil. He must judge the wicked. It is human nature to want mercy for ourselves but justice for those who have wronged us; yet, God shows no partiality (Acts. 10:34-35):

You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the Lord. (Lev. 18:5; see also Luke 10:28)

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 6:23)

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. (Gal. 6:7)

6. God became the solution to the problem of sin because only the God-man could save us.

Since there was no way for sinful humans to keep God’s law perfectly or completely atone for their sins, Jesus was born in the flesh so he could fulfill the whole law and be the perfect sacrifice on behalf of all who put their faith in him:

And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. (Heb. 10:11–14)

At Golgotha, we see the God who is both “just and the justifier” (Matt. 27:33–35; Rom. 3:26). Horton points out that it is at the cross where “we see how far God is willing to go in order to uphold all of his attributes in the simplicity of his being” (p. 266).

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor. 5:21)

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. (1 Pet. 2:24)

7. The holiness of God means that we can trust God to always do what is good, right, and just.

God always has been and always will be holy. According to theologian R. Scott Clark, “Christians may rest safely in God’s promises because he is faithful not only in his intentions but in his nature. By nature he is unchangeable. God swore by himself. He is immutable. Therefore his oath/promise is immutable and therefore reliable” (“Does God Change?”).

“God is not man, that he should lie,
or a son of man, that he should change his mind.

Has he said, and will he not do it?
Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (Num. 23:19)

That’s how it actually works—salvation comes through Christ alone.

One of the most loving things we can ever do is to help people understand that they cannot create their own reality of the afterlife. Thinking something is true does not make it so. Good people do go to heaven, but they are only judged by God to be good based on the finished work of Christ counted to them through faith alone, by God’s grace alone, in Christ alone. People need the truth about God, themselves, and what is going to happen after they die. In short, they need the gospel.

It is far better for Jesus to pay for your sins on your behalf so you don’t have to spend eternity doing so. Let the perfect righteousness of Jesus, the God-man, be your righteousness, because it is something you can never attain on your own. Don’t wait to trust in Christ for your salvation, for he is your one and only hope.

Thursday, July 18, 2024

The Vital Connection between Sincere Love and Hospitality in the Church

*Photo by* *Kristina Paparo* on *Unsplash*

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning Beautiful Christian Life LLC may get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through its links, at no cost to you.

Hospitality is vital to the life of the church. How we treat someone, whether they’re a visitor or longtime member, may affect their involvement within a church. It may also impact their decision to continue attending a church. Most of us have visited a church at some point in time. For me, especially when looking for a church while a seminary student, I asked myself three things:

Did I hear the gospel?
Did the church lead a God-centered worship service?
Did anyone greet or speak to me after the service?

While the first two points are usually out of our control, we can control the third one when someone visits our church.

We are called to display sincere love and affection when we greet each other.

On different occasions, Scripture tells us to greet each other with a holy kiss (Rom. 16:16, 1 Cor. 16:20, 2 Cor. 13:12, 1 Thess. 5:26, and 1 Peter 5:14). First century, Greco-Roman cultural norms are obviously very different from our twenty-first century, American cultural norms. We are not necessarily called to kiss each other when a handshake is a sufficient greeting, but there is an intimacy involved in the greeting we are told to give within the church. We are called to display sincere love and affection when we greet each other. This greeting reaches a deeper level, such as asking how we might pray for one another or rejoice and weep with someone.

Sincere love isn’t shown only through a greeting but is truly expressed by a desire to form friendships and fellowship with our fellow church members. When we allow other people into our lives, we allow ourselves to become a part of their lives. Becoming a part of the church is like joining a family. Family members share in each other’s joy and burdens. They unconditionally love each other, and they hold each other accountable. As Peter states in his letter:

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. (1 Pet. 4:8-9)

So how can we do this?

Longtime church members can easily spot visitors or new members. Reach out to them and welcome them. Show them the love of Christ that has been shown to you. New members, get involved in the church life and reach out to those around you as well. Everyone should work toward lifting up fellow Christians and the lost.

Find those who seem to be on the fringe. Make an effort to get to know those outside of the normal group with which you usually interact. Sharing a meal with one another provides a great opportunity to get to know each other. Are you particularly gifted in hospitality? Invite people into your home to enjoy a meal with you, especially if they do not have a local family of their own. Don’t have the means to do this? Ask them to sit with you during a church meal. Christ provides many other examples as he spoke with, ate with, served, and ministered to people around him throughout Scripture, especially those who were often seen as unworthy by the rest of society.

When we are humbled by the gospel, we are reminded that no one should be deemed unlovable.

What a joy it is to be a member of the family of God and to be a member of his church. How humbling it is to know that we are members of the church for which Christ sacrificed himself out of love. Let us use the motivation that comes out of this joy to show a similar love to those around us. When we are humbled by the gospel, we are reminded that no one should be deemed unlovable. Because even while we were still enemies, Christ loved us enough to die for us all.

This article was originally published on June 17, 2019.

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Wednesday, July 17, 2024

The Good Master Gives Himself

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning Beautiful Christian Life LLC may get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through its links, at no cost to you.

Editor’s note: This is part two of BCL’s two-part series “The Good Master.” Click here to read part one: “The Beauty of Belonging to a Good Master.”

Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 1:1).

2 Peter 1:1-4 stresses how much believers receive from Christ, and, yet, here we find the apostle Peter describing himself as a servant—a slave (δοῦλος; “doulos”)—of Jesus Christ. This is surprising because we would expect that if “slave” was a defining term for a relationship, we would hear first about all the demands of the master for his slave. We would expect a list of commands and duties to be performed for the master. Yet Peter completely flips this concept of slave on its head, instead stressing the gifting nature of Jesus, the greatest slave of all.

The same beautiful Christianity that the apostles had has also been given to us.

Peter speaks first of the faith believers have received from God. This faith is of the same status as the apostles. So, even if you were a poor, uneducated, suffering believer, you had the same beautiful Christianity given to you that the apostles had. Even now, a present-day Christian’s faith is not inferior to the faith of the apostles.

And this faith that was gifted to believers was provided “by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ” (v.1). This emphasizes the true nature of the gift. God does not give the gift because he saw that we were worthy in any way. We do not stand before God because we were able to do anything good or would do anything good in the future, but only because of Jesus’s work on our behalf.

Jesus gives us the gift of increasing blessedness.

Then, Peter, speaking for Jesus Christ, proclaims a wish for the believers, “May grace and peace be multiplied to you” (v.2). For those bought by Christ Jesus’ precious blood, this wish is a possible and powerful reality. These blood-bought slaves have possession of God’s favor and instead of being at war with God are now at peace with him. But they also have the privilege of experiencing more grace and peace in their life. The Creator of the universe smiles down upon them, loves them, and cherishes them. They have peace with God— no fear of condemnation from the righteous Judge of heaven and earth.

These slaves stand before a holy God, assured that they have favor with him and forever possess a relationship of peace (i.e., harmony) with him because of what Jesus Christ did.[1] With this status, they stand in the position of growing in their relationship with God by growing in their knowing of God and their salvation in Christ. This is the call to show forth the fruit of our union with Christ. This gift is the call, in the words of C.S. Lewis, to move “further in and further up,”[2] so that we might have an even more abundant experience of God’s favor and peace.

Jesus gives us the gift of God himself.

By which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire (2 Pet. 1:4).

Next, we take heart that this master desires a personal relationship with his people. Those who belong to Jesus belong to a master who desires us to know him in a personal way. Second Peter 1:2-3 stresses that knowing God and Jesus is the means by which spiritual growth happens. God has “granted” to us all spiritual necessities to live a godly life as we face the obstacles of everyday living in a way that glorifies God and loves our neighbor.

This spiritual growth and the spiritual necessities for life do not come from our own reason or wisdom. We do not bolster ourselves up but find that our spiritual strength only comes from knowing and walking with God. He has called us to “his own glory and excellence” (v. 3).

God is calling us to be in his presence.

God’s glory is related to the light associated with him (think of the cloud full of light in the Exodus narratives in the Old Testament).[3] God’s excellence speaks to God’s moral character. God is calling us to be in his presence. The apostle John writes:

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:5-7)

God is therefore not a far-off overlord who commands from a distance. Rather, he is a master who descends to us, becomes close to us, serves us, and encourages us to draw close to know his loving and kind heart. Our heavenly Father demonstrates his love in sending his son Jesus for us. Jesus is humble and meek, gentle and lowly, compassionate and kind. He speaks to us,

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matt. 11:28-30)

As in any good relationship, people don’t just give information about themselves, but they also give themselves to the other person. So Peter makes clear that Jesus has given himself to us. Believers receive grace and peace and spiritual power to face life and live holy lives only because God the Father has called them, and Jesus has given himself to them in his life, death, and resurrection.

Our Master became a slave for us.

Jesus is a master who has laid himself completely on the line for his slaves. In fact, he became a slave for their sake:

Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Phil. 2: 6-8)

Jesus Christ became a slave so that we might be called children of God (Rom. 8:16-17, 21; Eph. 5:1; Phil. 2:15). Believers are counted as family and are precious in God’s sight. We are even promised that we will become more and more like Jesus, our elder brother:

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:1-2)

God desires to be known by those that are his. He gives a precious faith, grace and peace with God, and all the spiritual blessings to face this world with confidence, knowing that he is your provider, guide, rock, and comforter, and Father in all the difficulties of life:

The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. (Ps. 18:2)

Believers possess the beauty of belonging to Jesus.

The Heidelberg Catechism beautifully summarizes how belonging to Jesus is a wonderful thing:

Q. 1: What is your only comfort in life and in death?

A. 1: That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

We belong to such a good and glorious master, who will work all things for our spiritual good (Rom. 8:28). In Christ you have the freedom not to worry, be anxious, or shoulder all your troubles. You have the freedom to take your concerns in prayer to your heavenly Father, to lay your burdens upon Jesus and know your good and kind Master will care for you, guide you, and comfort you forever by his Holy Spirit.

Notes:

[1] BDAG 1. a state of concord, peace, harmony.

[2] C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle (New York: Collier Books, 1970), 175.

“‘Glory’ in the Old Testament is associated with value, riches, splendor, and dignity. When Moses asked to see God’s glory, God proclaimed to Moses His name; that is, He revealed to Moses something of His nature, character, and power….The glory of God’s presence is often called the 'Shekinah' or the 'Shekinah glory.' It appeared at significant moments as a sign of God’s active presence.” —- New Geneva Study Bible, Theological Note, “The Glory of God” p. 1260.

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Tuesday, July 16, 2024

The Beauty of Belonging to a Good Master

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning Beautiful Christian Life LLC may get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through its links, at no cost to you.

Editor’s note: This is part one of BCL’s two-part series “The Good Master.” Click here to read part two: “The Good Master Gives Himself.”

To whom do you belong? What a counter-cultural question. It’s jarring to our modern sensibilities. We want to scream from the roof top, “I don’t belong to anyone!” I’m my own person, I create my own path and future. I am responsible for my own wellbeing and sense of purpose. I am the captain of my own ship. I make my own decisions based on my own knowledge of what’s good for me.

Yet, do we really feel all that much in control of our own destinies? Do we really feel we are competent guides in this turbulent world? Do we secretly wish there was someone or something that had answers to our anxiety, loneliness, emotional distress, constant anger, lack of motivation, heartbreak, and sorrow? Is there someone who is a true friend, someone with whom we can let our guard down?

Life is hard, and we wish we didn’t have to bear the weight of our entire destiny on our own shoulders. For those of us who realize that we can’t control every facet of our lives, we don’t have all the answers, and depending solely on our own resources only drains and discourages us, the words of the apostle Peter will come as a relief.

Simon Peter called himself a slave.

Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 1:1).

While many Bible translations read “servant” in verse 1 of Second Peter, the actual term in biblical Greek (δοῦλος; “doulos”) means “slave.” Why would Peter use such a term to describe his relationship to Jesus Christ? Modern people are much more comfortable with terms like children of God when referring to believers so why the word “slave”? First, it must be noted that by using the term, Peter is not encouraging slavery. Rather, in using an institution so common in his culture, the apostle is applying some of its characteristics to the nature of our relationship with the Christ Jesus.

Slaves were dependent on their lord.

May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence (2 Pet. 1:2-3).

A slave was wholly dependent on their lord, and as William Barclay writes, “To call the Christian doulos of God means that he is inalienably possessed by God.”[1] Everything a slave had they received from their master. Whether it was clothing, housing, or education, the master was the provider of everything, and the slave could not leave. Slaves filled many positions for their masters—some being well-educated, even doctors and teachers—and may have been in charge of their master’s estates. And while a cruel master mistreated his slaves, a good master cared for the health and well-being of his slaves. The state of a slave depended upon the kind of master a person had. The question of your wellbeing rested in the character of your lord, for everything came from him, and you could not leave your master.

To be counted as Jesus’ slave should fill us with peace.

For Peter, Jesus Christ is the preeminent good and kind Lord, who even died for his slaves. Peter uses the Messianic title, Christ, highlighting the role Jesus came to fulfill as the one who lived a holy life for, was tortured for, and in the end suffered a horrific death for his people. In fact, Jesus himself said that the greatest among the Kingdom of God must be the slave of all (Luke 22:25-27). And as the King of Heaven, Jesus exemplifies this by dying for his people.

Not only has Jesus died for us but he brings us to the Father, who “called us to his own glory and excellence [or goodness]” (2 Pet. 1:3). By being in God’s presence we experience glory and goodness, instead of darkness and corruption (2 Pet. 1:4).

So to be completely dependent upon Jesus Christ—to be counted as his slave, to be dependent upon and belong forever to one who loves so deeply that he died for us and calls us to a good place—should fill us with peace, knowing that this Lord cares for us perfectly and will provide for us. Not only that but he will never let us leave his goodness (John 10:27-28). We can therefore trust his providence in our lives and rest and depend upon him confidently. We can depend upon him with joy and peace, knowing he is good and kind and will always be there for us.

Notes:

[1] William Barclay, The Letters of James and Peter (Westminster Press: Philadelphia, 1960), 293.

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Monday, July 15, 2024

Being Careful with Our Feelings

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning Beautiful Christian Life LLC may get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through its links, at no cost to you.

We have to be careful with our feelings. Some of them can lead us astray, but it can be just as troublesome when we lack feelings, especially for others. Two examples from Scripture can help, though.

The first example comes from an event in David’s life when his anger nearly destroyed him. The second is from the life of Jesus as related by the apostle Paul. Though focused on only two types of feelings—anger and empathy—each of these biblical lessons help us to better understand how our feelings may be used for good instead of for evil.

Strong emotions can lead us to commit grievous sin.

First, David. Chapter 25 of First Samuel relates the story of David, Nabal, and Nabal’s wife, Abigail. When David sent his men to Nabal for food and drink, Nabal foolishly insulted David and turned his men away empty-handed. When David heard what had happened, he quickly became angry—his emotion of anger led him to gather four hundred of his men with their weapons in order to go and destroy Nabal and his male servants.

David’s strong feelings resulting from his anger overtook him and led him to desire vengeance and murder. Rather than being in control of his actions, David succumbed to his feelings and emotions, and were it not for Abigail, Nabal’s wife, David would have destroyed himself by committing murder springing up from his feelings of having been offended by the fool Nabal. (See also Jesus’ teaching about anger and murder in Matthew 5:21-22.)

David’s feelings went out of control, but Abigail was used by God to bring him to his senses.

Instead, Abigail went out to meet David and try to turn away his terrible anger. Humbling herself and bringing gifts and words of wisdom to David, Abigail turned his anger to gratitude for saving him from the guilt of unjustly shedding the blood of others. David’s feelings went out of control, but Abigail was used by God to bring him to his senses.

Likewise, we should guard ourselves from letting feelings resulting from anger or other negative emotions lead us into sinful actions. And we should listen to others who have the courage to bring us to our senses when our feelings might run amok. Remember, just as Jesus taught, small bouts of angry feelings can explode into violence, so make it a matter of prayer and a habit to guard against feelings of outrage and hostility.

Instead of allowing feelings from anger to get the worst of us, consider the example of Jesus. Paul writes to the Philippians,

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Phil. 2:3-4)

Becoming better aware of the feelings of others will lead us to be more sensitive to their needs and interests.

Notice how the command in Philippians 2:3-4 is to focus on others—on their feelings and needs rather than our ourselves. This is key to helping manage our feelings for good rather than bad. When we look to the interests of others, we become much more aware of their needs and of their feelings and emotions. Being more sensitive to others and their needs expresses itself in love, which is essentially the giving up of ourselves for the betterment of another person.

This is what Jesus did when he gave up the glory of heaven to take on human flesh for our salvation. He "emptied himself” and took on the "form of a servant” (Phil. 2:7). He “humbled himself” by become one of us, and he "became obedient," even dying on our behalf (Phil. 2:8).

We should make every effort to emulate these examples Jesus demonstrated for us. Begin by considering other’s feelings more than your own. No doubt this is what Paul means when he writes, "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15). Empathize with the feelings and emotions of others and by the grace of God you will more and more become the loving friend we all need.

This article was originally published in Beautiful Christian Life’s March 2024 monthly newsletter.

Sunday, July 14, 2024

Why I Am a Christian: The Problem of Evil

Image from Wikimedia Commons: “‘Selection’ of Hungarian Jews on the ramp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau in German-occupied Poland, around May 1944. Jews were sent either to work or to the gas chamber. The photograph is part of the collection known as the Auschwitz Album. See Auschwitz Album, Yad Vashem: "The Auschwitz Album is the only surviving visual evidence of the process leading to mass murder at Auschwitz-Birkenau." The album was donated to Yad Vashem by Lili Jacob (later Lili Jacob-Zelmanovic Meier), a survivor, who found it in the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp in 1945.” For more images, see Category:Auschwitz Album at Wikimedia Commons.

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning Beautiful Christian Life LLC may get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through its links, at no cost to you.

One of the objections that I heard and believed as a non-Christian was the objection from evil: A truly good and just God would not permit evil. The God of the Christians permits evil. Ergo, he is neither good nor just. The first (major) premise is to be doubted. The middle (minor) premise is to be qualified and the conclusion rejected.

Some Christians have tried and failed to satisfactorily explain the problem of evil.

There is evil in the world. It is a problem for Christians, and some Christian accounts of the problem are unsatisfactory. For example, the Christian neo-Platonic answer—evil is the privation of good; God is all good; therefore, evil has nothing to do with God—is unsatisfactory. It requires us to believe in a sort of scale of being between the creature and the Creator. There are two great problems with this approach.

First, Scripture does not present us a world in which God and creatures are on a continuum of being. Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God.” Humans are nowhere to be found. As far as the Genesis narrative is concerned, we do not come into the story until later. God has not even yet spoken creation into existence. When he does create us, it is out of the dust of the earth (Gen. 2:7). When we were created it was not out of the divine being but out of created matter. We were animated, i.e., given life by the Spirit, but we were not created little deities. We were created as image bearers, analogues to God (Gen. 1:126-27). We were created as God’s “image” and “likeness” (these are parallel expressions, not two distinct things).

There are other unsatisfactory explanations of the relations between God and evil. One of them says that the world is “open” to God. He observes it, but he does not have particular influence over it. He would like to do something about evil, but he is unable to do anything. He is more or less helpless and dependent upon us. This picture of the Christian deity is virtually unrecognizable to the Christian tradition, which has confessed since about AD 170 (e.g., in Irenaeus’ “rule of faith,” which grew up to become the Apostles’ Creed): “I believe in God the Father almighty.” The God of so-called “Open Theism,” as Richard Muller observed 37 years ago, reduces the God of the Christians to an “incompetent Marcionite” deity. The god of Open Theism is much closer to the gods of the Greco-Roman pantheon than to the God of Scripture. The god of so-called “Process Theism” is no more useful for addressing the problem of evil. That god is swept up into the historical process. He is a victim of circumstances. In their attempt to save “God” from the problem of evil, the Open Theists and the Process theologians have made little more than an idol.

Perhaps the cleverest Christian attempt to save God from the problem of evil has been the doctrine of “Middle Knowledge.” This theory, which emerged in Jesuit circles in the late sixteenth century, theorized that instead of the traditional Christian doctrine of two kinds of divine knowledge, natural and free, there is a third kind of knowledge wherein God may be said to know exhaustively a set of hypotheticals, all the free choices made by humans and all the consequences of those choices, which he may be said to have limited, but he does not actually determine what those choices will be. Both Roman and Reformed critics savaged this theory as making God contingent upon his creatures. The God of middle knowledge is a very apt chess player with very good reflexes, but he is not the God who spoke into nothing, nor is he the God who raised Pharaoh up that he might show to and by him his glory (Exod. 9:16; Rom. 9:16).

The God of Scripture offends our sensibilities. He unleashes Satan briefly to sift Lot, so much so that righteous Lot is finally provoked to complain, to which Yahweh replies: pound sand (see Job, chapters 38 and following). The book of Job is meant to shock our sensibilities. That God is not taken up in the historical process nor is the future “open” to him. He is not contingent upon our free choices. He is sovereign, free, and beyond our judgment.

Pagans don’t have an answer for the problem of evil.

Thus, it is true that the pagans, however, have no answer for the problem of evil either. The Greco-Roman pantheon is, at times, evil itself. They are helpless against evil. The existentialists have essentially given up on transcendent meaning. They are more or less quitters. Existentialism does no more than remove the meaning of evil. The Enlightenment rationalists cannot explain evil, nor have they overcome it. Modern technology has made evil more efficient. Instead of one stupid, venal king killing a few hundred in some meaningless battle, in World War I Modernity gave us a brutally efficient warfare from which it was almost impossible to run. We were so “enlightened” we gassed each other and for what? If anything, Modernity has, in that way, intensified the problem of evil.

It is a great evil that one-third of the world population should die of the Black Plague in the 1340s, but it is a greater evil when Moderns killed the same number of people in World War II. No one set out to unleash rat fleas and disease on the world, but Stalin set out to murder millions of Kulaks (peasants who owned land, whom the Communists blamed for a famine instead of their own collectivist agricultural policies). Mao murdered millions of suspected counter-revolutionaries in China. The Nazis murdered millions of Jews and others, and all this after the “Enlightenment” under which we were supposed to be making progress every day in every way. Ghengis Khan (c. 1158–1227) killed a great number of people (perhaps a million or more), but he was a piker compared to Mao, Stalin, and Hitler. Empiricism cannot explain the problem of evil. It can merely count the bodies.

Only the Judeo-Christian tradition, however, has faced evil squarely and called it what it is.

In short, evil is a problem for everyone. Only the Judeo-Christian tradition, however, has faced evil squarely and called it what it is. The biblical account of evil places the blame squarely upon the free choices made by humans. We were created with the ability to make righteous choices, but, mysteriously, we chose to try to achieve deity, thus introducing sin and evil into the world. Scripture makes allusions to created figures—angelic beings—who had introduced evil into their realm before the humans fell, but it does not give us much detail and it does not dwell on it. As a literary matter, the Satan character is clearly corrupt before he came into contact with the righteous Adam character (Gen. 3:1–7). Scripture, however, places the blame for the fall on Adam. After the fall, God does not come looking for Satan but for Adam (Gen. 3:8–13). The Satan character is punished along with the humans, but it is the humans who get the blame.

The biblical story is that God is sovereign over all things. Nothing happens outside his purview or his providence, and yet he is not liable for the evil that happens in the world. In Scripture, whenever humans seek to blame God (e.g., Rom. 9:19), he rebukes them forcefully. The truth is that Scripture never offers a comprehensive answer to the problem of evil. It presents it. It describes it. It lays the blame at our feet and our choices, but unlike the other approaches to the problem of evil, the God of Scripture is not remote. He remains engaged in human history. He provides relief and even salvation to those who perpetrate evil. Scripture calls this grace. The God of Scripture restrains the consequences of the fall and limits the evil that occurs. As bad as things sometime seem, they could be worse. Despite the very real existence of evil, there is also beauty and goodness in the world. Despite the hatred and animosity, which makes up so much of what the media companies call “the news,” there is also real love in the world.

God is so committed to addressing the problem of evil that God the Son took on true human nature.

According to the Christian account of the problem of evil, God is so committed to addressing the problem that one of the three persons of the deity, God the Son, became incarnate, by the mysterious operation of the Holy Spirit, in the womb of a young Jewish virgin. He took on true human nature. The Greeks had theorized about humans becoming gods, but no one—not the Jews, nor the Greeks—imagined that the God who spoke creation into being would stoop to become one of us. According to the Scriptures, God the Son did not merely appear to be human. He really was and remains human. The book of Hebrews in the New Testament is at pains to make this point (Heb. 2:14–18; 4:15). The Apostle John strenuously asserted this point (1 John 4:2; 2 John 1:7). The early church vigorously defended the true humanity (and the essential goodness of creation despite the fall) against the Gnostics and the Marcionites.

So, we say that God the Son, Jesus Christ, entered human history, became intimately involved in it, coming into direct personal contact with the muck and evil that we had created. He did not contribute to it in any way. He ameliorated it for many people, and finally, after he revealed who he was and why he came, we humans beat him, mocked him, and murdered him in the most vicious possible way. Yet, he testified repeatedly that this is why he came: to be the substitute for sinners and to face the wrath of God that was due us (Luke 24:26). He came to be “the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:36). The Christian explanation of things is that this death is a turning point in history. It is essential to the Christian understanding of the problem of evil because evil is not ultimate.

Evil will not ultimately triumph.

There is an end of the story. Evil will not ultimately triumph. The technical name for this category is “eschatology.” There is more to the story. There is a judgment coming. Jesus himself warned frequently of the coming judgment (e.g., Matt. 10:15; 11:22; 12:36; John 5:24; 16:8). The Christians say that Jesus suffered the judgment in place of all those who believe. For those who do not believe the judgment remains. When we speak of judgment it is theoretical. We have not experienced it, but according to the gospels it did not remain theoretical for him. He actually endured the judgment on the cross. After hours of torture, he finally cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46).

Yet, as I already described, another central Christian claim is that Jesus was righteous. Unlike us, he had done no evil and committed no sin. He was perfectly righteous all his life and even in his death. Thus, death had no hold on him, and he was raised from the dead as a vindication of his righteousness. He is reigning now, administering his kingdom, and graciously saving sinners until the end. Then he will sit as judge over all things. There will be a reckoning for all the evil in the world, and things shall be made right.

God does not explain himself, but neither does he abandon us to ourselves.

Jesus’ suffering was not meaningless. It was saving. Human suffering generally is not meaningless. It is part of a great, complicated, mysterious story. It is part of how God is ordering history and achieving his ends. He does not explain himself, but neither does he abandon us to ourselves. I am content to live with that. It makes more sense than evolutionary determinism (How did the process start? Why is life good in a blind, evolutionary scheme?) or Enlightenment rationalism or Stoicism or Epicureanism or any of the alternatives.

I am not a Christian because the Christian explanation of evil is superior. I am a Christian because, by the grace of God, I came to see what I am (a sinner), what God is (a righteous but gracious personal deity), that Jesus is God the Son incarnate, the God-Man, who obeyed in my place, died for me, was raised for me, is preserving me, and will come again finally to make all things right. Nevertheless, I believe in order that I might understand what we can know about the problem of evil. There is no comprehensive, exhaustive answer. But there is a righteous person worthy of trust who knows more about evil than I shall ever know, and he has earned my trust. It is reasonable to trust him and I do.

This article by R. Scott Clark is adapted from “Why I am a Christian” at heidelblog.net. Click here to read the entire post, which addresses common objections to the Christian faith.

Thursday, July 11, 2024

14 Important Things to Know about Setting Your Mind on Things Above

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There is nothing new under the sun.

Everything changes—nothing stays the same.

These are two adages that we regularly use to describe our world. We employ them when a fitting situation arises in our life. Yet, the commonness of these two proverbs only aggravates the tension between them—there is nothing new and everything changes. Which one is it?

Empires are borne and buried. People are known and forgotten. Summer wanes into winter. The newness of today is a remake of a forgotten yesterday. Even the new technologies we invent are the same old efforts to improve some aspect of life. Yet, amid all these cycles of sameness, there is one thing that is truly new.

This new event was a cataclysmic, cosmos-altering incident. It fundamentally modified the reality of the world, even if humans fail to recognize it. And this unique, one-of-a-kind act was the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In Christ’s resurrection a new world was born—a new age came into existence—and the apostle Paul wants to make sure that believers orient their whole selves around this new reality. Here are fourteen important things to remember about setting your mind on the things that are above.

1. We have died to the elemental spirits of the world.

Earlier in Colossians 2:16-23, Paul has been telling us what not to do. He exhorted us not to let anyone judge us in matters of diet, calendars, or the self-abasing rites of angel worship, as such self-proclaimed humility was really just a prideful technique of self-promotion. Moreover, we should not submit to these regulations, because it is to put ourselves back under the law of the world.

To heed all of these “do nots” is to act like we are still alive to the world and serving the elemental spirits and principles of the world (Col. 2:20-23). Yet, we have died to the world and its laws, so we cannot obey its rules. Besides, as Paul noted, all the regulations are useless to accomplish the purpose of which they boast.

The prohibitions to which Paul is referring in Colossians 2 were worldly laws to beat the body in order to progress spiritually towards God and true life and security. Starve the body to free your soul from its fleshy desires. Invoke angels to whisk you away to worlds unknown. But all this harsh humiliation doesn’t advance us one spiritual baby step. Instead, it only puffs up a person’s ego and draws lines of division across the body of Christ.

2. Having been raised with Christ, we should orient ourselves around the things above.

Because we have died in Christ to the things that we should not do, Paul now shifts to what we ought to do. Where he tied our not doing the worldly laws to our death in Christ, he weds our duty to having been raised with Christ:

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Col. 3:1-4)

Verse 1 takes us back to Colossians 2:12 and our spiritual resurrection by faith with Christ as we put off the corrupt nature:

Having been buried with [Christ] in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Our sin was forgiven as it was nailed to the cross. This spiritual resurrection of ours by faith unites us to the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. By his resurrection, Jesus becomes The Beginning of the new creation.

3. In his resurrection, Jesus inaugurated a new creation—a new reality, a new age—to which we belong.

Jesus’ bursting out of the grave fundamentally altered the reality of the cosmos. His resurrection created heaven—and not merely as the place of God but as the heavenly mountain Zion, as the new heavens and new earth where God and the glorified church will dwell together in unending blessedness.

And to be raised with Christ by faith makes us part of this new creation. It alters our identity, our homeland, our family, and our destiny. Being raised with Jesus means we are strangers and aliens in this age. Our new family is the body of Christ. Our homeland is the Age to Come. The country of our new birth is the world above.

4. In our spiritual resurrection, this world is no longer our home.

We still look the same on the outside; we speak and dress the same, but we are no longer part of this age. This world is like an old home that we lived in ten years ago—we return to the house once so familiar and native, only to find it remote and bizarre.

So also, having been raised with Christ, this world is no longer our home, our identity. In Christ, we have been transformed to be princes and princesses of heaven living in a “Muggle” world. Do you ever look out at the world and feel like you don’t belong? Do you listen to the ideas of our society and it is like they are speaking a different language?

This is because you have been raised with Christ and made a heavenly citizen. Being a native of heaven, Paul exhorts us to seek the things above. Pursue the world above. To seek this other world is to desire and prize it as our true delight and home—to aim for it with all our energy and thought.

We are to be like a POW whose heart always aches for home, and the thought of getting home never fully departs from his active thoughts. Our serious thoughts always rest in heaven; our dreams fondly lay in the age to come. We don’t suppress our feelings of foreignness with the world; rather, we express them. We let them out, giving them air to breathe.

5. We should seek to be near the enthroned Christ—to see him and to worship him.

Our seeking of the things above is not an impersonal pursuit of heavenly delights but rather is immanently and entirely personal. We seek the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. This is a pursuit of Jesus—to be near him, to see him, to worship him. It is focusing the lens of our hope upon the enthroned Christ.

Indeed, Christ at the right hand of the Father is in his position of enthronement and authority. This is where Christ rules and reigns over all things above and below, and he reigns for us:

The Lord says to my Lord:

“Sit at my right hand,

until I make your enemies your footstool.” (Ps. 110:1)

In Psalm 110, the right hand isn’t just the position of a king—it is also the posture of the priest. And as our priest, Christ continues to intercede for grace and mercy to be poured out on us. Moreover, the eternal oath of Melchizedek that Christ fulfilled to sit at the right hand ushered in his eternal reign and realm. The things above where Christ is enthroned belong to the permanent, the imperishable, the forever that does not change.

6. We find solace and quiet around the throne of Christ without any shadow of change.

The constant of our lives in this age is that things are always changing and passing away. Earthly kingdoms rise and fall with all the emotional swings of human pride. The dream house we finally finished can be burned to the ground in a moment. About the time you get used to one thing, it is time to move on to another.

And the constant shiftiness of our lives injects us with insecurity, fear, anxiety, and instability as the good today may be gone tomorrow. Yet, around the throne of Christ, the solace and quiet of the permanent resides without any shadow of change. The weather of our lives here may be foul or fair, but our true home is found secure in the everlasting peace of Christ in heaven.

7. We not only seek the things above, but we also set our minds on them.

To seek the things above is to rest in the forever of Christ’s love and glory; it is to let his grace pour into our hearts like rivers of living water from Mount Zion above. Indeed, Paul encourages us to not only seek the things above, but to ponder—or set our minds on—the things above, instead of earthly things.

While this pondering of heaven isn’t some Eastern meditation of altered states of consciousness, it does have an intellectual part to it. In Scripture, proper thought and action are always two sides of the same coin. This setting of your mind has the force of orienting yourself. Are you oriented around the matters of the earth or the realities of heaven? Orientation has to do with identity and priorities—what is truly valuable and important.

Earthly duties and business are always trying to consume us: pay the bills, get to work, fix the house. Such tasks covet the top places on our priority list. The necessities of the day constantly demand our full attention, but Paul says to set our minds on the things above. Let Christ, heaven, and his will always be numbers one, two, and three on our priority list.

8. Our orientation towards heaven doesn’t follow an escapist tendency.

Setting our minds toward heaven is not a flight from reality that abandons society, neighbor, food, fashion, piano lessons, or 401Ks. No, that tendency belongs to fleshly asceticism. No food, no enjoyment, so the body will be raptured into visionary heights—this method of bodily denial only ends up making food and days into idols of ultimate importance.

If eating or not eating is essential to spirituality, then we become ruled by earthly laws—the things of this age—but this is not a heavenly mindedness. Rather, with our thoughts resting in heaven, we treat the things of this world as they truly are—impermanent, disposable, and made for use. The things of this age are like a fresh raspberry, which will go bad in a few days. We might as well eat it now while it is still fresh. If we don’t, however, it’s no big deal. Likewise, we serve our neighbor not to build heaven on earth, but because it is good and pleasing now. Indeed, since we belong to heaven, we are free from the tyranny of the earthly laws as ultimate.

9. Our true and real life is hidden in Christ.

As Paul puts it, “You have died” to the things of the earth. We are dead to this age and its realm, which includes its sins, perversions, and its elemental laws. Yet, this mention of our death stands out here, for it is contrasted with the place of our life:

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Col. 3:3)

And of course, Christ is in heaven at the right hand. Think about this juxtaposition. We are dead on earth; we are alive in heaven. Paul labels our present existence as touched by death while our true and full life is in heaven. When we look at the fellow saints in faith, we see dead people. What a radical break this is with this age!

10. Our heavenly life is hidden to us at present.

We are as the walking dead to this age—where we are dead on earth, our true and real life is hidden with Christ above. Now, the term “hidden” connotes safety and security. As we know all too well, life on earth is so fragile—our cord can be snapped in a flash. Yet, our true life is safe with Christ—untouchable by the boney fingers of the Grim Reaper. “Hidden” also stresses unseen. What is hidden is secret, behind closed doors, invisible to the eye. We cannot see our heavenly life. Presently, we can feel our pulse, listen to our breathing, and watch ourselves in a mirror, but this is not our true life.

Rather, like a body double, our life is concealed behind the heavenly veil where Christ sits. The life won and purchased for us by Christ’s righteousness is tucked away in that heavenly land, and this life is more real, sweeter, and more eternal than anything we experience within this age.

11. Our lives are invisibly lodged in God.

And, as if hidden with Christ isn’t enough, Paul adds “in God” (Col. 3:3). Our life is invisibly lodged in God. The high point of the new covenant is the Emmanuel reality: God with us, and us with God. Having been raised with Christ, our true life enjoys being in God within the celestial realm above, and in God is the safest place imaginable. In God is the vault of heaven where no sin or demon can break into.

As a new creation in Christ, our life securely resides in heaven in God. We live in, with, and under God. As aliens here on earth, we will feel like a part of us is missing. We not only don’t fit in with the world around us, but we lack something. It is like a phantom limb sensation—it feels like the limb should be there, but it is missing.

12. We have not yet been glorified.

This is because having been raised with Christ, our true life is camped out in God within the heavenly realm. Presently, we are not complete—the benefits of our salvation are not fully enjoyed and known. And this incompleteness longs to be made complete. Paul said we are full in Christ, but this fullness is not seen. The fullness is found in glory, and we are not yet glorified.

Thus, Paul points us to glory: “When Christ appears, who is your life” (Col. 3:4). Our life is explicitly identified with Christ. Our life is not just with Christ—it is Christ. We live by the life of Christ and Christ is our life. Of course, Christ sits within the undying realm of heaven. We don’t experience his bodily presence in the present. Yet, Christ must return; he has to come a second time.

13. Christ will bring with him our resurrected bodies—our everlasting and glorious existence.

The Christ we don’t see must be made visible. And when that last trumpet is blown to disclose the majesty of our Savior, so our life too will appear. Christ will not be riding upon that Glory-Cloud alone, but our true life will be nipping at his heels. He will come to bring us home. Then, the impermanent will give way to the permanent. The sinful will be replaced with the holy. The turbulent will die to the peaceful. Faith will turn into sight, and we will dwell bodily with the host of saints and with God.

Indeed, seeking the things above is another way of saying we live both by faith in Christ and by hope for Christ’s final revelation. And such a hope means that we are completely taken by the perfection of Christ and his returning glory.

14. So perfect is Christ that we will not settle for any of the things on this earth.

Because Christ’s final revelation is certain, we can live by hope, knowing that the days of this life—be they full of tears or laughs—are only for a time. In fact, the more days we spend under the sun, the easier it is to keep our minds set upon the things above. For these days of our being aliens here have more than enough evil to raise our eyes to Christ who is at the right hand of God.

We can enjoy good things now; we can do good works that are a blessing. Yet, no matter how good things may be here, they cannot measure up to the glorious perfection of Christ who is our life. By Christ’s infinite love, we have been made new creations in him. And by his supreme grace, Christ will bring us to the resurrection shore of heaven, when we will enjoy our true life with Him and live for his glory forevermore.

This article was originally published at Beautiful Christian Life on December 7, 2018, and is adapted from Rev. Zach Keele’s sermon on Colossians 3:1-4 preached on October 28, 2018.

Sunday, July 21, 2024

1. God is different from his creation.

2. God must uphold all his attributes.

3. God’s holiness reveals our utter sinfulness.

4. We must be pure in heart to see our holy God.

5. God must judge sin and uphold justice and righteousness.

6. God became the solution to the problem of sin because only the God-man could save us.

7. The holiness of God means that we can trust God to always do what is good, right, and just.

That’s how it actually works—salvation comes through Christ alone.

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Thursday, July 18, 2024

We are called to display sincere love and affection when we greet each other.

So how can we do this?

When we are humbled by the gospel, we are reminded that no one should be deemed unlovable.

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Wednesday, July 17, 2024

The same beautiful Christianity that the apostles had has also been given to us.

Jesus gives us the gift of increasing blessedness.

Jesus gives us the gift of God himself.

God is calling us to be in his presence.

Our Master became a slave for us.

Believers possess the beauty of belonging to Jesus.

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Tuesday, July 16, 2024

Simon Peter called himself a slave.

Slaves were dependent on their lord.

To be counted as Jesus’ slave should fill us with peace.

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Monday, July 15, 2024

Strong emotions can lead us to commit grievous sin.

David’s feelings went out of control, but Abigail was used by God to bring him to his senses.

Becoming better aware of the feelings of others will lead us to be more sensitive to their needs and interests.

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Sunday, July 14, 2024

Some Christians have tried and failed to satisfactorily explain the problem of evil.

Pagans don’t have an answer for the problem of evil.

Only the Judeo-Christian tradition, however, has faced evil squarely and called it what it is.

God is so committed to addressing the problem of evil that God the Son took on true human nature.

Evil will not ultimately triumph.

God does not explain himself, but neither does he abandon us to ourselves.

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Thursday, July 11, 2024

1. We have died to the elemental spirits of the world.

2. Having been raised with Christ, we should orient ourselves around the things above.

3. In his resurrection, Jesus inaugurated a new creation—a new reality, a new age—to which we belong.

4. In our spiritual resurrection, this world is no longer our home.

5. We should seek to be near the enthroned Christ—to see him and to worship him.

6. We find solace and quiet around the throne of Christ without any shadow of change.

7. We not only seek the things above, but we also set our minds on them.

8. Our orientation towards heaven doesn’t follow an escapist tendency.

9. Our true and real life is hidden in Christ.

10. Our heavenly life is hidden to us at present.

11. Our lives are invisibly lodged in God.

12. We have not yet been glorified.

13. Christ will bring with him our resurrected bodies—our everlasting and glorious existence.

14. So perfect is Christ that we will not settle for any of the things on this earth.

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