Monday, June 9, 2014
395 - Worthy Opposition
Spirituality Column #395
June 10, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville
June 10, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville
Worthy Opposition
By Bob Walters
We
all wonder if we are “worthy.”
That’s
easy … we’re not.
But
still, consider for a moment the space “worthiness” occupies in Christian
teaching.
We
encounter “worthiness” in sermons, scripture and hymns. “Are you worthy?” “Worthy is the Lamb.” “Jesus
alone is worthy.” We are fascinated by
what’s worthy and what’s not.
In
this context, “worthy” means living up to God’s standards. It means worthy of being saved into eternal heavenly
fellowship with God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and all the saints. It means worthy of God’s love and grace, and
worthy of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.
Worthy means we’ve attained the perfection with which God created us. Worthy means equal in stature to the absolute
truth of God’s Creation. The Bible,
authoritatively, is a treatise on what’s worthy and what’s not.
Final
Jeopardy answer: “Jesus is; we aren’t.” Question: “What is ‘worthy’?”
Modern
culture, having jumped largely outside biblical authority, is addicted to
asserting “I’m worth it!” having convinced itself that worth is a human
commodity. Fallen man rarely
contemplates his worthiness in God’s eyes because he is tricked by the mirage
of worldly worthiness in his own eyes.
That’s
what Satan did to Adam and Eve. He
convinced them they were worthy of God’s knowledge. Turns out God’s knowledge, in the hands of
mankind, leads to death (Genesis 3).
Satan knew it, and reveled in his trickery. He’s reveled in it ever since.
We
have a special problem with all this today because over the last couple hundred
years individual freedom and human worth have been codified into the articles
of civil organization (e.g., the U.S. Constitution). For thousands of years prior, any individual
life just wasn’t worth that much to society at large. Our culture – ostensibly, anyway – finally has
it right that there exists divinely Created, intrinsic worth in each individual. But we have it wrong, thinking that true worth
resides anywhere but in God, or that we have worth in any way but through
Christ.
Secular
man errantly celebrates “self-esteem,” not worthiness. Plenty of popular preaching promotes the narcissistic
theology of “God created me to be great!” That ignores biblical truth that God
created us to praise Him, not the other way around. Other divisive preaching invokes guilt,
digging out Old Testament this-for-that legalism which undercuts simple faith
and problematically ignores the grace of Jesus Christ.
Grace
isn’t a trade. It’s a gift, not a
transaction. Our worthiness isn’t in our
work or self-centered illusions; it resides exclusively in the grace, truth and
sacrifice of Christ.
And
it’s worth an eternity.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that man generally prefers rules because he can judge rules,
but not grace. Grace is God’s business.
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