Yesterday afternoon, I opened my Bible after a brief hiatus. Secretly, I dreaded a boring, aimless read. I confess that I do not always read my Bible as often as I should, and want to. So I was telling Him that very thing, and wondering aloud, with my eyes shut and head bowed, whether He had any idea where I should start.
I also wondered aloud if He had any advice for me, as once again I was facing impossible odds in my daily walk with Christ.
As I opened my eyes, I uttered a cry of surprise. My Bible had fallen open to Luke 18, and the first line that jumped out at me read:
"The things that are impossible with men are possible with God." (Luke 18:27)
(God, stop doing that!)
This verse has come up a lot lately. There are 12 instances in the Bible where the Holy Spirit dictated some version of this expression of God's omnipotence. I have them documented in my journal from last month, because six of them came up either in sermons or my personal reading, each in answer to a specific question I had asked the Holy Spirit in that moment. This makes number seven.
As I zoomed out to look at the context, however, I laughed. Right smack in the middle of a third recorded version of the Rich Young Ruler story, Jesus said this to emphasize that God can still save you. Even if you're up to your neck in material or fleshly pleasures.
A camel CAN go through the eye of a needle. He just has to unload a lot of baggage first.
What is the baggage that we have to unload when we enter the Kingdom of God?
Let's turn to Luke 18:9-14.
Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
What does it mean to get honest with God?
For me, it means to stop reciting a laundry-list of Why-I'm-such-a-good-person. Sure, I tithe, pay my taxes, brush my hair, floss my teeth, and shine my shoes before I come in to work. Who doesn't? But when God decides to come into my house, peeks in my closet, and finds a pile of nasty old bones in there, it won't matter how clean the rest of my house is. Them bones is still nasty. (And no, they are not for a scientific experiment.)
God doesn't care which of the commandments we've never broken. He cares about us as His children, and the compromises we've made with our hearts break His heart. He knows we can do so much better. And the fact that we tack a "Keep-Out" sign on our bedroom doors does nothing to keep Him from figuring out what we've got hidden away in our closets. Like an astute parent with teenagers, He can smell it a mile away.
He's just waiting for us to come out and get honest before Him. To say, "Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner!"
He will, of course. We're His kids!
The Bible says that that man went away justified. The Pharisee kept up his act. In reality, he was probably just as bad an extortionist as the proverbial tax collector.
Now, let's turn the page and look at a REAL tax collector's testimony. Luke 19:1-9:
Then Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. Now behold,there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd, for he was of short stature. So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him, for He was going to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said to him, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” So he made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully. But when they saw it, they all complained, saying, “He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner.”
Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.”
And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
Looks like a camel just entered the eye of a needle!
Unlike the little children who embraced their Savior with nothing to lose... Zacchaeus DID have something to lose. He was rich! His riches were a product of the continued pattern of sin in his life. If he came to Jesus, he knew he would have to clean up His act.
And a cleaned-up act means a whole different lifestyle. A changed future.
To be a follower of Christ means to embrace this new future. To take up our cross and follow Jesus. And in case we wonder if that's going to be hard... it IS! Taking up your cross is counter-intuitive. Jesus confirms the paradox of this lifestyle when He says:
"Whoever would save his life will lose it; but whoever will lose his life for My sake will find it." (Matthew 16:25).
and,
"I tell you the truth, there is no one who has left house or parents or brothers or wife or children for the Kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this present time, and in the age to come, eternal life." (Luke 18:29-30).
To put it into perspective, these perishable earthly treasures, the ones we cling to with desperate fingers, are nothing but rotten old bones in comparison to what Christ offers us. He offers us LIFE! Not just a promise of immortality... LIFE, now, life that is real, life that is fulfilling... peace and serenity that we can never find on our own, not with all the psychoanalysis in the world. Christ offers us peace with God and with it, the fellowship with the Holy Spirit which is the relationship we lack, the relationship we crave more than connection with any other person.
"Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare." (Isaiah 55:1-2)
But, we often ask ourselves, why does it have to be one or the other? I'm a generally good person. I observe all the major Biblical commandments, with a few convenient exceptions. Why can't I do what I want and still hang out with God? Can't I have my cake and eat it too?
To put it bluntly, when I try to relate to God that way... it's like trying to connect with your wife when you and she both know you're having an affair with your secretary. It doesn't work, and if I think it does, I'm only deceiving myself, not God.
God does not want a dozen roses to make up for what you did last night. Neither does He want guilt, anguish, piecrust promises, or fair-weather friendship.
He wants you to sit down and look Him in the eye. Tell Him the truth. And then change.
He'll help you. You'll get through this together.
But change. You keep the sin in your life, it's only going to be a burden to you.
When Zacchaeus's feet hit the ground, he knew he was about to have company. He knew that Jesus was about to enter his dining room, have lunch with him, and inspect every ill-gotten treasure he had on display. Right away he was set to clear all of that away.
"Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold!"
Uh... Zacchaeus? Aren't you taking it a little too far?
He was acting, not out of duty, but out of personal conviction. The Law only required a thief to restore once and a fifth of what he had taken--interest, so to speak. But Zaccaeus was acting out of love, love for Jesus who would deign to be his friend despite all the things he had done. Love had transformed him. He didn't want to stay the same any more. He didn't want to live the life he had been living. He wanted to change.
Suddenly his wealth was no longer his treasure. It was a skeleton in his closet, a burden he longed to get rid of.
When we look at it this way, any sin in our lives, no matter how "minor," isn't a treasure. It's just a weight that entangles us, keeping us from living our Christian walk to the fullest. Jesus came that we might have life, and that we might have it more abundantly. He didn't come to take from us anything that would give us life. He came to help us find life.
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." (Hebrews 12:1-3).
The discipline of the Lord is called "chastening" for a reason. God chastens, or purifies us--not punishing us, but simply helping to rid us of anything that can hinder abundant life. Discipline never feels good in the moment, and sometimes it seems like we're being asked to do something we don't like, or give up something we value. But God has bigger plans for us. He has plans to give us hope, and a future. Jesus knew this when He went to the cross. And we can move forward in confidence, knowing that God is our Father, that He has our best interest at heart, and that He Himself paved the way for us by setting an example on the cross.
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